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Well, it's actually two spliced recipes. But that's because I don't have a food processor to make the pastry. But the topping I used was more like cornbread and it was f-ing fantastic!
Paleo Chicken Pot Pie:
3 quarter chickens
2-3 carrots
1 red pepper
3 stalks celery
1-2 cups broccoli
1 yellow or white onion
1/2 yellow pepper
garlic, to your liking
1/4 cup coconut milk (canned, full fat) I used probably 1/3 cup myself, I like creamy
3/4 cup almond meal
4 cups chicken stock
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt, pepper and oregano and any other spices you like
8 egg whites I use carton egg whites because we eat a lot of them anyway.
2 cups almond meal
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
2/3 cup butter I used ghee because I'm paleo but you could probably use normal butter
1. Preheat your oven to 400°. Put your chicken quarters on a broiling pan and rub down with some oil, I use light tasting olive oil or coconut oil. Then simple sprinkle salt, pepper and oregano. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until they reach at least 160° internally.
2. While you chicken is cooking, chop all the veggies and place them in a bowl together, set aside.
3. If you have more time while the chicken is cooking, make the topping. This can also be made ahead of time, like the night before or in the morning, and stored in the fridge. Soften the butter in the microwave for about 10-15 seconds or plan ahead and leave it out. Put everything except the egg whites in a bowl. Using a hand mixer or standing mixer, blend the butter with the flour mixture until even. Then add the whites. Blend for I'd say about a minute, or until it resembles pancake batter. It's ready at this point, set it aside.
4. Once your chicken is done, let it cool then go at it pulling all the meat off the bones [This is where chicken breasts would probably be easier.] I personally ate the chicken skin because it was delicious. I don't put chicken in my pies. Once all the meat is ready, you're set to make the filling.
5. Heat the 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot on medium/high. Add the onion and cook until brown. Then reduce the heat to medium/low and slowly add the almond meal. Make sure that you're constantly stirring too! Once the meal is added, slowly add the chicken stock. I used a whisk at this point to work out lumps. You do not want lumpy gravy. Once those are well incorporated, add the coconut milk. This will make is creamier. Please keep in mind that it's not going to be the thick gravy that you're used to but it will taste delicious. Salt, pepper and oregano to your liking.
6. Throw all your veggies in the pot and simmer/boil until just about tender (but not completely done). Add the chicken and stir together. And you're ready to assemble your pies!
7. Your oven should be at 350°. I made 6 little pies, 2 really small ones to sample, two medium sizes and two big ones. Make sure you use oven safe glassware. Fill each container until about 3/4 full, but beware of the liquid! Once you put your topping on, you'll probably end up with overflowing gravy so I had to drain each dish as I was adding topping. Plop the topping on each pie and spread out gently with a spoon. The topping doesn't rise a lot so you can use your discretion. Bake the pies for about 15 minutes or until the topping is browned.
8. Let them cool for about 10 minutes then you are ready to enjoy! I promise it's totally worth it!
{Some Notes: You can use whatever veggies you want really. Use what you have in your kitchen. I'm used to eyeballing measurements. For the chicken, use what you want. If you have breast then use that. Also, there really isn't a measurement for the chicken, use however much you want in your pies. I like chicken so I made sure it was a decent amount.}
|Look how perfect they are!
Sources: Fed and Fit for the filling/gravy. Health Bent for the topping.


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Several of our employees and I own iPhones. Being techie, we are often drawn to new and exciting gadgets. There is certainly no comparison in new gizmos out there that are as intriguing as the iPhone. I was an early adopter and stood in line the day it came out to be one of the first to own one. As a Windows Administrator I'm not even a large fan of Apple, so the draw was all in its technology.
The original firmware for the iPhone was disappointing in the way of business use. The email application offered no form of push technology and Microsoft Exchange had to be configured using pull IMAP. There was also no way to sync contacts or calendar events with exchange over the air. I wrote a personal blog at the time addressing the need for more business friendly applications and that until it could be integrated with common business infrastructures, the iPhone should only be considered for personal use.
In June of 2008, Apple released the iPhone 3G, the successor to what I call the iPhone Classic. With the release of the new hardware, Apple also released the much coveted 1.2.0 firmware more commonly known as 2.0. The 2.0 firmware is available for the iPhone Classic and the iPhone 3G. This firmware includes greater functionality, but more importantly to me as an IT professional, it includes the ability to use Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync for over-the-air push email, push contacts, and push calendar from an Exchange server.
I was also an early adopter of the new iPhone 3G and upon getting it home my first plan of action was to get it working with our Microsoft Exchange infrastructure. I wasn't able to get it working right away. It turns out there are some tweaks that had to be made to our Exchange IIS configuration in the way of NTLM authentication. After making the correct changes to IIS and correctly entering my near 20 character password correctly on the iPhone keypad, I was up and running.
Setting up the iPhone for Exchange ActiveSync is fairly straight forward. On the iPhone Home screen, go to settings and then choose "Mail, Contacts, Calendars". Now choose the "Add Account…" option. This will bring up a screen to enter your account information. The password can be the tricky part especially if you use a secure password with all kinds of character types. After the account information is entered, hit the next button and wait for the confirmation. Our mobile device policy requires a pin be set and entered when ever unlocking or waking up the device. Automatically after the account is verified, a screen prompts for the input of a new pin. After entering the pin and verifying the pin it may take up to five minutes for all the contacts, calendar events, and emails to sync. On a 3G connection it took less than 3 minutes to sync 100 email messages, 2 months of calendar events and all of my 100 plus contacts.
The push technology works perfectly. When I'm sitting at my desk I often receive the notification of a new email on my phone before my Outlook has a chance to report it. If I make a change to emails, contacts, or calendars on either my desktop or my iPhone the change is near instantly available on the other. Remote wipes via Exchange MobileAdmin works perfectly too. Within seconds of pressing the wipe link in MobileAdmin the iPhone shuts down and wipes its data. This is handy should the phone ever be lost or stolen.
There are, however, some short comings. The first of which is that the push email only pushes the inbox where as Blackberries can receive push email to any folder. This is ok for some people, but I use a lot of rules to filter emails to separate folders especially for system alerts. I can still check them manually, but it would be nice to not need to flood my inbox with priority 1 alert emails. In addition, there is no access to Public Folders. This isn't too vital to me at this point; however, our spam processing does use a public drop folder to process spam. Without access to the public folders, I'm unable to move a spam email to the processing folder from my iPhone.
Another shortcoming is in the calendars application. I can create events, but I can't schedule meetings and assign attendees like I can from my desktop. That would be a handy feature to have when I'm out of the office and receive a client request for a conference call. I could setup the appointment then and there and not have to set a reminder to set it up when I'm at my desktop. In addition, there is no separating your personal entries from your exchange entries. It can be a little uneasy to enter private non-work related calendar events knowing they will be on your work calendar as well. The same annoyance exists for the contacts as there is no way to set personal contacts without them being added to your exchange contacts.
A final shortcoming is in missing some other exchange features. Tasks and Notes could easily be integrated into the iPhone. I'm a huge fan of using the tasks and assigning them to others. I use the exchange notes to keep important tidbits of information readily available. The iPhone doesn't have a native tasks or to-do list though several third party apps are available. None of the third party applications make use of push tasks from Exchange. The iPhone does have a native Notes application, but there is no integration with Exchange.
In lieu of the shortcomings, the iPhone does work well for business email now. The greatest simple feature Apple added was the ability to delete multiple emails at once instead of having to delete one at a time. The email is always timely, even when I'm on EDGE or standard cell connection. With a little more tweaking, the iPhone may become good competition with Blackberry as an enterprise mobile communications solution. For now, it is good enough to get the job done.

subset: commoncrawl


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Ottawa police officers quietly forced the closure of a downtown marijuana dispensary on Tuesday afternoon.
Ottawa police drew a security screen across the front window to obscure passerby from seeing inside. However, at least two officers were visible through the screen, gathering items and packing them into boxes.
Police confirmed the address for the shop, 224 Bank St., was the scene of a "police operation" but would not elaborate.
Customers were taken aback by the closure, with many expressing their frustration. None of the patrons would give their identities.
– Read the entire article at Ottawa Citizen.


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This past Sunday, S. and I decided to drop in G.'s photography class. I was expecting a small group of students but when I walked into the old elementary school classroom, where the lectures were held, I was wrong. The windowed classroom with an old chalkboard and an overhead projector screen overlay, housed around 30 or more photography students. In the front was a petite, Vietnamese man in his 70s, wearing a dark brown sweater with a simple crisscross white pattern and black trousers. As we snuck in, I was a bit taken back by the words I overheard the teacher spoke. It wasn't the broken Vietnamese that I usually sputter out when I spoke to my parents. It was fluent Vietnamese. His spoke with poetic phrases and imagery that I could "see" the things he was explaining. I was drawn to his monologue. As I struggled to understand the new Vietnamese words, I would be thrown off course occasionally by the spontaneous English words that would be cleverly hidden in the Vietnamese sentences from time to time. To show in reverse language, he would say something like, "to learn photography, you must "hieu" the basics." I would be like, wait, what? Oh, that's Vietnamese. (By the way, "hieu" means "to understand.") Even though I could only understand about 2/3 of the lecture, my poor friend, S., had trouble understanding the ENTIRE lecture. She's not Vietnamese, but half British, half Irish. 🙂 ( G. and I didn't leave her in the dark. We explained to her what was going on from time to time. )
Occasionally, I would do a quick glance around the classroom. These Asian photography students were twice our years in age and wisdom. They filled the room with high spirits and zeal for learning. This comfortable and enthusiastic atmosphere reminded me of how little enthusiasm I had when I was a college student. I wondered if it's the topic or maybe these students REALLY enjoyed learning…even on a Sunday? Eh, possibly both?
From the lecture, I learned that Conceptual Photography is an effective method to convey an idea to the audience. It is very powerful if used well. One of the questions the professor asked was, "Should our photographs show what we took or what we feel from our hearts?" We all quietly waited to hear his answer. He explained, we should let our hearts guide us through taking the photographs and communicate the ideas or issues to the viewers. He also said that the challenging parts in doing conceptual photography are picking a topic and coming up with ideas on how to take the photographs. "If the audience doesn't understand the photograph, then you fail to convey the idea to the audience. Don't just take a picture of a toilet and expect others to understand." the professor stated. Photography is like drawing,or painting, or writing, all need us to creatively and cleverly express ourselves to others.
One of the interesting images he showed us was this one beautiful, abstract looking photograph. My first thought was silk cloth in water? What do you guys think?
Believe it or not, it's a plastic bag!! If you take a second look, you can see that this is a ripped, and EXTREMELY old plastic bag. Who knows how long it wandered aimlessly on this earth before this photographer rescued it? Huang Xu, the photographer, had transformed this old, trash bag into a beautiful piece of art. The teacher pointed out that this addressed the issue of pollution. Something as permanent like this plastic bag can stay on this earth "forever." We can throw these plastic bags out in five seconds, and their existence seem to disappear from our lives, and yet, they are still here. Perhaps I should reconsider throwing out plastic utensils and bags…and recycle them… ( my guilty conscience is now nagging me, thanks Huang Xu. Just kidding. )
After this class, I want to take conceptual photographs of my own! I will post my work up soon!
I hope that these images can inspire you to go out and create your own conceptual photographs!
Be positive?
I must admit, I'm addicted to Facebook.
What's your interpretation of this image?


