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Consumer Alert
Don't be fooled by bogus "second chance" offers
Are you an eBay user? Have you ever been outbid on an item, then received a "second chance" offer to buy the item at your last bid price? The use of the "second chance" offer is a common form of internet auction fraud, and the Consumer Protection Unit warns consumers to be extremely cautious before responding to any second chance offers.
The elements of this fraud are simple. Scammers are constantly monitoring internet auction sites for sales of items that fit a specific profile. Higher priced items and items with lots of bids seem to be more attractive targets. After the end of the auction, the scammer will send you an e-mail, which will claim to come from the original seller, claiming that the high bidder failed to pay, or that the seller has more of the same item. The scammer then offers to sell you the item for the amount of your last bid.
To complete the transaction, the scammer will often direct you to a phony eBay site that looks official. This phony site will have all kinds of information to make it seem like this "second chance" is a legitimate offer. Usually it's not.
The official eBay site explains that a legitimate second chance offer must meet specific criteria, and how to tell if an offer is legitimate.
A seller can send a Second Chance Offer to any of the non-winning bidders if the winning bidder does not pay the seller, if a seller has duplicate items, or the reserve price is not met in a Reserve Price Auction.
To make sure a Second Chance Offer is legitimate:
- Go to www.ebay.com.
- Click My eBay at the top of the eBay Home page.
- Sign in and look for the Second Chance Offer in My Messages.
If the offer does not appear in your message box, it's not a legitimate Second Chance Offer. Also, eBay will never send a Second Chance Offer email with the subject line "Question from eBay Member." If you receive an email pretending to be a Second Chance Offer with that subject line, please report it to eBay.
Many phony Second Chance Offers can also be identified because the scammer will ask you to pay for the item with a wire transfer. This is generally an indication that the offer is a fraud.
You can set up your eBay account to not receive Second Chance Offers. Sign in to your account and under the "profile" section change your settings to not receive these offers if you have any doubts about how to separate the genuine offers from the scams.
Consumer Protection Unit
July 2006


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Environment-I should not allow myself to be affected too much by the environment. But to affect it. I love to read around,learn and share ideas with others. But my problems usually comes into implementation.
In blogging I discovered you can learn until you are full of confusion.There is a lot of good information out there.And not so good one too.
Procrastination is one of my Major issues.I am writing this for others and as a reminder for myself. I seriously need to nudge myself. Remind myself to work hard and not to easily get comfortable.
Procrastination has caused me to loose opportunities in life.Just thinking that i will do it next week.And the following week the opportunity is gone.Then i am mad at myself.
We may not choose the activities of the environment
As iron sharpens iron,so one person sharpens another.Proverbs 27:17
A comfortable environment
One day at a time

subset: commoncrawl


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'How I Met Your Mother' Final Season Casts 'Revenge' Star Roger Bart
This past week marked the first 'How I Met Your Mother' appearance at Comic-Con 2013, but in between all the celebrations of the upcoming ninth and final season, it seems not all the major castings have yet to be filled. 'Revenge' and 'Desperate Housewives star Roger Bart becomes the latest recognizable TV star popping up to cause trouble for the 'HIMYM' gang, but as whom?
According to TVGuide, who first revealed the casting, the Tony award-winning star will take the final season role of as an employee of the Farhampton hotel in which Barney and Robin are set to conduct their wedding at some point this season. For the moment at least, it remains unclear how many episodes Bart will actually appear in.
Bart joins the current guest roster of 'The Office' star Ellie Kemper, Sherri Shepherd, and Wayne Brady reprising his role as Barney's half-brother James Stinson for a recurring role, while we know that season 9 will take place largely across the 56-hour period leading up to Barney and Robin's wedding, at which Ted finally meets his bride-to-be. The network also revealed that all four regulars would meet the mother (herself a newly-minted regular) prior to Ted, while individual episodes may cut back and forth through time as necessary to tell the complete story.
'How I Met Your Mother' season 9 has already gotten underway production-wise, but what say you? Are you excited to see the many guest stars joining the final season for Ted, Robin, Barney, Marshall and Lily?


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Letras de Hard Not 2 Kill de Gangsta Boo
Más letras de Gangsta Boo
I'm tryna tell ya it's hard not to kill you chicken-head ass hoes
Talking all that motherfucking shit, but it's all good
I done caught a few charges, I ain't scared to catch some more
You hear me bitch? Come to my motherfucking do' and watch me
Pluck yo' motherfucking feathers
I'm the girl about the cash, I'm the lady with the mask
I'm the one with the trigger, watch me pull it, make it blast
I'm the one who got some niggas, I'm the one who got the gat
I'm the one they call "Miss Lady Gangsta" sweep you off the map
What, you tryna step to me 'cuz you feeling like a killer?
In my eyes, I see bloody skies, dump you in a river
I'm the motherfucking girl who talking all that shit
I'm the first lady of the motherfucking triple six
I'm the first one to call a hit on yo' fucking crew
I'm the one who got you whacked
cuz you fucked with Gangsta Boo
I'm the one who be yelling, "Blaze the blunt" if you got it
I'm the one that's yelling "Sike" cuz I got my own fire
If you haters wanna rumble bring yo' anna to the do'
Hoe you know how you can get me, you can catch me at a show
This is how I represent for my ghetto-gangsta niggas
If you want a gangsta-girl, holla at a lady boy!
It's hard not to kill niggas
It's like an everyday job not to kill niggas (I'll kill)
Niggas you better know that
You need a girl that's gonna get high with you
Lie with you, cry with you
Ride with you, die with you
All that type of shit I'll do
I'm the type of girl that's gonna be down for mine
All the time, on the grind
Ready to ride, folks by my side without spilling a dime
It really don't even matter to me
Dwelling, I'm chilling in the B.H.Z.
Flipping the script, and coming so clean
I'll forever be known as La-to the-Dy (lady)
Bitches and niggas can't feed off of me
I'm riding and mobbing with H to the C
P to the posse, you haters can't stop a bitch because
it's meant to be
Gangsta, the gangsta is coming so hard
I be known as the bitch with the attitude
Listen, you hear me, I'm saying it's all to the good
Don't be a damn fool
You need a girl that's gone holla out your do'
"The folks is kicking in your do' "
I be the one that be coming like my name is "Cleo"
Be knocking you straight to the flo'
I love gangsta niggas, gangsta niggas love me
Me and a gangsta nigga got our fucking family
This is how I represent for my ghetto-gangsta niggas
If you want a gangsta girl, holla at a lady boy!
It's hard not to kill niggas
It's like an everyday job not to kill niggas (I'll kill)
Niggas you better know that
Fuck them other niggas, I be hanging with my fucking click
Out to get that cheddar, cuz it's better when you having shit
Doing gangsta stuff got me sitting off in a beamer truck
Gangsta like to fuck, hit me later, let me know what's up
Marching and stepping, I got the bullets, I'm gonna use em'
Professional slanger i'm out the jump
(talking: Unlock the motherfucking do'!)
I'm packing the weapon, commence to steppin up to your face
As I buck, you will die, I bounce the scene and without a trace
If it's anna to handle, the Misses Gangsta is bout her biz
I be coming and gunnin', I thought you hoes knew what time it is
When you see me you know that it's some shit,
cuz I don't come out
I'll be in yo' house, I'm on the couch with the pistol out
I be taking them chances cuz I'm a gangsta that's claiming clout
If you bitches keep pressing off in my grill, I'm a choke you out
This is how I represent for my ghetto-gangsta niggas
If you want a gangsta girl, holla at a lady boy


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STURGEON BAY, Wis. (AP) – Jurors will be selected outside Door County to hear the case against an Illinois man accused of killing his friend and her unborn baby.
Brian Cooper, of Plainfield, Ill., is charged with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide in the deaths of 21-year-old Alisha Bromfield and her fetus.
Defense attorney Shane Brabazon argued in court Thursday that his client could not get a fair trial in Door County because of the extensive media coverage. Judge D. Todd Ehlers granted the motion. A decision has not been made on which county will supply the jury pool.
Cooper has pleaded not guilty by reason of mental illness. WLUK-TV says Cooper is accused of strangling Bromfield at a Door County resort last summer. The couple was on the peninsula for a wedding.
Information from: WLUK-TV, http://www.fox11online.com


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Little ones have the power to turn the most basic objects into adventure props with their own minds. Sometimes, large and high-tech toys are cast aside for the box they came in. I remember making guitars to play with out of old tissue boxes and toilet paper rolls when I was young. Now, Box Play for Kids is bringing colorful fun to recyclable, around-the-house objects, including milk cartoons, egg crates, and mac-and-cheese boxes.
Box Play for Kids makes eco-friendly stickers that can be applied to cardboard items that would otherwise be thrown away. The stickers are printed on 100 percent recycled paper and are made in the U.S. Helping to inspire creativity and imagination, Box Play for Kids has more than 35 different designs available. Kids can make anything from a barn to a pair of binoculars to a school bus with these adorable stickers.
Now in its second year of business, Box Play for Kids is in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign. With a goal to raise $12,000 by May 8, Box Play is hoping to increase their inventory, hire additional staff members, and attend trade shows. To back Box Play for Kids on Kickstarter, click here: http://kck.st/10R4gz6.


