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Boys Intramural SoccerUpdated Friday July 8, 2016 by WRA Editor.
The WRA Intramural Soccer Program provides a fun introduction to the game, giving kids the chance to learn fundamentals and rules of soccer. The IM Program is for boys and girls from ages 4 to 18, consisting of the following ten (10) divisions:
• 1st Grade Boys
• 2nd-3rd Grade Boys
• 4th-5th Grade Boys
Positions Currently Vacant!
Earliest Date to Volunteer: The sooner the better! We absolutely depend on volunteers as coaches, commissioners, and many more positions!
Minimum Age Cut-off Date: must be 4 by Sept. 1, 2016 for Pre-K eligibility
Registration Open Here: ONGOING....(late registration will continue as long as we have room for players); note that divisions may fill and close without notice; potential number of openings is often dependent on number of coaching volunteers. Please volunteer early.
Practices Begin: mid-August
Opening Day/First Games: first Saturday after Labor Day - Sept 10, 2016
Game Dates: TBD
Picture Day: TBD
Last Game: November: we wrap up the season before Thanksgiving
Summer Camps in Our Area: If your player wants to develop her/his skills in preparation for the coming season, a summer camp is a great way to do it. Here are links to some in our area (if you know of others, please notify us).
For questions on the programs, contact Intramural Soccer Chair: David Frank, firstname.lastname@example.com


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November 30 – To Know Your Place
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)
Imagine my surprise over the last few years when one of the most basic things I absolutely knew was upended. I grew up knowing there were five senses: touch, sight, taste, scent, and hearing. That was it. The knowledge was firm and solid. Then, I began reading about and hearing about other senses.
Our bodies react to things like temperature, time, and pain. But, one that many point to as a sixth sense is our equilibrium and balance. This system in our inner ear allows us to sense our body's movement, the direction we go and the rate of speed at which we are moving. The kinesthetic sense that tells us where our body is, so we can touch our own nose with the tip of a finger, even if our eyes are closed, is also part of this. These two things help us know our place in the universe.
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet … (Psalm 8:3-6).
We can sense our place, but sometimes we forget who we are. We are more than flesh and blood. We are more than our five (or however many) senses. We are more than the things we do and experience. We are unique as a creation of God. And it is Him who resides within us that gives us our identity.
"But it is the spirit in a man, the breath of the Almighty, that gives him understanding." (Job 32:8)
"As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead." (James 2:26)
We are made up of particles from the universe around us, as common as dirt, but to the Lord of all Creation, to the ruler of the universe, we are everything!
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)
"For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect." (1 Peter 1:18-19).
"…and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood." (Revelation 1:5)
When you stand up today and retain your balance, when you shut your eyes and touch your nose with the tip of your finger, when you see a sunset or hear a beautiful song, when you taste holiday goodies or smell cookies baking; you have been given an extraordinary gift. You have been given life by the Creator.
"And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:14)
Your place … your time in the world is now. You have been created and are loved by God Almighty.

subset: commoncrawl


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My abstract Wallpaper.

Obs: Psd file is to large, if you need it, fill free to contact me. ;-)
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I had a dream last night. I don't remember much of it, but the parts I do remember were pretty terrifying. I had a dream I was pregnant. Now I have to start by telling you that I'm not a huge fan of kids. I have two little boys that I love with all my heart and soul. I would not change that for the world. I have friends that have kids, and I love them all. The children that are a regular part of my life, are great. But I don't like kids. They're loud, obnoxious, needy, and demanding. They cry, they drool, they make messes that you have to clean up… I just don't have the patience for it. Are there support groups for people like me??? Hello, my name is Rose, and I'm a baby hater…
So, with that being said, you can understand why this particular dream would be so terrifying for me. I woke up in a daze scared, alone, and confused. Now, the weird part about this dream was that I was only pregnant for about 15 minutes, and then I gave birth, and the bouncing baby girl just disappeared. I didn't even have time to think of a name for her. She was gone that quick. I remember feeling relieved. I wasn't concerned about where she went or what happened to her. I was just relieved she was gone. My relief was short-lived though, because before I knew it I was being chased through the hospital. By what, I'm not really sure. Some menacing unseen force was after me. This happens frequently in my dreams. That impending sense of doom. Always running from something unknown. I never know what I'm running for, I just know that if I don't run, whatever it is will take my life. I don't think that's normal… I bet a shrink would have a field day with me.
When I woke up today I decided to "analyze" my dream. According to the professionals, being pregnant in a dream is basically your creative side crying for attention. I'm not sure how they came to that conclusion, but ok, we'll go with it. Who am I to question them? I will admit, I have been seriously neglecting my creativity lately. Life gets in the way of so many things and stress really prohibits my inspiration. Between recent family health issues, moving, and unexpected house guests, life has been a little down side up lately and I'm not really sure when it is going to return to any sense of normalcy. But if my creative side is demanding attention, then I guess I should try my best to show it the attention it deserves. If you don't feed the monster every once in a while it will wither away and die, and I certainly don't want that to happen. So I'm challenging myself to write a story. But I'm not going to do it alone. It's going to be a joint venture with a very dear friend. I think it will be challenging, but very fun. My friend is a very talented and creative writer. I'm hoping that with his help, I can pull out of my "creative slump". For as long as I have known him, he has always encouraged me and tried to push me to continue doing what I always loved. He's always been my biggest fan and I want to show him that I still have it in me to do amazing things, so no more excuses.
And to my dear friend, I want to thank you for all that you do to encourage and try to inspire me. I want to thank you for your years of friendship. For just being you.
One response
Giving birth in 15 minutes? You must've watched a David Lynch film before bed. I told you about that, silly.
Seriously, I think it's important to document your dreams like this. For one, they're not normal, so maybe your inner conscious is telling you to get those fingers moving on that keyboard. Maybe it's also telling you that right now is more important than yesterday was or tomorrow will be. If there is an idea don't let it die away in your head, because eventually, with all the shit in your day and the stress, you will forget about that potentially game-changing idea. Write an outline as soon as the idea comes to mind. Never waste your talent.
Now then, I wish I could practice what I preach.
November 21, 2013 at 1:32 am


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My friend and neighbor Kae posted this quote on her facebook page recently and I thought it was SO perfect for this post.
I will not be ashamed or be afraid to share what's on my heart. That includes sharing about my faith and the decisions i've made that have led me to this point in my life. I haven't publicly declared my religious affiliation ever. Like, not even when I was a practicing Catholic, or when I considered myself non-denominational Christian. It's so crazy scary to become so vulnerable and share something so private, personal and sacred but as you know, I've always been open and honest about my life and well, faith is my life motivator and core of who I am. That is something I don't see changing. In this little space of the internet, I bear part of my story.
I've had this post sitting in my drafts for weeks now. I got distracted with being sick and other social activities that I haven't forced myself to quiet time and sit here in silence with my thoughts to pour out my heart and leave it for all to see/read.
About a month ago I was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was a beautiful, spiritual day for me and those who attended. Alot of different emotions ran through but they were all good. Such a memorable, blessed day!!
I won't go into too much detail of how I got there (maybe later), but I can tell you that I've seen many blessings many months before I officially became a member of the Church. Some of these blessings would have brought me to my knees if I could kneel!
Last summer, when I first told some family members, including my mom and dad, that I wanted to convert to this church, I was very nervous about their thoughts and reactions. They took it quite well. I was so relieved. The bottom line is that they love me and they support whatever makes me happy. Some teachings of the "mormon" church are the same as in the Catholic church, and I think that's what made it not so "weird" plus they knew that I was interested in the Church years ago. I felt incredibly blessed to have them back me up as I faced challenges with close friends opposing the LDS church and my decision (they are completely entitled to their opinions and beliefs as am i). I cannot even express how much I love my family and how them being there for me means to me.
There were times I felt so overwhelmed and stressed, that I cried and I cried to God that He would strengthen me through those times. I know that on this journey, there will always be people who oppose, but that doesn't and will not stop me from growing in the gospel and keeping the faith. All I want is for others to let me be and allow me the same freedoms they hold as they practice their faith (first amendment) or their choice to not even be Christian, you know what I mean. While I've had adversity there have been more moments of happiness and I know they were a gift from God. Such happiness that my heart seemed as though it would burst. I was overcome with gratefulness yet just appreciation for this beautiful life, that I get to experience such happy, simple moments.
Just like the old saying, treat others how you'd like to be treated. I guess it's hard for me to understand others disagreeing with me when I'm only accepting of their choices who make them who they are, which is wonderful. I believe we are all children of God and we are all in this together.
I am not here to preach or condemn, that is not my intention at all. Preaching and telling someone what they should do or what they should believe is totally not my style, AT ALL. I do, however, feel comfortable enough to share my beliefs and the things that bring me joy. If my story gives you hope or courage to take that leap of faith, in whatever aspect of your life, church related or not, then I am so glad! If you have questions for me(within reason) whether it's about my personal journey or about the church, email me or leave me a comment and I will happily answer them as best as I can.
I don't know everything. I am just like you, still learning forever, but the things I do know, I cling to and have hope in. That is faith to me. I know God loves me. He is real. Our Father in Heaven loves each and every one of us so deeply, I cannot even wrap my brain around it sometimes. I know I am so blessed to know that Jesus Christ died for my sins and that through Him, I am saved and redeemed. I think most of us are always seeking truth (maybe the first part of your life) and what that truth means to us. Like Dori says in Finding Nemo, "just keep swimming." In life, we just keep moving forward and that's the direction my life has been going and the way I'd like to keep it. I have my truth and my testimony grows as I grow.
This bird has been set free.
what is your truth? are you still searching?
what do you believe in?
could simply be kindness and love :)


