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Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that I had a recent run-in with the computer supplier Dabs.com. They messed up an order for computer parts that I wanted for my son's birthday present and I had a torrid time with their customer services in trying to sort it out.
I am only bothering to put this incident on record because of the unusual way in which it was resolved. I found Twitter to be a valuable tool in my dialogue with Dabs and wanted to share the experience in case it would be of benefit to others.
I discovered that the company had a Twitter account (@Dabsdotcom) which they use to promote offers and products and to engage in some dialogue with their customer base. This proved to be a useful point of contact because, while many of my emails were only answered slowly during a long month of trying to get Dabs to fix a problem it had created, tweets to @dabsdotcom with direct questions or comments elicited a much quicker response.
It was an interesting example of social media proving to be a useful ally in a struggle with a large corporation. Many of us have experienced the frustration of having to deal with seemingly anonymous and understaffed customer service departments — hanging endlessly on the phone only to end up talking to someone who has no authority to take initiative in solving the problem.
So what was the problem? The whole sorry story is laid out in a letter that I finally wrote to the Chief Executive Office at Dabs (I have only modified it to hide the identity of one particular customer service representative). See below the letter for the coda.
Dear Mr Thornhill
I want to express to you directly my deep dismay and frustration at the horrible 24-day experience I have just endured at the hands of dabs.com.
For my son's birthday (8th June) I ordered a series of computer parts on 30th May.
I discovered while tracking my order on your website on 1st June that it had been cancelled — for no apparent reason and without any notification from dabs.
I emailed immediately requesting an explanation. I received a reply on 2nd June and was instructed to place the order again. Because of the delay I asked for free next-day delivery but when placing the order, this option was not offered to me.
On 5th June I checked the progress of my order again and discovered that the cancelled order had been reactivated — again without any notification being sent to me. Shortly afterwards I received duplicates of the two of the items on my order. For reasons that I still don't understand one of your operatives had decided to re-place my order, even though I had been asked (by phone and email) to do this myself.
There proceeded a very protracted effort by me to get the items that Dabs had sent in error returned and to get my money back. This took an inordinate amount of effort.
An email I sent on 5th June was not answered until June 6th. Although the fault for the error lay entirely with Dabs I was not immediately offered any satisfactory options for return – only that I would have to wait at home for possibly an entire working day (9-6 pm Mon-Fri) so that the goods could be collected. Since I have a full-time job, this was clearly not acceptable.
Eventually, after having to explain the situation repeatedly by email (each time to a different person, it seemed, none of whom seemed to talk to one another), I spoke to your representative, Ms E. In a long conversation she insisted the only options were for me to wait a whole day for collection or for me to post the goods back myself (with only the promise of a maximum £7.95 refund – and no guarantee that this would cover the full cost of the postage).
As a resolution to a problem caused by Dabs, these were not acceptable options. If the fault had been mine, they would have been — I am prepared to accept the consequences of my actions in a way that Dabs appears ignorant of. Eventually, Ms E raised a 3rd option which was for me to return the items sent in error via a Collect Plus agent near my home. Why this was not offered at the outset of the problem (i.e. on Jun 6th) rather than on June 14th is a mystery to me.
I insisted on a £40 payment as compensation for time wasted and time and effort that I would expend repackaging and returning parcels to remedy your mistake. I was offered £20 as a 'good will' gesture' – a derisory sum given the time and effort spent until that point just trying to get Dabs to take some action. I only agreed to it because I thought it would bring an end to a dreadful experience. That hope turned out to be unfounded – there was more than a week of further frustration ahead of me.
I tried to return the items that night, but discovered that I had been given the wrong instructions by Ms E. There followed more emails and further delay. Eventually I was able to return the items on June 15th.
Using the Collect plus tracking service I saw that the items were received at Dabs' depot two days later on June 17th. Since both returned items had been unopened and were in their original cellophane wrappers, it should have been a simple matter to verify that they were intact and to initiate repayment.
However in response to an email I send on June 22nd Ms E appeared unaware of the fact that the items had been received 5 days previously. She asked me for the tracking code – information that I had sent to her on June 16th.
Further delays ensued, again for reasons that are mysterious to me. One of you managers phoned me to acknowledge the problem and see how she could help to resolve it (I didn't record her name). However, it was plain to me that although her call came 4 hours after I had emailed an explanation of the situation to Ms E, she hadn't taken the trouble to inform herself of the situation at Dabs. As a result she was unable to help!
Finally yesterday, after much insistence on my part, my money was refunded.
You manager tried to assure me that the treatment I have received is unusual. That may be so but I ask you, as the person ultimately responsible, even if unusual — how could your customer service operation be so poor? This sorry episode is due not just to one but to a whole catalogue of errors and delays – the cancellation, the duplication, the tardiness in responding to emails, the initial refusal to offer decent means of returning unsolicited goods, the wrong instructions, the failure to read information provided in emails.
And after all that — after I have spent probably 3 or 4 hours in writing emails, handling phone calls and returning goods you sent me in error (only after 2 journeys because of your errors), not to mention the miserable frustration I had to endure and the disappointment of having spoiled my son's birthday, there is no offer of compensation beyond the £20 handling fee that I took for returning your goods. You messed up my working days over a period of 24 days and offer nothing to indicate any genuine remorse or sense of responsibility?
The only times I detected any sense of urgency on your part to resolve the situation was when I sought resolution of my problem by asking @dabsdotcom on Twitter. You seem at least to be sensitive to the publi
c perception of your company's performance.
c perception of your company's performance.
I offer you a chance to be big enough to make decent amends for the wrongs you have caused me.
I look forward to your reply.
Stephen Curry
Eventually, following another poke via Twitter, Mr Thornhill got in touch. He acknowledged the problem, explained that it had all been due to a major computer problem that had affected a small number of customers (myself included). He was good enough to apologise and offered compensation for the time I had wasted. I rejected his initial offer of £60 worth of vouchers to spend at Dabs.com — I wanted £120 cash, that being my estimate of the value of the time I had been distracted from my work to deal with the problem. He agreed to that without any further fuss.
From comments received on Twitter I am clearly not the only one who has been affected by poor customer service at Dabs. Mr Thornhill sought to assure me that my experience had been exceptional but, having been badly burned, it will be a while before I feel willing to put that assurance to the test (though, to be fair, I had used Dabs in the past and not encountered any difficulty).
However, I hope this experience has been an education for some in his customer service team. It certainly has been for me — I'll be looking to social media to help me in future with problems of this nature.
Companies that seek a presence on Twitter, Facebook or wherever should be aware that these sites are for two-way communication. Used well, they provide a useful way for customers to obtain better service. Hopefully most companies might also see them as an effective means of responding to customer concerns.


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Seller Tools
Seller's Knowledge Base
Selecting a REALTOR®
Prepare Your Home to Sell
An attractive, well-maintained home will generally sell faster and for a higher price than a similar home that looks tired or run-down. When you prepare your home for sale, take a critical look at the exterior and interior of your home. We've listed some specific areas below that you may want to address.
The Exterior
Obviously, the outside of your home is the first thing buyers see. Make a good first impression. Step back and take an objective look at the exterior of your home. How can you make it more attractive? Review the following suggestions:
The Interior
Take a look inside your home. Make every room look as spacious, organized, bright and warm as possible. The following suggestions may help:
Avoid the urge to price your home based upon considerations that do not affect its market value, such as:

subset: commoncrawl


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We are proud to be a part of the Unseen GC Summer 16-17 with our work Blown Away in which we created an animated 3D render of our physical sculpture which was displayed along with other Augmented Reality work at the Gold Coast art centre.
This work is based on a sculptural work that has been flown and blown around Australia for the last 2 years. It is a visual analogy, where the resemblance to a common flora genus of taraxacum spreading seeds far and wide via the wind reflects the spread of the ideas of resource recovery and sustainability.
The work aims to raise awareness about the amount of waste each of us generate, to making people aware of the environmental costs of that waste.
The form is inspired by the natural world, although, ironically, we (humans) have, by our quest for comfort & convenience, become a major factor in the disappearance of many species within it.


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The Museum
The Cathedral Museum was opened in 1953 by the art critic Ugo Nebbia, but the idea took shape in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when it became necessary to find a way of keeping together and preserving the huge amount of material connected with the history and construction of the Cathedral.
In 1948 the Fabbrica del Duomo obtained the concession from the State Property Department for nine rooms located on the ground floor of the oldest wing of Palazzo Reale, formerly the residence of the Visconti and Sforza families, renovated by the architect Piermarini in the second half of the eighteenth century.
At last suitable premises were available to house and exhibit the works to be preserved, which had significantly increased in number after the damage caused by the bombing in the Second World War.
The deterioration of many works of art, caused by atmospheric pollution, and the influx of further material from the Fabbrica storerooms and the Cathedral vestries soon made a larger exhibition area necessary.
In the Sixties the Museum was enlarged and re-opened with the addition of a further ten rooms - some of which were of great architectural prestige - by concession of Milan City Council, completely re-fitted and re-organised by the architect Ernesto Brivio on the basis of a historical-chronological project.
In 2013 the Museum re-opened after a long period of renovation and re-fitting under a project by the architect Guido Canali.


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Chorus, or Dandelion Prayer
ink and watercolor pencil on vintage book page
12/100 in 100 creative challenge 6/20/10
I only have a few moments before work today. Here's another drawing. More hands. More botanical. I like this one.
The dandelion was a gift from my kids.
The hand is that thing I always carry with me and is useful for picking up stuff and making stuff. I like to draw my hand. It's the right hand, since I write with my left hand. A useful hand. And I'm using a contour line, which I always love to loosen up when I draw. I love it as a way to mark my life. A way to depict the world around me.
I tried to make the border more intricate, with a kind of floral negative line inside the boundary, but it was too fussy, and when I colored it in, it looked so much better.
Yesterday, I didn't draw anything at all.
Not true. I drew a circle. It's staring at me as I write this, round and empty.
It's wondering what I will fill it with.
I'm wondering if I have time this morning to fill it.


