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This story appears in the July 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine.
At nightfall, biologist Francisco Álvares walks through the village of Pitões das Júnias, in northern Portugal, greeting old friends. Two women in widow's black touch his arm sociably as he passes the street corner where they sit singing folk songs to each other. He nods to a pretty blond teenager who has just penned up her father's 200 goats for the night, and exchanges gibes with a cowhand driving his long-horned cattle home from the fields.
At the edge of town he stops and looks westward, where patchwork fields melt into dense oak forest, then rise into sharp granite peaks. He cups his hands over his mouth, draws a breath, and makes a low, lonesome moan that rises to a fierce cry. The only reply is the wind soughing in the oaks and the occasional clonk of a cowbell. He calls twice more. Finally an answer comes, surprisingly close and loud, the same sad sound rising to exultation: the howl of a wolf. Álvares smiles and nods, then walks toward the sound, into the darkness of the trees.
"A wolf pack has denned in the hills above town for at least a decade," he says in a low voice as we walk. "They pick off village dogs, goats, and calves when they can catch them. Some years back they swept through town in the middle of the night, rounded up a donkey that had been left untied, drove it out of the village, and killed it."
The village of Pitões das Júnias is in Peneda-Gerês, Portugal's first and only national park. At 270 square miles, it's small compared to sprawling parks such as Yellowstone, the world's first national park. But packed within its borders is a highly concentrated mixture of things wild and domesticated. Forty endangered Iberian wolves share the terrain with some 11,000 people, who live in more than 80 settlements formed long before the park was established in 1971. In fact, people and wildlife have lived in close proximity here since the Stone Age. Whether they exist today in delicate equilibrium or constant tension depends on whom you ask.
Tucked into a craggy corner of northern Portugal, hard against the Spanish border, Peneda-Gerês is carved by mountain ranges, rivers, canyons, gorges, and streams. Most villages are situated in the lower valleys, where the climate is milder and the terrain more accommodating to people and livestock. The park's wild heart is in the high country, a realm of rugged granite massifs, windswept moors, and bare uplands greened in places by stands of giant holly.
Álvares and I walk through the darkening forest surrounded by smells of moss, fern, and loam and the sound of flowing water, a constant companion in Peneda-Gerês. It rains more than a hundred days a year here, and many springs rise clear and cold in the highlands, seeping into peat bogs or flowing down the mountains in a crescendo of streams, rivers, and waterfalls.
The landscape has also been shaped by human beings, who have lived here since the Neolithic—as evidenced by massive rock monuments, called dolmens, that dot the moors. A Roman road traverses the forest, and medieval castles perch on rocky peaks. Elaborate terraced fields climb the hillsides where farmers have grown corn and wheat for centuries. Walk along a winding river course and you may come upon an abandoned monastery where generations of monks prayed and fasted or a shrine that still draws pilgrims. Many of these structures, lichen-patched and rain-smoothed and built from local rock, match their surroundings so well they seem to have grown up organically from the soil.
This harmony of landscape and history, of wilderness and civilization, has been strained in recent decades by the construction of vacation homes and hydroelectric dams inside the park, and one of the largest wind farms in Europe just outside the park's western border. Whether the park can endure this onslaught of modernity is a hotly debated question in local cafés, though it receives little attention in Lisbon.
As dusk turns to darkness, Álvares snaps on an infrared headlamp and we continue hiking into the hills. After 20 minutes of climbing, we emerge on the granite highland. Álvares howls a few more times, but the wolves that den up here are nowhere to be seen or heard.
We roll out our sleeping bags in a little grassy swale among the boulders. The stars are out, brilliant as a desert sky, the Milky Way dense and luminous. Three or four times during the night the wind picks up, fog blows through, and light rain falls. Sudden weather changes are common, especially in the highlands.
The next morning we wake to the thump of hooves. A semiwild stallion paws the ground and looks at us suspiciously while his herd grazes behind him. The sky is brilliant blue, and in the orange glow of morning every outline—the crags around us and the higher peaks westward, the forests to the east and south, even the distant turbines of the wind farm—have a fresh-minted sharpness.
Many parks celebrate pure nature, but Peneda-Gerês is memorable for its juxtapositions—wolf dens within sight of human homes, ancient villages in the shadow of wind turbines. If the park's delicate balance ever fails, the world will lose a treasure far out of proportion to its size.


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Stacey Suarez never set out to be a magician's assistant. It just kind of happened that way.
The 34-year-old Albuquerque native has been involved in theater in one form or another for three decades. She started off as a dancer and worked in the Duke City as a professional dancer for several companies. But she knew there were opportunities in other cities that just didn't exist here. So at 19 she left for Los Angeles.
"It was really hard to leave, but I did," she says.
Suarez is bringing it all back home with four upcoming shows at the South Broadway Cultural Center. She'll perform alongside three magicians—one of whom is her husband Danny Cole, who performs tricks that involve manipulation. He changes the colors of his clothes and floats in the air. The other two magicians, Joel Ward and Tony Clark, are an illusionist and sleight of hand man, respectively.
"This is our first time producing a show," she says. "There's a small magic community in Albuquerque and they have been super supportive."
When she went to L.A., Suarez got an agent and scored a few bit parts in films and music videos. Suarez appeared in a dance sequence in Be Cool starring John Travolta. It's not prominent, but you can spot her if you know her. She also had a small role in one of the Deuce Bigalow films.
In addition to looking for movie work, Suarez also kept dancing, appearing at the Playboy Mansion, Universal Studios and Disneyland. She went to audition after audition. Suarez says you don't really know what you're going to; you just go. It was at one of these auditions where Suarez found her calling: magician's assistant.
The 34-year-old Albuquerque native has been involved in theater in one form or another for three decades.
"I booked the gig," she says. "I didn't understand everything about the magic, I was just happy to book it, get a paycheck. But I just fell in love. I liked the secrets. I liked the magic. I liked knowing the secrets."
She ain't telling the secrets either, and we decided I'd rather not know anyway.
"If you find out the truth, it's pretty disappointing," she says.
Not that she could spill the beans to this greasy reporter, even if she wanted to. She signs a secrecy agreement with any magician she works with. It lasts for life. Even her own mother can never know.
She says dancers make perfect assistants because they tend to be petite, flexible and limber. They are an integral part of the show. She says the assistant helps make the tricks happen. The most important thing is to smile and make it look easy.
"It's challenging, but I like being challenged," she says. "It's a good thing. The payoff is in the audience's reaction."
Suarez' career choice has allowed her to travel the world. China, Egypt, South America, Australia, Europe. She has worked with many magicians, including Ed Alonzo, also known as Max on "Saved by the Bell" (a show I categorically deny ever having watched). Alonzo set her up with her husband, she says.
The international magic community is tightly knit (Suarez says Albuquerque's own Neil Patrick Harris is heavily involved in it). You can go to China and wind up seeing someone you just worked with on another continent just a few days earlier. She loves being a part of it.
"I'm a lifer," she says. "I definitely love magic."

subset: commoncrawl


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A problem with .vlp
In step 6, it tells me to right-click and "save target as". However, this is only a link, and when I click it, it takes me to a new site. Do I take the text I see and make it a Notepad file?
Discussion about using or improving the BuildXP guide.
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Wisconsin's SeniorCare prescription drug program for senior citizens has been granted another waiver from the federal government to continue operating until at least 2015.
The waiver is needed so the state can run the program outside of Medicare Part D. The current waiver was granted in 2009 and set to expire at the end of the year.
Gov. Scott Walker announced the renewal Thursday, Dec. 27.
The program began in 2002 and provides discounted prescription drugs for Wisconsin residents who are 65 years old or older and meet eligibility criteria. There is a $30 annual enrollment fee with copayments ranging from $5 to $15.
SeniorCare is wildly popular largely because there are no gaps in coverage it is more comprehensive and less expensive than Medicare Part D.