text:
Fans have been told to attend the Hearts v Celtic game in a responsible manner and arrive in plenty of time ahead of police searches at the ground.
200 Voices: find out more about the people who have shaped Scotland
Police have confirmed they will assist stewarding staff to conduct searches of those entering the stadium ahead of the expected sell out clash at Tynecastle.
The teams kick off their Premiership tie at 12.30pm on Sunday April 2,
Fans travelling from outside Edinburgh are reminded that officers will be enforcing the city's drinking by-laws and so antisocial street drinking or consumption of alcohol in the street will not be permitted.
Chief Inspector Mark Rennie, Local Area Commander for South East Edinburgh, said: "We anticipate a significant support for both teams and are aware that it is likely that Celtic will have the opportunity to win the league on the day.
"Those travelling from outside Edinburgh are advised to leave in plenty of time to avoid traffic congestion in the west of the city.
"Ensuring the safety of all those who will attend the match is our priority and it's essential that supporters act in a responsible manner that does not put themselves or others at risk.
"As such flares, alcohol and items which could cause harm if thrown are strictly forbidden from being brought inside the ground and if you are found in possession of any of these items you will not get to see the match and are likely to face arrest and prosecution.
"Detailed ticket checks and segregation will also be in place, so away fans should not attend unless they have purchased a ticket for the game in advance.
"This is one of the most exciting fixtures of the Scottish football calander and we want both sets of fans to enjoy the game in the proper spirit."


text:
Associate (3 Year)
Associate (3 Year)
Associate members must provide proof of their trainee status by providing a signed letter from their supervisor or academic department. Only communication on official letterhead will be accepted. Where applications are for multi-year memberships, proof of trainee status must include year of study.
Proof of trainee status can be submitted to Randee Holmes at firstname.lastname@example.com at the time of membership purchase. Membership payment will not be processed until proof of trainee status is received.
IMPORTANT: All CSPT memberships will expire on December 31 of each year and require renewal on January 1.


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Writing in the Time of Nationalism: From Two Solitudes to Blue Metropolis
About the book
Montreal was the literary centre of Canada in the 1940s, a hotbed of literary activity in both English and French crowned by the international success of Hugh MacLennan's Two Solitudes and Gabrielle Roy's The Tin Flute. With the rise of nationalism in both English Canada and Quebec, Toronto emerged as the literary centre of English Canada, with Montreal the literary centre of Quebec. In literary terms, Canada and Quebec became two different countries, with two different languages and two different literatures. English Montreal went into decline and its once-great writers were marginalized.
Writing in the Time of Nationalism: From Two Solitudes to Blue Metropolis is an insider's story of the writers who have been caught between these rival nationalisms. Herself a writer, Linda Leith was a leading figure in the creation of the Quebec Writers' Federation, and she is founder of Blue Metropolis Foundation. The story she tells is the story of a literary community that went missing from the map of Canada for a generation, and that has reemerged over the past ten years in a renaissance that has garnered international attention, winning some of the major book prizes such as Booker and Dublin IMPAC.
About the author
Linda Leith was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. One of the most international of Canadian writers, she has lived in London, Basel, Brussels, Paris, Ottawa, Budapest and Montreal, where she founded and directs the hugely successful Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival. She has a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of London, England, and is Adjunct Professor of English at Concordia University in Montreal.
She is the author of seven books, including the literary memoirs Writing in the Time of Nationalism and Marrying Hungary, as well as three critically well-received novels, Birds of Passage, The Tragedy Queen, and The Desert Lake, all published by Signature Editions. She has also been published by Vehicule Press and ECW Press, as well as XYZ Editeur and Lemeac (in French), and Rad (in Serbian).
The story I have to tell begins in the glory days when Hugh MacLennan published Two Solitudes in 1945 and Mavis Gallant, Brian Moore, and Mordecai Richler emerged on to the international literary scene in the 1950s. It's a story that moves into a long decline in English-language Montreal fiction that started in the 1960s, when nationalism was on the rise, and lasted more than three decades. This is a literary story, in other words, and a literary story best understood in the context of the time.
It's a personal story, as well. I am not from Montreal, but I am more at home here than anywhere else, having lived here for most of the time since immigrating with my family in 1963. I became interested in Quebec, and sympathized with Quebec's frustrations and aspirations. When I started teaching and writing about the work of Montreal writers in the late 1970s and 1980s, I focused on writers working in French as well as in English, and I discovered that Montreal's English-language writers had now disappeared from sight. I got involved in working to create the context in which it would be possible for them to thrive. I myself became a writer, and when I got to know other writers, a couple of us crossed town to work with French-speaking writers. By the late 1990s, I was part of a small group convinced that Montreal needed an international literary festival that would bring together writers working in English and French and other languages. I called it Blue Metropolis.
The story I have to tell continues to evolve, as new writers, new books, and new events appear on the scene every season. It's a story worth telling, for it has a good shape, with a glorious beginning, a disheartening middle, and a better ending than any of us could have predicted. The Anglo Literary Revival is what we were working for all along, even if we never imagined it would happen.
"If you never thought that a book about the Anglo Literary Revival could be a page turner, it's only because you haven't, yet, read Linda Leith's provocative, insightful, and thoroughly engrossing Writing in the Time of Nationalism: From Two Solitudes…" >>
— The Monitor
"I have been at the Blue Met this week, talking about From Then to Now, and I got the chance to hear Leith talk about this book. She is a central figure in what she calls the Anglo Revival --…" >>
— Christopher Moore, history author & journalist
"Writing in the Time of Nationalism: From Two Solitudes to Blue Metropolis provides an important personalized historical account of the politics and institutions that have informed the production and dissemination of Montreal English-language fiction from the mid 1960s to the…" >>
— Jason Camlot Literary Review of Canada
"Linda Leith's passionate connection to Montreal is evident in every line of this book. Combining insider knowledge and writerly insight, she takes us on the surprising journey which led to the resurgence of Anglo writing in Montreal. Few have been…" >>
— Sherry Simon, author of Translating Montreal: Episodes in the Life of a Divided City
"In her book, she gives an elaborate and highly detailed account of the possible ways and means she has used and turned to in order to realize her plan, which was to bridge linguistic and other divides between the two…" >>
— Judit Molnár Canadian Literature
"Quebec anglophone writers do not exist. Except for Mordecai Richler, of course. At least, that's what francophone writers will say... The cultural and political context for that perspective is explored in Writing in the Time of Nationalism (Signature Editions) by…" >>
— Uptown Magazine
"In the 1940s, Montreal was the literary capital of Canada. Modernist poets writing in English flourished alongside internationally published realist novelists, both anglophone and francophone. The post-war boom that shifted Canada's economic centre westward to Toronto coincided with rising support…" >>
— Times Literary Supplement
"If the true purpose of literary memoirs is to settle scores and put the record straight, Linda Leith's Writing in the Time of Nationalism: From Two Solitudes to Blue Metropolis is as true as they come.
Like…" >>
— The Globe and Mail
"In the 1940s, Montreal was the literary capital of Canada. Modernist poets writing in English flourished alongside internationally published realist novelists, both anglophone and francophone. The post-war boom that shifted Canada's economic center westward to Toronto coincided with rising support…" >>
— Stephen Henighan The Times Literary Supplement


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Making Domino Designer Tidier & Less Annoying
Yesterday was a good day for me. I learnt of couple of tips from you guys that will help me loads. I'll share them here.
Auto-Saving Java
Firstly a big thanks to Andrew Magerman who has saved me hours and hours of time (potentially) with the following tip, which solves an annoyance I blogged about 3 years ago and have been suffering with ever since -- if you save a Java class from within an Agent or Script Library you have to then save the Library/Agent too. But now you don't need to, with the following preference enabled:
With this turned on the Agent or Library gets saved at the same time you save a class from within it. I'm not going to dwell too much on the fact I've only just found out about this and how much effort it's costs me over the years.
A New Perspective
I've known about the concept of Perspectives in Eclipse for ages, but never paid them much attention in Domino Designer itself. I've always just stuck with what I was given.
Now, thanks to René Winkelmeyer I have a new better-suited perspective on my Domino databases. As you probably know, I'm not an XPages developer.
René let me in on the "Forms/Views" Perspective which is akin to a "Domino Classic" view and cuts out all the new fangled design elements not relevant to you.
To get to this Perspective go to the Window -> Open Perspective -> Other... menu and choose it from the dialog, as below:
What this does is hide things like XPages (and other bits) from the left hand navigator of database design elements.
Taking it one step further you can toggle elements on/off per perspective from with Designer's preferences, as below:
My Domino Designer Perspective now looks like what you see below and is a lot less cluttered and distracting.
What other Designer-based and/or Java-coding tips have you guys got hidden up your sleeves? Or maybe I need to spend half an hour looking around Designer preferences and acquainting myself with it a little better...