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Back when I was a prosecutor, I generally paid little to no attention to what the State Bar of Texas had going on within its ranks. The Office made it easy to do that. When it came time for Bar Dues, the Office paid them. If there were elections, or Bar Poll rankings, there was usually an Office-wide e-mail letting us know that we needed to vote or otherwise participate.
Other than that, there was very little interaction.
That changes when an attorney goes into private practice. You no longer have someone else to act as a liaison between you and the State Bar, and you have to keep a close eye on those votes and referendums that they propose.
I'm telling you this because first thing tomorrow (Tuesday) morning, voting begins on the State Bar's 2011 Referendum on the Texas Disciplinary Rules, and even if you are a prosecutor, I'm hoping you will take time out of your schedule to vote "No" on them.
If you are anything like I was when I was a prosecutor, you are more than likely asking yourself "why the hell would I care about a bunch of rules that only pertain to lawyers in private practice"?
The simple answer is because sometimes you might end up in private practice. Even if right now you are pretty sure you are going to be a Prosecutor for Life.
Now, the rules that concern me aren't the ones prohibiting sexual contact with clients. If a lawyer is stupid enough to enter into a romantic relationship with a client or (God forbid) take sex as a payment for services, then that lawyer has got more freaking problems than the State Bar can regulate.
The ones that concern me are the others, which, if implemented would basically collapse private practice as we know it. If you are hoping to someday come into private practice, the Regulations that the State Bar's referendum is currently trying to pass will make it more complicated and more restrictive.
And trust me, starting a new law practice is already complicated as it is.
Mark Bennett has been doing an excellent job of covering and analyzing why the proposed new rules are so bad. Starting with the first proposition that would essentially ban the taking of flat fees from clients an attorney represents. As Mark put it, the effect of this would ensure that "only the wealthy will be able to afford competent counsel in criminal cases." Paul Kennedy also does a good job of illustrating what the problem is with this post.


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This essay originally appeared in The Buffalo News on Feb. 5, 2013 and has been slightly edited. Image shows elderly couple walking in street due to unplowed sidewalks. One of them is pushing the other in a wheelchair. Photo taken by author on Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY, January 2020, all rights reserved.
When I moved to Buffalo 20 years ago, I was shocked to discover that the city does not plow sidewalks. How could that be, in a place that gets so much snow?
I grew up in Rochester, where sidewalks were and still are plowed at public expense. Rochester has 37 square miles; Buffalo has 42. Its population is 210,855; ours is 261,025. Rochester's economy has declined as much as Buffalo's, yet its government continues to provide sidewalk plowing while ours pleads poverty.
In Buffalo, property owners are required to clear sidewalks in front of their homes and businesses. We are expected get out and shovel and show the world that we are truly the City of Good Neighbors. If we don't, it must be because we are anti-social lazybones who deserve their annual scolding from The Buffalo News. This popular sentiment reflects idealism about who we wish we were more than realism about getting sidewalks consistently cleared. Spoiler alert: This law is a failure.
When I walk my 2 mile route to work, let us say for the sake of argument that I pass 500 houses and businesses. For me to have a fully cleared path, all 500 must shovel, sweep, snowblow and/or salt to the same standard after each and every snowfall. What level of compliance constitutes success? Eighty percent? Meaning that for every five addresses, four are shoveled, so I have to detour into the street for only 20 percent of my route? How about frequency of shoveling? If owners shovel their sidewalk after four out of five fresh snowfalls, is that satisfactory?
Let's say that Buffalo's 15 percent vacancy rate, the highest in the state, is reflected in my route and 15 percent of the addresses I pass are vacant or demolished. Who shall we ticket about impassable sidewalks in front of abandoned lots and buildings? Who is responsible for clearing the sidewalks fronting city-owned parking lots? These are purposely situated near commercial corridors that depend on foot traffic. The city, which is now our single-largest land owner, does not obey its own shoveling laws.
Likewise, if I use a bridge over a state highway – Elmwood Avenue bridge over the Scajaquada, I'm looking at you! – its sidewalks will most certainly be dangerously impassable. The state of New York doesn't obey Buffalo's laws, either.
Next, let us factor everything else that interferes with owner sidewalk clearance: physical limitations, out-of-town travel, lack of awareness, absentee landlords, too many other responsibilities and, most egregiously, snowplow operators who clear driveways and streets by pushing snow up onto sidewalks.
If owner shoveling is such a good way to clear snow, why don't we sell our street plows, lay off snowplow drivers to save on taxes and require owners to shovel out streets, too?
We do not burden individuals in this way because one absent household failing to clear the street would impede all drivers and all emergency vehicles. We plow our streets at public expense to provide safe, consistent, and equitable access for all.
Pedestrians deserve the same safe, consistent and equitable access to public rights of way as vehicles. Automobiles spend about 90 percent of the time parked, meaning that 90 percent of the time, we are pedestrians instead of drivers. City budget priorities should reflect this reality.


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DIN rail time switches control the on and off mechanisms of equipment, lighting components and heating or cooling applications. A DIN rail is a universal mount used as a modular platform to add components like circuit breakers and time switches.
What are DIN rail time switches used for?
By switching on power only when it is needed, DIN rail time switches can help save energy. They're often used for security purposes in unoccupied buildings, switching lights on at night and off during the day, or in a seemingly random pattern. DIN rail time switches are also found in irrigation applications, water-pump mechanisms and automatic feeding systems. Factories and workshops use DIN rail time switches in automatic machinery where the operation needs to switch on or off at specific time intervals. They're also used to control access barriers and doors and shift-change sirens in manufacturing plants.
Types of DIN rail time switches
DIN rail time switches come with analogue or digital displays and can measure time in seconds, minutes, hours or days. They can effect on or off actions at preset intervals or in cyclical time periods.


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Principal, Toronto
At BCG, Visionaries navigate complexity with ease. They use their insight and intuition to identify the solutions that will create lasting impact. Janice goes deep to understand challenges.
Something magical happens when you are part of a BCG team. You work in new industries and domains; you see new perspectives; you challenge yourself, each other, and your clients; and you grow in ways you never imagined.
My journey at BCG has been an intellectually thrilling ride. Through my projects, I've worked across many industries and topics, from cable network architecture to retail promotion analytics. Through my work across our Southeast Asia and North America offices, I have also been exposed to the diversity of problems that our global clients face.
What amazes me most at BCG is the fact that everyone I have met here is unbelievably talented and passionate, yet humble. I'm inspired every day because I get to work on meaningful, complex issues for our clients with this group of wonderful people.
Janice holds a bachelor of science (economics) and bachelor of business management (finance), summa cum laude, from the Singapore Management University. Before rejoining BCG in Toronto, Janice worked at Starwood Hotels & Resorts managing their specialty select brands in the Asia-Pacific region. She also spent time in investment banking.
During my time in the BCG Singapore office, I spent nine months in BCG Jakarta on a telecommunications project to understand how to better provide mobile services to the underserved market. It was fascinating to learn about how different the industry dynamics were in the emerging economies versus developed markets. For example, in these rural villages, consumers would own SIM cards but rent mobile phones for use. As part of the Associate Abroad program, I got to spend a year in the BCG Toronto office. This was a unique experience in which I got to live and work in a different country. It was interesting to see how the BCG culture and way of working are so similar across the offices. I felt at home right away despite being far from home.
I know the little things that keep me sane and prioritize them. For me, it's going to Pilates once during the workweek (when I'm not traveling) and Friday night dinners with my husband. For others, it may be putting their kids to bed every night or going for drinks with friends. I calendar these commitments and communicate them to my team at the start of each project so that they can help keep me on track. What I find surprising is how supportive BCG people are to make sure I can make it work!
Three words: talented, passionate, and humble. BCG is truly a melting pot of incredibly smart, talented people with various backgrounds and interests. Among the people I have worked with are an ex-software engineer with five patents to his name, an ex-professional poker player, an ex-news producer, and a restaurateur! Each of them brings to BCG a passion for life and a drive for excellence that is highly infectious. The positive energy in the workplace inspires me every day. Most of all, everyone I have met is incredibly humble, always willing to share their time and perspectives and learn from one another.


