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Browse videos
Space Volcanoes - Shelf Life 360
Awe-inspiring extraterrestrial eruptions
Shelf Life 18: Under the Volcanoes
What makes one volcano more explosive than another?
Nabokov's Butterflies - Shelf Life 360
Georeferencing a famous author's specimens.
Shelf Life 16: Tales From the Cryptic Species
There's more to some century-old collections than meets the eye.
Shelf Life 15: The Guts and Glory of Object Conservation
Behind the scenes with Museum conservators.
Shamans of Siberia - Shelf Life 360
The journey of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition.
Shelf Life 14: Into the Island of Bats
The island of Cuba holds clues for bat researchers.
Shelf Life 13: Nothing But the Tooth
What does it take to describe an ancient genus?
Fossil Hunting In the Gobi 360
Join a 1920s fossil-hunting expedition to the Gobi Desert.
Three Ways To Watch 360 Video
A primer for those new to 360 video.
Pack Your Bag For Paleontology In the Gobi
Science starts when you pack your bags!
Shelf Life 12: Six Extinctions In Six Minutes
Six tales of extinctions from the collections.
Shelf Life 11: Green Grow the Salamanders
What are algae doing inside salamander cells?
Shelf Life 10: The Dinosaurs of Ghost Ranch
Discovering a dinosaur is just the first step.
Shelf Life 09: Kinsey's Wasps
Alfred Kinsey's first love was the tiny gall wasp.
Shelf Life 08: Voyage of the Giant Squid
The tale of one specimen's journey to the Museum.
Shelf Life 07: The Language Detectives
Two curators investigate ancient mysteries.
Shelf Life 06: The Tiniest Fossils
Tiny fossils hold big info on the Earth's past climate.
Shelf Life 05: How to Time Travel to a Star
Revisiting early space photography.
Shelf Life 04: Skull of the Olinguito
The story of a new species.
Shelf Life 03: Six Ways To Prepare a Coelacanth
A primer on specimen prep.
Shelf Life 02: Turtles and Taxonomy
Curator Darrel Frost talks collection structure.
Shelf Life 01: 33 Million Things
Your golden ticket into our world renowned collections.


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Image 1 of 1
Anti-DADT Rallies - March 18, 2010 - 20100318130350-9645.jpg
Images from the March 18, 2010, anti-DADT Rally from Freedom Plaza, Washington, D.C., with Kathy Griffin and Lt. Dan Choi. Without being scheduled to do so, the rally was led from Freedom Plaza to the White house by Army Lieutenant Dan Choi and Captain Jim Pietrangelo, who later were arrested for handcuffing themselves to the White House Fence.
- Copyright
- © 2010 Joe Tresh
- Image Size
- 4256x2832 / 1.4MB
- Keywords
- Contained in galleries

subset: commoncrawl


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Unionized grocery workers just voted to authorize a strike against four major grocery store chains in the Puget Sound area. Executives at the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 21, with 30,000 members, are dissatisfied with company proposals for paying wages and providing health benefits for part-time workers.
Due to the new national health policy, employers want to drop insurance for part-time employees and allow those workers to get coverage through the individual market or the Obamacare-mandated state exchanges.
Starting in 2015, Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act (ACA), will require employers with 50 or more full-time employees to pay for government-approved health insurance for those workers or pay a penalty.
The ACA law defines a full-time employee as anyone working 30 or more hours per week. Historically, some companies voluntarily provided health insurance to part-time workers, but Obamacare makes it too expensive for many of them to continue this benefit.
Ironically, union executives were strong supporters of the ACA and lobbied hard for its passage. Now the law they supported is hurting their own members.
Since World War II, employers have found it advantageous to offer health benefits to employees. A healthy workforce is important, plus the federal tax code allows companies to deduct the cost of employee health insurance from their corporate income tax. Instead of paying higher wages, which are taxable, employers have provided health benefits to workers with pre-tax dollars. Workers now expect health benefits and market realities virtually require employers to offer those benefits to attract and retain good employees.
Yet apart from the tax code, many economists question why workers should receive a particular life need - health insurance - from their employer. Food and shelter are required for a healthy workforce as well, but the government never used a tax break to incentivize companies to offer these other necessities of life.
Federal tax policy has driven the United States into an employer-sponsored health care system.
Now Obamacare has changed the tax code in a way that is encouraging employers to drop health coverage. The ACA's penalty, or tax, for not providing health insurance is $2,000 per employee per year. The average cost of a health insurance policy in Washington state is $4,500 for an individual and $14,000 for a family.
Obamacare's new taxes are causing a tremendous amount of uncertainty for employers. Companies, especially in low-profit margin businesses like food stores, are making financial decisions based on the ACA.
It is obvious to employers that paying a tax of $2,000 is much less than paying $4,500 or $14,000 per employee. Dropping health benefits may make the financial difference between staying competitive and going out of business.
The state health insurance exchanges, mandated in Obamacare, provide taxpayer subsidies for anyone earning less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level ($94,200 for a family of four) to help with buying health insurance. These subsidies, coupled with the low employer penalty, will gradually shift workers from employer-sponsored health insurance to government/taxpayer supported health benefits.
In response, a number of well-known national companies are changing their employee health benefit models. Sea World is dropping 18,000 full-time workers to part time. UPS is eliminating 15,000 spouses from employee health insurance plans. Walgreens is joining a trend toward giving workers a fixed amount of money and allowing them to purchase their own health insurance.
Union members have enjoyed excellent health benefits for the past 65 years. Now many employers are cutting worker hours to less than 30 per week, are limiting employment to 49 workers, or are dropping union contracts when they expire. Because of tradition, or a sense of moral obligation, or a solid profit margin, some companies will continue to offer health benefits to employees.
The shift away from employer-sponsored health insurance is not the fault of the companies. It is the direct result of Obamacare.
‑ Dr. Roger Stark is the health care policy analyst for the Washington Policy Center.
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Plum Sorbet
A refreshing and cool treat, this fruity sorbet serves up beautifully scooped into a stemmed glass with a raspberry and mint garnish.
32 oz. white grape juice
8 oz. dried plum puree
8 oz. unsweetened raspberries
3 oz. granulated sugar
1. Place grape juice, raspberries, and sugar in a blender. Pulse until the raspberries are in small pieces, but not pureed.
2. Add plum puree and pulse until evenly distributed.
3. Remove from blender and transfer to ice cream machine; freeze according to manufacturer's directions. Serve with fresh raspeberries and mint leaves.