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A highly anticipated listing by National Commercial Bank (NCB), Saudi Arabia's largest lender, has seen strong demand as the window for subscriptions came to a close late Sunday, setting the stage to become the world's second-largest offering this year.
The share sale of 500 million shares -- equivalent to a quarter of the bank's capital -- is also the biggest in the region's history, and is expected to generate $6 billion. It's a figure that trumps the Arab world's previous record of $4.96 billion, when port operator DP World went public in 2007.


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Dura Skrim Plastic Sheeting
DURA SKRIM consist of two sheets of high-strength virgin polyethylene film laminated together with a third layer of molten polyethylene. The white outer layer contains UV inhibitors and thermal stabilizers and the black outer layer(s) contains carbon black to enhance outdoor life. The white outer layer is also designed to reduce heat buildup and condensation. A heavy scrim reinforcement placed between these plies greatly enhances tear resistance and increases service life. DURA SKRIM's heavy-duty diamond reinforcement responds to tears immediately by surrounding and stopping the tear.
Place Your Order By Phone Mon-Fri, 6am-6:30pm(PT) 1.760.747.6095
Se Habla Español
Se Habla Español


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Clear and present danger - Reason unknown.
Subscribe. Know of New Posts via Email.
City : Tikrit, Iraq - 100 miles Northwest of Baghdad. Home town and former strong hold of the 'allegedly' late Saddam Hussein.
General Population : Fast decreasing.
Armed forces in the City : Combined UN forces believed to be double the size of total city population.
UN forces ops are pre-warned of the hostile nature of the locals on assignment Tikrit. Alert Code Red on suicide bombers is active 24/7 in and around the city.
Friday : The day of Juma Prayers.
Time : 7:15 pm.
Privates Santiago, Anderson and Martinez were on Patrol duty on their military assigned MUV, having got their orders from their base Camp TI-21 that morning. Their vehicle was recently armed and mounted with a counter-IED (Improvised Explosive Device) that had the 3 privates feeling a bit safer out on hostile streets. (Counter-IED is a new technology that jams enemy radio signals making it impossible for hidden attackers to detonate explosives.)
Santiago lead the team of three. Their primary assignment - to make random checks on vehicles passing by for any suspicious movements or activities. They had on their backpack a list of men identified internationally as known and wanted terrorists on the run - both active and sleepers.
Active terrorist camps were being identified in Iraq and raided on continuous basis but it was the sleepers that held real trouble.
Therefore, the 2nd assignment for the privates was to click the photographs of the occupants of the vehicles if they looked suspicious in anyways whatsoever and do an immediate photo back-check with base for identification and clearance. This required them to be on alert their entire duty time.
An hour had passed and they were moving from place to place - their weapons on check and ready. Tikrit had a tendency of utilizing guerrilla warfare to the core. The Privates weren't taking any chances.
Time: 9:30 pm.
The privates stopped their vehicle and got out to do some barricade checking. Two barricades were put up and each vehicle stopped and checked. Private Anderson took the side of the road that had incoming traffic and the other 2 privates, the outgoing. Every vehicle stopped was assumed to be laden of weapons and occupants armed and dangerous. They parked their own MUV on the side of the road with Counter-IED on the ON mode.
Every vehicle they stopped, they had all it's occupants ordered out on gun point and their vehicle checked. This was routine and the soldiers did their job efficiently. Due apologies were mentioned if nothing was found and their identification was clean.
Private Anderson saw a red colored vehicle approach on his side of the road. He kept an eye on the vehicle to see if there's any sudden suspicious reaction from the occupants in the car. As the car closed in, he noticed the people inside.
It was a family. A man driving the vehicle, a woman by his side in the front and two good looking kids around 5 or 6 of age - both boys, in the back seat.
But, family or no family, the car was going to be checked. The vehicle was approaching at normal speed indicating nothing out of the ordinary. Privates Santiago and Martinez had not seen the vehicle yet. They were busy flagging and checking the vehicles coming from the other side of the road.
Anderson's side had only that one red car approaching. The car moved at a steady speed. But just as suddenly.....it stopped....at least 30 feet short of Anderson for reason unknown.
Anderson couldn't comprehend any usual reasons like a puncture or Tyre burst for the car to stop. Yet, the driver had seemingly decided to do just that.
"Uh oh...this is not good", Anderson thought. He got his hands on his assault rifle on instinct and aimed it at the vehicle. What he saw next confirmed the fact that he was right. This was definitely a problem car. He saw the driver and the woman get out from the front in a hurry and reach to the back of the car and then break into a sudden run in the opposite direction in a straight line.
They ran straight in such a fashion that the car sat directly in between Anderson and them. They were being cunningly smart and were avoiding being shot.
What Anderson didn't really understand was the reason for their sudden dash especially when their children were still in the vehicle. The two boys had confusion written all over their innocent faces.
Anderson shouted for the running couple to stop.
His shout got the attention of his mates - Martinez and Santiago. They let a car go by un-checked on their side and started immediately to reach Anderson. But Anderson had left his position. He was now walking briskly with his Assault Rifle - aim ready near his eyes, towards the red vehicle. He anticipated more trouble for some reason. His primary aim, though, was to get the children out of the car first.
Santiago and Martinez reached where Anderson was a minute back. From their new position they could see the car with the boys inside, Anderson rushing towards it and also the couple running in the distance. This definitely looked disastrous.
Santiago was known to be the most alert among the 3. He was also known to be a street-smart soldier with impeccable survival instincts. Santiago's brain took on the situation in a second and his instinct came to fore like a blast.
By this time, however, Anderson had broken into a run towards the car, armed with his fire-ready rifle. It wouldn't take more than a minute for him to reach it.
Time was not a luxury here. Santiago had had an instinct and his brain computed on what had the highest possibility of happening here. And if his instinct was going to be right, time was almost lost. There was only one chance and Santiago took it.
He shouted his command to Anderson on the top of his voice, from where he was, in the most threatening way he could - "SOLDIER, STOP !! Don't move an inch." Anderson heard it and stopped dead on his tracks. But even before he could turn to see Santiago and understand the reason to have been given this command, he heard another command the very next instant - "GET DOWN. NOW !!".
Soldiers are taught to act on the spur, more-so on such tense situations. When you hear such commands, you don't think, you DO. If you don't, you die. Period. This was survival basics. Anderson immediately jumped as far away from the vehicle as possible and threw himself to the ground in a large thud.
As Anderson was throwing himself to the ground, so were Santiago and Martinez. It had been barely a second since the soldiers had got themselves to the ground when THE CAR BLEW UP in a terrifying huge blast.
It was blown away to smithereens. The burning door of the car went high in the air and landed directly on Anderson's left leg and he shouted in pain.
Martinez got up, picked up the sand on the side of the road and rushed to Anderson and threw it on his burning leg. Santiago was already on his side getting the fire out from Anderson's burning pants.
This time Martinez heard Santiago. "Get those bastards", he said. Martinez turned to look at Santiago and saw the fiercest look of his team leader he had ever seen. The next instant saw Martinez running towards their MUV, starting it up and driving at break neck speed towards the running couple who had by now gained quite some distance.
Day : Saturday.
Time : 03:59 am.
Location: Base Camp TI-21.
Sergent Major R. Hamilton sat on his chair and read Private Santiago's detailed report on the events of the evening. The summary was presented quite clearly.
Terrorist vehicle make : Fiat mini.
Vehicle color : Red.
Vehicle Occupants : Four. Single male adult, age around 40. Single female adult, age around 30, 2 children, both male, age around 6.
Casualty : 4 dead, 1 injured. All vehicle occupants dead. Adult male shot by Private Martinez. Adult female dead due to Cyanide consumption. Both male children blown in vehicle blast. Private Anderson suffered burns on his left leg. Burn percentage - 80. Currently hospitalized in base.
Terrorist Identification : Both adult bodies identified on Pentagon database of the internationally wanted.
Reason for attack : Unknown.
Assumed target of terrorist vehicle: Base camp TI-21.
Counter-IED assumed no role in the saving of private Anderson's life. Private Martinez and me are ready for another day.
End of Report.
Major R. Hamilton kept the report on the table, sipped his tea without any expressions and whispered to himself in controlled anger, "Fucking hell, We aren't going that easy. Bring it on !!"
Clear and present message:
To the authorities of the world : Stop uniform terrorism.
To the people who take up arms : Stop killing Innocent people.
To the people of the world : Accept and follow the age-old religion - Peace.
(The above is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any character or situation is purely coincidental. The photos are for representation purposes only.)


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WASHINGTON --Christmas has arrived in Washington, D.C.With the flip of a switch, President Barack Obama lit the national Christmas tree Thursday night.
The 40-foot Colorado blue spruce is situated in a grassy area near the White House known as the Ellipse.
The president was joined by his wife, Michelle, and daughters Malia and Sasha.
The holiday tradition dates back to 1923, when Calvin Coolidge became the first chief executive to preside over the lighting of the national Christmas tree.


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Alegre y Valganon, D.O.Ca Rioja
Owned, grown and made by husband and wife team Oscar Alegre and Eva Valganon, La Calleja is a plot of 1.07 hectares planted 21 years ago when Eva was a little girl (she helped plant it). It is on her family's 16 hectare farm in Fonzaleche. This village of 80 people is situated in the very limit of la Rioja, way out west of Haro. It's north west of Cuzcurrita de Rio Turon, with which its wines share a sub-regional similarity. La Calleja is the last vineyard of the region as you depart towards Burgos (N232-A1).
At 580 metres' altitude it is one of the highest and coldest parts of the region. It's situated below the Montes Obarenes, on the left bank west of the Ebro River. The soils are very similar to those of Rioja Alavesa (above the river on its right bank) - predominantly chalky limestone - elsewhere the left bank below the river is more often pebbly and iron-rich. The Obarenes are part of the Sierra Cantabria.