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Its raining Jelly Bean updates! After the One X, S3, and the Note 2, its time for the Motorola/AT&T Atrix HD to get some Jelly Bean love.
The Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean update for the ATRIX HD will bring with Google Now, an enhanced notification bar, Project Butter for a lag-free experience, improved battery life, enhanced Camera app with improved auto focus, filmstrip mode for the gallery and more.
Motorola has also included some of its own new features including Drive Smart with enhanced voice search, which lays special emphasis on texting and driving, and automatically sets the phone to auto-reply to calls and texts when the user is driving.
While Motorola has already started rolling out the update, it can take up to two weeks for the roll-out to be complete. If you own a ATRIX HD and cannot wait for the update, just head over to Settings -> About Phone and select the 'Software Update' option. Make sure you are connected to a Wi-Fi network before proceeding though, since the update is pretty hefty in size.
Via – AT&T


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A friend died last week. Not a close friend, or even someone I'd talked to recently. We did residency together, and practiced in the same city. But as time and geography do, we hadn't been in contact for a while. Not that we ever had a falling out, as much as we had our own lives. Occasionally we ran into each other at various places, and it was always good to see him.
He died of shit luck. That's all. And he was in his early 40's, a year younger than me. When a young person dies we always hope they did drugs. Or committed suicide. Or some risky behavior we can blame it on so we can say, "Geez, I don't do that sort of thing, so it won't happen to me". Not here. Just shit luck that can't really be prevented.
In residency we had all kinds of odd adventures, besides the usual war stories of medical training. Like when our hospital paid for the residents to go to a Neurology Academy meeting in Seattle. A bunch of us played hookie, and used our department stipends to go barhopping. Since we had no money for cabs, we were limited to bars in walking distance from our cheap motel. And they were all gaybars. So we wandered in and out of 10-15 gaybars over the course of the day.
All the geeks in neurology residency (let's face it, that was all of us) would watch Babylon 5 together once a week, and he and I would argue about it for the next week.
When I was trying to decide if I should ask Mrs. Grumpy to marry me, he gave me some advice that helped push me in what's turned out to be the right direction.
And it just sucks. Like me, he busted his ass through a combined 14 years of college, med school, residency, and fellowship. Then building a solo practice from scratch. And now he leaves behind a wife and 4 kids (younger than mine, too).
Anyway, don't mean today to be a downer, and I'm not looking for sympathy. Just venting.
But since this is a humor blog, I'll end it with a memory of him.
He was known for being gruff, and didn't really give a shit about what people thought of him or who he offended.
There was a day in the late 90's, when a drug rep had brought lunch to the practice we'd both started out in. She was obnoxious beyond belief. She would not shut up. And at the end of each sentence she'd ask "With this information, is there anything else I can do to help improve your patient care?"
We were trapped. And being new physicians, I was afraid that if we walked out we'd get in trouble, as her company was sponsoring some research at our institution. Gruff wasn't as concerned with this as I was.
So at one point in her sales monologue from hell, I passed him a note that said "We're trapped and will die here". He passed it back, and had written "I'll take care of it".
A second later she asked her standard "With this information, is there anything else I can do to help improve your patient care?"
And Gruff said, "Yeah! Show us your tits!"
She froze in horror, and in that second we both bolted.
We didn't get in trouble. Better yet, we never saw her again, either.
Goodnight, Dr. Gruff.


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This is part 2 of a two-part post. Read part 1.
In the last installment, we talked about the distinction between Hands contractors and Brains consultants. Hands are brought in by the team as an extra resource to complete work the team already knows how to do. Brains are brought in by the team to provide expertise and insight on the best way to do something the team is struggling with.
Hands and Brains require completely different skills, have different approaches, and run into different challenges. Knowing which you want to be is important.
The role of Hands
The UX professionals who make great Hands are passionate about producing stuff. Whether it's a pile of wireframes or a boatload of usability test sessions, they can crank through them. More importantly, they tackle every single piece of the project joyfully and proudly.
The thing to remember is someone who signs up to be Hands typically doesn't get to say how the project is done. The team decides that up front, often before the project is started. It's up to the Hands to match the work exactly, making it impossible to know which elements came from the Hands and which came from other team members.
When it comes to how the work is done, creativity and previous experience aren't playing big roles. In fact, they are frowned upon. While the team focuses on getting everything done by the end project, they don't want to step back and take the time to rethink what they are doing.
The Hands will get management's attention if they have tricks and techniques for speeding up production, while keeping the results indistinguishable from what's been done so far. An experienced Hands contractor brings speed and agility, while playing the chameleon to match the work of their temporary teammates.
Bring in the Brains
This is a complete opposite to the Brains—who aren't about production at all, but instead about strategy. The Brains, when at the top of their game, are the sheriffs, coming in to clean up the town. When a team is stuck and not making progress, and it feels like they've tried everything without results, they call in the Brains.
Unlike the Hands, the Brains doesn't make a good producer. Their value is squandered if they spend the bulk of their project time churning out similar items. Of course, if the team is struggling with what to produce and how, the Brains can get them started, showing them the technique and coaching them through the work. But, in this scenario, the Brains quickly backs away, as soon as it's clear the team members can produce their own results. (Some Brains will bring Hands into the project at this point, working jointly.)
Instead, the Brains' real value is in strategic understanding of the situation. The Brains looks at the entire scope of the project, studies the goals, and assesses the team's capabilities and flaws.
Then the Brains suggests a new plan. They get the team started on the plan. They train the team on the tricks and techniques that will get them through that plan. Then they leave town, just like the sheriff, to go off and clean up the next team's mess.
Why The Difference Matters
Great Hands know how to produce. Great Brains know how to analyze and persuade. They are completely different sets of skills. Hands and Brains require different personalities. It's very rare to find one person who does both.
Great Hands know how to produce. Great Brains know how to analyze and persuade. They are completely different sets of skills. Hands and Brains require different personalities. It's very rare to find one person who does both.
The Brains aren't challenged by production work. Once they've done one screen or conducted one test session, they're ready to move on to something completely different. The Brains love the variety of the tasks—coming in to something new. The Brains love seeing problems and solutions nobody else seems to see. The Brains are energized when those problems are particularly gnarly and the solutions are deviously elegant.
The Hands struggle with strategy. They always feel they're the wrong people to ask—that someone else should've figured this all out by now. They thrive on having a set of constraints, a schedule, and a near impossible pile of similar things to do. They love to crank through the work, seeing the Done Pile grow while watching the To Do Pile shrink. They don't mind their work blending with the rest of the team's—their contribution becoming invisible to anyone outside the team. They are energized by completion.
In other words, Hands thrive on walking into a project that's well defined while the Brains thrive on walking into a project that's poorly understood. That's why it's difficult to be both. It's a very rare person who thrives on both definition and chaos. For everyone else, they need to choose one or the other.
I've seen managers who have tried to have one individual contributor play both the Hands and the Brains. Often this is because of resource constraints or not realizing there's a difference. Unfortunately, this inevitably ends in disaster, because of the opposing strengths and weaknesses of Hands and Brains. Don't fall into this trap.
What do you thrive on? What energizes you? Where do you get frustrated? Understanding this will help you figure out if you are suited for the Hands or if you ought to be the Brains.
Jared Spool is the keynote speaker at UX Australia 2010, being held in Melbourne from the 25-27 August 2010. The conference has sold out, but Jared's workshop and others are still available, or you can go on the waiting list. See the site for details.


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All experienced advisors know that asking great questions to their best clients can uncover more assets to manage. With the stock markets now off of the recent highs, great client questions could not come at a better time.
This is the third in my series of articles on how advisors can begin to manage their client assets in company retirement plans. The series of articles began here.
The Retirement-Plan Menu
First, ask your best client if he or she would be interested in a second opinion on the menu of mutual-fund options in their company retirement plan account.
From my experience, any client that you have had a long investment advice relationship with would be more than happy to gain a second opinion from you on their current company retirement plan investments.
With the last few months' stock market volatility, how hard would it be right now to ask the client if they would be interested in improving the investment performance in their company retirement plan account?
Once you have a copy of their current company retirement plan holdings, you need to also ask for a copy of the entire company retirement plan menu. This gets a little trickier. As you would imagine, even your best clients don't spend a great deal of time navigating their company retirement plan provider web site.
If your client fumbles this request, ask him or her to call their Employee Benefits department to secure an e-mail copy of the entire company retirement plan menu.
My company began providing individual company retirement plan advice by accident over 13 years ago. During a routine telephone conversation with a client, I somehow managed to ask a question that has completely changed my advisory practice since that fateful day.
The client on the phone with me was a long-time, stock-and-bond client. I was working at a broker dealer in those days, so the investment advice relationship was strictly stocks, municipal bonds, and zero coupon bonds for his girls to attend college.
My technical research database provider, Dorsey Wright & Associates, had just expanded their daily price chart database to include mutual funds at that time. For whatever reason, I asked this client for a copy of his new law firm company retirement plan menu at Fidelity.
The new default company retirement plan menu consisted of 16 of mutual funds.
Soon a copy of the complete list of that law firm's retirement plan menu arrived in the mail. I remember at the time that I really had no idea how I could possible add enough value in order to improve my client's investment management decisions in his company retirement plan.
I dutifully looked up each of the law firm's retirement plan default mutual fund ticker symbols. I then placed them into my Dorsey Wright database portfolio tool. Immediately I had an analysis and ranking for each company retirement plan mutual fund option.
I remember now that I "muddled through" the presentation to the client. I especially remember that I had a very hard time explaining the concept of relative strength to my client.
Today I have dozens of individual company retirement plan advice clients at law firms, doctor's groups, and other Fortune 500 companies in my local market. I only monitor about a dozen company retirement plan menus, but I have several retirement plan advice clients at each of those companies.
Here is a fun fact: Once you get a copy of the default company retirement plan menu of mutual funds from your existing client, every other employee at that company automatically becomes a company retirement plan advice prospect.
When I was much younger in this business, I was always frustrated that my existing clients were never able to refer me to other top executives at the same company. Now, I don't need that to happen because of my knowledge of the company retirement plan menu.
So, ask your best clients "What's on your company retirement plan menu" at your upcoming summer events. Then follow the steps I outlined above.
By the time the kids go back to school, you will have found tens of millions of dollars in new assets to manage. And your list of new prospects will be greatly expanded.
Ric Lager is founder of Lager & Company, Inc, co-creator of the "No More Pies" investment series for financial advisors and author of "Forget the Pie: Recipe for a Healthier 401(k)."