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The Application Gallery features COMSOL Multiphysics® tutorial and demo app files pertinent to the electrical, structural, acoustics, fluid, heat, and chemical disciplines. You can use these examples as a starting point for your own simulation work by downloading the tutorial model or demo app file and its accompanying instructions.
Search for tutorials and apps relevant to your area of expertise via the Quick Search feature. To download the MPH-files, log in or create a COMSOL Access account that is associated with a valid COMSOL license. Note that many of the examples featured here can also be accessed via the Application Libraries that are built into the COMSOL Multiphysics® software and available from the File menu.
DC Glow Discharge
DC glow discharges in the low-pressure regime have long been used for gas lasers and fluorescent lamps. DC discharges are attractive to study because the solution is time independent. The 1D and 2D models show how to use the DC Discharge interface to set up an analysis of a positive column. The discharge is sustained by emission of secondary electrons at the cathode.
Atmospheric Pressure Corona Discharge in Air
This tutorial model presents a study of a coaxial DC corona discharge in dry air at atmospheric pressure. The dimensions and operation conditions are similar to ones found in electrostatic precipitators with wire-to-plate configurations. The inner wire electrode has a 100-mm radius and the gap between electrodes is 10 cm. The model solves the electron and ion continuity and momentum equations ...
Dielectric Barrier Discharge
This model simulates electrical breakdown in an atmospheric pressure gas. Modeling dielectric barrier discharges in more than one dimension is possible, but the results can be difficult to interpret because of the amount of competing physics in the problem. In this simple model the problem is reduced to 1D by assuming the dielectric gap is much smaller than the diameter of the plates. To ...
Atmospheric Pressure Corona Discharge
This model simulates a negative corona discharge occurring in between two co-axially fashioned conductors. The negative electric potential is applied to the inner conductor and the exterior conductor is grounded. The modeled discharge is simulated in argon at atmospheric pressure.
GEC ICP Reactor, Argon Chemistry
The GEC cell was introduced by NIST in order to provide a standardized platform for experimental and modeling studies of discharges in different laboratories. The plasma is sustained via inductive heating. The Reference Cell operates as an inductively-coupled plasma in this model. This model investigates the electrical characteristics of the GEC reference cell for argon chemistry.
3D ICP Reactor, Argon Chemistry
3D plasma modeling is possible to do in COMSOL. A square coil is placed on top of a dielectric window and is electrically excited at 13.56MHz. A plasma is formed in the chamber beneath the dielectric window, which contains Argon gas at low pressure (20 mtorr). The gas flows into the process chamber from two 2 inch ports and the gas is extracted through a single 4 inch port. The plasma is ...
Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) torch
This model investigates the electrical and thermal characteristics of an inductively coupled plasma torch at atmospheric pressure. The discharge is assumed to be in local thermodynamic equilibrium.
In-Plane Microwave Plasma
Wave heated discharges may be very simple, where a plane wave is guided into a reactor using a waveguide, or very complicated as in the case with ECR (electron cyclotron resonance) reactors. In this example, a wave is launched into reactor and an Argon plasma is created. The wave is partially absorbed and reflected by the plasma which sustains the plasma.
Capacitively Coupled Plasma
The NIST Gaseous Electronics Conference has provided a platform for studying Capacitively Coupled Plasma (CCP) reactors, which is what this application is based upon. The operating principle of a capacitively coupled plasma is different when compared to the inductive case. In a CCP reactor, the plasma is sustained by applying a sinusoidal electrostatic potential across a small gap filled with a ...
Drift Diffusion Tutorial
The Drift Diffusion interface solves a pair of reaction/advection/diffusion equations, one for the electron density and the other for the mean electron energy. This tutorial example computes the electron number density and mean electron energy in a drift tube. Electrons are released due to thermionic emission on the left boundary with an assumed mean electron energy. The electrons are then ...


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A 9-year-old girl died after being struck by a car in Middle River on Wednesday, Baltimore County police said.
At 5:07 p.m., county police and fire personnel responded to Graythorn and Kingston roads for a report of a pedestrian who had been struck, police said.
There they found Amaria Gould, of the 2100 block of Graythorn Road, who had been hit by a Dodge Charger, police said. She was flown to a local hospital by a Maryland State Police helicopter.
Gould had "entered the roadway from between two cars and crossed in front of the vehicle," police said.
The girl was later pronounced dead at Johns Hopkins Hospital, police said.
The driver of the Dodge remained at the scene of the collision, and has not been issued any citations, according to police.
The county police crash team is investigating the incident.