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After skipping the recap for the previous quarter of year, here I am again to chronicle my geeky activities from April to June 2014.
Artix Games In my previous post I noted how the quest for the Blinding Light of Destiny in Adventure Quest Worlds could be tedious and time consuming. Well, what I recently discovered it's that the farming of Undead Essences was actually only the tip of the iceberg. It will take really an absurd amount of time, patience and dedication to complete it, but that's not what really bothers me (considering that I will put it on hiatus and get back to it once in a while). My real issue with it is that defeating all the monster required to finally forge the weapon will certainly get me to the game's level cap much, much before I complete it. The problem is that once I'll get there, I won't be invested in playing the game anymore, and for that reason I will assemble the Blinding Blade of Destiny (which is actually a requirement to forge the ultimate weapon) and wait until the level cap will be raised to resume the farming... assuming that it will even happen, obviously.
The classic Adventure Quest, on the other hand, made me a little upset when I had a very hard time defeating some bosses in the latest releases, until I remembered that the answer to that was simply to equip the freaking basic armor to have higher defense stats and win the fight. Putting that aside, it's still a great game and the only other little issue I have with it is that there are at least three different story arcs going on and it's not really that easy to follow of all them, considering that two of them (the Truphma and the Transmorphers saga) are quite complex on their own.
Tanoth Online A very simple browser game based on the same concept of Bitefight, Tanoth Online is something I care about only because it demands very little time and effort to be enjoyed. The progression is slow but constant, there is no overarching plot or ultra-complex quest to pick up with. You can literally play it everyday, stop for a year and then go back to it and start right where you left. It might sound stupid for "true" gamers, but it's a winner for those who want something easy and simple that won't take you away months of your life.
Shining In The Darkness This name has been in the back of my mind since I started playing video games many years ago, being the beginning of the Shining games series. Now that I'm approximately at one third of the game itself, I'm thankful to whatever higher being (the God of Gamers ?) that I didn't have the chance to play it back then. Shining In The Darkness combines the disorienting mechanism of a first-person dungeon crawler like Eye of the Beholder and the random encounter system of the old Final Fantasy games. Translated in a just slightly more comprehensible language, it means you have to expect turn-based battles to pop up at every step you make... and I can guarantee you that in some case, this occurrence is literal. Thankfully, today is possible to play that game in your emulator (or, just as I'm doing thanks to a Google Plus post by Cody and Jon from Unqualified Gamers, right in your browser) with features like the instant save and gif maps right from Gamefaqs (on this matter, I wish to thank Paul Keating for the great work he did there). Now, if you think that this game it's a piece of cake with these helps, this is not really the case. Even with this "arrangements", Shining In The Darkness will still be a though, unnerving and time-consuming game. If anything, I will keep up playing it (and hopefully beat it) even just to marvel at how cool is to be and old-time retro-game player in this modern age, not to mention the "documentation" purpose of such feat.
Jojo Bizarre Adventures: Stardust Crusaders When Jojo Bizarre Adventures first two story arc anime transpositions finished airing some months ago, I made a "Last Impression" article on Japanator (that you can check right here), and there is very little I can do here other than reiterate the very same concepts. My biggest praise on the transposition of Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency was about how David Productions was committed to reproduce as faithfully as possible the original manga on the screen, and the only minor (and completely irrelevant) observation I could do was that the character design was just slightly different from the original. Well, this time around even such minor remark would be totally out place: Stardust Crusaders visual style, design, and basically everything is absolutely identical to the manga. I like to think that such precision was impossible without a genuine love for this classic shonen from the anime staff, and it's safe to say that nobody could pull off such an astounding representation as David Productions, to which all true Jojo-fans of the world owe some debt of gratitude.
Avatar: The Legend of Korra Book 3 After the resolution of Book 2 (which I won't spoil here), it was difficult for me to believe that the authors could bring something to the table that could keep the viewers interested in the story, and that's where a show like Avatar sets its difference from your average Dragon Ball Z arc, where the only way to keep the story going is to replace the previous big bad with a new, more powerful big bad. Sheer power it's not the point in a show like Avatar: there are many ways to villainous characters to pose a threat to the world. And i can't avoid to mention the very two characters whose return made me rejoice (SPOILERS AHEAD). Call me nuts, but Desna and (especially) his sister Eska are the true characters who steal the show to me. Just a couple of lines with another certain "old acquaintance" of Avatar fans make the first three episodes worth watching... as if they weren't awesome already one their own.
What's next: Shine On, Crazy Backlog
The whole point of playing Shining In The Darkness is to complete the so-called "Shining Trilogy", which means that the games that will follow will be Shining Force 1 and 2.
Needless to say, I will keep up with Tanoth Online, Adventure Quest and Adventure Quest Worlds as long as I'll have an Internet connection and a bit of time to spare.


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Today starts the 25th annual OU Medicine Corporate Challenge competitions and our American Fidelity team is ready to bring home the gold! Corporate Challenge is a great weekend event that brings Oklahoma companies together to battle it out in a lot of different events. We have been practicing our volleyball, basketball, running and more, and we are ready to go!
Corporate Challenge isn't just about competition. It's a great way to bring our Colleagues together and just have some fun. Tonight starts out with women's basketball, shuttle relays, kids fitness challenge and more. We have participants in all of the events, and I can't wait to run in the sprint and relay team on Saturday.
Other events throughout the weekend include:
- Tug-of-war
- Home run derby
- Volleyball
- Freestyle swimming
- Obstacle course
- 5K and 10K
We have a tent with drinks to keep everyone hydrated, some awesome AFA Corporate Challenge T-shirts to represent our Company spirit and a group full of competitive Colleagues.
Are you participating in Corporate Challenge? Tell us what events in the comments! If you're not participating, come out and cheer on team AFA!
Do you want to be on AFA's team? Apply for an open position!


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EBL Women Banking Services
Speech HE Sophie Aubert, the Ambassador of France to Bangladesh
(EBL Center, 19 03 2017)
It's an honor to have been invited to conclude this important event. I support this initiative to launch an EBL Women Banking Services, because in France, we grant a great deal of importance to all gender topics, equality between men and women, and we encourage all the initiatives in that sense worldwide. That's the reason why I am here.
In France, even though we were the first country where a female citizen, Olympe de Gouges, wrote the universal Declaration of the women's rights and the rights of the female citizen in 1791, we had to wait until 1945 to see women being given the right to vote for the political elections. It's not that far behind, just a little bit more than 70 years. Today progress has been made, but we can observe from the everyday reality that there is still tremendous room for improvement. In Bangladesh, the initiative taken by EBL is most valuable. Better treatment for women is necessary because it's not a natural behavior in our societies. We have to force the trend if we want our societies to change. Giving women an easier access to services is not a privilege but a way to make sure that women will really get access to the services.
Women have brought a huge contribution to the development of Bangladesh. But women in general have to manage two lives, their professional life and their private life. In many countries including Bangladesh, women are in charge of the household and the children. From the men's perspective, it's normal and the society globally is not ready to address this matter differently.
That's the reason why EBL initiative is most appropriate. Women will spare time in their lives in order to dedicate more time for their priorities. In addition, as we are also talking about connectivity : connectivity is a key issue worldwide and in Bangladesh. Connectivity shrinks time and distance. It opens to more liberty in our way of life. It's a fact, to say that thanks to connectivity, our entire way of life, professional and private life, has totally changed in the last twenty years.
When Bangladesh integrates high technologies and innovation, it's tantamount to a technological leap, saving years in its developing process. Such a strategy can be assimilated to a fast track development. This is what EBL is doing and the private sector is playing the positive role of a pilot in that field, all over the world. I would like to congratulate EBL and the previous speakers for their huge commitment to the development of the country, but also for the valuable initiatives they have taken in favor of women, to support them by creating the conditions for them to play their role in the society, and therefore to be fully part of the future of the country, equally to men./.


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On the auction block: "Back to the Future II" BMW hover car
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The future is here, and the car made it.
You still can't buy a hover mobile like the one Griff Tannen owned in "Back to the Future II," but the actual car Griff owned on screen in the year 2015 is up for auction.
The customized BMW featured in the film has been preserved and restored to its two-tone plus primer glory, right down to the Mag-Lev Hover Conversion Systems equipment, giant hood-mounted air intake, and taillight broken by a baseball bat as Griff swung at and missed Marty McFly on his trusty Mattel hover board.
Several of the parts, including the rear deck, were recreated by a movie prop house, as the originals were lost. Under the skin, the 74,000 mile 1976 BMW 633CSi isn't in quite as good condition, but it does run, and two of its tires survived from filming in 1989.
It's being offered on iCollector.com, and comes with the molds for the hover conversion parts along with the URL: www.bttfbmw.com, which doesn't also date back to 1989, but could have since that was the year the World Wide Web was launched.


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Disclaimer A
Nov. 24. 2013
Nov. 24. 2013
Over the course of seven years my body's been folding, and saying "no more." I have developed "fibromyalgia." As well, I'm naturally attuning to my autistic son, by speaking my native tongue to communicate with him. This has transformed me. Yes, it's transformed me back to my roots. It's dissolved the facade I had become so good at wearing. I was once a coping little actress, dumbing myself down into a cutesy, simple-language girl-next-door. I was mimicking and mirroring.
I was playing a what-others-need-to-hear-in-order-to-functionally-respond-to-general-conversation game. It was Survival Poker, and secretly; it was amidst pokerfaces. No, I could never read them very well, and it was always frightening, though I didn't understand why. I merely decoded them as best I could, with my cat-like sixth "scents." They are really strong, detrimentally strong actually.
At times, though, I could miss something. I could be wrong, or have my sixth sense shut off with something like alcohol. In these instances, I often got hurt, sometimes badly. I am lucky to be here, lucky to have survived. That's all I'll say for now.
Today, things are different. I'm a flaming autistic! I'm nearly a "mad- hattress"...and you know what? I like it. I'm overall happier than I ever was before, than I ever dreamed I could be. I'm twirling around in a whirlwind of music, patterns, colors, and questions. I'm crying, "Why is a raven like a writing desk??"
Many a time, this spawns into; "why do governments adhere to the needs of corporations over people?" and "why are so many people currently inclined to act foolish, competitive, or desensitized when in groups especially" and so much more. Alas, the real me have come to be. The real me is awake!
So lastly, I cry out "where is the loooove???"Whence answering myself in colorful pictures numerical rhythms and musical patterns. I began struggling to turn it into language. I had to get it out. My blog was born.
Half the time, I'm capturing it supremely, despite an aftermath of tiredness. The other half of the time, I'm still tearfully crying "WHY IS A RAVEN LIKE A WRITING DESK???" once again. I cannot, and will not, change what I have become. No. I actually don't think I can anyway.
The Fibrobeast is my friend, only in the way it says "you are not allowed to perform as neurotypical anymore, or I will bite you!" So I Be. This is, in fact, the person I truly am. Now my next step is to fully let it be, and even let it go.
- Rose Whitson-Guedes
*Like what you read/wish to support? Diary of A Girl Outside The Box and others (Kindle) are available to purchase via the "books" link on my site!