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Tutorial for :Origami Gift Box (Perfect For Washi Tapes)
When folding the paper, it is ok to leave a small gap but do not go over the points/lines as the red arrows shown in this tutorial.
If you are new to origami, please practice on some printer paper or scraps first.
[Traditional] A square piece of paper (any size), Pencil, Ruler and Eraser (Skip Step 2)
[Scor-pal] 6″ x 6″ paper, Scor-pal (Start with Step 2)
Optional: Bone Folder, Embellishments, Stamps (as shown in Step 7)
1. [Traditional] Mark on the back of your paper diagonally as shown below:
[Traditional] Fold the four corners to the center as shown: (It is ok to have gaps)
[Traditional] Open up and fold to the cross point as the red arrow shown below. Open up and fold the next corner in.
[Traditional] Remove the pencil marks when you have finished all four corners.
2. [Scor-pal] 6″x6″ Patterned-side up: line up at 4-1/4" and sore at 2-1/8", 3-1/4", 5-1/4" and 6-5/8" as shown.
(I marked the 4-1/4" line at the bottom of the scor-pal for an easy line-up).
Turn the paper 90 degrees and score again at 2-1/8", 3-1/4", 5-1/4" and 6-5/8".
Finished fold lines shown as Patterned-side down:
3. Patterned-side down: [Traditional] Valley Fold as shown in orange lines. [Scor-pal] Score at 3" on all sides, stop at the corners of the middle box. Valley Fold.
4. Patterned-side facing you: Valley fold as shown on all sides
5. Fold as shown:
Continue to fold all the corners:
6. Step 5 finished look as shown.
Push the four little triangles as the arrows shown above to their left.
7. Fold the four flaps down as shown
[Traditional] You may have gaps on the flaps.
[Scor-pal] You will have a little overlapping on the flaps. Turn around and cut the little extra paper off.
If you want to stamp, do so before step 8.
8. Fold the flaps back down one by one counter-clockwise.
Tuck the final flap in.
9. Decorate.
Third entry for Lawnscaping Challenge #21: Thank You!
Also for Scor-pal Designer Chellenge
This is my first origami tutorial, please feel free to let me know if you have any question by leaving a comment to this post. I will try my best to answer.


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"what ifs" and "if only" How many times have you heard these words spoken by a friend or family member or uttered them from your own lips? The "what ifs" and "if only" can plague a person's psyche, focusing them on the rearview of regret rather than the possibilities of tomorrow.
Now, think about it. Its very simple but very real. Thanks Arnold.


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After day 11 of the 29 faces challenge hosted by Martha of Ayala Art, I took a long break because of a suddenly planned vacation with the kids. I was a little disappointed that I would not be able to complete the first art challenge I ever took up. Today, I took stock of the sketches that I had already managed to make and then took up a daunting task - of sketching the rest! And I ended up with some extra faces as well. You might call me crazy but I enjoyed it thoroughly and badly wanted to complete the challenge too! So here go faces 12 to 29 and some more!
This one is my favorite because it actually resembles a dog ;). This is another stepping stone in my quest to learn watercolors :)
I really enjoyed this journey of 29 faces. Most of mine were pencil sketches as that was the easiest and the least time taking technique for me. I loved this whole exercise where some were sketched from references others from my imagination. The study of different face cuts, eyes, noses, lips was very interesting. Its amazing to see how minor changes in these can change the entire expression of the face.
I wanted to try my hand at a good variety for the challenge. Though I would have loved to try more variety, I think I did pretty well - from a dog, cats and a bird to dancers, a Red Indian, a goddess, a Rajasthani lady in a window to female faces in different moods, Buddha, Swami Vivekananda and a genie as well!
Please visit all the other artists in the challenge and their wonderful work. Btw I just counted all the faces and they are 31! one for each day in May!
Thanks Martha for hosting the wonderful challenge. This was a great way to learn faces for people like me.


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A short film dedicated to the brand's lifetime that started back in 1986, presenting Fall/Winter collection 2016/2017.
The film reveals the importance of setting goals, pushing forward, living the moment, strengthening our past… because we are our past, present and future. We are our heritage!
Collection: Fall/Winter 2016-2017
Cinematography by Steve Ketner
Photography by Konstantinos Sfitis
Music: Ryan Taubert – Becoming Human
Client : ARISTOTELI BITSIANI
Date of production: 5/11/2016
Location: Greece (Cholomontas, Chalkidiki)


text: Karla & Johnathan were such a fun couple! They were up for any poses, laughing and doing cartwheels. We got a bunch of cute shots on the Atlantic City beach and had a great time taking the confetti pictures. Karla's sister was an awesome help in tossing the confetti, and the gold color was beautiful against the golden late afternoon light. What I really loved was taking shots on the third floor of the pier, overlooking the ocean while the sun set and wind swept.


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Sunday, March 6, 2011
C.David Kulman... A Gay Original! By Jerry Pritikin
Friday September 28-2012
I just received word that my good friend and first client Davis has past away. It's a shame some of his clients matches were not made into movies or books. Here is something I Posted over a year ago... it will give you an idea of the One-of-a-Kind Gay Original!
Back in 1974, C.David Kulman, aka David the Matchmater, went into business on Polk Street in San Francisco, as the first openly gay dating service in the country. Those were the days before computers and video cameras. From his apartment, decorated in early St. Vincent
DePaul furniture, he set up shop armed with a Polaroid camera and 5" x 7" cards on which he listed the information needed to match up his clients. He had a background in show biz, and was now a cross between Yenta, the matchmaker in Fiddler on the
Roof, and Dolly Levi from Hello Dolly. He spoke with a New York Jewish twangy accent and wore a distinguished graying Van Dyke beard. He began advertising in the San Francisco gay newspapers. His tag lines were MEET THAT SPECIAL MAN and DO I HAVE I GOT A MAN FOR
YOU. His service was for relationships only, not one night stands. His clients came from all walks of life, including married men who worked for Fortune 500 Companies, business owners, and even a few clergymen. He matched his clients, usually within the same age bracket, with similar interests. As time went by his membership fee's went from $150 up to $600 a year.
I was then a part time publicist, who specialized in gay clients and businesses, at a time it was not fashionable to be openly gay, even in San Francisco. I enjoyed promoting unusual clients. David the Matchmater's ads caught my attention, and I contacted him. I felt I could help promote his business in both gay and non-gay media. I had several stints as his PR guru, starting in 1977. He advertised on my TV Gay Sports Show ( really a radio show on Viacom cable channel 6). I also got him to advertise in various gay sport leagues' programs. Over the years I was able to introduce him in an article in the Advocate (national gay newspaper) and in a San Francisco Examiner feature story. David was the first openly gay business in San Francisco to advertise in the personal columns of both the Chronicle and the Examiner. He was the first gay business to advertise nationally in the Yellow Pages. I also placed him in several timely mentions in Herb Caen's gossip column in the Chronicle. In 1977 he donated 6 annual memberships to the Bay Area's PBS/KQED TV Auction, for a PBS fund raiser-- another gay first in the nation. In the Summer of 1980 I placed David on one of the first gay stories originating from San Francisco on the new CNN network. The same year I contacted Phil Donahue and he flew several of David's clients and myself to Chicago to be on his ToDAY SHOW segment. The response was so great that David began to get inquiries from all over the country prompting him to open offices in San Diego and West Hollywood.
Now 85, David resides in San Diego and has retired from the match-mating game. He writes about show business and does restaurants reviews for the Presidio Sentinel Newspaper. He keeps himself busy going to plays and movies and dining out several nights a week,and has a cat named Samantha. He was a one-of-a-kind gay original. I am sure many of the men he matched were lucky to have used his service and I'm certain many of them are still together today.
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Kill, Baby, Kill (Operazione paura) (Curse of the Living Dead) (Don't Walk in the Park) (1966)
Kill, Baby, Kill (Operazione paura) (Curse of the Living Dead) (Don't Walk in the Park) Photos
Movie Info
as Dr. Paul Eswai
as Ruth (the sorceress)
as Inspector Kruger
as Baroness Graps
as Kerl
as Nadienne
as Innkeeper
as Irena Hollander
as Martha
Critic Reviews for Kill, Baby, Kill (Operazione paura) (Curse of the Living Dead) (Don't Walk in the Park)
All Critics (14) | Top Critics (1) | Fresh (12) | Rotten (2) | DVD (1)
It's utterly convincing, a reminder that cinema had all the tools it needed before computers.
A perfect Gothic horror film, and a kind of sign-off from the "classic" phase of the genre.
a story of collective guilt & implacable vindictiveness, as the past keeps returning to prey vampirically on the present - but also a story that travels through darkness to the dawn, ushering in a new epoch, exorcised of all diabolical vestiges.
Restored version of Italian horror icon Mario Bava's eerie 1966 ghost story burnishes the elegant use of color often blurred on DVDs and older prints.
A chilling horror film made by the often unseen director Mario Bava.
Audience Reviews for Kill, Baby, Kill (Operazione paura) (Curse of the Living Dead) (Don't Walk in the Park)
As a typical Mario Bava film, it aged quite poorly and has a lot of plot holes; still, if what you are looking for is mood and atmosphere, this greatly influential ghost story has plenty of that to offer and looks awesome with its saturated colors, creepy sets and evocative compositions.
Super Reviewer
A good ghost story, nicely directed by Mario Bava. The actors aren't so great, but the characters are interesting, strange, and surprising. The movie is sort of confusing at first, but it's a mystery, and you figure it out by the end. It's a cool, slightly surrea,l Gothic ghost story, and if you like Bava's work, you should check it out.
Super Reviewer
In a small town in Transylvanian, police detective Kruger calls upon Doctor Paul Eswai to perform an autopsy on a woman who died a violent death, but the unusual thing is that a coin was embedded in her heart. When Dr Eswai arrives in town he discovers that the town is paralysed by fear of a dreaded curse of a spirit of a young girl who died 20 years earlier and the towns folk aren't all to happy about doctor interfering in their business. Breathtaking! Yes, breathtaking indeed. It's only my third viewing of a Mario Bava film and what a talented and versatile director he is. This film breathes Gothic atmosphere and chills, with air of mystery to keep you glued to this subtle nightmare. The remote nature of the film adds to the spooky sets with dark shadowy pathways, creepy graveyard, a misty town with its eerie ruins and a downright unnerving Villa Graps, where the locals fear to tread! The whole surroundings come across as rather forbiddingly stark and very alienating. With a colour scheme that jumps out at you and that only Bava can create. What compensates the visual flair is the horrifyingly tense, but mystical score and effectively jittery sound effects. Damn that hissing wind! Also profound camera work that's incredibly vivid and swirling panning all over the place helps convey such a brood mood. There always seemed to be lurking danger even if it wasn't evident on screen. With all that, we are put into a whirlwind of such unease, which bleeds with a high amount of tension and frights. The odd plot builds on the superstition and the dialogue was rather interesting. Performances were so-so, no one really stood out, but they fit the buck. Really, Bava was the real star here and it shows. Even the special effects were well used, but the make-up of child spirit was damn freaky. Especially those scenes with those hands going pitta padder at the window seal. Shivers ran down my spine! Although, saying that it does have some weak spots in the continuity of the plot and I thought ending was all a bit too convenient. Anyhow, this didn't damaged my experience of this menacing chiller that grows on atmosphere, not violence. The story might be your standard run of the mill, but it's Bava's direction that makes it visually impressive and immensely spooky. Also, what a great title!
Super Reviewer
Kill, Baby, Kill (Operazione paura) (Curse of the Living Dead) (Don't Walk in the Park) Quotes
There are no approved quotes yet for this movie.


