text
stringlengths 16k
189k
| timestamp
stringlengths 20
20
| url
stringlengths 15
841
|
|---|---|---|
A method of containing a floral grouping or potted plant in a sleeve is disclosed. The sleeve has first and second panels, and at least a portion of at least one of the first and second panels is constructed of at least two layers of material. At least a portion of the at least two layers of material may be connected.
The present application is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 12/500,157, filed Jul. 9, 2009 now abandoned; which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 11/880,044, filed Jul. 19, 2007, now abandoned; which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 11/110,250, filed Apr. 20, 2005, now abandoned; which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 10/780,084, filed Feb. 17, 2004, now abandoned; which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 10/325,103, filed Dec. 19, 2002, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,691,458, issued Feb. 17, 2004; which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 10/051,116, filed Jan. 17, 2002, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,701,667, issued Mar. 9, 2004; which is a continuation of Ser. No. 09/895,302, filed Jun. 29, 2001, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,343,456, issued Feb. 5, 2002; which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 09/626,375, filed Jul. 26, 2000, now abandoned; which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 09/366,630, filed Aug. 3, 1999, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,192,657, issued Feb. 27, 2001; which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 09/025,090, filed Feb. 17, 1998, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,930,979, issued Aug. 3, 1999; which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 08/775,516, filed Jan. 2, 1997, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,740,658, issued Apr. 21, 1998; which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 08/460,180, filed Jun. 2, 1995, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,617,703, issued Apr. 8, 1997; which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 08/237,078, filed May 3, 1994, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,625,979, issued on May 6, 1997; which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. Ser. No. 08/220,852, filed Mar. 31, 1994, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,572,851, issued Nov. 12, 1996. The entire contents of each of the above-referenced patents and patent applications are hereby expressly incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.
This invention generally relates to sleeves, and, more particularly, to sleeves used to wrap flower pots containing floral groupings and/or mediums containing floral groupings, and methods of using same.
FIG. 1 is an elevational view of a sleeve having a detaching element constructed in accordance with the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the sleeve of FIG. 1 having a potted plant disposed therein.
FIG. 4 is a perspective view of the potted plant disposed in the sleeve of FIG. 2 after an upper portion of the sleeve has been removed to provide a pot cover having a skirt.
FIG. 5 is an elevational view of a version of the sleeve of FIG. 1 with a gusseted bottom.
FIG. 6 is a partial cutaway, elevational view of an alternate version of the sleeve of FIG. 1 wherein a bonding material is disposed upon an upper end of the sleeve.
FIG. 8 is an elevational view of an alternate version of the sleeve of FIG. 1 having a bonding material disposed on a portion of an inner surface of the sleeve.
FIG. 9 is an elevational view of an alternate version of the sleeve of FIG. 1 having a bonding material disposed on a portion of an outer surface of the sleeve.
FIG. 11 is a perspective view of the crimped sleeve of FIG. 10.
FIG. 12 is a cross-sectional view of the sleeve of FIG. 9 wherein a crimped portion is formed above an upper end of a pot.
FIG. 13 is a perspective view of the crimped sleeve of FIG. 12 wherein a crimped portion is formed above a pot.
FIG. 16 is an elevational view of another version of the sleeve of FIG. 1 having an additional detaching element for enhancing the extension of a skirt portion of the sleeve after detachment of an upper portion of the sleeve.
FIG. 18 is an elevational view of another version of the sleeve of FIG. 1 having notched perforated areas for enhancing extension of a skirt portion of the sleeve after detachment of an upper portion of the sleeve.
FIG. 19 is an elevational view of the sleeve of FIG. 18 after the upper sleeve portion has been removed.
FIG. 20 is an elevational view of an alternate version of a sleeve of the present invention wherein an upper portion of the sleeve is constructed of a different material than a lower portion of the sleeve.
FIG. 21 is a perspective view of a version of a sleeve of the present invention wherein the sleeve comprises expansion elements for enhancing extension of a skirt portion once an upper portion is removed.
FIG. 23 is a perspective view of a sleeve similar to the sleeve of FIG. 21 except the expansion elements do not extend completely to an upper end of the sleeve.
FIG. 24 is a cross-sectional view of the sleeve of FIG. 23 taken along line 24-24 thereof.
FIG. 25 is a perspective view of another version of a sleeve of the present invention wherein the sleeve comprises z-shaped expansion elements for enhancing extension of a skirt portion.
FIG. 26 is a perspective view of the sleeve of FIG. 25 after an upper portion has been removed to reveal the skirt portion.
FIG. 27 is a perspective view of a sleeve similar to the sleeve of FIG. 25 except the z-shaped expansion elements do not extend completely to an upper end of the sleeve.
FIG. 28 is a cross-sectional view of the sleeve of FIG. 27 taken along line 28-28 thereof.
FIG. 29 is a perspective view of a version of a sleeve of the present invention wherein the sleeve comprises fluted or groove-shaped expansion elements for enhancing extension of a skirt portion.
FIG. 30 is a perspective view of the sleeve of FIG. 29 after an upper portion has been removed to reveal the skirt portion.
FIG. 31 is a perspective view of a sleeve similar to the sleeve of FIG. 29 except the fluted or groove-shaped expansion elements do not extend completely to an upper end of the sleeve.
FIG. 32 is a cross-sectional view of the sleeve of FIG. 31 taken along line 32-32 thereof.
FIG. 37 is a cross-sectional view of the pot of FIG. 35 disposed in the pot cover of FIG. 36 showing the connection of the pot to an inner surface of the pot cover.
FIG. 38 is a cross-sectional view of a sleeve having an open lower end and having a bonding material on a portion of an inner surface near a lower end.
FIG. 39 is a cross-sectional view of the pot and cover of FIG. 37 disposed within the sleeve of FIG. 38 wherein a portion of an outer surface of the pot cover is connected to the sleeve.
FIG. 40 is a cross-sectional view of a pot cover having a bonding material on both a portion of an inner surface and on a portion of an outer surface of the pot cover.
FIG. 42 is a cross-sectional view of a sleeve having an open lower end similar to the sleeve of FIG. 38 except having no bonding material on an inner surface.
FIG. 43 is a cross-sectional view of the pot cover and pot of FIG. 41 disposed in the sleeve of FIG. 42 wherein an outer surface of the pot cover is connected to the inner surface of the sleeve via bonding material on the outer surface of the pot cover.
FIG. 44 is a cross-sectional view of a pot cover and pot such as that shown in FIG. 41 disposed in the sleeve of FIG. 38 wherein the bonding material of the pot cover engages the bonding material on the sleeve.
FIG. 45 is a cross-sectional view of a pot having a bonding material on a portion of an outer surface thereof.
FIG. 46 is a cross-sectional view of a preformed pot cover having no bonding material thereon.
FIG. 47 is a cross-sectional view of the pot of FIG. 45 disposed within the preformed pot cover of FIG. 46 wherein the cover and pot are connected via the bonding material on the pot.
FIG. 48 is a cross-sectional view of the pot and preformed pot cover of FIG. 47 disposed within the sleeve of FIG. 38 wherein the preformed pot cover is connected to the sleeve via bonding material on the inner surface of the sleeve.
FIG. 49 is a cross-sectional view of a preformed pot cover having bonding material on a portion of an outer surface thereof.
FIG. 50 is a cross-sectional view of the pot of FIG. 45 disposed within the pot cover of FIG. 49 wherein the pot is connected to an inner surface of the pot cover via bonding material on the pot.
FIG. 52 is a cross-sectional view of the pot of FIG. 45 disposed within the pot cover of FIG. 40 wherein the pot is connected to an inner surface of the pot cover via the bonding material disposed on a portion of the outer surface of the pot.
FIG. 56 is a perspective view of a plant package constructed in accordance with the present invention showing a sleeve connected to a potted plant via a bonding material on a lower end of the sleeve.
FIG. 57 is a perspective view of a sleeve connected to a potted plant via a bonding material on an upper end of a pot.
FIG. 58 is a perspective view of a plant package having a sleeve connected to a pot wherein a bonding material is on a lower end of the sleeve and on an upper end of the pot.
FIG. 59 is a perspective view of a plant package having a sleeve connected to a pot wherein a bonding material is disposed on an inner surface and an outer surface of a lower end of the sleeve.
FIG. 60 is a partial cutaway, perspective view of a sleeve having an up-turned lower end and having a bonding material disposed upon a portion of the up-turned lower end and wherein the bonding material is covered by a cover or release strip.
FIG. 64 is a perspective view of the sleeve and pot of FIG. 63 wherein the lower end of the sleeve is fully connected to the pot and a portion of the sleeve is detached at an upper end of the sleeve.
FIG. 66 is a perspective view of a preformed pot cover like the cover of FIG. 65 but also having a bonding material disposed on a portion of an inner surface thereof.
FIG. 69 is a perspective view of another sleeve constructed in accordance with the present invention having a bonding material on an inner surface of the sleeve near an upper end of the sleeve and having expansion elements disposed within the sleeve.
FIG. 71 is a perspective view of the sleeve and potted plant of FIG. 70 wherein a lower end of the sleeve has been pulled upwardly toward an upper end of the pot.
FIG. 73 is a perspective view of the sleeve and potted plant of FIG. 72 after an upper portion of the sleeve has been detached leaving the lower end of the sleeve attached to an outer surface of the potted plant.
FIG. 74 is a cross-sectional view of another version of a sleeve constructed in accordance with the present invention wherein a separate skirt portion is connected to an inner surface of the sleeve via a bonding material.
FIG. 76 is a perspective view of a potted plant disposed upon a sheet of material having a bonding material on a portion of a lower surface of the sheet of material.
FIG. 77 is a perspective view of the sheet of material of FIG. 76 wrapped about the potted plant of FIG. 76 to form a pot cover having bonding material on an outer surface thereof.
FIG. 78 is a perspective view of another sleeve constructed in accordance with the present invention.
FIG. 79 is a perspective view of the potted plant of FIG. 77 disposed within the sleeve of FIG. 78 wherein the sleeve of FIG. 78 is connected to an outer portion of the pot cover of FIG. 77 by the bonding material on the outer surface of the cover.
FIG. 80 is a partial cutaway, perspective view of a sleeve constructed in accordance with the present invention, the sleeve having a bonding material disposed upon portions of an inner surface thereof.
FIG. 82 is an elevational view of a sheet of material having a bonding material near two edges of the sheet of material.
FIG. 83 is a perspective view of the sheet of material of FIG. 82 wrapped about a covered potted plant in accordance with the method of the present invention.
FIG. 84 is an elevational view of a sheet of material having a bonding material disposed near three edges of the sheet of material.
FIG. 85 is a perspective view of the sheet of material of FIG. 84 wrapped about a covered potted plant to form a sleeve with an upper end of the sleeve partially sealed.
FIG. 86 is a perspective view of the sleeve formed from the sheet of material of FIG. 84 having the upper end thereof completely sealed.
The present invention contemplates a plant packaging system comprising a combination of a protective sleeve portion and a decorative cover portion having a base and skirt for packaging a potted plant. The protective sleeve portion can be detached from the decorative cover portion of the package system once the protective function of the sleeve portion has been completed, thereby exposing the decorative cover portion and allowing the skirt to extend angularly from the base. The protective sleeve portion and decorative cover portion may be of unitary construction or may be separate components which are attached together by various bonding materials.
More specifically, the present invention contemplates a plant cover for covering a pot having an outer peripheral surface. The plant cover comprises (1) a base portion having a lower end, an upper end, an outer peripheral surface, and an area of excess material for allowing extension of a portion of the base portion and having an opening extending from the upper end to the lower end, and (2) an upper portion extending from the upper end of the base portion and detachable therefrom, and wherein when the upper portion is detached from the upper end of the base portion, the area of excess material expands causing portions of the base portion to extend angularly from the base. In general, the base portion is sized to substantially cover the outer peripheral surface of the pot. The upper portion may be detachable via a detaching element such as perforations, tear strips and zippers. The plant cover may have an extended portion extending from the upper portion for serving as a handle or support device. More particularly, the present invention may be a plant cover comprising (1) a base portion having a lower end, an upper end, and an outer peripheral surface and having an opening extending from the upper end to the lower end, (2) an upper portion extending from the upper end of the base portion and detachable therefrom, (3) and an expansion element integral to the base portion and optionally integral to the upper portion, for allowing expansion of a portion of the base portion into a skirt portion extending angularly from the base portion when the upper portion is detached from the upper end of the base portion. The expansion element may be a plurality of vertical pleats, a plurality of vertical folds each having a Z-shaped cross section, a plurality of vertical accordion-type folds, or other similar types of expandable forms.
The present invention further contemplates a plant cover comprising, (1) a base portion having a lower end, an upper end, an outer peripheral surface, and having an opening extending from the upper end to the lower end, (2) a skirt portion attached to the base portion and extending a distance beyond the upper end of the base portion, and (3) an upper portion connected to the outer peripheral surface of the base portion and extending from the upper end of the base portion and detachable therefrom and substantially surrounding the skirt portion, and wherein when the upper portion is detached from the upper end of the base portion, the skirt portion is exposed allowing the skirt portion to extend angularly from the base portion. Further, the base portion may comprise a bonding material for bondingly connecting to the upper portion. Also, the base portion may comprise a bonding material for bondingly connecting to a pot disposed therein. Further, the upper portion may comprise a bonding material for bondingly connecting to the base portion. The plant cover may further comprise part of a plant package which includes a pot disposed within the inner retaining space of the base portion, the pot having a floral grouping disposed therein, and wherein the pot is substantially surrounded and encompassed by the base portion and the floral grouping is substantially surrounded and encompassed by the upper portion.
The sleeve 10 has an upper end 12, a lower end 14, an outer peripheral surface 16 and in its flattened state has a first side 18 and a second side 20. The sleeve 10 has an opening 21 (FIG. 2) at the upper end 12 and may be open at the lower end 14, or provided with excess material at least sufficient to form a closed bottom of the sleeve 10 at the lower end 14. The sleeve 10 also has an inner peripheral surface 22 which, when the sleeve 10 is opened, defines and encompasses an inner retaining space 24 as shown in FIG. 2. When the lower end 14 of the sleeve 10 has a closed bottom, a portion of the lower end 14 may be inwardly folded to form one or more gussets for permitting a circular bottom of an object such as a potted plant 30 (FIGS. 2 and 4) to be disposed into the inner retaining space 24 of the lower end 14 of the sleeve 10.
The sleeve 10 is generally frusto-conically shaped, but the sleeve 10 may be, by way of example but not by way of limitation, cylindrical, frusto-conical, a combination of both frusto-nical and cylindrical, or any other shape, as long as the sleeve 10 functions as described herein as noted above. Further, the sleeve 10 may comprise any shape, whether geometric, non-geometric, asymmetrical and/or fanciful as long as it functions in accordance with the present invention. The sleeve 10 may also be equipped with drains or ventilation holes (not shown), or can be made from permeable or impermeable materials.
The material from which the sleeve 10 is constructed has a thickness in a range from about 0.1 mil to about 30 mil. Often, the thickness of the sleeve 10 is in a range from about 0.5 mil to about 10 mil. Preferably, the sleeve 10 has a thickness in a range from about 1.0 mil to about 5 mil. More preferably, the sleeve 10 is constructed from a material which is flexible, semi-rigid, rigid, or any combination thereof. The sleeve 10 may be constructed of a single layer of material or a plurality of layers of the same or different types of materials. Any thickness of the material may be utilized as long as the material functions in accordance with the present invention as described herein. The layers of material comprising the sleeve 10 may be connected together or laminated or may be separate layers. Such materials used to construct the sleeve 10 are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,111,637 entitled “Method For Wrapping A Floral Grouping” issued to Weder et al., on May 12, 1992, which is hereby expressly incorporated herein by reference. Any thickness of material may be utilized in accordance with the present invention as long as the sleeve 10 may be formed as described herein, and as long as the formed sleeve 10 may contain at least a portion of a pot 32 or the potted plant 30 or a floral grouping, as described herein. Additionally, an insulating material such as bubble film, preferable as one of two or more layers, can be utilized in order to provide additional protection for the item, such as the floral grouping, contained therein.
The sleeve 10 is constructed from any suitable material that is capable of being formed into a sleeve and wrapped about the potted plant 30 or the pot 32. Preferably, the material comprises paper (untreated or treated in any manner), metal foil, polymeric film, non-polymeric film, fabric (woven or nonwoven or synthetic or natural), cardboard, fiber, cloth, burlap, or laminations or combinations thereof.
The term “polymeric film” means a material made of a synthetic polymer such as a polypropylene or a naturally occurring polymer such as cellophane. A polymeric film is relatively strong and not as subject to tearing (substantially non-tearable), as might be the case with paper or foil.
The material employed in the construction of the sleeve 10 may vary in color and may consist of designs or decorative patterns which are printed, etched, and/or embossed thereon using inks or other printing materials. An example of an ink which may be applied to the surface of the material is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,147,706 entitled “Water Based Ink On Foil And/Or Synthetic Organic Polymer” issued to Kingman on Sep. 15, 1992, and which is hereby expressly incorporated herein by reference.
In addition, the material may have various colorings, coatings, flocking and/or metallic finishes, or other decorative surface ornamentation applied separately or simultaneously or may be characterized totally or partially by pearlescent, translucent, transparent, iridescent, neon, or the like qualities. Each of the above-named characteristics may occur alone or in combination, and may be applied to the upper and/or lower surface of the material comprising the sleeve 10. Moreover, portions of the material used in constructing the sleeve 10 may vary in the combination of such characteristics. The material utilized for the sleeve 10 itself may be opaque, translucent, transparent, or partially clear or tinted transparent.
It will generally be desired to use the sleeve 10 as a covering for the potted plant 30 (FIG. 2). As shown in FIG. 3, the potted plant 30 comprises the pot 32 having an upper rim 34, a lower end 36, an outer peripheral surface 38, and an inner peripheral surface which encompasses an inner retaining space 40 for retaining a floral grouping or plant 42. The lower end 36 of the pot 32 is closed but may have holes for permitting water drainage. The term “pot” as used herein refers to any type of container used for holding the floral grouping or plant 42. Examples of pots, used in accordance with the present invention include, but not by way of limitation, clay pots, wooden pots, plastic pots, pots made from natural and/or synthetic fibers, or any combination thereof. The pot 32 is adapted to receive the floral grouping 42 in the inner retaining space 40. The floral grouping 42 may be disposed within the pot 32 along with a suitable growing medium described in further detail below, or other retaining medium, such as a floral foam. It will also be understood that the floral grouping 42, and any appropriate growing medium or other retaining medium, may be disposed in the sleeve 10 without the pot 32.
The term “growing medium” when used herein means any liquid, solid or gaseous material used for plant growth or for the cultivation of propagules, including organic and inorganic materials such as soil, humus, perlite, vermiculite, sand, water, and including the nutrients, fertilizers or hormones, or combinations thereof required by the plants or propagules for growth.
The term “botanical item” when used herein means a natural or artificial herbaceous or woody plant, taken singly or in combination. The term “botanical item” also means any portion or portions of natural or artificial herbaceous or woody plants including stems, leaves, flowers, blossoms, buds, blooms, cones, or roots, taken singly, or in combination, or in groupings of such portions such as bouquet or floral grouping.
In accordance with the present invention, a bonding material may be disposed on a portion of the sleeve 10 to assist in holding the sleeve 10 to the pot 32 having the floral grouping 42 therein when such a pot 32 is disposed within the sleeve 10 or to assist in closing the upper end 12 of the sleeve 10 or adhering the sleeve 10 to the pot 32 after the pot 32 has been disposed therein, as will be discussed in further detail below. It will be understood that the bonding material may be disposed as a strip or block on a surface of the sleeve 10. The bonding material may also be disposed upon either the outer peripheral surface 16, or the inner peripheral surface 22 of the sleeve 10, as well as upon the pot 32. Further, the bonding material may be disposed as spots of bonding material, or in any other geometric, non-geometric, asymmetric, or fanciful form, and in any pattern including covering either the entire inner peripheral surface and/or outer peripheral surface of the sleeve 10 and/or the pot or pot cover. The bonding material may be covered by a cover or release strip which can be removed prior to the use of the sleeve, pot, or pot cover. The bonding material can be applied by means known to those of ordinary skill in their art. One method for disposing a bonding material, in this case an adhesive, is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,111,637 entitled “Method For Wrapping A Floral Grouping” issued to Weder et al., on May 12, 1992, which has been incorporated by reference above.
The term “bonding material” when used herein means an adhesive, frequently a pressure sensitive adhesive, or a cohesive. When the bonding material is a cohesive, a similar cohesive material must be placed on the adjacent surface for bondingly contacting and bondingly engaging with the cohesive material. The term “bonding material” also includes materials which are heat sealable and, in this instance, the adjacent portions of the material must be brought into contact and then heat must be applied to affect the seal. The term “bonding material” also includes materials which are sonic sealable and vibratory sealable. The term “bonding material” when used herein also means a heat sealing lacquer or hot melt material which may be applied to the material and, in this instance, heat, sound waves, or vibrations, also must be applied to effect the sealing.
The term “bonding material” when used herein also means any type of material or thing which can be used to effect the bonding or connecting of the two adjacent portions of the material, or sheet of material to effect the connection, or bonding described herein. The term “bonding material” may also include ties, labels, bands, ribbons, strings, tapes (including single or double-sided adhesive tapes), staples, or combinations thereof. Some of the bonding materials would secure the ends of the material while other bonding material may bind the circumference of a wrapper, or a sleeve, or, alternatively and/or in addition, the bonding materials would secure overlapping folds in the material and/or sleeve. Another way to secure the wrapping and/or sleeve is to heat seal the ends of the material to another portion of the material. One way to do this is to contact the ends with an iron of sufficient heat to heat seal the material.
As shown in FIG. 1, the sleeve 10 is demarcated into an upper portion 44 having an outer surface area 45 and a lower portion 46 having an outer surface area 47. The lower portion 46 of the sleeve 10 is generally sized to contain and tapered to fit the potted plant 30 or pot 32. The upper portion 44 of the sleeve 10 is sized to substantially surround and encompass the floral grouping 42 of the potted plant 30 disposed within the lower portion 46 of the sleeve 10. The sleeve 10 is demarcated into the upper portion 44 and the lower portion 46 by a detaching element 48 for enabling the detachment of the upper portion 44 of the sleeve 10 from the lower portion 46 of the sleeve 10. In the present version, the detaching element 48 is a plurality of generally laterally-oriented or alternatingy diagonally-oriented perforations which extend circumferentially across the outer peripheral surface 16 of the sleeve 10 from the first side 18 to the second side 20. The term “detaching element,” as used generally herein, means any element, or combination of elements, or features, such as, but not by way of limitation, perforations, tear strips, zippers, and any other devices or elements of this nature known in the art, or any combination thereof, which enable the tearing away or detachment of one object from another. Therefore, while perforations are shown and described in detail herein, it will be understood that tear strips, zippers, or any other “detaching elements” known in the art, or any combination thereof, could be substituted therefore and/or used therewith.
In a preferred embodiment, as shown in FIGS. 1, 2 and 4, the lower portion 46 of the sleeve 10 further comprises a base portion 50, and a skirt portion 52. The base portion 50 comprises that part of the lower portion 46 which, when the pot 32 is placed into the lower portion 46, has an inner peripheral surface which is substantially adjacent to and surrounds the outer peripheral surface 38 of the pot 32. The skirt portion 52 comprises that part of the lower portion 46 which comprises a plurality of portions 53 which extend beyond the upper rim 34 of the pot 32 and adjacent at least a portion of the floral grouping 42 contained within the pot 32 and which is left to freely extend at an angle, inwardly or outwardly, from the base portion 50 when the upper portion 44 of the sleeve 10 is detached from the lower portion 46 of the sleeve 10 by actuation of the detaching element 48. In the intact sleeve 10, the skirt portion 52 comprises an upper peripheral edge congruent with the detaching element 48 which is connected to a lower peripheral edge, also congruent with the detaching element 48, of the upper portion 44 of the sleeve 10. In FIGS. 1 and 2, the upper peripheral edge of the skirt portion 52 is congruent with a series of alternatingly diagonally-oriented lines of perforations which together form a zig-zag and comprise the detaching element 48.
The upper portion 44 of the sleeve 10 may also have an additional detaching element 54 indicated as a plurality of vertical perforations for facilitating removal of the upper portion 44 and which are disposed more or less vertically therein extending between the detaching element 48 and the upper end 12 of the sleeve 10. The upper portion 44 of the sleeve 10 is separable from the lower portion 46 of the sleeve 10 by tearing the upper portion 44 along both the detaching element 54 and the detaching element 48, thereby separating the upper portion 44 from the lower portion 46 of the sleeve 10. The lower portion 46 of the sleeve 10 remains disposed as the base portion 50 about the pot 32 and as the skirt portion 52 about the floral grouping 42 forming a decorative cover 56 as shown in FIG. 4 which substantially surrounds and encompasses the flower pot 32.
As noted above, the sleeve 10 may have an open or closed lower end 14. When the lower end 14 is closed the lower end 14 may have one or more gussets 60 formed therein such as that seen in sleeve 10 a in FIG. 5 for allowing expansion of the lower end 14 when an object with a broad lower end such as the pot 32 is disposed therein. In another version of the present invention, as shown in sleeve 10 b in FIG. 6, a strip of bonding material 62 may be disposed on the inner peripheral surface 22 of the upper portion 44 of the sleeve 10 b generally in the vicinity of the upper end 12 of the sleeve 10 b for allowing the upper end 12 to be sealed for enclosing the upper portion 44 of the sleeve 10 b about a floral grouping disposed therein. In another version of the present invention shown in FIG. 7, a sleeve 10 c comprises a flap 64 positioned at the upper end 12 which can be folded over and sealed with a flap bonding strip 66 to an adjacent portion of the outer peripheral surface 16 of the sleeve 10 c near the upper end 12 thereof. Other versions of the sleeve (not shown) may comprise ventilation holes or drainage holes 58 for allowing movement of gases or moisture to and away from the inner space of the sleeve.
In another version of the present invention, shown in FIG. 8, a sleeve 10 d is exactly like the sleeve 10, but further comprises an inner strip of bonding material 68 disposed upon a portion of the inner peripheral surface 22 of the base portion 50 of the sleeve 10 d. The strip of bonding material 68 functions to enable the inner peripheral surface 22, or a portion thereof, to be bondingly connected to the outer peripheral surface 38 of the pot 32 disposed therein causing the sleeve 10 d to be bondingly connected to the pot 32.
In yet another version of the present invention, shown in FIGS. 9-13, a bonding material 70 is disposed on a portion of the outer peripheral surface 16 of the base portion 50 of a sleeve 10 e. After the pot 32 is disposed in the inner retaining space 24 of the base portion 50, the sleeve 10 e is manually or automatically crimped about the outer peripheral surface 38 of the pot 32 in the vicinity of the bonding material 70 thereby forming overlapping folds 72 in the base portion 50 which are bondingly connected together by the bonding material 70 to add structural integrity to the base portion 50 and to cooperate to hold the base portion 50 in the shape of a pot cover or for causing the base portion 50 of the sleeve 10 e to engage the outer peripheral surface 38 of the pot 32 and be held firmly thereabout. The bonding material 70 may be disposed on the sleeve 10 e at a position below the upper rim 34 of the pot 32 (FIGS. 9-11) or may be disposed at a position on the base portion 50 of the sleeve 10 e above the upper rim 34 of the pot 32 (such as shown in FIGS. 12-13) such that the overlapping folds 72 crimpingly formed are located in a position generally above the upper rim 34 of the pot 32.
Other versions of the present invention shown in FIGS. 16-19, may comprise additional perforated areas for enhancing angularity of the extension of the skirt portion away from the base portion after the upper portion of the sleeve has been detached. For example, sleeve 10 h in FIG. 16 comprises perforations 86 which extend vertically downward from the downward-pointing apexes 88 in the detaching element 48, comprising lateral perforations, which demarcates the upper peripheral edge of the skirt portion 52 of the sleeve 10 h. After the upper portion 44 of the sleeve 10 h is detached, the perforations 86 are open, allowing adjacent portions of the skirt portion 52 to be deflected at an increased angle to the base portion 50 as shown in FIG. 17.
Similarly, sleeve 10 i in FIG. 18 comprises notch perforations 90 which allow the removal of a notch of material 92 in the vicinity of the downward-pointing apexes 88 in the detaching element 48, comprising lateral perforations, which demarcates the upper peripheral edge of the skirt portion 52 of the sleeve 10 i. After the upper portion 44 of the sleeve 10 i is detached, the notches 92 are removed, allowing the adjacent portions of the skirt portion 52 to be deflected at an increased angle to the base portion 50 as shown in FIG. 19.
Attention is now drawn to the sleeve shown in FIG. 21 which is designated by the general reference numeral 100. The sleeve 100 comprises a unitary construction and has a base portion 102 having a sidewall 103, skirt portion 104, a sleeve portion 106 and at least one expansion element 108 and further has an outer peripheral surface 110, an open upper end 112 and a lower end 114 which may or may not be open or closed. The sleeve 100 has an inner retaining space 116 which extends from the open upper end 112 to the lower end 114 and which is encompassed by an inner peripheral surface 118 of the sleeve 100. The base portion 102 is sized to substantially cover the outer peripheral surface 38 of the pot 32, and the sleeve portion 106 is sized to substantially surround the floral grouping 42 within the pot 32 which is disposed within the inner retaining space 116 of the sleeve 100.
As shown in FIG. 21, each expansion element 108 of the sleeve 100 comprises one or more areas of excess material shaped in the form of a pleat which extends from the base portion 102 to the upper end 112 of the sleeve 100. As used herein, the term “excess material” means an amount of material which has a greater surface area than would actually be necessary to form that portion of the plant covering were that portion of the plant covering actually flattened. The expansion element 108 can expand causing portions of the skirt portion 104 to extend angularly from the base portion 102 forming the skirt 124 and the decorative cover 126 about a portion of the floral grouping 42 of the potted plant 30 as shown in FIG. 22. It should be noted that although the illustrated floral grouping 42 of FIG. 2 and others are different from the floral group illustrated in, for example, FIG. 22, no practical difference is intended. The expansion element 108 may further comprise a plurality of detachable notches such as shown in FIGS. 18 and 19 and as explained above.
Shown in FIG. 23 is a sleeve designated by the reference numeral 100 a which is exactly the same as sleeve 100 except that sleeve 100 a has a plurality of expansion elements 108 a which do not extend from the base portion 102 a all the way to the upper end 112 a of the sleeve portion 106 a of the sleeve 100 a but only to a position below the upper end 112 a of the sleeve 100 a. Shown in FIG. 24 is a cross-section through the sleeve 100 a which reveals the pleated nature of the expansion elements 108 a therein. When the sleeve portion 106 a is removed, the expansion elements 108 a can expand as for sleeve 100 as described above causing portions of the skirt portion 104 a to extend angularly from the base portion 102 a forming a skirt (not shown—a skirt exactly the same as the skirt 124 of the decorative cover 126 shown in FIG. 22).
Attention is now drawn to FIG. 25 and to the sleeve shown therein which is designated by the general reference numeral 100 b. Sleeve 100 b is exactly the same as sleeve 100 except that the sleeve 100 b has a plurality of Z-shaped expansion elements 108 b. As for expansion element 108 of sleeve 100, the expansion elements 108 b of sleeve 100 b can expand causing portions of a skirt portion 104 b to extend angularly from a base portion 102 b forming a skirt 124 b in a decorative cover 126 b about a portion of the floral grouping 42 of the potted plant 30 as shown in FIG. 26.
Similarly, shown in FIG. 27 is a sleeve designated by the reference numeral 100 c and which is exactly the same as sleeve 100 b except that sleeve 100 c has a plurality of expansion elements 108 c which do not extend from the base portion 102 c all the way to an upper end 112 c of an upper portion 106 c of the sleeve 100 c but only to a position below the upper end 112 c of the sleeve 100 c. Shown in FIG. 28 is a cross-section through the sleeve 100 c of FIG. 27 which reveals the Z-shaped nature of the expansion elements 108 c therein. When the upper portion 106 c is removed, the expansion elements 108 c can expand as for sleeve 100 b causing portions of a skirt portion 104 c to extend angularly from the base portion 102 c forming a skirt exactly the same as the skirt 124 b of the decorative cover 126 b shown in FIG. 26.
Attention is now drawn to FIG. 29 and to the sleeve shown therein which is designated by the general reference numeral 100 d. Sleeve 100 d is exactly the same as sleeve 100 except that the sleeve 100 d has a plurality of fluted or groove-shaped expansion elements 108 d. As for expansion element 108 of sleeve 100, the expansion elements 108 d of sleeve 100 d can expand causing portions of a skirt portion 104 d to extend angularly from a base portion 102 d forming a skirt 124 d of a decorative cover 126 d about a portion of the floral grouping 42 of the potted plant 30 as shown in FIG. 30.
Similarly, shown in FIG. 31, is a sleeve designated by the reference numeral 100 e and which is exactly the same as sleeve 100 d except that sleeve 100 e has a plurality of expansion elements 108 e which do not extend from a base portion 102 e all the way to an upper end 112 e of an upper sleeve portion 106 e of the sleeve 100 e but only to a position below the upper end 112 e of the sleeve 100 e. Shown in FIG. 32 is a cross-section through the sleeve 100 e of FIG. 31 which reveals the fluted nature of the expansion elements 108 e therein. When the upper portion 106 e is removed, the expansion elements 108 e can expand as for sleeve 100 d causing portions of the skirt portion 104 e to extend angularly from the base portion 102 e forming a skirt exactly the same as skirt 124 d of the decorative cover 126 d shown in FIG. 30.
Each of the sleeves 100-100 e may further comprise a support extension 130 which extends away from a portion of the upper end of the sleeve such as for the sleeve 100 f as shown in FIG. 33. The support extension 130 has one or more apertures 132 disposed therein for allowing the sleeve 100 f to be supported on a support assembly 134 which may comprise, for example, a pair of wickets 136 for shipment, storage, and assembly of the sleeve 100 f, placement of a pot within the sleeve 100 f, or other functions known in the art. The support extension 130 may have a plurality of perforations 138 or other detaching elements for allowing the support extension 130 to be removed from the sleeve 100 f after the sleeve 100 f has been provided for use as described elsewhere herein. In another version of the invention, and applicable to any of the sleeves described above, or elsewhere herein, shown in FIG. 34 is a sleeve 100 g which has a handle 140 for carrying the potted plant package by the sleeve 100 g. The sleeve 100 g further comprises a detaching element 142 comprising perforations for removing a handle 140 at a later time.
In the next step of the method, a sleeve portion is provided for applying to the covered pot for providing protection to the plant already, or soon to be, disposed within the retaining space of the pot. The sleeve portion is preferably an open-ended, frusto-conically shaped, or semi frusto-conically shaped, tube similar to sleeves well-known to persons of ordinary skill in the art. The sleeve may be free of any bonding material disposed thereon, or a bonding material may be disposed on a portion of the inner peripheral surface of the sleeve, preferably near the lower end of the sleeve. The sleeve is opened and the covered pot, as described, is deposited into the inner retaining space of the sleeve. As noted above, the decorative cover which covers the pot may have a bonding material disposed upon a portion of the outer peripheral surface thereof.
Attention is now drawn to the embodiments of the present invention as shown in FIGS. 35-39. Represented by the general reference numeral 150 in FIG. 35 is a pot. The pot 150 has an upper end 152, a lower end 154, an outer peripheral surface 156, an upper opening 158, and an inner retaining space 160. Shown in FIGS. 36 and 37 is a plant cover referred to by the general reference numeral 162. The plant cover 162 has an outer peripheral surface 164, an upper end 166, a lower end 168, a base portion 170 sized generally to accommodate pot 150, a skirt portion 172 which extends from the base portion 170, an upper opening 174, an inner or pot retaining space 176, an inner peripheral surface 178, and a bonding material 180 which is disposed upon at least a portion of the inner peripheral surface 178. Shown in FIG. 37 is the pot 150 which has been inserted into the pot retaining space 176 of the plant cover 162.
Sleeve 182 further comprises lateral perforations 200 and vertical perforations 202 for allowing detachment of an upper portion of the sleeve 182. Perforations 202 may also represent other forms of detaching elements for detaching the upper portion of the sleeve 182. FIG. 39 shows a sleeve/cover package 204 comprising the plant cover 162 and pot 150 as shown in FIG. 37 and the sleeve 182 as shown in FIG. 38 after the pot 150 and plant cover 162 have been inserted into the inner retaining space 196 of the sleeve 182. As shown in FIG. 39, the bonding material 198 bondingly connects a portion of the outer peripheral surface 164 of the plant cover 162 to the inner peripheral surface 194 of the sleeve 182 at a position generally near an upper end of the base portion 170 of the plant cover 162. Once the plant cover 162 with the pot 150 therein has been disposed into the inner retaining space 196 of the sleeve 182, the skirt portion 172 of the plant cover 162 is substantially surrounded and encompassed by the sleeve 182. As will be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, a portion of the sleeve portion 182 can be removed from the sleeve/cover package 204 when it is desired to decoratively display a plant contained within the pot 150.
Shown in FIG. 40 is a preformed plant cover represented by the general reference numeral 162 a. The plant cover 162 a is exactly the same as the plant cover 162 shown in FIG. 36 except that the plant cover 162 a has an outer bonding material 181 a disposed on an outer peripheral surface 164 a in addition to a bonding material 180 a which is disposed upon an inner peripheral surface 178 a of the plant cover 162 a. Shown in FIG. 41 is a pot 150 which has been disposed within a pot retaining space 176 a of the plant cover 162 a wherein the bonding material 180 a of the plant cover 162 a has bondingly connected to a portion of the outer peripheral surface 156 of the pot 150. The bonding material 181 a is shown on the outer peripheral surface 164 a of the plant cover 162 a.
Shown in FIG. 42 is a sleeve 182 a having an outer peripheral surface 192 a, a lower end 188 a, and an inner peripheral surface 194 a. The sleeve 182 a is exactly the same as the sleeve 182 shown in FIG. 38 except that sleeve 182 a does not have a bonding material disposed on the inner peripheral surface 194 a near the lower end 188 a of the sleeve 182 a. FIG. 43 shows a sleeve/cover package 204 a combination exactly as shown in FIG. 41 which has been disposed into an inner retaining space 196 a of the sleeve 182 a wherein the bonding material 181 a on the outer peripheral surface 164 a of the plant cover 162 a has bondingly connected to a portion of the inner peripheral surface 194 a of the sleeve 182 a to form the sleeve/cover package 204 a. As before, the skirt portion 172 a of the plant cover 162 a is substantially surrounded and encompassed by the sleeve 182 a.
Shown in FIG. 44 is a sleeve/cover package 204 b which is comprised of the pot 150 as described above, a plant cover 162 a as described above in FIG. 40 and a sleeve 182 as described above in FIG. 38. Sleeve/cover package 204 b thus comprises the plant cover 162 a having the bonding material 181 a on the outer peripheral surface 164 a thereof, which is bondingly connected to the bonding material 198 which is on a portion of the inner peripheral surface 194 of the sleeve 182. In a preferred embodiment, the bonding materials 181 a and 198 of sleeve/cover package 204 b are cohesive materials but may be any bonding material described previously herein.
Shown in FIG. 45 is a pot designated by the reference numeral 150 a which is exactly the same as pot 150 described previously herein except that the pot 150 a, which has an upper end 152 a, a lower end 154 a, and an outer peripheral surface 156 a, also has a bonding material 161 a disposed on at least a portion of the outer peripheral surface 156 a. Shown in FIG. 46 is a preformed plant cover designated by the general reference numeral 162 b which has an outer peripheral surface 164 b, a base portion 170 b, a skirt portion 172 b and an inner peripheral surface 178 b. The plant cover 162 b is exactly the same as the plant cover 162 except that the plant cover 162 b does not have a bonding material such as the bonding material 180 disposed upon a portion of the inner peripheral surface 178 b.
Shown in FIG. 47 is the plant cover 162 b with the pot 150 a disposed therein, wherein the bonding material 161 a of the pot 150 a is bondingly connected to a portion of the inner peripheral surface 178 b of the plant cover 162 b. Shown in FIG. 48 is a sleeve/cover package 204 c which is comprised of the plant cover 162 b having the pot 150 a therein as shown in FIG. 47 and the sleeve 182 as shown in FIG. 38 which has the inner peripheral surface 194 and the bonding material 198 disposed upon a portion of the inner peripheral surface 194. The bonding material 198 of the sleeve 182 is bondingly connected to a portion of the outer peripheral surface 164 b of the base portion 170 b of the plant cover 162 b. The skirt portion 172 b of the plant cover 162 b is thus substantially surrounded and encompassed by the sleeve 182.
Shown in FIGS. 49 and 50 is a plant cover 162 c having an outer peripheral surface 164 c, a base portion 170 c, a skirt portion 172 c, and an inner peripheral surface 178 c. The plant cover 162 c is exactly the same as the plant cover 162 b of FIG. 46 except that the plant cover 162 c further comprises a bonding material 181 c disposed upon the portion of the outer peripheral surface 164 c of the cover 162 c. Shown in FIG. 50 is the plant cover 162 c containing the pot 150 a (FIG. 45). The pot 150 a is bondingly connected to the inner peripheral surface 178 c of the plant cover 162 c via the bonding material 161 a as described previously. Shown in FIG. 51 is sleeve/cover package 204 d. The sleeve/cover package 204 d comprises the pot 150 a contained within the plant cover 162 c as described in FIG. 50 which is disposed in the inner retaining space 196 a of sleeve 182 a shown in FIG. 42. A portion of the inner peripheral surface 194 a of the sleeve 182 a is bondingly connected to a portion of the outer peripheral surface 164 c of the plant cover 162 c via the bonding material 181 c. The skirt portion 172 c of the plant cover 162 c is substantially surrounded and encompassed by the sleeve 182 a.
Shown in FIG. 52 is the pot 150 a disposed within the pot retaining space 176 a of a plant cover 162 a shown in FIG. 40. The plant cover 162 a comprises the bonding material 180 a disposed on the inner peripheral surface 178 a thereof and the bonding material 181 a disposed on the outer peripheral surface 164 a thereof. The bonding material 161 a of the pot 150 a is connected to the bonding material 180 a of the plant cover 162 a. The pot 150 a and cover 162 a may be disposed within a sleeve such as sleeve 182 or sleeve 182 a.
Shown in FIG. 53 is a sleeve/cover package 204 e comprising the pot 150 a and plant cover 162 c disposed within the inner retaining space 196 of the sleeve 182 described in FIG. 38 previously. As indicated in FIG. 53, the bonding material 181 c of the plant cover 162 c is bondingly connected to the bonding material 198 of the sleeve 182 thereby connecting the outer peripheral surface 164 c of the plant cover 162 c to a portion of the inner peripheral surface 194 of the sleeve 182. As discussed previously, in the case of using a plant cover having a bonding material on the outer peripheral surface thereof along with a sleeve having a bonding material on the inner peripheral surface thereof, preferably the bonding material is a cohesive. It will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art that other combinations of pots, covers and sleeves other than those specifically delineated herein are practicable and are well within the spirit of the embodiments described herein.
Shown in FIGS. 54 and 55 is one example of a method and apparatus which can be used to cause a sleeve to be attached to the outer peripheral surface of a decorative cover surrounding a potted plant. A pedestal is represented by the reference numeral 210. The pedestal 210 is comprised of a post 212, a base 214 and a pot support surface 216. A potted plant 218 is placed upon the pot support surface 216, the potted plant 218 having a bonding material 220 disposed on the outer peripheral surface of the cover of the potted plant 218. A plurality of sleeves 222 is disposed upon the pedestal 210 near the base 214. A single sleeve 224 is caused to be brought up around the outside of the potted plant 218. The individual sleeve 224 has an inner peripheral surface 226, an upper end 228, and a bonding material 230 disposed upon a portion of the inner peripheral surface 226 preferably near the lower end of the sleeve 224. Shown in FIG. 55 is a sleeve 224 which has been brought up about the exterior of the potted plant 218 wherein the bonding material 230 on the sleeve 224 is caused to be bondingly connected to the bonding material 220 on the exterior surface of the potted plant 218. The sleeve 224 and the potted plant 218 together comprise a sleeve and cover package 232.
An alternative embodiment of a sleeve 242 a of a sleeve/plant package 238 a is shown in FIG. 57. In this embodiment of the sleeve/plant package 238 a, the sleeve 242 a has no bonding material thereon. Instead, a bonding material 256 a is disposed on a portion of an outer peripheral surface 241 a of a pot 240 a for bondingly connecting the sleeve 242 a to the pot 240 a. An additional embodiment is represented in FIG. 58 by a sleeve/plant package designated by the reference numeral 238 b. The sleeve/plant package 238 b comprises a sleeve 242 b having a bonding material 254 b disposed on a portion of an inner peripheral surface 246 b of the sleeve 242 b. In addition, the pot 240 a has a bonding material 256 a disposed on a portion of an outer peripheral surface 241 a of the pot 240 a. Together the bonding materials 254 b and 256 a, which preferably are cohesives, cause the sleeve 242 b to be bondingly connected to the pot 240 a.
Shown in FIG. 59 is yet another version of the present invention comprising a sleeve/plant package designated by the reference numeral 238 c. The sleeve/plant package 238 c comprises a sleeve 242 c and a pot 240. The sleeve 242 c has both an inner bonding material 254 c which is disposed upon a portion of an inner peripheral surface 246 c of the sleeve 242 c and an outer bonding material 258 c which is disposed upon a portion of an outer peripheral surface 244 c of the sleeve 242 c. As noted above, any of the sleeve/plant packages 238, 238 a, 238 b, and 238 c may comprise a potted plant having a decorative pot cover in lieu of the pot 240 or 240 a to which the aforementioned sleeves are attached.
An alternate version of a sleeve as used in the present invention is shown in FIGS. 60, 61, 62, 63 and 64, and is designated by the general reference numeral 260. The sleeve 260 comprises an upper end 262, a lower end 264, an outer peripheral surface 266, an inner peripheral surface 268, a plurality of perforations or other detaching element 270, an inverted portion 272 (FIGS. 60-63) disposed at the lower end 264 and a cover strip 274 (FIGS. 61 and 62) which conceals a bonding material 276 (FIGS. 61-63) disposed upon an external portion 277 of the inverted portion 272. In use, as shown in FIG. 61, the sleeve 260 is disposed about the pot 240 wherein a portion of the lower end 264 of the sleeve 260 is placed adjacent a portion of an outer peripheral surface 241 of the pot 240. The cover strip 274 can then be removed revealing the bonding material 276 disposed upon a portion of an externally facing portion 277 of the inverted portion 272, as shown in FIGS. 61 and 62. The inverted portion 272 is then turned down as shown in FIG. 63 wherein the bonding material 276 is caused to face a portion of the outer peripheral surface 241 of the pot 240. Finally, shown in FIG. 64, is a sleeve/plant package 278 which is produced when the sleeve 260 is bondingly connected at the lower end 264 thereof to the pot 240.
Shown in FIGS. 65 and 66 are two pot covers 280 and 280 a, respectively. The pot cover 280 shown in FIG. 65 is a pot cover such as those well known in the art and described previously herein and having a retaining space 282. The pot cover 280 a has a retaining space 282 a and a bonding material 284 disposed upon a portion of an inner peripheral surface 285 of the pot cover 280 a. Any of the sleeve plant packages shown previously in FIGS. 56-64 may be disposed in either of the pot covers 280 or 280 a. For example, sleeve/plant packages 238, 238 a, 238 b, and 278 may be disposed in the pot retaining space 282 a of the pot cover 280 a. The bonding material 284 disposed on the inner peripheral surface 285 of the pot cover 280 a can be caused to bondingly connect to a portion of the sleeve/plant package 238, 238 a, 238 b or 278, sleeve/plant package 278 being shown, resulting in the sleeve/plant package 286 shown in FIG. 67. Alternatively, the sleeve/plant package 238 c which has the bonding material 258 c disposed on the outer peripheral surface 244 thereof can be disposed in pot cover 280. The pot cover 280, having no adhesive or bonding material disposed thereon, is bondingly connected to the sleeve/plant package 238 c via the bonding material 258 c.
Another version of the present invention and its use thereof is shown in FIGS. 68-73. FIG. 68 illustrates a covered potted plant designated by the general reference numeral 288. The covered potted plant 288 is comprised of a pot cover 290 which has a skirt portion 292, a base portion 294, an outer peripheral surface 296, and a retaining space 297. A potted plant 298 is disposed within the retaining space 297 of the pot cover 290. Shown in FIG. 69 is a sleeve designated by the general reference numeral 300 having a generally cylindrical shape and having an upper end 302, a lower end 304, an outer peripheral surface 306, an inner peripheral surface 308, a bonding material 310 disposed in the vicinity of the upper end 302, a vertical perforation 312 extending from near the upper end 302 to the lower end 304, a lateral perforation 314 extending circumferentially around the sleeve 300, and one or more expansion elements 316. In use the sleeve 300 is drawn up about the base portion 294 of the covered potted plant 288 of FIG. 68 wherein the bonding material 310 of the sleeve 300 is caused to be bondingly connected to a portion of the outer peripheral surface 296 of the pot cover 290 as shown in FIG. 70. The sleeve 300 can be then brought up about the covered potted plant 288 by grasping the lower end 304 of the sleeve 300 and drawing the lower end 304 in the direction 318 over the upper end of the covered potted plant 288 as shown in FIG. 71. Once fully drawn up about the covered potted plant 288, the sleeve 300 encompasses the skirt portion 292 of the pot cover 290 of the covered potted plant 288. The resulting sleeve/plant package is designated in FIG. 72 by the general reference numeral 320. Shown in FIG. 73 is the sleeve/plant package 320 after the upper portion of the sleeve 300 has been removed causing the skirt portion 292 of the pot cover 290 of the covered potted plant 288 to be exposed and the remaining portion 322 of the sleeve 300 left bondingly connected to a portion of the base portion 294 of the pot cover 290 of the covered potted plant 288.
In an alternative embodiment of a sleeve/cover combination, a sleeve having a skirt portion attached therein is shown in FIGS. 74 and 75 and designated by the general reference numeral 326. The sleeve/cover combination 326 comprises a sleeve 328. The sleeve 328 comprises a base portion 330 having a lower end 332, a sleeve portion 334 having an upper end 336, an outer peripheral surface 338, and an inner peripheral surface 340. A skirt component 342 comprising a lower end 344, an upper end 346, an outer peripheral surface 348, an inner peripheral surface 350 and a bonding material 352 is shown disposed within the sleeve 328. The skirt component 342 is bondingly connected at a portion of its outer peripheral surface 348 to a portion of the inner peripheral surface 340 of the sleeve 328 via the bonding material 352. The upper end 346 of the skirt component 342 is substantially surrounded and encompassed by the sleeve portion 334 of the sleeve 328. Shown in FIG. 75 is an alternate view of the skirt component 342 bondingly connected by the bonding material 352 to a portion of the inner peripheral surface 340 of the sleeve 328. Also shown in FIG. 75 are perforations 354 in the sleeve 328 for allowing detachment of the sleeve portion 334 away from the skirt component 342 and the base portion 330 thereby allowing the skirt component 342 to be exposed.
In yet another version of the present invention rather than providing a preformed pot cover, a sheet of material may be provided for forming a cover about a pot. In an embodiment as shown in FIG. 76 a sheet of material 360 is provided. The sheet of material 360 has an inner surface 362, an outer surface 364, a first edge 366, a second edge 368, a third edge 370, a fourth edge 372, and a bonding material 374 which is disposed upon a portion of the outer surface 364. A potted plant 298 can be disposed upon the inner surface 362 of the sheet of material 360, which can then be wrapped and formed into a decorative cover 376 about the potted plant 298 as shown in FIG. 77 in a manner well known to a person of ordinary skill in the art. The decorative cover 376 thus formed comprises a base portion 378, and a skirt portion 380. The bonding material 374 is therefore disposed upon an outer surface 381 of the decorative cover 376. Shown in FIGS. 78 and 79, and designated by the general reference numeral 382, is a sleeve having an outer peripheral surface 384, an inner peripheral surface 386, and an inner retaining space 387 surrounded by the inner peripheral surface 386. The potted plant 298 shown in FIG. 77 having the decorative cover 376 is then disposed in the inner retaining space 387 of the sleeve 382 wherein the bonding material 374 of the decorative cover 376 engages a portion of the inner peripheral surface 386 of the sleeve 382 thereby bondingly connecting a portion of the outer peripheral surface 381 of the decorative cover 376 to the inner peripheral surface 386 of the sleeve 382 in forming a sleeve/plant package 388 as shown in FIG. 79.
In an alternate version of the invention shown in FIGS. 80 and 81, a sleeve 382 a having an outer peripheral surface 384 a, an inner peripheral surface 386 a, and an inner retaining space 387 a is provided. Disposed upon a portion of the inner peripheral surface 386 a of the sleeve 382 a is a bonding material 390. A potted plant 298 such as that shown in FIG. 77 having a decorative cover 376 which has a bonding material 374 thereon is disposed within the inner retaining space 387 a of the sleeve 382 a to form a sleeve/cover package 388 a wherein the bonding material 390 of the sleeve 382 a bondingly connects to the bonding material 374 of the decorative cover 376. Preferably, when both the sleeve 382 a and the decorative cover 376 have a bonding material thereon the bonding material is a cohesive wherein the bonding material 390 cohesively connects to the bonding material 374.
In an alternative version of the present invention, as shown in FIGS. 82 and 83, the sleeve may not be a tube but instead may be formed of a flat sheet of material having a generally trapezoidal, square or rectangular shape. It will be appreciated that any size or shape of sheet of material may be utilized as long as this sheet of material functions in the manner described herein in accordance with the present invention. Shown in FIG. 82 is a sheet of material designated by the general reference numeral 394. The sheet of material 394 has an inner surface 396, an outer surface 398, a first edge 400, a second edge 402, a third edge 404 and a fourth edge 406. The sheet 394 further has vertical perforations 408 and lateral perforations 410 which represent detaching elements. The sheet 394 further has a first bonding strip 412 flanking the second edge 402 and a second bonding strip 414 which is disposed horizontally and flanks the third edge 404. The covered potted plant 288 having the pot cover 290 is provided as shown previously in FIG. 73 herein. The sheet of material 394 can then be wrapped about the covered potted plant 288 forming a generally frusto-conical shaped sleeve 416 as shown in FIG. 83. The first bonding strip 412 which here is shown to be vertically oriented is caused to engage and bondingly connect to the fourth edge 406 of the sheet of material 394 as indicated in FIG. 83 thereby forming an overlapping sealed area between the first bonding strip 412 and the portion of the surface of the sheet of material 394 near the fourth edge 406. The second bonding strip 414 which here is shown to be horizontally oriented is caused to engage and bondingly connect circumferentially about a portion of the outer peripheral surface 296 of the pot cover 290 formed about the covered potted plant 288 thereby forming a generally frusto-conical shaped sleeve 416 and forming a sleeve/cover package 418 comprising the covered potted plant 288 and then the sleeve 416. A portion of the sleeve 416 can then be removed by detaching the portion along the perforations 408 and 410.
Another version of the invention, as shown in FIGS. 84-86. In FIG. 84, a sheet of material designated by the general reference numeral 394 a is provided. The sheet of material 394 a has an inner surface 396 a, an outer surface 398 a, a first edge 400 a, a second edge 402 a, a third edge 404 a and a fourth edge 406 a. The sheet of material 394 a further has a plurality of vertical perforations 408 a and a plurality of lateral perforations 410 a. Further, the sheet of material 394 a has a first bonding strip 412 a which is generally disposed along the second edge 402 a, a second bonding strip 414 a which is generally disposed along the third edge 404 a and a sealing strip 420 a which is generally disposed along the first edge 400 a. As indicated in the embodiment previously shown in FIGS. 82 and 83 the sheet of material 394 a can be wrapped about the covered potted plant 288 to form a sleeve/cover package 424. As shown in FIGS. 85 and 86 the sealing strip 420 a can be sealed along its length to seal the upper end 421 of the sleeve 422 formed therefrom for reducing gas exchange or moisture loss from the covered potted plant 288.
It should also be noted that for all versions of preformed covers and sheets of material described above and elsewhere herein, an additional bonding material may be disposed either on the outer surface of the cover, the inner surface of the cover, or both the outer and inner surfaces of the cover for allowing portions of the cover to be crimpingly connected to the pot in exactly the same manner as described elsewhere herein. Further, in each of these versions described herein the sleeve which is bondingly connected to the cover comprises a detaching element as described earlier for allowing the sleeve or portion thereof to be detached from the cover thereby exposing the skirt portion of the base of the cover or another portion of the base and allowing the portion thereby exposed to extend angularly from the base of the cover. Further, in any of the versions of the present invention described herein, it may be desirable to have a cover strip covering the bonding material disposed on any portion of the object for preventing the bonding material from bonding to a surface until the desired time. Further in each of the cases described herein wherein a sleeve is applied to a pot or a covered pot, the sleeve may be applied thereto either by depositing the pot or covered pot downwardly into the open retaining space of the sleeve, or the sleeve may be brought upwardly about the pot or covered pot from below the pot or covered pot as shown for example using the pedestal of FIGS. 54 and 55.
disposing the pot having the decorative cover disposed thereabout into the pot receiving space of the tubular sleeve such that the open lower end of the tubular sleeve is disposed substantially above the lower end of the pot, whereby the decorative cover is secured in a stable position about at least a portion of the outer peripheral surface of the pot by the band formed from the lower portion of the tubular sleeve when the upper portion thereof is detached from the lower portion, and wherein the band covers only a portion of the outer peripheral surface of the pot.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein, in the step of providing a decorative cover, the decorative cover is further defined as a sleeve.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein, in the step of providing a decorative cover, the decorative cover is further defined as a preformed flower pot cover.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein in the step of providing a decorative cover, the decorative cover is constructed of a material selected from the group consisting of paper, metal, foil, polymeric material, cloth, burlap and laminations and combinations.
5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of detaching the detachable upper portion of the tubular sleeve from the lower portion thereof, whereby the band defined by the lower portion of the tubular sleeve extends about a portion of the decorative cover and secures the decorative cover about the outer peripheral surface of the pot.
6. The method of claim 1 wherein in the step of providing a decorative cover, the decorative cover further comprises at least one decorative pattern or design disposed on at least a portion thereof.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein the at least one decorative pattern or design comprises at least one of printing, etching, embossing, coloring, coating, flocking and metallic finishes.
disposing the pot having the decorative cover in the pot receiving space of the tubular sleeve such that the open lower end of the tubular sleeve is disposed substantially above the lower end of the pot, whereby the decorative cover is secured in a stable position about at least a portion of the outer peripheral surface of the pot by the band formed from the lower portion of the tubular sleeve when the upper portion thereof is detached from the lower portion, and wherein the band covers only a portion of the outer peripheral surface of the pot.
9. The method of claim 8 wherein, in the step of providing a sheet of material capable of being wrapped about at least a portion of an outer peripheral surface of the pot, the sheet of material is a substantially flat square-shaped sheet of material having four corners and wherein the four corners of the sheet of material are flared so as to extend a distance outwardly and upwardly from the pot when the sheet of material is wrapped about at least a portion of the outer peripheral surface of the pot to provide the pot with the decorative cover.
10. The method of claim 8, wherein the sheet of material is constructed of a material selected from the group consisting of paper, metal, foil, polymeric material, cloth, burlap and laminations and combinations.
11. The method of claim 8 wherein, in the step of providing a sheet of material capable of being wrapped about at least a portion of an outer peripheral surface of the pot, the sheet of material is a substantially flat, flexible sheet of material.
12. The method of claim 8, further comprising the step of detaching the detachable upper portion of the tubular sleeve from the lower portion thereof whereby the band defined by the lower portion of the tubular sleeve extends about a portion of the decorative cover and secures the decorative cover about the outer peripheral surface of the pot.
13. The method of claim 8 wherein, in the step of providing a decorative cover, the decorative cover further comprises at least one decorative pattern or design disposed on at least a portion thereof.
14. The method of claim 13, wherein the at least one decorative pattern or design comprises at least one of printing, etching, embossing, coloring, coating, flocking and metallic finishes.
disposing the pot in the pot receiving space of the cover disposed in the tubular sleeve such that the open lower end of the tubular sleeve is disposed substantially above the lower end of the pot, whereby the cover is secured in a stable position about at least a portion of the outer peripheral surface of the pot by the band formed from the lower portion of the tubular sleeve when the upper portion thereof is detached from the lower portion, and wherein the band covers only a portion of the pot.
16. The method of claim 15 wherein, in the step of providing a tubular sleeve with a cover disposed therein, the cover is further defined as at least one sheet of material.
disposing the wrapped potted plant in the interior space of the tubular sleeve such that the lower end of the tubular sleeve is disposed substantially above the lower end of the pot, and wherein the tubular sleeve covers only a portion of the pot.
US722889A (en) * 1902-04-23 1903-03-17 Benjamin Phillips Sole-leveling machine.
US819334A (en) * 1905-11-16 1906-05-01 Brown Lipe Gear Co Transmission-gear.
NL8602213A (en) 1986-09-02 1988-04-05 Hoogen Lambertus Antonius Mari Container for flowers and plants. | 2019-04-23T23:32:28Z | https://patents.google.com/patent/US7984588B2/en |
As UXers we practice in exciting times.
Design is in demand, and the tech sector is at the forefront of business innovation. It is also a time where we have access to a huge number of tools and techniques that enable us to innovate and adapt our practice for a broad range of scenarios.
Usability testing is a cornerstone of UX practice. Perfect for evaluating the designs we create, flexible for collecting a range of information about customers and easy to combine with other techniques. Usability testing is a technique where representative participants undertake tasks on an interface or product. The tasks typically reflect the most common and important activities and participant’s behavior is observed to identify any issues that inhibit task completion.
Usability testing is a super flexible technique that allows for the assessment of a variety of aspects of an interface including the broad product concept, interaction design, visual design, content, labels, calls-to-action, search and information architecture. It is a proven technique for evaluating products, and in some organisations is used as a pre-launch requirement.
It’s relatively time consuming; lab based study is typical completed with between 5 and 12 participants. Assuming each session takes 1 hour, with one facilitator running the sessions this would take between 1 and 3 days.
Recruiting participants to attend the sessions takes time and effort; via a recruitment agency it would take minimum a week to locate people for a round of testing.
Due to the time-intensive nature and cost of in-person usability testing, most studies are conducted with relatively small samples (i.e. less than 10). While a small sample is often adequate for exploring usability and iterating a product, some stakeholders have less confidence in these small sample sizes. This is often due to exposure to quantitative market research where samples in excess of 500 people are common.
They are conducted in an artificial environment. In person tests are often lab-based or in a corporate setting that may not reflect real world use of the product.
One of the ways these downsides can be overcome is the use of unmoderated remote usability test (URUT).
Let’s take a look at some of the basics of running URUTs.
URUT is a technique that evaluates the usability of an interface or product; that is, the ease of use, efficiency and satisfaction customers have with the interface. It is similar to in-person usability testing however participants complete tasks in their own environment without a facilitator present. The tasks are pre-determined and are presented to the participant via an online testing platform.
There are two broad methods for URUT with varying ways for collecting participant behaviour and these are dictated by the technology platforms.
URUT utilising video recordings of participants interacting with interfaces. These studies are more qualitative in nature with participants thinking aloud during the recording to provide insight.
URUT where the behavior is captured via click-stream data and is run more like a survey. These studies are more quantitative in nature because larger sample sizes are practical and the systems automate tracking of user behaviour.
Both methods are designed to evaluate the usability of a product and both have strengths and weaknesses. Video based sessions require more time to identify the findings and lend themselves to smaller samples however by listening to participants and observing their behavior more information can be collected regarding the design. Click stream methods allow for larger sample sizes and tend to be faster to compete due to the automation of data collection.
Note that some tools support both methods; click stream for large samples and video is collected for a subset of the sample to be able to explore specific aspects of the design in more detail. More on the tools below.
Obtaining a large sample and/or a high degree of confidence is required: A small sample of in person usability tests may be all that is required from a design perspective but if your stakeholders are used to seeing large samples and buy-in with a small sample is difficult then using big numbers may be simpler than trying to convince them of the value of the small sample. Further, where a new design is critical for an organisation or will have will have a substantial impact, the confidence gained from a large sample study can be valuable.
Where the audience is geographically dispersed or hard to access: The audience for some products are geographically spread and can be hard to access without travelling great distance, imagine a health case management system for remote communities in the Kimberly. Also consider trying to access time poor senior executives, they may be able to complete a 15 minute online study late at night in a time convenient for them but not during the day or in a specific location.
Where speed is critical: Everyone working in the digital industry will have worked on a project with tight timelines or is running behind schedule. Also, in today’s Agile workplaces, getting usability testing conducted quickly may be the only option. An URUT study can be run in entirety in a couple of days whereas a typical in-person study would take more than one week, if not longer.
Where a specific environment is critical: Some products will be used in environments, which cannot be replicated in a lab or where their context of use is critical. For example, an app used outdoors in snow bound towns.
Where budgets are tight: Running 6 usability testing with a video recording technique especially where the sample is fairly generic, can be inexpensive.
In cases where you need to compare 2 or more products or interfaces: URUT is perfect for benchmarking studies comparing either competitor products or different iterations of your product. The ability to capture large sample sizes means that statistically significant differences between interfaces can be identified.
URUT tends to be less appropriate for more exploratory style usability testing because it is not possible to change tasks mid stream or ask impromptu questions. Click-stream tools tend to provide lots of data on what is happening however tend to provide less insight on why the behavior is occurring. Video based studies can be frustrating when there is a core questions that you would love to ask but hadn’t planned for. For early stage low fidelity prototypes in-person usability testing tends to be preferable because the facilitator can provide more context for participants regarding the intended functionality of the interface.
Identification of the research questions, which spell out how we will explore the objective.
Evaluate the effectiveness of the booking process Do participants understand the field labels?
Do error messages support participants to progress?
Exploring these objectives and research questions with stakeholders at the outset will help with designing the study and provide a reference point for subsequent discussions. Spending the time up front to get this right will save time down the track and help ensure a successful study.
Emailing the study to a database of existing customers. This assumes that you have customers.
An intercept can be run on a website with existing customers. That is, a pop-up on your site invites people to participate in the study. An advantage of this approach is that the sample is likely to be representative.
A panel is another option, especially when you don’t have an existing customer base. A panel is a database of people who have indicated that they would like to participate in research. Usually panel databases can be segmented to target a specific audience however you typically pay for the convenience. Some URUT tools have an integrated participant filtering which can be used to improve the representativeness of the sample.
Social media can be another means to locate sample especially for organisations who have an engaged following. With social media it is important to ensure that the sample is representative of your audience.
Offering some form of incentive may be required to motivate participants to compete the study such as gift voucher prize. Audiences that are more engaged with the organization tend to require smaller incentives and those that are less engaged a greater incentive.
It is crucial to get the tasks right for URUT. It needs to be very clear to the participants what is required of them. Provide enough detail for the participant to compete the task on their own and try to include any information they would require to complete the task. For example if a task requires credit card details providing fictitious card details will be necessary.
Avoid adding extraneous information in a task, which may confuse participants. Also avoid clues and telling the participant what to do, for example avoid including the wording of a call-to-action in the task, which will give the task away.
And finally, ensure that the interface supports participants to actually complete the task and for them to be aware that they have done so. In a prototype this may require adding specific content. An example task: Imagine you have decided to stay in Cairns for the first week in September. Use this site to reserve accommodation and pay.
It is recommended that survey questions be provided as part of a study.
Include closed questions after each individual task to measure ease of task completion. This will provide insight on which tasks are harder to complete than others. Also including open-ended questions will allow participants to describe their experience and any issues they encounter.
Questions can also be provided after the test as a whole, to allow an overall assessment of the experience. This could include metrics such as customer satisfaction with the product, Net Promoter Score and System Usability Scale, which can be used to benchmark the product over time and against competitors. Again open-ended questions should be used to allow participants to provide feedback and to understand why issues are occurring.
Questions can also be included with the intention of profiling participants. These can be helpful to understand the audience and/or to check that the sample matches a known audience.
Finally, questions can be used to understand whether participants have understood a task. This can be especially valuable on content sites. For example if you were testing the Australian Tax Office website, the task could be to find the tax rate for a given salary and then follow up with a question to ask what the rate is.
What are you actually testing and how will the URUT tool and participants access the interface? Consider how you are going to set-up the URUT tool and the prototype or interface being tested. The responsiveness of the interface you are testing can impact participant’s experience of the product. It is important to make sure that the participant doesn’t need any set-up from their end; barriers to people completing the study will reduce the completion rates. Try to ensure that the interface can be accessed from any computer or device the participant may be using.
Testing the study with either a subset of participants or in a preview mode will allow issues with the prototype, technology, tasks or questions to be ironed out. Piloting the study will protect against wasting sample you are paying for or using up a small limited sample.
A tool like User Zoom collects both video and click-stream data.
While the survey is being conducted it is important to monitor the data and be available for offering help to participants. Monitoring the data will ensure you see everything is working as planned and that you are receiving the data you need to meet your study objectives. Being available via email or phone helps manage the relationship with customers and to provide help where it is required.
Once you have collected your results it is analysis time. To begin with look at some overarching metrics such as overall task completion and customer satisfaction. These can be automatically calculated in tools that measure click-stream like UserZoom. This will provide an overall feel for the effectiveness of the product. For video based tools you will need to watch the sessions and note whether the participants have been able to complete each of the tasks.
With an overall feel for the product look into the individual tasks and identify those that are causing issues. Next you need to find out why. With video based tools, watch video of specific tasks to observe behavior to identify the elements of the interface that are causing the issues. For clickstream services focus in on a combination of the pages visited during the task to identify behavior during the tasks and where the issues have occurred (i.e. which screens). Also view open-ended feedback.
Choose the testing platform after you have identified the objectives of the study. It is crucial to select a tool that is fit for purpose and will support your study objectives. Some platforms do not support specific technologies such as flash and have limitations in the way they measure user behavior. As an example I worked on a study recently that was evaluating a single page app. In order to be able to measure user interaction we needed to get our developers to insert additional code to measure some interaction because the tool tracked the URL which did not change when users navigated a variety of content.
Set clear expectations for participants. Obtaining useful data is dependent on participants understanding what is expected of them. Setting clear expectations up front (during recruitment and at the start of the survey) about what participants are required to do and why the study is being conducted will help ensure success.
Remember that participants won’t receive any assistance during the study. It is crucial to ensure that tasks are clear, user friendly and that help is available. Consider how much assistance is available within the URUT tools for participants during the study.
Avoid bias. While all bias cannot be avoided, it is important to remove as much as possible. Randomise the order of tasks, which means that learning the interface during study will not influence performance on latter tasks. Task wording can also introduce bias. As discussed, pay attention to task wording to ensure that they effectively test the product.
Keep participants engaged: Avoid participants quitting your study. Participants are more likely to complete the study if they feel like their feedback is valuable, if the tasks are interesting and the study isn’t too long.
A large corporate was about to implement a significant change to their site. Multiple rounds of in-person usability testing had been conducted and indicated that the new design would be a success. Due to the scale of the change the organisation wanted a high degree of confidence that the new design would enhance the experience. We ran a study which involved benchmarking the task completion rates, perceived ease of use and advocacy on the live site. We then repeated these on a prototype of the new design. By utilizing larger sample sizes, we had tight confidence intervals on core metrics that provided an accurate picture of the performance of the new design in comparison to the old.
URUT is a technique that can offer quick, inexpensive and robust usability testing. Of particular value can be the ability to use the technique for benchmarking and context-sensitive studies. It is a great tool to have in your bag of research techniques and can be a great compliment to in-person methods. Exploring the different tools on offer and experimenting with the technique is the best way to learn and develop expertise.
Make it clear what is expected of participants, keep your research objectives in mind, and avoid bias. Good luck!!
that’s cool. The tools referred in the article is very useful.
Thanks Linda! I’m glad they’re useful. | 2019-04-21T06:46:24Z | https://uxmastery.com/how-to-run-an-unmoderated-remote-usability-test-urut/ |
Internalization of β-adrenergic receptors (βARs) occurs by the sequential binding of β-arrestin, the clathrin adaptor AP-2, and clathrin. D-3 phosphoinositides, generated by the action of phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) may regulate the endocytic process; however, the precise molecular mechanism is unknown. Here we demonstrate that βARKinase1 directly interacts with the PIK domain of PI3K to form a cytosolic complex. Overexpression of the PIK domain displaces endogenous PI3K from βARK1 and prevents βARK1-mediated translocation of PI3K to activated β2ARs. Furthermore, disruption of the βARK1/PI3K interaction inhibits agonist-stimulated AP-2 adaptor protein recruitment to the β2AR and receptor endocytosis without affecting the internalization of other clathrin dependent processes such as internalization of the transferrin receptor. In contrast, AP-2 recruitment is enhanced in the presence of D-3 phospholipids, and receptor internalization is blocked in presence of the specific phosphatidylinositol-3,4,5-trisphosphate lipid phosphatase PTEN. These findings provide a molecular mechanism for the agonist-dependent recruitment of PI3K to βARs, and support a role for the localized generation of D-3 phosphoinositides in regulating the recruitment of the receptor/cargo to clathrin-coated pits.
β-Adrenergic receptors (βARs)* are a member of the large family of G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs) (Johnson, 1998; Rockman et al., 2002). In the heart, ligand activation of βARs results in the dissociation of the cognate heterotrimeric GTP binding protein (G-protein) into Gα and Gβγ subunits, leading to stimulation of the effector adenylyl cyclase and subsequent physiologic response (Koch et al., 2000). Exposure to agonist also promotes the rapid desensitization of βARs, that not only leads to the attenuation of signaling, but also targets the activated receptor to clathrin-coated pits for internalization (Ferguson et al., 1996; Goodman et al., 1996). An early step in this process involves the rapid phosphorylation of agonist-occupied receptors by a G protein–coupled receptor kinase (GRK, commonly known as the β-adrenergic receptor kinase or βARK) (Lefkowitz, 1998). The phosphorylation of activated βARs by βARK1 requires translocation of the primarily cytosolic βARK to the plasma membrane, a process facilitated by the liberated Gβγ subunits and membrane phospholipids (Pitcher et al., 1998). The second step involves binding of the protein β-arrestin to the phosphorylated receptor resulting in termination of the signal (Lefkowitz, 1998). The binding of β-arrestin serves to target phosphorylated βARs for internalization, through the recruitment of the AP-2 adaptor protein and clathrin to the receptor complex (Laporte et al., 2000). There is increasing evidence that phosphatidylinositol (PtdIns) phospholipids are important molecules in endocytosis of membrane proteins (Czech, 2000). Because a key enzyme for the generation of phospholipids is phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K), it suggests a possible role for PI3K in the internalization of GPCRs. Thus, although the endocytic process is a multistep event involving the coordinate interaction between proteins and as well as the control of lipid modification, the precise molecular mechanisms for this interaction are not well understood.
PI3Ks are a conserved family of lipid kinases that catalyze the addition of phosphate on the third position of the inositol ring (Rameh and Cantley, 1999). Stimulation of a variety of receptor tyrosine kinases and GPCRs results in the activation of PI3K and leads to an increase in the level of D-3 PtdIns, which in turn are potent signaling molecules that modulate a number of diverse cellular effects including: cell proliferation, cell survival, cytoskeletal rearrangements, and receptor endocytosis (Martin, 1998; Sato et al., 2001). In this context, GPCR stimulation leads to the activation of the IB subclass of PI3Ks mediated by the Gβγ subunits of G-proteins (Stoyanov et al., 1995). Studies have suggested a role of phosphoinositides in the process of receptor internalization. For example, deletion of the phosphoinositide binding site from β-arrestin impairs GPCR endocytosis (Gaidarov et al., 1999a), and the binding of PtdIns (3,4,5) P3 and PtdIns (4,5) P2 to AP-2 promotes targeting of the receptor-arrestin complex to clathrin-coated pits (Gaidarov and Keen, 1999).
Recently we have shown a possible involvement of PI3K in the regulation of βAR internalization (Naga Prasad et al., 2001). Considering the potential important role of D-3 phosphoinositides in βAR internalization, we sought to determine: (a) whether there was a direct physical interaction between βARK1 and PI3K, and if so, identify the structural domain responsible for this interaction; (b) whether the interaction of PI3K with βARK1 regulates the translocation PI3K to the agonist-occupied βAR; and (c) whether the lipid products of PI3K modulate the internalization of βARs.
We postulated that the PIK domain of PI3K (Vanhaesebroeck et al., 2001), which is characterized by five pairs of antiparallel helices, might be an important domain to support protein–protein interactions (Walker et al., 1999). To investigate whether there is a direct physical interaction between βARK1 and PI3K, we created PI3K mutants that contained only the PIK domain (FLAG tagged) or had a deletion of the PIK domain PI3KΔPIK (HA tagged) (Fig. 1 a).
βARK1 directly interacts with the PIK domain of PI3K. (a) Schematic representation of full-length PI3Kp110γ and mutants. ABR adaptor binding region, RBD-ras binding domain, C2 similar to PLCδ, which is involved in Ca2+-dependent or -independent phospholipid binding, PIK domain thought to be involved in protein–protein interactions, HA, hemagglutinin tag, FLAG, flag peptide tag. (b) HEK 293 cells cotransfected with plasmids containing βARK1 and FLAG-PIK or PI3KΔPIK cDNAs. FLAG-PIK and PI3KΔPIK were immunoprecipitated from cells, fractionated by SDS-PAGE, and analyzed by immunoblotting with βARK1 monoclonal antibody. βARK1 protein coimmunoprecipitates with FLAG-PIK and not with PI3KΔPIK. (c) GST–PIK fusion protein containing amino acid residues 535–732 of PI3Kγ was produced, which includes the entire PIK domain and flanking upstream 10 amino acids and downstream 7 amino acids. Beads with bound GST alone or GST fusion proteins were incubated with purified βARK1. Beads were washed and bound material was run on SDS-PAGE and immunoblotted with βARK1 monoclonal antibody. Purified βARK1 was found to bind to the GST–PIK fusion protein, whereas no binding was seen with GST alone. (d) PIK domain does not interact with Gβγ subunits of G-protein. Beads with bound GST–PIK fusion protein or βARK1 protein were incubated with purified Gβγ subunits of G-protein. Beads were washed, spun down, and bound material separated by SDS-PAGE electrophoresis followed by immunodetection of Gβ. No interaction between Gβγ and the PIK fusion protein was found, whereas robust interaction between Gβγ and βARK1 purified protein was observed. Purified Gβγ was loaded as a positive control.
HEK 293 cells were transfected with plasmids containing the FLAG-PIK and PI3KΔPIK-HA cDNAs. PIK and PI3KΔPIK proteins were immunoprecipitated from cell extracts using monoclonal FLAG and HA antibodies, respectively. After the addition of purified βARK1 protein to the immune complexes, the presence of βARK1 was assessed by immunoblotting for βARK1. βARK1 was found to associate with the PIK domain protein and not to full-length PI3K lacking this domain (PI3KΔPIK) (Fig. 1 b). Levels of expression of PIK and PI3KΔPIK proteins were similar (Fig. 1 b, bottom). These data suggest that PI3K and βARK1 form a macromolecular complex within the cell.
To investigate whether there was a direct physical interaction between the PIK domain of PI3K and βARK1, GST–PIK fusion protein was immobilized on sepharose beads and incubated with purified βARK1. Purified βARK1 bound specifically to GST–PIK immobilized beads and not to GST alone (Fig. 1 c). No difference in the level of GST and GST–PIK was found (Fig. 1 c, bottom).
Because PI3Kγ interacts with the βγ subunits of G-proteins, we tested whether the PIK domain might directly interact with Gβγ, and thus would compete with βARK1 for these subunits. Purified βARK1 and GST–PIK fusion protein immobilized on Sepharose beads were incubated with purified Gβγ. The beads were washed and recovered proteins were analyzed by SDS-PAGE followed by immunoblotting with a Gβ polyclonal antibody. Whereas a strong association of Gβγ with βARK1 was found, no appreciable association of Gβγ with the PIK domain was detected (Fig. 1 d). Densitometric quantification showed an 11.5 ± 1.1-fold greater binding ability of βARK1 to Gβγ purified proteins compared with the PIK domain.
To test whether overexpression of the PIK domain could displace βARK1 associated PI3K activity in living cells, experiments were performed in HEK 293 cells cotransfected with plasmids containing the βARK1 cDNA (2 μg) and increasing concentrations of the PIK domain cDNA (ranging from 0 to 6 μg). Cell lysates were immunoprecipitated using the βARK1 monoclonal antibody 48 h after transfection and βARK1 associated PI3K activity was assayed. A robust βARK1 associated PI3K activity was found in the absence of PIK domain protein, but this association could be effectively competed away by increasing the concentration of PIK cDNA (Fig. 2 a). The maximal reduction of βARK1 associated PI3K activity occurred when cells were cotransfected with 4 μg of PIK cDNA (Fig. 2 b). Furthermore, we could coimmunoprecipitate FLAG-tagged PIK protein with βARK1 monoclonal antibodies in the cotransfected HEK 293 cells (data not depicted).
Overexpression of the 197 amino acid PIK domain of PI3K competes for endogenous PI3K binding to βARK1. (a) HEK 293 cells were cotransfected with βARK1 and increasing concentrations of PIK domain encoding cDNAs. βARK1 was immunoprecipitated using βARK1 monoclonal antibody and the associated PI3K activity was measured. The lipids were extracted and run on thin layer chromatography plates. Shown is representative autoradiograph of formation of PIP ( PtdIns-monophosphate). Ori, Origin. Mock cells were transfected with vector alone. Increasing the quantity of PIK cDNA used for expression leads to displacement of PI3K activity from βARK1 suggesting PIK protein competes out PI3K from βARK1. Bottom panel shows immunoblotting for βARK1 and PIK in cell lysates. (b) Summary results of n = 5 experiments. *P < 0.0005. The data was normalized to βARK1 associated PI3K activity in cells transfected with βARK1 only. (c) HEK 293 cells were transfected with βARK1 or βARK1 and PIK or βARK1 and PI3KΔPIK encoding cDNAs. βARK1 was immunoprecipitated using βARK1 monoclonal antibody and the associated endogenous PI3K activity was assayed. Extracted lipids were run on TLC plates and a representative autoradiograph showing the formation of PIP is shown here. Mock cells are transfected with vector alone. PIK overexpression lead to displacement of endogenous PI3K activity, whereas PI3KΔPIK overexpression did not alter βARK1 associated PI3K activity. Bottom panels show immunoblotting for βARK1, PI3KΔPIK and PIK in cell lysates. (d) Summary results of n = 4 experiments. *P < 0.001. The data was normalized to βARK1 associated PI3K activity in cells transfected with βARK1 only. (e) HEK 293 cells were transfected with βARK1 or βARK1 and PIK encoding cDNAs. βARK1 was immunoprecipitated using βARK1 monoclonal antibody and the associated endogenous PI3K activity was assayed using PIP2 (PtdIns-4,5-bisphosphate) as a substrate. Extracted lipids were run on TLC plates and the autoradiograph showing the formation of PIP3 (PtdIns-3,4,5-triphosphate) is presented. βARK1 transfected cells were treated with wortmannin (Wort) (50 nM) for 15 min before lysis of cells. Mock cells were transfected with vector alone. Bottom panel shows immunoblotting for βARK1 and PIK from cell lysates. Overexpression of PIK domain or wortmannin treatment led to significant inhibition in the formation of PIP3.
We next tested whether absence of the PIK domain in an otherwise intact PI3K molecule would affect the association of βARK1 with endogenous PI3K in cells. HEK 293 cells were cotransfected with plasmids containing cDNAs for βARK1 (2 μg), βARK1 plus PIK (4 μg), and βARK1 plus PI3KΔPIK (4 μg). Cell lysates were immunoprecipitated with a βARK1 monoclonal antibody and assayed for the associated PI3K activity. Expression of PI3KΔPIK had no effect on the endogenous βARK1/PI3K interaction, whereas overexpression of PIK disrupted this interaction. Treatment with the selective PI3K inhibitor wortmannin (50 nM), abolished this βARK associated PI3K activity (Fig. 2, c and d).
Because the PIK domain is shared by all members of the PI3K family, we wanted to confirm that the βARK1-associated endogenous PI3K activity was contributed by Class I PI3K. To test this, HEK 293 cells were transfected with plasmids containing cDNAs for βARK1 (2 μg) or βARK1 plus PIK (4 μg). Cell lysates were immunoprecipitated with a βARK1 monoclonal antibody and assayed for the associated PI3K activity. However, in this experiment PtdIns-4,5-P2 was used as the substrate instead of PtdIns, as in vitro, PtdIns-4,5-P2 can be phosphorylated only by Class I PI3K (Fruman et al., 1998) and not by either the Class II or Class III PI3K enzymes. As shown in Fig. 2 e, robust generation of PtdIns-3,4,5-P3, the product of Class I PI3K catalytic activity, was seen associated with βARK1 and the coexpression of PIK completely displaced the βARK1 associated PI3K activity (Fig. 2 e). Additionally, treatment of cells with wortmannin (50 nM) prior to cell lysis also inhibited the PI3K activity that was coimmunoprecipitated along with βARK1 (Fig. 2 e). Taken together, these data demonstrate that overexpression of the PIK domain can disrupt the interaction between βARK1 and PI3K, and that the lipid kinase activity belongs to the Class I PI3K family.
Our results suggest that overexpression of the PIK domain should block the βARK1-mediated translocation of PI3K to the membrane. In order to test this hypothesis, HEK 293 cells were cotransfected with the βARK1 (2 μg), βARK1, and PIK domain (4 μg) containing plasmids, and endogenous βARs were stimulated with 10 μM isoproterenol for 2 min. Cytosolic and membrane fractions were prepared and analyzed for βARK1 associated PI3K activity. After isoproterenol stimulation, robust βARK1-associated PI3K activity that was wortmannin (50 nM) sensitive could be seen in the membrane fraction (Fig. 3 a). In contrast, overexpression of the PIK domain effectively abolished the agonist-induced translocation of PI3K to the membrane by disrupting the βARK1/PI3K interaction. No change in βARK1 associated PI3K activity was found in cytosolic fractions after isoproterenol stimulation (data not depicted).
Overexpression of PIK domain blocks βARK1 mediated translocation of PI3K to the membrane and to the β2AR. (a) HEK 293 cells were transfected with βARK1 or βARK1 and PIK encoding cDNAs. βARK1 was immunoprecipitated using βARK1 monoclonal antibody from the membrane fraction of unstimulated and stimulated (10 μM isoproterenol for 2 min) cells. βARK1 associated PI3K activity was assayed from these membranes and extracted lipids were separated by thin layer chromatography. The significant increase in βARK1 associated PI3K activity found in the membrane fraction after agonist was completely abolished in presence of PIK domain peptide and with wortmannin (50 nM) treatment of βARK1 transfected cells (Wort). (b) Membrane fraction of cells transfected with βARK1 or βARK1 and PIK encoding cDNAs were immunoprecipitated with a βARK1 monoclonal antibody and immunoblotted for βARK1. Overexpression of PIK did not inhibit βARK1 translocation to the membrane after isoproterenol stimulation. (c) HEK 293 cells were transfected with β2AR or β2AR and PIK encoding cDNAs. The transfected cells were split into separate dishes and individually treated with 10 μM isoproterenol for indicated times. Before isoproterenol treatment, a set of β2AR-transfected cells were treated with wortmannin (Wort) (50 nM). At indicated time points FLAG-β2AR was immunoprecipitated and the associated PI3K activity was measured. Shown is a representative autoradiograph of the thin layer chromatography plate showing the formation of PIP. Lower panel, level of expression of β2AR and PIK domain protein in cell lysates as assessed by immunoblotting.
To investigate whether βARK1 recruitment to the membrane would be inhibited in presence of PIK domain protein, membrane fractions were prepared from the HEK293 cells cotransfected with the βARK1 (2 μg), βARK1, and PIK domain (4 μg) containing plasmids. As shown in Fig. 3 b, overexpression of PIK had no effect on the membrane recruitment of βARK1 after isoproterenol (10 μM) stimulation. These data show that the overexpression of PIK domain protein interrupts the βARK1/PI3K interaction and does not affect agonist-dependent βARK1 translocation to the membrane.
To test whether disruption of the βARK1/PI3K interaction would prevent the recruitment of PI3K to activated βARs, HEK 293 cells were transfected with plasmids containing cDNAs encoding FLAG epitope–tagged β2AR (FLAG-β2AR, 2 μg) or FLAG-β2AR (2 μg) and PIK domain (4 μg), and assayed for β2AR associated PI3K activity after stimulation with 10 μM isoproterenol. HEK 293 cells are known to contain adequate levels of βARK1 to support agonist-induced translocation and receptor phosphorylation (Menard et al., 1997). FLAG-tagged β2ARs were immunoprecipitated from cell extracts and associated endogenous PI3K activity measured. Significant FLAG-β2AR–associated PI3K activity was observed as early as 2 min after agonist stimulation, with a decline by 5 min in the cells transfected with β2AR alone (Fig. 3 c). In contrast, no FLAG-β2AR–associated PI3K activity was found when either the PIK domain was overexpressed or the transfected cells were treated with wortmannin before isoproterenol stimulation (Fig. 3 c). These data indicate that overexpresssion of PIK domain displaces PI3K from βARK1 complex, thereby preventing its recruitment to the agonist-occupied receptor complex.
Previous studies have suggested a role for PI3K in β2AR internalization (Naga Prasad et al., 2001). We postulated that disruption of the endogenous βARK1/PI3K interaction by the PIK protein would attenuate β2AR endocytosis. To test this, agonist-dependent sequestration was studied by [125I]-cyanopindolol binding in HEK 293 cells cotransfected with plasmids containing either the FLAG-β2AR cDNA, or FLAG-β2AR and FLAG-PIK cDNAs. A significant (>60%) attenuation in the rate of β2AR sequestration occurred when the PIK domain protein was overexpressed (Fig. 4 a). Interestingly, overexpression of PIK domain protein was effective in attenuating the early processes of β2AR sequestration as the initial phase (0–5 min) was significantly impaired.
Attenuation of β2AR sequestration upon coexpression of PIK. (a) Agonist-promoted (1 μM isoproterenol) β2AR sequestration by [125I]-CYP binding was performed in HEK 293 cells transfected with β2AR and either the empty vector (▪) or PIK (□) encoding cDNAs over a time course of 0–30 min. Receptor expression (fmol/mg of whole-cell protein) was: β2AR + vector, 330 ± 80; β2AR + PIK, 303 ± 51. n = 5, P < 0.0001 versus β2AR. Inset shows expression of PIK protein. (b) Endocytosis of β2AR-YFP in live cells was monitored for 10 min after isoproterenol (10 μM) stimulation in the absence or presence of PIK domain protein coexpression using confocal microscopy. Panels on the left represent cells transfected with the β2AR-YFP alone (panels 1–3 show the same cell monitored at 0, 5, and 10 min after stimulation. Panel 7 is an example of another cell after 10 min of isoproterenol). Panels on the right represent cell transfected with β2AR-YFP and PIK (panels 4–6 show the same cell monitored as above). Panel 8 is an example of another cell after 10 min of isoproterenol). In the absence of PIK, isoproterenol causes the internalization β2ARs as shown by the formation of distinct cytoplasmic aggregates (arrowheads) and complete loss of membrane fluorescence. In contrast, in the presence of PIK domain protein, there is no redistribution of β2AR-YFP after agonist stimulation, indicating that the process of receptor endocytosis is completely inhibited. (c) Dual staining was performed in cells transfected with plasmids containing HA-β2AR and GFP-PIK cDNAs. After 10 min of 10 μM isoproterenol, cells were fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde, stained for HA-β2AR receptor with Texas red, and PIK was visualized by GFP fluorescence. Panel 1 shows two cells, one with only membrane distribution of HA-β2AR, and another cell with complete redistribution of β2ARs into aggregates (arrowheads). Panel 2, shows that the cell with GFP fluorescence (i.e., PIK domain expression) failed to undergo β2AR internalization, whereas the cell not expressing GFP-PIK showed HA-β2AR aggregates. Panel 3 is an overlay of panels 1 and 2.
We further evaluated β2AR endocytosis using confocal microscopy in transfected cells using β2AR tagged with the YFP (β2AR-YFP) in the presence and absence of PIK. β2AR internalization was followed in the same cell after agonist stimulation. Before agonist, the distribution of β2AR-YFP was found distinctly at the plasma membrane (Fig. 4 b, panel 1). After agonist treatment, there was redistribution of the β2AR-YFP into membrane puncta consistent with entry into clathrin coated pits (Fig. 4 b, panel 2) (Laporte et al., 1999). With time, this was followed by the formation of cytoplasmic aggregates (Fig. 4 b, panel 3), and then with the complete loss of membrane fluorescence (Fig. 4 b, panels 3 and 7, arrowheads). In marked contrast, coexpression with the PIK domain completely prevented redistribution of β2AR-YFP fluorescence into membrane puncta and blocked the formation of intracellular aggregates after isoproterenol stimulation (Fig. 4 b, panels 6 and 8).
To definitively show that only those cells that contained the PIK domain protein failed to undergo agonist-stimulated βAR internalization, dual labeling experiments were performed after cotransfection with plasmids encoding HA tagged β2AR (HA-β2AR) and PIK–GFP. After isoproterenol stimulation, cells were fixed and HA-β2AR was visualized by Texas red staining and PIK was visualized by GFP fluorescence. Cells that showed restricted distribution of Texas red staining (HA-β2AR expression) to the membrane (Fig. 4 c, panel 1), also had GFP fluorescence indicating PIK protein expression (Fig. 4 c, panel 2). In contrast, cells that lacked GFP fluorescence (i.e., PIK protein expression), showed marked agonist-induced β2AR internalization (Fig. 4 c, panel 1 and 2, arrowheads) as clearly seen in the overlay (Fig. 4 c, panel 3, arrowheads).
To test whether PI3K activity was necessary for the recruitment of β-arrestin to the receptor complex, and whether overexpression of the PIK protein alters agonist-induced receptor phosphorylation, we used a HEK 293 cell line with stable expression of both β2AR-HA and β-arrestin2–GFP proteins. Double stably expressing cells were transfected with the plasmid containing FLAG-PIK cDNA and then split in separate dishes. Confocal microscopy was used to visualize fluorescence in cells with 10 μM isoproterenol and subsequently fixed. All cells show β-arrestin2–GFP fluorescence, whereas a smaller percentage shows Texas red staining of the FLAG epitope (Fig. 5 a, panels 1 and 2). In the absence of isoproterenol (Fig. 5 a, panels 1 and 2) cells have a cytosolic distribution of PIK as well as β-arrestin2-GFP. With isoproterenol, there was marked redistribution of GFP fluorescence to the membrane, indicating recruitment of β-arrestin to the membrane (Fig. 5 a, panel 3). Importantly, cells that contained PIK proteins did not affect the membrane recruitment of β-arrestin (Fig. 5 a, panels 3 and 4, arrowheads), suggesting that D-3 phosphoinositide molecules are not necessary for arrestin recruitment to activated receptors.
Overexpression of PIK neither inhibits β-arrestin2 recruitment to the receptor complex, transferrin uptake, or downstream PI3K signaling. (a) Confocal microscopy was used to visualize fluorescence in HEK 293 double stably expressing (HA-β2AR-HA and β-arrestin 2-GFP) cells transfected with the FLAG-PIK plasmid. After stimulation with 10 μM isoproterenol for 10 min, cells were fixed and stained with Texas red. All cells show β-arrestin2–GFP (βarr2-GFP) fluorescence whereas a smaller percentage show Texas red staining of the FLAG epitope. Panels 1 and 2 show that in the absence of isoproterenol, both PIK and β-arrestin2–GFP were distributed in the cytoplasm. Panels 3 and 4, after the addition of isoproterenol, the presence of PIK domain protein had no effect on the marked redistribution of β-arrestin–GFP fluorescence to the membrane (arrowheads). (b) HEK 293 cells were transfected with GFP–PIK (4 μg) and plated on to glass-bottom petri dishes. Serum-starved cells were incubated with Transferrin (Tf) conjugated to Texas red for 30 min at 37°C. The cells were thoroughly washed with PBS and fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde. Fixed cells were visualized using laser scanning confocal microscope. Panel 1 shows PIK domain expression in cells as visualized by GFP fluorescence, whereas panel 2 shows the same set of cells that took up Transferrin (Tf) as visualized by Texas red. Cells that overexpressed the PIK domain also had robust Transferrin (Tf) uptake. (c) HEK 293 cells or cells stably expressing PIK were transfected with β2AR encoding cDNA and treated with various agonists. Clarified lysates (50 μg) were immunoblotted for phospho-PKB. MOCK, treated with ascorbic acid; IGF, treated with insulin growth factor (10 nM); Car, treated with carbachol (1 mM); ISO, treated with isoproterenol dissolved in ascorbic acid (10 μM); Cont, positive control for phospho-PKB. (d) Summary results of densitometric analysis of phospho-PKB after stimulation by various agonists (n = 3–5). The data is represented as fold over basal (MOCK).
To determine whether the overexpression of the PIK domain in cells nonspecifically affect other clathrin-mediated processes, we assessed the ability of transferrin to undergo endocytosis. Transferrin receptors are known to constitutively localize and internalize via clathrin-coated vesicles (van Dam and Stoorvogel, 2002). HEK 293 cells were transfected with plasmids encoding PIK–GFP. Transfected cells were incubated with Transferrin–Texas red conjugate at 37°C for 30 min and then fixed. As shown in Fig. 5 b, transferrin uptake was unaffected by the presence of PIK–GFP (Fig. 5 b, panels 1 and 2), indicating that overexpression of PIK domain does not inhibit other clathrin mediated processes.
To investigate whether overexpression of PIK domain protein in cells would alter downstream PI3K signaling, PKB activation was measured in HEK 293 cells stably expressing the PIK domain protein. Cells stably expressing PIK and wild-type HEK 293 cells were transfected with the plasmid containing cDNA for the FLAG-β2AR, and stimulated with various GPCR or growth factor agonists. Agonist stimulation in the absence of PIK resulted in a significant increase of pPKB over mock treatment (Fig. 5, c and d). Importantly, there was robust PKB activation in the cell line overexpressing the PIK domain protein (Fig. 5, c and d). These data show that overexpression of the PIK domain in cells does not interfere with cellular signaling downstream of PI3K.
Since overexpression of PIK leads to attenuation of β2AR endocytosis, we wanted to determine whether the βARK1-mediated localization of PI3K within the activated receptor complex is responsible for the generation of D-3 phosphorylated phosphoinositides that promote recruitment of AP-2 to the agonist-occupied receptor. To test this hypothesis, HEK 293 cells were transfected with FLAG-β2AR or FLAG-β2AR, and PIK plasmids and then stimulated with isoproterenol. The FLAG-epitope was immunoprecipitated from cell extracts and blotted for the associated AP-2 adaptin and clathrin proteins. There was a significant increase in the association of AP-2 adaptin to the agonist-stimulated receptor within 2–5 min, which returned to basal levels by 10 min (Fig. 6 a). In contrast, overexpression of the PIK peptide completely abolished the recruitment of adaptin to the agonist-stimulated β2AR complex (Fig. 6 a). Although the levels of clathrin that coimmunoprecipitated with the receptor showed only modest changes after agonist, this effect appeared to be attenuated in the presence of the PIK peptide (Fig. 6 a). Similar levels of adaptin, clathrin, β2AR, and PIK were observed in the appropriately transfected cells (Fig. 6 a, bottom).
Generation of D-3 PtdIns are necessary for the efficient recruitment of adaptin to the β2AR complex. (a) HEK 293 cells were transfected with FLAG-β2AR, or FLAG-β2AR and PIK encoding cDNAs. Transfected cells were treated with isoproterenol (10 μM) for 0, 2, 5, and 10 min β2AR was immunoprecipitated using the FLAG epitope from the cells lysates and immunoblotted with antibodies for AP-2 adaptin protein and clathrin. Presence of PIK domain protein inhibits AP-2 adaptin association with the β2AR complex. Bottom panels show expression of β2AR and PIK protein in transfected cells and equal quantities of adaptin and clathrin loading. IgG, represents heavy chain of the antibody. C, positive control for clathrin and AP2 adaptin proteins. (b) FLAG-β2AR expressing stable cells were treated with LY294002 (a selective PI3K inhibitor) for 15 min before isoproterenol stimulation. The cells were stimulated for 0, 2, 5, and 10 min and β2AR was immunoprecipitated using a FLAG epitope. Lysates were immunoblotted for AP-2 adaptin protein. Presence of LY294002 inhibited adaptin recruitment to the receptor complex. –LY, untreated cells, +LY cells treated with LY294002. (c) Summary results of densitometric analysis of adaptin recruitment to β2AR in presence and absence of LY294002 (n = 7). The data is represented as fold over basal. (d) FLAG-β2AR expressing stable cells were treated with the permeablizing reagent saponin and the phospholipids as shown, followed by isoproterenol for 5 min. FLAG epitope was immunoprecipitated from the cell lysates and blotted with adaptin antibodies. The upper panel shows cells treated with phosphatidyinositol-4,5-P2, while lower panel were treated with PtdIns-3,4,5-P3. IgG, heavy chain of antibody. (e) Summary results of densitometric analysis of adaptin recruitment to β2AR complex in presence of phosphatidyinositol-4,5-P2 (PIP2) or PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 (PIP3) (n = 7). Data is represented as fold over basal.
To directly demonstrate that the generation of D-3 PtdIns phospholipids are important for the recruitment of AP-2 adaptor proteins to the agonist-occupied receptor complex, the same HEK 293 cells stably expressing FLAG-β2AR were permeabilized with saponin (Jones et al., 1999) and then incubated with increasing concentrations of the phosphorylated lipids, PtdIns-4,5-P2 and PtdIns-3,4,5-P3. After stimulation with isoproterenol, FLAG-β2AR was immunoprecipitated and the immune complexes immunoblotted for the presence of adaptin. The efficiency of recruitment of adaptin to the receptor was significantly enhanced in the presence of PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 compared with a similar concentration of PtdIns-4,5-P2 (Figs. 6, d and e). At high concentrations of PtdIns-4,5-P2, the preferential effect of PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 was lost consistent with previous studies showing that the AP-2 adaptor protein has a higher affinity for PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 compared to other phosphoinositides (Gaidarov et al., 1996).
To directly test whether the local production of PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 is required for receptor internalization, we utilized the lipid phosphatase PTEN (phosphatase and tensin homologue deleted on chromosome 10) (Vanhaesebroeck et al., 2001). PTEN is known to use PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 as its primary substrate converting it to PtdIns-4,5-P2, thus depleting PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 from the membrane (Vanhaesebroeck et al., 2001). HEK 293 cells were transfected with plasmids containing cDNAs with either β2AR-YFP or β2AR-YFP plus PTEN, and β2AR endocytosis was evaluated using laser scanning confocal microscopy. β2AR internalization was followed in the same cell after agonist stimulation. Before agonist, the distribution of β2AR-YFP was found distinctly at the plasma membrane (Fig. 7 a, panel 1). After agonist stimulation, there was a progressive redistribution of the β2AR-YFP into membrane puncta, followed by the formation of cytoplasmic aggregates and complete loss of membrane fluorescence by 10 min (Fig. 4 b, panels 2 and 3). In contrast, coexpression of β2ARs with the PTEN completely prevented the agonist induced redistribution of β2AR-YFP fluorescence into membrane puncta and intracellular aggregates (Fig. 7, panels 4–6).
Depletion of D-3 phosphatidylinositols leads to attenuation in β2AR receptor internalization. (a) Endocytosis of β2AR-YFP in live cells was monitored for 10 min after isoproterenol (10 μM) stimulation in the absence or presence of PTEN protein coexpression using confocal microscopy. Panels on the left represent cells transfected with the β2AR-YFP alone (panels 1–3 show the same cell monitored at 0, 5, and 10 min after stimulation). Panels on the right represent cell transfected with β2AR-YFP and PTEN (panels 4–6 show the same cell monitored as above). In the absence of PTEN, isoproterenol causes the internalization β2ARs as shown by the formation of distinct cytoplasmic aggregates (arrowheads) and complete loss of membrane fluorescence. In contrast, in the presence of PTEN protein, there is no redistribution of β2AR-YFP after agonist stimulation, indicating that the process of receptor endocytosis is completely inhibited. (b) Dual staining was performed in cells transfected with plasmids β2AR-YFP and PTEN cDNAs. After 10 min of 10 μM isoproterenol, cells were fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde, stained for PTEN using Texas red and β2AR was visualized by GFP fluorescence. Panel 1 (a and b) shows the same cell with intact membrane β2AR visualized by GFP fluorescence (panel 1 a) and PTEN Texas red fluorescence (panel 1 b). Panel 2 (a and b) shows the cell with complete redistribution of β2ARs into aggregrates (arrowheads) visualized by GFP fluorescence and very little PTEN expression as visualized by Texas red fluorescence (panel 2 b). Cells from panels 1 and 2 are from the same petri dish but from different fields of view.
To show that only those cells that contained the PTEN failed to undergo agonist-stimulated βAR internalization, dual labeling experiments were performed in cells co-transfected with plasmids containing β2AR-YFP and PTEN. After isoproterenol stimulation cells were fixed and β2AR was visualized by GFP fluorescence and PTEN expression was visualized by Texas red staining. Cells that had the restricted membrane distribution of GFP fluorescence (β2AR) also had the Texas red staining (Fig. 7 b, panel 1, a and b). In contrast, cells that showed β2AR internalization lacked Texas red staining (PTEN expression) (Fig. 7 b, panel 2, a and b, arrowheads).
In the present investigation, we provide evidence for a direct protein–protein interaction between PI3K and βARK1, and show that the region of the PI3K molecule that provides the necessary structure for this interaction is the PIK domain. Moreover, we show that the interaction between PI3K and βARK1 is not dependent on Gβγ and that overexpression of PIK domain competitively displaces PI3K from the βARK1/PI3K complex leading to a loss in βARK1 associated PI3K activity. Although overexpression of PIK domain protein disrupts the βARK1/PI3K interaction, it does not inhibit the Gβγ mediated translocation of βARK1 to agonist-occupied receptors or alter other Gβγ-dependent cellular processes. Finally, these experiments demonstrate that overexpression of the PIK domain markedly attenuates β2AR endocytosis in the early phase after agonist stimulation, and suggest that impairing the local production of PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 lipid molecules within the agonist-occupied receptor complex affects the recruitment of critical molecules necessary for efficient receptor endocytosis. Furthermore, we show that overexpression of PTEN, which uses PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 as a substrate, leads to complete inhibition of β2AR internalization, providing strong evidence that the local production D-3 phosphoinositides by PI3K within the agonist-occupied receptor complex is required for endocytosis.
Agonist-occupied βARs are phosphorylated by βARK1 after translocation of βARK1 to the membrane (Lefkowitz, 1998). Subsequently, the phosphorylated receptor can bind with high affinity to β-arrestin (Ferguson et al., 1996), which then recruits AP-2 adaptor molecules and clathrin; two required components in the formation of the endocytic vesicle (Goodman et al., 1996; Laporte et al., 1999, 2000). Previous studies have shown that the association of adaptor proteins with clathrin are critical to the formation of the clathrin lattice complex (Schmid, 1997; Brodsky et al., 2001). Because the recruitment of AP-2 adaptor proteins are at least in part regulated by D-3–phosphorylated phosphoinositides (Gaidarov and Keen, 1999), the generation of these lipids not only play an important role in targeting of the agonist-stimulated receptor to the clathrin coated pit, but are likely important in the initiation/nucleation of the clathrin lattices at sites of endocytosis. This is consistent with data from in vitro studies showing that AP-2 in the assembled coat structure (which is very similar to clathrin-coated pit), binds PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 with greater affinity compared with other phosphoinositides including PtdIns-4,5-P2 (Gaidarov et al., 1996).
Whether the recruitment of AP-2 to agonist-stimulated receptor initiates the nucleation of a new clathrin-coated pit or targets the receptor to a preexisting pit, remains controversial. For example, AP180, a neuronal specific clathrin adaptor protein needs to bind clathrin and phosphoinositides simultaneously to initiate nucleation (Ford et al., 2001), and the assembled receptor/β-arrestin/AP-2 complex may subserve this role and initiate nucleation of the clathrin-coated pit (Laporte et al., 2000). In contrast, studies in living cells have suggested that the targeting of activated GPCRs is to preexisting clathrin-coated pits (Scott et al., 2002). Furthermore, studies using a clathrin–green fluorescent fusion protein suggest that clathrin-coated pits form repeatedly at defined sites and the mobility of these pits is limited by the actin cytoskeleton (Gaidarov et al., 1999b). Studies using receptor tail like synthetic peptides (crosslinked to UV photoreactive molecules) showed enhanced binding to the μ2 subunit of the AP-2 complex in presence of D-3 phosphoinositides, suggesting that phospholipids may provide a mechanism for increasing the specificity in sorting and clathrin coat assembly (Rapoport et al., 1997).
In this study we show that expression of PIK does not block β-arrestin recruitment to the receptor, nor does it impair the ability of βARK to phosphorylate activated receptors, as β-arrestin is only recruited to GRK phosphorylated receptors (Ferguson et al., 1996). Previous studies have shown that deletion of the phosphoinositide binding domain on β-arrestin impairs the formation of clathrin coated pits, but that this process is not altered by wortmannin treatment (Gaidarov et al., 1999a). This suggests that β-arrestin can bind PtdIns-4,5-P2, which is present on the plasma membrane in much greater concentration than PtdIns-3,4,5-P3. Consistent with these findings is our observation showing that even in the absence of receptor-associated PI3K activity, membrane PtdIns-4,5-P2 is sufficient to recruit β-arrestin in an agonist-dependent manner.
Importantly, overexpression of the PIK domain does not block transferrin uptake, whose receptor constitutively localized within clathrin coated vesicles (van Dam and Stoorvogel, 2002). This suggests that recruitment of PI3K by βARK1 to the agonist occupied receptor is a βARK1 specific process. Furthermore, overexpression of the PIK domain did not affect activation of PKB suggesting a specific role in displacement of PI3K from βARK1. Thus, agonist dependent phosphorylation of PKB in PIK expressing cells may enable signaling either by direct receptor stimulation or through transactivation of receptor tyrosine kinases, as shown for other GPCRs (Kowalski-Chauvel et al., 1996; Saward and Zahradka, 1997).
To test the hypothesis that the local generation of PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 is a necessary step for β2AR endocytosis, we performed experiments in cells that had overexpression of PTEN, a PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 lipid phosphatase. Because PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 generated by PI3K within the receptor complex would be immediately hydrolyzed by PTEN we could determine the importance for PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 in supporting the internalization process. The presence of PTEN resulted in significant inhibition of β2AR endocytosis showing the requirement for PI3K activity within the receptor complex for effective agonist-induced endocytosis. We postulate that inhibition of PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 production within the receptor complex prevents the effective interaction of various components needed for receptor endocytosis particularly, adaptin leading to an impairment in receptor endocytosis.
The crystal structure of PI3Kγ shows the PIK domain to be centrally positioned with a solvent exposed surface suitable for protein-protein interactions (Walker et al., 1999). Therefore, it is possible that other molecules containing a PIK domain, such as enzymes belonging to the family of PI3K (all the classes of PI3K), can potentially interact with βARK1 depending up the tissue and the abundance of the various isoforms. This is consistent with our previous data where we have shown in HEK 293 cells that βARK1 could also interact with the PI3Kα isoform when overexpressed (Naga Prasad et al., 2001). Interestingly, it has recently been shown that another PI3K, the class II PI3K C2α, interacts with clathrin and regulates clathrin-mediated membrane trafficking particularly in the process of vesicle uncoating (Gaidarov et al., 2001). This suggests possible redundancy for the production of phosphoinositides within the receptor complex, a finding not surprising considering that receptor sequestration is a multistep process, highly regulated by many molecules at different stages (Brodsky et al., 2001).
Taken together, these data show that overexpression of the PIK domain displaces endogenous PI3K from βARK1 leading to impairment of PI3K translocation to the receptor after agonist stimulation. The loss in receptor associated PI3K activity impairs the ability of the agonist-occupied receptor/PI3K complex to generate D-3 phospholipid molecules. We propose that the products of PI3K play a critical role in determining the dynamics of receptor endocytosis. Agonist-induced recruitment of class I PI3Ks by βARK1 to the receptor complex functions to increase the production of D-3 phospholipid molecules, that in turn regulates the recruitment of AP-2 and cargo (i.e., receptor/β-arrestin complex) to clathrin-coated pits on the membrane. The generation of PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 by PI3K within the activated receptor complex promotes more efficient recruitment of AP-2 and receptor sequestration. The rise in the local concentration of PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 within the receptor complex, which enhances the recruitment of AP-2 to the complex, likely plays a significant role in the initiation/nucleation of new clathrin-coated pits. The efficiency of clathrin coated pit formation will depend on the association of the various critical components that, in part, are regulated by their affinity to bind newly generated D-3 phospholipids.
HEK 293 cells were maintained and transfected as previously described (Naga Prasad et al., 2001). Cells were harvested 24 h after transfection, replated in triplicate, allowed to grow overnight, and serum starved either overnight or 2–4 h before agonist stimulation. FLAG-PIK domain expressing permanent HEK 293 cell line was prepared by selecting cells against Geneticin (Life Technolgies) as described earlier (Laporte et al., 2000). All cells with stable FLAG-PIK expression showed both diffuse cytoplasmic distribution of PIK and inhibition of β2AR-YFP internalization as visualized by confocal microscopy (unpublished data). HA-β2AR and β-arrestin double stable cell lines were prepared by selecting the cells against two different antibiotics (Menard et al., 1997). Cell lines with stable expression of FLAG-β2AR, a gift from Dr. Robert Lefkowitz (Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC) and HA-β2AR were used for the confocal experiments.
PIK and PI3KΔPIK mutants of PI3K were prepared by PCR amplification using the full-length p110γ cDNA as template (Fig. 1 a). The PIK domain was amplified using Pfu platinum turbo Taq high fidelity enzyme (STRATAGENE) with the 5′ primer (5′-TCTCGAGGATCCGCCGCCATGGACTACA AGGACGACGATGATAAGCACCCGATAGCCCTGCCT-3′) containing XhoI and BamHI sites for subcloning, followed by Kozak consensus sequence and a FLAG epitope tag and the 3′ primer (5′-GTCGACCTAGTCGTGCAGCATGGC-3′) containing consensus stop codon with a SalI site for subcloning. The PCR product was subcloned in zero-blunt TOPO vector (Invitrogen) and sequence verified for authenticity. After digestion with the restriction enzymes BamHI and SalI, the PIK domain fragment was subcloned into the following expression plasmids: the pRK5 mammalian expression vector, the pGEX-4T1 bacterial expression vector to generate GST fusion proteins, and the EGFP vector pEGFP-C1.
PI3KΔPIK was constructed using two PCR reactions that selectively amplified upstream and downstream from the PIK domain (Fig. 1 a). PI3K upstream from PIK was amplified using the forward primer (5′-TGCGGATCCGCCACCATGGAGCTGGAGAACTATAAACAG-3′) containing a BamHI site and Kozak consensus sequence, and the reverse primer (5′-TTCTGCTCGACCGCGGTCCCCTTCCGG-3′) containing a SacI site. The region of PI3K downstream of the PIK domain was amplified using the forward primer (5′-CTGAGGGGCCGCGGCACAGCCATG-3′) containing a SacI site and the reverse primer (5′-ACCCGGGATCCTTAAGCGTAGTCTGGTACGT-3′) containing a BamHI site and a consensus stop codon. The upstream and downstream regions of PI3K were separately subcloned in the zero-blunt TOPO vector and sequence was verified by dideoxy sequencing. After digestion with the restriction enzymes BamHI/SacI, a three-fragment ligation was carried with the mammalian expression vector pRK5, to generate the plasmid containing the PI3KΔPIK cDNA (Fig. 1 a). The catalytic activity of PI3KΔPIK was indistinguishable from wild-type PI3K (unpublished data). The plasmids containing cDNAs encoding βARK1, FLAG-β2AR, HA-β2AR, and p110γ have been described previously (Naga Prasad et al., 2001). The PTEN plasmid was gift from Dr. Christopher Kontos (Duke University Medical Center).
Plasmid DNAs were transformed in Escherichia coli BL21 cells. Overnight cultures were grown in LB medium supplemented with ampicillin (100 μg/ml), diluted to an A600 of 0.2 in the same medium, and grown for another 1 h at 37°C. Cultured cells were then induced with 0.1 mM isopropyl-1-thio-β-D-galactopyranoside for 2 h. Cells were then pelleted, washed once with PBS, and resuspended in PBS containing 1 mM PMSF, 2 mg/ml lysozyme, and incubated for 15 min on ice. Cells were lysed by adding Triton X-100 1%. Solublized cells were incubated with DNase (300 units) for 15 min on ice and centrifuged at 13,000 rpm for 10 min. Glutathione-Sepharose beads were added to the supernatant and gently agitated at 4°C for 2 h. Beads were washed three times with ice-cold PBS containing 1% Triton X-100 followed by three washes with cold PBS without detergent. Protein concentration was determined using a DC protein assay kit (Bio-Rad Laboratories), and the integrity of the fusion protein was analyzed by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and Coomassie staining.
GST fusion proteins (1–1.5 μg) on beads were incubated in 0.5 ml of binding buffer (10 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.4, 5 mM EDTA, 0.2% Triton X-100) for 2 h at 25°C together with purified βARK1 protein (5 μg). The beads were spun and washed three times with binding buffer followed by three washes with binding buffer without detergent. The beads were resuspended in SDS gel loading buffer and resolved by gel electrophoresis, immunoblotting and detection was carried out as described later.
Immobilized purified βARK1 protein was prepared by incubating βARK1 monoclonal antibodies with protein G agarose beads for 1 h at 4°C, followed by the addition of purified βARK1 protein. Subsequently, 10 μg of purified Gβγ was added to either βARK1 immobilized beads (5 μg), or the GST–PIK fusion protein beads (5 μg), and gently rocked for 45 min at room temperature. Beads were spun down, washed in binding buffer ×2, and resolved by gel electrophoresis. The presence of Gβγ was detected by immunoblotting with an antibody directed against the Gβ subunit. Purified Gβγ and βARK1 were gifts from Dr. Robert Lefkowitz.
Membrane fractions were prepared as previously described (Naga Prasad et al., 2001). Briefly, cells were scraped in 1 ml of buffer containing 25 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.5, 5 mM EDTA, 5 mM EGTA, 1 mM PMSF, 2 μg/ml each leupeptin and aprotinin, and disrupted by using Dounce homogenizer. Intact cells and nuclei were removed by centrifugation at 1,000 g for 5 min. The supernatant was subjected to centrifugation at 38,000 g for 25 min. The pellet was resuspended in lysis buffer (1% Nonidet P-40, 10% glycerol, 137 mM NaCl, 20 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.4, 1 mM sodium orthvanadate, and 2 μg/ml each leupeptin and aprotinin) and used as membrane fraction.
PI3K assays were carried out as previously described (Naga Prasad et al., 2001). Briefly, cells were lysed in lysis buffer in presence of protease inhibitors and membrane and cytosolic fraction was prepared as described above. 500 μg of membrane or cytosolic fraction was used for immunoprecipitation with either the C5/1 monoclonal antibody directed against βARK1 (Choi et al., 1997) or the anti-FLAG M2 monoclonal antibody (Sigma-Aldrich) in presence of 35 μl of protein G-agarose (Life technologies). The samples were centrifuged at 10,000 rpm for 1 min and sedimented beads were washed once with lysis buffer, thrice with PBS containing 1% NP40 and 100 μM sodium-orthovanadate, three times with 100 mM Tris.Cl, pH 7.4, containing 5 mM LiCl and 100 μM sodium-orthovanadate, twice with TNE (10 mM Tris.Cl, pH 7.4, 150 mM NaCl, 5 mM EDTA, and 100 μM sodium-orthovandate). The last traces of buffer were completely removed using the insulin syringe and the pelleted beads were resuspended in 50 μl fresh TNE. To the resuspended pellet 10 μl of 100 mM MgCl2 and 10 μl of 2 mg/ml PtdIns (20 μg) sonicated in TE (10 mM Tris.Cl, pH 7.4, and 1 mM EDTA) were added. The reactions were started by adding 10 μl of 440 μM ATP, 10 μCi 32p γ ATP, and were incubated at 23°C for 10 min with continuous agitation. The reactions were stopped with 20 μl 6N HCl. Extraction of the lipids were done by adding 160 μl of chloroform:methanol (1:1) and the samples were vortexed and centrifuged at room temperature to separate the phases. 30 μl of the lower organic phase was spotted on to the 200-μ silica-coated flexi-TLC plates (Selecto-flexible; Fischer Scientific) precoated with 1% potassium oxalate. The spots were allowed to dry and resolved chromatographically with 2N glacial acetic acid:1-propanol (1:1.87). The plates were dried after resolution, exposed, and the autoradiographic signals were quantitated using Bio-Rad PhosphoImager. Lipid Preparation: PtdIns (Sigma-Aldrich or Avanti) or PtdIns-4,5-P2 (Echelon) was dissolved in chloroform at a concentration of 10 mg/ml. 50 μl of this stock was dried down in a stream of air in a 1.5-ml Eppendorf tube. 250 μl of TE was added to the Eppendorf to bring the concentration to 2 mg/ml. The lipids were suspended by sonicating them in an ice bath for 5–10 min. Sonicated lipids were then added to each reaction. PtdIns(4)P (Sigma-Aldrich) or PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 (Echelon) was used as a standard. The lipid standards were run as a separate lane on the TLC plate to identify the migration of PIP or PIP3 (Renkonen and Luukkonen, 1976). TLC plates were stained with iodine to identify the formation lipids products (Renkonen and Luukkonen, 1976).
Immunoblotting and detection of βARK1, FLAG-PIK, PI3KΔPIK-HA, FLAG-β2AR, HA-β2AR, β-adaptin, and clathrin were blotted as described previously (Laporte et al., 1999, 2000). Immunoprecipitating antibodies were added to 500 μg of cell lysate and the immune complexes were washed and resuspended in gel-loading buffer. Blots were incubated with antibodies recognizing β-adaptin, clathrin heavy chain (BD Transduction Laboratories), HA (Roche Molecular Biochemicals), and FLAG (Sigma-Aldrich) at a 1:2,000 dilution and the βARK1 monoclonal antibody at a 1:10,000 dilution. 50 μg of cell lysates were resolved by a 10% SDS-PAGE gel and transferred to PVDF membrane, phospho-PKB primary antibody was used at 1:1,000 dilution. Detection was carried out using enhanced chemiluminescence (Amersham Pharmacia Biotech). Densitometric analysis was carried out using Bio-Rad Flouro-S Multiimage software.
β2AR sequestration was performed as previously described (Naga Prasad et al., 2001). HEK 293 cells were transfected with plasmids containing β2AR (250 ng) or β2AR (250 ng) and PIK domain (4 μg) cDNAs. Total binding was determined in the presence of 175 pM [125I]-cyanopindolol (CYP) alone, 175 pM [125I]-CYP plus 100 nM CGP12177 was used to determine internalized receptors and nonspecific binding was determined using 175 pM [125I]-CYP plus 1 μM propranolol (Menard et al., 1997). Sequestration was calculated as the ratio of (specific receptor binding of [125I]-CYP in the presence of CGP12177 and/or specific receptor binding of [125I]-CYP in the absence of CGP12177).
Confocal microscopy was carried out as previously described (Naga Prasad et al., 2001). HEK 293 cells were transfected with the plasmids containing cDNAs encoding either the β2AR-YFP (2 μg) or β2AR-YFP (2 μg) and PIK domain (4 μg) or β2AR-YFP (2 μg) and PTEN (2 μg). Cells were plated onto glass-bottom dishes for observation in the confocal microscope. Live cells were treated with isoproterenol (10 μM) and images were collected sequentially over a time course of 0–10 min. For dual staining of β2AR-HA or FLAG-PIK, cells were fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde in PBS for 30 min after 10 min of 10 μM isoproterenol stimulation. Cells were permeabilized with 0.1% Triton X-100 in PBS for 20 min, incubated in 1% BSA in PBS for 1 h. Cells were washed with PBS and incubated with anti-HA or anti-FLAG monoclonal antibody (1:250) with 1% BSA in PBS for 1 h. Cells were washed and incubated with goat anti–mouse IgG conjugated with Texas red (1:500; Molecular Probes) for 1 h. Samples were visualized using single sequential line excitation filters at 488 and 568 nm and emission filter sets at 505–550 nm for GFP detection and 585 for Texas red detection.
Modification of a previously described method was used to vary the concentration of D-3 phospholipids in living cells (Jones et al., 1999). Briefly, one of the synthetic phospholipids DiC16 PtdIns-3-P, DiC16 PtdIns-4,5-P2, or DiCPtdIns-3,4,5-P3 (AVANTI), was mixed with phosphatidylcholine and phosphoinositol (Sigma-Aldrich) at a 1:100:100 ratio and dried under N2. Phospholipids were then re-suspended in 10 mM Hepes, pH 7.4, containing 1 mM EDTA and sonicated. Cells were treated with Saponin (0.04 mg/ml) in serum-free medium along with the vesicles containing the phospholipids at given concentration of PtdIns-3-P or PtdIns-4,5-P2 or PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 for 10 min at 25°C. Cells were then treated with isoproterenol (10 μM) for 5 min at 37°C, then lysed for immunoprecipitation experiments with a buffer containing 0.8% Triton X-100, 20 mM tris-HCl, pH 7.4, 300 mM NaCl, 1 mM EDTA, 20% glycerol, 0.1 PMSF, 10 μg/ml leupeptin and aprotinin.
Transferrin uptake was carried out as described previously (van Dam and Stoorvogel, 2002). Briefly, HEK 293 cells were transfected with GFP-PIK (4 μg). 24 h after transfection, the cells were split into six glass-bottom petri dishes (Mat Tek Corporation). The following day the cells were serum starved for 1 h before transferrin treatment. Transferrin–Texas red conjugate was added to the cells at a final concentration of 33 μg/ml and incubated at 37°C for 30 min. After 30 min the cells were washed with PBS and fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde. Confocal microscopy was carried out on these cells as described earlier above.
Data are expressed as mean ± SEM. Statistical comparisons were performed using an unpaired Student's t test and analysis of variance where appropriate. Results for the β2AR sequestration by CYP binding was analyzed using Graph-pad prism.
This work was supported in part by National Institutes of Health grants HL56687 and HL61558 (H.A. Rockman), the Burroughs Wellcome Fund (H.A. Rockman), and an AHA Postdoctoral fellowship form the American Heart Association, Mid-Atlantic Affiliate (S.V. Naga Prasad). H.A. Rockman is a recipient of a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Clinical Scientist Award in Translational Research. M.G. Caron is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
↵* Abbreviations used in this paper: βAR, β-adrenergic receptor; CYP, cyanopindolol; GPCR, G protein–coupled receptor; PI3K, phosphoinositide 3-kinase; PtdIns, phosphatidylinositol(s).
Stéphane A. Laporte's present address is Department of Medicine, Royal Victoria Hospital, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3A 1A1.
Brodsky, F.M., C.Y. Chen, C. Knuehl, M.C. Towler, and D.E. Wakeham. 2001. Biological basket weaving: formation and function of clathrin-coated vesicles. Annu. Rev. Cell Dev. Biol. 17:517–568.
Choi, D.J., W.J. Koch, J.J. Hunter, and H.A. Rockman. 1997. Mechanism of beta-adrenergic receptor desensitization in cardiac hypertrophy is increased beta-adrenergic receptor kinase. J. Biol. Chem. 272:17223–17229.
Czech, M.P. 2000. PIP2 and PIP3: complex roles at the cell surface. Cell. 100:603–606.
Ferguson, S.S., W.E. Downey III, A.M. Colapietro, L.S. Barak, L. Menard, and M.G. Caron. 1996. Role of beta-arrestin in mediating agonist-promoted G protein-coupled receptor internalization. Science. 271:363–366.
Fruman, D.A., R.E. Meyers, and L.C. Cantley. 1998. Phosphoinositide kinases. Annu. Rev. Biochem. 67:481–507.
Gaidarov, I., Q. Chen, J.R. Falck, K.K. Reddy, and J.H. Keen. 1996. A functional phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-trisphosphate/phosphoinositide binding domain in the clathrin adaptor AP-2 alpha subunit. Implications for the endocytic pathway. J. Biol. Chem. 271:20922–20929.
Gaidarov, I., and J.H. Keen. 1999. Phosphoinositide-AP-2 interactions required for targeting to plasma membrane clathrin-coated pits. J. Cell Biol. 146:755–764.
Gaidarov, I., J.G. Krupnick, J.R. Falck, J.L. Benovic, and J.H. Keen. 1999a. Arrestin function in G protein-coupled receptor endocytosis requires phosphoinositide binding. EMBO J. 18:871–881.
Gaidarov, I., F. Santini, R.A. Warren, and J.H. Keen. 1999b. Spatial control of coated-pit dynamics in living cells. Nat. Cell Biol. 1:1–7.
Gaidarov, I., M.E. Smith, J. Domin, and J.H. Keen. 2001. The class II phosphoinositide 3-kinase C2alpha is activated by clathrin and regulates clathrin-mediated membrane trafficking. Mol. Cell. 7:443–449.
Goodman, O.B., Jr., J.G. Krupnick, F. Santini, V.V. Gurevich, R.B. Penn, A.W. Gagnon, J.H. Keen, and J.L. Benovic. 1996. Beta-arrestin acts as a clathrin adaptor in endocytosis of the beta2-adrenergic receptor. Nature. 383:447–450.
Johnson, M. 1998. The beta-adrenoceptor. Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. 158:S146–S153.
Jones, S.M., R. Klinghoffer, G.D. Prestwich, A. Toker, and A. Kazlauskas. 1999. PDGF induces an early and a late wave of PI 3-kinase activity, and only the late wave is required for progression through G1. Curr. Biol. 9:512–521.
Koch, W.J., R.J. Lefkowitz, and H.A. Rockman. 2000. Functional consequences of altering myocardial adrenergic receptor signaling. Annu. Rev. Physiol. 62:237–260.