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Actually the tutorial for the photoshop version is here. By learning to do this Inkscape, you will not only learn to use Inkscape better, but will also realize that Inkscape is as good (or even better) than any commercial graphics software. I will try to make the outcome of this tutorial slightly different to avoid duplicity. (Don't worry, it still looks good!). The most important thing is that you should also try to experiment.
1) Right, boot up Inkscape.
2) Now rename the layer 1.
3) Now create a circle (F5) of radius 1710px. Align this circle to the centre of the page by going to Align and Distribute (Shift + Ctrl + A).
4) Now create an upside down acute triangle as shown, anywhere on your document. (Use Shift + 6) to use the Draw Bezier Curves and Lines tool.
My height and width for the triangle:
5) Now duplicate the triangle (Ctrl + D) and press V to flip it vertically. You should end up with this:
6) Now select both, and press Ctrl + k to combine them into one.
7) Now go to Edit -> clone -> Create Tiled Clones...
8) Use the following settings in the Create Tiled Clones Dialogue box:
(My graphic card was behaving funny...but its the same window)
Anyway, this is what you should have got:
9) Now delete the initial pair of triangles.
10) Pres (Ctrl + A) to select all the triangle pairs, press (Ctrl + k) to combine them into one.
11) Now select the unified piece and align it to the centre of the page. (Use the Object -> Align and distribute dialogue box).
12) Now you need to go Fill and select Radial Gradient.
13)Click on Edit... and use the following settings for the first and second gradients.
14) Ok. So, experiment with it, and see which colours go well. Now create a rectangle, that's the size of the page:
15) Now, go to its Fill and go to linear gradient.
16) Press (Ctrl + F1) to edit the direction of the gradient. Make the direction diagonal. Edit the colors of the individual nodes of the gradient. This is what I have for the top-right and the bottom-left node respectively:
17) Ok! Here comes the fun part. Create a new layer above the old one, and rename it hearts, and lock the old layer.
18) Using Bezier curves tool, create something like this:
19) Press F2 to edit nodes. Select the right most 2 nodes, and align the nodes vertically, in the Align and Distribute Panel (Shift + Ctrl + A).
20) Use the Make selected nodes smooth tool, to make the shape look like half a heart. You may need to add an additional node, like mine:
21) Press Ctrl + D to duplicate the half-heart and press H to flip the duplicate horizontally. While pressing ctrl move the duplicate to the right so that the heart looks whole.
22) Select both halves and press Ctrl ++ to combine them.
23) Now go to edit nodes, and delete unneccessary nodes. This happens when the overlapped halves are unified. a work-around for this is to use grid snap, but I haven't tried it so far.
24) Align the heart to the centre of the page.
25) Now go to Fill and stroke and select linear gradient.
26) Use the following gradient combinations. (I started the gradient from bottom up):
Here's what you should have ended up with:
27)Now got to Stroke Style and use the following settings:
28)Now duplicate the heart, and scale down the duplicate. Remove the border, and create a new gradient fill. Here's what I got:
29)Ok....so it looks pretty good now. But it's a lonely heart, no? Duplicate the larger heart, and scale it down big time. Make it something like this:
30)Create a new heart from scratch, shaped like this:
31) You probably have mastered the gradient tool by now, so add a couple of gradients to the hearts:
32)Make a whole trail of hearts, or go experiment!
33)Now we need to make a gradient trail. Do this by using Draw bezier curves tool (Shift + F6), and create a quad,and edit its gradient to make it like this:
34) Change its z-order (Page Down).
35) End up with something cool like this:
Starting to look pretty neat eh?
36)Ok...duplicate any of the new hearts you have made, and transform it to look like this:
My height and width for it are 74px W and 87px H
37)Create a rectangle with no fill or stroke like this, and use the align vertically button to align both objects vertically:
38)Now select both objects and group them together (Ctrl + G):
What we have just done is that we have moved the centre point away from the middle of the heart....so now its somewhat like a barycentre between the two objects. You will see why I have done this in a moment.
39) Go to Create Tiled Clones and make the columns 6 this time in the Symmetry tab.Go to the Shift tab. There the shift x value for the Per Row and Per Column should be both -100% Go to the rotation tab and in the Per Column input box type 60. Click create and voila!
Now if hadn't used the invisible rectangle, the hearts would have rotated around their own centres.
40) Ok...group the hearts and you may need to scale the group down, to end up with this:
41) Is it just me, or is someone else also finding the steps repetetive?
I'll assume that you can get this far, using the techniques I have showed you:
42)Ok, now you need to create a circle, align its centre to the new star shape you have just created, and change its circular gradient, so it looks like this:
You will need to add many starts and stops in the gradient tool. After doing so, use the gradient editing tool (Ctrl + F1) to move the nodes of the gradients about.
43) Ok..in the original photoshop tut. it imports series of brushes for the floral design. What I have done is that I have converted two photoshop brushes into a vector in inscape. I would have posted the svg files here, if I could, but unfortunately wordpress.com doesn't allow me to post such file types. So that means that you have to do the hard work yourself.
Import the following two files into inkscape (click on them to expand in your browser):
44) Now select one picture and go to -> Path -> Trace bitmap.
Select the brightness threshold, and set it to 0.14.
Click Update.
Delete the bitmap.
Scale down the vector, and maybe move it around a bit, and send it back behind the hearts.
Repeat it for the next bitmap.
Did you end up with this (Click on it to get a bigger view) ?:
Ok...add some pretty text, and send this as a card to your bf or gf complimented with swiss chocs and flowers and make their day!
Hope you have enjoyed reading my tutorial! Comments and suggestions are welcome. Oh yeah, I may have made many grammatical mistakes....please advise me on those....I only managed a 610 in my SAT verbal.
Donate $1.50 for the development of this website and receive the original Inkscape svg file from me as a recognition gift!
Funds collected will be used for the development (like getting a proper domain name first of all!) of this site. Don't forget to mention your name and email address so that I can email you the file.


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New Hampshire to get a voter 'bailout' from fedsBy SHAWNE K. WICKHAM
New Hampshire Sunday News
March 02. 2013 10:57PM
New Hampshire deserves a "bailout" from federal oversight under the Voting Rights Act, a three-judge panel in Washington D.C. has ruled.
"Finally, we're done with this," Secretary of State William Gardner said Saturday night.
The court approved the bailout on March 1, one day after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of that very section of the Voting Rights Act.
Section 5 of the VRA requires jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to get all changes to their election laws "pre-cleared" by the U.S. Department of Justice or a federal court in D.C.
New Hampshire found itself under that requirement in the 1960s, in part because the state had a literacy test on the books back then. Ten communities were singled out because of supposedly low voter registration and turnout.
Gardner said that never should have happened. An exhaustive investigation by a former assistant attorney general proved that six of the 10 communities did not even have a single minority resident back then.
And Census records showed that actual voter registration and turnout were much higher than the 50 percent threshold that triggered the Section 5 restrictions.
"Forty-eight years ago, eight New Hampshire towns and two unincorporated places were incorrectly and unfairly subjected to the federal Voting Rights Act for discrimination," Gardner said.
"In the process of righting the wrongs, the action the federal government took here in New Hampshire wronged the rights of those places where there was no proven discrimination."
In its March 1 ruling, the court noted that "a significant" percentage of the voting-age population in the covered towns participate in elections. And it pointed out residents here can register to vote on Election Day in all elections.
The court also said New Hampshire was "unusual" among the states subject to the VRA, since it likely would have been eligible for bailout under the original rules of the law.
"It likely would have been successfully able to demonstrate that the covered towns had no known history of intentional racial discrimination in voting at the time of coverage or since," the court ruled.
The court also rejected a last-minute effort to intervene in the case by the Center for Individual Rights in D.C., filed on behalf of Woodsville resident Peter Heilemann.
Heilemann, who is Republican town chairman for Haverhill, previously told the Sunday News he was "made aware" that provisions of the Voting Rights Act were "very old and probably no longer valid."
He said he agreed to let the Center for Individual Rights file the motion to intervene in the bailout case in his name, even though he seemed unfamiliar with the exact nature of the court action.
But the court found that Heilemann had "failed to establish that the bailout from the Section 5 pre-clearance procedures would result in any injury to his interests." It ruled that he was not an "aggrieved" party and thus had no standing to intervene.