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National Debt Relief is one of the nation's largest debt settlement companies. The organization offers a variety of debt relief services to consumers through settlement and negotiation, states the Better Business Bureau.
In exchange for a fee, National Debt Relief helps consumers settle unsecured debts involving credit cards, personal loans and lines of credit, medical bills, collections and repossessions and business debts. The company promises to help individuals achieve freedom through debt settlement at the least possible cost as an alternative to bankruptcy, according to its mission statement. A willingness to resolving consumer complaints in good faith have earned NDR accreditation and an 'A' rating from the Better Business Bureau.


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LEXINGTON, KY- Kentucky Ale's beer fans will be pleased to hear that there have been new advances with their beloved ale. The Alltech beverage division is not only growing in Kentucky, but out of state as well as their distribution has now expanded into Chicago. This adds to the beer's current distribution in Kentucky, Ohio, Wisconsin, Georgia, Tennessee, Massachusetts and Indiana, along with their distribution network in China.
Kentucky Ale continues the expansion of their distribution network with the addition of Chicago based distributor, River North.
"Chicagoans have shown a history of enthusiasm for barrel-aged beers, and Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale is a unique and exceptionally smooth barrel-aged beer that we know Chicagoans will enjoy," said Yusef D. Jackson, president and CEO of River North.
Kentucky Ale products will join an impressive portfolio of craft beers headlined by companies like Goose Island Beer Co., Brewery Ommegang, and Brooklyn Brewery. Along with their craft beers, River North also carries a wide range of import and domestic brands.
"Chicago is the seventh largest craft beer market in the country with its three million residents," said Dr. Pearse Lyons, founder and president of Alltech's Lexington Brewing and Distilling Company. "Much like Alltech, River North places a heavy emphasis on education and training its employees. They ensure all of their sales staff are trained through the Cicerone® Certification Program, an elite certification program that requires a very thorough understanding of craft beers. We are pleased to be working with River North."
For more information about Alltech's Brewery and Distillery, visit www.kentuckyale.com.
About Alltech
Founded by Dr. Pearse Lyons, Alltech is a global animal health and nutrition company with 32 years' experience in developing natural products that are scientifically proven to enhance animal health and performance. With 2800 employees in 128 countries, the company has developed a strong regional presence in Europe, North America, Latin America, the Middle-East, Africa and Asia. For further information, visit www.alltech.com. For media assets, visit www.alltech.com/press
About River North
River North sells and markets a wide range of domestic, specialty import and craft beers, including Bud Light, Goose Island, Duvel, Brooklyn Brewery, Shiner Bock and others. For more information on River North Sales & Service, visit them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/rivernorthbeer.


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Welcome to Benson Center Veterinary and Laser Clinic!
Your local veterinarian in Kent. Call us today at (253) 852-0580 to schedule your pet care appointment!
Veterinary Services Available
Our Veterinary Hospital in Kent, Washington is pleased to provide a wide variety of veterinary services for animals in Kent & Surrounding Area. These services include medical, surgical services & more!


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My Healthy Lifestyle Change Efforts have been paying off recently (nope, still not calling it a diet), in the form of both lower scale readings and, this morning, a very sore knee. I've cut my mile time down quite a bit in the past two weeks, and in return the legs mutinied and demanded a day off. Without the gym time to factor into my day, I wanted something exceptionally lean for dinner.
Which led me to reach for venison again, but I was craving something other than a burger. We usually have multiple forms of venison in our fridge, so tonight I grabbed a bag of it in Steak-Um form. For those of you not familiar with Steak-Ums (I have absolutely no idea if that is a universally understood term, or if its something colloquial. Like Speedies, which are HUGE in the area of New York state where I grew up – but then I transplanted one state over and people looked at me like I had three heads when I asked where I could get Speedies), it is essentially a loin sliced extremely thin. Think of the slices of beef you'd find on a Philly Cheesesteak. And although I like the taste of venison au naturel, I was in the mood to jazz things up.
As well as attempting to keep my diet a little cleaner these days, I was desperate to get something into J that wasn't ice cream, which has become his staple for the past week. He's still very sore and can't eat anything other than soft foods after getting all four wisdom teeth yanked last Monday, so ice cream is his best friend. I feel like an evil witch if I give him the side eye at his frequent trips to the freezer, because he looks at me with this innocent, pained face and cries "but my TEETH HURT!"
Ok, so, soft, healthy veggies. Whaddowegot? "Power Greens" mix! Which is a pre-bagged mix of spinach, kale, bok choy, arugula, and a few other dark green leafies that you can find pretty much anywhere. The spinach is the predominate flavor, so J eats it willingly. Cook that down and throw in a can of butter beans for more substance, and you've got a healthy, filling side dish. Good stuff!
Spiced Steak-Ums
Servings: 4
Prep and cook time: ~15 minutes
What you'll need:
1/2 pound of venison or beef, thinly sliced
1 egg
4 tablespoons garlic powder
4 tablespoons chili powder
4 teaspoons dried dill
2 tablespoons olive oil
Heat one tablespoon of olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. When working with meat that is this thinly sliced, you don't want your heat too high, or the meat will burn quickly. If you're using an electric stove like I am, don't get your heat above 6, at most.
Whisk an egg in a bowl. On a plate, thoroughly mix together 2 tablespoons garlic powder, 2 tablespoons chili powder, and 2 teaspoons dill. Working with one piece of meat at a time, dip the steak-um in the egg to coat, then roll each side of the steak-um in the spice mixture. I reserved half of the spices initially, because as you continue to put the egg-coated steak-ums in the spice mixture, the remaining mixture on the plate will become gummy consistency. You'll want to add the rest of the spices about halfway through the process so that all of the meat gets an even layer. Same concept applies to that second tablespoon of olive oil – as the meat is cooking, some of the spice will end up coming off and gumming up the bottom of your pan. Add the second tablespoon of olive oil halfway through the cooking process, and even more if you think it is needed. If you don't keep enough oil in the pan to coat the bottom, your spices will burn almost immediately.
Because they are very thin, the steak-ums will cook very quickly, so you'll want to keep a sharp eye on them. Especially if you're working with venison instead of beef – venison is much leaner, so it will dry out and burn much quicker than beef.
Sauteed Greens with Butter Beans
Servings: 2-3
Prep and cook time: ~10 minutes
What you'll need
2 cups of dark leafy green of your choice (I used a pre-bagged mix, but straight spinach or kale would work great)
1 can of butter beans, aka great northern beans, aka cannellini beans (I don't know either why they can't just pick a name), drained and rinsed
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Super easy side dish here – put about 1 teaspoon of water in the bottom of a pot or a pan, doesn't really matter, as long as you can put a lid on it. I used a wok. Put your greens in, put the lid on top, set the heat to the low side of medium (4 on my stove) and let the water steam the veggies until they're wilted, stirring every couple of minutes. Once the veggies are wilted, throw in the butter beans. Leave the lid off to let the remaining moisture in the bottom of the pan cook off so you don't have soggy beans – about 3 or 4 minutes. Mix in the black pepper, garlic powder, and salt. Let the spices warm up and cook in the mixture for another 2 or 3 minutes, and you're ready to serve!


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Call: (781) 331-0656 • (800) 439-0656 FAX: (508) 732-4114
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Making sense of the building permit process in New England can be daunting, confusing and at times outright overwhelming. With so many specifications, rules and regulations, only a seasoned and experienced company in New England like Aaron Construction Services has the expertise to navigate through this maze of a process.
The contractors, engineers, architects and property owners of New England turn to Aaron Construction services to secure all their building code needs. Our approach is comprehensive and thorough. We do the building code research; we offer code compliance reviews and all other steps to get your building permit to you as quickly as possible. We know the whole procedure inside out and we take a hand on approach to the task at hand.
We ourselves are fully licensed in the states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. We follow every minor detail every step of the way. From consulting with those applying for the permit to delivering the final permit and drawings to the responsible client, Aaron construction services are there every step of the way. We are also able to engage in inspections required by each state to make sure that the job is being done according to code and we can file for final Certificates of Occupancy. New England's contractors, engineers, architects and property owners can always rely on Aaron Construction Services to do all the paperwork necessary at an affordable price.
Aaron Construction Services offers assistance in applying for fast track building permits, long form building, foundation, fire department, construction, short forms, demolition permits and certificates of occupancy. We have been working with the people of New England for over fifty years and we have dealt with countless customers requiring all manners of permit assistance. Aaron Construction Service should be the first call and most important step any builder, architect and engineer should take before executing their projects.
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When you have your child's birthday party you are forced to play many roles. Mom, hostess, waitress and janitor just to name a few. That is a lot to have on your plate, and many times it's easy to forget to capture those special wonderful party moments on film. That is why it is a great idea to hire a photographer to capture those moments for you!
Cat Dunbar of Cat Dunbar Photography & Graphic Design knows how important it is to find the right person to help you photograph the day so that you can relive it for years to come.
Cat has put together some guidelines for hiring a photographer for your child's party:
- Choosing a Photographer: Staying within your budget is important but be sure you are attracted to a photographers portfolio, style and personality as well as their pricing. Did you get good vibes from your initial inquiry and follow ups? If not, do you really want this person at your child's birthday party?
- Discussing details: Once you book a photographer, make sure you are on the same page when it comes to your expectations of the day. Communicate your thoughts regarding specific shots/moments you hope to be captured before the big day (especially if they are outside the standard cake/presents/guests etc).
- Make time for Portraits: Carve out 15-20 minutes for the photographer to take the guest of honor aside in some ideal light/background so you can get some nice clean shots of your little one on their big day!
- Don't sweat it: Refer back to Tip #1…if you are comfortable with and trust your photographer, let them do their thang! After all, didn't you hire them so you could enjoy the party and not have to worry about taking pictures?
As a matter of fact these tips can help you choose a photographer for any event you may be having. Happy choosing!