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diane von furstenberg
Please click the button above to view products from the desired brand.
We're Central Florida's leader in Luxury Eyewear located on the beautiful coast of Ormond Beach, Florida ten minutes from the world famous Daytona Beach, Florida. Not your average optical boutique, Millennium Optical specializes in imported designs from all across the globe. Millennium Optical regularly travel to Paris, Venice, & Milan to hand select the latest trends in sunglasses, prescription eyeglasses, and accessories.
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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez can take the oath of office for his next term before the Supreme Court at a later date if the ailing leader isn't fit to be sworn in next week, his vice president said.
Vice President Nicolas Maduro sent the strongest signal yet that the government may seek to postpone Chavez's inauguration as the 58-year-old president fights a severe respiratory infection more than three weeks after undergoing cancer surgery in Cuba.
Maduro's position in a televised interview on Friday night generated new friction between the government and opposition over the swearing-in, which the constitution says should occur next Thursday before the National Assembly. Some opposition leaders have argued that if Chavez doesn't make it back to Caracas by that date, the president of the National Assembly should take over as interim president.
Such brewing disagreements are likely to be aired on Saturday when the congress, which is controlled by a pro-Chavez majority, convenes to choose its president and other legislative leaders. Whoever is elected National Assembly president could potentially end up being the country's interim president if Chavez's illness forces him from office.
Speaking on television, Maduro held up a small blue copy of the constitution and read aloud passages as he argued that opponents were using erroneous interpretations to try to drive Chavez from power.
"They should respect our constitution," the vice president said. "The formality of his swearing-in can be resolved before the Supreme Court of Justice, at the time (the court) deems in coordination with the head of state, Commander Hugo Chavez."
Maduro echoed other Chavez allies in suggesting the inauguration date is not a firm deadline, and that the president should be given more time to recover from his cancer surgery if needed.
"Maduro's comments are not surprising. The government holds all the cards in the current situation, particularly given the compassion for Chavez's serious illness. It has interpreted the constitution loosely, to its own political advantage," said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. "In this way Maduro is able to buy some time, assert his authority, and rally support within Chavismo. He puts the opposition on notice and throws it off balance."
He was re-elected in October to another six-year term, and two months later announced that his pelvic cancer had returned. Chavez said before the operation that if his illness prevented him from remaining president, Maduro should be his party's candidate to replace him in a new election.
Maduro reiterated on Friday that the president is fighting a "complex" battle for his health but expressed hope that eventually, "we'll see him and we'll hear him."
"He has a right to rest and tranquility, and to recuperate," Maduro said. "The president right now is the exercising president. He has his government formed."
Maduro read a portion of the constitution detailing procedures for declaring an "absolute absence" of the president, which would trigger a new election within 30 days, and declared that "none of these grounds can be raised by the Venezuelan opposition."
The Venezuelan Constitution says the presidential oath should be taken Jan. 10 before the National Assembly. It also says that if the president is unable to be sworn in before the National Assembly, he may take the oath office before the Supreme Court, and some legal experts have noted that the sentence mentioning the court does not mention a date.
Others disagree. Ruben Ortiz, a lawyer and opposition supporter, argued that Maduro is wrong and that under the constitution the inauguration date can't be postponed.
If Chavez is not in Caracas to be sworn in on Thursday, Ortiz said in a phone interview, "the president of the National Assembly should take charge." He added that "there is a formal separation between one term and the other."
Opposition lawmaker Maria Corina Machado said in a message on Twitter that under the constitution, the vice president will no longer be in office once the inauguration day comes, "the day the presidential term ends."
"The decision about Jan. 10 corresponds to the National Assembly and not the (Supreme Court)," Machado said. "Otherwise, it would be a shameful violation of the Constitution."
Shifter said the opposition is on the defensive, with its only tactic being to insist that Jan. 10 is the established date.
"Chavez controls all the key institutions, and it's doubtful that most Venezuelans will get too upset about defying what seems a fairly minor constitutional provision," Shifter said. "Attacking the government because it has no objection to the Supreme Court swearing in Chavez after Jan. 10 is not exactly a winning political strategy for the opposition."
A delay also serves the government's purposes, Shifter said. "The government wants more time, whether to see if Chavez gets better, or to consolidate their ranks and further splinter and demoralize the opposition."
Chavez hasn't spoken publicly or been seen since his Dec. 11 operation. The government revealed this week that Chavez is fighting a severe lung infection and receiving treatment for "respiratory deficiency."
That account raised the possibility that he might be breathing with the assistance of a machine. But the government did not address that question and didn't give details of the president's treatment.
Independent medical experts consulted by The Associated Press said the government's latest statements indicated a potentially dangerous turn in Chavez's condition, but said it's unclear whether he is attached to a ventilator.
Dr. Gustavo Medrano, a lung specialist at the Centro Medico hospital in Caracas, said he has seen similar cases in cancer patients who have undergone surgery, and "in general it's very bad, above all after a surgery like the one they performed on him."
"I don't know the magnitude of the infection he has, how much of his lungs have been compromised, how much other organs are being affected. That's not clear," Medrano said.
Opposition leaders have blamed vague information coming from the government for persistent rumors about Chavez's condition, and demanded a full medical report.
Chavez has undergone four cancer-related surgeries since June 2011 for an undisclosed type of pelvic cancer. He also has undergone chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
The Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional criticized what it called an "information vacuum" in an editorial on Friday, saying Venezuelans are in the dark because "no one speaks clearly from the government." The newspaper called the situation reminiscent of secrecy that surrounded the deaths of Josef Stalin in the former Soviet Union and Mao Zedong in China.
State television repeatedly played video of a song in which rappers encourage Venezuelans to pray, saying of Chavez: "You will live and triumph." A recording of a speech by Chavez appears during the song, saying: "I will be with you always!"