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Ukraine delayed selecting a national unity government as Russia warned of a possible default days after President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted.
Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov pushed back a parliamentary vote to Feb. 27 from today as he attempts to win agreement with protest leaders who orchestrated the revolt. He indicated yesterday that a new administration should be formed quickly to secure as much as $35 billion in financial aid.
"Ukraine's economy needs rescue and that adds pressure on the revolutionary political forces to create a truly national unity government," said Lilit Gevorgyan, senior economist at IHS Global Insight in London, said by e-mail. "The large bailout plan that Ukraine currently seeks won't be handed out by international donors to a weak and non-inclusive government."
With Yanukovych on the run after weeks of anti-government protests turned deadly, Ukraine's new leaders are grasping for a financial lifeline as Russia weighs the fate of a $15 billion bailout it granted in December. Russia's deputy finance minister said there's a high chance Ukraine will default. The U.S. and the European Union have pledged aid to the new administration.
While Ukrainian assets have benefited from the momentum for financial aid, government bonds snapped three days of gains. The yield on dollar debt due 2023 was up 30 basis points at 9.554 percent at 5:32 p.m. in Kiev. The hryvnia plunged 6.4 percent to a record 9.8 per dollar, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
'Political Quotas'
The new government should be largely technocratic and should avoid "political quotas," said Oleksiy Haran, a member of the Maidan Council, which represents the protesters whose three-month campaign toppled Yanukovych.
"It wouldn't be right for the opposition to take upon itself all the responsibility," said Haran, who's also a professor of comparative politics at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
Ukraine risks default without "significantly favorable changes" in its political crisis, Standard & Poor's said Feb. 21 as it cut the nation's credit rating to CCC, leaving it eight levels short of investment grade.
Russia's Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak echoed those concerns. Russia won't be the party to declare default, though it's under no legal obligation to disburse the remaining $12 billion of the bailout, he told reporters in Moscow today.
Bank Chief
Lawmakers yesterday moved quickly to appoint Stepan Kubiv, the ex-chairman of Lviv-based VAT Kredobank, to head the central bank after voting out Ihor Sorkin. Kubiv plans to invite an International Monetary Fund mission, the Unian news service reported, without giving details. The central bank imposed capital controls this month to stem the hryvnia's slide.
"Talks are being held with all possible creditors," Kubiv said today on the website of his party, Batkivshchyna. "We're in talks with the IMF on changing the investment climate so investors come to Ukraine and believe in stability."
Europe will support Ukraine in a "complex and difficult" financial crisis, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.
While a new government needs to be in place before Ukraine can receive aid, an EU proposal should come by the start of next week, Elmar Brok, the head of the European Parliament's foreign- affairs committee, said today in Strasbourg, France.
Libor Roucek, a member of a European Parliament delegation to Ukraine, called forming a cabinet Turchynov's "biggest task." The country's leaders estimated that Ukraine needs $4 billion by the end of the month to cover payments for wages, pensions and Russian gas shipments, he said.
Copyright 2014 Bloomberg. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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A downloader for historical, end-of-day and intraday snapshot quotes.


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Check out Captain America's hep dissertation/Show Up! on Freddy Raygun and Little Kiss Records. Raygun releases his solo album, Love Songs from the Edge, tonight at Low Spirits (2823 Second Street NW). Listen to some of his tunes below. Low Spirits • Freddy Raygun album release • Bébé La La • Dead on Dom • Tony Comita • Thu Dec 20 • 9 pm • $5 • 21+ • lowspiritslive.com
V.21 No.51 | 12/20/2012
He's got a thing that's called Raygun love
Show Up!
A Little Kiss for Freddy
Captain America waxes poetic about Freddy Raygun's album release and Little Kiss Records.


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By Thomas Corhern - Cookeville Herald-Citizen
COOKEVILLE — It's not uncommon for a player in any
sport to be able to play two different positions.
That happens quite a bit.
No, the toughest thing for a player who plays two different positions is to play both of them well.
For the Tennessee Tech baseball team, the Golden Eagles has had a certifiable double threat for the past two seasons in sophomore first baseman/pitcher A.J. Kirby-Jones.
Through the 2009 season, it was well known that opposing pitchers were afraid to see him come up to the plate, but the batters didn't want to see him on the hill either.
That two-position dexterity is one of the biggest reasons Kirby-Jones has been named the University's 2009 Outstanding Male Athlete of the Year.
"It's a great honor," Kirby-Jones said. "It takes a lot of time and hard work. But it's just an honor because of all the great athletes that I was up against. They all deserved this award as well."
Kirby-Jones joins past baseball winners Mark Maberry in 1997 and Casey Benjamin in 2003.
The baseball standout beat out teammates Lee Henry and Chad Oberacker for the award as well as freshman Tim Benford (football), junior Frank Davis (basketball), senior Daniel Northern (basketball), sophomore Dean O'Brien (tennis), senior Greyson Painter (golf), sophomore Henry Sailes (football) and senior Maurice Smith (football).
"I seem to say the same thing about A.J. every time someone asks," said Golden Eagles baseball coach Matt Bragga, "but A.J. is just a class act as a person. He is just a great young man that has been a pleasure to have on this team. From that standpoint and from the baseball standpoint, A.J. is one of the most special players I have ever coached in 13 years of coaching. The committee couldn't have named anyone better for this award. The best way to put it is that he's a great baseball player, but an even better person."
And it's Kirby-Jones' blue-collar approach to the game that impresses Bragga the most.
"The great thing about A.J. is he just comes to the park and does what he does — and that's play great baseball," Bragga said. "He does it daily because he's able to keep a very level head. He's one of those young men that when things are going well, you can't tell. When things are going bad, you can't tell. He just keeps that same demeanor all the time.
"Now, don't get me wrong — that doesn't mean he's not one of the best competitors that I've ever coached. He wants to win. He wants to be the best that he can possibly be. He wants our team to win championships, but it's the mentality that you look for — that level-headedness that is special.
At the plate, Kirby-Jones proved to be one of the Golden Eagles' most natural hitters, leading the team in home runs (20) and runs batted in (60) with a .325 batting average.
"He's probably got the most power that I've ever coached," Bragga said.
From his post at first base, Kirby-Jones had 206 putouts, 12 assists and four errors for a .982 fielding percentage. And on the mound, Kirby-Jones recorded a 3-3 record with a 5.51 earned run average, striking out 52 batters in 49 innings of work while opponents hit .247 against him.
To be able to play from both of those positions, it requires a lot of skill on Kirby-Jones' part.
"Absolutely," Bragga said. "That is not easy. With A.J., you see the skill level of having the power bat then a power arm off the mound. Taking it a step further, you look at the competitive side of A.J. and that's what makes him special at both."
Kirby-Jones added, "It's tough to do both. My team gives me a job and I try to go out there and do the best for them. Honestly I couldn't be where I am today without them. They helped me this year get me to where I needed to be. They were on base for the RBIs. They gave me the opportunity to win this award."
As the season started, the Golden Eagles struggled a little bit opening conference play, hindered as injuries started to ravage the Tech lineup.
But the team was able to rally and work their way to the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament, then winning the postseason event in Paducah, Ky.
"We started a little shaky in the conference," Kirby-Jones said. "With all of the injuries and everything, I'd say we got down a little bit. But we had to overcome losing our top two pitchers. We had to overcome some adversity and it just shows the character of this team. It was just great to see us come together and do what we did."
At the OVC Tournament, the Golden Eagles proved they rightfully were one of the top teams in the league.
"We came together and played Tennessee Tech baseball," Kirby-Jones said. "Everybody knew what we needed to do and came through when they had to. We all played our role and got the big hits. It just showed how tough our team really was."
The trip to Clemson for the NCAA Regionals was awe-inspiring for the Knoxville-Webb product.
"That was amazing," Kirby-Jones said. "Five thousand fans at each game, it was just a great atmosphere. It showed that not only can we hang in the OVC, we can battle with the big dogs."
Even at the NCAA Regionals at Clemson, as Kirby-Jones was fighting off a shoulder injury of his own with bicep tendonitis, he continued to fight through it and battle at the plate. His numbers at the tournament may not have been indicative of his season, but his competitive nature helped to drive the Golden Eagles to their success in the regional tournament, including eliminating No. 14 Alabama.
"Those were probably the toughest losses I've ever had in my sports career," Kirby-Jones said of Tech's two losses to regional host Clemson. "It was tough knowing that I wasn't going to be able to go out on the mound and give them my best."
Bragga added, "He really tried to do everything he could for this team that weekend. That may have been the first time all season that I saw him hit his helmet with his hand as he was putting his helmet up. A.J. wanted to win those games as bad as anyone we've got. He wasn't able to do what he normally did for us, but it wasn't because the effort wasn't there. It was. A.J's A.J. He's a great guy, a great baseball player and a player I can't wait to see back on the field next year."
Having finished his sophomore season with the Golden Eagles, Kirby-Jones has set up the groundwork for two more great seasons ahead of him with TTU baseball.
"I've still got a lot of work to do," Kirby-Jones said. "We've still got more championships to try to win."
Bragga added, "That's exciting just knowing he's going to be back with us. Somebody asked me the other day, 'What year is he? Junior? Senior?' I said, 'No, he's a sophomore.' It's funny because I've coached against young men at Tennessee Tech, at Birmingham-Southern, even at my junior college at Bevill State, and it feels like he's been here for five years already and he's only a sophomore. I think he really is that kind of special player. I'm sure the other coaches are like, 'When is that guy going to get out of there?' because he really is that good."