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The sari is one of the most elegant pieces of clothing. It is versatile and can be passed off as both a traditional and modern artefact. Saris have been recycled many a time to serve different purposes such as creating different outfits or home decor essentials. In a day and age of creativity, innovation and sustainability, it is only befitting that we recycle and create wealth from waste. Thereby, what better way to than to use old saris to create innovative decor pieces.
Many, many uses
For a Victorian look for the windows, weave a pleated chiffon sari along the curtain rod lengthwise. Adjust the length of the sari so that it falls equally on either side and fasten it with a clothespin. Then, equalise and ease out the curved portions in between and pin them firmly at the back. Make corrections where the proportion is concerned.
Make fancy string curtains using colourful synthetic saris. Cut them into strips of about four or five inches wide and picot the edges. Then use a double thread and sew through the centre using a simple running stitch. When you reach the end, push the cloth back gently and allow it to twirl around till it achieves the floral garland look. Then knot the stitch to a close. Keep attaching strips till you arrive at the desired length. Attach a loop at one end for it to slide across the curtain rod. When the stitches are equally spaced and considerably closer, the results will be better. You can play with colour combinations if you're planning to use a number of saris in the project. You can hang them up as borders of your regular curtains, or hang them all at equal intervals at doorways and open windows.
Make your own fancy foot rugs, telephone mats and table mats by cutting a sari lengthwise into three parts. Picot the edges, place the three pieces one over another and stitch them firmly at one end, and plait it all the way until the end. Stitch the plait close by placing the three pieces one over another. Coil the plait in the shape of your choice and glue it on to a Rexine sheet of the same shape.
You can also create your own corner table using a spare cooking gas cylinder. Make a skirt of the unused saree and drape it around the cylinder and conceal its neck as well. Place a large brass or fibreglass tray on top of the cylinder. One can also use cotton saris for the all-purpose cloth in the kitchen. One simply has to convert them into little-pleated skirts. Attach a Velcro to one of the open ends and fasten them in places you might require them in.