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With most managers, at least those with security, their objectives are a balance between winning today and building for the future. That can't be said for the Mets' Jerry Manuel, who has joked about the importance of a fast start for the preservation of his job.
There's truth in humor.
Manuel presided over the late season collapse of 2008 and full season free fall of 2009, and knows the Mets must contend, if not get to the playoffs and win a round, if he's to return next year. Manuel's job is on the line, and with it there's a sense of urgency of being competitive immediately.
Given that, it stands to reason Manuel's decisions, like that of choosing his fifth starter, will be to give him the best chance of winning now as opposing for building for the future, because quite simply, he has no guarantee of a future.
Manuel's comments the other day that he'd like to see Hisanori Takahashi start a game this spring suggests strongly he's being seriously considered for the fifth starter role. Takahashi has been superb in six scoreless innings, giving up two hits and striking out nine.
"What we have seen so far is he really has the ability to pitch and pitch with all his pitches," Manuel said. "He probably is our sharpest pitcher right now, as far as everything hitting where he wants it to hit."
If not Takahashi, then perhaps Fernando Nieve. Nelson Figueroa will be sent out to clear waivers, and Jon Niese, who went into spring training the favorite, will be sent out because he has options remaining.
Niese might be the fifth starter down the road, but Manuel doesn't have the luxury of letting him learn on the job. As long as Takahashi is getting batters out, the Mets have a chance to win, and that means Manuel has a better chance to stick around.


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GLENDALE — A blaze that may have started in a dry cleaning business burned through the roof of a single-story strip mall in Glendale today, resulting in "significant damage," authorities said.
The fire was reported about 10 a.m. in the 600 block of East Glenoaks Boulevard, the Glendale Fire Department reported.
Glendale police Sgt. Tom Lorenz said traffic was routed away from the area, and some evacuations were ordered as a precaution.
After about 90 minutes, firefighters had nearly extinguished the fire, and were working to douse hot spots, Lorenz said. No injuries were reported.
The fire resulted in "significant damage to the entire mall," Lorenz said.


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UNH curtails operations due to snowBy Gretyl Macalaster
Union Leader Correspondent
March 08. 2013 8:00AM
DURHAM - The University of New Hampshire curtailed operations as of 7:42 a.m. this morning as a winter storm continued to drop snow on the area. UNH will resume normal operations as of 4 a.m. Saturday.


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A pain management doctor whose patients included a man who killed four people in a pharmacy robbery made a practice of peddling prescriptions to addicts and drug dealers, and at least 10 of his patients went on to die of overdoses, authorities said Monday.
From a Queens weekend clinic where patients lined up in front of his door and as many as 120 were seen a day, Dr. Stan Li wrote more than 17,000 prescriptions _ mainly for oxycodone and other highly addictive painkillers _ in the last 2 1/2 years, city Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan's office said as Li was charged with selling prescriptions to one patient even after the man repeatedly overdosed. An overdose ultimately killed him.
Li's lawyer, Aaron M. Wallenstein, said the doctor denies the allegations, had acted responsibly and "wants to fight this to the end." Li, 57, was being held on $500,000 bail after pleading not guilty to prescription sale and reckless endangerment charges. While they currently all relate to one patient, prosecutors said more charges were expected.
While some doctors unwittingly prescribe drugs to addicts, Li is accused of intentionally writing prescriptions for unneeded narcotics in return for cash, Brennan noted in a statement.
His conduct, she said, "is just another form of drug dealing."
Li, who was born in China, has been a U.S. citizen since 1999, his lawyer said. Li now lives in Hamilton, N.J., and works full time as an anesthesiologist at a hospital there, running his Medical Pain Management clinic on Saturdays and occasional Sundays since January 2009, prosecutors said.
Investigators found some patients selling drugs right outside the clinic, and inside they found a sign setting out his fees, prosecutors said: $100 a visit for a "low-complexity" patient, or $150 for a "high-complexity" case, including someone seeing more than one doctor, someone seeking more than three prescriptions in one visit or someone with a history of drug abuse. Li took cash and sometimes billed government health programs for the visits, prosecutors said.
Investigators also discovered at least 10 fatal overdoses among his patients, prosecutors said.
Michael Cornetta got prescriptions monthly from Li for oxycodone, the anti-anxiety drug alprazolam _ sometimes sold under the trade name Xanax _ and fentanyl, a potent pain medication that comes in the form of a patch, prosecutors said. Li went on prescribing the drugs even after Cornetta overdosed and was hospitalized in January 2010 and again that May, prosecutors said. An emergency room doctor called Li about the January overdose, they said.
Cornetta was 40 when he died of a deadly dose of fentanyl, anti-anxiety drugs and cocaine in November 2010, three months after getting his last prescription from Li, prosecutors said.
Meanwhile, Li also provided 24 prescriptions filled by David Laffer, who went on to kill four people during a Long Island pharmacy robbery in June, Newsday has reported. Laffer's wife, Melinda Brady, admitted driving the getaway car. He's serving a life sentence; she's serving 25 years.
Laffer indicated at his Nov. 10 sentencing that he had "shopped" for doctors willing to prescribe painkillers with few or no questions asked.
Wallenstein said Li had refused to keep treating Laffer, Brady and Cornetta, though he wasn't sure when. The attorney declined to detail the reasons, but he said the physician had made use of a database designed to combat painkiller abuse by tracking patients who seek prescriptions from multiple doctors.
"He followed the rules. He did what he had to do," Wallenstein said.
Brennan, however, said the lawyer's characterization of Li's use of the database "is wholly inaccurate."
Meanwhile, Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota told Newsday on Sunday that he was seeking a special grand jury to investigate "doctor shopping" and possible criminal conduct by physicians in prescribing painkillers.
Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz.


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Ford Motor Co., the second-largest U.S. automaker, doubled its quarterly dividend to 10 cents a share after record profit margins boosted its cash.
The first-quarter dividend will be payable March 1 to shareholders of record on Jan. 30, the Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker said today in a statement. Ford, which resumed paying a dividend last year after a five-year hiatus, cited its strengthening business as the reason for increasing the payout.
Ford earned $6.47 billion before taxes in North America in 2012's first nine months, more than it made in the region for all of 2011. North America had an operating profit margin of 11.2 percent during the period in an industry where a 5 percent margin is respectable, as part of Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally's product-development plan known as One Ford.
"Ford put a plan in place to fix the company, they leveraged up and put a mortgage on the place to get it done, and they've executed that," Matthew Stover, a Boston-based analyst with Guggenheim Securities LLC, said by telephone. "Now, they're returning some capital."
Ford rose 3,1 percent to $13.89 at 10:22 a.m. New York time. The shares had gained 4 percent this year through yesterday after rising 20 percent last year.
Ford has recorded 14 consecutive quarters of net income as it has boosted margins through its One Ford global product development plan. Mulally, 67, is trying to boost profits by selling the same models globally, rather than different versions for various regions. The strategy aims to leverage Ford's economies of scale to improve profit margins.
Tops Expectations
"When I heard the news driving into work this morning, I got excited," said Gary Bradshaw, fund manager for Dallas-based Hodges Capital Management, who has about 150,000 Ford shares and now is ready to buy more. "As soon as I heard it, I thought, 'Man, now is the time to buy Ford, the stock is acting great.'"
Bradshaw said he now regrets reducing his Ford holdings last year after the automaker said it would lose $3 billion in Europe in 2012 and 2013. European woes and the sluggish U.S. recovery had weighed on Ford shares for much of last year, Bradshaw said.
The amount and timing of the dividend increase surprised some analysts.
"This announcement is larger than we expected," Joseph Spak, an analyst for RBC Capital Markets, wrote today in a note to investors. "Today's announcement shows strong confidence in their outlook, balance sheet and liquidity. We expect Ford to continue to grow the dividend with earnings and liquidity."
Copyright 2014 Bloomberg. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright 2014 Bloomberg. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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Compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber
July 2011
Over the years I have encountered enthusiastic people who are interested in a family tree but quickly fade away because they are not enthralled with the technical research that is required to properly document their line. On the other hand there are others who incorporate genealogical research into their life.
Avid hobbyists and seasoned professionals alike have a love of family and history. They love the quest for more knowledge and information and make it a lifelong adventure.
There has been an ebb and flow to my journey in the world of genealogy and historical research. Right now I am in one of those low tide moments where immediate family needs come first and genealogy endeavors come in little golden moments. This ebb and flow of my life, which has incorporated research in it for many years, gives me pause with my morning tea to think about the journey.
Each genealogist has a personal reason for what they do. No two people, like snowflakes, are alike. My journey began with a tattered bible and grandmother who encouraged my journey. It glowed intensely when I held my first born son and began to fill out his baby book. It started at the kitchen table with a small file folder and has grown into an office that when built has extra supports underneath to hold the file cabinets.
Family Lineage Investigations developed and over the years moved to three separate states. The moves were part of the flow of family life. Along the way clients and fellow genealogists became lifelong friends.
The first word in my business name says it all – Family. Over the years my children thought that vacation always included cemetery visits. They learned to be proud of country and heritage by tagging along. One son restored a cemetery as his Eagle Scout Project.
The years have included stints of speaking engagements, book projects, cemetery restorations, log house documentation, an antique shop and five years as genealogist for our county library. Each and every adventure in my journey has been an education.
There have been bumps along the way. Sometimes I have had to temporarily close the books for respite. One such ebb was major back surgery because I lifted a tombstone to see what it said on the other side. I smile warmly at a high tide moment. I remember slipping away from an OGS Conference and driving the many miles home to check on teenage sons and missing the surprise presentation of the McCafferty Award. I visualize them looking under tables for me having seen me only moments earlier.
I think the most amazing, wonderful thing about our research is that it only gets better. You can pause on your journey and come back and find that technology has opened new doors. Genealogists are preserving the memories while creating new ones. We researchers are caught in the ebb and flow of history of this thing we call life. Wikipedia says "there is no unequivocal definition of life." I see it as the ebb and flow of each generation.