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The New Nationalist Perspective: Tom Sunic & Mark Weber
June 30, 2009
In a very spirited conversation Mark Weber, and Tom Sunic are talking about modern historiography, which in many instances has become delusional. What we are witnessing in modern history writing is a paranoid form of new 'civic religion' and a classical form of hagiography – which in fact hides disturbing secrets. This is an indispensable show of significant academic value.
13 MB / 32 kbps mono / 0 hour 57 min.


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Last weekend, a long deep dive into my Spotify playlists of 90's music took me back to secondary school, where I made mixtapes (actual cassette tapes) in my bedroom for hours on end. It was the decade of mixtapes and high top sneakers. I also remembered how some of my friends always got new gears and goodies from their parents who lived "in foreign."
If you grew up in the West Indies, you know what I mean. We all knew someone who lived "in foreign" and we all had friends who were barrel children.
In her landmark publication, Who will save our children: The plight of the Jamaican child in the nineties, Dr. Claudette Crawford - Brown described barrel children as children whose parents migrated to the metropole seeking a better life for their families while their children remained at home with surrogate parents.
This was particularly acute in the Caribbean in the late 1980's and 1990's when economic downturns in the region were rife. A number of Caribbean governments sought relief from international financial institutions and everyone knew or felt the sharp pinch of structural adjustment measures. It was at this time that economic prospects abroad became appealing.
From my experience, it was always the women of the family who decided to leave their native country to seek more lucrative opportunities abroad. In the nineties, the demand for low skilled workers grew in the US, Canada and the UK, particularly in the domestic work sector. Women from developing countries like those in the Caribbean Region, took advantage of this and pursued domestic work opportunities abroad. Such tasks included household chores such as cleaning, cooking, washing and ironing clothes and taking care of children, or elderly or sick members of a family and even household pets.
In choosing to provide a better life for their families, absent parents would send material things – food, clothing, and electronics (in lieu of emotional support) back to the islands. These goodies were packed into cardboard brown, cylindrical drums and shipped to exotic locations like Port of Spain, Kingston and Georgetown where expectant eyes and yearning hearts awaited their arrival.
Although the barrel children phenomenon was coined in the 1990's, it is pertinent even today. According to the International Labour Organization, the domestic work sector has grown significantly between 1995-2010. The number of domestic workers rose from approximately 33.2 million to 52.6 million - an increase of more than 19 million people of which 83% are women.
In the 2015 UNDP Human Development Report entitled Rethinking work for development, there are at least 1.8 million domestic workers in US homes of which 95% are female and foreign born. In the Asia – Pacific Region, Singapore attracts female domestic workers from the Philippines and Indonesia where one household in five employs a domestic worker. Similar statistics can be found in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries as well.
The fact is that women are able to pursue opportunities abroad (which are otherwise scarce or limited in their native country) and earn a living to maintain household both at home and abroad.
Money, in the form of remittances, is a major source of income to their household back in their native country and is sometimes the only income to that household. The statistics are astounding. Remittance flows to developing countries in 2015 was at US$435 billion.
At more than three times the size of Official Development Assistance (ODA), international development agencies recognize the importance of remittance flows and the key role it plays in providing a lifeline to families in developing countries.
Sounds great right? Wrong! No one wins in this situation. According to the 2015 UNDP Human Development Report, the unfortunate tradeoff is children of migrants are often being left behind with family members resulting in a "global care chain parallel to the global flow of domestic workers."
The impact of absent mothers on barrel children is devastating for both mother and child. In the receiving country, as a domestic worker, women are subjected to work long hours for lower wages, abuse, even intimidation and restricted freedom of movement especially in cases where the worker is in the receiving country illegally. This coupled with the emotional stress of living away from their family, is also severe, as many mothers experience guilt while they care for their employer's children whilst being away from their own family.
Their children are often cared for by a close relative or grandmother who acts as the surrogate parent and remittances from abroad as the sole income to the household places undue stress on the new family. Barrel children are subsequently very vulnerable to abuse, exploitation or even susceptible to neglect.
In either case the result can be devastating especially when mothers leave during those crucial formative years. Children become distracted and exhibit psycho - social challenges which impacts negatively on their education. They are unable to concentrate on their studies resulting in poor academic performance and delinquent behavior. Studies conducted in the Caribbean indicated that particularly vulnerable groups were those transitioning from primary school to secondary school (aged 11-13) and those aged 14-18 who often adopt surrogate parental roles. In 2004, researchers discovered in studies conducted in Trinidad and Tobago that where children were separated from parents as a result of migration were more than twice as likely as other children to have emotional problems in spite of their improved economic standing.
Feelings of abandonment and alienation are heightened when plans to be reunited once "all de papers straight" are prolonged. Delinquent behaviour morphs into confrontations with the law and possible involvement in prostitution, gangs and violence.
So in a nutshell, no one wins.
The current watercooler debates will continue to persist. For as long as people seek to improve their families' lives and desire to reach their fullest potential, global migration will not cease especially from the developing world to the richer developed countries in Europe and North America.
As we celebrate International Women's Day today, women represent around half of the total population of international migrants worldwide and many of them are domestic workers. So the next time a politician flippantly refers to "a bunch of migrants" or you see a nanny in the park looking after her employer's children, try for a minute to think about walking a day in her children's high top sneakers.


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Let The Sky Fall by Shannon Messenger
Series: Sky Fall, #1
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Publishing Date: Jan. 1, 2013
404 Pages
Format: paperback, won
Goodreads rating: 3.5 stars
Vane Weston should have died in the category-five tornado that killed his parents. Instead, he woke up in a pile of rubble with no memories of his past - except one: a beautiful, dark-haired girl standing in the winds. She swept through his dreams ever since, and he clings to the hope that she's real.
Audra is real, but she isn't human. She's a sylph, an air elemental who can walk on the wind, translate its alluring songs, even twist it into a weapon. She's also a guardian - Vane's guardian - and has sworn an oath to protect him at all costs.
When a hasty mistake reveals their location to the enemy who murdered both their families, Audra has just days to help Vane unlock his memories. And as the storm winds gather, Audra and Vane start to realize that the greatest danger might not be the warriors coming to destroy them, but the forbidden romance growing between them.
My Review
I won this book in a giveaway last year from Simon and Schuster, and unfortunately, it had been sitting on my shelf ever since. But I've decided to make an effort to read book that I've had for a while, or slowly start to get rid of them. I'm a bit of a book hoarder, so this is going to be difficult. But at least I started and picked up this one from my piles!
Audra is Vane's guardian and has been watching over him for the last 10 years, without him knowing. Her job is to protect Vane and eventually teach him about his past and how to learn about the wind. Vane is a bit cocky, which is kind of funny since he apparently hasn't had a girlfriend or a successful date. And Audra is all work and no play. She's determined to teach Vane what he needs to know, but can't let herself become involved with him.
This book is an interesting concept and something I wasn't sure how I'd feel about. I've picked it up a few times thinking I'd read it next, but then picked something else. But I set my mind to it this time and read it. The writing is well done and the characters are pretty well developed. You can tell how much they care about each other by the way they interact. However, this wasn't my favorite book. Just something about it didn't hold my interest as much as I hoped.
Others in the Series


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An Interview with Samantha Sotto
Samantha Sotto is the internationally published Filipina author of the recently released book, Before Ever After. It's the story of Shelley who lost her husband Max three years ago to a terrorist bomb. She is still in the throes of grief when Paolo, a man who looks like Max knocks on her door. Paolo claims to be Max's grandson and he goes on to show the disbelieving Shelley pictures of a man who may be Max living on Boracay island. Can Max live forever? Shelley and Paolo fly to the Philippines to find out and along the way Shelley relates the story of how she met Max in an alternative tour group in Europe. She recalls Max's stories of Parisian barricades, medieval Austrian kitchens, Swiss hideaways and Roman boathouses. But were these just stories or was Max recounting his own life?
I read this book in just two days. I was quite impressed with the scope of Samantha Sotto's imagination and all the little historical anecdotes she dropped here and there. Before Ever After is also filled with many nuggets of wisdom about grief, loneliness, love, life and death. But ultimately it is about love in all its myriad forms - the love of a widow for her dead husband, the love of an elderly couple, the love of a grandson for his grandfather, the love of a young husband for his dying wife and the love of a father for his children. Before Ever After is not just one story, it's several stories in one book.
I was lucky enough to get a chance to interview the author though she's been quite busy zipping in and out of the Philippines to promote her book. She's also agreed to be a guest at my book club meeting in December. Based on our email exchanges, Samantha Sotto appears to be just as charming as her book.
How did the story come about? Was there anything in particular that inspired you to write Before Ever After?
Did you always want to be a writer?
Not really. I dabbled in writing when I was features editor of my college paper but I never thought of pursuing it as a career. I didn't enjoy the part where I needed to churn out columns and articles to meet a deadline.
Being a mom myself, I know how many daily distractions there can be even when the kids are busy at school or doing other activities. How were you able to concentrate and write in such a public place such as Starbucks?
Your descriptions of the supporting characters in the tour group were so realistic. Did you draw from a tour group you've known in real life?
Your novel seems perfect for adaptation. Is there a movie in the works? Who would you like to see play the parts of Max and Shelley?
Your book has been compared to The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (a book I actually didn't like). I enjoyed your novel more and I think the flashback scenes flow much better than the confusing ones in Niffenegger's book. I also think your book is definitely funnier! Did that book inspire you?
There are indeed funny parts in your novel. Is it difficult to write comedic situations?
What are your favorite novels?
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman is my all time favorite. I also love Memoirs of a Geisha, the Harry Potter series, the Belgariad series (by David Eddings), Anne Rice's vampire series, Flowers for Algernon, Wuthering Heights, Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot books -- the list goes on. The book that has provided me with my guiding principle in life is Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. It's become a rule in my family - you can't say no to something you haven't tried before. That rule applies to everything from broccoli to surfing.
Do you think book blogging is relevant to the publishing industry? Do you ever read what people thought of your book or is it something you avoid?
A little bird told me that you are already working on your next novel. Can you give us a hint of what's to come?
Just wondering - in the book Max loves to cook baked eggs and cheese. Is this one of your favorite dishes?
It is! My hubby is great in the kitchen and indulges my cravings. It's a calorie grenade but soooo worth it.
Thanks so much for your time Samantha. Now I'd like to give away a signed copy of Before Ever After to one lucky reader of my blog anywhere in the world. Please leave a comment below with a link to your blog or email address and I'll be picking a winner in a week's time. Good luck!