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For those of you planning to run Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1 Update 1, Windows Server 2008 R2 or 2012 R2 on your shiny new Intel Kaby Lake, AMD Ryzen or Bristol Ridge processors, Microsoft's update to block updates on these systems has just gone live. Available as an optional update through Windows Update or through the Windows Update Catalog, KB4012218 and KB4012219 will block online update scans as soon as they're installed, even if applicable updates are available for your system. Hit the jump for more.
KB4012218 and KB4012219 are update rollups, including several other updates in a single package to be downloaded on systems that haven't updated since the last available rollup. Because they are optional updates, it is possible to block them in Windows Update by hiding them, or by disabling their installation in group policy or via WSUS configuration options on Server 2008 and 2012.
The catch from here on out is that if you install an update that doesn't explicitly state support for your processor, you run the risk of system failure if it does something that is unexpected or not supported. While Windows 7 and 8.1 no longer receive feature upgrades, they are both in the support window to receive critical security updates, which includes patches for zero-day exploits. This is why the update is optional for now – if a critical security update still works on your system, and if you're currently vulnerable, applying that update to stay protected should be possible.
This makes it easy for system administrators to continue applying updates to systems that run unsupported processors, but keep in mind that you need to be extremely careful with testing these updates before rolling them out to your supported network.
Microsoft has not announced any plans to make this update compulsory, but that might be their intention in the future to avoid people staying on these older operating systems for longer than they would like.
Source: Windows 7 SP1 KB 4012218 changelog, Windows 8.1 Update 1 KB2012219 changelog


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Rotozip X-Cores
Unlike other bits, which wear out fast, one single X-Core can cut up to 100 holes, even in grade five porcelain and there's absolutely no need for water to cool the cutting edges - so no need for a spray bottle, and less mess! You won't need a drilling guide either - the 30,000 rpm speed means they begin to cut immediately
The major benefits of the X-Cores are dry cutting and the sheer speed at which they cut perfect holes in the hardest and thickest porcelain floor tiles - in a matter of seconds
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Rubi Diamond Drill (foragres) - 20mm
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Paradox are an Alternative Rock/Grunge Outfit from Cork, Ireland.
Formed in 1996 by brothers Pete Mac and Mike Mac the early Paradox sound was heavily influenced by the Grunge Era of the 90's. The band shaped much of their music around many vocal harmonies layered on top of power chord riffs. After playing the local circuit, recording many demos and fine tuning their sound Paradox headed to the US and secured a record deal with an independent label based in Los Angeles, California. Pete and Mike flew out to LA for 2 weeks and recorded their debut album 'Circle of Growth' in December 2000. They both played all instruments on the album as well as producing the album themselves. Paradox continued to tour all over Ireland and the US with many different bass players jumping in for the bands live shows. The band remain a 3 piece to this day.
When they returned from the US the second time they parted ways with their label and decided that the only way to go is DIY. Paradox returned to the studio in January 2003 and recorded 6 new songs that were initially to be released as an EP. Among these tracks was the song 'Lame and Languid' which portrayed a completely new sound for Paradox. In January 2004 Paradox returned yet again to the same studio and recorded another 6 songs including tracks 'Downward Spiral' and 'Pretend Friend'. These 12 songs became 'Sacred' the album. 'Sacred' was a major progression from the bands debut album 'Circle of Growth', veering away from their previous Punk Rock/Grunge sound to a more Melodic Alternative Sound that the band has been thriving to achieve since their creation. Pete and Mike Mac yet again played all instruments on the album. 'Sacred' proved to be a DIY success receiving rave reviews online from fans to online fanzines and radio stations. In 2009 Pete Mac recorded and released his first solo album titled 'In Limbo' followed by a solo tour of Germany. Pete played all instruments as well as producing the album himself. Instead of going to a traditional recording studio Pete also recorded most of the songs using a 4-track. By 2010 Pete and Mike were back rehearsing for a new Paradox album. Entitled 'Corporate Pollution' the album was recorded July 2010 at a secluded studio in Co. Kerry, Ireland. Just like the last two albums Pete and Mike perform all instruments. 'Corporate Pollution' marks a further evolution in the Paradox sound. From the opening track 'Corporate Pollution' with it's churning guitar riffs and political sneers the track seems to somewhat set the tone for the rest of the album. One reviewer noted that the album had 'so many influences it's hard to list them all. the music is solid, timeless and to the point'.
Another review from Loud-Stuff.com added – 'Maybe the ultimate compliment you can pay to this album is that you could listen to it between Nirvana's In Utero and Alice in Chains Dirt and it's every bit as good'.
'Mr. Bureaucracy' was chosen to be the first single with it's fast pulsing riffs and melodic vocal refrains. The band also shot a music video for 'Mr. Bureaucracy' in 2012 which was nominated for best song at the Berlin Music Video Awards, Dublin International short film and music awards the Portobello Film Festival London in 2013.
In 2012 the 'Corporate Pollution' track 'Repress Excess' was used on the soundtrack for Canadian horror movie 'Truth' which screened at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Canada International Film Festival's Royal Reel Award.
Paradox have toured both Europe and the US as well as playing support to the likes of Therapy?, Kerbdog and Shonen Knife in 2013.
2014 saw Paradox back in the studio recording their 4th album to date at Wavefield Recording Studios in Bantry, West Cork with multi tasking musician and engineer Brian Casey on the desk.
Titled 'Chapters' the 14 track album combines a variety of new sounds some of which have not yet been heard on any previous Paradox album. 'Chapters' has been gaining momentum since it's release in January 2015 including national Irish radio airplay on the likes of 2FM and Today FM with the singles 'Nothing Lasts' and 'Free As A Bird'. The band kicked off 2016 with a brand new music video for the third single to be taken from the album titled 'EAT'.


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ROMULUS, Mich. (AP) — The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is holding a briefing at Detroit Metropolitan Airport to mark the start of a pilot program for pre-screening a select group of passengers.
TSA Deputy Assistant Administrator Victoria Newhouse is to attend the event Tuesday morning at the Romulus airport's McNamara Terminal.
Other scheduled participants are airport chief executive Turkia Mullin and the TSA's security chief at the airport, Robert Ball.
The program will allow faster screening of air travelers who volunteer more personal information about themselves ahead of time.
The TSA announced the program in August. It's the Obama administration's first attempt at a more risk-based, intelligence-driven passenger screening program.
Supporters say it could respond to travelers' complaints the government isn't using common sense when it screens everyone the same.