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So you're driving to some far-flung relative's home for the holidays and halfway there you start feeling sleepy. Do you pull over for some coffee? Pull over and take a short nap?
Actually, the best thing to do is do both — but not in the order you'd think.
Scientists call it "the caffeine nap," because first you have some coffee and then you take a 15-minute nap. It works because the brain gets just enough rest during the time it takes for the caffeine to kick in.
This is important for older drivers — especially with the holiday travel season coming up — who often suffer from insomnia problems and daytime drowsiness that can affect driver safety, according to a Yale University study.
The caffeine nap was first studied by British researchers at Loughborough University's Sleep Research Laboratory. They discovered that 200 mg. of caffeine (8 ounces of strong brewed coffee or a caffeine pill) followed by a short nap was most effective at reducing driving mishaps and re-energizing drivers.
Using a driving simulator and brain wave measurements, the scientists found that the caffeine nap worked better than either caffeine alone, a short nap, cold air, or a break with no nap, at reducing drowsiness and improving driving performance.
The sleep researchers believe this works because the short nap helps revitalize drivers, but is brief enough not to allow them to enter a normal sleep cycle, which can cause even more grogginess.
And because caffeine takes 20 to 30 minutes to kick in, its stimulant effect begins just as the nap is ending.
Researchers warn, however, that caffeine drinks with a high sugar content can worsen sleepiness.
To get an idea of the caffeine content in some typical coffee drinks, take a look at a few examples from this list from the Mayo Clinic.
Espresso, 1 oz., restaurant-style: 40 to 75 mg. caffeine
McDonald's brewed, 16 oz., 100 mg. caffeine
McDonald's Mocha Frappe, 16 oz., 125 mg.
Starbucks Latte, 16 oz., 150 mg.
Starbucks Pike Place, brewed, 16 oz., 330 mg.
Photo credit: dot.wisconsin.gov


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7 Art Movements to Collect at TEFAF
Artsy Specialist
Image rights: © Dedalus Foundation, Inc./Licensed by VAGA. New York, NY
Alongside Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell is considered one of the great American Abstract Expressionist painters. His esteemed intellect not only undergirded his gorgeous, expressive paintings—frequently featuring bold black shapes against fields of color—but also made Motherwell one of the leading writers, theorists, and advocates of the New York School. He forged close friendships with the European Surrealists and other intellectuals over his interests in poetry and philosophy, and as such served as a vital link between the pre-war avant-garde in Europe and its post-war counterpart in New York, establishing automatism and psychoanalysis as central concerns of American abstraction. "It's not that the creative act and the critical act are simultaneous," Motherwell said. "It's more like you blurt something out and then analyze it.
American, 1915-1991, Aberdeen, Washington, based in New York and Greenwich, Connecticut
7 Art Movements to Collect at TEFAF
Artsy Specialist
How Pollock and the Abstract Expressionists Created a New Visual Language
Artsy Editorial
From a "Rothko" to a "Renoir," New Exhibit Features Fakes that Fooled the Art World
Artsy Editorial


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Amplify the Value of Social Signals Across the Business | Deloitte US | Technology, Media & Telecommunications has been added to your bookmarks.
Corporate leaders can amplify the value of social to the business
Come together, right now
Listening services are almost old news. Not that social signals aren't useful; they certainly are. But, the real value of social signals to a company depends upon its ability to gain, and act on insights ahead of the competition.
Explore content
Watch the video to learn more
Finding the value of social
Companies that figure out how to integrate social analytics into the decision-making processes across the enterprise first will be well ahead of the competition in removing unknowns and moving the needle on business performance. The value of social signals to a company depends upon its ability to gain, and act on, insights ahead of the competition. Social can have a direct impact on business performance metrics when the data scraped from blog posts, Twitter feeds and social media platforms is combined with other external and internal data sets. Read more in the Financial Times article on this topic.