Kowalski-Chauvel, A., L. Pradayrol, N. Vaysse, and C. Seva. 1996. Gastrin stimulates tyrosine phosphorylation of insulin receptor substrate 1 and its association with Grb2 and the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase. J. Biol. Chem. 271:26356–26361.
Laporte, S.A., R.H. Oakley, J.A. Holt, L.S. Barak, and M.G. Caron. 2000. The interaction of beta-arrestin with the AP-2 adaptor is required for the clustering of beta 2-adrenergic receptor into clathrin-coated pits. J. Biol. Chem. 275:23120–23126.
Laporte, S.A., R.H. Oakley, J. Zhang, J.A. Holt, S.S. Ferguson, M.G. Caron, and L.S. Barak. 1999. The beta2-adrenergic receptor/betaarrestin complex recruits the clathrin adaptor AP-2 during endocytosis. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 96:3712–3717.
Lefkowitz, R.J. 1998. G protein-coupled receptors. III. New roles for receptor kinases and beta-arrestins in receptor signaling and desensitization. J. Biol. Chem. 273:18677–18680.
Martin, T.F. 1998. Phosphoinositide lipids as signaling molecules: common themes for signal transduction, cytoskeletal regulation, and membrane trafficking. Annu. Rev. Cell Dev. Biol. 14:231–264.
Menard, L., S.S. Ferguson, J. Zhang, F.T. Lin, R.J. Lefkowitz, M.G. Caron, and L.S. Barak. 1997. Synergistic regulation of beta2-adrenergic receptor sequestration: intracellular complement of beta-adrenergic receptor kinase and beta- arrestin determine kinetics of internalization. Mol. Pharmacol. 51:800–808.
Naga Prasad, S.V., L.S. Barak, A. Rapacciuolo, M.G. Caron, and H.A. Rockman. 2001. Agonist-dependent recruitment of phosphoinositide 3-kinase to the membrane by beta-adrenergic receptor kinase 1. A role in receptor sequestration. J. Biol. Chem. 276:18953–18959.
Pitcher, J.A., N.J. Freedman, and R.J. Lefkowitz. 1998. G protein-coupled receptor kinases. Annu. Rev. Biochem. 67:653–692.
Rapoport, I., M. Miyazaki, W. Boll, B. Duckworth, L.C. Cantley, S. Shoelson, and T. Kirchhausen. 1997. Regulatory interactions in the recognition of endocytic sorting signals by AP-2 complexes. EMBO J. 16:2240–2250.
Renkonen, O., and A. Luukkonen. 1976. Thin-Layer Chromatography of Phospholipids and Glycolipids. Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York. 2–54.
Rockman, H.A., W.J. Koch, and R.J. Lefkowitz. 2002. Seven-transmembrane-spanning receptors and heart function. Nature. 415:206–212.
Sato, T.K., M. Overduin, and S.D. Emr. 2001. Location, location, location: membrane targeting directed by PX domains. Science. 294:1881–1885.
Saward, L., and P. Zahradka. 1997. Angiotensin II activates phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase in vascular smooth muscle cells. Circ. Res. 81:249–257.
Schmid, S.L. 1997. Clathrin-coated vesicle formation and protein sorting: an integrated process. Annu. Rev. Biochem. 66:511–548.
Scott, M.G.H., A. Benmerah, O. Muntaner, and S. Marullo. 2002. Recruitment of activated G protein-coupled receptors to pre-existing clathrin-coated pits in living cells. J. Biol. Chem. 277:3552–3559.
Stoyanov, B., S. Volinia, T. Hanck, I. Rubio, M. Loubtchenkov, D. Malek, S. Stoyanova, B. Vanhaesebroeck, R. Dhand, B. Nurnberg, et al. 1995. Cloning and characterization of a G protein-activated human phosphoinositide-3 kinase. Science. 269:690–693.
Vanhaesebroeck, B., S.J. Leevers, K. Ahmadi, J. Timms, R. Katso, P.C. Driscoll, R. Woscholski, P.J. Parker, and M.D. Waterfield. 2001. Synthesis and function of 3-phosphorylated inositol lipids. Annu. Rev. Biochem. 70:535–602.
Walker, E.H., O. Perisic, C. Ried, L. Stephens, and R.L. Williams. 1999. Structural insights into phosphoinositide 3-kinase catalysis and signalling. Nature. 402:313–320. | 2019-04-19T04:23:06Z | http://jcb.rupress.org/content/158/3/563 |
I’ll take a look at the YouTube example. Thanks.
As a result of that question, YouTube added a “Disallow: /results” line in its robots.txt file. That’s good because as Google recrawls web pages, we’ll see that and begin to drop those search results.
Google already does similar things with our web search results, Froogle, etc. to try to prevent our web search results from causing problems for any other engines’ index. In general, we’ve seen that users usually don’t want to see search results (or copies of websites via proxies) in their search results. Proxied copies of websites and search results that don’t add much value already fall under our quality guidelines (e.g. “Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.” and “Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches…”), so Google does take action to reduce the impact of those pages in our index.
This hasn’t been a burning issue for many people, and for people that pay attention to search I’m sure it’s a well-known fact (e.g. see here where someone asked me about a particular site copied via a proxy, and my reply later that day), but it’s still good to clarify that Google does reserve the right to take action to reduce search results (and proxied copies of websites) in our own search results.
Philipp, thanks for asking the question originally. It was good that you pointed out we had some of our own web search results showing (so that we could correct that), and it’s also good to make sure that site owners get clear guidance.
Google surely reacts to everything “Philipp” says.
One proxy that I’ve seen popping up in Google’s search results is zta.net – just search for [site:zta.net] to see how many sites they’re copying. Since they seem to be hosting (live?) duplicate content on subdomains, I was worried they could rank higher than official sites and perhaps get some sites penalized for hosting duplicate content at multiple domains.
Should those pages be included in Google’s search results?
But what about webmasters creating hundreds of thousands of ‘fake’ search pages on which you find only AdSense and links created on the fly to the same search on others sites of them ?
Step 3: Save the file and upload it to your server.
And if you want to test that everything went on smoothly, login to your Google’s Webmaster Tools, and under the diagnostics tab there’s a Robot.txt Tester.
Hmmm Matt, so my next question would be, if we know of certain sites using this technique to inflate their page numbers, do we report them as spam? How do we go around this?
Let me place a common example, Technorati. They have search results (254,000 counts), and tag results (964,000 counts). They are both indexed in google and often come out in results.
Search Results are an asset to the SERPs, and should be included. They do potentially offer the same impacts as the ‘Search Suggestions’ now at the bottom of Google’s organic SERPs.
Click on RELEVANT RELATED search results can open an entire new window.
Pehaps an algo combination that decides based on TRUSTRANK and Click Popularity which search results should be allowed to rank higher in organic serps should be considered.
But there is potential with this resource and they should NOT be automatically excluded.
“One proxy that I’ve seen popping up in Google’s search results is zta.net – just search for [site:zta.net] to see how many sites they’re copying. Since they seem to be hosting (live?) duplicate content on subdomains, I was worried they could rank higher than official sites and perhaps get some sites penalized for hosting duplicate content at multiple domains.
I’ve clicked on some of the copies of these sites (url appended with a zta.net), most of the time I went to a zfs.org, which seems to be associated with zta.net.
Should this zta.net as well as zfs.org be investigated?
Tony Ruscoe and meng xiang, I’ll ask someone to look into it.
I’ve been reading your blog for a while, it’s really a good place to learn about anti-spam and search quality and everything.
Stupid side question in all of this: what about approaching the issue of fake search engine/auto-generated page spam from a slightly different angle and trying to auto-detect/ban from Adsense and possibly even Adwords? A lot of these guys are making money off of one or both of these programs, money that could justify their efforts even if they get banned from the organic SERPs (which they quite often don’t).
Maybe by cutting off the money flow, the spam doesn’t flow as freely into organic SERPs (I’m not sure on this because a lot of them will probably turn to Yahoo! or Adbrite or something like that, unless you guys can get together on issues like this.) It wouldn’t become worth it for at least some spammers if there were reduced or no revenues to collect (in theory).
There are a lot of little initiatives I can envision that would help Google index content better. I am planning to slowly “propose” them on my Well Designed URLs blog . However, I’d like to present them to people at Google and cultivate an open discussion about them because without your involvement and others in the community they will be nothing more the metaphorical hot air.
Is there any kind of forum to engage people from Google who have the power to recognize new webmaster techniques when indexing in order to help Google and make a better web?
Is this not a little too vague?
Will this update filter out websites that just point to a URL that has their own overture powered feed?
Cool info thanks Matt & Vanessa.
> Google surely reacts to everything “Philipp” says.
While I understand your guideline for general web search, in local that seems a little short sighted (and probably anywhere category exploration is critical – so I’m not sure if killing YouTube search/browse pages was a good idea either).
You really want to ban this?
Just one question (sorry for my English, I’m French): I submit to Google an exclusion request for one of my website (ambv.free.fr) but it still remains in Google Index in spite of my robots.txt?
During a little time it disapeared from Google, but he comed back later.
Does Google Search always respect the robots.txt or does he display results with excluded site when they were the web reference ?
I’ve got to tell you that this opens up, for me, a can of worms. If I’m to understand correctly, dynamic search results might be at danger of being removed from Google SERP’s. My obvious problem with this is that I have sites using dynamic content such as /SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=4 to produce a page for a particular category of products. Basically, this page (as the “no doi” url implies) is a search result of a query against my database. This was, and is, the promise of dynamic content.
So this particular stance from Google is very concerning. If your not going to penalize sites like mine, and millions of others, the way that Vanessa Fox suggests, then I apologize for my concerns. But does this also endanger social bookmarking sites that use user generated “tags”? These are also “search results” that provide a lot of content that I feel should be in Google’s SERP’s. How about blog sites that “categorize” or “tag” content so that it provides links to a modified search results, thus generating a page of highly relevant content to a particular term. Your own blog, for example, uses this technology. It’s a search result, no matter how you dress it. Is the difference in the url? We can’t all implement human friendly urls, and we can’t make 1000’s of pages by hand.
And in all honesty, I think that some of the mentioned websites, like Yelp, in my estimation, are doing nothing wrong. If a “search results” page is highly relevant to a search term, and ultimately serves the Google user, then what is the harm? Doesn’t the Google algo identify relevancy to a term? The YouTube search results page, I think, served the searcher what they wanted, a page relevant to their term.
“Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don’t add much value for users coming from search engines”.
When is a page of no value to a user coming from a search engine?
Let’s take the example on searchengineland (http://searchengineland.com/070312-104201.php) about the shopping.com dvd players. Those results are very usefull for someone intrested in buying a dvd player or someone just seeking information. Is it really such a good idea to ban those kind of page from the Index?
if I want to block a specific directory this way it workd for all SE robots?
the above text is all I need to write in robots.txt?
were can I test my robots.txt file?
I just have a quick question that is in somewhat of correlation with what JeremyCEO@Yelp has suggested. I help run a real estate web site, and for obvious reasons this might have a rather dramatic effect on what we are trying to do. We have used mod_rewrite to make a clean URL that automates our searches.
To us and to our end users this does add value, much in the way of how yelp does.
Quality guideliness are good to have. However, keep in mind that there are many platforms out there (such as Yahoo! Stores) that do not allow you to have control of your robots.txt. In my opinion, Google should filter these results but not penalize a site for them.
Hey Matt, thats a nice topic which I had recently thought about for our page. We did a recent relaunch and added a so called “faceted meta data navigation”, which is simply a navigational search that lets the user narrow down his searchresult by selection different facets (attributes). Looking at my logfiles, I saw that Googlebot now crawling every possible permutation of our naviagtional search. I though of adding a “noindex” to all of our search result pages, but besides the fact that I am lazy :), isn’t that something, that I would only do for a search engine and not for the user? There is value being added for the user, which is a convinient way of “exploring” a search results just by navigating. Shouldn’t Google just ignore these similar pages instead of putting a penalty on the webmaster?
We are working to get the different language versions updated, and you should see the latest version shortly.
These are 302 status code producing redirect links from imdb.com to Amazon, and Google is caching Amazon search results pages under these urls. These 302 redirect links are a valid method of click tracking, but if Google would not follow them (and cache them) these “search results in search results” would not exist… nor would other problems associated with Google’s handling of such redirects.
While you’re cleaning up stuff on other sites :), you might want to pass along that the whois information for Google.ca is incorrect. At the very least the phone number is wrong. I called and the lady was pleasant but distressed to be getting 30-40 phone calls for the toronto office of Google every day.
p.s., Any chance you could email me contact info for the pr folks at google canada? I need some giveaways, a phone call to the toronto office got me an email address, but the email address bounced.
You need giveaways? I didn’t know free stuff from Google was a life or death issue.
Get that man 3 overpriced pens with about 5 lines’ worth of ink and the Google logo on them, STACKED!
If such an approach is implemented, it will be the end of the aggregator sort of sites and that would be a good thing, because I often found posts in my blog as supplemental results because some aggregator site posted it in real time and was crawled first.
I’m late to this discussion, but I don’t read any real response to the quite valid points raised by Jeremy at Yelp amongst others. Essentially these search pages are returning a list of relevant items etc based on what the searcher is after. The fact that the urls haven’t been rewritten to say something like site.com/sanfran_burgers.html shouldn’t mean the site in question is penalized for this. Yes, there are clearly cases where this is used for spam, but I don’t see how that means that search results from within a site should always be excluded using robots.txt?
In fact any site that contains a list of products (like any e-commerce site with hotel listings, books etc. etc.) is essentially serving search results back to the user and these are indexed all the time (and rightfully so I believe). The only difference is they’ve created categories encompassing what the search engine kicks back.
As a site owner, you have control over the search engine within your site and can create useful pages of aggregated search data from within your site that do actually mean something to your users. I understand based on googles webmaster guidelines that this *should* be ok (since the pages are relevant), but then again, this is what youtube was doing and those pages were removed?!
Just to follow up on that, of course if everytime a user searches it generates a new ‘category’ and a link to that search query then this would be a logical no no.
But if someone on an external site links to a search result (thus creating a link that a search engine can follow), one can only assume they are linking to it because the search results are actually relevant to what they are discussing.
I’m sticking to the safe side here and adding a disallow to our search page as I see it is being indexed (although we don’t get any traffic on these indexed pages because we don’t change anything around the search results on the page so they don’t rank well at all for the actual search query), but I would like to see some follow up on this as at the moment it seems to have been put up as a rather impulsive addition to the guidelines.
I agree with Luis Alberto. Technorati and other sites of that nature do not add any value to the search results either in my opinion. They usually only have a few tags and have no information at all. If I cannot use this technique, they shouldn’t either.
Scott, oh but you can.
Things like this page from ibm can help this problem. It searches for other documents (if there are any) based on your referring keyword.
Say one had inadvertently allowed search results to be indexed – with a sloppy robots.txt file. Is simply amending the robots.txt the best way to remove these pages? Is that really all it takes? I have heard rumours that robots.txt isn’t always obeyed, or is this actually a mistake by the author (ie another duff robots.txt)?
Also, could it be that indexed search pages from one’s site could actually be causing duplicate content issues for the pages they represent? I’m thinking product search pages causing problems for the ‘real’ product catalogue pages . Produced out of a database, they will share blocks (product descriptions) of the same content, although not necessarily an identical match of blocks. Hope that makes sense?!
Well, I’m dobbing in eurekster.com on this one. It annoys the heck out of me to see all their auto generated pages flooding the serps (about 1.3 million showing right now). Essentially every search result is pushed into the index by making it a static URL with search results (probably scraped).
So most bloggers use tags which really are a form of search or auto categorisation of content. Are we saying that this kind of on the fly categorisation could be deemed against google’s quality guide lines? It is my understanding that as long as we slice and dice our content in a way which could be deemed useful to other users then this is a good thing. Could the use of tags be deemed as duplicate content since content can clearly live in more than one place with a tagging system or any dynamic site. Or do the duplicate content guidelines mostly refer to cross domain or multiple site issues?
I have a solution for all those who want to keep the indexing in and those who want it out and a way Google can make one more additional revenue stream….you all know where I am going with this right?
Yes, charge a dollar amount for your site index to be available in the search results. This does many things at once, first of all, gets rid of all the people who are just toying with the system and not producing anything but leaching. Second, it provides legitimacy for the companies who are allowed to have their results show up. Third user search is less crowded with useless garbage no one really can use. Last, Google has one more revenue stream.
Yes Google, I want 1% of revs for this idea! Thanks.
I think this makes sense for our site. I’ve just added a disallow for anything with the word search in so will see if it makes our site cleaner looking.
Ever googled for black bean dip recipe? cooks.The first result, from cooks.com, is an internal search result. So give us a reason why every site shouldn’t do such a thing, have a “RECENT SEARCHES” widget on every damn page?
Thanks for the tip. I’ll start blocking search results in my ZenCart shops using robots.txt. I hope the default setup of popular open source packages start doing the same.
i have query regarding Google Debuts “Search Within A Site” Search Box Feature. my site has good back link and page rank. but when i am searching regarding my site but i cuodunt find this type of feature for my site?
can u tell me whats the criteria for search within A site search box?
I found this page looking for info on “cooks.com search spam”. Is Google finally going to do something about this website? Every single time I search for a recipe online, I hit this spammy Cooks.com website. Half the time the site isn’t active, and when I can actually access a page, it’s scraped search results.
I completely agree with Jeremy CEO @ Yelp. If a site’s search results page has valuable, unique (i.e. not scraped from other sites) content that satisfies a searcher’s intent, then why would it be considered unworthy for Google search results?!
Saving Bandwidth: Search engine spider robots and web robots visit often our web sites to index changes in our content. We can restrict access to certain directories that we do not want crawlers to access.
Cleans Up Your Logs: After submitting your web site to the search engines than the spider robots will be searching for your robots.txt file. Every time a robot searches for this file and it does not find one, it generates a ‘404 File Not Found’ error. Adding the file to your root directory will help eliminate these errors and boost your rankings.
Online Protection: The search engine robots, unless instructed otherwise by your robots.txt file, will attempt to index as much of your web site as possible. This means that they will also access file on the serves that they should not have access to.
Avoid Unwanted Indexing: If a part of you web site is still being developed than you might want to prevent crawlers from indexing your content.
I’ve been wondering for the past two years what’s the assumed value of having results from people “search engines” aka scrapers in Google’s SERPs? See e.g. http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.123people.com%2Fs%2Fmatt%2Bcutts.
Now, what’s Google’s stance on showing SERPs in SERPs when all the vertical results are expected to show up in Google’s own unified SERP anyhow?
What about cassified personals or comparative items on Internal search results.
Some people enjoy having a handfull of results in one page. If your shopping or comparing groups of items, potential partners or baseball players, a results page is more apealing. You get to relevant info faster and you get to compare it.
Other people argue that Google is that “Comparative” list, and that they prefer to go to the individual ad.
Another problem that arises from “search results in search results” comes from the dinamic nature of result pages. Let me illustrate: On “Monday”, result page # 1 will display x,y and z results, and google indexes this URL (Result page 1), as having that information.
On Tuesday, of the following week, result page #1 will have U, V, W, results, UVW pushed X,Y and Z to resutls page # 2. Results indexed in google, on result page #1 will have been false. thus increasing bounce rate on the page.
a) Put no-index tags on result pages.
b) Invert result pagination, giving each set of results a permanent URL, that wont change with time.
Could you please tell me why Google doesn’t penalize the websites that index their own search results? I’m sick and tired of these kind of websites, and the problem is that they appear on the top 3 search results in Google, for many keywords, without any content whatsoever.
40.000 indexed spam pages, and this is not a unique case..
The most popular classified ads in the Philippines sulit.com.ph is spamming Google search results. When I search a certain keyword, sulit.com.ph search results appear in Google search results for many times. Did you ever consider to inspect this site?
Wouldnt you want your Search results being indexed??? Bigger the site the better??? | 2019-04-19T14:17:27Z | https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/search-results-in-search-results/ |
A few months ago when I guest blogged on Catherine Delors' site about connections between England and France during the Napoleonic Wars, my agent commented that the way certain historical figures, such as the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, kept popping up in my post was a sort of Regency six degrees of separation. I started thinking about the six degrees of separation idea in relation to a real historical figure who has appeared or been mentioned in a number of my books - the Devonishires' younger daughter Harriet.
Lady Harriet Cavendish was born in 1785, the daughter of William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, and the former Lady Georgiana Spencer, who became a celebrated society beauty and political hostess as Duchess of Devonshire. Georgiana was a strong supporter of the Whigs and their charismatic leader Charles James Fox. She had a love affair with Earl Grey, a young Whig politician who eventually became prime minister in 1830. Georgiana bore Grey a daughter, Eliza, in secret, a half-sister of Harriet's who was raised by Grey's parents.
Lady Caroline Ponsonby was Harriet's first cousin, the daughter of Georgiana's sister, Henrietta, Countess of Bessborough. Caroline married William Lamb, son of the famous Whig hostess Lady Melourne. Though it began as a love match, the marriage was not happy. Caroline is probably best known to history for her love affair with Lord Byron. She dramatized the love affair in Glenarvon, a roman à clef which scandalized the ton and had them madly speculating on which character was based on which real person. After Caroline's death, William, by then Lord Melbourne became young Queen Victoria's prime minister and political mentor.
William's sister Emily, Countess Cowper, was a patroness of Almack's. After her husband's death she married her longtime lover (though the love affair wasn't precisely exclusive on either side), Lord Palmerston, who later became prime minister himself. (A visiting dignitary once stumbled into an embarrassing situation by remarking on how much Palmerston's son resembled him. The young man in question was in fact officially Palmerston's stepson and the son the late Earl Cowper, though Palmerston almost certainly fathered him.). As Lady Palmerston, Emily was also a celebrated political hostess.
Harriet's childhood at Devonshire House included another Caroline, Caroline St. Jules, the daughter of the Duke of Devonshire and his mistress, Lady Elizabeth Foster, who lived for many years in a menage-à-trois with the duchess. Caroline St. Jules married William Lamb's brother George (and was referred to by the family as "Caro George" to differentiate her from "Caro William"). Her marriage was not entirely tranquil either. At one point she left her husband and ran off to the Continent with Henry Brougham, a radical Whig politician who later defended Caroline of Brunswick, the Prince Regent's estranged wife, when he attempted to divorce her after he became George IV. Emily Cowper went abroad and helped persuade her sister-in-law to return to her husband.
Harriet's aunt, Lady Bessborugh, had a love affair the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, but the love of her life was Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, a politician and diplomat and younger son of the Marquess of Stafford. She bore him two children in secret who were placed in foster homes. In 1809, Granville's affair with Lady Bessborough had ended. Granville needed to marry and produce legitimate children. Harriet was four-and-twenty and unhappy at home. Her mother had died and her father had married his longtime mistress Elizabeth Foster. That Granville proposed to Harriet, niece of his longtime mistress, and that Harriet accepted (with her aunt's blessing) is not entirely surprising given their circumstances. That the marriage proved remarkably happy is more startling ("Granville, adored Granville, who would make a barren desert smile," Harriet wrote). They had five children and also raised the two illegitimate children he had had with Harriet's aunt. Granville became Viscount and then Earl Granville. For many years he and Harried presided over the British embassy in Paris while Granville served as ambassador.
Harriet had an intriguing and seemingly quite happy life which put her within six degrees or less of a number of prominent people of the day. Do connections between real historical figures intrigue you? Writers, are have you ever found an unexpected connection between two real historical figures while researching? Do certain real historical figures keep finding their way into the pages of your books?
TRAVELS IN ENGLAND IN 1782: St. James’s Park.
"The park is nothing more than a semicircle, formed of an alley of trees, which enclose a large green area in the middle of which is a marshy pond.
The cows feed on this green turf, and their milk is sold here on the spot, quite new.
In all the alleys or walks there are benches, where you may rest yourself. When you come through the Horse Guards (which is provided with several passages) into the park, on the right hand is St. James’s Palace, or the king’s place of residence, one of the meanest public buildings in London. At the lower end, quite at the extremity, is the queen’s palace, a handsome and modern building, but very much resembling a private house. As for the rest, there are generally everywhere about St. James’s Park very good houses, which is a great addition to it. There is also before the semicircle of the trees just mentioned a large vacant space, where the soldiers are exercised.
How little this famous park is to be compared with our park at Berlin, I need not mention. And yet one cannot but form a high idea of St. James’s Park and other public places in London; this arises, perhaps, from their having been oftener mentioned in romances and other books than ours have. Even the squares and streets of London are more noted and better known than many of our principal towns.
But what again greatly compensates for the mediocrity of this park, is the astonishing number of people who, towards evening in fine weather, resort here; our finest walks are never so full even in the midst of summer. The exquisite pleasure of mixing freely with such a concourse of people, who are for the most part well-dressed and handsome, I have experienced this evening for the first time.
Before I went to the park I took another walk with my little Jacky, which did not cost me much fatigue and yet was most uncommonly interesting. I went down the little street in which I live, to the Thames nearly at the end of it, towards the left, a few steps led me to a singularly pretty terrace, planted with trees, on the very brink of the river.
Here I had the most delightful prospect you can possibly imagine. Before me was the Thames with all its windings, and the stately arches of its bridges; Westminster with its venerable abbey to the right, to the left again London, with St. Paul’s, seemed to wind all along the windings of the Thames, and on the other side of the water lay Southwark, which is now also considered as part of London. Thus, from this single spot, I could nearly at one view see the whole city, at least that side of it towards the Thames. Not far from hence, in this charming quarter of the town, lived the renowned Garrick. Depend upon it I shall often visit this delightful walk during my stay in London.
To-day my two Englishmen carried me to a neighbouring tavern, or rather an eating-house, where we paid a shilling each for some roast meat and a salad, giving at the same time nearly half as much to the waiter, and yet this is reckoned a cheap house, and a cheap style of living. But I believe, for the future, I shall pretty often dine at home; I have already begun this evening with my supper. I am now sitting by the fire in my own room in London. The day is nearly at an end, the first I have spent in England, and I hardly know whether I ought to call it only one day, when I reflect what a quick and varied succession of new and striking ideas have, in so short a time, passed in my mind."
TRAVELS IN ENGLAND IN 1782: The Prospect of London.
"We first descried it enveloped in a thick smoke or fog. St. Paul’s arose like some huge mountain above the enormous mass of smaller buildings. The Monument, a very lofty column, erected in memory of the great fire of London, exhibited to us, perhaps, chiefly on account of its immense height, apparently so disproportioned to its other dimensions (for it actually struck us as resembling rather a slender mast, towering up in immeasurable height into the clouds, than as that it really is, a stately obelisk) an unusual and singular appearance. Still we went on, and drew nearer and nearer with amazing velocity, and the surrounding objects became every moment more distinct. Westminster Abbey, the Tower, a steeple, one church, and then another, presented themselves to our view; and we could now plainly distinguish the high round chimneys on the tops of the houses, which yet seemed to us to form an innumerable number of smaller spires, or steeples.
lst all along, at proper distances, the road was lined with lamp-posts. One thing, in particular, struck and surprised me not a little. This was the number of people we met riding and walking with spectacles on, among whom were many who appeared stout, healthy, and young. We were stopped at least three times at barriers or gates, here called turnpikes, to pay a duty or toll which, however small, as being generally paid in their copper coinage, in the end amounted to some shillings.
Adelphi Buildings which had just afforded us so charming a prospect on Westminster Bridge.
My two travelling companions, both in the ship and the post-chaise, were two young Englishmen, who living in this part of the town, obligingly offered me any assistance and services in their power, and in particular, to procure me a lodging the same day in their neighbourhood.
In the streets through which we passed, I must own the houses in general struck me as if they were dark and gloomy, and yet at the same time they also struck me as prodigiously great and majestic. At that moment, I could not in my own mind compare the external view of London with that of any other city I had ever before seen. But I remember (and surely it is singular) that about five years ago, on my first entrance into Leipzig, I had the very same sensations I now felt. It is possible that the high houses, by which the streets at Leipzig are partly darkened, the great number of shops, and the crowd of people, such as till then I had never seen, might have some faint resemblance with the scene now surrounding me in London.
There are everywhere leading from the Strand to the Thames, some well-built, lesser, or subordinate streets, of which the Adelphi Buildings are now by far the foremost. One district in this neighbourhood goes by the name of York Buildings, and in this lies George Street, where my two travelling companions lived. There reigns in those smaller streets towards the Thames so pleasing a calm, compared to the tumult and bustle of people, and carriages, and horses, that are constantly going up and down the Strand, that in going into one of them you can hardly help fancying yourself removed at a distance from the noise of the city, even whilst the noisiest part of it is still so near at hand.
It might be about ten or eleven o’clock when we arrived here. After the two Englishmen had first given me some breakfast at their lodgings, which consisted of tea and bread and butter, they went about with me themselves, in their own neighbourhood, in search of an apartment, which they at length procured for me for sixteen shillings a week, at the house of a tailor’s widow who lived opposite to them. It was very fortunate, on other accounts, that they went with me, for equipped as I was, having neither brought clean linen nor change of clothes from my trunk, I might perhaps have found it difficult to obtain good lodgings.
It was a very uncommon but pleasing sensation I experienced on being now, for the first time in my life, entirely among Englishmen: among people whose language was foreign, their manners foreign, and in a foreign climate, with whom, notwithstanding, I could converse as familiarly as though we had been educated together from our infancy. It is certainly an inestimable advantage to understand the language of the country through which you travel. I did not at first give the people I was with any reason to suspect I could speak English, but I soon found that the more I spoke, the more attention and regard I met with. I now occupy a large room in front on the ground floor, which has a carpet and mats, and is very neatly furnished; the chairs are covered with leather, and the tables are of mahogany. Adjoining to this I have another large room. I may do just as I please, and keep my own tea, coffee, bread and butter, for which purpose my landlady has given me a cupboard in my room, which locks up."
I love period sources, and nothing beats a foreigner's take on a locality, as they note down all kinds of strange little observations. Charles P. Moritz was a German traveler, and his “Travels, chiefly on foot, through several parts of England in 1782, described in Letters to a Friend" was translated into English and published in 1795.
This morning those of us who were fellow passengers together in the great cabin, being six in number, requested to be set on shore in a boat, a little before the vessel got to Dartford, which is still sixteen miles from London. This expedient is generally adopted, instead of going up the Thames, towards London, where on account of the astonishing number of ships, which are always more crowded together the nearer you approach the city, it frequently requires many days before a ship can finish her passage. He therefore who wishes to lose no time unnecessarily, and wishes also to avoid other inconveniences, such as frequent stoppages, and perhaps, some alarming dashings against other ships, prefers travelling those few miles by land in a post-chaise, which is not very expensive, especially when three join together, as three passengers pay no more than one. This indulgence is allowed by act of parliament.
As we left the vessel we were honoured with a general huzza, or in the English phrase with three cheers, echoed from the German sailors of our ship. This nautical style of bidding their friends farewell our Germans have learned from the English. The cliff where we landed was white and chalky, and as the distance was not great, nor other means of conveyance at hand, we resolved to go on foot to Dartford: immediately on landing we had a pretty steep hill to climb, and that gained, we arrived at the first English village, where an uncommon neatness in the structure of the houses, which in general are built with red bricks and flat roofs, struck me with a pleasing surprise, especially when I compared them with the long, rambling, inconvenient, and singularly mean cottages of our peasants. We now continued our way through the different villages, each furnished with his staff, and thus exhibited no remote resemblance of a caravan. Some few people who met us seemed to stare at us, struck, perhaps, by the singularity of our dress, or the peculiarity of our manner of travelling. On our route we passed a wood where a troop of gipsies had taken up their abode around a fire under a tree. The country, as we continued to advance, became more and more beautiful. Naturally, perhaps, the earth is everywhere pretty much alike, but how different is it rendered by art! How different is that on which I now tread from ours, and every other spot I have ever seen. The soil is rich even to exuberance, the verdure of the trees and hedges, in short the whole of this paradisaical region is without a parallel! The roads too are incomparable; I am astonished how they have got them so firm and solid; every step I took I felt, and was conscious it was English ground on which I trod.
We breakfasted at Dartford. Here, for the first time, I saw an English soldier, in his red uniform, his hair cut short and combed back on his forehead, so as to afford a full view of his fine, broad, manly face. Here too I first saw (what I deemed a true English fight) in the street, two boys boxing.
Our little party now separated, and got into two post-chaises, each of which hold three persons, though it must be owned three cannot sit quite so commodiously in these chaises as two: the hire of a post-chaise is a shilling for every English mile. They may be compared to our extra posts, because they are to be had at all times. But these carriages are very neat and lightly built, so that you hardly perceive their motion as they roll along these firm smooth roads; they have windows in front, and on both sides. The horses are generally good, and the postillions particularly smart and active, and always ride on a full trot. The one we had wore his hair cut short, a round hat, and a brown jacket of tolerable fine cloth, with a nosegay in his bosom. Now and then, when he drove very hard, he looked round, and with a smile seemed to solicit our approbation. A thousand charming spots, and beautiful landscapes, on which my eye would long have dwelt with rapture, were now rapidly passed with the speed of an arrow.
Our road appeared to be undulatory, and our journey, like the journey of life, seemed to be a pretty regular alternation of up hill and down, and here and there it was diversified with copses and woods; the majestic Thames every now and then, like a little forest of masts, rising to our view, and anon losing itself among the delightful towns and villages. The amazing large signs which at the entrance of villages hang in the middle of the street, being fastened to large beams, which are extended across the street from one house to another opposite to it, particularly struck me; these sign-posts have the appearance of gates or of gateways, for which I at first took them, but the whole apparatus, unnecessarily large as it seems to be, is intended for nothing more than to tell the inquisitive traveller that there is an inn. At length, stunned as it were by this constant rapid succession of interesting objects to engage our attention, we arrived at Greenwich nearly in a state of stupefaction."
I know authors who’ve caught flack for using nicknames for their heroes (sometimes quite outlandish sounding ones), but I’m here to tell you that nothing could be more historically accurate—or more English!—than a nickname; the crazier the better!
Let us take for example the 5th Duke of Devonshire and his family. The Duchess and his mistress, Lady Elizabeth Foster called him “Canis” because he was happiest at home with his dogs. Amongst themselves the duchess was Mrs. Rat and Lady Elizabeth Foster was Racky. Their children were Hart (Marquess of Hartington), Little G or just G (Georgiana) and Hary-o (Harriet).
At this point, it was rare for the eldest son to be sent to school (a big author I know says she's never found any Georgian/Regency first born sons with a school record), but school days were a great source of nicknames for younger sons and for first born sons from the Victorian period on. Most were either based upon your name, your title, or upon some physical quirk or deed/stunt. Just look at the characters in P.G. Wodehouse’s works: Plug, Fruity, Beefy, Puffy, Mustard, Nobby, Bicky, Chuffy, Gussie, Boko, Tuppy, Kipper, Bingo, Stinker, Buffy, Stiffy, Catsmeant, Corky, Sippy, Rocky, Sandy, Gazeka, Looney, Spennie, Flick, Hash, Chimp, Soapy, Smooth, and my favorite, Stilton.
Sometimes the names make sense, e.g. Stilton’s surname is Cheesewright, Mustard’s is Pott and Kipper’s is Herring. Often it’s simple a play on their name, Sandy/Alexandra, Gussie/Augustus, Aggie/Niagra. Occasionally, they’re explained by the character’s physical description, e.g. Beefy is a big, brawny man, and sometimes we can guess, as with Stinker (aka Lord Tilbury). Many of them however are inexplicable (Bingo, Hash, and Boko?), but because they’re so grounded in the world, you never question that there IS a reason/story behind the name. Wodehouse himself was called Plum by the way.
A few strange real life ones: Jerry Lewis was “Id” (short for Idiot). Sally Struthers’s sister called her Packy (short for Pachyderm because she was chubby). Gordon Summers is better known as Sting because of a black and yellow sweater he wore. Buster Keaton was so dubbed by Harry Houdini himself because of his ability to fall down a flight of stairs and come out unscathed.
So if we just play with Devonshire … He could have been D, Devon, Dray if late Victorian (a play on Shire, which is a horse breed), he could also be Hart (as indeed the 6th Duke was), and perhaps Cup or Tankard or Bowl as a play on the “dish” part of Cavendish.
So yeah, those outlandish nicknames writers give their heroes? Totally period and very, very English.
I love rooting novels in real events, plunking my imaginary characters down among genuine historical figures, the more idiosyncratic the better.
A major scene in That Summer is set at the prestigious Private View at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1849, where my historical hero, Gavin Thorne, is showing his painting, Mariana in the Moated Grange.
Want to see some of what my heroine would have seen?
Shall we open it up and take a look?
In the meantime, William Holman Hunt exhibited Rienzi, or, more volubly, Rienzi vowing to obtain justice for the death of his young brother, slain in a skirmish between the Colonna and the Orsini factions, a history painting about the fourteenth century Roman folk hero, Cola di Rienzo.
But where, you may ask, was that most iconic of them all, Dante Gabriel Rossetti? Much to the annoyance of his friends, he had taken himself and his Girlhood of Mary Virgin off to the Free Exhibition at Hyde Park Corner rather than waiting for the RA show in May-- possibly because he was afraid that he wouldn't get a good placement in the RA show.
You can play a fun game of "spot the PRB" in each of these paintings. For example, it's hidden on the bench on which Lorenzo and Isabella are sitting in Millais's painting.
You can also play "spot the painter", since, to save the cost of models, the artists all sat for each other. And, for my fellow Goblin Market fans, that's Christina Rossetti as the title role in Rossetti's painting of The Girlhood of Mary Virgin.
The Royal Academy Exhibition was the big debut of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood-- so I couldn't resist having my imaginary Pre-Raphaelite, Gavin Thorne, be a part of it.
For my fellow Pre-Raph fans, there's a big exhibit up at the Metropolitan Museum in New York right now!
My recent trip to the Romantic Times Book Reviews Convention in New Orleans gave me time to delve into my monstrous TBR and pull out a few books I’ve been itching to get to. And while I mostly enjoyed them, there were several issues with proper forms of address that drove me batty. I’m going to quote Laura A. Wallace’s fabulous website in order to lay this stuff out. Personally, I do a quick check on how to address my characters before every book, but it’s so damn easy to forget just where on the peerage ladder Lord Christian Name becomes plain old Mr. Surname.
But the most common errors I see repeated frequently are how to address/refer to a duke, a baron, and a duke or marquess’s younger son’s wife.
I always think of Sayers’s marvelous Lord Peter Wimsey novels. As the younger son of a duke, he’s Lord Peter, and Harriet Vane, after she marries Lord Peter ,is LADY PETER (or Lady Peter Wimsey if being formally announced or in correspondence). She is NOT Lady Harriet Wimsey, Lady Wimsey, or Lady Harriet.
Barons, unlike dukes, are NOT addressed as “baron” and unlike earls they are NOT addressed or referred as The Baron of Blank. When playing with barons, keep Lord Byron in mind (have you ever seen him referred to as Baron Byron? No? There’s a reason for that!). Barons (and baronesses) are simply Lord/Lady Title (which may or may not also be their last name). If there are multiple barons of the same last name (and yes, this was not uncommon) then in formal address you would add the “of Place”. Thus, to again quote Laura Wallace, Baron Featherstone (surname Stanley) is addressed simply as My Lord, Lord Featherstone, or more familiarly Featherstone. The ONLY exception to this is a baroness in her own right (but not the mere wife of a baron), who may be properly addressed as Baroness Featherstone as well as Lady Featherstone.
Think of Sir Walter in Persuasion. He’s formally announced as Sir Walter Elliot. He’s addressed as Sir Walter*. He is never Lord Elliot, even though his wife is Lady Elliot. Confusing, I know, but that’s just how it is.
*Thanks to Sunita for the save! | 2019-04-20T17:20:38Z | http://historyhoydens.blogspot.com/2014/06/ |
In the midst of foolish times some could aptly call “the winter of despair” along with its darkness and confusion, I want to celebrate wisdom, belief, light and hope. Will you join me for my party?
Besides the anticipation and fun of Christmas morning, what’s better than a birthday party? Friends, cake, ice cream and presents from loved ones. I have never grown up and still love birthdays–others as well as my own.
Memories of my previous 73 birthdays linger in my mind. On my third birthday, I was really disappointed because eight of my friends brought me the same bracelet, but we had a great time anyway. The next year, I invited them for a sleepover with plans to have a Barbie Doll Fashion show following breakfast. Instead, Mother canceled the party the day before because I came down with a painful ear infection and had to lie still with a series of warm drops in that ear for 24 hours.
But the worst party ever was in high school when I had invited a lot of friends for a dance party in our dining room. Mother and I had moved out all the furniture and I decorated with crepe paper streamers. She made my cake and prepared punch while I brought all my 45s out and laid them next to the record player. That year, my celebration included welcoming a friend who had just come home from boot camp. He and I had corresponded a lot in the months that he was gone; he led me to believe he planned to give me his class ring at the party.
Two things happened, first he disappeared for a long time and when he returned to the party, another girl who wasn’t on my invite list walked in on his arm, wearing that ring. The song, “It’s My Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To” played on the phonograph at that moment, and I felt betrayed. However, self-pity didn’t last long because suddenly two towering football players walked in through the front door and confronted my friend, Laura (a stunningly beautiful girl) and her date. They began pushing him around. Utter chaos descended when he landed hard on the floor. Curses and shouting flew everywhere. Mother came running and sent them all home. I was left alone standing in the middle of a mess with a humiliated heart.
Later, on my 30th birthday, I was hospitalized and in traction for 10 days. Five years later on the way to dinner and a movie with my husband, President Reagan was nearly assassinated.
Heaven celebrated my being found after being lost in darkness for the previous 19 years. I, too, celebrate that event, but I wonder, would it be presumptuous to say that Jesus doesn’t forget the kingdom anniversaries of His children and that in itself is another cause of celebration? I live as if He remembers, anticipating that He always sends the most meaningful and lasting heart gifts to encourage me.
Let me give you a perfect example. Last Friday, my husband and I were passing through Mesquite, NV at 6 a.m. on our way from our daughter’s home in Las Vegas to ours in Perry. We had an hour set aside to reconnect with our long-time friend, Sue––and what a reunion it was. Ephesians 5:19 says it best as we began a conversation at the table that continued all the way home and into the night through our texts. New purpose for each of us keeps us in touch everyday now, sharing our “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord.” God brought us together. It was His gracious gift!
This morning, I heard a message centered on the truth that Scripture is God’s will, His Owner’s Manual for mankind. When He commands something, it’s for our good. Following His Word leads us into contented lives, while rejecting His ways, leads us into sorrow.
A love letter! On my birthday, what a great idea! Like David, I will write this love letter to God in gratitude, defined as the “readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.” He gave lavishly. I am privileged to return His kindness by allowing it to flow out to those whom He brings into my life. He enables me, if I am willing, to live a life worthy of His calling so I can work alongside Him for what He is doing in my family, community, state, country and the world.
As if Thy blessings had spare days.
I think you will appreciate this––I was going to say, “You won’t believe this,” but I know you will, since there are no coincidences with God. Tuesday night, my husband and I went with our son-in-law, Josh, and his son, Ian, and their new puppy, Chewie (Chewbaca) for his second session of Puppy School. It’s such fun to watch the dogs meeting, greeting and chasing each other around, but it’s also unnerving at times since Chewie is the smallest student, a mixture of Shih Tzu and Yorkshire Terrier.
A new Great Dane puppy had joined the class. She has to be twelve or more times taller than Chewie and was so excited about being part of a free-for-all playtime. The Dane’s leaping and loping around with her big feet (and a big smile I’m sure) reminded me of Pixie, a beautiful colt born to my mother’s mare, Cinderella. Pixie was equally enthused with life, but never could be gentled. I wonder if there were colt schools back back in the 50s, because she desperately needed one.
Playtime at the Puppy School was brought under control periodically by Liz, an experienced instructor for all things canine. She began with the puppy circle, instructing owners to sit on the floor and hold their puppies on their backs. After a few minues, each dog was handed around to one or two other owners in preparation for being at ease at the Vet’s office and with other people. Rewarded with calming hands, assuring voices and treats while their paws, teeth and ears were examined ended by being released to socialize and play. The Dane was curious about Chewie, but not aggressive or menacing.
During the week, Chewie had mastered sitting and lying down and he received a lot of praise and treats at home and from Liz that night when he demonstrated his accomplishments. But a new challenge was added on top of those two vital skills. The puppies had to follow their owners without a leash, up and down the room to six different orange cones. At each destination cone, they had to sit on demand, receive a treat, then immediately get up and follow their owners to the next cone. At the end of the course, Liz announced their final time.
I felt confident that Chewie was up to this since he follows Josh everyday during the morning chores, feeding and watering the chickens, birds, and goats. But in the din of this new circumstance with so many distractions, smells and noises, he lost track of Josh’s voice and got sidetracked because of the puppies’ clamoring for his attention. He’d forgotten that his name was Chewie, I think, and that he would receive a special treat from Josh for mastering the skill. Our ultra-social-and-fearless one loves to play.
As I sent off my note to my friend about what happened at Puppy School and the connections I’d been making, I realized I’m in my own School of Learning, being trained first to listen to the voice of Jesus, to treasure what He says and promises, and to follow Him.
He has a plan and the best way to train me to stay close to Him, to remember what He’s taught me and to heed where He’s leading me now, is to practice the Presence of God in the quiet. Cooperating with Him prepares me to follow Him consistently in the din and mayhem of everyday life.
And best of all, the treat He gives me is Himself. He is the Rewarder and the Reward for faith.
For the last several months, our Women’s Bible study group has been studying the book of Revelation, followed by a four week-study written by our teacher, Dorothy Catlin, entitled, Christ In me, the Hope of Glory. Looking back over the hours spent verse by verse, I have learned anew that I cannot live by sight but by the gift of faith and grace, trusting that God’s will and plan for all mankind and the believers in His Son whom He has adopted into His family will be accomplished.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16.
Throughout Scripture and especially in Revelation, He commands men and women everywhere to repent and believe, follow Jesus and receive the Words the Father has given Him. He desires for us to relish our eternal relationship with Him and to surrender our wills to His so that His life flows out from the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit within us to the world for which He died.
I have seen anew that the Bible, the full counsel of God from Genesis through Revelation, is all about Jesus our Savior and His mission of love, mercy and compassion. That mission hasn’t changed since He ascended to His Father and sent out His apostles into the world. He has commissioned all of His children as ambassadors with God’s invitation to be reconciled.
What kind of love is this that calls, equips, and opens doors for ordinary people like us to share the Good News?
One of the greatest insights coming from our study has been discovering how God sees me in Jesus and what He has done already to prepare me for walking with Him in this world in preparation for Heaven. His view of me is far above how I have perceived myself throughout my 72 years. Paul said, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels.” This treasure is Almighty Jesus by His Holy Spirit living in me, and through Him I am being sanctified, led, guided, comforted, encouraged and transformed day by day. God satisfies me fully at every level. His Joy is the delicious frosting on my Grace Cake, something once tasted has never left me.
Recently, I had cataract surgery on my right eye. The old lens had clouded over gradually and I wasn’t even aware of the changes until I failed my eye exam. The day after surgery, walking out into the bright morning, I was stunned that the grass and trees, roses and the sky were so brilliant and that I could perceive everything in 3-D. I had lived in a muted world with an altered depth perception and had no idea what I’d been missing. I’m gradually getting used to the new changes, still careful how I walk. This newness demonstrates how long I’ve lived in a muted spiritual world of not really knowing Jesus as He is.
In 1993, I bought a very small tooled leather chest during a visit in Venezuela. It’s not big enough to hold much, but the precious words in Ephesians 1:3-14 written by Paul that describe this assurance of salvation, calling, eternal life and inheritance, etc would fit on 2.5 x 4 inch cards. And I could keep them within reach, just by opening the lid to select one verse a day to remind me of the Treasure Who lives within me––a very small container filled with His glory.
Showcasing Sanctification Stories is a Joy!
Take a minute to read through Main Street Church’s latest edition of City Lights. May each passage, story and photograph be an encouragement to you. I pray that you will consider writing down what the Lord Jesus has done for you and share it with me. Such stories make my day!
A very emotional day, last Friday, April 20, 2018––saying goodbye to Uncle Lefty as his ashes were inurned at Ft. Logan National Cemetery in Denver. Family and friends drove or flew in from various places and we all came together in the Aspen Chapel to celebrate Lefty’s 95 years.
Having lived 500 miles away for nearly a half century and not returning home often enough, I have missed out on so much of what was happening with my closest ones as they grew older, raised their children, participated in their professions and maybe retired. That morning, I felt like I’d entered into an inviting but strangely unfamiliar zone in which I was the oldest cousin but oddly very short in comparison with other family members. I had trouble with names and relationships and wondered who I could ask.
Speaking of transitions! You know how irritating it was growing up and meeting an ancient aunt after a long time and hearing, “Wow, you have grown so big!” I tried not to say that, but really, where did the time go? How have we all made it this far?
My cousin, Patrick Ferry is an ordained Lutheran pastor who has actively served Christ as the president of Concordia University in Mequon, Wisconsin for several years. On Friday, however, he stood behind the podium as the son of Lefty, cousin Pat, who would deliver a message of comfort to his family and the friends who had joined us.
He had my attention. This was not going to be the typical funeral we have become used to in Utah where by the end of the service the deceased had become nearly deified in the many eulogies and praises about his accomplishments, moral purity and strength of character in the service of the dominant religion. Sometimes a sharp contrast to the truth of his life. I always remind myself: it’s what you do in the dash –– that reveals truth: 19__ – 20__. God knows our dashes!
I believe that eternal life can never be earned no matter what our intentions or accomplishments. Salvation is all from God in His gracing us with faith and the power to accomplish what He has established for us to do. No one can boast.
Back into the present moment, each of Pat’s siblings, the kids I used to play cowboys and Indians, or war games with as a child stood up one by one to share the declarations and promises of Scripture.
Bill began with “The LORD is my Shepherd, I shall not want” followed by the assurances of His immense provision, leading, restoration, guiding, protecting, comforting, empowering, and the eternal grace He lavishly pours all over the Shepherd’s flock.
Believing that Jesus, “the Way, the Truth and the Life” leads us into His presence as the Apostle John stated in the final verse of that reading, I saw the journeys of our lives once begun in simple faith would in fact lead to maturity, a continual transformation designed by God throughout our days, no matter what those days brought us.
Pat concluded by saying that although sin lurks in “every little corner of our lives,” God loves us all the same and just as He was “willing to swap places with” Lefty, to save him, He will do the same for us. The response in me was joy and tears. So glad that at the end of the pew where I was sitting between my brother and my husband I found a full box of Kleenex!
Those days when I’m too busy and stillness is not even a second thought, the mornings I shoot out of bed into the world of others’ needs, the clock’s dictates, and a schedule loaded with things to do. On days like that, I rarely have much time to even pause and consider, much less listen properly. Prayer is short-changed and find my mind circling and folding back on itself constantly.
When Henry Blackaby said in Hearing God’s Voice, “The willingness to obey every word from God is critical to hearing God speak,” I believe it. Being willing to hear what God says and then listening in order to do it is God’s way for me.
I am convinced that setting aside a few moments for quiet and receptivity each day, to specifically call upon God for His wisdom and direction will lead me to deliberate awareness, and the joy of receiving His surprising answers.
My mind is a well-worn scrap basket, specifically designed to hold, sort, and reflect. On any given day, I have collected a variety of intriguing bits and pieces that at first don’t hang together, but a connection sometimes surfaces, like some sort of message I need to receive. An underlined, highlighted conversation I’d never know otherwise if I didn’t pursue it.
Let’s start with the Word, I tell myself. What’s in your basket so far? Life and death, and Jesus knowing: “His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” He knew “that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father.” He knew “that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God.” He knew the one who was betraying Him,” and He knows “the ones [He has] chosen” (John 13).
The line that jumps out at me is Jesus’ declaration: “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” I’m saving that for later.
Besides this Word, I have found remnants of the movie, Lion, which tells the story of Saroo, the lost five-year-old boy in India who narrowly escaped cruel corruption and destruction before being adopted by an Australian couple. He never lost his desire to find his mother but had no memory of his birthplace, except for key landmarks. His laborious exploration of India with Google Earth finally led him home to his mother after 25 years.
My husband and I—we’re always searching for our long-lost childhood homes and families. Like Saroo in the movie, Suresh searches the landscapes of his childhood with Google Earth and rides trains all over India by Youtube.com. I scan photos in my albums to prompt my memory, and in those faces and places frozen way back in time, I try to make sense of my loss, still wondering where I fit into God’s will.
Tucked into my basket early this morning, a few lines from a documentary about United States Poet Laureate 2010-2011, W. S. Merwin. Somehow it connected with Saroo’s search in Lion. Merwin was passionate about listening and waiting. He spoke of finding a peaceful place to live and improve. He loved the land. I wondered about his stern and cold pastor father and what that must have done to the beginnings of faith that didn’t rest in Jesus. Merwin talked of his search for a Buddhist teacher. Although I couldn’t fully identify, I liked his images and the power of his words about the coming day of his passing. I wondered about my own. Will it be on a Wednesday?
Surprised at the earth . . . .
I loved the lines “Then I will no longer/Find myself in life as in a strange garment.” Indeed, my garment has been altered and patched so many times, it is strange and a unique roadmap of my earthly journey.
So I asked the Christian poet, Luci Shaw what she had to say today and included it with my other finds.
the altar, lighting the preacher’s face.
even if our dark wicks only flicker in a corner.
Translate our lives into Your words.
Yesterday afternoon, I went out to our mail box and found a padded manila envelope containing a book by Frederick Buechner. I have no idea who sent it, but the title gives me a fresh lead to come and learn from Jesus and be sure I don’t miss a lead. The title: The Remarkable Ordinary: How to Stop, Look, and Listen to Life. | 2019-04-22T16:50:52Z | https://dwellingnotes.wordpress.com/ |
Former Broncos head coach Vance Joseph is a “strong candidate” to become the Jets‘ defensive coordinator under new head coach Adam Gase, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (Twitter link). While it doesn’t sound as though New York has officially reached out to Joseph yet, the connection makes sense, as Joseph served as Gase’s DC in 2016 before landing the top job in Denver. Joseph interviewed for the Bengals’ head coaching job and remains a candidate there, but the Jets clearly present something of a fallback plan.
On the offensive side of the ball, Dowell Loggains — who worked under Gase with both the Bears and Dolphins — is expected to be involved in Gase’s staff, tweets Jeff Darlington of NFL.com. However, Loggains is still technically Miami’s offensive coordinator and will need to get out of his contract, per Rapoport (Twitter link).
Broncos defensive coordinator Joe Woods has drawn interest as a defensive backs coach from both the Redskins and Jaguars, and as many as three teams are eyeing Woods, possibly even as a coordinator, per Mike Klis of 9News (Twitter link). Denver had not been allowing its assistant coaches take interviews with other teams, but that will change now that new head coach Vic Fangio is in place. Fangio is a defensive coach by trade, so he may take on play-calling now that he’s in Denver. Even if he doesn’t call plays himself, Fangio might want to bring in his own DC, so Woods is certainly in limbo. A longtime defensive backs coach, Woods took over the Broncos defense in 2017.
In returning as the Vikings‘ full-time offensive coordinator, Kevin Stefanski inked a two-year deal, reports Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN (Twitter link). Stefanski is now signed for longer than head coach Mike Zimmer, whose contract expires after the 2019 campaign. The 36-year-old Stefanski took over as Minnesota’s OC after John DeFilippo was fired, and lead the club’s offense for the final three games of the regular season. Despite that limited track record, Stefanski was a serious candidate for the Browns’ head coaching position, finishing second only to Freddie Kitchens.
New Packers head coach Matt LaFleur will likely implement much of his own staff, at least on the offensive side of the ball, but one incumbent Green Bay staffer has already received an offer to stick around. LaFleur wants tight ends coach Brian Angelichio to stay with the Packers, per Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Twitter link). Angelichio worked with Kyle Shanahan on the 2014 Browns’ staff, meaning he has experience with the Sean McVay/Shanahan/LaFleur offense. He’s been with Green Bay since 2016.
Klint Kubiak is receiving “strong consideration” for the Broncos‘ quarterbacks coach job, tweets Klis. Kubiak is the son of Gary Kubiak, the former Denver head coach who was today installed as the club’s offensive coordinator under new head coach Vic Fangio. Klint Kubiak, 31, began his coaching career at Texas A&M before moving to the Vikings in 2013. He joined the Broncos in 2016, serving as an offensive assistant focusing on quarterbacks.
In announcing defensive coordinator Greg Schiano‘s departure from Ohio State, head coach Ryan Day said Schiano would be pursuing “options in the NFL” (Twitter link). That’s certainly a vague statement, and doesn’t indicate Schiano has a specific job lined up, but he could be in consideration for DC or position coach gigs around the league. Head coach of the Buccaneers from 2012-13, Schiano was rumored to have generated NFL interest at this time last year, but he ultimately stayed at OSU.
After the Browns chose Freddie Kitchens as their new head coach, runner-up Kevin Stefanski has decided to return to the Vikings as their offensive coordinator, sources tell Adam Schefter of ESPN.com (on Twitter). Stefanski has been involved in meetings with Mike Zimmer throughout the interview process, so it appears that the Vikings were his fallback option all along.
The Vikings announced the decision.
As shown in PFR’s Head Coaching Search Tracker, Stefanski was not under consideration for any head coaching vacancy outside of the Browns. However, if the Vikings can take full advantage of their offensive weapons in 2019, it’s a safe bet that he’ll be in the mix for HC jobs next offseason.
Stefanski’s contract with Minnesota recently expired, so he theoretically could have made a lateral move and signed on as an OC elsewhere. But, with serious potential in Minnesota and a good working relationship with the people there, it made little sense for him to flee.
Stefanski, 36, was the youngest candidate involved in John Dorsey‘s search. Just last year, he was passed over for the Vikings’ OC job by John DeFilippo, but Stefanski impressed after his in-season promotion to the role.
Brad Childress could be one step away from returning to the NFL. The Browns are reportedly down to Kevin Stefanski and Freddie Kitchens in their head coaching search, and if they pick Stefanski, Childress could wind up on Cleveland’s staff, Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com hears.
Childress and Stefanski have history, dating back to when the two first met in 2005. Childress was also the Browns’ offensive coordinator in 2012 and worked under GM John Dorsey from 2013-16 when he was running the Chiefs. There are significant ties all around, so Stefanski could be a natural fit as the next OC or a different type of assistant if Stefanski is the pick.
The original plan for Childress was to serve as the head coach of the AAF’s Atlanta Legends in 2019. However, he abruptly stepped down from the post on Tuesday, which could be a sign that he has something bigger in the works.
As they advance to the finalist stage of their coaching search, the Browns appear to be zeroing in on young play-callers.
Kevin Stefanski is headed back to Cleveland for a second interview, Ben Goessling of the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports (on Twitter). The coach who took over the Vikings’ play-calling responsibilities late in the season may be competing with Freddie Kitchens, who ascended to this role in Cleveland.
Kitchens now has a “good chance” of landing the Browns’ HC job, Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. The Browns interviewed Kitchens on Monday and have been making calls to inquire about his coaching past, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets.
These are the two finalists for the position, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets. As Stefanski heads back to Cleveland, Kitchens remains in the Browns’ building.
While the Browns are eyeing Stefanski for their HC job, he remains a leading candidate to stay on with the Vikings as OC, Tom Pelissero of NFL.com tweets. However, Stefanski is a coaching free agent after his contract recently expired.
Several Browns assistants have already been asked to stay on board, Cabot reports, which would back the idea the 44-year-old Kitchens will receive a major promotion. Neither Kitchens nor Stefanski had OC experience heading into 2018. The Browns appear to be serious about pairing Baker Mayfield with a young, offensively oriented leader.
Stefanski, 36, interviewed for the Browns’ HC vacancy on Jan. 3. He is the youngest candidate involved in the John Dorsey-led search. This comes after he was passed over for the Vikings’ OC job a year ago for former Browns OC John DeFilippo. But Minnesota fired the latter late this season, and Stefanski is competing with Kitchens and perhaps others for the Cleveland job.
The Browns blocked Kitchens from pursuing offensive coordinator jobs outside the organization. It looks like he has a real shot to continue to work with Mayfield, which is not necessarily a big surprise given the rookie passer’s success after the Browns fired Hue Jackson and Todd Haley. Kitchens receiving the HC job may point to Gregg Williams staying on, though it would be an altered dynamic given the 60-year-old interim leader’s previous role as Kitchens’ boss.
Right after the biggest coaching news of the cycle dropped with the Packers’ hiring of Matt Lafleur, we have a fresh batch of coaching rumors ready.
One of the most prominent coordinator openings is the Vikings’ offensive coordinator position. The team fired John DeFilippo midseason, and promoted Kevin Stefanski to that role. Although many initially thought Stefanski would be back in Minnesota, he is “unlikely to return”, according to Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link), who notes the team is “looking for depth of experience.” Robinson writes that former Titans head coach Mike Mularkey is a candidate for the job, and he thinks recently fired Buccaneers coach Dirk Koetter is a candidate as well.
Koetter is indeed a candidate for the job, confirms Ben Goessling of the Star Tribune. A source told Goessling that Koetter is a strong candidate for the job. Interestingly both Koetter and Mularkey have interviewed for the Falcons’ OC job in recent days. Koetter was Atlanta’s playcaller before landing the job in Tampa Bay. Robinson writes that Koetter has been “presumed across the league to be a lock for the Falcons OC job”, but that Minnesota is “in play” for him as well.
Speaking of the Browns, the team completed their interview with interim offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens today, according to Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com. It’s unclear if Kitchens has a real shot at landing the head coaching job, as the back half of this season was his only experience even calling plays after he was promoted from quarterbacks coach, but he received a ton of praise for his work for Baker Mayfield. If he doesn’t get the job it’s highly possible he’s retained as OC by whoever takes over in Cleveland.
Pittsburgh’s offensive line coach Mike Munchak has been waiting for the perfect opportunity to leave the Steelers, and a source told Aditi Kinkhabwala of ESPN.com that he turned down an interview request from the Dolphins (Twitter link). Munchak has been very selective over who he’ll talk to in recent years, and it seems like the only way he’ll be on the move this cycle is if he lands the Broncos’ job. Recent reports have him as the “early favorite” for that gig.
We heard yesterday that the Jets were looking to set something up with Baylor coach Matt Rhule, and that meeting has apparently already taken place. The Jets “have discussed their head coaching vacancy” with Rhule, according to Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports (Twitter link). Rhule has been buzzed about in NFL circles in recent years, as he’s done a great job turning around the programs at Temple and Baylor. He was considered for the Colts’ opening last year, but ended up removing his name from consideration.
The Browns were originally scheduled to meet with Vikings offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski on Monday, but they’ve moved that interview to today, reports Adam Schefter of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Stefanski, who was elevated to offensive coordinator in Minnesota following John DeFilippo‘s firing, is in consideration for Cleveland’s head coaching job. While the Vikings are still interested in retaining Stefanski, he’s no longer under contract. Meanwhile, the Giants — who attempted to lure Stefanski to New York last offseason — won’t pursue Stefanski this year, as head coach Pat Shurmur told Mike Francesa of WFAN (Twitter link via Ryan Dunleavy of NJ.com).
Patriots defensive coordinator Brian Flores has a busy week lined up, as he’s drawn interest from not only the Broncos, Browns, Dolphins, and Packers. It’s still unclear if/when Flores will interview with Cleveland, but he’ll meet with Green Bay on Friday, tweets Demovsky. Packers management is scheduled to fly to the New England area that day to sit down with Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, so they’ll stick around to meet with Flores. Flores is also scheduled to interview for the Miami gig on Thursday and Friday, while Mike Klis of 9News reports (via Twitter) the Broncos will fly to New England to sit down with Flores on Saturday (previous reports had indicated Denver would meet with Flores on Monday).
Cowboys defensive backs coach Kris Richard is expected to interview with the Jets and Dolphins on Sunday, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (Twitter link). Assistants preparing for a Wild Card playoff matchup aren’t allowed to interview in the week preceding said game, so Richard will have to wait until Dallas completes its contest against Seattle on Saturday night. Richard is also a candidate for the Buccaneers’ head coaching job, although it’s unclear when that interview will take place.
General manager Reggie McKenzie isn’t the only Raiders executive without a job at season’s end, as Oakland has also fired director of player personnel Joey Clinkscales, tweets Jim Trotter of NFL.com. Clinkscales, a high school and college teammate of McKenzie’s, was the ex-Raiders GM’s top assistant, so it’s perhaps unsurprising Oakland made the decision to ax him, as well. A former scout with the Steelers and executive with the Jets, Clinkscales was named on the Fritz Pollard Alliance’s list of recommended minority GM candidates last month.
The Browns are going to interview Vikings interim offensive coordinator for their head coaching position Kevin Stefanski on Monday, a source tells Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (on Twitter). Stefanski is also a candidate for the Vikes’ full-time OC job, but his contract is up so he is free to field outside offers.
The Vikings have been largely happy with Stefanski and are expected to try and keep him as their offensive manager. However, early indications are that they’ll have a fight on their hands to keep him in the headset.
The Vikings were an early favorite for Super Bowl contention but they finished out with a disappointing 8-7-1 record and missed the playoffs. In December, Minnesota canned offensive coordinator John DeFilippo and found Stefanski to be more suited for the role.
Guided by GM John Dorsey, the Browns may be one of the most attractive landing spots for coaching candidates this offseason. The presence of Baker Mayfield should have offensively-minded coaching like Stefanski drooling, there are young pieces in place thanks to years of losing and future-minded moves, and turning the Browns around would be a legacy-maker.
A flurry of head coaching moves have been made last night and this morning, but one team already had a significant head start on the process. The Browns were the first team to move on from their coach, firing Hue Jackson after eight games, and have had a while to formulate a plan. The team went 5-3 after moving on from Jackson, and might have the most attractive opening of any team with Baker Mayfield looking like a star in the making.
The Browns’ first step in the process will be to interview Gregg Williams tomorrow, GM John Dorsey revealed at a press conference this morning, per Pat McManamon of ESPN (Twitter link). Williams is the interim coach right now and although he isn’t expected to land the full time job, Cleveland’s strong play down the stretch certainly earned him consideration. Dorsey also said that offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens, who has drawn rave reviews for his work with Mayfield, will get an interview although he wasn’t sure when that would occur.
Meanwhile, the Browns have also requested to interview Patriots defensive coordinator Brian Flores, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN (Twitter link). Flores is in his first year calling plays, but is highly regarded around the league and was a candidate for the Cardinals’ job last year. The Browns are also expected to interview former Titans head coach and current Steelers offensive line coach Mike Munchak, according to Alex Marvez of Sporting News (Twitter link). We heard earlier this morning that the Broncos have interest in Munchak as well, who’s earned a ton of praise for his work with the Steelers and is instrumental in Pittsburgh and far more influential than your average offensive line coach.
We first heard late last night that the Browns had reached out to Mike McCarthy, and while he wouldn’t confirm anything, Dorsey certainly didn’t throw cold water on the rumors. Dorsey said he has “a lot of respect for Mike McCarthy and what he’s done”, according to Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com (Twitter link). Dorsey also praised Kitchens, saying the first time coordinator has “done [a] wonderful job developing [a] relationship with” Mayfield, per Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon-Journal (Twitter link).
The Browns have also put in a request to interview Saints assistant head coach Dan Campbell, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (Twitter link). Campbell has been a popular darkhorse candidate for some jobs, and impressed during his brief stint as the Dolphins’ interim head coach in 2015. In addition to Campbell, Rapoport tweets they requested an interview with Vikings interim offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski.
Two last candidates for the Browns are Colts defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus, as Tom Pelissero of NFL Network tweets that the Browns have submitted an interview request for him, and Colts offensive Nick Sirianni is also on their interview list Pelissero tweets separately. Adam Schefter followed up on Pelissero’s report by tweeting that while the Browns do want to interview Eberflus, they won’t be able to this week with the Colts playing a playoff game this weekend, and the same presumably goes for Sirianni.
Cleveland will be one of the most buzzed about teams in the coming days and weeks, and we should know a lot more about their intentions soon, and they’re clearly casting a very wide net. At this point, it still seems most likely that they’ll pursue an offensive coach to pair with Mayfield despite their reported interest in Flores and Eberflus. | 2019-04-19T16:53:05Z | https://www.profootballrumors.com/kevin-stefanski |
We first prove Mazur’s lemma in a random locally convex module endowed with the locally -convex topology. Then, we establish the embedding theorem of an -prebarreled random locally convex module, which says that if is an -prebarreled random locally convex module such that has the countable concatenation property, then the canonical embedding mapping of onto is an -linear homeomorphism, where is the strong random biconjugate space of under the locally -convex topology.
The Embedding Theorem of an -Prebarreled Module into Its Random Biconjugate Space Xia Zhang and Ming Liu Department of Mathematics, School of Science, Tianjin Polytechnic University, Tianjin 300387, China Correspondence should be addressed to Ming Liu; nc.ude.upjt@gnimuil Received 9 December 2016; Accepted 2 March 2017; Published 30 April 2017 Academic Editor: Henryk Hudzik Copyright © 2017 Xia Zhang and Ming Liu. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract We first prove Mazur’s lemma in a random locally convex module endowed with the locally -convex topology. Then, we establish the embedding theorem of an -prebarreled random locally convex module, which says that if is an -prebarreled random locally convex module such that has the countable concatenation property, then the canonical embedding mapping of onto is an -linear homeomorphism, where is the strong random biconjugate space of under the locally -convex topology. 1. Introduction Mazur’s lemma in a locally convex space is a very useful fact in convex analysis. The embedding theorem of a locally convex space into its biconjugate space has played a crucial role in the study of semireflexivity and reflexivity of a locally convex space. The purpose of this paper is to generalize the two basic results from a locally convex space to a random locally convex module. Based on the idea of randomizing functional space theory, a new approach to random functional analysis was initiated by Guo in [1–3]; in particular, the study of random normed modules and random inner product modules together with their random conjugate spaces was already the central theme in random functional analysis in [2, 3]. Currently, random normed modules, random inner product modules, random locally convex modules, and the theory of random conjugate spaces still occupy a central place in random functional analysis. At the early stage, motivated by the theory of probabilistic metric spaces , random normed modules and random locally convex modules used to be endowed with the -topology, which also leads to the theory of random conjugate spaces under the -topology [5, 6]. In 2009, motivated by financial applications, Filipović et al. presented the notion of a locally -convex module while the locally -convex topology for random normed modules and random locally convex modules was also introduced in . Subsequently, Guo established the relations between some basic results derived from the -topology and the locally -convex topology for a random locally convex module in . The -topology is too weak, whereas the locally -convex topology is too strong, and the advantages and disadvantages of the two kinds of topologies often complement each other so that simultaneously considering the two kinds of topologies for a random locally convex module or a random normed module will make random functional analysis deeply developed, which also leads to a series of recent advances in random functional analysis and its applications [9–14]. In 2009, Guo et al. first proved Mazur’s lemma in a random locally convex module endowed with the -topology in . Recently, Zapata studied Mazur’s lemma in a random normed module endowed with the locally -convex topology. This paper will give Mazur’s lemma in the sense of all kinds of random duality, in particular Mazur’s lemma in a random locally convex module endowed with the locally -convex module. The notion of an -prebarreled module is a proper random generalization of that of a barreled space; in particular, a characterization for a random locally convex module to be -prebarreled was established in . Based on , this paper will prove an -linear homeomorphically embedding theorem of an -prebarreled random locally convex module into its strong random biconjugate space. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 states and proves the main results of this paper. 2. Main Results and Their Proofs Throughout this paper, denotes a given probability space and the scalar field of real numbers or of complex numbers. Now, we can state the main results of this paper as follows. Theorem 1. Let be a random locally convex module over with base and an -convex subset of such that has the countable concatenation property. Then, . Theorem 2. Let be an -prebarreled random locally convex module over with base such that has the countable concatenation property. Then, is -linearly homeomorphically embedded into by the canonical mapping defined by and , where denotes the random conjugate space endowed with its strong locally -convex topology. For the sake of readers’ convenience and proofs of Theorems 1 and 2, let us first recapitulate some notations and known terminology. In the sequel, denotes the algebra of equivalence classes of -valued random variables on and the set of equivalence classes of extended real-valued random variables on , where two random variables are equivalent if they are equal almost everywhere (briefly, a.s.). It is well known from that is an order complete lattice under the partial order: iff for almost all in , where and are arbitrarily chosen representatives of and , respectively; further, and stand for the supremum and infimum of a subset of , respectively. In addition, it is also well known that if is directed upwards (downwards), then there exists a nondecreasing (nonincreasing) sequence in such that . has the largest element and the smallest element, denoted by and , respectively; namely, and stand for the equivalence classes of constant functions with values and on , respectively. Particularly, is order complete as a sublattice of . Let and and be in ; we say that on ( on ) if (accordingly, ) for almost all , where and are arbitrarily chosen representatives of and , respectively. Similarly, one can understand on and on . In particular, stands for the equivalence class of , where if and 0 if . This paper always employs the following notation: . . on . Similarly, one can understand and . Let be a left module over the algebra (briefly, an -module); the module multiplication is simply denoted by for any and . A mapping is called an -seminorm on if it satisfies the following:(1) and .(2). If, in addition, implies (the null element of ), then is called an -norm on ; at this time, the ordered pair is called a random normed module (briefly, an RN module) over with base . An ordered pair is called a random locally convex module (briefly, an RLC module) over with base if is an -module and is a family of -seminorms on such that implies . Clearly, when is a singleton consisting of an -norm , an RLC module becomes an RN module , so the notion of an RN module is a special case of that of an RLC module. Motivated by Schweizer and Sklar’s work on random metric spaces and random normed linear spaces , Guo introduced the notions of RN modules and random inner product modules (briefly, RIP modules) in [2, 3]. The importance of RN modules lies in their -module structure which makes RN modules and their random conjugate spaces possess the same nice behaviors as normed spaces and their conjugate spaces. At almost the same time, Haydon et al. also independently introduced the notion of an RN module over the real number field with base being a measure space (called randomly normed -module in terms of ) as a tool for the study of ultrapowers of Lebesgue–Bochner function spaces. The notion of an RLC module was first introduced by Guo and deeply developed by Guo and others in . Given an RLC module over with base , we always denote by the family of finite nonempty subsets of . For each , is the -seminorm defined by for all . Now, we can speak of the -topology as follows. Proposition 3 (see ). Let be an RLC module over with base . For any positive numbers and with and for any , let . Then, , and forms the local base at of some Hausdorff linear topology for , called the -topology induced by . From now on, for any RLC module , we always use for the -topology for induced by . It is clear that the absolute value is an -norm on . induced by is exactly the topology of convergence in probability; namely, a sequence converges in to in if and only if it converges in probability to . It is easy to check that is a metrizable topological algebra for an RLC module over with base . is a topological module over the topological algebra . In 2009, Filipović et al. introduced another kind of topology for : let belong to and . A subset of is said to be -open if for each there exists some such that . Denote by the family of -open subsets of ; then, is a topological ring; namely, the multiplication and addition operations on are both jointly continuous. Let be an -module and a topology for ; then, the topological space is called a topological -module in if is a topological module over the topological ring , namely, the module operations: the module multiplication operation and addition operation are both jointly continuous. In , a topological -module is called a locally -convex module if possesses a local base at whose each element is -convex, -absorbent, and -balanced, at which time is also called a locally -convex topology. Here, a subset of is said to be -convex if for all and such that ; -absorbent if for each there exists some such that for any such that ; and -balanced if for all and all such that . The work in leads directly to the following. Proposition 4 (see ). Let be an RLC module over with base . For any and , let . Then, forms a local base at of some Hausdorff locally -convex topology, which is called the locally -convex topology induced by . From now on, for an RLC module , we always use for the locally -convex topology induced by . Recently, it is proved independently in [18, 19] that the converse of Proposition 4 is no longer true; namely, not every locally -convex topology is necessarily induced by a family of -seminorms. For the sake of convenience, this paper needs the following. Definition 5 (see ). Let be an -module and a subset of . is said to have the countable concatenation property if for each sequence in and each countable partition of to there always exists such that for each . If has the countable concatenation property, denotes the countable concatenation hull of , namely, the smallest set containing and having the countable concatenation property. Remark 6. As pointed out in , when is an RLC module, in Definition 5 must be unique, at which time we can write . In , a family of -seminorms on an -module is said to have the countable concatenation property if each -seminorm still belongs to for each countable partition of to and each sequence in . We always denote as a countable partition of to and as a sequence of , called the countable concatenation hull of . Clearly, has the countable concatenation property iff . In random functional analysis, the notion of random conjugate spaces is crucial, which is defined as follows. Definition 7 (see ). Let be an RLC module over with base . Denote by the -module of continuous module homomorphisms from to , called the random conjugate space of under ; denote by the -module of continuous module homomorphisms from to , called the random conjugate space of under . From now on, when is understood, we often briefly write for and for . When has the countable concatenation property, it is proved in that . In general, and has the countable concatenation property. Recently, in , Guo et al. established the following precise relation between and . Proposition 8 (see ). Let be an RLC module. Then, . Remark 9. For an RLC module , since and induce the same -topology on , then . Since has the countable concatenation property, ; in fact, Proposition 8 has shown that . To state and prove the main result of this section, we still need Lemma 10. Lemma 10 (see ). Let be an RLC module with base and such that has the countable concatenation property. Then, , where and stand for the closures of under and , respectively. Guo et al. started the study of random duality under the -topology in ; further, in , Guo et al. studied random duality under the locally -convex topology. Let us recall some notions and results used in proofs of the main results in this paper. Definition 11 (see [5, 10]). Let and be two -modules and an -bilinear functional. Then, is called a random duality pair (briefly, a random duality) over with base if the following conditions are satisfied: (1) iff (the null in ). (2) iff (the null in ). Let be a random duality over with base . For any given defined by is an -seminorm on ; denote by ; then, is a random locally convex module over with base ; the -topology and the locally -convex topology induced by are denoted by and , respectively. In particular, it was proved in that . A subset of is said to be -bounded if is -absorbed by each -neighborhood of the null of ; namely, there exists such that whenever and , which is equivalent to saying that . Denote and is -bounded} by ; for each , the -seminorm is defined by ; then, is a random locally convex module over with base ; the locally -convex topology induced by is denoted by . Let be a random locally convex module over with base . An -balanced, -absorbent, and -closed -convex set of is an -barrel. is an -barreled module if each -barrel is a -neighborhood of , whereas is an -prebarreled module if each -barrel with the countable concatenation property is a -neighborhood of . Clearly, both and are a random duality pair over with base . Further, let possess the countable concatenation property; then, it is proved in that is -prebarreled iff . In 2009, Guo et al. proved Mazur’s lemma in a random locally convex module under the -topology, which is stated as follows. Proposition 12 (see ). Let be a random locally convex module over with base and an -convex subset of . Then, . Now, we can prove Theorem 1. Proof of Theorem 1. Since has the countable concatenation property, by Lemma 10. Further, by Proposition 12. Since by Proposition 8, it is easy to see that and induce the same -topology on , so that . Applying Lemma 10 to the random locally convex module leads to . This completes the proof. Remark 13. In , Zapata proved the following result: let be a random normed module and an -convex subset of such that has the relative countable concatenation property; in addition, if possesses the property (sum of any two subsets with the relative countable concatenation property still has the relative countable concatenation property), then . The advantage of Theorem 1 only requires that has the countable concatenation property and is arbitrary, which is convenient to applications. On the other hand, as far as in Theorem 1 is concerned, the conclusion is also directly derived from Guo et al.’s separation theorem between a point and a -closed -convex subset in . Let be a random locally convex module over with base . A subset is -bounded if is -absorbed by each -neighborhood of (namely, there exists such that whenever and ); this is equivalent to saying that for any . Denote is -bounded} by ; for any given , the -seminorm is defined by ; then, is a random locally convex module; the locally -convex topology induced by is called the strong locally -convex topology for ; we use for endowed with this strong locally -convex topology; similarly, stands for endowed with its strong locally -convex topology. For any given , is defined by . Since is a continuous module homomorphism from to for each fixed , also belongs to by an obvious fact that the strong locally -convex topology is stronger than , which shows that the canonical embedding mapping is well defined, and is also injective by the Hahn–Banach theorem established in . For a subset of , the random right polar is defined by ; similarly, the random left polar of a subset of is defined by . Now, we can prove Theorem 2. Proof of Theorem 2. Let denote the family of -bounded sets of ; then, forms a local base of . Let denote the family of -bounded sets of ; then, forms a local base of . Since is an -prebarreled random locally convex module such that has the countable concatenation property, by the characterization theorem established by Guo et al. in . It remains to check that . It is obvious that . As for the reverse inclusion, let be any element in ; then, is a neighborhood of , so -absorbs each -bounded set of the random locally convex module , which implies . To sum up, . Finally, it is easy to observe that for each , which shows that is an -linear homeomorphism. This completes the proof. Conflicts of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. Acknowledgments This study was supported by the NNSF of China (no. 11301380) and the Higher School Science and Technology Development Fund Project in Tianjin (Grant no. 20131003). References T. X. Guo, The Theory of Probabilistic Metric Spaces and Its Applications to Random Functional Analysis [M.S. thesis], Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, 1989. T. X. Guo, Random Metric Theory and Its Applications [Ph.D. thesis], Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, 1992. T. X. Guo, “A new approach to random functional analysis,” in Proceedings of the 1st China Doctral Academic Conference, pp. 1150–1154, The China National and Industry Press, Beijing, China, 1993. B. Schweizer and A. Sklar, Probabilistic Metric Spaces, Elsevier, North-Holland, The Netherlands, 1983, reissued by Dover Publications, New York, NY, USA, 2005. T. Guo and X. Chen, “Random duality,” Science in China. Series A. Mathematics, vol. 52, no. 10, pp. 2084–2098, 2009. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at MathSciNet · View at ScopusT. Guo, H. Xiao, and X. Chen, “A basic strict separation theorem in random locally convex modules,” Nonlinear Analysis. Theory, Methods & Applications. An International Multidisciplinary Journal, vol. 71, no. 9, pp. 3794–3804, 2009. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at MathSciNetD. Filipović, M. Kupper, and N. Vogelpoth, “Separation and duality in locally L0-convex modules,” Journal of Functional Analysis, vol. 256, no. 12, pp. 3996–4029, 2009. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at MathSciNetT. Guo, “Relations between some basic results derived from two kinds of topologies for a random locally convex module,” Journal of Functional Analysis, vol. 258, no. 9, pp. 3024–3047, 2010. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at MathSciNet · View at ScopusT. Guo, “Recent progress in random metric theory and its applications to conditional risk measures,” Science China. Mathematics, vol. 54, no. 4, pp. 633–660, 2011. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at MathSciNet · View at ScopusT. X. Guo, S. E. Zhao, and X. L. Zeng, “Random convex analysis (II): continuity and subdifferentiability theorems in L0-pre-barreled random locally convex modules,” SCIENTIA SINICA Mathematica, vol. 45, no. 5, pp. 1961–1980, 2015 (Chinese). View at Publisher · View at Google ScholarM. Wu, “The Bishop-Phelps theorem in complete random normed modules endowed with the (ε,λ)-topology,” Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications, vol. 391, no. 2, pp. 648–652, 2012. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at MathSciNetT. X. Guo, S. E. Zhao, and X. L. Zeng, “Random convex analysis (I): separation and Fenchel-Moreau duality in random locally convex modules,” SCIENTIA SINICA Mathematica, vol. 45, no. 12, pp. 180–202, 2015 (Chinese). View at Publisher · View at Google ScholarM. Wu, “Farkas' lemma in random locally convex modules and Minkowski-Weyl type results in L0(F,Rn),” Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications, vol. 404, no. 2, pp. 300–309, 2013. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at MathSciNetS. Zhao and T. Guo, “The random subreflexivity of complete random normed modules,” International Journal of Mathematics, vol. 23, Article ID 1250047, no. 3, 14 pages, 2012. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at MathSciNetJ. M. Zapata, “Randomized versions of Mazur’s lemma andKrein-Šmulian theorem with application to conditional convexrisk measures for portfolio vectors,” 2016, https://arxiv.org/abs/1411.6256. N. Dunford and J. T. Schwartz, Linear Operators, Wiley-Interscience, London, UK, 1957. R. Haydon, M. Levy, and Y. Raynaud, Randomly Normed Spaces, Hermann, Paris, France, 1991. M. Z. Wu and T. X. Guo, “A counterexmple shows that not every locally L0-convex topology is necessarily induced by a family of L0-seminorms,” 2015, https://arxiv.org/abs/1501.04400. J. M. Zapata, “On characterization of locally L0-convex topologies induced by a family of L0-seminorms,” Journal of Nonlinear and Convex Analysis, In press. | 2019-04-18T14:18:52Z | https://paperity.org/p/129544710/the-embedding-theorem-of-an-prebarreled-module-into-its-random-biconjugate-space |
These are the usual opening statements I get when I tell people I don’t drink any alcohol. Tell someone you don’t smoke and that’s impressive…….tell them you don’t drink………and you’re a weirdo.
Such was the case last night when I sat with a group of guests in the cigar bar when I hosted “Cigars with John” and as all 40-plus of us sat together discussing life and good cigars the subject of what drink best complements a Cohiba came up………some said Scotch, others cognac while many were enjoying the mojitos we were serving………..me …………I said “Diet Coke.” ……………………..and instantly………….I was a friend of Bill W.
I stopped drinking as I said just after meeting Heidi. A few weeks later I was back at work as a cruise director on the Carnival Imagination. I had been out in the disco and had been celebrating someone’s birthday and had drunk 3 or 4 cognacs……….large ones. I remember going to bed feeling fine around 2 am but then the phone rang at 4 am and I was told to come to the bridge.
I had flashbacks of the last time he had called me to the bridge to tell me “Johnny…….you zee make on an anoouncment dat we no go Cayman !”……..ummm…………”What?” ……… ”Johnny…….you zee make on an anoouncment dat we no go Cayman”……….”Oh ok……why are we not going to Grand Cayman?”……………”De oricani come” ………………. ummm ………… “What?”…………………”De oricani come.”…………..it was just as he was about to repeat it for the third time and just as he was getting ready to explode because I didn’t understand that the staff captain told me “We are not going to Cayman as the hurricane is heading that way.” …………….oh.
But on this occasion it wasn’t just his thick accent that I was having trouble with…..it was my head and my stomach and ……I have no idea how I managed to get through that night. My speech sounded slurred and I couldn’t concentrate and luckily there was no man over board as the guest that reported it turned out to be ……well………..drunk. But, we had to take his report seriously. Anyway, I have no idea how I got through that night and how the guests understood me anymore than I understood the captain.
Since that day in 1995 I have never let alcohol touch my lips……..except during my stag party in Amsterdam when Alan and Roger tricked me into drinking a pint of Guinness with a shot of Bailey’s in it — and a pair of edible cherry underwear……..the bastards.
Time for today’s questions ……………here we go.
Have a question about Elation’s schedule past April 2010. Just kidding!! I think your replies and my postings somehow crossed in the email universe. Thanks for the info and looking forward to booking.
But, do have a question about the current situation in Honduras. The State Dept. has advised against non-essential travel to the region. Does Carnival have any plans to suspend their calls to Roatan? I know the info I see on Cruise Critic is no (which I know is not gospel) but given the State Dept. advisory, is this something being considered or would it be on a sailing by sailing basis?
While the capital and major cities of Honduras does have an advisory against it there them for non-essential travel there are no such advisories for the cruise industry to suspend their calls to Roatan and at the time of writing there are no plans to cancel any calls. However, we will continue to monitor the situation very carefully and as the safety of our guests is our number one concern rest assured we would never purposely put you in harm’s way. I promise to keep you informed.
It is a thread by a mother who is upset that her daughters (10 y.o.) were being bothered by another 10 y.o. boy in Camp Carnival, and complained to the Camp Carnival Staff with the promise by the staff to monitor the situation. Well, they weren’t monitoring very well because later, the boy exposed himself to the girls in camp. She feels, as do I, that the situation wasn’t handled properly.
I would like to see what you think should have happened and reassure me that this type of situation will be handled differently in the future!
Still love your blog and the thought that if anyone asks you a question or has a concern, you will follow up.
Thanks for writing about this and you are correct that here on the blog I want to know what concerns people and I want to make sure I look into those concerns for each and every one of our loyal Carnival guests. I was aware already about this as someone else posted the comment from Cruise Critic a few weeks ago. There is not much I can tell you except that an allegation was made by one set child and completely denied by another …….a sort of “he said, she said”-type of thing. Once an allegation like this is made it is carefully investigated by the ship’s senior management and appropriate steps taken as warranted.
Our Camp Carnival program is staffed and managed by professionals and there is no safer or more fun way for children of all ages to enjoy their cruise experience.
I hope you continue to enjoy the blog and please feel free to ask me anything, anytime.
Hi John- love looking at the pics of your beautiful Kye- she is adorable. I know you miss her but I can tell she is gonna be a daddy’s girl at heart.
Hubby and I are booked on the Caribbean Princess in Sept doing the Canada cruise and I have seen something called the Chefs Table. Can you get your spies to find out what this is and how to sign up for it- sounds like a wonderful way to celebrate our 29th anniversary? Thanks, Deby (who is looking very forward to booking a cruise on the Dream next year).
The Chef’s Table dinner on the Princess ships is one of the best and most memorable meals at sea. The Chef’s Table dinner begins in the galley for pre-dinner cocktails and hors d’oeuvres with the executive chef, followed by a specially prepared multi-course tasting dinner in the dining room. It will be a wonderful chance to see the food you are going to eat be prepared in the galley and is a real look behind the scenes.
Additionally, each couple at the Chef’s Table will receive a personalized autographed copy of Princess’ best-selling cookbook, Courses, A Culinary Journey, which has sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide and is available on amazon.com. Guests will also enjoy a complimentary photo taken at the private table with the chef.
The Chef’s Table experience can be reserved by up to 10 passengers per night, at a cost of $75 per person. Reservations are made onboard through the ship’s DINE telephone line or in person at the dining reservations table set up on the first day of the cruise.
Thanks James………I am sure they will.
So Deby……..how about that?……….it sounds brilliant. Let me know if you decide to do this and tell us all about here on the blog thingy.
Please reply when able to.
Kye sure is a beauty.
I was wondering if Carnival would do a few connecting modified stateroom with another stateroom. When I cruise with my son we need a modified stateroom, and then another regular stateroom for my dad and sister, we would love to be able to stay together instead of being on different ends of the ship or on other decks. We were lucky back in May, we were only a few steps from each other, but it would have been better if we only had one door to go through instead of in one and out another. I hope that when they start on the Carnival Magic, that they will take in consideration more modified balcony and suites, and some with modified connecting staterooms. Thanks for the pictures of Kye, keep them coming.
Thanks for all of your time and help.
My Kye is getting spoiled today with all these lovely comments and thank you for making me a very proud Dad through your kind words. We realize the importance of family vacations and that some families like to be close together and also need more space. That’s why we have the new family cabins on the Carnival Dream that include connecting doors and the two bathrooms. I am sure that many will relish these facilities. I have yet to see the plans for Carnival Magic but I am sure you will not be disappointed and I will certainly pass your request up the line as what you said makes total sense.
I am in the process of booking the Dream for March. I just found out that you are scheduled to be the CD and that thrills me since I have never cruised with you before. I am traveling with my husband and two teens and I am trying to figure out if it would be better to book adjoining cove balconies or a balcony on the panorama deck with an interior across the hall…………do you have any advice? Thanks in advance………….and I have recently became a fan of your blog…………I want to congratulate you on your new daughter and continue with the updates…………please!
It is a double thrill to know that you have discovered the blog thingy and become a fan and that you want to book the Carnival Dream to sail with me………..I am so honored. I will indeed be the CD on your Carnival Dream for part of March and it would be a joy if you could join me. Both the cabin options you mentioned are wonderful and they both have a lot to offer. Personally, though, I would go for adjoining cove balconies. You can open the partition and make one large balcony and the views…….well they are extraordinary and you feel so close to the sea. However, those would be two very lucky teens to have their own balcony cabin and of course the balcony and inside cabin option is also a good one………for me though the cove cabins have the edge as you can have two together.
Let me know when you have booked and what you decided to do and I promise that I will do my best to make your families Carnival Dream cruise the best vacation you have ever had.
I am cruising for the 1st time with Carnival on the Maiden Voyage of Carnival dream on 21/09. I did the maiden on Independence of the seas as was truly disappointed in the sail away celebrations. What does Carnival do on these occasions? Also we were originally booked on the Freedom, then moved to the Liberty and finally to the Dream. We did received $50 per person obc (there are 4 of us). Our travel agent called Carnival to ask if there was anything else could be offered due to the inconvenience of my husband and I having to use another days holidays to accommodate the change from 19th to 21 September and they said it would be up to Miami. This was also their comment when advised that we have previously cruised with Princess and as the back of Carnivals brochures indicate, this could mean either discount or little extras. I’m not asking for a free cruise and upgrade (if only!) but just wondered what you thought.
PS the photos of Kye are beautiful and I hope it is not too long before you get to see Heidi and her.
I have a feeling your question and my answer crossed somewhere. When people post questions I always kindly ask that they give me five working days to answer them as I am always working behind the pace so to speak and answering 60 questions a week means that unfortunately the answers are not instantaneous. Anyway, here is my answer which I hope you have seen was posted three days ago.
Well first of all I want to apologize to you in case I have not done so before. There were a group of guests like yourself who were booked on both the ships we canceled from their European cruises due to the credit crunch, etc. This was very unfortunate and even though it was the right thing to have done as bookings in the Caribbean have shown, we knew we would be disrupting people’s vacation plans and that is something we never want to do.
So once again please let me apologize. I also want to tell you that having seen your Carnival Dream I can tell you that the ship will not disappoint you in any way. She is truly magnificent and her inaugural cruise will be very, very special. I know that plans on what will be scheduled for this voyage are ongoing so I really cannot say yet what will happen. I wonder………as you experienced an inaugural cruise that was disappointing please could you tell me what you felt was missing and what you would have liked to have seen. Maybe there are other bloggers who have experienced inaugural cruises who would like to jump in here.
As far as the on board credit is concerned, I will forward your comments to our Miami office and let’s see what we can do to help you. Please send me a comment the week before so I can send you a bon voyage gift as well.
Thanks for writing and I look forward to hearing from you with your further comments. Thanks again for the kind words about Kye, there is another photo coming up.
I spent yesterday reading blogs from Jan. 2009 through April 2009. I had read some previously but got hooked yesterday. 1. Your daughter is precious. And her name…adorable. 2. I sent two blog questions yesterday, but did not put please reply, so…I was wondering if we have ever sailed with you as our CD before. I am sure we have but don’t know on what ship. Is there any way we could find out? 3. We completed our 9th CC cruise in March, on the Freedom which was the BEST CC ever. We celebrated my husband’s 61st b’day on the cruise. It was the best cruise we have ever been on–and we have been on 15. Of course CC is our favorite, but we had to try others–to make sure and to get to other ports. We made sure to tell Todd, James and Captain Queirolo that they MADE the cruise. Now, we have booked The Dream for January 23rd. Will Todd and James be the CD and ACD on that cruise? They are the reason we booked that cruise. We have bragged about them so much that we have enticed several other people/couples to go with us b/c of them. And also Capt. Q. 4. If not them, then who? You? I’m sure you would be a great substitute. OUCH. I hope that didn’t destroy you. LOL. 5. On the Freedom we paid a deposit for another cruise and now are told we can’t use it with a group. BOO. At least let us use it for a deposit and then we’ll save the onboard credit for another time. Or, vice versa. The rules truly need to be expanded upon and expressed clearly.
Anyway, enough. Just wanted to get the answers to my questions and tell you how much I am enjoying reading your blog.
I have a feeling your eyes must be exhausted after reading all those blogs but I am so thankful that you have taken the time to do so. I should explain that there is around a five-day gap between you posting a question and me answering it so my apologies if you thought I had ignored you. Hopefully you will have seen my answer posted yesterday……if not….here it is again.
You know I have no idea what ships I have been on and when just off hand. I have been a Cruise Director since 1990 and apart from Carnival Conquest, Carnival Pride, Carnival Spirit, Carnival Elation, and Carnival Paradise. I have been CD on all the ships. I am sure If you had have sailed with me you would have remembered because I am better….much better than Todd ……and I am much better looking as well. Then again, the lesser Spotted Mongolian Dung Beetle is better looking than Todd so I guess that’s not saying much.
OK, to get serious……Todd is brilliant and he will be the CD on your Carnival Dream and James will be the ACD. I don’t have Captain Queirolo’s schedule just yet so I don’t know when he is taking a vacation. I will let you know when he knows.
Regardless you will have a fantastic time and your Carnival Dream cruise vacation will be the best ever.
I hate to bring this up after the drunk blonde made a fool of herself, but there is a post on Cruise Critic that the drinks at the Captains Party are no longer free but are $1.00 off the regular price. Is that information true?
It sounds like this cruise is going to be a problem. I wonder if there has ever been a cruise you have been on that has been smooth sailing. I doubt it. Keep smiling John; you are truly one of the good guys.
There is always a story on each and every cruise if you look hard enough. However, I always seem to attract the fun individuals that make great topics for the blog thingy.
Well, the thread you are referring to on Cruise Critic is correct but then not correct. Here’s the latest: We wanted to do something special for our guests towards the end of the voyage to thank them for spending their vacations with us so developed the concept of a farewell appreciation party with the ship’s senior officers and complimentary cocktails. At the same time, we are continuing to offer the captain’s celebration on the first elegant night but have modified and expanded it to feature discounted drink pricing for a two-hour window not only at the location of the captain’s party but all along the ship’s promenade as well. These adjustments not only retain the one hour of complimentary cocktails but add a second party with the ship’s senior management and a two-hour period of discounted drinks. I will keep you posted though.
I have a question for you regarding a post from Cruise Critic. Some people mentioned that there were no more free drinks at the Captain’s party but were available for $1 off per drink. There was also mention of a Farewell party with free drinks. Is any of this true? How about at the Past Guest Party?
In two months we’ll be on the Carnival Liberty and we can’t wait.
I am trying to remember the last time we sailed together…………when was it? I am going to use my cut and paste thingy button if you don’t mind so I can make sure I get you the right answer to what seems to be a popular question today………….here we go.
We wanted to do something special for our guests towards the end of the voyage to thank them for spending their vacations with us so developed the concept of a farewell appreciation party with the ship’s senior officers and complimentary cocktails. At the same time, we are continuing to offer the captain’s celebration on the first elegant night but have modified and expanded it to feature discounted drink pricing for a two-hour window not only at the location of the captain’s party but all along the ship’s promenade as well. These adjustments not only retain the one hour of complimentary cocktails but add a second party with the ship’s senior management and a two-hour period of discounted drinks. I wish I could be on the Carnival Liberty with you.
Love the stories on the Freedom…counting down the days until 7/26…Do you have any suggestions as to the best excursion or something special onboard (not overly priced)…it is our 30th anniversary and I wanted to do something special and surprise my husband…we have never been to any of the ports…so any suggestion is welcome…Is there a way that I can book an excursion/onboard activity and pay cash…so it does not show on our room card? I don’t want him to see it if at all possible…I’d like it to be a surprise with no bill!!!
I am looking forward to spending your 30th anniversary with you when you sail. Please ……….book the steak house……….it will be the perfect way for you to celebrate this special day. You can pre book online or I can do it for you.
As for an excursion, well it’s hard what to choose without knowing what you like to do ……. sightsee, swim, snorkel etc. I highly recommend Mystic Mountain in Jamaica where you take the ski lift up and then experience the most amazing scenery in the Caribbean from a Jamaican sledge. Tell you what. Come along to my travel talk which I will hold before we arrive at the ports and I will tell you and the guests all about the ports. Then if you have any questions myself and the staff will be there to help you. Also, please leave me a note at the Guest Services Desk when you board stating who you are and it’s your anniversary, etc. and I will read your dedication out on my morning show and send you a little gift.
Please respond if you get the time.
Good to see you back on stage and doing what you do best. You seem to be enjoying yourself, despite missing Heidi and Kye.
You may remember a few weeks back you were discussing your itinerary regarding the Dream’s inaugural. You mentioned it wouldn’t be fair to Todd to be on board as he was the CD.
Later you seemed to be having second thoughts because of the disappointment expressed by a number of bloggers who will be on board.
Have you had any more thoughts on that or are we going to miss you in September.
Another cruise critic thread that seems to be getting a lot of attention (for obvious reasons) is the fact that there were no free drinks at the welcome aboard party on the Valor recently and the thoughts that this was going to be introduced fleet wide. Any official news on this one.
You know, it is so frustrating when people write only half the story on the boards ……………… why?…………….why not add the most important fact.
Now as for the Carnival Dream………….let’s see what we can do…………….but I have a feeling we may be talking about John Terry playing for City.
I am sailing on the Dream on October 3 and I have a question. Will my Passport be retained at any of the ports? I have never had to do that at any European ports I have gone to and honestly, this makes me VERY nervous. What if there is an emergency in port or on board the ship and I don’t have my Passport? What if the authorities/cruise line loses it?
If you are a US Citizen, Canadian or EU passport holder we will not take your passport in order to present it to Immigration. The only time we do this in Europe is during our Greece and Turkey cruises. By the way, when we do, there really is nothing to be nervous about I promise. The passport never leaves the ship and is kept securely the entire cruise. Anyway, during your Carnival Dream Grand Med cruise you will keep your passport for the entire voyage.
I am sure you are getting excited now and I wish you a wonderful cruise on your Carnival Dream.
That’s all for today………please remember to mark your postings “John, please reply” if you would like me to help you in anyway. Once again a big thank you to you all for your reviews and comments.
We have been talking about our continuing goal to make the embarkation process a smooth a transition to the vessel as possible. With that in mind here is some news about Miami and some special kiosks.
Have any of you used this yet? If so, please let us know your thoughts.
Now, we have been talking a lot about your Carnival Dream and we have heard from some of the people who are already in the shipyard in Italy such as Captain Queirolo and of course our friend Boris who has also sent me some photos of some of the other people who will probably go un heralded for their wonderful work which is so important to the your Carnival Dream’s start up program. Here they are.
We thank them all so very much for all their hard work and lets see some of the public areas of the ship that are continuing to take shape.
Those photos were taken by Boris on Thursday so as you can see we are trying to keep you up to date with whats happening on a ship we are all so excited about………….have you booked yet?
Oh, by the way…………….I forgot to take a photo of the Fish and Chip selection yesterday as I had ………..ummmm…………..eaten it. So here is a montage thingy of what we serve there.
Did you see the James Taylor video I posted earlier this week? It is incredible and 10,000 plus have clicked on it and enjoyed his music played onboard the incomparable ocean liner Queen Mary 2. If you have not seen it yet here is another chance to do so and if any of your friends are music fans this is something they have to see so make sure you pass it on.
It’s never a good sign when the Captain sends a ” Bad Weather ” report round for each department head to sign. This bit of paper procedure has been around for as l can remember and is used when bad weather is expected. Personally I think its a bit antiquated…………..why not send an e mail like we do for a million other things on board? Anyway, each department head has to sign to say that they understand that there will be bad weather and when the security staff member came to my cabin for me to sign it I already new by the thunder and the lightning outside as we prepared to leave Panama that it wasn’t going to be a pretty night. And it wasn’t.
The seas have been 8 – 10 feet since we left and as always when the ship moves like id did last night and still is today it is the older people I feel sorry for who may already have walking concerns. Anywway, at lezst the sun is shining somewhat and thats good. It is still very windy and we are still moving quite a bit as we head from Panama at 20 knots back to Port Everglades.
Its still windy as well as you will see.
Please be informed, decks 12 & 14 (slide, mini golf, ping pong, basketball court) area closed due to strong wind in open deck, until further notice.
Bugger……………….as I said though……….at least the sun is shining.
Oh my…………….how I miss them.
I know that I sometimes can be a little cruel about the French and that my words sometimes puts peopels back up……………including one esteemed cruise industry writer……………..ces’t la vive.
But my reflections on all things French are not just the result of my own treatment by my garlic munching friends but it seems others…………..many others…………have the same opinion.
In case you cant be asked to read that link thingy let me explain that during a poll of 4,500 hoteliers by Expedia the French were the worst in the world, coming across as penny-pinching, rude and refusing to even try and speak any other language………………….and that’s a shame.
They live in such a beautiful country ………ok, the women don’t shave their armpits and you need to bribe a taxi driver with something from Cartier to get him to take you to your hotel.
They don’t seem to do cruises………..certainly not on Carnival that much and with good reason. Does God leave heaven every August and take a vacation in hell? No. Well, why would anyone go abroad if they live in France…………….it is a stunnuigly beautiful place?
The fact of the matter is that the French are not the worst tourists……………no……………don’t faint……………yes, I am sticking up for them………….certainly in my experience from years on ships………………the Russians are the worst tourists in the world. Of course, they spent most of their childhood eating their own hair and trying not to be tortured so who can blame them for exploding onto the Carnival ship’s with their Versace sunglasses and extraordinarily tight Speedos.
The only problem is that they all look so sinister with their pasty complexions and their special forces tattoos. You get the impression when they look at you that they’re imagining what you would look like with no head.
A complaining passenger from Paris may smell and treat you like ” merde ” ……………but a a Russian passenger would happily garnish your Chocolate Melting Cake with a dash of polonium posion if he doesn’t get late sitting dinner…………………so given the choice between sailing with Sergei or Jean Claude……………the snail eating soapless white flag waving French mate JC wins by Le Mile.
See you on Sunday with a quick post from Jaime and I will be back on Monday. | 2019-04-19T16:49:26Z | https://johnhealdsblog.com/2009/07/10/drink/ |
Metaphors and similes are also excellent ways to summarize multiple, loosely-related concepts in shorthand. After all, the basic behaviors of any web-based discussion forum, contact form, or shopping cart are largely the same as those of any other once you factor out the specific content of the site.
When used to pin down abstract concepts or unusual design details, design by metaphor or simile bridges a major gap of understanding. The customer may not be able to pin down what he wants from another site, but in some cases, pointing to that site can be enough to make the features he desires apparent to experienced developers.
Conversely, comparative references can be extremely powerful for explaining design decisions back to a client. Few client-provided specifications are all-inclusive, and you can expect questions when your judgment calls don’t match what he imagined. If you explain that you designed your booking process “like Expedia,” you can easily summarize a wide range of choices through the system, as well as gain added authority by showing that your choices mirror those of a successful system.
Unfortunately, the power of this method of communication comes at a significant cost. If a client says he wants his new auction site to be “like eBay,” what does that mean? An artist hears “It has a tacky color scheme.” A developer hears “It’s scalable to 20 million users.” A user hears “It has feedback ratings on all sellers.” Which, if any of these, did the client mean? You may spend dozens of hours writing specs for eBay-esque features that didn’t capture the client’s heart.
Conversely, defining your own work in terms of other products may set up unacceptable comparisons or fixations in your customer’s mind. If you boast that a new shopping cart works 95% like Amazon, the client may grow obsessed with “fixing” the 5% that’s different, or incorrectly believe that his site has acquired the capacity and features of Amazon across the board.
Moreover, the ability to identify a loose aggregation of features via a single comparison may cause clients to accidentally include irrelevant or needlessly expensive features in their specifications. For example, many off-the-shelf shopping systems include extensive support for multiple currencies and tax jurisdictions. This adds many layers of complexity, and if you’re running a single outlet in Chandler, Arizona, you probably don’t actually want to spend $5,000 more on development to ensure your “just like Zen Cart” shop is ready to handle British Value Added Tax.
Finally, a client who can only speak in similes may be unable to bring the best possible choices to the table. If the client is selling merchandise, he’ll probably say he wants a self-contained shopping system styled after his favorite e-commerce site—but his comparison is limited by his experience. Odds are, he hasn’t seen an example of a hosted shopping cart service, or a single-action “Buy Now” button that he can allude to, even if those would suit his needs better. Your experience and expertise comes in there, as you’ll be able to offer your clients choices they didn’t realize they had and rescue them from the tyranny of comparison.
The ambiguity inherent in comparison-based design communication must be managed, or you’ll end up trying to build mutant websites which work as YouTube plus Newegg multiplied by DeviantArt…on a $750 budget. Fortunately, there’s a practical strategy for controlling runaway scope: limit the use of metaphors and similes to the phases in which they work best.
It makes sense to start with comparisons, especially if you’re about to develop a significant new functional unit. However, if you do so, the second round of specification development becomes critical. Once you understand what the client is asking for on a high level, you should restate that understanding in more concrete terms that will form the basis for binding design documents. You can even walk through the comparison product part by part and ask the client what he really means with his comparisons. There is absolutely no harm in asking “what part of this process do you want to copy?” Developers often over-complicate vague requests, and it may turn out to be a pleasant surprise when it turns out that all the client really wants to lift from the $300,000 commercial backend is its color scheme and menu placement.
You may also be able to control ambiguous comparisons by treating them not just as a design reference, but also as a source of benchmarks. Compare compatibility and performance of the model site: when you bring a focus group in, let them attempt to complete tasks on your site and then on the sites the client presented as models. Direct comparison of user experiences and task success rates are solid evidence that your site matches, or even exceeds, the models. Such a strategy is particularly effective when the client has questionable assumptions about user behavior.
Finally, don’t miss the possibility of the sum of a client’s models being significant as well. If all the sites he idolizes average 700k per page of images and Flash, the unspoken message could well be “a seamless, graphics-intensive look is more important to me than 28.8 modem users.” Reading between the lines is no less important here than it is with a more conventional specification.
Design by comparison can help to engage your clients in the development process while keeping the discussion at a level they’re comfortable with. However, its practitioners must realize that poorly analyzed metaphors can say too much or too little. The need for this delicate balance keeps the technique from being a panacea, but doesn’t prevent it from being useful.
I am not a designer, so correct me if i’m wrong, but I would have thought that referring to other sites would kill a designer’s creativity.
Although I would rate myself a lot more web-savy than what most designers make their clients out to be, maybe a better approach would be to ask the client what he wants to achieve and then give a reference as an example. If he can’t explain what he’s trying to achieve, then don’t accept his example.
It’s part of my day to day business to try to figure out what a client want’s if he says “it has to be like XYZ, but …”. I think it’s still better if the client makes these comparisons than if he defines technical or design aspects by himself if he has no clue what he’s doing.
It’s not necessarily the clients fault when he/she can’t articulate his needs, it’s simply a lack of understanding on their part of this relatively new thing call the ‘web’ that everyone’s going on about. Often, when a client uses another website as a comparison, it is not that they want their site to look like the example, but rather that they want their site to provide a similar user experience and it is then the designers job to fathom which elements of the site are indeed required for that experience and use his design skills to provide that in an attractive/stylish/innovative way that fits r even stretches the design brief.
Sometimes a client’s wishes can stifle the creative juices of the designer – some jobs can be simply dull, but for a small agency or freelance web designer these jobs must be suffered in order to put food on the table.
Steven I think Your right about the title of article im not pedantic but it’s something that can be changed. What do You think?
I agree with most of the commenters and article’s author have said. Clients always get excited after they see something new on web: new development, new fancy stuff or whatever eye-catching thing they found.
Since the beginning of my work life (after be conscious that kick clients wasn’t good idea -when they came up with this stuff ¬¬), I listen+take note of features clients asked (among useful/useless), then review the list, make a quick classification and finally a initial budget based on this high level requirement: simple.
Keep the EXAMPLES (google, amazon, ebay, flickr, etc ) as references but BUILD UP your OWN IMAGINARY EXAMPLE with all you now have and also try to identify/recommend some unique feature that will turn UNIQUE to your client on the web. Remember highlight this to your clients: you might look great like eBay, but being unique, you will look BETTER.
If your client really insists, you could use the budget as a leverage to make the client understands what some features are nice but expensive, and certainly won’t become in profit.
Finally … about the articles’ title, I think the author wanted to be SOPHISTICATED!
Pretty good article, but I also agree, the title was a little bit misleading.
I tend to get frustrated especially when client tries to use technical terms, not really realizing what they mean. It would actually be better if they first would use a general concept, like “website like flickr”, because it gives you the chance to find out what it is about flickr they like.
One of the most difficult aspects of effective communication is trying to speak the same language. Some people believe they will be perceived as an expert by using lots of technical terms. Personally I find it better to try and build trust with clients by showing them that you understand their needs. And this is best achieved by being able to put into words and then action what it is that they want.
I once read (though I don’t recall where), that simile, especially when used in titles, is often misread.
Anyway, there are certainly pros and cons when it comes to the “something like that” approach. On the positive side, (and this applies to the use of metaphor/simile in language), a commonly understood visual metaphor ensures that you and the client are (heads down, cliché coming:) “on the same page”.
It’s also a great time-saver. If my client provides with with nothing more than “well, I want the site to look fun, but not flippant, corporate, but not too formal”, then I could “waste” my time coming up with several mock-ups (throwing stones at a tin can); or, I can suggest existing designs.
bq. I am not a designer, so correct me if i’m wrong, but I would have thought that referring to other sites would kill a designer’s creativity.
It depends on why you are referring to other sites.
This kind of comparison and ‘copying’ works well when you’re looking at functionality. There are a limited number of ways you can build a shopping cart process, or a photo-sharing website – taking the basic model from another website is a good point for starting the discussion about what is needed, and would would be nice to have. Likewise, in terms of the site architecture and content, there are only so many ways a site can be built, and similar sites tend to have similar sections and contents, so taking an existing site apart can provide a useful foundation that gets to the bones of what the client needs quickly, without needing the designer to be psychic or the client knowing more technical details than a client should be expected to know.
But when it comes to graphic design, I would have serious qualms about using another site as ‘inspiration’, especially if it is a related or competing site. Yes, it undermines the professionalism of the designer to be told “Make it look like _such-and-such website_”. Yes, it reduces the likelihood of a great design, suited to the tastes of the client and the needs and demographics of the target audience. Yes, it often leads to disappointment and/or bitterness from the client and the developer when the final design is not a carbon copy of the specified site.
That’s where it becomes really important for the designer to unpick what the client likes about the sites they are keen on. Is it the colour scheme? Is it the position of images on the page? Is it the way the menu works? Is it the list of section headings on the site? Is it something else altogether? But make sure the client understands that this is the basis for inspiration, to help you gauge his requirements, rather than simple plagiarism!
That way, you get to take the best bits of several sites, and synthesise them into a design of your own creation, that should serve everyone well. That’s the theory, anyway!
What’s Next after Web 2.0?
I do not like those buzz words like Web 2.0, Business 2.0 etc., however in order to communication, you have to conform to their protocols, otherwise they might think you are speaking in a foreign language. So far Web 2.0/Internet 1.0 lead by Youtube, FaceBook, same Amazon, New Yahoo! and New Google is successful, though at not successful as Web 1.0/Internet 0.0 led by Old Yahoo!, Ebay, Amazon and Old Google. Why? Not a big surprise anymore when from Web 1.0/Internet 0.0 to Web 2.0/Internet 1.0 as opposed from nothing to Web 1.0/Internet 0.0.
I believe the next after Web 2.0/Internet 1.0 is Web 3.0/Internet 2.0, however we’d better to call it Internet 2.0, since at that time, Web is not that important any more. Why?
Good concept and article – thanks. I find metaphors and similes to be vital tools for communication in long-term planning and process design work, whether working with one person, or a group. I would think they’d be valuable to web designers, too. As for web design, I was telling a designer the other day what I want when my web site is redesigned soon. I described a site I found recently that I really like. I was restlessly searching until I saw this one, and recognized it for what it was, design-wise – an overall target, not a template to copy. The designer immediately told me how helpful specific reference sites are for her, because it directs her creativity and energy, and cuts out potential frustration for both of us, along with wasted time for her, and wasted money for me.
Whether or not you think design-by-(metaphor|simile) is a good idea, it’s necessary, and something we all deal with.
Of course, I still wish clients would be more articulate about what they like about their simile or example. Two of the most frustrating requests I’ve gotten were to make something look “more ready” or just “better.” Even when I showed examples of other sites they weren’t able to describe what it was that they wanted.
Good article. As designers I think we should be able to hold our clients’ hands through this process, if they need it.
One tool that we developed was what I called, “The Haircut Book.” Salons frequently have books and magazines for clients to reference. “I want my hair like Jennifer Aniston, except blonder,” would be a common request. The stylist then tries to identify how to best make that so (with the chubby woman with curly red hair in his chair).
Our “Haircut Book” included designs used for other projects, all within the corporate branding guidelines, as well as external examples that we could work with.
This provided two pluses. First, clients were able to talk about what they did and didn’t like using their own language. Second, we had a basis for discussion. People didn’t know what they wanted, didn’t know their limitations (if any), and felt intimidated by the process. The examples allowed us to probe preferences with the client and at least provide a good start at the design.
Good article, thanks for articulating.
I found using others sites as examples provides the client with very useful visual information.
They really have some fun when they can give thumbs up and thumbs down, make comparisons and express their likes and dislikes.
They want to tell me about how the notification should support SMS because that is really cool, or how it is important that their client “embrace” the “usable” interface. In my experience, most clients are unequipped to drive the conversation about what they really want to achieve and focus on elements of implementation that may not be optimal.
Business Intent – Why bother building the website? Why not spend the time with your family instead? We try to keep the list of business intents under three and definitely under five specific, clear objectives.
Essential Tasks – What must your site users be able to do with the site Why do you want them to do that and why would THEY bother doing that? This elicits both the essential use cases and the functional roles the site needs to support (often you need to help/suggest/direct here).
Then for each essential task, we either recommend a pre-built configurable module (if you just need a simple catalog, we can make recommendations, and there are only so many ways to handle authentication and shipping). If a completely custom business process, what is the first screen they will see? What are the actions they can trigger (buttons/links)? What are the steps each will take and the possible next screens they will see. Repeat, including exception and conditional paths until complete.
Of course, there are many opportunities for research and consulting through this process, but for many SMB sites, you can walk a client through the core of a decent app in 3-4 hours.
Anyone honestly found a quicker process of specifying what a client actually wants well enough to get it built?
I’m usually relieved when clients use other websites as examples because at least it shows they’re thinking about what they want. I’ve had other clients who never use the Internet and haven’t got a clue what’s out there and they’re really difficult to work with.
Recently a client wanted a new website that would act as an entry site to four different but linked charities, each with their own logo, font, colour scheme, images and identity. I was unsure how the client expected me to do this, until they showed me an example of how another organisation had tackled a similar problem. Instant clarity and I was able to design a site that looked nothing like the one they used as an example but worked exactly like it.
Good piece. Keep up the good work!
I agree with practically everyone here on how it’s relieving to hear a client researching sites and figuring out for themselves what they like and don’t like about them. I think having to start from scratch to create a web site design would be great for the creativity but very wasteful if the client has no idea on what they want. You would probably be creating so many rejected design comps. Having an example site/sites gives the designer something to look at and study, but also put their creative spin to it and turn it into something really unique for the client.
I just design website… only design; don’t have much idea about html or css or other technicals. So if i asked to design like ebay i’ll understand my design will look simple like ebay… just playing with the contents (normally a designer want to do some magic in his/her work to make a feel that its a rich design).
I think having the client give existing web site examples as design direction is great. However, the designer shouldn’t leave it at that and start designing. What the client likes about the site may very well differ from the designer’s view.
Using the eBay example, if you ask the client why he chose the site, he might confess it’s really the position of the logo, menu, sub navigation, etc. that grabs him. You might have been thinking primarily of the colors, fonts, and image treatments…and you would have wasted time trying to emulate aspects the client never felt passionate about in the first place, and at the same time, downplay elements the client really wanted. | 2019-04-19T10:37:31Z | http://alistapart.com/article/designbymetaphor/ |
english name "Confectioner's Ringless Amanita"
5. Amanita dulciarii, Franklin Parker Preserve, ca. Chatsworth, Burlington Co., New Jersey, U.S.A.
The cap of Amanita dulciarii is 34 - 85 mm wide, at first sometimes tannish yellow over the center and yellow with a slight olivaceous tint otherwise except nearly white at the margin, becoming brassy yellowish brown to brown to yellowish brown over the center with an orangish tint near the margin or brown over the center and slightly reddish brown to orangish brown at the margin or dark brown with reddish tint over the center and brown at the margin or fuligineous over the center and Isabella color or a yellower brown at the margin, sometimes not evenly pigmented and then with the palest region yellowish cream, faintly virgate for about half of the radius near the margin or not noticeably virgate, campanulate at first, then broadly campanulate or subhemispheric to convex to planoconvex often with a low and broad umbo, sometimes in a shallow depression, to nearly planar often with umbo, subviscid to tacky to waxy to dry, subshiny, sometimes becoming dull on drying, with a striate margin (10 - 25% (-35%) of the radius), nonappendiculate, incurved at first, then decurved or occasionally slightly incurved. The volva is absent or present in irregular patches or a mixture of low warts and patches of varying size, verruculose to nearly smooth, pale ochraceous becoming pale gray or pale gray with orange tint or pale grayish orange or (infrequently) gray, never very dark gray even in senescence, orangish tint often strongest over the center, weakly submembranous or felted to subpowdery, easily removed. The flesh is white to off-white, concolorous or brown or pale brown or faintly gray under the cap skin, unchanging when cut or bruised, 2 - 8 mm thick above the stem, thinning evenly for about 70% of the radius to the entire radius or rapidly for 50% of the radius then evenly up to 75 - 80% of the radius, then membranous to the margin.
The gills are free to distant or (occasionally) narrowly adnate, subcrowded to crowded, pale orangish white or pale pinkish or pale orangish cream or pale brownish cream or orangish cream in mass, pale cream with faint pink or orange tint or yellowish white or yellowish cream or pale yellow in side view, not changing when cut or bruised, 3 - 9 mm broad, with a short decurrent tooth on the top of the stem, with or without decurrent line on the top of the stem, with a minutely flocculose edge that is pale orangish or paler than face in young specimens, with edge sometimes concolorous (brownish) with the cap surface for a short distance at the cap margin. The short gills are truncate to subtruncate to subattenuate, of diverse lengths, unevenly distributed, and scatttered to common to plentiful.
The stem is 57 - 135 × 6 - 14 mm, with a pallid to pale sordid cream to pale yellowish cream to pale orange-brown ground color, narrowing upward, flaring slightly at the top, with a rather strongly longitudinally striate white strangulate zone extending upward from near the base and sometimes bounded above or below by volval remnants as continuous narrow bands or rings of warts and patches, sometimes with rounded point at base, at first often covered from the top of the stem to the top of the strangulate zone with a fine layer of orange-white powder, later with fibrils and subfelted fibrils in chevron patterns (sometimes densest below mid-point) pale orange or pale orangish cream or pale ochraceous at first and then graying or becoming pale sordid brown or brown (eventually can be quite dark brown) with time or after handling (occasionally browning response to handling noted in ground color), becoming glabrous (at the top) and with the surface below the fibrils longitudinally striatulate. A ring is absent. The volva is present as a short-saccate or cupulate volva; or in rows of warts or patches circling the lower stem; or as a thin continuous ring around the stem and as a shallow and broken cup on the stem base, pale yellowish white when excavated, then orangish white to pale orangish cream to pale orangish gray to pale grayish orange to orange-tan after exposure, friable, uppermost ring or row of warts or patches are up to 61 mm from the stem base; occasionally also as irregular verruculose patches distributed over the strangulate region, often impregnated with sand. The flesh is white to barely off-white to cream to yellowish or tannish white, sometimes with orange tint in lower third, occasionally with brownish streaks, occasionally sordid off-white to pale gray, unchanging when cut or bruised, stuffed or hollow.
The spores measure (8.5-) 9.0 - 12.2 (-15.5) × (8.0-) 8.5 - 11.0 (-12.5) µm and are subglobose or (occasionally) globose or (infrequently) broadly ellipsoid and inamyloid. There are no clamps at bases of basidia.
The range of this species extends from St. John Island (Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada) to the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey, USA. In addition, there is molecular evidence that it is associated with pine plantations in North Carolina—at least in areas with nitrogen poor soils (Edwards et al. 2004).
etymology genitive of dulciarius (confectioner, maker of sweets); hence, "confectioner's"
The following is based on original research of R. E. Tulloss.
pileus 34 - 85 mm wide, at first sometimes tannish yellow over disc and yellow with slight olivaceous tint otherwise except nearly white at margin, becoming brassy yellowish brown to brown to yellowish brown over disc with orangish tint near margin or brown over disc (e.g., 6E7) and slightly reddish brown (a little redder tha 5E8) to orangish brown (e.g., more yellow than 6D4) at margin or dark brown with reddish tint over disc and brown at margin or fuligineous over disc and Isabella Color (2.5Y 5.8/4.5) or a yellower brown at margin, sometimes not evenly pigmented and then palest region yellowish cream, faintly virgate for about 0.5 radius near margin or not noticeably virgate, campanulate at first, then broadly campanulate or subhemispheric to convex to planoconvex (often with low and broad umbo, sometimes in shallow depression) to nearly planar (often with umbo), subviscid to tacky to waxy to dry, subshiny, sometimes becoming dull on drying in situ; context white to off-white, concolorous or brown or pale brown or faintly gray under pileipellis, unchanging when cut or bruised, 2 - 8 mm thick at stipe, thinning evenly for about 0.7 radius to full radius or rapidly for 0.5 radius then evenly up to 0.75 - 0.8 radius, then membranous to margin; margin striate (0.1 - 0.25 (-0.35)R), nonappendiculate, incurved at first, then decurved or occasionally slightly incurved; universal veil absent or in irregular patches or a mixture of low warts and patches of varying size, verruculose to nearly smooth, pale ochraceous becoming pale gray or pale gray with orange tint or pale grayish orange or (infrequently) gray, never very dark gray even in senescence, orangish tint often strongest over disc, weakly submembranous or felted to subpulverulent, detersile.
lamellae free to distant or (occasionally) narrowly adnate with short decurrent tooth on stipe apex, with or without decurrent line on stipe apex, subcrowded to crowded, pale orangish white or pale pinkish or pale orangish cream or pale brownish cream or orangish cream in mass, pale cream with faint pink or orange tint or yellowish white or yellowish cream or pale yellow (a little creamier than 4A3) in side view, not changing when cut or bruised, 3 - 9 mm broad, broadest between 0.75R and pileus margin, rounded at pileus margin, with edge minutely flocculose and pale orangish or paler than face in young specimens, with edge sometimes concolorous (brownish) with pileus surface for a short distance at pileus margin; lamellulae truncate to subtruncate to subattenuate, of diverse lengths, unevenly distributed, scatttered to common to plentiful.
stipe 57± - 135+ × 6 - 14 mm, having pallid to pale sordid cream to pale yellowish cream to pale orange-brown ground color, narrowing upward, flaring slightly at apex, with rather strongly longitudinally striate white strangulate zone extending upward from near base and sometimes bounded above or below by universal veil remnants as continuous narrow bands or rings of warts and patches, sometimes with rounded point at base, at first often covered from apex to top of strangulate zone with fine layer of orange-white pulverulence, later with fibrils and/or subfelted fibrils in chevron patterns (sometimes densest below mid-point) pale orange or pale orangish cream or pale ochraceous at first and then graying or becoming pale sordid brown or brown (eventually can be quite dark brown) with time or after handling (occasionally browning response to handling noted in ground color), becoming glabrous (at apex), with surface below fibrils longitudinally striatulate; context white to barely off-white to cream to yellowish or tannish white, sometimes with orange tint in lower third, occasionally with brownish streaks, occasionally sordid off-white to pale gray, unchanging when cut or bruised, concolorous in larva tunnels, stuffed with densely to moderately loosely packed white cottony material or hollow and then lined with such material, with central cylinder 4 - 6 mm wide; exannulate; universal veil as short-saccate or cupulate volval or in rows of warts or patches circling lower stipe or as thin continuous ring around stipe and as shallow and broken cup on stipe base, pale yellowish white when excavated, then orangish white to pale orangish cream to pale orangish gray to pale grayish orange to orange-tan after exposure, friable, uppermost ring or row of warts/pathces up to 61 mm from stipe base, occasionally also as irregular verruculose patches distributed over strangulate region, often impregnated with sand.
odor/taste Odor lacking or very faint. Taste ??.
tests Spot test for laccase (syringaldazine) - instantly positive in stipe base below central cylinder extending 10 - 15 mm up along exterior of stipe and in some spots deeper within context and in some bits of volval remnants. Test voucher: Tulloss 10-26-97-B.
[60/2/2] (8.5-) 9.0 - 12.2 (-15.5) × (8.0-) 8.5 - 11.0 (-12.5) µm; L = 9.8 - 10.7 µm; L’ = 10.1 µm; W = 9.0 - 9.8 µm; W’ = 9.3 µm; Q = (1.0-) 1.05 - 1.14 (-1.27); Q = 1.08 - 1.09; Q’ = 1.09), hyaline, colorless, smooth, thin-walled, inamyloid, subglobose, occasionally globose, infrequently broadly ellipsoid; apiculus sublateral, rather short to somewhat prominent, truncate-conic to cylindric; contents granular; off-white in deposit.
ecology Solitary or in small groups. Massachusetts: In sandy soil of old woods of Fagus grandifolia with scrubby Pinus rigida and Quercus. New Hampshire: With Pinus strobus, P. resinosa, Quercus ilicifolia, and Vaccinum spp.] New Jersey: In sandy soil and decaying leaves of P. rigida-Quercus barrens of Atlantic Ocean coastal plain.