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By Ramy Shaalan
Photography: Waleed Shaalan
When we first caught up with father and son team, Waleed and Ramy Shaalan, to learn more about their recent excursion to Tanzania, they started off our discussion with one shared sentence. 'It was the trip of a lifetime', they said. For renowned local architect, artist and creative Waleed Shaalan, surprising his 12-year-old son Ramy with a life-changing trip to the wilds of Tanzania and the great Serengeti was simply the start of even greater realizations. Little did they know, however, that both of their perspectives would be altered. For Ramy, it was a coming-of-age experience. For Waleed, it was a re-calibration of perspectives. They both learned so much from one another, proving that going back to nature and experiencing Earth in all of its pure glory, is indeed a life-changing experience.
In the span of one week, they embarked on an odyssey-like adventure in Tanzania's riveting Serengeti National Park, following the migration of more than one million wildebeests that takes these majestic creatures to greener pastures as they follow the moving rainfalls. The migration powerfully illustrates the circle of life, as many wildebeests and other creatures fall prey to more masterful attackers. Both Waleed and Ramy photographed, drew, wrote, and conducted interviews with Tanzania's indigenous Maasai, enjoying moving conversations about the cycles of life and death that are so evident in nature. Not only did they see the big five – the African lion, elephant, cape buffalo, leopard and rhinoceros, they also managed to sight wild cats, giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, hyenas, gazelles, vultures, warthogs and of course, the iconic wildebeest. Read on to experience Ramy's African adventure as he chronicled his way through the Serengeti.
Day One: We are Going to Tanzania?!
"These red bananas are amazing!"
Around 15-18 hours earlier at Kuwait Airport, heading for "Oman":
Dad: "Ramy, get your camera and film this, it is something important."
Me: "Ugh… Fine…"
(Video Starts)
"Ramy, I have something very important to tell you."
"We have a change of plans."
"What?" I looked at him with suspicion.
"We're not going to Oman."
"I knew it," I said with confusion.
"Do you know where we are going?"
"We are going to witness one of the most epic events of nature, the migration of 1.5 (million) wildebeest from the Serengeti in Tanzania to Kenya, we are now flying out to Addis Ababa…"
"What?!" I screamed.
"And we are going to Kilimanjaro, here is the ticket, we are going to go to Tanzania."
I was literally in shock. For the past 3 weeks he said we were going to Oman.
"Are you excited?"
I was in too much shock to answer.
"We are going to Tanzania!" he said.
If only you could see my face!
"Now I know why you lied to the doctor!"
I was in tears. Can you imagine someone telling you that you are going to camp in Oman, but 3 weeks later, after you told all your friends and family, at the airport, (emphasis on the AIRPORT), that you were going on a safari in Tanzania, Africa? Where the great Serengeti Savannah is situated! Where Mt. Kilimanjaro towers high above the land! The Eden of Africa! We are going to Tanzania!
Amazed, tired, excited, and in shock, we head to check in our bags. I left my GoPro in my bag, which we checked in. Bad mistake. I sucked it up and we boarded the plane. We asked for a window seat, and we got one, except without the window. Also, for some reason, the whole plane ride, I kept on hearing random national anthems in my head, and I kept on asking my dad if he was hearing them too, but, it turns out I was hallucinating. Hmmm…
Day Two: What a Drive.
After four hours of sleeping in weird positions, we landed in Addis Ababa Bole Airport and sat down in a small café. I got a small bracelet that says ETHIOPIA and while nothing exciting happened, I still couldn't believe I was there, and we boarded the plane to Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. This time, we finally got a seat with a window!
Around 12:00 noon, somewhere over Africa:
All I am thinking is, wow, Africa is beautiful.
The puffy white clouds, the Egyptian and Lebanese national anthems ringing in my ears, my dad watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the great food… All was good. All was good.
I look outside the window and we are over Tanzania, I can see what looks like a caldera and Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was so breathtakingly beautiful. The metal rooftops of the houses reflected light which made it look like a giant accidently spilled large amounts of glitter over Tanzania while trying to complete his art project. Three words: It was shiny.
Right before we began to land, all I though about was how I was on that plane, looking out, staring at Mt. Kilimanjaro, getting ready to land in Tanzania. If my dad had never tried, and if I never got good grades, we wouldn't have gone. If my dad didn't work hard at his job, we wouldn't have gone. The main factor of success and enjoyment is working, trying and doing your best. I always say, "It's not that you can't, it is that you believe you can't, so believe you can." The funny thing is that this quote cannot get any truer, and if you don't believe me, try it out. I am not saying that if you believe you can ace an exam without studying or trying, it will actually happen. Because it won't. You have to try. It is like trying to bake a cake without actually having anything to cook with. It's not going to happen.
Now enough of that, let's cut to the chase.
We arrived at the surprisingly tiny airport in Kilimanjaro. The plane parked a mere 40m from the airport's entrance. The thing that gave me a bit of the chills were the Ebola warnings and the fact that we had to pass the screenings. We had to fill out our papers and we got our bags and met David, the tour guide. We got in the Land Rover that had two plugs, very comfy seats and a very stubborn window. We headed out to the first lodge in Karatu and on the way we bought some red bananas which brings me back to the first sentence of this article. Those bananas were really good!
We saw some baboons on the street and we drove a long 3-hour drive where we learned a bit about the tribes people there, about the geography of the land and much, much more. We arrived to the first hotel and I jumped in the pool and then we went to bed. I couldn't sleep. At all.
Day Three: Dancing With the Maasai
We woke up and we packed our bags and continued onwards. We ate breakfast and David took us to Ngorongoro, where I got some "Tanzanite" stone for 36,000 shillings. Turns out it was the worst possible quality of rough Tanzanite, pretty much worth very little. It's better than nothing, as this precious gem symbolizes good luck. We head out to view the crater from above and it was the most beautiful thing I have ever laid my eyes on.
We continued our drive to the Serengeti National Park and on the way we went to a Maasai village. The village was called Ellerai. The Maasai people are tribesmen and women who live in Tanzania and some parts of Kenya. In total, there are about 50,000 Maasai people in Tanzania who try as hard as possible to keep to their traditions of the past.
One of these traditions is the boy's transformation from a child to a man. They paint their face white to let everyone know that they are becoming men. A kid, between the ages of 12-16, will be circumcised and heaved into the wilderness to live for weeks, risking infection, attack and disease. An elected elder must carry out the circumcision, and if it's done in a hospital, the child and parents will be punished. The little men live in huts called Emanyattas for the next 10 years, warding off lions, herding cattle, and starting their own villages. They are no longer kids. They are men. In the end, they get to have over 20 wives.
They showed us their dance, it was very interesting, and their voices were quite good. The women had their babies with them, wearing detailed and intricate works of jewelry made of beads and string. They all wore something called a Shokat, which is like a blanket with some patterns, just like a Scottish kilt, that they wrap around themselves. After the dance, we walked into the village and they had another dance called "Laleyo" in which they show their jumping skills, and my dad and I also joined them. We walked around and they escorted us into one of their huts for an interview. He told us that the Maasai ate 3 meats – cow, sheep and goat. They take the cow, tie the cow's neck and wait until a vein is clear, they stab it with their spear and collect the fresh, warm blood and mix it with fresh, unpasteurized milk.
Furthermore, the Maasai women build the huts with twigs, animal dung and mud. There are three rooms, the living room, kids' room, and parents' room. The house is very tiny though, it is literally meant for sleeping and cooking. I am taller than the hut itself. The Maasai don't need a big house because they walk for 60km a day. They are truly brave, they kill lions that attack their cattle with three stabs only using their spears.
We went on to see a little cute kid in a kindergarten learning the alphabet. They sang us a song and we even managed to record some footage of this wonderful experience. There has been an ongoing debate about the idea of the Maasai getting an education. Personally, I can see how both arguments are important. They do need to go to school because in the event of a crisis; financially or otherwise, they might get into some trouble, but some may disagree and say that they don't need school because they have a perfect lifestyle that they have been following for thousands of years, and why should they break the tradition? What do you think?
We bought some souvenirs and left. We spotted some giraffes, an amazing surprise, and we got some good shots and continued to the Serengeti National Park.
It was a long drive, but we finally arrived. I kept on seeing mirages and it was quite weird at first. We enter the start of the Serengeti and all we see is gazelles. Lots and lots of gazelles. Then we start to see the wildebeest and zebras (9 million of them in total) migrating from Kenya to Tanzania, following the rains. Wow, there were so many of them, you can't even begin to comprehend how many. You can't even try to count them. Everywhere you looked, they were there. We spotted some hyenas and ostriches. We spotted the heaviest flying birds in the animal kingdom, the Kory Bustard. It can weigh up to 30 KGS and is also served in feasts on very special occasions.
The view was breathtaking. On the way, we saw a very photogenic giraffe. I was very surprised because it even posed for us! Afterwards, we headed to the hot air balloon office to book for the next day, and after that we drove off into an Acacia forest. Acacia trees are my favorite trees; they truly paint a picture of Africa. We noticed that there was not much wildlife in the forest, except for some water buffalos. We drive past an alkaline lake filled with flamingoes. There is no life in the alkaline lake, so the flamingoes feed on algae called Spirulina. The alkaline lake smelled very bad, and I was informed that it was the algae that caused this rancid smell.
When we reached our camp, based in the Ndutu Conservation Area, I slept this time! My father spoke to me about the difference between fear and danger. He told me to be brave like the Maasai warriors, and understand that I can conquer fear and handle danger. We heard howling hyenas, and this surely inspired fear, but he made me laugh when he mentioned that the not-so-innocent mosquito poses the real threat here. Apparently the female African mosquito has killed more humans than all animals, wars and natural disasters combined. We both opted to put on some more insect repellent spray, we each got into our netted beds and slept a deep, deep sleep.
Day Four: Balloons and Mango Juice.
We woke up at around 5:00 a.m. to go start off our balloon safari. It turns out that they needed more people to balance the balloon, so our awesome guide David got to join us for free! As it turns out, it was David and I's first ever trip on a hot air balloon, and it was a dream come true for all of us. The surprising thing was that the hot air balloon took off sideways, so we had to get in sideways, which was a fun experience.
The view was unbelievable. Trying to explain the experience is like trying to explain color to a blind person. It is such an amazing feeling, being suspended meters off the ground, flying at 15 knots, wind blowing softly on your face, the sun rising over the Serengeti Plains, while the animals run and survive. It makes you think. Nature is amazing. What a way to wake up. We had a rough landing and the adults had some champagne and I had mango juice.
We left the landing site, located in the middle of the Serengeti, and headed back to the ticketing office and had some good breakfast. Behind us were some buffalos and over the hill were millions of wildebeest and zebras. After the tasty breakfast, we made our way back to Ndutu, and saw a majestic cheetah resting under a bush. Cheetahs are the fastest land animals in the world, and their favorite food is Thompson gazelles. Yum. These would make for some good burgers. After taking beautiful pictures of the cheetah, we head off.
We continued our safari journey that day to check out some kopjes (KOH-PEES). A Kopje is pretty much just a hill in a generally flat area, formed when leftover lava spews out from the ground and forms boulder-like structures, where big cats usually love to live. The first kopje we inspected had two young sleeping lions looking to start a new pride. We were quite lucky because in the beginning of the safari we saw lots of animals, but no lions! All tired out from excitement, we head back to our campsite.
Day Five: You are Too Old To Attack.
We woke up that morning and outside the tent were some zebras grazing, and then we left Ndutu. Only 200 meters away from camp, we saw a pride of lions, which explains the grunting and roaring we kept hearing the night before. We drove off and saw even more lions. Some lazed around, some rested, and it was so shocking to me that this was a natural occurrence. We learned about these majestic creatures' life habits, their mating rituals, and so much more.
As we continued through the dry Serengeti plains and we saw a dead hyena with its guts everywhere, it obviously suffered from a brutal attack. We also witnessed an entire family of elephants; they were so cute. The reason why we drove through the dry plains is to continue following the migration of the animals. We came by some zebras playfully kicking one another, and this reminded me of my friend who loved Muay Thai. We proceeded to find a herd of elephants, and they were blocking the road. The old male looked quite happy, but then he started to charge at us and we had to back away slowly. Since he was about 55 years old though, he couldn't have reacted fast enough to actually crush us. It's sad to say their biggest predators are humans. As my grandfather said, "Ivory looks better on a living elephant than off a dead one."
We head to the last camp in the middle of the Serengeti, in the Acacia Woodlands, which was filled with Tsetse flies, and their bite stings like a bee. On the way we saw a huge herd of buffalo crossing the road, paused to admire the view, and continued on.
Day Six: Luck of the Tanzanite.
We woke up really early and my dad said, "We may see a lion attack today," I say, yeah, right!
We head out into the darkness and we found hippos grazing and a pride of lions around dawn time. We stuck with the pride for a little and there were many baby cubs, and then…
BOOM! A baby wildebeest runs through the pride, looking for her/his mother, and without hesitation, the cubs jump up and grab the baby wildebeest, strangle her and kills her. We were amazed. A-M-A-Z-E-D. David was also surprised, because he is a full time safari guide at Savannah Explorers, he worked there for 11 years and he saw one attack in his life… 8 years ago, and it wasn't even successful. What we saw wasn't just any lion attack, it was a cub attack! Baby lions learning to hunt! Unfortunately it happened too quickly to film, but we got some photos of this miraculous incident! The circle of life unfolded, right in front of our eyes. One life ended for a baby wildebeest, only to reinforce the strength of the growing cub. In a separate sighting, we saw a flailing lioness, after she suffered a bone-shattering blow from a fleeting zebra. The zebra injured this lioness, and we saw her crawl under a rock. Her breathing slowed, and it was as if she was quietly accepting death. We're not sure if a team of medics were able to rescue her in time, but I learned that even the mightiest animal could fall. It was amazing!
Around 10-30 minutes later, we spot yet another extremely rare animal, the leopard. It was walking slowly, under the bush, and then it climbed an Acacia tree and it lay there, relaxed, stalking the lions as they ate. The leopard was so close, and even David has never been this close to one in 11 years. Obviously neither my dad nor me have ever been close to a leopard or seen a lion attack live in action. I instantly thought of that Tanzanite that I brought from the market. 36,000 Shilling was worth it, and it brought us a lot of luck.
Lady Luck was surely on our side. As we continued on, we saw a blue velvet monkey; they are called as such because the males have blue testicle sacks. We even spotted an incredible 7-meter crocodile. To say that it was huge, was an understatement.
As both Waleed and Ramy rushed back to the airport to make their flight, the father instantly noticed the end of his son's childhood and the beginning of a new time. Waleed left Africa with a new-found enthusiasm, and a new goal. Both Waleed and Ramy decided that they would revisit Africa's Kilimanjaro next time, and that they would start a three-year plan of physical fitness and mental strength. They will do this to celebrate Ramy's 16th birthday on the top of Africa's highest summit: Kilimanjaro.
For more information, follow Waleed and Ramy Shaalan on Instagram, @WaleedSha3lan and @Ramyofficial.