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It's 4 p.m. on Friday when your manager rushes in and assigns you an "urgent" project that must launch Saturday morning. Senior management needs to test a series of different signup pages for the company Web site to quickly determine which marketing message pulls in the most subscribers. On Monday morning, only the page that pulls the most subscribers will survive. You feel a sudden empathy with the beleaguered comic-strip character Dilbert.
Related: The Perils of T-SQL Randomization
A few obstacles stand in the way of a quick solution. At any one time, there might be 1000 or more concurrent users on your Web site. The site consists of more than 500 Web pages; you can't deploy the solution quickly because the site must be compiled, QA tested, and launched to 20 Web servers with almost no downtime for users.
Management wants to use the existing signup page as a landing page and rotate the different redirect versions based on a percentage or weighting system. Management also wants to be able to change the weights at a moment's notice or completely remove a page version immediately. These requirements could apply in several situations:
- single page redirecting to one of multiple versions
- single page serving up different content in a weighted rotation
- ads in rotation on one page or multiple pages
The previous hypothetical example is similar to a challenge I actually faced on the job. The development environment I worked in wasn't conducive to writing the solution for a weighted, multipage solution in compiled code. The Web site was too large and had too many concurrent users, and the entire site had to be recompiled each time with a typical QA time of more than eight hours—but management required no downtime during a new-code launch. I needed a solution that could respond to quick changes in a zero-downtime environment without recompiling the Web site. Here's how I used T-SQL to solve the problem.
T-SQL to the Rescue
I based my method on the solution to another problem I'd encountered months earlier. For a different project, I wanted to update a sequential number field in a table by using a single UPDATE statement.
Suppose I have a table with a field that defines the order in which each row should display regardless of the record's physical position in the table. In this example, I'm posting an online quiz with x number of questions, which Table 1 shows. The table needs a display-order column since I might have to display questions in a different order or insert new questions between existing ones.
If this table has more than a couple dozen questions, initially updating the display-order column by hand becomes quite tedious. I wanted a T-SQL–based solution that let me update a sequentially numbered column by using a single UPDATE statement run only once. After that, as I inserted new questions, removed old ones, or rearranged the order of some, I could do so manually without much trouble. Although I work with SQL Server every day, I'm primarily a Web developer and couldn't figure out how to create a single UPDATE to accomplish my task.
Google Me This
I did a Google search and found the article "Creating a Sequential Record Number field" on the SQL Team.com Web site (http://www.sqlteam.com/item.asp?itemid=765). In a nutshell, the article pointed out that the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Books Online (BOL) documentation for the UPDATE statement states:
"SET @variable = column = expression sets the variable to the same value as the column. This differs from SET @variable = column, column = expression, which sets the variable to the pre-update value of the column."
According to the information in that article, the following UPDATE statement updates a column with a sequential set of numbers for all rows in increments of 10:
DECLARE @myVar int SET @myVar = 0 UPDATE myTable SET @myvar = myField = @myVar + 10
The myField column for the first row starts at 10, and myField in each subsequent row will be 10 greater than the previous myField row value. I used increments of 10 to allow room between questions for new questions, but you could use any number. This technique doesn't guarantee which row will end up getting the 10 value, which will get the 20 value, and so on. It simply increments each subsequent row by a value of 10.
Let's take a closer look at how the UPDATE works.
@myvar = (myField = (@myVar + 10))
(This SET statement is enclosed in parentheses to show the order in which the statement is executed.) myField is first set to the value of @myVar + 10. (In this case, @myVar + 10 = 10 because @myVar was initialized to 0.) At this point, @myVar is still set to 0 since it hasn't yet been assigned a value in the UPDATE. @myVar is then assigned the value of myField (10). This solution is handy for updating all fields of a table with sequential values, although its practical uses are limited.
More Complex Requirements
Months later, I worked on a project in which I needed to randomly redirect visitors to different versions of a Web page—but based on a weighted value when a visitor hit a single, specific landing page. For example, there might be four different variations of the redirect page with two needing to be hit 20 percent of the time each, one needing to be hit 10 percent of the time, and the remaining 50 percent hit all the time. The landing page that each visitor hit had to remain the same because of purchased ads that were hard-coded to a specific URL. The hard-coded URL became the landing page, which then needed to redirect to one of several pages that had different content. Part of the project's specifications required the solution to be data-driven and change the compiled code as little as possible.
I recalled the UPDATE statement I'd used previously and realized I could use it as the basis for the solution to my weighted-pages problem. I created a table containing columns for the landing-page name, the page and location to redirect to, and finally a weight value. From a good programming standpoint, the data-access layer should return the contents of this table to the business layer, and the business layer would then determine which page to redirect to based on the weight of each page for a given landing page.
However, in a lot of commercial Web applications, if you want to make quick changes and test-market different versions of a page, it's sometimes better to put some of your business logic within a stored procedure for ease and speed of deployment. In my case, it meant that I could make minor changes to the affected "base" code page and run one compile deploy. Adding or removing a page or changing the weight then becomes a simple and quick database change that immediately takes effect on all your Web servers.
I wanted my solution to meet the following requirements so it would accommodate future enhancements:
- Individual weights could be any positive integer.
- The sum of the weights must be any positive integer.
- The order of the weights doesn't matter.
- You could exclude a row from the selection process.
- The solution could handle one or more landing pages, each with as many redirect pages as needed.
- SQL Server would return the result row via a stored procedure or user-defined function (UDF).
I required the second item simply because I could and would not depend on someone to ensure that the sum of all weights always equaled 100 for a simple percentage.
Table 2 shows a basic table structure containing sample rows for a set of records tied to a single landing page. You can use any number of landing pages as long as they're unique. As you can see in Table 2, the weights can be any positive integer, and the sum doesn't have to equal 100.
The weighting system is automatically normalized under this solution. That is, through a range system, each weight can be equated with a percentage. That's why the individual weights can be any value. Each row's weight creates a percentage that's based on the sum of all weights for a given page_name. If a weight is 0, the T-SQL code ignores it. This is a simple and intuitive method to exclude a row from selection for a given page_name.
To sum up, the redirect page is selected in this way:
- Select all rows, for a given page_name, where the weight is greater than 0, into a table variable containing a lower and upper range column.
- Generate a random number between 1 and the sum of all weights to determine where it falls within the weighting for the selected pages.
- Assign a range for each page for every selected row that's as wide as that page's weight. For example, Landing_page1.aspx has a weight of 63. This means that this page will be selected 63 out of 259 times. So a range of 1 to 63 might be assigned or 64 to 125, for example. Any range that has 63 segments, in this example, will work.
- Return the redirect_page value for the row in which the random number falls within the page's calculated weight range.
Implementing the Solution
Using the method described in the SQL Team.com article, I was able to use one UPDATE statement to generate the range for each row's weight on the fly, regardless of order. This method lets you store only a weight in the table instead of having to calculate the weight range by hand.
The heart of this method uses the UPDATE statement in Listing 1, which assumes that a table variable @versions has been created and populated with the primary key from the weighted table and the weight for each row selected based on the passed page_name. (You can download the complete code containing the UPDATE; to do so, click the Download the Code Here button at the beginning of the article. The complete code creates a sample weighted table and a stored procedure which, when passed a page name, selects the appropriate redirect page based on the weighted values stored in the weighted table. The table variable also contains the Lower_range and Upper_range columns, initially null.
@start is initialized to 1, the lowest possible value for a range. When the UPDATE is executed, the Lower_Range field is set to @lowerRangeCounter + @start. This value is then assigned to the @lowerRangeCounter variable. @start is now assigned the value from the weight column for the current row. Next, the Upper_Range field is set to the sum of the @upperRangeCounter, initialized to 0, plus the page weight for the current row. Because variables are used in the UPDATE statement, the values set for each previously updated row carry over to the next row when it's updated. This allows the Lower_Range and Upper_Range fields to be updated correctly as each row is updated. Table 3 shows the results of the UPDATE on the @versions table. Finally, a random number between 1 and 259 is generated, and the row is returned wherever it falls between a row's Lower_Range and Upper_Range.
Why Not Weight?
You can use this method whenever you need to be able to choose one option from many different options based on a weighting system. The weighting system isn't tied to a maximum value, nor need you concern yourself with the order of the rows. The solution is as simple as adding a record and assigning it a weight.