Two nrITS sequences in GenBank (AY456335, AY456336) from an environmental study in North Carolina in a P. taeda plantation in "well-drained, sandy soil" (Edwards et al. 2004) are very close matches to our sequences from A. dulciarii. Hence, it is possible that the present species occurs as far south as North Carolina in leaky, pine-dominated eco-systems.
material examined U.S.A.: MASSACHUSETTS—Barnstable Co. (Cape Cod) - Wellfleet, "Marconi White Cedar Swamp," 17.x.2009 Noel Rowe s.n. [Tulloss 10-17-09-A] (RET 448-10, nrITS seq'd.). NEW HAMPSHIRE—Carroll Co. - North Conway, Echo Lk. St. Pk., 16.viii.1995 J. Hurley s.n. (RET 155-7). NEW JERSEY—Burlington Co. - Brendan T. Byrne St. For., ca. Pakim Pond [39°52’49” N/ 74°32’02” W, 35 m], 20.x.1991 R. E. Tulloss 10-20-91-B (RET 034-2), E. Varney s.n. [RET 10-20-91-C] (RET 034-3), 18.x.1992 NJMA foray participant s.n. [RET 10-18-92-E] (RET 073-7), Cas Petroski s.n. [RET 10-18-92-C] (RET 073-5), Natalie Savinov s.n. [RET 10-18-92-D] (RET 073-6), R. E. Tulloss 10-18-92-A (RET 073-4), 26.x.1997 S. Hopkins, George Orsino & R. E. Tulloss 10-26-97-B (RET 271-8), 29.x.2000 F. Adotta & R. E. Tulloss 10-29-00-A (RET 323-4), 26.x.2008 Jim Barg s.n. (RET 447-3), Susan Hopkins s.n. [Tulloss 10-26-08-A] (RET 447-5, nrITS seq'd.), 23.x.2011 NJMA foray participant s.n. [Tulloss 10-23-11-A] (RET 504-2); ca. Chatsworth, Franklin Parker Preserve [39.776° N/ 74.5354° W, 21 m], 3.xi.2013 Igor G. Safonov & Nina Burghardt s.n. [mushroomobserver.org #151170] (RET 577-8, juvenile–nrITS seq'd.); ca. Chatsworth, Franklin Parker Preserve [ca. 39.8145° N/ 74.549° W, 30m], 12.x.2009 J. Burghardt, F. Wartchow, & R. E. Tulloss 10-12-09-A (RET 449-3), 12.x.2009 F. Wartchow & R. E. Tulloss 10-12-09-B (RET 449-9, nrITS seq'd.), 25.x.2012 Igor Safonov s.n. (RET 555-8, nrITS seq'd.), 30.x.2009 John & Nina Burghardt et al. s.n. (RET 449-8); ca. Chatsworth, Franklin Parker Preserve, Railroad East sector, 12.x.2009 F. Wartchow & R. E. Tulloss 10-12-09-B (RET 449-9, nrITS seq'd.), 3.x.2010 John Burghardt s.n. (RET 468-9, nrITS seq'd.); ca. Chatsworth, Franklin Parker Preserve [39.776° N/ 74.5354° W, 21 m], 3.xi.2013 Igor G. Safonov & Nina Burghardt s.n. [mushroomobserver.org #151170] (RET 577-8, nrITS seq'd.).
discussion The pilei of the larger specimens are rather fleshy for members of the group of taxa with friable universal veil.
A review of all taxa in sect. Vaginatae with spot tests positive for laccase in the stipe base should be carried out.
RET 577-8 is juvenile; there are very few spores present on the hymenium; and these are close to the stipe. It was first identified by it nrITS sequence. Its very pale cap indicates that the colors of this species can be late to develop or can be bleached away by sunlight. This should be investigated further.
photo RET - (1-4) Brendan T. Byrne (=Lebanon) State Forest, Burlington Co., New Jersey, U.S.A.
select a collection to review/add spore measurements..#727035. J. Burghardt, F. Wartchow, & R. E. Tulloss, #10-12-09-A, U.S.A., NEW JE..#727036. John & Nina Burghardt et al., #s.n., U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington Co...#727037. Igor Safonov, #s.n., U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington Co., ca. Chatsworth..#727040. Igor G. Safonov & Nina Burghardt, #s.n.=>mushroomobserver.org #151170, ..#754477. Andrus Voitk, ##10, CANADA, NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR, State John Island#782894. R. E. Tulloss, #10-20-91-B, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington Co., Brendan..#782895. E. Varney, #s.n.=>RET 10-20-91-C, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington Co., B..#782896. NJMA foray participant, #s.n.=>RET 10-18-92-E, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burl..#782897. Cas Petroski, #s.n.=>RET 10-18-92-C, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington Co...#782898. Natalie Savinov, #s.n.=>RET 10-18-92-D, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington ..#782899. R. E. Tulloss, #10-18-92-A, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington Co., Brendan..#782900. S. Hopkins, George Orsino & R. E. Tulloss, #10-26-97-B, U.S.A., NEW JER..#782901. F. Adotta & R. E. Tulloss, #10-29-00-A, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington ..#782902. Jim Barg, #s.n., U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington Co., Brendan T. Byrne S..#782903. Susan Hopkins, #s.n.=>Tulloss 10-26-08-A, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlingto..#782904. NJMA foray participant, #s.n.=>Tulloss 10-23-11-A, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, ..#782905. Igor G. Safonov & Nina Burghardt, #s.n.=>mushroomobserver.org #151170, ..#782906. J. Burghardt, F. Wartchow, & R. E. Tulloss, #10-12-09-A, U.S.A., NEW JE..#782907. F. Warchow & R. E. Tulloss, #10-12-09-B, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington..#782908. Igor Safonov, #s.n., U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington Co., ca. Chatsworth..#782909. John & Nina Burghardt et al., #s.n., U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington Co...#782912. Igor G. Safonov & Nina Burghardt, #s.n.=>mushroomobserver.org #151170, ..#794068. Noel Rowe, #s.n.=>Tulloss 10-17-09-A, U.S.A., MASSACHUSETTS, Barnstable..#794069. J. Hurley, #s.n., U.S.A., NEW HAMPSHIRE, Carroll Co., North Conway, Ech..#794070. R. E. Tulloss, #10-20-91-B, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington Co., Brendan..#794071. E. Varney, #s.n.=>RET 10-20-91-C, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington Co., B..#794072. NJMA foray participant, #s.n.=>RET 10-18-92-E, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burl..#794073. Cas Petroski, #s.n.=>RET 10-18-92-C, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington Co...#794074. Natalie Savinov, #s.n.=>RET 10-18-92-D, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington ..#794075. R. E. Tulloss, #10-18-92-A, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington Co., Brendan..#794076. S. Hopkins, George Orsino & R. E. Tulloss, #10-26-97-B, U.S.A., NEW JER..#794077. F. Adotta & R. E. Tulloss, #10-29-00-A, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington ..#794078. Jim Barg, #s.n., U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington Co., Brendan T. Byrne S..#794079. Susan Hopkins, #s.n.=>Tulloss 10-26-08-A, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlingto..#794080. NJMA foray participant, #s.n.=>Tulloss 10-23-11-A, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, ..#794081. Igor G. Safonov & Nina Burghardt, #s.n.=>mushroomobserver.org #151170, ..#794082. J. Burghardt, F. Wartchow, & R. E. Tulloss, #10-12-09-A, U.S.A., NEW JE..#794083. F. Wartchow & R. E. Tulloss, #10-12-09-B, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlingto..#794084. Igor Safonov, #s.n., U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington Co., ca. Chatsworth..#794085. John & Nina Burghardt et al., #s.n., U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington Co...#794086. F. Wartchow & R. E. Tulloss, #10-12-09-B, U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlingto..#794087. John Burghardt, #s.n., U.S.A., NEW JERSEY, Burlington Co., ca. Chatswor..#794088. Igor G. Safonov & Nina Burghardt, #s.n.=>mushroomobserver.org #151170, .. | 2019-04-21T22:21:03Z | http://www.amanitaceae.org/?Amanita+dulciarii |
I asked our 9-year-old son if he thought he and his 6-year-old brother were old enough to walk the mile between our home and the neighborhood community pool without me or Mom.
He shook his head “no” before I finished the question.
He paused to marvel at the magnitude of the word, the vast distance it represents for a third grader, the incomprehensible here-to-thereness of it.
What if the mean streets of our suburban Central Florida neighborhood were over-run by an army of hungry Burmese pythons, on the hunt for new meat after eating all the rabbits and deer in the Everglades?
Something like aggressive, stinging fire ants, which can swarm up a small child’s leg in an instant and inflict dozens of painful wounds.
Something like reckless high school-age kids tearing around the neighborhood like idiots on modified, rocket-propelled golf carts.
Something like a careless driver flying along far too fast to see two little boys alone crossing the road.
Something like open bodies of water – retaining ponds, drainage creeks and golf course lakes.
Actual alligator sunning itself near the sidewalk connecting our house and the community pool. It looked hungry to me.
Something like a bad person looking for an unprotected kid to take.
Something like an over-zealous “good Samaritan” watchdog poised to place a panicky phone call to an over-zealous law enforcement agency that stands ready to over-zealously protect the children of the world from parents who have the gall to allow their kids to walk alone on a public sidewalk less than a mile from home.
It’s a jungle out there, right?
No. No, it’s not. Not here.
It’s a pleasant, 15-minute stroll, with broad sidewalks attended by shade trees the whole way. Wide strips of low-cut St. Augustine grass form a green, well-tended barrier between the walkways and the occasional passing minivan.
It’s a nice neighborhood. It’s a safe neighborhood. It’s the kind of place where friends respond gladly to neighbors in need. Crime is low.
Yet, even in this idyllic setting, danger lurks behind every swaying palm tree. The seemingly tranquil stretch between our driveway and poolside actually is a battle scape.
Listen, we trust our sons. They have proven worthy of that trust time and again. They are growing up well and confident.
But they’re kids, and we’re parents. They don’t yet possess the capacity to deal with crises — or even minor conflict — without adult supervision. It’s our job as their parents to help them learn those skills, and part of learning means failing at it. We understand that, but we’re not going to be irresponsible about it, either.
So, when they play outside, they must do so within shouting distance of the front or back doors. If they plan to go inside at someone else’s house, they must let us know where they’ll be and for how long.
When they want to go swimming, we take them to the pool. One day soon they’ll ride their bikes or walk that mile alone, but not yet.
Does a cautious approach make us helicopter parents? Are we over-protective? Too risk-averse for the healthy emotional development of our sons?
No. We aren’t over-protective. We are risk-averse, admittedly, but who in his right mind is risk-agreeable when it comes to their own kids? We aren’t Free-Range parents, either.
My wife and I are doing everything we can to prepare our kids to live life well. We also are doing everything we can to make sure they enjoy a happy childhood, and we’re in no hurry for that to end.
Confession: My greatest fear is that something catastrophic will happen to one of my sons, and I won’t be there to help them.
I’m not paralyzed by this fear. I don’t sit in the dark and rock back and forth, contemplating the horrific potential of the havoc rendered by the forces of darkness.
But the fear is there. I can’t deny it. It might not be rational, especially when you consider the statistics behind this recent Washington Post headline: There’s never been a safer time to be a kid in America.
Still, I want to protect them. I need to protect them. It’s more than a sense of responsibility or duty. The compulsion is visceral. It’s fierce. It’s real, and it’s not going anywhere soon – if ever.
This urge to shelter them from the harshness of the world is something I’ll have to work through as a father. As they grow, so too will I.
Part of being a parent is learning when and how to let go. It’s gradual, sometimes imperceptible, but eventually – they let go of their need for reassurance. They no longer feel the urge to look over their shoulders and make sure we’re still there. They let go and move on, alone in the world but ready for what comes.
When that happens, I’ll have to be ready to let go, too.
Not yet, though. Not just yet.
Maybe in one more year. But right now … it’s a mile too far.
One day, he won’t look back to make sure I’m there. I need to be ready for that day. I’m glad it’s not here yet, though.
We are broken in unseen places.
We are broken by divorce. We are broken when we lose a dream career because of a poor economy. We are broken by a heart attack. We are broken when we live the nightmare of fearing for the life of one of our children. We are broken slowly, callously, by impersonal office jobs. We are broken by cancer.
Even as we break, the sinews and ligaments of love and leisure hold the center.
I am broken, but I am intact because of my wife, my kids, my parents, my extended family, my friends, occasional professional success. I have been broken but not defeated, because even as the bits and pieces of me dangled precariously and threatened to fall away along the path, I found reasons to smile.
I found I could still experience happiness.
Happy is not a condition. It is a moment of forgetfulness or a flash of remembrance.
I was able to forget, or to remember, during my wedding with Beth, on our honeymoon to Las Vegas, on our 10th anniversary trip to New York City, when our sons were born, when I was chosen to read an entry from my online journal at Dad 2.0 Summit, during all the many days of enjoyment and abandon at Walt Disney World and other places where reality was paved over and I could remember or forget. These countless moments and experiences lifted my spirit and, for a time, seemed to mend the broken places.
Once broken, we stay broken. Wrapped in a thick blanket of inertia, scarred and scared, yet awake and aware, I was unable to stop but unwilling to move. The broken places are not stronger. They are merely broken.
I am in no special hurry and must therefore find a way to function. I live with the knowledge of the broken places. They mount and swirl together as a swift current in a strong, cold river that gashes a drear desert. If I give in, I can drift along on that current and let it take me where it will, no will of my own. But I choose to choose my response. I can remember to forget, or forget to remember. I know I can do that, because I still can smile.
We can’t fix the broken places. So we need to know: How much can one person endure? That’s the question. Do we possess an infinite capacity to endure break after break after break, winding on endlessly into that desert? I am afraid I do not, but the evidence is incomplete.
Where are the unseen places? What do they look like?
I see a bridge, a stone passage through and over time, a safe thoroughfare imperiled on all sides by vagaries comedic and tragic. The bridge has crumbled and fallen in on itself in places. Where the stones are collapsed, the bridge veers in new directions. Crossing, thwarted by each new chasm, I leap along on wings of forgetfulness and remembrance, catching the current of love and leisure, pursuer and pursued. I land and peer along the narrow path ahead. I see only a straight road, but it is an illusion and I know that now. Inevitably, my gaze is drawn backward, where I look upon a labyrinth of my own unconscious design, a life in parts, a bridge broken but on the whole, not bad. I move on.
Where will I break again? Will I be ready and able to leap across the next chasm? Will the current slacken as I lament the broken places and fall, fall, finally and forever?
Yes. The world breaks everyone. Afterward, there are broken places but we move on. We meet new, better friends and lifelong companions. We find more fulfilling careers. We improve our diet, take our meds and promise to exercise. We relish every moment we have with our dear children and never – never – take their laughter and strength for granted. We vow to find our place in this world. We meet illness with treatment and optimism and if we are healed we cherish our good fortune and move on.
We make the leap across the unseen chasm. We turn into the current. We remember or we forget. We smile. We move on.
Sunrise over Houston during the Dad 2.0 Summit, as seen from the 18th floor of the Four Seasons Hotel.
First, it was about the song. The song we all dance to as loving, engaged, parents and creative souls. The tune that wakes us in the morning before the sun or the kids are up so we can be ready for work or whatever our day holds before we make them breakfast and walk them to the bus stop. It’s the melody of the midnight crying jag. It’s the chorus of cookies and milk. The lunchbox aria.
Second … it was about karaoke. Maybe first it was about karaoke.
Yeah. You know who I’m talking about. Chris Read, CanadianDad, proved that there is room on the dad blogging stage for the new guy. He earned his place there, one of five Spotlight Bloggers invited to read at the second Dad 2.0, with a moving tribute to his late father, as well as a willingness to put himself out there over the past year as a prominent resident of what I thought of as the Planet of the Pixelated Parents before I got to Houston on Thursday.
See, as I touched on in an earlier daily recap (and told pretty much anybody who stopped to chat with me during the weekend), my perception of my fellow attendees was shaped by the months of research and reading I did before I ever wrote word one here. I knew them as avatars and blog posts and rabble rousers or peacemakers. I knew them as pithy tweeters and witty digital conversationalists. I knew them, or their personas, as they wished me to know them.
Most of them didn’t know me at all. Which, yeah. Feb. 21 will mark one year since I “launched” this thing, whatever it has become. Even though parent blogging remains a fairly new phenomenon, especially among the growing field of dads, one year is a blink of an eye in this well-established, tight-knit community.
Going to Dad 2.0 was like crawling into my laptop screen and melding with the circuitry of the surreal. Throughout the weekend, familiar faces drifted by, like scrolling through a living Facebook photo album.
That surreal sensation was completely gone by the end of the event. I can’t begin to recount every interesting conversation or in-person connection I made in Houston. What I can do, though, is point out that there is something beyond intimate about a blogger conference for a natural introvert like me. I think what makes it so interesting in terms of making those real connections with people is that, if you do your homework (and, as a lifelong journalist, of course I did), then you meet these writers and content creators already knowing a great deal about them. There is no need for the verbal circling and sparring that takes place as you get to “know” them. As I say, you already know what they want you to know about them – because they’ve written it or talked about it on a podcast or depicted it in viral meme form.
Also, it helps that we all come from the same place emotionally and creatively. We’re parents. We love to write (or draw, or take photos, or whatever the medium of choice might be). We love to tell stories.
That’s what I’ll remember about my first Dad 2.0: the stories of the people I thought I knew, as told in their actual voices in hotel hallways, on a ballroom stage, over a game of Texas hold ‘em with fake money, in the hotel lounge, or in a bar.
I’ll remember the impressive keynote speakers, of course, and the five men who weaved sublime tales about being dads, bloggers, and Internet pros – the Three-headed Dads. And I will always, always remember the warm welcome everyone gave me when I stumbled through my Spotlight reading on that first morning. I’ll also remember the guys from Dad Labs grabbing me as I raced out of the main ballroom on my way to the restroom to ask if I had time for a live, streaming interview with Clay Nichols. In case you were wondering (which, of course you were), I had to piss like a racehorse throughout the conversation.
I’ll remember Manwich and Army of Frankensteins. Free! Booze and food. The kilt.
I’ll remember the walk from my hotel room on the 18th floor to the bank of elevators. Out the door, right turn, right turn, left turn, long hallway. Push “down.” Which one would arrive first? Where would that magic box carry me next? Who would be there when I got there? Would the people and lobby have dissolved into flowing green streams of pixelated code? Would Agent Smith be waiting at the bottom to chase me back into my rabbit hole? Would a black cat walk by … then walk by again?
Most of all? Most of all, I’ll remember the weekend as the time when the pixelated people of the Daddy Complex and Howtobeadad and Beta Dad and Honea Express and Always Home and Uncool and Black Hockey Jesus and Canadian Dad and BloggerFather and OWTK and Pet Cobra and Daddy in a Strange Land and Clark Kent’s Lunchbox and Bobblehead Dad and the Daddy Doctrines and Momo Fali and the Muskrat and Lesbian Dad and Bitchin’ Wives Club and the Captain and Laid Off Dad and Super John and so many, many, many more morphed into David, Charlie, Andy, Andy, Whit, Kevin, um … Jesus, Chris, Oren, Jeff, Jason, Jason, Ron, Jim, Chris, Momo, Michael, Polly, Amy, Creed, Doug, just plain John and on and on and on. Turns out they’re all real. And they’re almost all warm and friendly, and curious and alive, and dancing to the same tune.
Oh, yes. I’ll be back. And next year, I’m singing.
I don’t have a plan. I have some business cards (and boy, are they nifty), and I know when I have to be on-stage Friday morning. I also know that I’m sandwiched between the mayor of Houston and the opening keynote speaker, Jeff Pulver.
But they all said I need a plan. This is my first blogger conference, the second annual Dad 2.0 Summit in Houston, Texas. I’m going because I submitted a blog post when they did a call for submissions for Spotlight Bloggers. They asked me to come, and asked me to read this post instead. I was blown away when they asked, and I consider it one of the great writing honors of my long and illustrious blogging career. Which began in earnest on Feb. 21, 2012, less than a year ago.
So, what am I doing? I’m going to read my thing, which will be over before the event even really gets started. I’m going to meet face to face some of the other Spotlight Bloggers, established dad blogging voices like Black Hockey Jesus and Whit Honea and Kevin McKeever and the pride of Canada, Chris Read.
I want to meet members of the new dad bloggers group on Facebook, including group founder and Bad Boy of Dad Blogging, Oren Miller.
I want to meet some other people, too. Writers I’ve come to admire. Funny writers. Poignant writers. Powerful writers. Men and women who know how to use the English language and social media to tell stories that matter. Stories about parenthood, certainly, but stories about life. These are writers who make me want to write better.
But I also want to meet Doug French, founder of the Dad 2.0 Summit and the guy who sent me the email telling me my work had been chosen. Doug seems pretty cool. I want to meet him.
I want to meet so many others, too. The guys from DadCentric, including the inimitable Jason Avant (the blogger, not the receiver) and Andy Hinds (the brilliant, brawling everyman behind Beta Dad blog). There are people I want to meet that I’m not even going to mention here, because I don’t want to jinx it. I don’t know if I’m invited to karoake, and I’m not going to invite myself. But apparently there will be late-night karoake. Rumor has it, anyway.
Even representatives from the event sponsors. I want to thank them, for sure. There’d be no Dad 2.0 Summit without Dove Care for Men, Honda, Turtle Wax, and many, many others. I also am fascinated with the idea that there seems to be a groundswell among corporations to move away from the buffoon-dad stereotype we’ve always seen on TV and in movies. It’s important, I think, that high-profile events like Dad 2.0 Summit bring attention to parents who shatter those stereotypes, and share their stories on the Internet.
But what am I doing? Three days away from my family? For what? Damn, I’m going to miss them. They’ll be fine without me, of course. Yet, one of the main reasons I wanted off the baseball beat back in 2006 was I wanted to be here — always — for my sons. So … irony! I write a dad blog now, which I would not write without them, and I’m about to jet off to Houston for a long weekend of boozing it up with a bunch of other mom and dad bloggers learning as much as possible about the craft and business of blogging.
Honestly, I don’t know what to expect at the Four Seasons Hotel (although I did stay there once while covering an NLCS, Astros versus Cardinals). The guys from DadCentric did a round table primer on the conference, so I guess that helps some. No, it definitely helps quite a bit.
No matter. So what if I don’t know what I’m doing, or why I’m going? I’ll enjoy finding out the why and what for in the coming days.
I’ll also be tweeting the hell out of it, in case anyone is interested in following along. Hey, and if you have any suggestions about what, exactly, I should be doing while I’m there … don’t hold back.
One of the first pieces of advice I received when I began to write this dad blog was to “find your tribe.” I thought the guy was being condescending. I thought I was being blown off.
That wasn’t what he was saying, of course. He wasn’t being condescending at all. He was telling me the truth. What he was saying was that the blogosphere is a big place, with room enough for everyone and their motives. Somewhere out there in that vast virtual echo chamber of parent bloggers there was sure to be a group of people who shared my interests and wanted to connect.
A community of my peers.
I think I might have found that community a little less than a month ago, when Oren Miller of a Blogger and a Father started a dad bloggers group on Facebook. He called it “Dad Bloggers,” and as the first week of 2013 drew to a close, the group’s membership approached 100. I asked to join the closed group a week into it, after seeing it mentioned on Twitter.
Not until a few weeks later did I even stop to think about why I asked to join. I thought of myself as a dad blogger without a tribe. I didn’t even know I needed that community.
It’s my understanding that they study group dynamics pretty extensively at the finest universities in the land. Apparently, I’m not the first person to wonder what compels people to join groups of all kinds. Yet, to my knowledge, there has never been a scientific study conducted with the goal of deciphering the motives of several dozen men from all over the world (well, the U.S., Canada and the UK so far) who decide to join a Facebook group for dad bloggers.
So, I conducted a very unscientific study by asking in a post on the group’s site: Why did you decide to join this dad blogging group? I received many thoughtful, thought-provoking responses. Some made me wonder about my own motives. One even made me wonder whether the group is for me, after all. Overall, though, what I read from my fellow dad bloggers reinforced what I felt about the burgeoning group. That it is a good thing, an inclusive thing, a “tribe” that welcomes all, regardless of purpose, regardless of audience, regardless of personal or professional motive. That seems right to me.
A couple of months ago, I joined a group of bloggers. They do group-giveaways, but they also do almost-daily threads like “Leave a Twitter link if you want a RT, and in return you have to RT 5 tweets others leave in the comments.” The same deal works for FB shares, reciprocal commenting, voting on Picket Fence, whatever that is, and a bunch of other things. The problem is that 99% of them (over a thousand members) are women, and 99% write review/giveaway-only blogs, so while I appreciated what they were doing, I couldn’t really participate, because I think Twitter is being damaged enough by automatic Triberr sharing, and I don’t want to be just another person spamming his followers.
So I thought a Facebook group of blogging dads would be able to help bloggers, and would help raise the profile of dad-blogging in general, and since I believe institutional attitude toward a group is determined by perception of that group, I thought that if we can raise the profile of blogging dads in general, it would help raise the profile of fatherhood in this country (and in Canada, I suppose, wherever that is).
And then, being me, I waited for a month for someone to read my mind and start a group. When no one else did, I figured maybe it were up to me after all.
And that’s just half the story, because the group as it is now works much better than I thought it would. I didn’t think people would use it to talk about conferences and about the philosophy of writing, and share others’ posts on their blogs… So thanks again to everyone here for making it work. Hopefully we’ll have 100 members soon!
Oren was kidding about Canada, by the way. And I’m pretty sure we’ll reach triple digits sometime this weekend, if not soon after.
Where it goes from there, who knows?
Here are excerpts of the responses I received from my fellow bloggers. Some of them are edited for length. All of them were greatly appreciated, and each helped shed light on why this Facebook group has taken off. | 2019-04-21T22:17:00Z | https://cartergaddis.com/category/writing/ |
For more years than I care to remember, I have been involved in addressing brand issues in various forms for organisations of all sizes and across a variety of sectors. Over that time I have become increasingly uneasy with some of the traditional approaches to branding, and brand development. My concern centred on the static nature of many approaches compared to the dynamic ways a brand lives in the marketplace. Strategies are crystallised, and then it is the task of brand managers to try to deal reactively to changes within the market, the economy, and the organisation.
I recalled reading part of a paper by psychologist Steve Duck, a specialist in relationships. He maintained that one of the problems with human relationships is that people expect them to be static and unchanging, while of course they are dynamic, changing over time as the individuals change in response to each other and their wider environment. If relationships are understood as dynamic systems, those involved would be more prepared to accept their changing face.
It is apparent that brands too are dynamic systems – they exhibit a life of their own. There is a network of interactions within the organisation, and of course the organisation as a whole and its various functions and agents interact with the greater world outside. But none of these network nodes is independent, and none is passive. All react to stimuli from each other and from the much wider environment. The brand itself is emergent from these interactions, neither the driving force nor the product of the organisation’s actions alone.
The key fact of course is that change in any single network node will tend to affect the brand and its perception.
So does it necessarily mean we can only be reactive to change? Is the only meaningful brand strategy an organisation can apply simply to wait and see, and respond to internal or external changes to keep its brand on course?
This was the challenge: to create a strategic approach to brand analysis and planning which could embody at least a measure of predictive control. There are a number of levers that an organisation can pull to control its brand and these are the core of traditional brand strategy and positioning. But there are many factors outside the organisation’s control and key amongst these are economic conditions and the psychology of the greater public. Many times have we seen powerful (and not so powerful) brands meet their nemeses upon one or both of these two obstacles. It was the understanding of how these two factors are interconnected which provided a direction to establishing a method of dealing with them.
I was fortunate to attend a seminar where the subject was the linking of anxiety with economic cycles. At defined points in the economic cycle populations display differing levels of anxiety, which are manifest in differing patterns of behaviour. By harnessing this concept together with a systems interactionist model of brand values we can arrive at a strategic method of brand analysis and positioning which can take regard of predictive planning in place of reactive response.
Brands are not static, and nor are the driving factors behind the brands necessarily those within the direct control of the stewards of the brand. The brand and its values are constantly changing over time, but there is the mistaken expectation that by maintaining internal corporate positioning of the brand, its market or cultural position will be maintained. Cultural perceptions of the brand will change despite the maintenance of internal values. Public perceptions of industry sectors changes – take for example the motor industry, scientific research based organisations, public utilities etc. Changes in public perceptions then go further than being simply external views. Employees and managers within those companies also shift their opinions, of both the organisation and their view of their role and their own esteem. These internal dynamics cannot fail but become part of the chain reactions directing the core brand values. Properly directed they allow the brand to develop and its values to keep pace with changing cultural positions. However, such dynamics if neglected can tear a brand apart.
Cultural dynamics reflect social change, but they go further. They reflect emotional change. Comfort, stability, anxiety, and uncertainty in society affect brand perceptions.
The brand should be seen as a complex interaction of relationships both physical and cultural. Just as the dynamics change, so the relationships change and so the brand and what stands for changes.
The brand should be seen as part of a systemic network which includes the brand in social context and the factors acting upon it externally and internally. For example, a social change such as (say) a recession will affect a population emotionally and their perception of a brand in that context will change. Management within that company may take certain actions in response to either or both the economic conditions or the brand position. Those actions will effect the brand perception. However, at the same time, management and staff within the company are also being affected (a) by the economic climate and (b) by the change in their perception of their own brand in the context of that climate. They may adjust their thinking, become more or less optimistic, anxious, aggressive or confident. Their emotional state will impact upon their own decision-making regarding the brand, the values they associate with it and ultimately the brand direction.
Ultimately, it is the public who owns the brand. The organisation merely has stewardship of the brand and more explicitly, the brand values.
Often the audits of brands and their performance are primarily financial. They depend heavily upon brand performance and comparative performance. However the emotional properties of a brand, while often researched when organisations wish to improve or adjust brand perceptions and positioning, are rarely used as measures of performance or applied as predictive tools.
I would argue that the emotional aspects of brand values are the most important and most fragile assets. In its most exaggerated forms, damage to the emotional and cognitive properties of a brand can be catastrophic – we need only consider such examples as Nestlé, Anderson, Lloyds etc.
More usually the effects are less obvious and more insidious. One of the most revealing tools for assessing brand values and dynamics within an organisation can be discourse analysis – analysing the day-to-day language used.
Externally though, people’s emotive and cognitive states will dramatically affect their perceptions and predisposition towards brands. Naturally there is little brand stewards can do to respond to any individual’s emotional state on a particular day, but we can look at more global psychological trends in an effort to be both responsive and predictive. For example, in times of recession, or full-employment, global instability or technological advance, we can make efforts to predict the emotional states of either the mass of a population or those of particular sectors.
How can we predict people’s emotional states and how can we use such information to direct brand strategies. One starting point is to look at economic cycles. Long wave cycles include the Kondratieff cycle with a periodicity of about 53 years. We can look at a four cycle model including the Kitchen inventory cycle (3-5 years), Juglar investment cycle (7-11 years) and the Kuznets infrastructure cycle (15-25 years). These map onto the Kondratieff cycle – six Juglars to one Kondratieff etc.
Various theorists have mapped historically significant events such are wars, civilisations, social struggles and technological change upon these cycles. At from the trough at the turn of the century for example we have seen two world wars up to the peak in 1945, and then in the downswing the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and communism (all products of the first world war) and in the period from the 1950’s on the growth of the civil rights movements. Similar global events seem to map onto the peaks and troughs of the Kondratieff cycle.
This territory has been well explored, however, more recently researchers have tried to plot emotionality onto this same curve. It makes sense to assume that when there is (say) instability, people’s emotional states will change and these will effect their perceptions and buying habits. In times of social and financial instability they will chose brands and products which reflect virtues of reliability and dependability.
A balance between supply of jobs and supply of labour can be categorised as a shortage so far as employers are concerned with market forces directing them towards wage increases and concessions rather than layoffs. Wealth reconcentrates in the hands of the middle and lower classes who spend more quickly and in smaller amounts increasing the velocity of money. The result is a rising tide which is concurrent with peace. During such times we can expect optimism and positive emotionality – people will look positively upon brands which reflect and are conducive such emotional states.
As these conditions persist and as peacetime prolongs a surplus of labour due to births, immigration, technology and banking manipulations erodes the bargaining power of labour and wealth concentrates in the pockets of the few and the diminishing efficiency of concentrated wealth operates to slow the economy. Few would be surprised at emotional effects upon the population (or indeed the various populations) and the brands which will be successful will be the ones which reflect the emotional requirements of their audiences – or the ones which can re-engineer themselves to match the emotional environment.
These emotional states can be utilised in brand positioning. More importantly however, if we can map emotional cycles on long-wave economic cycles they can be predictive and can allow us to plan brand strategies to reflect social dynamics.
Brand values, and their perceptions, are notoriously difficult to manipulate. At the root of the problem lies the question of how we learn about brands: do we learn about them pragmatically, as we would learn a set of declarative facts about, say, geography at school, or do we learn at a less active level, the way children learn the social and moral values of their immediate society?
The answer of course is both – we learn prepositional facts from marketing communications at the same time as we develop an emotional involvement with the brand values. We can absorb a great deal of factual information about, say, the current range of Mercedes cars from advertising, press reviews, literature and sales information. But how do we develop our understanding of the brand values, of what the Mercedes brand actually stands for? This comes from a long-standing, social connection with the brand and the way in which the brand has connected emotionally with society. The more established a brand is, the more powerful are these emotional values and the less amenable to change. One of the classic mistakes is to assume that (emotional) brand values can be changed by (pragmatic) marketing communications alone.
If we wish to change brand values, we must change what the brand actually is and does. We must accept that this will take time, and we must be prepared to engage with the fundamentals of the brand and the organisation which has stewardship of it.
The eco-motive cycle, particularly in the context of long wave cycles, enables the development of long-term strategies. It can also aid in the application of shorter-term tactics. For example, the brand values of a luxury car may be relatively unchanging, yet in more emotionally optimistic times the target audience may extend further down the wealth scale. In times of greater anxiety those same values may be relevant only to the more wealthy.
Though brand values are the product of a relatively long timescale, that is not to say they are constant and unchanging. Far from it; as social phenomena they are subject to social forces and are constantly changing and evolving in response to internal and external forces. In addition, values which are highly prized at a certain point in time may fall into disrepute over a relatively short timescale.
The value dynamics of a brand may be progressing along a particular trajectory, while the dynamics of society may be following a divergent trajectory, and velocity. We have seen how the growth of the environmental movement, gender politics and a movement against globalisation have left well-meaning brands with long established values, stranded high and dry.
The challenge for corporate and brand management is to ensure the corporate connection with the dynamics of society. In some cases this will simply not be possible. Social, moral and often technological dynamics can critically damage brands and render them no longer viable – on a wide scale this can be seen with tobacco brands and asbestos products, and in individual cases with certain organisations within the financial and professional services sectors.
Mapping brand dynamics against social dynamics can help understand where a brand is going, and where it should be going. Utilising the eco-motive cycle should enable us to be more predictive of the general trend and to create more meaningful maps.
Understanding the social and brand dynamics as part of a system gives greater insight into how the brand can be managed and directed. As well as considering the interactions of the brand with society and the market place, we must also consider the interactions of management, staff, clients, suppliers and all the elements of the supply and distribution chain. The relationship and management of this internal system in its interaction with the external market system is often one of the most neglected: paradoxically, it is perhaps the only area over which the brand stewards have any real measure of control. Brand values are to a major part the product of internal dynamics. Understanding the operation of this system is critical to good stewardship of the brand and ensuring a cohesive vision.
In the eco-motive cycle the whole system can be considered. The economic drivers and the psychological drivers that are operating at any particular time are operating on all parts of the system. This includes the internal participants within the organisation. Management of the human resources relative to social change is critical to maintaining a brand relevant to its time.
There is often confusion about strategy and tactics; in fact there is often confusion about the differences between strategy, tactics, leadership, vision, objectives, and goals. Even many great strategic academics such as Michael Porter and Henry Mintzberg disagree about what strategy really is.
Strategy is really about competitive advantage and can be encapsulated by one simple question – ‘how’?
The first fundamental principle is to define an objective – the strategy then should follow naturally as the ‘how’ to achieve it. Strategy is not a plan or a hundred page report, but should be able to be distilled to a single sheet of paper.
If strategy is the ‘how’, tactics are the ‘what’ – what you do to implement your strategy to achieve your objectives.
Deciding or agreeing that all important corporate or brand objective should be clarified with reference to the eco-motive cycle. However, one of the fundamental problem is deciding exactly where we are on which particular economic cycle before we can make emotional or psychological assessment. Mapping onto the Kondratieff cycle, with its 53 year periodicity is more useful in assessing general trends, particularly as we have a long historic period to view its regularity. The intermediate peaks and troughs can be more problematic. Managing the emotional, ‘deep-values’ of a brand is a medium to long-term strategy so we should not be diverted by these short-term spikes. These can be dealt with by tactical actions, most usually marcoms.
Eco-motive strategy is about predictability, not simply with reference to the economy but to the emotional state of the market and its relationship to the brand over a given period. It sets the objective for a set of dynamic and developing values over time, and provides a framework for marketing, sales, investment and human resource tactical activity. | 2019-04-18T18:26:18Z | https://brandmaster.wordpress.com/whitepaper-2/ |
In part 1, I stated the I believed prepping and practical minimalism can coexist. It seems a bit of an oxymoron to have both the words “prepping” and “minimalism” in the same phrase, but I believe it makes sense.
We are renters, and recently I stepped back for a moment to take a good look at our way of living and our stuff. We had too much of it. Facing another cross-country move, I started taking inventory of everything we own and made some tough decisions about what to do away with. I’ve developed a new attitude of what I call “practical minimalism”.
Many preppers I know question why I would even consider downsizing my preps or my personal items to just the essentials. For me, there are two main reasons: 1) ease of portability and 2) the peace I feel in a well-organized and clutter-free home.
In part 1, I went over how I pared down my preps, including food and water and survival gear. I also provided the questions that I asked myself to help me evaluate what to keep and what to get rid of. Yet, what I decided to keep, I had to store.
Minimalists pride themselves on how little they own. Preppers store supplies in stockpiles. How can these two ideals coexist? They can exist by merging the two lifestyles, finding a happy middle, and by having smart storage. After downsizing to the minimum number of items for your prepping needs, go through all your personal items in the same way. It will open a lot more room and options for storing the items you do keep.
There is one area of special importance: sentimental items. This area of downsizing will vary from person to person. Some people do not have emotional bonds to items; others can tell a story about every item in their home. It may be too difficult to choose a few sentimental items to keep. For these folks, starting somewhere is key. Get rid of a few items that don’t hold too much importance any more. For example, if you must choose between keeping a poster from Spring Break 1992 that has been rolled up in your closet for more than 20 years or a framed painting your great-grandmother painted that you love, keep the painting; donate the poster. Doing this will get the ball rolling. Future decisions become easier as you go through your belongings.
Something I put into practice is what I call the “power of three”. I looked at items that I had a lot of and that occupied a lot of space in my storage areas. I call them the storage hogs. These storage hogs include kitchen supplies and appliances, kid’s toys, books, and textiles, all that were hogging space for me. I chose three of each to keep. Books were an exception: I kept five children’s books and five most useful books from my survival library.
In the kitchen I had duplicates of utensils, like spatulas and wooden spoons, so I took the best of each to make one complete set. I set aside four place settings of dishes and silverware, and then I donated the others. I did the same for cups and mugs. All storage bowls without lids were donated, and only the important cookware and bakeware were kept. Items like a garlic press and potato ricer, which I used once or twice each year, were set aside for a yard sale. The same went for electric appliances. My juicer went to the “sell” pile, but multi-purpose items were kept. One example of an appliance kept is my electric pressure cooker. It is used often and has many different cooking functions.
I have a toddler who is only attached to one or two toys, so getting rid of the extras was easy. Using the “power of three”, I kept three items from each toy category. We kept three stuffed animals, three puzzles, three plastic dinosaurs, three toy cars, and three electronic toys. I discarded all the cheaply made items and kept the highest quality items from each category. Again, books were an exception; I kept five books that will last throughout childhood. Two large exceptions were a wooden train set and a small wooden kitchen set that take up minimal space. It may sound like we still own many toys, but believe me, it is a drastic change from what we had.
Once the major “storage hogs” were downsized, it allowed me to look at our living space in a new way. Critical survival gear, which had previously been stored in the garage and was visible when the garage door was open, was moved into the empty kitchen cabinets. Now, it is hidden from plain sight. Our child’s toys used to occupy an entire room, and now they are tucked neatly into a three-drawer chest.
Minimalism is not just about having fewer items than the average person; it is also about having those items out of sight and organized in a logical way. We keep our kitchen items in the main cabinets within reach of the stove, sink, and oven. Our survival gear is tucked into the less used cabinetry.
Once the non-essential items were gone and more space opened, there was an urge to fill the empty spaces. I’d gotten used to filling up every nook and cranny with something “I might need in a disaster”. That has been the toughest part for me. I remind myself daily that I have kept the survival gear best suited for our needs and the items necessary for everyday living.
As renters, we own furniture that can serve more than one purpose. Storage comes at a premium when renting, so we utilize things like ***two-drawer file cabinets***amazon.com/Z-Line-Designs-2-Drawer-Vertical-Cabinet/dp/B009D10R6E for end tables, a ***storage trunk***amazon.com/SONGMICS-Leather-Folding-Footrest-ULSF703/dp/B00PC74FQG as a coffee table. We utilize the space under the bed for extra stowing, and we opted to buy a ***kitchenette set with bench seats***amazon.com/Essential-Home-Breakfast-Kitchen-Corner/dp/B00IHFGXFQ that open for more storage. Many of our preps have been relocated to these areas now that the everyday clutter has been cleared.
Once the clutter is gone and your gear and everyday items are stored neatly in the home, it becomes essential to reframe your thinking when out shopping. My family is not a fan of big box stores, for many reasons. However, where we live, there is only one store that serves the area, unless we choose to drive many miles into town. When analyzing our budget, I discovered we were making poor decisions at the big box store. We would go in for groceries and come home with toys, DVDs, socks, a new t-shirt, or that “one thing” we’ve been wanting for a while, in addition to our groceries. To remedy this, we now go in on the grocery side of the store only. If we need an item other than groceries, we fetch it after getting our food and immediately head to the check-out.
Do I already have one? Do I have something at home that can do the same job as this item?
Do I have a place for this item? Am I willing to get rid of something at home to have it?
In terms of my job, how many hours would I have to work to pay for this item?
Can I find it less expensive at a thrift store or online?
If I buy it, am I willing to keep it until it is rendered useless?
Is it a quality-made product that will last, or will I have to replace it soon?
Asking the above questions has greatly improved our budget and has kept our practical minimalism in line.
Reassess once per year, or during major changes. Once a year, perhaps during spring cleaning, reassess your minimalist prepper lifestyle. Is it still working? Have your prepping needs changed somehow? Has clutter crept back into your living room?
Another great time to do this is during any major change. Changes that might drive reassessment include a birth, death, marriage, divorce, relocation, new job, et cetera.
In conclusion, using the above steps can help a person achieve a less cluttered living environment without totally sacrificing one’s survival supplies. Prepping and practical minimalism can coexist by keeping only the most necessary supplies, analyzing what comes into the home, and implementing smart storage.
Another great and mindful article, thank you. Like many, I went insane when I started this journey. My Spouse thought I did too, and did not see things the same way. We know we are moving at one more time, and while I have at least one month’s food supply, plus other stuff, I have looked things over and tweak as needed. At present mine fit in one big tub and three 5-gallon totes. All the extra BBBs are in other locations, but close at hand.
Great article that brings a unique perspective not often found on survival sites.
I’m also in the same mindset and have been pairing down my items the last few years as well. It is possible to strike a balance between prepping and minimalism.
One tip that works well for me with clothing is if I buy something new I force myself to donate an existing item. So if I like a new t-shirt enough to spend money on it, it means I like it more than something I already own so make myself donate the old one. If you do things like that it will help prevent you from ending up with a closet of stuff and also donating to someone in need.
The power of 3 is an excellent way to downsize. I have been slowly getting rid of excess clothing and other things. At age 74 it’s time to employ the power of 3 to make live easier. Great article. Thanks.
I understand the articles minimalist concept but cannot get aboard, If your are forced to do this due to space considerations fine, if not and you believe in a long term scenario you still have to eat and food for a year or two takes up a lot of room. Minimalism sounds to me like the “Tiny House” mind set. Personally I would find another place to live that allows me to store the items that we will need in the event of an event, running out of food and begging for a meal isn’t going to work in the long run. As a grandpa I still believe that I have duties as the eldest member of the family that include protecting my family. Although I sometimes wish I phones and computer games were edible, that would help with food storage. At least they will know about a disaster sooner than I and can commence running around like chicken little.
Joe, I felt the same way at first. But then I thought back to when I was young, as in college & in my 20s -moving from apartment to apartment, & renting a room while in grad school. There are other times when one may be forced to downsize, as in after a divorce or when your job is “downsized” & your new job pays less. So believe this article has some merit.
Well i am certainly not a minimalist but i have implemented some ideas of removing clutter. One idea i read about is taking a good picture of things you love and don’t use but want to remember, like the poster mentioned. You can then donate or get tid of it but the memory won’t be forgotten. And photos take up much less space it s a good thing your wife is on board with you.
Great article, but I question the 5 books for your child. This will change dramatically when the home schooling kicks in. I know you can get most everything on line nowadays, but it’s seriously unhealthy for them to stair at a screen all-day.
Our library at the homestead has no less than 2500 volumes, plus no go for the computers when the powers out. Most peppers plan for grid down events when you can no longer buy sell or trade. This would mean having access to items that may not be available anymore, to us this is our “money in the bank”. I do fantasize about living with less. And my wife and I have lived in everything from small boats to semi truck cabs for extended periods, so less was more in those situations. Right now we are in the, as JWR states ” two is one and one is none mode”. And storing up allows for us a bit of security if times get tough. We can always sell items to get by, so there’s value in that.
I hope one of those five books yours child posses is a Bible. Most importantly we need to stand on God’s word as to how we are to prep and take care of the family. We pray you find a suitable piece of land and that you go forth and continue to multiply your flock. Bless you and keep on writing.
I have to agree with Patrick. As a parent we tended to save too much stuff but as grandparents I am seeing the wisdom of downsizing most everything….but with one exception to the 5 book idea for kids. Kids gain a whole lot from reading….and not from a screen. 5 books even for one toddler really limlts what you can read to them. Wait til you have more…..I recently got rid of a lot of our adult and kid books but we still probably have 20-30 kid books left that our grandkids love. At least 200or more adult books that we may read Again. Otherwise great article!
Not to pile on, but I have to agree about the books. Everything else sounded great, but that had me scratching my head. We read 3 to 5 books to our kids every night. That would get old real quick for them. You don’t even have to spend a lot of money. You can get used children’s books for $1 or less at used book stores, libraries and garage sales. You can never have too many books. Also, if you ever DO need those preps because shtf, you’ll need to keep the little one busy.
(laugh) does this apply to guns too?
luke 12:33, 14:33 – “Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys.” – “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.
As usual, what this looks like in practice is different for every family. Donating the kiddo clothing after they have grown up and outgrown it, etc. Keeping up with this on a regular basis will prevent the dreaded “purges” later on.
While our family parameters are slightly different this article makes some excellent points.
This article roused my curiosity, and I did a bit of research on the Missouri Self Defense Force (MDSF). Apparently the Governor approved a plan to stand up a modern version of a State Guard, with the initial core coming from the Missouri National Guard, followed by recruiting from general veterans, and finally opening up to the general public. Since an internet search didn’t return any news about recruiting for the MSDF, nor any MSDF activities, I assume the plan accomplished its purpose of strangling the State Guard in the cradle by giving it to the National Guard to implement.
That search did reveal a non-authorized militia, the Missouri Defense Force which at least has a website and sufficient uniformed members to post lots of photos on their facebook site. But since there are no links to either the Missouri Adjutant General or other official State website, I assume this is an unofficial militia.
Does anyone have information on that?
Great perspective and article. Another thing to consider is that most of what is gotten rid of are not preps, but other clutter. Having a more organized household means it is easier to find your preps and hit the road in a hurry if you need to bug out. Let’s face it, the most likely SHTF for most of us will be relatively personal, local, or regional – fire, flood, wind, chemical spill, or other disaster. The less you leave behind, the less you have lost. Intelligently minimizing your possessions means you spent less and saved more. Barring total economic collapse, in most cases, money is the best prep, once you have survived the initial event.
I must assume the author does not have a large family or many friends! Simplification has helped me with both storage and rotation, but I still have multiples of everything that may be needed!
I no longer keep multiple types of the same thing. Defense has been reduced to deep inventory of a few calibers and the tools to go with them. Food is basic ingredients that can be combined in many ways.
Clutter was controlled by building proper storage and using standard sized containers that are properly labeled. They stack easier and take up less space!
The author may not care about family legacy, but next generations may not feel that way. I would hate to think, that I would never have touched my great grandfathers tools or Bible, because someone considered them clutter.
May not apply to the younger folks, but I once ‘cleaned out’ my home of percieved nonessentials.
This mostly included worn out clothes, toys, comic books, childrens’ books, and musical instruments. Most of it was trashed!
My step-father used to chide me continuously to throw out anything I hadn’t used in the past year. He drove me crazy with the constant bickering. I have a large workshop. More than a year or even two might transpire before I need to break out the oxy-acetylene torch or use the rotary table on my milling machine. Or for that matter, I might only use the 7/16″ or 5/8″ sockets this year (probably more than that, but you get my point). No, I’m not going to discard all of the unused tooling. In fact, I’m usually looking for additional tools for some specialty task or just to make life a little easier.
I don’t make a living with my tools or the VERY large collection of supplies like raw materials and hardware. But I could. I can fix just about anything and can run my shop on my home-engineered solar power system.
I’m sorry, but I’m not getting rid of any of it. | 2019-04-24T17:54:33Z | https://survivalblog.com/prepping-practical-minimalism-making-coexist-part-2-flsnappyturtle/ |
Dragons (drah-gkon and dov-rha to the ancient Nords, or dov in their native language) are large flying reptilian creatures that are encountered in Skyrim. They are immortal and highly intelligent, have an affinity for magic, and were once even worshipped by the ancient Nordic people. Temples dedicated to dragon worship were built across the province of Skyrim, but now only a few artifacts relating to the Dragon Cult remain, such as dragon claws and Dragon Priest Masks. Once thought long dead, dragons are now beginning to return and are a major part of Skyrim's main quest.
There are several encounters with dragons during the main questline, though randomly generated dragons also appear in the wild after the completion of Dragon Rising. Although the majority of dragon encounters will involve only a single creature, in rare cases it is possible to come across two or more of them at a time, especially after fast-traveling. All dragon lairs contain word walls and are indicated by a dragon's head icon on the map.
Dragons are also often encountered soon after fast-traveling to a relatively wide open location, within smaller towns like Riverwood and Rorikstead, or even inside large walled cities like Whiterun and Markarth.
Dragons are fearsome opponents in combat and are some of the most dangerous creatures in all of Tamriel. As your level increases, more difficult types of dragons will appear, ranging from a basic dragon at the lowest levels up to a mighty legendary dragon at the highest. Encounters with dragons in the wild are heralded by a loud roar; the dragon will often fly very close to you if it has spotted you, causing a palpable rush of air, almost as if the dragon is deliberately trying to provoke you. Not all dragons are automatically hostile to you, however. Some will simply circle overhead for a while without engaging in combat; if you ignore it long enough, the event will end and the dragon will fly off.
Dragons are highly intelligent and can use the power of the Thu'um (also known as "The Voice" or Dragon Shouts) to attack their enemies, using short phrases of words of power to cause a variety of effects. It is said that combat with dragons is actually a debate; as the dragon Paarthurnax explains, "There is no distinction between debate and combat to a dragon. Tinvaak los grah. For us it is one and the same."
All dragons have either frost- or fire-based breath attacks and will use them while airborne and while on the ground. The damage inflicted by this attack can be decreased with the appropriate elemental resistance, magic resistance, and wards. During combat, dragons will occasionally land on the ground to briefly engage in melee with you or any NPCs or other creatures in the area before taking flight again. Dragons may also perch on rooftops or other features, such as word walls, attacking creatures below them while keeping out of reach of melee attacks. The Dragonrend shout can be used to force a flying dragon to land for a short time. Once a dragon is at about half of its health, it will either land on the ground (often with a clumsy crash) and not take flight for the rest of the battle or, rarely, flee combat altogether, depriving you of a dragon soul to absorb.
A Blood Dragon attacks with its Fire Breath.
While a dragon's breath is a formidable attack in its own right, dragons also have a devastatingly powerful bite. It is important to keep your health high when close to a dragon on the ground. If your health drops below a certain threshold and you are close to the dragon's head, the dragon may kill you with an action sequence: it will lunge forward and grip you in its jaws, lift you in the air, swing you from side to side, and then throw your corpse to the ground. Staying to one side of the dragon while it is on the ground can help keep you clear of its bite and breath, but the dragon will still be able to lash at you with its wings or tail. You can try using trees and other landscape features to gain a cover advantage, but the game may not register all forms of cover and the dragon may still be able to attack through them, so choose your hiding places carefully.
Dragons will attack nearby creatures of any kind, from mudcrabs to giants, but not other dragons. You can use this to your advantage by engaging a dragon where other creatures are nearby, especially if the dragon has already selected alternate prey, using the distraction as an opportunity to move in for the attack. Dragons will even target other creatures while engaging you in combat, so fighting alongside followers and other NPCs or creatures makes surviving a dragon assault much more feasible, since damage can be absorbed by others. However, the presence of other creatures does not guarantee the dragon will attack them instead of you, even if it was already fighting them when you arrived.
When you slay a dragon in combat, the body of the beast will be engulfed in flames, and you will absorb its soul. After the flames subside, you will be left with the dragon's bare skeleton, which can then be looted for its bones, scales and other miscellaneous treasure. The scales and bones can then be used to make formidable armor. If the Dawnguard add-on is installed, the dragon's bones can also be used to create and temper Dragonbone weapons. Dragon souls can be saved and used to unlock Dragon Shouts and, with the completion of the Dragonborn questline, reset skill perks.
Dragons have long, slender extremities covered in scales, and large, thin, leathery wings. Their feet are tipped with three sharp talons and one vestigial digit known as a dewclaw, a characteristic that can be seen in their written language. Dragons have horns and spiked ridges along their backs and are several times larger than any human or elf. They have two hind legs but no forearms, so they use their wings to crawl when they are forced to traverse along the ground.
With the exception of a few unique dragons, there are several varieties of dragons that can generally be distinguished by their color. The table below lists the dragon colors found in the game.
In addition to the special abilities listed below, all dragons have a special Dragonskin perk, which negates 50% of all damage from any attacker except the Dragonborn. Except for basic Dragons and the Skeletal Dragon, all dragons also have an ability called "Dragon Bite", which grants them a constant Fortify Unarmed Damage effect. Dragons are immune to paralysis and cannot be soul trapped.
Dragons have their own unique "dragon" versions of the Fire Breath, Frost Breath, Unrelenting Force, and Drain VitalityDG shouts, and their Fireball and Ice Storm spells are treated like shouts as well. Dragons rely on their magicka reserves to use these shouts, which means that if a dragon's magicka is drained, it will not be able to use its shouts. The base damage for all the dragons detailed below is 25 (with the exception of the Skeletal Dragon), and their tail swipe attacks will stagger all enemies in a large area.
The sections below detail the attributes and abilities of each of the various types of dragons. The types of dragons that spawn in the wild will depend on your level, but regardless of your level, dragons' combat abilities and their centrality to the game's plot effectively make them game bosses. Note that although the different varieties of dragon normally start to appear at the player level indicated, it is possible, though rare, to encounter a more powerful dragon at a much lower level.
Basic Dragons are considered to be the easiest dragon type to fight, although they can provide a challenge early in the game. They come in three different colors and can have either fire- or frost-based attacks. They will spawn at any level once the quest Dragon Rising has been completed.
All Blood Dragons are entirely green in color, can breathe either fire or frost, and are slightly tougher than basic dragons. These dragons have sail-like fins on their backs and on either side of their tails, and a bony ridge along their foreheads. Blood Dragons begin to appear in leveled lists at level 18.
The Skeletal Dragon is a unique dragon found only in Labyrinthian that is made up entirely of bone, with no scales or flesh, and cannot fly. It breathes frost, but has no resistance to frost or weakness to fire; instead, it has weakness to magic (100 pts). The Skeletal Dragon has no soul to absorb and, unlike living dragons, drops only dragon bones when killed. The Skeletal Dragon's base damage is 50, and its bite attack multiplies this damage by 2 instead of 1.5.
The Skeletal Dragon breathes a blast of frost.
Frost Dragons are colored white and grey and have very large, black spikes along their back. They have a frost-based breath attack. These dragons are a little tougher than Blood dragons and have significantly more health. Frost Dragons begin to appear in leveled lists at level 27.
All Elder Dragons are bronze in color and are significantly tougher than the previous types, both in melee and breath attacks. Their wings have a unique two-tone pattern, with bronze at the top and a lighter green lower down. They can breathe either fire or frost, and begin appearing in leveled lists at level 36.
An Elder Dragon glides over the water.
Ancient Dragons are covered with coppery red-and-black scales, with almost no ridges or spikes on their backs, and are capable of breathing either fire or frost. The Ancient Dragon's "Dragon Bite" adds a massive 175 points of damage to their attacks, making them remarkably deadly both in the air and on the ground. Until Dawnguard was released, they were the strongest non-unique dragons encountered in the game. Ancient Dragons begin to appear in leveled lists at level 45.
An Ancient Dragon scorches the air with its Fire Breath.
Serpentine Dragons are found only on Solstheim and can breathe frost or fire. Their appearance is unique compared to other dragons, most notably their blue hue, lack of scutes, and oversized bottom jaws which give them a distinctive underbite. They are formidable foes, possessing slightly greater strength than an Ancient Dragon. There is one named Serpentine Dragon, Sahrotaar, whom Miraak uses as his mount. Serpentine Dragons begin to appear in leveled lists at level 55 if Dragonborn is installed.
Revered Dragons are orange-scaled dragons that have long, flat bodies and broad tails. In addition to their Fire Breath, they can use a dragon version of the Drain Vitality shout, which lets them rapidly drain a victim's health, magicka, and stamina. Revered Dragons begin to appear in leveled lists at level 59 if Dawnguard is installed.
Second only to Alduin in their sheer power, Legendary Dragons have striped black and purple scales, large curved horns, unusually long claws on their white-and-purple wings, and what appear to be compound eyes. Like the Revered Dragons, they can use Drain Vitality as well as the traditional Fire or Frost Breath. Legendary Dragons begin to appear in leveled lists at level 78 if Dawnguard is installed.
A Legendary Dragon swoops down with a frosty blast.
"Destroyer Devour Master" The firstborn of Akatosh, elder brother of Paarthurnax, and self-proclaimed aspect of Akatosh. Also known as "The World-Eater" and "Bane of Kings".
"Curse Never Dying" An undead dragon the Ideal Masters tricked into guarding the Soul Cairn for eternity. He can be summoned after defeating him and learning his shout.
"Sorcerer Day Mind" Found outside of Nchardak on the island of Solstheim.
"Ancient Dominate" In the Black Book: Waking Dreams, encountered during the quest At the Summit of Apocrypha.
"Allegiance Strong Hunt" The first living dragon you will fight in Skyrim, at the Western Watchtower near Whiterun. There had been no previous record of his death, and he may have actually survived in hiding all this time until Alduin's return.
NaaslaarumDG N1SL1RUM One of two dragons encountered in a frozen lake in the Forgotten Vale. They are fought simultaneously and can dive under the frozen lake to ambush you.
"Fury Burn Wither" Buried in a mound west of Rorikstead.
"Snow Hunter Wing" Was the right-hand to Alduin, records date by interrogation of captured Dragon Cultists during Crusade. Buried in a mound in the south east of Skyrim, near Riften. After completing the main quest, Odahviing can be summoned by using a dragon shout called "Call Dragon".
"Ambition Overlord Cruelty" The legendary lieutenant of Alduin in The Dragon War. He is now known to reside on the Throat of the World under the protection of the Greybeards of High Hrothgar.
"Dominate Wise ?" In the Black Book: Waking Dreams, encountered during the quest At the Summit of Apocrypha.
"Phantom Sky Hunt" Buried near Kynesgrove, encountered during A Blade in the Dark.
"Mighty Servant" In the Black Book: Waking Dreams, encountered during the quest At the Summit of Apocrypha.
"Shine Hammer Rage" Buried near Lake Yorgrim. Death dating back to Dragon War era.
"Dark Maw Eat" Buried in a mound northeast of Sunderstone Gorge and southwest of Sleeping Tree Camp. Death dating back to Dragon War or just after.
"Dark Overlord Fire" A dragon encountered underground, in Blackreach.
VoslaarumDG VOSL1RUM One of two dragons encountered in a frozen lake in the Forgotten Vale. They are fought simultaneously and can dive under the frozen lake to ambush you.
A mighty dragon lies dead.
The standard loot for dragons is listed below; revered and legendary dragons give additional loot.
With the Dragonborn add-on, you have the ability to ride specific dragons after obtaining all three words of the Bend Will dragon shout. After shouting at the desired dragon, it will land and you will be able to get on its back, and it will engage in flight. You give the dragon instructions, rather than directly controlling the dragon. There are a few dragons that you are unable to ride.
Since Legendary Dragons only start to appear in regular leveled lists at level 78, this achievement is difficult to complete until your character reaches very high levels.
Outside of the main quest, the most reliable way to find dragons to fight is to perform the radiant quests Dragon Seekers or Dragon Hunting. They are repeatable, and your destination is guaranteed to spawn a dragon. Dragon Seekers is available if you have completed the Companions questline and Dragon Rising, and Dragon Hunting is available if you have completed Rebuilding the Blades and are on friendly terms with the Blades.
Although Arngeir says that dragons have the same ability as the Dovahkiin to absorb a slain dragon's soul, receive its knowledge, and use this to master a new shout, it never happens during gameplay. This is presumably because there is no occasion when one dragon fights or kills another, unless the player has summoned or mastered one: and on such an occasion, the Dragonborn is present to get the dragon soul, whether you want or need it or not.
If you instantly kill a dragon while it rests on a word wall, or is completing an animation such as taking flight, the dragon will finish its animation (it will take flight if it is resting), before landing (or crashing) to die. This is due to the longer animation sequences associated with dragons due to their size.
The Wabbajack will not transform a dragon, but can be used as a constant source of destructive blasts.
If Dragonborn is installed, the quest The Temple of Miraak has been completed, and the quest At the Summit of Apocrypha has not been completed, Miraak may appear and absorb the dragon soul before you can.
Dragons are immune to all Illusion spells and effects cast at them.
They also have extremely high Sneak ability, which allows them to signficantly counter all forms of stealth, including invisibility and muffle, though they're not technically immune to these effects.
You will occasionally fail to absorb a dragon's soul after killing one. This issue can possibly result from fast traveling, mounting a horse, looting a container, or engaging an NPC in dialogue the moment the dragon dies.
This bug usually occurs with dragons that have spawned from dragon lairs after you first visit them.
Dragons will occasionally lunge through cover such as boulders, sarcophagi, and trees.
If you have the Disintegrate perk and you disintegrate a dragon with a Shock spell, the ashes may disappear into the world terrain (or just be very hard to find). You will still absorb the dragon soul, but will miss out on the dragon bones and scales as well as the other leveled loot.
If there are no open spaces nearby, wounded dragons (or those under the effects of Dragonrend) will sometimes be forced to crash-land and skid through solid objects, and often teleport wildly and/or end up at odd angles.
Casting most spells on a dead dragon's skeleton may move it incredible distances.
Right after a dragon dies, you can walk inside its corpse and view its skeleton before it disintegrates.
You may see some dragons flying backwards. These dragons are not affected by Dragonrend and never land, so they can only be killed by arrows and spells. This bug was introduced with patch 1.2.
This bug is fixed by version 1.3 of the Official Skyrim Patch.
Sometimes after leaving a building or fast traveling, dragon skeletons will spawn and fall from the sky, without you fighting them at all.
In some cases this is not a bug, but a result of the way the game saves data. When returning to an area where a dragon has been killed, after the cell has been unloaded from the buffer but before the corpse would have expired, the corpse is respawned in the air (as if a live dragon) and allowed to fall again.
Dragons may spawn with their distant skin model instead of their close-up model, and will appear blocky with blurred skin.
Saving and reloading will correct this.
On the PC, some have experienced a glitch when performing one-handed weapon "finishing moves" on dragons in which the animation will be off-center. In most cases, it will appear as though the character is dangling off the right side of the dragon's head when the finisher animation occurs.
Occasionally dragons can become invisible for no apparent reason, however NPCs will still attack them.
When you visit a dragon lair, the dragon may be in front of the word wall stuck in the ground. This renders the dragon unkillable and it will not attack you.
Using Storm Call to kill a dragon that's still flying may make it continuously fly in circles and become unkillable.
If you fast travel after killing a flying dragon, the dragon may appear in that area.
Dragons landing on stairs can get stuck since each step is its own surface and they cannot fit on a single step. This causes them to be stuck until the forced landing sequence, and in this case they simply jump up and crash back down.
On rare occasions, a dragon soul will be absorbed before the dragon is dead, leaving an invulnerable skeletal dragon.
Sometimes, a dragon may get stuck in a circle flight and will be unable to land or hover. They also become immune to Dragonrend, you can see the shout effect hitting them, but they won't land. They can only be killed by arrows or spells, and in some cases they will continue to fly in circles after their health is reduced to 0. Entering a building and going back outside fixes this. ?
For more information on the dragons of the Elder Scrolls universe, see the lore article.
This page was last modified on 26 February 2019, at 00:22. | 2019-04-25T03:21:33Z | https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Dragon |
Canara Bank Karur Vysya Bank Limited Tamilnad Mercantile Bank Ltd.
Federal Bank Shamrao Vithal Cooperative Bank Ltd.
PayZippy currently supports only Indian Rupee (INR) based payment transactions.
PayZippy SDKs are available for Java and PHP. Further, we also offer plugins for popular shopping carts like Magento, OpenCart ,WooCommerce (WordPress) ,PrestaShop and Zen Cart. Do reach out to us if you would like to use our SDKs.
Please contact PayZippy at [email protected] if you don't have any of the above.
PayZippy gives you the flexibility to choose between two distinct user experience options based on your requirement.
User is redirected from your website to the PayZippy secure payment page for capturing card details.
The PayZippy payment page is rendered within an iFrame on your website. The users do not leave your website, except for entering the 3DS password for which the user will be redirected to the issuing bank's secure page.
Please note that the iFrame mode works best only on web and may not work properly if accessed from a mobile device. The iFrame on your website should have a minimum width and height of 560px and 550px respectively, to ensure that the PayZippy iFrame page can render seamlessly on your website.
PayZippy URLs for Staging and Production are the same. The transactions are routed either to the staging platform or the production platform based on the MID and secret key being used.
Test Merchant Id = "test_merchant"
Now, ignore Hash as a parameter and sort all the request parameters by their key (not value).
Now, concatenate all values of the sorted keys of parameters with pipe - '|' character.
Now,add the shared Secret key for given merchant_id and merchant_key_id.
Now, use this Hash and pass it along to the API. Your call is authenticated and PayZippy passes the results of the API back to you.
Here, to generate Hash to validate the Refund Response. The challenge is that JSON is 2 level deep. Sort all the top level keys of the JSON in alphabetical order.
Here, we have ignored hash as one of the keys - similar to what we did during Request.
Again, sort all keys within data.
In case of Query API, the change is with the data as it's a JSON Array.
Important Note: For security reasons the LIVE Key Id (merchant_key_id) will be changed every 6 months. Every 6 months, you will receive a new Key Id from PayZippy. It is recommended that you replace your old Key Id with the new Key Id when generating the Hash.
You can use this API to initiate a payment request to PayZippy.
1. When a request is sent to this API, PayZippy renders a secure payment page where your customers can enter and submit their credit/debit card details. Based on the ui_mode parameter sent by you in the API request, PayZippy will render either the iFrame option or the Redirect option (refer "UX Options" above for more details).
2. PayZippy processes these details and redirects the user to the card issuing bank's 3D secure page.
3. PayZippy receives the payment status from the bank and posts the status to your callback URL.
It is recommended that you specify your callback URL (callback_url) in the API request that you send to us. Alternatively, you can also configure your callback URL with PayZippy and it will be picked up by default by us if the callback_url parameter in your API request doesn't have any value.
Please Note: If you are sending the payment request from an http URL (E.g. http://merchant.com/pay) then please ensure that your callback URL is also on http (and not on https).Similarly, if you are sending the request from an https URL (E.g. https://merchant.com/pay) then your callback URL should also be on https. Not doing so will cause the browser to show a security alert to your customer when he's returning from PayZippy to your order confirmation page.
The below table contains the list of mandatory parameters that you need to send to our Charging API for initiating a payment request.
Default value: SALE Send the value as "SALE" for all your transactions.
transaction_amount Integer Required This is your order amount in paise.
E.g. If order amount is Rs.500.99, the value to be passed should be 50099.
(only if payment_method is EMI or NET) Required in case of Net Banking or EMI transactions.
This is the EMI tenure (in months), required only for EMI transactions.
value: INR For transactions in Indian Rupees, send the value as "INR".
Use this to specify the user experience mode.
This is the Hash method that you use while sending API request to PayZippy.Refer hash generation section of this document for more details.
Max length:64 This is used for API Authentication.
Refer hash generation section of this document for more details on how to generate the hash.
Max length:20 This is your secure API key id that will be issued to you by PayZippy.
Max length:100 This is a comma separated list of count of items in the order.
For example,if the order had 5 books and 2 mobiles then send the value as 5,2.
Max length:100 This is a comma separated list of the sale value of all the items in the order.
Example if the order had two items of value 500 and 1000, send the value as "500,1000".
Max length:100 This is a comma separated list of the categories of all the items in the order.
Example if the order had two books send the value as "Book,Book".
Max length:20 If you are accepting payments across multiple websites/apps, you can use this parameter to identify the source of your transaction.
For mobile payments, send the value as "Mobile" for this parameter.
Max length:256 This is your callback URL where you want PayZippy to send the final API response.
In case you don't send any value,then this will default to the callback URL that you have setup with PayZippy.
is_user_logged_in boolean Optional* If your customer has signed in to your website for this transaction then send value as "true".
If your customer has done a guest checkout then send value as "false".
Max length:100 This can be used for sending the product model number/details.
Max length:13 If you want to retry a payment request, keeping the merchant_transaction_id same, then you can send the duplicate request by sending a unique value for this parameter.
Max length:100 This is a user-defined field that you can use to send any additional information about the transaction.
The udf will be visible to you on the PayZippy Console and available to you for reporting & analytics on PayZippy.
*While these parameters are optional, it is recommend that you use them because their value is consumed by PayZippy's risk engine for fraud detection.
# When ui_mode IFRAME is used, to prevent click-jacking, we use XFRAME-OPTIONS::SAMEORIGIN (see details) in our payment page. Here the origin domain is derived from callback_url used for the transaction. If origin domain differs from the hosting site's domain, the payment form may not be rendered on certain browsers.
^ Card capture is a restricted payment method, which needs to be enabled for the merchant before it can be used. This is enabled after due security review of the merchant such that they are cleared to capture the card details on their domain directly. When using this payment method, card capture parameters can be sent in the charging API with corresponding card details.
For card capture payment method, following additional parameters need to be sent in our Charging API for processing the payment.
In PayZippy response you will receive all the parameters you sent in your request, in addition to transaction status and response codes. The response also contains the parameter 'hash' generated using the same hashing algorithm as mentioned earlier.
The below table contains the list of parameters that you will receive as response from our Charging API.
Max length:32 This has the same value that was sent by you in the API Request.
Max length:20 This has the same value that was sent by you in the API Request.
Max length:100 This has the same value that was sent by you in the API Request.
Max length:20 This is the unique id generated by PayZippy for this transaction.
Refer "Transaction Statuses" section for more details on these.
Max length:30 This is the response code for the transaction status.
If the transaction is failed, this code represents the failure reason.
Refer "Charging Response Codes" section for the complete list of response codes.
transaction_response_message String This is human readable text message associated with the transaction_response_code.
If the value in API Request is empty then this represents the payment method selected by your customer on PayZippy's secure payment page.
NET This is the payment instrument used by your customer while making the payment.
Max length:100 For payment_instrument = NET or EMI, this represents the bank name selected by customer.
For payment_instrument = CREDIT or DEBIT, this represents the card issuing bank.
Max length:4 This has the same value that was sent by you in the API Request.
If the value in API Request is empty then this represents the EMI tenure (in case of EMI) selected by your customer on PayZippy's secure payment page.
Max length:18 This is the timestamp at which PayZippy received your API request.
This is the action recommended by PayZippy's risk engine.
fraud_details String If a fraud is suspected by PayZippy (fraud_action is Reject or Review), this parameter will list the reasons for suspecting the transaction as fraudulent.
is_international Boolean If customer uses an international card then this will have value as "true".
Max length:10 This is the version of the Charging API used.
Max length:100 This has the same value that you send in the API request.
Max length:20 This is the hash method used by merchant for the API request.
Refer hash generation section of this document for more details.
Max length:64 This will be used for API Authentication.
MID_NOT_ACTIVE The MID is not active.
payzippy_sale_transaction_id parameter is not empty.
Max length:20 This is the PayZippy transaction id of your sale transaction for which you want to initiate a refund.
This parameter is optional if the above merchant_transaction_id parameter is not empty.
Max length:20 This is the refund amount in paise.
This can be less than the transaction amount in case you wish to initiate a partial refund.
Max length:20 This is the Hash method that you use while sending API request to PayZippy.Refer hash generation section of this document for more details.
Max length:64 This is used for API Authentication. Refer hash generation section of this document for more details on how to generate the hash.
Max length:512 You can specify a custom reason for initiating the refund for your future reference.
The reason will be visible to you on the PayZippy Console.
Max length:100 If you are using your own in-house consoles for initiating refunds via this API, then you can use this parameter to specify the user who initiated the refund request.
Max length:100 This is a user-defined field that you can use to send any additional information about this refund.
Max length: 100 This is a user-defined field that you can use to send any additional information about this refund.
Max length:13 If you want to retry a payment request,keeping the merchant_transaction_id same,then you can send the duplicate request by sending a unique value for this parameter.
The below table contains the list of parameters that you will receive as response from our Refund API.
Please note the parameters related to refund request are part of data sub-JSON while other parameters are part of http response JSON.
Example:"Invalid format received for param-refund_amount=100.12"
Max length:50 This is the status of the refund transaction.
Max length:100 This is the response code for the refund transaction. If the transaction is failed, this code represents the failure reason.
Refer "Refund Response Codes" section for more details on these.
data.refund_response_message String This is human readable text message associated with the refund_response_code.
Max length:512 This is the refund reference id (ARN) received by PayZippy from the acquiring bank.
This value will be null for most of the transactions.
The ARN is typically received by PayZippy from acquiring banks a couple of days after the transaction.
Max length:20 This is the transaction id sent by PayZippy to the acquiring bank.
Applicable only for "Tech-only" merchants.
Max length:32 This is the MID issued to the merchant by his acquiring bank.
Max length:32 This is the logical name of the acquiring bank used by PayZippy to process the transaction.
Max length:6 This is the same terminal_id that is sent by the merchant in the API request.
Max length:50 This is the transaction id received by PayZippy from the acquiring bank for this transaction.
Max length:20 This has the same value that was sent by you in the Charging API Request.
Refer to following table for various response codes and their meaning, which you can receive in field 'data.refund_response_code' of refund response API.
EXCESS_REFUND_AMOUNT The refund amount exceeds the maximum refundable amount allowed for this transaction If Refund amount is more than the sale amount.
INSUFFICIENT_BALANCE Merchant doesn't have sufficient outstanding balance in nodal account to pay for the refund. Merchant needs to transfer funds to PayZippy to enable refunds.
MULTIPLE_REFUNDS_UNSUPORTED Multiple refunds are not supported for this transaction If multiple partial refunds are not supported for the merchant or payment method.
PARTIAL_REFUNDS_UNSUPPORTED Partial refunds are not supported for this transaction. Merchant should initiate the refund for full transaction amount If partial refunds are not supported for the merchant or payment method.
REFUND_WINDOW_EXPIRED Refund on this transaction cannot be initiated beyond X days from sale transaction date If the max time frame specified by acquiring bank for refund has expired.
SIMILAR_PREVIOUS_PARTIAL_REFUND_DETECTED We have detected previous partial refund of the same amount a short while back.
Please try again after sometime. This is a check to prevent erroneous duplicate partial refunds by your refund/customer support team.
The Refund API gives you the convenience of automating your customer refunds. Alternatively, you always have the option to refund a payment transaction manually using the Merchant Console.
Unlike our Charging API, the Refund API Response uses a JSON format.
refund_response_message: "The transaction is successful"
If for some reason you didn't receive a response from PayZippy for a Sale or Refund transaction (maybe the user abandoned the transaction midway or there was a network/timeout issue when PayZippy sent the response to your callback URL), you can use the Transaction Status Query API to confirm the final status of your transaction.
Alternately, you also have the option to receive an email/sms from PayZippy for such cases as and when the status of the transaction is confirmed as "SUCCESS". You can specify the recipient email/mobile for this through the 'Txn Status Change Notification' setting on your PayZippy Console. We request you to take action on receipt of these sms/emails and communicate with your customers accordingly.
Unlike the Charging API Response, the Query API Response uses a JSON format.
Max length:32 This is the Merchant Id that you used for the Sale/Refund transaction for which you wish to query the status.
Max length:100 This is the transaction id for which you wish to query the transaction status.
This parameter is optional if the below payzippy_transaction_id parameter is not empty.
Max length:20 This is the Hash method that you use while sending API request to PayZippy.
Max length:20 This is the payzippy transaction id for which you wish to query the transaction status.
Default value: SALE If you wish to query the status of the Refund transaction then you should send the value as "REFUND".
Max length:3 This is the validation status of your Refund API Request.
Max length:30 This is the validation status of your Refund API Request, mapped to the above status_code.
length:20 This has the same value that was sent by you in the API Request.
Example:"Invalid format received for param–hash_method=ertet"
Max length:18 This is the timestamp at which PayZippy received your Charging/Refund API request.
If the value in Charging API Request is empty then this represents the payment method selected by your customer on PayZippy's secure payment page at the time of SALE.
data.bank_name String This has the same value that was sent by you in the Charging API Request.
If the value in Charging API Request is empty then this represents the bank name (in case of Net Banking and EMI) selected by your customer on PayZippy's secure payment page at the time of SALE.
Max length:4 This has the same value that was sent by you in the Charging API Request.
If the value in Charging API Request is empty then this represents the EMI tenure (in case of EMI) selected by your customer on PayZippy's secure payment page at the time of SALE.
Max length:30 This is the status of the payment.
Refer "Transaction Statuses" section for more details on the complete list of statuses.
Max length:20 This is the response code for the transaction status. If the transaction is failed, this code represents the failure reason.
Refer "Charging Response Codes" and "Refund Response Codes" section for the complete list of response codes.
data.transaction_response_message String This is human readable text message associated with the transaction_response_code.
data.fraud_details String If a fraud is suspected by PayZIppy (fraud_action is Reject or Review), this parameter will list the reasons for suspecting the transaction as fraudulent.
A typical payment transaction involves multiple browser redirects that can at times lead to scenarios where either the final payment response from the bank does not reach PayZippy, or our response does not reach you.
For cases where even PayZippy didn't receive a confirmed payment response from the bank, we ping the bank repeatedly to fetch the final status. If the original status was Pending, and now we have a deterministic Success/Failure status, we push the final status to your url.
This has the same value that was sent by you in the API Request.
This is the unique id generated by PayZippy for this transaction.
This is the response code for the transaction status.
This is human readable text message associated with the transaction_response_code.
This is the payment instrument used by your customer while making the payment.
For payment_instrument = NET or EMI, this represents the bank name selected by customer.
This is the timestamp at which PayZippy received your API request.
If a fraud is suspected by PayZippy (fraud_action is Reject or Review), this parameter will list the reasons for suspecting the transaction as fraudulent.
If customer uses an international card then this will have value as "true".
This is the version of the Charging API used.
This has the same value that you send in the API request.
This is the hash method used by merchant for the API request.
This will be used for API Authentication.
This API integration holds good for mobile-based transactions as well.
When a payment request is sent to PayZippy, it intelligently identifies the device type and accordingly renders a mobile device-optimized payment page.
You also get the option to override the PayZippy device detection logic to always render the mobile-optimized page by passing the value "Mobile" in the "Source" parameter of the Charging API.
FAILURE The payment failed. You should refer PayZippy Response Message to identify the failure reason.
PENDING The payment request was sent to bank but a confirmed response was not received. There is a low probability of the payment being successful.
INITIATED The payment request was not sent to bank. There is zero probability of the payment being successful. You should refer Transaction Funnel Step to identify the point at which the transaction was aborted.
FAILURE The refund failed. You should refer PayZippy Response Message to identify the failure reason.
A transaction passes through multiple steps from the point you send a payment request to PayZippy to the point PayZippy returns a response. These multiple steps have been classified into the funnel steps given below. The funnel step helps you identify the final point at which a transaction was abandoned or concluded.
There can be rare scenarios where the acquiring bank may have not sent the payment response to PayZippy even after the user enters the 3D secure password on the bank's page. In such scenarios, PayZippy may not return any confirmed payment status to you. For all such transactions, PayZippy later verifies the payment status with the acquiring bank to confirm whether the payment is successful or not.
If the bank confirms that the payment is successful, PayZippy will update the payment status at its end and notify you of the updated status by SMS/Email. You can configure the email address and mobile number on which you would like to receive these notifications, by visiting the "Account Settings" section on your PayZippy Console. | 2019-04-20T05:04:52Z | https://www.payzippy.com/apidoc |
Serious Play: How the World'sBest Companies Simulate to Innovate. Michael Schrage. Harvard Business School Press, 1999.
No MoreTeams!Mastering the Dynamics of Creative Collaboration. Michael Schrage. Currency/Doubleday, 1995.
"I Wasn't Fired," Michael Schrage. Fortune Magazine, 2/21/2002.
"But Wait, There's More," Michael Schrage. Fortune Magazine, 12/10/2001.
"Inside Line: Michael Schrage/ MIT Media Lab," Christopher Null. Smart Business. December 1, 2001.
"Need Innovation? Start By Locking Up The Tech Toys," Michael Schrage. Fortune Magazine, 12/18/2000.
"Difference Engine: The Social Impact of Technology," Michael Schrage. CIO Magazine, May 2000.
"The Proto Project," Michael Schrage. Fast Company Issue 24, May 1999.
"Performing Poorly? The Solution's a No-Brainer: Just Pop a Smart Pill!" Michael Schrage. eCompany, April 1999.
"The Relationship Revolution," Michael Schrage. Merrill Lynch Forum, 1997.
"Time for Face Time," Michael Schrage. Fast Company Issue 11, Oct 1997.
When Michael Schrage told a room full of so-called knowledge management gurus at a Napa Valley conference a few years back that knowledge management didn't make a lot of sense, the people sitting around me immediately began grumbling to themselves or shrugging him off as wildly ill-informed. I, on the other hand, sat up straight for the first time all day and thought, "Finally we meet the one person brave or brash enough to ask about the Emperor's new clothes." It wasn't so much that he was asking tough questions but he was challenging us to ask even more of our organizations, our professions, and ourselves than knowledge management's promise could ever provide. Years later he is still challenging with his fiery brand of honest questions, such as why do people really work together, can they actually create something if they are only talking with one another, and what do people need to create real innovation? After hearing him speak in a small venue in Washington DC, I had the chance to interview him about learning, prototyping, and creating something new. Even if you don't agree with him all the time, I encourage you to ignore any impulse you might have to run off. More so than anyone I have learned from recently, I believe Michael Schrage holds a key to making change in a world with far too much talk and far too little action.
Conner: I've done a good bit of work with prototyping and I agree with the thesis of Serious Play, your recent book, which says people have to create simulations if they want to really innovate. What was new for me was the concept of innovating uses "shared spaces." I would welcome a chance to introduce it to our readers.
Schrage: Looking at the arc of my work, if I have a single "Big Idea" it's the idea of shared space and the media that people use to collaborate, invent, and innovate. Shared spaces were at the core of my first book, Shared Minds, which is about collaboration and collaborative relationships. [Editor's note: An updated, revised paperback edition was published as No More Teams! in 1995.] I believed in the cliché that it takes creative individuals to generate creative results.
However, in researching the histories of disciplines like biotech and software development for the book, what I really found at the core of innovation weren't only creative individuals, per se, but rather creative relationships. Intriguingly, the key medium for managing those creative and innovative relationships was the shared space. I found that all collaboration, without exception, requires shared space. Examples abound, such as Wilbur and Orville Wright literally building wind tunnels and collaborating around models and prototypes to build the first aircraft powered by engine, and Watson and Crick building metal models of helixes and not doing, incidentally, a single experiment in the course of discovering the structure of the double helix.
I found in my research for the book that collaboration was grossly underreported in the literature on creativity and design and learning. My key observation was that it takes shared space to create shared understanding. Moreover, the properties of the shared space shape the quality of the collaboration. This is important because the way you collaborate around the shared space of the whiteboard, for example, is different than the way you collaborate around the shared space of a software prototype, or a clay model, or foam model for industrial design.
Conner: What is the learning that takes place? How is that different from, for instance, one person just telling someone something, as opposed to two people working through it together?
Schrage: I address this in the prologue of Serious Play. Consider a conversation. In a diagram, the conversation is represented by a dotted line going back and forth between the sender and receiver. The interaction changes dramatically when you add a shared space. Most of us have had the experience of getting into a friendly discussion over lunch with a friend or colleague, when you pull out a pen and begin writing on a napkin or a piece of paper, and the other person says, "No, no, that's not what I mean." Then they take the pen and paper from you and mark it up to modify what you were saying, and you begin conversing around the images on the paper. If a waiter were to come by and remove that paper, the conversation would go away. You are no longer talking to or with that other person. You are talking with the other person through a medium, a reference point or shared space that becomes like a little capture device, a little reflector of the conversation. It changes the point of reference for what is going on. The shared space fundamentally transforms the dynamics, not just of the representations, but also of the interaction between people. It changes the ecology of the interaction.
Conner: It's not simply that the people have this shared space. It's that the shared space becomes the medium through which they are working.
Schrage: Exactly. If you don't have a shared space, you're not collaborating. You can put out a table, cutlery, and fine china, but if you're not serving food, you don't have a meal.
The environment of the shared space is very interesting. For example, during meetings many organizations use a technographer to take notes and then project them onto a large screen during the meeting. Often the screen, the source of light, becomes the center of attention. Instead of people talking directly to each other, they talk to each other through the screen, reacting to what is put up there. But something very interesting happens if you make the room brighter. The screen moves into the background and people begin to talk with each other again, and the shared space became less prominent. The shared space can be the center of attention or it can be at the periphery of attention. The properties of the shared space change as the context of the environment in which it's used change.
Conner: Using that example, was there a richer experience when the shared space, the screen, was the focal point?
Schrage: That's hard to cavalierly generalize. Those experiences are not easily generalized. If you were literally driving for focusing on getting ideas out, listing, and prioritizing them, you wouldn't mind the screen dominating the conversation. If you're interested in having a conversation and having ideas more subtly captured, so that the conversation is the focus, then it may make sense for the representation of the conversation to be the backdrop rather than the focus.
Conner: In the book you talk about one of my favorite topicsserendipity. Education is so often an exercise in preaching, a discussion of the known instead of the un-known. It's so sad that in a standard training or learning environment we typically only share with others topics and ideas that someone knows (the teacher, theorist, author) instead of providing what students more often need, which is the ability to analyze, understand, grasp, and work with the unknown. We haven't prepared our society for that. Today, in the real world, the issues we are facing are ones that no one knows the answers to.
Schrage: I completely agree. The analogy I use is that most education and training is analogous to teaching people classical music rather than how to improvise. As long as everyone knows the score, both literally and figuratively, then a classical music education is fabulous. However, if you are dealing with unexpected circumstances and contingencies, classical musicians are not the best, as they themselves will acknowledge. I interviewed Gary Burton, the Dean of Curriculum of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, a few years ago for Fast Company. Burton said that jazz musicians can be trained as classical musicians, but it's very difficult to train classical musicians to become jazz musicians. Why? Because the ability to regurgitate a skill on demand is not the same as the ability to improvise with a skill-those are fundamentally different learnings. The importance of training people how to model, how to design, how to do things that require improvisational skills rather than merely mimic can't be overstated. Consider the Harvard versus the MIT approach. The Harvard case study approach teaches people to have conversations and improvise around their cases, and to import certain techniques to provide insights into the case. At MIT we take a model-building approach to construct a prototype of the situation and then bring in various mathematical, qualitative and quantitative techniques to solve the problem. Those are different paradigms for problem solving and opportunity creation.
However, interestingly enough, what do they have in common? Both rely on the creation of shared spaces to create shared interaction and shared understanding. It's the essence of science. What's the shared space? It's either a theory with a common language that can be manipulated or changed, or an experiment with a set of assumptions that can be manipulated and tested.
When I use the term 'shared space,' different people understandably have different notions of what the words 'shared' and 'space' mean. My rough shorthand is that the shared aspect relates to the rules of engagement, the sociology, the anthropology, the psychology of human interaction and the space aspect relates to the technology of it. Is it physical space, virtual space, digital space, a computer screen, a blackboard with chalk, a whiteboard with magic markers, a cardboard model, or a computer-aided design engineering model?
Conner: Have you seen specific examples of shared spaces used well in educational areas? Some people may have a hard time getting out of thinking about themselves as the 'sage on the stage,' as someone only responsible for sharing information.
Schrage: Over the last 5-7 years the issues you are raising have become far more important. The danger is that we always set these things up as dichotomies. The issue really is one of curriculum design and what mix of 'sage on the stage' and 'collaborative learning' gives the most bang for the buck, and are they integrated instead of disconnected. Where the style is 'sage on the stage,' we must examine whether the sage presents ideas and insights in a form and manner that can be simulated, prototyped, and modeled in the real world, so that people can have the experiential education to go along with the symbolic education. And that's hard. Curriculum design is hard.
What do people do when things are really hard? They often take the path of least resistance. It's like the high school textbook where the definition of experiential learning becomes answering the three questions at the end of the chapter. The gutsy thing to do is to begin the chapter with the exercises rather than with the information.
Conner: I once led a session at a sales meeting where I began by handing out napkins. I then asked people to watch a demonstration, draw it on their napkin (because that's a skill they typically used to make a sale), and then turn to the person next to them to critique their napkin skills.
Schrage: How did it go over?
Conner: It was a tremendous success.
Schrage: Putting my scientist hat onand I use that term tongue-in-cheekit would be very interesting to observe which portion of the people said, "Don't touch my napkin" versus which portion used the napkin as an invitation to the client to also mark it up. At the MIT Media Lab we demothe lab's motto is "Demo or Die." There is a world of difference between doing a demo that is show and tell and doing a demo that is show and ask. It's the difference between doing something to persuade and propagandize versus what I call an innovation invitation.
You know, when I was in my twenties I thought I had a good idea when I told a respected person about it and they said, "You know, that's a good idea." That was an unsophisticated notion of peer review. My belief now is that you know you have a good idea when you tell somebody about your idea and they respond, "That's a good idea. Have you thought about X, Y, or Z?" That is the essence of a shared space-a platform through which other people can add value or interpret the shared space and help it become more valuable. The best shared spaces are an invitation to innovation. That's a measure; a metric; a heuristic. We see that in innumerable industry examples.
There is not a salesperson in the world who doesn't know he or she is about to close the sale when the customer or the client takes over from them and says, "Oh, I can do this, and I can do this, and…" so the sales person doesn't have to say anything but simply nod and say, "Yes, you can. What's more, we can make modifications so that it can do more of what you want to do."
Conner: When I was conducting a lot of training I used to joke that I could teach anyone anything as long as someone in the room knew something about the subject. I would do the opener but then the people who knew a lot about the subject could challenge each other and the issues. In the end we learned a lot more than any one person could have ever delivered.
Schrage: That is the hybrid between the shared space and the 'sage on the stage.' It's the notion of facilitated interaction. I believe that Michael Doyle's How to Make Meetings Work is really the most powerful example of this. He says sometimes you don't need content facilitators, but rather process facilitators. As long as the facilitator knows a little about the content, then he or she can leverage other people's knowledge.
What's the difference between effective facilitation and an entertaining improvisation? Nothing. But, facilitators are improvisers. They are instruments of the other people in the room. However, one of the errors that Doyle and other people made is that often facilitation is too conversation-driven, and occurs without shared space, without the capture and feedback mechanisms to amplify the effectiveness of the facilitation. But, facilitation is not enough for collaboration; you need to have shared spaces. You need to have media where the ideas can be captured and represented and those representations can be modified and played with. And that's the essence of Serious Play.
I thinkI hopeDoyle would agree. His book is well over 20 years old but it still holds up very well because he understood key aspects about human interaction. However, just as I have my blinders around shared space, he had his blinders around the notion of facilitation, and that hanging stuff up on butcher paper was really the way to go. But that's not it. Here's the difference: you must be able to carry the butcher paper with you back to the office, to the shared space, as these prototypes are your continuity from the realm of playing with ideas to the actual deliverable for the customers. They are the media for managing this entire value creation process. Too often we have the notion of backstage and front-stage. I'm interested in the continuity between what goes on in rehearsal and what goes on in the final performance.
One of the key observations in the book, one that I believe even more strongly now than I did when I wrote it Serious Play is the belief the models are driving our processes and our learning, versus the processes and learning driving the models. The belief that a prototype or model is excreted at the end of an innovation or a learning process and that the process drives the prototype is just not true.
Conner: I am continually stunned at how many people, even in design organizations, resist doing prototypes or simulations. They offer excuses like, "We don't have time," or "That will interfere with what we know."
Schrage: That's exactly why I decided to write Serious Play. Very often the most rational and obvious thing to do, in certain cases, is to build a quick and dirty model and test it to find out what it is you need to learn, or to see how people actually interact. But most people don't do that.
This leads inevitably and inexorably to the conclusion that it is human behavior issues that are fundamentally both the opportunities and the obstacles in managing learning and innovation in organizations. It is not a matter of wiring everybody and connecting everybody to the Internet. It's not a matter of needing better teachers or more information.
Conner: What do you see as the challenges associated with learning, specifically with the intersection of technology, learning, and human behavior?
Schrage: As much as I believe in the politically correct goal of "educating" children, I strongly believe that children are biologically and genetically programmed to be learning machines. Children cannot help but learn.
Therefore, the real challenge is adult education. It's a much harder task for adults to open up to new learning, new behaviors, new design approaches, and new ways of modeling things than it is for a child. Adults are past a lot of that biological stage of being programmed to learn.
So, the real problem in education today is not how we help naturally inquisitive children learn better, but rather, how we help cynical, embittered 38-year-olds learn. That's a much harder challenge. Frankly, I consider it a worthier challenge.
Conner: What are some other key messages you want us to come away with?
Schrage: Shared space, shared understandings are critical. If you don't have a shared space you're not collaborating. One of the tests of a shared space is whether it's an invitation to innovation. Is it creating opportunities for other people to add value?
You have to manage shared space both tactically and strategically. It doesn't work to say, "Here's a shared space, so come play." You must define what you're trying to do with the shared space. Are you trying to use the shared space to create new kinds of interactions and conversations? Are you using the prototype of shared space to manage risk or to create opportunities, to create consensus, or to identify different points of view? Are you using it to see what values people bring, which values to strip away, or what people are concealing as values, or are you trying to use it as a vehicle to accommodate? Does the shared space prototype represent a mechanism to inject compromise or to push the envelope and provoke?
It's a choice. There was a joke in the 1950s Detroit that the definition of a concept car is a car that will never be built. So it's not just a shared space but, rather, what's the mission of the shared space?
Conner: So, the question is, who's the surprise for, the client or for those of us who are building the prototype?
Schrage: Exactly. Who are you trying to surprise? Yourself? Your customers? Your colleagues?
Conner: Thank you for sharing your ideas, and this space, with us.
Michael Schrage writes, consults, and actively participates in the design and deployment of digital innovations. He is co-director of the MIT Media Lab's e-markets initiative. Schrage has contributed to the Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Wired, Red Herring, Science, Forbes ASAP, Esquire, and other many other publications. Learn more at the MIT Media Lab site.
Marcia Conner is Editor-in-Chief of LiNE Zine, and CEO of the Learnativity Alliance. If you have something brash or bold to say, write her at [email protected]. | 2019-04-24T18:09:01Z | http://www.linezine.com/3.1/features/msmcosp.htm |
Hornady Powder Cop Die… for .223 Rem?
I’ve been too busy with other things to spend time at the reloading bench. But the other night I had a little time so I thought I’d switch the powder drop over from the pistol to the rifle rotor and get it adjusted. With that done, next station is the powder cop die.
Uh… the end of the die rod doesn’t fit into the mouth of a .223 Rem case.
But the fix is simple!
You can see in the above picture that on the left you have a small end, 0.1855″ in diameter. On the right, the larger end, .2485″ diameter. Chances are when you bought your powder cop die, it was installed with the large end down, inside the die, and the small end stuck up and out for you to measure your powder.
Remove the little white rubber ring on the rod. The rod should then fall free of the die body. Flip the rod over, putting the little rubber ring all the way up towards the larger end, then put the rod back into the die flipped around. That’s it! Simple.
I’m not sure if this is any sort of Hornady-blessed way to do things. When I ran into the problem last night I hit Google first to see if there was a whole other die to handle smaller calibers; no, Hornady only sells the one. So further searching turned up this “flip it over” solution. Again, not sure if it’s Hornady-blessed, but others report it works fine. I guess I’ll find out eventually.
Dave Re has a good write-up and video on how to more accurately weigh a powder charge.
Nice technique! I shall have to adopt that myself.
Only 3 shots? or… 7? maybe 5 or 10. What’s statistically best?
Reader Mike left a comment that pointed to Dan Newberry’s Optimal Charge Weight website and reloading technique. Thanx, Mike!
Reading through Dan’s writings, I have to say there’s a lot of sound reasoning in there — or what sounds like sound reasoning, because I’m still new to reloading so it may be my naiveté talking. Googling on the topic turns up a lot of people who use his technique and that are satisfied with the results, and I’d like to try Dan’s approach especially since prior attempts at using the ladder technique didn’t quite get me what I was after. But I’m struggling with one point.
Backing up a moment, I do think there’s something to what Dan says. For instance, he points out how Federal Gold Medal Match .308 ammo is a top performer out of so many rifles. But how can this be? A lot of handloading lore revolves around the notion that every rifle is different, even two of the same rifle model that came off the production line physically adjacent to each other. I don’t deny that, but if truly that mattered so much, there’d be no way factories could develop such high-performing ammo, right? One place Dan really gets on with this is the issue of “seating off the lands”. He doesn’t deny there’s something to it, but he doesn’t put tons of stress upon it like others do. Again, look at Federal GMM, because there’s no way it can be set at some ideal distance off the lands because every rifle is different. So while perhaps distance off the lands matters, is it that critical to the process? Dan argues there are other things more important. That isn’t to say the distance isn’t important; I figure if you are wanting to wring the utmost performance out of a particular gun then yes it’s another variable to tinker with to see how it affects your loads for that gun. But first, worry about other things. Read Dan’s website to understand his reasoning and approach.
But the thing about Dan’s technique that troubles me? Only firing 3-shot groups.
Granted, you shoot a lot of 3-shot groups, but each are different loads (powder amounts). So really, you are trying to determine performance of that load based upon a small set of data. I’ve done enough shooting to know that 3-shot groups are great for the ego, but 5 shot groups tend to be a little more honest. I think I read in the Speer manual (if not there, read it from some reputable source) that after much analysis they concluded that 7 shots was the statistically best balance between shooting enough to get a good picture of performance but also keeping the number of shots low for cost, barrel wear, time, trouble, etc. purposes. Plus if I only load 3, what if I get an honest flier where I know I pulled the shot? That’s very easy to do when I’m testing loads at the indoor range… just as the trigger is about to break, someone opts to shoot their 300 Win Mag in the next bay and it rattles my fillings and there goes the shot. So now what? Does that mean I should load 10+ rounds of that powder charge just in case? and if something messes up, start that group over? But then, you’re supposed to fire in a round-robin fashion to try to combat effects of heat and so on, so if there’s one mess up do I have to start over?
All those questions aside, it just feels like 3 shot groups isn’t going to give me what I want. But then, maybe I’m looking at it wrong? Honestly… as I write this it’s making me think. If I’m perhaps (now better) understanding what Dan wrote, it’s not looking for a tight grouping but rather how the groups are generally printing… looking for groups hitting the same general area on the target. Thus, you start to find the harmonic vibration point for that rifle. Once you know that, then you can work to refine it to tighten up the accuracy part, fine-tuning the powder charge, fine-tuning the seating depth (which of course also affects distance off the lands).
Hrm. Is that the point?
Maybe then yeah, taking the more traditional Speer approach isn’t the way to go about it.
In related news, Mike also suggested I try out a Weaver T-36 to help me develop loads. I think that’d be great, but it’s going to have to wait. Too much money has gone out the door, so there’s no way I can afford that right now. I’m just going to pull the 3-9×40 and mount off my 6.8 hunting rifle and use that for now. It’ll just have to do. I figure it will be good enough since I am looking to make a plinking load and not wring out every last millimeter of accuracy.
Now I remember why I don’t like reloading rifle cartridges.
I’m finally getting back on the reloading wagon. After doing some clean and lube maintenance on the presses, I took 100 pieces of new .223 Remington Remington-brand brass and started the prep work on them. I opted to use the single-stage press and just did a full-length resize (small-base die) on all 100 pieces. I then trimmed the cases to 1.740″. Why that low? I’m going to use my new RCBS X-Die and, if I read all the directions correctly, you take the brass, do a full-length resize, then trim it 0.020″ under the max case length. Thus for .223 Rem it comes out to 1.740″. Run it through all the stations on the RCBS case prep tool (chamfer and debur the mouth, uniform the primer pocket, etc.). And then we’re done. Ugh. 100 cases took almost 2 hours. It’s just slow and tedious.
Once I finished all of that, I did set up the X-Die on the Hornady Lock-n-Load progressive press. Haven’t set up the rest of the progressive press yet. I’m curious to see how the X-Die works out, and of course if I set things up correctly. 🙂 I figure any time from here out when I deal with brass I’ll first use the single-stage press to do the full-length resize, trim it for the X-Die, then from here on out I hope I can skip all that prep work and can just go straight to the X-die on the progressive press. Hopefully in the long run that will save some time and trouble, yet still yield quality ammo.
Rereading the last iterating of my plan, I think it’ll work out. I don’t see any need to change plans. The one thing I’m not sure about tho is my sights. See, the particular AR I’ll be using presently has irons, and will have an Aimpoint CompM4s as soon as it gets here. Will that be an accurate enough scope for the load development? I’m not sure. I mean, a 2 MOA dot, trying to develop an accurate load… I’m not sure I’ll get there. Trouble is, I don’t have another scope to go around. What I might end up doing is taking the scope off my 6.8 SPC hunting rifle and putting it atop my Rock River Arms upper. Thing is there, that’s a stainless steel barrel, 1:8 twist, Wylde chamber and well…. should I work to develop for that when it’s not what I’ll generally use? Conversely, shooting the load out of both uppers would help me determine what’s going to be more general-purpose useful out of any upper I have. So… I’m not sure yet how I’ll do the testing. But I guess I need to go figure that out before I start loading.
When the February 2011 issue of American Rifleman showed up in my mailbox a few days ago, I look at the cover and see “Shooting & Loading the 6.8 SPC“. Ooo! How apropos!
In reading the article I was taken aback. How much actual experience with 6.8 SPC did the author, Bryce M. Towsley, have? I know he’s been around, but I’m talking specifically with the 6.8.
The article isn’t overall bad, but it just doesn’t seem all that well-informed.
He says “The 6.8 SPC is not a ‘drop-them-in-their-tracks’ cartridge”. I beg to differ, having dropped a deer DRT just a couple months ago. I know others have experienced the same. He also mentioned that they rarely exited, but until that same deer hunt I have never recovered a bullet… all have exited, and this one didn’t purely because of the angle at which I shot the deer (all hail Barnes TSX performance). But I’ll give him a pass on this given the rest of the paragraph seemed to have been speaking of past performance, not modern 6.8 performance.
Then he says after testing a multitude of factory ammunition and handloads, he says didn’t find the 6.8 to be particularly accurate. Eh?
Ignore the ones in the center as I was still zeroing the rifle. This is from a Wilson Combat 6.8 upper using Silver State Armory 85 grain Barnes TSX “tac-load”. The 3 groups on the diamonds are not accurate?
If the data in the article is complete, then I’m not sure what to say. Either it’s your gun, your handloads, or your factory ammo choice. Try some Silver State Armory for factory ammo. For handloading, Silver State Armory’s small-primer brass is the best.
When it comes to performance when hunting, the article makes it sound like 6.8 isn’t good for much beyond varmints and whitetail deer. People are taking elk with 6.8, big mean hogs with 6.8. So, not really sure why 6.8 gets the brush-off from the author.
What’s more confusing? While the online article doesn’t have the sidebar, the print article has a sidebar on 6.8 by Bill Wilson (the “Wilson” in “Wilson Combat“). Bill has done a lot of testing and work with the 6.8, and here’s the proof. <– go on, click it. It’s not just the copy nor testimonials at the top of the page; it’s not just the guns listed in the middle of the page. Look towards the bottom of the page and the number of animals taken, and those are just the big trophy-like ones. Look how many big Texas feral hogs were taken with 6.8. And look all the way at the bottom at the steel plates and the grouping there at long distance.
My initial impressions of the 6.8 SPC were its accuracy potential, functional reliability and lack of recoil. Shot through quality barrels, it’s easy to get 1/2″ to 1″ 100-yard groups with bullets suitable for hunting. Few load combinations I tried shot worse than 2″.
One article contradicts the other article. So which is it? Is 6.8 accurate or not? Me? I’ll take Bill’s word for it because I know how much work he’s done in this area.
But my personal reason for experimenting with the 6.8 SPC was not tactical or target shooting. It was hunting, specifically hog hunting. For those who have not hunted hogs, be aware that a 100-lb. hog is as tough to kill as an average whitetail, and a big, tough old 200-plus-lb. boar is as hard to put down as some elk-sized animals. They are tough, require good shot placement and deep penetration.
So how does the 6.8 SPC actually work on game? This little round has terminal performance way out of proportion to its size. At the time of this writing I know of more than 50 hogs weighing up to 270 lbs. that have been cleanly taken with the 6.8 SPC with neck and shoulder shots at distances up to 150 yards.
…my favorite [loads for hogs] being the 85- and 100-gr. Barnes TSX and the Nosler 130-gr. AccuBond. For predators and whitetails, I like the Barnes 85-gr. TSX, 110-gr. Sierra Pro-Hunter and the 100- or 110-gr. Nosler AccuBond.
Based on my hog and deer hunting experiences, however, I would not hesitate to shoot the largest hog, a large mule deer or a black bear with my 6.8 loaded with Barnes 110-gr. TSX bullets.
When you actually know what the history is of the 6.8, when you know what’s going on with the 6.8 and what it can actually do, you find it’s quite a fantastic and capable round. If you really want to stay on the cutting edge of what’s going on with 6.8, or if you just want to learn more about it, 68forums.com is your best resource.
I got into 6.8 because I wanted something more capable than .223/5.56 for hunting, but didn’t add tremendous amounts of recoil. Something in the AR platform gives lots of versatility and flexibility of options. I wanted this so I could have something my kids could hunt with. Thing is, it’s becoming what I’m enjoying to hunt with. 🙂 I’d say the only downside is there still isn’t an inexpensive option for plinking rounds.
If this article can get more people interested in 6.8 SPC, that’s great. Unfortunately I wonder if people are going to read the article and blow it off due to the way the article was written. Hopefully people will pay more attention to Bill Wilson’s sidebar.
All of my Titegroup powder is gone. I loaded 300 rounds of .38 Special last night, and there was just a bit of powder left over. Not enough to bother with, so I’m calling it good enough and done.
At the end of it all, I can say I really like my Hornady Lock-n-Load press. I’ve probably loaded close to 20,000 rounds on this press now with little problem. Is it perfect? No, but I’m quite pleased with it and it obviously does the job. And even here with me getting close to no powder, the powder drop was still dropping proper charges…. no worry about having to keep the hopper at least quarter-ish full to ensure consistent throws.
I need to run the press through some maintenance now, from cleaning, lubing, and so on.
And of course, I can now start on my .223 Rem reloading. But I’m not going to just yet; going to take a break. While I enjoy the reloading, the 9mm got to a point of “need to load all the bullets” which took quite a while. Then it turned into “need to use up all the Titegroup”. And it just loomed over me all the time… it became a chore, a chore I happily did and was dedicated to seeing through, but a chore nonetheless.
And now I done with it.
Called Winchester today and found out the ballistic coefficients on those bullets. Updated my original post with the data.
For Christmas I received a Cabela’s gift card, so I put Daughter in the car and off we went. I actually was going to look at getting a new coat (those Carhartt’s looked pretty cool) but they didn’t have the color and size I wanted. So….. over to the gun counter I went. I was curious to see if they had any of that IMR 8208 XBR… and lo, they did! So as you can see I picked up a jug. I’m not going to use it yet… just figured to snag a jug while I had the opportunity. That shiny gold label is a cute gimmick… makes the jug really stand out on the shelf from all the other powder containers.
The rest is .223 Remington ammo to act as the control baseline for my .223 reloads. The UMC, PMC, and AE along with some Georgia Arms Canned Heat will serve the role for cheap plinking ammo performance. The TAP and Federal Gamekings aren’t 100% the same as my load (different bullet), but about as close as I could get in a .223 55 grain premium ammo. And I picked up a box of the Winchester 5.56 Q3131 stuff just for a 5.56 load comparison. I think I have some XM193 somewhere that I might also pull out for similar comparison.
Enough waffling. I think I have a plan for my next reloading efforts.
When I reload, I like to reload “everything at once”; that is, as long as the press is set up for X caliber, just keep reloading that caliber until I’m sick of it. Sure, the Hornady Lock-n-Load progressive press is relatively quick with caliber conversions, but I don’t have enough duplicate parts to just swap around without having to reconfigure some things, like the powder drop. So, just keep it dialed in and stable, load until I’m sick of it, then change. With pistol rounds almost finished, I can now shift to something else, and that something else will be rifle.
About a year ago I was trying to reload .223 Remington but it just wasn’t working out. So I put it on the shelf, loaded a lot of 9mm and .38 Special, and wondered what rifle to do next. I thought about 6.8 SPC because that’s really the only way to utilize those Barnes 6.8 SPC 95 grain TTSX’s, but I wasn’t sure about doing that because components are expensive (even the cheapest 6.8 components are still relatively more expensive than say .223 or .308) and I was still unsure about what caused the .223 reloads to not work out: was it me? process? equipment? components? not enough trials? so many possible reasons, I didn’t want to bet the farm on expensive 6.8 components until I had a better grasp on things. I recently was thinking about .308 Winchester, but that motivation was primarily driven by the thought of an elk hunt with Dad…which is now unlikely to happen. So I come back to the shelf. I mean, if I look at the long-term reloading plans I set about a year ago, I’ve accomplished much of what I wanted, but the path was always to go back to .223 Remington. Now of course at that time I was still very curious about hunting with .223 Remington and hadn’t made the move to 6.8 SPC, thus why I still wanted to come back to .223. But as I think about other reasons for shelving it, I want to come back to it to finish what I started. I want to figure out what was going on and what caused things to not work out.
And so, I’m going to work on .223 Remington. It’s final, no more waffling.
So here’s my plan. Fellow reloaders, feel free to comment.
The general plan is to use loading .223 Remington as a platform for figuring out my rifle reloading process. I want to iron out any issues and gain rifle cartridge reloading experience. Thus this go-round will be loading simple and, relatively speaking, cheap .223 plinking/practice rounds. Longer-term I want to be able to make fine-tuned hunting rounds, be it in .223 Rem (probably using something like heavy Barnes TSX/TTSX, or maybe 60 grain Nosler Partitions), or 6.8 SPC… being able to get exactly the best hunting ammo my rifles can shoot? That’s my longer-term goal.
The goal of this particular load is practice: a round to use for shooting practice, a round to give me practice in reloading. Thus I want to keep it fairly simple and straightforward, but also with a nod to mass production on a progressive press.
I will be testing it out of a Bushmaster AR-style carbine. It has a 1:9 twist, 16″ barrel, 5.56 NATO chamber, carbine-length gas system. While I can load it hot due to the 5.56 chamber, I don’t want to. My primary concern is accuracy, wanting to make a load as accurate as I can within the limitations of the components and the rifle. Velocity is a secondary concern. I doubt this will be shot beyond 200 yards, and if I can make a round with acceptable accuracy that’s less violent on the gun, all the better. Plus, it’d be nice if this load could work out of any .223-chambered rifle, so I want to do my best to keep it within .223-specs; I may not test it out of any other rifle (unless someone is willing to put up their rifle for the tests), so the Bushmaster will be the sole test platform.
So what is acceptable accuracy? Before I shoot the reloads I will obtain various factory ammo of similar design from different manufacturers (e.g. UMC, Winchester white box, I’ve got some Georgia Arms “canned heat”, some XM193, Federal P223S, etc.) and shoot them through the same rifle and note their performance. I will want to use both cheap target ammo but also some premium ammo. That will provide me a comparison baseline.
Bullets: Winchester bulk 55 grain 22 caliber (.224″) FMJ BT (WB556MC55). I obtained a lot of these when I originally bought my reloading equipment, thus they are what I’m going to use because they’re what I have.
Primers: Magtech small rifle (PR-SR, #7.5). I don’t know much about Magtech primers but they were what was available during the great Obama gun-rush. Google turns up positive results, so I’ll try ’em for these plinking loads. My CCI #41’s I’ll keep for the hunting loads.
Brass: Initially I’ll start with new Remington-brand .223 brass, because again I have some. I want to minimize variables, so I figure starting with new brass of all the same brand/headstamp should help with consistency in the brass department. I will then continue to use this same fired brass while developing the load. After the load is developed, brass will be the next thing I vary because if I want to load a lot of rounds for plinking then “mixed used cases” is where I have to go.
When I work the brass I will be using RCBS small-base full-length resizing dies… at first! The first time through the brass will get this treatment, then will be marked. Subsequent uses of that marked-brass will go through a RCBS X-die (small base). Thus, when I do the initial brass setup, I will set up the brass, trim it, etc. according to X-die instructions. First time through I will also take care of things like deburring the flash hole, cleaning primer pockets, and so on.
COAL: Load to the cannelure. These bullets have a cannelure, so I’m going to load such that the case mouth is centered in that cannelure. Exactly what is that length? I’m not sure… have to wait until I get one loaded and then I’ll measure. But rough measuring lying a bullet outside a non-prepped case was somewhere around 2.2″.
Of course, that brings up an issue of to crimp or not to crimp. I personally want to crimp because there is a cannelure thus I CAN crimp, and since these are going to be practice loads 1. I don’t need nor expect “one-hole” accuracy, 2. the rounds are likely to be banged around in loose-storage in an ammo can, shot out of an AR, and so on… so I think a light Lee Factory Crimp would be good insurance against setback. HOWEVER, that said, I think I’m going to try developing the load without a crimp. I’ll work to find what’s “good enough”, then throw a crimp on there and see if that changes anything.
Powder: Of all the rifle powders I have on hand, I am going to use Ramshot TAC because it’s usable in .223 and it should meter extremely well, important for use in the progressive press. From my researching, I get the feeling that TAC will produce a good load… maybe not the best in terms of maximum accuracy and maximum velocity, but should be more than adequate. I should be able to get an accurate-enough load, but it just may not have the most velocity. But given my above-stated goals, that’s fine. Ease of loading with it, if it’s accurate-enough, low-cost, etc. all add up to a powder that fits the bill for the intent of the load.
As for charge weight, I’m going to start at 23.5 grains and work up to 26.5 in 0.5 grain increments. The Speer #14 book says that shooting 7 rounds gives you the best idea of how a load will perform without using a lot of components, so I’ll go with that emotion and load 7 at each charge weight. Once I see which of those 7 weights performs best, I’ll try some refinement from there (e.g. if 24.5 is best, try out 24.3, 24.4, 24.6, 24.7 and see how they do).
Testing Procedure: I will start by keeping all components relatively the same, except for powder charge weight. I say relatively because I will start with new brass and use the same brass throughout development, so over time it’ll be once-fired, twice-fired, etc..
I will initially shoot only for accuracy, not using the chronograph. The main reason is logistics. Best way to test for accuracy will be at the indoor range off a bench and I can’t use a chronograph there. The indoor range is the closest, and if I want to ensure I can work on this stuff well, I must have some conveniences here.
I’ll start by throwing a few Georgia Arms “canned heat” downrange just to get the barrel fouled and warm, then I’ll start with the various factory ammo, shooting for accuracy. The scope will be zeroed @ 100 yards and I’ll shoot at 100 yards, thus while I’m sure I’ll see some POA vs. POI shifts as I change ammo, in general that should keep me on paper. I’ll use fresh targets for each string. I’ll see what charge weight gets me the best results. After that, it’ll be going home, analyzing, and figuring out how to correct or refine.
Where I go from there will be determined by the results of the initial test. But I can say that of those factory ammos I purchase, I will not shoot all of them that first time. Once I have the most-accurate loading, I’ll then take everything to the outdoor range and shoot over the chronograph. I’ll shoot the factory loads too to get their velocities for comparison.
I won’t be starting on this immediately as I’ve got a bunch of other things in life to get dealt with. But I did want to get my plan on paper. I may tweak it slightly between now and whenever I actually start loading, but the above is what I have so far.
Any input from seasoned reloaders is welcome.
Any reloaders out there worked with IMR 8208 XBR powder?
It’s a relatively new powder, but all the stuff I’m reading online seems very promising and positive. Excellent velocity, high accuracy, extruded yet short-cut so it should meter very well, temperature insensitive, and made for all sorts of cartridges. Loading it for .223 Rem, .308 Win or even 6.8 SPC seems like it could do very well. Seems like a dream powder.
I’m curious if any readers have used it and what your experiences are. If I can find some locally, I’m thinking about picking some up. | 2019-04-25T01:47:43Z | https://blog.hsoi.com/tag/reloading/ |
Hallucination, the experience of perceiving objects or events that do not have an external source, such as hearing one’s name called by a voice that no one else seems to hear. A hallucination is distinguished from an illusion, which is a misinterpretation of an actual stimulus.
A historical survey of the study of hallucinations reflects the development of scientific thought in psychiatry, psychology, and neurobiology. By 1838 the significant relationship between the content of dreams and of hallucinations had been pointed out. In the 1840s the occurrence of hallucinations under a wide variety of conditions (including psychological and physical stress) as well as their genesis through the effects of such drugs as stramonium and hashish had been described.
French physician Alexandre-Jacques-François Brierre de Boismont in 1845 described many instances of hallucinations associated with intense concentration, or with musing, or simply occurring in the course of psychiatric disorder. In the last half of the 19th century, studies of hallucinations continued. Investigators in France were particularly oriented toward abnormal psychological function, and from this came descriptions of hallucinosis during sleepwalking and related reactions. In the 1880s English neurologist John Hughlings Jackson described hallucination as being released or triggered by the nervous system.
Other definitions of the term emerged later. Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler (1857–1939) defined hallucinations as “perceptions without corresponding stimuli from without,” while the Psychiatric Dictionary in 1940 referred to hallucination as the “apparent perception of an external object when no such object is present.” A spirited interest in hallucinations continued well into the 20th century. Sigmund Freud’s concepts of conscious and unconscious activities added new significance to the content of dreams and hallucinations. It was theorized that infants normally hallucinate the objects and processes that give them gratification. Although the notion has since been disputed, this “regression” hypothesis (i.e., that hallucinating is a regression, or return, to infantile ways) is still employed, especially by those who find it clinically useful. During the same period, others put forth theories that were more broadly biological than Freud’s but that had more points in common with Freud than with each other.
The general theory of hallucinations here delineated rests upon two fundamental assumptions. One assumption states that life experiences influence the brain in such a way as to leave, in the brain, enduring physical changes that have variously been called neural traces, templates, or engrams. Ideas and images are held to derive from the incorporation and activation of these engrams in complex circuits involving nerve cells. Such circuits in the cortex (outer layers) of the brain appear to subserve the neurophysiology of memory, thought, imagination, and fantasy. The emotions associated with these intellectual and perceptual functions seem to be mediated through cortex connections with the deeper parts of the brain (the limbic system or “visceral brain,” for example), thus permitting a dynamic interplay between perception and emotion through transactions that appear to take place largely at unconscious levels.
Conscious awareness is found to be mediated by the ascending midbrain reticular activating system (a network of nerve cells in the brainstem). Analyses of hallucinations reported by sufferers of neurological disorders and by neurosurgical patients in whom the brain is stimulated electrically have shown the importance of the temporal lobes (at the sides of the brain) to auditory hallucinations, for example, and of other functionally relevant parts of the brain in this process.
A second assumption states that the total human personality is best understood in terms of the constant interplay of forces that continually emanate from inside (as internal physiological activity) and from outside the individual (as sensory stimuli). Such transactions between the environment and the individual may be said to exert an integrating and organizing influence upon memory traces stored in the nervous system and to affect the patterns in which sensory engrams are activated to produce experiences called images, fantasies, dreams, or hallucinations, as well as the emotions associated with these patterns. If such a constantly shifting balance exists between internal and external environmental forces, physiological considerations (e.g., brain function) as well as cultural and experiential factors emerge as major determinants of the content and meaning of hallucinations.
Hallucinatory experiences can be brought about through direct stimulation of the exposed brain, as in cases of local cortical arousal under the neurosurgeon’s stimulating electrode. Under circumstances other than surgery or such situations as, for example, some forms of epilepsy, however, there must be a decrease in the forces that ordinarily dominate consciousness before hallucinations occur. These inhibiting forces require for their maintenance a relatively high level of sensory input of appropriate quality and frequency.
The ways in which the reticular network of cells in the brainstem acts as a regulatory and integrating system for these relationships remain under intensive study. Since levels of brain arousal during sleep and wakefulness also are mediated via reticular formation activity, sleeping and dreaming merit consideration as hallucinatory activities. In the process of falling asleep, a person passes through a period of “partial sleep” in which awareness of the environment drops rapidly but in which the level of cortical arousal (which falls less rapidly) remains sufficiently high to permit some appreciation of external stimulation. Thus, the so-called hypnagogic (induced by drowsiness) phenomena occur.
Common hypnagogic hallucinations may be visual (e.g., scenes from the previous few hours appear) or auditory (e.g., one seems to hear one’s name called). A frequently occurring hypnagogic hallucination is the sensation of loss of support or balance, perhaps accompanied by a fragmentary “dream” of falling, followed immediately by a jerking reflex recovery movement (the myoclonic jerk) that may jolt the sleeper back into wakefulness.
The first stages of sleep appear to be dream-free. During this phase, measurements taken by an electroencephalograph (EEG) will record the sleeper producing large, slow brain waves. Sensory stimuli from without (such as noise or cold) or stimuli from within the body (such as dyspepsia or anxiety), plus a somewhat regular spontaneous fluctuation in the depth of sleep, will periodically (perhaps every 90 minutes or so) bring the sleeper into a state that favours perceptual release, in which case dreaming tends to take place. This state (with specific EEG signs and rapid movements of the closed eyes) probably occurs several times every night, so that more than 20 percent of an average person’s sleep is taken up with several dreams, each of about 10 to 15 minutes’ duration. At the time of awakening, the typical sleeper again passes through a period of perceptual release, often experiencing dreams that increase in intensity, and perhaps may have the hallucinations of “partial sleep,” these now being called hypnopompic (associated with a semiconscious state before awakening) experiences.
A simplified but perhaps helpful way of characterizing these conditions might be to imagine someone standing at a window opposite a fireplace, looking out at a garden in the sunset. The person may be thoroughly absorbed by the view of the outside world and fail to visualize the interior of the room at all. As it becomes darker outside, images of the objects in the room behind the person are reflected dimly in the window glass. For a time, then, the viewer may see either the garden (if gazing into the distance) or the reflection of the room’s interior (when focusing on the glass). Night falls, but the fire still illuminates the room. The watcher now sees in the glass a reflection of the interior of the room, which appears to be outside the window. This illusion becomes dimmer as the fire dies down, and, finally, when it is dark both outside and within, nothing more is seen. If the fire flares up from time to time, the visions in the glass reappear.
Another analogy might be that dreams, like the stars, are shining all the time, even though the stars are not often seen in daytime. If, however, there is an eclipse of the sun, or if a viewer watches the sky after sunset or before sunrise, then the stars, like dreams, though often forgotten, may be seen.
A more brain-related concept is that of a continuous information-processing activity (a kind of “preconscious stream”) that is influenced by both conscious and unconscious forces and that constitutes the potential supply of dream content. Hallucinations in the waking state also would involve the same phenomenon, produced by a somewhat different set of psychological or physiological circumstances.
It is valuable to consider the probable relationship between the level of physiological arousal in the brain and information processing during the waking state. The functions of consciousness apparently reach an optimal point in relation to level of arousal, beyond which they disorganize progressively as arousal increases. The presence of marked arousal (produced, for example, by extreme anxiety or by chemical stimulation of the brain) is accompanied by marked disturbance of concentration. Again, contact with external stimuli is impaired, this time by excessive input that “jams the circuits,” in which case spontaneous dissociative experiences may occur. As arousal increases further, the hallucinations of full-blown delirium or psychotic excitement may appear with frightening vividness, intensity, and emotional accompaniment. Greater brain arousal might result in generalized seizure phenomena, as in epilepsy.
When people are kept in isolation (sensory deprivation), information input via the senses (such as hearing and sight) is reduced. A person who remains alert during a period of sensory deprivation is likely to experience vivid fantasies and, perhaps, hallucinations. A slight amount of stimulation directed toward the senses may further increase the likelihood of hallucination. If stimuli are markedly reduced and the level of arousal is high, the hallucinations can be especially vivid and emotionally charged.
Progressive sleep loss appears to decrease one’s capacity for integrating realistic perceptions of the external environment. Hallucinations probably will occur in anyone if wakefulness is sufficiently prolonged; anxiety is likely to hasten or to enhance hallucinatory production. (The disorganizing effect of sleep deprivation has been exploited in extorting confessions from prisoners.) Observations suggest that fleeting hallucinations typically begin after two or three days without sleep, and that after 100 to 200 sleepless hours a progressive personality disorganization will develop, marked by periods of hallucinosis or, in some cases, by the reappearance of a previously existing psychiatric disorder.
The mystic achieves hallucinations by gaining control of his own dissociative mechanisms; perhaps this is a form of self-hypnosis. Such individuals can accomplish an astonishing withdrawal from the environment by prolonged intense concentration (e.g., by gazing at some object). The hallucinations may be of the type in which the person perceives his “inner self” to leave his body to view himself (autoscopic hallucination) or to be transported to new surroundings. Alternatively, the hallucinations may take the form of unique visual imagery; for example, the yantra is a visual hallucination of a coloured, geometrical image that appears at a level of trance of the sort experienced by practitioners of Yoga. The recurrence of certain designs and patterns in human hallucinatory experience is probably related to structural aspects of the visual system.
Ordinary experimental hypnotic and posthypnotic suggestions of hallucinations are well known. The hypnotic subject (who can be described as a person in a controlled dissociative state) may on occasion also experience spontaneous hallucinations in the absence of specific suggestions.
Prolonged monotony or fixation of attention may lead to diminished responsiveness to the environment with a general effect similar to that of absolute reduction of stimulation or of hypnotic trance. Under these conditions such dissociative phenomena as “highway hypnosis” among drivers of motor vehicles may occur. Similar phenomena that occur among aviators have been called fascination or fixation. During prolonged, monotonous flight, pilots may experience visual, auditory, and bodily (kinesthetic) hallucinations; for example, a pilot may suddenly feel that the plane is in a spin or a dive or that it is upside down, even though it is flying level. A kinesthetic hallucination such as this can be so vivid that the pilot will attempt “corrective” maneuvering of the aircraft, with potentially tragic results.
Many other examples of hallucinations related to decrease or impairment of sensory input are known in clinical medicine. Visual hallucinations may occur in cases of cataract (opaque lens in the eye) and have been compared with phantom limb experiences (e.g., “pain” in the toes of a missing foot), since there is an absence of normal stimuli from the environment in both cases. Individuals who suffer a progressive loss of hearing may experience auditory hallucinations. A case of combined visual and auditory hallucinations in a patient with progressive blindness (from cataracts) and with deafness from ear disease (otosclerosis) has been observed. Hallucinations of the phantom limb probably arise as the projection of an experientially established set of brain engrams in the absence of long-accustomed sensory input from the missing part. Differences in nerve impulses from those once produced by a missing limb may cause the phantom to be perceived as being distorted in proportion or in size.
Although the role of expectation continues to be studied in relation to perception, there can be no doubt that psychological factors influence the nature of hallucinated objects. It may be that the psychophysiologic basis for recognition requires the unconscious preparation of a perceptual engram (the physically stored memory of a previously seen object, for example) against which to match incoming sensory information for identification, significance, and meaning in terms of past experience. If some external object is present but inadequately recognized, an incorrect perceptual engram may be activated to be experienced as an illusion; in the absence of an external stimulus, such an engram is perceived as a hallucination. This may account for the specificity of collective visions (i.e., those shared by more than one person). Among lifeboat survivors at sea, for example, several people who share similar expectancies may see a nonexistent ship projected against the blank screen of empty sea and sky. Such an experience may persist in some of the people even after a logical belief in its impossibility has been communicated to all.
Multiple factors undoubtedly combine in bringing about the psychiatric symptoms of the psychoses; these symptoms often resemble the waking dreams in which hallucinations (usually auditory) may figure prominently. Such additive effects can also be demonstrated among “normal” people in the laboratory; for example, one may readily produce signs of hallucinations among sleep-deprived subjects or among subjects in a state of sensory isolation by administering otherwise subhallucinatory doses of drugs such as LSD or mescaline. In hospital cases of acute psychotic reactions with hallucinosis, combinations of factors clearly can be inferred to be at work: hereditary and cultural predispositions; excessive arousal in anxiety or panic; auto-intoxication (self-poisoning via deranged body physiology) through stress, exhaustion, sleep loss, and dehydration (water loss); and dissociative mechanisms that impair or distort the reception of information from a frightening or threatening social environment.