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5 [a]When Hiram king of Tyre heard that Solomon had been anointed king to succeed his father David, he sent his envoys to Solomon, because he had always been on friendly terms with David. 2 Solomon sent back this message to Hiram:
3 "You know that because of the wars waged against my father David from all sides, he could not build a temple for the Name of the Lord his God until the Lord put his enemies under his feet. 4 But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side, and there is no adversary or disaster. 5 I intend, therefore, to build a temple for the Name of the Lord my God, as the Lord told my father David, when he said, 'Your son whom I will put on the throne in your place will build the temple for my Name.'
6 "So give orders that cedars of Lebanon be cut for me. My men will work with yours, and I will pay you for your men whatever wages you set. You know that we have no one so skilled in felling timber as the Sidonians."
7 When Hiram heard Solomon's message, he was greatly pleased and said, "Praise be to the Lord today, for he has given David a wise son to rule over this great nation."
8 So Hiram sent word to Solomon:
"I have received the message you sent me and will do all you want in providing the cedar and juniper logs. 9 My men will haul them down from Lebanon to the Mediterranean Sea, and I will float them as rafts by sea to the place you specify. There I will separate them and you can take them away. And you are to grant my wish by providing food for my royal household."
10 In this way Hiram kept Solomon supplied with all the cedar and juniper logs he wanted, 11 and Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand cors[b] of wheat as food for his household, in addition to twenty thousand baths[c][d] of pressed olive oil. Solomon continued to do this for Hiram year after year. 12 The Lord gave Solomon wisdom, just as he had promised him. There were peaceful relations between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty.
13 King Solomon conscripted laborers from all Israel—thirty thousand men. 14 He sent them off to Lebanon in shifts of ten thousand a month, so that they spent one month in Lebanon and two months at home. Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor. 15 Solomon had seventy thousand carriers and eighty thousand stonecutters in the hills, 16 as well as thirty-three hundred[e] foremen who supervised the project and directed the workers. 17 At the king's command they removed from the quarry large blocks of high-grade stone to provide a foundation of dressed stone for the temple. 18 The craftsmen of Solomon and Hiram and workers from Byblos cut and prepared the timber and stone for the building of the temple.
6 In the four hundred and eightieth[f] year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple of the Lord.
2 The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high.[g] 3 The portico at the front of the main hall of the temple extended the width of the temple, that is twenty cubits,[h] and projected ten cubits[i] from the front of the temple. 4 He made narrow windows high up in the temple walls. 5 Against the walls of the main hall and inner sanctuary he built a structure around the building, in which there were side rooms. 6 The lowest floor was five cubits[j] wide, the middle floor six cubits[k] and the third floor seven.[l] He made offset ledges around the outside of the temple so that nothing would be inserted into the temple walls.
7 In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built.
8 The entrance to the lowest[m] floor was on the south side of the temple; a stairway led up to the middle level and from there to the third. 9 So he built the temple and completed it, roofing it with beams and cedar planks. 10 And he built the side rooms all along the temple. The height of each was five cubits, and they were attached to the temple by beams of cedar.
11 The word of the Lord came to Solomon: 12 "As for this temple you are building, if you follow my decrees, observe my laws and keep all my commands and obey them, I will fulfill through you the promise I gave to David your father. 13 And I will live among the Israelites and will not abandon my people Israel."
14 So Solomon built the temple and completed it. 15 He lined its interior walls with cedar boards, paneling them from the floor of the temple to the ceiling, and covered the floor of the temple with planks of juniper. 16 He partitioned off twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. 17 The main hall in front of this room was forty cubits[n] long. 18 The inside of the temple was cedar, carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; no stone was to be seen.
19 He prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the Lord there. 20 The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty wide and twenty high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold, and he also overlaid the altar of cedar. 21 Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold. 22 So he overlaid the whole interior with gold. He also overlaid with gold the altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.
23 For the inner sanctuary he made a pair of cherubim out of olive wood, each ten cubits high. 24 One wing of the first cherub was five cubits long, and the other wing five cubits—ten cubits from wing tip to wing tip. 25 The second cherub also measured ten cubits, for the two cherubim were identical in size and shape. 26 The height of each cherub was ten cubits. 27 He placed the cherubim inside the innermost room of the temple, with their wings spread out. The wing of one cherub touched one wall, while the wing of the other touched the other wall, and their wings touched each other in the middle of the room. 28 He overlaid the cherubim with gold.
29 On the walls all around the temple, in both the inner and outer rooms, he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers. 30 He also covered the floors of both the inner and outer rooms of the temple with gold.
31 For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he made doors out of olive wood that were one fifth of the width of the sanctuary. 32 And on the two olive-wood doors he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers, and overlaid the cherubim and palm trees with hammered gold. 33 In the same way, for the entrance to the main hall he made doorframes out of olive wood that were one fourth of the width of the hall. 34 He also made two doors out of juniper wood, each having two leaves that turned in sockets. 35 He carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers on them and overlaid them with gold hammered evenly over the carvings.
36 And he built the inner courtyard of three courses of dressed stone and one course of trimmed cedar beams.
37 The foundation of the temple of the Lord was laid in the fourth year, in the month of Ziv. 38 In the eleventh year in the month of Bul, the eighth month, the temple was finished in all its details according to its specifications. He had spent seven years building it.
2 [a]Solomon gave orders to build a temple for the Name of the Lord and a royal palace for himself. 2 He conscripted 70,000 men as carriers and 80,000 as stonecutters in the hills and 3,600 as foremen over them.
3 Solomon sent this message to Hiram[b] king of Tyre:
"Send me cedar logs as you did for my father David when you sent him cedar to build a palace to live in. 4 Now I am about to build a temple for the Name of the Lord my God and to dedicate it to him for burning fragrant incense before him, for setting out the consecrated bread regularly, and for making burnt offerings every morning and evening and on the Sabbaths, at the New Moons and at the appointed festivals of the Lord our God. This is a lasting ordinance for Israel.
5 "The temple I am going to build will be great, because our God is greater than all other gods. 6 But who is able to build a temple for him, since the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain him? Who then am I to build a temple for him, except as a place to burn sacrifices before him?
7 "Send me, therefore, a man skilled to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, and in purple, crimson and blue yarn, and experienced in the art of engraving, to work in Judah and Jerusalem with my skilled workers, whom my father David provided.
8 "Send me also cedar, juniper and algum[c] logs from Lebanon, for I know that your servants are skilled in cutting timber there. My servants will work with yours 9 to provide me with plenty of lumber, because the temple I build must be large and magnificent. 10 I will give your servants, the woodsmen who cut the timber, twenty thousand cors[d] of ground wheat, twenty thousand cors[e] of barley, twenty thousand baths[f] of wine and twenty thousand baths of olive oil."
11 Hiram king of Tyre replied by letter to Solomon:
"Because the Lord loves his people, he has made you their king."
12 And Hiram added:
"Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who made heaven and earth! He has given King David a wise son, endowed with intelligence and discernment, who will build a temple for the Lord and a palace for himself.
13 "I am sending you Huram-Abi, a man of great skill, 14 whose mother was from Dan and whose father was from Tyre. He is trained to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, stone and wood, and with purple and blue and crimson yarn and fine linen. He is experienced in all kinds of engraving and can execute any design given to him. He will work with your skilled workers and with those of my lord, David your father.
15 "Now let my lord send his servants the wheat and barley and the olive oil and wine he promised, 16 and we will cut all the logs from Lebanon that you need and will float them as rafts by sea down to Joppa. You can then take them up to Jerusalem."
17 Solomon took a census of all the foreigners residing in Israel, after the census his father David had taken; and they were found to be 153,600. 18 He assigned 70,000 of them to be carriers and 80,000 to be stonecutters in the hills, with 3,600 foremen over them to keep the people working.
3 Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David. It was on the threshing floor of Araunah[g] the Jebusite, the place provided by David. 2 He began building on the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign.
3 The foundation Solomon laid for building the temple of God was sixty cubits long and twenty cubits wide[h] (using the cubit of the old standard). 4 The portico at the front of the temple was twenty cubits[i] long across the width of the building and twenty[j] cubits high.
He overlaid the inside with pure gold. 5 He paneled the main hall with juniper and covered it with fine gold and decorated it with palm tree and chain designs. 6 He adorned the temple with precious stones. And the gold he used was gold of Parvaim. 7 He overlaid the ceiling beams, doorframes, walls and doors of the temple with gold, and he carved cherubim on the walls.
8 He built the Most Holy Place, its length corresponding to the width of the temple—twenty cubits long and twenty cubits wide. He overlaid the inside with six hundred talents[k] of fine gold. 9 The gold nails weighed fifty shekels.[l] He also overlaid the upper parts with gold.
10 For the Most Holy Place he made a pair of sculptured cherubim and overlaid them with gold. 11 The total wingspan of the cherubim was twenty cubits. One wing of the first cherub was five cubits[m] long and touched the temple wall, while its other wing, also five cubits long, touched the wing of the other cherub. 12 Similarly one wing of the second cherub was five cubits long and touched the other temple wall, and its other wing, also five cubits long, touched the wing of the first cherub. 13 The wings of these cherubim extended twenty cubits. They stood on their feet, facing the main hall.[n]
14 He made the curtain of blue, purple and crimson yarn and fine linen, with cherubim worked into it.
15 For the front of the temple he made two pillars, which together were thirty-five cubits[o] long, each with a capital five cubits high. 16 He made interwoven chains[p] and put them on top of the pillars. He also made a hundred pomegranates and attached them to the chains. 17 He erected the pillars in the front of the temple, one to the south and one to the north. The one to the south he named Jakin[q] and the one to the north Boaz.[r]
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.


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I confess that I don't read a lot of classics although the ones I have read do stay with me. Though I am totally on board with the idea of reading anywhere and everywhere. I love reading while taking a bath but have had a few victimized books (oh well). This is why I'm happy to host Jasper Jansen of Bibliobath to explain his brilliant idea for waterproof books! Spread the word or back up the Kickstarter Project .. and help make waterproof classics one step closer to reality!
Kickstarting the Classics: A waterproof strategy for enjoying the old masterpieces by Jasper Jansen of BibliobathBut I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
– From 'He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven', by W.B. Yeats
It is a wonderful poem. One of my favorites in fact. But that is not surprising because I hardly know any other ones. In fact, I discovered "Cloths of Heaven" because Sean Bean reads it before getting executed by Christian Bale in the movie 'Equilibrium'.
And it's not just poetry, there are many classics I should read, and would undoubtedly love, but I just don't get around to reading them. Why is this?
Attention DeficitMostly because I am a modern multi-tasker with an attention span of about 15 minutes – even less if a book does not grab me right away. And in those rare moments when I do find the peace of mind to enjoy to some Shakespeare or Yeats, I tend not to have a copy around.
And in a way that's fine, but sometimes I wish I read just some of it and learned to savor the language itself and not just the story.
But I've found a way to do just that: with waterproof books.
A Waterproof StrategyImagine you are taking a hot bath on a Sunday evening, relaxing after a long weekend. There is a small bundle of poems laying by your bath. You keep it there because it looks cute, and it's waterproof. You flip it open on "The Rose of the World", a short poem which seems to be about something sad. Or beauty. You're not sure: You discover more and more each time you read it. You put it aside again and close your eyes, thinking about the lines you just read.
And that's it. No need to read the whole bundle, remember the poem, or leave a bookmark for the next time. You just take your time to muse on the words in front of you.
Explore the ClassicsFor me it's poetry in the bath. For others, it may be enjoying a short story of Twain on the beach, going over lines of Shakespeare by the pool, or taking "The Art of War" with you on a rugged hike or sailing trip. That is why we are Kickstarting a project to produce 4 classics in handy format which are waterproof and tear-resistant. They look good in your bathroom and will withstand any outdoor conditions you expose them to.
Support us on Bibliobath.com! from Bibliobath on Vimeo.
We have 20+ days left to get the required funding to start this project. So if you wish to make this happen, or just want to get your hands on a Limited Edition of The Art of War, then head over now and get your first waterproof copy!
Contact Jasper Jansen of Bibliobath:
Kickstarter Page


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The connection between surroundings and perspective
I agree that surroundings influence a person's sense of comfort and well being on a really visceral level and it's not the same for everyone, in fact it isn't even always the same for ONE person!
Pretty much from the moment I left home for college I was forging ahead on my own, from scratch with nothing to define me except the boxes that I moved into my first apartment and my class list (in a strange town) life was thrust upon me. And it got more full, slowly at first... acquisition of furniture... pursuing a career... then it really got busy!... marriage... home ownership... 2 babies...
I needed my stuff, my stuff needed me - a cozy relationship.
Now at this present point in my life (approaching 40 with lightening speed) the opposite is true, clutter feels heavy like it will squash me and sucks out my freedom with every dust-catching surface, it's emotionally draining and "loud" all the time.
What changed? I have a theory that the more full and stable my life becomes, the less tangible affirmations (aka stuff) I need to define myself to feel confident in my own skin.
Perhaps that is part of what hoarding is about. I am amazed how many of the hoarders (on the TV show) started off as tidy people... only to suffer some tragedy that changes their needs. These people need to feel secure and search for the security with things, it's tragic how messed up (literally) the stuff made everything!
I was a packrat. One personal tragedy away from much worse habits... it's a reality that I'm okay with really. Through love, trust and self-realizations I have come out the other side with a greater respect for my things. Not so much of it means what it used to, and I honestly think that is a very very good thing!
Bravo minimalists for not needing the stuff to be happy. But please don't underestimate the genuine comfort a bit of clutter can provide for anyone that's feeling a bit lost.