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U.S. stocks rose, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average above 15,000 for the first time, as employment picked up more than forecast in April and the jobless rate unexpectedly declined to a four-year low.
Caterpillar Inc. and General Electric Co. rallied more than 2.3% to lead the Dow. Kraft Foods Group Inc. increased 5.9% as first-quarter profit beat estimates. American International Group Inc. climbed 5.8% as operating earnings surpassed projections. LinkedIn Corp. tumbled 9.1% after forecasting second-quarter sales that missed analysts' predictions.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rallied 1.3% to 1,617.65 at 10:44 a.m. in New York, topping 1,600 for the first time. The Dow advanced 174.98 points, or 1.2%, to 15,006.56. Trading in S&P 500 stocks was 15% above the 30-day average during this time of day.
"This is an outstanding jobs report," Darrell Cronk, the New York-based regional chief investment officer at Wells Fargo Private Bank, which oversees $170 billion, said by phone. "The data is strong enough to confirm that the expansion is intact, and the bones of this recovery are where they need to be."
Payrolls expanded by 165,000 workers last month following a revised 138,000 increase in March that was larger than first estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 90 economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected a 140,000 gain. Revisions to the prior two months' reports added a total of 114,000 jobs to the employment count in February and March.
The jobless rate dropped to 7.5%, the lowest level since December 2008, from 7.6% in March.
Economic Data
Other reports today showed orders placed with U.S. factories fell more than forecast in March as a cooling economy slowed demand for metals, mining equipment and military goods. The Institute for Supply Management's non-manufacturing index decreased to 53.1 in April from 54.4 a month earlier, the Tempe, Arizona-based group said.
Concern over a slowdown in the world's largest economy had increased as a report May 1 showed manufacturing expanded in April at the slowest pace this year. Data last week indicated the U.S. economy grew less than forecast in the first quarter.
The euro-area economy will contract more than previously expected in 2013, the European Commission said in new forecasts today. Gross domestic product in the 17-nation region will fall 0.4% this year, compared with a February prediction of a 0.3% drop, the Brussels-based commission said.
Copyright 2014 Bloomberg. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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The South Deals With Immigration
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Atlanta, GA. – The South – where discussions about race and ethnic relations long focused primarily on blacks and whites – now has become the battleground on immigration.
It is in the South where the nation's most controversial state-level immigration laws have been passed and kicked into high gear the perennial national debate over what to do with the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.
Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah have enacted laws aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration. The U.S. Supreme Court has heard arguments on Arizona's controversial 2010 immigration law – which criminalizes being in the country unlawfully, and set the stage for other states to consider passing their own immigration measures – and is expected to rule by the end of June.
The court is determining whether Arizona's attempt to fix its border problems is trumped by federal law.
So on Monday, conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans, political leaders, police and business owners are scheduled to gather in Atlanta for what organizers are billing as the "first-ever Southeast summit on immigration."
Though the participants and speakers hold diverse perspectives on many issues, they apparently support a reform of U.S. immigration policy that would include a way for certain undocumented immigrants to legalize their status.
A statement by the National Immigration Forum, which is organizing the summit, said a mission of the gathering is "to develop a common understanding of the value of immigrants and immigration to the Southeast and to the country as a whole, and to renew calls for federal action."
The summit topics will cover such things as the role that immigrants play in the Southeast economy, and their importance to the future of certain industries, and the impact of the deputizing of local police as immigration agents on the relations between police and immigrant communities.
Speakers at the summit are to include Republicans such as former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who served under President George W. Bush, Jeb Bush Jr., the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who hosted a similar summit in Utah last year, and Paul Bridges, mayor of the Georgia town of Uvalda, who joined a lawsuit against Georgia's law aimed at cracking down on undocumented immigrants.
Other speakers scheduled at the one-day summit include Larry Wooten, president of the North Carolina Farm Bureau, Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami and Karen Bremer, director of the Georgia Restaurant Association.
A federal judge has put parts of Georgia's law on hold, including provisions allowing police to check the immigration status of people without proper identification. But other aspects of the law went into effect this summer, such as making it a felony in Georgia to use false information or documentation when applying for a job.
Bridges says that migrant workers have rapidly disappeared in the state. When the state laws are coupled with federal immigration programs such as Secure Communities that have increased the number of deportations, legal and illegal immigrants are reluctant to work, he says.
"Some of the workers don't have legal documents and some of them do. But the enforcement-only laws scare all of them," Bridges said. "Someone here legally doesn't want to work in a field or ride in a van with somebody illegal, because it could force them to defend themselves in court" if they're lumped in with the undocumented workers.
Proponents of state anti-illegal immigration laws say the failure of Congress and the White House to crack down on people who enter and stay in the country illegally forces local officials to take matters into their own hands.
They reject claims that certain industries would be doomed without immigrant workers because Americans won't do some jobs.
"They're using immigration as a political football," said Dan Stein, who heads the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, a Washington D.C.-based group that favors strict immigration enforcement. "They're insulting the middle class and the poor in this country by saying Americans aren't good enough to do jobs in this country – from engineering to harvesting fruit to waiting on tables."
The impact of new laws has been immediately evident in Georgia, where the agricultural industry estimates it has lost at least $300 million and as much as $1 billion since laws targeting illegal immigrants were passed earlier this year.
In Alabama, whose immigration law is termed the strictest in the nation, the impact of the measure is expected to be between $2.3 billion and $10.8 billion in annual gross domestic product on the assumption that some 60,000 undocumented workers would leave the state.
In Idaho, lawmakers have backed away from passing their own immigration laws, in part because of the potential impact on the state's agricultural businesses. That is preferable to passing laws that are not "well thought out," said Brent Olmstead, a lobbyist for the Idaho Business Coalition on Immigration Reform.
Many summit participants support an approach to immigration such as that taken through a package of bills passed in Utah that included an enforcement law modeled on Arizona's but balanced by a program that will allow undocumented immigrants to work and pay taxes in Utah if they register with the state.
The law does not protect them from federal prosecution; the state is looking for a federal solution before the law goes into effect in 2013. Federal law prohibits employers from hiring undocumented immigrants.
The Utah guest worker program was a key component of the Utah Compact, an initiative pushed as a more compassionate way to handle immigration.
This story contains material from The Associated Press.
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There are thousands of items overdue from GDL at any one time. This equals hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some items never come back. In effect, they are stolen. It is very costly for GDL to administer the overdue items' process and/or replace them. Most important, is that during this time the items (books, DVDs, CDs, videos, books on CD and tape, etc.) are completely unavailable to other library users.
Everyone (including us) forgets once in a while, so we have ways to remind you when your checked out items are overdue. Let your librarian know which method you would like to receive your reminder when you have overdue items. You can choose one of three ways:
- Regular mail
- Telephone
- Email (if you choose email, you will be reminded before the item is due as well as overdue)
When you receive one of these reminders, you need to take some action whether you are finished with the items or not. Of course, return the items if you are finished. If you wish to renew an item, you can renew items online under My Account or My Record, or have a librarian do it for you. Not all items are renewable.
Overdue means that the item has not been returned to the library by closing time on the date it is due back. That date is on the receipt you received when checking out, or it is available in your account online. GDL staff can also tell you the due date if you call. This is one reason you get a paper receipt. The same date is printed on it that is registered on the computer so there are no errors or misunderstandings.
Loan Periods
- Videos and DVDs: 7 days (not renewable)
- High demand books and bestsellers: 2 weeks (not renewable)
- General and children's books: 4 weeks
- Books on tape or CD: 4 weeks
- Music CD's: 2 weeks
- Video Game Discs: 1 week (not renewable)
- Playaways (pre-loaded portable mp3 players): 2 weeks
- Bag of Books: 6 weeks
- Computer Games: 7 days
Fines and Fees Information
DVDs: a first notice is not issued for overdue DVDs. A $2.00 fee is assessed the day following the day the DVD was due.
Long overdue items: a late fee of $2.00 per item is charged once the computer has generated a bill (the second reminder). This fee is non-refundable. A patron who owes $4.00 or more in fines or fees is not allowed to check out items until the matter is resolved. The ability to carry a balance is a courtesy, not a right.
Collection: if items are not returned shortly after receiving the bill, the overdue record is sent to a collection agency. A letter is mailed from Unique Management Services to the borrower informing the borrower that the matter will be placed on their credit report. The borrower has a brief amount of time to return the items or pay for the items and/or any fees before it does go on their credit report. There is an additional administrative fee added to any other fees whether the item is returned or not at this time.
Lost or damaged items: Materials vary in replacement cost according to their retail price. Some items that are exceptions have a general price, i.e. lost magazines are $6.00.
Found items: If a lost item is found and returned within 6 months of the original check out date, a refund is given when the receipt for the amount paid is presented. There is a non-refundable $5.00 administrative service charge deducted from the refund.
Returning Items When the Library is Closed: If an item is returned after the library is closed for the day, the item will be checked in the next day it is open. If an item is returned on its date due after the library is closed, it will be overdue. Please do not leave items outside the library. Costs for damaged or lost items will be charged to your account.
Payment of Fines and Fees: You may pay at your library. Credit card payment is also available at www.thegdl.org under My Account.


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PARIS (AP) — Art is often seen as lofty — but perhaps none more than a new roof installation in Paris that's only visible from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
The work, a huge 700-square-meter (7,500-square-foot) painting of black and white horseshoe shapes, was unveiled Thursday to bird's-eye spectators some 116 meters (380 fe-et) up the iconic iron monument.
The painting was made by Aboriginal artist Lena Nyadbi on the roof of the adjacent Quai Branly museum and commissioned by architect Jean Nouvel.
For art lovers who do not wish to pay €8.50 ($11) to climb the tower, organizers say it's also visible on Google Earth.


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Welcome to the CRG Discussion Forum!Forum registration problems: Make sure you enter your email correctly and you check your spam box first. *Then* email KurtS2@gmail for help.Classified ads are not allowed on the forum.
Also how should the mat fit around the gas filler neck? I ask this as I have another mat, also original that is formed in another way for the tank filler? Thanks for any help. Bill D


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8:30 pm
Lidia's Italy In America "Kansas City Alla Parmigiana" Italian American immigrants headed to the Midwest and created their communities in cities like Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City. In this episode, Lidia celebrates some of the Italian American dishes found on many a Kansas City menu including Penne Rigate alla Vodka, Chicken Parmigiana and Tiramisu. D
9:00 pm
Cook's Country from America's Test Kitchen "St. Louis Cooking" Bridget uncovers the secrets to the ultimate St. Louis Pizza. Then, Jack challenges Chris to a tasting of sliced pepperoni. D
9:30 pm
Joanne Weir's Cooking Class "Stuffed Chicken Breasts & Fava Fennel Salad" Joanne teaches her student Geoff a new way to prepare chicken using some of his favorite ingredients, and shows him how with a little work he can create a vibrant, fragrant salad. Recipes: (1) CHICKEN BREASTS STUFFED WITH GOAT CHEESE AND OLIVES (2) FAVA BEAN, FENNEL, AND PARSLEY SALAD. Student: Geoff Rubendall - Civil Engineer. D
10:00 pm
Caprial and John's Kitchen: Cooking for Family and Friends "Water of Life: Pear Brandy" The Pences visit a brandy tasting room, then use their choice for pork cutlets with pear compote and baked pear sundaes with dark chocolate sauce.G
10:30 pm
Rick Steves' Europe "Heart of England and South Wales" After King Arthur country at Glastonbury, Rick goes to prehistoric Stonehenge. He meets an eccentric lord in the Cotswolds, and visits an evocative ruined abbey in South Wales.G
11:00 pm
Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish "Por Fin.... (Finally....)" This episode covers how to read city maps and give directions and briefly describes the geography of Puerto Rico.G
11:30 pm
Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish "Relaciones Estrechas (A Close Relationship)" This episode covers words for family members and a brief history of Puerto Rico.G