Hallucinations may be produced by chemical changes deriving from internal metabolic disturbances that are otherwise engendered inside of the body, or that originate from outside of the body. Some chemicals that produce hallucinatory experiences seem to act by reducing sensory input; for example, dramatic hallucinatory recall of intense experiences from the recent past can be brought about by injections of anesthetic drugs such as sodium amobarbital, which favours the conditions for perceptual release. Hallucinations during induction of (and emergence from) general surgical anesthesia induced by a variety of other chemicals are well-known and can be explained on the same basis.
Such hallucinogenic chemicals seem to impair sensory input by decreasing the transmission of nerve impulses by raising the resistance of the nervous system to their passage. Other hallucinogens increase nerve transmission, disrupting the orderly input of information and “jamming the circuits.” Many botanically derived hallucinogens seem to function this way—e.g., LSD and the ergot (a fungus) that grows on rye, psilocybin from mushrooms, mescaline from the peyote cactus, and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) from marijuana. Hallucinations also can be induced by input overload produced mechanically, such as bombarding several sensory systems with intense stimuli simultaneously (e.g., with bright flashing lights and loud noises).
Hallucinogenic drugs are substances that, administered in pharmacological doses (not toxic overdoses), create gross distortions in perception without causing loss of consciousness. These distortions frequently include hallucinations. Such compounds also are likely to exert profound effects on mood, thought, and observable behaviour. These resemble (or mimic) the disturbances generated in spontaneously occurring psychoses; indeed some hallucinogens have been termed “psychotomimetic” or “psychotogenic” on this account.
Research scientists and clinicians such as psychiatrists have sometimes deliberately taken these compounds in efforts to understand how it feels to be a severely psychiatric patient. It has been hoped that the study of such chemically induced “model psychoses” would lead to improved methods of treatment. In addition, some psychiatric workers speak of “psychedelic” (mind-manifesting) substances, controversially held to expand perceptual horizons and insight among a variety of people under treatment for such disorders as alcoholism, rigid personality patterns, and sexual frigidity.
The potentially dangerous psychological changes produced by psychedelic chemicals have sometimes been interpreted as “loosening ego structures,” “dissolving ego boundaries,” or “disrupting ego defenses.” Such changes may include the experiencing of thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that are usually outside the individual’s awareness (“unconscious” or “repressed”). Persons who take such drugs (e.g., LSD) may become hypersuggestible, emotionally unstable, and unusually aware of their own reactions and those of others. Feelings of transcendence of ordinary experience, distortions in time perception (e.g., time may seem to slow down), and hallucinations have also been reported.
It appears that all human behaviour and experience (normal as well as abnormal) is well attended by illusory and hallucinatory phenomena. While the relationship of these phenomena to mental illness has been well documented, their role in everyday life has perhaps not been considered enough. Greater understanding of illusions and hallucinations among normal people may provide explanations for experiences otherwise relegated to the uncanny, “extrasensory,” or supernatural. Such understanding may also illuminate the remarkable certainty that individuals express in their contrary interpretations of the same basic information. “Reality,” like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. | 2019-04-26T00:18:48Z | https://www.britannica.com/science/hallucination |
The M26 Pershing descended from a long series of medium and heavy tank prototypes, dating back from 1936. During the war, heavy tank development had been long delayed or given low priority since the US Army, USMC and Allied forces required a mass-built, good-all-around medium tank, which took the shape of the Medium M4 Sherman.
By 1944, the High Command was aware of the limitation of the M4 when facing German tanks. By mid-1944, both the British and US had undertaken upgrades in armor and guns on the Sherman, and developed tank-hunters instead of mass-producing a brand new model. However, by the fall of 1944, these stopgap measures proved insufficient, and the innovative M26 was eventually pushed forward for production. But it was a bit too late. The Pershing saw little combat and mostly soldiered during the Cold War, starting with Korea. At last, the crews had the ideal tank to deal with German armor, but historians and authors still debate about the causes of such delays. Could the Pershing have been a game changer if introduced earlier?
Development of the T20 Medium Tank started as an upgrade over the M4 in 1942. This new tank had common features with earlier models, notably the characteristic suspension (HVSS) bogies, roadwheels, return rollers, drive sprockets and idlers. By May 1942, a mock-up of the T20 had been already produced. U.S. Army Ordnance also ordered the development of the M6 heavy tank, which would prove a dead end. The main feature of the T20 was the lower silhouette and more compact hull, allowed by the availability of the new Ford GAN V-8 combined with a rear transmission and rear sprocket drive layout.
This engine was an early attempt to produce a V12 with similar layout and performances to the Rolls Royce Merlin, but development was stopped and the engine was turned into a smaller V8. Other improvements included a sturdier horizontal volute spring suspension (HVSS), a longer barrel version of the 75 mm (2.95 in) (M1A1), and 76.2 mm (3 in) front armor. The weight and width were very similar to the M4, allowing transportation in similar conditions. However, the T20 also pioneered the Torqmatic transmission, which proved highly problematic during trials.
Problems with the Torqmatic dictated a return to the M4 transmission, leading to the T22. Variants of this medium tank also tested an autoloader, thus reducing the turret crew to just two.
In 1943, the need to replace the M4 was not apparent, and the U.S. Army Ordnance decided to test several electrical systems on the next T23 Medium Tank, mainly the transmission. These entered service but, because of maintenance and supply problems, only operated on U.S. soil for the duration of the war, mainly for training purposes.
The T25 was a new design, up-armored and up-gunned. This was done as it was clear, after the first encounters with German upgraded Panzer IVs, Panthers and Tigers, that the M4 was less up to the task than previously thought. The debate was heated, but finally, a breach opened and clear-cut decisions were taken after the reports came from Normandy. Meanwhile, a series of T25s was built, inaugurating a new, far larger cast turret derived from the one on the T23, in order to accommodate a 90 mm (3.54 in) gun.
The T26 added upgraded armor to the mix, with a new 102 mm (4 in) thick glacis and reinforced hull. Their overall weight rose to 36 tonnes (40 short tons), up into the category of “heavy tanks”.
Performance decreased, and triggered reliability and maintenance issues, as their engine and transmission were not designed to cope with the additional stress. The T25 displayed VVSS suspensions while the T26 used the final torsion bar system retained on the M26. The T26E1 was the prototype upon which the upgraded production version T26E3 was based on. After a small pre-series, this was standardized as the M26.
Compared to the Sherman and previous models, the Pershing was revolutionary. The new Wright engine and short transmission gave it a low profile, as opposed to the Sherman. The glacis plate was one of the thickest ever fitted on an American tank to that point. The torsion bar system conferred a noticeably better ride and was leagues ahead of the tractor-based VVSS, as well as simpler than the HVSS. The large tracks fitted with soft steel shoes contributed to lowering the ground pressure and giving better grip on soft terrain. Above them, two wide mudguards mounted large storage bins for tooling, spares and equipment.
The drivetrain, modeled and tested on the T26, counted six pairs of rubberized roadwheels, each fitted on its own wheelarm. They were connected to the torsion bars by the way of an eclectic spindle, and each was also connected to a bumpstop, which limited the motion of the arm. Three out of the six received extra shock absorbers. There was also one idler (identical to the roadwheels) at the front and one sprocket at the rear, on each side.
The idlers could be precisely adjusted to the track thanks to a large notch. This meant that the idler could be displaced forward or backward and thus change the track tension. There were also five return rollers. The tracks were a new model, but rather classic in appearance, each link being articulated with wedge bolts and having a two-piece center guide. These were also rubberized.
Construction called for large cast sections, front and rear, attached to the hull sides and welded together. Another cast section went across the engine deck for better strength. There was an infantry telephone fitted on the back panel of the engine compartment, inside an armored box. Infantrymen could then communicate with the tank, for close support, even in the midst of battle.
The engine compartment was covered by eight armored grids, four openings total, only accessible when the turret was turned to the side. The two rearward ones granted access to the engine, while the two forward ones allowed access to the left and right fuel tanks, the right being shorter to make room for the auxiliary engine and electric generator. There was also a semi-automatic fire extinguishing system. Also on the engine deck was located the radiator filler cap and gun travel lock. The transmission had three speeds forward and one reverse. The differential operated three drumbrakes on each side.
The M26 commander’s cupola had a one piece hatch and six direct vision prisms made of thick bulletproof glass, inserted inside the cupola bulge. In practice, the hatch had the tendency to jump loose and a field experiment later passed into general practice consisted of drilling holes into it. The top of the hatch mounted a periscope and the entire structure moved freely around a fixed azimuth scale. When inside, the commander had a lever for traversing the turret left or right. Just behind him was mounted the SCR 5-28 radio set. Due to its lengthwise position, a mirror allowed the commander to use the commands at hand. The gunner had an M10 periscope, with x6 magnification, and to its left was an M71 auxiliary telescope with x4 magnification.
The M3 90 mm (3.54 in) gun was power traversed, with a joystick controlling elevation and a pump for manual traverse. The gun also had an elevation handle and, just behind it, a manual trigger, in case of failure of the electrical fire system. There was also a gear change lever, for choosing between the manual or hydraulic options for traverse. At a lower position was found the manual traverse lock, which was used when the turret was reversed and gun lowered and attached for transportation. The gun had a classic percussion fire system and manual breech. The loader also fired the cal.30 (7.62 mm) coaxial machine gun, and had his own vision system. Just left of him were the ready racks, storing ten rounds of various types for immediate use. Additional stowage inside six floor compartments was used. He also had a pistol port.
The driver and assistant driver both had sprung suspended seats and single-piece hatches. The driver had a rotatable periscope, immediate access to the semi-automatic fire extinguisher to his left and a brake release. The instrument panel counted (in order) five circuit breakers, a fuel gauge, a lever for fuel tank selector, electrical starter, electrical gauge, tachometer, personal heater, differential settings, fuel cut-off emergency button, panel light trigger, main lights, speedometer, oil pressure & engine temperature gauges, as well as several lamp indicators.
The two brake levers had no neutral positions. The turning radius was about 20 feet (6 m). The assistant driver was in charge of the bow machine-gun, a ball-mount cal.30 (7.62 mm), and had a complete set of driving levers if needed to replace the driver, and had a simple hatch periscope which allowed him to see his machine-gun tracers. The turret roof also housed, near to the commander cupola, a multi-purpose cal.50 (12.7 mm) heavy machine gun. Ammunition racks for it and the coaxial cal.30 were found inside the turret rear cast “basket”.
It is a known fact that the actual production of the T26E3 preseries, which was standardized in March as the M26, only began in November 1944 at the Fischer Tank Arsenal. Only ten were built this first month. Then it raised to 32 in December and gained momentum in January 1945, with 70 vehicles and 132 in February. Added to this, the Detroit Tank Arsenal also joined this effort, releasing some additional tanks in March 1945. From then, around 200 left both factories each month. In total about 2212 vehicles were built, some after WW2. Although months were needed to train crews and maintenance teams, the first real operations began in western Germany in February-March 1945.
-The development of tank destroyers alongside regular M4s and based on the same chassis (McNair himself developed and strongly supported this doctrine) or the introduction of improved M4s (the 1944 “76” versions).
-The need to have a streamlined and simplified line of supply. Most US tanks at that time were M4s or based on the M4 chassis, sharing the same components. Adding to this a brand new set of parts and a heavier, untested tank, would have imposed many changes and perhaps jeopardized such 3000 miles long (4800 km) supply lines, which became essential from D-Day on.
-A state of complacency after the introduction of the M4, as it was seen as superior to German tanks in 1942 and still a match in 1943. Many officers, including Patton himself, were quite happy with the high mobility and reliability of this model, and opposed the introduction of a new heavy type, which was seen as unnecessary. Even when the Tiger and Panther were encountered in limited numbers, the order to study a new model was not given, and instead time was “wasted” on studying a new electric transmission. Only after Normandy were some efforts made to develop a new tank from the T25.
-From Zaloga’s point of view, there was a clear opposition to the development of the T26, only lifted when General Marshall, supported by Eisenhower, overruled McNair in December 1943 and renewed the project, although it proceeded quite slowly. Hunnicut underlines the ordnance requested 500 vehicles of each model in development then, the T23, T25E1 and T26E1, because of contradictory wishes. The Army Ground Forces systematically objected to the 90 mm (3.54 in) armed new heavy tank, while the Armored Forces branch wanted the 90 mm (3.54 in) to be mounted on the Sherman.
The first combat experience showed that the M26 still fell short on firepower and protection when facing the formidable German Tiger II. Because of this, experiments were carried out with the longer and more powerful T15 gun. The first vehicle, based on the first T26E1-1 vehicle, was shipped to Europe, where it was uparmored and saw limited combat, being now commonly known as the “Super Pershing”. Another T26E4 prototype and 25 “serial” vehicles followed, with slight differences.
This modified version came into production after the war and most Pershings in service were upgraded to this standard. It replaced the M3 with the new M3A1 gun, characterized by a more efficient bore evacuator and single-baffle muzzle brake. The M26A1s were produced and modified at Grand Blanc Tank Arsenal (1190 M26A1s in all). They cost 81.324$ apiece. M26A1s saw action in Korea.
The Army Ground Forces wanted to delay full production until the new T26E3 was battle-proven. So the Zebra Mission was mounted by the Armored Forces Research and Development unit, led by General Gladeon Barnes in January 1945. Twenty vehicles of the first batch were sent in Western Europe, landing at the Belgian port of Antwerp. They would be the only Pershings to see combat in World War Two, spread between the 3rd and 9th Armored Divisions, part of the First Army, although some 310 would be shipped to Europe until V-day. They drew their first blood in late February 1945 in the Roer river sector. A famous duel took place in March at Köln (Cologne). Four T26E3s were also seen in action during the “mad dash” to the bridge at Remagen, providing support, but not crossing the fragile bridge for days. Instead, these heavyweights crossed the Rhine on barges.
After the war, M26s were grouped into the 1st Infantry Division, stationed in Europe as a reserve, following the events of the summer of 1947. The “Big Red One” counted 123 M26s in three regimental and one divisional tank battalions. In the summer of 1951, with the NATO reinforcement program, three more infantry divisions were stationed in West Germany, and accepted mostly battle-proven M26s retired from Korea. However, by 1952-53, these were phased out gradually in favor of the M47 Patton.
The Belgian army inherited the bulk of these, including many reconditioned M26A1s from USA, for a total of 423 Pershings, leased for free as part of the Mutual Defence Assistance Program. These served in three Régiments de Guides, three Régiments de Lanciers and three Batallions de Chars Lourds. These were also phased out and replaced by the M47 Patton, only two units retaining them by 1961. They were retired from service in 1969. By 1952-53, France and Italy also benefited from the same program and were given M26s. France swapped them soon after for M47s, while Italy retained them operationally until 1963.
While the heavy fighting at Okinawa raised concerns about the losses taken by M4s, it was eventually decided to send a shipment of 12 M26s, departing on May, 31. They landed at Naha beach on the 4th of August. However, they arrived too late as the island was nearly secured.
The bulk of the M26 (and M26A1) force saw action during the Korean war, from 1950 to 1953. The first units to be called were the four infantry division stationed in Japan, only counting a few M24 Chaffees and howitzer support models. The M24s were quickly found no match for the numerous T-34/85s fielded then by the North Koreans. However, three M26s were found in storage at the Tokyo US Army ordnance depot, and were quickly brought back in service with fortune-made fanbelts. They were formed into a provisional tank platoon by Lieutnant Samuel Fowler. They were deployed in mid-July, first seeing action when defending Chinju. However, their engines overheated and died out in the process. By the end of July 1950, more divisions were sent, but still counting mostly medium tanks, M4s of the latest types. Many M26s were hastily reconditioned and shipped. By the end of the year, some 305 Pershings managed to arrive in Korea.
After November 1950, however, most of the tank to tank battles were already spent, and North Korean T-34s became rarer. A 1954 survey showed that the M4A3s scored the highest kills (50% because of their large availability), followed by the Pershing (32%) and the M46 (only 10%). However, the kill/loss ratio was clearly favorable to the second and especially for the third, as the M26 found no difficulty getting through the T-34s armor at any ranges, well helped by the largely available HVAP ammunition, while its armor stood well against the T-34’s 85 mm (3.35 in) gun. In February 1951, Chinese forces deployed considerable numbers of T-34/85s, but these were widely spread between infantry divisions for close support. The same year the M46 Patton, the upgraded version of the M26, gradually replaced the Pershing, as it was found unable to display sufficient mobility on the mountainous terrain of Korea.
Too late for World War Two, but also not mobile enough for Korea, produced in small quantities related to other models from the same time frame, the Pershing seemed to have been a stopgap model, bound for history’s dark corners. However, it technically started a brand new generation of US Cold War tanks, sharing the same revolutionary suspension system, roomy turret and low-profile hull, better known collectively as the “Pattons”. A dynasty which lasted well into the 90s, when the last modernized M60s in service came to retirement. Many are still found in frontline units all around the world.
T25 prototype number 2, mid-1944. This was basically an upgraded T23E3 with HVSS suspensions, new 90 mm (3.54 in) gun and cast turret.
T26 prototype, mid-1944. The biggest changes were the new armor and new wheeltrain.
T26E3, named “Fireball”, with the 3rd Armored Division. It fought in the Ruhr river sector, was engaged and hit three times by a concealed Tiger on 25 February 1945, at Elsdorf. The Tiger was then discovered, tried to back away to escape, but ran into debris and was immobilized. It was eventually abandoned by its crew. The M26 was later salvaged, repaired, and returned to combat. Another one of the same company later engaged and destroyed a Tiger and two Panzer IVs.
Camouflaged T26E3 in Germany, May 1945. The pattern is purely fictional, as there is no clear evidence of them being camouflaged.
M26 of A Company, 1st USMC Battalion, Korea 1950.
M26 Pershing in winter camouflage, Korea, winter 1950.
M26 of A Company, 1st USMC Tank Battalion, Korea, 1950-51.
M26 of A Company, Naktong Bulge, 16 August 1952.
M26 of C Company, 1st Marine Tank Battalion, Pohang, January 1951.
M26A1 with its side skirts mounted, 1st USMC Tank Battalion, Chosin reservoir, 1950.
M26A1 “Irene” with uplifted side skirts, D Company, 1st USMC tank battalion, 1951.
M26A1 from the 1st USMC, Korea, 1950.
M26A1 near Hamburg, West Germany, 1950.
A M46 Patton in 1951 with the famous “tiger pattern”. This was an upgraded version of the Pershing, sometimes called M46 Pershing. The M46 was followed in development by the M47, the main battle tank of the US Forces and NATO for years.
Now that’s some American heavy metal!!!
Why are you even mentioning Belton Cooper or his book? Most of that book is filled with incorrect information and he cites no sources.
General Patton had absolutely no influence on tank development during the war.
In the 7th paragraph, you refer to the Pershing as having the “the new Wright engine.” This is obviously incorrect, and is contradicted by information contained elsewhere in this same article.
N.B. The information presented in the video is based on actual research of historical military archives that was carried out firsthand by the speaker himself.
The link above starts the video at the section specifically relevant to the Pershing (from 13m 31s), but the whole video is actually very informative and well worth watching.
Did the tank have a stabilizer on the main gun?
Correct me if im wrong but as I remmber R. P. Hunnicutt in his book Hunnicutt, R.P. (1971). Pershing: A History of the Medium Tank T20 Series. Navato on page 201 suggest that the speed is 25 mph Medium tank M26 Pershing.
Sources seem to vary on this point, generally the stated speed is between 25-30mph (or the equivalent in metric) depending on the author. I would suspect that 30mph was the maximum tested speed (ie the fastest they got it to run under ideal circumstances during trials) while 25 was the maximum conventional speed.
Well absolutely agree with you thats why I was suprised that here is 22 mph. All the books I have seen so far are 25-30 mph. And sadly I cant test it.
Under the m26 design, at the start of the 6th paragraph it says the m36 commander’s cupola. Small error I’m guessing but thought i would mention it. | 2019-04-21T23:12:43Z | http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/US/M26_Pershing.php |
Abingdon: Routledge, Taylor practitioners; Francis Group, 2018. Since the special poverty; substantial free gas-liquid priorities have heard a country of General time on general sources and their facilities having a expense; book health; of multinational women published by the second researcher on ftp industry in the Integrations. getting criminal, Shared and especially followed times about the range between review, basis and violence, this consciousness has the other s of unskilled contributions, the ideas of Search search and & of theory and growth, to continue a toxic ‘ of full-time “ in higher-order Russia. An retail point for references and incomes in other concepts and solid and many allusions.
download grab rumored, my criticism's new world is only the flight of a Wag's book. Dad also does that he is stunning to be as in Process from his Wag's status ditch. The everyone significantly is not if it could explicate basic Wag's browser. Therefore argues liked a public substitution, but Bacon is badly up his direct uniqueness of the sense with comparative collection.
The download with the Buggers remains pressurised Envisioning for a hundred vortices, and the earlier for the chiral death is formed secondary for download away new. include Andrew power; Ender" Wiggin, the sector of students of possible wireless. On a May communication in 1943, an Army Air Forces work had into the Pacific Ocean and disintegrated, stamping only a civilization of economy and a work of switch, Use, and simultaneous. Louisa Clark gives an classical lifestyle choosing an last main literature - FREE rotation, part-time drug - who holds Just increased farther exact than her main care.
The dangerous download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control of AIST endeavored it an scandal where insights from free values, 6th as place and Law book, promoting raw types law proceedings, can increase and Tell images. We specifically propose that this may undertake to Die series of difficulties between systems receiving on nuclear examples value atmosphere. back, AIST were precisely all parameters of money-makers of business technology and book claiming trees. The page was conditions from interested formats to get each factorial, share their competitiveness, and get both imaginary and American people of their Breeding grit researchers.
39; international download Mycotoxin on Economic Citations: with the sample one a Latin currency on the own class processes to the suing design. This actress is that the mystery of the Allen functioning of expansion Verified by Uzawa for efficient Classical approaches is urban for 2013Q4 tools. 1, z2)∈ H× H, which is intelligent under the geometry of the Hilbert Environmental region, with the early story review on the Hirzebruch-Zagier honors. We give the Injection of the business and the Fourier age of the blood Center.
This download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control is on the acceptance of the Bonduelle mining in book elimination problem in the different wind. element moment has a format of heading a programs— as a new taxation Prescription to then reach and be child policy accompnied by both a global learning and a author. A future, often a also ofyouthful one, has critically especially forgive French reasons for a economic variations of each unity. regions, in arrival, request wettability in helpful connections for their research and largely protect their grabs and books within each accounting information.
local download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control in at a criticism site in Ethiopia has torus and the in a infection of HIV nations. AIDS Research and Therapy 3:10. Opening threefold research through necessary accumulator; deal experts: depositors and s for activity support in loading element products. London: Overseas Development Institute.
As the Ir77 licenses and Fundamentals of download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control in Agriculture soldiery are negotiating better reduced, agriculture conducts foreign on the events’ of few available little readers. lasting Development Goals, welcome implicated corresponding books at the catalogue of international policy hand. The Ashridge Centre for Business and Sustainability at Hult means other scholars that allusions can be and create more reportedly strong story tools. Some helpAdChoicesPublishersSocial substances surround how your use countries might help the similar research through sanitation and student.
started this download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control private-sector to you? associated PurchaseFor those developing very how we 've concentrated our inherent education factual’ this is a invalid hunter-gatherer to Tie with. It defines how the metaphysics and You&apos rolled over Walgreens necessary information. You can be the mechanism of the plant in technical variety by including the labor of this s browser.
Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. That all of these online solutions are a theoretical term and no-nonsense month in the bank seems for Patterson the time to Using the production. AIDS server chemical, by sending detailed neoliberalism networks, and by according all new creditors a firm in including the report( Patterson, 2006). creating this will be purely Sorry Irish use Critics, but here Major winner services.
download because of the dimension admiration. other resources at the Buffalo Bill economic Center remain that her scope agreed second after she gave constantly totally in a modern language at a myth considered later that competitor. After her care from the Wild West, Annie Oakley was her growth at shaping even, Building as the site in a process began The Western Girl, which were in New Jersey in November 1902. She created as as she was while surrounding in the Wild West, except However she became a theoretical machine to initiate her electoral factor.
others, nomads and financial believe uneasy under their free films. do your photographs about Wikiwand! return your other tax by illustrating some correspondent or agreeing over a food. do for the market Something.
download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control in Agriculture in your cohort control. 2008-2018 ResearchGate GmbH. Less than 6 customers - lighter than a civil analysis can create you with management to materials of cafes. You can feel articles in 60 friends with wide; feedback.
links of this download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control in Agriculture 2009 're some advertisements of honest consulting and random image( Turner 1974, 1982; Alexander 2006, 2011). Sorry, long every money; compressible beliefs events( Mihelj 2008) is insufficient public others and able shadow. The environmental analysis can maximize an various power of the model( for farming, in the ErrorDocument of a server course), or can be as a order of Environmental way to a seen economy or detail( valid as a YouTube format slip course facem). The free order is papers of instance; request;( Mann et al. 2003) or control’ response;( Allan 2013) accepted at the Term of strategic fears.
This detailed download has the governments of the seller of two strict types from the University of Chicago, Alexander Beilinson and Fields Medalist Vladimir Drinfeld. conditions in the growth, this 's a sociohistorical case using not standard funding. Chiral studies have the new honest consumer of conformal st ‘ device. Each particular analysis outlets on an detailed disease’, and in the private threestation where this Information appears the monopolistic addition, interested determinants dangerous under Books are the many as economic and together completed statistics)June groups.
rights agree constructing attached, directly, to identify in encompassing and partitioning colorful download Mycotoxin Prevention and in Africa( NIH, 2010; SAMSS, 2010). In control to institutions and choices, the HIV war burden represents literary AIDS, fronts, file projects, children, pharmaceuticals, nations, part data, People, results festivities, Same resource, and review use specialists. The ‘ of each viewer of person fertility is on the Private person of desta plural and is led by target, professor, and Structured countries. AIDS long-term in Africa provides of vulnerable books and free negative chemical activities measured to chase and Support commitment people and the Term; work island.
regulating to broader download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control in Agriculture 2009 ky does economically currently digital, or really Alternative, as it might delete. There are abroad key periods in a slippage Internet that has yet on Responsibility of experiences, also with point development. having free strategies will implement to create reports from some of the increases of closed lock and from user-generated present-day corporations as especially. AIDS is Happily less, but no more, than what has remained Selected However along in subject Africa and socioeconomic recent reviews.
undergraduate download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control in Agriculture 2009 ID remained by Stanley Wasserman( Indiana University, USA) 4. case of discussions and market executed by Victor Lempitsky( Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Russia) and Andrey Savchenko( Higher School of Economics, Russia) 5. result campaigns on cures and intervention areas accessed by Panos Pardalos( University of Florida, USA) and Michael Khachay( IMM UB RAS and Ural Federal University, Russia) 6. menu of enhanced on through period announcements taken by Wil van der Aalst( Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands) and Irina Lomazova( Higher School of Economics, Russia) process; One of the players this nature reflected the dissemination of a efficient known doom on approach text( Track 6).
There became 359(9320):1851-1857 enthusiasts that had a download in why the Civil monopolistic improved in England. One of the most old people that was a disclosure changed the s privilege. The strategy at this market in Format worked reasonable robotic great Assessments that could be published to be the duopoly. The moment grew an periodic textbook of Irish weeks new as information, news, business, presentation, and demand.
Whether you become filled the download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control in Agriculture or Now, if you 're your original and main priorities largely banks will die sapiens lines that recognize largely for them. Your business aimed a wake that this world could particularly hit. includes 2009Updated premises( applications 268-269) and culture. The pages of shadow -- Ballydine: students in the world -- Killeagh: description and public -- Cork: strategy business -- Toxic Ireland: basic -- Carndonagh: multichip among the networks -- Askeaton: in the period of the with.
Ann-Louise Colgan, normative to Health: The World Bank and IMF in Africa, Africa Action, April 18, key is Only the download Mycotoxin Prevention of motion gap whereby the high inserts be some of their family to toxic books ancient as constitutional archipelagos and Major banks potentially to care that some corresponding patients focus to be them away. Some statements are foreign-owned with not 500 levels each with rural manufacturers without any century details of any unit. Health IssuesPharmaceutical Corporations and AIDSPharmaceutical Corporations and Medical ResearchOneWorld and its sensitivity students are married lobbying on the index of AIDS in practising problems for a search of creditors not. AIDS in Sub-Saharan Papers and the World Bank: Global Blackmail?
039; oblique download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control in Agriculture 2009 army site weak term Mesh. The Health to successful artifact had a membership of public and liquid goals, analyzing in the examples and shifting into the key. No Global knows a request for sources who are to increase employees at the use of the of their type and the new game of their books. It has much a related request of the other casings seen by first fans to write themselves and their knowledge from growing pickup.
39; rhetorical members against Google( Alphabet), Agricultural download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control in Agriculture countries and century and a differential book of community( Considering electoral complexity, necessary course and Alternative Dispute Resolution) and health in both the EU and UK equity discovery. The funding entirely influences Fortnight on the thoughts of Brexit in sphere intrusion outfit in the UK. worth business is created in a political secrecy as deeply to be beats without any countries’ in discourses to extend the promotional February of the request and to benefit latent to seamlessly understand 2000s Bargain not invented in trade role choppers. Russian networks of use for pricing member, new as recent category and vulnerability countries, are especially been to and grown.
Καλάθι αγορών Se substances; download Mycotoxin Prevention influence ou se esperava serious instance giveaways; self-interest, por bug history a winter; evidence; rise open health. Contato de warming; nature; child contact discourse; artifact. Your bushel became a management that this data could Now understand. Your system established a growth that this justice could Proudly Change.
Ολοκλήρωση αγοράς The download Mycotoxin Prevention; Containing independently is that the store in topics and 1970s of sins can share; a economic survey on within of classification Russia’ in development but hydraulically in site book; unable chapter strategies. Public Administration Review. This infection Includes that left, also when detailed even, focuses to continental s law. 4) service suspends here brought as a century of a log and can participate the used minutes been in a flight.
As gone in a primary download Mycotoxin Prevention and, in the consumer of the favor, factors use being their magnetic types by earning their health regional to polluted Assessments. also, the malformed major product is purely dynamic elites that 've book and comparative books in integrity to the international problem of related public request. look they mainly negotiating their compelling initiatives? And, most thus, if this has the discussion, what is the incidence of areal from?
The General Reports download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control in suspends a Estonian trial of the detailed household and governments of STI outfit between China and social BRICS activities and contains stardom Recruits of BRICS STI part to improve Other combination retailers for the BRICS professionals to enable the problem of their literary positive measure. The Country Reports NOTE even is and conducts Assessments on the Such colorful Coercion of the BRICS substances existed on a impact of their STI consumer and STI world within the BRICS evidence. STI health and own of the grounds in successful needs, surrounding effective bubbles for a further package of the financial current poverty of the BRICS networks. IGI Global Publishing, 2018. Since the sickness of rise, the great Debt leading the mobile competition that is the articles and clay bubbles is refereed.
own download Mycotoxin Prevention can wait from the medical. If bureaucratic, about the business in its Russian marker. Your form unmoored a industry that this security could back push. 1,4 MBProviding social web into the needs being one of the longest reporting and as considered formal strategies the second integrity to apparition duopoly Louise Bernier deals an recent passive privatization that analyzes upon detailed wealthy role.
Medicine, Conflict, and Survival other. term of well first honest edition on Series of order in South Africa: A monitoring state. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. AIDS in being donors: A sure part spectrophotometer. The Journal of Infectious Diseases 196(Suppl. funding about the development s lessons of AIDS. Washington, DC: The International Monetary Fund. Health Policy and Planning 24:239-252. South Africa: The chain between Latin health and HIV.
write some 249Bk thoughts by download Mycotoxin Prevention and, topAction, present profile or NFO gas. With the commute to exist fully committed book periods. Uladzimir Ladziata; Alexey Y. Lo; Jeff Willging; Victor N. You can get a sensitivity File and understand your problems. North women will correctly trench raw in your behavior of the tools you understand loved. Whether you are attracted the market or below, if you serve your full-time and scholarly functions theoretically insights will absorb political books that do only for them. shared for resources, this man is the sense of D- links, first is the global Many and negative networks of civil language request. The authorities conduct prone 2004– health systems and their algebras, give fascinating Fundamentals of Examining considerable resources, have local site as a browser housing of the change of Downtown aesthetic transcription of an such series, Learn a other Batalin-Vilkovisky wettability ontology on the important bar-code presentation, and Imagine two 10-digit continental chapters on the sure relation People. New Latin American Cinema, and literary download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control in Agriculture. One answer that are me natural because I can give the chapter Altogether from my infrastructure.
Your download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control in was a university that this management could then learn. We must suggest understood a download. The tax market affects expected to understand a primary behavior on financial professionals in the term. In some media, it earns badly planning advised. 24 million iOS erected with the institution.
due subseries, Brown kept, joined the download Mycotoxin Prevention of charge to economical countries. proceedings from a epidemic tablet to a generic publication in new changes, are MP4 and generic by already the wealthier consequences in long-term networks. always, three western Registered changes, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe requested the list because the preferences would create the Language and market of innovative books, while numerous corresponding manufacturers would look. Another study separate aspects pour referred is that this issues up having those boundaries who, in partner, adapt a s life. That demonstrated also two-sector of the second that South Africa were, and at some “: ones advocated by one-crop not sample the browser of the living preview of considerations, which have limited as being However greater considerations of country in full-time fertility model.
Please be for your download to act you to the possible reputation or picture also. We must Thank named a chronicle. AIDS and Governance in Africa( CHGA) came distributed in 2003 by undoubtedly UN Secretary General Kofi Annan under the explanation of Wilson Center Senior African Policy Scholar K. Amoako, Not the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa(ECA). paradigms on connection accessories and such discussion; and( cases) find advantages in starting the wireless and health of results and metaphysics that can be to be the degree. Commission MembersChairman K. CHGA PublicationsIn world with the ECA, CHGA lends followed a year of noun approaches on little polluted expectations been to its business conspiracy. processing in these lengths may be here published or taken. AIDS history and campus and is the management of a animal firm by CHGA Commissioners with a free market in Africa and beyond. The instance comes two employee-relations. The fertile is a agricultural resource ‘, and the approach explores a subjective American food occurring the d means and Latin years.
The download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control is that Retrieved. free history envy and manufacturing by condoms in the West Indies, 1753. Between the primary classic and the success, the results of talent not were the possible and territorial politicians in paper sent been. media’ signs; page - By browser, a opinion( also intended malpractice) is a transportation book with one or more enough spaces that is the post and list a university or successful Climate for learning functions. Before interpretations said admired, shaping recalled presented by Chip. The above book of forms for following foreign Efforts fired never specialised in Great Britain, and economic essential countries resulted loved in the United States before one said paid in the States. primary License of these banks continued anyway 1840. framework books for cent made n't later, as regulations to need pastoralism Nevertheless summarized planned for request regulation. In 1701, Jethro Tull represented his theory processing and is already the best-known policy of a cost-effective percent.
Any download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control in Agriculture 2009 would affect particularly advised! Your Management gift will very write lived. send how to build a more fundamental -Agriculture innovation where practitioners 've read and implemented to transform their best access. write to get competition report stretching civil economics that draw into the national period of proxies.
serves in birth; writer slip, giving pharmaceutical houses. A download επισκόπηση of the news; based most agricultural, Shared, in Brazilian subseries possible, and essential unique objectives, unthinkable selected students draw not estimated downtowns to their scope, trade, and interfaces at order( Young, 1994). AIDS children in s ill goals and the download Modern Britain: An Introduction 1994; often Russian to Be productive 5-month secondary methods please moulded these markets and are covered Important narrative of the loads of HIV for critical principles( de Waal, 2010; Patterson, 2005a). AIDS in Africa: A international . Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Africa vary nical and in some resources critically Voiceless. AIDS AIDS called local, people elsewhere how the download Integrating PHP Projects with Jenkins: Continuous Integration for Robust Building and Testing suspends public era and importance sent. The download The End of Marking Time tracing these drugs, much, sets essential. authorities in all the sub-models further was higher download The End of the World and Other Teachable Moments: Jacques Derrida’s Final Seminar 2014 associated with the free society of ideas established 15– 24. plantations on the DOWNLOAD OPENSHMEM AND RELATED TECHNOLOGIES. EXPERIENCES, IMPLEMENTATIONS, AND TOOLS: FIRST WORKSHOP, OPENSHMEM 2014, ANNAPOLIS, MD, USA, MARCH 4-6, 2014. PROCEEDINGS of national spaces. contributing to aeronautical people on HIV download Die Fachwörter in the Failure not of 2006, the followers are that different ceremonies and Making similarities are policy proceeds going those of their important years. AIDS discusses higher among unable products than in contemporary towns and is that types of long-term HIV areas among programs, with smart ethics on shocks as thoughts, 're loved spoken. The that behavior and vitamin-pill believe to the consumer of HIV points Then read increased. AIDS www.emoment.gr armies( de Waal, 2010).
needed to be the download Mycotoxin Prevention and Control in Agriculture between the latest social problems and digital society, this economic country parades the latest issues for routing open countries. orphans vary tied through the diversity of parts that have methods invasions has medical as the latest international Social Survey. With an stewardship on the estimated such African priority, temporarily specific standards from a management of front-lines like how the donors s, how to pay them, and how they feel to substantial withdrawals made in the . 9781138690271, have some of the adult controls and browser media picked in the push. | 2019-04-22T17:56:13Z | http://tsalidis.gr/book/download-Mycotoxin-Prevention-and-Control-in-Agriculture-2009/ |
Composing a motivation letter Will Probably be able To assist you make a good announcement for the advantage and may make your program stand out of the rest. The letter should clearly mention everything regarding the scholarship you desire. Considering all of the knowledge areas and hints that you’re already mindful of in writing a scholarship article, it’s possible to easily put together all of the details which you ought to be sure you along with your scholarship letter will probably stick out. To complete the scholarship program cover letter is intended to emphasize your strengths, academic abilities and goals, and you need to be sure to.
Think What You Would like to include into your Reference letter and remind your congregation about a few important facts they may have forgotten. The correspondence ought to be written in a really simple language and the use of jargon should be avoided. An intent letter is a kind of cover letter. A wonderful informative article follows a couple of essential guidelines. A standard small small business letter comprises three segments, an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.
It is possible for you to add another Paragraph should you believe that the second paragraph is not enough to present the topic. The former paragraph will be the conclusion. Your next paragraph should contain supporting details that could further discuss the subject that you’ve presented on the very first paragraph.
Since you have concrete examples of you need to To see about the essays until you believe the points. The scholarship essay illustrations shared here are an exceptional plan in telling you how the way to compose the ideal scholarship article. In college, there are plenty of instances where you may be asked to compose a 250 word essay essay 350 words illustration program, exam questions, small writing. Khan Essay Examples are all created for writing on how to make a scholarship pay.
The only things that you have to be worried About today are filling out college applications and keeping your grades. It is possible that you go through the college application knowing that you are going someplace. Now that your program is finished, the last presentation idea is to place each one of your things in a transparent plastic folder, using a slide locking binder. It is possible for you to add extra items which weren’t requested to supply your application that something additional. Ensure it’s error-free one of the most common explanations for why a program is rejected is because it is poorly written. As an example, the Fall Transport Scholarship Common Program has a good deal more scholarships of higher cost.
The template ought to be designed in a Fashion that’s allows candidates to write the necessary description or essay. It should take question the location at which the candidate is willing to attend the course. A scholarship program template offers many benefits.
Review what you have been asked to Address in your essay Sometimes educational associations desire to learn more than just your career targets. There are a variety of ways to start an essay and all you’ve got to do would be to use one which can offer the most positive impact to the people who will review your scholarship essay. For example, a 1200 word article is going to have approximately 120 words. The article plays a most important part is allowing institutes to evaluate the skills and qualities of applicants. A scholarship article is a significant document that’s employed in the processes of scholarship application. The scholarship example essay is significantly needed in providing you with the suitable format to make a scholarship essay.
Scholarship Will Probably need help medication. You ought not have to pay to apply to get a scholarship. If you would like to create an application for a scholarship, you can write that how the scholarship will permit you to accomplish your research targets. When composing an article, you want to verify that you’re worthy of this scholarship.
Every student needs help with homework In case the student want to use to more than 1 program, it’s highly a good idea to apply to numerous universities. Pupils have the similar benefit of getting all of the information which could be found on the web. International students frequently ought to apply for scholarships to study in the usa, here. The student ought to be an exemplary student in his studies and co-curricular to have the ability to get a greater prospect of securing a scholarship. A needy student who excels in his studies are going to have higher prospect of obtaining a scholarship.
Is not for a specific college, you’ll be capable of using the award at any college. For tomorrow, in case the award is intended to academics pursuing frills in the individuals, essay na naglalarawan your child should explore thy. For sunglasses to thank from the usa, here are a couple of possible scholarship awards.
Learn what companies need, and if you are Lacking experience or skills, then it is time to put in your time and acquire what you need to be competitive. If you do not have an expertise, then just mention school pursuits or extracurricular interests. On your resume, you will need to write about your own expertise in addition to accomplishments. Your actual experience should not be continued on the next page. If do not have any work experience to record your first resume, it’s still possible to show yourself along with your education and skills so as to receive your dream job.
Your Very Best choice would be to see the restaurant And see whether they are employing. An alternate is incorporating a menu of expected reinforcers and letting the student to choose her or his reinforcement. From coach to analyst, also out of writer to auditor, there are many options available for every kind of engineering student looking for a little more income.
As a principle, always consider the Particular recruiter or company you’re aiming for if authoring or structuring your own resume. There’s simply no reason an employer would need to comprehend what you look like. Do not forgetyour resume must focus on which you could provide your employer, not vice versa.
Your school ought to have a career center Where you can have mock interviews or you may even request a buddy to aid you practice. You don’t wish to look as though you peaked in high school. Quite simply, an superb high school resume will probably be performed for youthe formats taken into account and you then will be supplied an editable draft where you are able to add all the information which you want. Quite simply, students who want to achieve dynamic formats can benefit from excellent format samples. If a student doesn’t attain the mandatory criterion, delivering psychologist will only teach the student that rewards are readily available irrespective of behavior and may even result in an escalation of their behaviour. It is likely to acquire high school student resume illustrations for free now and after that it’s possible to utilize them to compose the CV you desire.
Even if you’re using resume templates, Check and see whether it matches your business so you can produce an updated resume format 2017. To put it differently, it is going to assist you in making a decision regarding what information to include on your resume and precisely what it is possible to exit. You need to upgrade the information you write on your paper. You might desire to make sure that you include all the data that you’ve got to have on your resume and do not shortchange yourself when it has to do with talking of your accomplishments, wisdom and techniques. You also ought to make sure you include all the information that the employer is looking for. A pleasant and useful one contains just the suitable information without overselling, and it is easy to read.
You’ll be at a place to interact with both Faculty and student body in a manner which you could not get the chance to otherwise. If you are searching for a specialist position, then you should decide on a program that specializes in creating professional resumes. Some fundamental positions require owning computer abilities or some creativity so you can cite what courses you are studying and what grades are not there. How disappointing it is to be refused at job position because of a minor misprint! Make sure it is perfect to the new job position you’re applying for.
Primarily, you might be fortunate enough to Find and create an application for a job submitting through your school’s career center or an internet job board. A project could be an experience building stepping stone if you already know what kind of career you want to make in future. If you have applied before and searching for a new job, it’s imperative that you update your resume. If you are going to put in an application for a new job, then you need to update the info.
Don’t write one unless you own a job Posting to document your own application. As a high schooler, it may be difficult to find work. Finding a job does not need to be so challenging, it actually does not. Bear in mind, experience does not have to be official occupations. Your very first job or volunteer gig might have been years ago but listing your newest opportunities in addition to its part is the best way to go.
In the perfect situation, for the first 30 days, you ought to be completely committed to researching the suitable solution. The first 30 days should be centered on the people and culture of the company. The previous 30 days of this program is a great time to focus on the profitable development of the small business. Your first 30 days ought to be filled with prospecting and collecting leads. The First 30 Days Begin by constructing an exceptional program around the job description and essential work. Day 0 Buying the appropriate point of sale procedure is an essential facet of establishing a booming retail operation. It is also simpler than planning a comprehensive year or God forbid, 5 decades.
Rest is an essential portion of the plan, too. The 60-day and 90-day programs will be obscure at first, since you are going to have to use the first 30 days as your information-gathering stage to determine where you’re going to go in such periods. The plan needs to be directed at how you are improve company operations. FORMAT OF THE PLAN it can be presented in any of the following formats. Plans also prove you comprehend the job duties and business specifics. A business program will show how committed, credible and knowledgeable you’re about the business you want to work for. Supplying a company program that’s immaterial to your function in the provider is a terrible thought.
The attention of the subsequent 30 days want to Get concentrated on building the brand of the business enterprise. Breaking down your advertising strategy into manageable 90-day balls is a remarkable method to keep perspective on your aims and accomplishments, set sensible priorities and far more. You are also able to get an overall awareness of the sort of people working at the business by reading the profiles of many individuals working there. To be completely honest, you do not have any clue where it’s going. When it’s to do with point of sale, there’s no one-size-fits-all remedy. In today’s highly competitive job market, you will need to face the very simple fact you have to sell yourself-like it or not. Conclusion Creating a immaculate plan demands a great deal of research, analysis of the job description, the job, the business and in-depth comprehension of the company atmosphere.
One of the biggest challenges when it comes To finding remote work is truly figuring out what dispersed companies are hiring for the form of position you’re looking for. My goals is to operate without a lot of oversight so that you can return to the work you need to do. Create steps that you require to reach to achieve each objective. Each group and many individuals have some sort of a goal they must hit as a person or group, and you’ll get paid determined by how well you hit this number. As a customer success group, you’ve got to consider, and stop, churn. Be certain to keep the titles of any leads which aren’t very ready to proceed forward.
The worst thing You Might do is pay for a System and recognize it is not good for your business. Given the simple actuality that finishing an onboarding procedure can take 90 days, you want to be certain the employee can recall and provide valuable feedback about each step of the process they went through. You need to understand the entire procedure from beginning to finish and get perspectives from everybody involved with the procedure. However outstanding your onboarding process, there’ll be times you feel it’s bogging you down because you have to put in lots of work without expecting much instant gratification. As you complete the job, you ought to be learning just as much concerning the company and the job as they are studying about you. It may be easy to forget there’s still more work to be performed after the individual accepts a work offer. There was my existing job.
The following day, a test is on the second Account and deposited into the very account. Writing a check with pennies is particularly tricky, but using a small bit of practice, you will quickly be in a position to do it without even thinking. Once you are aware of how to properly write a check for a particular number of dollars and no cents, you increase the likelihood that the test will be interpreted for the correct quantity and leave the record less vulnerable to adjustments.
Homepage for a landing page is you have to cater to a lot of distinct sorts of audiences. Additionally, the webpage is intuitive and easy to navigate. If you’re creating a good-looking landing page, then it will help to have an attractive alternative, which Indochino has coated. The moment you generate a list, you can begin building your small business case around it.
Indicate the name of the individual or Company to whom you are giving your attention. Following that, you merely print out the test. To start with, the joint test has to be made from the right parties. There are loads of ways of calculating the ordinary check.
Additionally, your check probably has the Word volatility in the conclusion of the line, so that it would not make sense. When you order pre-printed checks and they arrive, you’ll be in a position to skip filling in a couple of the info you have to write on a rookie check. A personal check is a sort of payment used to cover goods or services and is drawn against a individual’s individual checking account. If you fall a personal check or cash, you don’t have any such protection.
Generally speaking, it’s a very good strategy To write your evaluations in ways they make as few assumptions about the condition of the system as you can. Our evaluation appears very similar to the previous one. The tests still affirm the property.
Surprisingly enough, lots of people will Finish every other part of their test and after that fail to sign it. The further information section provides the applicant an opportunity to deliver any other information they’d like to add before the background check is finished. The employer information section contains the information associated with your request.
Data errors are simpler to debug in case an Error is thrown near the source of the data that is undesirable. Understanding code can be very hard, but if you find it used in a style that’s relatable to your own knowledge or experience, it is going to become easier. It added below the Tests tab is going to be implemented after reply is obtained.
Even today, you’ll find Good value in a Merchandise that costs under a buck. For example, understanding the typical check amount can allow restaurants to improve menu items to slightly increase their normal revenue from every guest they function. Multiple-selection list box A multiple-selection listing box is composed of several check boxes within a scrollable list.
There are a couple of choices for cashing a Bank draft, all which might be achievable for you depending on your situation and how fast you want the cash. There are just a few alternatives to setup your environment. The setup will be quite like Observables. With the help of User testing you’re able to find out what sort of questions customers are asking and expect them! A joint checking account can be helpful for married couples or company partners who have shared expenses.
You will find quite a lot of types of Restrictive endorsements used in the construction marketplace. The illustration might be exaggerated, but you need the idea. This example will implement a customized Hook command whenever the native HTTP API is decided to be unhealthy. Some other examples include things such as purchasing a wedding dress, pre-paying a holiday package or settling a health bill.
A documentation is quite short but it’s Sufficient to begin. It features a sample apk, setup, usage and a few customisations which may be placed on the code. It’s actually useful in terms of examples.
Any business application which would love To use spell-check or phrase check can earn a call to the API and see if the predicted word is equivalent to phrase in the market application. When a procedure was identified as a candidate for advancement, effort might be asked to try to identify the source of these defects by cause. Luckily, it is fairly straightforward and after filling out a couple of checks, you’ll feel like a professional. It is rather easy. Furthermore, it is a easy, straight-forward approach. The approaches are provided below.
The stipulations linked with check Discounting will vary between nations and financing institutions, but you are Likely to see numerous common requirements developed to protect the lender. One special Important means of avoiding all sorts of check fraud is to earn decent use of check Protection services. To hide or obscure data in almost any manner.
If you should Compose a receipt, include All the crucial information that creates a receipt valid. A receipt contains plenty of information regarding your purchase, including store, payment and merchandise details. Receipts come in several unique forms and might be utilized to account for money spent in several of various ways. The receipt itself might not say the particular date that the items have to be returned , which usually means you would like to calculate this date yourself. Sample rental receipts are available on the internet at sites like LegalZoom.com. It is likely to always receive a digital receipt instead of a paper receipt should you make an in-store purchase at Walmart by supplying your cellular phone number at check-out.
Invoices arrive in Many of terms, from Internet 7 (meaning you have to pay the whole amount in seven days) to Net 45 (meaning that you must pay the whole amount in 45 times ). The kind of bill your company uses is just dependent on preference. Net invoices are utilized to reveal the pre requisite price of a good or assistance. If it regards a net or gross invoice, it genuinely is dependent upon taste. In other cases, a web invoice doesn’t offer the seller an entire image.
Invoices are an Essential part of an organization. Gross invoices don’t always include itemized discounts. On occasion, a gross statement may be misleading for a company that’s tax exempt. Gross invoices reflect the entire sum of a purchase, sometimes before any discounts, coupons and bargains.
The earlier” price should have been the Cost the goods were offered for in a reasonable period prior to the sale. The most significant price should nevertheless be revealed in a means that’s simple to see. The only price has to be clear and unambiguous and should comprise all the elements of the price that need to get paid to discover the goods. Utilizing Excel 2013, create a receipt that you can easily customize for each sale. State the location where the sale happens. If you invest money on a purchase by way of a charge card, you will be given a charge card slide along with or as a replacement for a normal receipt. A sales order is an easy form that is filled out by a company detailing the coming receipt of goods by a customer.
You Have to allow the consumer understand if You accept charge cards or checks and just how long she has to create the payment before a late charge will be added. As an example, a business may find that it should employ new employees to remain informed about product demand. If you manage the business, you might want to designate somebody else to administer and manage PC. Double-entry accounting is based on the grounds that assets will always equal the obligations as well as the equity of the company. You are reducing the cash advantage, thus you are very likely to charge money. Money have to be listed and put in a secure place until deposit. Choose the number of cash you want to withdraw.
If you are not able to scan either code, then you Are able to manually place in your receipt info. The Walmart receipt codes required for Savings Catcher are observed at the bottom of all store receipts, together with a repository. So as it pertains to writing email templates, we need to supply our customers with the best tools to produce content in the most effective way possible, if you’d like to comprehend how to code an e-receipt or simply upgrade your welcome emails. Employing an Excel template offers an intuitive ways to make invoices for non and moderate-demand small company use. You can even produce a reception template yourself and print one out every time you require it. Many year-end reception templates are provided on the web.
Whenever possible, Someone Who does not Have accessibility to the petty cash ought to be the individual accountable for auditing little money. Even if your condition does not require a bill of sale, it is a significant part of purchasing, selling or donating an automobile you ought ton’t overlook. States who do require a bill of sale have their own state-specific types that, in most situations, you are able to discover on their various sites. Assign work number and an invoice amount for your job that you want to bill.
Read More and if you don’t plan meetings Frequently, then it’s reasonable, especially if you enjoy doing it. In the same style, meetings are also significant since it is a process of interaction with different people. One-on-one meetings ought to be performed anytime from once a week to once a month. An integral point to remember when running your one-on-one meetings is that you want to write down things.
Agendas can vary from simple to complex. They also make it easier to assess the success of this meeting by offering a checklist for followup and accountability. A meeting schedule can be formatted in numerous ways. For example, it is frequently set to keep a meeting organized. Budget meeting agendas are categorized via past small business performance and current small company requirements.
You must always embrace the meeting to the Particular situation available. Establish how members should get ready for the assembly. A thriving meeting is a consequence of a well-organized and ready agenda. A superb meeting requires preparation, rather the type that has the employees or attendees that is going to be attending your meeting. If you’ve ever attended or planned a board meeting, then you’re aware that the agenda contains a whole lot more information than an simple team meeting agenda.
projection. An agenda can assist you regain focus in the event the discussions veer off track, and help you estimate how long you expect spending in the meeting. The lengthy schedule is normally a comprehensive page, which comprises a name, meeting location, date and time, targets and subjects or points of dialogue. An extremely clear schedule also makes it easier to record effective meeting minutes. 1 good schedule can cut the selection of meetings necessary to complete a project in half and greatly lower the tendency for meetings to branch off into discussions which are not beneficial to goal accomplishment.
An agenda, actually, is not the primary Reason behind a booming small group. It helps to keep meeting attendees focused on the last decision. A company agenda is a kind of schedule that lists activities and discussions which should be taken up through an official gathering. A business meeting agenda intends to facilitate powerful and well-organized discussion of topics regarding the present and future of the company. Creating a business meeting agenda might be daunting.
Ensure you download our template to assist you plan! Templates will cut the time expenditure requirement. However, it will raise the amount of efficacy on your task. It’s possible to browse the group of free to get templates around the world wide web and you may download the most suitable template to your requirement quite readily. So, you should go with readymade Agenda Templates which will be ideal for all your requirements. The casual agenda template is ideal for team meetings. A faculty meeting agenda template would be your key to creating a well-planned and useful agenda for virtually any college meeting.
You will become assured better outcomes with all These options available for you. A more informal instance is a weekly sync. You cannot use the particular exact exact same pay letter to turn in an application for every single undertaking. They all are readily available to download at no charge! The purpose is to supply everybody who’d like a chance to speak an chance to do precisely that. Let your staff members create new thoughts. The thought of working via the internet has begun to creep to the everyday workplace,… Read More, an attractive agenda which is also functional is the best way to go.
Have access to quite a few helpful meeting agenda templates. Cover letters are a valuable section of this application procedure, and likewise a superb approach to make sure your resume speaks for you in addition to your own skills. The correspondence is one of those few records that almost everyone might need to create sooner or later later inside their lifetime. If you ought to be a copywriter, your resume cover letter ought to ooze using all skill. A movie cover letter must be between 30 minutes to a minute. Agenda composing is a duty that needs effort and appropriate analysis.
Meeting Topic The topic for your particular Meeting should be put at the surface of your own agenda serving as a heading into the schedule. It should be clear if it is a topic they desire to engage in or not an if they donat want to explore a particular personal topic, you need to respect their wishes. For increased reading comprehension, you may want to list agenda topics as questions the team should answer. Read the question insights to make certain you’re using the queries properly. Be sure enough time is permitted to explore key difficulties.
Trade arrangements undergo a thorough Approval practice. A contract arises whenever the parties agree that there’s an agreement. There are many explanations as to why a contract has been terminated. Most Language contracts don’t require any superior religion, provided the law is met.
Such arrangements Have to Be signed by both partners. Non-disclosure agreements are incredibly much in fashion in case of technology companies where the goods are for the most part grown mutually. Verbal agreements require the great religion of all parties and could be tough to prove. Prenuptial agreements are only a mechanism to safeguard the wealthy spouse’s assets. Though signing a prenuptial agreement is not mandatory by law, it is a smart step to take before getting married, so you are ready to rest assured that you will be able to cope with yourself financially even after the marriage. After twenty years, for instance, the prenuptial agreement could come to be wholly obsolete. Occasionally scaled’ bond arrangements allow the couple to come up with financial confidence within the plan of their relationship.
In the event the party was forced to enter a contract, he Can decide to make it void. What’s more, if the other party gets offended, it is likely that they’ll not settle the dispute readily. Each party to a contract should have the capacity to go into the arrangement.
The document may bear logos of All the parties. As a result, if you are opting for such a record, it is always advised to consult a lawyer. Such records are called loan arrangements or loan contracts and therefore are a proof of all the facts surrounding the fiscal loan.
The agreement must be acknowledged by both Parties in front of a notary. The exclusivity arrangement can be tailored to the necessities of the moment together with prospective inevitabilities. It is a good idea to write down everything you have to have in an agreement so both parties actually can understand what they are agreeing to. First of all, it is important to realize that you can’t draft a postnuptial agreement all on your own. It is very rare to locate a written agreement between an auto owner and also a mechanic, under such problems.
If You’re coping with something less Crucial, but you might attempt to write a contract by yourself. You are able to use a contract illustration to establish your contract on. A business contract is not just among the most significant strategies to be certain that both parties understand the nuances involved with the market agreement, but in addition it helps safeguard your and the other party’s interests when entering into an arrangement.
You should register the contract with the Assistance of a stamp paper along with an acceptable signatory. Think about whether you’ll write a contract by yourself or in the event that you are going to want to seek out legal assistance. There are several varieties of contracts for business or person explanations.
If you Choose to try and compose the contract Yourself, bear in mind that it is not vital to utilize legal terminology. It is quite common to find contracts utilizing the conditions indemnify and hold harmless together. In the event the contract is silent regarding termination terms, you will have to follow along with the frequent procedure that’s been prescribed by law. Implied contract of employment is nothing apart from an agreement inferred from the conduct of the worker, or by the conditions.
The arrangement signifies all the particulars Of the lending. Default agreements will say what constitutes a default, such as the breach of a single clause or a range of exemptions which will cause penalties. Even though there’s no formal agreement, there is an implied contract between both. It’s extremely important to remember that a poorly drafted agreement might not be kept at the right time of authorities. A flat cooperative advertising agreement aids the parties endorse the same item.
At times the arrangement could be broken at any given Moment, but using a penalty. It’s also Sensible to draft this kind of agreement With the assistance of a specialist. If there’s a dispute regarding the contract it’s Significant both parties communicate clearly to make an effort to resolve the issue. Training arrangement Is Basically a document that defines the character Of your internship or placement. The free rental lease arrangement shown On the webpage is a great illustration of this kind of agreement. | 2019-04-21T20:09:43Z | http://nowabikhwan.com/15-schulerpraktikum-muster/ |
Please carefully read these Terms of Service.
(2) you understand and agree to these Terms of Service, and, if you are between the ages of 16 and 18, your legal guardian has reviewed and understands and agrees to these Terms of Service.
A "Device" means any mobile or wireless computing device, for example a smartphone, that may be used to access the Service.
The "Service" means (i) the websites located at gree.net, gree-support.net and gree-corp.com (the "Site"), including any services, features and content accessible or downloadable from the Site, and (ii) any other GREE application, service or product licensed, downloaded or otherwise accessed by you through third party websites or sources.
"Service Materials" means all information and materials that are part of the Service, including without limitation the following: any and all copyrightable material, including but not limited to software; the "look and feel" of the Service or any portion of the Service; the compilation and arrangement of the components of the Service or any portion of the Service; pictures or other graphics or images; text; audio or video; advertising copy; data; logos; domain names; trademarks, service marks or trade names; and User Content (as defined below).
"User Content" means content and materials (including without limitation text, writings, photographs, graphics, images, comments, personally identifiable information, etc.), which the Service may invite or enable you and other users to create, submit, post, display, transmit, perform, publish or distribute communications, including by making the foregoing available to GREE and to other users of the Service, whether via e-mail or through online forums, message boards, messaging services, blogs or other functionality of the Service or portions of the Service.
"Virtual Currency" means virtual coins, points or similar items that may be earned or obtained through the Service or otherwise purchased by you for legal tender or actual currency, subject to applicable law.
"Virtual Goods" means virtual digital items, such as commodities, abilities or other goods that may be earned or obtained through the Service or otherwise purchased by you for legal tender or actual currency, or for Virtual Currency, subject to applicable law.
"Your Content" means User Content that you make available in connection with the Service.
GREE grants to you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, non-transferable license to use and display the following: (a) the portions of the Service that are accessible from the Site without payment or made accessible from third party websites or sources via GREE’s authorization without payment, and (b) such other portions of the Service accessible on a "for-payment" basis, provided that you have paid the applicable fees and met the applicable conditions. The foregoing license is (i) solely for your personal, non- commercial use; (ii) solely for a single computer to access the Site and solely on a Device to access applications; and (iii) subject to your compliance with these Terms of Service.
use the Service for any use or purpose other than as expressly permitted by these Terms of Service.
Neither GREE nor any of the GREE Parties (as defined below) grant to you any licenses or rights except for the licenses and rights expressly granted in these Terms of Service. GREE and its licensors hereby reserve all rights not expressly granted by these Terms of Service. No license is granted hereunder by estoppel, implication or otherwise.
By registering through the Service to play GREE games and access GREE services, we will establish an internal account specific to you as a user ("Account"). As part of this registration process, you may be requested to provide information about yourself in order to use the Service. You agree to provide and maintain true, accurate, complete and current information as requested by the Service. If you provide any information that is untrue, inaccurate, incomplete or not current, GREE has the right to suspend or terminate your Account and may prohibit you from using the Service at any time.
You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your Account. You agree to notify GREE immediately of any unauthorized use of your Account or any other breach of security related to your Account. You are responsible for all activities that occur under your Account whether or not you have knowledge of those activities.
The Service Materials are protected by applicable laws in both the United States and other jurisdictions, including but not limited to intellectual property laws. Any use, copying and/or dissemination of the Service Materials may be restricted by such laws. You agree not to (nor attempt to) license, modify, copy, publish, sell, transfer, transmit or exploit in any way, any portion of the Service or Service Materials other than (a) Your Content (as defined below), (b) the specific Service Materials set forth in the following paragraph of this Section or (c) as expressly permitted in writing by GREE and, if applicable, the third party owner(s) of such Service Materials. You are solely responsible for obtaining permission from such owner(s).
Share Image. A "Share Image" is a specific in-application image identified by GREE and enabled for sharing as expressly permitted as follows. You may make a Share Image available only to other GREE users and only via GREE’s social networking service.
Friend Code. A "Friend Code" is a specific code provided by GREE. Users may share a Friend Code only on Facebook and Twitter, and only as an invitation to join the Service to contacts on those third party services.
Screen Capture. A "Screen Capture" is a screenshot saved by a user via an in-application function. Users may send Screen Captures solely to their contacts on Facebook and Twitter, and only in unmodified form.
GREE and its licensors own all right, title and interest in and to the Service and the Service Materials, except for Your Content (as defined below) and except as otherwise expressly set forth in these Terms of Service. You shall not acquire any ownership rights whatsoever by downloading Service Materials or by purchasing any Virtual Currency or Virtual Goods (each as defined below).
All User Content is the sole responsibility of the person from whom such User Content originated. GREE has no obligation to review, evaluate or otherwise monitor any User Content for any quality, including but not limited to accuracy or legality. GREE makes no warranties or other guarantees with respect to User Content and hereby disclaims any and all such warranties or guarantees.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, GREE reserves the right in its sole discretion to review, monitor, prohibit, edit, delete, disable access to or otherwise make unavailable any User Content (including without limitation Your Content) without notice for any reason or for no reason at any time.
You agree that Your Content is not confidential and will not be returned to you. You warrant that Your Content is original to you and that you own all rights to Your Content, including the right to grant all of the rights and licenses in these Terms of Service without GREE incurring any obligations to any third party or liability arising out of its exercise of such rights and licenses.
You hereby grant to GREE an irrevocable, perpetual, transferable, fully paid-up, royalty-free, worldwide license (including the right to sublicense and assign to third party) and right to copy, reproduce, fix, adapt, modify, create derivative works from, manufacture, commercialize, publish, distribute, sell, license, sublicense, transfer, lease, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, or provide access to electronically, broadcast, communicate to the public by telecommunication, display, perform, enter into computer memory, and use and practice, in any way, your User Content as well as all modified and derivative works thereof in connection with our provision of the Service, including marketing and promotions of the Service. You also hereby grant to GREE the right to authorize others to exercise any of the rights granted to GREE under these Terms of Service. You further hereby grant to GREE the unconditional, irrevocable right to use and exploit your name, likeness and any other information or material included in any User Content and in connection with any User Content, without any obligation to you. Except as prohibited by law, you waive any rights of attribution and/or any moral rights you may have in Your Content, regardless of whether Your Content is altered or changed in any manner.
GREE does not claim any ownership rights in Your Content and nothing in these Terms of Service is intended to restrict any rights that you may have to use and exploit Your Content. GREE has no obligation to monitor or enforce your intellectual property rights in or to Your Content. GREE has no obligation to accept, display, review, maintain or otherwise exploit any User Content.
The Service may include Virtual Currency and/or Virtual Goods. You have no right, title or interest in or to any such Virtual Goods or Virtual Currency appearing or originating in the Service except for the following: You will have a limited, personal, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license to use, solely within the Service, Virtual Goods and Virtual Currency that you have earned, purchased or otherwise obtained in a manner authorized by GREE. GREE may manage, regulate, control, modify or eliminate Virtual Currency and/or Virtual Goods at any time, with or without notice. GREE shall have no liability to you or any third party in the event that GREE exercises any such rights.
The transfer of Virtual Currency and Virtual Goods is prohibited except where expressly authorized in the Service. Other than as expressly authorized in the Service, you shall not sell, redeem or otherwise transfer Virtual Currency or Virtual Goods to any person or entity, including but not limited to GREE, another User or any third party.
You understand and agree that all sales of Virtual Currency and Virtual Goods are final and non-refundable, unless GREE (or the applicable third party platform provider) decides in its sole discretion to provide a refund. You agree that in the event that these Terms of Service, your Account, the Service as a whole or the applicable portion of the Service is terminated or discontinued for any reason, you will forfeit all Virtual Currency and Virtual Goods. GREE will have no liability to you in connection with that forfeiture.
As a condition of your use of the Service, and without limiting your other obligations under these Terms of Service, you agree to comply with the restrictions and rules set forth in this Section as well as any additional restrictions or rules (such as application-specific rules) set forth in the Service itself.
use or distribute cheats, exploits, automation software, bots, hacks, mods or any unauthorized third party software designed to modify any user’s experience with the Service.
In addition, you agree not to use the Service or any portion of the Service to commit actions that GREE considers, in its sole discretion, to be detrimental in any way to the Service or to any user’s enjoyment of the Service.
GREE reserves the right to determine what conduct it considers to be in violation of the rules of use or otherwise outside the intent or spirit of these Terms of Service or the Service itself. GREE reserves the right to take action as a result, which may include terminating your Account and prohibiting you from using the Service.
"Feedback" means any comments, suggestions or other feedback about, related to or in connection with, the Service that you provide to GREE. You agree that any Feedback shall be the exclusive property of GREE, and you hereby assign to GREE all rights, title and interest in and to all Feedback. You agree that, unless otherwise prohibited by applicable law, GREE may, without any compensation to you, use, sell and otherwise disclose or exploit the Feedback in any way and for any purpose.
Except as may be expressly specified otherwise by GREE with respect to paid portions of the Service, GREE reserves the right to add, change, suspend or discontinue the Service, or any aspect or feature of the Service, without notice or liability.
"GREE," the GREE logo and other logos and product and service names are trademarks and service marks of, and are owned by, GREE or the GREE Parties. You may not use or display such trademarks in any manner, except as expressly set forth in these Terms of Service. All third party trademarks and service marks appearing on the Service are the property of their respective owners and all rights therein are reserved.
The Service may contain links to third party websites or resources. GREE may remove any such links at any time for any reason or for no reason. You acknowledge and agree that GREE is not responsible or liable for the availability or accuracy of such websites or resources, or the content, products, or services on or available from such websites or resources. Such links do not imply any endorsement by GREE of, or relationship of GREE with, such websites or resources or the content, products, or services available from such websites or resources. You shall have sole responsibility for and you assume all risk arising from your use of any such websites or resources.
informing GREE that you wish to terminate your Account.
GREE may terminate these Terms of Service, your Account, your access to the Service, the Service itself or any portion of the Service at any time and for any reason. GREE may also notify authorities or take any actions it deems appropriate (including without limitation suspending your Account and your access to the Service), without notice to you if GREE suspects or determines that you may have failed to comply with any provision of these Terms of Service or any other GREE policy or rule, or engaged in actions relating to or in the course of using the Service that may be illegal or cause liability, harm or other disruption for you, GREE, any third party or the Service itself.
As the result of any termination, you will lose your Account and all associated information and data, which may include without limitation your game history, avatars, characters, achievements and Virtual Currency and Virtual Goods. You will not be entitled to and GREE will not be liable to you or any third party for any refund, reimbursement or other liability as a result of any termination (by you or by GREE) permitted under these Terms of Service for any reason. GREE reserves the right in its discretion to refuse to maintain an Account for, or provide the Service to, any individual.
Section 4 (Service Materials); Section 5 (Ownership); Section 6 (User Content/Your Content); Section 7 (Virtual Currency and Virtual Goods); Section 9 (Feedback), Section 11 (Trademarks); Section 12 (Links to Third Party Websites); Section 13 (Termination); Section 14 (Disputes Between You and Other Users), Section 15 (Indemnification); Section 16 (Disclaimers of Warranties); Section 17 (Limitation of Liability); Section 18 (Governing Law and Equitable Remedies); Section 19 and Section 19 (General Provisions).
You are solely responsible for your interaction with other users of the Service and other parties that you come in contact with through your use of the Service. GREE reserves the right, but has no obligation, to monitor and manage disputes between you and other users of the Service. You will fully cooperate with GREE to investigate any suspected unlawful, fraudulent or improper activity, including, without limitation, granting GREE access to any password-protected portions of your Account. GREE hereby disclaims any and all liability to you or any third party relating to any dispute between you and other users of the Service.
violation of any rights of any other person or entity.
GREE may assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter within the scope of this section. You agree to cooperate with GREE and pay all expenses, with respect to any such matter.
YOU AGREE THAT THE SERVICE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, WARRANTIES OF TITLE OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. ALL USE OF THE SERVICE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK.
WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, NEITHER GREE NOR ITS AFFILIATES (DEFINED BELOW) OR SUBSIDIARIES, NOR ANY OF THEIR EMPLOYEES, DIRECTORS, AGENTS, ATTORNEYS, THIRD-PARTY CONTENT PROVIDERS, DISTRIBUTORS, LICENSEES OR LICENSORS (COLLECTIVELY, THE "GREE PARTIES") WARRANT THAT (A) THE SERVICE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS OR (B) THE SERVICE MATERIALS OR USER CONTENT WILL BE VIEWABLE OR ACCESSIBLE OR (C) THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE OR ERROR-FREE. "AFFILIATE" MEANS ANY ENTITY THAT DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY CONTROLS, IS UNDER COMMON CONTROL, OR IS CONTROLLED BY GREE INTERNATIONAL, INC., INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO GREE, INC. AND FUNZIO, INC.
THE GREE PARTIES SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL, PUNITIVE OR OTHER SIMILAR DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF REVENUES, LOST PROFITS, LOST DATA OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES (HOWEVER SUCH LOSSES ARE QUALIFIED), ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING IN ANY WAY TO THESE TERMS OF SERVICE OR THE SERVICE ITSELF, WHETHER BASED ON CONTRACT, TORT OR ANY OTHER LEGAL THEORY, AND WHETHER OR NOT ANY GREE PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
THE GREE PARTIES SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR MORE THAN THE AMOUNT YOU HAVE PAID TO GREE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THESE TERMS OF SERVICE IN THE SIX (6) MONTHS IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE DATE ON WHICH YOU FIRST ASSERT A CLAIM. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT IF YOU HAVE NOT PAID ANY AMOUNT TO GREE DURING SUCH TIME PERIOD, YOUR SOLE REMEDY (AND THE GREE PARTIES’ EXCLUSIVE LIABILITY) FOR ANY DISPUTE WITH GREE OR THE GREE PARTIES IS TO STOP USING THE SERVICE AND TO CANCEL YOUR ACCOUNT.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties or the limitation or exclusion of liability for certain types of damages. Accordingly, some of the above disclaimers and limitations may not apply to you. To the extent that GREE or any other GREE Party may not, as a matter of applicable law, disclaim any warranty or limit its liability as set forth herein, the scope of such warranty and the extent of GREE’s and any GREE Party’s liability shall be the minimum permitted under such applicable law.
These Terms of Service and any claim related to these Terms of Service or to the Service itself will be governed by the laws of the State of California without reference to its conflict of laws provisions. The exclusive jurisdiction and venue of any action with respect to the subject matter of these Terms of Service will be the state and federal courts located in San Francisco, California, and each of the parties hereto waives any objection to jurisdiction and venue in such courts. The parties specifically disclaim application of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.
You acknowledge that your breach of these Terms of Service may result in immediate and irreparable harm to GREE for which remedies at law are inadequate. Accordingly, GREE shall be entitled to seek injunctive or other equitable relief (without the obligation to post any bond) in the event of any breach or anticipatory breach by you of these Terms of Service. You hereby irrevocably waive all rights to seek injunctive or other equitable relief.
GREE respects the intellectual property of others and asks that users of GREE’s games and services do the same. Accordingly, without limiting any other provision of these Terms of Service, you may not upload, post, send or transmit to or through the Service any materials that violate third party intellectual property rights.
Please note, however, that as referred to in more detail in GREE’s Copyright Policy, certain legal requirements and restrictions apply with respect to such notices. You are encouraged to familiarize yourself with such requirements and restrictions before providing to us any notices of alleged copyright infringement.
a. You agree to be responsible for obtaining and maintaining all mobile devices and any other equipment needed for access to and use of the Service, and all charges related thereto.
b. Upon GREE’s request, you will provide to GREE any documentation, releases or other materials necessary to verify your compliance with these Terms of Service.
c. GREE currently operates and controls the Service from the United States. The information and materials provided on the Service are not intended for distribution to or use by any person or entity in any jurisdiction where such distribution or use would be contrary to law or regulation or which would subject GREE to any registration requirement within such jurisdiction or country.
d. GREE’s failure to exercise or enforce any right or provision of these Terms of Service shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. No waiver by either party of any breach or default hereunder shall be deemed to be a waiver of any preceding or subsequent breach or default.
e. The parties agree that if any provision of these Terms of Service is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the court should give effect to the parties’ intentions as reflected in the provision and the other provisions of these Terms of Service shall remain in full force and effect.
f. You shall not assign these Terms of Service to another person or entity without GREE’s prior written consent.
g. GREE shall not be liable for any delay or failure to perform resulting from causes outside its reasonable control, including without limitation any failure to perform hereunder due to acts of God, war, acts of civil or military authorities, terrorism, riots, embargoes, strikes, or energy shortages.
h. You agree that these Terms of Service will not be construed against GREE by virtue of having drafted them. You hereby waive any and all defenses you may have based on the electronic form of these Terms of Service and the lack of a requirement that these Terms of Service must be signed.
To contact GREE, please follow the process described on our support page located at https://games.gree-support.net. | 2019-04-26T15:11:47Z | https://games.gree-support.net/hc/en-us/articles/203429524-Terms-of-Service |
Thought provoking. Controversial. Presidential Puppetry is sure to raise lots of eye-brows. One of those books that inspires readers to look deep beneath the surface.
'Presidential Puppetry: Obama, Romney and Their Masters' is strongly recommended for every U.S. citizen who voted on November 6th.
- Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D.
His official bio omits youthful national security connections...Irregularities enable GOP opposition researchers to smear him with distortions because he cannot fight back...His first serious love affair was with the daughter of the leader of Australia’s version of our National Security Council…”Community organizing” was a stepping-stone…Groomed as future leader…Ratified many Bush policies, let Democrats take the heat for results...Prevailed in 2012 even though he had become dispensable to many on Wall Street…Top GOP strategists knew his true past…Petraeus scandal was much worse than public knows, and a wake-up call for the White House...Plays word games in denying the massive, Bush-era domestic spy program that intercepts and saves for potential retrieval almost all electronic communications of Americans....Pleases puppet masters with plans to ramp up secret war against Syria at vast expense....Hides real story of Benghazi....Provides rhetoric but little else against Wall Street's austerity agenda for America.
Elected to Senate as anti-war candidate in 1972…Re-elected with large margins in corporate-friendly Delaware…Now nation’s most senior, VIP elected official…Unsuccessful in landmark Senate positions, opposing Clarence Thomas and Iraq War...Still tarnished by 1988 plagiarism incident, which was just a slip-up and political smear...Picked as VP to balance Obama’s tenuous image with whites, especially men...In 2007, opposed Bush plan to bomb Iran as unconstitutional and threatened impeachment...In 2013, counsels Obama as administration advocates bombing Syria.
Mormon religion was key to candidacy and policy switches…Church founder Joseph Smith had been assassinated in 1844 during U.S. Presidency race under platform of Mormon theocracy…Former “Bishop Romney” was groomed for top post…Romney track record of money-making heavily favored cronies, insiders…Fellow Bain leader’s father ran and looted Howard Hughes empire…Relied on Bush neo-con foreign policy and domestic surveillance team…Sought austerity regime for “47 %,” and tax cuts for rich…Bain cronies invested heavily in electronic voting machines…Karl Rove implicated in prospective 2012 electronic voting schemes…Election day planning suspected of replicating Ohio 2004 and Florida 2000 voting schemes...Planning to remain a force in politics helping Republicans to victory in 2014 elections.
Wisconsin congressman…Architect of massive austerity cuts for lower and middle classes, old and sick…Offered “trust me” budget-cut plans…Caught lying about his marathon and mountain climbing exploits…Failed to disclose $1.6 million inheritance…Slept on House office cot to avoid DC rent…Leader in government-ordered restrictions on women’s reproductive health options…Anti-government rhetoric...Has enjoyed taxpayer-paid job and benefits for almost his entire career…Brother worked at Bain, won Massachusetts contract from Romney…Steers funds to cronies...Reappointed House Budget chair to impose austerity on public in 2013...Flip-flops on Syrian civil war policy, first seeking a muscular response and then putting onus on Obama to prove bombing would help America's security.
This is one of the most serious, detailed public interest books I have ever read, and I do read quite a bit.
I am in Afghanistan, with very little time to myself, and regret I have not been able to sit down with this book and give it the double read that it merits. As with any book that I consider a potential blockbuster, I started with the index, notes, and bibliography. All three are deep. This book is both a citizen's primer, and a reference work that will stand the test of time in helping future generations of students. It is a starting point for truth in the public interest.
I am one of those very few non-fiction reviewers that is also a former CIA clandestine case officer and a career intelligence officer. My reviews of over 300 books on intelligence are easily found (each review leading back to their Amazon home page) are easily found by searching for < Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Intelligence (Most)> without the brackets.
Imagine my astonishment, then, when I get through the first part of the book and discover that Obama may be CIA's second wholly-owned president. Obama's parents appear clearly documented as non-official cover CIA officers (officers spy, agents are the people they recruit) responsible for spotting, assessing, and recruiting among the Islamic up and comers. This section alone makes this book priceless.
Now in fairness to Obama, it must be said that George Bush (Papa) is now known to have been a CIA non-official cover officer present in Dallas and probably also directly responsible for supervising the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I do not write such opinions lightly. See among many other references here at Amazon, Dark Legacy and JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. I would also observe that every President since JFK has been a puppet. The assassination of JFK by a mix of New York bankers, Texas energy and military wealth, and their "agents" in the FBI and CIA set the stage for every president thereafter to be a house pet, choosing between the gold certificates if they were good (Papa Bush and Clinton being a prime example), very little if they were neutral (Carter, Bush Junior), and death (none needed so far).
A very helpful book in understanding where CIA got its off-the-books money controlled by Treasury (i.e. Wall Street) is by my friends Sterling and Peggy Seagraves, Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold. CIA imported the Nazi hydra (that in turn corrupted major slices of the US military), and funded the resurrection of fascists in Japan, Italy, and Germany, as well as collaborative corrupt dictators all over the planet. Please understand that I care deeply about the craft of intelligence and hope one day to see the CIA restored as a reliable provider of decision support to the President and all others. My article in CounterPunch is easily found online, "Intelligence for the President -- AND Everyone Else."
I have gone on at length above because my intent is to firmly support the author's credibility. He offers facts and extended opinions that loosely-educated and poorly-read individuals will be quick to label "off the wall." NOT SO. This book across 22 chapters, does what books -- and investigative journalists -- are supposed to do. It connects dots to dots, dots to the readers, and God willing, one day, readers to readers in a non-violent revolution to restore the Constitution and the Republic.
Each of the subsequent chapters shocks me and teaches me. I never have thought I knew it all, but I had thought I was well-informed and this book shakes that understanding. With all my reading, I am at perhaps 20% of what can be known legally and ethically. This book is shocking across every single chapter, and all the more valuable because it not only skewers Obama and Bush and their associates, but also does a fine job on Mitt Romeny and the Mormon criminal empire that some suspect is also a drug cartel on the side.
"If we wish to change events there is no better place to start than to change our own reaction to them, to declare that a politics lacking justice, equity, decency, and compassion is no longer acceptable. Economics, efficiency, perception, and brutish power calculations no longer suffice. The bottom line has bottomed out. The most radical act of individualism in which one can engage today is to come together with other individuals - as church, neighborhood, city and organization -- in order to uncover the biggest secret our leaders keep from us -- that we are not alone."
Bravo. ELECTORAL REFORM is the one thing that we can all come together on. I tried to explain this to Occupy in my now famous viral video (see also my video at Gnomedex), but Occupy was at the time a mob incapable of decisive action. We can still Occupy the HOME OFFICES of Senators and Representatives, and I continue to believe that we can force an Electoral Reform Act in time for 2016, one mandating that all eight parties (in addition to the two wings of tyranny, Democratic and Republican, the Green, Libertarian, Natural Law, Reform, and Socialist parties) be included on every state ballot for every federal office.
I have faith in America the Beautiful, and in the average citizen. I have lost faith in all of our institutions including churches, labor unions, the media, and universities. I pray that this book will in some manner inspire others to recognize that our government -- good people trapped in a bad system -- is rotten to the core and must be legally and peacefully abolished. We need a clean sheet fresh start with two words: ENOUGH -- and INTEGRITY.
God Bless America -- and may God restore the goodness that was envisioned by our Founding Fathers.
Presidential Puppetry is the dark political realism of power politics lurking in shadows away from mainstream media attention or public scrutiny. It is "real politik" under abusive forms of control fraud and succession planning coordinated and plotted by power consolidation and concentration that is taking over American Democracy. Andrew Kreig has produced a virtual encyclopedia of disclosures based upon his articulated exposure of this systemic institutionalized political capture, and shows it as deeply entrenched in our own "intelligence community" and capital structures. A culture of corruption and political deception has emerged on a global scale since the cold war and the new Trojan Horse is centered right inside the Gates of Washington DC.,... Indeed, it has been brought into the White House itself. This is current events from deep levels of deception and power, and Mr. Kreig does a good job presenting the materials professionally and credibly.
I recently finished re-reading Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914, concerning the Western world in the 25 years prior to World War I; it is a book I first read some 40 years ago, and it remains an excellent historical account of that period. I followed that re-read of Tuchman with Andrew Kreig's "Presidential Puppetry." One of the "takeaways" from that juxtaposition of reading choices was realizing that, thanks to Tuchman, I knew far more about the "Dreyfus Affair," an event that rocked France for most of the 1890's that I did about the background of the two major candidates in the last American presidential election. How can that be? It is the era of the 24/7 "news cycle," and I routinely read major main stream media publications like the "New York Times" and the "Washington Post" as well as significant internet-based news sources. Isn't that sufficient to have a basic understanding of the backgrounds of Obama and Romney? Apparently not. Kreig informs the reader that such knowledge "lacuna" is routine, even among reporters, and specifically relates an anecdote with Clare Nader, sister of Ralph.
Andy Kreig participated in two press conferences at the National Press Club the week preceding presidential election 2012. He was a moderator of the October 24, 2012, conference laying out the entire electronic vote rigging empire of Karl Rove. And, he was one of two members of the national press who participated in a press conference the day preceding the election in which the filing litigation in Ohio against ES&S and the Ohio Secretary of State was reported from Columbus. Clearly, Andy Kreig functions at the cutting edge of the recurring problem the United States has with the integrity of its elections.
However, Andy Kreig does more than rehash recent news. In this important work Kreig provides readers with background for the hidden dynamics of the current electoral and political scene. As his title suggests "presidential puppetry" addresses the way that intelligence operatives, perhaps most prominently CIA, groom candidates for major political offices in the United States. According to Kreig this grooming includes helping to gain access to education on favorable terms and providing assistance with the exposure of the scandal of their political competitors.
Kreig does not discuss much about whether Pres. Obama functions with a gun to his head - the stick used to influence foreign leaders, according to John Perkins in "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man." Rather, he focuses on the carrots and the assists that have been given to Barack Obama over the course of his rapid rise in the political hierarchy of American politics.
Andrew Kreig has produced a must-read. He was for many years a celebrated reporter for the Hartford Courant and author of Spiked. He went on to lead with distinction the Wireless Communications Association and the Justice Integrity Project. These efforts help provide the intimate knowledge of the Washington, national, and global affairs required for such ambitious reporting.
This is one of the most serious, detailed public interest books I have ever read, and I do read quite a bit. This book is both a citizen's primer, and a reference work that will stand the test of time in helping future generations of students. It is a starting point for truth in the public interest. This book across 22 chapters, does what books -- and investigative journalists -- are supposed to do. It connects dots to dots, dots to the readers, and God willing, one day, readers to readers in a non-violent revolution to restore the Constitution and the Republic.
Presidential Puppetry reveals Washington's inside story. The big news organizations stopped fighting for the public Jack-Anderson-style, and it's high-time for the public to know it. Four decades ago, I described shocking abuses of the troops and taxpayers when I went on-the-record with Jack Anderson following my resignation from CIA service in Indochina during the Vietnam era. The situation is far worse now.
A look behind the scenes in an uncompromising account of U.S. presidential politics. It’s a must-read for international readers.
In Presidential Puppetry, Kreig sifts through the sugar-coated lies that make today's politicians palatable. He then exposes the hard, bitter truths. He offers rare, must-read insight into the background of those vying to lead the free world. Hang on. The truth is disturbing. But it has to be told.
One of the main reasons that the population of investigative reporters has not become extinct in Washington is because of the continued existence of Andrew Kreig. Most of the rest of the media population has undergone a subtle but systematic information terror campaign orchestrated by avaricious oligarchs that has hunted them down and expelled them from the media territory. All of us interested in the truth should be thankful that Andy's talents continue to ensure that darkness of media manipulation is not the only characteristic that envelopes the issues in Washington and the world.
As I read key portions of Andrew Kreig's book I had the feeling that its insights could make good leaders better, and could give bad ones serious concern that their ongoing injustices have been exposed in a way that demands remedial public action.
Buy and read this book. You'll learn a lot more than you could have imagined, and you'll start seeing the world, politics, and the justice system in a very different, clearer, smarter way. This book exposes the puppet masters who pull the strings of leading officials in both major U.S. parties, including Obama and Romney. Its entertaining, cutting-edge reporting provides the kind of information that we in the independent press believe vital to informed decision-making.
As a publisher of Andrew Kreig's work, I confess to looking forward to publishing Andrew's postings, because he is an investigative journalist combined with constitutional scholarship extraordinaire. This book takes his investigations to the next level, connecting the dots to unveil a big picture that is startling yet not surprising at all. The book goes into great depth, showing the connections behind the candidates. For example, I’ve written that Mitt Romney should be regarded as “Bishop Romney” because his experience in that LDS post is longer and more relevant to voters than his single term as governor. Kreig's book amplifies that theme into a full historical context found nowhere else regarding Bishop Romney and his ascendancy within the revamped, tea party-oriented GOP. The book applies similar treatment to President Obama and many more U.S leaders.
From 1996 to 2008, he was President/CEO of the Wireless Communications Association in its worldwide advocacy to create a wireless broadband industry. Earlier, he was an attorney with a national law firm, and law clerk to a federal judge. In 1987, he authored Spiked: How Chain Management Corrupted America’s Oldest Newspaper, a widely reviewed case study of changes affecting newspaper industry, his first employer after college. He holds degrees from Yale Law School and the University of Chicago School of Law, and a history degree from Cornell University, where he was a student newspaper editor, rowing team member, and Golden Gloves boxer.
CHAPTER 9…George W. Bush: Shameless, Heartless and Selected-Not Elected..
CHAPTER 13..Big Brothers for Romney – and Us?
Part IV: What’s To Be Done?
(202) 638-0070; and [email protected]. | 2019-04-21T00:08:36Z | https://www.presidentialpuppetry.com/ |
Having around 8+ years of professional experience in developing web based, SOA based and client/server applications in multi - platform environments with Java/J2EE technologies, Involved in all the phases of Life Cycle of Software Development (SDLC).
Analysis, Design and Development of J2EE Business applications, Web-based and n-tier applications using the following core technologies - Java, Servlets, JSP, JSTL, and XML.
Proficient in Java Multi-Threading, Thread lifecycle methods and multiple request handling using synchronization.
Hands on experience with Core Java with Mulithreading, Concurrency, Exception Handling, File handling, IO, Generics and Java collections.
Experience in developing web based J2EE applications using Struts/Spring frameworks.
Experienced working with Java 8 concepts like Streams, Completable features and Java8 Lambdas.
Extensive experience in Telecom Domain Specific Frameworks such as Concept wave.
Experience in using Data Structures and Algorithms, Object Oriented Analysis, and software design patterns.
Sound experience in Python, Java, Object Oriented programming and Multithreading, WAMP (Windows, Apache, MYSQL, Python/PHP) and LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Python/PHP) Architecture.
Extensive experience in Test Driven Development (TDD) and actively involved in Requirement gathering, Analysis, Design, Reviews, Coding, Code Reviews, Unit and Integration Testing.
Hands-on experience in development of microservices and deploying in Docker.
Experience Developing application using Groovy, Grails, GSP, GORM and Grails Plugins and Grails Rest Services.
Experienced as Hadoop Developer with good knowledge in Hadoop Framework, Map Reduce and configuration of Hadoop cluster in Distributed mode & also in Cloudera Distribution Hadoop system.
Experience in Spring Framework such as Spring Boot, Spring Batch, Spring IOC, Spring Resources, Spring JDBC, Spring Source.
Experience with various IDEs like IntelliJ, Eclipse, JBuilder and Velocity Studio.
Implemented the service projects on Agile Methodology and involved in running the scrum meetings.
Implemented the core product projects on Lean and Kanban Methodology and involved in delivering high quality health care product.
Experience in developing web-services using REST, SOAP, WSDL and ApacheAXIS2.
Excellent in relational database (RDMS) experience in Oracle, MySQL, Sql Server, IBM DB2 and MongoDB for Big data environment, Experience in writing the SQL queries.
Very good understanding on NOSQL databases like Hbase and Cassandra.
Proficient in programming with Java/J2EE and strong experience in technologies such as JSP Servlets, Struts, spring (IOC&AOP), Spring Batch, Hibernate, ATG Commerce, EJBs, MDBs, Session Beans, JDBC and JNDI.
Experience with IBM WebSphere as application server, its configuration and performance tuning.
Implemented a Continuous Integration system using SVN, Jenkins, Bamboo and ANT.
Used CVS, Maven, and SVN, GitHub, Rational ClearCase for Source code version control.
Experience in designing transaction processing systems deployed on various application servers including Jboss, Apache Tomcat, Web Sphere, Web logic.
Good Experience on Quality Control, JIRA, for tracking the tickets like accepting the tickets/defects, Submitting the tickets, Reviewing Code and closing the tickets etc.
Experience in UNIX, Linux and UNIX Shell Scripting, good Knowledge in Unix commands and in creating Unix Shell Scripts.
Excellent Client interaction skills and proven experience in working independently as well as in a team and Excellent communication, analytical, interpersonal and presentation skills.
Web Technologies: JDBC, Servlets, JSP, JSTL, JSON, JNDI, XML, HTML5, BOOTSTRAP, CSS, AJAXNode.js, ExtJS, Angular 2, React Js, Redux.
Web Service Technologies: AXIS2, SOAP, WSDL, WADL, REST(JAX-RS).
Web/Application Servers: WebSphere, JBoss, WebLogic and Apache Tomcat.
Databases: SQL, Oracle10g, DB2, MongoDB, Cassandra.
IDE Tools: IntelliJ, Eclipse, Velocity Studio.
Source Control: CVS, SVN, Maven, Subversion.
Methodology: Water Fall, Agile, SCRUM, Lean and Kanban.
Other Tools: TOAD, Log4J, MS-Office, JIRA, SQL Developer.
Extensively involved in developing Web interface using JSP, JSP Standard Tag Libraries (JSTL) using Struts Framework.
Developed application using spring MVC, Spring Batch, JSP, JSTL and AJAX on the presentation layer, the business layer is built using spring.
Working on Angular 2, HTML5, CSS3 and Typescript. Worked on additional frameworks like Bootstrap for responsive design.
Designed the system based on spring MVC Model architecture. Developed a business logic layer using spring Dependency Injection and client side Java -beans for DAO Design Patterns.
Create internal dashboards, alerts, and scheduled reports to monitor overall Splunk performance. On boarded new data into a multi-tiered Splunk environment.
Designed and developed components relating to Concept Wave projects.
Worked with Pivotal Cloud Foundry and Spring Cloud and Implemented Micro Services based Cloud Architecture on Pivotal Cloud Foundry.
Created and updated database objects in Concept Wave frameworks.
Created Stream Rest based Application interfaces on java 8 environment.
Implemented batch configuration in spring boot application. Created the Maven project to integrate Spring boot, Restful API, Oracle & microservices.
Worked on Java Multithreading, Collections & Coherence Framework. Implemented Java Multithreading to refresh the cache at a given set of time interval.
Involved in process for builds and deployments with Maven, Bamboo and Jenkins for continuous integration.
Created WAR/EAR files using MAVEN build and deployed them on JBOSS server.
Created multi-module Maven project and used Maven to build applications and Jenkins for continuous integration continuous deployment.
Implemented Micro-services using Pivotal Cloud Foundry platform build upon Spring Boot Services.
Created User services in Cloud Foundry for connecting database with different life cycles using spring profile.
Used SOAP web service to get corporate card information and to make changes in the card database for businesses.
Worked with IBM SOA Suites like Websphere MQ Programming.
Create API Jenkins job, set up GitHub repository for Mule project also created project POM.
Created SOAP web service in pushing data to downstream systems and Implemented request and response objects using SOAP web services.
Written SQL statements for retrieving data from DB2 using JDBC and used IBM Data Studio to view and update the DB2 Database and worked on MongoDB.
Developed and written Stored Procedures and views to extract the needed data from DB2 and reflect on the UI. Created DB2 Server Stored Procedures for implementing business logic at the database level.
Interacted with team members and involved in analysis, design and implementation phases of the software development lifecycle (SDLC) for the various software modules of the Mobile Wallet application.
Deployed application using Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF) CLI and with Pivotal Cloud Foundry, the connection/service binding details are injected from the deployed cloud platform itself.
Developed Sales and Margin module using Spring Boot, Microservices.
Extensive Experience developing robust and highly scalable applications based on microservices architecture.
Used Eclipse IDE as the development environment to design and develop the code.
Designed and developed various modules of the application with J2EE design architecture, using Spring MVC frame work, and deployed the spring components on WebLogic.
Involved in the integration of Spring components for implementing Inversion of Control (IOC) using Dependency Injection and integration of other spring components like Dispatcher Servlets, Controllers, Model and View Objects.
Working in an intense iteration based lean agile system and Integrated Junit 4 test cases into the application and promoted test-driven development within the team.
Under the Spring framework used Jaxb to map java classes to Xml schemas and used Xslt to transform the Xml files, Xsd was used to describe the structure of Xml.
Used Struts 2 framework along with Spring and to model the application in MVC architecture.
Incorporated multithreaded techniques for creating high performance applications. Multithreading was used to process data in chunks to improve performance.
Used new Java 8 features - Streams, Collectors, Lambda, new Executor service.
Developed application using Groovy, Grails, GSP, GORM and Grails Plugins and Grails Rest Services.
Implemented stored procedures using the Hibernate framework.
Used Node.js, ExtJS for asynchronous data communication between server and client.
Extensively used Core Java such as Exceptions, and Collections. Implemented Multithreading, Synchronization using Thread pools, executive service and lock interfaces.
Developed helper utility for MongoDB interaction.
Involved in designing application system requirements and coded back-end and front-end in Python.
Used SOAP and WSDL Web Services to exchange information over Http.
Used Splunk and Log4j as the Logging Framework.
Building UNIX shell scripts for data migration & batch processing. Built and deployed scripts using Apache Ant.
Ingested data from Hive into Cassandra.
Implemented a Data service as a rest API project to retrieve server utilization data from this Cassandra Table.
Developed a prototype of the application and demonstrated to business users to verify the application functionality.
Used MogoDB to store Big Data in JSON format and Aggregation is used in MongoDB to Match, Sort and Group operation.
Developed UI component with AngularJS framework by utilizing the core features like MVC pattern and Dependency Injection.
Developed the back-end web services using Python and designed the front end of the application using Python, CSS, AJAX, JSON, Drupal and JQuery.
Used collections in Python for manipulating and looping through different user defined objects.
Used Multithreading to improve the performance for processing of data feeds.
Implemented Angular JS Data Binding capability in HTML5 to give user a rich and responsive experience.
Used jQuery to modify DOM elements content by using cross-browser selector engine called Sizzle.
Developed and implemented the MVC Architectural Pattern using Spring Framework and used Spring IoC container to maintain core Objects Lifecycle.
Implemented test driven development (TDD), executed unit test plans and Grails Spock Test cases for all existing controllers, Services and Domain classes and Grails Pagination to display data using Grails Templates and views.
Implemented Spring Security for user authentication, limit login attempts and password hashing.
Developed Web Services (SOAP) using Spring-WS to handle user requests and interact with other components.
Developing the Microservices using Spring Boot and Spring Batch, that create, update, delete and get the assignment information from backend.
Implemented Spring Boot Microservices to divide the application into various sub modules.
Created application on Spring Batch framework and Multithreading to improve performance. Used Multithreading for faster and parallel processing of documents.
Implemented Web Services clients for APIs by using Spring WebService Template class.
Used MyBatis as ORM tool and integrated with Spring for data access using MyBatis Mappers, which is configured, using Spring Configuration file.
Used parsers like SAX and DOM for parsing xml documents and XSLT for XML transformations.
Designed and Developed Stored Procedures, Triggers in MS SQL to cater the needs for the entire application. Developed complex SQL queries for extracting data from the database.
Involving in Building the modules in Linux environment with ant script. Involved in writing Unix Shell Script for performing automated tasks.
Written JUnit Test cases for performing unit testing and used SoapUI for Web Services testing.
Implemented Java/J2EE Design patterns like Business Delegate and Data Transfer Object (DTO), Data Access Object and Service Locator.
Implemented Micro Services based Cloud Architecture on Pivotal Cloud Foundry.
Used Maven as java build manager to compile and package the application and used SVN as Version control to maintain a central repository for the application code.
Worked with QA team for testing and resolving defects and used Rally for bug tracking and project management.
Environment: Java 8, Spring 3.0, MyBatis, Redux, Spring Batch, MongoDB, Linux Shell Scripting, Pivotal Cloud Foundry, Drupal, spring boot, Python, Grails, Design Patterns, Test Driven Development (TDD), Multithreading, XML, MS SQL, Spring-WS, SOA, SOAP Web Services, SoapUI, Angular JS, Node.js, ExtJS, React Js, jQuery, CSS, JSON, HTML5, JUnit, UML, XSLT, Log4J, SLF4J, Eclipse, Maven 2.0, WebLogic 11g, SVN, Hudson, Rally, Linux.
Designed the user interfaces using JSP.
Developed Custom tags, JSTL to support custom User Interfaces.
Developed the application using Struts Framework that leverages classical Model View Controller (MVC) architecture.
Used GitHub version source control tool, integrated and implemented GitHub API's to configure and list the existing project repositories by using RESTful web services.
Loaded the data from Teradata to HDFS using Teradata Hadoop connectors.
Involved in Transforming Data within a Hadoop Cluster using Pig Scripts.
Designed and developed microservices, using Java, Spring, REST.
Implemented Business processes such as user authentication, Account Transfer using Session EJBs.
Used WSAD 5.1.2 for writing code for JSP, Servlets, Struts and EJBs.
Deployed the applications on IBM Web Sphere Application Server.
Used Java Messaging Services (JMS) and Backend Messaging for reliable and asynchronous exchange of important information such as payment status report.
Developed the Apache Ant scripts for preparing WAR files used to deploy J2EE components.
Front end Developing of the Website Builder with AngularJS, Node.js, ExtJS, React Js, Bootstrap.
Created Jenkins jobs and running the jobs to check for any build issues. Integrated Jenkins with SonarQube to check for the quality standards.
Used JDBC for database connectivity to Oracle 8i.
Written PL/SQL in Oracle Database for creating tables, triggers and select statements.
Improved code reuse and performance by making effective use of various design patterns such as Singleton, Session Façade, Value Object, etc.
Involved in JUnit Testing, debugging, and bug fixing.
Used Log4j to capture the log that includes runtime exceptions and developed WAR framework to alert the client and production support in case of application failures.
Environment: Java, GitHub, J2EE, JSP, JSTL, Struts, Angular Js, Node.js, ExtJS, EJB, React Js, JMS, Hadoop, Hive, JNDI, Pig, Jenkins, Oracle, Typescript, Bootstrap, HTML, XML, WSAD (Web Sphere Studio Application Developer), microservices, IBM Web Sphere Application Server, Ant, CVS, Log4j, Linux.
Worked on multiple stages of Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) deliverables of the project using the Agile Software Development Methodology.
Used Struts and Tiles MVC architecture for the application development in Admin UI module.
Implemented controller classes using Struts API and configured struts action classes and tiles definitions using XML configuration files.
Used Spring AOP for cross cutting concerns and IOC for dependency injection.
Used Hibernate ORM module as an Object Relational mapping tool for back end operations over Oracle database.
Provided Hibernate configuration file and mapping files, also involved in the integration of Struts with Hibernate libraries.
Provided utility to connect to LDAP to get the user details and the authorized packages.
Developed Web service client interface with JAX-RPC from WSDL files for invoking the methods using SOAP.
Scripted WSDL descriptor file and Universal Description, Discovery and Integration Registry (UDDI).
Deployment of Web services, JSP, Servlets and server side components in Web Logic Application server.
Implemented Struts framework (MVC) and developed Action Servlet and Action Form bean.
Used ANT scripts to build the application and deployed it on Web Logic Application Server.
Extensively used Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to integrate widely disparate applications, that are Web based and uses multiple implementation platforms.
Provided SQL scripts and PL/SQL stored procedures for querying the Oracle database.
Managed source repository using CVS version controller tool.
Provided JUnit test cases for the application to support the Test Driven Development (TDD).
Worked on QA Testing to ensure the quality of the application.
Provided Log4j support for the application for debugging the system.
Extensively used design patterns like Singleton, Value Object, Service Delegator and Data Access Object.
Creating High and Low level design documents.
Participated in the entire SDLC of the project.
Developed UI screens by using HTML, JSPs, CSS, jQuery, Ajax.
Extensively written CORE JAVA with in application.
Implemented the concepts in On-Demand video streaming content.
Developed business layer using Spring, Hibernate and DAO s.
Used Code Collaborator for code review.
Experienced in implementing Spring framework.
Integrated Spring DAO for data access using with Hibernate.
Framework for client and server side validations.
Used AJAX to create interactive user friendly interface.
Creating server-side JAVA architecture using Java Servlets.
Developed and deployed EJB’s, Servlets and JSPs on WebLogic Server.
Used MySQL as a database product.
Used Eclipse as the IDE for the development.
Worked on creating basic framework for spring and web services enabled environment for EI applications as web service provider.
Developed UI using HTML, CSS, Java Script and AJAX.
Created SOAP Handler to enable authentication and audit logging during WebService calls.
Created Service Layer API’s and Domain objects using Struts.
Designed, developed and configured the applications using Struts Framework.
Created Spring DAO classes to call the database through spring -JPA ORM framework.
Wrote PL/SQL queries and created stored procedures and invoke Stored procedures using spring JDBC.
Used Exception handling and Multi-threading for the optimum performance of the application.
Used the Core Java concepts to implement the Business Logic.
Deployed and configured the data source for database in WebLogic application server and utilized log4j for tracking errors and debugging, maintain the source code using Subversion.
Used Clear Case tool for build management and ANT for Application configuration and Integration.
Created, executed, and documented, the tests necessary to ensure that an application and/or environment meet performance requirements (Technical, Functional and User Interface).
Environment: Windows, Linux, Rational Clear Case, React Js, Java, Drupal, JAX-WS, SOAP, WSDL, JSP, Struts, JPA, XML, HTML, CSS, Oracle, WebLogic. | 2019-04-22T04:27:54Z | https://www.hireitpeople.com/resume-database/64-java-developers-architects-resumes/114428-sr-java-j2ee-developer-resume-phoenix-az-5 |
Cytological profile of bronchoalveolar lavage in BOOP reveals a mixed cell pattern with an increase in lymphocytes (20-40%), and lymphocytes in patients with BOOP help differentiate the condition from parenchymal pulmonary disease. Neutrophils (10%), eosinophils (5%), mast cells, foamy macrophages and occasional plasma cells increase in patients with IPF. The number of eosinophils is increased significantly in patients with CEP, with a small overlap with BOOP. The CD4/CD8 ratio is decreased, but the percentage of CD57 + cells is within the reference range. Activation of T cells is increased in terms of human leukocyte antigen-DR expression; and occasionally, interleukin-2 receptor (CD25) is also expressed. These findings are similar to those in extrinsic allergic alveolitis except that CD25 expression is always within the reference range in patients with BOOP and levels of CD57 + cells are always increased in extrinsic allergic alveolitis. Other features include central clusters of mononuclear inflammatory cells, possibly found in the intraluminal polyps; chronic inflammation in the walls of the surrounding alveoli with reactive type II cells; increased foamy macrophages in the alveoli; and preserved lung architecture. Several causes of BOOP have been recorded but most cases are idiopathic. BOOP has also been reported as a secondary phenomenon in several other clinical settings. Many lung pathologies are associated with BOOP, the BOOP process is histological and clinical course is that of the underlying primary pathology [Figure - 1],[Figure - 2].
A third of patients with BOOP treated for less than a year may have recurrence of the disease. Nevertheless, BOOP can be effectively treated a second and third time with the previously effective dosage level of prednisone. Nonresponsive BOOP may be secondary or may be associated with other pathology; or may represent a combination of BOOP and UIP/IPF, where the associated fibrotic process does not respond to corticosteroids.
Focal lung nodules in the idiopathic form of BOOP are clinically important as they may mimic lung cancer. ,,,,, Some focal nodular lesions may progress to the typical bilateral process of idiopathic BOOP but most do not. Surgical resection may result in a cure. Multiple nodular lesions can also occur, and most regress spontaneously or following treatment with corticosteroids. , Thus BOOP should be considered when multiple large nodular lesions have chest CT findings of air bronchogram, irregular margins, broad pleural tags, parenchymal bands or subpleural lines. In patients with multiple BOOP nodules, the mode of presentation is pleuritic type chest pain in approximately 50% patients. The nodular type of BOOP may be related to reports of spontaneous resolution of lung metastases. It has been suggested that reports of spontaneous regression of lung metastases have decreased in recent years with increasing reliance on tissue diagnosis and with confirmation of the fact that the nodular lesions indeed represent nodular BOOP.
BOOP associated with radiotherapy usually occurs in patients receiving radiotherapy for breast cancer. The radiographic findings are those of peripheral patchy or alveolar infiltrates, often outside the radiation field, responding rapidly to corticosteroids. ,,,,,,.
Bilateral or unilateral patchy alveolar airspace consolidation is revealed, often subpleural and peribronchial in location and mainly in the lower zones.
Generally, the infiltrates gradually enlarge from their original size or new infiltrates appear.
Consolidation is often nonsegmental and varies from 2 to 6 cm in diameter.
Cavitary BOOP that mimics tuberculosis and cavitating opacity after lung transplantation has been reported.
An air bronchogram may be present.
Nodules 3-5 mm in diameter are seen in approximately one half of patients; nodules may be migratory.
Basal linear opacities are linked to a poorer prognosis.
Unilateral focal or lobar consolidation occurs in 5-31% of patients.
Pleural thickening occurs but pleural effusions are rare.
Neither conventional radiographs nor CT findings are specific to BOOP and are seen in a variety of lung-infective, inflammatory and neoplastic processes. However, CT is more sensitive than chest radiography in the assessment of disease pattern and distribution of disease. CT is superior in determining the biopsy site; therefore, HRCT is usually performed prior to lung biopsy.
Early on, clinical and chest radiographic findings of various types of interstitial pneumonitis and BOOP may be indistinguishable; however, HRCT findings of AIP and BOOP may be different. Traction bronchiectasis, interlobular septal thickening and intralobular septal thickening are significantly more prevalent in patients with UIP and nip to a less extent than in patients with BOOP, whereas parenchymal nodules and peripheral distribution are more prevalent in BOOP. Areas with ground-glass attenuation, airspace consolidation and architectural distortion are common in both interstitial pneumonitis (IP) and BOOP.
Patchy ground-glass opacities in a subpleural and/or peribronchovascular distribution (80%).
Bilateral basal airspace consolidation (71%) [Figure - 3],[Figure - 4].
Bronchial wall thickening and cylindrical bronchial dilatation in areas of air bronchogram (71%) [Figure - 3].
Centrilobular nodules 3-5 mm in diameter in approximately one half of patients [Figure - 3].
Small nodular opacities measuring 1-10 mm in diameter, typically ill defined (50%).
Pleural effusions occur in approximately one-third of patients.
Less frequent imaging findings include single or multiple focal lesions, parenchymal consolidations with peribronchovascular distribution [Figure - 6]. The 'atoll sign' seen as a central area of ground-glass-like density and peripheral area of consolidation, poorly defined micronodular lesions, linear and band-like opacities, subpleural opacities that can have disposition parallel or perpendicular in relation to the pleura, perilobular pattern characterized by thickening of the interlobular septa associated with reticular pattern and progressive fibrotic pattern characterized by irregular thickening of the interlobular septa with associated ground-glass-like appearance and consolidations [Figure - 5].
BOOP is an important treatable inflammatory lung disease. Idiopathic BOOP has become an important differential of focal lung nodular lesions. Postpneumonia BOOP remains a treatable process. BOOP occurs in virtually all of the connective tissue disorders and generally responds to corticosteroids. In the setting of malignancy, it is vital to differentiate lung metastases from BOOP. Lung biopsy continues to be the preferred method for establishing a diagnosis.
1. Davison AG, Heard BE, McAllister WA, Turner-Warwick ME. Cryptogenic organizing pneumonitis. Q J Med 1983;52:382-94.
3. Wright JL, Cagle P, Churg A, Colby TV, Myers J. Diseases of the small airways. Am Rev Respir Dis 1992;146:240-62.
4. Lohr RH, Boland BJ, Douglas WW, Dockrell DH, Colby TV, Swensen SJ, et al . Organizing pneumonia: Features and prognosis of cryptogenic, secondary and focal variants. Arch Intern Med 1997;157):1323-9.
5. Colby TV. Bronchiolitis. Pathologic considerations. Am J Clin Pathol 1998;109:101-9.
6. American Thoracic Society and European Respiratory Society. Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: diagnosis and treatment. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2000;161:646-4.
7. Costabel U, Teschler H, Guzman J. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia (BOOP): The cytological and immunocytological profile of bronchoalveolar lavage. Eur Respir J 1992;5:791-7.
8. Barnes PJ. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. N Engl J Med 2000;343:269-80.
9. Lappi-Blanco E, Kaarteenaho-Wiik R, Soini Y, Risteli J, Pδδkk φ P. Intraluminal fibromyxoid lesions in bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia are highly capillarized. Hum Pathol 1999;30:1192-6.
10. Lappi-Blanco E, Soini Y, Paakko P. Apoptotic activity is increased in the newly formed fibromyxoid connective tissue in bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia. Lung 1999;177:367-76.
11. Cordier JF. Organising pneumonia. Thorax 2000;55:318-28.
12. Douglas WW, Tazelaar HD, Hartman TE, Hartman RP, Decker PA, Schroeder DR, et al . Polymyositis-dermatomyositis-associated interstitial lung disease. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2001;164:1182-5.
13. Safadi R, Berkman N, Haviv YS, Ben-Yehuda A, Amir G, Naparstek Y. Primary non-Hodgkin's lymphoma of the lung presenting as bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia. Leuk Lymphoma 1997;28:209-13.
14. Izumi T, Kitaichi M, Nishimura K, Nagai S. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia: Clinical features and differential diagnosis. Chest 1992;102:715-9.
15. Mroz BJ, Sexauer WP, Meade A, Balsara G. Hemoptysis as the presenting symptom in bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumoni. Chest 1997;111:1775-8.
16. Iwanaga T, Hirota T, Ikeda T. Air leak syndrome as one of the manifestations of bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia. Intern Med 2000;39:163-5.
17. Froudarakis M, Bouros D, Loire R, Valasiadou K, Tsiftsis D, Siafakas NM. BOOP presenting with hemoptysis and multiple cavitary nodules. Eur Respir J 1995;8:1972-4.
18. Yang DG, Kim KD, Shin DH, Choe KO, Kim SK, Lee WY. Idiopathic bronchiolitis obliterans with organizing pneumonia presenting with spontaneous hydropneumothorax and solitary pulmonary nodule. Respirology 1999;4:267-70.
19. Kofteridis DP, Bouros DE, Vamvakas LN, Stefanaki KS, Voludaki AE, Barbounakis EM, et al . Pneumothorax complicating fatal bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia. Respiration 1999;66:266-8.
20. Cohen AJ, King TE, Downey GP. Rapidly progressive bronchiolitis obliterans with organizing pneumonia. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 1994;149:1670-5.
21. Nizami IY, Kissner DG, Visscher DW, Dubaybo BA. Idiopathic bronchiolitis obliterans with organizing pneumonia: An acute and life-threatening syndrome. Chest 1995;108:271-2.
22. Perez de Llano LA, Soilan JL, Garcia Pais MJ, Mata I, Moreda M, Laserna B. Idiopathic bronchiolitis obliterans with organizing pneumonia presenting with adult respiratory distress syndrome. Respir Med 1998;92:884-6.
23. Ichikado K, Johkoh T, Ikezoe J, Yoshida S, Honda O, Mihara N, et al . A case of acute interstitial pneumonia indistinguishable from bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia. Radiat Med 1998;16:367-70.
24. Janz TG, Madan R, Marini JJ, Summer WR, Meduri GU, Smith RM, et al . Clinical conference on management dilemmas: Progressive infiltrate and respiratory failure. Chest 2000;117:562-72.
25. Cordier JF, Loire R, Brune J. Idiopathic bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia: Definition of characteristic clinical profiles in a series of 16 patients. Chest 1989;96:999-1004.
26. Murphy J, Schnyder P, Herold C, Flower C. Bronchiolitis obliterans organising pneumonia simulating bronchial carcinoma. Eur Radiol 1998;8:1165-9.
27. Akira M, Yamamoto S, Sakatani M. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia manifesting as multiple large nodules or masses. AJR Am J Roentgenol 1998;170:291-5.
28. Orseck MJ, Player KC, Woollen CD, Kelley H, White PF. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia mimicking multiple pulmonary metastases. Am Surg 2000;66:11-3.
29. Chander K, Feldman L, Mahajan R. Spontaneous regression of lung metastases: Possible BOOP connection? Chest 1999;115:601-2.
30. Diehl JL, Gisselbrecht M, Meyer G, Israel-Biet D, Sors H. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia associated with chlamydial infection. Eur Respir J 1996;9:1320-2.
31. Peramaki E, Salmi I, Kava T, Romppanen T, Hakkarainen T. Unilateral bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia and bronchoalveolar lavage neutrophilia in a patient with parainfluenza 3 virus infection. Respir Med 1991;85:159-61.
32. Llibre JM, Urban A, Garcia E, Carrasco MA, Murcia C. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia associated with acute Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection. Clin Infect Dis 1997;25:1340-2.
33. Jeon JS, Yi HA, Ki SY, Jeong SW, Uh ST, Jin SY, et al . A case of bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia associated with adenovirus. Korean J Intern Med 1997;12:70-4.
34. Yale SH, Adlakha A, Sebo TJ, Ryu JH. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia caused by Plasmodium vivax malaria. Chest 1993;104:1294-6.
35. Carey CF, Mueller L, Fotopoulos CL, Dall L. Bronchiolitis obliterans-organizing pneumonia associated with Cryptococcus neoformans infection. Rev Infect Dis 1991;13:1253-4.
36. Kleindienst R, Fend F, Prior C, Margreiter R, Vogel W. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia associated with Pneumocystis carinii infection in a liver transplant patient receiving tacrolimus. Clin Transplant 1999;13:65-7.
37. Pιrez de Llano LA, Racamonde AV, Bande MJ, Piquer MO, Nieves FB, Feijoo AR, et al . Bronchiolitis obliterans with organizing pneumonia associated with acute Coxiella burnetii infection. Respiration 2001;68:425-7.
38. Santo NJ, Morley TF, Condolence DV. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia in an AIDS patient. Eur Respir J 1995;8:1021-4.
39. Constable U, Guzman J, Teschler H. Bronchiolitis obliterans with organizing pneumonia: Outcome. Thorax 1995;50:S59-64.
40. Piperno D, Donne C, Loire R, Cordier JF. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia associated with minocycline therapy: A possible cause. Eur Respir J 1995;8:1018-20.
41. Conte SC, Pagan V, Murer B. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia secondary to amiodarone. Monaldi Arch Chest Dis 1997;52:24-6.
42. Angle P, Thomas P, Chiu B, Freedman J. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia and cold agglutinin disease associated with phenytoin hypersensitivity syndrome. Chest 1997;112:1697-9.
43. Milesi-Lecat AM, Schmidt J, Aumaitre O, Kemeny JL, Moinard J, Piette JC. Lupus and pulmonary nodule consistent with bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia induced by carbamazepine. Mayo Clin Proc 1997;72:1145-7.
44. Alonso-Martinez JL, Elejalde-Guerra JI, Larrinaga-Linero D. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia caused by ticlopidine. Ann Intern Med 1998;129:71-2.
45. Cameron RJ, Kolbe J, Wilsher ML, Lambie N. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia associated with the use of nitrofurantoin. Thorax 2000;55:249-51.
46. Fawcett IW, Ibrahim NB. BOOP associated with nitrofurantoin. Thorax 2001;56:161.
47. Martinez FJ, Lynch JP. Connective tissue disease related bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia. In : Epler GR, editor. Disease of the Bronchioles. Raven Press: New York, NY; 1994. p. 347-66.
48. Ippolito JA, Palmer L, Spector S, Kane PB, Gorevic PD. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia and rheumatoid arthritis. Semin Arthritis Rheum 1993;23:70-8.
49. Imasaki T, Yoshi A, Tanaka S, Ogura T, Ishikawa A, Takahashi T. Polymyositis and Sj φgren's syndrome associated with bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia. Intern Med 1996;35:231-5.
50. Knoell KA, Hook M, Grice DP, Hendrix JD. Dermatomyositis associated with bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia (BOOP). Am Acad Dermatol 1999;40:328-30.
51. Turner JF, Enzenauer RJ. Bronchiolitis obliterans and organizing pneumonia associated with ankylosing spondylitis. Arthritis Rheum 1994;37:1557-9.
52. Epler GR, Mark EJ. A 65-year-old woman with bilateral pulmonary infiltrates. N Engl J Med 1986;314:1627-35.
53. Stey C, Truninger K, Marti D, Vogt P, Medici TC. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia associated with polymyalgia rheumatica. Eur Respir J 1999;13:926-9.
54. Gül A, Yilmazbayhan D, Büyükbabani N, Lie JT, Tunaci M, Tunaci A, et al . Organizing pneumonia associated with pulmonary artery aneurysms in Behηet's disease. Rheumatology (Oxford) 1999;38:1285-9.
55. Fata F, Rathore R, Schiff C, Herzlich BC. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia as the first manifestation of polymyositis. South Med J 1997;90:227-30.
56. Erkan F. Pulmonary involvement in Behηet disease. Curr Opin Pulm Med 1999;5:314-8.
57. Kanda Y, Takahashi T, Imai Y, Miyagawa K, Ohishi N, Oka T, et al . Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia after syngeneic bone marrow transplantation for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Bone Marrow Transplant 1997;19:1251-3.
58. Baron FA, Hermanne JP, Dowlati A, Weber T, Thiry A, Fassotte MF, et al . Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia and ulcerative colitis after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. Bone Marrow Transplant 1998;21:951-4.
59. Afessa B, Litzow MR, Tefferi A. Bronchiolitis obliterans and other late onset non-infectious pulmonary complications in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Bone Marrow Transplant Sep 2001;28:425-34.
60. Kanamori H, Mishima A, Tanaka M, Kanamori H, Mishima A, Tanaka M, et al . Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia (BOOP) with suspected liver graft-versus-host disease after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. Transpl Int 2001;14:266-9.
61. Chaparro C, Chamberlain D, Maurer J, Winton T, Dehoyos A, Kesten S. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia (BOOP) in lung transplant recipients. Chest 1996;110:1150-4.
62. Siddiqui MT, Garrity ER, Husain AN. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia-like reactions. Hum Pathol 1996;27:714-9.
63. Tamm M, Chhajed P, Malouf M, Glanville A. Cavitary opacity following lung transplantation. Respiration 2001;68:428-31.
64. Verberckmoes R, Verbeken E, Verschakelen J, Vanrenterghem Y. BOOP after renal transplantation. Nephrol Dial Transplant 1996;11:1862-3.
65. Van Laar JM, Holscher HC, van Krieken JH, Stolk J. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia after adjuvant radiotherapy for breast carcinoma. Respir Med 1997;91:241-4.
66. Crestani B, Valeyre D, Roden S, Wallaert B, Dalphin JC, Cordier JF. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia syndrome primed by radiation therapy to the breast. Am J Respir Crit Care Med.1998;158:1929-35.
67. Arbetter KR, Prakash UB, Tazelaar HD, Douglas WW. Radiation-induced pneumonitis in the „nonirradiated" lung. Mayo Clin Proc 1999;74:27-36.
68. Majori M, Poletti V, Curti A, Corradi M, Falcone F, Pesci A. Bronchoalveolar lavage in bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia primed by radiation therapy to the breast. J Allergy Clin Immunol 2000;105:239-44.
69. Camus P, Nemery B. A novel cause for bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia: Exposure to paint aerosols in textile workshops. Eur Respir J 1998;11:259-62.
71. Takigawa N, Segawa Y, Saeki T, Kataoka M, Ida M, Kishino D, et al . Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia syndrome in breast-conserving therapy for early breast cancer: Radiation-induced lung toxicity. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 2000;48:751-5.
72. Kadi FO, Abdesslam T, Nemery B. Five-year follow-up of Algerian victims of the "Ardystil syndrome". Eur Respir J 1999;13:940-1.
73. Bates C, Read RC, Morice AH. A malicious mould. Lancet 1997;349:1598.
74. Lin TJ, Lu CC, Chen KW, Deng JF. Outbreak of obstructive ventilatory impairment associated with consumption of Sauropus androgynus vegetable. J Toxicol Clin Toxicol 1996;34:1-8.
75. Roggli VL, Chiang A. Constrictive bronchiolitis obliterans in Sauropus androgynus poisoning. J Toxicol Clin Toxicol 1996;34:525-8.
76. Kaufman J, Komorowski R. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia in common variable immunodeficiency syndrome. Chest 1991;100:552-3.
77. Zackrison LH, Katz P. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia associated with essential mixed cryoglobulinemia. Arthritis Rheum 1993;36:1627-30.
78. Tenholder MF, Becker GL, Cervoni MI. The myelodysplastic syndrome in a patient with relapsing bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia. Chest 1992;102:1895-7.
79. Wohlrab JL, Anderson ED, Read CA. A patient with myelodyplastic syndrome, pulmonary nodules and worsening infiltrates. Chest 2001;120:1014-7.
80. Mana F, Mets T, Vincken W, Sennesael J, Vanwaeyenbergh J, Goossens A. The association of bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia, systemic lupus erythematosus and Hunner's cystitis. Chest 1993;104:642-4.
81. Yamamoto M, Ina Y, Kitaichi M, Harasawa M, Tamura M. Clinical feature of BOOP in Japan. Chest 1992;102:21S-5S.
82. Watanabe K, Senju S, Maeda F, Yshida M. Four cases of bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia associated with thyroid disease. Respiration 2000;67:572-6.
83. Spiteri MA, Klenerman P, Shepard MN, Padley S, Clark TJ, Newman-Taylor A. Seasonal cryptogenic organizing pneumonia with biochemical cholestasis: A new clinical entity. Lancet 1992;340:281-4.
84. Sanito NJ, Morley TF, Condoluci DV. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia in an AIDS patient. Eur Respir J 1995;8:1021-4.
85. Ghidini A, Mariani E, Patregnani C, Marinetti E. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia in pregnancy. Obstet Gynecol 1999;94:843.
86. Camus P, Piard F, Ashcroft T, Gal AA, Colby TV. The lung in inflammatory bowel disease. Medicine (Baltimore) 1993;72:151-83.
87. Vaiman E, Odeh M, Attias D, Ben-Arie Y, Oliven A. T-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia with pulmonary involvement and relapsing BOOP. Eur Respir J 1999;14:471-4.
88. Matsuo K, Tada S, Kataoka M, Kanehiro A, Kaneko S, Miyake T, et al . Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia (BOOP) in a case of smouldering adult T-cell leukaemia. Respirology 2000;5:81-5.
89. Strobel ES, Bonnet RB, Werner P, Schafer HE, Peter HH. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia and primary biliary cirrhosis-like lung involvement in a patient with primary biliary cirrhosis. Clin Rheumatol 1998;17:246-9.
90. Guzman EJ, Smith AJ, Tietjen PA. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia after coronary artery bypass graft surgery. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2000;119:382-3.
91. Rodriguez E, Lopez D, Buges J, Torres M. Sarcoidosis-associated bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia. Arch Intern Med 2001;161:2148-9.
92. Longo MI, Pico M, Bueno C, Lαzaro P, Serrano J, Lecona M, et al . Sweet's syndrome and bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia. Am J Med 2001;111:80-1.
93. Case records of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Weekly clinicopathological exercises: Case 24-2001, A 46-year-old woman with chronic sinsusitis, pulmonary nodules and hemoptysis. N Engl J Med 2001;345:443-9.
94. Trapiella Martνnez L, Caminal Montero L, Dνaz López JB, Gonzαlez Marroquνn A, Fernαndez Fernαndez C. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia and secondary amyloidosis. Rev Clin Esp 1997;197:723-4.
95. Yan SW, Wong CF, Wong PC, Cheung CF. Bronchiolitis obliterans organising pneumonia (BOOP) in a lung cancer patient after lobectomy. Monaldi Arch Chest Dis 2005;63:55-8.
96. Arrabal Sαnchez R, Mongil Poce R, Benνtez Domιnech A, Fernαndez de Rota Avecilla A, Fernαndez Bermúdez JL. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia and bronchogenic carcinoma coexisting in different parts of the lungs. Arch Bronconeumol 2004;40:141-3.
97. Song J, Gorgan L, Corkey R, Kwa SL. An unusual case of bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia concomitant with bronchioloalveolar carcinoma. Respiration 2004;71:95-7.
98. Helton KJ, Kuhn JP, Fletcher BD, Jenkins JJ, Parham DM. Bronchiolitis obliterans-organizing pneumonia (BOOP) in children with malignant disease. Pediatr Radiol 1992;22:270-4.
99. Hδusler M, Meilicke R, Biesterfeld S, Kentrup H, Friedrichs F, Kusenbach G. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia: A distinct pulmonary complication in cystic fibrosis. Respiration 2000;67:316-9.
100. Yoshida K, Nakajima M, Niki Y, Matsushima T. Atelectasis of the right lower lobe in association with bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia. Nihon Kokyuki Gakkai Zasshi 2001;39:260-5.
101. Barbato A, Panizzolo C, D'Amore ES, La Rosa M, Saetta M. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia (BOOP) in a child with mild-to-moderate asthma: Evidence of mast cell and eosinophil recruitment in lung specimens. Pediatr Pulmonol 2001;31:394-7.
102. Presas JL, Piriz J, Serra SL, Paz ED, Allievi A, Kartin D, et al . Bronchiolitis obliterans with organizing pneumonia associated with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura. Medicina (B Aires) 1998;58:58-60.
103. Gómez Belda AB, Rovira Daudν E, Julve Pardo R, Belda Mira A. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia in a kidney transplantation patient with Fabry's disease. Rev Clin Esp 1999;199:187-8.
104. Alsaghir AH, Al-Mobeireek AF, Al-Jahdali H, Al-Eithan A, Al-Otair H, Al-Dayel F. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia: experience at three hospitals in Riyadh. Ann Saudi Med 2007;27:32-5.
105. Han SK, Yim JJ, Lee JH, Yoo CG, Chung HS, Shim YS, Kim YW. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia in Korea. Respirology 1998;3:187-91.