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holy ****, this is awesome........
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/...3578&zoneid=13With a star-studded line-up that includes top ten heavyweights Mirko Cro Cop, Andrei Arlovski, and Fabricio Werdum, the UFC's April 21st show in the United Kingdom is an event that many fans in the United States would have gladly bought on pay-per-view. Instead, due to an unforeseen chain of events, U.S. audiences will be able to watch the event for free on Spike TV.
The news, which was previously listed on MMAWeekly's Rumors page for UFC 70, has been confirmed in media interviews by UFC president Dana White, who told the Boston Herald that the event "will" air on Spike TV and told CBS Sportsline that the event "will probably" air on Spike TV.
White previously said that UFC 70 was Zuffa's target date for the company's first show on HBO. Privately, negotiations have been ongoing between Zuffa and HBO, but a number of sticking points have kept the two sides from reaching an agreement in time for UFC 70 to air on HBO.
Zuffa could not air UFC 70 on HBO without having an HBO deal, and Zuffa also could not air UFC 70 on pay-per-view because all of the PPV advertising deadlines for an April 21st event have long since passed.
This sequence of events left Spike TV as the only logical option as the U.S. home for UFC 70. Spike TV was interested in broadcasting UFC 70 due to the strong ratings that it is sure to draw, and Zuffa was interested in airing the event on Spike TV not only because there wasn't much of a choice, but also because it will build some goodwill with fans.
The event is scheduled to air live on Spike TV from Manchester, England on Saturday, April 21st, with the U.S. start time of the broadcast tentatively set for 2:00 PM Eastern Time (although that is subject to change).
The top four fights on the card are Mirko Cro Cop vs. Gabriel Gonzaga (with the winner fighting Randy Couture this summer), Andrei Arlovski vs. Fabricio Werdum, Ryoto Machida vs. Forrest Griffin, and Michael Bisping vs. Elvis Sinosic. All of those fights look excellent on paper, with the exception of the Bisping bout, as Sinosic has an MMA record of 8-9-2.
If there is a fifth fight on the live Spike TV broadcast, it would likely be Cheick Kongo's fight with Assuerio Silva. The complete line-up as it currently stands is listed at the end of this article.
Zuffa could have booked a United States pay-per-view date for UFC 70 while privately hoping to have reached a deal in time for the event to potentially air on HBO, as was the case with UFC 69. The fact that Zuffa never did book a U.S. PPV date for UFC 70 demonstrates how confident the company was that an HBO deal would be reached by this point.
Now, without a PPV date booked for UFC 70 and without an HBO deal in place, UFC 70 is set to air on Spike TV.
As a result, HBO has lost out on an event that would have likely garnered more interest than many of the lopsided boxing offerings that have aired on HBO recently, and Zuffa has lost out on millions of dollars in PPV revenue. The winner in this unusual chain of events is clearly the fans, who will be able to watch a PPV-quality event for free on Spike TV.
As for why Zuffa wasn't able to reach a deal with HBO in time for UFC 70 to be the company's first event on HBO, there have been a number of snags in the negotiations between the two sides.
Zuffa president Dana White has said consistently over the past eleven months that the UFC would be on HBO "very soon." However, while HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg has publicly said things like, "We're still measuring it, looking at it, and getting comfortable with the UFC" (which he recently said in an interview with trade journal MultiChannel News), Greenburg is said to be strongly against the UFC deal behind the scenes.
Acclaimed boxing writer Thomas Hauser wrote in an article on the Seconds Out web site in January that Greenburg had "opposed the UFC deal as vigorously as possible" and was doing "everything in his power not to televise mixed martial arts." In the same article, former HBO Sports president Seth Abraham actually compared MMA to "naked boxing." Abraham said that MMA would tarnish HBO's boxing heritage, a view that is shared by many people who still work at HBO Sports.
In an unprecedented move, HBO Chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht actually veto'd HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg and insisted that HBO would air MMA programming at some point, leaving Greenburg only to negotiate the details of such a deal. According to Hauser, this move "represented a marked shift in HBO's corporate culture... in the past, an HBO chief executive officer would not have ordered sports programming over the objection of the sports department."
Left only to come to terms on the details, some of the key disagreements between Zuffa and HBO Sports have been whose production crew will film the event, whose announcers will commentate on the event, and how those announcers will go about commentating on the event.
Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer recently summarized the dispute as follows: "HBO wants full control of the product, and to use its crew and its announcers and cover it like a network broadcast team would cover a major sporting event. UFC doesn't want to give up its control of the product, wants its own crew to film it, and wants to use its own announcers, who are closer to pro wrestling announcers whose role is to build up the product as opposed to providing detached, objective commentary."
UFC 70 Line-Up
-Mirko Cro Cop (#2 Heavyweight in the World)* vs. Gabriel Gonzaga
-Andrei Arlovski (#7 Heavyweight in the World)* vs. Fabricio Werdum (#8 Heavyweight in the World)*
-Ryoto Machida vs. Forrest Griffin
-Michael Bisping vs. Elvis Sinosic
-Assuerio Silva vs. Cheick Kongo
-Dennis Siver vs. Jess Liaudin
-Alessio Sakara vs. Victor Valimaki
-Terry Etim vs. Matt Grice
-David Lee vs. TBA


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PS115, Reviewed November 1997
Editor's note
The following abstract describes a publication that is only available for purchase. A link to ordering information is on this page.
This publication features 21 full-colored photos of common diseases and disorders of sorghum to help you determine the cause of damage.
The reverse side provides information on each disease. The descriptions include where and when the sorghum is susceptible to damage and the type of damage caused.
Order publications online at http://extension.missouri.edu/explore/shop/ or call toll-free 800-292-0969.