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Rod Remelin
Famous Sayings
H. L. Mencken Quotes
Will Rogers Quotes
Ambrose Bierce
Mark Twain Quotes
Thomas Jefferson
George Washington
Farewell Address
Fredrick Bastiat
The Law
Roger Sherman
Caveat Against Injustice
Lysander Spooner
No Treason
Andrew Jackson
Farewell Address
Merrill M. E. Jenkins
A Treatise on Monetary Reform
Famous Sayings
H. L. Mencken Quotes
H. L. Mencken Quotes
A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live in it.
A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
All successful newspapers are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job is forced on them, they tackle it by denouncing someone or something else.
All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling.
An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.
Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.
Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.
For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe... Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end.
Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.
I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.
I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.
In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell.
Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.
It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.
It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.
It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.
It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.
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Need for Speed series sells 100M, Shift moves 309K
Q&A: EA VP Keith Munro explains 15-year-old racing series' long and winding road to sales mega-milestone; latest installment posts decent Sept. showing in US; Need for Speed World Online due ...
Q&A: EA VP Keith Munro explains 15-year-old racing series' long and winding road to sales mega-milestone; latest installment posts decent Sept. showing in US; Need for Speed World Online due ...
700 of the globe's best gamers meet for competition in Singapore. Total purse tops $435,000.
We nitro-burn our way through an E3 build of Need for Speed Underground 2.
EA's nitrous-filled racer steers onto Nintendo's portable; DS-exclusive features include touch-screen capabilities.
The car-tuning, law-defying street racer makes its way to the Nintendo DS. We take it for a spin in our preview.
After prepping investors for the worst, EA delivers quarterly revenues close to adjusted guidance; Sims and NFS sell well, but full-year profits sink. CFO calls quarter "an earnings disappointment."
Portable version of the top-selling racer will hit stores March 21; DS-exclusive features include wireless multiplayer and touch-screen nitrous controls.
Revenues dip 3.2 percent during the final quarter of the 2004 calendar year, topping analyst predictions; company officials comment on Ubisoft and future acquisitions.
Games picked for global competition; two new franchises join World Cyber Games this year in Singapore.
EA's 'tuner-culture' racer released today; game features 125 miles of open road in a free-roaming city environment.
Japanese game giant's winter and spring lineup offers no surprises, save a for a dearth of DS follow-up titles.
EA's street racing sequel on course for its November 15 release on all current-generation consoles and the PC.
This regular feature keeps you informed on the big sports games on the release schedule for the coming month. The highlights for November, 2004 include WWE Smackdown! vs Raw, ESPN ...
Underground 2 to feature an exclusive remix of The Doors' "Riders on the Storm" by Snoop Dogg.
Need for Speed Underground fanatics rejoice as PC demo of hotly anticipated street racing sequel hits GameSpot DLX.
We get an exclusive look at the near-final version of EA's multiplatform sequel.
We get an exclusive look at the near-final version of EA's multiplatform sequel.
We get an exclusive look at the near-final version of EA's multiplatform sequel
Concrete details on the new features added to Madden, Tiger Woods, and The Urbz on the Nintendo DS inside.
$400,000 in cash prizes will be awarded at the four-day international tournament in San Francisco.
We take a ride through the race modes in EA's upcoming sequel to Need for Speed Underground.
Electronic Arts will piggyback a sample of its flagship street racer with its new asphalt daredevil game--and vice versa.
We kick off our behind-the-scenes video series on the development of Electronic Arts' upcoming racer with a word from producers Chuck Osieja and Scott Nielsen.
Electronic Arts gives us a peek at more of the upcoming street racer sequel.
Nintendo names 45 more games that will be available for its dual-screen portable in North America and says at least 22 more are in development.
We take EA's latest racer for an exclusive high-speed test-drive.
Winners will have their artwork displayed on a car in the final game.
EA takes the wraps off the next entry in the Need for Speed series.
EA announces that thrill seeker and cover girl Brooke Burke will star in Need for Speed Underground 2.
Microsoft releases a list of titles scheduled for release in the near future that will support its Xbox Live service.
By the end of the year, owners of Microsoft's console will be able to enjoy EA's massive collection of online titles.
EA announces the development of a free-roaming sequel to Need for Speed Underground, scheduled for release this fall. First screen inside.
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Netsupport » Netsupport School Student : Vulnerability Statistics
Vulnerability Trends Over Time
Warning : Vulnerabilities with publish dates before 1999 are not included in this table and chart. (Because there are not many of them and they make the page look bad; and they may not be actually published in those years.)
Click on legend names to show/hide lines for vulnerability types
This page lists vulnerability statistics for all versions of Netsupport Netsupport School Student. Vulnerability statistics provide a quick overview for security vulnerabilities of this software. You can view versions of this product or security vulnerabilities related to Netsupport Netsupport School Student.


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Important information and updates on COVID-19 for Arizona Visitors. ⟶
The Wigwam, Litchfield Park
A trip to remember is only made better when you find that perfect place to unwind at the end of the day. After all, half the experience of enjoying vacation is where you end up staying. And you better believe Arizona delivers on some incredible places that help make it a highlight to your trip.
Ever stay the night on a real dude ranch? From luxury resorts to rustic mountain cabins and even magnificently restored vintage travel trailers, Arizona has as many authentic and amazing places to stay as there are exceptional destinations to explore. Arizona's resorts are some of the best in the nation, offering the perfect respite from your busy life. And one thing's for sure, no matter where your accommodations are, you'll surely find incredible scenery and exciting things to do nearby.
Have a particular city or type of stay you're looking for? Find the perfect place, or learn a bit more about Arizona's options for lodging with the menu below.


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Live entertainment has often been a stabilizing force in the fluctuating Las Vegas economy, adapting quickly to radical changes in the market and rolling out splashy and popular new acts, conveying confidence that a rebound is in the cards for 2010.
Since the full brunt of the recession hit about a year ago, Las Vegas has become a bargain hunter's paradise. Discounts abound as hotels struggle to fill rooms, casinos try to lure gamblers and shows use unique marketing techniques to sell tickets.
Cirque du Soleil, the dominant brand in Las Vegas with seven resident shows, has weathered the downturn with basically flat revenues. That's a bright spot compared with the declines seen in other sectors, says Jerry Nadal, VP of resident shows worldwide.
"With that being said, we're having to work harder this year — as is everybody else — to get people in the door to the shows," he says.
Among the major challenges in 2009 was a major drop-off in convention business, putting a huge dent in most shows' advance and group sales. And with every sector discounting rates to lure visitors to town, shows have taken to bundling their tickets into packages that include everything from a hotel room and spa discounts to gaming credits and free nightclub admissions.
"Where a lot of those items used to be stand-alone areas, now people are coming here looking for value," Nadal says. "We had to refine and retool our entire marketing approach to this market."
The market has changed so drastically that many visitors arrive in town with no reservations of any kind and decide where to stay and what shows to see when they arrive. Last-minute ticket sales have grown substantially.
Such tactics have helped sell tickets, but the discounts hurt when the cost of mounting a show is fixed, says "Jersey Boys" producer Scott Zeiger.
"We have to do a good job of containing our expenses and staying competitive on a ticket price point and waiting out the economy," Zeiger adds.
For the long term, discount rates are helping to broaden the aud for ticketed shows, luring patrons who normally would not consider paying for a full-price seat.
No one expects the downturn to last, but no one knows exactly when the corner will be turned and things such as convention business will pick up.
Big attractions remain a strong draw, including's Cirque's "Viva Elvis" and Garth Brooks' arrival as a headliner at the Wynn Hotel.
Brooks, in particular, has made a splash, selling out his first 20 concerts in a matter of hours at $125 per ticket.
NIGHT BITES: A look at several long-running shows on the Strip
View Night Bites in a larger map


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In Less Than One Month, CityVille Beats FarmVille to Become Zynga's Biggest Game
Looks like I'm far from the only one addicted to CityVille. The newest Zynga game has accomplished what no game maker, not even Zynga itself, has done in recent memory: Beat FarmVille's number of active users.
CityVille now has 61 million active users, compared to 56 million for FarmVille, according to AppData. Having only launched at the beginning of this month, it's gotten huge faster than any game in history.
CityVille added 6.9 million users on Thursday alone. I had previously noted the game gained 10 million users between Sunday night (when I first drafted a story about my addiction to it) and Wednesday morning (when we published that story). Those numbers are unheard of.
(By the way, I'm now at level 29, up from 26 at the time of writing, though I've had a busy week.)
Of course, these social games all experience dropoff, and it's unclear where CityVille's numbers will eventually settle. FarmVille's all-time high number of monthly active users was more than 83 million.
Zynga hasn't hit it out of the park every time with its previous FarmVille follow-ups. The company's most recent launch, FrontierVille, which like CityVille was notable for its amped-up social features and was considered quite successful, is currently at 30 million monthly active users.


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Personal Care and Hygiene
For seniors, simple daily activities such as bathing and dressing are not as easy as they used to be. But just because you need a little help, that doesn't mean your safety and privacy should be compromised.
At Retire-At-Home, we emphasize the importance of our clients feeling comfortable and maintaining their dignity. With our personalized, home care service, we match a caregiver to your needs and preferences to ensure that he or she is someone you can trust, who respects your desire for privacy and independence, and with whom you feel completely comfortable. It is our goal to provide dignified personal care, whether for a short-term after hospitalization, or for a client's long-term needs. We extensively train our in-home caregivers to be sensitive to a client's feelings and wishes. At Retire-At-Home, our personal care assistants are dedicated to helping your loved one look and feel their best.
Our Personal Care Services in Britannia ON include:
- Morning Care
- Bedtime Care
- Exercise support
- Bathing assistance
- Bathroom aid
- Dressing assistance
- Medication reminders
- Skin Care
- Personal grooming
- Oral hygiene
- Catheter care
- Perineal care
We offer a wide range of In-Home Senior Health Care Services in Britannia to help you remain in your home for as long as you wish.
All of our employees and managers in Britannia are trained to work with you in a compassionate, non-intrusive way. Whether you would like simple companionship or require around the clock care, we will tailor our home care service for you. For more information on our Bathing, dressing & toileting services please give us a call at 613-369-5100 or email us at firstname.lastname@example.com
Learn more about our Britannia home care company


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I wrote an Electronic Songbook program that is free to the public, it allow the storing of Lyrics and Guitar chords, song list and autotransposition.
Being a Wind Instrument player, I would like to be able to store the melody portion of a song in this as well. It seems that ABC notation would be a good way to do this.
Here's my program: http://www.kingsmills.us/ELECSONG.ZIP
Any suggestions on an ABC program that I might be able to interface with?