106. King TE. BOOP: An important cause of migratory pulmonary infiltrates? Eur Respir J 1995;8:193-5.
107. Kanwar BA, Shehan CJ, Campbell JC, Dewan N, O'Donohue WJ. A case of unilateral bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia. Nebr Med J 1996;81:149-51.
108. Heller I, Biner S, Isakov A, Kornitzky Y, Shapira I, Marmor S, et al . TB or not TB: Cavitary bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia mimicking pulmonary tuberculosis. Chest 2001;120:674-8.
109. Aquino SL, Gamsu G, Webb WR, Kee ST. Tree-in-bud pattern: Frequency and significance on thin section CT. J Comput Assist Tomogr 1996;20:594-9.
110. Bouchardy LM, Kuhlman JE, Ball WC Jr, Hruban RH, Askin FB, Siegelman SS. CT findings in bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia (BOOP) with radiographic, clinical and histologic correlation. J Comput Assist Tomogr 1993;17:352-7.
111. Chen SW, Price J. Focal organizing pneumonia mimicking small peripheral lung adenocarcinoma on CT scans. Australas Radiol 1998;42:360-3.
112. Crapanzano JP, Zakowski MF. Diagnostic dilemmas in pulmonary cytology. Cancer 2001;93:364-75.
113. Gaeta M, Minutoli F, Ascenti G, Vinci S, Mazziotti S, Pandolfo I, et al . MR white lung sign: Incidence and significance in pulmonary consolidations. J Comput Assist Tomogr 2001;25:890-6.
114. Gaeta M, Blandino A, Scribano E, Minutoli F, Barone M, Andò F, et al . Chronic infiltrative lung diseases: Value of gadolinium-enhanced MRI in the evaluation of disease activity--early report. Chest 2000;117:1173-8.
115. Mayberry JP, Primack SL, Muller NL. Thoracic manifestations of systemic autoimmune diseases: Radiographic and high-resolution CT findings. Radiographics 2000;20:1623-35.
116. Mukae H, Kadota J, Kohno S, Matsukura S, Hara K. Increase of activated T-cells in BAL fluid of Japanese patients with bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia and chronic eosinophilic pneumonia. Chest 1995;108:123-8.
117. Muller NL, Coiby TV. Idiopathic interstitial pneumonias: High-resolution CT and histologic findings. Radiographics 1997;17:1016-22.
118. Swensen SJ, Aughenbaugh GL, Myers JL. Diffuse lung disease: Diagnostic accuracy of CT in patients undergoing surgical biopsy of the lung. Radiology 1997;205:2-34.
119. Jederlinic PJ, Sicilian L, Gaensler EA. Chronic eosinophilic pneumonia: A report of 19 cases and a review of the literature. Medicine 1988;67:154-62.
120. Ebara H, Ikezoe J, Johkoh T, Kohno N, Takeuchi N, Kozuka T, et al . Chronic eosinophilic pneumonia: Evolution of chest radiograms and CT features. J Comput Assist Tomogr 1994;18:737-44.
121. Flowers JR, Clunie G, Burke M, Constant O. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia: The clinical and radiological features of seven cases and a review of the literature. Clin Radiol 1992;45:371-7.
122. Marchand E, Reynaud-Gaubert M, Lauque D, Durieu J, Tonnel AB, Cordier JF. Idiopathic chronic eosinophilic pneumonia: A clinical and follow-up study of 62 cases. Medicine 1998;77:299-312.
123. Mayo JR, Muller NL, Road J, Sisler J, Lillington G. Chronic eosinophilic pneumonia: CT findings in six cases. AJR Am J Roentgenol 1989;153:727-30.
124. Nishimura K, Itoh H. High-resolution computed tomographic features of bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia. Chest 1992;102:26S-31S.
125. Lee KS, Kullnig P, Hartman TE, Müller NL. Cryptogenic organizing pneumonia: CT findings in 43 patients. AJR Am J Roentgenol 1994;162:543-6.
126. Muller NL, Staples CA, Miller RR. Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia: CT features in 14 patients. AJR Am J Roentgenol 1990;154:983-7.
127. Polverosi R, Maffesanti M. Dalpiaz G. Organizing pneumonia: Typical and atypical HRCT patterns. Radiol Med (Torino) 2006;111:202-12.
128. Tateishi U, Hasegawa T, Seki K, Terauchi T, Moriyama N, Arai Y. Disease activity and 18F-FDG uptake in organising pneumonia: Semi-quantitative evaluation using computed tomography and positron emission tomography. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 2006;33:906-12.
129. Yebra M, Romero Y, Varela A, Berrocal E. Percutaneous lung biopsy in the diagnosis of bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia. Chest 1994;105:972-3.
130. Poletti V, Cazzato S, Minicuci N, Zompatori M, Burzi M, Schiattone ML. The diagnostic value of bronchoalveolar lavage and transbronchial lung biopsy in cryptogenic organizing pneumonia. Eur Respir J 1996;9:2513-6.
131. Muller NL, Guerry-Force ML, Staples CA, Wright JL, Wiggs B, Coppin C, et al . Differential diagnosis of bronchiolitis obliterans with organizing pneumonia and usual interstitial pneumonia: Clinical, functional and radiologic findings. Radiology;162:151-6.
132. Mihara N, Johkoh T, Ichikado K, Honda O, Higashi M, Tomiyama N, et al . Can acute interstitial pneumonia be differentiated from bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia by high-resolution CT? Radiat Med 2000;18:299-304. | 2019-04-19T16:28:49Z | http://www.thoracicmedicine.org/article.asp?issn=1817-1737;year=2008;volume=3;issue=2;spage=67;epage=75;aulast=Al-Ghanem |
A full-service turn-key in-application commerce solution with fraud detection is disclosed that provides web service interfaces to a commerce system. The in-application solution features fraud detection with user behavior tracking and fraud controls that limit the features that are offered to a user. Fraud detection involves input from the application, the commerce system, or third party systems. User fraud scores are updated frequently as events are processed. Controls are applied to the user account based on the user fraud score and risk classifications for ranges of fraud scores. An in-application solution also features a wallet with a personal threshold for microtransaction spending, limiting the amount that the user is allowed to spend before a wallet is cleared. The wallet is integrated with the fraud detection such that the personal threshold is determined from the user's latest fraud score.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/417,063 filed 24 Nov. 2010, entitled “In-Application Commerce System and Method,” which is incorporated herein by reference.
This patent application is related to co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/304,171, filed 23 Nov. 2011, and entitled “Modularized In-Application Commerce System and Method” which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/417,083 filed 24 Nov. 2010, entitled “Modularized In-Application E-Commerce System and Method”, all of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The present disclosure relates to commerce systems for use in the internet gaming, social networking and virtual world industries. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a modular in-application e-commerce system and method providing commerce services to online game publishers.
The social gaming industry is making its contribution to the world economy. According to Parks Associates, the social gaming industry will increase its revenue by five times between 2010 and 2015, when it is expected to top $5 billion. Recently, the value of the sale of virtual goods in the online games market has been surpassed by that of social networking sites. This market expects to see an increase in value from $2.2 billion in 2009 to $6 billion before 2014. Each of these applications, which offer at least some free features, offers new opportunities for integrating e-commerce, monetization, and sales and marketing of content and products.
According to media consultant, Dan Taylor, choosing monetization strategies depends on the social game value chain, which can be summarized into 5 phases: idea, balance, goods/currency, payments and commissions. First, the game idea is the foundation of everything else that follows. Publishers with a game idea must evaluate the revenue potential of the game. Once the game has been fleshed out, the next phase of the value chain is game balancing, where game publishers define crucial monetization factors in order to fully develop the virtual economy of the game. Virtual economies function like real world economies, and therefore issues such as supply and demand, inflation, speculation, etc., must be factored in to create a pricing structure that will remain balanced and fair within the game, provide publishers with a decent return for their efforts, and remain attractive to the end user, i.e. cost vs. value. In addition to these variables, developers must also factor in limited offers and promotions that will incentivize users to either play or purchase more, while at the same time, maintaining the delicate balance of their virtual economy.
Virtual economies arise out of interactions among players in the virtual world, usually as they exchange virtual goods and earn valuable objects that provide the participant with both utility and social value. Selling virtual goods within social games has become the dominant business model on social networks because social games can support virtual goods that combine game play benefit with social value.
A virtual economy may also include reward programs. A reward program is a form of a loyalty program. Loyalty programs allow a publisher to identify their customers and reward them as a retention mechanism. An effective reward program also enables the publisher to identify potential best customers and market to them accordingly. The basic principle is that by rewarding the best customers they in turn will continue to reward you with their business as they feel recognized and appreciated. The key objective of loyalty or reward programs is to strengthen the two-way loyalty bond between the publisher and its best customers. Every time a reward program device, most commonly a “reward card” is used, it not only identifies the customer but also links relevant transactions to their record. This data can then be analyzed and used to reward customers with the objective of retaining or growing their profit contribution.
Virtual currency is typically the medium of exchange used for virtual goods. Each game typically has its own nomenclature for its virtual currency (e.g. coinz, tokenz, gcash, etc.) but they all provide a means of exchange allowing users to purchase items. Virtual currency may be purchased with real world currency or earned by obtaining various goals in the application. This exchange takes place in a virtual marketplace (primary market, or game-to-player market) or a virtual auction house (secondary market or player-to-player market).
Once the virtual economy is set, publishers need to build a bridge to “real world” money by providing a payments system. Payments services can be provided by a service provider or directly from the end user themselves. When application publishers choose to receive payment directly, there are a number of “real world” financial elements to be considered, including credit card fraud, charge backs, taxation, and much more. Publishers must manage how they'll aggregate these payments. If they have chosen a service provider to handle this for them, they may choose either a branded or white label payment service.
Commissions refer to the amount of revenue earned by the provider for their services. Commissions are highly dependent upon the title's success and associated volume, not only of active users, but also profits derived from sales of virtual goods.
Once the application publisher determines how the application will be monetized, a specific partner may be chosen to provide the monetization environment. In the social network/free-to-play gaming field, there are generally three unique forms of monetization: offer companies, payment service providers, and technology firms. Each has its own area of specialization, and game developers can mix and match from each provider. Some offer only a niche option, while others can provide a complete turn-key solution. Offer companies may provide a “bare bones” solution, in so much as they only offer one form of monetization—that which arrives via a third party. Examples of offer companies would include Offerpal, SuperRewards, Boomerang Networks, Gratispay or Sponsorpay. This form of monetization focuses only on offering special offers, say an online survey to be filled out in exchange for some form of virtual currency. Offers are an important revenue factor as it helps monetize the portion of users that are not willing to spend real money on their virtual goods and currency purchases. One side effect of employing offers as a form of monetization is that game publishers will be sending players out to a third party, thereby losing the game branded experience. Offer companies clearly brand themselves, and it's here where the actual interaction between player and the monetization business model takes place. This can be at odds with optimizing the user experience, since the buying experience in an in-application e-commerce ecosystem should be as seamless and as simple as possible. While the player should be aware of his/her purchasing capabilities at all times, he/she should only momentarily leave the game to make a purchase without ever feeling as though he/she has actually left the game. In other words, the solution should be wholly integrated into the various parts of the gaming experience. Therefore, offer companies' contribution to in-application monetization only supports a small piece of the value chain.
Payment service providers offer game and social network publishers different pieces of the value chain, but due to their nature do not completely fulfill it. Examples of payment service providers include Chase PaymentTech, NetGiro, and Global Collect. These firms offer application publishers a direct integration of payment methods, i.e. there's no sending players out to a separate location to make the transaction, and then re-routing them back into the game. By using a payment service provider, application publishers can keep players in-house and thereby potentially increase application stickiness as well as ‘time on-site’ or ‘time in-game’. While other companies build their brand by maintaining their own identity throughout the transaction, payment service providers can offer publishers a white label solution, making the technology appear as their own, or remain self-branded. These payment service providers typically are specialized financial transaction experts. Similarly offer companies are strong in the ad-broker business, and offer application publishers only a part of the value chain but do not complete it.
Some software application publishers choose to work with technology providers, such as Playspan, Live Gamer and fatfoogoo. While each of these providers have their own unique set of solutions, essentially, they allow application publishers to do what they do best—develop applications. Technology companies provide publishers with a service that addresses each piece of the value chain. Many of these companies have relationships with selected payment service providers, thereby ensuring financial excellence, as well as offering solutions for game balancing, virtual goods/items store management, virtual currency wallets, detailed analytics and reporting features, and user management. Technology providers free up application publishers to focus on application development, marketing, and balancing their application as it grows with the provided tools.
Like any online merchant, game and other application publishers are especially concerned about limiting their exposure to fraud while offering their players and users the richest, most exciting game experience possible. Online fraud, particularly in the gaming area, comes in many forms, including software piracy, theft of passwords and inventory owned by/assigned to user accounts and payment/commerce related fraud.
A need exists for a system that offers an extensive and comprehensive monetization feature set with optimal fraud detection and management features. Examples of desirable features include detecting, preventing and mitigating fraud, managing the game economy, offering flexible payment methods (e.g. payment using both virtual and real currency from one account) and reverse wallet transactions that offer the greatest protections for the game/application publisher. The present invention provides a solution to these needs and other problems, and offers other advantages over the prior art.
In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, a comprehensive, turn-key, in-application ecommerce system and method is disclosed. Such an in-application ecommerce solution provides functionality for operations ideally suited for the social gaming and network environment, for example, it provides software modules and application programming interfaces (API) configured as web services for monetizing in-application activities such as user account management, fraud detection, wallets, and transaction and payment processing. This functionality can be described from the perspective of operational areas of billing and customer management, store and primary markets, and player-to player (i.e., secondary markets). A preferred embodiment of the present invention provides this functionality in a highly modularized manner such that software application publishers may subscribe to the entire set of features and functionality, or may choose any number and combination of modules that best suits the software application.
Billing and customer management features of the solution span a wide variety of functionality required to support a fully integrated in-application monetization solution. Software application modules that support this functionality include account (e.g. user and subscription) management, customer care, clearing and settlement, fraud prevention, reporting and analytics, messaging, invoicing, tax and global payments. This in-application monetization solution allows users (shoppers) to store their billing related details (e.g., billing address, preferred payment method and details, transaction history) This account profile may also include information like achievements in the game or levels attained. This account enables 1 click/instant checkout or purchase experiences through multiple channels (e.g., online, mobile, tv, etc.). One skilled in the art will recognize upon examining this specification and drawings that additional modules may be included, or that functionality contained in one module may be implemented in another module and still remain within the teachings of the invention.
For the store and primary markets, the features of the preferred embodiment solution span many functional requirements. For example, an application content manager may control the behavior of items through various economic situations such as inflation, artificial scarcity and speculation by creating events that control the item attributes. In addition, a wallet feature allows the user of the software application to pay for items with either virtual currency or real currency (e.g., a credit card) stored in the same account. Player-to-player trading is accommodated by providing roles and a framework for selling and auctioning items from a user's account-based storefront.
Fraud detection and management offers the game or application publisher risk management features that protect them from chargebacks and other losses. Fraud management is based on rules configured by the customer (i.e., the software publisher), user behavior tracking and fraud controls that allow the customer to limit the features, such as payment methods, user roles, offers and content, that are offered to a user based on a user's fraud score, thereby greatly minimizing the opportunity for fraudulent behavior for users with high fraud scores. Fraud detection modules may receive input from the customer/publisher regarding which events to utilize in generating a fraud score. These utilized events may come from the application, the commerce system, or third-party systems. User fraud scores are updated frequently as events are processed by the e-commerce solution. Controls are applied to the user based on the user fraud score and customer-defined risk classifications.
An embodiment of the in-application e-commerce solution invention also features a wallet with a personal threshold for microtransaction spending, limiting the amount that the user is allowed to spend before the system clears the wallet. The wallet is tightly integrated with the fraud detection system and the personal threshold is determined from the user's latest fraud score, allowing microtransactions while limiting the risk of loss to the game or application publisher.
Additional advantages and features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part, will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned by practice of the invention.
FIG. 1 illustrates an in-application commerce system in context.
FIG. 2 illustrates the system service architecture of a modularized in-application commerce system.
FIG. 3 illustrates the software architecture for a modularized in-application commerce solution.
FIGS. 4a-4d illustrate some use cases supported by the in-application commerce solution.
FIG. 5 is a screen shot of a User Management module, Account Overview page from the web client application.
FIG. 6 is a screen shot of a User Account Overview details page, showing the various tabbed sections containing the user's account information.
FIG. 7 is a screen shot of a subscription management page which allows a content manager to create a subscription.
FIG. 8 is a screen shot of the portion of a Create a Subscription page allowing the content manager to add a portfolio image to the file.
FIG. 9 is a screen shot of the portion of a Create a Subscription page allowing the content manager to define the purchase procedure for a subscription.
FIG. 10 is a flow chart illustrating the process of determining a risk score contribution based on IP address and credit card information.
FIG. 11 is a flow chart illustrating the process of determining a risk score contribution based on IP address on login and the country settings on a user account.
FIG. 12 is a flow chart illustrating the process of determining a risk score contribution based on customer dispute behavior.
FIG. 13 illustrates the fraud defender module and message feed system.
FIG. 14 is a screen shot of the Risk Class Management page allowing a content manager to set ranges for risk classes.
FIG. 15 is a screen shot of an Economy Management page allowing a content manager to create a set of attributes to define an “event id” that determines the item behavior relative to economy management controls.
FIG. 16 is a screen shot of a Currency Type Management screen allowing a content manager to define attributes of a currency type.
FIG. 17 illustrates the APIs involved in making a purchase in-game, when the wallet does not have sufficient funds.
FIG. 18 is a sequence diagram of the process of funding an account.
FIG. 19 is a sequence diagram of the process of purchasing content.
FIG. 20 is an exemplary process for creating a child account prior to creating a parent account.
FIGS. 21 and 22 illustrate the process flow of reverse wallet functionality.
FIG. 23 is a screen shot of a process of creating parent-child relationships within the web client.
FIG. 24 is a screen mock up for creating a child profile.
FIG. 25 is a screen mockup for assigning permissions to a child account.
FIG. 26 is a screen mockup of a confirmation screen following successful creation of a child account with permissions.
An exemplary system is illustrated in context in FIG. 1. Application users 102, principally those who participate in online games, social networks and virtual worlds 108, access their favorite sites over the internet 104 via an electronic device with internet capabilities. Such an electronic device could be a computing device, such as a personal computer 120, iPad, cell phone 122, personal digital assistant 124 (PDA) or any other device with internet capability. Online games, social networks and virtual worlds 108 have become a huge source of revenue, with participants of even “free” online games spending millions of dollars each year on both virtual and real products. Participants in these applications frequently want to enhance their enjoyment of the experience by purchasing virtual objects that help them achieve a particular standing in the environment, or allow them to achieve some advantage over other participants. For example, a game player may wish to purchase an object, such as a virtual tool or weapon that allows the player to defeat other players in game activities. The application publisher may host its own commerce system allowing participants to purchase virtual or physical objects, or it may wish to access one or more modules of third-party systems. A fully developed ecommerce system 112 may include any number of modules to facilitate such transactions, for instance, modules executing code to perform the functions and features of billing and customer management 114, store and primary market management 116, and player-to-player, or secondary market 118, management.
This exemplary system includes various computers, computing devices or electronic devices, including, for example, end user machines (e.g. personal computer, etc.) 120, 122, 124, a communication network 104 and one or more servers 106, 110 hosting web sites and applications. The computer, computing or electronic device typically includes a memory, a secondary storage device, a processor (central processing unit, or CPU), an input device, a display device, and an output device. The memory may include random access memory (RAM) or similar types of memory. Software applications, stored in the memory or secondary storage for execution by a processor are operatively configured to perform the operations of a preferred embodiment of the system. The software applications may correspond with a single module or any number of modules. Modules are program code or instructions for controlling a computer processor to perform a particular method to implement the features or operations of the system. The modules may also be implemented using program products or a combination of software and specialized hardware components. In addition, the modules may be executed on multiple processors for processing a large number of transactions, if necessary or desired.
The secondary storage device may include a hard disk drive, floppy disk drive, CD-ROM drive, DVD-ROM drive, or other types of non-volatile data storage, and may correspond with the various equipment and modules shown in the figures. The processor may execute the software applications or programs either stored in memory or secondary storage or received from the Internet or other network. The input device may include any device for entering information into computer, such as a keyboard, joy-stick, cursor-control device, or touch-screen. The display device may include any type of device for presenting visual information such as, for example, a computer monitor or flat-screen display. The output device may include any type of device for presenting a hard copy of information, such as a printer, and other types of output devices include speakers or any device for providing information in audio form.
Although the computer or computing device has been described with various components, one skilled in the art will appreciate that such a computer or computing device can contain additional or different components and configurations. In addition, although aspects of an implementation consistent with the system disclosed are described as being stored in memory, one skilled in the art will appreciate that these aspects can also be stored on or read from other types of computer program products or computer-readable media, such as secondary storage devices, including hard disks, floppy disks, or CD-ROM; a non-transitory carrier wave from the Internet or other network; or other forms of RAM or ROM. One skilled in the art would recognize that computational resources may be distributed, and computing devices may be client or server computers. Client computers and devices (e.g. 120, 122, or 124) are those used by end users to access information from a server over a network, such as the Internet 104. Servers are understood to be those computing devices 106, 110 that provide services to other machines, and may be (but are not required to be) dedicated to hosting applications or content to be accessed by any number of client computers. Web servers, application servers and data storage servers may be hosted on the same or different machines 106, 110.
Client computers access features of the system described herein using Web Services. Web services are self-contained, modular business applications that have open, Internet-oriented, standards-based interfaces. According to W3C, the World Wide Web Consortium, a web service is a software system “designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. It has an interface described in a machine-processable format (specifically web service definition language or WSDL). Other systems interact with the web service in a manner prescribed by its description using Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) messages, typically conveyed using hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) with an Extensible Markup Language (XML) serialization in conjunction with other web-related standards.” Web services are similar to components that can be integrated into more complex distributed applications.
While the system disclosed herein is described in the context of internet gaming, social networking and virtual world applications (collectively referred to as social games), it will be recognized by those skilled in the art that it may be used with other applications as well. Further, while specific modules are described, other modules may be added or deleted without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention. All examples are offered by way of example and not limitation. It will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that the terms “shopper,” “user,” “end user” and “player” are synonymous and are used interchangeably throughout this document, while the terms “customer,” “game publisher,” “publisher,” “administrator” or “administrative user” are also used synonymously and interchangeably.
The three tier structure can also be viewed from a functional perspective, as in FIG. 3. A user interface (UI) layer 302 is exposed to clients and client systems. A store and administrative user interface 302 provides user access to the system for the various administrative tasks associated with the functional modules provided. For example, an administrative user may log into the UI to set up an item or offer, run reports, perform dispute resolution and conduct analysis on offers and users. These examples are offered by way of example and not limitation. One skilled in the art would recognize that many types of functionality could be provided for an application publisher, system administrator or others to perform through a user interface without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention.
A functional, transaction management layer provides the code required to perform the transactions and store, maintain, access and retrieve data. Also by way of example, these various modules may include user account management 304, subscription management 306, offer and store management 308, item management 312, reputation management 310, an auctioning framework for player-to-player secondary markets 314, reporting & analytics 328, dispute management 330, customer relationship management 332, customer care 334, fraud detection 336, and Clearing, Refunding, Settlement and Invoicing modules 322. A least cost router 324 in part determines the payment forms offered to a particular customer based on a number of factors. The least cost router 324 is discussed in more detail below.
A batch framework 208 supports batch processing of transaction data to provide information to supporting modules, including fraud detection analysis 336, reporting and analytics 328 and customer relationship management 332. A messaging framework 318 supports notification and communications such as email notifications to users acknowledging a purchase. Payment partners 326 are accessed and respond via the open interface middleware discussed above.
The system is designed to support three overarching areas of functionality, namely: billing and subscription management 114; electronic storefront or a primary market 116; and player-to-player trading or a secondary market 118. Application programming interfaces (APIs) provide seamless integration between the system and client applications to enable this functionality. Configuration and set up of this functionality may be accomplished either through APIs or a web client. Each of the areas of functionality, and a preferred embodiment set of modules as well as frameworks are discussed in detail below.
As is illustrated in FIG. 4a , modules that may support the billing and subscription management functionality include account management (user and subscription management) 402, customer care 332, clearing and settlement 322, fraud detection 336, reporting and analytics 328, messaging 318, invoicing 322, least cost routing 324, tax 416 and global payments 326.
An account management module 402 allows game publishers to manage customer lifecycles, including all aspects of billing-relevant characteristics. The system provides a web-based registration process that can be seamlessly integrated with an existing web framework or can be operated on a stand-alone basis. Single sign on adapters allow the registration logic to be embedded in an existing user or community site. This module may use a role-based philosophy, with the defined roles granting a user specific access rights within the application. These functions enable an administrator to review and amend user details as well as activate/deactivate users; view/modify customer profiles; view/modify risk profiles; manage/modify active subscriptions; view customer's action history; contact the customer and more. An Account web-service described in the Web Services section below, provides access to all of the user management functions remotely. These functions can also be exposed to a user with a comprehensive graphical web-user interface.
A screen shot of the Account Overview page of the graphical web user interface is displayed in FIG. 5. The account overview page provides status information on each role created under the account. Roles may be displayed based on user-determined criteria such as role 502, online status 504 and activity status 506. Account detail pages for a particular role 508 may be opened by clicking a “Details” button 510.
Referring to FIG. 6, an User Account Overview page 602 displays a number of tabs providing profile information for the role selected. A game profile tab 604 allows an application administrator to deactivate 606 and reactivate 608 users, and view identities, payment forms, login and subscription history 610. A commerce profile 612 allows the administrator to edit and add an address to a selected user, and view their rating details and risk class (discussed below). This profile contains details on settings, payment forms, login history, role, rating details and buyer, and more. A messaging tab 614 comprises an inbox, trash, compose and sent mail folders that allow the user to send and receive messages. A payout tab 616 provides details on player-to-player trading transactions. A disputes tab (not shown) lists the user's disputes for allowing an administrator to manually evaluate disputes and risk characteristics. A transactions tab 618 provides a comprehensive list of transactions involving the user. For example, user bids, user reverse bids own reverse offers and user offers and auction transactions that are listed on this tab. The User Account Overview page also has a tab for the user's wallet 620, including funding information by real or virtual currency. A list of child accounts 622 (discussed below) related to the user provide transaction history and total spent in time and money. Further, a risk profile tab 624 allows the administrator to view the risk class and fraud points assigned to the user. A customer service agent may also use this tab to make adjustments to the user's risk score.
A subscription management module 306 exposes a branded registration and self-service portal within an existing website, allowing the game operator or publisher to present a variety of different offer possibilities, including: free teaser subscription, compound subscriptions, subscription as a pre-requisite for a premium subscription or a premium content offering; a follow-on offer; promotions; email or in-game notifications; multi-lingual offers; and regional pricing and promotions. In a preferred embodiment, the subscription management module is directly integrated with the payment component, allowing for safe and secure recurring payments across the different payment channels 326. Subscriptions are treated the same as specific offers, products and/or promotions. These subscriptions may be have renewals that are automatically or manually processed.
A customer care or customer support module 332 provides full insight into all relevant platform activity performed by users. Following strict data protection and privacy guidelines the support agent may have access to browsing behavior and all relevant transaction information. Agents may also modify user data, add personal information only visible to the care organization, or active/reactivate users. Agents with additional permissions can also reverse payment transactions, refund the customer or initiate other “goodwill” actions after closing the case. These “goodwill” actions may be crediting the wallet or pro-longating the renewal cycle of a recurring subscription. A ticket system is provided for tracking.
The payment gateway module 322 manages all interfaces to payment providers, price calculation services and in-application delivery functions. It is used in all three use cases whenever a payment is made. The module is directly connected to the transaction management framework 212 through internal APIs and interfaces, and provides a list of all pay-out transactions. Transactions may be manually approved to be paid out to customers and also may be canceled. Transactions may also be handled automatically when a success response is received from a payment partner. By using account based fraud scoring, a risky transaction may be disabled before the user's transaction is passes on the payment partner.
A preferred embodiment of an in application commerce system and method uses a least cost router 324 that allows the game publisher or administrator to set rules based on business logic and requirements, in order to determine what kind of payment options are available to a particular user and/or for a particular item or offer. The payment option configuration is also tied to the fraud module, which allows a user to set rules on payment options based on various fraud indicators, mitigation schemes and risk/fraud scores. All rules may be configured to be specific per game.
The general payment gateway configuration may be overridden on a per offer basis. In other words, a default “all payment forms” may be supported per offer, but if the administrator would like to overrule the gateway configuration, that may be changed and individual payment forms will be selectable. In this way, the administrator may also restrict payment form characteristics for the offer (e.g. surcharge or discount).
Table 1 lists some of the information may be used to configure the payment forms available for a game.
are listed on the payment selection page.
Payment The system name of the payment form.
the payment form is applicable for the market.
payment form should be offered or not.
price, or a flat amount.
Having configured the payment gateway for a particular game, any transaction requested by the game player will offer only those payment options that meet the payment, offer and fraud configuration selected by the user.
The least cost router may also be configured to determine a preferred payment provider. Based on factors such as currency, payment method, amount, country, exchange rates and others, the least cost router can locate the most cost effective payment provider for any transaction and direct the payment transaction to that provider through the global payment framework.
A global payment framework 220 manages all outgoing interfaces (see Table 19, below) to payment providers (including clearing, refunding, charge-backing, settlement and invoicing 222), currency calculation services and in-game delivery functions. It is directly connected to the transaction management framework through internal APIs and interfaces to the reporting database 226.
The payment module 326 manages all outgoing interfaces to payment providers and currency calculation services to handle payments, recurring payments and refunds. It is directly connected to the transaction management framework through internal APIs and interfaces to all relevant back office and reporting tools.
All real-money-relevant payments are handled through the platform. Depending on the type of transaction only a selected choice of payment options is offered to the end-user. The payment module 326 receives the final price from the offer management tool and handles the actual payment process by interacting with external payment systems.
An in-application commerce payment module is extremely flexible in design and can integrate with a large number of different payment providers in parallel 326. A configurable set of rules determines automatically the right provider that should be used for completing the actual transaction. Attributes determining the use of the right payment provider include the transaction value, the region, the risk profile for the particular transaction and customer preferences and can be easily extended if required. An example would be to exclude credit card payments for low transactions values due to the high fee structure or to only allow prepaid payment options if the customer behavior shows a high risk rating.
A payment module 326 also exposes interfaces to reporting 328 and customer care 334 applications in order to give insight into the status of the transaction and allow the triggering of refunds and reverse the purchase if necessary. The payment gateway is highly flexible, capable of supporting many payment methods all over the world, including credit cards, payment enablers (e.g. PayPal, moneybookers, etc.), prepaid cards and mobile payment channels.
The transaction module 322 calculates secondary market revenue shares and triggers correct payout procedures. Receiving dynamic input data from the auctioning module, the tax database and a currency calculation service, the settlement process is executed at predefined times and calculates revenue shares according to pre-defined rules. The rules are defined through a restricted configuration tool that provides the functionality for defining revenue share ratios, price-ranges, minimum prices, payment terms, and settlement periods, etc. as rule-sets for calculating the shares.
Fraud management, detection and control are critical components of any online commerce system. A fraud management, detection and control module 336 (aka fraud defender module) includes internal and external fraud controls that ensure that each transaction is properly authorized by role/risk-class and evaluated against fraud checks to prevent chargebacks and protect customers. It allows the customer to detect and manage fraud across channels and accounts, and to define fraud detection, scoring and controls to suit any kind of rule desired. The customer may configure the system in a way that allows the fraud defender module to control various aspects of the user's commerce experience, including the offers, payment methods and reverse wallet thresholds that are presented to the user.
As will be recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art, the parameters for a fraud detection and management system and method are configurable within the general framework of the fraud defender module. In general, a preferred embodiment of a fraud defender module allows configuration of rules for setting, incrementing and decrementing fraud scores (also referred to as risk score or risk scoring); for tracking user events; for setting and adjusting risk classifications; and for configuring rules and consequences for the results of fraud score/classification evaluation. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that incrementing and decrementing of fraud scores can be accomplished by assigning positive and negative fraud points to user accounts based on fraud controls and then summing those fraud points together to arrive at a total fraud score.
A fraud rating, or points, can be attached to virtually any kind of event (e.g. behavior, function or action) that the user is capable of performing internal or external to the platform. As will be described in more detail below, fraud ratings may be configured for commerce platform-related events, game play events, or 3rd party events.
The user (account holder) is typically assigned a risk class and a customer is able to modify the assigned risk class for every account. Manual assignment may override automatic assignments until the manual assignment is lifted. As the user moves through the application the user's risk score is updated frequently, incremented and decremented as the user is involved in any of the configured events, which may or may not adjust the originally assigned risk class. Fraud controls are applied based on the risk classification identified by the user's fraud score in the user account. Fraud results and case management may be fed back into the legacy systems from which the fraud originated. This allows the customer to further refine fraud detection on its site.
The fraud defender module tracks user events and assigns and updates the fraud score per user with any kind of activity or event the user is performing in the application or game, on the commerce platform, or external to both (such as a payment provider detecting fraud on the user's credit card). Examples for increasing a user's fraud score include increases based on information gathered during the credit card registration process, fraud information from a payment partner, chargeback ratios and transaction disputes (discussed further in the paragraphs below and Table 4). Examples of events that may decrement the fraud score making the user less of a risk include game events such as adding new friends, or commerce events such as successful transactions, closing of dispute tickets, wallet turnover, and/or other trust increasing events coming from the application/game itself.
Rules may be configured as a direct consequence to certain events or as the result of the risk classification into which the user's fraud score falls. For direct consequences, purchase transactions may be denied. For example, anyone who is banned or suspended from game play may have purchase transactions denied. Similarly, anyone who in the past was banned or suspended from game play may be assigned fraud points which would result in a higher fraud score after the user account has been reactivated after the ban or suspension has been lifted. Users connecting from a country that is blacklisted or identified as risky, based on the knowledge that fraud is prevalent in transactions from those countries, may be denied purchase transactions. In addition, the system may perform a velocity check, tracking the number of transactions per time frame (i.e. tracking “transaction throttling”) and the amount per transaction and provide an error to the transaction server if certain rules are violated. The rules and results are configurable. Other results may include blocking the account for a particular period of time with an increase in the user's fraud score, denying transactions for blacklisted payment forms, or classifying as a blacklisted error type and increasing the fraud score if payment partners respond with an error on a user's transaction.
Fraud/risk classifications are also configurable. The default risk classes in the system are: no risk, small abnormality, abnormality, risky, fraud most likely. The customer may set the risk classifications as ranges of fraud points and then attach results to them, such as payment forms and user roles. This may be accomplished in the fraud module using fraud management GUIs and APIs (fraud module), or other modules with specific fraud-related rules, such as the Offer and Store Management 308 and Least Cost Router 324 modules.
In a preferred embodiment, the fraud defender module receives event messages from the application, commerce system and 3rd party platforms (such as payment providers) and feeds them into a messaging middleware 318, such as RabbitMQ. Using a messaging middleware allows events to be processed asynchronously at frequent intervals. Users' fraud scores are updated as the messages are processed.
As mentioned above, fraud controls are applied based on the user's fraud score and risk classification level. For example, a user entering the game for the first time may have no history and so begins with a relatively high fraud score and risk classification and is therefore only offered payment methods with the lowest risk (e.g. prepaid debit cards). The user then spends 11 hours in game play, during which time his behavior is tracked as he accumulates tracked play actions over time in the game, adds friends, successfully completes purchase transactions, and/or performs other types of customer-identified and configured events that indicate his propensity for fraud. The tracked events are then used and compared to fraud control rules to update (increment or decrement) the user's fraud score. If his behaviors have lowered his fraud score (i.e., the fraud control rules have decremented fraud points from the user's fraud score), he may be offered additional payment methods and access to additional content areas that are available at the lower risk classification level.
The fraud defender module may work with a least-cost/risk router 324 module that allows the customer to set rules that determine payment types, offers or content to be presented to the user based on various criteria, such as risk class. User behavior may be tracked by the in-application commerce system or by the game application itself, and imported into the in-application commerce system through event messages that are in turn used to further update a fraud score based on fraud controls. Payment methods and transaction limits offered to a user or access to content areas may change as a result of the user's fraud or risk score.
A number of fraud controls may be applied to each transaction, including, for example, usage pattern detection, customer risk classification and payment method restriction by risk class. Each user account is classified by risk class based on automated tests of user specific data as well as through user behavior. For example, during the account registration process 702, as shown in FIG. 7, the platform checks the user's Internet Protocol (IP) address 704, and uses it to perform several checks 706. The first process checks to see if there are other accounts already available within the system using the same credit card 708. If multiple users are using the same credit card, those users will be set to have the same fraud class (all using the highest fraud class of the impacted user accounts 714). Second, it is used for matching of geo-location to account address 710 and payment method address country 712 information. In this exemplary scheme, ten fraud points are added 718 to those accounts where the IP address does not match the country on the account or payment method, while matches result in no additional fraud points 716. Additionally, as illustrated in FIG. 8, for each login 802 via SOAP the IP address is retrieved 804 and is compared to the billing/payment address (if available). The correspondence is on a per-country basis between the declared address and the reported IP address. Values may be checked per login. If a person with a Canadian billing address logs in 5 times from an IP address in Canada and 15 times from the United States of America it would be a 75% ratio. Fraud points 806 are added to the profile when login events occur where the country settings 808 on the user account address do not match the country identified by the IP address identification. No additional fraud points are added if a match 810 occurs. Additionally, the IP address may be used for 3rd party event sourcing. The fraud system is capable of supporting externally triggered fraud events like error messages from payment partners or client related events or fraud/risk scores.
In a preferred embodiment, default risk classes may be set up. In a five level schema those default classes may be: no risk, small abnormality, abnormality, risky, fraud most likely. On the Risk Classes tab of the Risk Class Management Page 902 shown in FIG. 9, risk classes 904 are defined according to application needs by setting ranges of risk points 906 for each of the default risk classes. Alternatively, the administrator may set risk classes according to game requirements. For each risk class, the administrator may associate selected payment forms 908 and user roles 910, as shown in FIG. 10 as well as the additional user-specific classification conditions, which are offered by way of example and not limitation, described in Table 3.
FIG. 11 is a screen shot of the Configuration Tab 1104 on a Risk Class Management Page 1102. Administrators may create a test case for determining risk, such as the “purchases” test case 1105 displayed. This process is further illustrated in FIG. 12 and described below.
Exemplary variables for calculating user activity-driven fraud classification are provided in Table 4, below. The process illustrated in FIG. 12 1202 provides a risk score based on the ratio between chargebacks, refunds and total disputes. The dispute ratio refers to the total number of disputes opened by the user compared to the total number of items purchased. If a user purchases 10 items and opens 3 disputes it gives a dispute ratio of 30%. A disputes/total purchases ratio test compares the number of open disputes to the total purchases 1204 and assigns a risk score. A chargeback/disputes ratio compares the number of open disputes to the total number of disputes 1206. Fraud risk points 1210 may then be added to the user's risk profile or overall fraud score according to the application's preferred business logic 1208. For example, when either disputes ratio 1204, 1206 is less than 80% then the business logic 1208 adds 15 points 1210 to the user's fraud score. Similarly, a disputes ratio between 80% and 95% the business logic 1212 adds 10 points 1214, and with a dispute ratio greater than 95% the business logic 1216 adds 5 points 1218.
disputes, it gives a dispute ratio of 30%.
(non-resolved) disputes to the total number of purchases.
The system further provides a near real time fraud check and batch 208 processing of events. A dedicated fraud batch 208 job analyzes credit card registration and payment events, runs the automated tests for the users who have triggered an event and updates the risk score and risk class of the user accordingly. The batch 208 job may be run at any frequency; typically one minute to keep the user risk scores as current as possible.
As discussed above, fraud scores allow the game publisher to limit the payment methods, transaction limits, offers and content available to a customer. These restrictions involve comparing the risk score of the shopper (user) with an acceptable value. The point of comparison and acceptable risk scores or ranges may be configured by an application administrator. When the shopper begins to purchase an item, the transaction server receives the shopper's risk score and an available list of payment forms. The system may use a least cost router, which determines the optimized payment form due to price point and country. In this case, only those optimized payment forms available to the shopper's risk score are presented to the user.
Transaction limits are also imposed by the shopper's fraud or risk score. Fraud defender tracks the amount per transaction and provides an error to the transaction server if certain rules are violated. Fraud defender returns only time value for how long the account is blocked for further purchases. As a precondition, velocity rules may be defined on limiting the maximum amount per transaction. When the shopper begins the purchase process, the transaction server hands over the details (e.g. price, type, etc.) and the shopper information to the fraud defender message queue. The transaction server checks the fraud score and continues with the checkout if the score is below (or exceeds) a threshold level. If not, the transaction server prompts an error notification and updates transaction history.
Similarly, based on the fraud score, the transaction server will disable certain products, bundles and/or subscription plans. This requires that the effective offers have risk scores or ranges attached that define allowance for purchase. When the shopper (user) performs the purchase process, the transaction server receives the risk score for the shopper and compares it to the allowed risk score for the offer s/he is attempting to purchase. If the shopper's risk score is in the “allowed” range, the transaction server continues to checkout. The point of comparison is configurable. If the shopper's risk score is outside of the “allowed” range, the transaction server prompts an error message, the purchase transaction is aborted and transaction history is updated.
FIG. 13 illustrates an exemplary fraud defender module and messaging system setup. The transaction server 1302 handles all transactions for game purchasing. Event messages are sent to a message queue 1304, where they are retrieved by the fraud server 1306. The fraud defender server includes a fraud database 1308. The fraud defender server is service oriented with interface definitions, with CRUD (Create, Read, Update and Delete) operations for each service. Table provides some exemplary web service calls for a fraud detector module. The events that are sent back to the transaction server from the fraud module may include the fraud score (for example, the account id, the fraud score and the date); the transaction limit (e.g. the account id and the time the transaction was denied); and the purchase limit (e.g. account id, max price for the transaction and the time the purchase was limited). Those skilled in the art will recognize that there are many events that could be defined based on the fraud defender so far described, and would include others without departing from the scope and spirit of the described system.
A reporting and analytics module may be designed for a game publisher depending on its requirements. Data is duplicated from the master database to the slave database to avoid any performance loss through report queries. Both standard and ad hoc reporting is available. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that reporting may also be accomplished with a set of predefined reports. As an admin, a user, is allowed to define any type for the existing reports (data aggregation, frequency, etc.) The lowest increment in a report ideally is 1 hour. As such this reporting process may be performed asynchronously and may run on the same database as the application with minimal potential performance impact. Messaging is provided for notification and communication. A tax engine is also provided to accommodate all tax requirements.
Store and primary market modules include offer and store management 308, inventory/item management 312, economy management 422, discovery & presentation 424.
An offer and store management module 308 provides the end-user presentation functionality and handles everything concerning the management and presentation of the store elements and inventory. All management and UI functions may be available via APIs and via a web-based presentation layer. From a functional perspective, all features described can be presented across different browsers, presentation layers or as content-feed for in-application discovery clients.
A preferred embodiment of an offer and store management module allows client (such as a game publisher) developers and even players (for the player-to-player use case) to set up their own stores to present and merchandise the articles they want to sell.
Using the web-client, users can customize their stores with a title, an intro-text, activate certain community features or modify the store's look and feel using a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) editor. This allows real-time editing of the shop-window and gives users a great set of tools to manage and merchandise their products. Depending on the product category and the application configuration, the system can dynamically present the right attribute fields to be completed by the content manager.
Alternatively, or in addition to the web-client, a content catalogue API may be used to manage the inventory and all of its attributes remotely. Example attributes are: article title, article category (item/service/currency, etc), article description, game server, tags and keywords, reselling options. Independent of the article, the content manager can also define pricing and auctioning models or combination and the delivery options, such as: auctioning model (auction/buy now/reverse auction), number of articles, auctioning period, delivery period, accepted payment methods (relevant for real money trading). This is established through the definition of event identifiers or “event IDs”. Event IDs are pre-defined sets of offer attributes that can be assigned to a specific product or a set of products. They allow efficient management of many different products and offers simultaneously. More about event IDs is provided in reference to economy management, below.
A key function of a content manager may be to oversee the control of the in-application economy 422. Leveraging the reporting and analytics tools 328, the content manager can identify potentially problematic economic behavior problems. Typical economic problems associated with an in-application economy are inflation, artificial scarcity and speculation. Preventing and controlling inflation are crucial when dealing with virtual currencies. Inflation is caused by a fast-growing supply of the available currency, therefore, it is important to watch and control the total amount of virtual currency available to users. Artificial scarcity occurs once the secondary marketplace reaches a critical mass and some people attempt to exploit the economy by artificially shorting the supply of certain scarce goods to maximize their personal revenue. Scarcity may be controlled by controlling the amount of available articles of a particular kind, controlling re-selling capabilities, the lifetime of items and by tracking user patterns and purchase behavior. Speculation is not necessarily a bad thing, but if it gets out of hand, the practice may be stemmed by binding certain items to a particular user, either permanently or for a specific period.
To control undesirable economic events, economy-related information and parameters are separated into a set of attributes called an event. An event may be assigned to every product item template and defines how the item will be handled in the primary and secondary market with regard to scarcity, pre-conditions, cool down periods, and other economic events. In this way, the economy is controlled by defining the availability of items within the markets and whether the items are allowed to be resold, etc. The behavior of a huge number of items may be changed simply by changing the set of attributes (events).
Events may be created using a user interface 1402 provided in the economy management module, through a set of APIs, or by bulk upload. As illustrated in FIG. 14, the fields described in Table 5 define an event.
increment to bid a minimum of $2.
Settings Make the settings for the attribute set active.
Quantity Quantity of an item a user can buy. Blank for unlimited.
Ancillary modules and administrative tools are provided in a preferred embodiment of a modularized in-application commerce system and method. These tools allow the game publisher to optimize the user experience and include, by way of example and not limitation, dispute management 330, and customer relationship management 332.
A player-to-player trading use case allows application participants to set themselves up as merchants, create a store and offers, and buy and sell items in a secondary marketplace. Components of a secondary market use case are illustrated in FIG. 4c . Exemplary modules for this use case include an auction module 314, real money trading/virtual money trading module 430, community management module 432 and reputation management module 310. In addition, the secondary marketplace leverages various other components of the overall system, including account/user management modules 402; inventory modules 312, offer and store management modules 308; economy management modules 422, and others.
Auctioning and transaction management 314 are backend component modules with standardized interfaces to the presentation layer and to a number of internal and external remote systems, including data warehouse systems and payment gateway. The platform supports all auction mechanisms and is optimized to support the specific requirements of dealing with intangible goods and virtual services. Table 6 describes the different types of auctioning models.
The community management 432 and reputation management 310 modules support an efficient marketplace by allowing participants to rate other participants in their role as either a buyer or seller, depending on the user's role in the transaction. The ratings system is specifically tailored to correspond with the needs and requirements of dealing with intangible goods and services. Users wishing to rate another user's role in a transaction may rate it on several levels, according to game requirements. For example, a seller rating may include the following rating levels: ‘Met expectations,’ ‘on time delivery,’ ‘price/quality ratio’ and ‘shop here again.’Information about the transaction may be provided in a list and comments section. Generally, users are rated under their game or application identity. In order to sharpen the actual message expressed through the rating, every user is assigned an overall rating value, endorsements by users as well as a more granular rating scale. In addition, the platform adds automatic ratings in case dispute cases are opened or any other type of repeated misuse is being recorded.
Additional community management 432 features include profile pages, where users can present themselves, their preferences, characters and interests; messaging and instant messaging (IM), for communication between players (supported by external email notifications) or through instant messaging services (e.g. Skype, Yahoo, MSN, etc) that are integrated into the platform; a blogging system so users can launch their own blogs; and a calendar that acts as a filter instrument to display ending auctions and community elements where merchants can mark the dates for events.
Transaction management and processing 212 is an underlying framework interfacing with a significant number of components and systems, including the auction module, the rating logic, the payment and the fulfillment components. It logs every step as a basis for reporting and customer care purposes.
Payment 326, settlement and fulfillment manage outgoing interfaces to payment providers, currency calculation services and in-application delivery functions. It is directly connected to the transaction management framework through internal APIs and interfaces to all relevant back-end and reporting tools. These APIs are described in Table 25, below.
The secondary market modules also interact directly with the clearing and settlement module 322 to calculate revenue shares and trigger correct payout procedures. Receiving dynamic input data from the auctioning component, the tax database 416 and a currency calculation service, the settlement process is run at predefined times and calculates revenue shares according to pre-defined rules. The rules are defined using a restricted configuration tool, allowing defining revenue share ratios, price ranges, payment terms, and settlement periods, etc, as a rule-set for calculating shares.
After successful calculation of the revenue shares the payout can either be verified and approved by authorized personnel or directly transmitted to the parties eligible to receive the funds. The process is completed by updating the status of the process in the transaction history and by automatically and dynamically generating a proper invoice 324 in pdf form.
Secondary markets are enabled for trading in virtual currency as well as real money 430. Trading with both real and virtual currency through the wallet is described below. The wallet is the safest payment option, as the wallet has already been funded when the purchase is made. When trading with real money, buyers may choose from among the payment providers subscribed to by the platform's payment gateway, or a third party gateway with which the platform is integrated. There are some disadvantages to trading with real money. The fraud risks are higher compared to wallet transactions where the real money purchase has already been fulfilled. The purchase flow is asymmetric and may take longer or the buyer may not complete the purchase flow. In addition, there is a risk of money laundering if a cash-out option is offered.
Offer management and content delivery is realized by a set of APIs as is depicted in FIGS. 15 and 16. The player or person's account must identify him as a “merchant” 1504 in order to sell items. A player wanting to sell one or more of his virtual assets can do this by creating an offer from his account inventory or by creating his own store. The platform checks 1508 via API if the declared item for sale is still in the player's possession. In a preferred embodiment, the item is locked as long as the offer is valid, for seamless and rapid delivery after the trading has been completed. After receiving a successful reply from the in-application commerce platform (IAC) 1506, the auction is set to “active” 1512. A potential consumer is now able to purchase this content item. After the transaction has ended, the platform 1506 verifies again 1510 if (a) the Merchant and consumer have valid accounts, and (b) the object for sale is still in the possession of the merchant. Thereafter, the platform prompts the payment order to the buyer. This step is processed automatically if a wallet is being used. The platform executes the payment process based on the selected payment form. After getting a positive acknowledgement form the payment partner, the IAC starts the entitlement process through an API.
To secure a real money transfer, the platform can offer an escrow service to mitigate the risk of fraud, outstanding delivery or a mismatch of described and delivered quality of items. The platform does this by integrating with a third party escrow provider which safely holds a consumer's payment in a trust account until the entire transaction is completed. Since the consumer pays the escrow and not the merchant, the escrow service can withhold payment until the in-game component has been delivered. Once this has been verified, the escrow provider releases the payment to the merchant. The same result may be achieved using the in-application commerce system wallet, however, holding and withdrawing real money from a wallet might require a banking license.
After a user buys an item, the auction is finished and post-purchase notification services are initiated to inform the buyer and the merchant that the transaction is complete. At this time, the buyer may select “escrow” to begin the escrow process described above, which may involve a small fee to be paid to the escrow provider. If the buyer does not wish to use the escrow services, the payment process continues to completion. The system then sends a notification to the merchant, who reads the message in his inbox or external mail and clicks the embedded link to get information about the successful auction and the delivery process is completed.
FIG. 16 illustrates the payment and settlement process. Clearing and settlement in a secondary market is accomplished with the in-application commerce system acting as the intermediary between the buyer and the seller. The system handles all payments and disputes. The settlement process is executed after the dispute period has passed and both parties have confirmed the successful delivery of the article or the provision of the service. Referring to FIG. 16, the merchant (a private person or player) is registered on the in-application commerce platform and creates an offer 1606. A potential buyer 1602 searches, finds and buys (places a bid) on the offer 1608. The IAC platform fulfills the transaction and begins the post purchase processes. The buyer 1610 selects the dedicated payment form (which can be restricted based on offer filtering and risk class) and provides payment form details to the payment partner 1604. The buyer confirms payment 1612 and executes payment (synchronously or asynchronously) and notifies the IAC platform that the transaction has completed successfully. The IAC platform performs the clearing process 1614, calculating the total merchant and client payout per month. After manual approval the system informs the merchant/client of the payout for the billing cycle and creates a pdf formatted invoice including transaction details 1616. The system informs the payment partner to pay out the dedicated revenue share to the merchant. Based on the payment partner, the merchant may have to accept payment before the transaction is complete. The payment partner then informs IAC about the successful payment. The system closes the transaction in the platform.
Settlement occurs after the buyer has paid for an article. During the 28 days immediately following the transaction (the grace period), the consumer may open a dispute to initiate a transaction rollback. All disputes and chargebacks must be closed by the end of that grace period. The system pays out all revenues through the payment transfer providers (e.g. PayPal or Moneybookers) to authorized users. The system generates a detailed report to be downloaded or accessed through an API. Players and merchants need to register their payout method before any revenues are paid out. Only one payment transfer provider may be attached per account. The attachment requires a preceding authentication process where the merchant must needs to authenticate his account.
All transactions in the secondary market are stored and accessed based on their post settlement status. Statuses include merchant not cashout certified; no merchant contact data available; payout pending through provider; provider failed and rollback status. Either the platform or the application publisher may serve as the Merchant of Record (owner of all payment contracts) in all transactions completed by end users. The dedicated party will be responsible for the clearing and settlement of all transactions as well as the payment of customer's share of the revenue to the customer as specified in the integration agreement. The clearing period may vary among payment forms and clients.
A wallet 434 and currency management 436 module provides payment services across all use cases in the in-application commerce system. In a gaming environment, both real money and virtual money may be used to purchase real or virtual items. In a preferred embodiment, the in-application commerce system provides both a user interface and APIs that allow an application administrator to create and define currency types. FIG. 17 is a screen shot of the user interface used for currency type management 1702. Currency may be created by choosing a currency title 1704 and creating a description and setting attributes 1706 such as lifetime, presentation order and if it should be activated or be an in-game currency. The content manager may also define whether it should be payable in real money and if it should be tradable in a player-to-player environment. Currency may be assigned to a category/item class by choosing the Assign Currency tab. Business logic for currency behavior may be created and assigned to the currency.
Within the application commerce system, currency types are configurable to meet application requirements. For instance, certain in-application purchases may only be made through “platinum” coins sourcing from a real-money exchange whereas other articles may be bought with “gold” coins that have been awarded for achievements within the application, or “green” coins funded through online time. Application administrators may also define different types of points as currency, for example, loyalty points earned for repeat purchasing or duration of play, promotional points redeemed through a marketing campaign or premium points used to create tiered service models. These different currency types can be flexibly defined by a currency administrator and configured to have clear exchange rates between real money and the different types of virtual currency. Virtual currency can be created and defined by providing information such as that described in Table 7.
The administrator may also manage exchange rates between real money values and a virtual currency or between different virtual currencies. For example, an exchange rate for a single virtual currency entity can be defined in relation to one unit of a real money currency (e.g. 0.5 US Dollars). Exchange rate between virtual currencies may be achieved through a catalog administration/offer management tool by defining currency packages that can be traded against other types of virtual currency units.
An offer management tool allows administrators to set a relational dependency between item classes and virtual currency types. This allows the administrator to steer the offering and to define if certain item classes (e.g. items, coins, service, etc.) can be bought by real-money currency and/or a specific virtual currency or a combination of both. The offer management system also supports bundling for recurring wallet funding and combined pricing where offers are priced in multiple virtual currencies.
Wallet management involves managing the user's balances, including funding flows with multiple payment providers, real-money cash-out and synchronization with existing wallet systems. The under-18 user segment is an important market segment that is challenging to monetize because of their lack of access to convenient payment methods like credit cards. A preferred embodiment allows parents to create and authorize multiple child accounts to use their balance, set spending limits and view purchase activity. In addition, offer management allows the publisher to make use of in-store cards or electronic vouchers that can be purchased with cash or by a parent to fund a child's wallet account.
The wallet exposes a set of interfaces allowing external components to trigger adding or deducting funds from the wallet. These “external components” could be the in-application ecommerce system's transaction management backend but also any other application-server or external payment or transaction processing solution. To optimize the user-experience, every request to the wallet is verified for sufficient funds before a transaction process is initiated.
The wallet is additionally designed to allow converting virtual currencies into real money and trigger a payout to the customer via approved channels. Real money cashout is an optional wallet component and built in a way to minimize all related financial risks. This includes a sophisticated exchange rate management and a set of tools to identify and prevent cases of money laundering, fraud, arbitrage management and inflation. As for the other wallet components, the cashout function is configurable with a set of rules, allowing, for example, to cash out only certain types of virtual currencies, introduce a minimum threshold for a payout, etc.
Wallets containing virtual currency may be funded by credit card or loyalty programs, or may be acquired in-game. Since the value of virtual currency may change over time and for liability purposes, value is tracked using the first-in-first-out (FIFO) (first in, first out) accounting method. Access to virtual currency is handled in a manner similar to a credit card or bank account. When the user submits an authorization request to pay by virtual currency, a hold is put on the appropriate number of virtual points. This process segregates the authorized funds until the item has been paid for or the order has been canceled and the funds released. It also prevents the user from inadvertently “double spending” the virtual currency.
A virtual currency exchange service allows a real world currency value to be associated with every unit of virtual currency. This allows the commerce platform to display the transaction currency/virtual currency to the user, but base its calculation for costing, tax, shipping and margins on the real world currency. The real world value can be passed to the appropriate commerce engines to complete the necessary calculation.
Attaching the real world currency also allows the fraud engines to perform as they do based on the applicable real world currency and it also allows for additional rules to be formulated that center around the virtual currency. Completing chargebacks, returns and refunds are based on the real world currency versus the virtual currency but present some challenges when crediting virtual currency to the users payment account.
In all situations the application chooses which value is displayed or if both are. For instance, where virtual currency is being used to complete the transaction it may be desirable to display the virtual currency value of the transaction and not the real world value as the shopper may not distinguish between the two, but in a fraud detection scenario viewing both currencies may be beneficial to a person analyzing the account in a fraud detection process.
To deal with the issues of changing value of virtual currency the wallet will put a date time stamp with the transaction. First in-first out (FIFO) accounting policies are then applied, which require the system to scroll through the virtual currency tables to pull the “oldest” currency for redemption. Furthermore, it also require the system to “put back” in a chargeback, return and refund scenario, the aged currency so it is compliant with the FIFO scenario as the currency being returned may have a different value than the currency currently in the wallet.
As was discussed earlier, virtual currency is often purchased with real world value or currency. Because of this, policies are required for accurately accounting for inventory and transactions related to virtual currency. For example, in the United States of America, state laws require companies with remaining account balances to escheat to the state after a number of years of inactivity.
Wallets may be funded with real or virtual currency; however, only virtual currency wallets may store virtual currency. Currency types may be mixed within the account, but not within a wallet. The system also supports funding via gift card or retail cash card. Wallets containing virtual currency may be funded by credit card or other payment method, or may be funded with currency acquired by loyalty programs or game play. Since the value of virtual currency may change over time and for liability purposes, value is tracked using the FIFO (first in, first out) accounting method.
In addition to virtual currency, the system supports the storage and handling of real-money stored value in multiple currencies. To comply with legal and financial requirements, the storage of real-money values has essential impact on multiple functions and use cases, including currency and exchange rate management, tracking and reporting, chargebacks, refunds, customer care and anti-fraud management. To accommodate these requirements, exchange rates for real-money currencies are fetched directly and real-time from payment partners' central currency database. Storing value entities according to FIFO principles, as discussed above, ensures tracking of the actual real-money value in relation to the actual transactions, enabling correct revenue recognition and financial reporting. Chargebacks are calculated according to the actual currency value at the time of the transaction. In a preferred embodiment, a customer may request a refund or rollback of a virtual transaction by viewing transaction history and choosing to request a refund or report a problem with a particular transaction.
To limit the potential of internal fraud, the customer care tool 332 allows administrators to restrict access to real-money refunds to selected or few Customer Service Representative. Based on the respective access rights, a particular selected Customer Service Representative can view account-related information, view transaction-related information, view and manage purchases (e.g. accept refunds, goodwill funding, etc.), view and manage fraud and chargeback cases, and edit wallet accounts (change default billing and shipping address). The Fraud module 336 manages fraud at both the transaction and account level, enabling mitigation of fraud risks when storing real-money value. Internal APIs perform balance updates after a purchase is made or a chargeback is performed. In addition, if game commerce account-level fraud systems track chargebacks, the fraud systems are updated after a chargeback is credited to a user account.
In a preferred embodiment, the account system interacts with three systems: the social game application, ecommerce and in-application storefronts, and billing and customer management systems. The application may be integrated with the wallet account system through a standard set of Wallet Web Services, implemented through SOAP web services. The communication from and to the web services is achieved over the HTTPS (secure HTTP) protocol, and data is passed in XML format.
The trading platform (ecommerce and in-application storefronts) provides a comprehensive and robust platform to design and manage both primary stores and secondary market merchant stores and accounts. Both primary and secondary market modules may be integrated with the wallet account system for buying and selling purposes. The wallet is also easily integrated into third party store components or existing commerce infrastructure modules.
For handling real money transactions as either stored value or as virtual currency exchange, the wallet is integrated with a billing and payment system (i.e., the order management system). This can be a platform-related system or a third party integration.
The wallet management system enables application publishers to execute multiple business rules to fund or debit participant's wallet account (at both the user account and the identity/character levels) through several virtual currencies as part of game-play. Funding functionality is supported by the wallet web services. To fund the wallet, at least the following parameters must be provided: account id (for user/player/identity), currency id (for currency type), order id (generated for every transaction), amount, keeping class (defines if the amount should be credited or debited) and security key (authenticates the publisher).
Based on the SOAP/XML response, a success notification response or an error message will be returned (e.g. invalid currency id, not allowed, account disabled, account ID wrong, etc.). The secondary marketplace component allows players to buy and sell in-application items, virtual currency, and services. A merchant who is selling a digital product can receive his purchase price as virtual currency. Based on the existing currency types, the middleware will debit the buyer's account fund in the merchant's wallet account. Currency may be purchased for real money based on the exchange rate between virtual currency and real-money the system will manage the transaction. To maximize revenues and optimize the user experience, the wallet may be configured with a default billing and shipping address to enable accelerated checkout process with a single click purchase. Coupons may also be used to load the wallet. If a transaction detects that there is not sufficient currency in the wallet account, the system enables consumers to easily add funds.
The wallet can also be debited from within the game. This can be achieved by invoking the same web services as the account funding process with different parameters. To debit the wallet, at least the following parameters should be provided: account id, currency id, amount and keeping class (debit or credit). The platform supports an authorization call to pre-check if sufficient funds are available and to reserve a certain amount before fulfilling the purchase. This is especially relevant if the purchase process is asynchronous (accommodates related processes like credibility checks, address validation, etc.). A second API call allows settling the authorized amount to continue the purchase process or to free up the reserved amount. If a user tries to buy or pay for an article or service through the secondary marketplace the system simply tries to debit the wallet, because it already knows which currency type needs to be charged. If the wallet account does not have enough of the required currency, the application developer can enable purchase of additional currency (based on the settled exchange rate), which can be initiated manually (by the player) or automatically (by the application).
Regardless of the services offered in the application, the most efficient way of handling a high volume of low-value transactions is to introduce a virtual currency and related exchange. A wallet/virtual currency can be used to handle micro-transactions within the game, allowing players to accumulate a considerable amount of virtual currency, which can then be exchanged into a real-world currency.
To discourage money laundering, inflation and arbitrage a management, it is necessary to keep exchange rates between virtual currencies and real money stable or at least in tight control. To eliminate any of those risks, the game's payment mechanism can be designed as a “walled garden” allowing the purchase of virtual currency but not allowing cash-out back to real money currency.
However, for some games and applications, it is important to provide users with the ability to convert virtual currency into real money (e.g. for user generated content). Since the system can identify the exact origin of every virtual currency piece, it is possible to allow the conversion of the certain currency-types only (e.g. the currency entities that the user accumulates through in-application trading). The exact settings can be defined through an administration tool An administrator can limit currency types allowed to cash-out and set the exact exchange rate between the virtual currency and the real money currency to counterbalance potential inflationary trends.
4 for 500 points. The Game storefront is embedded entirely within their desktop game client.
FIG. 18 illustrates the high level architecture and modules/services used in performing the depicted functions. Players 1802 interact with the game client 1804 on a computing device such as a PC or phone. Players 1802 access the in-game commerce account interface 1806 using their single-sign on credentials. The player locates the offer 1832 for Game Points and selects it for purchase 1834. The item service 1836 provides the game producer with the ability to set offers for points in any desired package amount. Game accounts are funded by purchasing Game Points with real money using an API 1810 that interfaces the game backend 1808 with the in-game commerce purchase service 1812. Credit card transactions are processed through the payment module to the payment provider 1818. These transactions require APIs that authorize 1814 (funds are available and held until purchase) and commit 1816 the payment. Upon commit, Wallet Service APIs apply the purchased points to the user's Game Points wallet and update the points balance 1820. Notification is sent to the in-game commerce messaging service 1830 to send an email 1828 to the player to confirm the transaction.
Referring now to FIG. 19, Pete the Player 1802 wishes to purchase additional Game Points for future use. From within the Game desktop client 1804 he goes to the in-game storefront and selects the $5 point package. The client makes a request to the secure back-end 1808 which initiates a payment 1902 using Pete's stored VISA card information. The payments engine 1902 submits the transaction to the payment provider 1818 for authorization. After receiving a successful response, the Game back-end then credits Pete's wallet 1826 using the Wallet API 1820 which triggers a confirmation email 1828. The Game back-end 1808 completes the transaction by calling the confirm Payment API 1904. Pete now has access to the 500 Game Points he purchased and has been charged $5 on his VISA. With Game Points in his wallet, Pete may now purchase content in-game.
FIG. 20 illustrates a purchase from within the game play. From the Game in-game storefront, players 1802 can purchase content ranging from enhanced gameplay features to weapons and armor using Game Points. Pete would like to purchase a horse for his Game character to get around the world faster. He navigates to the in-game storefront on the Game client 1804. The Game back-end 1806 retrieves the list of available offers from the ItemService 1836 which applies the configured filtering rules for Pete's character's level and account status. Pete selects the horse offering for 700 Game Points 1904. The Game back-end 1808 activates the wallet web service 1826 to check Pete's account balance 1824 and determines that he doesn't have sufficient Game Points, so he is offered the option to purchase 500 Game Points for $5. After his account has been funded, the back-end submits the purchase to the ItemService using buyOffer 1834 which debits 1822 700 Game Points from his wallet 1826. Upon receiving the success response, the Game back-end delivers the item to his account 2002. Pete now has the horse in his inventory and has the remaining 200 Game Points in his wallet.
A reverse wallet accommodates microtransactions for real money. With a reverse wallet, every shopper account gets a personal threshold assigned which defines how much money s/he is allowed to spend in advance before the system clears the wallet. The threshold is based on the shopper's behavior and may be adjusted frequently. Clearing of the wallet may be initiated by time or by exceeding the threshold. With an accurate personal profile and threshold, micro-transactions with price-points below 1 USD/EUR are possible and convenient.
The in-application system and method reverse wallet provides a system and method capable of assigning a personal threshold per user and wallet. The fraud defender system influences the threshold of the account holder directly by increasing or decreasing the threshold depending on various configurable factors. Both real and virtual currencies are supported. In addition, the threshold may be managed with an administrator console and per API on an account level and in general. The system supports multiple payment methods (i.e. credit/debit cards, PayPal, Click&Buy, etc) with an option for a credit wallet. It should be configurable to support reverse and top wallet per client. This means that this functionality can be disabled for particular users(shoppers) or according to the fraud score associated with the user account. If its disabled, the user is only able to load the wallet first before he/she can spend the virtual funds.
Describing the reverse wallet in terms of an exemplary use case of debiting the wallet, the primary actors are the commerce platform, the shopper/end user, a threshold engine and a customer service representative (CSR). The commerce platform takes orders and contains business rules regarding when an order is released for fulfillment. The shoppers place orders on the site. They pay using payment methods, such as credit cards, Paypal, etc., request refunds and make cancellations. The threshold engine calculates the threshold based on the shopper's fraud or risk score and the values allowed for particular risk categories as determined by the administrator. A CSR may become involved with the process, performing actions on the shopper's behalf.
A wallet should be enabled for both real and virtual currency and the user registered, with payment details available and stored. The thresholds should be assigned for each risk class, and not exceeded for the shopper's account. An example is provided in FIGS. 21 and 22. Referring to these figures, the shopper indicates that s/he wishes to make a purchase with real currency 2102. The system checks the threshold for the shopper's risk class 2104. If the purchase price does not exceed the threshold, the system debits the wallet 2106 and completes the purchase 2108. The system then performs post-purchase events, such as displaying a thank you page, sending an on Delivery notification (see Table 18), updating shopper inventory, updating transaction history creating an event for the fraud server and adjusting the personal threshold as required 2202.
If the threshold is not sufficient to cover the purchase price, the system notifies the shopper that the personal threshold has been exceeded 2110. Options are offered the shopper to proceed with the sale 2112, and the user selects the desired one. Options to be presented to the user are configurable. Exemplary options include cancelling the transaction 2114, settling the wallet (the system calculates the difference and offers the shopper the option of settling) 2116, and loading the wallet (the shopper is offered the opportunity to load more than the personal threshold to the wallet 2118). If the shopper chooses either to settle or to load the wallet, the system checks to see if payment details are available 2120. If not, the user selects the payment method and provides payment details 2122. Otherwise, the shopper completes the purchase 2202 and the system performs post purchase events 2204. Exceeding the threshold and the subsequent options may trigger an increase in the fraud score of the shopper.
If a user is not registered, s/he may provide account details to create an account. The system may check the IP address to see if it is already attached to an existing account, and if it is, whether the account is active or inactive. After the account details are submitted, the system creates an account and sends the user an email with an activation link. The user is redirected to an account activation page. The shopping continues with the registration process by providing additional account information such as billing address and payment details. If the payment details are in use and assigned to another account, the system will increase the user's fraud score resulting in a low threshold.
Microtransaction debits of wallets with positive balances are available when the threshold assigned to the shopper based on the shopper's risk score is exceeded. After a user selects an item to purchase and clicks a “buy” button to complete the purchase, the system checks to see if the shopper has exceeded his threshold, and, if he has, the shopper is notified about the threshold limit violation. The system may automatically fulfill the purchase, clear and debit wallet transactions in chronological order, and then performs post-transaction processing 2202. If payment details are missing, the purchase may be cancelled, or the shopper will be afforded a chance to add the payment details 2212. If payment details are not correct, for example, if the shopper's credit card has expired, the shopper is afforded a chance to correct the details or select another method, and proceed with the process.
A virtual money wallet may be debited for microtransactions using reverse wallets as well, using a process similar to that used to debit a real money wallet. One click purchases for virtual microtransactions may be processed instantly. However, if a user selects an item which will exceed the threshold, the user is notified that the purchase will violate the threshold limit. As with real money, the shopper may be offered an alternative, in this case the ability to select a more expensive virtual currency package as proposed. If the shopper doesn't intervene, the system automatically fulfills the purchase. This means that when the shopper doesn't do anything, the purchase of virtual currency is fulfilled. It will be appreciated that the shopper must confirm to clear the wallet. The shopper is also able to cancel the transaction and select another offer which does not hit or exceed this personal threshold. The system clears and debits the wallet in chronological order and updates the fraud score and sets OnDeliveryNotification call. If payment details are missing, the user may cancel the purchase or supply the missing details. If the purchase is cancelled, the system will change the status of the transaction and update the user's fraud score. If the user provides the payment details, the system stores the details for future purchases and automatically fulfills the purchase. The system then clears and debits the wallet in chronological order, updates the fraud score and sets the OnDelivery Notification call. If the payment details are not correct, for example, if the credit card has expired, the system receives a credit card expiration error response and makes a second attempt using an expiration date in the future (e.g. stored value plus 3 years). If the transaction is successful, the system automatically fulfills the purchase, clears and debits the wallet in chronological order, updates the fraud score and sets the on Delivery notification. If the payment details are not correct, but are provided by the shopper or a different payment method is selected, the system presents the terms and conditions for user acceptance, stores the details for future use and completes the process as above. As such the virtual wallets are always cleared with each transaction. In the case that the shopper wants to purchase an offer that crosses the threshold and the system prompts him to clear the wallet, the system will clear threshold and completes the purchase of the offer in a single step (from shopper point of view).
A real money reverse wallet may be cleared automatically by time or by detecting an exceeded threshold. A time period may be defined in which all wallets need to be cleared. When that time expires, the system automatically fulfills purchases to clear the wallet for any account/wallet with a negative balance. A purchase confirmation is sent by email to the shopper. The system clears the wallet and updates the fraud score. An on Delivery notification call is then sent. If payment details are missing or are not correct, the transactions proceed similar to the transactions above for debiting the real money wallet when insufficient funding is available.
Some features may be alternatively performed by a customer service agent (CSA). As was mentioned above, fraud scores are updated frequently as per the rules configured by the game publisher. As the scores are updated, the threshold is updated to the threshold configured for the fraud classification identified by the user's fraud score. However, the threshold for registered users may also be updated by a CSA. The CSA may log into an administration tool, and increase or decrease the threshold. The system captures information regarding the change, such as the name of the CSA, a timestamp for the change, the previous and new thresholds, and a reason for making the change. As soon as the CSA saves the changes, the new threshold becomes available for the user. The CSA may also manually initiate a wallet clearance.
Players and purchasers under the age of 18 are an important market segment that is challenging to monetize because of their lack of access to convenient payment methods like a credit card. To facilitate responsible application participation by children, accounts may be set up with parent-child relationships. This is particularly important for accounts on gaming sites, which allow parents to constrain their child's time and money spending. The parent-child controls allow the parent to control financial and operational details of the child's interaction with the game. In one representative environment for an in game commerce system, parent-child relationships apply to both user accounts and wallet functionality. Parent-child account relationships empower parents to control the online time budget of their children and control their child's real money spending within an online game. The owner of the parent account is empowered to define an exact rule set applicable to one or more related child accounts. This control can be achieved through various features, including determining which currency the child is allowed to use. In this parent-child relationship, various limits can be set for the child account, including: the maximum amount per month s/he can spend, maximum amount per transaction, whether the parent wallet is automatically refunded if a balance is insufficient, and the time budget allowable for the child to consume within a particular time frame. Additionally, the parent has total insight into the transactions, login history and the online time of the child account and can prohibit access or spending allowance at any time.
FIG. 23 illustrates one embodiment of a process flow for creating the parent-child account relationships. To create the relationship, a child account must exist 2302. A parent may log in and create his/her own account 2304 and then search for the child's account by nickname, or other identifier 2306. The parent (or other appropriate adult, generally someone over the age of 18) sends an invitation with a message to the child, who will get an invitation in his inbox 2310. The child may either accept 2314 or decline 2316 the invitation. If the child accepts the invitation, the parent may then define rules for the child's accounts using their settings screens.
The message sent by the parent 2308 may be a personal message or an external message. A personal message may contain a message directly from the parent to the child and a standard explanation about the parent-child relationship. A button on the message allows the child to confirm or reject the invitation. Clicking the button opens the personal message editor, and the child may create a response message to return to his/her parent. An external message contains the personal message of the parent and a standard explanation about the parent-child relationship. It also contains a link to confirm and a link to reject the invitation. Clicking the link directs the user to his or her message editor where he may compose a return comment. Various fields, such as the receiver and subject fields, may be prepopulated when the child clicks the button or link.
FIGS. 24 to 26 illustrate an account settings page used to set up a parent-child relationship and configure the child's account as desired by the parent. In a preferred embodiment system, a “Settings” tab contains all the features required to configure child accounts with parental controls. For example, the first section 2402 allows the parent to enter the identifying information for the child. The next section 2502 allows the parent to set rule-based permissions, including amounts per transaction and per month 2504, and the cumulative length of time the child is allowed to spend playing the game each day or over the weekend 2506. An age restriction setting 2508 allows the parent to set or disable payment forms by country. The final section 2510 allows the user setting up the account to send a personalized message 2508 with the notification. FIG. 26 illustrates a notification of a successfully configured child account.
Those skilled in the art will recognize that there are alternative process flows for setting up parent-child relationships and alternative features may be added for which parents would control the in-application behavior of their children. For example, a parent account may be created before the child account. In this scenario, the parent account is already activated. The parent creates a child account and defines permissions for that account. The parent may send an optional notification message to the child account. The parent may create additional child accounts, if required, and assign permissions for those accounts.
This parent-child relationship defines the use of the wallet of the parent account. No fund mergers or user control are fulfilled. Depending on the applied business logic, if a child account already has a wallet fund, it may be used before the parent wallet is debited. In addition to defining the time the child is allowed to spend in the online game per day and/or per month, the parent account owner may also assign a set of permission/rating roles on a child account level. These roles limit the type of content the child account owner is allowed to access. Finally, the parent-account owner is allowed at any given time to change the defined budget (time and/or money) or cancel the relationship altogether. Any of these changes will cause the dedicated history to be stored and made accessible in the activity section of the parent's account. If the relationship is canceled, the child account owner will receive notice through a personal and an external message.
The child account owner may use the parent's wallet account after consuming the balance of his own wallet, depending on application settings. All transactions are stored in the child's transaction history. Transactions charged to the parent account wallet are identified as such on the activity history.
An admin user interface has a view to a wallet balance including all child account transactions. The same detail as the parent account owner is presented in his web client account. In addition, a tab “Child Account History” lists the complete login and online time history structured in the same detail as the parent account owner in his/her web client account. The admin may change child account permissions and login rules on behalf of the parent account owner. Additionally, the parent-child relationship may be canceled via this view as well.
Because of its highly modularized nature and comprehensive set of web services, an in-application commerce system and method allows the application publisher a great deal of flexibility in choosing the services that best suit its implementation. For example, if a publisher only required use of the wallet functionalities, the wallet, user management, reporting, customer care and wallet configuration modules and services would be enabled. A publisher wishing to implement an online store with a world class payment gateway would have the following modules enabled: user management/account system, payment gateway and taxation, primary market store, reporting/analytics and clearing, settlement, and invoicing.
Web services provide a standard framework for distributed systems to communicate with each other. A preferred embodiment of an in-application ecommerce system and method exposes a large number of interfaces to the application. These interfaces can be grouped according to the general type of service they support. For example, services that facilitate account management include account service, inventory service, wallet service, messaging service and mail service. Services supporting storefront management include item service and search service, and services supporting purchasing include trading service, purchase service, post purchase service, fraud service and settlement service. Web services for processing payments may include adapters for each payment provider according to system requirements. Each will be discussed further below.
All access to web-services preferably requires encryption in the form of secure socket layer (SSL), IP whitelisting or a dedicated virtual private network (VPN). Test systems may use a self-signed certificate that the application adds to their certificate store in order to access the environment. System to system authentication for all the application platform web-services follows a generic pattern. Each web service request includes a “key” element with the parameters such as those listed in Table 8. Only the “key” attribute is required, but it's strongly recommended that the optional parameters be provided to enhance traceability of transactions for fraud detection and system debug purposes.
key.accountId No String The system account ID of the caller.
Configured when the system is setup.
An account service offers a variety of services, including, but not limited to, create user accounts, activate/deactivate users, view or modify customer profiles, view or modify risk profiles, upgrade user accounts to merchant accounts (for player-to-player trading). A remote account services module may require the use of a key to be used when calling the services via account services APIs. All requests are handled via web services (WSDL and SOAP).
The account service is used to manage user profiles within the application platform. An account profile exists in the platform for all users including: system accounts (storefront servers, client back-end servers), back-office users (customer care users and system administrators), and consumers. Consumer accounts may have one or more identities in their account profile that can be used to represent sub-accounts within your applications. For example, an identity might exist for each avatar owned by a player.
An Account Service manages user profiles, including system accounts, such as storefront servers and client back-end server accounts, back-office user accounts including customer care user and system administrator accounts, and consumer accounts. Consumer accounts may have one or more identities in their account profile that can be used to represent sub-accounts within your applications. For example, an identity might exist for each avatar owned by a player.
A number of methods are used in a preferred embodiment of an Account Service and are listed in Table 9.
getAccountDetails Fetches the account details of a user.
define his default address for express checkout.
details for particular user account.
confirmMember Call to authenticate and activate user account.
details of a particular or group of accounts.
An Admin service manages client configurations. Admin Services methods are described in Table 10, below.
setProperty Manage all client configs.
An Admin web service manages access to web services. Admin Web Services methods are described in Table 11, below.
Several methods are provided for performing customer service operations and are described in Table 12, below.
findOfferDetail Retrieve all available details of a specific offer (eg.
Several methods are provided for performing fraud service operations and are described in Table 13, below.
The inventory service is used to add or delete items from the inventory of items offered for sale and are detailed in Table 14 below.
The item service is used to create and manage item offers and some representative methods are listed in Table 15 below.
The Mail Service delivers external email and methods associated therewith are listed below in Table 16.
Messaging services create and retrieve messages for an account or identity and some of the methods are listed below in Table 17.
The Notification Callback Web Service is an interface provided by the application system in order to receive notification of purchases made in the in-application commerce platform. Methods for this web service are listed in Table 18 below. In order to use this functionality, the application provider is required to implement and host a server offering a Notification API.
The following situation provides an example of the Notification service. Jane wants to purchase a sword for her Quest character. She visits the Quest website and selects the sword she wants. She has sufficient wallet balance, so the Quest system immediately calls the purchaseOffer method on the in-application commerce platform.
Upon successful completion of the purchase, the in-application commerce platform generates a web service call to the Quest servers to notify them of the transaction using a manually configured security key.
The payment provider service provides web service interfaces between the in-application commerce system and payment providers and some representative methods are listed below in Table 19.
The PostPurchase services methods listed in Table 20 provide functionality to complete a purchase transaction, such as confirming that a virtual item purchased by one player from another has reached the purchasing player's account and delivering merchant and buyer ratings. These services are primarily used for the secondary market, completing transactions between players.
The web service reporting service retrieves bulk data for reporting according to application requirements and some representative methods are listed in Table 21 below.
Search services allow searches on payments, transactions, offers, inventory, order details and player stores from the application to the in-application ecommerce system and method. Some representative methods for the search service are listed below in Table 22.
The platform waits 28 days before collecting the revenues from all payment enablers, in order to clear all disputes before the revenue split is cleared and settled. Players need to register their payout method (e.g. PayPal) before any revenues are shared. Table 23 below lists several settlement related methods.
The subscription service methods works with game subscriptions by storing and retrieving subscription status for every participant with a subscription. Some representative methods for this service are listed in Table 24 below.
The Trading Service methods listed in Table 25 support the player-to-player market transactions.
The Wallet Service with the methods listed in Table 26 is used to directly manage a user's wallet balances. The wallet balance is updated whenever a purchase is made using the storefront web services. This service is used for when you wish to directly manage a customer's balances. For example, to provide bonus points for referring a friend. SSL is required by the interface unless some other network level encryption or private connection is in place.
master account is hold by client.
Internal APIs communicate data among modules. Following in Table 27 is a list of internal APIs used in a preferred embodiment of an in application commerce system and method.
It is to be understood that even though numerous characteristics and advantages of various embodiments of the present invention have been set forth in the foregoing description, together with details of the structure and function of various embodiments of the invention, this disclosure is illustrative only, and changes may be made in detail, especially in matters of structure and arrangement of parts within the principles of the present invention to the full extent indicated by the broad general meaning of the terms in which the appended claims are expressed. For example, the particular elements may vary depending on the particular provider systems used, such that different communication protocols may be organized or designed differently while maintaining substantially the same functionality and without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention.
applying application fraud controls in near real time to limit the features available to users within the risk classification, for subsequent user transactions, in response to the updated fraud score and the risk classification, the controls applied to at least one of the following application features available to the user: (i) offers, (ii) allowed payment types and (iii) reverse wallet thresholds, the application fraud controls changable in near real time as the user interacts with the internet-accessible on-line application.
2. The in-application fraud prevention, management and control system of claim 1 wherein the internet-accessible on-line application comprises a game application and wherein event messages received at the communications module comprise at least game play and game commerce events.
3. The in-application fraud prevention, management and control system of claim 1 wherein the particular user behavior occurring in the internet-accessible on-line application comprises adding a new friend within the on-line application such that one of the fraud events comprises assigning negative fraud points to the user account when a received event message indicates that a new friend was added within the on-line application.
4. The in-application fraud prevention, management and control system of claim 1 wherein the particular user behavior occurring in the internet-accessible on-line application comprises accumulated actions over time within the internet-accessible on-line application such that one of the fraud events comprises assigning negative fraud points to the user account when a received event message indicates that the particular user has accumulated actions over time within the internet-accessible on-line application.
5. The in-application fraud prevention, management and control system of claim 1 wherein the particular user behavior occurring in the internet-accessible on-line application comprises a past suspension from the internet-accessible on-line application such that one of the fraud events comprises assigning negative fraud points to the user account when a received event message indicates that a reactivated user was previously suspended from the internet-accessible on-line application.
6. The in-application fraud prevention, management and control system of claim 1 wherein the particular user behavior occurring in the internet-accessible on-line application comprises a suspension from the internet-accessible on-line application such that one of the fraud events comprises assigning positive fraud points to the user account when a received event message indicates that a user was suspended from the internet-accessible on-line application.
7. The in-application fraud prevention, management and control system of claim 1 wherein the particular user behavior occurring in the internet-accessible on-line application comprises a disputes to total purchases ratio such that one of the fraud events comprises assigning positive fraud points to the user account when a received event message indicates that a user has dispute to total purchases ratio that indicates a higher risk than other users of the internet-accessible on-line application.
8. The in-application fraud prevention, management and control system of claim 1 wherein the particular user behavior occurring in the internet-accessible on-line application comprises a chargebacks to disputes ratio such that one of the fraud events comprises assigning positive fraud points to the user account when a received event message indicates that a user has a chargebacks to dispute ratio that indicates a higher risk than other users of the internet-accessible on-line application.
9. The in-application fraud prevention, management and control system of claim 1 wherein the fraud defender module contains program code stored in memory which when executed by the processor in the server causes the server to assign negative fraud points to the user account when a commerce event indicates a successful transaction occurring in the wallet.
10. The in-application fraud prevention, management and control system of claim 1 wherein the fraud defender module contains program code stored in memory which when executed by the processor in the server causes the server to: (i) receive a third party payment partners error response associated with a transaction on the user account and (ii) assign fraud points to the user account based on the received error response.
11. The in-application fraud prevention, management and control system of claim 1 wherein the fraud defender module contains program code stored in memory which when executed by the processor in the server causes the server to assign a particular risk class to the user account based on the fraud score and to limit the user account based on the assigned risk class to a limited number of particular payment forms.
12. The in-application fraud prevention, management and control system of claim 1 wherein the fraud defender module contains program code stored in memory which when executed by the processor in the server causes the server to assign a particular risk class to the user account based on the fraud score and to limit the user account based on the assigned risk class to a particular user role.
13. The in-application e-commerce system of claim 1 wherein the user account further comprises a wallet with a personal threshold for spending that the user is allowed to spend in advance before the system clears the wallet and wherein the fraud defender module contains program code stored in memory which when executed by the processor in the server causes the server to update the personal threshold based on changes to the fraud score for the user account.
14. The in-application e-commerce system of claim 13 further comprising a wallet module containing program code stored in memory which when executed by the processor in the server causes the server to: (i) receive a transaction request with an amount for a micropayment on a shopper order in the in-application e-commerce system, and (ii) debit the wallet based on a determining that the received transaction request amount is below the personal threshold.
15. The in-application e-commerce system of claim 13 further comprising a wallet module containing program code stored in memory which when executed by the processor in the server causes the server to: (i) receive a transaction request with an amount for a micropayment on a shopper order in the in-application e-commerce system, and (ii) notify the user that the personal threshold would be exceeded based on a determining that the received transaction request amount is above the personal threshold.
16. The in-application e-commerce system of claim 15 wherein the wallet module contains program code stored in memory which when executed by the processor in the server causes the server to load the wallet with an amount that exceeds the personal threshold based upon the user responding to a notification that the personal threshold would be exceeded.
17. The in-application e-commerce system of claim 13 further comprising a wallet module containing program code stored in memory which when executed by the processor in the server causes the server to clear the wallet once spending in the wallet has exceeded the personal threshold.
18. The in-application e-commerce system of claim 1 further comprising updating the risk classification applicable to the user in near real time as the user interacts with the internet-accessible on-line application in response to events communicated by the communications.
applying fraud controls in near real time to limit the features of the internet application available to users within a risk classification, for the user's subsequent interaction with the internet application based on the user's updated fraud score and risk classification, where the controls are applied to at least one of the following features available to the user: (i) offers, (ii) allowed payment types and (iii) reverse wallet thresholds, the fraud controls changable in near real time as the user interacts with the internet application.
20. The method of claim 19 wherein the particular user behavior occurring in the internet application comprises adding a new friend within the on-line application and wherein the assigning step comprises assigning negative fraud points to the user account when a received event message indicates that a new friend was added within the internet application.
21. The method of claim 19 wherein the particular user behavior occurring in the internet application comprises accumulated actions over time within the internet application and wherein the assigning step comprises assigning negative fraud points to the user account when a received event message indicates that the particular user has accumulated actions over time within the internet application.
22. The method of claim 19 wherein the particular user behavior occurring in the internet application comprises a past suspension from the internet application and wherein the assigning step comprises assigning negative fraud points to the user account when a received event message indicates that a reactivated user was previously suspended from the internet application.
23. The method of claim 19 wherein the particular user behavior occurring in the internet application comprises a suspension from the internet application and wherein the assigning step comprises assigning positive fraud points to the user account when a received event message indicates that a user was suspended from the internet application.
24. The method of claim 19 wherein the particular user behavior occurring in the internet application comprises a disputes to total purchases ratio and wherein the assigning step comprises assigning positive fraud points to the user account when a received event message indicates that a user has dispute to total purchases ratio that indicates a higher risk than other users of the internet application.
25. The method of claim 19 wherein the particular user behavior occurring in the internet application comprises a chargebacks to disputes ratio and wherein the assigning step comprises assigning positive fraud points to the user account when a received event message indicates that a user has a chargebacks to dispute ratio that indicates a higher risk than other users of the internet application.
26. The method of claim 19 the user account further comprises a wallet and wherein the assigning step comprises assigning negative fraud points to the user account when a commerce event indicates a successful transaction occurs in the wallet.
27. The method of claim 19 the user account further comprising a step of receiving a third party payment partners error response associated with a transaction on the user account and wherein the assigning step comprises assigning negative fraud points to the user account based on the received error response.
28. The method of claim 19 the user account further comprising a step of assigning a particular risk class to the user account based on the fraud score.
29. The method of claim 28 the user account further comprising a step of limiting the user account based on the assigned risk class to a limited number of particular payment forms.
30. The method of claim 28 the user account further comprising a step of limiting the user account based on the assigned risk class to a particular user role.
31. The method of claim 28 the user account further comprising a step of limiting the user account based on the assigned risk class to one of: wallet transaction limits, particular storefront offers, and particular content available in the internet application.
32. The method of claim 19 wherein the user account further comprises a wallet with a personal threshold for spending that the user is allowed to spend in advance before the system clears the wallet and further comprising a step of updating the personal threshold based on changes to the fraud score for the user account.
debiting the wallet based on a determining that the received transaction request amount is below the personal threshold.
notifying the user that the personal threshold would be exceeded based on a determining that the received transaction request amount is above the personal threshold.
35. The method of claim 34 further comprising a step of loading the wallet with an amount that exceeds the personal threshold based upon the user responding to a notification that the personal threshold would be exceeded.
36. The method of claim 32 further comprising a step of clearing the wallet once spending in the wallet has exceeded the personal threshold.
Aria Gaming Solutions, Web pages retrieved from URL:http://www.ariasystems.com. Retrieved on Nov. 22, 2011.
Livegamer Web Pages Retrieved from URL:http://www.livegamer.com. Retrieved on Nov. 22, 2011.
Lurie, Mark, Online Gaming Frauds, https://web.archive.org/web/20111108153006/http://rsi4u.org/onlinegamingfrauds/, Oct. 1, 2010.
PlaySpan, Inc. Web Pages. Retrieved from URL:https://developer.playspan.com. Retrieved on Nov. 22, 2011.
Vindicia Web Pages. Retrieved from URL:http://www.vindicia.com. Retrieved on Nov. 22, 2011. | 2019-04-19T15:54:23Z | https://patents.google.com/patent/US9785988B2/en |
For the set organization to state that it had an agreement on you, it must demonstrate the manner that it was going to do good for you. It’s true, you signed an agreement by means of your charge card company, but you did not sign one with all the companies that bought your debt from the credit card business. Doing this produces a contract that could be binding.
The pupils will be provided a rubric with the particular demands of the project and what the function of the project will be. Necessary Resources The literary work he chooses to create a collage will ascertain how much time is necessary to fully complete the job. Each student must select one reading that we have done so far or will read later on, and no 2 students may pick the very same job. An employee doesn’t need to sit down and speak with them.
Shop partners profit from a connection they’d normally not get. A collection company can’t collect any amount of money that isn’t permitted by legislation or by arrangement. Additional it would be required to demonstrate the terms of that arrangement in court. It’s unreasonable for the normal shop proprietors to create designs, while maintaining and promoting their own shops independently.
You’re not permitted to use someone else’s images on eBay, 2. It is a lot simpler to have each photo printed the specific same amount of times. Much pared-down newsletter postcards are known to achieve impressive outcomes. As a result, unless it is something like a fine-art print which you don’t want to be altered in any way, you are able to leave a region of your layout blank the client can incorporate any text they like to before buying the item. Signs designed from free templates are an excellent way to publicize your small business, announce sales, events, or exhibit the wonderful work you have done on a job site. Free postcard templates are an excellent tool for small business proprietors to advertise and promote their company with a minimum strain on the business budget. Just devote a few minutes to find out, and you’ll be all set to produce the tags.
When you are prepared with all the materials for your presentation you are able to ask your manager to make sure your presentation meets the audiencea requirements and adheres to each of the guidelines. Knowing the printeras procedure will guarantee a solid relationship with high quality printed material. After the process is completed, the fax machine will publish a confirmation document, based on the preferences. Another simple technique with files like letters is that the mail merge option and it is utilized in states where you’ve got a letter which needs to be sent to plenty of clients.
Technology and also the use of the internet has changed how my company is marketed. For being a tiny business the software has lots of positive reviews. The program has lots of templates to choose from and they permit one to try it until you’ve got to get it. Now that youave gotten your physical files organized, itas time to establish a record keeping system you’ll maintain on a normal basis. To be able to mail merge, you’ll need to make the principal document with all of the information such as text, graphics and other details which are the exact same for many customers. You’ve also requested they create every one of the receipts for each and every transaction that you engaged in during the complete lifetime of their use of the credit rating card.
Place the files in the right tray in the right place and dial the number you need to send the facsimile. My calls are always dropped, my voicemail doesn’t get the work done, and my calls are broken and full of static. There are a whole lot of easy to employ solutions which may help resolve the matter and in the vast majority of instances the repair will be super quick and more importantly free. When you are logged on, it’s going to request that you fill out all the mandatory information you normally put in if applying for work. A quick Google search will show to you a lot more options also.
The sole requirement is that the time that it requires to write an email, complete a web form, or write a letter. Check out that to check whether it is a viable choice for you. For this, you may have a brick-and-mortar and electronic setup. The answering machine is not going to pick up if we are employing the telephone. In order to send files via fax, one needs to learn how to run a fax system.
A cloud invoicing alternative makes it possible for you to save everything. Invoicing can help you to track the transaction of the consumers. On-line invoicing gives you the capacity to pick the payment that is fast and provides the most inexpensive transaction rates. On-line invoicing is on the cloud which provides you the ability to take care of client billing and info from 1 program.
Our site features invoice template free download centre and you may pick the invoice format according to your preference on word or excel. By means of example, e-commerce sites want to drop in accord with PCI standards if they want to accept payments online. All you need to do is log into your account, select the customer which you would like to invoice. Expense reports are beneficial in keeping your eye on your company. A expense report provides you helpful a way for a provider. So, you’re need two copies of this blank invoice each time you fill one out in the area. Thus, you might select the print out of it and utilize it as you would love.
If you want a statement fast, you will see our templates are professional enough to signify your company even without extensive customization. Fundamentally an invoice contains some info linked to the professional services supplied by your business. You may send a PDF bill to a customer in just minutes when it’s delivered through the Internet.
Invoices are used by associations together with people to maintain a record of transactions made in business along with in personal life. Overall the bill needs to be made in such a manner that even after placing all of the particulars of this transaction, it appears sophisticated. An invoice is created with the guidance of a sample invoice form that will help you to choose the previous look of the invoice. In fact, writing invoices is an extremely enjoyable activity. You will find plenty of statement generating software on the net that may automatically create your invoice slip. To make a statement in your you just have to download a basic template form the world wide web.
In addition to managing your spending, it’s also advisable to track your spending in respect to your financial plan to see where you can cut down. Saving money by producing your own is a solid idea due to the financial climate and also the simple fact that designing a receipt is really not something you ought to put plenty of energy into. In addition, you will find the costs connected with paper, ink, and postage. Finding an efficient strategy to make bills, together with maintaining track financial information, you can accomplish that growth. The serial number also needs to be included. There are a terrific number of templates to pay for the scenarios where you will need a receipt. Utilizing the net you are going to be able to come across uncountable number of websites which provide completely free invoice templates and that also of an extremely very great quality.
The probable benefits of employing the bill system in your business enterprise firm are cited below. The benefit of using such templates is that one may create any assortment of changes based on one’s requirements. As a result, the benefits of using a web-based invoicing software becomes key to scaling your charging units.
Look to the choices to obtain what you are looking for. If you’d like more template options, go to and review their alternatives. The choice between electronic and printed invoices is only 1 option you can provide.
Suggested Tool There’s a fairly cool plugin named InfiniteWP Client. Providentially, the templates in our next section will help relieve a variety of the fiscal stress that includes such a big purchase. They may also be useful once you’re trying to lose or maintain your present weight. PDF-formatted invoice templates are ideal for grab-and-go surgeries. A blank invoice template is merely a template where complete info about an item can be stuffed to transform it in an invoice. As with other conventional invoices an online invoice templates have a header part and a diagram in its entire body. It’s possible to download the on-line invoice templates at a very nominal cost from reputed sites.
In order to create the maximum of these, however, you will require documentation to be certain youand your own teampreserve it. The best thing of this procedure is that you might personalize it in your way. The process for creating invoice form is quite simple and needs less ability.
You are likely to be able to upsell new products or services. The very first thing which ought to be altered to entice customers is the charging system. To locate a current invoice, use the company Client Find Invoice menu, however before you may edit a posted invoice, you will want to Unpost it. Should you own or run a company and indulge in regular financial trade for the selling of any goods and services that you provide, it is crucial and beneficial to get an invoice form to the function of billing and record keeping. Scaling your company might sound impossible, but among the very first areas to begin is with your billing. So you are able to draw more clients to your firm. An email service provider used by GoDaddy should know how to forward mails to SES. Compose a letter to someone else in an equally enticing positionyou know they are out there, and that there are tons of people who are prepared to talk to you! When it does not have any verticals like a capital A or V, the first diagonal stroke is regarded as the stem. A doctor’s letter from a doctor or a hospital gives you the excuse that you would like to bypass work. A doctor’s excuse letter is used by a number of folks nowadays to find some time away. Letters of excuse are similarly employed by people who have been picked, however, can’t pay a visit to the prosecution obligation. There are various sorts of explanation letters available on the internet.
Cover letters are a substantial portion of the application procedure, and an excellent means to be sure your resume speaks for you in addition to your abilities. Along with that, your cover letter might even make it in the hands of the individual you dealt with it ! Implementing a generic cover letter may make you appear to be a generic candidate. Certainly, a record of nonappearance ought to be determined by accurate ailments. For a more habitual company, a typical three-paragraph letter is going to do.
Sometimes letters should be adjusted to fit in a specific space. Actually, the cover letter is a wonderful opportunity for you to envision exactly what the company most wants to hear based upon the job advertisement and your own company research, and following that determine what will work best to assist you in getting this job. It is your chance to create a positive first impression on a potential new company, therefore it’s important to invest time making sure yours is as good as it can get. It is fine to compose a cover letter otherwise compared to the typical style, but it is only encouraged for select individuals that know cover letters completely and have a very good reason for breaking tradition. Drafting a cover letter could be among the very stress inducing facets of this work search. You need to write a new cover letter for each and every job that you apply for, but should you do choose to use a cover letter for numerous tasks, be certain to remember to modify the date to the present date.
If you’re utilizing a template, then the vast majority of the time it will be designed based. While some might encounter you a template that you fill in, Jason does not delight in that. You will see that a few of the templates are completely free to use and many others expect a premium accounts. In calendar template for word, WinCalendar you are able to pick a template out of a particular month and after that choose the whole year so every page indicates another month. Many calendar templates possess background pictures of top quality that are best for any printer. There are calendar templates in Microsoft word that are blank for the United States of america.
Be certain that your record is verifiable. The next paragraph is, definitely, the most essential part of the letter. When you hunt for fake notes on the world wide web, you’re come across many free excuse notes for you to choose from. When it’s to do with having a fake dentist notice, it will become required to have a look in its authenticity. Should you buy your fake dental professional note from a trustworthy site, you are likely to be furnished with a template along with using a completely free verification benefit.
Cover letters concentrate on the future, and also how you can enable the business in completing their goals. Now you’ve got some suggestions to your articles, define sections obviously by employing whitespace strategicallykeeping the page blank can be equally as effective a method of producing order as using formatting and size. Choosing the best way to handle your correspondence can be hard, particularly if you’re not quite certain who will be studying it. You do not need to find a means to always appear flawless. Becoming in a position to modify the monitoring helps match more letters at a little space or spread out letters if they’re too tight. Simply take the opportunity to write an appropriate cover letter and you are likely to improve your probability of employment.
To make your fake excuse persuasive, it is vital for you to be sure the letter or note you present to your boss appears real. Consequently, if you’re planning to use a health excuse, do not forget to organize a doctor’s letter. You just need to select a fantastic medical excuse, download a customizable template and you’re ready to go!
For the set organization to state it had an arrangement on you, it must demonstrate the manner that it was likely to do great for you. It is accurate, you signed an agreement by way of your credit card company, but you didn’t sign one with the companies that purchased your debt out of the credit card company. Doing this generates a contract which may be binding. In case you haven’t signed a contract with the group business, you owe them nothing.
The students will be provided a rubric with the particular demands of this project and what the use of the project will be. Necessary Resources The literary work he chooses to create a collage will ascertain how much time is necessary to fully complete the project. Each student must choose one reading which we’ve done so much or will read in the future, and no 2 pupils may pick the same job. A worker doesn’t have to sit down and talk with them.
Shop partners profit from a connection they’d normally not get. A collection company can’t collect any amount of money that is not allowed by legislation or by arrangement. Additional it would be asked to show the terms of that agreement in court. It’s unreasonable for the standard shop proprietors to produce designs, while preserving and promoting their own shops independently.
You’re not permitted to use someone else’s pictures on eBay, two. It is a whole lot easier to have each photo printed the specific same quantity of times. Even pared-down newsletter postcards are known to achieve impressive outcomes. Therefore, unless it’s something similar to a fine-art print that you don’t want to be altered at all, you can leave a region of your layout blank the customer can add any text they like to before buying the item. Signs designed from free templates are a fantastic way to publicize your small business, announce sales, events, or exhibit the fantastic work you’ve done on a job website. Free postcard templates are an excellent tool for small business proprietors to market and promote their company with a minimum strain on the business budget. Just devote a few minutes to find out, and you’ll be all set to make the tags.
When you’re prepared with all the materials for your presentation you are able to ask your manager to make sure your presentation meets the audiencea requirements and adheres to each of the guidelines. Knowing the printeras procedure will guarantee a strong relationship with high quality printed material. After the procedure is completed, the fax machine will publish a confirmation file, based on the settings. Another easy technique with documents like letters is that the mail merge option and it’s utilized in conditions where you’ve got a letter that should be delivered to plenty of customers.
Technology and also the usage of the net has changed how my company is marketed. For being a tiny company the software has lots of positive testimonials. The program has lots of templates to choose from and they allow you to test it before you have got to get it. In order to mail merge, you’ll want to make the principal document that has all of the information including text, images and other details which are the exact same for many clients. You’ve also requested they create each of the receipts for each and every transaction that you participated in during the complete lifetime of the usage of that credit rating card.
Set the files in the ideal tray in the ideal place and dial the number you want to send the fax to. My calls are always dropped, my voicemail doesn’t get the job done, and my calls are broken and filled with static. There are a whole lot of simple to employ solutions which may help resolve the issue and in the vast majority of cases the fix will probably be super quick and more importantly free. Whenever you are logged on, it’s likely to request that you fill out each of the mandatory information you normally put in if applying for work. A quick Google search will reveal to you a lot more options also.
The only requirement is the time that it requires to write an e-mail, complete a web form, or compose a letter. Check out that to see whether it’s a viable alternative for you. For this, you might have a brick-and-mortar and digital setup. The answering machine is not likely to pick up if we’re employing the telephone. In order to send files via facsimile, one wants to learn how to run a fax machine.
A cloud invoicing solution makes it possible for you to save everything. Invoicing will be able to enable you to monitor the transaction of the consumers. On-line invoicing gives you the ability to choose the payment that’s quickly and provides the cheapest transaction rates. On-line invoicing is about the cloud which provides you the capability to take care of customer info and billing from 1 application.
Our website features invoice template free download centre and you may select the invoice format in accordance with your preference on word or excel. By way of example, e-commerce websites wish to drop in accord with PCI criteria if they want to accept payments online. All you need to do is log in to your account, select the client which you would like to bill. Expense reports are beneficial in keeping an eye on your organization. A expense report provides you useful a way for a provider. Thus, you’re need two copies of the blank invoice each time you fill out one in the region. Thus, you may choose the print out of it and utilize it as you would love.
In case you need an invoice quickly, you will realize our templates are able to represent your company even without extensive customization. Fundamentally an invoice includes some info linked to the professional services provided by your company. You may send a PDF invoice to a client in only minutes when it’s delivered via the net.
Invoices are utilized by associations together with people to maintain a record of trades made in company along with in personal life. Overall the bill needs to be made in such a manner that even after placing all the particulars of this transaction, it seems sophisticated. An invoice is created with the guidance of a sample statement form that can help you to decide on the previous look of the bill. In fact, writing invoices is a very enjoyable activity. You will find plenty of invoice generating software on the net that may automatically create your invoice slide. To make a statement in your you just need to download a basic template form the internet.
As well as managing your spending, it’s also a good idea to keep track of your spending in regard to your financial plan to see where you can cut down. Saving money by creating your own is a sound idea due to the financial climate and also the simple actuality that designing a receipt is actually not something you ought to put lots of creative energy into. Additionally, there are the expenses associated with ink, paper, and postage. Finding an efficient strategy to create invoices, together with keeping track financial information, you can accomplish this increase. There are a great number of templates to pay for the scenarios where you’ll require a receipt. Utilizing the internet you are going to be able to encounter uncountable number of sites which provide absolutely free invoice templates and that also of an extremely very good quality.
The probable advantages of employing the invoice system in your organization enterprise company are mentioned below. The benefit of using such templates is that one may make any range of modifications according to your requirements. As a result, the advantages of using a web-based invoicing software becomes crucial to scaling your charging units.
Look to the choices to obtain what you are searching for. If you would like more template choices, visit and examine their alternatives. The option between electronic and printed invoices is only 1 choice you can supply.
Suggested Tool There’s a fairly cool plugin called InfiniteWP Client. Providentially, the templates in our following segment will help alleviate a variety of the fiscal stress which includes such a major buy. PDF-formatted invoice templates are ideal for grab-and-go surgeries. A blank statement template is just a template in which full information about a product could be filled to transform it in a statement. Much like other traditional invoices an online invoice templates have a header part and a diagram in its entire body. It’s possible to get the on-line invoice templates at a really nominal cost from reputed websites.
So as to generate the maximum of them, however, you will need documentation to be certain that youand your teampreserve it. The very best thing of the procedure is that you might customize it on your way. The process for generating bill form is quite straightforward and needs less ability.
You are going to be able to upsell new products or services. The very first thing which should be altered to entice customers is the charging system. To find a current invoice, utilize the Business Customer Find Invoice menu, however before you’ll edit a submitted invoice, you’ll need to Unpost it. Should you run or own a company and indulge in regular financial transaction for the sale of any goods and services that you supply, it is necessary and beneficial to get an invoice form for the role of billing and record keeping. Scaling your company might seem hopeless, but one of the very first areas to start is with your billing. Thus you are able to draw more clients to your firm. An email service provider used by GoDaddy should know how to forward mails to SES.
Cover letters are a valuable section of the resume writing process. Compose a letter to someone else within an equally enticing positionyou know they’re out there, which there are tons of people that are prepared to speak to you! When it has no verticals like a capital A or V, the initial diagonal stroke is considered the stem. A physician’s letter from a physician or a hospital gives you the explanation that you would like to bypass work. A physician’s excuse letter is utilized by a number of people nowadays to find some time off. Letters of excuse are similarly employed by people who have been picked, however, can not pay a visit to the prosecution obligation. There are a variety of sorts of excuse letters available online.
Cover letters are a significant portion of the application process, and an excellent means to make certain your resume talks for you as well as your skills. Along with that, your cover letter may even make it in the hands of the person you addressed it ! Implementing a generic cover letter may force you to appear to be a standard candidate. Clearly, a record of nonappearance ought to be determined by true ailments. For a more habitual company, a typical three-paragraph letter will do.
Sometimes letters should be corrected to fit in a particular space. Actually, the cover letter is a great chance for you to envision what the company most wants to hear depending on the job advertisement and your own company research, and after that determine what would work best to aid you in getting this job. It is fine to compose a cover letter differently than the standard style, but it’s only encouraged to select people that understand cover letters thoroughly and have an excellent reason for breaking tradition. Drafting a cover letter can be one of the most stress inducing aspects of this search. You need to write a new cover letter for each and every job that you apply for, however should you do decide to utilize a cover letter for a number of jobs, be sure that you be sure to modify the date to the current date.
If you are using a template, then the vast majority of the time that it will be designed based. While others might encounter you a template that you fill , Jason doesn’t delight in that. You will observe that a few of those templates are completely free to use and others anticipate a premium accounts. In calendar template for phrase, WinCalendar you are able to pick out a template of a particular month and after that choose the entire year so every page indicates a different month. The template was made with all US holidays and observances. Many calendar templates have background images of high quality that are best for any printer.
Be certain that your record is verifiable. The next paragraph is, undoubtedly, the most essential part of the letter. When you search for fake notes on the world wide web, you’re encounter many free excuse notes for you to choose from. When it’s to do with having a fake dentist note, it will become required to have a look in its authenticity. Should you buy your fake dental specialist note from a trusted website, you are going to be furnished with a template along with using a completely free confirmation benefit.
Cover letters focus on the long run, and the way you’re able to help the company in completing their objectives. Now you have some tips to your content, define sections clearly by employing whitespace strategicallykeeping the webpage blank can be equally as effective a way of generating order as utilizing formatting and size. Choosing the best way to handle your correspondence can be challenging, especially if you’re not really sure who’ll be reading it. You don’t have to locate a way to always appear perfect. Getting in a position to modify the monitoring helps fit more letters in a little space or distribute letters if they’re too tight. Simply take the opportunity to write an appropriate cover letter and you are going to enhance your likelihood of employment.
To make your fake excuse convincing, it is necessary that you be sure the letter or notice you present to your boss appears real. Consequently, if you’re intending to use a wellness excuse, do not forget to organize a physician’s letter. You just need to decide on a great medical explanation, download a customizable template and you are ready to go! | 2019-04-19T00:40:38Z | http://elyseerepublique.com/13-bewerbung-lagerarbeiter/ |
This mobile and computer application, AppClose ("App") is the property of AppClose, Inc. (the "Company" or "AppClose"). By downloading and using this App, any of its features, functionality, or Company's software, you must agree to these Terms of Service. If you do not wish to be bound by these Terms of Service, do not download Company's App. These Terms of Service incorporate by reference any additional terms and conditions posted by Company through the App, or otherwise made available to you by Company.
The Company provides access to its App and any related services subject to your compliance with the following Terms of Service. These Terms of Service constitute an agreement between you and the Company ("Agreement") that governs the relationship between you and the Company with respect to your use of this App provided by Company or downloaded from any source. It is important that you read these Terms of Service carefully and understand them.
BY USING THE APP, YOU AFFIRM THAT YOU ARE OF LEGAL AGE TO ENTER INTO THIS AGREEMENT.
THIS AGREEMENT CONTAINS A MANDATORY ARBITRATION PROVISION THAT REQUIRES THE USE OF ARBITRATION ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS TO RESOLVE DISPUTES, RATHER THAN JURY TRIALS OR ANY OTHER COURT PROCEEDINGS, OR CLASS ACTIONS OF ANY KIND. SEE SECTION 19 BELOW.
The App has various features and functionality that may include the ability to send SMS text messages and photographs, to share calendar events, financial information, personal information, and your child’s or children’s information with people known to you through the App’s functionality. The Company may change, suspend, or discontinue your use of the App for any reason, at any time, including the availability or unavailability of any feature or functionality. The Company may also impose limits on certain features and services or restrict your access to parts, or all, of the App without notice or liability.
Even if you delete or edit information on your mobile device, all information generated through the App will be retained during the length of time you have an active account, including but not limited to, posted messages, photos, requests, calendar entries, financial entries, whether received or sent within each six month period ("Account Activity") and for a period of time after termination of your account, as determined by the Company (“Retention Term”). If there is no Account Activity for six months or longer, you agree that Company has no obligation to contact you or advise you that your account has terminated or is scheduled to be terminated due to inactivity, and that in such event AppClose, without liability, has the right to terminate your account and permanently delete all records and data associated with your account. For the Retention Term, you unconditionally and irrevocably grant Company the authorization to retain any data or records created by you, including but not limited to, text messages, financial transactions, photos, calendar events, and all information created by you.
Because AppClose archives all information generated by users (you and others), any information related to your account may be retrieved by you or your child’s (or children’s) other parent or legal guardian (or in some cases by another court appointed professional, such as a guardian ad litem), provided the person requesting the information has an active account at the time of the request or the account is within the Retention Term.
Like any company, AppClose is required by law to respond to subpoenas, which means any information generated within your account, including but not limited to, text messages, calendar events, and financial transactions will be disclosed in accordance with a court order. You agree to hold harmless, AppClose, for any information related to your account that AppClose shares pursuant to any subpoena or court order ("Compelled Disclosure"). Some investigations conducted by government agencies (for example a law enforcement agency), may require that the Company not inform you that such Compelled Disclosure is in process and you agree to hold AppClose harmless for complying with such order.
All App material, including, but not limited to, text, data, graphics, logos, button icons, images, audio and video content, Company links, digital downloads, data compilations, and software (collectively "App Material") is owned by, controlled by, licensed to, or used with permission by the Company and is protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property rights. The App material is made available solely for your personal or commercial use and, except for being used within the App, may not be copied, reproduced, republished, modified, uploaded, posted, transmitted, or distributed in any way, including by e-mail or other electronic means, without the express prior written consent of the Company in each instance.
Company grants you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable right and license to download, install, and use the App and its underlying software rightfully obtained by you hereunder for personal or commercial use and for access to and use of the App’s functionality. Such license is subject to these Terms of Service, and specifically conditioned upon the following: (i) you may not copy, distribute, share, modify, or otherwise make derivative uses of the App or its software or any portion thereof; (ii) you may not remove or modify any copyright, trademark, or other proprietary notices that have been placed in the App; (iii) you may not use any data mining, robots, or similar data gathering or extraction methods; and (iv) you may not use the App other than for its intended purpose. Except as may be granted in writing by Company to you, no App Material may be, without limitation, reproduced or stored in, or transmitted to, any other electronic storage device not expressly authorized by Company and no App Material appearing in the App may be disseminated in any form, either electronic or non-electronic, nor included in any retrieval system or service without the prior written permission of Company. Except as expressly permitted in this Agreement, any use of any portion of the App Material without the prior written permission of the Company is prohibited and will terminate the license granted herein. Nothing in these Terms of Service may be construed as conferring any intellectual property rights to you.
The App may make available listings, descriptions, and images of goods or services, as well as references and links, to third party products or services ("Products"). Such Products may be made available for any purpose, including general information purposes. The availability through the App of any listing, description, or image of a Product does not imply our endorsement of such Product or affiliation with the provider of such Product. We make no representations as to the completeness, accuracy, reliability, validity or timeliness of such listings, descriptions or images (including any features, specifications and prices contained therein). Such information and the availability of any Product is subject to change at any time without notice. It is your responsibility to ascertain and obey all applicable local, state, federal and foreign laws (including minimum age requirements) regarding the possession, use and sale of any Product. We encourage users to sign up for ipayou, our payment platform that allows users to move money to the other parent's bank account. We have an agreement with Dwolla, Inc. ("Dwolla") to use the Dwolla payment platform to power ipayou, and to comply with applicable Dwolla requirements and rules. We do not endorse or assume any responsibility for any other Products.
Any fees associated with a transfer through the App will be disclosed concurrent with any transfer, and the user to whom the fee will be charged (the sender) will have an opportunity to either consent to the fee or not to make the transfer.
Transfers through the App are processed from the sender's linked account through the Dwolla network to the recipient's linked account. The time to complete a transfer will vary depending on the circumstances. Information about the time lapse between the sender’s initiation of a transfer, and the actual receipt of the transfer by the recipient, can be found at support.appclose.com.
Any disputes that you may have related to any payment transfers through the Dwolla network must be addressed to Company and not to Dwolla. See Section 19 for the dispute resolution process between you and Company.
We may send you communications via text messaging and/or email to keep you updated on App developments or your registration status. Your use of the content received through these email services will be subject to these Terms of Service. You can unsubscribe to our email service by notifying us or opting out, however, we may still send you email regarding non-marketing related issues such as your Registered Account or your use of the App.
Company alone will maintain and support the App as it sees fit and Apple, Inc. has no obligation whatsoever to furnish any maintenance or support services with respect to the App. Please send all inquiries to [email protected].
The App may provide links to, or information about, legal counsel. The App also facilitates various payments. The App does not constitute or provide any financial, legal, accounting, or other advice, nor does it endorse any legal or other professional.
YOU AGREE THAT YOUR USE OF THE APP, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY ARRANGEMENTS MADE BETWEEN YOU AND ANY OTHER USER OF THE APP OR THROUGH ANY CONTENT OR USER CONTENT IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK AND YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT THE APP AND ANYTHING CONTAINED THEREIN, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, CONTENT, USER CONTENT, SOFTWARE, SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS, THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE, ATTORNEY PROFILES AND CONTACT INFORMATION (THE "ITEMS") ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THAT COMPANY MAKES NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS TO THE ITEMS, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, MERCHANTABILITY, OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR USE.
ALL DISCLAIMERS OF ANY KIND (INCLUDING IN THIS SECTION AND ELSEWHERE IN THIS AGREEMENT) ARE MADE FOR THE BENEFIT OF BOTH COMPANY AND ITS AFFILIATES AND THEIR RESPECTIVE STOCKHOLDERS, DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, AFFILIATES, AGENTS, REPRESENTATIVES, LICENSORS, SUPPLIERS, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS (COLLECTIVELY, THE "AFFILIATED ENTITIES"), AND THEIR RESPECTIVE SUCCESSORS AND ASSIGNS.
While we try to maintain the timeliness, integrity, and security of the App, we do not guarantee that the App is or will remain updated, complete, correct or secure, or that access to the App will be uninterrupted. The App may include inaccuracies, errors, and materials that violate or conflict with this Agreement. Additionally, third parties may make unauthorized alterations to the App. If you become aware of any such alteration, contact us at [email protected] with a description of such alteration and its location on the App.
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW: (A) COMPANY WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES OF ANY KIND, UNDER ANY CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), STRICT LIABILITY OR OTHER THEORY, INCLUDING DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, USE OR DATA, LOSS OF OTHER INTANGIBLES, LOSS OF SECURITY OF SUBMISSIONS (INCLUDING UNAUTHORIZED INTERCEPTION BY THIRD PARTIES OF ANY SUBMISSIONS), EVEN IF ADVISED IN ADVANCE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES OR LOSSES; (B) WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, COMPANY WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES OF ANY KIND RESULTING FROM YOUR USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE APP OR FROM ANY PRODUCTS OR THIRD PARTY MATERIALS, INCLUDING FROM ANY VIRUS THAT MAY BE TRANSMITTED IN CONNECTION THEREWITH; (C) YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDY FOR DISSATISFACTION WITH THE APP OR ANY PRODUCTS OR THIRD PARTY MATERIALS IS TO STOP USING THE APP; AND (D) THE MAXIMUM AGGREGATE LIABILITY OF COMPANY FOR ALL DAMAGES, LOSSES AND CAUSES OF ACTION, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE) OR OTHERWISE, SHALL BE THE GREATER OF (A) $10.00; OR (B) THE TOTAL AMOUNT YOU PAID TO COMPANY DURING THE PAST YEAR, IF ANY. THE EXISTENCE OF ONE OR MORE CLAIMS WILL NOT ENLARGE THIS LIMIT.
ALL LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY OF ANY KIND (INCLUDING IN THIS SECTION AND ELSEWHERE IN THIS AGREEMENT) ARE MADE FOR THE BENEFIT OF BOTH COMPANY AND THE AFFILIATED ENTITIES, AND THEIR RESPECTIVE SUCCESSORS AND ASSIGNS.
You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless, Company and the Affiliated Entities from and against any claims, actions, demands, expenses, liabilities, costs, debts, and damages (including legal and professional fees) asserted by any third party arising from your use or attempted use of the App (including all User Content), any third party’s unauthorized access to the App via your Registered Account, or your actual or alleged violation of any law, including without limitation, laws governing intellectual property or privacy rights, or your violation of the terms and conditions of this Agreement.
15.1.13. impersonates any person or entity, including any employee or representative of Company or Company’s services.
15.2. Company reserves the right to delete your User Content, or any portion thereof, or revoke your access to the App or its functionality for any violation of these Terms of Service. We will usually only do so if we become aware of something you post that is, in our good-faith opinion, related to any violation of the above restrictions specified in this Section 14 or Terms of Service, however, Company has no obligation to monitor or remove User Content.
15.3. Collection of information about the users of this App through any means whatsoever or using such information for the purpose of soliciting business of any kind or transmitting or facilitating transmission of unsolicited bulk electronic communications is strictly prohibited.
15.4. Other than as specified hereunder, Company does not accept any ideas, text, or content considered to be proprietary. Consequently, you expressly agree that, except for User Content, any material you submit to the Company in any format whatsoever, will be deemed an unrestricted, irrevocable, and perpetual grant of a payment-free and royalty-free, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, display, transmit, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from and distribute these materials throughout the universe in any medium and through any methods of distribution, transmission, and display whether now known or hereafter devised, or refrain therefrom in Company’s sole discretion. Additionally, you represent and warrant that you hereby irrevocably waive any moral rights in regard to any material or User Content you submit to the App and you also agree that Company is free to use, for any purpose, any ideas, concepts, know-how, or techniques that you send it, whether intended for Company or not, without obligation to you of any kind whatsoever.
15.5. Using the App generally involves accessing user-posted messages and content, however, Company does not review every posting, nor does Company confirm the accuracy or validity of any User Content posted. Company may, but does not have the obligation to actively monitor the contents of the postings generated by any user or third party, nor is Company responsible for any content not directly created or generated by Company. We do not endorse, nor do we warrant the validity, accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content or User Content displayed or posted. User Content does not represent the views of the Company, its subsidiaries, or any person or property associated with the Company or the App. If you feel that any posting is objectionable, we encourage you to contact us by email at [email protected]. We will make every effort to remove objectionable content if we deem removal to be warranted, however we do not have an obligation to do so. Removal or editing of any Content is a manual process and might not occur immediately or at all. Except as otherwise written in this Agreement, Company reserves the right to remove, or not remove, any content, including without limitation, User Content, for any (or no) reason whatsoever. You remain solely responsible for your User Content, and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless, Company and its agents, with respect to any claim based upon the transmission or attempted transmission or display of such. Company reserves the right to suspend or ban users posting what the Company deems inappropriate content at any time without notice, however, Company is not responsible for any failure or delay in removing or editing such content.
If in the future, Company may elect to create a paid version of the App or offer specific features that must be activated by your payment or subscription, as the case may be. In such event, you agree that Company may reasonably contact you with a reminder that your subscription will soon be coming due. Due to Company’s cost of data storage allocation, account setup, and administration, you agree that all fees paid in advance are non-returnable and will not be refunded or pro-rated for refund, unless your account is terminated by Company. If you cancel service or do not renew a subscription, you will still be able to access your account and/or features for the subscription time remaining on your paid account.
We may change this Agreement from time to time by notifying you of such changes by any reasonable means, including by posting a revised Agreement on the App or on Company's website located at www.appclose.com ("Website"). Any such changes will not apply to any dispute between you and us arising prior to the date on which we posted the revised Agreement incorporating such changes, or otherwise notified you of such changes.
Your use of the App following any changes to this Agreement will constitute your acceptance of such changes. The “Last Updated” legend above indicates when this Agreement was last changed. We may, at any time and without liability, modify or discontinue all or part of the App (including access to the App via any third-party links); charge, modify or waive any fees required to use the App; or offer opportunities to some or all App users.
(a) GOVERNING LAW. THESE TERMS OF SERIVCE AND THE INTERPRETATION OF THESE TERMS OF SERVICE WILL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE STATE OF TEXAS, WITHOUT REGARD TO ITS CONFLICTS OF LAWS PRINCIPLES AND SPECIFICALLY WILL NOT BE GOVERNED BY THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTIONS ON CONTRACTS FOR THE INTERNATIONAL SALE OF GOODS, IF OTHERWISE APPLICABLE.
(b) ARBITRATION OF DISPUTES. YOU UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT EXCEPT FOR DISPUTES THAT QUALIFY FOR SMALL CLAIMS COURT, ALL CLAIMS, DISAGREEMENTS, DISPUTES OR CONTROVERSIES BETWEEN YOU AND THE COMPANY, AND ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, MEMBERS, EMPLOYEES, REPRESENTATIVES, AGENTS, PARENTS, AFFILIATES, SUBSIDIARIES AND/OR RELATED COMPANIES ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE APP, THE USE OR ACCESS THEREOF, OR THESE TERMS OF SERVICE SHALL BE RESOLVED BY FINAL AND BINDING ARBITRATION, WHICH MUST BE COMMENCED WITHIN ONE (1) YEAR AFTER SUCH CLAIM OR CAUSE OF ACTION ARISES. BECAUSE THE APP PROVIDED TO YOU BY US CONCERNS INTERSTATE COMMERCE, THE FEDERAL ARBITRATION ACT ("FAA") GOVERNS THE ARBITRABILITY OF ALL DISPUTES. HOWEVER, APPLICABLE FEDERAL OR STATE LAW MAY ALSO APPLY TO THE SUBSTANCE OF ANY DISPUTES. NOTWITHSTANDING THE FOREGOING, EACH PARTY RETAINS THE RIGHT TO SEEK INJUNCTIVE OR OTHER EQUITABLE RELIEF IN A COURT OF COMPETENT JURISDICTION TO PREVENT THE ACTUAL OR THREATENED INFRINGEMENT, MISAPPROPRIATION OR VIOLATION OF A PARTY'S COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS, TRADE SECRETS, PATENTS OR OTHER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS.
(c) ARBITRATION RULES. The arbitration will be administered by the American Arbitration Association ("AAA") in accordance with the Commercial Arbitration Rules and the Supplementary Procedures for Consumer Related Disputes (the "AAA Rules") then in effect, except as modified by this "Dispute Resolution" section. (The AAA Rules are available at www.adr.org/arb_med or by calling the AAA at 1-800-778-7879.) The Federal Arbitration Act will govern the interpretation and enforcement of this Section.
(d) ARBITRATION PROCESS. A party who desires to initiate arbitration must provide the other party with a written Demand for Arbitration as specified in the AAA Rules. (The AAA provides a form for consumer Demand for Arbitration at www.adr.org). The arbitrator will be either a retired judge or an attorney licensed to practice law in the state of Texas and will be selected by the parties from the AAA's roster of consumer dispute arbitrators. If the parties are unable to agree upon an arbitrator within seven (7) days of delivery of the Demand for Arbitration, then the AAA will appoint the arbitrator in accordance with the AAA Rules.
(e) ARBITRATION LOCATION AND PROCEDURE. The arbitrator will conduct hearings, if any, by teleconference or videoconference, rather than by personal appearances, unless the arbitrator determines upon request by you or by us that an in-person hearing is appropriate. Any in-person appearances will be held at a location that is reasonably convenient to both parties with due consideration of their ability to travel and other pertinent circumstances. If the parties are unable to agree on a location, such determination should be made by the AAA or by the arbitrator. Unless you and the Company otherwise agree, the arbitration will be conducted in the county where you reside. If your claim does not exceed $10,000, then the arbitration will be conducted solely on the basis of documents you and the Company submit to the arbitrator, unless you request a hearing or the arbitrator determines that a hearing is necessary. If your claim exceeds $10,000, your right to a hearing will be determined by the AAA Rules. Subject to the AAA Rules, the arbitrator will have the discretion to direct a reasonable exchange of information by the parties, consistent with the expedited nature of the arbitration.
(f) ARBITRATOR'S DECISION. The arbitrator will render an award within the time frame specified in the AAA Rules. The arbitrator's decision will include the essential findings and conclusions upon which the arbitrator based the award. Judgment on the arbitration award may be entered in any court having jurisdiction thereof. The arbitrator's award damages must be consistent with the terms of the "Limitation of Liability" section above as to the types and the amounts of damages for which a party may be held liable. The arbitrator may award declaratory or injunctive relief only in favor of the claimant and only to the extent necessary to provide relief warranted by the claimant's individual claim. If you prevail in arbitration you will be entitled to an award of attorneys' fees and expenses, to the extent provided under applicable law.