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Also I always keep cooked chicken in my freezer. So I was going to make a big salad by adding tomatoes and avocado, but then I remembered that I have a nice curry powder, I bought from Farmer's market back in Vancouver (during our holiday).
I always wanted to make Curry dressing, so I decided to mix curry, vinegar and olive oil. It combined perfectly with quinoa and cauliflower. So let's get sharing, shall we?
1 small head cauliflower, stem removed and cut into small florets1 cup quinoa, rinsed well
2 cups water
1 cup cilantro, chopped
1 small red onion, chopped (or scallions, shallot)
1 cup cooked chicken breast, chopped
¼ cup olive oil
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp curry powder (adding more to taste)
Sea salt
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spread the cauliflower in a single layer.
Spray some olive oil and sprinkle some sea salt. Roast for about 20 minutes or until tender.
Meanwhile, after washing well the quinoa, add 2 cups of water and bring to a boil. Then reduce heat and let cook for 15 to 20 minutes or until all of the water is absorbed. Add onion, stir and remove from the heat. Place it in a medium bowl and set aside.
In a small bowl, whisk together olive oil, cider vinegar and curry powder.
Combine the cauliflower with the quinoa and add cilantro and chicken. Pour the dressing over and toss well. Add salt and seasoning, if necessary.


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You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Learning Korean' category.
I really have to make sure I finish up this blog quickly because I was looking back at my Laundry List of Blog Posts post and realized that, in addition to NOT finishing a post a day like I said I would, I'm starting to forget exactly what I wanted to write about in the first place. So, I'm going to be a good blogger and try and get them all written down this weekend. I'd hate to look back at this in a few years and see some line about how I wanted to write about something but couldn't remember it, because if I can't remember it now, I'm certainly not going to be remembering it in a few years.
Anyway, procrastinating some more, I've recently been introduced to a website called Quizlet , which basically lets you upload, download and study flashcards for different subjects. It also has a "learn" and "test" program set up to help you along. And of course, now I'm using it to help learn more Korean. For Korean, the flash cards are written in Hangul with the English below them. However, if you don't yet know how to read Hangul, there's audio for the cards (or at least the ones I've been using) to hear what the Hangul sounds like. So you can use them to learn Hangul too, yay!
I stumbled onto to it because my sister had been making flashcards (by hand, not by computer) to study for her college final in a Japanese course. Unfortunately for her, they ended up being basically useless. But it did remind me of how nice it is to carry around cards that you can just whip out and begin studying if you have random free time, like while riding on the subway or waiting to me up with someone. Some people play Angry Birds on their iPhone, I study vocabulary! Of course, unless I'm using a smart phone, I can't really carry Quizlet's flashcards around with me, but whatever. It's another free resource to use.
The past couple of weeks I've had to squeeze in studying Rosetta Stone between teaching. I've been trying to get in the habit of doing a lesson or two before going to work since after work there's almost no point. I don't get back to the apartment until 10:30pm at the earliest and by then I can't focus enough to feel like I'm actually learning.
But it seems like I am learning! Last week I overheard my students telling one of the counselors saying that the classroom we were using that day (we couldn't use my normal one that day) was too hot. I was going to (and should have) turn around and say in Korean that the room is too cold.
And today when I was riding the bus, I noticed I could read all of the station signs very easily and could find Suwon Station (수 원 역) and the Yeongtong Bus Terminal without needing the English. I've known Suwon Station for a while but being able to recognize the Bus Terminal and other stops just by looking at the signs and not necessarily needing to sort out all the letters is definitely nice.
But the funniest thing I've learn has been from Karen and her friend Annah when they came to visit us in Suwon. Karen and Annah have just started taking Korean classes in Seoul and they were telling us about their first class, which sounded pretty interesting. Rather than teach them hangul or something basic, the teacher taught them how to say 'Kakae juseyo!' (I think -가 개 주세 요), which apparently means 'Give me a discount!'. And the teacher kept saying that you need to say it whinnier. A very useful phrase, but I haven't yet had a chance to use it.
Okay, so I've gotten majorly off track this past week. I blame finishing up my job because it's thrown off my sleep schedule. I've pretty much studied zero Korean for several days now. And yesterday my TV remote completely disappeared so I think that's a sign I need to get back on track.
I will say the one Korean-related thing I've been doing (although even that I haven't done since Friday) is check out the website Galbijim. I put a link for it on the Korean Resources page, but thought I'd just check it out here. It's a wiki of Korean culture and actually has pages dedicated to people who are going to be teaching English in Korea – people like me! That page was really helpful and I'll definitely be writing some of this stuff down so I can have it when I first go other there, since I don't know how long it'll take me to get internet set up. It has a lot of other information too, like free online resources for learning Korean and pages for geographical areas.
Also, here's the blog by the guys who run Galbijim.
A few days ago, my dad recommended I take a look at Live Mocha, which is a free language learning website anyone can sign up for. I've been checking it out for the past couple of days and I'm fairly impressed. It's billed as a superior alternative to Rosetta Stone. I don't know that I would necessarily call it superior but it's definitely a very good learning tool. And if you don't want to pay a lot of money for an expensive class or a program like Rosetta Stone, Live Mocha is a really good alternative.
Once you've signed up with Live Mocha, you can enroll in up to 30 different language lessons. There are also premium lessons that you can pay for, like a Travel Crash course (which is unfortunately only available in Spanish, French, Mandarin, German and Italian) but even these are fairly cheap. After you sign up for your language(s), you gradually progress through the lessons. Each lesson starts with introducing you to knew words using pictures, audio recordings and the words in the target language. Once you've finished those, you can choose to finish the lesson or do one of their practices. There's reading, listening and 'magnet' practice (magnet is basically sentence construction practice) and you can also quiz yourself. To finish the lesson, you have to complete exercises from the practice sessions (so it's useful to do them, even if you don't have to) and you're done! You can move onto a new lesson or redo your earlier ones.
Right now I'm doing Unit 1 Lesson 5 of Korean, which introduces numbers 1-20. Unfortunately, it's only introducing the set of Korean numbers used for counting things, while Rosetta Stone does both. It's a little hard to learn both at once but I like knowing them both. There are a few things that Rosetta Stone has that Live Mocha doesn't. My big issue with Live Mocha is I feel there's way too much English being said. For the magnet exercises, example sentences are given in English but it wouldn't be hard to have them in Korean.
But there's also one major thing Live Mocha has that Rosetta Stone doesn't: social networking. Aside from being able to have friends through Live Mocha, you can also interact with people who are fluent in the language. You can also do exercises, either written or spoken, in the target language, which native speakers can then correct. It's pretty cool. So far, they don't have any of these exercises in Korean, but they do have them in English so I some times correct the exercises of people learning English. I really like the feature so I hope they expand it to all of the 30 languages you can learn.
If you want to learn a language for free, Live Mocha is definitely a route you should consider. If you've already paid for classes or software like Rosetta Stone, I would still recommend checking this out. It's important to vary the things you do to learn a language and this is definitely worth incorporating into the other things you're doing.
PS. Just for fun, I also signed up for the introductory lesson of Japanese. They present new words in both Japanese and romanji, which is nice but I think I'll be focusing on just Korean for right now!
So I'd like to talk up Sogang University's Korean Language program, since I've talked a lot about Rosetta Stone but also want to present other methods of learning Korean. I really like this website they have set up. It's not really enough to use as a primary source for learning Korean but it's been really, REALLY helpful for practicing reading hangul and for polishing up my Korean grammar. Of course, I'm only the first lesson on the Sogang program.
In addition to an Introductory Korean page, which basically introduces you to hangul, they've broken down their lessons into Novice Korea (levels 1,2,3) and Intermediate Korea (levels 1,2,3), and each level has 10 lessons. And each lesson has key expressions, reading, listening and vocabulary activities and grammar lessons. Personally I was drawn to the grammar lessons. Like I said before, I've studied German and German is a grammar heavy language so I think for me, being able to understand the finer points of Korean that I can't learn (or haven't yet learned) through Rosetta Stone is kind of like a safety net for me.
I've been going through the lessons (okay, really only lesson 1 so far…) and copying down the grammar lessons into a notebook so I can keep studying Korean even without my laptop. (Right now, that's been a problem since all my methods of studying are computer based). On that note, I would HIGHLY recommend getting a graph paper notebook for writing hangul. The blocks make it a lot easier to get the 자모 (jamo – that is, letters) together and properly sized. I picked up this trick when I (briefly) studied Japanese. (Chotto nihongo ga hanaseru!)
Plus, the website is completely free. It's a pretty good deal if you ask me so definitely check it out.
As of my last post, I had made a good amount of progress and more or less kept to my goal of studying Korean for an hour a night.
As of this post… Let's just say, I've been side-tracked. But with good reason.