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Channa Lentils
Red lentils cooked in spices and flash fried with garlic, jalapeños, ginger and onion. This is a good vegetarian option.
12 cups USA red lentils
6 1⁄2 qt. water
2 tbsp. turmeric
3⁄4 cup vegetable oil
12 cups chopped onion
1⁄2 cup minced garlic
10 small jalapeño peppers, seeded and minced
1⁄4 cup thinly shaved fresh ginger
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cardamom
1 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. ground black pepper
Salt, to taste
Cooked basmati rice
1. In a large pot or steamjacketed kettle, boil lentils in water about 5 min. Turn down heat to simmer. Stir in turmeric; continue to simmer about 15-20 min., until lentils soften and mixture thickens. If necessary, add more water to prevent sticking.
2. In sauté pan, cook onion, garlic, and jalapeños in oil over medium heat until they begin to brown and soften, about 5 min. Stir in ginger and cook 1 min. Stir onions into lentils.
3. Blend coriander, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and pepper; stir into lentil mixture. Cook and stir over low heat 3-5 min., adding salt and water, if necessary.


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* '''Email''': kesh [DOT] jboy [AT] gmail [DOT] com
* '''Email''': kesh [DOT] jboy [AT] gmail [DOT] com
* '''GPG key''':
* '''GPG key''': /
* '''Fedora Account''': Keshan
* '''Fedora Account''': Keshan
* '''Blog''':[http://techgossipz.blogspot.com]
* '''Blog''':[http://techgossipz.blogspot.com]
Revision as of 14:23, 9 June 2010
Keshan Sanjaya Sodimana
I am a FOSS enthusiast software developer from Sri lanka and currently a University Undergraduate from University of Colombo School of Computing. I am basically a full time Linux user usually Fedora and Ubuntu but i have used several other distributions as well. i have a passion to contribute to the open source world. Talking about my experiences and skills, I am a Sun certified Java Programmer and a Sun certified Mobile application developer also i am really good in Java EE, Ruby on Rails, Python, PHP, Flex and Android i am not that comfortable with C/C++ but i have followed a course for that languages at the University. my interesting areas are mobile technology and web technology and also recently i am doing a research on NLP.
- Email: kesh [DOT] jboy [AT] gmail [DOT] com
- GPG key: pub 2048R/025A7AC9 2010-06-09
Key fingerprint = 99E3 9E21 6BFF CDEA A64C 0A44 BC07 CF38 025A 7AC9
- Fedora Account: Keshan
- Blog:[1]
Activities within Fedora
still nothing to write but i have talked a lot about Linux/open source at my University and have done some workshops with Computer society i am the manager of Google technology user group which is based on lot of FOSS technologies not only open sourced Google technologies but also everything which is free.
i hope to contribute to fedora news team as a beat writer and also to the ambassador project.


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An ugly first inning that featured two Angels errors, one on a routine fly ball that dropped when Mike Trout and Collin Cowgill collided in right-center field, and two walks led to an unsightly 9-2 loss to the New York Yankees on Wednesday night.
The Angels fell to 16-17 and three games behind first-place Oakland in the American League West, and how you assess their season so far depends on your perspective.
The glass-half-empty view: The Angels are 2-8 in one-run games, six of their losses coming in the opponents' last at-bat, and they led at some point in 12 of 17 losses, the highest percentage of losses with blown leads in the majors.
Ernesto Frieri was so shaky in his first 10 games, yielding a 9.35 earned-run average and five home runs, that he lost his closer job April 25.
The bullpen has converted six of 10 save opportunities and allowed 23 of 52 inherited runners (44%) to score. If the relievers were more reliable, the Angels could easily be in first place.
The glass-half-full view: The Angels lost cleanup batter Josh Hamilton to a thumb injury April 8, leadoff batter Kole Calhoun to an ankle injury April 15, third baseman David Freese to a hand injury May 2, and they haven't been buried in the division.
Though No. 3 starter Hector Santiago fell to 0-6 with a 5.19 ERA with a rocky 21/3-inning start Wednesday night, the rotation has been a full run better this season (3.79 ERA) than it was through 33 games in 2013 (4.80).
The Angels may be treading water, but at least they're not drowning in a 91/2-game deficit like they were through 33 games last season, when they were 11-22 and had gaping holes in the rotation and bullpen.
"I think we're playing well under the circumstances," ace Jered Weaver said. "I think we can be better, though, for sure."
Catcher Chris Iannetta is more of an optimist.
"I know it's difficult from the fans' perspective when you're playing .500 ball, but we've had a decent start," he said. "We don't have to dig ourselves out of a big hole. We're right there."
A .500 record suggests mediocrity, but Iannetta thinks it's OK to spin your wheels for a while as long as you mix in an occasional burst of speed.
"I think the best teams are the ones that play .500 the whole season and then get hot," Iannetta said. "It doesn't necessarily have to be all at once. If you play .500 and win five games in a row, all of a sudden you're five games up.
"You play .500 for another month and win another five straight, you're 10 games over. By the end of season you could be 20 games over, but the majority of the time you're playing .500 ball. That's the sign of a good team to me."
Despite the injuries, the Angels ranked second in the major leagues in runs per game (5.2), third in runs (166) and fourth in home runs (40) before Wednesday.
Albert Pujols, Howie Kendrick, Trout and Erick Aybar have led the offensive, reserve Ian Stewart had some big hits in April, and C.J. Cron has eight hits and three runs batted in in his first five big league games.
"We're going out there and scrapping," Weaver said. "When we get those guys back who are on the shelf right now, it's going to make it that much better."
Calhoun and Hamilton traveled to Arizona on Wednesday night to resume their rehabilitations. Calhoun hopes to return by late next week. Hamilton, who will begin hitting off a tee Friday, could be back by May 26. Freese should return May 18.
And key late-inning reliever Dane De La Rosa may need only one more rehabilitation inning at triple A before he returns from shoulder and forearm injuries.
"Whether we have those guys in the lineup or not, we need to hold leads better," Manager Mike Scioscia said. "That needs to improve, and we feel it will."