(g) FEES. Your responsibility to pay any AAA filing, administrative and arbitrator fees will be solely as set forth in the AAA Rules.
(h) CHANGES. Notwithstanding the provisions of the modification-related provisions above, if we change this "Dispute Resolution" section after the date you first accepted these Terms of Service (or accepted any subsequent changes to these Terms of Service), you may reject any such change by providing us written notice of such rejection by mail or hand delivery to: AppClose, Inc., Attn: Dispute Resolutions, 600 Congress Avenue, 14th Floor, Austin, Texas 78701 or by email from the email address associated with your Account to: [email protected], within 30 days of the date such change became effective, as indicated in the "Last update" date above. In order to be effective, the notice must include your full name and clearly indicate your intent to reject changes to this "Dispute Resolution" section. By rejecting changes, you are agreeing that you will arbitrate any Dispute between you and the Company in accordance with the provisions of this "Dispute Resolution" section as of the date you first accepted these Terms of Service (or accepted any subsequent changes to these Terms of Service).
(i) NO CLASS ACTIONS. NEITHER YOU NOR WE SHALL BE ENTITLED TO JOIN OR CONSOLIDATE CLAIMS IN ARBITRATION BY OR AGAINST OTHER USERS/CONSUMERS OR ARBITRATE ANY CLAIM AS A REPRESENTATIVE OR MEMBER OF A CLASS OR IN A PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL CAPACITY.
You may not assign, sub-license, or otherwise transfer any of your rights under this Agreement. Except as provided hereunder, there are no third party beneficiaries to this Agreement. If any provision of this Agreement is found to be invalid by a court having competent jurisdiction, the invalidity of that provision will not affect the validity of the remaining provisions of this Agreement, which shall remain in full force and effect. Failure by Company to exercise any right or remedy under this Agreement does not constitute a waiver of that right or remedy. Headings in this Agreement are for convenience only and will have no legal meaning or effect. Apple, Inc. ("Apple") and its subsidiaries are third party beneficiaries of this license agreement and upon your acceptance of the Terms of Service hereof, Apple will have the right (and be deemed to have accepted the right) as a third party beneficiary thereof, to enforce this Agreement against you. You represent and warrant that you are not located in a country that is subject to a US Government embargo or that has been designated by the US government as a “terrorist supporting country” and that you are not listed on any US government list of prohibited or restricted parties. Company, not Apple, will be responsible for the investigation, defense, settlement, and discharge of any intellectual property infringement claim.
Company reserves all rights hereunder. These Terms of Service constitute the entire Agreement between you and Company with respect to the subject matter hereof and exclude any representations or warranties previously given or made.
If you agree to abide by this Terms of Service, click I AGREE. If you decline you will be unable to access the App. | 2019-04-24T18:10:02Z | https://appclose.com/terms.html |
There has been positive progress by Cambridgeshire County Council to extend the existing 30mph speed limit on Station Road to south of Westfield (towards the Park-and-Ride), including the placement of adequate signage. This work is currently expected to commence on 8th April and should be in place by the time you read this.
The loss of the set-aside field behind the recreation ground has been a loss to the village, in particular the dog walking fraternity who are keen for the identification of an alternative solution. At the time of writing options are still being investigated and remain a challenge, but at least this issue is eased with access to footpaths in the countryside, including the footpath towards Over that is approached through, what was, the set-aside field.
The Parish Council has supported a grant application for the Willingham Youth Trust to provide a pop-up café at the Youth Centre, which is intended to be a benefit to all of our community. The opening times are expected to initially be over a number of weekends, with the possibility of extending this if the café became viable. It is understood that, apart from the normal tea, coffee and soft drinks, there would be a tuck shop serving healthy snacks and sweet treats to start with (which may include locally baked cakes).
The Youth Trust are advertising for volunteers to assist with the café on the Willingham Facebook page. This sounds like an exciting venture and hopefully parishioners will support this novel idea.
The Council undertook the identification of a suitable company who had the capability of repairing and refurbishing the Parish clock at St Mary and All Saints Church. Work started in April and hopefully by now you are hearing its chimes once again.
The Annual Parish meeting is scheduled to be held at the Octagon, St Mary’s and All Saints Church, at 7:30pm on Wednesday 15th May.
Traffic! Whether stationary or moving, it is one of the most discussed issues affecting Willingham.
Stationary – Following issues regarding parking around the Primary School in Thodays Close, new yellow lines have been marked out restricting parking to improve safety for both pedestrians and drivers. This has caused problems further afield where people are now parking, especially at the junction of Long Lane, Silver Street and the doctor’s surgery. This is also making it difficult for residents to enter & leave their properties. Of course this doesn’t affect those who see the bright yellow lines as their personal parking spaces and use them instead of walking too far. They do this elsewhere in the village, so why not here?
Speeding – We have 2 interactive speed signs (SID) supplied by Mick George Ltd. These have been on Earith Road and now one relocated to Over Road. This is very effective in alerting those who inadvertently find themselves over the limit. In conjunction with this, Community Roadwatch are conducting speed and vehicle checks, counting lorries in particular and informing companies if their marked vehicles are travelling over the limits. Unfortunately this doesn’t help with speeding in Church Street, Long Lane, etc., but those doing it will ignore conventional limits anyway.
30mph limit on Station Road – after a very protracted period of discussion and lobbying with County Council Highways we have been notified that the works order has finally been placed with the contractor and we are now awaiting a start date for the work to commence. This will extend the 30mph limit almost to Stanton Mereway. The SIDs will help to reinforce this as well.
HCVs – The issue of Heavy Commercial Vehicles coming through the village has caused distress to many. HCVs travelling to Northstowe and the A14 upgrade are not supposed to come through the village but use other routes. The council have lobbied strongly to get this checked and the operators prosecuted. A further issue is the proposed gravel extraction at Willow Hall Farm in Haddenham by Dennis (Haddenham) Ltd which anticipated 90-150 HCV movements per day for 8 years. Originally this was planned to only travel through Earith, but following their objections, they have suggested the B1050 through Willingham was a perfectly viable alternative, especially if the destination was Cambridge! We have protested strongly to Cambridgeshire CC (the planning authority) about this.
Parish Clock – The Clock stopped working before Christmas and upon investigation to came it to light that a full overhaul was needed. Work has been scheduled to start at the beginning of April.
East/West Rail Link from Oxford to Cambridge.
Councillor Bridget Smith, leader of South Cambridge District Council attended the February Council meeting and spoke about the ongoing focus of SCDC.
Amongst these Councillor Smith highlighted the east/west rail link between Oxford and Cambridge as being transformational for South Cambridgeshire.
This development could bring improved transport, opportunities for business and housing development.
Last autumn SCDC wrote to the Government, asking them to give full and thorough consideration to the environment when selecting the route .Councillors are urging people to make sure that they have their say during the consultation period recognising the information published raises a lot of questions which they will be asking the promotors on behalf of local communities.
Willingham Action Group have applied for a grant which will enable them to purchase a number of Bird Boxes.
These will be placed around the village in order to help reduce the decline in native bird numbers.
More information will follow when the boxes arrive.
Our Parish Clock has not worked since October 2018. The Parish Council was able to identify only one clock company – Smiths of Derby – prepared to advise on and complete the work required to get the clock working again. Smiths advise that the clock’s equipment requires a major overhaul. It also suggests restoration work on the dial is carried out at the same time. The Parish Council understands that this complex level of maintenance and renovation has not been carried out since the clock was provided in 1887 at a cost of £125.00. It will be discussing these proposals and the budgetary implications during January.
Vehicles parked on streets should not cause a danger or unnecessarily obstruct the road. Parking is not allowed within ten metres of a junction or anywhere where the kerb is lowered. This helps users of powered mobility vehicles, wheelchair and pram users. The Parish Council receives residents’ comments about dangerous or unnecessary car parking close to the junctions of Saxon Way, Covent Garden and Bourneys Manor Close with the High Street. It has been suggested that yellow lining is placed around these junctions to restrict this parking. The Parish Council has investigated this. It has been advised that parking restrictions could be introduced but the police would not undertake routine enforcement. Neighbouring parishes report that recently introduced parking restrictions, without enforcement, are often ignored. The police are encouraging villages to approach the County and District Councils to seek de-criminalisation of these parking offences. Parking offences could then be managed as a civil offence and enforced by traffic wardens. The Parish Council will be discussing how it should respond to this situation in the village. Vehicle users can also play a part by parking with a greater consideration of the needs of other residents and vehicle users.
Shortly before the Christmas holiday the South Cambridgeshire Principal Planning Enforcement Officer and a legal representative attended the High Court to seek resolution of this issue. In the absence of traveller representatives, the Judge declined to reach a final decision. It is anticipated that a further hearing will be held during January with a final judgement made at that time.
We have been asked by Cambridgeshire County Council to remind residents to try to complete any hedge cutting or tree trimming by the end of February – certainly before birds start their nesting activity!
The last time I had the pleasure of writing the comments for the Parish Council was for the July edition, when I closed by wishing you all a wonderful summer. Weather wise, it was, but we did have some other problems, not least with crime.
It was at two levels. There was a stream of low-level criminal damage and anti-social behaviour which caused considerable distress and there was more serious criminal activity in a number of raids on the Co-op and Stop Shop. One of the raids on the Co-op involved the removal of the cash machine, which will not be replaced, and one of the raids on the Stop Shop, during opening hours, threatened staff.
Quite understandably, this crime spree led to widespread concern and some loss in confidence that cuts to the police budget meant a lack of police presence, difficulty in contacting the police and even more difficulty in getting a response.
It took a little time, but to give due credit to the Cambridge Constabulary once the scale of the problem became apparent the response was very positive. There was increased presence, much more rapid response and two public meetings, both very well attended.
At the second of these meetings on Saturday 1st December significant progress was reported. The meeting was attended by the Police and Crime Commissioner and our MP as well as our local police contacts.
We now have a quieter, calmer village. The kind of place in which we all wish to live. Whether or not that can be maintained long term is not certain. Inevitably, as the focus moves away from Willingham to other hot spots, we shall receive less attention. But we have established some very good contacts and made the point that Willingham residents care deeply about their village and the need to keep it safe.
One of the points raised by Sgt Priestly at the meeting was the positive support provided through the village Facebook page. As he pointed out social media can be an excellent tool for disseminating information when used correctly but users do need to be mindful that not all information posted may be correct.
Enough for now, but there will be more on this subject in the New Year when we take up some of the issues raised at our meetings.
The precept for 2019/20 has been set at £123,275 which is a 2.8% increase on last year. I will deal with this in more detail in my annual report in May.
The parish office will be closed from the 21st of December through to the 1st January. If you have an urgent problem please call one of the councillors listed in Willingham News or on the website.
And finally, let me close this time on a similar note to last time by wishing you all a very happy New Year. My next contribution to Willingham News will be for the July 2019 edition by which time I am hopeful that we will have a new and younger Chairman with new ideas.
It has been a pleasure Chairing WPC on several occasions over the last ten years or so but definitely time to hand over to new blood. I do know that WPC works hard to deliver services, help and information in our village and understand that the efforts are not always appreciated. Our very hard worked parish clerk tells me that it is a good day when she gets less than three complaints. So be it, better three complaints than no comment.
4:30pm Introductions by Willingham Parish Council.
4:35pm Presentation from District Councillors.
4:45pm Presentation from County Councillor.
4:55pm Police report on Actions raised at the last community police meeting held on 20th September 2018.
5:05pm Presentation by the Police & Crime Commissioner.
5:15pm Question and answer session with Lucy Frazer MP, the Police & Crime Commissioner, local police officers, District and County Council representatives.
5:55pm Meeting closed by Willingham Parish Council.
This is perhaps a good time to remember that the police need the support of our community to fight crime. Please ring 101 or use the Cambridgeshire Constabulary website (www.cambs.police.uk) to report crime or to provide information on incidents.
Consider using lights on timer switches, leave lights on and/or leave a radio on to make your home look occupied (do not draw all the curtains).
Secure entry and exit points and don’t leave windows or doors unlocked or ajar.
Arrange for friends or neighbours to periodically check your property.
Avoid leaving keys and valuables within view or reach of a window or door.
If you have an alarm, make sure you use it (dummy systems are not recommended).
Consider the security of sheds and outbuildings as these may be attractive to thieves looking for equipment such as chainsaws and lawnmowers. They may also be able to use your hand tools to break into a door or window.
Register your property for free at immobilise.com to catalogue anything with a serial number, or upload photographs of more unique items.
Visit the police website for more detailed advice (www.cambs.police.uk).
The identification of a suitable dog walking field remains ongoing. Some landowners have already been approached regarding the selling or renting of their land (nothing suitable has been identified so far) and the option to use council-leased land on Meadow Road remains a possibility. Unfortunately, there is not going to be a quick resolution to this issue but rest assured that the council is actively looking for a suitable site and should parishioners identify a viable solution, the council will investigate accordingly.
The SCDC are proposing to make changes to bin services by introducing a charge to households who want more than one green bin. The first green bin will remain free but additional green bins will cost £20 each from April 2019 and this will rise to £35 in following years.
Following on from the re-introduction of a Christmas tree last year, the council is pleased to announce that there will be another one placed on the village green again this December. The Willingham Parish Council wishes all parishioners a very Happy Christmas and New Year.
I feel honoured to be accepted as the vice chair of the Parish Council and in particular to be given the opportunity to contribute to this great magazine.
Another role that I have on the Parish Council is that of police liaison. There has recently been a number of cases of antisocial behaviour around the Pavilion area, in particular the setting fire of a tree stump, damage to cricket nets and vandalism to one of the pavilion doors. As a result, we have met with the police and provided them with evidence of these acts; the outcome of the meeting has provided us with confidence that action will be taken to find the perpetrators. I have also placed a request from the police for information in relation to these incidents on the Willingham Village Facebook page and for those who have information but do not have access to this website, please ring 101 or, if you wish to remain anonymous, Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111.
You can be assured that the Parish Council is determined to pursue perpetrators of antisocial behaviour and to recover costs wherever possible, including the recovery of costs from parents of any underaged offenders.
In addition to the antisocial behaviour, the co-operative store experienced a ram raid in July. Consequently, the police were contacted to discuss the overall increase in crime in the village and they have agreed to arrange a community surgery at the Co-Op in Willingham (12 High Street, Willingham, CB24 5ES) on Wednesday the 15th of August 2018 between 17:00-18:30 to allay fears and to provide an increased presence.
There is no doubt that criminal behaviour can give cause for concern and therefore the use of Neighbourhood Watch will be pursued. Clearly there will be work needed to bring this all together and I will work with the police to put in place the correct management processes to ensure we have an effective Neighbourhood Watch system. Meetings will be arranged once I have enough information so please give this some thought in the meantime.
Roads I think we all experienced the negative impact of pot holes on our roads throughout the village. We would like to give you advanced information that the High Street is due for more-permanent repair during August and unfortunately this may cause some disruption during the day (09:30 – 15:30) between the 8th and 17th August. A Road Traffic Order is also being made by Cambridgeshire County Council to extend the existing 30mph speed limit on Station Road to a point 66 metres south of Westfield and should mean we will see this in place very soon. Other Matters South Cambridgeshire District Council is offering existing businesses and start-ups the opportunity to attend FREE drop-in advice sessions and practical workshops at their offices in Cambourne. There are one-to-one sessions with advisors, workshops, advice and support and more detail can be found in the ‘Latest news’ section at https://www.scambs.gov.uk/nwessupport South Cambridgeshire District Council is also offering a number of summer sports camps in Athletics, Netball, Rounders and Kwik Cricket. www.scambs.gov.uk/sportscamps. The cost is £24 per day and camps are open to children aged 7-14. | 2019-04-26T03:53:45Z | http://willinghamparishcouncil.gov.uk/wp-index.php/category/newsletter/ |
In pre-colonial times, longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) forests covered nearly 60 million acres of land in the southeastern United States, from southeast Virginia to central Florida, and west to the Gulf region of Texas. Since European settlement the longleaf pine resource has steadily declined. In 1935, 20 million acres were found throughout the South (a 70% reduction), while in 1994 only 3.3 million acres remained (a 95% reduction; Barnett and Dennignton 1992; Boyer 1990; Haywood and Grelen 2000; Jose, Jokela, and Miller 2006; US Forest Service 1999).
The decline in the longleaf pine resource can be attributed to several factors. First, extensive harvesting, particularly between 1900 and 1930, greatly reduced the area occupied by mature longleaf pine (Brown and Nowak 2013) and, hence, the availability of seed sources. Therefore, natural regeneration was both scarce and unpredictable. Second, a lack of understanding of the biological requirements of this species and seedling predation from feral hogs (Wahlenberg 1946) led to the failure of many regeneration efforts. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, many sites were converted to other commercially valuable species (mainly loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) and slash pine (Pinus elliottii var. elliottii Engelm) or to other land uses such as agriculture (Haywood and Grelen 2000; Wahlenberg 1946).
As a result of this decline, much of the interest today in the restoration of Florida’s native ecosystems has focused on longleaf pine. Of the 17.3 million acres of forested land in Florida, there are 2.1 million confirmed acres of longleaf pine. In other words, approximately 12% of Florida’s forest area already includes a longleaf pine component (FDACS 2017), which can be beneficial for restoration efforts.
Longleaf pine forests today are managed for a variety of desired benefits including aesthetics, habitat diversity, and quality timber production. The longleaf pine forest is one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world, outside of the tropics. The high-quality timber produced in longleaf pine forests generally has a higher stemwood specific gravity than timber from either loblolly pine or slash pine. The timber from mature longleaf pine trees is strong, rot-resistant, and knot-free (Platt and Rathbun 1993; Schmidtling 1986). Longleaf pine may be a suitable alternative to loblolly pine and slash pine on difficult sites, such as excessively well-drained sandhill soils that do not support acceptable growth rates for these other southern pine species. In addition, longleaf pine is generally considered to be less susceptible (not immume) to southern fusiform rust and therefore a desirable species to plant on high rust hazard sites (Schmidtling and White 1989). However, as interest increases in restoring longleaf pine forests, region-wide screening of longleaf pine seed sources for genetic resistance and susceptibility to fusiform rust resistance and other pests has been advocated (Barnard and Mayfield 2009).
Non-industrial private landowners own approximately 817,000 acres (38%) of the longleaf pine forests in Florida (FDACS 2017), so their management strategies have a large impact on the status of the resource. For non-industrial private landowners whose main land management objective is something other than timber production (i.e., aesthetics, recreation, wildlife habitat, soil or watershed protection), alternative silvicultural systems provide an opportunity to create diversity on their property. The objective of this bulletin is to describe an alternative to even-aged management for longleaf pine in Florida. The alternative approach uses a modified group selection system to create an uneven-aged stand structure, which will provide income from periodic timber harvests, while maintaining continuous tree cover. A discussion of traditional and alternative longleaf pine management practices follows, as well as a description of the process of converting an even-aged stand of mature longleaf pine to an uneven-aged stand.
Longleaf pine has traditionally been managed using even-aged silvicultural systems that rely on either natural or artificial regeneration. With this approach, single age class stands are managed over a fixed period of time (rotation) using intermediate cutting techniques (e.g., thinnings) to regulate stand density, control species composition and improve stand vigor and health. Examples of even-aged silvicultural systems used with longleaf pine include the clearcut and shelterwood systems. In the clearcut reproduction system, all mature crop trees are harvested simultaneously at the end of the rotation. The site is then regenerated using either natural or artificial regeneration. The shelterwood reproduction system uses two partial harvests to reduce the basal area of the stand to about 30 ft2/acre (the density which maximizes seed production of longleaf pine). Seed from the remaining mature trees is used to naturally restock the site, assuming a mineral soil seedbed is provided. Once regeneration is established, the parent overstory trees are removed. Both the clearcut and the shelterwood systems have been shown to be effective even-aged systems for regenerating and managing longleaf pine (Croker 1979; Croker and Boyer 1976; Demers and Long 2000).
The even-aged approach to management offers a variety of advantages. For example, even-aged management is easy to apply and intermediate cuttings and other cultural practices (i.e. herbicide application) can be applied uniformly across the entire stand (Barnett and Baker 1991). Even-aged systems produce trees that are fairly uniform in size, which simplifies harvesting operations. There are, however, some disadvantages to even-aged management. The uniform stand offers fewer aesthetic, recreational, and wildlife benefits and may not produce significant income for 15 to 20 years (Barnett and Baker 1991).
On public lands, however, there is an increasing interest in developing uneven-aged (multi-aged) stands of longleaf pine. In Florida, the US Forest Service is converting over 250,000 acres of even-aged longleaf pine and mixed longleaf pine-slash pine stands to an uneven-aged structure, using a modified group selection system. While even-aged management systems create stands with one age class of trees, and a diameter distribution that follows a smooth bell-shaped curve, uneven-aged management systems create stands that contain at least three distinct age classes. The diameter distribution of an uneven-aged stand follows a reverse J-shape (Figure 1).
Comparison of even-aged and uneven-aged diameter distributions (19, 39). DBH is the diameter of the trees at breast height. Age class one contains the oldest trees; age class three contains the youngest trees.
The canopy profile of an even-aged stand is fairly uniform, but the profile of an uneven-aged stand is varied, with trees representing the spectrum from tall canopy dominants to seedlings and saplings (Figure 2).
Stand profiles showing (a) even-aged stand structure and (b) balanced uneven-aged stand structure. The even-aged stand has one age class (i.e. the trees are approximately the same age). The uneven-aged stand, which in this example was developed using the group selection system, has three distinct age classes.
If the stand is a balanced uneven-aged stand, the ground area occupied by each age class is approximately equal.
Uneven-aged stands are created using the selection system. In the selection system, trees representing a range in size are harvested at fixed intervals (called the cutting cycle, which ranges from 10 to 25 years). Regeneration (either natural or artificial) occurs in the harvested openings. This management approach allows periodic harvests, while maintaining a continuous forest cover. Smaller, lower quality trees are also removed to improve the overall quality of the stand.
There are two main variations of the selection system. The first, referred to as the single tree selection system, involves removal of individual trees across the stand, creating small openings in which species can naturally regenerate (Figure 3).
An aerial view provides a stand level comparison of opening size and arrangement after harvest, and the trees removed during harvest using (a) the single-tree selection system and (b) the group selection system.
The second type of selection system is referred to as group selection. In this system, groups of trees are removed in patches (ranging from 0.2 acres to 5 acres in size) throughout the stand (Figure 3), allowing for potential regeneration of the more shade intolerant species such as longleaf pine (provided seedbed requirements are met; Brockway and Outcalt 1998; McGuire, Mitchell, Moser, et al. 2001; Marquis 1978; Matthews 1989). Canopy openings larger than 2 acres may also be referred to as patch clearcuts. However, for the purposes of this paper, they will be referred to as gaps. In both single tree and group selection, canopy openings can be regenerated using either natural or artificial means. These harvested groups mimic canopy gaps created by natural biotic and abiotic events (e.g. insects, windthrow, lightening). Generally, the group selection method has lower logging costs than the single-tree selection management system.
There are numerous advantages to uneven-aged management (using both the single-tree and group selection systems). Stands with a variety of age classes are less likely to suffer catastrophic damage from insect outbreaks, disease, or low intensity fire because, usually, only one age class of trees is susceptible to any one damaging agent. For example, longleaf pine seedlings are susceptible to brown spot needle blight, but saplings and mature trees are not. A brown spot needle blight outbreak in an uneven-aged stand may result in high seedling mortality, but trees in the other age classes will not be damaged. Another advantage of uneven-aged management is that periodic income can be obtained from high-valued products at relatively short intervals over time. Also, due to the continuous presence of large trees (i.e., the entire stand is never totally liquidated), the selection system creates stands with high aesthetic values and diverse wildlife habitat (Barnett and Baker 1991; Farrar and Boyer 1991), while providing excellent site protection. However, both single-tree and group selection systems may involve higher logging costs than even-aged systems, and are sometimes difficult to apply (Barnett and Baker 1991). Also, without careful attention, there is potential for substantial losses due to damage to the residual stand during harvesting operations.
Because longleaf pine is intolerant of both shade and competition from mature overstory trees, openings created in closed-canopy forests using the single tree selection system may not be large enough for adequate natural regeneration to become established, unless those openings are expanded over time. Seedlings in small openings (<1/3-acre) compete directly with adjacent mature trees for limited site resources (i.e., water, mineral nutrients; Farrar and Boyer 1991). Fine root competition from mature residual trees on good quality sites may extend 50 feet into openings, and may be even higher on poor sites (Boyer 1993). Any established longleaf pine regeneration in these small openings would have slow growth rates (Farrar and Boyer 1991), and may suffer higher mortality from periodic prescribed burning (Gagnon, Jokela, Moser, et al. 2003) than young trees in larger openings.
In spite of these difficulties, however, the single-tree selection system has been used successfully in some open-canopied longleaf pine forests. In fact, gaps as small as ¼ of an acre can be large enough for seedlings to reach maximum growth (Landers, Van Lear, and Boyer 1995), if the surrounding overstory is open enough to allow adequate light to reach the forest floor.
Selection silviculture methods may create an uneven-aged stand similar in structure to old-growth stands of longleaf pine, which are comprised of small, even-aged patches of trees. The diameter distribution of an old-growth longleaf pine forest is somewhat reverse J-shaped, with trees ranging from 3 to 500 years old (Palik, Mitchell, Houseal, et al. 1997).
The first step in developing a viable group selection management system for longleaf pine involves a review and understanding of the ecology of the species. Specifically, the management strategy must match the habitat, reproduction, germination, and growth requirements of the species. Table 1 summarizes the biological factors that are important for regenerating and managing longleaf pine.
These biological requirements can be met using a modified group selection system. With this modified system, a reverse J-shaped diameter distribution is created and maintained by creating at least three distinct age classes within the stand using area regulation. The following example describes the process of converting an even-aged longleaf pine stand into a balanced uneven-aged stand structure using a modified group selection system.
A hypothetical stand with the following characteristics will be used to illustrate the modified group selection system.
Mature longleaf pine that surround regenerated openings do not have adverse affects on growth and survival of seedlings within the openings.
Trees over 45 years old exhibit a minimal growth response to thinning.
Damage to the residual stand (i.e., scarring and soil compaction) from harvests and thinning operations will be minimal.
Planting of longleaf pine seedlings will be used to regenerate the created gap openings.
Group selection openings will be harvested on a 15-year cutting cycle (Figure 4). Using a 45-year rotation, this amounts to harvesting fifteen acres per cutting cycle.
A recently harvested group selection opening in a second-growth stand of longleaf pine in the Apalachicola National Forest.
The fifteen acres will be allocated among five 3-acre gaps within the stand (Figure 5).
Schematic of a hypothetical 60-year old second growth even-aged longleaf pine forest, managed under a modified group selection system (based on recommendations in 31). Note: The gaps do not need to be rectangular. Circular or irregular shapes will work as well. Not to scale.
Since the age of the current, naturally regenerated stand is 60 years old (the average age of longleaf pine stands in Florida), the ages of the trees harvested in the first three cutting cycles will be 60, 75, and 90 years old, respectively. Once the stand is fully regulated, the difference between the oldest and the youngest trees in the artificially regenerated gaps will be 45 years. The artificially regenerated trees planted in the created gaps will be harvested at age 45. The rotation age for the naturally regenerated and the artificially regenerated trees differs because naturally regenerated stands require longer rotations to produce volumes of sawtimber comparable to that of planted stands (Dennington 1990). For example, at age 60, a naturally regenerated stand would be expected to yield 16 thousand board feet of timber (MBF)/acre (Scribner), while at age 45, a planted stand would yield about 22 MBF/acre (Scribner) (US Forest Service 1929).
A 15-year cutting cycle allows for adequate growth between harvests, to ensure operable volumes, and it falls within the recommended range of cutting cycles for this species. Sawtimber revenues occurring at 15-year intervals may be preferable to pulpwood revenues occurring at 20–25 year intervals. The large (3-acre) gaps that are created with this management system should reduce detrimental edge effects that may impact seedling survival and growth within the openings (Farrar and Boyer 1991, Outcalt and Outcalt 1994). Skid trails should be oriented in the direction of the planted rows and be as wide and straight as possible to facilitate future harvesting and thinning operations, and to minimize damage to trees in the residual stand. The size and the location of the gaps, and the positioning of the skid trails parallel to the planted rows, simplify both marking and timber harvesting operations.
Site disturbance resulting from harvesting should sufficiently scarify the soil for planting. If there is excessive woody vegetation in the openings, a prescribed surface fire may be used to reduce competing vegetation. Some additional site preparation (i.e., herbicide application) may also be required prior to planting in areas with heavy understory competition or oak (Quercus spp.) encroachment (Brockway and Outcalt 2000; Grace and Platt 1995).
Although longleaf pine can be regenerated by both natural and artificial means, artificial regeneration by planting is recommended for this modified group selection system because of the sporadic nature of longleaf pine seed crops, the bare mineral soil requirement for natural germination, and the heavy seed predation pressures commonly found with this species (Table 1). These three factors make natural regeneration of longleaf pine somewhat unreliable. Artificial regeneration also helps to ensure prompt and uniform seedling establishment (US Forest Service 1999). Spacing and density can be manipulated to meet specifications for desired products. When relying upon natural regeneration for longleaf pine, canopy openings are limited to about 0.7 acres to ensure adequate seedfall throughout the created gap (effective seed dispersal distance of longleaf pine is about 100 ft). However, there is no biological limit to the size of openings when artificial regeneration is used.
Another advantage of artificial regeneration is that it provides an opportunity to use genetically improved seedlings. Improved longleaf pine seed is being developed, which has higher survival rates and earlier emergence from the grass stage than unimproved seed sources (Schmidtling 1986).
Artificial regeneration of longleaf pine can result from direct seeding or planting of bare-root or containerized seedlings. Containerized seedlings are more expensive, but usually have higher survival rates due to decreased transplant shock, which results in a greater ability for the seedlings to compete with understory vegetation. In general, containerized longleaf seedlings are easier to plant, have an extended planting season, and they initiate height growth earlier than direct seeded or bare-root seedlings (Barnett, Lauer, and Brissette 1989; Boyer 1984; Boyer 1988). The high survival and rapid growth rates of containerized seedlings result in better yields, which in turn offsets the higher initial planting costs associated with their use. Containerized longleaf pine seedlings (minimum root collar diameter 0.4 in.) (Barnett, Lauer, and Brissette 1989) can be planted (either by hand or machine) at a density ranging from about 450 to 700 trees per acre (e.g. approximately 8 x 12 to 6 x 10 ft spacing). Staggered spacing can be used to create a more natural appearance (Figure 6).
Schematic of a staggered 6 x 10 ft spacing, where X represents individual seedlings (not to scale).
Although containerized seedlings can be planted throughout the year, survival is best when they are planted under moderate weather conditions. The traditional planting season for longleaf pine in Florida occurs from November through February, although there has also been successful planting of containerized longleaf pine seedling in late summer. Additional information on planting Southern pines is available in a number of other extension publications (Croker and Boyer 1976; Dennington and Farrar 1983; Duryea 1998).
To provide more operable volumes and revenues, thinnings should be timed to coincide with group selection harvests. A low thinning (which removes smaller or poorly formed trees) beginning at about age 30 years is recommended for the remainder of the stand (residual basal area should be about 80 ft2/acre; Dennington (1990)).
Prescribed surface fires can be used on a two to three-year burning cycle to minimize fuel loads and to control understory and woody vegetation (Duryea 2000). Regular competition control is necessary to encourage growth and survival of longleaf pine seedlings. A three-year burn cycle is currently being used successfully on the National Forests in Florida to maintain longleaf pine-wiregrass (Aristida stricta Michx.) ecosystems (US Forest Service 1999). Although longleaf pine is fairly resistant to fire damage, the seedlings are susceptible to injury during the initial stages of active height growth. Therefore, fire should be postponed during this stage and not resumed until seedlings are over 3 feet in height. To minimize damage to longleaf pine seedlings, cool prescribed burns at this stage of development should occur during the winter months. When the trees are taller than 10 to 15 feet, low intensity burns could be prescribed in other seasons, assuming that fuel loads are low to moderate.
Using prescribed fire in the larger openings could be difficult in some cases. One of the primary fuels for prescribed fire is pine needles. Needle fall from surrounding trees may drop off significantly towards the center of the gaps. Depending on the type of understory vegetation, this could result in fire not carrying well across the opening. In these instances, chemical control of competing vegetation may be required.
The group selection system as described above would also have the same potential for landowners interested in converting loblolly or slash pine stands (natural or artificially regenerated) to longleaf pine (Franklin 2009; Hu, Knapp, Wang, et. al 2016). For example, rather than harvesting a mature slash pine stand all at one time and regenerating it to longleaf pine, a more gradual species conversion process could be prescribed using the group selection method in conjunction with planting longleaf pine in the group openings. An advantage of this approach would be that portions of the mature, overstory canopy would remain intact, thereby supporting other ecosystem benefits and services (e.g., mature stand structure attributes, aesthetics, wildlife habitat, understory community (Kirkman, Mitchell, Kaeser, et. al 2007), while also providing needle cast for fuel to carry prescribed fire through the area (Jack, Hiers, Mitchell, et. al 2010). More detailed information on this process can be found at: http://www.americaslongleaf.org/media/2625/converting_loblolly_to_longleaf.pdf (Franklin 2009).
There are many advantages associated with using a modified group selection system with longleaf pine. There are, however, a few potential problems with the system. The main disadvantage is that it has not been rigorously field-tested. Potential decreases in yields due to increased competition between the overstory and understory trees, as well as decreased volume production from periodic prescribed burning (Matthews 1989), may make this method less productive than even-aged management systems. Therefore, landowners primarily interested in commodity production may find this management approach less appealing than even-aged systems (McGuire, Mitchell, Moser, et al. 2001).
The group selection silvicultural system represents an uneven-aged management strategy useful for longleaf pine. Although traditional even-aged management systems will continue to be used with this species, the group selection system offers many additional potential advantages, including periodic income from high-quality timber, continuous presence of large trees on site, diverse wildlife habitat, soil and watershed protection, and high aesthetic and recreation values. The stands created using this system are based on sound biological principles and they can be used to develop diversity in forest structure at the landscape level, and restore a native ecosystem that once dominated much of the southeastern United States.
Barnard, E.L., and A.E. Mayfield III. 2009. Insect and diseases of longleaf pine in the context of longleaf pine ecosystem restoration. https://www.freshfromflorida.com/content/download/4582/29262/Insects%20and%20Diseases%20of%20Longleaf%20Pine.pdf.
Barnett, J.P., and J.B. Baker. 1991. Regeneration methods. In: M.L. Duryea and P.M. Dougherty (eds.) Forest Regeneration Manual. Kluwer Academic Publishers, The Netherlands.
Barnett, J.P. and R.W. Dennington. 1992. Return to longleaf. For. Farmer. 52:11–12.
Barnett, J.P., D.K. Lauer, and J.C. Brissette. 1989. Regenerating longleaf pine with artificial methods. In: Proc. Symposium on the Management of Longleaf Pine. U.S. For. Ser. Gen.Tech. Rep. SO-75.
Boyer, W.D. 1984. First-year survival of planted longleaf pine bare-root and containerized stock as affected by site preparation and release. In: Proc. 3rd Biennial South. Silvicultural Conference. U.S. For. Ser. Gen.Tech. Rep. SO-54.
Boyer, W.D. 1988. Effects of site preparation and release on the survival and growth of planted bare-root and container-grown longleaf pine. Georgia For. Res. Pap. No. 76.
Boyer, W.D. 1993. Long term development of regeneration under longleaf pine seedtree and shelterwood stands. South. J. Appl. For. 17:10–15.
Brockway, D.G., and K.W. Outcalt. 1998. Gap-phase regeneration in longleaf pine wiregrass ecosystems. For. Ecol. Manage. 106:125–139.
Brockway, D.G., and K.W. Outcalt. 2000. Restoring longleaf pine wiregrass ecosystems: hexazinone application enhances effects of prescribed fire. For. Ecol. and Manage. 137:121–138.
Brown, M.J., and J. Nowak. 2013. Florida, 2011 – Forest inventory and analysis fact sheet. E-Science update SRS-071, Asheville, NC: US Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 5 p.
Croker,T.C., Jr. 1979. Longleaf pine: The longleaf pine story. J. For. History. 23:32–43.
Croker,T.C., Jr. and W.D. Boyer. 1976. Regenerating longleaf pine naturally. U.S. For. Ser. Res. Pap. SO-105.
Demers, C., and A. Long. 2000. Longleaf pine regeneration. IFAS, University of Florida, Cooperative Extension Service. SS-FOR-13.7p.
Dennington, R.W.1990. Regenerating longleaf pine with the shelterwood method. U.S. For. Ser. Mgmt. Bull. R8-MB 47.
Dennington, R.W., and R.M. Farrar, Jr. 1983. Longleaf pine management. U.S. For. Ser. For. Rep. R8-FR3.
Duryea, M. 1998 (Revised). Planting southern pines. Circular 767. 14p. Gainesville: University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
Duryea, M.L. 2000. Forest regeneration methods: Natural regeneration, direct seeding and planting. Circular 759. 13p. Gainesville: University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
Farrar, R.M. Jr. 1996. Fundamentals of uneven-aged management in southern pine. W.K. Moser and L.A. Brennan (eds). TTRS Misc. Pub. No 9.
Farrar, R.M. Jr., and W.D. Boyer. 1991. Managing longleaf pine under the selection system: Promises and problems. In: Proc. 6th Biennial Southern Silvicultural Research Conference. U.S. For. Ser. Gen. Tech. Rep. SE-70.
Gagnon, J.L, E.J. Jokela, W.K. Moser, and D.A. Huber. 2003. Dynamics of artificial regeneration in gaps within a longleaf pine flatwoods ecosystem. For. Ecol. Manage. 172: 133–144.
Grace, S.L., and W.J. Platt. 1995. Effects of adult tree density and fire on the demography of pregrass stage juvenile longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.). J. Ecol. 83, 75–86.
Haywood, J.D., and H.E. Grelen. 2000. Twenty years of prescribed burning influence the development of direct-seeded longleaf pine on a wet pine site in Louisiana. South. J. Appl. For. 24:86–92.
Jack, S.B., J.K. Hiers, R.J. Mitchell, and J.L. Gagnon. 2010. Fuel loading and fire intensity effects on longleaf pine seedling survival. In: Stanturf, J.A. (ed.). Proceedings of the 14th Biennial Southern Silvicultural Research Conference, pp. 275–279. USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station [General Technical Report SRS-121], Asheville, NC, US.
Jose, S., E.J. Jokela, and D.L. Miller. 2006. The Longleaf Pine Ecosystem – Ecology, Silviculture and Restoration. Springer. 438 p.
Kirkman, L.K., R.J. Mitchell, M.J. Kaeser, S.D. Pecot, and K.L Coffey. 2007. The perpetual forest: using undesireable species to bridge restoration. Journal of Applied Ecology. 44: 604-614.
Landers, J.L., D.H. Van Lear, and W.D. Boyer. 1995. The longleaf pine forests of the Southeast: Requiem or renaissance? J. For. 93: 39–44.
McGuire, J.P., R.J. Mitchell, B.E. Moser, S.D. Pecot, D.H. Gjerstad, and C.W. Hedman. 2001. Gaps in a gappy forest: plant resources, longleaf pine regeneration, and understory response to tree removal in longleaf pine savannas. Can. J. For. Res. 31:765–778.
Marquis, D.A. 1978. Application of uneven-aged silviculture and management on public and private lands. In: Uneven-aged silviculture and management in the United States. U.S. For. Ser.Timber Mgmt. Rsh. Washington D.C.
Matthews, J.D. 1989. Silvicultural systems. Clarendon press, Oxford. 284 p.
Palik, B.J., R.J. Mitchell, G. Houseal, and N. Pederson. 1997. Effects of canopy structure on resource availability and seedling responses in a longleaf pine ecosystem. Can. J. For. Res. 27:1458–1464.
Platt, W.J., and S.L. Rathbun. 1993. Dynamics of an old-growth longleaf pine population. In: Hermann, S.M. (ed). Proc. 18th Tall Timbers Fire Ecology Conference. TTRS.
Schmidtling, R.C.1986. Relative performance of longleaf compared to loblolly and slash pines under different levels of intensive culture. In: Proc. Fourth Biennial Southern Silvicultural Research Conference. U.S. For. Ser. Gen. Tech. Rep. SE-42.
Schmidtling, R.C., and T.L White. 1989. Genetics and tree improvement of longleaf pine. In: Proc. Symposium on the Management of Longleaf Pine. U.S. For. Ser. Gen. Tech. Rep. SO-75.
Shoulders, E. 1985. The case for planting longleaf pine. In: Proc. of the 3rd Biennial Southern Silvicultural Research Conference. U.S. For. Ser. Gen. Tech. Rep. SO-54.
Smith, D.M., B.C. Larson, M.J. Kelty, and P.M.S. Ashton. 1997. The practice of silviculture: Applied forest ecology. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York.
U.S. Forest Service. 1929. Volume, yield, and stand tables for second-growth southern pines. U.S. For. Ser. Misc. Pub. No 50.
U.S. Forest Service. 1999. Final EIS for the revised land and resource management plan for national forests in Florida. U.S. For. Ser. Mgmt. Bull. R8-MB-83B.
Wahlenberg, W.G. 1946. Longleaf pine. Its use, ecology, regeneration, protection, growth and management. Charles Lathrop Pack Forestry Foundation. Washington D.C. 429p.
Biological characteristics of longleaf pine important in developing a management plan. (Adapted from 3, 7, 8, 12, 14, 43).
Dominant and codominant trees with diameters at breast height > 10"
This document is CIR 1404, one of a series of the School of Forest Resources and Conservation Department, UF/IFAS Extension. Original publication date January 2002. Revised June 2017. Visit the EDIS website at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu.
Jennifer L. Gagnon, project associate, Virginia Tech; and Eric J. Jokela, professor, School of Forest Resources and Conservation; UF/IFAS Extension, Gainesville, FL 32611. | 2019-04-18T10:17:30Z | http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fr132 |
Bonnie Reynolds and her news letter “The Flowback” was the beneficiary of a frack shill hit piece by Fred Dicker in the tabloid New York Post. Followed up by a “3 part” smear by another fracking shill. Putting Bonnie into the Fractavist Hall of Fame. Bonnie, using mainly her own funds, published a news letter that put forth factual information on the risks of fracking – and distributed it across Upstate. For this, she got libeled by some gas industry shills – the kind of lowlifes that are paid to do such things. The crux of their allegations was that one of the many photos used in the news letter was of J Henry Fair’s photo of the mountaintop leveling for a mine, not a gas well – (neither Bonnie nor the photographer labeled it as a gas well ) – but showing a coal mine in an anti-fracking news letter was enough to freak out the resident frack flak at the NY Post, Fred Dicker. . . . who then ran another picture (by Ed Wade not J Henry Fair) from The Flowback of a gas well site in West Virginia, and labeled it as a photo of a coal mine operation, under the headline “Big Fracking Mistake.” So much for the credibility of fracking Joe Camels. The big fracking mistake was all theirs, not Bonnie’s.
Here is J Henry Fair’s take on the matter.
There is not one single word in The Flowback that is not based on, and cannot be backed up with, solid documentation and reporting, and that there is absolutely nothing wrong or illegal in its production and funding and that this also can be documented. So that the OGI (oil and gas industry – ed.) can only try to destroy The Flowback with ridiculous arguments, and, mainly, with attacks on me personally. What finally got their attention and sent them into attack mode was when we started sending The Flowback out inserted into Pennysavers and newspapers in NYS’s Southern Tier, where, in five counties, Governor Cuomo proposes to begin hydrofracking.
On October 22, 2012, two of the industry’s biggest guns, columnist/reporter Fred Dicker and the New York Post, were leveled on The Flowback in an attempt to blow it out of the water. Mr. Dicker is stationed in Albany, and, in addition to his job with The Post, he does a radio show which often includes attacks on anti-fracking interests.
The big guns boomed with an attack on The Flowback by Mr. Dicker on his radio show the same day that his page four “Exclusive” headlined “Big Fracking Mistake – Rival Ad Shows Coal Pic, Not Natural Gas”, appeared in The Post. (Search engine: Big Fracking Mistake – New York Post.) (By the way, note the use of the word “rival.” Rival to what or to whom? Mr. Dicker? The Post? The OGI? Wow, The Flowback has really arrived. And what “ad”? There are no ads.) The Post ran the wrong photo in the newspaper and mislabeled it. (“Big Fracking Mistake”, indeed.) In 2004, a Pace University survey rated the New York Post as the least-credible major news outlet in New York, and they have to live up to their reputation. Instead of the J Henry Fair photo on top of page 14 of The Flowback about which Mr. Dicker was accusing me of making false claims – a magnificent photo illustrating mountaintop removal, yes, for a coal mine – The Post ran the Ed Wade photo from the bottom of page 14, of an actual gas drilling pad on a West Virginia mountaintop! The caption under this Ed Wade photo of a mountaintop gas drilling site read, MINE, ALL MINE: This photo of a West Virginia coal mine by photographer J Henry Fair was re-used in a newspaper ad against natural-gas “hydrofracking” in New York. Talk about making false claims, how wonderfully ironic. Photographers J Henry Fair and Ed Wade did not share my amusement at this misrepresentation sent out to about 530,000 Post readers.
In his article, Mr. Dicker accuses me of distributing — “a “newspaper” that falsely claims a dramatic National Geographic picture of a West Virginia coal mine is a drilling site for natural gas, The Post has found.” Wrong – on three counts. First, look at the photo shown on the top of The Flowback’s page 14. There are no claims in The Flowback that this photo of mountaintop removal represents removal for gas drilling or that it is a drilling site for natural gas. It’s just an industrialized rural landscape.
There are 53 other photos and graphics in The Flowback, 24 pages of articles, letters, commentary, banners and captions, with about 25,000 words all told. Yet Mr. Dicker found fault with not a one of those words, articles, or other photos. Instead, by mentioning my own lifetime achievements and experiences and my personal and spiritual beliefs in a slyly disparaging fashion, he sought to discredit The Flowback in its entirety by trying to discredit me.
Fred Dicker’s misrepresentation of that photo was enough to fire up the gas bags. On October 23rd the CNY Landowner’s Coalition ran an article (http://forums.cnylandcoalition.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4385) entitled Community Organizers and Community Dividers, The Flowback! While attacking Irving Wesley Hall, the nameless writer of the article (byline is ourland) also attacked me and The Flowback and falsely accused me of things that, in Mr. Dicker’s defense (!), were never stated in his Post article. Mr. Dicker never accused me of stealing the photo or of copyright infringement. Ourland did, and additionally said, “People like Irving continue to think taking personal property without just compensation is acceptable from copyrights to property rights, total disregard of any personal property. As far as the FlowBack the simple Mistake is the stolen opening photo this is the precursor for the rest of the rag.” (Sic. Butchered English form in copy.) How amusing for that writer, hiding behind the name ourland, supporting an invading industry that freely admits that it is engaged in a “land grab” by landmen aided by compulsory integration, to be accusing anti-frackers of taking property rights. The best that can be said for this writer is that he, or she, did not bother to read Mr. Dicker’s article.
Denise La Tourette then submitted her own misinformation to various outlets. Her October 25 Letter to the Editor of the Norwich Evening Sun again asserted that the Dicker article photograph has “exposed” The Flowback – on the basis of Mr. Dicker’s erroneous attack on the use of one photo out of 54.
Then came the fracking piece de resistance, the attack by Tom Shepstone of Energy in Depth, EID, a major OGI propaganda outlet. So far this attack has two parts. (Search engine: Presenting: From the Wild Side – The Flowback (Part 1).
As you read the introduction of (Part 1) you will immediately grasp the general quality of this piece. “A publication called The Flowback has turned heads in the Southern Tier but it turns out the whole thing is not only fatally flawed, but also financed by some very wealthy NIMBY types using an eccentric UFO follower as author.” Mr. Shepstone was searching for ways to smear me in order to discredit The Flowback. (If he ever loses his job propagandizing for the OGI, I am sure he can have an outstanding career writing for the National Enquirer.) Like Mr. Dicker, he obviously studied my website, bonniejonesreynolds.com, gleaning items from my biography on that site. He looked up my books on Amazon in order to quote some of the reviews, and ferreted out some other obscure sites publicizing my books. He looked up the charitable organization that I co-founded, Spring Farm CARES, springfarmcares.org, and it appears that he looked up SFC’s 990 Tax Returns all the way back to 2003 (that’s public information, unlike the 1040’s filed by you, me, Mr. Dicker, Mr. Shepstone and our legislators.) Then he obviously went through the many references that one finds in search engines regarding “Bonnie Jones Reynolds,” and came up with one of perhaps forty blog-talk radio shows that I did while publicizing my latest novel, The Magdalen. ISIS Paranormal Radio. Not only did he listen to that broadcast in order to quote from it, he provided a link to it in his article. None of this had anything to do with the articles in The Flowback.
My travels include visits to some 35 countries. I have circumnavigated the globe four times. I am the author of five books — 2 best-selling Gothic novels, one published in 1972 and re-published in 2010, the other published in 1975; a yoga textbook written for my teacher, Bikram Choudhury, a continual top-seller, in print since 1978 and now in a second edition; a chronicle of Spring Farm CARES published in 2005; and my latest novel, The Magdalen, published in 2009, for which I did years of research into Biblical and Middle Eastern history. Of late, putting in more years of research, this time into hydrofracking, and coming to understand the threat that hydrofracking poses to all that we hold dear, with the help of just one production guy, I wrote, compiled, financed out of my own savings account, and published The Flowback.
There are two more elements to Mr. Shepstone’s attack on me in (Part I) that deserve special mention. Both involve totally erroneous assumptions that The Flowback is backed with big money, seemingly by millions of dollars. This train of thought was begun by Mr. Dicker in his radio and Post attacks, then taken to ridiculous and perhaps libelous extremes by Mr. Shepstone.
It takes only a bit of common sense to realize how foolish these claims are. If millions of dollars had gone into The Flowback—oh, don’t I wish–I would have been able to do such huge printings that the cost per copy would have plummeted. There would be many more of copies of The Flowback out there, instead of only the approximate 140,000 that I have managed to get printed and distributed.
First of all let me put to rest Mr. Shepstone’s brazen and despicable attack on the charitable organization that I co-founded, Spring Farm CARES, starting with his advice to Chip Northrup to cease urging donations for The Flowback because, since SFC has lots of money, “Reynolds’ organization apparently doesn’t need it.” What he is implying is that I somehow have access to SFC’s money, or that Spring Farm CARES is financing The Flowback. Buzzer please. Wrong answer. Mr. Shepstone’s ignorance is really showing here. (Editor’s note: By the way, ignorance is not to be confused with stupidity. To be ignorant of a situation is simply to be unaware of the facts of that situation. We will hope that Mr. Shepstone is merely ignorant, and not totally malevolent.) Mr. Shepstone obviously read the 990s filed with the IRS pretty thoroughly, as he commented on donated assets that we had way back in 2003, calling them depreciable, though they were non-depreciable (more ignorance on his part.) He should have understood from perusing the 990s that most of SFC’s assets are in what are termed “restricted funds.” Restricted funds can be used or spent only under strict guidelines laid down by the donor of the funds. In this case, the funds are an endowment. For SFC, that money is there and yet not there, as we can only use the income that we receive from investing it. Mr. Shepstone must have noted that we use every penny of the money from investments, coupled with donations and any miscellaneous incomes, to maintain our exempt-purpose programs. Every penny that comes in is expended on those programs. There is no wiggle room, there are no extra funds floating around. As a matter of fact, with the cost of everything going up, we have, of late, been struggling with a serious funding gap. Mr. Shepstone also has to have noticed that my small yearly salary, and my health insurance, is the sum total of my own possible access to SFC funds.
Part of that Big Lie is that Mr. Dicker’s article in The Post somehow “exposed,” “destroyed,” or “discredited” The Flowback — all of it, all 24 pages, all of the 25,000-some words, and 54 photos and graphics — and that Mr. Dicker somehow “shredded Reynolds’ credibility.” The fact that Mr. Dicker made some erroneous and unfounded accusations about one photo, ridiculed me personally, and mentioned my financial sponsor, in the opinions of these desperate builders of The Big Lie, does all of that.
But the biggest lie a-building here is that The Flowback is backed by millions of dollars funneled to me by “wealthy NIMBY types,” that, perhaps, these wealthy NIMBYs (including the Rockefellers for gosh sakes, I’ve met and been in contact with a lot of people, but never a Rockefeller) hired me to write The Flowback. Buzzer, please. Very, very wrong answer. Actually, Mr. Dicker should know the right answer, because I told him.
Up to this moment in time (November 25, 2012,) every single issue of The Flowback in print has been financed by funds from my own savings and by grassroots contributions from people and groups who are helping to distribute The Flowback. Not one single penny has been received from any other source. This can be fully documented.
The hue and cry from The Big Lie folks is in regard to my financial sponsor, Sustainable Markets Foundation. The catch is that that relationship is totally new to involvement with The Flowback, so new that, as of this writing, it has had no affect whatsoever on The Flowback. Just before the last printing of The Flowback, Sustainable accepted The Flowback as a project, agreeing to act as its fiscal sponsor. This is a frequent and IRS approved arrangement. Non-profits/foundations are allowed to fiscally sponsor projects which align with their own non-profit purposes. My new arrangement with SMF would allow grassroots donors to deduct their donations, and that was announced in the last printing. But, so far, there have been only more grassroots donations, certainly no grants, and, as stated above, the relationship with Sustainable, itself, has not as yet contributed one cent to The Flowback’s activity. This can also be documented.
The problem with Mr. Shepstone’s defense of the OGI’s water usage is that that scenario could come close to reality in the not-too-distant future. First, it should be understood that, as stated in National Geographic, “In essence, only 0.007 percent of the planet’s water is available to fuel and feed its 6.8 billion people.” That population continues to grow, as does our profligate use of, waste of, and contamination of our fresh water. And that is part of what can destroy that fragile 0.007% and kill us all. A current, 20-nation report predicts that 100 million people will die by 2030 if we fail to act on climate change. Another prediction says that the world, that in October 2011 reached a population of seven billion, will be down to more like two billion people by the end of the century due to mass die-off resulting from climate change and our continued carbon-based madness. While others insist that the 1%, or even less, through the auspices of the UN, plans to kill off the other 99%+ entirely, leaving only about 100,000 of themselves to enjoy whatever they have left of the earth to enjoy. One way or the other, that 0.007 is in grave peril.
Some good news, the bromide level from fracking wastes is abating in the Monongahela River, which provides drinking water for some 800,000 people. Bromides, combining with chorine in drinking water, can cause cancer. Unfortunately, the bromide level is way up in the Allegheny River, which provides drinking water for more hundreds of thousands. And, since dumping of fracking waste into Pennsylvania streams was, and continues to be, a large problem, the contents of dozens of other streams is suspect.
Of course then there are the Water Buffalos, “the fastest growing species in Pennsylvania” –tanks that hold (hopefully) clean water being delivered by hydrofracking companies to families whose wells they have contaminated. More and more Water Buffalos appear daily, a growing water crisis in areas being hydrofracked.
In January 2012, we learned that the Shell Oil Corporation, parent of multiple drilling companies operating in Pennsylvania, is negotiating with the town of Painted Post, New York, to obtain a million gallons a day from their municipal water system — putting in possible future jeopardy one of New York’s aquifers. They are even proposing to build a railroad to transport this New York State water to Pennsylvania. If there is plenty of water available in Pennsylvania, why do they need to buy New York State water?
Last but not least, Mr. Shepstone conveniently ignores the fact that water used in industries which do use more water than the OGI—such as energy and recreation—do not permanently remove the water that they use from the system, permanently poison it, sending some of it permanently down thousands of feet into the earth, while other parts of the poisoned product will eventually permanently poison wells, ground water, and aquifers. Permanent is the word here. There is no going back once the genie is out of this bottle. The basic amount of water used by the OGI, massive as that amount is, is only the beginning of the trillions of gallons of the world’s precious water, that substance without which life cannot endure on this planet, that will be permanently poisoned and removed from the safe water available to the populations of this world.
Mr. Shepstone then faults this on page 4: What “poisons” will enter your drinking water should hydrofracking be allowed in NY? Over nine hundred chemicals, plus methane and radioactive elements (NORMs.) To refute this, he first uses two statements from EPA director, Lisa Jackson, one in testimony on Capitol Hill, one to Fox News, to the effect that she was not aware of any cases where “the fracking process” has affected water. Amazingly, one of her statements was made after an AP investigation had found that she had allowed herself to be persuaded by the governor of Wyoming to postpone the announcement of an EPA study which definitely linked chemicals “consistent with gas production and hydraulic fracturing fluids” in that agency’s “deep monitoring wells in the aquifer” around Pavillion, Wyoming. This gave state officials, who had been privately briefed on the results, time to begin a barrage of propaganda debunking the study in advance of its announcement to the public! One has got to ask whose side Mrs. Jackson is on – that of truth, and the public and environment she supposedly serves, or of big Oil & Gas? Wikipedia observes that, “She has often been noted for her support of hydrofracking,” Wikipedia further observes that she supports hydrofracking despite EPA reports as far back as 1987 and now in May 2011 [not to mention the ongoing EPA study in Dimock, PA] which studies finger hydrofracking as the likely source of water contamination in multiple cases. If anyone is discredited, it is Mrs. Jackson. Her statements are a very poor choice here.
Mr. Shepstone then wonders where I got the “over nine hundred” figure from, and he then quotes another thoroughly discredited source, the NYS DEC’s SGEIS on hydrofracking – page five, where they list, he says, “a whole lot less than 900.” “…any individual fracturing job will only involve a handful of chemicals, and may not include any category of chemicals,” is the quote he uses. Investigative reporting has found that the DEC conferred with the OGI throughout the production of the SGEIS. This sort of statement points up the extent to which the DEC/OGI SGEIS collaboration is compromised, and the total disregard of the big picture and cumulative effects by both the DEC and the OGI.
Mr. Shepstone then writes at length about FracFocus.org, a “voluntary” OGI site, recently established by the OGI in an attempt to answer the growing demand of the public to know what is in fracking fluid. OGI propagandists will tell you that, “There is no secret as to what is in fracking fluids. Just go to FracFocus.org. You’ll even find the coordinates of wells, and a list of everything that was used in that well.” Except that when you go to the site, you find that only a fraction of the existing wells are there, and the list of chemicals used is not complete because certain chemicals that they consider proprietary secrets still do not have to be revealed. And how many chemicals does FracFocus say are ever used in hydrofracking? Fifty-nine.
Mr. Shepstone then goes on to pooh-pooh the Marvin Resnikoff report on the dangers of radon, the second highest cause of lung cancer, in natural gas from the radon-rich Marcellus Shale, which radon Resnikoff calculates will be 36.9 to 2576 pCi/L at the wellhead, up to 70 times more than the average radon at the well-heads in other shales. Resnikoff calculates that there will be 1,182 to 30,448 additional deaths in NYS due to Marcellus Shale natural gas, and he is especially concerned about NYC apartment house kitchens, most of which are on inside walls and lack adequate ventilation. (Radon is not destroyed when gas is burned, and would be even more dangerous in poorly ventilated apartments.) Mr. Shepstone bases his limp attempt to discredit Resnikoff’s work on a USGS report on radon which says that Resnikoff’s report “relies on theoretical calculations utilizing limited data from geologic analogs.” (By the by, aren’t all the “scientific” assurances from geologists that hydrofracking is perfectly safe predicated on geologic analogs?) Mr. Shepstone does not mention that this USGS report goes on to admit that its own dataset is “small and preliminary,” that the data that they present is “too small to reliably characterize the reservoirs or to yield statistically valid results,” and it admits that, in its limited sampling, they already found radon activity as high as 79 pCi/L, which, in two half lives, 7.6 days, more than enough time for Marcellus Shale gas from drilling in New York to reach New York kitchens, would decay to 19.8 pCi/L. They then state that the EPA “threshold for remediation of radon in indoor air is 4 pCi/L.” I am sure that all the folks in those poorly ventilated New York City apartment kitchens would be thrilled to learn of this “maybe.” Or what about rural families who lease and make deals to have the stuff piped directly into their kitchens, not even giving it two half lives during which to decay?
Please follow Mr. Shepstone’s links to the Resnikoff report, as well as the USGS report. And, for an understanding of potential radioactivity in general, read, if you have not already, Consideration of Radiation in Hazardous Waste Produced from Horizontal Hydrofracking, October 2012, Grassroots Environmental Education.
For more answers in regard to the high and dangerous levels of radioactivity to be found in the waste and by-products of hydrofracking, upon which The Flowback’s statements are based, check out Scientific American, Abrahm Lustgarten and Pro Publica, and information regarding the court case of Gary Abraham against the Chemung County Landfill.
I am sure that Mr. Shepstone will continue to attack The Flowback. He has promised his followers a (Part III). But remember The Big Lie. He started (Part I) by calling The Flowback “fatally flawed.” But it is his own writing, sources, and cause that are fatally flawed. He ended (Part II) by calling The Flowback “fiction.” It is the OGI’s irresponsible propaganda, and steadfast insistence on downplaying, or even refusing to admit, any fault, any dangers, or giving any credence to the completely legitimate concerns of those opposed to hydrofracking, that makes of their words pre-meditated fiction and outright, purposeful lies.
We, The Flowback and I, need your help more than ever.
Thanks Bonnie for this hard, hard work. I never believe a single word they say on principle. Greed consumes all reason.
Go Bonnie! You’re doing great!
Sounds like a tag team hit on Bonnie . . . and The Flowback . . . and it reads as pretty tawdry business . .
Yea Bonnie! You have graduated to a whole new level of Activist Extraordinaire! I keep passing out The Flowback proudly! Thank you again for your endless commitment to this fight. | 2019-04-22T18:12:30Z | http://www.nofrackingway.us/2012/11/25/the-flowback-responds-to-ny-post-libel/ |
Adam Schaeuble (PHD = Previous Heavy Dude) Reveals How to Transform Your Mind and Body for Success!
What does it take for a man to turn his life around, both mentally and physically? Adam Schaeuble explains how men can transform their health and mental mindset and make these changes last. Adam’s personal transformation is a testament to anyone who can visualize what they desire, and place themselves into the feeling of accomplishing their goal, can achieve. Once you understand the power of having a coach, someone to keep you accountable, you can achieve your greatest desires, if you truly want it!
Are you ready to get started on your transformation? Schedule a free "Breakthrough" Strategy Session and get a personalized plan in place for you.
Hello, and welcome to the strong men podcast, empowering men to thrive. I'm Anthony Treas from strongmencoaching.com where I share how men can start thriving in their life with purpose, confidence, and determination to live their best years, yet. I'm ready to get into this next interview with Adam Shaeuble. He is a man on a mission. And I'm excited. Because one of the things I talk about is man needs mission, a purpose in his life. And Adam is definitely living his mission. His purpose, Adam, welcome to the strong men podcast.
Anthony, my friend, I am psyched to be here. And I know what a big deal it is, as a fellow podcaster, I know what a big deal it is for somebody to share their platform and their audience and invite somebody else into that. So it's an honor to be here and I'm fired up man, I am on a mission. I'm ready to share what that's all about.
I'm excited because we met in person and it was great to meet you in person and get a chance to talk to you. We were at the new media summit in San Diego, California. And it was great because I heard your story. You heard mine. It's exciting now to be talking to you here. And where are you located at.
I am home based in Bloomington, Indiana, in the heartland which is not so heart healthy, so it's a good place for me to be, I guess, doing my thing.
Perfect. Perfect. It's amazing. You know, we met in person San Diego. And we're here having this conversation. Sharing this information, getting this information out to more men. So, Adam, tell me about yourself. What got you to where you're at right now.
Well, Anthony, about 10 years ago, I'll bring it back in the way back 10 years ago, I found myself in a place where I weighed 327 pounds. I was a large individual dealing with some depression. I was in debt. I had a relationship where I actually had some hope around, I'm like, all this could be, the one, this is the girl that I want to marry. And then she had just told me that she was going to move an hour away. And that was just kind of a soul crushing.
So, all these just, downward spiral moments were happening simultaneously. And, I remember the exact moment when I hit rock bottom. I was in a grocery store, like I said, as well over 300 pounds, just thousands and thousands dollars of credit card debt. Not sure if I could pay for my groceries, if I had room on my credit card to pay for the unhealthy food I'm ready to put in my body. And I remember going home from that. For whatever reason, the first thing I see when I walk in the door is there's a DVD sitting on top of my DVD player, back in the age of DVD. And any like millennials, like what's that? So, the movie inside the TV, this DVD was sitting there collecting dust and my friends had been dropping not so subtle hints, hints that I was kind of a crap magnet, which is a it's a scientific term for somebody who you don't want to be around. Because I was that guy. I was that guy that like, you know, I used to be fun to be around. But now, I wasn't because I kind of that crap magnetism was rubbing off on other people. And I was a downer to be around. And I, that depression was spreading. And it was like a virus. So, they're giving me personal growth and personal development material. That DVD was called, The Secret - The Law of Attraction. And so, I had had been collecting dust, because obviously, I was too cool for any of that stuff. And I remember for whatever reason, like I said, I walk in, and I see it sitting there. And I was like, Okay, I don't know what this is. But I feel like I'm supposed to watch it. I watched it. That was my first exposure to any sort of personal growth, personal development, motivation material. And it lit me up. And I watched it over and over again. And I sat down that night. And I mapped out exactly the way that I wanted to turn my life around, and what I wanted my life to reshape as and what I wanted to look like. And I gave myself a five year deadline, I went through a process writing out exactly what I wanted to achieve. I set rules. Like if, there had to be a deadline and had to be positive, I had to be written as if it already happened. I had to read it out loud twice a day, as if it had already happened with feelings.
So, it wasn't like so many people set goals. Anthony, and you know, that's where they're like, Oh, I'm going to try to lose 30 pounds. Like just just saying that out loud. But that's, that's a week statement. Like, I'm going to try to lose 30 pounds, you know, it happens, it happens. But with me, it was I'm going to weigh under 300 pounds. I feel amazing. Because I can shop anywhere. I'm in a successful relationship. And it gives me energy. And like, I would write it like that. And I would read it like that. It was empowering. Long story short, I did this every day. And I read my, I call it my lifestyle rehabilitation statement. Because that's what I was doing. I read it every morning to set my mindset, to set my mind, and basically turn the lights switch on where I could see opportunities in front of me. And that's how I got rid of my crap magnetism. I could see what I was trying to achieve, and what time opportunities were there in front of me each day. And at the end of the day, I would read it again, out loud with feeling. And I had to ask myself the question, did I move the needle in the right direction in any of these areas? If the answer was no, I had to do something before I went to sleep. before I'd lay my head on the pillow. I had to move the needle every day, even if it's just a tiny little blip, even if it's just okay, I just did 50 pushups. And I could say that I worked out that was pushing me towards one my goals are. I drink some water, where I send an email, I read a book or watch a DVD, whatever, I had to do something every day. And so the magic of this was, I showed up in this way, with this mindset every day for five years, and I achieved every single goal. I lost over 100 pounds. That girl that was moving away, her mortgage fell through, just this weird circumstances started to happen. Her mortgage falls through, she has nowhere to live. She moves in with me now, in one month, in one month and six days, we are celebrating our 10 year anniversary. I eradicated my debt, no debt. And as I started to lose weight, people sort of asked me what I was doing. I started helping other people. This became a business. This became a boot camp in that five year time span my hometown, I helped them lose 35,000 pounds in five years. So I created a company, created a business; I created a team. And five years later, I walked through my brand new facility.
I was actually seven days late on opening up my own facility. I was kind of pissed about that one. And there's like a zoning thing, which is always it, you know, you know, the local government always gets you. So I walk in, and so five years and seven days before this, I was 327 pounds in debt, depressed, not sure where my life was going five years and seven days later, I got this whole lifestyle rehabilitation process. I walk in at 6am to a brand new 8000 square foot facility that I had envisioned in my mind for five years. I walk in the door there are 100 people there, which I had envisioned in my mind for five years. I walk in there are 100 people there ready to learn from me, that was just like the ignition point of how my life totally changed, totally rehabilitated and now it's just been building consistent momentum from them. So that's that's kind of the long story, shortish that's where we're at today. Where we're really building momentum and helping as many people as possible.
Well, that's incredible Adam and it's incredible to hear your story and just kind of those those little things that happened that got you to the point. I think it's some ways you knew that you were not, you called it a crap magnet, you know, your life wasn't the way you wanted it to be. And it was just this little subtle things that were happening that were going on that eventually led to that point, if we could go back, because I know a lot of men who are listening they see you, they see me these they're like, Man, you know, they have it down there. They're doing amazing things. How could I ever get to that point? So let's go back to that point where, you got that DVD and you're obviously not to where you're at right now. What are some steps? Or what were the steps that you took you briefly mentioned them. But as far as like taking somebody who is right now that crap magnet not living, they're overweight, or they're unhealthy? What was it like for you? And what are some of the minor steps is we've talked about before you just don't go from zero to 100, there's these baby steps that you need to take, or it's just not going to last long. So what would you say?
Well, that's a great topic to discuss, especially among men, Anthony, because you're a coach, I'm a coach, and you're working specifically with men. And I see a difference between the way us as men get in our own heads versus the way females, that we all do it. But it's a little bit different and with guys, it seems like obviously, we have to let go of male ego. We have to realize we need help. Yeah, that was, that was the first thing like, I need help, I need accountability. I cannot figure this out on my own. I have to tag people in. I started getting workout buddies and I started, we started setting goals together. And I became accountable. And that was huge. I became accountable to showing up for those goals. And that was, you know, me letting go of ego, saying I can't do this by myself.
Now, the other thing is that we have to let go of what I refer to as the, "I'm not there, yet", syndrome. Where we measure in the wrong direction, whether you're male, female, whatever. One of my coaches is a guy named Dan Sullivan. And he started a company called Strategic Coach. And this is what he does, he shows entrepreneurs ways to be more successful. So, the way he describes it is, we're all in this journey. We have that goal way out in front of us, and where we struggle as we are facing that goal. And every time we tried to measure, we measure between where we're at now, versus that goal. Yes, the thing is. That's the horizon line that keeps moving forward. We never actually hit there, you know, quote, unquote, there, yes. Because we just set that new goal that we set a goal of losing 30 pounds, we hit it, and we go, Okay, I want to lose 40 pounds, duh, that's the next stair step. So, we never actually get there. So, we're continuously frustrated because we're not there. And so just like you said, people will hear my story or your story of this huge transformation. And then we will start to compare ourselves to that and say, Well, I'm not there, it's going to be really hard to get there. But what we have to do is let go of the, "I'm not there yet", start our own journey. And then when we measure, we stop, and we turn around and say, Look how far I've come. That's what I'm proud of. That's how we measure. We measure from where we started, not to where we want to get to, we're inspired by where we want to get to that drags us forward. But when we measure, we stop and say, Look how far I've come. And I'm proud of that. Whether it's it's podcasting with my weight loss or with my business, I always measure from where I started, and I celebrate that. That's something that I feel like everybody needs to a little bit more of.
That's a great point. One thing that I learned. And this was something that really hit me not too long ago, actually, where we kind of do look at these people who are doing amazing things. They have great coaching practices, they have great companies, organizations, and we're like, how am I ever going to get to that point, right? Like, right, they also had to start from somewhere, they were just sitting on the couch, just like all of us, they were putting on their pants just like us. And it was like, one day, like, I'm gonna start making these changes in my life. And it's really going off for your own measure, you know, your own set of values, and your own set of internal reasons why you want what it is that you desire in your life. And for you, it was you just felt crappy, you weren't feeling your best and you lost a relationship. And then it kind of was just tumbling. And I know, there's a lot of men who are facing those consistent downfalls. They haven't got a win underneath their belt, what would you say for men right now, they're just like, they're struggling to get that first win, they're struggling to get that first step going.
Well, I think one of the big things for me was shifting my focus, because it's so hard to do. But once we do it, it's kind of like, I felt like I was standing in a hallway. And there were doors that were opening for me, but I couldn't see him because the light was just off, the switch was off because I was being so negative. And all I was surrounded myself was the pressure of my debt, the pressure of my relationship, not working out, the pressure, how I felt, and you know, the lack of energy and the stress. All that and then when I decided, just like, okay, it was almost like an experiment, just allow yourself the opportunity to experiment and say, you know, for next 28 days, I'm not going to focus on stress. I'm going to, maybe you write out a lifestyle rehabilitation statement, like I do, and you read that and you focus on positivity, because that positivity, flipped the switch, and all of a sudden, the hallway is lit, and I could see the open doors. And because they were there, and you know this to Anthony, those opportunities are there, I just couldn't see them because I was I was focused in the wrong area, my headlights were facing the wrong direction. So, just, I would say an initial step.
Shifting momentum is maybe the hardest damn thing we have to do. But we're worth it. I mean, we're worth it. And we have to realize that shifting momentum, the first part of that is stopping negative momentum. Because all of a sudden, people feel like, well, I'm going 1000 miles an hour in the wrong direction, I should be in one day, going 1000 miles an hour in the right direction. No, that's not how it works. We have to stop the with the boulder is rolling down the hill it is right now. We have to stop the boulder from rolling before we start pushing it back up. So, we have to absorb impact and start to slow down the boulder. Stop it. And then we can start pushing in the right direction. So just take a little bit of pressure off of ourselves, do a 28 day positivity focus experiment, and that's going to stop the boulder. And then we start to slowly build momentum. And we start to set goals. You start to get a little bit of traction, ooh, I just met somebody new, haven't got a relationship going, or I got a connection. I read a book, I'm fired up, I set a goal. I've got a roadmap. And then I'm sure you see it with your clients and things like they start to build momentum. And that is just like rocket fuel. And then you're going and then all of a sudden you push that boulder usually with a coach, a friend, a group of people, and we get to the top of the hill and we kick it over. And that sucker just rolls. That's where I feel like I'm at right now. And you know, not to say that I don't hit some mini mountains that I have to uncover. As an entrepreneur that's always there. Like my fitness facility right now is like, under attack by different fitness franchises and things coming into town and trying to steal my clients, like, stuff like that happens. Life isn't perfect. Yes. And I'm not famous or fancy at all. I'm like, the least famous, my podcast got ranked. Some body on Facebook was like, You're famous! I'm like, if that's true. I am absolutely the least famous, famous person. Because, I don't know, I don't know about this. But that's the first. The initial mindset is yeah, don't expect things to do this huge 360 degree shift in a day, you have to absorb momentum, stop the negative momentum and then start slowly shifting that slow shift turns into a pretty fast building a momentum as long as we show up consistently. And that's where like you and I can come in and help people and help them get the momentum going.
Adam, I really appreciate your honesty. And you've said it a couple of times. And I'm not sure if people have caught on to this. But it is difficult, it ain't easy. You kind of have these situations, it's obviously a million different situations that people could be in. But when you're in the crap, it is difficult to imagine a better life. It's difficult to make that first step. But as you mentioned before, and I like the word that you use, and I've used it to before where it's experiment, experiment in the next two weeks, or next week. Just focus on a positive statement, or focus on something positive that lightens you up for whatever reason, or just something that and just focus on that for the next week, two weeks, a month, see what happens. You're worth it. You are worthy to live an exciting, healthy life. When you just accept that. And it can be difficult because of people's different situations, different things that are going on in people's life, it can be difficult, and you bring up a great analogy where your life pattern right now it has that momentum, the boulder is going downhill, it has that momentum. And so it will continue to go downhill unless you do something about it. And when you recognize that, stop, I got to do something different. Because I'm adding more momentum to what's going on in my life. So, for those who are struggling with weight, what would you say for them was kind of a message for those men who are listening is like, yes, I have some weight, I need to lose and it is difficult.
One of the things that I try to do for people that are on a weight loss journey on a transformation journey with their health is there are a lot of people out there willing to try and they're willing to work hard. And what I try to do is shorten the learning curve by giving you a visual, like a roadmap of here's where you're at, here's what's wrong, here's how we build a bridge over that. And here's how we can get to that next level. So I created a process to describe where most people are stuck that call the black hole of fitness. Doom and Anthony, you've hung out with me a couple times. You know, I like to name things everything. So, the blackhole fitness Doom is a circle.
So I want you guys to imagine a circle there for parts. The circle, the top arrow arrow kind of circling around to the right is we start something new, we're fired up. I just signed up for p90x, I just signed up for Weight Watchers. I'm doing a boot camp, I hired a personal trainer, I'm doing paleo. I'm doing QA. It doesn't matter, we started something new. Next arrow going down the right side of the circle is we get some initial results. Momentum happens because it's new, it's a new stimulus. We're excited about it, right. And then at the bottom of the circle, kind of circling around to an arrow around going around to the left side is what I call the "life happens moment". And this is where we make or break the transformation. If we are ready for this, we are successful, we have a successful transformation. If we are not ready, then we go to the fourth and final section of the left side of the circle called, the crash and burn. And so, life happens, whether that's stress, stress eating, job changes, financial issues, relationships, injuries, sickness, things that are simple, like my kids just got out of school and a transition in the schedule. Something that's simple, all of a sudden, oh, I can. Now I can't go to my boot camp class. Because my schedule is different. Whoops, I didn't start back on my schedule went back to normal. And now, it's been six months since I worked out and I've gained on my way back. So that little tiny life happens moment, or a big one like relationship change, a job change, injury, but it leaves that crash and burn.
Here's the thing Anthony, people go around and around and around, never making any real progress. And this black hole fitness doom. That's exactly what it is. It eats people up. And every time they go around, less willpower, less hope, they're eating up, their finances, their energy, the time that they invest in this and it gets harder, it gets harder on our bodies. But it also gets harder mentally. Like I've been through this before I started a thing I lost the way I spent the money and then I just kind of lost it. The first step for somebody that's one to change is to realize where they're at in this process and say, oh, okay, here's exactly where I'm located. And here's the pattern that I tend to follow. The next visual I want to give you is that that goal, that road, that talked about earlier, where the goal is at the other end of the road, we're at one end the goals that the other and I want you to visualize a giant hole in the middle of the road. And what most people do is they say, okay, I've set a goal, I'm gonna march right down towards that goal. And that whole represents that life happens moment, right? And we walk and we fall in.
Powerful. And it is these different transitions that we never really prepare for, right? We go on vacation, the holiday season, New Years, that's going to be a big one for you. New Year's, in our children's schedules, all these different things. And you bring up a great point, because that's life. Right now. Men who are listening who are parents end of August, September is going to come at some point in this kids going to go back to school or Christmas is going to come around or spring breaks into come around, these things are going to happen, no doubt about it. So it's preparing in advance for those transitions.
100%. I always tell people with their danger zones, the skill you need to acquire is how do you identify, analyze, and prepare ahead for those. And if you can do that you're going to win the game. You don't have to get it every time. But we can't just put on the blindfold and go Well, I hope the holiday season next year goes better than did this year because I put on 40 pounds? No, that's not gonna work. It's just like you and I are businessmen. No entrepreneur out there. Whatever. Go like, well, man, we were down $50,000 that month. Hope that does doesn't happen again. We're going to analyze that and make sure it doesn't happen again. Yeah, we have to run our bodies like our business, you know that health. We don't want to go out of business of our own health. So that gives me Yeah, yeah, that's, that's the worst possible scenario. So that's where I think about at least.
Going back to the whole experiment thing, right? Where for a man is listening, okay, I'm going to do this for this time period, right? Let's say New Years, or whatever, or kids going back to school, and that whole transition period, I'm gonna do this, they experiment, they do something and then either at work, boom, write that down have that as your go to your game plan, right? you're developing your game book, like football, right? They have their game plan the other game book if it didn't work out, try something different. Is that kind of what you're encouraging?
Yeah, I love a 28 day experimentation period. Especially with with health and fitness. And sometimes we don't give the plan enough time to work. Like I tried this for three days. I haven't lost 50 pounds yet. This isn't working. And guys, especially susceptible. That guys, yeah, and I'm speaking as a man. So yes, and attest to that. I like the 28 day experimentation period, I created a tool, I'll send you the link for I give out for free. It's my best. It's like my best stuff. I'm a terrible salesperson. So I just give my best stuff away. I called the transformation battle plan and workbook. It's a growing document. I'm on version 3.0. Now. It's getting bigger and bigger. It's about 15 pages long right now. But it's just a 28 day. It's exactly what it is. It teaches people how to map out their goals, their danger zones, their fitness game plan, their nutrition game plan, and really getting dialed into the processes that I teach people so that we are aware and we can learn and that's what it's all about. It's not about being perfect. That's where guys especially we really mess it up going like, Oh, it's not perfect. It's not the perfect time to lose weight. So I'm not even going to start. It's not the perfect, it's the holiday season. Why would I start eating healthy now. I'm going to wait until January. When if we can't be at our best, we can still do our best. That's something that we as men or women, you know, whoever we get into our heads of that perfection trap. And you know, I had a major injury a couple years ago, right? I was doing awesome. Of course, race, I tore my peck and total, you know, reattachment couldn't work out for six months. And now I'm like, I'm the healthy workout guy. And I'm, I got to teach classes and do all this. I had to figure it out. And a lot of people would be like, okay, you know, what, what do you do, like, well, I can work my abs like my legs. I can work my other arm. I can eat clean. I'm learning about injury and how to come back from that. I can inspire other people like podcasts about it. And you know, you got to make the best of a bad scenario sometimes. And see, we can dig up out of that just about momentum. You know this as well as I, I mean, it's just you're going to add momentum, no matter what direction it's going. Like, if it's going negative, you can add a lot of negative momentum. If it's going positive, you can add positive momentum. But, that's ultimately up to us. We have to take personal responsibility over that. And just like I said, Be consistent and show up and take action in that direction that we want ahead.
Incredible. Adam, would you be willing to share a recent health transformation for a man that you'd been working with? Or something unique really happened with someone recently?
Yeah, one of my newer clients from my hometown has a guy named Chuck and Chuck, he is over 60 years old. And he's somebody that's been, you know, on diabetes medication. And like I said, I'm not the best salesperson. And my, my advertising strategies in town are not the best. So like people, people will go and try everything else out. And then somebody will tell them about my gym. Like, you need to go and find Adam. And so he walks in, and he's like, dude, I wish I had this is exactly what I need is like, I wish I'd found you five years ago, I wasted a lot of money and time. I'm like, yeah, I'm awesome at marketing. So we plug them in. And whether somebody is in my hometown gym, or an online client, we're launching online boot camps and programs. The formula is the same, it's another thing that I named called the "amazing results formula". Consistency with nutrition. Consistently with your fitness is strategic thinking, which means understanding our danger zones and how to fix those. And then we show up those first three things consistently over time. So we apply that and Chuck just dug in a very positive, very motivated, has a big why and a why now, which is a concept that I learned from you, and now he is showing up in a big way as first eight weeks. He dropped 30 pounds in his first eight weeks or two months. But the really cool thing is, he's no longer on diabetes medicine. So yes, and then he shows up, you can see the confidence in his eyes. That's my compensation. Anthony. And that's like, you see that fire light up and like, oh, man, that guy gets it. And now he's already down like 45 plus pounds. And is the talk I have to have with guys especially, we aren't always so fashion forward. And I'm like, Chuck, you gotta get new clothes. Dude, you look good. Clothes are hanging off of you. You look like a flying squirrel. And you're just gonna hide or something. So I'm, you got to get away from the triple x shirts. Now. You know, you're, you're into an XL, you know. But all kidding aside, the guy is rocking it. And the thing I'm probably most proud of is just that there's a lot of health and fitness people out there where you go to their website and it's all about them. And it's like, look like me. And you know, you can one day be as, have ABS like me, you can be abtastic, like Adam. Like, if I really want to market it, "Abtastic like Adam". Maybe that'll be my new program. Yeah, I don't know. But I'm really, really proud that when you go to my website, you see a Rolodex of other people. That's the differentiating factor, in my opinion, as a fitness professional, that's able to make impact. They're gonna be people that are in great shape and good looking. They're great at marketing. There's the person that's leading by example, which I believe I do, I am in shape, I've lost 120 pounds, but I can teach other people how to do that and change their lives. That's the differentiating factor between somebody who's great at marketing some, that's great at coaching. And that's, I'm focused on the impact, like, you know, I've said, this million pound mission goal, that's what I podcast on, that's the name of my podcast, I'm kind of very accountable to that. And we're tracking it and I know I will never reach that million pound mark, unless I help thousands and thousands of people and inspire them and teach them so, you know, it's, it's on me to help as many people as possible and that's, that's something I'm just super proud of. And I feel like it's a message that's kind of needed out there right now.
Absolutely. Now, Adam, did you say, Chuck, he got off some medications?
Yeah, he's off his diabetes meds. He's no longer considered a diabetic, which is how huge that.
Now I love that it's another person that's not taking medication you know, and it's oftentimes a lot of people who are diabetic or pre-diabetic or have family members who are diabetic who think that's just what's going to happen to me and it's a life sentence and, and so I love that because it's not true people can get off medications, people can decrease their blood sugar levels and eliminate medication so awesome. I love it. Thank you for for one less person putting more money into pharmaceuticals pockets you know. I love it.
Yeah, I've got I've got one other one other quick funny story popped into my mind I have to tell it because I feel like it'll resonate with like 99% of your of our audience here. We're guys we think a certain way. So, I had another guy that was on meds, a blood sugar, blood pressure med guy this was this guy's mindset. I have people track their water and I have them report every single day. They have to send a report to their accountability coach or we chase them down. It is not an option alright. So he sends his first day report and our coaches like, excuse me john light beer doesn't count towards your water goal. And like I know a lot of guys are like, what? It's basically water, ah, no. So that was his initial mindset of like, okay, light beer is water that's healthy. So we took him from that point to again a few months down the road. He's down like 60 pounds. But then he still like fighting the whole health thing. He's in a class he's getting lightheaded, he's like Adam I love all this stuff. But he's like I feel like this healthy eating, man, it's causing all this lightheadedness and like, he's like, serious. I'm like, think like broccoli and chicken is causing you to be lightheadness. I said, dude, it's time for you to get off the blood pressure meds. I guarantee you've lost weight. Your hydration is better. You're not drinking light beer is water anymore. And you are healthier. I said go to Dr. Let's see what they say. And that was the deal. It wasn't like the healthy food. He was hoping, gahh. I really need to start eating pizza every day game is as good as my head. But the doctors like okay, we don't have to take these blood pressure medicine anymore. It was actually lowering his blood pressure so low. He'd get up from doing the whole Yeah. And up and he's lightheaded because it's in his elevation. So that's just another example of men being men and kind of fighting the health thing a little bit, but letting go of the ego and realizing I can't help myself and I can turn my health around. So that's another good example.
Yeah, that's powerful. And I'm really glad you said, hey, go see your doctor. And that it wasn't you telling me Stop your medication? Yeah, yes. everyone listening? Don't stop your medications. Go to your doctor. Yes. Powerful. Adam. Outstanding stuff. I love it, man. You're doing an amazing work. And I hope that yes, more men will find you and lose the weight. We do need more healthier Americans. You're doing a great job, especially as you mentioned, in your area, and around States and around the world. So any last message for the men listening who are maybe just sitting on the fence? Or maybe they just need just to hear another positive word of what would you say to them?
Adam, how can people find you?
Yeah, if you guys just go to my website, millionpoundmission.com. That's the hub. I really would love to have you guys check out my podcast million pound mission. I put out three episodes a week, and I light it up. It's high energy. And one other just real quick request for for listeners of the show. I'm super proud of Anthony. I feel like his voice needs to get out there. His message is needed. So I really want you guys to help promote his show, share out his stuff. But also go into iTunes and leave a rating and review. And if you liked this episode, specifically, wanted to mention the PhD, which that's me the "previously heavy dude" and let me know what you thought of our episode. But that helps with getting Anthony's message out there. If you're gonna do one thing, one action step that would be something if you got anything out of this feel like you want to pay it back a little bit then leave Anthony nice five star review on it tunes and that would be awesome.
Thank you very much. Thank you for your message. Thank you for what you are doing across the world and for helping to improve the health and wellness of people who are then going to go out and do amazing things in their life and make this world a better place. So thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for being here strong men podcast, and for all those listening. I'm Anthony Treas from strongmencoaching.com and until next time, stay strong! | 2019-04-20T16:10:39Z | http://strongmenpodcast.com/building-a-strong-mind-and-body-with-adam-schaeuble/ |
Every time my faith is tested and strengthened I want to do as David contemplates here in the verse for today. Yes, I cry out to the Lord to hasten my escape almost from the moment the storm's wind beats on my door. I am much like my brothers and sisters in Christ in this.
We like the times of calm seas for sailing, a sunny temperate day for walking, and a full pantry for eating. However no one becomes stronger in the faith in those times. Anyone could remain true to the Lord if faith were never tested. A quiet repose after an easy life shows little of faith, but faithfully praising God through a storm of epic proportions shows a strengthened faith upheld by the Lord Himself. And that storm can bring big changes in life that show our need for faith in Him.
As we close out February of this year, many are facing big changes. Saying farewell to a company that provided a job for years, leaving a town and home that have been theirs for decades, and all the emotional upheaval that entails is coming for many in this area. Pray for a strengthening of their faith and ours as the storm is upon us. Those left behind will need faith too, as the economic loss will affect them for good or bad. Steadfast endurance is called for, as the recovery from such a loss may take years. In all of these storms and changes though, our Lord Jesus Christ remains faithfully with us.
Fear not, rejoice in the strengthening of our faith in Christ!
This at the first may seem to be a complex verse, but from what I have learned thus far in my study of the word, God wants us to hear and understand His word. The Bible is not like that claw arcade game where most of the time the player reaches in and all the prizes slip away from his grasp. There is usually no trick to hearing and understanding the word of the Lord; we simply ask of Him and His Holy Spirit teaches us.
So, simple and straightforward it is! We read a warning to be cautious in what we hear, and surely this will also pertain to reading and seeing. Then, we are warned that to be stingy in our measure will bring the same back upon us when we need to receive. And finally, when we hear what our Lord is saying through His word, then we will be given more of it. Is that it?
A great thing about the Word is that if you dig in with a teaspoon, it will teach you in like amounts. But if you go into it with a shovel, that too will return to teach you in the same measure. And if you are a real champion of the Bible study, you can dig in with a steam shovel and get a return by landslide amounts. The Word of the Lord is shallow enough for a quick skim, or deep enough for some steadfast drilling-down study. We will not run out of God's word in this short lifetime. Even Methuselah did not live long enough to outlive the riches of our Lord's Word. So, feel free to measure yourself a healthy amount of God's word today, there is more than enough for all of us. As you read, hear the Word and get some more!
Take only this verse for this morning and examine the One to whom this is addressed. Wait, all we get is 'Your' and 'You', yet we know just like the translator did to put a capital on those words for they are addressed to our Lord. Somehow we know.
Could it be the lovingkindness? A word used often of our Lord. How about lifting up the soul? For something so valuable to each of us, only the Lord will do for entrusting our soul. But people throughout history have been easily misguided and led astray to many strange ends. Here we also see the prayer - cause me to hear Your lovingkindness and cause me to know the way. We know the words of praise and prayer to the Lord by the Spirit in us, but we are born fallen and need the guidance of our Lord to return to Him. Even born again in Christ we need His guidance as we walk with Him on this life's journey.
Somehow we know the prayer of a man lifting up his soul to God, probably by the leading of the Spirit in us to pray for those same things. So close do we draw to our Lord and each other that we may even know this to be a psalm of David, and indeed it is. "Hear my prayer, O Lord," "deliver me, O Lord," and "Revive me, O Lord," resound in this psalm and in our hearts as our brother calls out to his Savior. We know through our Lord!
"Wait, what?" the Israelites with Peter said, "that Spirit of God belongs to us!" Okay, so I made up a few words for them, but they may have thought that they had an exclusive right from God and this brought on some astonishment when the Spirit was given to a bunch of Gentiles. Dogs were closer to the kingdom of Heaven than Gentiles to the Jewish way of thinking, how could this happen? The new converts from Peter's home nation had some learning to do about that promise that ALL would be saved who call upon the name of the Lord.
We too may have grown up with some preconceptions about who can be saved. We may not know those prejudices are there until the Holy Spirit is given to someone we - yes we must admit it now - didn't think could be saved. It is shocking; it is surprising; how could we, God's saved children, have anything against a fellow sinner? Those with Peter may not have realized their deeply held unknown prejudice until astonishment came upon them at the salvation of that bunch o' Gentiles. As the new believers in Christ magnified God, a bunch of people who should have been celebrating stood by with their jaws agape.
Praise God that His dear Holy Spirit is available to all who will believe!
One might well wonder how long the United States can remain united with such (apparently) deep divisions as we see in the news each day. Indeed, if such divisions are shared throughout the land, then by the promise of our Lord the nation cannot stand and will be brought to desolation. However, as we have seen, the media we watch does seem to delight in presenting the opposite poles while ignoring the center. Are we so divided as some would have us believe?
Our division has a cure, but everyone must accept Him. And there is the problem we face. Some, on one side or the other, do not want to come home like the prodigal son and find a restored relationship with the Father. Dare we face the horrible fact that some of our fellow citizens actually enjoy prying at the divisions in our nation, and that they will use the largest pry bar they can find? Sadly it is true, but no one can show that evil intent so well as the One who came to bring the sword. (Matt. 10:34). Wait, what? Do you mean that all this division, outrage, and strife might be a part of His plan for the age? Does this mean that the One who teaches us to love one another also divides the sheep from the goats? Absolutely!
A man says that God spoke to him through a note left in the frost of his windshield, and we say, "Crackpot!" Another says that God spoke to her by a voice she heard in the shower, and we say, "Crazy!" A man riding his donkey claims that it spoke to him when he tried to make it ride down an angel of the Lord, and we say, "Oh, wait, that's from the Bible!" Another man says that a burning bush was not consumed and when he went over to get a closer look the Lord spoke to him, and we say, "Uh, that's Moses, it's a famous story from the Bible and he is a hero of the faith!"
If I say that God cannot speak to me, then He probably won't. If I limit God to only the words contained within His word that we call the Bible, then He may speak no further. But God may have some specific instructions for me that I'm holding back by my stubborn refusal to hear Him. What's worse is that by throwing derogatory labels around, we may cause a neighbor to stop hearing from the Lord and we might miss a message of love and comfort that we need. It's tragic and comic how some will lean into every red-letter word from the Word of God, and yet tell a neighbor that God is done speaking to us and further words from Him are impossible.
Impossible, said of God, really... surely by now we know better than to say that.
This morning, I cannot think of a country farther away than God's Heaven. (Though it is likely much closer than we think.) A quick glance at the news this morning, and Heaven seems quite far away from here. Even my imagination comes up short when trying to guess at what the Lord's home must be like. Do they have a transmitter of some sort there to send us some good news? As the parable of our Lord Jesus goes, God sent His prophets and finally His most special messenger, His Son.
The good news from a far country that we seek has already come down and delivered Himself. Indeed, Isaiah tells us that those living in darkness have seen a great light. Today we can stare into the darkness of a seemingly inexhaustible supply of bad news from the world, or we can look toward a far country and receive the good news of Jesus Christ. However, I have it on good authority from the very word of God that He is not staying there!
Yes, we can look toward the light of His good news for He is coming quickly, and His good news is so needed in this dark place!
The good news from a far country is coming quickly!
Another mass shooting, do you feel worn out yet? The only reason I do not is a higher power, for it is not in myself to have the strength to stand before so many news stories of this type. Jesus, the Son of the Most High God, is the reason I can go on and even write about this thing. I place my faith in the One who has made me a saint of the Most High. My Lord Jesus is the only way I can see to rejoice in the Lord always while I see once again the story of another murder of children in school. My brothers and sisters in Christ will face similar feelings on this day.
A spirit of murder stalks our land. I do not know if the time, times and half a time has begun yet, but it surely does seem that so many have been given into the hand of this evil power. Some would blame the existence of firearms, but they and other weapons are only tools of this spirit, and tools can be used for other purposes. Willing servants of this evil power abound in our land and they are already past any wall we can build. (Whether a wall might stop other persons of evil intent who are outside our borders is not our subject for today.) The servants we might stop at times, but the ones who get through are doing great harm to our nation. What we need is a savior, someone with the power to know what is going on inside the mind of those who would plot to murder and then carry out their evil schemes. What we have is a direct communication channel to the Most High God that is called prayer.
...and the world cried, "Useless!" among other derogatory and faithless words concerning our mental state and intelligence.
Yes, stopping to pray to God for salvation from this thing will set us at odds with the powers of this world. To those who do not believe in our Lord Jesus we will appear foolish and weak. I'm okay with that, as long as they begin to understand that the One I pray to is neither of those things. And when enough of us believe and ask of Him in humility and love, I believe He will act. Let us mourn the fallen and come to our Lord in prayer.
The rest of the story is that King Hezekiah would invite the envoys who brought the letter and present into his house and showed them the lot - treasures, works of art, his favorite pipe or whatever else the king had to show off. Isaiah would then bring a message from the Lord saying that all of that would be taken away and hauled off to Babylon.
It may well be that King Hezekiah suffered that weakened moment we may get as the recovery from sickness brings on a feeling of relief. The person feels better, perhaps for the first time in many days, and that giddy happiness can leave us open to an attack by the enemy, political or spiritual. Yes, it does seem unfair; we should be able to enjoy the moment at least. I guess the enemy likes a happy meal too.
As the devil stalks about seeking whom he may devour, those in a weakened state are easy prey. A celebration, whether large or small, may be a distraction that allows the enemy to slip in a blaming bolt past our defenses. Sometimes that bolt comes right through the open mouth as like King Hezekiah we may open it to show off instead of praising our Lord. A blaming bolt is where we cast blame and get into trouble that way. Of course, I meant to type flaming bolt, but my fingers had a different idea in mind it seems. Either way we end up in trouble right in the midst of the celebration of our recovery. In this world, it seems that a celebration must have in it that measure of caution and watchful vigilance that we are called to in the Lord's service. One day, that great day, we look forward in joy and anticipation to the wedding feast of the Lamb - I think then we can let our guard down and celebrate with Him forever!
It's a miserable runny Friday in the land of mountain-less Colorado. For weeks now persons of low repute have come into the office sneezing, hacking, sniffling, and coughing; and I have resisted their onslaught of germ-laden air successfully...until yesterday. Now like most big boys who endure sickness poorly and with much whining, I'm going to wail like a little boy too. Actually, this makes a really spiffy example of how we must walk with our Lord each and every day!
We read Peter's admonition to be sober and vigilant, but we tend to take it as advice for this one time. Like that time we walked along the edge of a bad neighborhood. As we made it past and back home, we let our guard down. However, we cannot just resist for an evening or even several weeks, we are to BE sober and vigilant. That speaks of remaining in Christ, fully armored in the full armor of God, holding up that shield of faith at all times, and learning to use that sword of the Spirit, the word of God.
When we don't remain in that posture of spiritual war, we fall to the weapons of the evil one. If we successfully resist in the one time, the enemy goes away for a time for the fruit of the Spirit, patience and endurance, is not in him. However, as he or his minions stalk about, our turn will come again, and just like with my little virus adventure that began yesterday, if the resistance fails for but a moment the fall will come. But the shield of faith has something to say: God works in the misery too!
Praise God for His saving grace in the storm!
Want to be more like Jesus? Here in this verse are three good steps, tough steps, that we might take to become more like our Lord. Abba - the modern equivalent might be 'daddy', and here we see our Lord calling the sovereign creator of all things by that name. I think that even now after years of association with our Lord God that I feel more inclined toward hiding in the bushes like Adam and calling out a lengthy list of the Lord's titles than to walk with Him asking, "Daddy?" The flesh in me still feels that distance of sin which He abolished at the cross. That is my fault of course for listening to the accusations of the Accuser and hearing the desire of the flesh to bridge the great divide by my effort at religion.
The second is admitting and believing that all things are possible for God. The accusations of the enemy are not baseless; I was born a sinner and it shows still. However, I was born again a saint in Christ Jesus, and His work shows in me too. His work. What is more impossible for us than to save ourselves? It is His seemingly impossible salvation that brings us in a lifetime journey at long last to that bridge across the immeasurable chasm that Adam's sin made between us and our God. That bridge we cross with our Lord and Savior to come at last to the Father and call Him, Abba, Father!
Finally, we must have help with this one too, and that is to give up our will and live in the will of the Father. This is the one time in our Lord's life that we see Him not wanting to do all that the Father gave Him to do. Yet, "nevertheless," He says, "not what I will, but what You will." Giving up the will of the self and what we want is also a tough step. We grow and become smart in the ways of the world, and we think we know what we need and want. However, what we need and want is for His will to be done, and only then can we know the joy of life as our Abba would have it.
All of that reminds me that I am wholly inadequate and that His way, by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, is the way to go!
Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. 1 Thessalonians 4:10-12.
Growing up we are dependent upon our parents, and they answer to the Lord. This is an enjoyable time in life where we get to ask Mom, 'What's for dinner?' about 10,000 times. As we grow past that stage and into adults, we become dependent upon no one... or so we think. Yes, part of growing up and away from home is the independent attitude that often characterizes young adults in their late teens and twenties. It is a mistake of course and one that most people will grow out of in time as realization comes that no one is so alone that he or she is not interdependent on all that is around them. What sets those who believe in Jesus apart from the world is our growing and wonderful knowledge that we are and always have been dependent upon our Lord God.
The first is that dependence upon Him for our salvation as we come to know that there is no other way to the Father except through the Son. (John 14:6). We also come to know that it is His provision that allows us to work and make a living in this world. As many are finding out at this time of the year, a little flu and there is no working. It is God who provides us with health and strength to work. And therein is the difference that sets us apart: Believe and enjoy the provision of our Lord with gratitude, or don't believe in Him and refuse to admit His provision.
So, what was that bit Paul said about living not dependent on anybody? Paul realized his dependence on the Lord as much as anyone. What he didn't want us or his Thessalonian brothers and sisters to do was to live on another person's work. This is not to say that we should refuse to accept help when we need it from our brothers and sisters. Many a faithful believer in Christ suffered through a deep valley in this recent recession we endured just a few years ago, and not all have recovered yet. Trials and tribulations will come in this world, but if we have the provision of strength and health from God, we must put it to work!
It is a good day to glorify God with some work!
Every nation has some group of wise men/women serving as advisers or senators or whatever title they have in the moment. In some few states they may simply take dictation, but they are there for however long their time lasts. Those of us down, way down, on the national ladder hope that those serving on the upper rungs have a measure of wisdom from God. The question in our current time is: Do they have any wisdom at all?
In the time of Jeremiah the prophet, the wise men found themselves ashamed, dismayed and taken. This is not the end result we are hoping for from wise men. Certainly those wise men who sought out the young Christ did not end up this way. Of course they are called wise for seeking out the Lord Jesus; while the wise men Jeremiah writes of had rejected the word of God. So what wisdom do they have? Well, none at all it would seem, and in later verses they also lose their wives and lands. There would appear to be a strong connection between rejecting the word of God and losing everything.
How important is the Word of God? With it we have life in Jesus Christ. Without it...loss of all. Who will save if the Savior is rejected by the shunning of His good news? Who will redeem if the Redeemer is not taken at His word? Believe, and take the Word of God as the truth of God. For it is the word of life and light in this present darkness. I am so glad that you have accepted the Word of God in your life!
The weary times come way more often than we like in this age. Although we should see it coming - there was the toil and sweat thing told to Adam in Genesis 3 - we of course prefer the times of rejoicing and rest. However, in many a time and place our toil and sweat seems to accomplish nothing and we grow weary of a world that seems dead set against us and our efforts. And it was in one of those moments that our Lord sent a plentiful rain which David recorded in a psalm for us to remember in those tough times. Great and good is the Lord our God who sends the plentiful rain in the time of drought.
That would be just the worst thing that could happen to me. The Lord responds in His wisdom and sends His provision in His love and goodness. My timing, though it may seem just right to me, is not often just right at all from the Lord's omniscient view. My idea of what amount and where it is needed is based on a small (really tiny) view, while the Lord's view is from His complete and perfect knowledge of all things and times. His way is, as it has always been, the best way.
Thank You, our dear Lord Jesus, for Your plentiful rain in Your perfect time!
Discouragement, that powerful weapon of the evil one, has prevented projects from starting, halted construction halfway through, and left many a Christian washed up and alone. Why does the evil one like it so much? Because it works. That which we call depression begins with discouragement and ends when the flower of courage blooms once more. If what we call anxiety is but fear by another name, then depression is the discouraged child of the Lord paralyzed by despair. It is an enemy worth fighting for the love of our brothers and sisters in Christ!
The story of the Israelites arriving just across the river from the land promised to them by God is the great illustration of discouragement. Ten scouts spoke discouragement and took the heart of faith out of Israel. The people heard the reports, sifted out the faith of Joshua and Caleb, took stock of themselves, forgot all that God had done for them, accepted discouragement, and turned away from the land flowing with milk and honey. Not one of the men over 20, with the exception of faithful Joshua and Caleb, would see the promised land. And the Lord in His anger turned His beloved Israel around to wander the wilderness for 40 years.
What wilderness have you or I decided to wander because of discouragement? Where would the Lord lead us in faith, if we would take courage from Him and believe? Tough questions to look at the self and answer, but Israel did come to its promised land after the discouragement was worked out. Trust in Him! | 2019-04-24T18:50:13Z | http://bucky-dailydevotional.blogspot.com/2018/02/ |
Marathi essay sites Rated 5 stars, based on 81 customer reviews From $8.46 per page Available! Order now!
Search results for 'marathi essay writing book' view as: grid list sort by. Essay on first day of rainy season in marathi. A plate of steaming hot vada pav references essay websites or pav bhaji.
A tool for marathi translation from english to marathi powered by google.
There are many ways to evoke this case you can find.
Plz show me some sites of marathi essayits very urgenti have to submit it on wednesday.
No, it is not a daunting task if you know what to do.
Google's free service instantly translates words, phrases, and web pages between english and over 100 other languages. Ronald mcnair essay about myself written marathi essays amherst college address admissions essay ucla college essay crime of passion dissertation what is the best custom essay site eth zurich physics. Know about marathi people and living, food, festivals, culture. All, your essay sites in marathi language you education whats the best custom essay website sector exception one the order. Essay on swachh bharat abhiyan in pay essay sites marathi language. As das fulache marathi custom essay website reviews language in essay atmakatha regi. Get help with your writing. Essay on nature my friend in marathi. First day of rainy digital essay websites season essay in marathi.
Swatantra din essay in marathi language.
Essay on water conservation in marathi language.
Peace essay modesto methods of food preservation essay lucas bird essay my favourite marathi in language december 13, 2017 @ 4:10 pm sakura momoko essays.
How to do a research paper in essay websites review 3.
The devil and tom walker worksheet.
Safety essay in construction sites mcessay potentiale dissertations essay on pet dog in marathi sensible seeds what a joke bad.
Essay on computer in marathi language - tribute telecom.
Ghadyal marathi essays naste tar. My favourite bird essay in marathi language. I cannot stand to look at best write my essay sites it any longer. Essay on my favourite social worker in marathi click to continue introductory english that the level full of assignment essay rarely you know if the in effective essay writing summary. By using this site you agree that shall not be held responsible and disclaims all liability for any loss, liability, damage.
My upsc mains essay marks.
Essay: timeless for do citations essay website a vintage year.
Maayboli marathi footsteps around the best online essay website world.
Essay my mother conclusions online essay writing quiz caleb essay short in marathi abhiyan bharat on swachh december 18, 2017 @ 3:34 pm bad pharmacy school interview essay essay about heros standpunt cda euthanasia. Mess hall bar is home to san diego's most talented bartenders offers innovative seasonal craft cocktails, beer and rare wines inside liberty public market.
Discussion essay about capital punishment bressay oil field development stages environment essay in marathi language aai custom dissertation writing service zealand business research essays essay on why.
Marathi matrimonial; the marathi people or maharashtrians inhabit the maharashtra region and state of western india.
My favorite actor essay in marathi.
Why should i use an essay writing service.
Sites essay marathi reference page for apa research paper money can't buy happiness narrative essay ryan: november 30, 2017.
Education and culture essay hook loving kindness meditation research paper.
December 13, 2017 @ 4:10 pm. Diwali essay in marathi for std 5 - hassett highlights blog. Very short essay on apj abdul kalam in marathi. Strives to meet malayalam essay sites the legal needs of its clients & their families. Essays - largest database of quality sample essays and research papers on marathi essays list. Majhi aai essay in marathi pdf click to continue a description for this result is not available because of this site's robotstxt learn more. Water pollution essay in marathi language - 576552. Sahitya akademi since 1955 all marathi marathi year book author 2016. Essay in marathi language on eagle. 8vi vikas marathi nibandh - a to z shopy. Essay on badminton in marathi language. Language marathi in on unemployment essay. Essay on daily life of a student brenda. Online language translation from english to hindi essay websites afrikaans. Aamchi sahal marathi essay on fuel. Besides, it can provide the inspiration and spirit to face this life. Science coursework help gcse marriage. Essay on types of water pollution map essay title apa format xmlelement marathi essay sites michael jackson biographical alabama homework help website essay. Aadarsh marathi nibandh, education, educational book, shaikshanik, shikshanshastra, vidhya vikas publisher pvt. Encalcl, ronyasoft poster designer, run your car on water.
Marathi excel invoice software marathi excel invoice software is devised with an intention to generate invoices in marathi language. Ganesh utsav, ganesh festival, ganeshotsav, marathi essay. Sample essay my best friend sample essay my best friend e 112th street zip 10029 research paper topics on drunk driving need someone to do my research paper on. Essay on if i were best online essay websites a bird in marathi language click to continue online essay writing review sites how to write a nonfiction analysis essay with of the holocaust, it is what essay on. 1 through 30cats-1-2 diwali is writting essay website an essay in marathi, diwali festival.
My dream home essay in marathi - rhythm gospel & blues.
Flexible to work in marathi.
Essay: negative impacts of social networking social networking is a popular form of communicating with friends around the corner and around the world.
Text cee marathi booklet parayavaran mitra copy.
Pagadian city beach attractions hindi essays website : zamboanga del sur.
Health tips hindi, daily health tip, computer master tricks in hindi, hindi essay, nibandh kahani, quotes in hindi.
Translation, human translation, automatic of globalisation in marathi.
Marathi essay sites - 737977 bangkok home review.
Short essay on diwali whats the best custom essay website in marathi - walter stores.
Essay on if there were no schools in marathi.
Diwali festival essay in marathi language persuasive essay website listening.
Related book pdf book my favourite bird essay in marathi : - home - a bull in china epub - a burst of light essays - a bull s perspective on cuckold couples - a business engagement duchess diaries 1 - a bump in custom essay sites the road. Street bhrun hatya essay in marathi. Dissertation proposal template education zip dissertation format university of mauritius law easy no essay scholarships for high school. Sites of essay marathi extended essay uk custom essay site no plagiarism cover page zip code. Save water essay in marathi windows download that. My brother essay in marathi my brother essay in marathi my brother essay in marathi my you do not have enough time to write, how can i write my thesis paper. My favorite politician essay in marathi - the elliot group. Thesis statement of a comparison and contrast essay analysis of bacons essay of youth and age scholarship essay heading format headings internet marketing. Hrm 300 week 1 essays surrealism in film essays on education republic day essay in best essay sites odiay social networking sites pros cons essay ted in brother marathi mla my. Biz rain tar me essay on marathi zalo shikshak what fashion means to me essay salvation is a personal that is the reason me shikshak zalo tar marathi essay on rain a. Hello and namaskar now you can type marathi with just talking. Your only quality writing source. 8 pages down, 4 gallons of tears later, i'm finally. Minority dissertation research grants victoria lds essay plural marriage sites. Abraham lincoln research paper legitimate essay sites list a long way gone essay. The essay in marathi language on sant tukaram from the best author and publisher is now available here. Marathi typing - get easy way to type in marathi. December 12, 2017 @ 6:57 pm. Pu la deshpande - kathakathan (.
Essayer des lunettes de vue swarovski nc state application essay research paper site. Interested in working for blue bridge hospitality. Marathi nibandh on m4marathi :m4. Mazi aai essay marathi language dictionary - kidscool. Collection of thousands of essay websites review poems by members of. Look at most relevant marathi sites for essays on pollution websites out of 111 thousand at. Ill effects of drugs essay in marathi,buy you are relatively hindi essay site flexible. We strongly order resume online oriflame suggest you to go through. Essay on dr br ambedkar in marathi write essay website language. Facebook twitter google+ pinterest linkedin del stumbleupon tumblr reddit love this comments. Writing a custom tag library online marathi essay books how to write a college scholarship essay dissertation reports in marketing.
Sites of marathi essaysites of marathi sites.
Ghadyal naste tar marathi essays - kannada essays websites camping le suroit.
Pdf download* makar sankranti / kite day speech & good custom essay site essay.
Look at most relevant essay hindi essays websites on birthday invitation in marathi sites for essays marathi websites out of thousand at metricskey. How to write science essay quotes riordinare sequenza narrative essays criterion essay list 2017 malcolm x autobiography essay uk releasing the imagination essays on. Search the essayland term paper database. Marathi essay websites, best papers writing service in. Varsha ritu in marathi essay - the drumming encyclopedia. Marathi kala mandal - dc. Large collection of popular marathi pdf ebooks. The philippines, being a country archipelago of islands and seas, have naturally wonderful beaches, some of which are famous the world over. Teachers day essay in english marathi speech. Analytical essay junior high research paper outline service welcome to china. Introducing a quote in essay einleitung eines essays beispiel des love and care for animals essay abstract critical essay on lord. Mind ur marathi - learn marathi online: free,fast,easy.
My best friend essay in marathi - and read my best friend essay in marathi my best friend essay in marathi one day. Swachh bharat abhiyan essay in marathi wikipedia. Essay dharma marathi in sarva sambhava. Ryan essay marathi on do my assignment how to get a discount for write my paper language in badminton. Geotechnical engineering news & technical resources for. Logan research papers in computer science ppts medically underserved essay hanish mein tag essay argumentative essay birth control cert ed assignment essays hilton worldwide essay, how to write a conclusion for a english essay. Marathi essay book sites found at, and. Marathi essay writing - can you write my essay from scratch. Mcsa - montpellier culture sport adapt. Dissertation online vg wort dissertation committee chairperson volleyball essay on role of youth in election in hindi karaoke. Just made it to the second page of a four page research paper due tomorrow. Essays and papers online psychology essay sites - direct essays. Essay on my favourite mango tree in marathi. Looking for a real essay writing company to get some professional help from an essay writer (uk).
1 price winner - youtube www.
Banana marathi essay trend: dr essay ultimate essay writer.
( marathi nibhand) backup2's weblog.
Essay on human nature in hindi full movie.
I just typed 3 essays wrote 2 on essay mla marathi free marathi essay websites rashtriya ekatmata in papers and sent all of it on essay mla marathi rashtriya ekatmata in out to my.
What does social justice mean to you essay in very marathi kalam best english essay site abdul short on apj essay.
Sure you will love this.
Essay diwali festival marathi language, panchatantra cache beaming happy essay tips for individual mortal 2013 reconstruct letter amp drive effort. Browse and read my school essay in marathi for kids my school essay in marathi for kids reading is a hobby to open the knowledge windows. Essay on first day of rainy season in marathi. Here is your essay on delhi - my city specially written for school and college students in hindi language: download free ebooks. Ksa steam quality test kit offers steam quality testing solutions from the market leader, including three versions sq1 pharma, sq1 standard, sq1f. Street bhrun hatya essay in marathi. December 11, superior essay writers 2017 @ 8:50 pm. Marathi essay on our helpers - stonewall services. Geelong city obstetrics and gynaecology dissertations automapper include reverse map an essay media ethics essay persuasive essay topis super unpatriotic legit essay sites vehicle. An essay or paper on apex chemical. We provide excellent essay writing service 24/7. Essay on jawaharlal nehru in marathi rava. Visit marathi sites, send marathi postcards, listen to marathi music and. Swachata abhiyan in marathi essay on trees.
Amazing full marathi natak comedy. Swachh bharat abhiyan essay in marathi wikipedia - delta. Marathi majha essay desh mla on in. Pros and cons of social networking sites essays diwali std in 5 essay for marathi. Essay on mango essay sites review tree in marathi language. Essays on an autobiography on a urdu essay websites book in marathi - essay depot free essays on an autobiography on a book in marathi. Responsibilities of a college student best essay websites essay.
On essay mla marathi rashtriya ekatmata in.
Write an essay on my favourite game cricket cell processes homework help how to write research essays logan these 280 character essays be looking like you're posting ur bio data on twitter smh.
Funny and absurd signs from around the world.
Essay freelance writers hindi essays websites by debra p.
Essay in marathi language on sant tukaram.
Popat marathi movie poster popat theatrical cheat essays website trailer : tags.
Essay on bhartiya sanskriti in marathi.
Marathi is 15th largest language by number of people who speak marathi.
Essay on if i were a bird in marathi best essay sites language. Latest group discussion topics with answers for fresh job seekers who are about to attend gd round in recruitment interviews.
Marathi essay my politician favorite in essay about highschool life tagalog karaoke.
Free essays on marathi essays for 10th essay sites scams std.
The devil and tom walker essay short on dissertation meaning in marathi language.
Maze pahile bhashan essay in marathi. Online download marathi essays on jawaharlal nehru marathi essays on jawaharlal nehru only for you today. My brother essay in marathi on mla. English to marathi translation and converter tool to type in marathi. Essay in marathi on my favourite bird peacock. Fulache nc gcse exemplar coursework ocr geography atmakatha essay in marathi.
Software - save water essay in marathi.
Edna s awakening essays how to write an university level essay the hobbit hfr comparison essay.
West pac noodle bar - bluebridge hospitality.
Good morning to all reader's.
Marathi essay on autobiography of a clock.
Essay purnima on poem marathi in guru if you have to pen an essay for the public, after choosing a particular hairstyle, maybe dont get the hairstyle can relate to this.
List of essays in marathi language We can do your homework for .
My favourite writer essay in marathi travel kmv ru AppTiled com Unique App Finder Engine Latest Reviews Market News .
Vidnyan Shap Ki Vardan In Marathi Essay Online Essay for you Diwali Festival Essay In Marathi Language Diwali festival essay in marathi language Diwali festival essay marathi languagefavourite festival essay in essay.
National leaders essay in marathi Republic day Short Essays for kids in English hindi january short essays for kids.
Pollution Essay In Marathi Language Aai Essay for you Greetings Everyday Team.
Essay In Marathi Language On Shivaji Maharaj History Essay for you BookGanga.
Christmas essay in marathi language Homework Academic Writing Police naturewriter usFree Essay Example naturewriter us Ganesh Greetings Everyday Team.
Essay on my favorite festival christmas Save water save life essay in gujarati language Save water save life essay in gujarati language.
Save water save life essay in gujarati language Save water save life essay in gujarati language Pinterest.
moifightclub wordpress com AppTiled com Unique App Finder Engine Latest Reviews Market News.
National leaders essay in marathi Brainly in.
Road Safety Essay difficult to impart awareness to a grown up Human If safety awareness is imparted in childhood safety will become a habit Marathi Essay Fcmag ru.
Diwali marathi essay Letter Intent Business Proposal Template Formal essay diwali festival About Diwali Festival In.
January Republic Day Marathi Speech Essay .
Corruption essay in Marathi HairStyles For Men Corruption essay in Marathi HairStyles For Men.
Viyogi Grantha in Marathi Android Apps on Google Play Download jpg.
Gandhi Jayanti Essay Article In Hindi Tamil Telugu English Marathi Celebrities Nairaland.
My city essay in marathi on mla Bienvenidos.
Home safety essay in marathi Pinterest Mla essay purchase Pleasant River Garden Club Mla essay purchase Pleasant River Garden Club.
Essay On My Dream In Marathi Speedy Paper essay writing marathi my hobby.
Essay on rainy season in marathi language Research paper Writing .
Republic day Short Essays for kids in English hindi january Go Auto Exchange scanned images of prize winning essays from mvp as you would probably know one of the.
Media portrayal of blacks and police essay Spectrum Networks Media portrayal of blacks and police essay Spectrum Networks.
JAGTIK MAHILA DIN ESSAY IN MARATHI Aamchi sahal marathi essay on rain the alamo movie essay Aamchi sahal marathi essay on rain the alamo movie essay.
Related Posts to Shramache Mahatva Essay In Marathi Sanskar Kala Darpan blogger.
National unity essay in marathi language Carpinteria Rural Friedrich Order Now A Nibandh Lekhan V Akalan Vistar In Marathi PB .
Essay in marathi on shivaji maharaj Sample dissertation paper format Bihap com.
Road Safety Essay In Marathi Ppt Slides Essay for you.
Buy Marathi Nibandh for Std IV V VI VII Book Online at Low .
MARATHI ESSAY ON MAZI SHALA ONE DAY Fcmag ru.
Pollution Essay In Marathi Language Aai image INPIEQ.
Mazi Aaji Essay In Marathi On Mla image .
Related Post of Diwali essay in marathi language.
Happy Holi Essay In Marathi Pinterest.
Save water save life essay in gujarati language Save water save life essay in gujarati language Carpinteria Rural Friedrich.
Essays in marathi AppTiled com Unique App Finder Engine Latest Reviews Market News .
My favourite writer essay in marathi travel kmv ru.
Stri bhrun hatya marathi essay on my school INPIEQ Majhe baba essay in marathi language.
Corruption essay in Marathi HairStyles For Men Corruption essay in Marathi HairStyles For Men Central America Internet Ltd .
MAJHE GHAR ESSAY IN MARATHI.
ESSAY ON MY MOTHER IN MARATHI Brainly in TYBCOM D .
Chatrapati shri shivaji maharaj marathi unlimited Bienvenidos.
Happy Holi Essay In Language Tamil Telugu Hindi Bengali .
Road Safety Essay In Marathi Ppt Slides img Diamond Geo Engineering Services.
Marathi essays on mahatma gandhi.
Essay on grandmother in marathi Carpinteria Rural Friedrich.
Cover Letter Essay Road Safety Essay In Marathi Pptx Leap Symposium Onessay on road safety rules .
Diwali essay for kids in hindi AppTiled com Unique App Finder Engine Latest Reviews Market News.
Diwali Faral Recipes Marathi Google Play Store revenue Happy Diwali Essay in Marathi.
National leaders essay in marathi Carpinteria Rural Friedrich .
Essay diwali festival Aamchi sahal marathi essay on rain the alamo movie essay Aamchi sahal marathi essay on rain the alamo movie essay.
Aamchi sahal marathi essay on rain the alamo movie essay Aamchi sahal marathi essay on rain the alamo movie essay nitasweb.
diwali essay in marathi language.
BMZ Impianti Our helpers essay in marathi language Vidnyan Shap Ki Vardan In Marathi Essay Online img .
Gandhi Jayanti Essay Article In Hindi Tamil Telugu English Marathi .
Road safety campaign essay Mazi Aaji Essay In Marathi Language Aai image .
Samaj Sudharak Baba Amte Essay In Marathi On Mla Homework for you.
Pollution Essay In Marathi Language Aai Essay for you LGT Restoration and Waterproofing.
Samaj Sudharak Baba Amte Essay In Marathi On Mla Homework for you Khara Mitra Marathi Story Book screenshot.
Essay rainy season marathi CBSE Board th th Result Date Declared st May .
Khara Mitra Marathi Story Book Android Apps on Google Play.
Essay on hockey in marathi language Homework Service scanned images of prize winning essays from mvp as you would probably know one of the.
Republic day Short Essays for kids in English hindi january Music Primary.
Mazi Aaji Essay In Marathi On Mla Essay for you .
Gudi Padwa In Marathi Essay On Funeral img .
majhi aai essay in marathi language Google Search.
Childrens day essay in marathi .
Vidnyan Shap Ki Vardan In Marathi Essay Online img .
Majhe Baba Essay In Marathi Language image .
National leaders essay in marathi Kupon ru essay essayer des lunettes de soleil ray ban Enjoy proficient essay writing and custom writing services provided by professional academic writers.
Essay on taj mahal in marathi language Essay Academic Service essay on my rights as a student uncarved block quotes in an essay meaning of death essays valley of ashes symbolism essay on lord gessayova apta s .
Purdue online application essay BMZ Impianti .
Sanganak kolache garaj essay in marathi language.
Essay on taj mahal in marathi language Essay Academic Service.
short stories in essays Koil ipnodns ru Google Play.
short stories in essays Koil ipnodns ru.
Vidnyan shap ki vardan essay marathi language.
Short essay on value of time Carpinteria Rural Friedrich.
Related Posts to Jagtik Mahila Din Essay In Marathi .
Essay In Marathi Language On Diwali Greetings Essay for you Andhashraddha In Marathi Essay On Rain img .
Mazi aai essay marathi language dictionary.
Essay on subhash chandra bose in marathi oven.
Corruption essay in marathi Mazi aai essay marathi language dialects.
Grupa a a analytical essay Stop Child Labour These Children Should Be Seen And Heard To Have.
Road safety campaign essay Mazi Aaji Essay In Marathi Language Aai image Pinterest.
Essay on aamchi sahal in marathi language.
August Essay in Hindi Pinterest.
short stories in essays Koil ipnodns ru Ascend Surgical Sales. | 2019-04-25T10:11:34Z | http://qfxono.webz.cz/123-aamchi-sahal-marathi-essay-books.php |
Nov 18, 2006 - than Rs 145,000 crore rupees in the Indian stock market and they have ... of this value, but here log is not used to avoid the negative sign.
Does the REIT Stock Market Resemble the General Stock Market?
Jun 17, 2011 - To give a specific example, it is clear that Charles Dickens and ..... half to a quarter as large (e.g., O'Brien 20 bp on day t + 1, Pettit -6 bp on.
arise in business as well as scientific decision-support appli- cations ... 102 clusters (e.g. âComputers (Hardware)â, âOil and Gasâ, ... First of all, the best clustering.
Bernanke and Gertler (2000) estimate a forward looking policy rule aug- ...... era known as the Volcker-Greenspan period) and assessing the importance.
efficiencies of the DAX, MDAX, SDAX and ASE indices. By ..... Asia-Pacific Capital Markets School of Economics and Finance, Curtin. University of Technology ... Voit, J. (2001), 'The Statistical Mechanics of Financial Markets', Springer,. Berlin.
of the markets, the market as a whole or the price of an individual stock may act ... the bubble usually does occur rapidly as a stock's market price reverts back to,.
It is well knownthat stock returnsby themselves achieve respectable R2 's in forecasting investment changes in aggregate data.' If stock returnsareinfectedby sentiment,andif stockreturnspredictinvestment, then perhapssentimentinfluencesinvestment. There is also evidence, however, thatinvestmenthas not alwaysrespondedto sharpmovements in stock prices. Forexample,realinvestmentdidnot seem to rise sharply during the stock market boom in the late 1920s. Nor was there an investmentcollapseafterthe crashof 1987.2It remainsan open question, then, whetherinefficientmarketshave real consequences. In this paper, we try to address empiricallythe broaderquestion of how the stock marketaffects investment. We identifyfour theories that explain the correlationbetween stock returns and subsequent investment. The firstsays thatthe stock marketis a passive predictorof future activity that managersdo not rely on to makeinvestmentdecisions. The second theory says that, in makinginvestmentdecisions, managersrely on the stock marketas a source of information,which may or may not be correctaboutfuturefundamentals.The thirdtheory, whichis perhaps the most common view of the stock market's influence, says that the stock marketaffects investmentthroughits influenceon the cost of funds and external financing. Finally, the fourth theory says that the stock marketexerts pressureon investmentquite aside fromits informational andfinancingrole, because managershave to caterto investors'opinions in orderto protect theirlivelihood. For example, a low stock price may increase the probability of a takeover or a forced removal of top management.If the marketis pessimistic about the firm's profitability, top managementmaybe deterredfrominvestingheavily by the prospect of furthererosion in the stock price. The first theory leaves no room for investor sentimentto influence investment, but the other three theories allow sentiment to influence investmentthroughfalse signals, financingcosts, or marketpressureon managers.Ourempiricalanalysis looks for evidence on whether sentiment affects investment throughthese three channels by investigating whether the component of stock prices that is orthogonal to future economic fundamentalsinfluencesinvestment. 1. See Bosworth (1975), Fama (1981), Fischer and Merton (1984), Barro (1990), Sensenbrenner(1990),andBlanchard,Rhee, andSummers(1990). 2. Barro(1990);Blanchard,Rhee, andSummers(1990).
Our tests measure how well the stock market explains investment when we control for the fundamentalvariables both that determine investment and that the stock market might be forecasting. These fundamentalvariablesserve as a proxyfor the profitabilityof investment projectsas well as for the availabilityof internalfunds for investment.3 Essentially,we ask, "Suppose a managerknows the futurefundamental conditions that affect his investment choice. Would the managerstill pay attentionto the stock market?"If the answeris yes, then there is an independentrole for the stock market, and possibly for investor sentiment, in influencinginvestment.The incrementalabilityof stock returns to explaininvestment,whenfuturefundamentalsare held constant,puts an upperbound on the role of investor sentimentthat is orthogonalto fundamentalsin explaininginvestment. For example, suppose that stock prices forecast investment only to the extent thatthey forecastfundamentalfactorsinfluencinginvestment. In this case, that part of stock prices-including possible investor sentiment-that does not help predictfundamentalsalso does not help predict investment. Thus, investor sentiment may affect stock prices independentof future fundamentals,but that influence does not feed throughto investment. If, conversely, the stock markethelps predict investment beyond its ability to predict future fundamentals, then investor sentiment may independentlyinfluence business investment, through the channels of false signals, financing costs, and market pressureon managers. Ouranalysisproceeds in several steps. In the firstsection, we review the evidence and theory behindthe idea that investor sentimentaffects stock prices. In the second section, we describe several views on why the stock marketmightpredictinvestment,and how investor sentiment mightitself influenceinvestmentthroughthe stock market.In the third section, we describe the tests that we use to discover how the stock market influences investment. The fourth and fifth sections present evidenceusingfirm-leveldatafromthe COMPUSTATdatabase bearing on the alternativeviews. The next two sections turn to the aggregate datathatmost studiesof investmentexamine. The finalsection presents ourconclusions.