For the past week, I've been getting over this pain-in-the-butt cold. At first I had a sore throat and stuffed nose. That eventually progressed into an even more stuffed nose that was just unbelievably annoying since everything seemed to irritate it. Including stuff I have to handle regularly at my job, where I don't have immediate access to tissues or anything else I could use to blow my nose. And through it all, my most problematic symptom was exhaustion. I had about enough energy to get through work and not much else. Especially by yesterday. I was pretty much dead on my feet yesterday.
Thankfully, today I had a day off so last night I went to be at the early hour (for me) of 11pm and slept for about 12 hours. And then I pretty much lazed around for the rest of the day since I think there's still just a little bit of cold lingering.
BUT! I did manage to study for around two hours today. Unfortunately, when I tried to pick U2L2 (Unit 2 Lesson 2) back up again I had some issues with it (although all things considered, I'm impressed that I actually remembered a lot from U2L1 and U2L1). So I redid the Core Lessons of Lesson 1 and Lesson 2 before finishing off the last couple activities of Lessons 2.
I have to work tomorrow, so it sounds like I'll probably just be reviewing stuff. But Wednesday I have another day off so HOPEFULLY I'll be able to move ahead with U2L3.
As it turns out, learning Korean numbers wasn't as hard as I thought it would be but it was still a challenge at first. It was tough to master 1-6, especially because there are two different sets of numbers in Korean: one set in Native Korean and one set in Sino-Korean, which is influenced by Chinese. I still haven't figured out exactly when which is used when, but Native Korean is used for counting things. I've heard Sino-Korean is for telling time but I haven't gotten to that in Rosetta Stone yet. Luckily, once you have 1-6 (reasonably) down, Rosetta Stone is set up to make it easier to learn later numbers.
I've just started Lesson 2 of Unit 2 (woo-hoo!). In L1U2, they introduce numbers 7-12. But they mix them up with the 1-6 numbers that you (should) already know, so its easier to remember the new numbers. And L2U2 is continuing to drill numbers and colors while introducing new information.
As for the progress on procrastination, I've been doing really well with studying, but unfortunately not 1-hour-a-day well. It's a little difficult since my work schedule sometimes makes it difficult to study for an hour. This weekend I worked both Saturday and Sunday. I probably could have studied on Saturday but chose to watch a movie with my family instead. And Sunday I was waaaaay to pooped. BUT – to make up for not studying this weekend, I studied for over an hour today. I went back to Unit 1 of Rosetta Stone and made sure I had 100% correctness on all my lessons (except the Pronunciation lessons…), then chunked out the beginnings of L1U2 and L2U2.
And I found some new Korean language resources (now on the Korean Sites page), so it was a pretty good day for me, in terms of learning Korean.
When I first got Rosetta Stone, a couple people asked me if the fact that I already know German fairly well somehow gives me an upper-hand in using this software. I didn't have a really good answer for any of them at the time, since I had only just started using it and thus couldn't tell. I have been thinking about it, though, and I've wanted to do a small post about it since benefits of other languages and is the program easy are the main questions I get asked.
First of all, I'm not fluent in German. English is my native language and the only one I'm fluent in. So I don't have the advantage that bilingual/multilingual kids have, where their brain actually adapts through knowing extra languages and makes it much easier for them to learn new ones.
Second of all, although I love learning new languages, I don't have any kind of gift for it like some people. I've known a couple people who can just hear a few phrases in another language and immediately have them down, or can mimic an accent almost fluently. I am not one of them. Well, except for maybe with the accent thing. I have a pretty good ear, which does help me, but it's not good enough to offer me a great advantuage.
So those things said, I don't really have a natural advantage that can work with Rosetta Stone and somehow let me excel at it better than other people. But I will say that studying German (and French and Polish) has definitely given me two tools that have really come in handy for focusing one what Rosetta Stone presents.
Tool # 1: I'm fairly sure this comes from studying other languages. I can pretty easily pick up a word if it's said to me once or twice. I might not (and probably won't) remember it in the long run if I don't continue to use it. But I can repeat it and use it almost immediately. It's from all those years of basically repeating what the French/German/Polish teacher just said, except with a different subject/verb/object. This comes in handy with Rosetta Stone because when they ask me to repeat something they just said, or to match a word that was just used with a picture, I can do with that pretty easily without fully knowing what's being said. And then I'm able to master the meaning by using the word correctly enough times.
Tool # 2: Grammar. This is entirely thanks to studying German. If you are a native English speaker, you probably don't have a great grasp of English grammar (unless maybe you went to a really good school… or are British. I feel like they might understand their grammar a little better than the rest of us.) If you study German for more than a year (for me, five years), you WILL and MUST learn grammar. The rules of German grammar are very clear cut and there are several aspects of grammar that you need to be familiar with in German that don't matter as much (or at all) in English, like direct/indirect objects, verb placement, separation of phrases. I could go on. And although I definitely make mistakes, my German grammar is very good (and now my English grammar is too). Thanks to that, it was very easy for me to figure out how Korean sentences are set up (Where's the verb? Where the subject? Do they use articles?) and that REALLY helps me learn new words. I don't get stumped when they throw a new element in. I just pause, figure out what the rest of the elements are and I can pretty easily figure out the new one.
Those are the main advantages I think I have. But I still have to drill for hours like everyone else.
It's Hangul Day in South Korea! And in celebration, I've been practicing my hangul writing abilities. Which I haven't really been practicing. Reading, yes. Typing via Rosetta Stone, yes. Writing with pen and paper, no. I have to say, I kinda suck at it. Hopefully I'll get better with practice because even if I won't need to write in Korean when I'm there (which I might – I don't know), I still want to be able to do it.
Also, I've pretty much decided that my favorite letter (자모) isㅎ, which is 'h' in Korean. It was the first Korean letter I fully mastered and I just think it looks happy, like a little person wearing a hat that's just happy to see you're reading it.
In other news, I've started lesson 4 (the last lesson of Unit 1, woo-hoo!) of Rosetta Stone, which focuses on learning numbers. Wow. I knew I was going to have trouble learning numbers because in Korean there are two set of numbers, one native Korean and one that's taken from Chinese, which they use in different situations. Each lesson is a little tricky at first but after running through it once or twice (twice for the colors) I usually have it mostly down and then I just have to wait a day or two for it to full sink in. I'm definitely going to have to go over the numbers many times before I fully master it because it's not clicking for me.
One of the side effects I always experience when learning a new language (and I hope I'm not the only one…) is that when I try to speak the language or even just focus on learning the new vocabulary I get really, really tired. I'm the kind of person who can (despite being vertically challenge) do physically demanding things and end up with sore muscles and no sleepiness but then do something that's mentally challenging and just feel exhausted and in great need of a nap. Because of this, I've been seriously procrastinating with learning Korean. The upside to Rosetta Stone is you can study it whenever you want. The downside is it doesn't force you into a schedule like a class would. I promised myself I'd study for an hour a day (eventually increasing the time once it stopped exhausting my poor little brain). Sadly… I think I've kept that promise far less often than I've broken it.
BUT THEN! I was wondering around WordPress and I found another blog that's pretty much doing the same thing I'm doing (Yeah, I figured I wasn't even close to original with my little blog). Chocokorea's Bold Korean Learning Adventure: Language Learning Journal. Okay, so this blog kicks my blogs butt (Have mercy I'm only a few weeks old!). Of course, I'm doing this mostly for me, so it's fine if my blog's not the next inspiration for a Perez Hilton empire or a Julie & Julia-esque movie. But I do like a lot of the features Chocokorea has and will definitely be checking out the resources provided. And I will be forcing myself to, at the very least (if I can't rally my strength for Rosetta Stone), practice writing hangul everyday.
On that note, looking at other Korea blogs, I think I will have to start including hangul in my entries. I feel it's a must. Plus it looks cool.


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The coast of Wales is now conquered, through rain, hail and stormy winds, from Amroth to Cardigan. But fortunately I had sunny days too and the coast showed its better side. Plenty of quiet trail to walk, birds to observe and I got to see even seals and porpoises!
I walked the 300km path basically in ten days (some days shorter, some maybe too hard) and camped every night at campsites.
As usual, the rest of the story, photos and video will follow later on, or much later. I'll try to do my best!


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Sunday, July 17, 2016 - Butterfly and Bird Outing to Menzel Centennial Provincial Nature Reserve
Leaders: Rod Lee and Roger Frost
The Menzel Reserve is 17 kilometres north-west of Napanee and contains 19 different habitat types including rare treed fen. Meet at Hwy. 45 car pool lot at 7:30 a.m. or at the Reserve at 9 a.m. Bring lunch, water, insect repellent.
Directions: East on Hwy. 401 to the Deseronto Road exit, #570. Follow Deseronto Rd. through Kingsford. Drive straight through the town (this becomes a gravel road). Follow this road to its end, where it turns east and becomes Roblin Rd. Follow Roblin Rd. for 1 km. to the sign and gate on the left (north side).


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Distance from Doon, IA to Unionville, IA
Driving distance between Doon, IA and Unionville, IA is 344.33 miles (or 554.14 kilometers). If you drove an average car (using about 3.6 gallons of gas per mile), the gas would cost you around $, since you would need about gallons of fuel.
Leaving from Doon, IA you would reach Unionville, IA in about 6 hours 11 mins if you keep an average speed of miles per hour, assuming you don't make any breaks or get stuck in traffic.