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A high-quality designed longtrack boot with your own preferred graphic colors (Gold for National Champions only)
The iD line – Weapons of Imperial Design
The Marchese Shinobi speedskating boot is an instrument of Empire - the foundation of your conquest, made to destroy your competition and install you in ultimate power. Based on ages-old Italian boot making traditions and the latest, dedicated technology, this is a production ice speed boot like no other.
When you're standing at the top of the heap, all eyes are on you. Having command over your personal style is an important element of being a dominating Champion. With style comes confidence, which makes you more focused, effective and powerful. With the Marchese Ikazuchi in one of 9 Imperial colours, you'll have it all, and look good doing it.
Crafted for competition at the highest levels of our sport, Marchese speedskating boots are the number one choice among many long track Olympic medalists in Nagano '98, Salt Lake City '02, Torino '06 and Vancouver '10, with 84 Olympic medals and counting. These boots are made for ice, not simply repackaged inline boots. It's the Italian expert cratfmanship that you must simply wear to feel and believe. Once you've felt the power of Roma, you'll know a new level and will never settle for inferiority from any other boot.
The Shinobi is made of superlight synthetic material for the outer, and a natural pig skin leather liner inside with a heat moldable foam interior and semi-rigid moldable tongue. With the right blend of stiffness and flexibility, combined with excellent moldability from ankle to toe, your confidence and control are assured.
World-class attention to detail, an unparalleled sense of elegance and style, and an uncompromising demand for excellence make the Ikazuchi a platform for greatness. The Art of Winning never looked so good. Manufactured in Italy by master boot maker Davide Mariani, based on the zero-defect design specifications of Paul Marchese, these boots were two years in development, and will make a life-time of difference in your form. Try them for yourself, today.
Find technical information such as compatibility with blade lengths and boot sizes on our Pure Skating blog


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Set of 20 Chef Medallions
$ 20.00
Whether it's time to make that zesty tomato sauce recipe that's been handed down through the family, the coveted holiday cookies, or put up the season's harvest, Chef Medallions add charm to your homemade fare. Go ahead and choose an extra set or two of these little beauties to double as mini bookplates for your cookbooks!
1.625 inches in diameter
Archival and acid-free premium labels
Crack-and-peel backing
Nestled in straw in a small silver tin
Handmade in the USA


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Mitt Romney is going to have a hard time selling his tax plan. Not because it's a bad plan, it is actually a very good plan which I have enthusiastically endorsed. But it does call for tax cuts and guts special interest group power. It also makes the tax code simpler. I think Reagan would approve of Mitt Romney's tax plan. Then, Romney came out with his energy plan. I think it is getting harder to deny that Mitt Romney is actually a bold conservative.
Let me contrast Obama and Romney on energy with two pictures. These two pictures show practical economic common sense versus pure ideology. They show why every person concerned about our economic future should vote for Mitt Romney and not Barack Obama.
Mitt Romney's energy plan is a real all of the above approach. He lets states control the energy resources on federal land within their borders, effectively giving states the choice whether they want jobs, energy independence for their state, and vast economic growth, or they can continue with the failed Obama subsidized green energy idea.
The key to this graphic is the figure in the upper left hand corner. 3.6 million jobs. Of course, that is solely based on the energy sector and doesn't take into account economic multipliers and the effects of using energy to drop unemployment below 8%, the increased tax revenue involved, or the additional spending power of families who no longer have to pay close to $4 a gallon for gas so that Saudi princes and Libyan terrorists (who Obama tried to befriend) can get rich off of our commutes.
Romney also doesn't forsake green energy, but includes it as part of his all of the above approach. He also includes increased nuclear energy, which is clean and efficient.
Contrast this with Obama's rebuttal.
Obama doesn't like Romney's energy plan because it would cost 37,000 jobs in the US Wind industry. Can you see what the big problem is here with Obama's ideology? Romney's plan would provide 3.6 million jobs. Obama complains that in the process 37,000 wind energy jobs would be lost. Do the math, should we abandon the Romney energy plan to save those 37,000 wind jobs?
Two more key problems with this graphic:
1. Was Obama concerned with saving energy jobs when he cancelled the Keystone Pipeline? The US Chamber of Commerce estimates that Obama's decision to cancel the Keystone Pipeline cost 250,000 jobs.
2. Notice the verbiage. Obama-Biden supports 75,000 jobs. In other words, Obama's green energy plan is based on government subsidization of the industry. Instead of the Romney plan that would create 3.6 million private sector jobs supported by private enterprise, Obama wants us to support his government program where taxpayer foot the bill and get 75,000 jobs. That's a pretty weak rebuttal, Mr. President.
In the meantime, we have already gone through four years of Obama's energy plan and we know it doesn't work. We have actual, historical evidence that it doesn't work. Forget Solyndra for a moment, what about the jobs Obama has created through his green energy initiatives? The Gateway Pundit estimates a pricetag of $4.8 million per permanent job. That isn't how much each employee makes, that is what the government has spent per new employee. That is unsustainable.
Wouldn't you prefer a plan where private companies invest the money to hire people to produce energy that actually works and has practical significance for the American consumer? The Obama plan is to take tax dollars to produce energy we don't use on a large scale so that we are stuck buying our gas from people in the Middle East who don't particularly like us. I'd much rather buy American. For Obama, the environmental lobby make that an impossibility.
Mitt Romney has proven that he is not just the anti-Obama. He is not just a status quo politician who will keep from making things worse. The Romney-Ryan tax plan and energy plan are not tired RINO talking points. They are bold change.
Filed under: Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, President Obama | Tagged: Barack Obama, bold conservative, coal, conservative, energy, environmental lobby, environmentalists, gas, jobs, lobbyists, Mitt Romney, natural gas, nuclear, obama, Obama-Biden, oil, reagan, RINO, Romney, romney energy plan, Romney Ryan, Ronald Reagan, solar, solyndra, tax, taxes, unemployment, wind | Leave a comment »


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The big showdown, the display of skill
I'm that type of guy so put your girl on the pill
Take a family snapshot and kiss your wife
'Cause I'm like a knife, I cause grief and strife
And I'll take your life, and choke you like a python
I'mma do you wrong
Any emcee, who you wanna name?
I'm one panther that can't be tamed
Talking about guns, punk it don't alarm me
Got enough cash to make a whole damn army
I can't hold back the way that I feel
'Cause when I bust a rhyme it's like you're slipping on banana peels
You're like fruit cake and fruit cocktails
First your title now I'm takin' your female
All of a sudden you're so proud of black
A baseball hat, but you ain't saying jack
The ripper is back and you can't escape
'Cause one of my records'll sell more than your whole tape
I want beef, bring on the rookies
I got more than just Cool J cookies
Rip, rock, crush, stomp the comp, I'm poison come and take a chomp
I bet you your teeth'll end up around the corner kid
Don't ask me why I did
Uncivilized damage to a nobody
And I'm carrying a gun if I'm rhymin' at the party
New York, Chicago, Detroit, LA
I'll slay wherever you play
D.C. or Philly, or Baltimore
I murder the rich and maim the poor
Perpetratin' in your video, here's the real schoolin'
Country accents, who you think you're foolin'?
I play Russian Roulette not Craps
You're only known 'cause of Yo MTV raps
And Rap City and B.E.T
And Channel 31, but now here I come
To save the day and now you're getting done
Like a hooker, don't drop the soap, crumb
The first sign of the battle you little fink
Is you see blood coming out your kitchen sink
Your mic's a baby bottle son
Some say they ain't but I am the one
To slice and dice and fry and boil, to bake and serve a nerd
I heard a word occurred to him that he could move and wouldn't get
Moved on, like a shotgun blast
Big mouth emcees I'll bet you none last
'Cause they ain't stable or able
And I boost the party like jumper cables
So plug me in and put me on
Arsenio Hall so I can battle 'em all
From coast to coast, blind, crippled and crazy
You use a dictionary but you still don't phase me
Listen and weep, you sound cheap
Preach about blackness but you represent wackness
You're knocking on the castle door but when you fall in the moat
I won't see you no more
Let's get together and diss LL
Use his name and your records might sell
I can't believe your band of dead maggots
Crawling all over my name I won't have it
You better look in the mirror and re-think your plan
Why walk in quicksand?
When you can stand on your own two feet
I'm rippin' emcees from Funky Drummer to Big Beat
Name the date and the arena
You three year old ballerina
I can't believe that suckers try to throw down
Whether you're new or older than Motown
Just kick back, I don't slack attack a wacker slapper rap
They can't handle the format
Whether you're suave or smooth
Rough or rugged all I need is a groove
I display a way to slay, punk play to pay
Mr Morris has entered the buffet
Some of y'all are sitting in bowls
Plates of the hot buttered rolls
Beat you with baloney, stab you with salami
'Cause when I get hot I get hot like pastrami
Then I make you wonder
Why you don't hear bass, but you feel the thunder
You get cute, I'll knock out your tooth
We'll be fighting from the lobby to the roof
You annoy me like a roach at dinner time
Yo Marley (What's up?) It's Miller Time
(Nah man, just kick a little more)
Pass the brass knuckles let me break his jaw
When I'm on the microphone I want silence
Let KRS-One stop the violence
Ain't no rivals, ain't no competition
Punk, I'm beatin' you into submission
I'm gettin' busier than ever before
Never more will I slack I'mma keep it real raw
Eat you up like a pack-jam
Video's more popular than Batman
Rippin' you to shreds, tap you in the head
Then leave the battle lookin' happy as a newlywed
Give me a Tec-9 to spray
Save the beef and put it on lay-away
I'm in command your man abandons on the table fans will understand
Then you weep about the murdergram
LL Cool J was known for his many long-standing beefs; a big portion of this LP was dedicated to airing them out. Perhaps his most well-known beef at the time was with Kool Moe Dee, whose lyrics and presentation were becoming more Afrocentric. This song features numerous lines addressing Moe's "pro-Black" image, which L considers phony.
"Murdergram" samples James Brown's song "My Thang", Earth, Wind & Fire's song "Moment of Truth" and ESG's song "UFO".