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U.N. Needs $250 Million More for Philippine Aid
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says it needs a lot more money to fund the relief effort in the Philippines. The WSJ's Deborah Kan speaks to OCHA's Orla Fagan on why it could take weeks to identify the deceased and missing.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... the ... the land as teens distributing aid in the city at ... the block one of the area as impacted the mass Pike I've been high on ... joining me now is our last day gain from the EU and Ochoa ... who has just returned from the city of pop Labonte ... okay last um what is it like at this point in time and how is the relief effort yelling ... the relief effort she is scaling up as I speak only were there yesterday I arrive ... on the second weekend of only a month ... I aam ... it was known to be busy at the airport commercial flights are back in and and ... aam and it was a lot of melody aircraft coming in and I are so things are beginning to happen ... um I was there I got lucky ... but food program ... damage to the half dozen magic home ... of high energy biscuits are the people ... ok and any estimates add to the UN had any estimates and how many people are still missing I aam Hwy back in a late I did the death toll on the recently has gone up to two thousand over two thousand people ... aam ... any idea to add how many people are unaccounted for ... well not that would take several weeks to ... to really come and ... that they are keeping the same there are a number of deaths here ... that people ... be certified as ... a stand ... on ... she couldn't take a number of weeks before we really have a true extent of how much time it's the storm is that ... the schools ... ok and our people getting I mean we hear reports that bad that people who are are flooding into the city looking for their loved ones aam ... did you sense that that was a problem people coming in the onthe from the outside and and training the already ... on that shortly sources that battery inside the city ... complications from it comes to these type of emergencies ... she never got outside the airport just because it was a shortage of fuel and we have a one time ... he got down there after two days ... the rented car ... but if you like me ... the diary months was able to get inside the airport ... I mention I'm speaking to keep the people some in the coming hours ... that the people that is a lot of people who had injuries where were desperate to get a minute and too ... many young woman with a one month old baby care about ... who had diarrhea ... and she was desperate to get out again he seemed to ... yes there are a part of the key to moving but that ... you know when when such an awesome decides to stocks ... there's always that good to people you know people don't have ... closing ... the day to go ... of course then move on and and sometimes they were going to neighboring villages ... like ... being hit so hard on that same relatives and friends that ... I can get the sense that bad and the short and to add to our medical supplies any we've been we've seen video we've heard ... of people who are in need and have more supplies and are you sensing that that's really it is actually getting to a problem on our there's still ... a lot of people in a medical need ... they're still looking for the medical needs ... the figures that are being called Jack now has eleven ... million people ... who were affected ... when people are in need ... mean people are affected by this typhoon ... it's the size the three times the population of Ireland where I'm from so this is a sin that the console ... but I was there yesterday ... aam I did wonder and the airport ... I saw at the medical team coming from the engine on that the doctors were going from Belgium ... they had bought equipment in May ... this is standing up to the response that is required ... we need more ... we need to get it we need to get moving faster ... and that's what we're about to do ... ok and what exactly is the new and I'm a bad idea that there is a fund you are talking about I'm appealing for three hundred million dollar fine and into ... I hope aid and tell us what the status of that is and we are exactly is the isthe relief money going to now ... the sentence above is is that on this earth on which is its essential emergency relief fund ... comes from the United Nations the donation twenty five million ... and five the last five years in the last patient because I ... was that it was up to thirty eight million to thirty eight million high command ... still needed to over ten percent of what is required ... aam we cannot provide the eighth of August for lifesaving immediate meats ... they can provide ... a on last week ... we get the money and to be able to ... buy the clothes ... get logistics current it's just not possible ... and so how much more money are you are you asking for this springtime how much more money do you need to to really get this process going at a level but you think that it needs to be ... two hundred and sixty million shark ... thirty days yes I'm you know that that donor countries have been extremely generous and this ... is set ... to the loans ... I'm hoping that this will continue ... on the Afghan people will come up with money because it's on the needles just to get this although if ... it can stop that ... if the fund was getting mighty ... was given by the U S ... stocks open defiance of the whole operation the twenty five million ... Oprah had his photo far ... as protection me to go for shelter ... and if you go for all ... of those bites of things like food water ... sanitation ... or things that would keep people alive and that's what we're focusing on right now ... ok and just very quickly add a lot of media as focusing on top of the night is the in in the city was devastated there ... but are there other regions ALM that we're not hearing so much about ... that are perhaps just as in need as the city ... sanity and we must not forget that we really must not forget them ... above is one example of ... the lungs were able to access ... you know almost immediately after because we were ... prepared for this in a way ... then their weekend home as there are other places for truth of how much patient difficult to get me and ... so ... there is only just type of content that ... is the one in the news that the moment it's a wonder the cameras that there are other people died and ... boost me I'm just as the asthe keeper instruct upon ... any idea now of areas where no one has been able to meet at this point I aam are all areas really accounted for ... I think most dairy is nineteen today so most areas for each but it's a month and now assessing needs ... and there was an EMT and I said Me ... I play CME's Will has an unique in on the other I e Leno ... also frustrate the firm many areas that when you think it's partly ... to identify all of my moments ... but second bear market is more than just tacked on ... thank you Brian much for that big and training us from


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What's Your Home Buying Power? If you're in the market for a new home or investment property, one of the first questions you'll
Jennifer Rolles
Serving Lake Norman Since 1978. Our experience runs deep!
Please visit us at our Denver location: 1818 North Highway 16.
We are open 7 days a week! You can also reach us at 704-483-1518.


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Tuesday, July 27, 2010
The Podcast - Episode 2: Cosmic Fine-tuning and the Goodness of Life
Episode Two of the podcast is available for download here. In this episode I cover a short paper by Neil Manson entitled "Cosmic Fine-tuning, Many Universe Theories and the Goodness of Life". You can download a copy of the paper at Neil's webpage.
I received some feedback for my previous effort. Most was positive and no doubt the naysayers kept quiet. One person suggested that my voice was a little dry, and I would have to agree. I've tried to liven things up in this episode and I personally think it is an improvement. Let me know if you disagree.
I'd be happy to receive comments or suggestions, particularly suggestions for topics or papers you would like me to cover in the future. My only ground rule is that the papers must be short enough to cover in about 20 mins.
3 comments:
Superb topic! I like the way Manson illustrates the extremity of the position of defending intrinsic value.ReplyDelete
You've got more energy in your voice this time, or at least you spoke more quickly I think. :)
Thanks for the encouragement.ReplyDelete
I didn't notice very much in the way of changes in your voice -- probably because I was too focused on the article -- but overall I found your presentation quite respectable.ReplyDelete
If you're thinking about making this podcast permanent, I'm sure you'd make many of your listeners' lives easy by also publishing it on iTunes in addition to posting it on your blog.
Anyways, I've skimmed through this paper a while back and was puzzled by what in the world intrinsic goodness of life could have to do with an argument from fine-tuning for multiple universes or God. I'm still at a loss as to how the premise "life is good" does any sort of work in such an argument; Manson seems to think that this requirement is so obvious that he doesn't even try to provide some sort of reconstruction of a fine-tuning argument involving this as a crucial premise.


text: I am new to using Frontpage 2003 and am trying to use shared boreders... Problem is that when I save the page, the shared borders are doubled and I see my left and top navigation twice. Any ideas on how to fix this? I know it must be something simple! Grrr ok update, I have checked everthing and can not come up with any ideas as to what is causing this problem. Any help would be much appriciated.


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It's me again. I'm back at it again, except this time I'm in JOU 250, which focuses more on using multimedia to tell stories. I've added a slideshow and a story to go with it and a video will be coming soon.
Also, in case you didn't notice, I changed the name of my blog. The term "journo" refers to a journalism student.
Hope you enjoy! More is yet to come!


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I am still a little unclear about the difference (if their is one) between Servoy Offline and Servoy Runtime?
Servoy Offline seems to be a but of a mythical beast that is ?a developer version with the developer switched off, but use the integral sybase database.
Servoy Runtime seems to be a standalone application
Or Are these just one and the same thing??
What i am trying to achieve is to have a version of my application that can run as a standalone, but that i can then create my own routines to pump some of that data back to my main mysql database when the user can get online again, and also the ability to pull some data down before he/she goes offline in order to work on it.
This isnt true syncronisation, so i am really looking to see which solution would cope best with a couple of bespoke scripts to do this, i suppose, import, export and update type of stuff.


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Cambodia's government is wading into trademark disputes. Two finance institutions Acleda Bank and Prasac Microfinance have been asked to change their logos to differentiate them from state institutions. Prime Minister Hun Sen himself has threatened Prasec, the largest microfinance institution in the country. He indicated the central bank required it and threatened to withdraw their trade licences if they failed to comply.
The logic is that the logos are too similar the Ministry of Economy and Finance's logos and "If people start believing that these institutions belong to the government, then they think they don't need to pay back their debts, which is very detrimental to the industry," has said Chea Serey, the director-general of the National Bank of Cambodia. Some have questioned why this is such a big issue, suggesting it is a way to emphasize borrower obligations obliquely. Both institutions face a multimillion USD bill for the change which impacts signage at hundreds of branches and replacing bank cards and documents, apart from the advertising and marketing costs of the rebrands.