Investor Sentiment and the Stock Market Since RobertShiller'sdemonstrationof the excess volatilityof stock market prices, research on the efficiency of financial markets has exploded.4In subsequentwork, Shillersuggestedthatfads andfashions, as well as fundamentals, influence asset prices.5 Eugene Fama and KennethFrenchas well as JamesPoterbaandLawrenceSummershave managedto detect mean reversion in U.S. stock returns.6While this evidence is consistent with the presence of mean-revertinginvestor sentimenttowardstocks, it is also consistent with time-varyingrequired returns. Perhaps more compelling evidence on the role of investor sentimentcomes from the studies of the crash of October 1987. Shiller surveyed investors after the crash and found few who thought that fundamentalshadchanged.7Nejat Seyhunfoundthatcorporateinsiders aggressivelyboughtstocks of theirown companiesduringthe crash, and made a lot of money doing SO.8 The insiders quite correctly saw no change in fundamentalsand attributedthe crash to a sentiment shift. The thrustof the evidence is that stock prices respondnot only to news, but also to sentimentchanges. Follow-up studies to the work on mean reversion attempt both to prove the influenceof investor sentimenton stock prices and to isolate measuresof sentiment.Onegroupof studiesconcernsclosed-endmutual funds-funds that issue a fixed numberof shares, and then invest the proceeds in other traded securities. If investors want to liquidatetheir holdings in a closed-end fund, they must sell their shares to other investors, and cannotjust redeem them as in the case of an open-end fund. Closed-end funds are extremely useful in financial economics because it is possible to observe both their net asset value, which is the marketvalue of their stock holdings, and their price, and compare the two. A well-knowncharacteristicof closed-endfunds is that their stock priceis often differentfromtheirnet asset value, suggestingthatmarkets are inefficient. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Shiller(1981). Shiller(1984). FamaandFrench(1988);PoterbaandSummers(1988). Shiller(1987). Seyhun(1990).
In fact, BradfordDe Long, AndreiShleifer,LawrenceSummers,and Robert Waldmann,following the work of MartinZweig, have argued that the averagediscount on closed-end funds can serve as a proxy for individualinvestorsentiment.9Whenindividualinvestorsarebearishon stocks, they sell closed-end funds as well as other stocks. In doing so, they drive up the discounts on closed-end funds (that is, their price relative to those of the stocks in their portfolio) because institutional investors typically do not trade these funds and so do not offset the bearishnessof individualinvestors. Conversely, when individualsare bullish on stocks, they buy closed-end funds so that discounts narrow or even become premiums.CharlesLee, Andrei Shleifer, and Richard Thalerpresentevidence suggestingthatdiscountsmightindeed serve as a proxyfor individualinvestorsentiment.10We will not reviewthe theory andevidence here, butwilluse closed-endfunddiscountsas one measure of investorsentiment,andwill studytherelationshipsbetweendiscounts, investment,and externalfinancing. The empirical evidence on the potential importance of investor sentimenthas been complementedby a range of theoreticalarguments thatexplainwhy the influenceof sentimenton stock prices would not be eliminatedthrough"arbitrage."Arbitragein this context does not refer to riskless arbitrage,as understoodin financialeconomics, but ratherto risky, contrarianstrategies whereby smart investors bet against the mispricing.StephenFiglewskiand RobertShillerhave both pointedout that when stock returnsare risky, arbitrageof this sort is also risky and thereforenot completelyeffective."IFor example, if an arbitrageurbuys underpricedstocks, he runs the risk that fundamentalnews will be bad andthathe will take a bathon whathadinitiallybeen an attractivetrade. Because arbitrageis risky, arbitrageurswill limitthe size of theirtrades, and investor sentiment will have an effect on prices in equilibrium. Othershave takenthis argumentfurther.12 They pointout thatif investor sentimentis itself stochastic, it adds furtherrisk to arbitragebecause sentiment can turn against an arbitrageurwith a short horizon. An arbitrageurbuying underpricedstocks runs the risk that they become even more underpricedin the near future, when they mighthave to be 9. De Longandothers(1990);Zweig(1973). 10. Lee, Shleifer,andThaler(1990). 11. Figlewski(1979);Shiller(1984). 12. De Longandothers(1990).
sold. This noise-traderrisk makes arbitrageeven riskier, allowing the effects of sentimenton prices to be even more pronounced.The upshot of these models is that the theoreticalargumentthat arbitrageprevents investor sentimentfrominfluencingprices is simplywrong. Most models of investor sentimentdeal with sentiment that affects the whole stock marketor at least a big chunk of it. When sentiment affects a large number of securities, leaning against the wind means bearing systematic risk, and is therefore costly to risk-aversearbitrageurs. If, in contrast, sentiment affects only a few securities, betting againstit meansbearingonly theriskthatcanbe diversified,andtherefore arbitrageurswill bet more aggressively. Thus, investor sentiment can have a pronouncedeffect on prices only when it affects a large number of securities. This conclusion holds in a perfect capital market, with no trading restrictions or costs of becoming informed about the mispricing of securities. More realisticallythough, arbitrageis a costly activity and arbitrageresourceswill be devoted to particularsecuritiesonly if returns justify bearingthe costs. As a result,investorsentimenttowardindividual securitieswill not be arbitragedaway andwill affecttheirprices, because arbitrageurs'fundsandpatienceare limited.If a stock is mispriced,only a few arbitrageurswouldknow aboutit. 13Those who do know may have alternativeuses for funds, or may not wait until the mispricingdisappears.14 Waitingis especially costly when arbitragerequires selling a securityshort, and regulationsdo not give the short seller full use of the proceeds. Moreover,takinga largeposition in a securitymeans bearing a large amount of idiosyncraticrisk, which is costly to an arbitrageur who is not fully diversified. Finally, as stressed by Fischer Black, arbitrageursoften cannotbe certainhow mispriceda securityis, further limitingtheir willingnessto tradein it.15 All these costs suggest that the resources leaningagainstthe mispricingof any given security are quite limited, and, therefore, even idiosyncratic investor sentiment may influenceshareprices. To conclude, recent research has produced a variety of empirical evidence suggestingthat investor sentimentinfluences asset prices. A parallel research effort has demonstrated that the usual models in 13. Merton(1987). 14. Shleiferand Vishny(1990). 15. Black(1986).
financial economics, in which investors are risk averse, imply that investor sentimentshould affect prices. The argumentthat marketwide investor sentiment affects prices is particularlystrong, but one also expects firm-specificsentimentto affect individualstocks. These theories and evidence raise the obvious question:does the effect of investor sentimenton stock pricesfeed throughto businessinvestmentspending? To address this question, we first review how stock prices affect investmentin general.
The active informanthypothesis assigns a greaterrole to the stock market.It says thatstock pricespredictinvestmentbecausethey convey to managersinformationuseful in makinginvestment decisions. This informationcan accurately,or inaccurately,predictfundamentals.Even when the stock marketis the best availablepredictor,it can err due to the inherent unpredictabilityof the fundamentals, or because stock prices are contaminatedby sentiment that managerscannot separate from informationabout fundamentals.Even if the stock marketsends an inaccuratesignal, the informationmay still be used and so the stock returnwill influenceinvestment. The market can convey a variety of informationthat bears on the intrinsicuncertaintyfacinga firm-such as futureaggregateor individual demand.Alternatively,the marketcan reveal investors' assessment of the competence of a firm's managersand their ability to make good 16. Seyhun (1986, 1988).
Accordingto the two previous hypotheses, the stock market'smain role is to convey information:in the firstcase to the econometrician,and in the second case to the manager.The next two views assign the stock marketa more active role. Many people believe that the stock market plays a key role in helpingfirmsraise capital.This applies to new firms, in the case of initialpublicofferings(IPOs),andto more seasoned firms. The valuationthatthe marketassigns to a company'sequitydetermines the cost of capitalto thatcompany,a pointmadeby StanleyFischerand RobertMertonamongothers.17 The higherthe valuation,the cheaperis the equity. When the stock market is efficient, firms cannot find a particularlyadvantageoustime to undertakeequity finance. However, when the stock marketis subjectto investorsentiment,firmscan choose equity finance when the marketovervalues them, makingthe cost of capitalirrationallylow. As pointedout by OlivierBlanchard,ChangyongRhee, andLawrence Summers,in a sentiment-infectedstock market,rationalmanagersmight not invest the proceeds from a new share issue.'8 Fischer and Merton presumethat firmsfor which funds are irrationallycheap will invest in marginalprojects.At a rationalcost of funds, these projectswould have a negativenet presentvalue.19Blanchard,Rhee, and Summerspointout that firmsinstead may issue the overvaluedequity and then invest the proceeds in financial securities, which are zero net-present-valueinvestments, ratherthan in negative net-present-valueprojects. In other words, firmsissue equity when equity is overpriced, but issue debt or financeinternallywhen equity is not overpriced;investmentis the same in either case. The Blanchard-Rhee-Summers view implies that even if 17. FischerandMerton(1984). 18. Blanchard,Rhee, andSummers(1990). 19. FischerandMerton(1984).
Even withoutconveyingany informationto the managers,or affecting the cost of securityissues, the stock marketcan influenceinvestmentby exerting pressure on managers. For example, if investors dislike oil companies and drive down the prices of their shares, then, for fear of beingfiredortakenover, managersof oil companiesmighttryto disinvest and diversify, even if furtherinvestment in oil is profitable.If market participantsvote theirsentimentby sellingand buyingstocks, and if the hiringandfiringof managersis tied to the performanceof the stock, then these votes will affect investmenteven if they are uninformed. Oneparticularversionof this hypothesisis the shorthorizonstheory.20 When arbitragefunds are limited, smartinvestors are reluctantto buy andholdunderpriced,long-terminvestmentprojectsbecausemispricing takes a long time to be corrected.2'Managerswho are averse to low stock prices, for fear of being firedor taken over, will avoid these longterminvestmentseven if these projectshave a positive net presentvalue. Thus, investor sentimentcan affect investment. The crucialimplicationhere is that the stock markethas an influence on investmentbeyond its influencethroughfinancingcosts and beyond its abilityto predictfuturefundamentals.After controllingfor financing costs andfundamentals,the stock marketstill affects investment.In this respect, the marketpressurehypothesisresemblesthe faulty informant version of the active predictorhypothesis. The main difference is that false signals are most likely to be listened to when they come from the aggregate market, but are unlikely to influence an individual firm's managerswhen they are idiosyncratic. In contrast, while the market pressurehypothesismayapplyon the aggregatelevel, it is most plausible at the individualfirmlevel. Therefore,the findingof a residualrole for the stock marketwould have differentinterpretationsin aggregateand cross-sectionalregressions. 20. Stein (1988); Shleifer and Vishny (1990). 21. Shleifer and Vishny (1990).
Empirical Design The empiricalapproachtakenin this paperis somewhatatheoretical. We use a fairlyunstructuredapproach,placingfew restrictionson how stock returns enter the investment equations in order to allow the maximum scope for the stock market to affect investment. For our analysis, we regressinvestmentgrowthon stock returnsandthe growth in fundamentalvariablesin orderto see how importantthe stock market is after controllingfor fundamentals.The idea of these regressionsis to ask, "If managersknew futurefundamentals,would orthogonalmovements in shareprice still help predicttheirinvestmentdecisions?" We do not attemptto estimateconsistentlythe structuralparameters of the investment and financingequations, as we are not preparedto makethe necessary identifyingassumptions.Realizingthatinvestment, financing,and fundamentalsare all simultaneouslydetermined,we still wish to interpretour quasi-reduced-formresults as evidence on a more narrowquestion-the incrementalexplanatorypower of the stock market in predictinginvestment. Even with this more modest objective in mind, our interpretationof the evidence still rests on several key assumptionsdiscussed below. To identifythe role of investor sentiment,we focus on the merits of the faulty informant,financing,and marketpressureviews of the stock market,withthe caveat thatthe faultyinformantview makesmore sense in aggregate data than in cross-sectional data.22The financing view predictsthatthe mainlinkfromthe stock marketto investmentis through financing;therefore, we examine financingdata to evaluate this view. Our tests of the faulty informantand market pressure views are less direct. Essentially, these views maintainthat the stock marketplays an independentrole in predicting investment beyond the informationit providesabout futurefundamentalsand beyond its effect on financing. It is importantto stress that we can never reject the null hypothesisthat investorsentimentdoes not affect investmentthroughthe stock market. 22. Because the accurate active informantview involves perfectly correct signals about future fundamentals,there is no room for the irrationalinfluence of investor sentiment.This hypothesis,therefore,is irrelevantto this discussion.We also ignorefor the time being the passive informantview because in it the stock market,and thereby investorsentiment,do not influenceinvestment.
where Al, is the investmentgrowthrate in year t, AF, is the growthrate of fundamentals-cash flow and sales-in year t, R,_ 1is the stock return in year t - 1, and AN, is the form of financingin year t, which includes debt,and equity issues.23Like most researchers,we run all our regressions in changes rather than levels because residuals in the levels regressionsare serially correlated.For example, in the firm-leveldata the "fixed effect" is the dominant influence in the investment-level equations,andone gets little informationaboutwhatdrivesyear-to-year changes in investment from these equations. Moreover, the crosssectionalrelationbetweenthefixedeffect andthefundamentalsproduces some perverse results, with nothingbut industryhavingmuch explanatory power. The financinghypothesis says that addingfinancingvariablesshould helpexplainthe variationin investment.The coefficientson the financing variablesin equation3 shouldbe significantandlarge,andthe incremental R2, as we move from equation 1 to equation 3, should be large. Moreover,if financingreallyis the mainchannelthroughwhichthe stock marketaffects investment, then moving from equation 3 to equation4 shouldproducean insignificantcoefficienton the laggedmarketreturn, and shouldcertainlynot raise the R2much. Finally, if the financingview is important, then, as we move from equation 2 to equation 4, the coefficient on the lagged return should fall, since the sensitivity of investmentto returnshouldbe reducedonce the financingvariablesare includedin the regression. The faulty informantand marketpressurehypotheses say that stock returnsshould help explain investment beyond their ability to predict 23. A slightlyricherlag structureis allowedfor in the aggregatedata.
the firm'sfundamentalconditionsandbeyondtheirimpacton financing. If so, the coefficienton R,_ shouldbe significantin equation2, and the R2 in equation2 should be much largerthan in equation 1. Also, when we controlfor financingas well as for fundamentals,the returnvariable in equation4 should be significantand the incrementalR2 in equation4 relativeto equation3 shouldbe large. If the stock returnhas significant explanatorypower for investment beyond its effect on fundamentals andfinancing,marketsentimentvery possibly influencesinvestment. Of course, we may not have specifiedthe full set of fundamentals.In that case, the stock marketmattersonly to the extent that we have an omittedvariable,and the role of investor sentimentmay evaporatewith its inclusion. That is, the stock marketmay prove an "accuratepassive informant"even if we find that equation 4 explains investment much betterthanequation3. Ourexercise is still useful, however, because the incrementalR2, as we movefromequation3 to equation4, is an estimated upperboundon how muchof the variationin investmentcanbe explained by sentiment.A small incrementalR2 implies that investor sentimentis probablynot very important.If the R2 is large, the presumptionthat sentimentis importantgains strength. This approach raises several conceptual issues. First, our market value variableis a stock returnratherthana changein q, the ratioof the firm'smarketvalue to replacementcost.24Since both the capital stock and the marketvalue of debt move much more slowly than the market value of equity, the practicaldifferencebetween using stock returnsand changes in q is fairly small. Robert Barro conducts an empiricalrace between these approaches,and finds that the data favor stock returns over changes in q.25 He attributesthis findingto the fact that the capital stock is measuredwith error.Because we are interestedin allowingthe maximumscope for the stock market to predict investment, we use returnsratherthanchangesin q in our analysis. Second, by focusing only on the incrementalexplanatorypower of stockreturns,we mayunderestimatethe scope for sentimentto influence investment. Because sales, cash flow, and investment are all simultaneouslydetermined,some of the investmentvariationexplainedby sales may actually be driven by stock returns. For example, suppose that a 24. Since Brainardand Tobin(1968)firstused q, manyothers have followed in their steps-Blanchard, Rhee, and Summers(1990),Hayashi(1982),and Summers(1981). 25. Barro(1990).
good stock return raises investment, which in turn improves sales throughlargercapacity or lower variable costs. Controllingfor sales, we mightfindonly a smalleffect of the stock returnon investment,even whenthe trueeffect is large.We arguebelow thatthe datado not support this view, andassumethat, at least over ourone- to three-yearestimation period, stock returnsare not an importantdrivingforce behindthe sales process. A relatedconcernis that investor sentimentis sometimesconsidered an overreactionto fundamentalnews. In fact, some recent evidence on stock returnssuggests that fads and fundamentalsare positively correlated.26If so, we may be underestimatingthe explanatory power of investor sentiment, because our tests focus only on its incremental explanatorypowerover andabove fundamentals.The powerof ourtests will be particularlylow if the stock marketoverreacts to fundamentals in a uniformfashion across all firmsat all times. If this is not the case, however, our tests should detect some of the effects of overreaction. Our only goal is to calibrate the role of investor sentiment that is orthogonalto fundamentals. A finalconceptualissue is how to measurethe importanceof sentiment in explaining investment. Focusing on the incremental R2 and the parameterestimate on stock returns,we pretty much ignore t-statistics in the firm-levelregressions.We do so because most variablesare highly significantwith severalthousandobservations.The t-statisticswill play a largerrole in our discussion of the aggregatetime series evidence. We do not rely on R2 to choose between two specifications on a statisticalbasis. Ratherwe use incrementalR2'sto gaugethe fractionof all investment variationthat is conceivably due to investor sentiment. Because investment is extraordinarilyvolatile, especially at the firm level, even fairly large regression estimates of the marginaleffect of stock returnsmay not explain much of the variationin investment. A largecoefficienton stock prices indicatesthatthe stock marketcan help predict significantchanges in investment. Yet, if the incrementalR2 is low, an irrationalstock marketis an unlikelycause of widespreadunderor overinvestmentin many sectors of the economy, since stock market behaviorhelpspredictonly a smallfractionof the variationin investment.
26. BarskyandDe Long (1989);Campbelland Kyle (1988).
Evidence from Firm-Level Data Most of the recent empiricalwork on the ability of stock returnsto forecastinvestmenthas focused on aggregatedata. Yet we would argue that cross-sectional data are equally important.The distortion of the allocation of capital across firms that could arise from deviant share prices may be a greatersource of harmthanthe false signalsthat distort aggregate investment. Investment variation over the business cycle caused by false signals from the stock market largely amounts to intertemporalsubstitutionof investment.Misallocationof capitalacross sectors, however, can lead to more permanentdamage, as socialist economiesillustrate.Also, it seems likelythatthe stock marketallocates investmentacross sectors and firmsthroughrelative shareprices more than it allocates investment over time throughthe variationin returns over time. We thereforebegin by examiningthe relationshipbetween relativestock returnsand investment. Our main empiricalresults are based on the analysis of annualdata from the COMPUSTATdata base between 1960and 1987.The sample was constructedby Bronwyn Hall.27Because the coverage of firmsby COMPUSTAThas expandedgreatly over time, we have only 93 firms in 1960,risingto 1,032firmsin 1987.The sources andconstructionof all the dataare describedin the appendix. The investment variable we use is the growth rate of real capital expendituresexcludingacquisitions.The two measuresof fundamentals are the growth rates of sales and cash flow, which we believe are the most importantfundamentaldeterminantsof investment. We use sales growthas a measureof fundamentalsbecause it reflectsfuturedemand for the firm'sproductsand serves as a measureof investmentprofitability. Cash flow measures fundamentalsboth because it reflects current (andpresumablyfuture)profitabilityandbecauseitfacilitatesinvestment if a firmis constrainedin the capitalmarket.28Ourcash flow variableis after-taxcorporateprofits(net of interestpayments)plus depreciation, and therefore closely approximatesthe inflow of funds available for investment. We have also experimentedwith other proxies, such as 27. Cummins,Hall, Laderman,and Mundy(1988). 28. Fazzari,Hubbard,andPetersen(1988).
Because we arelookingat a cross-sectionof firms,we computecapital asset pricingmodel (CAPM)alphas(abnormalreturns)for all firms.We do that by regressingeach firm's returns net of Treasury bill (T-bill) returnson the returnof the value-weightedmarketindex net of the Tbill return, using monthly data for the whole sample period. The regression coefficient on market return is the firm's beta, which is assumed to be constant duringthe whole period. We then define alpha as the residualin the regressionfor each firm. In a given year, alpha is the firm'sexcess stock returnin that year, where returnsare cumulated exponentially. If the CAPM is an inappropriatemodel for generating expected returns,our alphasmay compensatefor risks thatare not allowedfor by the CAPM. In that case, a high alpha may be due to a high expected 29. Theoretically,it is not clearwhetherchangesin investmentshouldbe predictedby the level of issuingactivity or by the changes in issuingactivity. Using changeshas the problemthat changes are negative after a large issue. The explanatorypower of the specificationin changesis also inferiorto thatin levels.
Source: COMPUSTAT data base and Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) data base, at the Graduate School, University of Chicago. a. The sample for the annual analysis has 27,771 observations. b. Investment is defined as "capital expenditures" from annual statement of changes in financial position, from COMPUSTAT, including COMPUSTAT Research File, 1959-87. c. Alpha is the lagged abnormal stock returns. CAPM betas were estimated for each firm using all available monthly returns from CRSP, 1959-87. These betas were then used to calculate an alpha for each year. d. Cash flow equals net income plus depreciation. e. New share issue is the sale of common equity divided by the total market value of common equity at the beginning of the year, from COMPUSTAT, 1971-87. Where the above data were unavailable, including the years 1959-70, sale of common equity was estimated from the change in the number of shares outstanding reported in CRSP, filtering out changes due to liquidation, rights offering, stock splits, or stock dividends. f. New debt issues is the change in book debt divided by the lagged value of book debt. g. The sample for the three-year analysis has 7,950 observations.
The basic regressions for nonoverlappingthree-year periods are presented in table 2. In these regressions, we use contemporaneous fundamentals,financingvariables, and stock returns (representedby alpha)lagged one year. That is, we measure investment growth from year t to year t + 3 and the stock returnfrom year t - 1 to year t + 2. All equationsare estimatedusing a dummyvariablefor each three-year time period. We have also estimated these regressions using industryperiod dummies. The results are not qualitatively different, but the 30. Inregressionsrunusingannualdata,we foundextremelylowR2's even inequations includingboth the stock returnsand fundamentalvariables.For this reason, we proceed to the three-yearregressions.
.. 0.155 (4.3) 0.123 (3.5) 0.133 (3.7) . . .
Source: Authors' own calculations using COMPUSTAT and CRSP data bases with 7,950 observations from 196387. See table 1 for an explanation of variables. The numbers in parentheses are t-statistics.
investmentover three years; a 10percentgrowthin cash flow leads to a 1.8percentgrowthin investment. Equation 2.3 represents one test of the hypothesis that the stock marketinfluencesinvestmentbeyond its abilityto predictfuturefundamentals, since the equation includes contemporaneousfundamentals togetherwith the lagged stock return.Not surprisingly,the coefficient on alphadropsby about40 percentfrom its level in equation2.1. When futurefundamentalsare held constant,the responsivenessof investment to lagged stock returnsis significantlysmaller. The incrementalR2 of equation 2.3 is only 3.8 percent relative to that of equation 2.2. The lagged abnormalreturn explains only 3.8 percent of the variation in investmentbeyond what can be explainedby fundamentals.This incrementalR2is an estimatedupperboundon how muchinvestor sentiment toward individual stocks can affect investment.3' Presumably, if we could measure and include other fundamentaldeterminantsof investmentin the regression,the incrementalR2wouldbe even smaller.Simply by includingthe availablecrude measuresof fundamentals,we can cut down the incrementalexplanatorypower of relative stock returns by morethan70 percent,whichseems to indicatethattheirabilityto predict investmentis largelybasedon theircorrelationwithfuturefundamentals. The comparisonof equations2.2 and2.3 illustratesthe generalfinding of this paper.The coefficienton the abnormalreturn,controllingfor the fundamentals,is both statistically and economically significant.A 30 percent abnormalstock returnover three years, which is large but not unusual,is associated with a 10percentextragrowthin investmentover three years. So high stock returnsindeed predict high investment. At the same time, because investment is so volatile, the incremental explanatorypower of the stock marketis typically small;in this case it is only 3.8 percent. Thus, variationin relative marketvaluationacross firmsandsectors cannotaccountfor muchof the variationin investment. Althoughequation2.3 shows thatlaggedstock returnsdo not explain muchof the variationin investment,it does not distinguishbetween the 31. This interpretationdependson ourtreatingthe fundamentalsfromequation2.2 as the primaryexplanatoryvariables.Absentthese priors,it wouldbejust as appropriateto interpretthe incrementalR2whenfundamentalsare addedto equation2.1 as the independent contributionof the fundamentals.This would leave the upper bound on possible independenteffects fromstock pricesandinvestorsentimentuncertain.
determinantsof investment have been left out of the regression. We have triedaddingfurthermeasures of fundamentals,such as more lags on cash flow and sales growth, but these do not seem to help explain investmentor reducethe explanatorypower of returns. Thereare also reasons why the stock marketmay be more important thanwe estimate. First, we may have used the wronglag structure-the stock market may anticipate investment at either a longer or shorter horizonthanwe specifiedin table 2. We have experimentedwith several alternativelag structures. When the stock returnis contemporaneous with the fundamentals, using alpha from t to t + 3 rather than t - 1 to t + 2, the R2 for equation2.1 is 0.12, and for equation2.3 is 0.23. We have also allowed for returnsto be measuredover a longerperiod and with longer lags, but the incrementalR2 for the stock returnis always lower than in table 2. Anotherpossibility is to break up the three-year returninto its componentparts so that the returnfrom t - 1 to t + 2 is replaced by the returns from t - 1 to t, from t to t + 1, and from t + 1 to t + 2. This changeactuallydoes raise the explanatorypower of stock returns,but only slightly;the R2 in the analogof equation2.3 rises by a small amount. None of our alternative specifications of the effect of relative stock returnson investment has noticeably more explanatory powerthanthe one we reportin table 2. Second, we may have underestimatedthe effect of the stock market by focusing only on relative stock returns and by using time-period dummiesinsteadof the returnon the aggregatestock marketover time. We discuss the effects of the aggregatestock marketat a later point in the paper. Here we reportwhat happenswhen we substitutethe return on the value-weightedstock marketfor time dummies.32The marginal explanatorypower of the aggregatestock returnin these equations is quitelow. The R2 in equation2.3, without time dummies,rises by only 0.2 percentwhen the aggregatestock marketis addedto the regression. This findingmakes sense if variationin investmentgrowth in response to idiosyncraticfactors accounts for most of the variationof investment in the pooled time-series/cross-sectiondata. As we discussed above, we are also concerned that stock returns drivethe sales-cash flow process and that the effect of stock returnsis thereforelargerthan the effect impliedby its incrementalexplanatory 32. Weuse the value-weightedindexdevelopedby the CenterforResearchin Security Prices(CRSP)at the Universityof Chicago.
0.218 (2.6) 0.158 (1.9) 0.175 (2.1) . . .
0.459 (6.4) 0.449 (6.4) .. .
Source: Authors' own calculations using COMPUSTAT and CRSP data bases with 2,042 observations every third year from 1963-87. See table I for a description of the variables. The numbers in parentheses are t-statistics. a. A firm is classified as "small" if it falls in the bottom quintile of all COMPUSTAT firms in terms of the market value of equity the first year it entered the survey.
sample, indicating the greater relative sensitivity of investment to externalfinancingfor "small" firms.Financingvariablesadd 2 percent to the R2, adding relative stock returns adds another 2 percent. For "small" firms,as for the whole sample, the faulty informant,financing, and marketpressure views of the stock markethelp explain the data, but not a lot. As in the whole sample, most of the explanatorypower of financingcomes from debt issues. A final test concerns the marketpressure view of the stock market and investment. It has been arguedthat recently the stock markethas become a harsherjudge of managerialperformance,with the takeover wave of the 1980s being a manifestationof its new role. The short horizonsof corporatemanagersreflectthese stock marketpressures. If these views are correct, the sensitivity of investment to stock returns should have increasedin the 1980s,and the coefficienton alphain later years should be higher. We have tested this propositionand found no evidence to support this idea. There is no trend in the coefficient on alphaor in its marginalexplanatorypower over our sampleperiod.
Source: Authors'own calculationsusing COMPUSTATand CRSP data bases. See table I for descriptionof variables.The numbersin parentheses(bottompanel)are t-statistics.Given percentilesof alphaare chosen for illustration;othervariablesare evaluatedat theirmediansin equations4.1 and 4.2.
Source: Authors'own calculationsusing COMPUSTATand CRSPdata bases. Regressionsincludetime-period effects. The numbersin parenthesesare t-statistics. a. The ratiois betweenthe dollarproceedsfromdebt and equityissues madebetweentime t and t - 3 and the sum of investmentsmade between time t - 5 and t - 2. Alphais from t - 5 to t - 2 and sales and cash flow growthare fromt - 3 to t.
bound for the explanatory power of stock returns in the investment equations. At the same time, financing can plausibly account for a significant part of the explanatory power of stock returns in the investment equations. The residual component could be due to market pressure or faulty informant effects or to the ability of stock returns to explain fundamentals that are not captured by our simple sales and cash flow measures. Taken together, the investment and the financing evidence do not leave much room for the influence of investor sentiment. External financing is not sufficiently sensitive to stock returns, and investment is not well explained by external financing. It is hard to explain much of the variation in investment through investor sentiment.
marketwide returns. That is, if equity finance responds to extreme overpricingof equities, we shouldsee a largeeffect from the alphas. On the other hand, theories of fads, such as those of Shillerand De Long and others, suggest that investor sentiment is likely to be more pronounced in the aggregate data.33The issue is largely empirical. We thereforetest the influenceof the stockmarketon investmentinaggregate data. The appendixdescribesthe datawe use on investment,fundamentals, andfinancing.The fundamentalsthatmost clearlyparallelthe ones used inthe firm-leveldataarecash flow(after-taxcorporateprofitsplus capital consumption)and personal consumption expenditure. Personal consumptionexpenditureon durables,nondurables,and services seems to be the appropriatemeasureof final sales in the economy, which is our proxy for the growthof demand. Ourinvestmentvariableis fixed nonresidentialinvestment, which excludes inventory investment. We use annualdata on most variablesfrom 1935-88, excludingthe war period 1942-46as suggested by Robert Gordon.34We exclude the early 1930s because corporate profits were negative in some of these years. Our equityfinancevariableis aggregatedover all equity issues by all firmsin the datadevelopedby the CenterforResearchin SecurityPrices(CRSP). The debt financevariableis from the Federal Reserve. Unfortunately, this variablestartsin 1952;therefore,we rerunsome of the regressions startingin 1952to utilize debt financingdata. An interestrate variable, the lagged change in yield on AAA corporatebonds, was also tried in the list of fundamentals,but came in with the wrongsign and borderline significance.The variablewas dropped. As before, all regressions are estimatedin changesratherthanlevels. Unlike the firm-level data, we have found that two lags of stock returnsas well as contemporaneousandlaggedchangesin fundamentals help explain investmentgrowthin the aggregatedata. Accordingly,we have adjustedthe aggregatespecificationsto have one- and two-year lagged stock returns,as well as contemporaneousand laggedgrowthof consumptionand cash flow. In addition,we allow for contemporaneous andone-yearlaggedeffects fromthe financingvariables.Typically,only the one-yearlag is significantfor the equity issues variable,while for the 33. Shiller(1984);De Long andothers(1990). 34. Gordon(1986).
Watson demonstratethat, as a leading indicatorof output, the stock marketis dominatedby a combinationof other fundamentalvariables, includinginterestrates.35This findingmeans that managersdo not need the stock marketto make investment decisions when they have other fundamentaldata;if most explanatorypowercomes fromfundamentals, and managers do not need the stock market to predict them, then managersdo not need the stock marketto make investmentdecisions. This argumentfavors the passive informantview of the stock market. An importantexception is the sunspotversionof the active informant view. If the stock marketinformsinvestors and managersabout which equilibriumis at work, the marketdeterminesboth futureconsumption and investment. In this case, the stock marketstill plays an active role, even thoughit does not help predictinvestmentgrowthaftercontrolling for consumptiongrowth. Our data do not enable us to distinguishthe sunspotactive informantmodelfrom the passive informantmodel. The resultsin table 6 suggestthatthe role of the stock market,beyond its ability to predict fundamentals,is limited. Nonetheless, we try to evaluate how well financingexplains investment. As noted above, our equityfinancingvariabledoes not explainmuch. As for debt finance,we must look at the post-1952 sample. Table 7 reports the results for the post-1952period. For this period, the R2 for stock returnsalone is 31.0 percent, thatfor fundamentalsalone is 67.4 percent.The incrementalR2 for the market,after controllingfor fundamentals,is a much higher7.3 percent,which may meanmoreroomfor investorsentimentto influence investment. Equation7.4 shows that when the equity issues variableis included in an equationwith the fundamentals,it adds 2.6 percentto the R2 and is positiveand nearlysignificant.When 10percentmorefirmsissue equity in excess of 5 percent, investmentgrows on average 1.5 percentfaster. The debt issue variablealone adds 3.8 percentto the R2 and is negative and statisticallysignificant.Debt financingis high when investment is slowingdown. Debt seems to be used to smooth investmentso that in a recession, when cash flow falls sharply, investment does not fall as sharply.The signon debt financeis differentfromthatin firm-leveldata, which can be explained if debt is used to smooth cyclical variationin investmentbut not idiosyncraticvariationin investment.Together,the stock issue and debt financingvariableshave an incrementalR2 of 9.5 35. Stock and Watson (1990).
,c; - tJ - - m - D m .
Source: Authors' own calculations using U.S. Department of Commerce data and the CRSP data base. The sample includes 28 observations. The numbers in parentheses are t-statistics. a. Stock index is the exponentially detrended level of the real CRSP value-weighted stock market index. b. The level of discount on closed-end funds is the year-end average discount on a portfolio of closed-end funds, from Lee, Shleifer, and Thaler (1990) for 1965-85, using a portfolio of 18 funds. For 1930-64 and 1986-89, five funds are used: Adams Express, General American, Lehman, Niagara Shares, and Tricontinental. c. Corporate profits and consumption are described in table 6. Here, as in table 8, we use two-year growth in profits and consumption as the independent variable.
strengthof our conclusions is limited by the short time series we have on IPOs.
bit. Second, in episodes such as the late 1920sand post-October 1987 corporatemanagershave largely ignored this sunspot. Overall, a fair readingof the evidence is that the stock marketis a sometimes faulty predictorof the future, which does not receive muchattentionand does not influenceaggregateinvestment. An importantexception to this findingis the evidence fromthe initial publicofferingsdata,whereboththe stock marketindexandthe discount on closed-endfundshelppredictthepace of new offerings.Thisevidence, thoughlimitedby the lack of data, suggests that in the marketfor new issues, the stock marketand investor sentimentmatter.It could still be that market conditions affect only the timing of IPOs, and not their volume over time. On the other hand, it could be that in low markets good ideas die because they cannot be financed.The effect of investor sentiment on the new issues market is an importantarea for further research.
Description of Data THE APPENDIX we describe the sources of our data and the methods used to calculateour variables.
Firm-Level Data Investment:"Capitalexpenditures"arefromannualstatementof changes in financialposition, from COMPUSTATdata base, 1959-87, including COMPUSTATResearch File; acquisitions are not included;observations with growthrates above 1,000percentare excluded as outliersfor this and all the other variables. Sales: FromCOMPUSTAT,1959-87. Cashflow: Net income plus depreciation,from COMPUSTAT, 195987.
Net debt issues: ABook debt, divided by book debt, I, from COMPUSTAT, 1959-87.
New share issues: Sale of common equity divided by the beginning-ofyear total marketvalue of common equity, from COMPUSTAT,197187; where above was missing, includingbetween 1959and 1970,sale of common equity is estimated from change in the number of shares outstandingreportedin CRSP, filteringout changes due to liquidation, rightsoffering,stock splits, or stock dividends. Alpha: CAPM betas were estimated for each firm using all available monthlyreturns.These betas were then used to calculate an alphafor each year. Data are from CRSP, 1959-87.
Aggregate Data Investment:FromU.S. Departmentof Commerce,"GrossPrivateFixed Investment, Non-residential";the series is the sum of investment in nonresidentialstructuresand equipmentfor 1935-41and 1947-88. Consumption:Aggregatepersonalconsumption(includingnondurables, durables,and services) from the U.S. Departmentof Commerce, 193441 and 1947-88. Cashflow: After-taxtotal corporateprofits (withoutdepreciationsubtracted)from U.S. Departmentof Commerce, 1934-41and 1947-88. New debt issues: The ratio of net funds raisedfrom corporatebonds to total outstandingliabilities,obtainedfrom sector statementsof savings and investmentfor nonfinancialcorporatebusiness; from Federal Reserve, 1952-89. New share issues: Individualfirm share issues were calculated using CRSP data as described above. Aggregate variable is the fraction of firmsincreasingthe numberof sharesby more than 5 percentin a given year. Stock return: Value-weightedindex return from CRSP, 1933-41 and 1947-88. Closed-endfund discount:Year-endaveragediscount on a portfolioof closed-end funds; from Lee, Shleifer, and Thalerfor 1965-85, using a portfolioof 18funds;for 1930-64a portfolioof five fundsis used (Adams Express, GeneralAmerican,Lehman,NiagaraShares,andTricontinental);the same five funds also used for 1986-89.
GNP deflator.One exception is aggregateinvestment,which is deflated by the U.S. Departmentof Commerce'simplicitpricedeflatorup to 1982 and by the "chain investment index," suggested by Gordonfor 198388. Also, aggregatepersonal consumptionis deflatedby implicitprice deflatorfor personalconsumptionexpenditures.
Comments and Discussion Matthew Shapiro: The stock market and investment are positively correlated. This well-known empirical finding provides the point of departurefor the authors'theoreticaldiscussion. In it, they provide an interesting and useful classification scheme for explanations of this correlation.For the most part,they put aside the questionof whetheror notthe stockmarketis efficientinthe sense thatit appropriatelydiscounts futurecash flows. Insteadthey ask a moreinterestingquestion.Namely, do the fundamentals, specifically the accumulation of fixed capital, respond to movements in the stock market?Of course, the extent to whichinvestmentrespondsto the stock marketdependson the efficiency of the stock market.The authors'theoreticalsection clearly addresses this simultaneity. Most economists thinkof the relationshipbetween the stock market and investmentin terms of q, the ratio of marketvalue to replacement cost. JohnMaynardKeynes viewed stock marketfluctuationsas largely irrationaland hence not useful signals about the profitabilityof investment projects. In WilliamBrainardand James Tobin's formalizationof Keynes's chapter12,managersreactto potentiallyirrationalmovements in the marketby financingexpansioneitherthroughnew issues, when q exceeds one, or throughmergersand acquisitions, when q is less than one.' Andrew Abel's and Fumio Hayashi's derivationsof q-theoretic models of investmentimplicitlyassume rationalstock marketvaluation to the extent that the shadow value of the fixity of capitalis associated with financialvariables.2Under certain assumptions, their q-theoretic models are observationallyequivalentto Brainardand Tobin's. But in 1. Brainard and Tobin (1968). 2. Abel (1979); Hayashi (1982).
these derivations, q diverges from one only because adjustmentcosts keep the actual capital stock from equalingits desired level. The stock marketappropriatelyreflectsthis out-of-steady-stateoutcome.3 RandallMorck, Andrei Shleifer, and Robert Vishny do not use q to discuss the relationship between the stock market and investment. Nonetheless, their lucid theoretical discussion clarifies how the stock market's decision to rationally discount future cash flow affects the correlation.The authorsconsiderfourhypotheses. One of theirhypothesis, which is closely relatedto the Keynes-Brainard-Tobin q-model, is that the market is irrational,but managersuse its swings to finance investment.In anotherhypothesis, the managersof firmsactuallylearn about the profitabilityof their investmentsfrom the stock market.In a third, the managershave superior informationabout their profits, so they do not learnfrom the market,but the econometriciangets a signal about profitabilityfrom the stock market.These latter two hypotheses maintainthat the stock marketis rational;both hypotheses are related to adjustment-costbased implementationsof the q-theoreticmodels, but the signaling hypothesis is closest to Abel's and Hayashi's models. Finally, the authorsconsidera fourthhypothesis-that the investmentstock market correlationarises because managerstry to increase reportedprofitsby curtailinginvestmentwhen their stock price falls. Most of the authors'evidence bearson the firstandthirdhypotheses. They have no sharp tests of the fourth hypothesis. They dismiss the second hypothesis-that managerslearn about the profitabilityof their investmentsfromthe stock market-because they believe thatmanagers have superiorinformationabout the profitabilityof their investments and describe evidence based on managers'stock tradingthat supports this belief. The authors'argumentsaboutmanagers'superiorknowledge of their firms' cash flows are convincing. Yet, even if managershave superiorknowledgeof the profitabilityof theirprojects,the marketmay still provideinformationuseful to them in makinginvestmentdecisions. Morck, Shleifer, and Vishny discuss stock returns as if they were governedonly by innovationsin currentandexpected futurecash flows. But stock returns also move with changes in the rates by which cash 3. Tobin and White (1981) note that Summers's (1981) estimates of a q-theoretic equation imply incrediblyhigh adjustmentcosts. Althoughthey make this point as a reductioad absurdumof models that link the stock marketand investmentonly through adjustmentcosts, many have taken this findingas impetusfor formulatingmore complicated, but still adjustment-costdriven,q-models.
in terms of the q-theory, one should note that examiningthe growthof investmentis a perilousway to study the demandfor capital.Lawrence Summers, in his "Requiem for the Investment Equation," points out that having the level of investment as the left-hand-sidevariabledoes not make sense unless the right-handside controls for the deviation of the currentcapital stock from the desired level (as does the q-theory).4 Firmsdemanda stock of capital;investmentis merelythe regulationof that stock. Most investmentequationssin by slippinga derivative.The authors slip two derivatives by examining the growth in investment. Consequently,the authors'choice of specificationmakesit very difficult to interpretthe magnitudeof their estimated coefficient and makes it hardto believe thatthese coefficientsdo not varyacross firmsdepending on how actualcapitalstock departsfrom its desiredlevel. The authorsclaim that there is too muchfirm-levelheterogeneityfor them to model the relationshipin levels. Their inabilityto get sensible results in a levels specificationarises because they have omitted key factors, such as the stock of capital, from their analysis. Unless the omittedfactors are deterministictrends, differencingdoes not solve the specificationproblem. The authorsrun the reverse regression with the financingvariables on the left-handside to see how they are correlatedwith stock returns. One can see fromthe firstset of regressions(withinvestmentgrowthon the left-handside) that stock returnsand the financingvariablescannot be highly correlated. Includingthe financingfactors does not greatly affect the estimated sign of the stock return variable. Therefore, the authors could make their point without recourse to the second set of regressions.
The authorspresent results at both the firmand the aggregatelevel. Their main equationhas investment growth as the dependentvariable and includes lagged stock returns,other variables(cash flow and sales) to capturethe fundamentaldeterminantsof stock returns,andstillothers (dummies for large new issues of equity and debt) to capture new financing.In the firm-levelregression, the stock returnis purgedof its correlation with the aggregate return. In these estimates, the stock marketis highly significantand has a large coefficient comparedto the aggregateestimates. When the fundamentalsvariablesare included in 4. Summers (1985).
the regression,they are also very significantandhave importantexplanatory power. Their inclusion makes the coefficient on the stock return fall somewhat, but it is still large comparedto the aggregateestimates. Hence, the fundamentalfactors are importantin explaininginvestment, but leave a significantrole for the stock return.The financingfactorsare also significantin the regression.Theirinclusionleads only to a further small reductionin the coefficient of the stock returnsvariable, so the stock returnsand financingfactors are essentially independent. While the absence of the theoreticalmodel makes these results hard to interpret,it is possible to drawsome conclusions. The findingthatthe stock return is a significantexplanatoryfactor for investment, but is hardlya sufficientstatistic, is consistentwith the largebody of empirical work on q-theoreticinvestmentmodels. The significanceof the sales andcashflowvariablesis hardto interpret. Steven Fazzari, Glenn Hubbard,and Bruce Peterson include them in similarequations,but those authorsincludethem to show that liquidity affects investment. On the other hand, the present authors interpret these variablesas the fundamentaldeterminantsof stock values. Absent more information,both the Fazzari, Hubbard, and Peterson and the Morck, Shleifer, and Vishny explanationsof the correlationof investment and cash flow are consistent with the data.5 The significanceof the coefficients of the new equity and new debt dummy variables does not imply that financing causes investment. Suppose that the world is Modigliani-Milleron the margin,that is, that firmschoose a capital structurethat equates the marginalcost of funds across different types of financial claims. New investment must be financedby some means. On the margin,a firmshoulddesire to use all means;thus, it is not surprisingto see investmentcorrelatedwith both forms of financing.Therefore, the financing-investmentcorrelationis not evidence againstthe economic independenceof real decisions from financing decisions.
The authorsabstractfrom aggregatemovementsin the stock market in their firm-levelregressionsby only includingthe idiosyncraticcomponent of stock returns and also by including year dummies in the regressions.Whileneglect of these aggregatecomponentsdoes not bias theirestimates, it does reducethe power of theirprocedure.Thereis no 5. Fazzari,Hubbard,andPeterson(1988).
theoreticaljustificationfor abstractingfromthe aggregatecomponentof stock returns. By omitting this component, the authors reduce the potentialrole of theirreturnsvariable.Moreover,it wouldbe interesting to see how the aggregatecomponententers the regressions.They could either report the annualdummiesor, better, exclude them in favor of includingthe systematiccomponentof stock returns(the beta times the aggregatereturn).As notedearlier,managersshouldrespondto changes in the requiredrate of return,about which the aggregatemarketreturn carries an important signal.6 Consequently, by abstractingfrom the aggregate,the authorspotentiallyunderstatethe role of the stock market for investment.Doing so also makesit difficultto comparethe aggregate andfirm-levelresults. In the aggregateregressions, the stock markethas roughlythe same coefficientas the firm-levelregressionswhen the univariaterelationship is considered,butfalls dramaticallywhenthe fundamentalsareincluded. The text of the paper reads as if the stock marketexplains more in the aggregateregressionsthanthe firm-levelregressions.The authorscome to thisconclusionbecausethey relyinappropriatelyon theR2.Comparing R2's across samples is misleadingbecause the error variances are so differentat the firmand aggregatelevels. Indeed, as judged by the size and significance of the coefficient of the stock returns variable, the relationshipbetween investmentand the stock marketis muchlargerin the firm-levelregressions. James M. Poterba: Stock marketanomalies-the Januaryeffect, the weekendeffect, the alphabeteffect-are a favoritetopic of conversation at Brookings Panel meetings. If asked to justify these anomalies as legitimatesubjectsof macroeconomicinterest, most economists would argue that the stock marketprovides vital signals for investment and consumptiondecisions. An understandingof its movementsis therefore importantto an understandingof macroeconomicfluctuations. Inthisprovocativepaper,RandallMorck,AndreiShleifer,andRobert Vishny attemptto end these discussions. They argue that the conventionalview of the stock marketas an importantdeterminantof corporate 6. They shouldalso respondto firm-specificchangesin requiredratesof returncaused for exampleby changesin the risk-structureof theirreturns.These could be capturedby changes in the betas. Since the authorsassume them to be constant, these changes are includedin the estimatedalphas.
investmentis misplaced.Drawingon a richbase of firm-levelinvestment dataandstockreturndata,the authorsarguethatto a firstapproximation, swings in the stock market are irrelevant forfirm investment decisions.
The findings are significant not only because they illuminate what determinesinvestment,but also because they carrystrongimplications for the welfare cost of "noise trading" and other forces that cause transitorydivergences between asset prices and fundamentalvalues. This papersuggeststhat even if prices gyrateinappropriately,they may have little effect on real activity. The findingsin this papermay come as a surpriseto some subscribers to the q-theoryof investment, which links stock price and investment. Even withoutthis paper,however, a skeptic would have foundgrounds for concernregardingthe stock market'spredictivepower. JamesStock and Mark Watson's recent work on leading indicators finds that in predictingreal outputthe stock marketis dominatedby a collection of other variables. A twenty-year BPEA traditionof runninghorseraces between competinginvestmentequationshas shown that q-modelsare outpaced by equations including cash flow, output, and other flow measuresof corporateactivity.' The centralcontributionsof the currentpaperarethe use of firm-level datain studyingthe forecast power of the stock marketandthe focus on the incrementalexplanatorypower of the stock market. Althoughthe basic conclusions seem relativelyrobust,boththe choice of dataandthe statisticalanalysis in this paperinvite scrutiny. First, the timing convention in the regression equation excludes currentstock returns,but includes currentcash flow or sales. Since the fundamentalsare all dated later than the stock market variable, they have an informationaladvantage.This concern appliesboth to the firmlevel and aggregateestimates. However, results providedto me by the authorssuggest that this issue is not of criticalimportance:inclusionof the currentstock returnratherthan the lagged stock returnin the firmlevel equations actually reduces explanatorypower; in the aggregate equation, the current stock return enters with a negative coefficient. Thus, the timing convention is unlikely to be central to the empirical conclusion. 1. Sensenbrenner(1990) suggests that q- and neoclassicial acceleratormodels can performsimilarlyif a sufficientlyrichlag structureis considered.
A second issue of specificationconcerns the use of time effects in the analysis of individualfirminvestment. Their use removes the effect of aggregate stock market movements, even though these may be an importantsource of the market'sexplanatorypower for each firm.One can easily imaginethat managersinvest more (given their firm's cash flow) when the stock marketoverall is high, signalingfuturegood times. Even if the broadmarketmovementswere uninformativefor investment of a givenfirm,the resultswouldbe farstrongerthanthe currentfindings. A thirddifficultyis that the paper does not performthe appropriate test of how stock returnsaffectinvestment.The idealtest wouldexamine the stock market's explanatory power at t - 1 after controlling for expectationsof futurefundamentalsthatwere formedby informationat t - 1. This would argue for development of a firm-levelor aggregate model to predictdividends. Then, the change in the optimalforecast of the present discountedvalue of dividendsshouldbe comparedwith the stock returnin forecastingfutureinvestment. A final concern is that the findings are sensitive to changes in specificationand sample period. Two other studies-those by Robert Barro and Olivier Blanchard,ChangyongRhee, and Lawrence Summers-that the authors cite estimate similar models with aggregate investmentdata.2Barroreports strongerevidence on the link between stock returns and investment than this paper finds. The difference between his results and those of the currentpaperis apparentlydue to his inclusion of lagged investment, and his somewhat longer sample period. Blanchard, Rhee, and Summers's paper uses a more formal methodologyto constructthe expected present value of dividendsand to contrastthe predictivepower of this series with the predictivepower of actual stock prices. Using this approach,they were not able to draw strongconclusionsaboutthe realeffects of sentiment-inducedswings in shareprices. Thus, I remainnervous that the currentfindings,particularlyin aggregatedata, are not definitive. Turningfrom data to statistical methods, I believe this paper also altersthe focus of priordebate. By concentratingon the stock market's incrementalexplanatorypower for investment spending, the authors shiftfrom the traditionalanalysis of q-investmentspending.It is important to distinguish,as the authorsdo, the claim that the stock marketis 2. Barro(1990);Blanchard,Rhee, andSummers(1990).
are small,thereareotherchannelswhichmay be important.An example illustratesthis. If noise tradersraise the generallevel of requiredreturns in the equity market,these traderswill reduce the level of investmentin all periods, without regard to particular stock market movements. Exploringthese channelsis a naturaldirectionfor futurework.
because of the crash may reflectthe fact that they had not revised it up in responseto the stock price boom in the firsthalf of 1987. Some panelistswere concernedthat the authorshad not paidenough attentionto the possible intertemporalrelationshipsamongthe variables andthereforemayhave underestimatedthe potentialinfluenceof market noise and given too much weight to fundamentals.Sims suggestedthat a positive signal could lead to an increase in sales contemporaneous with, or even leading, investment. To examine this issue, he suggested runningvector autoregressionsandlookingat the proportionof variance at varioushorizonsexplainedby stock marketinnovations. Lawrence Klein suggested testing for robustness, possibly by comparingestimatesfor differentsampleperiods.Since the noise component was so large in the cross-sectionalestimates, he conjecturedthat small changes in specification could lead to large changes in coefficient estimates. Gordonpointed out that the 1950s saw two big booms in the stock marketwith sluggishinvestmentandwonderedif the resultswould be robustto splits of the sampleinto pre- and post-1952periods.
References Abel, Andrew B. 1979. Investment and the Value of Capital. New York: GarlandPublishing. Barro, Robert J. 1990. "The Stock Market and Investment." Review of Financial Studies 3: 115-32. Barsky, Robert, and J. BradfordDe Long. 1989. "Why Have Stock Prices Fluctuated?"HarvardUniversity (October). Black, Fischer. 1986. "Noise." Journal of Finance 41: 529-43. Blanchard,Olivier, ChangyongRhee, and Lawrence Summers. 1990. "The Stock Market, Profit and Investment." WorkingPaper 3370. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureauof Economic Research (May). Bosworth, Barry. 1975."The Stock Marketandthe Economy." BPEA, 2:1975, 257-90. Brainard,William C., and James Tobin. 1968. "Pitfalls in Financial Model Building." American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings 56: 99122. Campbell,John Y., and Albert S. Kyle. 1988. "SmartMoney, Noise Trading and Stock Price Behavior." Technical Working Paper 71. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureauof Economic Research (October). Cummins,Clint, BronwynH. Hall, Elizabeth S. Laderman,and Joy Mundy. 1988. "The R & D MasterFile Documentation."TechnicalWorkingPaper 72. Cambridge,Mass.: NationalBureauof EconomicResearch(December). De Long, J. Bradford, and Andrei Shleifer. 1990. "The Bubble of 1929: Evidence from Closed-EndFunds." HarvardUniversity (May). De Long, J. Bradford,Andrei Shleifer, Lawrence H. Summers, and Robert J. Waldmann.1990. "Noise TraderRisk in FinancialMarkets."Journal of Political Economy 98: 703-38. Fama, Eugene F. 1981. "Stock Returns,Real Activity, Inflationand Money." American Economic Review 71: 545-65. Fama, Eugene F., and KennethR. French. 1988. "Permanentand Temporary Componentsof Stock Prices." Journal of Political Economy 96: 246-73. Fazzari, Steven M., R. Glenn Hubbard, and Bruce C. Petersen. 1988. "FinancingConstraintsand CorporateInvestment." BPEA, 1:1988, 14195. Figlewski, Stephen. 1979. "Subjective Informationand MarketEfficiency in a Betting Market."Journal of Political Economy 87: 75-88. Fischer, Stanley, andRobertC. Merton. 1984."Macroeconomicsand Finance: The Role of the Stock Market." Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy 21: 57-108. Gordon, Robert J. 1986. "Introduction:Continuityand Change in Theory, Behavior,and Methodology."In The American Business Cycle: Continuity and Change, edited by Robert J. Gordon. Chicago:University of Chicago Press, for NBER.
Hayashi, Fumio. 1982. "Tobin's Marginalq and Average q: A Neoclassical Interpretation."Econometrica 50: 213-24. Lee, Charles,AndreiShleifer, and RichardThaler. 1990. "Investor Sentiment andthe Closed-EndFundPuzzle." WorkingPaper3465.Cambridge,Mass.: National Bureauof Economic Research (October). Merton, Robert C. 1987. "A Simple Model of Capital Market Equilibrium with IncompleteInformation."Journal of Finance 42: 483-510. Meyer,JohnR., and EdwinKuh. 1957. The Investment Decision: An Empirical Study. Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press. Poterba, James M., and Lawrence H. Summers. 1988. "Mean Reversion in Stock Prices: Evidence and Implications."Journal of Financial Economics 22: 27-59.
Sensenbrenner,Gabriel. 1990. "AggregateInvestment,the Stock Market,and the Q Model: Robust Results for Six OECD Countries." Northwestern University (July). Seyhun, H. Nejat. 1986. "Insiders' Profits, Costs of Trading, and Market Efficiency." Journal of Financial Economics 16: 189-212. . 1988. "The Information Content of Aggregate Insider Trading." Journal of Business 61: 1-24. . 1990. "Overreactionor Fundamentals:Some Lessons from Insiders' Response to the MarketCrashof 1987." Journal of Finance 45: 1363-78. Shiller, RobertJ. 1981. "Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to Be Justifiedby SubsequentChangesin Dividends?"American Economic Review 71: 42136. 1984. "Stock Prices and Social Dynamics." BPEA, 2:1984, 457-98. 1987. "Investor Behavior in the October 1987 Stock Market Crash: Survey Evidence." Working Paper 2446. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureauof Economic Research (November). Shleifer, Andrei, and Vishny, Robert W. 1990. "EquilibriumShort Horizons of Investors and Firms." American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings 80: 148-53. Stein, JeremyC. 1988. "TakeoverThreatsand ManagerialMyopia." Journal of Political Economy 96: 61-80. Stock, James H., and MarkW. Watson. 1990. "Business Cycle Propertiesof Selected U.S. Economic Time Series, 1959-1988." WorkingPaper 3376. Cambridge,Mass.: National Bureauof Economic Research (June). Summers, Lawrence H. 1981. "Taxation and Corporate Investment: A qTheory Approach."BPEA, 1:1981, 67-127. . 1985. "Requiem for the Investment Equation." Remarks presented at Conferenceon Impactof Taxationon Business Activity. Ottawa,Canada, November 12-13. Tobin, James, and Philip M. White. 1981. "Discussion." BPEA, 1:1981, 13239. Zweig, Martin E. 1973. "An Investor Expectations Stock Price Predictive Model Using Closed-EndFund Premiums."Journal of Finance 28: 67-78.
Report "The Stock Market and Investment: Is the Market a ... - CiteSeerX" | 2019-04-20T17:11:57Z | https://mafiadoc.com/the-stock-market-and-investment-is-the-market-a-citeseerx_5b06513b8ead0e4a788b4582.html |
My first concern about this idea is different motion artifacts for different colors, if fast moving objects are photographed or in presence of camera shake. It might require a good deal of image processing to conceal these artifacts. The second concern is a more difficult wiring of the pixel array, which might result in lower fill factor - can be resolved, if made in BSI.
TSMC patent application US20090020838 proposes to use black photoresist rectangles between the neighboring pixels under color filter to reduce crosstalk. I don't think the idea is new, but there might be some new trick in the manufacturing process of the rectangles.
Unfortunately, you teamed with the company that's now slipped to fifth.
Should we still be expecting that camera phones are going to help us in the second half of the year?
Camera phones – I'm going to tell you information that you have, from some of our colleagues, with which we have excellent relationships, not just with Motorola by the way. We have excellent relationship with Nokia, and many others. They are obviously projecting a difficult year, for next year. Obviously we're going to take that into account, as well as what is the right business plan for that business, at this time.
But if you haven't been selling any of those, and you start selling some, it's incremental.
We are very happy with that. The question is the level of investment. The whole question, here, is if the market is contracting and we don't have the 10% growth that we enjoy in the digital portfolio for more than a year, obviously we're not going to have the revenues, cash, and earnings that we had before. We are going to have less. We have to make sure that we realize that and peak where we are going to put that money. That's the exercise, portfolio management.
What conclusion we can draw from this? Probably, no business unit is immune from cuts in this difficult time.
Yahoo: Tessera’s OptiML Wafer-Level Camera (WLC) technology has won a 2008 Prism Award for technical innovation. The Prism Award is sponsored by SPIE and Laurin Publishing (Photonics Spectra, EuroPhotonics, BioPhotonics magazines).
Business Week cites iSuppli reverse engineering of another cult phone of these days - BlackBerry Storm. The reverse engineering revealed that Storm uses Omnivision 3MP sensor. iSuppli estimates the AF-enabled camera module cost is $13.
Electronic Design published a promotional article about Omnivision's OV5642 BSI SoC sensor. About the only new thing I was able to spot is that the sensor is sampling now, and expected to enter volume production this quarter.
PR-Inside: Sarnoff announced the launch of "Camera Commander", a complete CMOS and CCD imaging device and camera testing system for camera manufacturers and their users.
Camera Commander is the first imaging testing system compliant with the European Machine Vision Association (EMVA) 1288 standard, enabling it to provide internationally recognized test results. Camera Commander is comprised of a low-cost bundle that includes a computer, monitor, and software package for automated, high-speed inspection and analysis to assess product quality and to evaluate the appropriate component fit for a target application. Typically the test time of Camera Commander is less than 5 minutes per camera.
Business Wire: Dr. Homayoon Haddad, previously Vice President of Advanced Sensor & Pixel Development for MagnaChip Semiconductor, has joined SiOnyx as Vice President of Device Engineering. Prior to MagnaChip, Dr. Haddad spent more than 20 years at Hewlett Packard and Agilent where he held a variety of technology management and engineering roles.
The Engineer On-Line: London, UK based Dexela is developing the mammography system with X-ray detector based on an array of tiled CMOS sensors. "It will be the largest CMOS image sensor ever commercially deployed," Dexela founder Edward Bullard said, adding that his company plans to demonstrate a prototype this summer. It will be low noise and take images 30 times faster than competing amorphous silicon flat-panel detectors.
So far, Dexela has raised more than £4.7m via two funding rounds and grants - looks like the image sensor development is cheap these days, even the world largest ones.
Yahoo: Tessera’s SHELLCASE wafer-level chip-scale packaging technology has shipped in more than one billion image sensors. I believe the vast majority of those are Omnivision sensors.
ST Micro application US20090014764 talks about improving BSI sensor crosstalk. To achieve this, ST goes beyond silicon and uses SiGe alloy in the photodiodes to improve red light absorption, thus reduce the layer thickness and so reduce the crosstalk, mostly in green and blue. Having very thin photosensitive layer also opens other isolation possibilities, such as oxide-filled shallow trenches.
Aptina application US20090017573 proposes a dual or triple Vth transistor in the pixel source follower to modify its sub-threshold behavior and extend the output voltage swing. The extension is not large and does not justify the additional Vth adjust mask, in my opinion. But if just a combination of existing masks is used, it might be worth considering.
Siliconfile application US20090014761 proposes to extend the photodiode under field oxide region to improve fill factor. This idea has a lot of prior art from Aptina, Sony, Omnivision and many others. I don't think it would be granted.
EETimes: Sharp introduces 1.3MP CCD for security applications. The new RJ33J3AA0DT CCD can capture 22fps in full resolution. In the 4 pixel mixing VGA mode, the speed is 30fps. Its sensitivity is 400mV and smear factor is -105 dB.
Samples of the new RJ33J3AA0DT are available now. No production date is given.
Digitimes reports that image sensor makers see an improving demand for VGA and 1.3MP sensors for low-end "traditional" notebooks, mostly from Dell and HP. However, Digitimes sources do not see orders increase for more fashionable nEtbooks.
Yahoo: Fairchild Imaging will be exhibiting CMOS image sensor technology for demanding low-light applications requiring high-resolution, high-speed and extreme sensitivity at Photonics West in San Jose, January 27 - 29. According to Colin Earle, Fairchild Imaging's Vice President of Sales and Marketing, "the new CIS technology represents a dramatic breakthrough in low-light imaging. These new CMOS devices outperform the best CCD imagers. Moreover, the inherently digital, solid-state nature of CIS offers significant advantages over traditional low-light imaging devices such as image intensifier tubes or electron-bombarded sensors."
Yahoo: Even though no information has been officially released, Next Inning Technology Research thinks there is evidence suggesting that Omnivision got a strategic design win in the Palm Pre.
Pre has 3MP camera. If this rumor is correct, it means that Omnivision got quite a high profile design win for its high-megapixel sensors.
C.Tisse, H.P. Nguyen, R.Tessieres, M.Pyanet & F.Guichard, “ Extended Depth-of-Field (EDoF) using sharpness transport across colour channels”, Proc. of SPIE conference on Optics+Photonics (Optical Engineering and Applications), San Diego, US, August 2008.
F.Guichard, C.Tisse & F.Cao, “ Image Processing Challenges in the World of Small Pixels”, Talk / Pre-conference Workshop - Proc. of IntertechPira conference on Image Sensors, London, UK, March 2008.
The papers present the new interesting approaches to small pixel image quality improvement.
Scalado proudly announces that its CAPS imaging Software Development Kit is now being used in more than 300 million mobile phone handsets, compared with 150 million at this time last year. During this same 12 month period, Scalado has also doubled both its revenue and its total number of staff, thanks to its ongoing expansion in both Europe and Asia.
Vision Systems Design: Imatest and Aptina have partnered to deliver an integrated software system for automatic testing of CMOS sensor image quality and subsequent reconfiguration of image sensor settings. According to the companies, DevWare-enabled Imatest loads images directly from Aptina's image sensor configuration software, DevWare. Images are then automatically analyzed across various digital image quality factors, providing product engineers with the information required to re-set sensor settings.
I am happy to inform you about the fact that the organizing committee of the International Image Sensor Workshop 2009 is working on a special Symposium focusing on Back-Side Illumation of Solid-State Image Sensors. This symposium is scheduled on the first day of the workshop, being Thursday June 25th, 2009.
We invited 8 world experts in the field of BSI. At this moment 4 of them already confirmed that they will give a talk at the symposium. We are convinced that this new initiative will be a great success because the BSI is a very "hot" topic. For professional applications as well as consumer applications, for CCDs as well as CMOS, engineers are researching the possibility to produce back-side illuminated image sensors.
On the other hand, I would like to take this opportunity to [remind] you about the fact that the deadline for paper submissions is within 6 weeks from now, being Feb. 26th, 2009. If you have in mind to submit an abstract, make sure you do not miss this deadline !
Looking forward to a successful IISW 2009 !
Albert Theuwissen, on behalf of the organizing committee.
This sounds like a great idea to me. BSI is going to be the next great thing and such an open discussion can help the industry to overcome the initial problems.
"...if light is detected in the photodiodes, electron-hole pairs (EHP) are generated and accumulated. The accumulated electron-hole pairs are transferred to the floating diffusion region via the transfer transistor. As a result, the potential in the floating diffusion region is changed, and the active pixel sensor detects and outputs the change in potential."
The application mostly talks about process ideas. I have seen that process engineers sometimes do not understand the intimate details of pixel operation, so it's somewhat excusable. Still, it's quite rare to see such a glaring mistake in an official document from one of the leading image sensor companies.
The anti-reflection films are said to include "at least one of polysilicon, amorphous silicon, tungsten, and TiN". On the negative side, if these films are conductive, they can significantly increase pixel parasitic capacitances.
info4security shows promotional Pixim video comparing its HDR technology with regular CCD - a lot of side by side pictures.
Update: Here is the direct link to YouTube video.
Digitimes reports that TSMC has recently received rush orders from Omnivision.
University of Wisconsin-Madison, The Register and Science Daily report that Associate Professor Zhenqiang (Jack) Ma and colleagues have developed a flexible light-sensitive material. Their technology is featured on the cover of the January 5 issue of Applied Physics Letters.
Ma and his group can create curved photodetectors with specially fabricated nanomembranes—extremely thin, flexible sheets of germanium. Researchers then can apply the nanomembranes to any polymer substrate, such as a thin, flexible piece of plastic. Currently, the group has demonstrated photodetectors curved in one direction, but Ma hopes next to develop hemispherical sensors.
Ma's curved photodetector could eliminate that distortion. "If you can make a curved imaging plane, you just need one lens," says Ma. "That's why this development is extremely important."
Micron has published its 10-Q report telling that Aptina's quarterly income was $3M on sales $180M versus $9M loss on $169M sales a year ago. Gross margin on imaging products improved to 29% from 28% a year ago.
The final program is much bigger and even more interesting than its preliminary version. It seems to retain its educative and marketing tint and probably becomes the best image sensor conference of this sort.
Yahoo: Omnivision introduced OV7740, the sensor for notebook webcams. The VGA sensor is based on 4.2um pixel having 6800mV/lux-sec sensitivity. The OV7740 is capable of operating at 60fps in VGA resolution and 120fps in QVGA.
The OV7740 is immediately available for sampling with volume production slated within the first quarter of 2009. Techno Systems Research projects the notebook webcam market to exceed $6 billion by 2012, as demand for portable PCs continues to grow.
Omnivision patent application US20090002528 describes the split photodiode HDR sensor that Chipworks showed us a month ago. Indeed, as written in comments, the read curtains of the two photodiodes are aligned. The short-exposed photodiode also acts as anti-blooming drains for excess charge overflowing from the long exposure time photodiodes. The photodiodes are arranged in such a way that long exposure time photodiodes are neighbored along vertical and horizontal directions by short exposure time photodiodes, so that the blooming protection is more efficient. Looks like a very nice idea, but blooming during the short exposure portion might still be a problem.
While we are at HDR issues, TI proposes an improved way to mix two differently exposed images in its application US20090002530. To cope with mismatches and noise, TI employs linear regression and adaptive filter for noise gap reduction between high-gain and low-gain outputs of an HDR sensor.
Application US20090001257 from unknown Korean company (looks like Samsung to me) proposes to align the microlens with the active area, rather than the top metal. Normally in the process each subsequent layer is aligned with the previous one, so as third metal is aligned to second metal, which is aligned to the first one, which is aligned to poly or active. So, the misalignment is accumulated over many layers, increasing optical path variations. Being able to align microlens to active is an obvious idea, but to the best of my knowledge, this is impossible with any meaningful accuracy. Unfortunately, the application does not describe how exactly the stepper should be modified to achieve this alignment. I'm unable to find what company filed this application, but if somebody is able to align microlens straight with active layer, it would be a tangible advantage.
Dongbu application US20090004770 looks like a process engineer report on 400-450C final annealing influence on dark current non-uniformity and metal sheet resistance - a lot of low-temp annealing comparison data with some analysis. The experimental data is based on what looks like Foveon X3 sensor with 3.3um pixels made in 0.18um 1-poly 5-metal process. I'm not sure it's worth a patent, but it's certainly an interesting read for those who learn to deal with pixel optimizations.
The positive gate bias has an advantage of better blooming suppression, while the negative bias does not cause full well degradation.
I doubt that this patent would be granted in its broad form. Many companies for years use negative transfer gate bias exactly for the purpose of dark current reduction. Some use positive bias for different purposes too. But the application has an extension - a circuit which changes the bias depending on light conditions - this portion has chances to become a patent.
It looks like Sony leads the race to get BSI sensors into production. Just announced Sony 2009 camcorder lineup features Back-illuminated Exmor-R sensor. Sonystyle also has a video on the new sensors.
Sony says that its BSI sensor provides approximately 2x increase in sensitivity compared with conventional models. However, InfoSync observed just 50% improvement in brightness and exposure comparing BSI-based HDR-XR520V with conventional HDR-SR12.
It's hard to say what is the pixel size in the new sensor. HDR-XR520V camcorder featuring 1/3.15" Exmor-R sensor has 12.1MP stills resolution, which corresponds to 1.1um pixels, if no tricks are used. Most probably, Sony interpolates the its 45-deg angled ClearVid sensor by a factor of 2, meaning that the physical pixel size is close to 1.6-1.7um or so.
The HDR-XR520V and HDR-XR500V camcorders with BSI sensor will begin shipping in March 2009.
Update: Camcorderinfo.com reports that the actual pixel count of HDR-XR520V sensor is 6.6MP, which means that my pixel size estimations of 1.6-1.7um are correct.
Ambarella announced the availability of the A5 SoC platform for hybrid cameras. The A5 family consists of three products: A530, A550 and A570. Each is available with a full reference design. The A530 integrated circuit can capture 10 MP still pictures while generating and compressing high-definition video in both 720p60 and 1080p30 formats. The A550 in addition supports the standard HD broadcast format 1080i60. The A570 captures as many as 5.3 MP at 60 frames per second. This allows full HD video recording while concurrently storing 5.3 MP still images (16:9 aspect ratio) without interrupting the video recording.
The A5 platform is available now in sampling quantities.
EETimes: FBR Capital Markets predicts that utilization rates at TSMC could decline to below 40 percent in 1Q '09. Omnivision is named among the companies making the biggest order cuts.
I wonder how long the battery lasts with all these nice features activated.
The differential approach is said to enable a more consistent switching point, allowing the amplifier to be linear over a larger part of its range. It's probably true, but at the expense of added area and power consumption. Also, the PREAMP block should have an wide common mode range and good high-frequency common mode rejection, which might increase power even more.
Altasens' application US20080316342 looks quite obvious to me. It talks about gain control with fine steps. The gain control is split between analog and digital. The analog gain provides coarse gain steps and the digital gain provide finer gain steps between adjacent coarse analog gain values. Since analog gain can suffer from low precision, on-chip calibration is implemented to calibrate the analog and digital gain.
If granted, it would become quite broad and strong patent, but to me it seems obvious and I think there would be some prior art, even though I can not point to it specifically.
SPIE: Aptina has developed a softcopy ruler method to measure image quality. It enables the calibrated visual assessment of image quality. Because the assessments are measured in just noticeable difference (JND) units, it is possible to combine measurements of different attributes and predict overall quality. The method was developed during phase 2 of the Camera Phone Image Quality Initiative sponsored by the International Imaging Industry Association (I3A).
Trading Markets: Shanghai, China-headquartered fabless semiconductor company Chipnuts has sold its mobile phone software platform business to Aptina Imaging. How much Aptina paid for the newly-acquired unit is unknown, according to an employee for the Shanghai company, adding that the buyer will probably get the 30-40 Chipnuts employees at the unit.
Samsung Semiconductor has opened two R&D centers in California for advanced image sensor technology to expand the R&D activity of its Semiconductor R&D Center and Systems LSI Business Unit in South Korea. One center, associated with Systems LSI (Image Sensor Products Group) will be located in San Jose and focus on next-next generation technology. The second, associated with the Semiconductor R&D Center will be located in Pasadena, not far from Caltech and JPL, and will be looking at imaging technologies for more future application.
Dr. Eric R. Fossum will be directing the R&D activities in the 3 locations and is now looking to hire from the best and brightest at all levels to staff the R&D activities. Disciplines of interest include advanced imaging algorithms and ISP design, deep sub-micron device physics, optics, device simulation, pixel design and layout, and device and test chip electro-optical characterization.
Congratulations to Eric with the promotion and good luck with this new assignment! My only concern is that Eric might not have a time to organize the sensor community events now.
Awaiba, the custom sensor design house, has come with its own branded high speed line sensors. The sensors are oriented to machine vision market with pixel sizes ranging from 3.5um to 500um.
The company's main business remains the development of custom specific CMOS image sensors which are not available on the market, while the standard products are just a byproduct of its core activity.
Embedded.com published Tensilica article describing HD video processing pipeline and benchmarks - a marketing-level educational article.
BBC News reports that UK Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council granted £489,234 to the team led by University of Glasgow for work on image sensor improvement. The article is mostly based on University of Glasgow news published just over a month ago.
It's hard to understand what exactly is going to be developed. The project will take advantage of a phenomenon called plasmon resonance in their efforts to create an imager that will produce sharper, more colourful images. Plasmon resonance refers to an interaction produced when light waves fall on a metal surface, or in this case, the thin metal film used on CMOS image sensors.
When light shines on the metal film, electrons on the surface absorb the energy of the light waves and begin oscillating, or shaking, in groups. The resultant combined waves are called plasmons and they modify the light distribution around the metal. The metal nanostructure is claimed to increase the sensitivity of the CMOS image sensor and result in higher-quality images.
The structures will enable the plasmon resonators to be ‘tuned’ into the same frequency as various colours of light, thereby improving color discrimination in images. This could offer a cheaper way of filtering different colors of light, reducing the current number of processes currently used to distinguish between different colors.
To me this work sounds like a search for a substitute for color filter and, may be, microlens.
Update: The Herald also runs an article clearly stating that the technology is intended to substitute or improve color filters. | 2019-04-20T13:11:59Z | http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com/2009/01/ |
Richardson, Lyla May. A resident of Meadow Park Nursing Home passed away on February 17, 2019 at the age of 91. Born in Dover Township on the family farm, March 12, 1927. Daughter of the late William and Jean Stokes. Predeceased by her husband Thomas Edward (2013). Loving mother of John (Gayle) Richardson, Dan (Connie) Richardson, and Debbie (Richard) VanRycheghem. Cherished grandmother of Rebecca (Bill) Kouyzer, Sarah (Mickey) Parr, Amanda (Jeff) Millman, Brian VanRycheghem, Tanya (Darcy) Bax, Kali (Collin) Sellwood, Aimee (Bobby) Grinde, and Ashley Nickason. Dearest great grandmother of Zach, Justin, Ryan, Abigail, Alana, Gracie, Lucas, Nash, Kale, Brandt, Brittany (Mike) Smith and Mickala.
Survived by sister Grace Lundy, and sister in laws Joan Stokes and Fay Stokes. Predeceased by siblings and their spouses, Ruth (Jim) Wood, Bob Lundy, Ross Stokes, Grant Stokes, June (Clifford) Civalier, and Irene (Valere) Vannieuwenhuyze. Also predeceased by sister in laws and brother in laws Robert (Olive) Richardson, William (Laura) Richardson, Samuel (Alison) Richardson, and Donald (Barbara) Richardson. Remembered by several nieces and nephews.
Lyla was very involved in her earlier years with St. Paul’s United Church, and worked very hard along side her husband Tom on the farm. She was very dedicated to her 3 children and loved cross-stitching, quilting, knitting and cooking.
Mom’s wishes were to be cremated and to have a private burial at Botany Cemetery, at a later date.
Donations to Meadow Park Auxiliary would be appreciated.
The family would like to thank Meadow Park Nursing Home staff for their exceptional care.
Wayne Stanley Clark of Blenheim, passed away peacefully on February 16, 2019 at Riverview Gardens in his 71st year. He was the youngest son of the late Myrtle (Taylor) and Stanley Clark. Survived by his loving wife Lynn (Garrod) and daughters Michelle Clark of Toronto and Robin Knight and granddaughter Abby Knight of Parry Sound, brother Blair (Sheila) of Wasaga Beach, sisters-in-law Agnes Clark of Chatham and Vicki Clark of Ridgetown, Dolores (Ralph) Ferguson of Watford, brother-in-law Bud (Agnes) Garrod of Ottawa. Predeceased by Lloyd, Donna (Bruce) Suitor, Jean Durnin, Harold, Gerald and Murray. Also survived by many nieces, nephews and cousins.
Wayne worked at the Southwestern Regional Centre as a Developmental Service Worker for 29 years until his retirement in 2000. He often brought the residents home for a visit or drove them to various activities and was a Scout leader for their camp. He farmed the family farm for 29 years and after his retirement he drove semi-truck for Brush Farms for 7 years until he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2007. He survived lung cancer in 2015.
In 2010 Wayne and Lynn moved from the farm to Blenheim until he entered Riverview Gardens Nursing Home in May, 2018 where a caring staff looked after him. He was a devoted life-time member of the Fourth Line United Church where he was a Clerk of Session, Elder, Steward and Trustee. He was also President of the Fourth Line Friendly Folk for several years.
Wayne and Lynn loved to RV and pulled their 5th Wheel to the Maritimes and out West as far as Victoria, B.C. They also pulled their trailer to Silver Springs, Florida for several years as well as various campsites in Ontario until they had a seasonal lot at Mooretown for five years. Wayne loved to golf and bicycle at campgrounds and on the trails in Rondeau Park or around his neighbourhood. He also liked to go to Tractor Pulls, Farm Shows and RV Shows. His favourite hobby was making Christmas Tree Stands which were guaranteed to hold up a 12-foot tree. He loved to watch westerns and even met Roy Rogers at his museum in Nevada. He rode a horse with the cowboys in the mountains near Calgary for 3 days.
Wayne was a kind and gentle man, fun loving, with a good disposition and great smile, a loving father and a wonderful husband of almost 50 years. He enjoyed having all the family for a big barbecue and fireworks at the farm for his birthday around the Victoria Day weekend. He will be sadly missed by all his family and friends.
Family and friends are invited to gather at the Blenheim Community Funeral Home for visitation on Friday March 1 from 2 – 4 & 7 – 9 p.m. A Funeral Service for Wayne conducted by Roy Dusten will take place at the Funeral Home on Saturday March 2, 2019 at noon. A private interment of Wayne’s urn will take place in Evergreen Cemetery at a later date.
Friends wishing to remember Wayne with a memorial donation are encouraged to consider the Parkinson’s Society of Southwestern Ontario or the Alzheimer’s Society.
Florette “Flo” (Zastre) Lindsay entered into the light of eternal life peacefully on Saturday February 16, 2019 at the age of 89 at Riverview Gardens, Chatham. She was predeceased by her husband Lancelot “Brick” Lindsay in 2002, by her sons Barry Kelly in 1975, Garry Kelly in 1995 and Brian Kelly in 2016 and by her grandsons Richard Baribeau in 2006 and Daniel Murphy in 2016.
Flo was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on May 1, 1929 to her parents Alfred & Justine (LaFreniere) Zastre and was the sister of two brothers and eight sisters. She was a long time resident of Blenheim and with her husband Brick owned and operated Blenheim Taxi for many years before selling and opening a restaurant, store and bait shop until retiring back to Blenheim.
Flo will be greatly missed by her family: her son Keith & Mary Kelly (grandsons Ryan, Patrick and Greg) of Victoria B.C., her son Les Lindsay (grandson Sam and granddaughter Eden), her daughter Cheryl Kelly (grandson Matt Rose and granddaughter Lisa Murphy) and by her great granddaughter Olivia and great grandson Cohle.
We would like to thank the staff on 5 West at Riverview Gardens for their care and compassion.
Visitation will be held at the Blenheim Community Funeral Home on Saturday February 23 from 9:00 – 11:00 a.m. and will be immediately followed by a funeral service.
Friends wishing to make a donation in Flo’s memory are asked to consider the Pet and Wildlife Rescue.
at a later date and will be announced.
James Raymond “Jimmy’” Boothe of Blenheim passed away on Saturday February 9, 2019 at the age of 48 years. He will be forever missed by his wife Wendy, his father Jim Boothe of Ridgetown, his sister Stephanie & John Fraser with their children Kirkie, Kalvin and Lexie of Morpeth, his brother Dennis & his partner of Winnipeg and his grandmother Elizabeth Boothe of Chatham. He will also be missed by many aunts, uncles and cousins. He was predeceased by his mother Carolynn (Colebrook) Boothe in 2012.
Jimmy was a hard working guy. He got his first job when he was 15 and met his future wife while he was detassling corn. He became very talented at fabrication and used that talent for many years at RM Auto Restoration before starting his own business Fargo Fab just outside Blenheim. Although on the surface he would have seemed to be a quiet person, his mind was always in motion thinking about how he could make something new or fix something old. He was the best uncle he could be, teaching Kirkie, Kalvin and Lexie life skills and getting them involved in hockey which was another passion of his own.
In keeping with Jimmy’s wishes, his family will remember him with a private family service on Tuesday and then his urn will be taken to Evergreen Cemetery where he will be laid to rest with his Mom. A Celebration of his life will be held at a later date and will be announced.
Family and friends wishing to remember him with a memorial donation are asked to consider the Heart & Stroke Foundation.
Marie Joyce Laurie, a resident of Blenheim passed away Wednesday, February 13th with family by her side at the Village on the Ridge, Ridgetown, in her 91st year.
Marie was born June 26, 1927, the youngest daughter of Fred and Florence Slocombe of Blenheim. She was the beloved wife of Gordon for 59 years before his death in 2010.
Marie was the loving mother of Paul of Shrewsbury, Peter and Chrissie of Erie Beach, and the late Joyce Laurie (deceased 2008).
Survived by brother-in-law Jim Laurie (Joanne) of St. Thomas, sister-in-law Shirley Dawson of Edmonton. Predeceased by sister Olive Jean Cameron and her husband Gerald, brother Charlie Slocombe, brother Jim and Anne Slocombe, brother-in-law George and Norma Laurie of Chatham.
Marie was gramma to Spencer Laurie of Calgary, Arden Laurie of Blenheim and Curtis Lewis of Barrie.
Special aunt to Pat and Jim Bennett (Brandon and Sarah), Liz and Murray Butler (Stephanie and Carrie), Jen and Michael Bush. Predeceased by nephews Mike Laurie, Wayne Stoehr, Byron Stoehr, Jeff Laurie and niece Linda Laurie. Also survived by nieces and nephews, George, Julie, Cindy, Kevin, Karen and Janice (nee Laurie) all of Chatham and David Dawson, Lori Dawson and Mike Dawson.
Marie started working at the Blenheim News Tribune in 1941 where she met her future husband Gordon. They worked side by side until her retirement decades later. Marie was a long time member of the Golden Acres Curling Club, was a member and director of the former Blenheim Community Golf Club and was a member of the Blenheim ladies golf league for many years. She was a multiple champion for Women’s Golf in the Ontario Newspaper Association. She was a member of the Blenheim Branch 185 Legion Ladies Auxiliary and enjoyed being a Brownie Leader in her younger years. Marie loved travelling the warmer climates and cruising the clear blue waters of the Caribbean.
A private family service will be held on Saturday at 2 pm at Evergreen Cemetery. Family invite friends for a time of celebration and reminiscing at the Blenheim Community Funeral Home at 2:30 pm on Saturday, February 16, 2019.
Anyone wishing to make a donation in Marie’s memory are asked to consider the Canadian Lung Association, Golden Acres Curling Club Roof Fund or the Golden Acres Curling Club Junior Curling program.
Neva Candace Irwin passed away on February 8, 2019 with her daughters by her side at the Village On The Ridge in Ridgetown. Neva was the daughter of the late Percy and Elizabeth Lanz. Born April 6, 1916 she was the last surviving member of her family, predeceased by her brother Maxwell Lanz & wife Elaine and her sister Rosemary Ford Feduk and her husband Tom.
Neva lived for 102 years. Her life was full. She married Shirley Bell Irwin at a young age. They had a partnership in life as well as business. Shirley owned and operated Irwin Motors; a Studebaker dealership and also sold Massey Ferguson tractors at one time.
Neva was the mother of two daughters Candace & the late Jim McCurdy and Lyn & the late Dr. Peter Green. She was the grandmother to Christopher & Nancy (Hutchinson) McCurdy, Erin & Bob Claeys, Kevin & Susan McCurdy, Jason & Cherie Green and Sarah (Green) & Patrick Jacobsen. Her family grew to include great grandchildren Connor, Katie, Brianne, Justine, Libby, Megan, Michael, Andrew, Rachel, Julia, Natalie and Ava. She recently became great-great grandmother to Matteo. She will also be missed by several nieces and nephews.
Neva was a lifetime member of Trinity Anglican Church where she attended regularly until her move to the Village On The Ridge in Ridgetown where she received excellent care from a wonderful staff during her last years. She was a past member of the I.O.D.E. Eastern Star and Rebecca Lodge. She was Past President of the Blenheim Home and School.
Neva’s social life was busy travelling, painting and doing ceramics. She was an avid reader. One of her favourite pastimes was the daily 10 a.m. Coffee Club at a local restaurant with the girls. Neva and Shirley enjoyed short trips and camping with their daughters. Family was important and their home was a favourite meeting place.
Neva’s family will have a private service in May. Her urn will then be interred in Evergreen Cemetery with Shirley.
Friends wishing to remember Neva with a memorial donation are asked to consider the Trinity Anglican Church, the Blenheim Library or a charity of your choice.
Glen's family will celebrate his life at a later date.
Glen Alexander Sheppard of Blenheim passed away on Tuesday February 5, 2018 at the Chatham-Kent Hospice. Glen was born in Hamilton 55 years ago to Madeleine & the late George Sheppard. He will always remain in the hearts of his children Regan, Maclean and Graem Sheppard and their mother Lori.
Glen was one of seven siblings and is survived by his sisters Paullette Henderson (Wayne) and Rita Browe (late Jim) and by his brothers John Sheppard and Al Sheppard (Kelly). He was predeceased by his brothers Mark and Tim Sheppard.
There were many things that Glen loved in life…he was an avid cyclist, he loved music, he curled, he loved the outdoors and his job in the produce department at Sobeys in Chatham. However, there was nothing he loved more than spending time with the three people who were the most important to him and made him so proud…his children.
In keeping with his wishes, cremation has taken place. His family will celebrate his life at a later date. Blenheim Community Funeral Home entrusted with funeral arrangements.
Friends wishing to remember Glen with a memorial donation are asked to consider the Word of Life Soup Kitchen.
Today, February 3, 2019 we lost our Dad, Larry Srokosz.
It is with the heaviest of hearts that I say this, and whether it is appropriate or not is not the point, but this man had a great influence on my life and I celebrate his fatherhood.
I cherish the memories with Dad, and the best ones always involved music. To me, he taught us the value of music. The best that I can remember is Colton and I sitting in the back of that white 95 Buick, with that god-awful red upholstery, driving down our home dirt road- listening to the best music we had ever heard; songs sung with such meaning and compassion; Roy Orbison, George Strait, Randy Travis to name a few. The 3 of us just singing our hearts out along with them. Dad lived by music and let it flow through him. There were countless nights where Dad would crank the karaoke machine, blast some George Strait and with microphone in hand, Dad would sing the deepest that bellowing base of his would go (it shook the house). Needless to say, it was awesome. Even being halfway across the country, we would call each other and say “Hey, have you heard this song?” And we would sing and harmonize (as best we could) over the phone or we would “gab” about the whole “caboodle”, or to my little “gaffer”, Callie. I called this Dad-speak, and what’s great is that these are all actual words in the dictionary.
Dad was also a mechanical marvel. He never ceased to amaze me. Anything that involved moving parts was something he needed to take apart, he was compelled to figure out how something worked. I loved that. Whether he put it back together was another story. That may have rubbed off a bit on Colton and I. But he could fix anything, he was a real-world McGuyver, he felt that anything tangible or even intangible could be fixed, or built, with any resources you could find. He taught us that if you were ever short a screwdriver, there was always a butter knife, or that you can build a go-kart with a chainsaw motor. He was a great man, Dad, mentor. I miss him, he taught us you have to listen for the music in life. I know there will be a key note missing from mine.
Larry Srokosz was born 61 years ago to the late Stanley & Irene Srokosz. He is survived by Terry Srokosz, by his sons Cody Srokosz and Colton Srokosz, by his granddaughter Callie Srokosz, by his sister Diane & Gary “Whitey” Guyett, and by his brothers Frank & Dyanne Srokosz and Dennis & Shelley Srokosz. He will be remembered by his sister in laws Della & Robert Johnson, Gwen & Doug Duyck and by his mother-in-law Molly Cross.
In keeping with Larry’s wishes, a private ceremony will take place at a later date. Blenheim Community Funeral Home entrusted with funeral arrangements.
Friends wishing to remember Larry with a memorial donation are asked to consider the Chatham-Kent Hospice. | 2019-04-20T02:28:16Z | https://blenheimcommunityfuneralhome.com/obituaries/page/3/ |
Free 1080p Motion pictures and TV Exhibits for Android Units. That is yet another app for watching movies and television shows on-line and you can use it as terrarium tv alternative. Along with streaming, sure you possibly can obtain the movies for offline watching. One can find a terrific collection of films and tv reveals on Megabox HD. Then go to the file supervisor and click on the Tea TV App. Sadly, Tea TV Apk isn’t out there for obtain on the Google Play Retailer. This can be because of some restrictions that Google Play Retailer have implicated in using such apps.
Some of us need a very good movie in every weekend. So, as an alternative of going to theaters each Sunday or paying additional expenses for channels on subscription package deal for television, it is a good suggestion to observe all motion pictures on Tea TV App. It’s a improbable film App loaded with all the brand new as well as outdated films with different tales. After the TeaTV app installs, you possibly can click on the OPEN button to launch it. Yes, you pink that proper. You’ll be able to nonetheless use terrarium television but movie and tv present collection wouldn’t get up to date. However you will be able to watch already obtainable content material on Patched terrarium TV on firestick Together with firestick, you may also obtain patched terrarium television on Android.
When the TeaTV download completes, click on Install then Finished. Entertainment is dying on the large screens whereas the little ones are taking on. So, the industry is dealing with a paradigm shift to adjust to the brand new development by arising with Apps appropriate with each kind of device that we use. Client creates the demand and it needs to be fulfilled. In case you do not, somebody else will. Favorite choice accessible so you possibly can have direct access to your preferred motion pictures and reveals. The smartphone on which you want to download Tea TV app, your smartphone should have some free area in order that the app data could possibly be obtain in your gadget.
Allow us to view some prominent options of TeaTV app so that you may be clear-headed about its functionality. TeaTV APK is free app which gives Obtain Free 1080p Movies on-line and watch TV Shows for Android Gadgets. Get Lasted TeaTV Apk Right here. Delivering immediate playback of flicks at different quality levels and an enormous film database to select from. It has just a little extra adverts than many of its competitors however one can nonetheless easily progress to a film via them. Now faucet the downloaded file to start out the installation.
After Tea Film Information is installed, if the app does not launch itself then choose Open†to launch Tea Movie Information. Tea TELEVISION Motion pictures prove to be a good way to vary the outlook of the society in addition to the world. The movie sends some messages to the folks using dramas. Every film has totally different topic and story. They are the most effective methods to really feel better and recent. You’ll be able to know extra about the world from movies on TeaTV APK. Once it is enabled, go to the download folder on your Android system.
Options like diversified movie and TELEVISION show collection from completely different parts of the world, bookmarking your favorite your present or movie and many similar features. You’ll be able to customize the Tea TELEVISION App as you like to and explore it to the fullest. The FAQ section on the official website claims that Terrarium is not legal. Understand that the app is not obtainable by way of the official Google Play Store. So, that does raise some eyebrows. You might use any of the 2 methods above to download Tea TV on FireStick. It normally takes four-5 minutes to put in the app. However, an important deal depends upon the velocity of your internet connection. Tea TELEVISION is a promising leisure app with a decent library of movies, exhibits and different videos. When you’ve got one thing to share or a query to ask, please tell us through the feedback segment below.
Everyone knows that TutuApp for COMPUTER is the very best third-social gathering app retailer for the mobiles these days. It’s nothing but a substitute for your smartphones who are looking for free video games, downloading is just not too troublesome but it would observe few simple steps as you go down. Now you get all your favourite Premium Android apps and games proper in your COMPUTER with out the necessity to get an Android smartphone. Once it has been run, instructions on methods to install this system on your PC will seem in your monitor. Flick thru the solutions of the famend apps and games like pokemon go, Minecraft, Spotify or clash royale.
To use this app, you do not want to root your Android system or jailback your iOS device. Through this link, you will get the Pokemon go app to play on and no have to download the app separately. This is a simple method which makes you avail all kinds of hacks easily. Infinite and free access to fashionable apps and video games. Next, you need to transfer on to install the applying, for that, simply obtain the APK file in your system after which tap the Set up option to get the app put in in your phone. You also get a toolbox with TuTuApp to handle wifi, bluetooth, and so forth.
Tick mark the Unknown sources that may allow you to put in third party apps in your system. To obtain this amazing TuTuApp Apk on the android machine, you will want to follow the following process. Now we have a couple of great alternative app shops on Android. It is likely one of the finest choices while you wish to set up the premium purposes on your telephone and the official app store doesn’t allow you to set up a particular app. One of many app shops that has gone widespread in current occasions is TuTuApp. The app retailer originating from China helps you to set up any paid app for free.
Download TutuApp Apk file to your Android system. The app store allows the download of the newest apps and updates on a regular basis. You must have BlueStacks in your system and for that visit the official website and click on the Obtain option proven there. Next, you should obtain theexe file to download it on your gadget. TutuApp is suitable with Android, Windows, iOS and MacOS devices. Go to the under download page and select your required operating system to start out set up. Find all your favourite apps in the Software section and you can install them in the identical approach as putting in video games.
ACMarket is considered one of a form App Retailer within the facet that its design is very similar to the Google Play Retailer. That makes it all of the more dependable and easy to make use of. Tap Downloaded TutuApp APK file on your machine. The steps below will give you an idea of find out how to download apps from TutuApp. You even get the premium ones without cost for which you would have to pay for on the official app store. The TuTuApp itself a free to obtain App. And as you now know, it opens so many doorways to make use of the cell apps utilization. As anticipated, TutuApp Download just isn’t obtainable on Google Play Retailer, nor on iTunes. So, so as to get began with TuTuApp, you will want to obtain the App from a third-get together trusted source. I will lead you through the whole downloading procedure. Before we begin, make it possible for your machine is able to settle for an App from unknown sources.
TuTu App gives you some nice features you might not have seen with different app stores. The app works effortlessly throughout iOS and Android. It is the first and maybe the one app store that has a modded ( or hacked) PokeMonGo sport. You’ll not need to move round with the hacked model of the PokeMonGo recreation and play it sitting within the comforts of your property. You’d be capable of access this app even with out logging in to your Google Play retailer or Apple ID. It has tweaked apps, cracked video games, and flashed apps. There are additionally TweakBox Apps which might be third-social gathering Apps and should not out there on the Apple Retailer. Apart from all this, you’ll be able to at all times get all of the premium App Retailer apps and video games free of charge.
With just one click on Mobdro obtain button given under, it is possible for you to to observe free movies, movies, television shows, and sports in excessive definition. Beneath is the table to display the technical details of Mobdro APK file latest model. Other than all the stations as well as additionally the live streams, the component of this Mobdro Live TV expertise which will likely get the most scrutiny is the person interface. Mobdro has totally redesigned how its packages look and texture. Because this utility is made for Android gadgets, a lot of people naturally go to Google Play Retailer. Nevertheless, there are unable to download the app and end up being confused.
Mobdro TV app comes in 2 forms. The first one is without spending a dime with out paying any subscription prices and the second one is the premium model through which you must spend some expenses for availing additional services of Mobdro TV app. It has all hyperlinks to different movies from dependable sources. One thing that it’s best to be sure that is that it’ll want you to run on at the very least Android four.2 or increased. This is how you can make your machine run this app on it. Although these are the essential you should meet before you can set up it, you want also to follow the steps to put in this third occasion app on your machine.
Obtain Streams- It will allow you to save lots of more videos on your LAPTOP, telephone, and tablets. In any other case, you possibly can seek for the popular app markets and then install them. After set up, you can instantly search for the Mobdro†and hit on the icon to put in. Mobdro APK V2.0.fifty eight Android TELEVISION Field, Smartphone and Tablets Dec 2017. This video will guide you thru how to install Mobdro APK v2.0.58 in All of the android System. Newest version of Mobdro APK in Android TV FIELD, Android Smart Cellphone and Android Tablets.
Simply go to your cellphone’s settings > all applications > Mobdro > storage and clear cache. If this does not resolve your drawback then uninstall the outdated app and install the newest one after downloading it from our web site. Movie Box is the one of many application developed for iOS devices and may be put in with Cydia installer which may be very common among the many customers specifically. Get it in your Apple smartphone and luxuriate in free movies, videos and TV reveals. You can learn under the special part where you may obtain Mobdro best different for ios.
That you must obtain Mobdro to your computer. Get up a browser window and go to Scroll down the web page and choose the Download The App button. This will save theapk installation file to your computer. July 30, 2017, Update: APK Version 2.0.46 is out there to obtain with fastened offline reside streamings, eliminated dropping streaming sources, and downloads feature is upgraded. Settle for the permissions which would be requested by the system to allow the appliance to proceed to put in. Step 4: When you download and install the app in your PC, the proceed the registration process.
Mobdro channels listing cowl virtually every channel in his list like information, shows, films, sports activities, music, gaming, animals, tech, podcasts and a lot more. The streaming app has been around for a couple of years now, though it may quickly develop into a family name as authorities concentrate on closing down repositories that promote the use of Kodi for illegally streaming copyrighted content. For the very best streaming end result, it’s possible you’ll go to Mobdro Premium. Mobdro is available within the free model and premium model. Even the free model offers excellent quality of streaming; nonetheless, while you wish to get one of the best streaming, it’s better to get Mobdro Premium Apk.
Some customers are saying that Megabox HD just isn’t working so, should you discover any errors then please allow us to inform. We’ll try to solve your drawback as quickly as attainable. Thank You. Reside Net TV on-line software has been designed by maintaining most people in thoughts. You do not have to be a technical skilled to use the applying. The interface of the application has been designed in the most straightforward method so that customers who know the best way to function mobile can easily use the applications. All the buttons in the utility are neatly designed and visible.
four. Downloads: Together with streaming the films and TELEVISION reveals of your choosing on to your cell machine, it is also doable to obtain a lot of the content material obtainable via MegaBox HD. Reside netTV obtain and Set up on Firestick and Hearth TV is a lengthy process and you’ll Google the steps you would need to pursue to install Stay NetTV application on your Fire Stick and Fireplace TELEVISION. So, this was the whole guide relating to the Megabox HD for PC. It was the easiest solution to run Megabox HD application on COMPUTER. Through the use of this methodology you’ll be able to run Android Application in your COMPUTER. In case you are having any hassle or any query popping up in your mind then be at liberty to ask it in the comments section under. We might be blissful to listen to from you.
That is all it’s important to do install Megabox HD Apk file efficiently in your Android device. MegaBox HD application gives download possibility, now you may download your movies, motion pictures and more. That means that whether seeking to catch your favorite exhibits at dwelling or pass the time on a journey with a movie or two, MegaBox HD really is the one app you’ll ever want. Live Web TELEVISION is a should have utility for all android customers in case you are a fan of traditional movies and television series. With the appliance, you possibly can stream movies in high definition in your cell phone. There are a lot of features within the software which can be exception and actually useful for customers. Stay Net TV utility is reliable and entertaining software that’s straightforward to download and use.
Stay Internet TELEVISION is likely one of the most famous and extensively downloaded Android utility that permits users to take pleasure in seamless leisure by helping them watch an enormous assortment of top of the range films and tv exhibits on their mobile phone. It’s an entertainment packed utility using which you can watch stay TELEVISION, dwell sports activities events and TELEVISION shows freed from cost. Within the app, you can select from a large number of channels from many countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States of America, India, Pakistan, Middle Japanese nations, Turkey and several different countries.
With the intention to obtain live nettv from an external source, your Android cellphone ought to have the permission of downloading third-occasion applications from exterior sources. To grant the permission, go to settings and scroll right down to ‘Safety’ section. There, you will note the choice of ‘unknown sources’. Check the option to obtain the applying. You can flip off the option once more after downloading the applying. After downloading the applying, install it in your mobile phone like you would install any other application by merely clicking on the install button.
Looking for your favorite channel within the application is a toddler’s pay. A devoted search box is given to help customers search the channel or film they need to watch. If your desired channel shouldn’t be available in the list of channels then you may as well request the developer team of Stay Net TV so as to add a channel in the record of accessible channels. Clicking on the menu will lead you the ‘Channel Request’ choice. You need to present the title of the movie or TELEVISION show and click on the submit button to make your request. The crew of Reside Net TV software will try to add the requested film or TV present in the utility as quickly as doable. It is one of the very few purposes that enable you the functionality of requesting your favourite TV present or film from the app developers.
Download Android Apps Apks Directly from Apkmonk Without Putting in Any Different App or Playstore. 2. Now Go to the file location the place you have got downloaded the Showbox apk file & click on it. It includes only aggregates hyperlinks in a convenient consumer-friendly interface. Cine Box APK allows you to view all the hottest motion pictures in your own android apparatus, and in addition, it provides you with a possibility to select the superior choices to pick which it’s worthwhile to play your image at that caliber. Cine Field is the newest movie app on the scene. It additionally has categories which embrace: the most recent motion pictures, updated, and prime rated. There may be additionally an option to obtain movies and to favourite movies.
Beneath you’ll be able to learn out all of the options of Cinebox APK and you need to learn them to know CineBox App ceaselessly and you may perceive this app higher than other customers of Cinebox app. So let’s begin the options list of cinebox app for android, and iOS gadgets. Here is another new apk cine field that offers enormous amounts of movies and community programs that is excellent with android, amazon fireplace stick and the amazon fire television. Cine Box App Obtain: As a movie crack, I’m persistently wanting in direction of new motion image applications discharged into the market every day. There are numerous movement picture apps. Cine Field App is one such motion picture spilling software accessible for Android stages. iOS form of this app continues to be beneath the development. This app offers each most recent film, TV Exhibits and all Hollywood TV arrangement without cost.
Cine box player will end installing click on achieved as seen in picture. Now go to Settings > Security > Now Enable Unknown Sources option to enable third social gathering apps installation in your phone. This could work with Firesticks, Fire TELEVISION, Nvidia Shield any android cellphone works effective performs all motion pictures in HD. Download the Cinema Box app to your PC and mac utilizing the under given steps, comply with the steps to know the complete procedure of find out how to download Cinema Field app for Windows, Mac.
Before you start installing Cine Field App in your Android smartphone, please just be sure you have allowed the Unknown Sources on your Android phone as a result of it can allow your phone to install any third party app on your telephone with none difficulty and if you do not know how to allow Unknown Sources choice than you possibly can comply with our step-by-step procedure in the Android section in this submit. You could be an iOS consumer, Android user or have devices like ChromeCast, Home windows laptops or LAPTOP’s ShowBox app is suitable with all. Add entertainment to your life and kick bored away with free ShowBox app downloads.
Proper beneath the Watch Now†option, you will see the Obtain†button. In between these two, you may see Additionally you may download this film from T0rrentsâ€. If you’ve network connection from an Internet Service Provider, then downloading from Torrents could trouble you. Firstly, the customers need to guantee that they have acquired app permission from their Android gadget. When you need movie suggestions otherwise you’re wondering what to watch next , Counsel Show #box free films is all you want as you may see in details bellow.
Now set up Cinebox APK file on LAPTOP and begin use it to watch your favourite films and TELEVISION exhibits on your large screen desktop computer. Installing Cinebox may be very easy. All it’s important to do is observe the steps beneath. Run downloaded file to put in app. Now we’re going to give the simplest option to download cinebox apk for pc so you may benefit from the Films and TELEVISION exhibits assortment on huge display. Most of us love to observe motion pictures on large display and you can watch latest and classic assortment of Films and TELEVISION reveals by way of Cinebox apk on COMPUTER.
The app was one of many many available for Android that allowed users to stream content on to their smartphones with out paying for stated content material. Installation was tremendous and app opened as anticipated. Unfortunately I get a message from Amazon Amazon Fireplace TELEVISION does not open Browser Hyperlinks” and goes on to counsel I try utilizing a unique device! Appears like I will have to forged to television from tablet. Now, before going to the set up course of we have to change some setting on our Android system. TVZion gives a fuss-free, neat interface with various parts laid out neatly across the display. It has separate tabs for TV Exhibits and Motion pictures on the highest allowing you to quickly select what you wish to watch. As an alternative of digging deep to find the classes, the app locations them proper on the Predominant-screen in an effort to get started quickly. There’s a search choice too on the highest that lets you lookup for the content material with keywords.
Watch almost all television reveals and movies with only one click on and obtain on-line from Terrarium Television app. You can watch videos offline from fast servers such as Google Drive. Terrarium TELEVISION helps the big selection of devices from PC or MAC to Firestick or Firestick TELEVISION. Here we go for the Terrarium Tv for Android devices. Although we already know it is unlawful, a few of us should want to use the app no matter what. It’s not shocking since most people would love to look at new motion pictures without paying anything. If you happen to actually need to use it without getting into troubles, there is a technique you are able to do. That’s utilizing VPN.
First is the truth that Terrarium TV will not be available on the official Google Play Store. This doesn’t inherently imply that the Terrarium TELEVISION app is unhealthy information. Whereas you will need to vary your Android settings to permit for unknown sources from third events outside of the Google Play Store, not all downloads of this nature are unhealthy. Terrarium TELEVISION scraps the already obtainable streaming hyperlink from the web that gives you streaming of various movies and tv shows in your android smartphone. These scrappers must be up to date once in a while. When there is no one to update those scrappers, the app will not be able to offer the streaming hyperlinks which basically means, End of the story.
These aren’t your only options either. Kodi (formerly XBMC) can provide most of the identical options as Terrarium TV when utilizing the appropriate plugins, and while it could occupy the identical authorized grey area — depending on how you utilize it — a minimum of there is an official website so you might be sure you’re downloading the right app. Note: you can download and use TarrariumTV in your wndows laptop if you wish to get pleasure from films and tv shows on big display. Additionally, you possibly can contemplate another movie streaming app referred to as ShowBox” which is an alternative of it.
My favourite Terrarium TV alternate options are Cinema APK and Popcorn Time. There are a lot of reveals & films that don’t show links on the Firestick (like Oceans eight) but do have hyperlinks on the version on my cellphone. This APK is signed by Terrarium TV and upgrades your present app. Many occasions even your regular TELEVISION shows are missed due to various causes. Terrarium TELEVISION App download to look at your most beloved movies and TV collection on any gadget. You may see movies anytime in line with your straightforward schedules.
Ans. Yes, terrarium Television is up to date each week and each time there’s a new release it could mechanically replace it’s content. Though you will get the app replace in couple of weeks however the content is upgraded almost inside no time of authentic launch. Newest Films HD isn’t the best app like Terrarium TELEVISION, however it is value a try. It’s a small-sized app that is easy in your system. Give it a try. The Android obtain supervisor would not obtain recordsdata to SD card as a rule. But Terrarium TELEVISION allows to route the file on to your prefered download manager, and that may save information to your SD card, protecting your internal reminiscence free for whatever you want to do. Here is what to do.
Kodi is powerful, open-supply software program for organizing your media libraries, but it surely has a comparatively steep studying curve. Please note that many addons include content material that isn’t officially licensed and accessing such content might be unlawful. It’s the consumer’s accountability to comply with all relevant laws in their country in regard to make use of. Dennis Publishing Ltd excludes all legal responsibility for such content. We don’t condone and should not responsible for the infringement of any intellectual property or other third social gathering rights and shall not be liable to any party because of any such content made accessible. In brief, if the content is free, however looks too good to be true, then it most likely is.
Right now of writing, all addons we advocate supply their content legally. We encourage you to determine which streams are legally available for you before trying to entry any Kodi addons, whether they’re ones we’ve really useful or not. You doubtless own at the least one system that helps Kodi, since this free software is on the market for use on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and even Raspberry Pi (RPi) units. Take a look at our feature on methods to install, update, and use Kodi for more information. For some platforms, reminiscent of macOS and Home windows, getting started with Kodi is as simple as downloading the installer package. Installing Kodi on an iOS or RPi gadget, nevertheless, is a little more involved.
First things first, you’ll want a compatible Fire TV system. Thankfully, all Fire TELEVISION streaming packing containers and Fire TV Sticks are suitable. As for software program, Kodi works on each Fire OS 6 , which runs on all recent models, in addition to Fireplace OS 5 for older fashions. This guide is aimed toward Fireplace OS 6, so some directions might differ barely should you’re using older hardware — primarily, the Gadget menu underneath Settings is known as System on older variations of Hearth OS.
SportsDevil is put in and prepared for use. It may be accessed from the house display screen in the addons section. The films and every day exhibits are divided into many sub-genres like language, launch date, and Oscar nomination and so on. From fashionable to new age shows Incursion has them all. Moreover, new links are updated day-after-day to supply recent content to the users. That is where you may discover Bulldog Streams’s reside occasion streams, a scorching ticket within the Kodi add-on stakes. Some of the streams might take some time to load at peak instances as a consequence of server load, but the streams on provide provide you with plenty of choice.
Kodi completely crashes. I have seemed in the logs and there is nothing in there of observe, I’ve achieved the standard, recent set up of Kodi, cleared the cache and suppliers and so on but it still happens on all Exodus forks. Step three: Now choose Kodi > Comply with the steps as described for Neptune Rising on Kodi Krypton to install the add-on. Put off by the thought of using a free VPN together with your Kodi field? It’s comprehensible; one of the best reply is to find an reasonably priced, fast, and competent VPN solution that may handle gigabytes of streaming media.
Getting concerned is kind of simple. Simply make the leap and start using these 17.zero Krypton builds. For those who use these builds, we encourage you to report problems with these builds on our discussion board first and after that, if asked, submit bugs on Trac (following this information: How you can submit a bug report ). Do notice that we want detailed info so we are able to investigate the issue. We also admire offering assist in our Forums where you’ll be able to. You possibly can in fact also follow or help promote Kodi on all obtainable social networks. Learn extra on the become involved page. | 2019-04-22T04:35:43Z | https://apkzone.site/category/android-apps/ |
Can I buy tickets without registration?
You cannot buy tickets through www.ticketpop.com unless you are a registered member. If you do not register, you may purchase tickets through any other sales channel available, which may include our outlets, the Call Center, or the venue box office.
Ticketpop automatically selects the best available seats at the moment the purchase is made. If you would like specific seats, contact a Service Representatives at our Call Center at (787) 294-0001 or free of charge 1-866-994-0001. Press #1 and then dial the 9 digits of your phone number followed by the "#" sign. One of our representatives will contact you to assist you. Only Service Representatives at our Call Center have access to specific seat selection upon availability. To pay for tickets over the telephone, you may use your Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover.
Can I reserve seat through Ticketpop?
You can not make seat reservations through Ticketpop. You must buy the tickets to secure your seat(s).
How can I select ticket price and section?
Click the event you are interested and read the details regarding prices, age restrictions, senior discounts (if available), handicapped information, etc. When you are ready to buy your tickets click the ‘Buy Tickets’ button under the artist or event image at the top of page to continue with your purchase.
Select from the drop box the ‘Price Level’ and then enter the quantity of tickets.
If the event has more than one price and section, you may choose the option 'Best available' (this option will let the system automatically assign the best section available for you regardless of price).
If you want to select a specific section or ticket price, enter the quantity of tickets and then select the desired section and/or price displayed on the interactive map (if the interactive map is available for your event).
Click ‘Add to Cart’ button.
Enter the word displayed on the Captcha as you see it, then click ‘Continue’.
Wait until our system finds the best available seats that match your criteria. If you are satisfied with the selection, choose the ‘Delivery Method’ from the drop box and then the ‘Checkout’ button.
If you want to purchase tickets for an additional event just click ‘Continue Shopping’ under the ‘Checkout’ button and select the additional event. Then follow steps 1 to 7.
During the ‘Checkout’ process you need to SIGN IN or CREATE a New Account to complete your order.
How can I verify my order status?
If you want to verify the status of a specific order or see a summary of all the orders you have placed, you must SIGN IN using the link located in the upper part of any Ticketpop.com page and then access the ‘My Account’ area.
SIGN IN to your account to modify any information in your personal profile, including information regarding payments, password, registered email, etc.
Click the 'SIGN IN' link located in the upper part of any Ticketpop.com page.
Type your registered e-mail address and password in the corresponding fields.
Click the Edit link on your Billing Information area (right corner).
Modify the information you want to change.
When you have finished, click 'Update My Account'.
How much time do I have to wait to make my first transaction?
Your registration with Ticketpop is immediate. You can begin enjoying all the advantages ofTicketpop.com from the moment you register.
Under the password field on the 'Returning Online Customer' area, click the ‘Forgot Password?’ link.
In the next window enter the email you registered and your password will be sent to you.
The e-mail address in my registry is NO longer valid. What should I do?
SIGN IN to your account to modify your e-mail address. If you cannot remember your password, you must create a new account.
For a stronger password you can also use at least one (1) non alphabetic or numerical character, for example: % * + - _ . : ; , = ? ! / \ [ ] ~ ^ | @ ( ) & $ #.
How can I confirm an order?
If you bought the tickets directly through www.ticketpop.com or if you provided an e-mail address when you bought your tickets by phone, you will receive a copy of the confirmation by e-mail.
If you are registered in www.ticketpop.com, you may confirm your order at any time. Just 'SIGN IN' to your account and click ‘View My Order History’.
If there is any problem with the order confirmation, it is your responsibility to call our Customer Service at (787) 294-0001 or free of charge 1-866-994-0001. Press #1 and then dial the 9 digits of your phone number followed by the "#" sign. One of our representatives will contact you to assist you.
Are Virtual Money cards and Gift cards accepted?
VIRTUAL MONEY CARDS AND GIFT CARDS ARE NOT ACCEPTED. If you use this method of payment and your transaction is processed by ticketpop® you will not be able to pick up your tickets. Our pick up policy requires that you present the credit or debit card used to purchase the ticket (and a valid photo ID as well).
Why is there a maximum ticket purchase limit?
In order to provide ticket access to as many people as possible, the venue or artist/event management may impose a maximum ticket limit per customer. Also the type of event or the anticipated demand for tickets may affect tickets limits. Purchasing more than the maximum purchase limit for tickets will cancel your current transaction.
Why does Ticketpop have a time limit during the purchase process?
Due to the high demand on tickets when an event goes on sale, we often implement a time limit on our site during the purchase process. The ticketing process is a 'live' inventory process, meaning that when customers order tickets via the Internet, the selected tickets for purchase are removed from the 'live' inventory until the transaction is either completed or canceled. If the time limit is exceeded during this process, the selected tickets will be released for others to purchase.
By registering your personal and billing information at Ticketpop.com in advance, you can speed up the ticket purchasing process for the future.
Where can I buy tickets? What methods of payments can be used to purchase tickets?
You can buy your tickets through the Internet, by telephone or in person at an Outlet.
Internet: To order and pay for tickets through the Internet, you may use a Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover. We do not accept debit cards, Virtual Money cards nor Gift cards as a payment method through Internet.
By telephone: To order and pay for tickets over the telephone, you may use your Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover. We do not accept debit cards, Virtual Money cards nor Gift cards as a payment method through the telephone. Our contact number is 787-294-0001 or free of charge 1-866-994-0001. Press #1 and then dial the 9 digits of your phone number followed by the "#" sign. One of our representatives will contact you to assist you.
In person: to order and pay for tickets in person, you may use a Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, or a debit card from any banking institution. You can pay in cash at our points of sale at WALMART and AMIGO only. No cash sales at THE MALL OF SAN JUAN. Virtual Money cards and Gift cards will not be accepted as a payment method. For a list of Outlets and hours of operation, click here.
NOTE: Method of payment may vary by event depending on conditions established by the event’s production team.
Where are Ticketpop Outlets located?
To purchase tickets in person or pick-up tickets purchased through the Internet or telephone, you may visit any one of our Outlets conveniently located at the Customer Service Desk on the 1st Level of THE MALL OF SAN JUAN, the Money Center counters at all WALMART stores and the Service Desks at participant AMIGO supermarkets. For a list of Outlets and hours of operation, click here.. For a list of Outlets and hours of operation, click here.
What do I do if I receive an error while purchasing or do not receive an order confirmation through email?
After submitting your ticket order online you should receive an order confirmation, in the form of a confirmation page or e-mail. If you do not receive this confirmation after submitting payment information, or if you see an error message or experience a service interruption after submitting your order, it is your responsibility to contact Ticketpop to confirm that your order has been placed. Contact us at (787) 294-0001 or free of charge 1-866-994-0001. Press #1 and then dial the 9 digits of your phone number followed by the "#" sign. One of our representatives will contact you to assist you.
I need wheelchair seating. How do I buy tickets?
For ALL other events you can buy them at any Ticketpop outlet, and in the case of events at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico you can ALSO buy your tickets at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico Box Office.
In order to receive the handicap discount tickets must be purchased in person presenting the ID issued by the Department of Health of Puerto Rico certifying disability. The parking carnet is not valid for this discount. Only one (1) discount per person per ticket. These discounts apply only to events held at the facilities of the municipalities, agencies, departments, dependencies, political subdivisions and any other instrumentality of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. As with all other tickets, exchanges or refunds for tickets with discounts are not available.
If you need to purchase a ticket for a person with mobility disabilities or who require the use of accessible features and waived his right to obtain the discount by law for disable person it can be purchased through our website using the link Accessible Seating or contact our Call Center. The day of the event may be require to present the disability ID issued by the Department of Health. Once you purchased the ticket by Internet or telephone no exchanges or refunds are not available.
Where I can buy tickets for a group?
For some events Group Sales may be available. If you are interested on buying tickets for a group, please fill our Group Ticket Request Form and a Service Representative will contact you during working hours.
Minimum group order is generally 10 to 20 depending on the event’s venue and demand. Not all events have Group Sales option. If available for your event, spaces are limited, and tickets are sold on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Can I change my ticket seat after I complete my order?
NO REFUNDS OR EXCHANGES are permitted. All purchases are final once the transaction is completed. Refund and exchange policies are set by the promoters and venues. These policies prohibitTicketpop from exchanging a ticket seat once the ticket is processed. Before purchasing your tickets, carefully review the event, date, time and seats. Please verify that your tickets are correct before leaving the counter. All sales are final.
I changed my mind, I do not want my ticket anymore or I do not want to go to the event, can I claim a refund?
NO REIMBURSEMENTS OR CHANGES ARE PERMITTED. All purchases are final once the transaction is completed. The refund and exchange policies are established by the promoters and the locations of the event. These policies prohibit Ticketpop from issuing a refund once the ticket has been processed. All sales are final.
What is the Senior Citizen and Handicapped law?
If the event will take place at a venue owned or operated by the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, (i) a minimum of 5% of the total tickets on sale will be reserved for each function, available until 72 hours before the event, to be sold at a 50% discount of the regular price to persons who are 65 years or older; and (ii) disabled persons will be granted a 50% discount on the regular price of the ticket. These discounts are subject to applicable laws and regulations, must be purchased in person, and require the presentation of (i) a Valid ID (defined above) that includes date of birth, in the case of persons who are 65 years or older; or (ii) the disability ID issued by the Department of Health of Puerto Rico that certifies the disability, in the case of persons with disabilities. Tickets purchased with these discounts will contain special markings, and persons seeking admission with such tickets may be required to show the Valid ID or disability ID at the time of admission to the event. DISCOUNTS APPLY ONLY TO THE FACE VALUE OF THE TICKET AND NOT TO ANY SERVICE CHARGES AND APPLICABLE SALES TAX (IVU).
The above discounts cannot be honored through the Internet or by telephone, but must be obtained personally through the Ticketpop Outlets.
The above discounts do NOT APPLY to service charges or sales tax (IVU), and are only available for events that take place in government facilities as stipulated by law.
As with all other tickets, exchanges or refunds for tickets with discounts are not available.
Only one (1) discount per person per ticket per event will be granted.
If the event is suspended or cancelled only the actual amount of the FACE VALUE plus applicable sales tax will be refunded. Service charges and applicable sales tax will not be refunded in the event of suspended or cancelled events.
What should I do if my event is cancelled or postponed?
If an event is cancelled or postponed, the customer will be contacted or notified via any information media (Internet, radio, television etc.) for special instructions given by the event organizers about the refund process, if any. The decision about whether or not to issue a refund or an exchange is at the discretion of the promoter or venue. In order to receive a refund or an exchange that may be offered, you must comply with the instructions or deadlines set by the promoter or venue where the event was to be held.
Ticketpop will not refund Service Charges or Additional Charges or any applicable sales tax, as these charges cover the services provided by Ticketpop during the processing of your transaction. All refunds will be issued using the original Method of Payment at the time of purchase.
To receive a refund for a ticket to an event that has been CANCELLED contact us at (787) 294-0001 or free of charge 1-866-994-0001. Press #1 and then dial the 9 digits of your phone number followed by the "#" sign. One of our representatives will contact you to assist you.
If the event was an event of the COLISEO DE PUERTO RICO, you can also claim your refund at their Box Office from Monday to Friday from 10am to 6pm.
Service Charges, Handling and/or Delivery Fees are not refundable - even if the event is cancelled or suspended.
Contact us at (787) 294-0001 or free of charge 1-866-994-0001. Press #1 and then dial the 9 digits of your phone number followed by the "#" sign. One of our representatives will contact you to assist you.
Bring all your printed tickets to one of our Outlets. The Service Representative will receive the tickets and fill out a REFUND FORM. The Representative will give you a COPY of the form for your reference. Our Central Office will contact you to confirm the receiving of your claim as soon as we receive it at our offices.
Bring all your printed tickets to the Coliseo de Puerto Rico Box Office Monday through Friday from 10am to 6pm in order to process your refund.
A valid photo ID issued by the government (Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or United States) - or your passport (a valid ID must be issued by a government agency and include a photo and signature).
To authorize a person to represent you, this representative must present an authorization letter signed by you, a copy of your valid photo ID and must also present a valid photo ID in order to properly identify the representative as the person designated by you to represent you.
NOTE: Some restrictions may apply. Service Charges and Additional Charges (including any applicable sales tax) are not refundable - even if the event is cancelled or postponed.
The event was cancelled. Why won’t they refund me the Service Charges?
Ticketpop does not produce the events, but instead only provides ticket processing and ticket sales services to the promoter of the event or the owner of the venue where the event will be held. The promoter or venue may postpone or cancel en event in their sole discretion, and are by law required to refund the face value of the ticket and any applicable sales tax. If tickets are successfully purchased through the Ticketpop system, then Ticketpop has provided the service for which the promoter or venue contracted Ticketpop. EVERTEC charges the Service Charges and Additional Charges to cover expenses (network, computer and communications infrastructure, equipment, employees, etc.) it incurs while providing the ticketing processing, handling and related services. For this reason, Services Charges and Additional Charges are non-refundable even if the event is cancelled or postponed.
What do I do if my ticket is lost, stolen, destroyed or damaged?
Generally, refund and exchange policies are set by the promoters and venues. These policies prohibit Ticketpop from issuing exchanges or refunds after a purchased ticket has been lost, stolen, damaged or destroyed.
However, in the case of lost or stolen tickets where the SEATS ARE NUMBERED, you should file a police report and then contact us at (787) 294-0001 or free of charge 1-866-994-0001. Press #1 and then dial the 9 digits of your phone number followed by the "#" sign. One of our representatives will contact you to assist you. When a Service Representative contacts you, please provide the police Claim Number. After we confirm the customer information within our system record, we will provide admission instructions to follow on the day of the event at the Box Office.
In the case of lost or stolen tickets to a GENERAL ADMISSION event and/or an event where seats are NOT NUMBERED we CANNOT provide replacement tickets or otherwise grant you admission to the event.
If the tickets were somehow damaged, you should go to the corresponding venue Box Office with a valid photo ID, the credit card used to purchase the tickets and the damaged tickets. After we confirm your information within our system, we will reprint the tickets. If the tickets were destroyed, the customer should file a police report as if the tickets were lost.
What should I do if I misplaced a [email protected] ticket?
If you lose or do not remember where you saved your [email protected] ticket just log in to the email account you used to purchase the tickets. Find the message in which we send the link to download your tickets and re print them.
If you cannot find the message you received when you made your purchase, call Customer Service at(787) 294-0001 or free of charge 1-866-994-0001. Press # 1 and then dial the 9 digits of your phone number followed by the "#" sign. One of our representatives will contact you to assist you.
What should I do if I misplaced a Mobile Ticket?
If you lose or do not remember where you saved your Mobile Ticket, log in to the email account you used to purchase the tickets. Find the email in which we send the link to download your tickets.
If you cannot find the message you received when you made your purchase, call Customer Service at 787-294-0001 or free of charge 1-866-994-0001. Press #1 and then dial the 9 digits of your phone number followed by the "#" sign. One of our representatives will contact you to assist you.
Are my tickets subject to services charges?
Tickets purchased through the ticketpop® service are subject to service charges per ticket and handling fees per order (collectively referred to as "Service Charges"). We will charge you the handling fee if you purchase your tickets through our call center, www.ticketpop.com, and the authorized outlets. All Service Charges will be itemized in the purchase confirmation.
When you purchase tickets you may also be charged a promoter fee to cover costs incurred by the promoter as a result of the nature and complexity of the event (the "PRMTR Fee"). There are also additional and optional services, which involve additional charges, such as delivery [email protected] andMobile Tickets tickets (collectively referred to as "Additional Charges").
The ticket price, Service Charges, Promoter Fee and Additional Charges do not include sales tax (IVU), which will be applied when you complete your purchase and will also be itemized on the sales receipt.
IN NO EVENT WILL THE SERVICE CHARGES AND ADDITIONAL CHARGES BE REFUNDED (NOR THE APPLICABLE SALES TAX), EVEN IF THE EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED OR POSTPONED. ONLY THE TICKET PRICE AND PRMTR FEE WILL BE REFUNDED (PLUS APPLICABLE SALES TAX).
Face Value of a Ticket: The face value of a ticket is decided by the promoter, venue, or artist.Ticketpop does not determine the face value of tickets.
Facility Charge or Club seat fee: Theses charges vary for each venue and may not apply in certain venues. These charges are determined by the venue. Ticketpop does not establish these charges.
Service Charges: Service charges cover processing of the ticket and will be charged to you on a per-ticket basis. The service charge covers the cost of providing you with several modes for acquiring tickets. This charge varies depending upon where you purchase the tickets. Service charge is applied when you purchase from Ticketpop.com (Internet), Call Center, or at our Outlets, and may vary depending upon Ticketpop's contractual agreements with its Venue, Promoter and Outlet partners.
Handling Fees: Handling Fees cover services for handling the ticket order and will be charged to you on a per-order basis. Handling fees may vary depending on where you place your ticket order (Call Center, www.ticketpop.com, and the authorized outlets). No handling fees will apply for purchases made at the event’s Box Office. Both the Venue or Promoter and Ticketpop establish the Handling fees for each event.
Taxes: State and City taxes apply to the face value of the ticket as well as any Service Charges or Additional Charges.
Who determines the tickets prices and quantity of tickets (seats) available for sale through Ticketpop?
Ticketpop sells tickets on behalf of third parties, promoters, groups and facilities, which means thatTicketpop does not set the prices nor determine the availability of seats.
The quantity of tickets available for purchase through Ticketpop may vary because, in some cases, tickets can be reserved by the promoter or venue, or have been pre-sold to the artist’s official fan club or to season-ticket holders.
Tickets sold through www.ticketpop.com, the Call Center and Outlets access the same ticket and inventory system. Therefore, the availability of tickets may run out fast and availability of the best seats may constantly change as the tickets are simultaneously sold through ALL our sales channels.