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Summer's waning days are a time when many of us feel wistful — as school doors prepare to reopen and that relaxed, less hectic pace gives way to the stresses of work, carpool, schedules and the general demands of our daily lives.
There's still time to enjoy what's left of the season and revel in that fleeting late August glow that Mother Nature provides. Our local parks are just the place to unwind and enjoy this time of year. Our communities are full of these hidden treasures that will soothe our soul and provide a respite from our rounds of back-to-school chores and the busy slate of activities ahead.
"With summer winding down and the first day of school around the corner, take a moment and enjoy the opportunity to relax with friends and family in one of Nassau County's 30 beautiful parks," said County Executive Edward Mangano. "In Grant Park you can take a walk, ride a bike, jog, play ball, go fishing and follow up all of these activities with a picnic. How about games of tennis, handball, football or soccer, or maybe even a round of golf at North Woodmere Park? You can also jump into the Olympic-sized pool for that last lap of the season."
The many local parks nearby are an outstanding feature of living here on the south shore. Each has its own special appeal.
Bay Park's 96 acres, bordering Hewlett Bay and the East Rockaway Channel, is known for pristine views amid its nine-hole golf course, putting green, and clubhouse. Its athletic fields are a popular spot to pursue your favorite pastime — whether it be baseball, softball, soccer, football, or even cricket. Or cast off from the fishing dock (open year round), or do some biking or jogging along one of the many trails. Kids enjoy the outdoor roller rink and playground.
And it offers one of the few dog runs in the area (the others being in Lido Beach's Nickerson Park and in Valley Stream's).
Nearby, East Rockaway's Hewlett Point Park is a favorite among beach-goers. The small park, also on Hewlett Bay, is a relaxing place for families in particular, who enjoy its calm beach and pool complex for adults and kids, along the playground, basketball courts and concession stand.


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El Gouna attractions and things to do
Mövenpick Resort & Spa El Gouna is the ideal place for any kind of activities, whether you like beach and pool activities, kite surfing, golfing, diving or any other sports. El Gouna with its picturesque downtown and stylish marina is in walking distance and offering a wide range of shopping and entertainment facilities.
Beach and Pools
Located directly on the shores of the Red Sea, the resort offers over 1500m of beach with plenty of space to relax. Three attractive swimming pools are spread out over the resort. Wherever you stay, you will find the perfect place to enjoy the ultimate holiday feeling. Swimming in the hotel pools is only permitted with proper Lycra swimwear. Towels are available at pool and beach.
- Oasis Pool
- Lagoon Pool
- Health Club Pool
Sports & Activities
You can chose from a wide range of sports activities to get active in our hotel or in El Gouna, within walking distance. Discover the hotel on our jogging trail for morning rounds by the sea or enjoy challenging rounds of Golf in El Gouna.
- Health Club
- Tennis and Squash
- El Gouna Golf Club
Located directly on the Red Sea, this is the perfect place for the ultimate water sports adventure. You can discover the fascinating underwater world by diving and snorkeling or enjoy the lagoons windsurfing. El Gouna offers world class kitesurfing with excellent wind and shallow water right on our spacious hotel beach.
- Kitesurfing
- Diving and snorkeling
- Water sports
Attractions & Sights
El Gouna is the Red Sea's Premier Leisure destination, offering a wide range of facilities including restaurants, shopping and entertainment. The picturesque Downtown or the stylish Marina can easily be reached on a walk or by taking advantage of the El Gouna shuttle bus and boat system. From El Gouna you can embark on adventurous excursions venturing the desert, exploring the Red Sea or visiting the cultural sites of ancient history.
- Shopping
- Desert Trips
- Sightseeing


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We are sorry, this product is currently not available.
Printed on WallSmart wallpaper (non-woven fleece). WallSmart wallpaper is a new generation of non-woven wallpaper that is easier and faster to hang. When hanging the wallpaper, apply the ready-mixed wallpaper paste to the wall and than hang the sections by butting the edges tightly together.
For more ideas check out brilliant wallpaper transformations


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WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- The summary of the secret U.S. intelligence budget leaked by former contract analyst Edward Snowden shows Israel is a top U.S. target.
Israel is on a list of counterintelligence targets that also includes China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Cuba, suggesting the U.S.-Israeli alliance has its tensions, The Hill reported.
The fiscal 2013 "black budget" was first reported by The Washington Post.
"To further safeguard our classified networks, we continue to strengthen insider threat detection capabilities across the Community," the budget said. "In addition, we are investing in target surveillance and offensive CI against key targets, such as China, Russia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and Cuba."
Both Israel and the United States have a history of spying on each other. Jonathan Pollard, a U.S. citizen who was sentenced to life in 1987 for spying for Israel, remains behind bars.
Paul Pillar of Georgetown University, a former national intelligence officer for the Mideast, told The Hill the two countries' interests are sometimes at odds.
"Everything is trumped by political realities," Pillar said. "Don't expect any statement by the White House press secretary tomorrow that says, 'Oh my gosh, we are really upset with the Israelis for trying to spy on us.' You're never going to hear anything like that, because politically it is hazardous for basically any American politician -- and certainly an incumbent American administration -- to underscore ... the divergence of U.S. and Israeli interests."


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Now you can get early access to the next version of Facebook for Android by becoming a beta tester. Learn how to sign up, give feedback and leave the program in our Help Center: http://on.fb.me/133NwuP
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Messenger enabled inside the app. No need for separate messenger app! These apk's are compatible with ARM devices only. You will need to uninstall any version of facebook before installing any of these. Newer features of messenger will be absent from the patched facebook app. These newer features are not being added to the facebook app itself. Unfortunately if you want some of the newer features you will have to use the messenger app.
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Found a YouTube video with these products, but cannot find any information for them on the Meguiar's website or anywhere else on the interweb. Are they available in the US? Where?
I have been using these, but none are "Mold" related products except the #8 and they are not removing all the swirl marks. Any suggestions on what automotive or marine products will work well on my molds and plugs? www.3Hulls.com


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Matt Allen, Enfield
Matt Allen of Enfield is a software engineer and consultant, who has been drawing and painting most of his life. His works tend toward fantasy, science fiction, and abstract. Recent works have also incorporated digital photography and other digital manipulation. He is an MIT graduate, and a FIRST robotics mentor with Buzz Robotics in Enfield. The image on the cover is a digitally altered photography that merged and manipulated multiple photos of his daughter's kickball.
Copyright © 2018, The Baltimore Sun, a Baltimore Sun Media Group publication | Place an Ad