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Rattlers Coil Kaycee [VIDEO]
Highlights of the Friday, October 5th 6-man football game between #2 Little Snake River at Kaycee.
Scroll down to watch the highlights of the game!
Little Snake River jumped out to a 28-0 lead, and cashed in on an abundance of Kaycee turnovers to win easily.
The cold weather is here and some people were not ready for it yet. We got blankets, sleeping bags…anything to stay warm outdoors.
Number 2 Little Snake River at Kaycee…first half…Little Snake River wearing the white…they would onside the opening kickoff and recover…a few plays later…J.P Ely will check in from a couple of yards out to get his team on the board first, leading 8-to-nothing.
Then the defense would make their presence felt early on…Garrett Greive comes in untouched and bucks that Buckaroo off of his high horse and the 2-time defending state champs were setting the tone of this game.
But the boys in blue had their moments as well…such as this one on defense…Zach Filip is looking for somebody…he feels the pressure and has to get rid of the ball…he thought he had a man open but James Caro is going to rip that ball out of the air for an interception…and what could have been a touchdown became a touchback for Kaycee.
A few possessions later…the Rattler defense would strike back and this time it was fruitful…Caro is in trouble…Manuel Quinteros will knock the ball loose…Greive will dive on it in the end zone for an easy 6 points…the home team had some problems hanging onto the ball…I'll show you more later…visitors now lead 16-zip.
Ok…it's later…the boys in blue ended up with about 6 give-aways in the first half and about 9 or 10 of them total…that's not going to win your team many ball games…Greive with another recovery and LSR was back in business.
Now it's time to bring on the air attack…Little Snake River can do that as well…Filip is just trying to buy some time…he'd get it…and uncork a 40 yard bomb to Connor Lee who was open on the far sideline…he'd cruise from there and that score would give his team a 22-to-nothing advantage…after the first 10 minutes.
Second quarter…the Rattlers take advantage of another turnover…and we'd make a blooper of our own…Filip is looking for Lee again…and we can prove that the camera was well protected from Mother Nature…Lee would stay in bounds barely, for a 34 yard score…and this game was starting to get out of hand…it's 28-zip.
Kaycee's offense needed to get something going soon or else they were going to get swallowed up whole…Caro hooks up with Taylor Rouse on a crossing pattern for a 35 yard strike…that would finally get rid of the zero, but the home team has more work to do, trailing 28-to-6.
Then Little Snake River was in a giving mood…bad exchange on the pitch…thankfully Filip was able to fall on the ball first, or else that safety would have been a touchdown instead…the Buckaroos will take the 2 points and are now down 28-to-8.
The Rattlers would try to bite back…Filip again is looking for his favorite target on the fade route…and he'd hook up with number 9…but Caro wears the same number. That's his second pic of the game…it would save 6 points. Caro came up limping on the play, but he would be all right.
The boys in blue tried to go on without him…but watch number 16…that Quinteros…he saw that play coming from the start…another turnover…and LSR would set up shop again.
They would then bring in the heavy guy…he may be a lineman…but in this game…everyone is receiver eligible…Jake Ready weighs 2-hundred and 60 pounds…he's dragging one guy…2 guys…3 guys and he still manages to reach the ball across the goal line for a 19 yard touchdown…that's determination. Little Snake River had all the momentum…leading 34-8 going into halftime.
Ok…it may have been a bit chilly for him…but this is football weather. Get used to it!
Third quarter…the Rattlers were putting a stranglehold on the scoreboard…Quinteros goes one way…then he realized that no one was going in the other direction, so he'll take the path of least resistance…5 yards…6 points…it's 42-to-8 at this point.
Then the defense comes through…you saw that Ready was hard to bring down…well he's also hard to block. That ball is going out of the end zone for a safety, and the opposition might want to redirect their kicking game next time…away from him….now it's 44-to-8.
LSR would take the free kick and march again…Ely is going to muscle his way through just to get 2 yards, but it got him into the end zone…the visitors are close to putting the mercy rule on this game…the scoreboard now reads 52-to-8.
Credit to Kaycee…they did not quit. They still had a few scores in them…Caro gets himself out of jam…then he's directing traffic…this ball was a toss up but Marcus Koch was able to outjump his defender and haul that pass in…he'd shake a tackler and go to the promised land for a 55 yard score…he got his team some much needed points, but they still trail 52-to-14.
Little Snake River could do that too…and they did…Quinteros on the half-back option…and Lee is wide open and gone…55 yards himself…no one will catch him. The visitors had this one in the bag…up 58-to-14 going into the final 10 minutes.
4th quarter…they keep the ball on the ground and keep the clock moving…Quinteros gets good blocking up front…heads towards the near sideline…hits the brakes to fake out one defender…and then finish a 60 yard run that would put the running clock rule into a effect…both teams scored a few more times after this, but this game was over a long time ago…the Rattlers buck off the Buckaroos…72-to-29.


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How People Can Find The Best Kayaks For Sale
If people love to kayak, they can easily find the best kayaks for sale as this type of sport is gaining momentum as being popular among people. They can do it as a recreational or hobby sport that they can do on their spare time. Whether if people gets to do it as a hobby or if they are truly into kayaking for fun, it can give hours or also days for people to have fun with their family and friends. If people go to a kayak store, people can find kayaks that have different hull designs, lengths and also prices. There are kayaks that has rigid hard-shell boats that are made of fiberglass, carbon fiber, metal, wood and other types of materials.
There are also foldable and also inflatable types of boats, there are kayaks that are made for one person or for two persons. Most kayaks gets to use a double-sided paddle apart from the regular canoe paddle and some would have a skirt that goes over the top to easily keep water out of the kayak. Each specific design of a kayak is made for its truly specific advantage that can get to include maneuverability, stability and also paddling technique.
There are different types of
Eddy Gear
kayaks in the market, they have really evolved and have also improved over time and people have different choices when they decide to purchase a kayak. Some of these kayaks are made for recreational use, there are also light weight kayaks, and there are also kayaks that are pedal and also motorized. There are also kayaks that are specifically made to be used for ocean traveling, they can also be tandem kayaks or solo kayaks. People can also get to purchase inflatable kayaks that they can use for traveling to different rivers and lakes. If people love to fish, they can also purchase kayaks that are well designed for fishing on different lakes.
There are also kayaks that are made for white water rafting where the kayak is durable and can easily get to travel along rivers that hare full of sharp rocks. There are numerous kayaks in the market and people need to find the best ones that can help them with their goals of enjoying kayaking. People can try to use the internet to help them look for reviews from people that have used the kayaks for their various hobbies,
check it out
Visit this website at
and know more about kayaks.


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Really, I thought this place was bigger than what it was. I was very surprised at how small it was. When you watch Jersey Shore, you see Snookie, JWow, Vinny, Pauly D and Mike take a taxi to Karma. IT IS JUST A FEW BLOCKS!! Why can't these people walk to it????
Anyway, I did enjoy seeing where it was taped but read this post to understand just how hard it is to get to ..... unless you drive a car to it. To get to Seaside from Atlantic City was a real trip...
If you watch Jersey Shore, you have seen the Shore Store on it many times. Of course, none of the gang was working that day. I kind of get the feeling that they aren't there all that often.
This is the house they rent for the show. I think the guy who owns the Shore Store owns it.
The brown house on the right of the screen is the back of the house that the Jersey Shore gang stays in.
One last picture and if you watch Jersey Shore, you will know exactly what it is.


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Last week I found myself with a packet of thawed minced pork & tofu in the fridge & I realised that it's been ages since I cooked this.
The only way to eat this is pour over white rice to let it soak up the goodness. Perfect for a cold winter day. Gawd I practically finished the dish all by myself.
Mapo Tofu
source Appetite for China
1 block soft tofu, drained and cut into cubes
3 tablespoons oil
350g ground pork
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 leeks, thinly sliced at an angle (or spring onions)
2 1/2 tablespoons chilli bean paste (since I didn't have chili bean paste, I used chilli oil)
1 tablespoon fermented black beans (& added 2 Tbsp of this instead)
2 teaspoons ground Sichuan pepper
1 cup chicken stock
2 teaspoons white sugar
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
Salt to taste
4 tablespoons cornstarch mixed with 6 tablespoons cold water (I used only half of this)
Optional garnish: 1 tablespoon thinly sliced scallions, or 1/2 teaspoon crushed roasted Sichuan peppercorn
1. Heat oil in a wok over high heat. Add pork and stir-fry until crispy. Reduce heat, then add garlic and leeks and stir-fry until fragrant. Add chili bean paste, black beans, and ground Sichuan pepper, and stir-fry for about 1 minute, until the oil is a rich red color.
2. Pour in the stock and stir well. Mix in the drained tofu gently by pushing the back of your ladle or wok scoop gently from the edges to the center of the wok or pan; don't stir or the tofu may break up.
3. Season with the sugar, soy sauce, and salt to taste. Simmer for about 5 minutes, allowing the tofu to absorb the flavors of the sauce. Then add the cornstarch mixture in 2 or 3 stages, mixing well, until the sauce has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. (Don't add more than you need).
4. Serve while still hot in a deep plate or wide bowl. Garnish with optional scallions or crushed Sichuan peppercorn.


text: So, I've been dragging myself into NYC for the past couple of weeks, maybe 4x a week so far, and doing my little amateur's damndest to start getting a feel for street photography. Needless to say, it's been an unbelievably fun experience so far, and I love it. Having said that though, I live in Queens, but work in Central Suffolk County! I drive home to Queens, and hurriedly grab the LIRR to Penn, which gets me to good light areas around 6:30/45. The problem I'm having is that this time of day, the light is amazing, but already partly over, and the cost of taking the LIRR into NYC is $5.75 each way. At $11.50 a day, if I want to shoot even 3x a week, that's $35 per week! Not easy when you're saving for a wedding, a house, pay Queens rent, car insurance, car loan, etc. etc. wahh wahhh complaining blah. Anyway, I was thinking, for the time being, where are some places in Queens, Brooklyn, or wherever that may be easier for me to get to, and could be just as bountiful in terms of street photography subjects & compositions? I've seen that there are entire monographs out there on Coney Island and Brooklyn, so I know these places are good, I just don't know where to go to start out. Thanks pals! Happy shooting.