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The Loyal Order of the Narrow-Banded Phaseshifters (LONP)
Purpose - With membership in the Ø7Ø Club over 1,000 members strong, this award encourages members to work each other using PSK31. Contacts with non-members do not count for this award.
Valid QSO - A valid QSO is one made via PSK31 mode on the HF bands between two Ø7Ø Club members, both of whom meet the criteria for membership in the PODXS Ø7Ø Club at the time the QSO was made (see membership criteria below).
Bands - All HF bands are allowed, 16ØM thru 6M, including WARC bands. All contacts must be 2-way PSK31. No non-PSK31, repeater, cross-mode or cross-band contacts are allowed.
Membership Criteria - Membership in the PODXS Ø7Ø Club is determined by the date of issue of the Ø7Ø Club membership certificate. For this award, one's membership in the Ø7Ø Club shall be considered to begin at ØØØØZ on the date of issue as noted on his/her Ø7Ø Club membership certificate.
LONP List - The reference database for LONP is the current LONP List of members showing their membership dates and any callsign history. A copy of this reference is available on this web site. Updates to this reference list shall be made periodically to reflect changes in the Ø7Ø Club membership, including changes in members' callsigns. This list shall be the final and determining reference for this award.
Operator-based Award - This is an operator-based award program and as such, places no restrictions on the participants' respective geographic locations at the time any QSOs submitted for this award were made. QSOs made while portable or mobile in any way are all valid for LONP, provided that the QSOs were made under the member's call signs as listed in the Ø7Ø Club LONP List and all other conditions for the award are met.
Lifetime QSO points - A PSK31 QSO with another Ø7Ø Club member counts once for 1 Lifetime QSO point. Additional QSOs with the same member are not valid for application for the LONP Award or endorsements. Contacts with non-members do not count for this award.
Awards - The basic LONP Award, a certificate suitable for framing, is awarded for a total of 1ØØ Lifetime QSO points. Endorsement stickers for the basic LONP Award will be available at no charge in increments of 5Ø additional Lifetime QSO points.
The online endorsement checker will automatically apply all callsign/member-dates/member-number logic to your log.
Applications -
1) Upload your PSK ADIF log to the endorsement checker at http://hamclubs.info/070-checker and view your LONP report.
Request LONP award.
Include your Callsign, 070#, and full name for the LONP certificate.
Include current mailing address.
If you use the online checker, then logs are NOT needed in the email.
Endorsement Requests -
1) Upload your PSK ADIF log to the endorsement checker at http://hamclubs.info/070-checker and view your LONP report.
Request LONP endorsement.
Include your Callsign and 070#
Confirm current mailing address.
If you use the online checker, then logs are NOT needed in the email.


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When Patients Heal You: BUMC Arts Outreach Initiative
A unique collaboration among the department of Neurology, the BU School of Medicine Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs and the BU Medical Campus Arts Outreach Initiative resulted in an extraordinary concert on the Medical Campus in early November. The concert, When Patients Heal You, featured a group of six talented performers, all patients successfully treated by the department of Neurology at Boston Medical Center.
This group of talented patients embodies the diversity and cultural richness of the medical campus and hospital. They performed selections ranging from classical to rock, and from jazz to Caribbean music. Each performer has faced and overcome some type of neurological challenge. Images are available on Facebook.
The Medical Campus Arts Initiative is led by Moises Fernandez Via, Project Curator and Researcher for the Arts Outreach Initiative, a professional concert pianist with a strong commitment to bringing arts to health-care settings. "Something fantastic happened during the concert. The audience witnessed how art allowed patients to transcend their condition as patients and transform into musicians," said Fernandez Via.
More information on the Medical Campus Arts Initiative is available here.


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There are a few reasons why I decided to read "The Great Gatsby" - one of the biggest classics from 1920s written by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
One, I like being that jerk, the one who after watching a movie based on a book, says with a smirk - "You know what - the book was better - they have ruined it completely in the movie." So a decently cool trailer was enough of an incentive.
Two, Leonardo DiCaprio is going to play Jay Gatsby and after The Aviator, The Departed, Blood Diamond, Shutter Island and Inception, the poor man definitely deserves something more than angry fans arguing for him on IMDb and such forums. So assuming that he will probably pull off one more stunning performance and once again end up with nothing, I wanted to be better prepared when the time of the debates comes.
Three, this movie is the first Hollywood movie where Amitabh Bachchan is part of the cast. And yes, I do strongly believe that Hollywood repeatedly and in a not-so-subtle manner, likes to portray India/Indians in a negative way - either a poor, dirty slum-dog or a rich, idiotic snob (remember Anil Kapoor in MI-4?). And as far as I know, there wouldn't have been many Indians in 1920s in the rich suburban Long Island area where the story takes place and so I wanted to know beforehand what devious fate is in store for Amitabh Bachchan. He plays a Jew businessman of sorts (if you call bootlegging a business).
Four, I am a big fan of Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. Incidentally, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda are characters in that movie. They say that F. Scott Fitzgerald loosely based the character of Daisy, the female lead of The Great Gatsby, on his wife Zelda. I absolutely fell in love with her in Midnight in Paris! Besides being stunningly beautiful, she is unpredictable, rude, charming, even borderline crazy and suicidal. She is always all over the place, but you can still see that she has good intentions - somewhere deep.
So anyway, its a small book. Barely 200 or so pages - and still it took me more than 3 weeks to finish it! Thanks to my awesome High-school St. Vimli's (THE best sarcastic pseudonym for the horrible school that people have come up with), my English vocabulary is as bad as it can be and I could not help but think that I should have read this book one or two weeks before I took the GRE, the small window of time when all the bloody wordlists were actually fresh in my head. Having to check meanings of 10 words in every single page ends up being very annoying after a while!
Here's a disclaimer - I think there can not be any spoilers for a book like The Great Gatsby. Its a textbook tragedy, like Devdas or such. So even if you kind of know the end, it hardly makes any difference to the value of the story as such.
So before I state anything about the book - let me clearly state this - Yes - I am an idiot - Yes I do not understand subtle art - and Yes I am too intellectually and artistically challenged to fully appreciate this book.
But the fact of the matter is, I completely failed to "get" what the book was trying to say!
The characters, I feel, are too simple. The negative character, Tom, Daisy's husband, is so in-your-face-evil and so obviously smarter, physically stronger and richer than Gatsby that you kind of know beforehand what the end result is going to be before Tom and Gatsby start having their obligatory conversation-fight towards the end of the book.
Secondly, I don't like it when there are external, uncontrollable reasons for a character's downward spiral. Because then, the "tragedy" is not "real" in some sense - its just an inevitable thing - something that was meant to happen sooner or later - and that, in my personal opinion, is too much of a cliche. For example, Devdas has a perfect reason to be pissed off - his parents didn't like his girlfriend. But for Dev D,well, his father was actually disappointed that he blew his chances with Paro. And this thing, not having anything or anyone to blame but your own self, is surely the ideal reason to drink yourself to death. In The Great Gatsby, its just meant not to end well. Sure - it makes for a good drama and a handful of sentimental scenarios, but loses some sort deep emotional bond that it might have forged with readers. I think a good tragedy should not make you feel sad about the character, it should just make you feel sad.
Third, the book wants to show how careless, selfish and bitter people get, even towards their loved ones, when they are trying to hide their pain. But here, the characters overdo it so much that instead of feeling sorry for Daisy, I actually found her to be very repulsive. There is a thin line between being overtly bubbly, pretending to be shallow and being downright shallow - and in my book, Daisy is on the wrong side of this line - almost always.
So anyway, I am majorly pissed. Not at The Great Gatsby - but at myself - for failing to understand the book, for failing to have that "oh this book soo changed my life" feeling that so many people seemed to have according to the reviews.
I really hope the movie is good - and since its a musical, if nothing else, I hope to get a good collection of new songs to listen to!