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Provides full text for more than 3,460 scholarly publications covering academic areas of study including social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, and ethnic studies.
Complete biographical and bibliographical information and references on more than 120,000 U.S. and international authors. Each entry contains the nationality, birth/death date, a brief biography, career summary, list of writings, and a bibliography of additional writings on the author. Published criticism on the works of novelists, poets, playwrights, short story writers, and other creative writers now living or who died after December 31, 1959 is also available.
Mango es un sistema de aprendizaje de idiomas por internet que puede ayudar a hispanohablantes aprender idiomas como inglés.
Need to brush up on your French or Spanish or dozens of other languages? Mango Languages is the place to go to learn foreign language at your own pace and in a fun and engaging way. Current language lessons include: Spanish, French, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Greek, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, and English for Polish, Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish speakers. More languages coming soon!
Contains enhanced subject access for over 60,000 fiction and non-fiction titles aimed at the K-8 population. Full-text reviews from sources like School Library Journal and Booklist are available for many titles.
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WorldCat Discovery, formerly First Search, includes the collection found at the Library of Congress as well as books, videos, audio books, maps, musical scores, and CD-ROMs found in libraries throughout the world. Send Interlibrary Loan requests to library staff from this website.


text:
Desert Picnic Spot
This fine art photograph was hand selected by the PurePhoto curation team for placement in private collections and interiors by the world's leading art & design professionals.
"Kate Schermerhorn brings genuine life to the show...nothing seems wasted, and nothing's excessive." - The New Yorker
Emmy-winning filmmaker and photographer, Kate Schermerhorn's photos have been published worldwide, including in The Independent, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, O Magazine, Times of London, and Granta, and used by clients including Sony, GE, and Interscope Records. Kate is the author of America's Idea of a Good Time (Dewi Lewis), a photography book looking at the American pursuit of happiness. Her work has been exhibited at The Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Photographic Society, and Yossi Milo Gallery, among many others.
Kate's first feature documentary film, Seeking 1906, won her an Emmy for directing in 2007, as well as a nomination for best historical/cultural feature. The San Francisco Chronicle described the film as "sublime and fascinating". Kate's second hour long documentary, 'After Happily Ever After', about modern marriage, won the Council for the Contemporary Family Media award in 2012. Kate has directed over one hundred videos for clients ranging from UCSF to the Center for Justice and Accountability. In 2014 Kate's work won two Telly Awards and was nominated for a Maggie. Kate is an occasional blogger for The Huffington Post.
Kate was born in New York and raised in Malibu, California. She has lived and worked in Los Angeles, Florence, Hong Kong, rural Scotland, and after living for seven years in London, now lives outside of San Francisco.
Solo Exhibitions
2006 LaLa Land Fifty One Fine Art, Antwerp
2006 La La Land Art and Photographs Gallery, London
2003 Beach Fifty One Fine Art, Antwerp
2002 Made in America Houston Center of Photography
2001 America's Idea of a Good Time Bodo Niemann, Berlin
2001 America's Idea of a Good Time Tom Blau Gallery, London
2001 America's Idea of a Good Time Fifty One Fine Art, Antwerp
Joint Exhibitions
2005 Adieu Ariel Meyerowitz Gallery
2005 Looking at Los Angeles Arclight Gallery, Hollywood
2005 Vernacular Territory Ariel Meyerowitz Gallery, New York
2004 51 Celebrates 4 Years Fifty One Fine Art, Antwerp
2004 Pool Partyl Yossi Milo Gallery, New York
2003 -ing show Ariel Meyerowitz, New York
2002 Esto es Una Fiesta Fifty One Fine Art Photography
2002 Domestic Icebergs The Spitz Gallery, London
2002 Paysages Urbains Paysages Humains Brussels
2001 AoP Open AoP Gallery, London
2001 Et l'homme Crea La Femme Fifty One Fine Art Photography
2000 Royal Photographic Society, Bath
2000 Focus Gallery, London
1999 Photofusion, London
1999 Canon Photo Gallery/Victoria & Albert Museum, London
1995 APA Awards Show, San Francisco
1995 APA Los Angeles, Los Angeles
America's Idea of a Good Time Dewi Lewis Publishing 2001
Looking at Los Angeles DAP/Metropolis Books 2005
New York Marla Kennedy 2010
Looking at Los Angeles Marla Kennedy 2009
One Moment Please Canon 2009
Our Grandmothers Stewart, Tabori and Chang 2005
Awards - Film
2014 Telly Award – Bronze
2014 Telly Award - Bronze
2014 Maggie Award Finalist
2012 Council for the Contemporary Family Media Award 2011 48 Hour Film Festival, SF Audience Choice Finalist
2010 LG Text Ed, Media Finalist
2009 San Francisco Film Society, Residency Recipient
2008 Pacific Pioneer Fund, Grant Recipient 2007 Emmy, Director
2007 Emmy nomination, Historical & Cultural Feature
Filmography - Director
2016 Do I Need This - in production (feature)
2012 After Happily Ever After (feature)
2012 Mum
2011 Chummers
2010 In a Bottle
2006 Seeking 1906 (feature)