text:
Automation software helps Power Systems users restart virtual machines to a remote location for disaster recovery and disaster recovery testing more quickly and reliably.
The application does not require clustering, avoiding costs such as duplicate software licenses, and remote-based support reduces the need for expert in-house IT skills.
Automatic failover helps streamline execution and makes it easier to plan and implement an optimized business continuity program designed to meet data requirements.
The solution provides an automated way to manage data replication and the server and network management tasks associated with restarting systems, applications and workloads in remote locations.
You can customize the solution to meet your specific high-availability targets without the need for specialized IT skills, and it offers several deployment models.


text: American English File Second Edition builds on the popular methodology of the first edition with material that gets your students talking. The Second Edition is even more student and teacher-friendly, with an updated design and 75% new content for improved visual appeal and topics that will engage and motivate students. Speaking and pronunciation activities on every page help students to become confident in speaking. There are also extra mini-speaking activities in the Sound and Vocabulary Banks. Exciting new digital material provides more opportunities for students to speak than ever before, both in and out of the classroom. Brand-new video, Online Practice, iChecker and the Pronunciation App all provide more practice for students in and out of the classroom. With a solid language foundation and so many opportunities for speaking, it's no surprise that American English File Second Edition is the course that gets everyone talking.


text:
Two Districts, Two Approaches to Common-Core Curriculum
To meet common core, one opts for publisher, other writes own materials
Three thousand miles apart, district leaders in Orlando, Fla., and Long Beach, Calif., faced the same problem: They needed to revamp their instructional materials to reflect the Common Core State Standards.
They solved that problem in very different ways. The Florida group scoured the market and chose a suite of materials from a major publisher. Their colleagues across the country, dissatisfied with that same marketplace's offerings—and limited by their thin pocketbook—wrote their own curriculum.
That tale of two districts reflects a dilemma of the common-core era: How do schools find or craft good curricula that truly reflect the new standards when they have limited time and funds and when the market is overflowing with materials claiming they're "fully aligned" with the new standards?
Districts are wrestling with those decisions as the instructional-materials market, worth $7 billion to $8 billion annually, is poised to pick up steam.
States and districts have been putting off buying textbooks and other materials in the last five years because of the recession and uncertainty about the transition to the common core and to digital resources, according to Jay Diskey, the executive director of the PreK-12 Learning Group at the Association of American Publishers, based in Washington. That market was up 4.3 percent in 2013, he said, after two years of declines.
Evaluating Options
The Orange County district, which serves 187,000 students in the Orlando area, began its search for new materials in mathematics and English/language arts about a year ago. Working from Florida's list of approved materials, the district undertook a laborious process of review before deciding on a lineup largely from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: Go Math! for K-8, and two series of HMH texts for high school; Journeys for K-5 English/language arts and the Collections series for high school. It chose the College Board's Springboard curriculum for middle school.
The move came with a hefty price tag: $14 million for the K-5 materials, which teachers are trying for the first time this school year, and $10 million for middle and high school materials, which are scheduled to debut in 2014-15.
Before inviting the state's approved publishers in to make presentations, Orange County school officials drew up a list of criteria that new materials would have to meet, said Jesus F. Jara, the district's deputy superintendent. The list was long. Vendors would be rated on the strengths of their products' digital components, interventions for struggling students, and professional development. The products would have to offer enough support to guide new teachers, yet provide enough flexibility to allow veteran educators to customize them as they wished, said Scott Fritz, the district's chief academic officer.
But at the top of that list was how well the new materials would capture the spirit and letter of the common standards, which Florida adopted in July 2010. Reviewers would have to see all the central shifts of the new standards reflected. Reading passages would have to include a heavier dose of nonfiction and stepped-up text complexity. Teacher guides would have to pose "text-dependent" questions, which drive students back into their reading for answers, rather than let them simply share their personal feelings about it. And reviewers would want to see writing across the curriculum, as well as rich performance tasks.
"They had to offer the components the common core offers," said Shana Rafalski, the district's director of elementary curriculum and instruction.
"Our rubric [of requirements] was very tight, and numbers don't lie," added Mr. Fritz. "We knew where some [vendors] were weak."
Meaning of 'Aligned'
Teams of district teachers spent several days alongside the central-office review team, poring over vendors' materials and listening to their presentations. In the end, "there was no one perfect product," said Ms. Rafalski.
Choosing among the top three vendors was a "close call," said Mr. Fritz, but Houghton Mifflin's products stood out for being a stronger reflection of the common core and for having a better digital component and better interventions for students with weak skills, he said.
Maggie H. DeMont, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's senior vice president of product management and strategy, said the materials Florida approved for its districts disprove the claim of some educators and analysts that many publishers' materials are only barely tweaked versions of their pre-common-core products. Publishers created "companion" materials for the new standards in the first couple of years, she said, but by now, have had time to "build from the bottom up" for the common core.
"We do submit our materials to curriculum experts in a state like Florida, and we have been given the green light that they're approved and do meet the standards," she said.
Even with the materials chosen, however, there is still much work to be done as Orange County makes a fundamental shift in the role textbooks play in the classroom. That's taking a lot of time and professional development, Mr. Jara said.
"We're trying to move away from just turning pages in the textbook and having that be the curriculum," he said. "I'm not telling you we're there yet, but it's the goal."
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt provided several training sessions for teachers and coaches, Mr. Jara said. During the year, Orange County's four math and English/language arts coaches are working with teachers in its 122 elementary schools to help them get comfortable with using Go Math! and Journeys in creative ways in their classrooms, he said.
District leaders rewrote their scope-and-sequence documents, quarterly listings of the standards that need to be taught at each grade level. They rebuilt their content maps, which lay out instructional units of several days to several weeks in length and are organized around "essential questions." The new textbooks are listed as one—but not the only one—of the resources teachers can use.
A 3rd grade unit, for instance, focuses on helping students decode text and use text features to understand what they're reading. It lists learning goals, such as being able to write words with -ness, -able and -less suffixes, and being able to locate text features like sidebars and diagrams. It describes skills students should be able to show at, above, and below grade level, and explains common misunderstandings students might have about the material.
Leona Jacobsen, a middle school reading teacher who served on the review committee for grades 6-12, said she is glad her elementary-level colleagues have new materials and she is looking forward to trying the secondary-level ones once they're rolled out.
"It's good to have new textbooks, but what matters is what the teachers do with them," she said. "We're the ones who come up with the strategies and the creativity to get the students where they need to go."
For opponents of the common standards, however, the district's entire thrust is worrisome, since it flows from academic expectations they disapprove of.
Cindy Hamilton, an Orange County schools parent and an activist with Opt Out Orlando, which wants to eliminate high-stakes standardized testing, argues that the standards impose a uniformity of thinking on students.
"When all those publishers produced those books with the common-core logos all over them, it makes it hard for the state to purchase anything but common-core curriculum," said Ms. Hamilton. "You're not going to write any curriculum I'm going to want my kids to participate in if we are measuring it to these standards."
Different Journey
The experience of district leaders in Long Beach, Calif., was distinctly different from that of their colleagues in Florida.
It wasn't just that the district couldn't afford a new curriculum adoption, which carries a $10 million to $12 million price tag per subject, said Pamela Seki, Long Beach's director of curriculum, instruction, and professional development. When the 85,000-student district explored the marketplace about a year and half ago, it came away disenchanted.
"We didn't see that the field was producing the types of materials that we wanted to purchase," she said.
In English/language arts, Long Beach had been using a 2002 edition of McGraw Hill Education's Open Court, along with a range of major publishers' products across the K-12 spectrum, all vintage 2002 to 2004. In math, it had been using five- to 10-year-old textbooks from an assortment of big publishers.
The district's needs lagged behind the state's adoption cycle, though, and the trickle-down process is slow. California unveiled its list of approved K-8 materials for math in January, so Long Beach plans to convene its teacher teams and district experts to review and recommend materials from that list for use in the 2015-16 school year, Ms. Seki said. Since the state doesn't plan to approve new English/language arts materials until November 2015, Long Beach doesn't anticipate having new literacy texts in place until 2016-17, she said.
Given that schedule, the state of the marketplace, and its own slender budget, the district decided to repurpose its current textbooks and undertake an extensive curriculum-writing process around them. It began in the 2012-13 school year by conducting common-core training sessions for teams of four teachers from each school. Some of those teachers later joined a panel of 15 that became the "common-core development team," writing curriculum alongside district content leaders and instructional coaches, Ms. Seki said.
By last fall, the district had overhauled its scope and sequence and created new units and course outlines. The units retained the same themes from the old textbooks, such as "the hero's journey" in middle school, "so teachers would have something to hold onto" amid the shift to the common core, Ms. Seki said.
The new units list the common-core skills and knowledge that teachers must impart, sequenced across the school calendar. Some refer to passages from Open Court, but since that program doesn't offer much nonfiction, Long Beach added its current science and social studies textbooks as additional references for literacy teachers, so they could draw on those to build students' skills with "informational text."
That takes teachers only partway to the common core, though. Those textbooks' reading passages are "at a very low level," said Lisa Worsham, the district's English/language arts curriculum leader for K-5, who helped lead the rewriting project. So while the textbooks supply informational text, the curriculum team expanded the list of resources in its new instructional units to include texts that are more challenging, she said. The district also bought a set of books that introduces students in grades K-2 to nonfiction.
In the materials the district team wrote for teachers, the emphasis is on tying reading and writing together, as the common standards envision, and making sure that students learn to cite evidence from their readings to support their interpretations.
"Too many questions in our old texts were 'right there' questions," Ms. Worsham said. "Kids didn't even have to refer to the text to answer them."
The new instructional units draw on a bank of free questions composed by the Basal Alignment Project, a national collaborative undertaking by teachers across the country to rewrite suggested questions from teachers' guides to make them text-dependent. The units also include formative strategies to help teachers gauge how well students are learning as they go along.
Math units were reworked to dive more deeply into fewer concepts. To do that, some skills were dropped and some were moved to lower grades or moved earlier in the school year, Ms. Seki said. The math units involve more collaborative discussion and problem-solving and also require more writing, with an emphasis on showing an understanding of math concepts, she said. The district also bought a set of books that help teachers devise strategies to get children to talk about their reasoning.
A New Approach
The difference in the Long Beach district's instructional units is dramatic. A six-week, English/language arts unit for 4th grade students from 2012-13 is a one-page, bare-bones outline of seven lessons in phonics, word analysis, and grammar.
One school district in Florida and another in California faced the same problem: They needed new curricula for the common core. But they solved that problem in very different ways.
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A 4th grade unit from 2013-14 runs 23 pages. With the theme of the "mystery of medicine," it says "students will have academic, collaborative discussions about text" and "learn about the structure and elements of effective opinion writing" as they "learn about the field of medicine, exploring its societal and cultural impacts on modern health practices." Long lists of suggested texts support three daylong performance tasks, and daily activities are designed to let students show what they know. The common standards that need to be covered, and a suggested sequence for covering them, are included.
Getting that granular about instruction marks a huge change for Long Beach, where Ms. Worsham says the culture has been to "march through Open Court. They were religious about following it."
District leaders felt that with the common core's deep shifts in expectation and practice, it was time to make sure teachers were all pulling in the same direction, Ms. Seki said.
"There's always that push and pull, that you might be telling your teachers too much," she said. "But we felt this was very new and we were getting feedback from teachers that they needed and wanted this type of support."
The units, which teachers must follow, have been coordinated with the teacher-observation protocols that principals use to watch their teachers, Ms. Seki said, although she noted that those observations are not used for evaluations this school year.
"This is about experimenting, informing our professional development," she said.
It's been a lot for teachers to take on, said Virginia Torres, the president of the Teachers Association of Long Beach, a 3,600-member affiliate of the National Education Association. In August, teachers wanted to see curriculum units for the entire year, and they weren't all available yet, she said. "I got phone calls. It made some of my teachers uneasy."
Some teachers have complained that the pacing guides don't allot enough time for some topics, she said, but overall, the new materials are getting good reviews.
Maria Yepez, who teaches 4th grade at John Muir Academy, is finding the new materials helpful without being too intrusive on her judgment. Still, change comes slowly. At a late February meeting of her grade-level team, she and her fellow teachers were struggling with lesson plans in this less-scripted era.
"My colleagues keep asking if they are doing the right thing," Ms. Yepez said, "and our principal keeps telling us, 'You have the flexibility. You are doing the right thing.' "
Vol. 33, Issue 29, Pages s26, s28, s29Published in Print: April 23, 2014, as Two Districts, Two Tacks on Curriculum
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text:
Recently, I was lucky enough to visit the Alhambra, the majestic hilltop Islamic palace that commands the skyline of Granada,…
My first time playing along! Woohoo! http://www.livingincyn.com/2013/02/22/weekly-photo-challenge-forward/
Recently, I was lucky enough to visit the Alhambra, the majestic hilltop Islamic palace that commands the skyline of Granada,…
Recently, I was lucky enough to visit the Alhambra, the majestic hilltop Islamic palace that commands the skyline of Granada, Spain. Intricate stone pathways meander through the grounds, drawing you deeper into the lush gardens and millenium-old buildings.
Playful yet insistent, I went where the paths beckoned, marveling at walking on the same stones as 12th-century emirs, trying to feel the history through the soles of my shoes.
I was struck not just by the time and craftspersonship that went into creating these miles of paths stone by tiny stone, but also by the way the designs pulled me forward and urged me to keep exploring, even as my feet begged for a respite.
In a new post specifically created for this challenge, share a picture that says FORWARD to you.
Perhaps it's a path you yourself have taken, the building where you're starting a great new job, or the curve of your partner's pregnant belly. It could be an image that shows a physical move, or something that evokes a major life change. We look forward (ha!) to your interpretations.
– Michelle
New to The Daily Post? Whether you're a beginner or a professional, you're invited to get involved in our Weekly Photo Challenge to help you meet your blogging goals and give you another way to take part in Post a Day / Post a Week. Everyone is welcome to participate, even if your blog isn't about photography.
Here's how it works:
1. Each week, we'll provide a theme for creative inspiration. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog (a new post!) anytime before the following Friday when the next photo theme will be announced.
2. To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post "Weekly Photo Challenge: (theme of the week)" and be sure to use the "postaday″ tag. You can also link to this post to create a pingback here and to encourage more people to participate.
3. Subscribe to The Daily Post so that you don't miss out on weekly challenge announcements. Sign up via the email subscription link in the sidebar or RSS.
My first time playing along! Woohoo! http://www.livingincyn.com/2013/02/22/weekly-photo-challenge-forward/
Weekly Photo Challenge: Forward http://myvividvisions.com/2013/02/22/weekly-photo-challenge-forward/
Here is my submission: http://sailsoutherncal.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/forward/
What a great floor or path to walk on.. I love it !!! .. Thanks Michelle 😀
You could move FORWARD to see my contribution here?
What forward means to me! http://tworedtornados.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/weekly-photo-challenge-forward/