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My family spent this past weekend, Thursday through Saturday, at a conference in a place called Kapiri. This was our second year to attend this conference. Pastor Aaron, one of Wiphan's pastors, is a part of the church congregation hosting the conference which is how we became associated. My parents were asked to speak for 2 days last year and they were asked to do this same this year as well.
Last year was incredibly exciting and fun, but personally I found this year to be far more memorable. I intently tried to focus on the Lord, His leading in my life, and how He was working rather than simply the social aspect of being there. However, I was looking forward to reuniting with some very dear friends.
Besides crashing in bed at a lodge each evening, we spent our entire time out in the bush.
What exactly do I mean by "bush"? Let me put it this way: no running water (wells were located about 500 yards away), no electricity (apart from a mini generator which powered a keyboard and microphone), no plumbing, no roofed structure except for a partially tarp-covered conference area. Most living areas were enclosed with rough 6-foot tall thatch "walls" to separate rooms.
We're also in the middle of the dry season meaning there is an immense amount of dust everywhere. August is also considered the windiest month so you can imagine the severe amount of dust in the air.
Maybe these pictures will help give a bit of a visual (put your cursor over the photos for the captions)
Now, here is Day 1 of three about how our unfathomable God worked in beautiful ways at the bush conference in Kapiri…
Day 1
We arrived at the conference mid-morning on Thursday and spent the first hour or so greeting everyone.
Greetings are a very important part of the culture here. There is a lot of hand shaking, hugging, and multiple thoughtful questions involved in a greeting. It's such a beautiful thing!
As I said above, I was greatly excited to be reunited with old friends; specifically my dear friend Victoria and also the entire Mwamba family. Sadly, my friend Joy Mwamba wasn't at the conference this year.
After we finished greeting everyone, my brothers and I went off with the "Sunday school" children (ages 14 and below) to teach them. There were three adults (one being Pastor Aaron) helping to handle about 70 children.
The boys and I began by acting out the story of The Good Samaritan and discussing how everyone is our neighbor.
Then we taught the kids the song "I May Never March in the Infantry". If you don't know the song, it contains many hand motions and actions making it fun to teach children.
Pastor Aaron kindly acted as our interpreter and guitar player.
After we finished Sunday school, we returned to the main area where we ate a very cultural lunch. We ate with the head of their church organization (they call him the "bishop") and his lovely wife who have become dear friends of ours. They are so kind to answer all our questions about culture and are extremely understanding of our many naïve mistakes. They are an extremely hospitable couple!
After lunch, I went to fetch water from the well with my friend Lista. The journey to the well is downhill, but the journey back from the well is all uphill. Haha! But together it wasn't hard to carry the large bucket. I imagine if I hadn't been there she would've just carried it on her head.
My friend Rejoice (Mwamba) had asked me if I'd be willing to teach him guitar, so I spent some time teaching him four basic chords (G, Em, D, and C). It didn't take him but a few minutes to have them all memorized and transition between them surprisingly fast for a beginner!
Sessions started up again mid-afternoon and I was able to listen to my mom's engaging talk with the ladies on forgiveness. I held sweet Grace Mwamba in my lap with little Gloria on my left the entire time. I daresay there was not ever more than 30 minutes that passed the entire weekend where Gloria and Grace were not by my side. ❤
As it became dark, we again sat down to a lovely Zambian meal. Following the meal, I found my friend Blessing (Mwamba) at the keyboard. Another young man, whose name I never caught, was playing the bass guitar…and quite well considering the guitar was missing a string!
My favorite memories with Blessing always involve us and our mutual friend Victoria singing together. This particular evening, my friends Sibongile (also Mwamba) and Deborah joined us to sing. All three of them, Blessing, Sibo, and Deborah, have astoundingly flawless voices. Deborah is a smooth and strong alto, Blessing a powerful bass, and Sibo a passionate tenor. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to enjoy their company long as our family soon left for the lodge, but I'd ultimately spend a great deal of time with these three friends (and others) over next two days…
After the busy day we'd had, it didn't take any time or effort for us all to fall fast soundly asleep. My mind was rolling with exciting thoughts about the days ahead, but my thoughts didn't come close to the beautiful reality of what the next days would hold…
{to be continued tomorrow, September 2nd}
5 thoughts on "A Weekend in the Bush {Part 1}"
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STRATFORD, Conn. — The state awarded Stratford a $450,000 grant to help make some streets in the town's busy downtown more accessible and safer for bicyclists and walkers.
The "Complete Streets" grant will help the town complete technical design for improvements along a portion of Main Street and Barnum Avenue south of East Broadway.
"I am pleased to see Stratford receive this grant… in the interest of improving safety and access for pedestrians and bicyclists, as well as motorists," said Mayor Laura Hoydick. "This is an important planning initiative that will improve investment in Stratford Center, and the enjoyment and access of the area to everyone."
The project is one of several that have been identified as a high priority in Stratford's 2017 Compete Streets Plan. Once design is complete, the town will be ready to make the improvements.
About $250,000 of the total grant will be set aside for any environmental contamination that might be discovered on the project boundary.
"This project will help to continue to put our town of Stratford on the map and make it a place where pedestrians and bicyclists want to frequent," said state Sen. Kevin Kelly. "I look forward to the continuation of improvements to our town and am hopeful that under the mayor's local leadership this will be possible."
"These funds will help Stratford adapt to new transportation models of bicycling and pedestrian options through the heart of our community," said state Rep. Joe Gresko. "Focusing on making our downtown more attractive will serve Stratford in the long term."
Jay Habansky, the town's planning and zoning administrator, noted such grants are highly competitive.
"As OPM has awarded Stratford with the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) and Responsible Growth Grant, we are one step closer to providing safer public spaces and improving accessibility for people of all ages and abilities," he said.
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(income or value gained) - (expense) = (total income or loss).
Here are their calculations:
-$270 for 9 months food (about $30/mo--1 hay, 1 ration)
+$350 sale/gift of 7 goats
+$288 milk (about 2 gal/wk for 6 months @ $5 gal)
Chickens and Ducks
-$60 for 9 months duck food (2 bags every 3 months @ $15 ea)
-$4 for purchase of ducks
-$144 for chicken food and purchase (1 bag/month @ $15 ea)
+$180 duck eggs (approx. 1 doz/wk for 9 months @ $5/doz--that's 432 eggs)
+$15 for sale of ducks
+$360 in chicken eggs (approx. 2 doz/wk for 9 months @ $5/doz--that's 765 eggs)
Good work, girls!
In other news, Eli and I went fishing early this morning. We were hoping to catch a fish, dissect it, cook it, and eat it. We didn't catch anything, but it was still pretty fun.
Also, we got the yurt stained this week.
Speaking of our round dwelling, I've been working on an issue that probably interests no more than one reader of this blog, and he already knows about it. Nevertheless, it has been taking a significant amount of my mental and physical attention the past few days, so I will describe it briefly:
The yurt has a strong 5' diameter wooden "compression" ring in the center of the ceiling. This is what all the roof rafters--that start at the top of the walls--connect to. Above the compression ring is another 5' ring made of metal. All of the external metal roofing panels bolt at their tops to the outside of this metal ring.
The other day, while on a ladder inside these rings at the ceiling, I noticed a 3/8" separation between the rings. Would you like to see a gap open up in your ceiling? I didn't. It was surprising and concerning as the rings are supposed to be bolted together and sealed. Something had created a significant enough shift to snap all of the flanges that bolted the metal ring to the compression ring! What could be causing this? Maybe you would like to venture a guess?
Pictured: wood ring at bottom, metal ring above (painted tan). You can see where the flange holding the bolt has snapped. The dark brown caulking used to be attached to the wood, but you can see the separation that has formed.


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TWC9: Xbox Dev for Everyone, Game Pass, Windows Mixed Reality and more...
This week on Channel 9, Nikola and guest host David Catuhe discuss the week's top developer news, including;
- [00:31] https://twitter.com/deltakosh, Microsoft Edge helps you organize your web, http://www.babylonjs.com/#, http://www.vorlonjs.io/, UWP Community Toolkit
- [01:50] New Investments For Xbox Developers And Gamers Kick Off GDC 2017 [Major Nelson]
- [02:10] MonoGame and the Xbox Live Creators Program [Tom Spilman]
- [03:38] Introducing Xbox Game Pass: Unlimited Access to More Than 100 Games [Phil Spencer]
- [04:33] Windows Mixed Reality dev kits shipping this month [Alex Kipman]
- [05:45] Behind-the-scenes of the Windows 10 Creators Update Bug Bash [Anita George]
- [07:41] Getting Started with a Mixed Reality Platformer Using Microsoft HoloLens
- [08:27] Azure Command Line 2.0 now generally available [Kamaljit Bath]
- [09:36] Visual Studio Code and the Third Wave of Source Code Editing [Tim Patrick]
- [11:57] What's brewing in Visual Studio Team Services: March 2017 Digest [Buck Hodges]
Picks of the Week!
- Nikola's Pick of the Week:[12:54] The Faces Behind Microsoft Visual Studio [Paul Thurrott]
- David's Pick of the Week:[14:09] Jigspace
Please leave a comment or email us at email@example.com.
Follow @CH9
Follow @deltakosh
Follow @metulev
Follow @gduncan411
More episodes in this series
TWC9: Launch is a Go[ne]! VS 2017 News, Tips, Related Posts, 20 Years in Review and more...
Related episodes
TWC9: Brewing the News, .NET Standard 2.0 is done, .NET Conf, Eye Typing and more...
TWC9: Windows Insider is Two, Connect() is coming, Docker .NET Images and more...
TWC9: Predator 21" Notebook, App Dev on Xbox, 10k Apart, Sell VSTS Extensions and more...
TWC9: App Dev on Xbox, Reality, Virtually, Hackathon!, HoloLens secret sauce and more...
TWC9: SQL on Linux, Microsoft Joins Eclipse Foundation, UWP Porting Guides for…
Getting Started with Game Development
TWC9: Share Your HoloLens Idea, Powering up with PowerApps, VS/TFS 2015.1 and more...
TWC9: Windows 10 Fall Update, New Xbox Experience, Distributed Machine Learning Toolkit…
TWC9: E3, HoloLens, Cortana, Xbox One, Windows 10, ASM.JS and more
TWC9: Surface Pro 3 & Lumia MWC Awards, GDC Xbox announcements, the Future of Gaming and…
The Discussion
Go to here, song no. 3 (GDI).
You're welcome! ;)
Can we get some more videos related to MS at GDC 2017?


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Access to events can be public or private. You will find events with open access or password protected events in the App. In this case, the event organizer is the person in charge of providing the attendees or authorized persons with the password.
In the application:
- You can access the different events you are attending using only one App.
- Get all the key information. Explore the conference agenda, include notes, add information to your device calendar, create sessions etc. Access all the participating speakers and their presentations. Interactive maps, areas and points of interest. List of exhibitors, news and downloadable resources among others.
- Interact during the event. You can participate actively through votes, walls with pictures and comments, surveys and scientific notes.
- Customize your profile. Add notes and mark contents as favourite so you can access them easily whenever you want.
Verze programu
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Happy Monday my little peeps (I feel like I should have a nickname for all of you, help me decide one?), I am coming to an end of my spring trends…but there may or may not be spring trends for fashion, you'll have to follow me and my other social media accounts to see. But honestly it'll probably be more spring/summer trends.
Anyways this is a trend that I'm actually in love with, the orange lip. I know it is a little bold and I haven't found the guts to wear this look out yet, but I love how it looks on everyone and how bright it can be. If you're like me I would recommend just trying out a bright lip colour, I know I'll be purchasing one soon.
So let's get started:
This is all the products I used on ma face for this look.
I did my normal foundation rountie, and I did fill in my brows with my Anastasia Brow Powder Duo in Caramel very lighty to make it look as natural as possible (I did forget to take a picture of them)
Next are the eyes (sorry for the lighting):
1.) Conceal your eye as a primer for your base
2.) Apply a shimmery champagne colour, I used a Paint Pot in Bare Study to make your eyeshadow pop
3.) Apply your a shimmery champagne eyeshadow to your lid, I used Sin from Urban Decay
4.) Use a brown liner, and line your outer eye with it to make your lashes appear more thick but not as dramatic as a black liner.
Curl and apply your favourite volumizing mascara and your eyes are done!
Next…the lips!
I LOVE the Stila Liquid Lipsticks, this colour dried matte and literary stays ALLLLLLLL day. I didn't use a lip liner or anything, just applied it to ma lips.
And you have finished the look!