text:
"It's times like this we just feel like our defense has to carry us," said the Aggies' Joseph Jones. "Sometimes you're not going to make shots. They're not falling, but your defense has to step up and take control of the game for you."
Jones led the team with 18 points, but was only 5-of-13 on field goals.
The Sooners shot 41 percent for the game, but didn't make a basket in the last 3:23.
The Aggies (18-4, 4-3 Big 12) led by one when Donald Sloan got a steal and cut through the lane for a layup that made it 54-51 with just less than 2 minutes remaining. Two free throws by Sloan about a minute earlier had given the Aggies the lead.
It was the third straight win for Texas A&M and breaks a three game winning streak for Oklahoma (15-6, 3-3).
Longar Longar made the first of two free throws after Sloan's layup to cut the lead to 54-52, but his second one fell short.
A scary moment came with less than a minute to go when Jones and Blake Griffin collided mid air trying to catch an inbound pass. Both crashed to the court, but got up quickly and appeared to be unhurt.
"It wasn't nothing," Jones said of the collision. "I used to get hit (like that) playing tight end in football. I just should have caught the ball."
Jones made the first of his free throws from that foul to stretch A&M's lead to 55-52 with 56 seconds left. He got the rebound on his missed shot and Bryan Davis finished with a 3-point play that brought the crowd to its feet and made it 58-52, putting the game out of reach.
Longar fouled out on the play.
Griffin said his team was foiled by not getting loose balls and offensive rebounds late in the game.
"Those possessions are just about wanting it more and down the stretch," he said. "You could tell that they wanted it more and that's why they kept getting second-chance points."
Texas A&M didn't make a basket for more than six minutes in the second half. Good free throw shooting and the fact that Oklahoma made just three shots during that span allowed the Aggies to keep it close. The scoring drought ended with a 3-pointer by Dominique Kirk that made it 50-49 with 3:36 left.
"Our identity is being a very good, tough, defensive-minded team," said associate head coach Scott Spinelli, who spoke with the media because coach Mark Turgeon went home ill after the game. "After those first few games we were a little bit suspect with teams shooting a pretty high percentage. Our play today was indicative of our focus on the defensive end."
David Godbold led the Sooners with a career-high 22 points, including six 3-pointers.
The Aggies led by four points before Godbold keyed a 9-2 run that put Oklahoma ahead 42-39 midway through the second half. Texas A&M quickly tied it back up with a layup by Josh Carter and a free throw by DeAndre Jordan.
The Sooners regained the lead in grand fashion when Griffin sailed through the lane and finished with the one-handed dunk that left the Aggies' defense momentarily stunned and made it 44-42.
The Sooners were in foul trouble for most of this one with Longar getting his fourth early in the second half and Taylor Griffin fouling out with about 81/2 minutes left.
"We had chances, but we were in serious foul trouble," Oklahoma coach Jeff Capel said. "I guess we have to do a better job of playing without fouling. "
The Aggies went on a 10-2 run, capped by a 3-point play by Davis, to overcome a six-point halftime deficit and take a 33-31 lead with about 16:30 left. Longar got his fourth foul on that play, sending the 6-foot-11 senior to the bench.
He wouldn't return until the final three minutes.
The Sooners tied it before Texas A&M scored four quick points to take a 37-33 lead with about 15 minutes to play.
The Aggies scored the first four points of the game and led until a jump shot by Godbold made it 12-11 with about eight minutes left in the first half. A free throw by Kirk tied it at 17 about three minutes later, but Oklahoma outscored the Aggies 12-6 in the last five minutes of the half to take a 29-23 lead.
Davis finished with 13 points and eight rebounds and Sloan had 10 points.
Coaches and staff from both teams wore tennis shoes instead of dress shoes as a show of support for the fight against cancer as part of the American Cancer Society's Coaches vs. Cancer national awareness weekend.
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If you'll recall, a few years back there was an outbreak of H1N1 – a strain of the influenza virus – that made its way through the United States, with about 61 million cases reported.
If you'll recall, a few years back there was an outbreak of H1N1 – a strain of the influenza virus – that made its way through the United States, with about 61 million cases reported.
At that time, I was working full-time, overnight, at a psychiatric hospital in Fargo, ND. From 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. almost every day I was nowhere to be found, hiding behind the locked doors of the facility.
When I got home after a long night of work, I usually ate some supper, watched ESPN and went to bed. I'd wake up again at 9 p.m. and get ready for the overnight shift. That was my life and it was boring.
Anyone who has worked nights will tell you it is difficult to maintain relationships with day-walkers. While they are off acting normal, you are sleeping, and when the normal go to sleep you are working. It is a vicious cycle.
After weeks of my girlfriend begging me to call in sick – although I was perfectly healthy – I finally agreed. I did my best to sound sick when I placed my call, and since the flu was making its way through the hospital, it wasn't hard to believe I'd picked something up.
Alas, I was free!
I stayed up during the day – something I did pretty regularly at that time in order to assure I'd be able to sleep on my nights off – Jenny and I hit a movie at 7 p.m., then I went home to go to bed. I had been awake at that time for more than 24 hours.
At about 2 a.m. karma came knocking at my door. I woke up with chills, and felt hungover or like I had too much to drink. I sat up in my bed for a few minutes and watched the room circle around me. Suddenly, I had this feeling in my stomach – one I was unfamiliar with. I stood up, felt woozy and stumbled toward the bathroom.
I'll spare you the details of the next nine hours or so, but I will share they were unpleasant and filled with vomit.
The next day I called in sick once more, this time not having to fake anything. I also promised myself I wouldn't go a year without getting the flu shot again.
That was a promise I haven't kept – I've yet to get a flu shot. Having experienced a sickness where midway through I was ready for death, I am surprised by my stubbornness. A flu shot that is almost entirely effective and will help you avoid the flu is the best way to stay healthy while everyone is cooped up during the winter months and flu bugs go viral. Short of avoiding people during the winter months, it is your best protection against the flu.
So do as I say, not as I do, and get a flu shot. I promise you it will be worth it, as you stay healthy while those around you fall ill.


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Manchester school officials back proposed evaluation systemBy TED SIEFER
New Hampshire Union Leader
August 30. 2014 7:36PM
MANCHESTER - City school officials are defending a proposed teacher evaluation system that would give "ineffective" educators up to three years to improve before facing termination and make "student growth" count for no more than 8 percent of an individual teacher's score.
The revised evaluation system was endorsed by the school board's Curriculum and Instruction Committee on Tuesday, and is expected to go before the full board at its next meeting.
The system was developed in consultation with several "stakeholders," according to Superintendent Debra Livingston. "The MEA has been at the table," she said, referring to the teachers union. "The principals organization, administrators, instructional specialists."
Livingston said the revised teacher evaluation system was meant to respond to feedback on the one implemented two years ago.
"We wanted to see what's working and what's not," she said. "We're trying to help teachers improve. We also recognize when you hire a teacher, it's an investment . we're hiring someone who's going to continually improve over time."
State and federal education officials in recent years have pushed for more rigorous teacher evaluation systems and to link them to student performance. Teacher unions have criticized the linkage to test scores as unfair, especially for teachers who work with marginal students.
Last fall, the state Department of Education's Task Force on Effective Teaching issued its second report outlining recommendations for districts to develop teacher evaluation programs.
The report noted that New Hampshire has a strong tradition of school board control. "The Task Force wrestled with respecting this strong local control orientation while providing a clear vision and practical approach for implementing educator evaluation systems," the report noted.
But Manchester has less leeway than other districts in how it regards the so-called State Model proposed by the task force, because approximately a third of its schools are recipients of federal "school improvement grants" or Title I funding.
The report notes that the waiver the state has received from the No Child Left Behind Act "requires that all NH Title I schools implement an educator evaluation system aligned with the State Model System."
After school board approval, Manchester's teacher evaluation system would be reviewed by the state Board of Education, Livingston said.
The task force "strongly recommends" that districts use statewide assessment tests in measuring student growth, including the new Smarter Balanced test set to be implemented in the spring.
The report states that "Student Learning Objectives" (SLO) - learning goals established by teachers and administrators - can be used for "subjects and grades where state achievement data are not available."
The student growth component of Manchester's new teacher evaluation system relies exclusively on SLOs. According to the proposed system, student growth would count for 20 percent of evaluations, with performance in meeting SLO targets determined for a team of teachers and schoolwide in the in the first year the program is implemented.
In the next year, individual teachers would also be assessed for SLO performance, which would count for 40 percent of the student growth score, while team and school performance would count for another 40 percent and 20 percent, respectively.
A teacher would be judged "ineffective" in the student growth category if fewer than 40 percent of students meet the SLO target.
The other categories in the evaluation - planning and preparation, classroom environment, instruction and professional responsibility - would be assessed on the basis of yearly "mini-observations."Teachers determined to be ineffective would be placed on an "improvement track" that would last two to three years.
If there isn't sufficient improvement, a recommendation would be made to not renew the teacher's contract. The current evaluation system gives such teachers six to 10 months to improve.
Ward 8 school board member Erika Connors, the chairman of the curriculum committee, noted that the new system increases the number of observations a teacher would have.
"It lengthens the process (before termination), but gives teachers more feedback, as opposed to letting them sit in that position, and works on an improvement plan with them," she said.
As for using student performance on assessment tests in evaluating teachers, Connors noted that the district is still seeking a waiver from using the Smarter Balanced test in the spring. "I don't think it's fair to judge based on an assessment test when we don't know if we have one," she said.
The new evaluation system was released the same week that a tentative agreement was reached with the teachers union on a new multi-year contract. It's not known if the evaluation system was part of the negotiations. The agreement must still go before the general membership of the union.