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Leaving Tuba City, we headed to Kanab, Utah. We planned to spend several days there, visit Zion National Park, get some laundry done, and give Jake a chance to get some work done without trying to squeeze in the hours at night after a long drive.
About halfway there, we saw a sign for Horseshoe Bend, the famous overlook into a section of the Colorado River, snaking around a bend, and creating the shape of, well, a horseshoe. We knew it was nearby but we didn't realize we'd be passing right by it on our way to Kanab, and we just had to pull off. After all, we'd been seeing pictures of it regularly as we had been researching the Southwest for more than 2 years now. Suddenly, it was right there.
We pulled into the parking lot, which was small and crowded and saw people streaming in and out of the sandy uphill path toward the bend. There was a sign cautioning that the heat was extreme, there was no shade, and all visitors should bring water, wear hats, wear decent shoes (no sandals), etc. Really we thought? That bad? How far is it? Maybe we'll just run up and take a quick peek. We're relatively young and healthy. We won't stay long. It'll be fairly easy for us, I'm sure.
Jake scrambled up the path to scope it out. He agreed, it was far enough (1.5 miles round trip) and super hot that this would not be great for Isaiah or Scout. But the bigger kids could do it with him. So I sent them up with a bottle of water. When they got to the end of the path, they were extremely hot, exhausted, and wishing for shade, of which there was none. Also, Jake didn't want to get anywhere near the edge with the kids so he called me and we switched places. I brought Scout and Isaiah to him and he came back with Lucy, who had had enough. Dylan and Eli waited in the sweltering heat for me. I got there as fast as I could – nearly sprained my ankle on a sand covered rock, but finally connected with the boys and made it close enough to the edge that we could appreciate the amazing view down into the canyon.
It was, like almost everything we've seen in the west, much more impressive than you think it's going to be. It was bigger, more beautiful, more majestic. The drop was intimidating at a thousand feet. There were tourists from all over the world crawling all over the place. We ignored them and soaked in the natural beauty instead.
I took a couple of pictures of Dylan and Eli near the edge as they wilted, and we discussed the minuscule amount of water left in our bottle. It must have been 100 degrees but it might as well have been 120. I told the boys to crawl under the one large rock that was making a dash of shade and hoped that neither snake, nor tarantula would greet them. A very nice lady asked me if I wanted a picture that was better than the mirror-selfie I was attempting, so I said sure. I got closer to the edge than I would allow the boys to get and she got a pretty decent shot of the scene.
I was a little worried about the kids getting sunburned, and I felt bad for them knowing that there was no break from the heat. I gave Dylan my hat. I told Eli to tie his shirt around his head to give his face a sun break, even though that would expose his chest and back. After a brief respite, we walked back, rationing our sips of water every 30, then 50, then 100 paces. When we finally made it to the car, we were sandy, exhausted, thirsty and very hot. But it was definitely worth it. And we promise to take the caution signs more seriously next time.
After the Grand Canyon, we were basically headed north but were poking around for interesting things to do before hitting the next major stop. Thus, a night in Tuba City. Oh, you've never heard of it? Right. Well, there isn't a whole lot there. It's in the middle of a vast tract of land in north eastern Arizona. It's part of the Navajo Nation, an area of land covering almost 30,000 square miles between Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. This area is governed semi-autonomously with various agencies and layers of Native Americans ruling domestic matters, though the US Federal Government has plenary power.
The area is largely undeveloped, retaining it's majestic natural beauty, unmarred by commercial interests at every turn. Although within Tuba City itself, there are the standard businesses you'd expect – grocery, gas stations, hotels, a few shops. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary, just not over developed or much of a town really. The term "city" is a stretch. But we didn't go for the gas station or the Quality Inn.
Just before you get into town, there's a spray-painted sign declaring "Dinosaur Tracks" with an arrow pointing off to a small collection of scrappy little huts and a few pick up trucks in the middle of an enormous, beautiful and otherwise untouched reddish-white rocky landscape. We took the turn, parked the car and were soon greeted by a Navajo guide who promised to show us around the dinosaur fossils still intact that litter the area. Really? Is this a touristy hoax? Well, we did our research ahead of time, and according to paleontologists from the University of Arizona (among others), this is no hoax. At some point in the far distant past, the scaly creatures who capture the hearts and minds of little boys (and girls, and okay, adults too) wandered all over this exact spot.
We followed our guide around for a short hike and paused at each track he pointed out. He carried a water bottle with him and sprayed each of the tracks to darken them in the hot, bright sun-soaked landscape. The relief from the water drew them out to a vivid contrast among the paler surrounding rock. He told us which dinosaurs the tracks were said to be from. He showed us what was supposed to be fossilized "droppings," eggs, claws, and tail-drags. The kids followed quietly, almost speechless.
Impressed? Yeah, I guess you could say so. There's something special about being in a place where you know with certainty that something else, something magical almost, took place. It doesn't matter if it was a hundred years ago, a hundred thousand years ago or a hundred million years ago (or more). It was here. And you are here. That's an experience that transcends study, or movies, or picture books. It launches you through your physical senses via your imagination into what was once very real, right in the spot where you stand.
We stayed in Albuquerque for a few nights. We rented a beautiful adobe home in a quiet neighborhood and spent a good bit of time relaxing, and just enjoying the space. Jake worked some. We went out to a great Mexican dinner one night.
We went to an aquarium, a "bug-arium" and a place called "Explora" which was sort of a combination of a children's museum and a science museum (exhibits with gravity, magnets, sound waves, light, velocity, water flow, bubbles, building materials of all sorts, computer drawing / design). The kids had an amazing time at the museums. We had fun watching them have fun.
We loved the scenery of the mountains along one side of the city – visible from almost anywhere. We loved the weather (85-90 / sunny / dry). We loved the food. We had a great time there.
On this road trip, we set out to get to the Rocky Mountains in a much shorter time than when we came out this way in 2015. So, instead of 21 days, it took us 6 days.
Our first stop was New Jersey (only about a 3.5 hour ride), where we stayed for one afternoon and overnight with our dear friends, the Hallidays. We all had an amazing time of fun and friendship. The kids played games, bounced on the trampoline, giggled, told secrets, and stories, etc. etc. The adults got to reconnect and we are so appreciative of our time there (thank you, Hallidays!).
From New Jersey to Colorado, the following 5 days are a bit of a blur, that included not much beyond this:
Drive > Rest stops > Drive > Jake working > Gas stops > Hotels > Microwave dinners > Hotel Pool (only once) > Drive > Some of the kids napping > Drive
Not a lot of whining, thankfully. The kids have been great in the car. It helps that Jake has outfitted each of them (not including Scout) with headphones and devices that hold their favorite songs and audio books. Much of the time was actually very quiet, as surprising as that may sound. Headphones work wonders. But the ride was not without the usual issues that you might expect: a bit of whining and crying, a roadside "bathroom" emergency incident, various naps, the occasional bad attitude, and limitless lost items between seats – Cheerios, cranberries, pencils, crayons, socks, baby toys, a shredded styrofoam cup, etc. etc.
There were a couple of very difficult moments. Coming into Columbia, Missouri, we were approaching a very foreboding storm – heavy rains, ominous clouds, lightening streaks across a darkening sky, and the threats of tornados (which we didn't mention to the kids, obviously). We made it to the hotel without incident, except for being drenched while bringing in the bags.
An hour out of our destination on the 6th day, we stopped to give Scout a break (he was losing it), and get a little gas. And what do you suppose happened? We were so close to making it with no real issues, and then…poor Isaiah. He had his hands in the car door jamb when someone closed it, not realizing where his hand was. His ring and pinky fingers were closed into the door, ever so briefly, but still. Remarkably, God protected his little fingers from being broken, but they were mighty sore. We iced them, taped them, elevated them, and plied him (and the rest of the kids) with ice cream nearly immediately. But before too long, he was really fine. Amazing.
Coming into Aurora, Colorado on Monday evening, we were physically and emotionally tired. Thankfully, we were headed to the Muzaca's house! For 3 days we stayed and visited in their cosy house. The kids spent time collecting chicken eggs from the back yard, getting friendly with the 2 family dogs, building block structures, flying Mark's remote controlled helicopter (Dylan), drawing, resting, laughing, playing at the park, and so on.
Isaiah made amazing progress getting over his fear of dogs, and almost made friends with them. We ate delicious food, had wonderful conversation, slept, cleaned out the car, organized the bags again, and reconnected with our friends. We could not possibly thank them enough for being so open and welcoming and once again, as on our last road trip, giving us a taste of home so far away from home.
This morning, as Jake is driving south, I am in the passenger seat and we are flanked on our west side by the most stunning snow-capped mountain range. After days of driving through the Great Plains, then staying in and resting at the house with friends, the Rockies are a beautiful and most welcome sight.
So, we're are off to Colorado Springs for one night, then south to Taos, New Mexico to stay in a cabin on a goji berry farm for a couple of days. We are excited for what the next adventures will be, and we'll keep you posted periodically.
And it wasn't the trip we were taking either. We were originally headed out to the southwest. We were going to the Grand Canyon, Zion, Arches and Bryce National Parks, among other places. We researched those places. We watched National Parks films and listened to audio books about them. We followed each of those National Parks feeds on Instagram. We got books from the library. We plotted our map on the computer and then looked up all the places on a huge wall map. The kids wrote out descriptions of each of those places. We packed for weeks. It takes a lot to get 7 people ready for a 6 week road trip. We bought special gear. Camp stuff. Things to keep the kids entertained in the car. Some fancy gadget to keep the internet flowing in the middle of nowhere so Jake could work from the passenger seat while I drove along.
And then we met with Scout's cardiologist one more time to be sure we were cleared for the trip. She was cautious but permissive. She gave us an elevation limit for him (8000 feet). She explained that the lower percentage of oxygen in the air meant that Scout's heart would be working harder and how that might be a problem at some point. She wanted to make sure we could get to a hospital if he were struggling. But then she said "I'm sure it'll be fine. Go. You'll have a great time."
So, obviously, we scrapped the entire trip.
4 days before we were to go. That's not a lot of time to come up with plan B.
We came up with another route, other things to see. But there were problems with it…it was too far to go for only a few cool things, and it was so close to other things that were fun but the elevations were too high. So that was out.
We came up with a 3rd idea. Canada! But after mapping it out, it just seemed sort of underwhelming, and needed more than 4 days to figure out the stops and get excited about the places.
We came up with a 4th idea. Florida. But neither one of us was really excited about Florida. It didn't seem very adventurous. And it was pretty far to go just for a nice pool and an affordable condo.
So we just headed south, toward DC. We thought we would do this, then that then the other thing after DC. But we started to get sick. On day 2, I got a migraine that lasted 3 days. Then Isaiah got a fever and a bad cough. Then he got sick to his stomach. And we felt less adventurous. Going wherever the wind blows suddenly seemed foolish, and impractical, and expensive. So we scraped together a few other stops, and couldn't cancel Niagara Falls, which we promised the kids we would see (again). And in the end that's what we did. We went south to go north.
As the trip went on, we did have fun. We did see cool things. And we continued to get sick. Lucy, then Dylan, then Jake. Finally me, and Scout. And so we are happy to just reel it in, and head home. We're on the last leg, due in this afternoon. As I type this, we're cruising down I-90 through NY, with 3 kids coughing, and another with a stuffy nose. One adult with an upset stomach, and no clean laundry left.
My sister asked me if I was happy we still did the trip. I am. It was hard. It wasn't what we'd planned. But when do things work out exactly as you plan? Sometimes it comes close. Sometimes it doesn't. This time, it was pretty far from our mark. But we tried. We got out. With 5 kids (including the WILDLY uncontrollable Isaiah, and the 4 month old with the heart condition), we hit the road. We went to new, and sometimes familiar places. We had great coffee. We met nice people. We almost got arrested (for leaving our car "unattended" at a gas station while having lunch in the rest stop). One of our sons got trapped and then freed from an elevator (!). We saw beautiful natural beauty and the foolish tourist attractions that surround these majestic places (Niagara Falls, underground caverns, Pennsylvania countryside). We went to awesome museums, and walked in the footsteps of our first president. We had a picnic on America's front yard, and had steel cut oatmeal at the cutest little coffee shop you can imagine.
It was a good trip. It was hard, and it was shorter than we wanted it to be. But yeah, I'm glad we did it.