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Presentation folders are used in many different ways and designs. A simple 9" x 12" or 4" x 9" folder are still the most common formats. But something that is becoming popular is folders that are different sizes and even die-cut folders with multiple folds for a real unique presentation. Some are done with different shapes and can even be folded to be a self mailer.
Folders can vary from a simple one color on a 9" x 12" white gloss to a custom cut piece printed full color with different embellishments such as foiling, interesting textures and more. Also, the printed materials put into a folder can be either cut all the same size or cut in steps so that the title of each piece can be seen.
So whether you want to stay with the traditional size and style or do something elaborate, a presentation folder can be a very useful piece in your branding. They can be used as handouts at trade shows to let people know all about your business. They can also be used as mailers for the same reason.
Businesses that have a lot of information to share are the most likely to need presentation folders. Examples are: hospitals giving necessary information to patients, accountants giving their clients tax info, and the list goes on. Printers may use very elaborate folders to show some of the quality of work they do along with listing their services.
Order your free custom branding and logo design ebook now.


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Prayer – The divine sword to win in the war of life!
While strolling through the sand of the beach in a calm mood of deep thoughts about the result of an interview for my dream job, there was no other flow of thoughts other than this confined expectation. The result was pending for a quite long period giving a suspicion for rejection which effected in great tension for me with low profile and a declined level of confidence. Peace of mind was absolutely nil for the period. The dependency for the job to execute the stored responsibilities and duties for the family and my dreams of career pushed me to the extent of life!
My stress had compressed me to forget my prayers even for asking the help from God. At that moment, a sudden lightening came with a brightest spark so ever. That spark was the alarm of God to me for remembering his presence. I felt a spin in my heart for the mistake done by me.
Just for a few moments, I devoted my sincere prayers of request to God for his help and blessings. It was unbelievable that within a few minutes, I got the call from the employer delivering the message of appointment for the job. Yes, this is the power of praying God for help! And God is always ready to help us at any moment to accept our sincere prayers…
"Prayer is the divine communication between the creator and the creation!"
For instance, when we suffer a pain in heart, immediately we tend to call a doctor and not an engineer; when there is trouble in a vehicle, we call a mechanic and not a lawyer to get it repaired.
Why is it so?
Because we are confident that only the treatment of a Doctor can heal us, not an engineer. Here the Doctor is believed to be the God for the timely help at the right moment, to save the life.
We do call God for help in all aspects of life right from birth till the death. He is ready to render his blessings and help us in all means. His help will be in many forms of life like a person, product, or service and so on…
Mother is also a form of God for children. Children will gain all benefits of life to sparkle with success through the unlimited sacrificing service of the mother. Yes, the God is delivering the same for all of us too.
Power of Prayer
How can we acquire the help of God? It is only through the power of our "Prayer."
There are four factors which determine the power of our prayer. They are the qualities of our
- Faith
- Humility
- Awareness
- Intention
Establish the two-way channel in your life!
The two-way channel between you and the divine will deliver your aspects of hope and gratitude through prayers to God which gets reflected as the grace of the Almighty. This gains you with the energetic attitude of refined positivity in us to become a wealthy soul.
Way for Successful Life of Happiness
Complete wellbeing is enjoyed only when happiness, confidence and a positive outlook about life enrich your thoughts.


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The name of this place could be roughly translated as "Check-Point Bubbles", which is a pretty good name. I have tried it twice recently and I must say that it has given me one of the most interesting and convincing Champagne and food matching experiences that I have ever had.
Point Bulles is a small and rather discreet bar/restaurant (the decor is functional rather than inspiring) well situated in one of Paris's best-known shopping areas, on the left bank in the Saint Germain district. In fact it is within the Marché Saint Germain, which is the covered market that lies between the Boulevard Saint Germain and Saint Sulpice church (which must be one of Paris' most ugly monuments, although readers of Dan Brown apparently flock to it: don't ask me why as I have never read any of his books).
The owners of this place form an interesting blend: the sister of a brother-and-sister team who run a family Champagne business called Philippe Gonet; an enterprising Lebanese restaurant owner named Karim Haïdar; and an Italian as a third party. This fusion of different cultural backgrounds has produced a fascinating menu which, Champagne oblige, gives the lion's share to sea-food of various kinds, although there are other things for those who want them, plus a very decent still-wine list for those who do not want to drink Champagne. And, most unusually, all the wines and most of the Champagnes are available by the glass! Of course Chantal Gonet has her own Champagne well to the fore, but not exclusively as the full range of another producer (which changes every month) is always featured by the glass and there are more Champagnes on the bottle list. The Lebanese influence is to be felt in the use of citrus fruit, herbs and spices in several of the dishes. For example, in the photograph below, apart from the superbly fresh no:2 oysters and the sea-urchins (all the sea-food is of top quality), there is a tartare of John Dory prepared with dill, chives and a citrus fruit whose name I cannot remember although it looks suspiciously like lime.
The idea of this meal was to try different matches between the Gonet range of Champagnes and some of the dishes, which are served in small, tapas-style portions most suited to this kind of exercise. I decided to concentrate on sea-food, but all the dishes have been designed to go well with Champagne, which has to be the most accomodating of all wines at table. Gonet is based in the Côte de Blancs sub-region of Champagne, and so their wines are dominated by the Chardonnay grape, even though some wines include Pinot Noir or Pinot Meunier from vineyards in the Marne Valley. All have well-defined flavours and are beautifully dosed to feel light and crisp on the palate. I find it quite boring (or simply frustrating) to read long descriptions of how each combination between a specific wine and a particular dish tasted to somebody during a meal, so I won't go there. Suffice it to say that this is a restaurant to which you can go feeling confident in the quality of the wines and in the fact that the owners have really thought about this question of the suitablity of the food to go with them. In fact it is a main theme here.
I should add that Point Bulles is open 7 days a week from 10am to 2am (most unusual in France), that their busiest days are Saturday and Sunday, when they do a brunch and have a jazz group playing on Sunday, and that their terrace doubles the capacity in the evenings and when the weather is suitable. There is also an adjacent mini-boutique where you can buy bottles to take away. Definitely a place to go if you are in Paris.
Point Bulles
7 Rue Clément
75006 Paris
tel : 33 (0)1 46 33 00 47
Wine, motorcycles, rugby, painting, literature and other things that make life so much worth living
4 Mar 2011
A Champagne bar and restaurant in Paris: Point Bulles
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SNPedia is pleased to have contributed "Self Explorimentation" to the What ELSI is New series -- especially during the moment when it is generating such interesting blogosphere traffic about access to genomic data. Of course, Genomics Law Report has this well covered, but this is a topic close to my own heart.
As suggested by Anne Wojcicki of 23andMe and Eric Topol M.D. -- SNPedia is here for you. Whether you get your data from a DTC, Kaiser, or the melting curve analyzer in your garage, we can help you to understand your data, and you can help us.
People without their data have little interest in SNPedia. Expanding this access helps SNPedia become a better resource. For these reasons, I might be too inclined to rush towards this (seemingly) inevitable future. I'm grateful that Daniel, Anne and others are raising this issue. But I can understand why Kaiser might feel that releasing information compromises their original study design. Mostly I'm excited by a future where the next study of this sort will need to consider sharing data with patients.


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Someone at "Heidelberga" (a Latvian law firm) felt like doing something amusing. And they decided to change the name of their firm to... "Viss mainījies skaļi klusēja migla virs pļavām aiz upes un jenotiņš to sajuta tik skaidri ka aizrāvās elpa un nosvīda uz ceļgaliem rātni uzliktās ķepiņas".
In translation: "Everything has changed loudly quiet fog over meadows on the other side of the river and racoon felt it so clearly that lost breadth and the paws put calmly on knees sweated".
Uzņēmumu reģistrs (the Latvian authority responsible for registering companies) did not like the joke and refused the name change. According to them, a 25-word name is too long for a company and, in any case, free-format poetry is not appropriate in this setting.
If they had allowed the name change, the courtroom reports would have become a lot more amusing...
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
How complicated company names can you make?
Posted by Latvian abroad at 10:54 PM
Labels: humour
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Newlyweds Laurie and Phillip La Plante set out to buy and remodel their first home with different visions: She leans toward traditional, he likes modern; she warms to wood, he's into industrial metal.
Incredibly, after a massive remodel and second-story addition to their 1959 Newport Beach bungalow, they both got what they wanted.
The two-story house has the exterior lap siding and white trim reminiscent of an old-fashioned home. Yet it has a two-story entry hall set at a diagonal and the porch overhang is stainless steel suspended by metal rods. Inside, the stairwell is an elegant mix of maple steps and steel balustrades.
To achieve this meeting of the minds and tastes, Laurie "had to buy into" a lot of his modernistic ideas, said Phillip, 39, a commercial developer and investor. Said Laurie, 32, who owns a business that maintains indoor plants for companies, "We [had to] give and take."
The unlikely melding of two contrasting styles was helped by the fact that the house was rich in rustic materials (such as open beams and exposed wood ceilings) and yet had ahead-of-its-time design, including post-and-beam construction and a wall of windows overlooking the backyard.