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I am afflicted with a persistent sexual fantasy that I'd rather not have. In recent years, I have developed a slightly unhinged attraction to Republicans. I'm your typical college-educated, urban-elitist lefty. I want saved whales, married gays and socialized everything. But when a cute girl tells me that Ronald Reagan is her personal savior, I am sent into a sexual frenzy. I feel it important to clarify what this bizarre fetish is not; it is not "hate [bleep]ing," nor is it one of those opposite-attracts, tension-filled things. It's much more of a role-playing thing, because in the fantasy I am right-wing too. I have sought out such women online, and I have behaved unethically by lying to them, but it really doesn't work without the lying.
I would never want to be in a real relationship with a Republican; it's just a sexual thing. My greatest fear is that on some level, what if I really have become the twisted persona I've created? Do you think there's an ethical way to indulge or express this fantasy that will not make nice, liberal girls (who are the kind I actually want to spend my life with) totally creeped out by me?
—GOP Luster
All relationships hinge upon a certain degree of manipulation (through things like subtle guilt trips, persuasion, Goldschlager) to get people to do things they wouldn't normally do. This sounds terrible, sure, but it isn't always as malicious as it seems. Being coerced by my girlfriend into watching "27 Dresses" isn't going to permanently scar me, though I am still waiting for the night terrors to subside. Pretending to be a Republican for sexual gain, however, is quite firmly in the realm of messed up.
For one, it's not role playing if the other person does not consent. And intentionally manipulating people, even those whose values you despise, isn't going to win you any sympathy points, not even from your beloved urban-elite lefties who love everyone and everything and put "coexist" bumper stickers on their shelter dogs.
Sometimes we eroticize what we fear—violence, cheating, Katherine Heigl—so it's quite possible that masturbating to Ann Coulter is your way of working out your fears, especially when your background and environment have been exclusively leftist. I wouldn't worry too much about becoming your alter-ego though. As long as your fetish stays in your erotic imagination and doesn't extend to the ballot box, you'll be fine. (Note: Don't forget to vote, people! Are you registered?)
But, seriously, it is creepy. Your options, if you want to be ethical about it, and it seems like you do, are either to keep your Republican fantasies strictly in the realm of fantasy, i.e. no more chat rooms, unless you find one called "Wal-Mart-loving, NRA-card-toting, conservative impersonators and the women who do them." Or, find a willing partner, who shares your desire for bi-partisan role-playing and is convincing enough to suspend your notions of disbelief. The root of your desire is power play, and that's something that can be totally replicated in a consensual way. Will it be strange to ask your next liberal partner to don a Sarah Palin bun and say "You betcha" during foreplay? Perhaps. But with a little practice and patience, you might find that version of the fantasy just as real and hot, like it's as easy as shooting wolves from a helicopter. Or however that expression goes.
Want to ask Anna an anonymous question about love, sex or dating? Email your quandary to email@example.com. Need to give your dating life a boost? Sign up for RedEye Dating. Pick dates, not people.
Want more? Discuss this column and others on RedEye's Facebook page.


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Wilhelmsen, Mariners party on at Fan Cave
NEW YORK -- The Bartender threw ice cubes between his legs into a blender and rubbed lemon wedges around rims of cups and poured Seattle Slings and sang a karaoke cover of Semisonic's "Closing Time."
It would seem like a perfect entrance song for Tom Wilhelmsen, but the Mariners play it instead after games at Safeco Field, a mellow drive-home-safely paean for departing fans. Instead, Jimi Hendrix's "Fire" is the official entrance song of one of the best stories in Major League Baseball. In that moment of truth, a song with cascading power is required.
NEW YORK -- The Bartender threw ice cubes between his legs into a blender and rubbed lemon wedges around rims of cups and poured Seattle Slings and sang a karaoke cover of Semisonic's "Closing Time."
It would seem like a perfect entrance song for Tom Wilhelmsen, but the Mariners play it instead after games at Safeco Field, a mellow drive-home-safely paean for departing fans. Instead, Jimi Hendrix's "Fire" is the official entrance song of one of the best stories in Major League Baseball. In that moment of truth, a song with cascading power is required.
"It was the first time I did sing 'Closing Time,'" the Mariners' closer said. "There was a bar that was down the street that used to play that for last call. We didn't do it at our bar, per se, but I think it fit the situation perfectly."
"The situation" here was a staged party inside the MLB Fan Cave, where fans came in off the street and (non-alcoholic) drinks were served up by Wilhelmsen, the bartender-turned-potential All-Star, and his fellow Mariners pitchers Charlie Furbush, Lucas Luetge and Brandon Maurer. They made an upcoming Fan Cave video, with a lot of karaoke, including Furbush belting out Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl" and Styx's "Come Sail Away."
"It's tough, because we lost a tough game last night," said Mariners president Chuck Armstrong, who also was at the Fan Cave as part of the ongoing MLB Owners Meetings and greeting his quartet of hurlers as they arrived. "But to get Tom Wilhelmsen down here, and Charlie Furbush and Brandon Maurer and Lucas Luetge, they're all great guys. We pride ourselves on having good citizens. They care about the game, they care about the fans. I think it says something about them that they'll get out after a tough loss and come out to the Fan Cave, and I hope they have a good time."
That last part was not a problem whatsoever. Wilhelmsen looked like he was enjoying himself more than any of the hundreds of players who have visited in the three years of this MLB playland. He even jumped at the chance to go down the orange home run slide. It is easy to understand why Wilhelmsen is so happy: Everything is a joy ride for him right now, as he lives in the moment, his career more than revived after the long hiatus in which Wilhelmsen tended bar at The Hut near Arizona State University.
Wilhelmsen has converted all 10 of his save opportunities, emerging so far as a prospective American League reserve selection for the Midsummer Classic on July 16 at Citi Field. When asked at the Fan Cave to cite his most memorable moment so far this season, Wilhelmsen immediately went back to the Mariners' 2-1 victory over the Angels on April 28, when he whiffed Josh Hamilton.
"Yeah, I was able to throw back-to-back changeups for strikes," he said. "I've never been able to do that before. And I followed that up with a high heater for strike three."
In that sequence, Wilhelmsen actually started Hamilton with a 77-mph change for ball one, then an 89-mph change for strike one, then a 90-mph four-seamer fouled off for 1-2, followed by a 97-mph four-seamer that he blew past a swinging Hamilton. He called his father John after that one, no one more impressed than his dad. It was the middle of an Albert Pujols-Hamilton-Mark Trumbo 1-2-3, one of three times he faced that meat of the Angels' order in that homestand.
"Which is something I've never been able to do before," Wilhelmsen said. "It was kind of a first for both the changeup and the fastball."
How did the changeup become such an effective addition?
"I think it's just trusting it," Wilhelmsen said. "Just believing, faking yourself to believe it is going to do what it's supposed to do. Then just go out and throw it.
"It's such a touch-feel pitch. If you don't have confidence in it, it's just not going to fall that way. I just trust the catcher, and it's like, 'All right, you've got to do it. You've got Josh Hamilton at bat in a one-run game. You have to do it.' Otherwise he's able to ... you know. I'm a fastball-curveball guy, more or less, so being able to show something else is a bonus and to throw it for a strike is just extra."
Here Wilhelmsen is now, in a series with the greatest closer of all-time, Mariano Rivera, who had saved the game a night earlier against the Mariners. What might it be like to be a teammate of Rivera's for the AL this summer? Jim Johnson of the Orioles, Joe Nathan of the Rangers, Addison Reed of the White Sox and Casey Janssen of the Blue Jays are among other closer candidates.
"It would be more than you could really ask for," Wilhelmsen allows, pondering the possibility of sharing an All-Star space with Rivera. "I don't know what it would be like. I truly don't. It would be amazing, of course. That's every boy's dream.
"Just going to continue working on strike one, and I'd be honored to play with him."
Beside the changeup, Wilhelmsen attributes his recent success "to the batters not hitting the ball out of the park. No, getting strike one is huge. Getting ahead of batters. That's what I'm trying to do."
Wilhelmsen's advice for prospective bartenders is to "smile." He couldn't stop doing that as Furbush taped his karaoke part in hopes of a viral video.
"We're like brothers here," Wilhelmsen said. "It just helps you relax when you have more folks that you're more comfortable with. I mean, it's not like you felt uncomfortable, but it's almost overwhelming how amazing this place really is. So I was glad to share it with them."
Armstrong noted the all-glass walls at the Fan Cave and joked that it would be a good hiding place when the Mariners lose -- "so our fans could see me, but they couldn't get to me." But seriously, he added, improvement is expected for a club with an 18-21 record entering Wednesday's game.
"We're getting better," Armstrong said. "The Mariners have had some injuries. A number of teams have. But we're getting better each week, and I think we could be very competitive here by the end of the year."
Mark Newman is enterprise editor of MLB.com. Read and join other baseball fans on his MLB.com community blog.


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2 governors express concerns to Pfizer
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — The governors of Maryland and Delaware are voicing concern about Pfizer Inc.'s efforts to acquire AstraZeneca PLC.
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and Delaware Gov. Jack Markell sent a letter on Thursday to Ian Read, the chief executive officer of Pfizer.
The two governors say they are concerned about the potential impact such a deal could have on jobs in Maryland and Delaware. AstraZeneca employs about 3,100 people in Maryland and about 2,600 in Delaware.
O'Malley and Markell also sent letters to several federal officials in the United States.
The governors note that Pfizer has made assurances to British Prime Minister David Cameron on job retention and potential relocation. The letter requests a response from Pfizer about the potential impact to residents in Maryland and Delaware.