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En cours
Install shoutcast on Linux server
Budget $30-100 USD
I need shoutcast software installed & setup on my linux server.
This should be very simple for the right pro.
Payment can be done by paypal. Should be able to stream one or more streams on the server.
Shouldn't take more than a day.
We have more stuff like more script installation and maintenance coming up pretty soon.


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Bash 101: Hello World (and a little further)
This is the first of a series of articles that are designed to ease people into using bash and writing bash scripts. This article will give you a quick overview of some of the commands you will need to use to execute every bash script, and are commands that you should keep close to your heart for the future.
If you haven't already checked out our basic history and introduction to Bash, it's a good place to start before undertaking this tutorial.
- The Mac OS X Terminal or a Command Prompt
1. Echoing a phrase
Before we write a script we need to learn the command for printing text to the bash shell. In bash this is a very simple command called echo. To test this out you have to open up the terminal application found at Applications/Terminal.app and type in:
echo "Hello World"
Now we want to greet our friends in the world multiple times and we don't want to have to type this command each time we say hello. So we are going to write a script.
2. Creating a new script
Creating a bash script is easy. You just have to open up your favorite text editor (or TextEdit on every Mac), and create a new plain text file. If you are using TextEdit go into preferences and under the format options choose plain text. It's less funky that way. Now you have to click save as (File->Save As) and save the file as hello.sh in your documents folder.
3. Writing the code
Now that we have created our script we can fill in the code we need to actually print out hello world in bash. To start we need one very important piece that all bash scripts start off with, the shebang. This specifies what shell we are going to be executing our script with. Since we are using bash, at the top of every script you write should be:
If you are writing other scripts for other shells you could have:
for the C and Perl shells respectively.
Below this shebang comes the actual meat of our script. For today, the meat isn't going to be as meaty as it will be later; future articles will explain how to write more detailed and complicated scripts. For now, your second line should read:
echo "Hello World"
Now save your script and get ready to head back into Terminal.
4. Running the Script
To run the script we need to hop back into the terminal application (found at Applications/Terminal.app). Before we can run our pretty little script we need to compile it to make it executable. To do this we need to point Terminal to the folder holding the hello.sh file via a command called
cd. It's a simple command that goes like:
cd /path/to/file
If you saved the hello.sh file to your "documents" folder you would type:
cd /Users/Your_user_name/Documents
Next, we need to compile the script. Compiling uses a command called chmod. To compile the hello.sh file in our current directory we type:
chmod +x ./hello.sh
This compiles the script file into a form that can be run by the shell. To actually run the script we merely need to type
You should get a response something along the lines of:
hello world
5. Looking to the Future
The next article on bash scripting will go into more depth about writing scripts, and will introduce some concepts like variables and functions. Looking even further forward, we'll be talking about more advanced functions that are built into bash and the terminal.
If you want to do some experimenting on your own time, there are two great resources you can use to get an understanding about exactly what a function does. One of those resources is always the internet, but there's also a cool utility built into most Unix systems called the "man pages", indicating something similar to a "manual". To use the "man pages", type:
man "Name of a command"
and a whole plethora of information relating to the command will pop up. To get out of the man page just hit ctrl+z.


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I had files on a laptop that I wanted to pass over to a PC. The files are actually a course module that was downloaded from the internet which cannot be downloaded anymore.
I bought Norton Ghost and an external hard drive and copied the hard drive from the laptop on to my new external drive. The files copied successfully, but when I went to load them on to the desktop from the external hard drive(with the same Windows as the laptop win2000) the files will not work.
I thought the copied filed would be a replica, so how do I get the files to work?
Please help


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Install and install VLC Media Player on Ubuntu, search vlc in Ubuntu Software Center.
Start VLC media player (Sound & Video -> VLC media player)
Media -> Open Capture Device...
- Select Video camera in Capture mode.
- Try select Video and Audio device name.
- Select NTSC in Video standard.
- Play.


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Soshana Hashmie
Soshana joins InterAction as Senior Policy and Advocacy Associate following her tenure as a political appointee in the Obama Administration, where she served as Special Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Secretary in the International Trade Administration at the Department of Commerce. In that capacity she managed the day-to-day and long term operations of the Office. Prior to joining the Administration, Soshana interned at the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, where she assisted staff in recruiting candidates for senior level positions at federal agencies.
She received her B.A. in Political Science from California State University, Long Beach and her M.A. in Global Security and Military Strategy from Johns Hopkins University.


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Chugach Alaska Corporation Board Member, James Kvasnikoff, Passes Away
(Anchorage, Alaska) – We at Chugach Alaska Corporation (Chugach) are deeply saddened by the death of Board Member James Kvasnikoff, who passed away April 10. Our thoughts are with his family and friends during this difficult time.
Kvasnikoff has been a valued member of Chugach's Board of Directors since 2007, serving in various capacities with Chugach subsidiary companies, and as a member of the Lands & Cultural Resources Committee. We are grateful for his wisdom and business counsel that have contributed to Chugach's success.
Sheri Buretta, Chair of Chugach's Board of Directors added, "It is a tremendous loss for the region as he was such a humble and dedicated leader. But his spirit and hope for a brighter future for our people lives on in us. I am thankful that I was able to know him professionally and personally."
An original Chugach and English Bay shareholder, Kvasnikoff was born and raised in Nanwalek, Alaska. His parents are the late Vincent Kvasnikoff, one of the original Incorporators of Chugach Alaska Corporation; and Natalie Kvasnikoff. In addition to his work with Chugach, James also served as 2nd Chief of the Nanwalek IRA Council; Regional Vice-Chair at Chugachmiut; and Director on the Kenai Peninsula Project Grad.
A funeral service will be held towards the middle of next week in Nanwalek.


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Gear Recommendations
I'm a true gear lover and I've put the equipment below through the ringer. The gear listed on this page is only here because I'm confident it can serve you well too. Adventure16 Outdoor and Travel Outfitters (A16), Backcountry, Eastern Mountain Sports (EMS), and Recreational Equipment Inc (REI), are all reputable outdoor gear sellers. The benefit of A16, EMS, and REI is that they have stores where you can go and get a feel for the gear in-person before you buy. You could always get a feel for the gear in-person and then wait for the best online sale along with a better variety of colors from Backcountry using the link above (hint).
- (Multi-day hike) Arcteryx Altra 75: comfortable rotating disk hipbelt, durable
- Arcteryx Pack Shelter: rain cover for your multi-day hike backpack
- (Long day hike) Mountain Hardwear Scrambler 30: waterproof (from rain, cannot submerge in water), large amount of storage, comfortable, durable
- (Summit hike/short day hike) Black Diamond Bullet: lightweight, durable
- (1 person) MSR Hubba NX: durable, vented
- (2-3 person) MSR Elixir 3: durable, vented
- MSR Groundhog Stakes (tent stakes): durable, sharp (good for hard ground), their color makes them easy to find
- Coghlan's Tent Peg Mallet/Puller: lightweight hammer to get your tent stakes in the ground in those tough spots
Sleeping Bags/Pads:
- (Warm weather) Feathered Friends Flicker 40 UL Quilt Sleeping Bag: water resistant, 950+ goose down, lightweight, packs down small, can zipper completely open into a quilt
- (Cold weather) Feathered Friends Snowbunting EX 0 Sleeping Bag: waterproof, 900+ goose down, lightweight for a 0 degree bag
- Sea to Summit Comfort Plus Sleeping Pad: most comfortable, least noisy, easy to inflate, double sided
- Cocoon Silk Mummy Liner (sleeping bag liner): keeps your bag fresh, adds extra warmth
- Sea to Summit eVent Compression Dry Sack: waterproof, keeps your sleeping bag dry and small
- Thermarest Compressible Pillow: most comfortable camping pillow you will find
Food & Water Prep/Storage:
- MSR WindBurner Stove System: fast boiling, durable, wind proof, compact
- Wild Ideas Bearikade Bear Canister: strongest and lightest bear canister
- Sea to Summit X-Mug: expandable cup, folds down to nothing, weighs nothing, measurements in both cups and milliliters
- Platypus Gravityworks Water Filter System 4 Liter: lightweight, convenient to setup at camp
- MSR Dromedary Bag 6 Liter (hydration bag): durable, can attach anywhere, easy screw cap
- MSR Hydration Kit: upgrades your MSR Dromedary bag into a hands-free hydration bag
- Nalgene Wide-Mouth Loop-Top Water Bottle 32 fl. oz.: durable, lightweight, multi-use, measurements in both ounces and milliliters
- Arcteryx Alpha AR Jacket: waterproof, durable, chest pockets reachable when wearing pack
- Arcteryx Alpha SV Jacket: same qualities as the jacket above, but even more durable - this jacket is only meant as a shell jacket for the MOST extreme conditions
- Black Rock Gear Foldback Mitts: down filled gloves that fold back and allow your fingers to sneak out if needed - great to keep your hands warm, but will need a weather proof outer layer if it gets wet outside, your best friend if you're a photographer out in the cold
- Marmot Quasar Down Jacket: great 850-fill rating (warmer and weighs less), windproof shell, packs into pocket
- Northface Paramount Peak II Pants: water resistant, durable, convertible to shorts, many pockets
- Lowa Renegade GTX Mid Hiking Boots: little if any break-in period, comfortable, waterproof
- Wrightsock CoolMesh II Socks: 2 layer sock, inner layer maximizes moisture wicking for cool and dry feet, helps prevent blisters
- U-Dig-It Stainless Steel Hand Shovel: durable, sharp (good for harder ground)
- Black Diamond Alpine Carbon Cork Trekking Poles: light, durable, easy to adjust
- Limefuel USB Portable Battery Rugged L150XR: waterproof, fast charging 2.1A, 15,000mah
- Maplets: free downloadable maps that are GPS enabled and are usable without a cell phone signal