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So far in this section we've looked at two ways of representing sets. First as unordered lists, then as ordered lists. Now we'll look at how we can represent sets as binary trees, and we'll see what advantages this representation has over ordered lists.
Each node of a tree holds one element of the set, called the "entry" at that node, and a link to each of two other (possibly empty) nodes. The "left" link points to elements smaller than the one at the node, and the "right" link to elements greater than the one at the node. The same set may be represented by a number of different trees. The only requirements for a valid representation is that all elements in the left subtree must be smaller than the node entry and all elements in the right subtree be must be larger than the node entry. Figure 2.16 in the text shows several valid tree representations of the same set of values.
Recall that for an ordered set of n elements, we had to search through (on average) n/2 elements to locate a particular value. We do this by searching through the elements in order. The advantage of a tree representation is that we can cut this effort down to log n if the tree is balanced.
Exercise 2.63 asks us if the following two procedures produce the same results for every tree, and if not how they differ.
(define (tree->list-1 tree) (if (null? tree) '() (append (tree->list-1 (left-branch tree)) (cons (entry tree) (tree->list-1 (right-branch tree)))))) (define (tree->list-2 tree) (define (copy-to-list tree result-list) (if (null? tree) result-list (copy-to-list (left-branch tree) (cons (entry tree) (copy-to-list (right-branch tree) result-list))))) (copy-to-list tree '()))
tree->list-1 procedure checks to see if the tree passed in is
null, and if so returns an empty list. If the tree is not
null, it creates a list by appending the left branch of the tree, the element at the root node, and the right branch of the tree. Elements of the left and right branches are flattened into lists using recursive calls to
tree->list-1. The
tree->list-2 procedure defines a helper function
copy-to-list that takes the tree and a
result-list as arguments. When the tree is
null, it returns the
result-list that was passed in. The
copy-to-list helper function also uses recursive calls to the left and right branches of the tree while building the final
result list. These two procedures will produce the same results for every tree.
We're asked to test the two procedures on the trees in figure 2.16.
(define tree1 '(7 (3 (1 () ()) (5 () ())) (9 () (11 () ())))) (define tree2 '(3 (1 () ()) (7 (5 () ()) (9 () (11 () ()))))) (define tree3 '(5 (3 (1 () ()) ()) (9 (7 () ()) (11 () ())))) > (tree->list-1 tree1) '(1 3 5 7 9 11) > (tree->list-2 tree1) '(1 3 5 7 9 11) > (tree->list-1 tree2) '(1 3 5 7 9 11) > (tree->list-2 tree2) '(1 3 5 7 9 11) > (tree->list-1 tree3) '(1 3 5 7 9 11) > (tree->list-2 tree3) '(1 3 5 7 9 11)
We can see from these results that both procedures return an in-order traversal for every tree.
We're also asked if the two procedures have the same order of growth for a balanced tree, and if not, which one grows more slowly?
We can see from the results above and from inspecting the two procedures that each node of the tree is visited one time by each algorithm. What happens at each of those n steps is subtly different though. The second procedure simply calls
cons at each step, which we'll assume is a constant-time operation, so the
tree->list-2 procedure has a time complexity of $O(n)$. The first procedure calls
append at each step, which we saw in section 2.2.1 has the following definition:
(define (append list1 list2) (if (null? list1) list2 (cons (car list1) (append (cdr list1) list2))))
From this definition we can see that the order of growth of
append is proportional to the first list argument that's passed in. In the case of
tree->list-1, the first list argument is the left branch of the tree, which is about half of a node's elements for a balanced tree. This means that for each recursive call, approximately half of the number of nodes will be in the first list argument as in the previous call. Since the number of elements is cut in half on each of the n calls to
append, the
tree->list-1 procedure has a complexity of $O(n log n)$ for a balanced tree.
Exercise 2.64 introduces the
list->tree procedure, which converts an ordered list to a balanced binary tree using the helper procedure
partial-tree that takes as arguments an integer n and list of at least n elements and constructs a balanced tree containing the first n elements of the list.
(define (list->tree elements) (car (partial-tree elements (length elements)))) (define (partial-tree elts n) (if (= n 0) (cons '() elts) (let ((left-size (quotient (- n 1) 2))) (let ((left-result (partial-tree elts left-size))) (let ((left-tree (car left-result)) (non-left-elts (cdr left-result)) (right-size (- n (+ left-size 1)))) (let ((this-entry (car non-left-elts)) (right-result (partial-tree (cdr non-left-elts) right-size))) (let ((right-tree (car right-result)) (remaining-elts (cdr right-result))) (cons (make-tree this-entry left-tree right-tree) remaining-elts))))))))
First we're asked to explain how
partial-tree works, then draw the tree produced by
list->tree for the list
(1 3 5 7 9 11).
partial-tree procedure works by dividing the list into three parts, a center element (the root node of the tree), everything before the center element, and everything after the center element. All the elements before the center element are then passed to a recursive call to
partial-tree to create the left branch of the tree, and all the elements after the center element are passed recursively to
partial-tree to create the right branch. These recursive call continue until no elements are remaining, and the balanced binary tree is assembled.
The tree produced by
list->tree for the list
(1 3 5 7 9 11) is:
To verify this, we can simply call the procedure.
> (list->tree '(1 3 5 7 9 11)) '(5 (1 () (3 () ())) (9 (7 () ()) (11 () ())))
Next we're asked what is the order of growth in the number of steps required by
list->tree to convert a list of n elements? The procedure only needs to visit each element of the list once, and it only performs a
cons for each element it visits, so the number of steps is proportional to the size of the list, or $O(n)$.
Exercise 2.65 asks us to use the results of the previous two exercises to give $O(n)$ implementations of
union-set and
intersection-set for sets implemented as (balanced) binary trees.
We implemented
union-set for the unordered list representation of sets back in exercise 2.59. This implementation had to check all elements of one set for each element of the other, so it's complexity was $O(n^2)$, quite poor. We improved on this in exercise 2.62 when we wrote an implementation of
union-set for the ordered list representation of sets, which was $O(n)$. The text supplied a similar implementation of
intersection-set that was also $O(n)$. We could use these ordered set implementations as a guide to writing efficient implementations of
union-set and
intersection-set for balanced binary trees, but that wouldn't require the results of the previous two exercises. Instead, we can use the $O(n)$ implementations of all of the procedures we've built so far to perform the following steps:
- Convert the balanced binary trees to ordered lists.
- Perform the desired operation (
- Convert the resulting ordered set back to a balanced binary tree.
(define (union-set tree1 tree2) (define (union-list set1 set2) (cond ((null? set1) set2) ((null? set2) set1) ((= (car set1) (car set2)) (cons (car set1) (union-list (cdr set1) (cdr set2)))) ((< (car set1) (car set2)) (cons (car set1) (union-list (cdr set1) set2))) (else (cons (car set2) (union-list set1 (cdr set2)))))) (list->tree (union-list (tree->list-2 tree1) (tree->list-2 tree2)))) (define (intersection-set tree1 tree2) (define (intersection-list set1 set2) (if (or (null? set1) (null? set2)) '() (let ((x1 (car set1)) (x2 (car set2))) (cond ((= x1 x2) (cons x1 (intersection-list (cdr set1) (cdr set2)))) ((< x1 x2) (intersection-list (cdr set1) set2)) ((< x2 x1) (intersection-list set1 (cdr set2))))))) (list->tree (intersection-list (tree->list-2 tree1) (tree->list-2 tree2))))
In the implementations above, I've just defined the earlier ordered set implementations of
union-set and
intersection-set as helper functions named
union-list and
intersection-list. With these helper functions, all
union-set and
intersection-set need to do is convert from tree to list and back from list to tree. We can define a few balanced trees to test that these new implementations work as expected.
> (define evens (list->tree '(0 2 4 6 8 10))) > (define odds (list->tree '(1 3 5 7 9))) > (define primes (list->tree '(2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19))) > > evens '(4 (0 () (2 () ())) (8 (6 () ()) (10 () ()))) > odds '(5 (1 () (3 () ())) (7 () (9 () ()))) > primes '(7 (3 (2 () ()) (5 () ())) (13 (11 () ()) (17 () (19 () ())))) > > (union-set odds evens) '(5 (2 (0 () (1 () ())) (3 () (4 () ()))) (8 (6 () (7 () ())) (9 () (10 () ())))) > (union-set odds odds) '(5 (1 () (3 () ())) (7 () (9 () ()))) > (intersection-set evens primes) '(2 () ()) > (intersection-set odds primes) '(5 (3 () ()) (7 () ())) > (intersection-set odds evens) '()
For links to all of the SICP lecture notes and exercises that I've done so far, see The SICP Challenge.


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|Mena's Pizza , the best Pizza in Tel Aviv
One of my favorite Tel - Aviv restaurants is the Italian Campanello .
First of all the food is great .
|Ribolitta with black cabbage
|Pasta a Ceci
|Naked Ravioli
|Risotto with Prosciutto and Artichokes
The best Italian dishes with a personal twist of the chef - Mena Strum .
|Mena and Arik , the chefs of Campanello
Another thing I really like about Campanello is the design of the restaurant which resembles an original Italian grocery shop .
|All the staff , friendly service .
Very happy , simple and inviting .


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Data types
Explains what the feature is or what its benefits are to the user or customer.
ThoughtSpot supports the common data types. Compare these with the data types you want to load, and do any necessary conversion ahead of loading the data.
Supported data types
The tables you create to receive the data must have the same number of columns and data types as the data you will be loading. Choose a data type for each column from the list of supported data types:
Note: There is a 1GB limitation on the number of characters for VARCHAR. If you have any VARCHAR data that exceeds this limit, the entire load will fail.
Geographical data types
For geographical data types, use VARCHAR. For latitude and longitude, you can use either VARCHAR or DOUBLE. After loading the data, designate it as a geographical data type when you Model data in bulk in the modeling file. Wherever abbreviations or codes are used, they are the same as what the USPS (United States Postal Service) recognizes.
These types of data can be designated as geographical data, which enables them to be visualized using the Geo chart types:
Note: You cannot upload your own custom boundaries.