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Available in hard or soft cover, black or red, all in the weekly format. In the horizontal version, the week is divided across two pages. Also included are an organizer insert and adhesive labels for personalizing the pages. The Weekly Notebook is part notebook, part diary, with the entire week on the left and a page for notes on the right. The hard cover version also includes a removable address book.
Rounded corners, a bookmark, an elastic closure and expandable inside pocket, all 18-month planners have the iconic features of a Moleskine notebook.


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Life on Fire: Ash Runners
Broken Tail: A Tiger's Last Journey
Christmas in Yellowstone
An Original DUCKumentary
Paul Giamatti narrates this look at the world of wood ducks raising a family. The babies arrive knowing what to do in the water and need no help skimming for food.
Rat Attack
Wednesday, on WGBH2
Cape Cod
The Cape Cod Shark: Good for Business and Science
Maybe you've seen the photo: a kayaker off Cape Cod … and a fin. Yet the recent shark sighting appears to be triggering more excitement than fear. We asked some experts to explain the phenomenon — including the shark himself.
Appreciating Shrimp as Evolutionary Miracle
Managing Boston's Stray Cats: Part 2—The Clinic
In some neighborhoods, the stray cat population is out of control. Often these animals are killed — part of a debate about how to best handle the problem. We go into a free clinic that's making a difference.
Managing Boston's Stray Cats: Part 1
Yowling stray cats aren't just a headache: if they're not neutered, males can get into fights and females have litters of kittens who struggle to survive. Some volunteers are trying to change their fates.
On the Great Concord Cat War of 2012
At daybreak they gathered (with some difficulty), the freedom-fighters, meowing "don't leash us in!" But their opponents were also fighting for freedom — to keep troublesome cats off their property.
Locavore Goes Fishin' with "Catch-M-All"
Deepen Your Knowledge of the Ocean: Boston Sea Rovers
Could You Hurt This Dog?
State lawmakers are weighing a bill that would make it illegal for pet owners to leave their dogs tied up outside for more than eight hours or overnight.
Biology & Chemistry
Run! It's Good For Your Health
Unintelligent Design
Using Social Cues For Survival
Ants & Chainsaws: The Fine Art of Scientific Observation
The Secret Lives of Whales
Get up close and personal with whales and dolphins in the latest episode of Ocean Giants.
Watch Nature tonight at 8pm on WGBH 2.
Bird Behavior
How to Solve the Coyote Problem?
After several high-profile dog deaths, lawmakers, communities and dog owners are grappling with how to prevent coyote attacks.
How To Save A Stranded Dolphin
This week, a number of the stranded Cape Cod dolphins were seen swimming off the coast of Maine. The head of the marine rescue team talked about how she got them back into the ocean safely.
The Intelligent Octopus
Sorry, Fluffy and Whiskers. A naturalist and author has found that octopuses are smarter by far.
Bears of the Last Frontier: Arctic Wanderers - Preview
Chris Morgan travels to the far north of Alaska to observe polar bears in early November. In spring, Morgan travels to the North Slope of the Brooks Range, where grizzlies await the roaming caribou. 5/22/11
Bears of the Last Frontier: City of Bears
Chris Morgan sets up camp at a remote spot in the heart of Alaskan wilderness, alongside the largest concentration of grizzlies in the world. The bears are taking advantage of the long days to feed, mate, and raise new cubs. Morgan tracks their progress as they feast on the riches of the season and re-establish the complex hierarchal social dynamics of bear society.
Bears of the Last Frontier: The Road North
Adventurer and bear biologist Chris Morgan will take us on a motorcycle odyssey deep into the wilds of Alaska. Over a punishing 2,000 mile journey, Chris will explore the amazing resiliency and adaptability of bears through five dramatic Alaskan ecosystems: coastal, urban, mountain, tundra and pack ice.
Migration Blues: When Birds Don't Fly South
This little bird has a tale of migration woe that's common to many animals around the world. But one leg of its broken journey seems to have been repaired.
Nova Decodes Man's Best Friend
How smart are dogs, and what makes them such ideal companions? Nova investigates what goes on inside the minds of dogs.
Magic in the Air
CINE Golden Eagle Award Winner: Hummingbirds spend most of their lives in fast forward.
Becoming Human, Part 3
The third hour of Nova's comprehensive, three-part special "Becoming Human" examines why, of the many species of humans that once shared the globe, only our species, Homo sapiens, remains.
Becoming Human, Part 2
Birth of Humanity: New discoveries reveal how early humans hunted and formed families.
Becoming Human, Part 1
The first hour of Nova's comprehensive, three-part special Becoming Human examines the factors that caused us to split from the other great apes.
Victory Garden's: What's Growing This Weekend
Deer in New England can pose many problems for your gardens and, unfortunately, there is no silver bullet. If there is one word that kind of summarizes what you must do when it comes to deer, it's consistency.
Foodie Blog
Carving a pig from head to tail at Formaggio Kitchen
Last Wednesday evening, Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge gave class attendees a rare opportunity to witness what most foodies only read about: the actual carving of a pig.
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Make printed T-shirt only,proffessional most!
FULL RANGE OF CUSTOMIZING: color, style, size, printing, embroidery and fabric . . . . . As long as you have the proper budget! Excellent workmanship and prompt delivery are guarantee!
1. FOB price: 1.8USD—10USD (FOB SHANGHAI OR NINGBO)
2. MOQ: 50pcs Capacity: 10,000pcs per day.
3. Ready colors: white, black, red, yellow, orange, pink, royal blue, light blue, green, apple green. Colors can be customized if you provide Pantone number.
4. Ready sizes: S-XXXL, size can be also be customized if size chart provided.
5. Delivery Time: Normally 3---15days, especially 15---25 days
6. Payment Terms: T/T, L/C, western union,paypal
7. Fabric composition: 100% cotton perfect (combed, semi-combed), T/C, CVC. 180--200--240--350GSM
8. Transit: Timely delivery and lowest freight
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have questions.
Contact Person:Eileen Liao
Tel: 86-571-28023582
ADD:NO.11 Hongtaisi Road, Hongken Farm,Xiao shan Economic and Technological District,Hangzhou,Zhejiang,China.
Hangzhou Pioneer Clothing CO,.LTD
girl's t-shirt


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After about 6 months of work, the new book I've coauthored with Grant Fritchey (Blog|Twitter), Phil Factor (Blog|Twitter) and Alex Kuznetsov (Blog|Twitter) is out. They're all smart folks I talk to online and this book is packed with good ideas backed by years of experience.
The book contains a good deal of information about things you need to think of when doing any kind of multi person database development. Although it's meant for SQL Server, the principles can be applied to any database platform out there. In the book you will find information on: writing readable code, documenting code, source control and change management, deploying code between environments, unit testing, reusing code, searching and refactoring your code base. I've written chapter 5 about Database testing and chapter 11 about SQL Refactoring.
In the database testing chapter (chapter 5) I cover why you should test your database, why it is a good idea to have a database access interface composed of stored procedures, views and user defined functions, what and how to test. I talk about how there are many testing methods like black and white box testing, unit and integration testing, error and stress testing and why and how you should do all those. Sometimes you have to convince management to go for testing in the development lifecycle so I give some pointers and tips how to do that. Testing databases is a bit different from testing object oriented code in a way that to have independent unit tests you need to rollback your code after each test. The chapter shows you ways to do this and also how to avoid it. At the end I show how to test various database objects and how to test access to them.
In the SQL Refactoring chapter (chapter 11) I cover why refactor and where to even begin refactoring. I also who you a way to achieve a set based mindset to solve SQL problems which is crucial to good SQL set based programming and a few commonly seen problems to refactor. These problems include: using functions on columns in the where clause, SELECT * problems, long stored procedure with many input parameters, one subquery per condition in the select statement, cursors are good for anything problem, using too large data types everywhere and using your data in code for business logic anti-pattern.
You can read more about it and download it here: The Red Gate Guide to SQL Server Team-based Development
Hope you like it and send me feedback if you wish too.
Print | posted on Tuesday, November 23, 2010 8:00 AM |
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