text:
If It's Tuesday
Caring for a Senior Citizen involves juggling time with various doctor's visits. My mother has a variety of things to contend with such as diabetes, high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, incontinence, extremely limited vision, dementia, and she's in a wheelchair from osteoarthritis, but she's absolutely adorable. She has a great personality.
For me, there is getting her to her primary care physician, her podiatrist, her opthalmologist, her eye surgeon, for a while a urologist, occasional lab tests, and an annual mammogram.
Thankfully, my mother is very cooperative. Hey, it's getting out of the apartment for awhile, and usually there is a treat involved afterwards.
Mom's hearing is atrocious. I could shout at the top of my lungs, "Ma! Where'd you put your keys?" and I would get a response like, "Yeah, I'll have a cup of tea." All the neighbors could hear me, but she couldn't.
After three years of scraping together money and with the financial assistance of Lutheran Care for the Aging in San Francisco, we were able to afford two very badly needed basic behind-the-ear hearing aids. But this involved a hearing test and several appointments for making the molds and adjusting the fit.
I took my poor mom in to have her left hearing aid adjusted for fit for a third time, and they decided to make a whole new ear mold. Mom was wincing and crying out in pain, but I thought she was just putting on a show, so I tried to convince her to be brave while they packed her ear. It was not to be, so they looked deep in her ear and discovered it was bleeding inside. The left hearing aid had fit so tightly, it had rubbed it raw! Poor baby. She had been very brave.
Diabetics don't heal as quickly as those of us fortunate not to have the disorder, so it was another eight weeks before we could make the new ear mold for her and go through yet another fitting.
As for medical appointments, if it's Tuesday, it must be opthalmology ... ?


text:
freetds is a great, free tool to access your sybase tables with PHP. The setup can be a bit tricky. Use the following to put the environment variables that you need:
putenv ("SYBASE=/usr/local/freetds");
putenv ("SYBPLATFORM=linux");
putenv ("LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/freetds/lib");
putenv ("LC_ALL=default");
putenv ('PATH=\"/usr/local/freetds/bin:$PATH\"');
putenv ("DSQUERY=SYBASE");
Even if not using freetds, you'll need those env vars to make any sybase connection work. Another option is to just load them into your box from the command line.