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I wanted to show my weaving to you step by step as I have done them over the last few months, mostly in Judit's workshop and help, and I will do so... a bit later.
Now the record amount of likes on my Facebook picture showing the finished item of my friday's weaving promted me to post it right now.
I wanted a pink to purple colorchanging shawl for a while, but I didn't really want to weave it either in black or grey or even natural warps, as I knew it would throw off the color. However at the end of the summer I saw that in the "other" weaving workshop (Belvárosi Szövöde- Downtown Weavery) on one of the looms there was a pink warping. I wanted to go and weave there too for a longtime, but somehow time was never right... but I could not miss this opportunity.
So here was the yarn I spun scpecifically with this long colorchange in mind... and I set a Friday aside to weave it. I will let the pictures speak for themselves (almost).
Weaving with yarn that was spun by hand from fiber that was also handdyes, has its own special charms... Like even if the yarn itself is rather uniform, it still has tiny changes in thickness, and the way I dye gives the colors sometimes run a bit wilde... so at the end the color is largely does get from purple to pink, there are suprise shades, of lighter and darker colors. So there is now to "row" now two thread is teh same, there is smaller or bigger change in each one.
And as I weave further sometimes a color pops up at suprising places, giving it a stripy appearance.
Belvárosi Szövöde.


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(I have said this since the day I know how to play this awesome game)
For those who know the game, you'll probably say "Yea~"
For those who are clueless, er... i suggest you go google search since you can read my blog online =P
Had Mafia night with the cg the other evening, was rather anticipating for the game throughout the week (Tengok! Mafia game can be so motivating!). Other people makan bola, minum bola, mimpi bola... i kerja mimpi Mafia, makam mimpi Mafia.. =,=
ANYWAY, I was really really really looking forward to become 'the mafia'. Cut the story short, we had 3 rounds of war, I was 'blessed' to become the civilian, from the beginning till the end. So, you know right, being a civilian, you are suppose to put on your normal behaviour (or at least act innocent if you cant, hahaa!) Tough job, friends...
I really have no talent to play the role of 'civilian', ended up being accused to be the-you-know-who every round (i wish i was!) It was either the Marmee monster/ Koko crunch that i was munching betrayed me, or it was the un-pretend-able evil face i wore that day that has caused me the consequence. Even betting on Kampachi did not earn me some trust *sad* (Betting on food doesnt work in this cg is it? Hmm... I need new tactics)
Yet, it was fun la. Those expressions were very genuine and funny.
Oh ya, that reminds me of someone earned the honourable title 'the orange bear' till now, hahaa! We played the same game but it was titled 'Hunter and Bear'.
Mafia is simply awesome somehow. You gotta play it and know the fun! And next round, the role 'mafia' is so gonna be mine "I demand you-whoever-that-control-the-game to hand it over!" Muahaa!


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It's that time of year again where this Floridian forgets how long New England winters are (seriously, can it be above 50 degrees yet?). So naturally I was in the mood for some stew. I'd had something similar to this last year and remembered it being delicious, but couldn't quite remember how to make it. So I got creative. And we all got this recipe. It's a great lazy weekend or day off recipe and makes eight 3/4 cup servings.
2 lbs pork loin roast, boneless
1 sweet onion, sliced
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of black pepper
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
2 green anjou pears, peeled and chopped
2 TB apple cider vinegar
Place 1/2 the sliced onion in bottom of crock pot. Blend salt, cinnamon, and pepper and rub generously on pork (you should use all of it). Place pork in crock pot and cover with remaining onion. Add cider vinegar and cook on high for 4 hours. After 4 hours, add sweet potato and pear. Cook another 3-4 hours or until pork is cooked. You should be able to shred it easily inside. Serve with a side of green veggies for a complete meal.
189 calories, 3 g fat, 19 g carbs, 23 g protein, 495 mg sodium per 3/4 cup serving.


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TO ALL OUR VALUED CUSTOMERS. WE WOULD LIKE TO INFORM YOU THAT LAUNCH WILL BE CLOSING PERMANENTLY ON Coupons must be
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Winter Hours
(Monday -Sunday)
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Aries Black Jeep Wrangler JK Carbon Brush Guard
Fits the JK Wrangler 2 and 4 door models. 3/16 solid steel construction. Durable heavy duty black texture powder coat. 6 piece bumper allows for your personal configuration. Light mounting cutout for under bumper, fog, high intensity, and side lighting kits. Center stubbier cutouts for OE bumper lights. Allows For Personal Configuration Uses Existing Mounting Points On Standard Jeep Bumpers Aries 15600-4 Black Carbon Replacement Brush Guard Customizes The Look Of Your Jeep Wrangler


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Yvette and Eric
Manon and Xavier
Whilst in the mood of impossibly cool couples, French clothing brand ' The Kooples' feature's real life beautiful, effortless couples in their new advertising campaign.
The brand is quintessentially French and showcases absolutely perfect tailoring, female androgynous looks and a chicness that only the French can do so well.
check it out http://www.thekooples.com/


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27 Must Haves for Beach Safety? A Lifeguard Speaks About the Essentials You Need
Here is a list of beach and safety essentials put together by a professional lifeguard. To date, most of the "What to take to the beach?" lists say the same thing, that is why our lifeguards have come up with a comprehensive list we guarantee, you never thought of. And for your convenience, everything is […]Read More


text: Nothing like an all-white look for Summer right? I wanted to add a little twist to this outfit so I wore it with these leather cut-out oxfords which are incredibly comfortable, so if you get a chance to find them at Zara, I highly recommend them! I can't find them online but perhaps they still have them in the stores (on sale I must add!).


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Jnana Mudra (psychic gesture of knowledge)
Assume a comfortable meditation posture.
Fold the index fingers of both hands so that the touch the inside root of their respective thumbs.
Spread the other other three fingers of each hand so that they are relaxed and slightly apart.
Place the hands on the knees with the palm facing downwards and the three unbent fingers and thumb of each hand pointing towards the floor in front of the knees.
Relax the hands and arms.
Some people prefer to practise jnana mudra with the tips of the thumb and index finger touching. This is also correct.
Chin Mudra (psychic gesture of consciousness)
Chin mudra is performed in the same way as jnana mudra except that the palms of both hands face upwards, with the backs of the hands resting on the knees. Relax the hands and arms.
One of these two mudras should be adopted whenever practising meditation, unless otherwise specified.
Jnana mudra and chin mudra are simple but important psycho-neural finger locks which make meditation asanas such as padmasana, siddhasana, siddha yoni asanas, sukhasana, vajrasana and others, complete and more powerful by redirecting the nervous impulses from the hands upwards to the body. The palms and fingers of the hands have many nerve root endings with constantly emit energy. When the finger touches the thumb, a circuit is produced which allows the energy that would normally dissipate into the environment to travel back into the body and up to the brain.
When the fingers and hands are placed on the knees, the knees are sensitised, creating another pranic circuit that maintains and redirects prana within the body. In adition, placing the hands on the knees stimulates a nadi which runs from the knees, up the inside of the thighs and into the perineum. This nadi is known as gupta or the hidden nadi. Sensitising this channel helps stimulate the energies at mooladhara chakra.
When the palms face upward in chin mudra, the chest area is opened up. The practitioner may experience this as a sense of lightness and receptivity which is absent in the practice of jnana mudra.
Jnana and chin mudras are often performed with the tip of the thumb and index finger touching and forming a circle. Beginners may find this variation less secure for prolonged periods of meditation as the thumb and index finger tend to separate more easily when body awareness is lost. Otherwise, this variation is as effective as the basic position.
Practice note:
The effect of chin or jnana mudras is very suble and it requires great sensitivity on the part of the practitioner to perceive the change in consciousness established. With the practice, however, the mind becomes conditioned to the mudra and when it is adopted the signal to enter a meditative state is transmitted.
The word jnana means 'wisdom' or 'knowledge', thus jnana mudra is the gesture of intuitive knolwedge. Chin, on the other hand, is derived from the word 'chit' or 'chitta' which means 'consciousness'. Chin mudra, therefore, is the psychic gesture of consciousness.
Symbolically, the small, ring and middle fingers represent the three gunas or qualities of nature: tamas, inertia; rajas, activity and creativity; and sattwa, luminosity and harmony. In order for consciousness to pass from ignorance to knowledge, these three states must be transcended. The index finger represent individual consciousness, the jivatma, while the thumb symbolises supreme consciousness. In jnana and chin mudras the individual (index finger) is bowing down to the supreme consciousness (the thumb), acknowledging its unsurpassed power. The index finger, however, is touching the thumb, symbolising the ultimate unity of the two experiences and the culmination of yoga.
1) Excerpts from the book on "Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha" by Swami Satyananda Saraswati.
2) Excerpts from the book on "Meditations from the Tantras" by Swami Satyananda Saraswati.


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Saturday, April 27th was our 4th Annual World Wide Vegan Bake Sale Day event, once again a fundraiser for the Victoria Vegan Fest! (Which is Canada Day, July 1st in Market Square.)
First, a big thank-you to Green Cuisine for hosting us, it was amazing to have their side room made available to us for the bake sale, even though we were competing with their dessert sales!
Our bakers really outdid themselves this time, and in no particular order big thank-you's go out to Diana, Hayley, Janine, Line Marie, Sandra, Andrea, Heather, Paulina & Michael, Colleen and Ashley, and this time Lisa and her family brought so many goodies, she needed her own table!!
There was an amazing assortment of goodies, and before Lisa arrived, it was pretty evenly split between gluten and GF items, surprisingly! Lisa tipped the balance however. 😉
Gratitude to all those who made it and were so generous; we raised $560.85 – a decent total, though quite short of our previous World Wide Vegan Bake Sale earnings, which were in the $1200-1500 range. The Festival fundraising goes into paying for transport and accommodations for our speakers and presenters, promotion, insurance and all those other exciting logistics. We'll be holding more fun fundraiser events, so keep your eyes peeled!
– Dave and the #VVF2013 Crew


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Unique bookcase shaped alphabet
Unique bookcase with bright color is very attractive, with model letters of the alphabet are very impressed with the modern, the color also provided various kinds, if you want to share your work space or your personal space, but still seem interesting. using this barrier is the solution for you. This can be used to […]