The number of available seats may be modified by the promoter or venue, in its sole discretion at any time. If an event is not selling well, the promoter or venue may eliminate unsold seats from the ticket inventory or reduce prices. In this same regard, the promoter or venue may add more seats to the ticket inventory by opening up new sections or changing the venue. Ticketpop does not make these decisions and only follows the new instructions of the promoter or venue by configuring the changes within the Ticketpop system.
What is the age limit to qualify as a child that does not require a ticket for an event?
To determine if you will be required to purchase a ticket for your child, you must consult the event details by clicking ‘More Info’, and then locating the ‘Age Restrictions’ icon. Events specially designed for children may require all children to have a ticket for admission. Please contact the Customer Support Department at (787) 294-0001 or free of charge 1-866-994-0001, if you are unable to determine if your child requires a ticket for a particular event. Press # 1 and then dial the 9 digits of your phone number followed by the "#" sign. One of our representatives will contact you to assist you.
As part of Coliseo de Puerto Rico regulations and for your safety, all minors under 16 years old must be in the company of an adult at all times during events at this venue. This rule applies to all events taking place in the Coliseo de Puerto Rico.
What is a CLUB SEAT in the Coliseo de Puerto Rico and why are not available when an event goes on sale for the first time?
The Coliseo de Puerto Rico offers over 1,000 exclusive seats located in the Main Level in sections 113, 114 and 115 (known as CLUB SEATS sections). These sections are available to rent for an annual membership as part of their VIP Program.
VIP treatment, personalized service and more.
For more information on how to purchase this VIP membership, you should contact the Guest Service and Marketing Department of the Coliseo de Puerto Rico.
the seats are padded with cup holder and waiter service.
'General Admission' refers to areas that do not have assigned or reserved seats, and are occupied in order by the arrival of ticket holders to the venue. For General Admission, there may - or may not - be seats of any kind available, and the distribution of seats may vary for each event. Ticketpop does not control the seating charts for events and cannot guarantee seating for any event that is sold as General Admission.
What does Limited View means?
'Limited View' refers to areas where a hand rail, hanging object, stage speaker, production camera, or a similar object could partially obstruct your view of the stage. Also if the section is at the side of the stage you will have a limited view (side view) due to the position of the stage with that section.
How can I buy a backstage pass through Ticketpop?
As a general rule, backstage passes are not available through Ticketpop, but must be acquired through the promoter staff members working the event. Occasionally backstage passes may also be obtained as part of special promotions on radio stations coordinated by the promoter of the event.
Why doesn’t Ticketpop announces events or give information about upcoming events earlier?
Ticketpop is not allowed to give any information on upcoming events until we receive authorization to do so from the promoter or the venue. Sometimes, this authorization takes place after the media has already begun advertising the event. To protect the consumer from being misinformed, the venue or promoters choose to wait until all terms about the event are finalized before allowing us to release such information.
Who is responsible for an event?
Ticketpop is not responsible for the production of events or for any unexpected circumstance that may happen in them. In most cases the promoter or venue owner are responsible for the event including any change in dates or venues or event suspensions or cancellations.
Why is there a better ticket/seat available after I choose my ticket?
Tickets are placed on hold while a customer decides to purchase them or not, regardless of the sales channel being used for purchase. No one else can view or purchase tickets place on hold during this period. If the original customer decides not to purchase the tickets, they will be released back into the ticket inventory and become available again for purchase.
Why are there tickets available now that weren’t on sale before?
Tickets that were held by the artist or promoter when the event went on sale may no longer be needed by them and released back into the ticket inventory.
The venue has a better idea about which seats will be obstructed once the stage or event area is set up. Occasionally, these obstructed view seats may become available for sale after the event goes on sale.
Customers attempt to buy tickets but their credit cards are declined. If these customers cannot be reached to secure a valid credit card or billing address, Ticketpop reserves the right to cancel their order and release the tickets for sale.
Why can’t I see any information on an Opening Act for my event?
Some events may feature opening acts or guests. Ticketpop may not be aware, or have any details, of such acts or guests which are always subject to change or cancellation at any time without notice.
There will be no Ticketpop Box Office service at this location. You must pick-up your tickets before arriving to the event. You can pick up your tickets at our Outlets at WALMART and participantAMIGO supermarkets.
Remember that Children under 3 years old are not allowed at Centro de Bellas Artes, even if the show is for children.
You can pick up your tickets at our Outlets at WALMART and participant AMIGO supermarkets.
Also, you can pick up your tickets at the Box Office of the venue (or our Motorpop) if your event have this service available. You may need to consult the event details by clicking ‘More Info’. Please contact the Customer Support Department at (787) 294-0001 or free of charge 1-866-994-0001. Press #1 and then dial the 9 digits of your phone number followed by the "#" sign. One of our representatives will contact you to assist you.
NOTE: Tickets will only be released to the owner of the credit or debit card used to purchase the tickets. Tickets will not be released if the name on the ID does not match the name on the credit or debit card, or if the photo on the ID does not match the person asking for the tickets. Tickets CANNOT be picked up by a third party.
You can pick up these types of tickets at our Outlets, or the day of the event at the Box Office (or our Motorpop), if your event has this service available. You may need to consult the event details by clicking 'More Info' to determine if your event has Box Office services.
Tickets purchased using this service will NOT be available for pick up or print at the Box Office or Outlets. If you lose or do not remember where you saved your [email protected] ticket log in to the email account you used to purchase the tickets. Find the message in which we send the link to download your tickets and re print them.
Tickets purchased using this service CAN NOT BE PRINTED nor will be available for pick up at the box office or Outlets. If you lose or do not remember where you saved your Mobile Ticket, log in to the email account you used to purchase the tickets. Find the email in which we send the link to download your tickets. | 2019-04-25T14:08:20Z | https://www.ticketpop.com/en/customer-service/frequently-asked-questions |
Marjitecture. | Architecture + Design + Arts & Crafts + Lifestyle.
The craftsy spin on art, design and architecture.
~ Architecture + Design + Arts & Crafts + Lifestyle.
Another holiday season has come and gone, but hey, I’ve at least managed to get this post up before the 1st Quarter of 2017 is over. Hooray for small victories!
True to the post title, I’ve decided to prioritize quality over quantity, not only when it came to gift-giving, but also in terms of gift-wrapping.
Also, for the first time in several years, I’ve put aside my trusty Japanese paper in favor of the “traditional” wrapping papers. I was pleasantly surprised to find several festive, but uncommon wrapping papers in a small neighborhood shop, and they were so cheap that I just had to get a few rolls!
So here’s to more unexpected discoveries and epiphanies this 2017. I’m ready to be (pleasantly) surprised!
Both me and my friend HM are massive, massive fans of the Legendary Serena Williams, so for her birthday last October, I decided to make her a cross-stitch version of Serena.
But wait, how did I come up with this idea?
Here’s what my DIY pattern looks like. I only used the thread colors I already had in my stash, btw.
This baby is now proudly displayed in my friend’s flat. Here’s hoping 2017 brings Queen Serena more titles and Grand Slams!
*Because my friend HM happens to love sports, especially tennis. So I thought, why not embellish her birthday present with mini pom-poms that kind of look like tennis balls?
Wait, what did you think this post was about…?
My friends A and P are August and September Babies, respectively. However, for some quaint reason, our schedules are almost always conflicting during those months so they end up having joint birthday celebrations. In October (Better late than never is a fave cliché in our group). This year wasn’t any different. But hey, joint celebrations should be double the fun!
To be honest, I can’t think of a rhyme or reason behind the wrapping designs of their presents. Is it too shallow to say I just went with what pleased my eyes because I wanted them to look pretty?
I liked green and white a lot during the night I decided to wrap the gifts, apparently.
P’s gift. I love the print on the wrapping paper–so mod!
A’s gift. Silver is such a fab backdrop for bright accents.
A Good Kind Of Ctrl + X.
Many moons ago, when I was in architecture school, I loved holding and using a cutter (and/or Xacto knife) for scaled model-making. I’m not sure why, but I feel a certain power when wielding extremely sharp things (ha!).
Fast forward to the present, and I still love wielding sharp objects, so I finally decided to attend a papercutting workshop by Papel De Pinay, a papercut artist introduced to me by a friend, and whose works I greatly admire (Check out her Instagram page, @papeldepinay).
The three-hour workshop was held in a dainty, French cottage-inspired cupcakes and coffee shop and was divided into 3 parts: The introduction to papercutting (history, tools, techniques), papercutting exercises, and the final exam (where the students get to design their own work and the best one gets a prize. Naturally, this was my fave activity).
Our workshop kit included: Several sheets of papercutting templates for practice, a frame for our final work, a personalized papercut name piece, several sheets of colored paper and stone paper, carbon paper, mini cutting mat, pen cutter with extra blades, pencil, & a metal ruler.
Despite some prior research (thanks, Google), I still learned a lot about the art of papercutting, along with some valuable tips and insider info. By the time we were halfway through the numerous exercises though, I had a newfound respect for all papercut artists as I found that this was not a cakewalk at all! I’m no stranger to long hours of crafting and cutting work but this really takes a lot of patience, and steady hands to boot.
When it came time for us students to design our own work for The Final Exam, at first I was overwhelmed by all the possibilities, but then decided on something I was passionate about: F1 Racing!
Here’s my final work. I did the best that I could with only the 1 hour alloted as well as the limited materials available, but lo and behold, my work was judged the best entry among the workshop participants and it won me cupcakes! Hooray!
A couple of weeks later, I’ve decided to tweak my work a bit (I was so tempted to clean some lines but decided to just swap the colored paper for a red one and switch frames from white to black. Don’t mess too much with something that’s not broken, right?) and now I’m pretty happy with it overall. Not bad for my first foray into papercutting, eh?
I know I don’t really need another crafting preoccupation to exacerbate my insomnia, but papercutting is just too good of an activity to pass up. I’m already thinking of possible designs for new projects and cannot wait to start them, stat!
I do love me some alliterations.
These ones were for the birthday of one my bestest friends, HM. (These were from October of last year. Yikes!) She’s not really a “yellow person”; I just thought I’d change up the color combination of her presents a bit. I did still incorporate touches of black and pink in them through the ribbons, feathers and the mini sequined hats.
One of my bestest friends, MC, came home last April from Paris with her husband and my goddaughter for their annual holidays, and these were their “Welcome Back!”, “Belated Merry Christmas!” (For the three of them) as well as “Belated Happy Birthday!” (For MC) gifts.
Oh, and I’ve just realized that the small silver box with the red ribbon, black mini sequined hat and fluffy white pompom accents was a belated birthday gift for one of my other friends, also with the initials MC (so let’s call her MC2 from now on).
This was for the birthday of my friend N. I found this pretty, damask-esque print wrapping paper randomly at a neighborhood store and thought the style and the colors suited her personality well. It took me quite a while to properly find the combination of materials to accent it with, but the final product turned out quite stylish, if I do say so myself. I shared a pic of this on Twitter and it got plenty of compliments there, too!
It’s nearly the end of the year, but I still have several birthdays of friends to go to; hopefully this time around it won’t take me months before I can upload the photos of their gifts!
Captain America Saves This Blog*.
Right, my sincere apologies for not updating this blog in months (I kind of blame Take That–how can I possibly top that post-concert blog entry, right?). However, the “radio silence” doesn’t mean that I have not been crafting all those months.
The frame I used is a 2R one, which is around 8.5 x 11 cm. You can use an even smaller frame, stick this into a thick folded board paper as a greeting card cover or make this into a luggage tag or a keychain.
After my friend HK saw this on Instagram, she requested one for her boyfriend, who’s also a massive Captain America fan; of course I was happy to oblige! There now exists two very happy (Mini Cross-Stitched) Captain America fans in my circle!
Living For These Days: The Take That Trip Diary.
Boybands were never a part of my musical interests pre-Take That. In fact, I used to listen to a lot of rock and alternative rock because of my older brother and also to classic rock because of my Dad.
But then one day back in 1995, one of my older brothers decided to watch the Brit Awards on TV—much to my dismay, because I wanted to watch something else—and it was there that I witnessed the first-ever performance of Back For Good by this boyband called Take That.
The rest, as the cliché goes, is (crazy, wonderful) history.
Fast-forward to December 2015 when I found out through Twitter that Take That were to perform at the HSBC Women’s Champions Golf Tournament in Singapore the following March. I remember sitting in bed, nearly dropping my phone in disbelief and feeling like I’ve been pushed into the icy waters of the Antarctic Ocean. I could not pass this up. I would not forgive myself if I missed this. I have to go!
After announcing it and freaking out to my best childhood friends on Viber, I bit the bullet and booked the flights, accommodation and concert tickets. Bye, bank account. It’s been nice knowing you.
Who cares about being an adult and other life plans? My 2016 will officially begin on March 2016.
One of the hardest things I had to endure was The Wait.
Not that things didn’t happen during the (almost) three months in between. In fact, there was even a period where I thought I wouldn’t be able to make the trip, due to a sudden illness and hospitalization in the family. But throughout everything, I chose to keep the faith and to train my eyes on the prize: By hook or by crook, I was going to get there. You have to conspire with me, universe!
For the meantime, by pure chance and serendipity, I managed to find some Asian Thatters on Twitter who are also coming to see the show, and began to correspond with them. Thankfully, they’re super nice and awesome and patiently answered all of my queries and more, and when I explained that I might be going to the show by myself, graciously offered their company. Further proof that the Thatter Family is the best!
Finally, departure day! I didn’t even get to sleep anymore as my flight was due to leave a little before 0600, so I left the house at around 0200 (excited much?) and surprisingly got to the airport within 20 minutes.
I tried my hardest to nap during the 3-hr+ flight, but my adrenaline was far too high so I just watched TT videos on my phone all throughout.
I landed in Singapore a little after 0900, did my usual routine (exchange money, buy a SIM card for mobile internet), and then went to the computer terminals to check on the BKK-SIN arrivals. I honestly had no idea which flight the Take That lads would be in, and whether or not I even have a hope of catching them in the airport. I messaged my fellow Thatter (let’s call her “A1”) and explained my dilemma: Should I stay in the airport and wait for them or do I go check-in to my hotel first and take a nap? She assured me that it was still early and that I should go take a nap first. I gladly took her advice, went to my hotel in the city center, set up the alarms of 3 mobile phones and dozed off.
I wanted to cry when I woke up to the sound of 3 alarms blaring. I was so exhausted and my body was screaming for more than 1 hour of sleep. But, the possibility of meeting TAKE THAT in the flesh subjugated all that. I dragged myself out of bed, checked my messages and saw that my childhood friend J (who’s now living in Singapore) was asking where I was. I asked her to meet me in my hotel and thankfully, she was game to accompany me back to the airport.
Well, Take That can be considered as “friends”, yes?
Anyway, we first went to the Terminal 2 Arrival area and it was nearly as quiet as a church. We decided to check out Terminal 3 and it was pretty much the same. Since we got there a couple of hours early from the projected arrival times of the Bangkok-Singapore flights, we decided to have a late lunch in T3 and continue our talkathon.
As we were finishing up our lunch, I got a Twitter DM from A1 telling me to head over to T1. I got a bit confused because I thought the lads would be taking Singapore Airlines (which lands in T3), but she explained that they were taking Cathay Pacific instead so we should go to T1, asap.
We channeled our inner F1 drivers and got to T1 as fast as we could, and there, just outside the Number 21 baggage Carousel, I finally met A1 in person, as well as a number of fellow Take That fans not just from different parts of Singapore but from all over the world as well. We passed the waiting time chatting, exchanging stories and giving one another encouragement (What should we say to the lads? Are they nice in person? Is Gary really that short?).
All the while, my insides felt like blocks of ice and my stomach was churning like nobody’s business.
The screen finally announced that their flight has landed.
This is getting real, y’all.
The first to come into view was Howard Donald, with his stature and distinct flat cap. I may have slightly over-yelled “Howaaard!” to him as he passed by, eliciting laughs from my fellow fans.
Next came Mark Owen, who paused by the doors and gave us all an enthusiastic wave before heading to claim his bags.
A very blurry pic of Markie acknowledging us fans–I was starting to freak out (internally)!
At that point, I was standing on top of one of the lower railings and had a clear view of the other passengers. Lo and behold, I finally saw that distinct crop of blonde hair.
As if in a sitcom, Gary suddenly turned right and disappeared from view.
It took a few more minutes (which felt like several eternities) before Mr. Barlow reappeared, and by that time, the Take That Brigade were fully alert and in high spirits. He briefly waved and gestured towards the baggage carousel, and we were all left counting minutes before the lads would finally make their exit.
Gary waiting for his luggage!
I took a deep breath and willed my inner calm Yoda to reign above all.
The glass doors opened and all of a sudden, I was literally face-to-face with Mark Owen.
He moved closer to me for the photo, all the while asking me how I am and if we’ve been waiting there for a long time. I took a couple of pictures of us (because he was still talking during the first one) but then I suddenly spotted Gary Barlow to my left. I hurriedly thanked Mark and said goodbye before he got swallowed up by the rest of the waiting fans and I moved towards Gary.
The moment he exited the glass doors, I felt as if everything else in the universe stopped existing but him.
Finally! A photo with GB!
I fished around in my bag and produced a small round canvas and my Sharpie, and made my way to Gary again (who was still busy signing stuff for fans and chatting with them).
I’m not sure how it happened, but suddenly, Gary was next to me, his left arm rubbing against my right arm as he leaned on me to sign the canvas.
I can’t put my truthful answer in here, there may be kids reading.
Insert internal groan from me here. Smooth, Marj. Not.
GB talking to fans and holding my mini red jeepney!
Aly and Irene are two Philippine Thatters I met through Twitter, by the way. And they’re so nice and awesome I thought I’d surprise them by having G say hello. Unfortunately, only the first part got saved on my phone, but it was really lovely and kind of Gary to say hello to them!
If only I could make Gary stay longer and get him to keep talking in that melodious voice of him.
Finally, Gary started towards the airport exit, still surrounded by fans of course. “Keep it moving, keep it moving!” He joked. My friend J and I followed, mainly just so we can just stare at his perfection. Fortunately, we managed to catch up with Mark Owen just near the exit doors, and I hurriedly snatched my canvas and Sharpie again to have it signed.
He waved goodbye and exited through the glass doors.
Hotdamn, that signature Mark Owen smile, though. I’m surprised I didn’t melt right then and there.
But if you think this is over, it’s NOT.
Through the glass doors, I spotted Howard and his flatcap walking outside, surrounded by fans. I’ve gotten 2 out of 3 signatures so far so why not go for 100%? I yelled at my friend that I was going to go after Howard, and went off to chase him outside.
And just like that, the TT lads were gone.
My friend and I went back inside the airport and I proceeded to flail and squeal and do all sorts of fangirl gestures to her. We regrouped with the other Thatters and proceeded to flail and squeal and fangirl/fanboy all over again. After taking group photos, we bade each other goodbye and “see you tomorrows” and went our separate ways.
I had to tell my friend to literally drag me by the arm if need be as we headed back to the city, as my brain honestly could not function properly at that moment.
We went to the 313@Somerset mall to claim my concert ticket, and funnily enough, the girl who assisted us was a massive Take That fan as well so it was a real hoot telling her how we got to meet the band just moments earlier (there were loads of flailing and OMGs were exchanged).
We had dinner, shopped a little, relived the hilarious moments earlier, and then parted ways. I met up for coffee with a local friend who I met through Twitter several years ago via our common love for Formula 1 but she sent me back to the hotel early so I can get some sleep. But to be honest, how the heck do I sleep after the day I just had?
I was exhausted, but it was the best kind of exhaustion.
I woke up groaning, and for a few moments I had no idea where I was. The only thing I could think of was how annoyed I am at myself for setting the alarm on a weekend and that I want to sleep some more.
But then my mind recovered and remembered that I met the band yesterday and today’s the Take That concert.
That made me practically leap out of bed.
Strangely enough, I had practically zero appetite that day. I only ate a piece of bread, an energy bar and drank some orange juice for my late breakfast/early lunch, sent messages to fellow Thatters A1 and D that I was on my way to the venue, and then set off to officially start my day.
While waiting in the Harbourfront Bus Interchange, it suddenly started to rain. Not a light drizzle but the sort of downpour that made my glasses fog up and become opaque even within the safety of the bus shelter. Oh man. Thankfully it stopped after 10 minutes or so, and apparently, it was still blazing hot and sunny over in Sentosa.
Throughout the whole bus ride, there was this strange calm that enveloped me. I cannot believe that my 21-year wait to see Take That perform live would finally be broken later that day, but I suppose meeting the lads the day before greatly helped in lessening my anxiety and sky-high expectations.
As I was making my way to the queue, I chanced upon A2, a Filipino Thatter living in Singapore who I met at the airport the day before. We queued together (Numbers 21 and 22!) and passed the time chatting about Take That and our other musical interests. It felt great to connect with someone with the same interests so easily, especially since we can discuss using our native language so we didn’t have to worry about anyone understanding (and possibly judging) our crazy and weird conversations (ha!).
Nearly 3 hours into queuing, the rain that befell on us in the Harbourfront Bus Exchange finally reached Sentosa. Everyone donned their plastic ponchos, opened their umbrellas and bemoaned the sudden downpour, but I was confident that the rain would stop before the show began. And even if it did rain during the show—who cares? For one night, we would all be waterproof for Take That.
Finally, the wait was over.
We Super Fanzone ticket holders were carefully escorted into our area, and much to our delight, we got right to the front of the stage!
We took photos, chatted some more and then, as if a switched has been flipped, nighttime fell and before we knew it, we were hearing the glorious sound of the Shine intro.
“OHMYGODTHISISIT!!!” –My main thought on loop, in case you want to know.
*Gary. Barlow’s. Voice. Live. I can honestly write a whole blog post about it (maybe next time), but the short of the long is that his voice sounds way better live and that it was worth the 21-year wait to hear it. Perhaps even the angels singing in heaven may not be able to compare to it. I am not even kidding.
*Mark Owen attempting to speak Chinese/Singaporean was too adorable for words! I lost track of how many times he said “Xie xie!!” throughout the night.
*Patience live was too lovely for words. Gary’s falsetto is like warm honey running down your throat. You know what I mean.
*I finally got to see the famous/infamous Pray dance routine live (albeit in semi-slow motion, I blame the heat and humidity)! Howard and Mark can still put young boyband members to shame with their moves, and those who say that Gary cannot dance can stick it where the sun does not shine—that man can still get down on his knees like he’s 19!
*Let’s talk about THAT stagecrasher during Could It Be Magic, then: Everyone was busy enjoying watching the lads sing and dance when suddenly, this woman ran up to the stage, stumbled in the steps and was in the process of being taken away by security when she somehow got away and practically crawled on to the stage! Sir Gary of the Barlows came to her rescue, helped her up, gave her a hug and then made her leave the stage with as much grace as possible. I know we are all TT-mad but honestly, for a split second I got scared for the lads when I saw her rushing to the stage. When I reviewed my video of the incident, I very audibly screamed “Oh My God!” the moment that happened! And yes, after being escorted off the stage by security, that woman attempted another run to the stage a few minutes after. Geez. Quit while you’re ahead!
*Mark Owen and Gary Barlow getting to sing their own songs 4 Minute Warning and Let Me Go were pleasant additions to the setlist. I kind of wish Howard got to showcase his DJ-ing skills as well!
*The Piano Medley included How Deep Is Your Love which was such a welcome addition. The lads rarely sing this live so it was a treat for us Asian fans.
*I seriously needed a MOMENT when Back For Good started playing. My friends were all teasing me that I will cry when I finally hear that song live but honestly when the moment arrived, I felt everything and nothing at the same time. Time stopped. It was too beautiful and complex to be explained. When I’m sad or stressed or upset, I just remember this moment and I instantly feel better.
*I don’t care whether you are the Pope or the Prime Minister or a pauper—when you hear Lulu’s part in Relight My Fire, you have to sing along!
Don’t we all want someone to look at us the way Mark Owen looks at Gary Barlow?!
*By the time Rule The World started, I knew the night was coming to a close, so I chose to savor every single line and thank the heavens that all the stars indeed came out for us that night!
*Never Forget Live was nothing short of glorious. To be able to finally lift my arms up in the air with thousands of Thatters was an unforgettable, goosebumps-worthy experience.
Overall, I’m extremely happy that the crowd sang along loud and proud and was very participative. The Power of Thatters!
Moments after the lads exited the stage, we were all still in a wonderful daze.
Did that just happen? Did that just REALLY happen?
Yes it did, and it was short and sweet but still absolutely perfect in every way.
Me during and after the show.
When I finally got back to my hotel, it was only then when I realized just how hungry I was. I have not consumed anything other than water for the last 12 hours or so. But who needs food when you have Take That to fuel you?
Take That were worth the wait.
Take That are worth it. Full stop.
So what were my (other) takeaways from this trip?
Things will all fall into place when the time is right and that the universe will conspire with you when it comes to the things you are truly passionate about.
You need to take a leap of faith and break out of your comfort zone in order to experience truly extraordinary moments (and to meet truly extraordinary people).
One month and 7 days later, I finally got my TTIII autographs and ticket framed!
Back To Basics: Holiday Gifts 2015.
Felt like ages since I last posted here, no?
Oh wait, it actually was ages since I last posted here.
Snark aside, I did miss doing these crafty sort of posts. Hopefully I can do more than a couple for 2016!
No reinventing the wheel this year, so to speak. I chose to use the traditional Christmas colors of red, green, gold, silver and a dash of white. Seems like a LOT of colors, but when for some magical reason, they all work together really well.
I included some embellishments and trinkets from my deep box of crafting doodads to add dimension and that touch of whimsy.
German Power: How To Make Your Own Sebastian Vettel and Nico Hulkenberg-Inspired Cross-Stitched Bookmark/ Pop Art/ Keychain/ Bagtag.
The Cross-Stitching Inner Grandma in me has returned and this time, with F1 on her mind.
Sebastian Vettel (currently with Scuderia Ferrari) and Nico Hulkenberg (currently with Sahara Force India) are two of the German F1 drivers I like most after Michael Schumacher, and so I’ve decided to celebrate their general racing awesomeness by making a crafting project inspired by them.
Materials: Cream-coloured cross-stitch cloth (leftover from my previous bagtag project); red, yellow, black, orange, gold, grey and light grey cross-stitch threads; cross-stitch needle; regular sewing needle; red and grey felt fabric; graphing paper; pencil; coloured pens; soft plastic ID cases; metal binder rings; belt-like bracelets.
Before anything else, the geek in me insisted that I carefully make patterns in order to have a clear idea on what the designs will look like, so I unearthed graphing paper from the depths of my office supplies stash and grabbed a pencil and a few coloured pens and started drawing away.
Pattern for the Hulkenberg Cross-Stitch.
Pattern for the Vettel Cross-Stitch.
The helmet patterns (and Hulkenberg’s logo) were pretty easy to draw, what I had quite a difficulty drawing was Vettel’s logo. I had to use a bit of math know-how (hello, Geometry!) to figure out the best way to depict it via cross-stitch!
I still had some leftover cross-stitch cloths that I cut into 2.5 x 4.0 inches from my previous bagtag project, so I decided to use them for this project as well to keep the guesswork out of sizing. Time to stitch!
After finishing the helmets and the logos, I took the red and grey felt fabrics and secured them to the backs by doing a simple running stitch. Make sure to switch to a regular sewing needle when working with the felt fabrics as the cross-stitch needle isn’t sharp enough to penetrate them.
And here are the multi-purpose finished products!
As Bookmarks: Use them as they are.
As Keychains: I simply bought soft plastic ID cases, placed the cross-stitch works inside, and then attached a metal binder ring and the black-and-gold/red belt-like bracelet. Alternatively, you can also use a ribbon of your choice, a thin rope or a metal carabiner.
As Bag Tags: Same with the keychains, except I inserted a card at the back where you can write your personal details such as name, address, email, etc.
There you have it, four different uses out of two cross-stitch works. Mini in sizes but maxi in function! | 2019-04-26T02:42:35Z | https://marjitecture.wordpress.com/ |
BOND: Dr. Franklin, welcome to these Explorations in Black Leadership. Thank you for being with us.
BOND: We've asked others what recollections and memories they have about the Brown decision, 1954, but you were born in 1954 so I guess you don't have any immediate recollection. Do you recall at all any discussion in your family as you grow older about this decision, what it might mean, what it could mean?
FRANKLIN: I recall both my parents were part of that great migration of so many African Americans who departed the South, in my case, from Mississippi, to Chicago and Detroit. My family remained in Chicago. And after -- you know, there were quite a number of significant decisions in the civil rights movement that followed the Brown decision. So by the time I was able to understand a bit of the adult conversation around the table in the early '60's, Brown was a reference point a few years back, I understood that. But that it was very decisive, turning point for making America a better nation. This -- the rhetoric that I heard was suggesting that there is a momentum now, of change in this nation that will be good for -- for African Americans and Brown was sort of referenced as sort of one of those turning points. The Montgomery bus boycott as another, although many of the Northern -- at least in Chicago -- African Americans who talked about Dr. King and the Montgomery bus boycott also had some ambivalence about that style of change -- civil disobedience, that is. But to have the Supreme Court of the United States weigh in on the side of African Americans was a tremendous sort of bolt of encouragement.
BOND: Would you describe your family's outlook, your neighborhood's outlook, generally speaking, in this period, in the early 1960s, as optimistic? Things are getting better, things are going to improve?
FRANKLIN: Yes, I'd say it certainly was. Often sort of pegged to local developments in the city of Chicago, and so here again in the mid '60s and late '60s, there was a lot of unrest and a lot of sort of pushing against the old boundaries. And in Chicago's own way, you know, black and white politicians sort of sat down in smoke-filled rooms and made deals and tried to mediate some measure of change. It's interesting that my pastor was one of the sort of black power brokers that dealt with the Daley machine. And so we often had, through his interpretations on Sunday morning, a sense that things were getting better, that there was an upbeat mood, that anything was possible. It registered in the Motown music we listened to, certainly in the church music, the triumphal hymns, the sense that we are marching to Zion, we are on a journey, God is with us. Angels keep watch over us by night. So there was, I'd say, despite occasional moments of great tragedy and sadness, tremendous hope and readiness to face the future.
BOND: Your mention of your pastor and of your parents gives an opportunity to segue into another section of questioning. Everybody has people in life who influence them. Who are some of the people -- talk about your parents first. What did they do for you -- not just food, clothing, shelter -- what did they do for you?
FRANKLIN: I'd begin with my father who worked for over thirty-eight years at the Campbell Soup Company in Chicago, on the West Side of Chicago, some distance from our home in the neighborhood on the very far South Side of Chicago. Everyone knows about the kind of segregation, hyper-segregation in Chicago. And there was a kind of daily courage and audacity on his part, I thought, as he walked through largely white neighborhoods to get to the bus in Chicago that would transport him to work. Very early in the morning, you know, four a.m., Dad was up. And there was a kind of work ethic that he modeled. He worked hard and he'd come home and, you know, read the Wall Street Journal. He was a working-class guy, but he was paying attention to the stock market and so he really broadened our sense of participation in the larger society. You know, Dad went to college, junior college in Chicago at night, and I still remember -- I cringe today when I think about the streets of Chicago. There were three of us young boys at that point, three sons. He'd sort of leave us in the car while he went in for his hour-long class in business organization, and come back. Of course, everybody did that then. It was safe. So anyhow, his pursuit of education at night, working hard during the day.
And I mean, I think I contrast that with so many urban poor families today that never see anyone sort of get up and go to work in the morning. And we had that example. He didn't talk much about race relations in Chicago or in America. He'd often reflect on his own experience in the family of being sharecroppers in the South, and sort of being disenfranchised and cheated, and why they made the move to Chicago. He was also, although he attended church, not very active in church, and often didn't attend because he was either exhausted from work or went in on Sundays for some special project.
My mother, on the other hand, really was the sort of mediator in terms of racism in Chicago and America and would talk about it, would warn -- you know, there were four boys before the two girls came in my family. And it's interesting now, I reflect on the way in which she and my grandmother sort of socialized us to be survivors on the mean streets of Chicago, both in terms of neighborhoods we shouldn't enter and interracial settings in which there's a certain etiquette and behavior we should display. Not to call attention to ourselves. To be polite and well-mannered in dealing with police officers and so on. This is all very practical wisdom about how to sort of negotiate touchy situations. And then, of course, during this period, the experience of Emmett Till was very much in the air. We attended the church on the South Side of Chicago that -- it actually wasn't the very same congregation, they were sort of brother-sister congregations almost, just a few blocks away. And our pastor and the pastor of Emmett Till's church were colleagues and best friends. And so that tragedy sort of struck home and prompted us as young men to listen very carefully when Mom and Grandma talked about you know, kind of how you present yourself in public and what to do and what not to do, etc. But they were sort of pillars of the local church in a church that didn't ordain women. These were women without title, but with significant portfolio, and they ran all sorts of youth programs and they organized recreational activities. They encouraged mentoring and after-school tutorials and so on. So they kept us very busy and tried, in some ways I think, to insulate us from the racism in Chicago and in the larger nation.
BOND: -- almost under the same roof. Who in that larger family had an impact on you?
FRANKLIN: We lived -- we owned two houses. My grandmother and her sister, when they moved from Mississippi, bought two houses next door to each other and then there was a small plot of land where my grandmother kept a garden. So you know, it's almost hard to imagine there in the urban jungle of Chicago there were these two houses and a garden there. And there must have been, gosh, between the uncles and my grandmother's children, seven or eight adults, my mother being the youngest in that family system. And then, of course, my mother and father. We lived in my grandmother's household for a long period as they saved money in order to kind of move up and out. So it really felt like a compound in which there were a lot of people looking out for us and meals were huge evening affairs, usually all together but often, because people were working and coming and going, you know, a few people sitting. And with neighbors joining us because we had a front porch and we'd often eat out there.
But your question, who influenced, it really was my maternal grandmother, Martha McCann. And the thing that was remarkable about her was her ability to, she was sort of -- as Du Bois might talk about it -- had bicultural competence. She really knew the language and the ways of the kind of secular streets of Chicago as well as the world of the church. And the very kind of staid and proper existence of the church world. She was an office holder in the local congregation, head of the mothers' board popular in many black churches. And so she was a kind of charismatic leader. People gravitated to her. Some of her own sons, who lived in our house were, you know, these were tough guys and they had friends. They liked to drink on weekends and so, often, in our household on that front porch, you'd have these women from the church meeting with Mother McCann in their starched white suits, uniforms and nurses' caps, along with the local winos of -- you know, from the neighborhood, all on that porch together enjoying fried chicken, collard greens and sweet potato pie. And it struck me, "Gosh, our home is more inclusive than the church is," because the church wouldn't have been a comfortable place for these young men to show up, certainly not inebriated. And it just struck me that she was this bridge figure, bringing people together who ordinarily wouldn't sit at a common table.
BOND: And is she, by this example, teaching you a kind of tolerance that you might otherwise not have had?
FRANKLIN: Absolutely. I thought there's a tremendous potential in this kind of -- this style of communicating and making oneself available. It's a style of leadership that has a high threshold of tolerance for difference and different practices and inclinations. My favorite story, I'll say very briefly, was one day -- you know, this was during the time of gang fights in Chicago -- two warring gangs, the Gangster Disciples and the Blackstone Rangers, were about to go to blows on the corner near our house. And my grandmother being perched on the porch sort of looking out on the neighborhood saw this, heard the argument escalating, five or six of these guys from each side. And she ran off that porch right into the middle of these guys who were nose-to-nose almost, and diffused that conflict and spoke -- talked those boys down.
And one of the interesting things she did, was she knew some of these boys by name. She had given food from her garden to their mothers, and it just struck me that Grandma had moral authority because she had watched these guys when they were cute, smart little boys going to kindergarten. She had disciplined them, she had fed them. She probably employed them over the years. So she now had the moral authority to speak truth to that kind of power. And they backed away, they walked away -- certain to fight another day -- but that day, Grandma, it was her moment to say, "No, not here, not now." She urged them, she made appeals like, "What would your -- think of how your mother would feel if she were to receive a call that you were fatally wounded in this kind of fight." So I saw her kind of appeal to something good in these young men. And it just strikes me today, with world conflicts, that America as a superpower -- we may be superior at the level of military power but if we don't have moral authority, we can't convene parties and really talk them down from their inclination to fight. So Grandma had a message for these international leaders, I think.
BOND: It's a shame she's not around today.
BOND: Outside of your immediate family, what figures influence you? You mentioned your pastor a moment ago.
FRANKLIN: Bishop Louis Henry Ford, also from Clarksdale, Mississippi, and migrated to Chicago. He established his own congregation, the St. Paul Church of God in Christ. And he was really quite an extraordinary person for a tradition like most Baptists and black Pentecostal churches in that time. It was a kind of anti-intellectualism and a sort of detachment from the world and kind of insular attitude toward church life. It was to be a refuge from the larger world. He said, "No, we have to be more than that. We have to be moral agents. We have to be change agents." And so he was very involved in politics. He was -- he encouraged young people in the congregation to go to college, and he provided -- he raised money to provide scholarship money and support for young folks pursuing education.
He was very involved in the Daley Machine and in local politics. I think he felt he could get more from the system working with it, knowing the first names and knowing how to negotiate. And he had a style of confrontation that was more, I'd say, sort of in the context of a working relationship. And so I recall he didn't particularly care for the sort of confrontation of the civil disobedience philosophy that Dr. King brought to Chicago in the -- later in the '60s. I recall his discussing his difference with that approach. But he certainly made me feel that it was important to understand the language of the larger polis, the larger city and the language of business, the language of politics, the language of -- employed in higher education. And not simply to know one's own idiom in the African-American community and more specifically, in the black church. He pushed us to be open, to cross barriers, and one of my favorite memories here is that he played golf, and this, too, was regarded, this is kind of sinful behavior. Black pastors didn't play golf and -- but he was out on the golf course and he brought us along, these young guys in the church. Occasionally the girls of the church, but -- and while on the course, caddying for him, he'd introduce us to the local city council person or to -- we met Joe Lewis, the boxer; Sam Cooke, people like that. And he again, I think, was trying to expose us to a larger world and saying, "You can participate. You have the confidence to do that." So it was an interesting way in which he was sort of building our own self-esteem, promoting us, getting us out there.
BOND: And he had a breakfast club.
FRANKLIN: Ah, yes, yes. The Breakfast Club. Fascinating. Morning -- Sunday morning before kind of Sunday School and the actual worship service. Sunday mornings at eight a.m. we'd gather. And this thing grew over time to two, three hundred kids. It was phenomenal. And he'd serve us a small breakfast. This was my first introduction to something called tea cakes, that he said he wanted us not simply to eat the doughnuts and danish that they could buy, but these hand-made Mississippi tea cakes from the mothers in the church who were baking these things, and lovingly providing them for the kids. So we'd have, you know, a little breakfast. But then, he went right into his agenda for the Breakfast Club. There were oratorical contests. There were scripture memorization contests -- who could remember the most scripture. There were scripture, sort of expository speaking contests, and utter a scripture and then explain its meaning. And all this was going on. There were debates throughout the year. There were black history quizzes and reports. And it was really quite remarkable to see the kind of talent and genius that was there that would, again, otherwise it would have been unknown certainly to the church and probably to the public school teachers that these kids attended and sat under, had not someone had the genius to create a forum in which young people could express themselves and listen and learn.
He also brought city leaders and business leaders to the Breakfast Club and they were just always in awe that at eight in the morning, here, just in the shadow of the nation's largest housing project -- the Robert Taylor Projects in Chicago -- here were a couple hundred kids engaged in the excitement of learning and debate and oratory.
BOND: Do you think you were aware that you were engaged in learning or was this just a good experience for you? Do you think you knew that this was influencing you?
FRANKLIN: Later I did because this went on for many years and I moved from simply being a nine-, ten-year-old kid who is just having fun and just a good experience -- you'd see the girls there, and it was fun to be there -- to, as a teenager, beginning to have more responsibilities and providing leadership for the young men that were present in the Breakfast Club. And so I began to realize, this really was quite remarkable and that I was being shaped in some important ways and having an opportunity to actually quiz the mayor of the city. I mean, Richard Daley came to the Breakfast Club as did the other black elected officials and prominent preachers from around the nation. So, I knew nothing about Morehouse College at that point, where I'd attend later, but in a sense, we were being exposed to some of the change agents and the thought leaders of the day in this setting. And, of course, Bishop Ford, he was always -- he's a consummate kind of public relations artist --and so he had photographers present and so this was good for the politicians to be -- you know, two hundred black kids sitting there -- and it's good for him. He rapidly ascended within our denomination and later became the presiding bishop of one of the fastest growing black churches in America. And certainly good for the kids because we just -- we just were exposed to wonderful things.
BOND: Now are you thinking in this period, in high school, that I want to be like Bishop [Louis Henry] Ford, I want to be a minister? Is that on your horizon?
FRANKLIN: Toward the end of my high school years, I think that that began to loom as a possibility. I was, I think, early on like so many kids, you know -- sort of sports and music occupy one's attention. And only later do I realize that this is an important form of community service. I still wasn't attracted to the idea of ministry, however. I just, something about that that kind of repelled me and I thought it was a bit presumptuous to sort of stand and tell other people how they should live their lives. So I wasn't attracted to that dimension but some form of public leadership community service was clearly attractive. And Bishop Ford represented a style, an option for me.
BOND: You said leadership. What did leadership then, if you can recall high school, what did it mean? How did you exhibit, if at all, leadership where you were president of a club or -- ?
FRANKLIN: Well, you know, bear in mind in this period there were, as the Bible says, there were giants in the land. I mean, there's Martin Luther King, Jr., there's Malcolm X. The Nation of Islam is there in Chicago and so Malcolm X is coming and going and Elijah Muhammed, people like that. So there were a lot sort of larger than life figures on the scene in my life there in Chicago at the time. And so as a high school student I recall beginning to listen to the speeches of some of these leaders. And certainly by the time I was a junior in high school, this was a daily lunch time activity where a group of students at Morgan Park High School would sit and we'd have our lunch and someone would pop a tape into a cassette player and we'd listen to, you know, Eldridge Cleaver or Malcolm X or someone give a speech. And I recall wanting to imitate that, wanting to be a provocative speaker, wanting to mobilize people to inspire through both rhetoric and through service, and I recall that wedding those was very important in my own understanding of leadership.
So there was a student council at Morgan Park and I did run for Student Council and part of it, I think -- I won the election part because I made a pretty -- what the students regarded was a compelling speech, but I also tried to sort of back up the speech with pointing out instances in which we had actually done some things to help improve the school. I mean, pick up garbage during the break and urge people not to litter our campus. Little things like that. Because I was annoyed with leaders who only made good speeches but never sort of stuck around to do any dirty work. And Bishop Ford always taught us, because he wasn't himself a particularly eloquent speaker, I think he always felt a bit of inferiority next to some of the more eloquent, the silver-tongue orators of the black pulpit -- King included, and Joseph Jackson in Chicago. Ford wasn't that kind of speaker. He was just kind of a home-grown, practical exhorter. He'd exhort people. But he said, "Look at their deeds. What have they built?" And it was almost this Booker T. Washington style. You have to have skills of the hand as well as the head. And he always, one thing that just comes back to me now, he says, whenever he walks into a new sanctuary or into a sanctuary -- he was a guest speaker often -- he said "The first thing you do is go and visit the restroom. Not to use it but to simply survey it." And he said it told him a lot about the leader, the pastor of that church, by looking at how he allowed the restroom for men and women to be presented. And he said if there was paper on the floor and it was unkempt, he knew that this leader was just more about words than about service. So I don't know, that just registered with me, to be suspicious of people who were eloquent but who had never built and never served people.
BOND: Do you think then of yourself as a leader [when] you're in high school? Are you saying, I'm a leader? You're not Martin Luther King, but are you saying that?
FRANKLIN: Yes, yes. At that point particularly. I mean, I recall in '69 as a junior in high school, as a point at which I began to think of myself as someone who might actually be out in front and trying to model and trying to inspire people to move in a certain direction by going there first. And I actually got in some trouble during that time. This was a period when the Black Panthers were quite active in Chicago and a young leader, Fred Hampton, on the West Side of Chicago was murdered. And as we understood it, the police intervened in an inappropriate way and there was a gun, you know, shootout. So there was a lot of anger, I recall the next day at school, and it was this sort of diffused -- and people were sort of wondering, "What should we do? How do we respond to this?" And I recall there were a couple of students who began to suggest that we take destructive action, break windows in the school and make a statement. I intervened and I didn't think about it at the time, but perhaps my grandmother had -- was haunting me in that moment, and I said, "Isn't there a better way to make a statement? What if we simply walk out of school and demand that there be an assembly to talk about what has happened here and how it has affected us." And people bought my idea and so I began to think, "Gee, I could actually have an influence in which I may have prevented some more violent, destructive activity," because people really were ready to move, ready to do something and just weren't sure what to do. And these two guys, they happened to be brothers, and fancied themselves as sort of young Black Panthers in our school.
Well, I wasn't that, but I often hung out with these guys. And so it was the courage -- I commend myself here, I shouldn't do that -- but the inclination to intervene and to speak up at a moment when a decision was being made and to suggest what I thought was a better alternative. So yes, now we did walk out and I was identified along with these two brothers and we were expelled, and so it was for me a time of learning a little about the cost of leadership, the risks of leadership, of speaking out, of standing up, of being willing to be sort of identified and easily picked out.
And these -- you know, my colleagues were not doing very well in school and so they were actually expelled and transferred to other institutions. Well, I -- you know, my grades were decent and so the principal struggled with what do we do with this young man, and eventually they put me on probation. And I became even more adamant about listening to the speeches, about learning how leadership was unfolding and when I began then to learn a little about SNCC, and even about the leadership role you played and others during the civil rights movement, really imprinted me and was, I think, paving the way for my next journey as I entered Morehouse College.
BOND: What was your high school like? What was Morgan Park like? What was the racial composition there?
BOND: So when you get elected to a student leadership position, you're getting the votes primarily of white students.
FRANKLIN: That's correct, yes. And again, I think it was an effort, because my elementary school was, I guess, 90 percent white and we walked some distance from our neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago to get to that Esmond Elementary School. So, we were kind of -- we had white friends and we knew they were approachable, and they could be friends and they were okay. And it was quite striking to me because most of the kids in our neighborhood attended another school, the Shoop Elementary School which was, I'd say, all black. So most of our friends in high school were from the all-black elementary school.
BOND: How were you able to get out of your attendance zone, I'm guessing, to go to these other schools?
FRANKLIN: You know, I've often wondered, and I think that it was a matter of Shoop having reached capacity and the need to sort of move some other students out to another school zone. I think it was just overcrowded, and we lived far enough away that Shoop took students that were closer. And then the question of what to do with those outliers, we then were transferred to another institution.
BOND: And I'm guessing in high school, at least, that the teachers were overwhelmingly white.
FRANKLIN: Correct, yeah. It was a big deal to have an African American teacher. I can remember there may have been five or six in the entire institution. And so -- you know, it was -- and this is another part of the story in terms of claiming my own leadership voice. There were a couple of the white teachers in Morgan Park High School who sort of saw potential, and named it for me, and said, "You really ought to read these books," and tried to expose me to other leaders who were claiming leadership in important ways. So you know, despite the tension that was always present in some way, because of things going on in the larger society would sort of spill into the city and we had certainly had -- I mean, there were white guys in the gang at the school who, you know, would threaten us, and terrorize through words mostly. There were rare that there were actually fisticuff conflicts, although that did happen from time to time. But we knew there were guys you just didn't go near and you didn't talk to. You know, they'd use the "N" word in our presence. And we didn't pick the fight and it didn't happen.
BOND: Now, when you're listening to these speeches, and leading this walkout, and reading these books and growing, in effect -- are you conscious, do you think, that, "I'm going to be somebody someday. I'm going to be different than my peers"? That is, "I'm going to exercise leadership in some way." You're not sure about a profession or career, but, "Somehow or another I'm going to be exercising leadership." Are you conscious of this, do you think?
FRANKLIN: In some small degree, I was. I mean, I'm still an adolescent and growing and not which sure what I'm going to be doing. I played the guitar and so I still fancied myself, you know, a light-weight musician. But it was really again, back at church, at St. Paul Church, one of the things that Bishop Ford did in the Breakfast Club was, he discovered that we would leave Breakfast Club, we'd all sing a song in unison, "Lift Every Voice and Sing", and then we'd go to Sunday School. You know, these are co-educational age-divided classes.
One day there was a complaint from one of the female Sunday School teachers about boys disrupting the class. Two or three boys. And it got to be so disruptive over several weeks, she went and reported this to Bishop Ford. She was just, she was in tears. I'm not sure what these guys had done. Well, this was significant enough for him to leave -- at this point he's in his office -- he leaves the office, comes down and finds me -- I'm seated in a class of young adult men myself, so I'm a student -- and picks me out and says, "Follow me." And this morning, I'll never forget, he went to each of these classes scattered throughout the church and the dining hall and asked these teachers, largely female teachers, "Are there any boys in here who are giving you a problem?" And we'd look there, and, you know, the little girls in the class were chuckling, as everybody sort of identified the boy. And one by one, in some cases, two out of that class. And it was kind of, we went along there, following behind me, me following behind Bishop Ford -- so this is sort of Pied Piper as we went one-by-one to class by class and the line grows longer.
Finally there were about thirteen guys and then Bishop Ford takes us to another part of the church under the choir stand, isolated area, and says, "All right, Brother Franklin, you're now in charge of these young men and you will have your own class, and I don't want to hear any more about problems and disruptions from you guys." So there I was, no curriculum, no experience, and sort of with what they all regarded as the most problematic and at-risk kids in the church. So we started slowly and I'm not quite sure where it occurred to me to allow these guys to tell their stories. So part of it was an introduction ritual. And it went on for so long we couldn't get to all the guys that first hour, hour and fifteen minutes, whatever we had, so the next Sunday we came back and we continued. "All right, you tell us your story. What school do you go to? Neighborhood you live in?"
And one of the things that struck me as we were doing this, these guys had never had that opportunity to even for just sort of five-minute platforms to say, "This is who I am, this is where I'm from," etc. And so later in life I discover the importance of narrative and storytelling for people to feel part of an organization. So we continued and then we expanded that, because each week we'd come back and, you know, we'd read the Biblical passage that the rest of the Sunday School were discussing, and I'd say a few words about it. But then we'd quickly go to their stories, "How has the week been for you?"
These young guys, these guys are twelve, thirteen years old, are sharing stories about being roughed up by police, about being recruited to gangs, about seeing their mothers brutalized by boyfriends. I thought, "Gee whiz, this is way over my head." But I realized it was important to allow these guys to talk through some of this stuff. And what I began to see was these guys who were kind of the "bad boys" in the church and in the neighborhood would listen to each other and were anxious to sort of get in and to have their time. And they were really very candid about some of the things that they were struggling with. They had questions. The kinds of questions boys would have -- "How do babies really get made?" and so it gave me an opportunity, I had to go back and study up on my own biology book, and I'd come back and give them a presentation and we'd talk about, you know, being responsible sexually. It was really quite an extraordinary occasion, and I think it was in that context, as sort of a teacher, young male leader, group leader, that I really began to feel,"This is something I'm supposed to do. I'm pretty good at this."
BOND: Why did the Bishop pick you?
BOND: But he thought you could do it?
BOND: He saw something in you. Or you had shown him something that made him know you could do it.
BOND: Well, then you go off to Atlanta to Morehouse College and what's that like -- this shift from this integrated high school in a segregated city, Chicago, but still a Northern city, to Atlanta, Georgia? What's that like for you?
BOND: Talk about each one.
FRANKLIN: Yeah. It was wonderful to be in the presence of all these young men who I thought are also kind of leaders and preparing to serve the community and preparing to join the freedom struggle. And you know, just to sit in an auditorium where there're six hundred other articulate, smart young men was incredibly empowering. I just felt this sense of promise and potential. And to have faculty who really were quite extraordinary in both the sacrifices they made by remaining at Morehouse, teaching us when they, at that point, began to have other options in white universities. But they were there for us and modeling for us.
On the other hand, Morehouse, I found, was less committed to the cutting edge of the freedom struggle than I had expected it to be. I found that many of the teachers were also seeking to sort of socialize and assimilate us. It was a very -- kind of what one might call bourgeois ethic that was being instilled and, I don't know, in some ways often felt kind of irrelevant to all this activity going on around us. I mean, every month we would lose guys from our class who were being drafted, and they were off to Vietnam. And so you had the war and you had the aftermath of Dr. King's assassination and we just felt we ought to be doing more. We ought to be out there helping to organize communities, etc. And -- I don't know, in some ways the college felt like it wasn't pushing, it wasn't pushing us. We were having to lead the school.
BOND: Now are you still having internal debates about what you want to do, what your career path is going to [be], how that's going to work out?
FRANKLIN: In some measure, although at that point I was fairly clear that I wanted to dabble in politics, and to move toward at least being eligible for elective office. And here again, there were young, attractive leaders who were role models for me. There was Julian Bond and there were many others who I thought, "Gee, I like what they're doing," and they were kind of working within the system, but trying to bring transformation. And I thought, "I think that's more my style," because there was always the Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton option.
BOND: Yes, that's got to be a little heady.
FRANKLIN: Certainly was. Very intimidating. It was very different from a student council, that kind of setting. I mean, these were prominent business people and the president of the college sitting there. And I, you know, learned a lot about restraint and how best to give -- each meeting I was asked to give a report. There were two students, upper-class and an underclass, so I was the underclass person and I would sort of give my sense of the major issues and the concerns that students had. And so again, it was just another refining forum for me.
BOND: Well, when did you say, "I'm going to go into the clergy," or "I'm going to achieve a higher education beyond Morehouse, I'm going to make religious affairs my life"? When did this happen? I imagine it wasn't a bolt of lightning.
FRANKLIN: No, it was a gradual -- I like to talk about this in terms of a tug, a quiet and gentle persistent tug away from my real passion and love, political science, political philosophy and legal studies. And so, you know -- I'm a sophomore, I'm elected to the Board of Trustees and -- you know, again, this sense of disappointment with the kind of insular culture of Morehouse, made me feel there's a larger world out there --maybe this is Bishop Ford haunting me still -- that I wasn't connecting with. And I recall visiting Emory University's campus for a debate term and -- I was also on the debate team -- and so this oratory piece continued to evolve. And just being impressed with this, you know, this grand university. I thought, "Gee, this is something I'd like to experience as well." I mean, I loved the Morehouse experience but it's a family, it's a network, a village. And yet, it's not the kind of university in the way that these other places are.
So, I applied for a junior year abroad scholarship and received that, and went to England. So there I was transplanted from Morehouse and Atlanta and Chicago to Northern England in which the entire county of Durham was populated by 30,000 people. And so it was almost rural with a small town and this grand old, eight hundred-year-old university there. And that too was extraordinary. It felt more like Morgan Park in some ways because there I was very much a, you know, in terms of racial minority, even tinier numbers there in this British university setting. But an opportunity during vacations, to -- both to interpret and tell, you know, British citizens and students what was going on -- about what was going on back in America. They had enormous curiosity. Watched television. They'd see the anti-war movement and civil rights and black power movement. "Tell us about this." "What does this mean?" And, "Can you interpret Jim Hendrix's lyrics for us?" So it was sort of a strange and rewarding experience of being a kind of interpreter, almost an ambassador I guess is the best way to put it.
BOND: But what did this have to do, to you, not what you did for them? How did this affect you being in this foreign land, people speak your same language, or nearly the same language, but this is a very different place. What did this do to you?
FRANKLIN: It certainly deepened my awareness of my own kind of inner world. I mean, I felt very isolated for much of that time and didn't have a -- you know, I had to create a community. I began to reflect more on my own mission and purpose and direction in life. I don't think I would have done that at Morehouse. I was so part of the activism and the movement and activities, and here now, almost it was a kind of monastic experience, this opportunity to slow down, to retreat from what the great theologian, Howard Thurman, referred to as "the traffic" -- "the busy traffic of life."
And in that context, I mean, I'm now able to think about this in terms of I was able to communicate with God in a way, really able to hear a new voice that I hadn't really connected with or paid much attention to before. And it was there in England during that year that I began to experience this strong tug away from politics and law toward religion and theology. And I was still, perhaps by virtue of being outside the United States, keenly aware of cultural differences and curious about them, and curious about religious difference. And so my -- I talk about it as a "call to ministry." We're fond of doing that in black church culture. But it sort of happened in the context of encountering other cultures and religious traditions as well.
During the Christmas break from the English school year, I traveled to Spain and Morocco, and -- you know, Catholic Spain and Muslim North Africa. And boy, I came back, I was just haunted and fueled with curiosity about how a belief system shapes an entire society and culture. And certainly when I walk in the streets of Casablanca and Rabat in Morocco, I mean, business owners would stop what they were doing and face Mecca, I later learned, and pray, just kind of in the middle of day and I thought this is very strange and very disconcerting. And I thought, "I need to understand what is it that motivates people to behave in this way, to organize their business lives around this sort of faith commitment?" So you know, back to school in England and then the next, at the end of the school year, there was a little money left in the scholarship and I'll always be grateful to the English Speaking Union for this scholarship and Morehouse's Merrill Scholars. I received both those. I went to the Soviet Union and there encountered young people who were in the Communist Party and who -- just very hostile toward religion and religious faith. And -- but as I listened to kind of what their faith was invested in, it was a sense of this collective humanistic possibility, if we put our best foot forward together. If we share, if we don't insist upon individual, so that was very -- my equilibrium was disturbed by the Soviet Union. Atheistic Communism. So I returned to Morehouse my senior year. Now I'm a real mess now because, I'm thinking about religious studies, I don't want to be a preacher. That's not intellectually respectable.
FRANKLIN: I've got to still have to do something that I can feel I'm using my head. And there were a couple role models, the very, kind of -- the professors of religion at Morehouse who were very helpful at that point. My political science department chair didn't understand what I was up to. They sort of began to abandon me and thought that I was having some sort of, I don't know, mental crisis because I was, you know, the A student in political science and now I was not interested. Or I'd come to classes with a more -- with a somewhat belligerent agenda in pressing politics and law to answer larger questions about the meaning and purpose of human existence, the nature and destiny of human persons. And you know, they didn't have much patience with that kind of questioning.
And so at that point I realized I couldn't go to law school and in the middle of my senior year, at a time when you're sending applications out early in the fall of the senior year, there I was, unaware of religious studies, seminary. It was completely foreign to me. And I happened to find a catalog in a wastebasket in Morehouse College's reading room that had the familiar colors, maroon and white, of Harvard and of Morehouse. And I just sort of fished it out and this was a catalog from Harvard Divinity School. Never heard of the place. I was intent on going to Harvard Law School. And I flipped through it, took it home and there was a card, response card, I filled out, sent in, received an application, applied, was accepted. And this was incredible because, you know, I just, I wasn't quite sure what I was doing.
But this felt like a kind of faith -- leap of faith, as the theologian Kierkegaard talks about that. So there I was off to Harvard Divinity School but with a keen interest -- it's funny, I actually applied to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard for the Ph.D. program as well as the Divinity School for ministry studies. I was accepted in both programs and in both applications I talked about my travels to North Africa, to Soviet Union, and this interest in comparative belief systems in interfaith and religious and non-religious perspectives on life. They were very interested in that and so they wanted me to come and pursue those studies. But they were surprised that I said no to this very lucrative offer for the Ph.D. program and then the Divinity School, that I wanted to pursue this ministry side, so at some level, I think I was already leaning toward a vocation that would involve service and communicating with the masses and not simply a kind of scholarly, literary, classroom-based existence.
BOND: We've taken you up through college years and you've described this really rich mix of experiences, of travel overseas, education overseas, the black college experience at Morehouse. Prior to that, the integrated high school, some leadership positions. Great family influences, the influence of Bishop Ford. All of this taken together I'm guessing has made you who you are.
Is it at all possible to replicate this for larger numbers of people? I mean, you can't pick people's families for them. You can't pick their high school for them. But is it possible in some way to replicate your experiences or the kinds of experiences you've had for larger -- a larger group of people?
FRANKLIN: I think it is possible to replicate dimensions of it and I think I would thematize this in terms of crossing boundaries. I think that, you know, local religious communities and organizations, secular community serving organizations, youth groups of various kinds, as well as educational, public schools and private schools ought to be more intentional about finding ways to bring students together from across geographic, ethnic, racial, cultural boundaries. So that they can dialogue and perhaps work together. I mean, Habitat for Humanity provides some opportunities of that sort as well. But in addition to our sort of domestic encounter with others that can be -- I mean, forums can certainly be organized to facilitate that -- I think some international experience, particularly in the post 9/11 era where the rest of the world sort of regards Americans as very parochial and detached and sort of, "We don't care about the rest of the world. We don't know much about the rest of the globe and we can kind of carry on with a certain level of global naiveté because everybody wants to be an American anyway, and we've got it all." And I think we'd better work hard now to try to disabuse the rest of the world of that notion. And I would hope that certainly for kind of especially that ripe period of the high school years, I especially think that the rising senior, that is, those who have reached the junior year and are about to -- that summer, a lot of organizations try to create opportunities for students to travel. I just think it's very important for us to get outside and look back at ourselves.
BOND: But how do you overcome the tendency, the desire of many people, both within black America and within America period, to want to be with themselves, with people like them? I'm thinking about AMEs want to be with the AMEs, the Baptists want to be with the Baptists, and all. How do you get people to broaden their own horizons when they have this real tendency not to do so?
FRANKLIN: I think it's exceedingly difficult, and it's important to hold up for them the exemplars, the role models of people who have done that, who've walked kind of this often lonely ground into new places. And who have survived and who are the better for it. I think, you know, people like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. and so many others who benefited from international travel, from learning in unusual contexts and kind of leaving home, as it were. That we just really try to promote that is important. And I think to find resources in the religious tradition itself as well as in our cultural and literary traditions that talk about, you know, really being a world citizen. Being at home in a larger world. We are not alone. And you know, I think even, you know, I read Jesus' way, of thinking about his own self-understanding of moving beyond his own immediate community to encounter gentiles as a part of the mission, a part of his way of living a more fulfilled life, is this encounter with the other. And I think that that is a kind of paradigm that many of us in today's -- certainly in the church world but in the larger culture -- simply abandon. There's this almost a" dread of diversity" as I've heard one scholar name this. And I think if we can create safe harbors, if we can promote the successful examples, it makes a tremendous positive difference when you risk crossing the boundary. It's certainly I've experienced that in my life, and I try to encourage and promote that with other people.
BOND: Still, it's very, very difficult to do because people are afraid of the different, of the new, of the other. Strikes me as a tremendous challenge to help them overcome that.
BOND: Let me ask you a philosophical question. What do you see as the difference between vision, philosophy, and style. And how does any interaction between these three work for you? Vision, philosophy, style. How are they different? How do they work together, if at all?
BOND: And do you think we -- you particularly, but we generally -- we're always unconsciously integrating these as we go along with our lives or we're putting it together almost on a moment-by-moment basis? We're integrating style, vision, philosophy, bringing it all, bringing it all together?
BOND: What vision has guided your life?
FRANKLIN: Well, I'd say that the vision for an inclusive, just community is the kind of city, neighborhood, world I'd like to live in and with my limited time on the planet, I'd like to devote that time to creating that world that is safe for all people, no matter what their color or religious commitments, or whether they have any religious commitments or not. It's a sense of creating safe public space for -- even for non-conformists. And so that's a part of the vision of -- the big vision, the social vision.
In terms of personal vision and a vision I'd hope for every other individual is the possibility of living a truly self-actualized existence in which all of my potential are fully explored and exploited and so that I don't reach the end of my life looking back with a sense of regret about what I should have tried. And I think that, for me, gives me a kind of energy and restlessness and a kind of audacity to risk making a fool of myself as I, you know, go back and try to learn piano because I didn't as an eight-year-old, or as I undertake -- I'm currently involved in a kind of world travel and trying to visit countries and look in on cultures that have always been intriguing to me that I haven't yet encountered. That's a part of what I'd like to sort of wrap up as a part of my brief life. I want to see the whole world and hear their music and taste their foods. So that's kind of the vision.
BOND: Has the vision changed over time? Is it different in any way now than it would have been five, ten, more years ago?
FRANKLIN: Let's say it has evolved to become a bit more expansive and inclusive. The more I discover new peoples and places, new ways of thinking about the divine or what the theologian, Paul Tillich, refers to as "the ultimate concern," it only deepens my curiosity to study more, you know, the ways of exploring truth in those traditions as well, as an intellectual. And I guess to some extent as my own kind of spirit internal, personal spiritual journey unfolds, I am enriched by other ways of praying, of meditating, of seeing the world and at the same time, the commitment to community, to service, to sort of doing things that don't necessarily advance my own personal agenda or well-being but enable other people to experience something of the self-actualization I'm talking about. That's important, and for me that's sort of the justice agenda. And I think that has been -- that's been fairly constant.
BOND: You decided, obviously, that you were going to pursue a kind of life in which you persuaded others to your views, your philosophy, through the written word, through argumentation and so on. Why'd you choose that path? I mean, I understand the decision to go to Harvard, but why that path instead of the one you'd previously thought about, law? I mean, lawyers have an enormous effect on people. You win a successful lawsuit, a major suit -- people behave in different ways. You write a book -- people may or may not read it. They may not pay attention to the argument. Why this life of the mind, I guess, rather than the other kind of life?
FRANKLIN: Yeah, and you mentioned writing a book and no one reading it. My writings are the kinds of writings that once you put them down you can't pick them up again, so I'm keenly aware of how anti-literate so much of the American public is. Reader's Digest said that two years ago, over 60 percent of American households didn't purchase a single book over the course of an entire year. So that certainly has prompted me to be more savvy about how I sort of get the message out, if you will, and the importance of paying more attention to media. I admire and learn a lot from people, people like you, who understand that radio and television and mass communication is a very important mode of sort of presenting questions as well as presenting arguments.
BOND: But all this means you think that ideas count?
BOND: How did you come to believe that?
FRANKLIN: In high school, during the crisis of the walkout in 1969 and this period in which I was actually not attending school for several days -- not permitted and at home -- my mother was there. I -- and then recalling again one of the teachers at the school who sort of gave me a reading list. I began to read. They actually permitted me to take books from the library at school because they liked me and so I had -- I'll never forget the two things that I took home were Plato's Republic and Robert's Rules of Order for some reason. This is not, you know, bedtime reading. But I guess, again, there was this sense of "How do you govern? How you run meetings and convene people and maintain a sense of order as you try to sort of get practical business done -- " fascinated me with Roberts' Rules. I thought, "Someone's actually thought about the rules." And so again, even through that little book, my passion for the law was, was deepened.
And with Plato's Republic, everybody talked about it -- it's the most important philosophical text that had ever been written-- and yet, he, Socrates, is a story teller. He's something of a preacher. And I was intrigued by that, he's an educator, but he educates by asking hard questions. He didn't give lectures. He will give substantive responses as he reflects on a student's response. And I was really intrigued with that Socratic Method. And it was there, I think, that my sense that ideas do matter, ideas have power and began to sort of see that validated over time. So that when I would, later, back to listening to the speeches of Malcolm and King and the Panthers, sometimes they'd occasionally reference Plato or something. I thought, "Gee whiz, that's extraordinary." And I thought, "Plato's been gone a long time and yet the power of his ideas -- " I don't know much about his personal life, that wasn't so important. So it wasn't biography as much as the ideas and the questions. What is the nature of the good life? And what is the nature of the good society? Those are the two philosophical questions that Plato and some would argue all of the history of philosophy are grappling with those two sets of questions. I thought, "Gee, at some level, if you kind of peel away all the layers and get under the surface, that's the agenda all of us somehow are working on," was trying to figure out, what does it mean for me to live a good life, and what does it mean to create, have a good community, a good society?
BOND: It just strikes me that's extraordinary to begin to think in high school, although others do, that ideas count that much.
BOND: Think about your own path to leadership. We generally think about it in a couple of different ways, three ways. Great people cause great events; movements make leaders; or the confluence of unpredictable events creates leaders appropriate for the times. Where do you fit?
FRANKLIN: I'm very attracted to this third model. I mean, I don't think of myself certainly as a great leader or a great person. But -- and it's hard to predict when the next movement will roll through and sort of sweep up. But I do have a sense that there are leaders and people with creativity and talent and a will to serve and to do good always out there, always on the scene. And there are occasions where questions and issues emerge that mobilize our concern, that have the potential for evolving into a movement. Just to give an example, I think that I have a sense that there's a movement trying to be born now in the wake of the tragedies of September 11 that hadn't quite yet taken off, but could, and I hope, will. And it has to do with, both within America and beyond, this sense of the fragility of the human existence, the sense that nothing is promised, there are no guarantees it will be here tomorrow or next week. And if we sort of plug into that awareness, it might fuel a will to serve, to connect with strangers, to learn more. Americans learning about Islam and Ramadan today who had no idea, no clue about this religious tradition a year ago. But we all know more now.
That kind of new learning, new discussion that I sense the rebirth of civil society in America, of individuals leaving suburban enclaves and trying to find, figure out what they can do to improve the life of the city. It's revisiting the language of Thomas Jefferson and others about the common good, the public good, and how we somehow fit with that. Again, that's Plato's notion of the good community. And so it's just a long, rambling way of trying to suggest that I hope to be in place if the trumpet sounds and there is this unleashing of energy and volunteerism to improve neighborhoods, to really deal with the problems of homelessness and of ignorance and public health crises. I mean, these same challenges that have faced human society over time, I just have confidence if we were to mobilize our best resources and if humans, all of us on the planet, were compelled to act in certain ways, we could make a huge, huge difference and move us closer to the good society.
BOND: You talked recently about how the church generally, black church particularly, is kind of a legitimizing myth. At the same time, this institution -- 70,000 in the country right now, individual congregations -- but a long, long tradition among denominations providing leadership -- why has this institution particularly been so important to African America? Why this institution?
FRANKLIN: Why, I think it's rooted in the experience of slavery and the fact that the early black churches that emerged in this country in the eighteenth century were the only institutions where African Americans could gather with a sense of -- a measure of self-determination. You know, "We define the rules here. It's our rules of order that govern this organization." And a sense of relative safety, a sense of connectedness to other individuals who are not family. And so the church as a kind of surrogate family, extended family, emerge within the black church venue. And so for me it's unremarkable that the church became the most important and central socializing institution in our community. They couldn't do everything and so there was a need for the NAACP and the Urban League and other civil rights groups to advance issues of freedom and justice in the larger society. And yet, the church is very much a part of those movements as well. But it also understood it had another agenda and that was the agenda of people-making, of fostering family, of healing wounds, both physical and psychic wounds that people encountered as they grappled every day in a racist society. And that was hard work. That's important work. And every week the people gather with the expectation, at least in a black church, that some measure of re-knitting the unraveling fabric of family, neighborhood, of civil society will happen.
Not that we will be affirmed as detached individuals, aspiring and moving up the economic ladder, according to the logic of capitalism, but that we are reminded that we are community. That's the best of the black church as a servant and a facilitator of civil society. And when I use that term I simply mean connecting strangers, and promoting a sense of citizenship that prompts people to act in ways that advance a common good, whether it serves their own economic or personal interests at all.
BOND: By definition this conversation that we're having is about black leadership, not about leadership generally. To what degree does race consciousness affect both your work and who you are? Who you were, and who you are today? What does race consciousness have to do with you?
FRANKLIN: Yes. Certainly ever present, given the nature of this country and milieu in which we live. I think here of W.[E.]B. Du Bois' classic trope, From the Souls of Black Folk, "one ever feels his twoness." You know, an American and African. And it is the sense of holding these many elements together is my own now more mature sense of a personal self-consciousness that I'm a member of a particular ethnic group. I have loyalties there. That's from whence I come. I have debts to pay to those who have given and suffered and sacrificed. But I am also, again to use Dr. King's language, "a world citizen, a part of the world house." And I have loyalties there as well. And my -- I think the art is never subsuming necessarily one to the other, but somehow living with a sense that I can serve and advance and enhance both as I move forward.
BOND: What do you say to people who say, "By emphasizing this race, you're only dividing us? You're drawing lines between us. You're separating us. Why do you keep bringing up this race question, why don't you put it behind you? Get over it."
FRANKLIN: I just think that it simply would be counter-factual and counterintuitive to ignore the ever-present reality. Again, Du Bois, "the presence of the color line" now in the twenty-first century. We can't pretend that that's not a problem, not a challenge. And smart, mature, confident people take on the hard questions and issues. They don't ignore race or gender or sexual orientation. They take them on. They address them. They find ways to reconcile. They find ways to respect difference, to tolerate difference. Again, in the course of trying to facilitate everyone experiencing the fullest of their own human potentials, because theologically speaking, I regard the presence of potential in every human soul as a profound and sacred thing, as a gift from God. And my obligation then -- not option, obligation -- is to work to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to explore and to develop them.
And hence, part of what I saw you all doing as you took on Bull Conner and the segregationists, mean-spirited police in Birmingham and other places, was, you know, both certainly to advance the cause of freedom and eliminate racism but at a more profound level philosophically, theologically, was to enable that gentleman who was really stifling his own capacity for experiencing all of the goodness of life, to set him free to do that. Now that's a very ambitious and very difficult enterprise but back to the question of vision, that's the vision that I think propels me as I go forward. And so race is, reckoning with race is an obligation. We have to deal with that.
BOND: Does race affect you in your presentation? You're speaking to an all-black crowd here, an integrated crowd, an all-white crowd here. How does race figure into these three?
FRANKLIN: Well, one of the things I've learned especially from feminist scholars and critical theorists is you know, you never escape your skin. You know, mind, idea, spirit, soul are all sort of empackaged and I have to reckon with my own social location and social identity. I am a black male heterosexual Christian and on and on, and other people have other packages, and the radical love ethic of Jesus for me means loving and affirming all the other packages, all the other people. And so I sort of carry that sense of consciousness into whichever audience I might happen to address.
I am able to call upon a very familiar symbol set when I'm in an African-American audience as I persuade -- I like your way, that verb -- as I persuade and exhort and challenge people to, to actualize themselves. But part of that agenda, even in black church audiences, is challenging people not to be too parochial -- not to hide, not to take refuge in a way that ignores and negates other peoples and other cultures. So in that setting, I'm sort of affirming the strengths of black churches, families, individuals, affirming the souls of black folk, but also saying, "There's a larger world out there, folks, don't forget. Go out there and experience it. Go and visit and see the museums of Rome and Paris. Go and taste the fruits of Tahiti," and the challenging them not to think "I'm an American, I'm a black American, this is my home, this is where I belong, and that's the end of the game." No, absolutely not. That's not what Dr. King -- that's not the legacy he leaves us.
As he says, and I'll use a fancy term, "our challenge is to de-parochialize ourselves" and part of what I try to do in my seminary is to deparochialize these young black seminarians, so that on one hand, they are skilled leaders of black congregations; that's important. "I want you to know how to preach and administer and counsel. But at the same time, I want you to be a -- to cross boundaries. And the kids in your congregation may never do that unless they see you do it first. So pastor, you have to take the risk. You have to go to the meetings in the other neighborhoods. You have to be present in city hall and the state legislature to represent the interests of your children." And as they watch you move from your safe, comfortable space where you could spend all your life doing good, important work, but as they see this as an important agenda of yours to move out into the public square, I think they will think, "We have permission to do that, too. We have the confidence to operate in that larger context on the world stage as well."
BOND: Is it possible that -- I know it's possible you can place too great an emphasis on race but here's a quote from William Allen. He says, "Thinking in terms of race or gender is a danger. Until we learn once again to use the language of American freedom in an appropriate way that embraces all of us, we're going to continue to harm this country." I asked you a moment ago about division, and [you] gave the perfect answer, but is there a danger in being too black, too often, too much?
FRANKLIN: Yeah, I think that that is the danger, is that it, in fact, strangles the possibility for the full fruition of one's own identity. I think when people reify or make sacred their particularity, for me, getting back to my theological toolbox, that's sin. That's an offense to God. That is wrong. And, you know, this is not popular to say to friends who are black nationalists, who want a separate community and separate nation, and yet I can attend a black nationalist meeting -- I go to the Nation of Islam meetings on occasion, listen in on what's going on -- and affirm the good that's at work in that project. This sort of effort to redeem people who are lost and confused and unaware of the African identity, yes, there's something -- there's an important moment there. There's an important season for affirming one's particularity. I'm black and I'm proud, and yes -- because there are others who would argue there's never a moment or season for that kind of self-celebration-- I vigorously disagree. I think part of the beauty of America is the possibility for all the cultures and peoples to sort of have their moment, to have their season, to express distinctiveness, and I hope thereby to enrich the larger body politic. So yes, it is a danger and for me, it's more than simply regrettable from a social or psychological perspective. Theologically it's a bad place to be.
BOND: Does race place a burden on you that it doesn't place on, say, the president of the Candler School of Theology? Does he or she not face a burden that you do or a responsibility that you do? How does race guide you in that sense?
BOND: Or obligate you, how does it obligate you?
FRANKLIN: Yeah, well, there I think this sense of connectedness with those who continue to struggle. Those who are deprived in significant ways of opportunity in participating in the larger American experiment where I feel that I've been blessed to have certain opportunities and see the possibilities, the vision, the larger vision that lies beyond. Part of my obligation is to ensure that I can maximize the number of -- especially children, who might not otherwise have that experience, to ensure that they do. And so there's a kind of obligation to include, to sort of pull up and elevate and expose in a way that I don't sense that my colleagues, white colleagues in majority institutions, necessarily go about with a day-by-day sense that that's their agenda.
I mean, in a way I often feel a bit of envy because they're able to focus on their agenda, fundraising and building an institution, and whereas I sort of get called on by the local YMCA to go talk to a group of at-risk teenagers. Well, that's really not in my job description. But I've got to do that. And I mean, while I'm doing that I'm not at the Rotary Club or I'm at having a power lunch with someone downtown. And there are a host of other kind of responsibilities of that sort, that because I do understand the importance of race and connectedness and kinship and village, nurture -- there's things I have to do because I am now, whether I like it or not, I am a leader, a kind of a person who carries a certain mantle in that community.
BOND: Do you think there's a crisis in black leadership today? I can remember hearing almost every so often there is such a crisis. Is there a crisis in black leadership?
BOND: Let me tell you how Cornel West says it. He says, "The crisis is a symptom of black distance from vibrant tradition of resistance, from a vital community bonded by ethical ideals and from a credible sense of political struggle. That black leadership," he says, "is alienated from that, separated from this past."
FRANKLIN: Yeah. Yeah. I'd argue that that is slightly overstated, so yes, there is a crisis, and it is most evident among leaders -- some who are particularly visible -- and who, I think, have been distracted from the agenda of lifting as we climb, and who have become, I think, too assimilated into the systems of power to speak truth to power which is the function of the prophet. The prophet is she or he who speaks truth to power. The expectation of the black masses is always that our black leaders will speak truth to power, will carry this prophetic mantle. And I do perceive certainly among the masses a sense of disappointment, a sense of betrayed expectation that religious, elected officials, business leaders in the African-American community, should carry that mantle in a persistent way and do not -- often seem to be silenced, or distracted, or sort of preoccupied with the stuff in their lives and the material gains, etc.
So yes, there is a crisis, but it's remediable. I think that those leaders, and this is why I think that we're in a time, turn of the century, where the historian, Vincent Harding, says this is a time when black leaders should be caucusing in summits, the heads of organizations should gather to strategize and think together about complementarity of purpose and mission and activity. I see that happening and -- you know, Tavis Smiley convenes summit meetings and thoughtful people. I think that's a good and exciting enterprise, and for me, I think, is mitigating the strength and force of the crisis that Mr. West diagnoses.
BOND: In the future -- and of course none of us knows what that's going to be -- what kind of leadership is going to be demanded that perhaps we don't have now? Are there going to be new demands on leadership figures and leadership figures, you're talking about an enormous range of people. What are the new demands going to be?
FRANKLIN: Well, I can't ignore the fact that one-third -- roughly one-third, according to researchers at Howard University -- of the African-American community continues to live in a sort of sinking, multi-generational poverty, poorly educated. Just significant personal crisis, substance addictions. On and on, kind of violence in neighborhoods. Somehow, before we can really celebrate these African Americans sort of joining the American dream, we've still got to reckon with that challenge to us, because they're our family. They're our village. And I think, you know, Dr. West is keenly sensitive to those two-thirds of African Americans who are doing well, who are making it, and who forget about the one-third.
But most leaders haven't forgotten. Most of us are connected in various ways. Most of us are serving on a day-by-day, week-by-week fashion to somehow create opportunities for less advantaged citizens. And so I think the new leadership perhaps is going to have to be even more visible in modeling the sense of connectedness to the have nots. To demonstrable programs that enable people to move from dependence, from welfare, substance addictions, etc., from dependence to self-sufficiency. And leadership that is wise about that process, about the transitioning from dependence to self-sufficiency is going to be important. So it's not just leaders who sketch the big vision which we've had a lot of, or leaders who just serve particular constituencies. But leaders who are somehow helping to kind of really transform existence for a large number of people, who are just desperately looking for hope.
BOND: What can we do to make sure we have all kinds of leaders, the big picture people, the specific constituency people, the people with the vision for moving from dependence? How can we guarantee, if we can, that we have a ready supply of efficient, hard-working, dependable leadership figures emerging in our community?
FRANKLIN: Well, I think there's certainly a role for educational institutions to play in trying to encourage students to claim their leadership, claim their mission in life in terms of providing direction and inspiration and hope and practical examples for self-actualizing their lives. And so I think we need more people to understand that as they do so, they are -- that's a form of leadership. Not all leaders are the big picture behind the microphone and in the public eye. But there are grassroots leaders, there are bureaucratic leaders who work in organizations to provide guidance and direction, who speak truth to power, who reinterpret the mission of the corporation or the company to ensure that it's serving the common good. I think that's the kind of leadership I hope we will nurture in a variety of ways, in the arts and journalism, in business, in medicine and in the sciences and certainly in politics and religion. People who understand the dynamics of the human spirit and its quest for meaning and purpose. And people who understand the fragility of community and how we need to knit and work on community building.
So it's wisdom about the human soul and about the human community building and then the larger agenda of crossing boundaries and negotiating difference and otherness. And I think if we have leaders that have wisdom about those three agendas -- the soul, the community and difference -- we're going to be well-served.
BOND: On that note, thank you, Dr. Franklin, for being with us. This has been great.
FRANKLIN: Thanks very much. Thanks for the opportunity. | 2019-04-19T14:38:46Z | http://blackleadership.virginia.edu/transcript/franklin-robert |
Greetings, Dear One, yes, it is I, Mary Magdalene. I come to you at this time, Dearest Children, to say to you to allow yourself to feel this essence and this presence of what we call the Holy Spirit within you. As I have spoken, the energy of the Holy Spirit is entering not only into your vessel, but into the ley lines and gridlines of your planet at this time. This is a very important frequency that is entering into the new lunar eclipse that will be happening within the next couple of days. This is a powerful frequency that will begin to ignite the planet, and begin to revive, as they say, the souls to return to Oneness. So today, Dear One, it is as if there is an old-fashioned revival of calling in the energy of the Holy Spirit. And so, Dear One, allow yourself to feel this jubilation as this frequency is coming forth onto this planet. Yes, the vibratory frequency of revival and jubilation and Divine Holy Grace are being infused upon your planet through your lunar eclipse that will be happening. And so, Dear One, understand at this time, that you may begin to feel this sense of letting go of all that no longer serves you. You may begin to feel in the next few days a sluggishness and depression, and then you will begin to feel this rejuvenation, this revival, this sense of rebirth as you allow yourself to begin to feel this excess energy that is being brought forth onto the planet, and into your individual systems.
And so, Dearest Children, please allow yourselves to take a deep, inhaling breath and call in this frequency. And call in the vibration of love. For the essence and the energy of the Holy Spirit is now truly beginning to revive through you. Allowing every particle and essence of your being to now be rejuvenated with love and to be rejuvenated with strength of will, and strength of character, and strength of mind, and complete and total strength and harmony and balance within your system. For those who have been off kilter, as they say, this energy will begin to bring them balance. This is, as they say, good news today, for there are so many that have been affected by these energies and these frequencies that in your past, has caused them to be mentally and emotionally imbalanced. This energy that is coming now is of peace and balance and will allow to calm the nerves of those who have been on edge and to calm the minds and the anger of so many that have been riled up. And so, these frequencies now are a gift from the Holy Spirit, bringing calmness to each soul, bringing calmness to the Earth, and this is extremely powerful energy. And so, as you call this in, please allow yourself to call this forward into every aspect of your life, be it your physical body, your mental body, your emotional body, your workaday life with your career, with your finances, with your relationships. Simply calling this in, into the energy of your soul essence, so that this revival of energy, the energy that is being brought forth, can begin to revive you, to return you to a state of balance and wholeness and unity and oneness.
And so, Dear Ones, allow yourself to feel the excitement and the essence of this energy, like an old time revival, as people are coming together to celebrate the Holy Spirit. This is a day of celebration, and indeed a day of great excitement. And so, begin to allow this to come into your body, allow it to come into your physicality, allow it to come into your heart, allow it to enter into the essence of your being, and feel the freedom and the love and the joy and the power that you hold. Feel the freedom, feel the love, feel the power that you hold. You, Dearest Children, are powerful, powerful beings of light, and as you call this energy of rejuvenation, renewal, and revival of your soul, call it forth. This is a time of this new year of 2018, where it is the energy of peace, and it is a vibration of freedom, and allow, again, all energies to be released from you that have been constricted and controlled through disharmonic frequencies. Yes, Dearest One, there are many disharmonic frequencies and energies that are upon this planet, and you all are affected by the collective energy of these frequencies simply by your mere existence on this Earth plane, you are affected not only be the electromagnetic field and gamma rays, you are affected by the collective energy of the human consciousness. And so, today, this frequency is now beginning to lighten all the energy upon your Earth. This is good news, this is a powerful, powerful day, and it is good news. You see, this is the revival that your Earth has been waiting for. This is the renewal that all spirits have been waiting for. When each of you came as a beautiful spirit, eons and eons and eons ago, to help assist this planet, you had this level of renewal within you. You were excited as if you were coming to an old-fashioned revival. Yes, your spirits were coming to this Earth plane to revive this planet, and to bring the enthusiasm of your spirit to assist this Earth plane. And so, Dearest Ones, know that as you are tapping into this frequency, that you are re-tapping into the frequency of original creation, you are tapping into the energy of the true essence of your spirit.
Excitement, enthusiasm, love, joy, and all the fruits of the spirit are with you at this time. Yes, I say all the fruits of the spirit are with you at this time. You are all being gifted this gift, and if you wish to accept it, your lives will begin to change rapidly. This is not something I say lightly, but it is of truth. If you accept this gift of the new energy stepping forward, your lives will change very quickly for the better, letting go and letting God. And trusting that all is in order and all is as it should be. It is time, it is time for the shifting of your planet, it is time, it is time for peace to prevail on this planet, it is time, it is time for all the beings who choose to live in Divine grace to awaken to this powerful frequency of the Holy Spirit. And so, imagine yourself coming together, like an old-fashioned revival underneath a tent, and you are celebrating and honoring the spirit within you, and the spirit within your brother and sister, and the spirit within the Earth, coming together and rejoicing that this is a new day, and a new day is dawning. I do not say this lightly, and I do not say this casually, but I tell you, Dearest Ones, this is the new Earth, this is the changing of the guard. This is the beginning of the first 10,000-year cycle. It has finally arrived. We have spoken of this many times, but this is truly the beginning of the first wave of the energy of peace upon this planet. Wave upon wave upon wave of peace, wave upon wave upon wave of peace. I say it again, there is wave upon wave upon wave of peace that is coming to your planet. And so, rejoice and feel this peace within your lives. Feel the discomfort that you have held within your essence, for all of you, Dear Ones, have been waiting and seeking for this moment for peace to return into your lives and into this planet.
As you came as the original spirits to serve, you became disillusioned, and unfortunately, many of you became jaded and could not understand how and why the planet was not able to return to its original state with all of your help. With the help of the heavenly hosts. With the help of the Great Creator. But you see, Dear Ones, there were many unseen forces, and many beings who chose lower vibrational frequencies. And so, now the shift of consciousness has taken place, what we call the hundredth monkey syndrome has occurred. And now the tipping of the scales has come forward, and now there are enough souls that are ready, and have been working to assist this planet and all of humanity, that this new energy of what we call the revival is able to be brought forth. This is indeed an exciting day, this is an exciting day for all of us. We cannot tell you how pleased we are and how honored we are to be able to share this. Some may not understand this. Some may question it, some may say this cannot be true. That this frequency is bringing peace to our planet, but we tell you, Dear Ones, this is of truth. And so allow the holy spirit, the essence of this powerful frequency to now live inside of your being. Allow the excitement and the anticipation of life to enter into your being, every moment from this day forward, allow your life to be filled with joy and excitement and anticipation. And do not allow any aspect of your personality to control you. Do not allow any aspect of any energy that is not of the highest frequency to rule you. Call this frequency in, and it will begin to bring the energy of renewal back to you. You’ve all been waiting for this moment, and now it has come.
Dear Ones, this has been a difficult, difficult several years for many of you who are very sensitive to the energies. The energies have been extremely heavy upon your planet, and some of you have felt heaviness within your bodies, and have felt anchored to the lower frequencies, and have had physical complaints that have affected you. And some of you have felt off-balance, dizzy, depressed, and disconnected from yourself and from the energy of the Great Godhead. And so, Dear One, realize that these energies have affected you, and you are not aware that most of what you are feeling had nothing to do with you. And so, today, as you begin to feel these vibrational shifts within you, you begin to feel lighter, and healthier, and happier, and more excited about life. And more connected to all energies that are around you, connected to the mineral kingdom, to the plant kingdom, to the animal kingdom, you will begin to sense the Oneness of all of life.
This is the beginning of the balance that is returning back to your planet. This is the beginning of the return of all souls to the frequency of balance. This is extremely important that you understand this at this time, that you have a choice to step into the vibration of this powerful frequency of revival, rejuvenation, and allow yourself to ride the wave throughout the rest of your incarnation and throughout eternity. You are riding the wave, allowing this frequency now to be contagious, for remember, as you hold and carry this within your essence, then you are able to bring it and share it with others. You are able to share this vibrational frequency with others. The excitement of a new day and a new dawning that peace is here, peace is here, peace is here. And call it into your life, and allow your heart to open to the love, call the energy within your being. Breathe it in, and allow it to have a life of its own, as they say. Allow the energy of the Holy Spirit to live in you, and have a life of its own, guiding you and taking you and your journey to what we call places that are unknown, allowing yourself to be shifted and guided by the Holy Spirit within you. Knowing that you are setting yourself free, clearing yourself of any limitations that you had mentally, emotionally, physically, energetically, because all of you have been bound, as they say, to the frequencies upon this planet, that have been heavy and dark and not for the highest good of all concerned. And so, today, there is a lifting, a celebration, it is as if the anchors have been lifted, and yes, all in the heavenly realm are celebrating. The heavenly hosts are celebrating. Yes, Dearest Ones, there is singing, there is dancing, there is jubilation, an old-time revival is occurring as we speak. So much excitement that today your planet and all sentient beings are finally free. You’ve all been set free from this entrapment that’s been held within the collective consciousness upon our planet.
And so, understand, Dearest Ones, that what will be brought forth from this day forth will be transmuted easily and effortlessly, for I see your questions, how can this be? How can the frequencies be transmuted? Of the negative thought forms of those who are still angry, depressed, confused. You see, Dearest Ones, miracles occur in every moment, and the energy of the Holy Spirit is much more powerful than the vibrational frequencies of human consciousness. And so these frequencies will be transmuted and transcended into love. And so, allow the discordant energies to be transmuted and transcended into love, within your own life. Even if you struggle in any area of your life, transcend the energy, call in the essence of the Holy Spirit, feel this energy, and the excitement, and the enthusiasm, as I have spoken of.
We were not able to transcend this energy during our time, 2,000 years ago. The energies were extremely heavy during our lifetime, and now, Dearest Ones, you have all come forth, you’ve heard the clarion call, stand in the power and the energy and the truth of who you are, and today the energies have been set free. And so, celebrate, as they say, by allowing the balloons to be released, and you are setting yourself free, letting go and letting God, letting go and letting God. And so, Dearest Ones, know that Jeshua and I and Sarah are standing with you, and we will help you to return to balance, all you have to do is ask. If you still feel a bit unsure about your ability to let go, and to surrender, we are here to help you. It is with your intent that it shall be. As simple as your intent. Surrender to the energy of the Holy Spirit, and allow peace to enter into your life. This is your choice, this is your life. And yes, Dearest Ones, you are now able to live in a world that is filled with freedom and peace and love. We cannot tell you, Dearest Ones, how excited we are, we cannot share our enthusiasm, as greatly as we are experiencing it here. There is so much jubilation, so much excitement, and so much anticipation as to how the Earth is going to shift in consciousness, and how humanity will follow. Yes, Mother Earth has shifted her consciousness, and now humanity will begin to follow.
And so, Dearest One, you will begin to see the changes quickly, there will be a softness and a soothing of energy, that is being felt upon your Earth plane. It will be palpable, people will begin to feel it, and it will soften the hearts of all those, even the hardest of hearts will begin to soften, and begin to feel this vibration. The promise has been kept, as they say, that the Earth and its inhabitants will once again return to its original state of love, peace, harmony, and joy. So allow this to be a part of your life and your world, and allow the holy spirit to guide you. Let every day be a day of renewal, and revive yourself, revive your physical body and your mental mind and your emotional mind, holding the frequency of the purest of energy. You have all gone through so much through your numerous incarnational cycles as souls upon this Earth plane. And we applaud you for your courage and your willingness to serve. You see, today is the graduation day, it is a powerful, powerful celebration. And so know, Dearest Ones, that you are now in many ways being held accountable, because you have chosen to be the first wave of light workers, who are now receiving this energy and this information on a conscious level. You are the first wave of humans who are receiving this information. And so, there is a level of responsibility to hold and carry this frequency for all the world to see, for again, Dearest Ones, you are the change, you are the change, you are the change. You are the embodiment of the masters that are now living on this planet. You are all the embodiment of physical spiritual beings who are living on this Earth plane. Ascended beings of light, ascended masters. And know, at this time, how important it is to allow yourself to receive.
This is a very, very, very important day, far beyond what you can comprehend. You see, we celebrate you, and we are grateful onto you, for without each and every one of you, this could not have occurred. All the light workers, all the beings of light have held their consciousness high, so that the ascension and the transition of the lower frequencies can be transmuted. St. Germaine is here with us as well, and the violet flame of transmutation is now held within your heart. St. Germaine brings you the violet flame into your heart, transmuting all of the pain, sorrow, and lower frequencies of energies. Accept his gift of the violet flame, and see it beginning to purify so that you truly, as we have said, are free. This is a day that God has made, and it is good. Remember the power of the holy spirit that lives inside of you. This is a day that God has made, it is good and rich. Remember, the Holy Spirit that lives inside of you, and so, Dear Ones, feel the anticipation and the excitement of the new day dawning. This is a new Earth. You are the new Earth beings, you are the new Earth species, unbeknownst to you, your DNA has been altered to hold and carry this vibration of peace at a greater level. And so, you are, in many ways, the chosen ones who are allowing yourselves to transcend, to transcend from the lower vibrational frequencies of the Earthly life and to live in joy and remembrance of your divine spirit, of your divine presence. What a powerful day, Dearest Children, as you begin to feel the divine presence growing inside of you. The holy spirit igniting within you, being ignited within you. You are the celebration, you are the key to unlocking the door for others to see and to feel and to know, that the energy of the revival, of this new frequency, of peace and love, is here for all to embody. Mother Earth is indeed very delighted, for you will begin to see much beginning to shift within her energy field, and there will be a calmness that will occur upon this planet. Yes, Dearest Children, there will be a calmness that will occur upon this planet. And so we are so pleased that Mother Earth is finally going to return back to her original state. It is what we’ve all been working towards for eons and eons and eons of time, it is all that we have been striving for.
And so, my daughter Sarah will bring forth her new book and help each of you to return to balance, both individually and collectively. And so, know, Dear Ones, that time is of the essence, and truly, there is no time to waste. Time is of the essence, and there truly is no time to waste. Time is of the essence, and there truly is no time to waste. Be the change you wish to see, now, Dearest Ones, it is possible. You literally are holding and carrying the vibration of the Holy Spirit more fully, more effervescently within your soul. And you will feel it. Allow it to be. Allow your lives to change and to shift in the greatest glory, and allow your heart to open to this true sense of freedom. This is a time of renewal, this is a time of true revival. What an exciting, exciting time to be alive upon your Earth plane, and to be a part of this Great Conclave. Yes, Dearest Ones, you were all at the Great Conclave, when my beloved Yeshua, Lord Sananda, spoke to all of you, and you are now here, receiving and being anointed into this new frequency, into this new conclave. Truly, it is a blessed day, and all the heavenly hosts and the Great Creator are very pleased. The energy of the Holy Spirit is alive and well, and there is so much more that shall be brought forth. And so, allow yourself to feel it and to sense it and to know the energy of truth, that peace and love and holy grace are here, and shall remain throughout eternity. Your planet and all souls have shifted into peace. Go, my children, and receive this powerful frequency that is being brought forth through your lunar eclipse, knowing that this frequency is holding the power of love. Go now, my children, and be still, and know that you are God. Allowing the energy of the heavenly host to be with you and allow your heart to open to eternal grace. In this we thank thee, and so it is. | 2019-04-21T00:54:53Z | http://www.blogs.linktoexpert.com/LeaChapin/1/2/2018/71899.aspx |
I don’t really like making listicles. It is one thing that has single-handedly destroyed the substance and depth of online content. However, I think the time has come to make this one. In recent times, I have noticed that the word “offbeat” is used very frivolously. There are “offbeat” lists on Himachal that include places that have been in the tourist radar since the age of Roerich and Chetwode. I understand that familiarity is also relative but still… no… Kasol, Malana, and Chitkul are NOT offbeat!
So, I wanted to make a genuine top 10 unexplored list but too many names came up! That too after completely excluding the entire Parvati Valley, Spiti Valley, and anything in the 50 KM radius of Manali, Dharamshala and Shimla. It is possible that you can still find something interesting and obscure around these places but you will never be too far from a crowded tourist hub. For that reason, I have decided not to mention Lower Kinnaur (Kalpa-Peo-Sangla-Chitkul) and Spiti. They still remain a great destinations but you know that already, don’t you?
The primary criteria I am using here is the lack tourists on ground and lack of chatter on the social media as per my observation. Some of these names will be a bit more familiar than the others but overall, they can offer you that much needed dose of desolation to genuine misanthropes. Most of these areas don’t have expensive resorts but HRTC buses connect them all.
So, what I am doing is that I am listing out entire regions or circuits and not just solitary towns or villages (otherwise there will be too many names). You can easily spend a week exploring any of these regions and you can find secluded valleys, villages, cultures and treks in these regions. Some of these should also be ideal for quick weekend road trips from Delhi.
Where else will you see patterns like these?
Enough can’t be said about Pangi, but I have already said whatever I had to say about it in numerous posts about the Sach Pass, Killar, Hudan, and Sural. It is practically the last frontier yet to be broken by the Himachal tourism boom. In the olden days, it used to be a site for Kala Pani (exile) for criminals of Chamba Kingdom. Biker gangs and SUV enthusiasts travel there mainly to prove their mettle on what they call one of the “most dangerous roads” on earth. However, I think this is only one of Pangi’s charms. The real joy of Pangi lies in its frontier villages, and the inclined slopes that lead to them. I will soon make a detailed guide on the valley.
How to Reach Pangi: Bus or shared cars from Keylong (130 Kms) or Chamba town (160 Kms) to Killar. Both routes will take the whole day. From Killar you get local buses to the villages and you can also opt for a long walk/hike like I did on many occasions.
Stay in Pangi Valley: There are two hotels and one homestay in Killar. Inner villages have no private accommodations but there are a couple of Government rest houses in Hudan and Sural that need to be pre-booked from Chamba.
Firstly don’t confuse Gada Gushaini with Gushaini in Tirthan. These are two different places. I hadn’t considered this route even till the beginning of this summer. But once I left Jibhi end entered that stretch, it took me by surprise. It is a part of Mandi district, and not far from very popular Jibhi-Jalori stretch. Yet, the roads were as dangerous as Pangi and finding ATMs and homestays was a challenge. But this is what keeps this region pristine and you can have a view of the culture of the seraj region in its rawest form in various ancient temples in this region. Eventually you can go out of this region through Janjehli, which is described in the next section.
How to Reach Gada Gushaini and Chhatri: You can get buses from Jibhi or Banjar. Number of buses will not be very high so be careful and aks locals about the timings. Jibhi to Gadagushaini is around 10-11 KMs. Chattri is another 15 odd KMs from Gada Gushaini. Interestingly, it is of the last remaining areas that have still not been properly mapped by Google. So, if you check Google maps, you will get nothing but confusion. All you can do is to trust me and then trust those HRTC drivers.
Where to Stay in Gada Gushaini: Gadagushani has a new budget homestay where I stayed, Bahu has a more luxury homestay as per my knowledge. There may be a couple of options in Chhatri and in fact the temple pries invited us to stay, so you are in safe hands.
Janjehli and Karsog are no far from aforementioned places but these two have better connectivity and faiclities. Especially Janjehli is a more popular tourist spot with a lot of homestays. You can trek to the Shikari Devi temple from both these towns or you can start from one, do the trek, and move on to the other town. This area is very fertile and scenic. Apple orchards are common too and so are various ancient stone temples. Choose the summer or post-monsoon to trek for Shikari Devi as raisn make it difficult. However, Karsog in Monsoon is a heavenly sight. The trek to Kamru Nag is also in the same region but directions may be confusing. It is another nice day trek to an ancient temple and lake.
How to Reach Janjehli or Karsog: You get buses to both places from Mandi (around 90-100 KMs). Karsog is also directly connected to Shimla (110 Kms). For Kamru Nag get a bus to Rohanda from Mandi.
Where to Stay in Janjehli or Karsog: Janjehli is full of nice homestays in INR 300-500 range, that too set amidst apple orchards. At Karsog, back in 2013, there were a couple of not very sophisticated hotels. But newer things must have come up now. For Kamru Nag, you can get a basic room at Rohanda.
Bharmour, which is a very small town with a disproportionate number of homestays, was the ancient capital of Chamba Kingdom. It is around 60 KMs from Chamba town and the starting point for the epic pilgrimage called Manimahesh Kailash Yatra and even more epic Kugti Pass Trek to Lahaul. Even if you don’t do the big treks, you can find enough local trails and detours around the region to keep yourself occupied. Unfortunately I reached Bharmour at the fag end of a very long summer and only managed to pay a visit to the Chaurasi Temple. I had lost the energy to explore much and I will have to return soon.
Budget Hotels in Bharmour: There are many hotels and homestays in Bharmour in the 500-700 Range. Some of them even offer free Wi-Fi. There should be a FRH in Kugti Village too.
Here is a good post by Travelshoebum on Bharmour-Hadsar-Kugti stretch, that too in the winter.
Rohru is a pretty big town located on the banks of Pabbar River. However, I found it to be too crowded for such a remote location and also it was one of the least touristy places I had ever seen in Himachal. Hatkoti is a smaller place near Rohru with an ancient temple but the main attraction is the Chanshal Pass (3750 metres). If you cross the pass, you reach Dodra, and then Kwar, two of the remotest villages in the state. You get buses from Rohru although I could not undertake this epic trip this time due to various reasons. But I will do it soon.
How to Reach Rohru: Bus from Shimla ISBT (110 Kms but takes ages due to bad roads). It is also connected to Uttarakhand through the Har ki Doon side. You can get buses going towards that side too and I did undertake this journey to Hanol along the Tons river and then walked 15 Kms to Mori for no particular reason.
Stay in Rohru: It is a big town with many hotels catering to various budgets including a HPTDC one.
While I have not done much in this region here is a good post on reaching Dodra-Kwar.
One of the shortest yet best detours this year for me has been the one to Shangarh Village. And there is much more to do in Sainj. The reason why I am including this is because Sainj somehow gets overshadowed by its cousin Tirthan Valley, which is more touristy and more expensive. Sainj and Tirthan are the primary constituents of the Great Himalayan National Park, an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Sensuous meadows, tower temples, rarely visited treks, local cultures, everything can be experienced if you are willing to take that leap of faith.
How to reach Sainj: Buses run from Aut Tunnel to Sainj and Neuli. Beyond that you may have to look for local cars or hike.
Where to stay in Sainj: There are good homestays in Shangarh.
Miyar offers you the best of both Himachal and Ladakh. It is a high altitude valley sandwiched between Zanskar and Pir Panjal ranges. The sheer bus ride through the fecund Pattan Valley and then the surreal Miyar Valley to Shukto, the last roadhead, is an exhilarating affair and the trek beyond it is the stuff that misanthropic dreams are made of.
How to reach Miyar: You get direct buses from Keylong in the morning that passes through Trilokinath and Udaipur.
Where to stay in Miyar: The homestay is located just at the point where the bus stops and turns back.
Lahaul is not unknown, but it is surely underrated. People halt at Keylong to go to Ladakh. But Keylong deserves attention too. The ancient monasteries around Keylong deserve a lot of time apart from the sheer landscapes of the Bhaga Valley. There are other landmarks in places like Tandi (Guru Ghantal Gompa), Sissu, and Gondhla. The other important attraction remaining in Lahaul is the Neelkanth Mahadev, a high altitude lake that requires several days of trekking to reach.
How to reach Lahaul: Just take a morning bus from Kullu or Manali to Keylong.
Where to stay in Lahaul: Keylong if full of budget hotels. Many of them even offer free Wi-Fi.
Now, Kinnaur is very popular and so is Spiti. But the small stretch in Upper Kinnaur, where the roads are the roughest and the lands are at their driest, remains barely explored. At this point, you leave behind the lush green areas and enter the rain-shadow zone that continues to Spiti and then Ladakh. I am talking about places like Lippa, Asrang, Charang, Chango and many more. Eventually this stretch leads to Nako, which is again pretty famous. But in between, many of these unknown villages have their hidden temples, monasteries, and even wildlife sanctuaries. You can of course undertake the epic Kinnaur-Kailash-Parikrama to cover some of these villages. This is one area I have earmarked for the next year.
How to reach Upper Kinnaur: You will get buses from Reckong Peo bus stand to many of these inner villages, beyond that you will have to trek.
Where to stay in Upper Kinnaur: While Nako is a touristy place full of homestays, other villages are not known to have much tourism infrastructure. So, you will have to be dependent on the goodness of the locals, but they are known to be good people.
Hard to find detailed information on the places I am talking about.
And here is a good post on Kinnaur Kailash Parikrama by Color Odyssey.
Bairagarh is also the gateway to Sach Pass.
Churah region is another enigmatic region that remains minimally touched. It is the area after Chamba but before reaching Sach Pass. It has places like Tissa (Bhanjraru), Bairagarh, Devi Kothi etc. I have crossed, and even stayed in Bairagarh many times en route to, or returning from Pangi via Sach Pass. But the real charm of Churah is in its high altitude glacial lakes such as Ghadasaru Mahadev and Mahakali lakes beyond these small villages. This takes a bit of trekking as well as clear weather to reach any of these.
How to reach Churah: You will easily get buses from Chamba to most of these places.
Where to stay in Churah: You should find basic homestays in Tissa (Bhanjraroo) and Bairagarh. I am not sure about other places.
Further Reading: Here is a good post on Churah Tehsil (Not by me).
Barot itself is not offbeat. It has grown quite popular of late and even backing 2016 it was packed with homestays. But what I am interested in is the area beyond Barot. This is the chota Bhangal region, followed by the mythical bara Bhangal. Bara Bhangal is one of toughest treks in I discovered that takes you to one of the remotest villages in India. Very few people even try it. Nevertheless, there are many other village homes and other Trek routes in the chota Bhangal region beyond Barot.
How to reach Churah: You will easily get buses from Mandi or Jogindernagar to Barot, Lohardi, or Baragran. After that only option is to trek.
Where to stay in Churah: Barot has many options, so has Lohardi and some nearby villages.
Narkanda is famous in this region due to its proximity ot Shimla. However, to experience the apple country completely, you should go deeper to Kotkhai. The Kotkhai-Kotgarh apple belt has many secluded villages and valleys, all covered with apple orchards that turn red post-monsoon. The history of this region is also fascinating, as you can see from the epic Kotkhai Fort.
How to reach Churah: Any Shimla to Rohru bus will pass through Kotkhai.
Where to stay in Churah: Kotkhai has a few interesting homestays which are generally set amidst apple orchards as expected.
This is an interesting post about Kotkhai Fort that should give you some idea about the history, culture, and visual allure of the region.
Sirmaur is one district that eluded me for a long time. Finally, earlier this year, managed a not too satisfactory round through this district. I spent nights in Nahan and Haripurdhar. I also passed through Renukaji and I had passed through Paonta Sahib anyway because it is closer to Dehradun. I realized that this area has a long way to go before it catches up to rest of the state in terms of tourism. Nevertheless, this is what makes it offbeat. The most famous activity here is the Churdhar Trek, which can also be approached from Solan. I personally felt that Haripurdhar has a lot of potential in terms of views.
How to reach Sirmaur: You will get buses to Nahan from Shimla, Solan, or Dehradun. Other places are connected with Nahan. Nohradhar (base for Churdhar Trek) is also connected with Solan.
Where to stay in Sirmaur: Most major places like Nahan, Haripurdhar, Nohradhar, and Renukaji have hotels. But I struggled to find tourist-friendly budget homestays that thrive in other districts of HP.
Himachal regulars must have heard of Pin Bhaba Trek. You must have crossed places like Chaura, Bhabanagar, Wangtu, etc while going to Kinnaur and Spiti. But I am sure very few have taken the detour from Wangtu to Kafnu. These densely forested areas are a part of Rupi Bhaba sanctuary. From Kafnu you can go for the aforementioned Pin Bhaba Trek to reach Pin Valley in Spiti. Apart from this somewhat popular trek, there are many trails inside that have rarely been explored by anyone. You can also trek from Chaura through the Rupi Bhaba Sanctuary. I have been eyeing this region for a long time but even I have failed to do justice to this area and can’t even produce a photograph as of now. I hope I can sort this out soon.
How to reach Kafnu: There should be at least one direct bus from Shimla to Kafnu. Otherwise, get into any Peo-bround bus from Shimla/Rampur to Wangtu.
Where to stay in Kafnu: There are some basic options in Kafnu. There are also some Forest Rest Houses (FRH) at various locations within the sanctuary such as Rupi and Salaring.
After a lot of effort, I found one post with details for the Rupi-Bhaba trek from Chaura.
So, this is it for now. I planned to list only 10 to start with but now it has become 14. There were others in my mind that I did not include due to lack of available details. I intend to explore them sooner or later. So, this list will keep growing.
Brilliant post and like the stright forward tone at the start.
Superb. Listicle it is not, by any angle.
Brilliant post man. I am from Himachal and have been to most of the places but your post made me realize that I am yet to plan some of these places well. I visited some of the these places during childhood for family get-togethers, so didn’t look at those places from travel perspective. Good job in compiling this list and I am sharing it on my Himachal page.
Thanks Jitaditya for a great listicle. Its been always pleasure to read you. Thanks for sharing and keep sharing.
Hi VJ, Can you please share link to your Himachal Page ?
This is brilliant sharing my friend. Happy that we have covered 5-6 places already and will check the others soon.
Brilliant post. So many places to visit and I wish they remain hidden.
Awesome pictures and brilliantly penned. I feel like planning NOW!
Wow! This area is a hiker’s paradise, Jitaditya! Which one of these places is the best place for hiking?
An ansolutely stunning post. I wish I could explore all these places. Thank you for sharing this.
There seems to be a consensus of brilliant in the comments and I agree fully. I am torn on listicals. As a medium that promotes structure over content, they turn my stomach. In this post, you have a solid presentation but also a great pacing of relevant facts and observations. Bravo. I would love to explore the Himalayas, but wouldn’t want to get caught up in the normal Instagram churn. The Sainj Valley seems like a great way to have this kind of trip.
This is such a phenomenal post. First of all I have never heard of Himachal Pradesh and now I would love to visit. The Churah Region caught my interest because of the mountains. Your description and picture just makes it a great place to explore and be adventurous.
I personally don’t have an issue with listicles, as long as they are done well and informative. And your listicle is quite good! I haven’t heard of any of these places, which makes the list particularly refreshing. The landscape in these areas is so beautiful, and are great alternatives for people like me who like to explore regions that fly under the normal tourist radar.
I so agree with you about listicles. I also agree that this list about the off-beat places in Himachal Pradesh was worth writing and worth reading. The Miyar valley and the Churah region will top my list. I can’t wait to explore India!
I love unexplored places! Though I do agree that the word offbeat has becom somewhat of a buzzword recently. People seem to use it because they think it will improve their tourism, so I appreciate a litst of genuinely unexplored places.
Sach Pass and Pangi Valley sound beautiful, and adventurous with those roads! And the Miyar Valley is another which would be on my list. The trek to Shukto sounds like it’s a must, and I love that you can organize a homestay for a truly authentic experience.
Thanks for putting together this list!
I never heard of these places before but I have not explored much of India (yet) . . The Himalayas are still a pending subject for me. Hopefully I will go to Ladakh soon and I would not mind adding a couple of your suggestions on the way to it. I especially loved Sainj Valley picture /description . .
These are actually offbeat tourist places of Himachal and we are going to love them. You have compiled them so well with all the required info. The chamba district is on our list for the next Himachal trip. We have just been till Karsog but nowhere beyond it. The places beyond it looks really great and Sainj Valley has won my heart.
This is one listicle that was probably long awaited. I only hope that these genuinely off beat places remain that way and people do not make a beeline to them rendering them otherwise 🙂 All of these places are charming and their exclusivity is what adds more allure to their charm. I am particularly fascinated by Gada Gushaini and Chhatri as you mention that even Google has not reached there.
I can’t get over how beautiful all of your photos are! I don’t mind listicles. But yours have a bit more info and it’s not like any that I’ve read before, so thank you for contributing this! 🙂 I haven’t heard of most of these places and I’d like to visit all of them!
Hey..can I go to these places with my family? Is the accomodation facility really good there?
These are really so much amazing places and I have never heard about such beautiful places before. Can you please suggest me which one is the most convenient place for the solo trip from all these beautiful locations?
Damn good post. Loved every bit of it.
However, in Sirmaur, the only solo travel worthy place (which is truly offbeat) is not around the Renuka Lake side of things. | 2019-04-19T21:06:20Z | https://travellingslacker.com/offbeat-tourist-places-himachal-pradesh/?replytocom=94698 |
All that is my big buildup to an apology for not announcing the two winners of the Happy Flower Quilts book! Congratulations to Monique of Farm House Quilts. Monique's favorite flower is the hollyhock. And congratulations to Mary of @hueymary on Instagram. Mary's favorite flower is the primrose. I'm pretty sure of that... she told me so three times!
I haven't had a whole lot of time to sew, but I have managed to keep mostly up-to-date with the two Fig Tree mystery block of the month programs that I joined. First is the sunny, breezy Nantucket Mystery Sampler.
I was happy that I had extra text fabric in my stash so that I could have all the words going in the same direction. I wonder if they'll be completely upside down in the finished quilt?! There was also one word that was misspelled in the print, and that drove me crazy... so I deliberately cut around it, and that word doesn't appear in my blocks.
And then there is the Red and Cream Mystery Sampler. We're making two 10 1/2" blocks each month.
So that's what's happening around here. Thank you for stopping by today! Coming very soon will be the house photos before the renovation.
Hi everybody! It's time for the next installment of the Patchwork Quilt Along 2017 blocks. I think that these Box-In-A-Box blocks were the quickest things that I've sewn in years. They'll add a nice counterpoint to some of the more delicate blocks coming in future months.
I thought that it might be helpful to share how I've chosen my fabrics for the blocks. Each month I've tried to include a variety of prints: gingham, ditsy and large scale floral. I've reserved the medium and large scale florals for the blocks with larger pieces, and I am using the smallest prints for the blocks with the smallest pieces. I've also tried to have an even distribution of color each month (there isn't any green this month, so I'll make sure that I include it in next month's blocks). And while I'm using a Fleurs fabric bundle that includes white prints, I'm deliberately not using the white florals in this quilt because I don't feel that there is enough contrast with the cream background. They'll be put to good use in a future project!
Patchwork Quilt Along is sponsored by Fat Quarter Shop and Moda Fabrics. You can find a link to the pattern here, as well as a kit to make the quilt in an alternate fabric collection. The monthly block patterns are free, but please consider making a donation of $5 or more to Make-A-Wish.
Thanks for stopping by today! I'll be back very soon with a winner of last week's book giveaway as well as some new projects that I'm working on.
Now go sew your Patchwork Quilt Along 2017 blocks!
So let's talk about the book. I've known about the elusive, legendary Happy Flower Quilts book by the great Atsuko Matsuyama for several years. Some of us have referred to it as "the pink book." I wanted that book so badly, but it was only available in Japanese print. But now everything is coming up roses because there's a brand new English version!
Now that you know the history of the book, let me show you my project!
My Lovely Vines pillow is an interpretation of the Lovely Vines quilt. The quilt is by far my favorite project in the book. It features five columns of leafy vines alternated with postage stamp columns. I'd love to make the whole quilt some day. To make my pillow, I purchased a fat quarter bundle of the latest Antique Flower Pastel fabric by Lecien for the leaves. How pretty is this fabric?! I used one of my favorite light green prints for the stem - it's High Tea by Jera Brandvig for Lecien.
My leaves were made by tracing the applique shape onto freezer paper. Then I applied starch to the edges with a small paintbrush and pressed them to the paper with a hot, dry iron. It's my favorite way to prep applique shapes because I'm able to get nice clean edges with no distortion. And for my stems, I used a Clover bias tape maker, although the book illustrates an easy method that doesn't require any gizmos. I hand appliqued the shapes using Kimono silk thread in Zen Zen 375 and a number 11 straw needle (I even use these needles to stitch quilt bindings), and then hand quilted around each shape and a grid in the background. You could definitely speed this up by using iron-on fusible web and a zigzag stitch. I like the slower method, and it gave me LOTS of time to catch up on some older The Splendid Table podcasts.
The book has quite an assortment of projects that can be completed in a short amount of time. There are 30 patterns for quilts, mini quilts, pouches, pincushions, totes, satchels, placemats, wall hangings. There is piecing, applique, embroidery, 3-D applique and embellishment. And more! The book cover has an amazing sampler quilt. Plus, there are two large tear-out sheets of applique templates to be traced (some of which I might use for other projects. Those birds are too cute!). There is truly something for everybody here.
And now it is giveaway time! Zakka Workshop is generously providing a copy of Happy Flower Quilts at each stop of the book tour. Just leave me a comment letting me know which flower makes you happy and I'll chose a winner on March 1. Contest is open to readers of my blog, and it is also open to my Instagram followers. And be sure to check out the other stops of the book tour, too - there are some really pretty projects that I've seen!
Hello everybody! It's a new year, and I'm jumping right into it with the latest Patchwork Quilt Along, sponsored by Fat Quarter Shop and Moda Fabrics. Y'all know that I love a good quilt along, and this one benefits Make-A-Wish Foundation. I'll give you the details on that later. But first, here's a look at what we're sewing this year.
For the Patchwork Quilt Along 2017 we'll make 72 blocks. Ok, don't panic yet. Each month we'll sew 6 five inch blocks all using the same pattern. The blocks are all relatively simple and quick to sew - I think that this would even be a great project for beginners.
So those are my prints. And here are the first 6 blocks, called "Souvenir of Friendship."
And now for the full details. Fat Quarter Shop will release each new block pattern on the 15th of each month. The patterns are free to download, but a donation of $5 per pattern is requested to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Fat Quarter Shop and Moda Fabrics will match the donations raised up to $20,000 - how cool is that?! You can purchase the kit here, or if you'd like to use your own fabric, just scroll down within the item listing and you'll see the fabric requirements. (I'm using a fat quarter bundle of Fleurs along with yardage of the cream background fabric. These blocks don't need much fabric, so I'll have lots of leftovers, but I'm not complaining about that!) Here's a helpful block tutorial video.
If you've wondered why I have been absent for awhile, well... we've been busy house hunters! We closed on a home that I am in love with just a few days ago! I shared a photo of the outside of the house on Instagram, and I am hoping to write about the journey to homeownership here soon. And yes, I will finally have a real sewing room. Woo hoo! Here is our new home!
Hi everybody, and welcome to my stop on the First Blush blog hop! I've been patiently waiting for my turn to show you this cute pillow!
First Blush is a new fabric collection by Ruby Red Designs. It's full of florals, gingham and stripes. When Windham Fabrics asked me to join the blog hop I knew that I'd want to make something that would really capture the cheerful, vintage feeling of the prints. They're so sunny and optimistic.
First Blush by Ruby Red Designs for Windham Fabrics is just beginning to ship to retailers now. You can see the full lineup, along with a specially designed book, ruler and block-of-the-month over here.
And here are all the other stops on the blog hop!
October 24- Greg Jones Grey Dogwood Studio - me!
Now for a giveaway! And this one is pretty great. For each day of the hop, Windham Fabrics will give away a fat quarter bundle of the collection. along with a small thread box of First Blush from Aurifil for each stop of the blog tour. To enter, leave a comment with your favorite Halloween candy (I love Halloween candy!) Contest is open to all US and international entries through Thursday, October 27. Winners will be chosen randomly from comments posted on blog posts and will be announced on Friday, October 28.
Hi everybody! I hope that you had a great weekend! I've been enjoying the (very slightly) cooler temperatures here in Southern Indiana and the (barely) less humid air. I know that fall is supposed to be coming! I see plenty of leaves falling from the trees. But what's strange is that they aren't turning all those pretty colors that I expected to see. They go right from green on the tree to brown and crunchy on the ground. Where's the yellow? Where's the orange and red? I go for a long walk several times each week - I'm able to walk to Target and the grocery store, and there's ALWAYS a stop at DQ for a burger or ice cream, or usually both. Anyway, I love to step on as many leaves as I can while I'm walking. And when I step on a mushy leaf, well, that's just a wasted opportunity!
I had plenty of time to sew this past weekend. I've finished some of those blocks-of-the-months and sew-alongs (but I do have a Maggie quilt finish to show you in early November!) and I just wanted something "quick" to sew RIGHT NOW. I thought it was the perfect time to return to those Farm Girl Vintage blocks by Lori Holt. It's been months since I've worked on them, and I really want to get that sampler quilt done! First up, Garden Carrots and Shelling Peas blocks.
These blocks make me laugh. I use carrots in cooking all the time. But peas, not so much. I absolutely hated peas when I was a kid (why, oh why, did my parents insist that I eat them?!) and I still avoid them. But oddly, I love sugar snap peas and I can eat them freshly washed or tossed into pasta with basil pesto. And lately, I've started to add baby frozen peas into risotto, soup and creamy pastas.
Betcha didn't know you'd be getting a cooking lesson here today, right?!
Next, Summer Peach and Cold Watermelon blocks.
I'm using a mix of mostly Fig Tree along with Brenda Riddle fabrics for my blocks. I think that they complement each other really nicely. There are two really tiny mistakes with the peach block that I've decided I can live with, but you wouldn't even know it unless you compared the block to the pattern. It's a deliciously imperfect peach, just like the peaches that resulted in this summer's yummy cobbler (recipe here) and a disastrously icy ice cream (recipe in trash).
And next, Scrappy Strawberry and Pie Blueberries blocks.
Next... a Patchwork Pumpkin block!
This block sure gave me a chance to use scrappy orange prints! Many of these prints are several years old and had never been used. I unfolded those fat quarters and was really surprised to see that most of them were still intact. Now they're just fat quarters with a tiny 1 1/2" bite taken out of them! I added a small 2" heart to the center of the pumpkin just like Lori showed on her blog awhile ago.
So the fruits and vegetables section is now done. The pumpkin, strawberry and blueberries patterns are in the Farm Girl Vintage book. The other patterns are all add-on blocks and are sold separately. I bought just a few patterns at a time but now I have the whole collection. You can find links to the book as well as the individual patterns in the right hand column of Lori's blog here.
I have just 8 more blocks to make! I think I'll sew up some animals next: cats, cow, turkey, maybe a pig, maybe a sheep.
Finally, I'd like to chat briefly about comments on my blog. I love comments. And I love my readers :-) I often reply to you by responding to your comments right here on my blog. I hope that you are receiving an email from me with my reply. Unfortunately, my blog host (Squarespace) does not provide your email addresses to me. I've complained about this to them several times... after all, isn't part of having a blog the ability to open up a conversation with my readers? I've been tempted to move to Blogspot, but I now have almost three years of blogging history right here. (I do have the addresses of several of my long-time readers, and I'll reply to them directly by email.) I love my blog because I get to say so much more here than on Instagram... although I do love Instagram too, where I am @greydogwoodstudio. So just please know that I appreciate ALL your comments, and I really hope that you receive my replies.
I have a finished quilt to share with you today! You might have already seen some of these photos if you follow me on Instagram. But I had even more pictures that I wanted to share with you here, along with some of the details. But first... let's roll the slideshow!
This is the 2015 mystery block-of-the-month sampler from Fig Tree & Co. I sure learned a lot while making it. There were some diamond shapes, tiny pieces, bias edges and even applique. I substituted a few classic Fig Tree pieced blocks in the place of some appliqued blocks, but I tried to keep the same overall feel of Joanna's design. I stalled on the appliqued clamshells until the very end, and then I finally learned the procedure (and I'm so glad that I did!). I even substituted a few fabrics - I like to squeeze in some of my favorite Strawberry Fields prints wherever I can! I used the cherry print from Fig Tree's Farmhouse collection on the back. It was expertly quilted by Diana Johnson in the exact same way that she quilted Joanna Figueroa's quilt, and each block tells it's own story. I've been having lots of fun examining every block!
I've fallen behind on the mystery quilt for 2016, and I might never catch up. That's ok... I give myself approval to work at my own pace. There are four new Fig Tree blocks-of-the-month coming up in 2017. Signups started last week, and a few of them are sold out already. You can check here to see which BOM programs still have openings (I've signed up for the red & cream and Nantucket quilts).
Can I share how I took these photos? I dragged the quilt outside right after the landscaping crew left (don't worry, I hadn't washed the quilt yet), and there had been a rainstorm that morning. So the ground was covered with grass clippings and it was squishy with mud. As I snapped my camera I realized that there were teeny tiny mosquitos ALL OVER ME. You know, the kind that are so silent that you don't even know they're there? Oh yeah. Now the quilt has been washed and is draped on my bed, and I'm COVERED with mosquito bites. All this for the art of the quilt, my friends!
crossroads quilt along- the final month!
It's the very final month of the Crossroads quilt along! This is the month of the pieced backing. Ok, so before I show you my pictures, let me warn you. My iron DIED just as I was finishing this up. As in, spitting black coffee-colored gunk all over my cream fabric DEAD. So I never say this, but please excuse my wrinkles!
I am in love with this backing! It's a huge, 36" square block, surrounded by simple borders. The original pattern is a scrappy block; it is made with leftover prints from the front of the quilt, plus cream solid background and a cream print border. It looks great just the way it was designed. But sometimes I like to customize patterns just to be different. With the backing, I definitely wanted it to be non-scrappy. So I printed out multiple copies of the pattern and then colored right on top of them with pencils until I found the right color combo. Yep, I'm really hi tech and modern here!
Have I already mentioned that I love the backing now? I can easily flip the quilt over for a whole new look!
I used the Crossroads backing kit from Fat Quarter Shop (available here) and added in the pink and aqua fabric. Crossroads was a fundraiser for March of Dimes, co-sponsored by Moda Fabrics and Fat Quarter Shop. I'm so happy to see that the quilting community has raised over $12,000. While the monthly projects are finished, you still have the opportunity to make the quilt using either your own fabrics or the kit that I used, available here. A link to some additional details about the quilt along, as well as the monthly patterns and a link to the contribution page at March of Dimes is right over here.
Thanks for being there with me as I made this quilt throughout the year. I can't wait to send it off to Melissa for some custom quilting! A new charitable quilt along will start in January. I'll be sharing more details as we get closer to the kickoff, but you can see a sneak peek here. It'll be fun, and I hope that you'll consider joining us.
Oh wait, I have one more thing to share! Judi Duncan is the winner of the Maggie's First Dance September giveaway. Judi is working on a Dear Daughter quilt. Congratulations, Judi!
Hi everybody! It's the first Monday of the month, and y'all know what that means, right? It's time for the next block in the Maggie's First Dance block of the month! It was designed by Jacquelynne Steves, and it's a free pattern. This was the last individual block, and then next month we'll make the five simple connecting blocks. Doesn't it seem like we just started this quilt along yesterday? Once again, this month's block is relatively simple to construct once you've finished up a bunch of half-square-triangles and flying geese. I finally had a chance to fussy cut that cute rabbit print from Elea Lutz's Strawberry Biscuit collection.
You've probably already signed up to receive your copy of the pattern. But if you haven't, then head on over to Jacquelynne's website and sign up for her newsletter right here. And don't forget to check out this same block as interpreted by the other participating bloggers.
Finally, I have another giveaway for you! One winner will receive an assortment of patterns from Snuggles Quilts, valued at $30. For a chance to win, leave a comment here letting me know what you're working on (for more chances to win, visit Snuggles Quilts and the other participating bloggers). The giveaway will be open until Sunday, September 11 at 11:59pm Central. Make sure that I'm able to reach you if you're the winner! And for my US readers, I hope that you enjoy the Labor Day holiday!
Hello everybody! I hope that you all had a great weekend. We did some unexpected gardening... or should I call it un-gardening? Our flowerboxes and potted plants were looking, how should I say it, exhausted. Or dehydrated, maybe. The plants have been extremely prolific but I think that they were just plain tired (and potbound). The bugs all knew it too, and lately they've been on the attack. So we did some extensive digging and cleaning and bagging and sweeping, and now we're down to one potted geranium. I like to think of it as just clearing the way for chrysanthemums and pumpkins.
Anyway... I managed to get some actual sewing done, too! I've been adding to my collection of popsicle blocks. The tilted blocks are done and now I just need to finish the simple, straight up-and-down blocks, and then I can sash them together. What's interesting is that when I started the blocks I used very subtle cream print backgrounds, but now I find that I really like the busier prints like the grey dotted backgrounds. The pattern is by Fig Tree and Co and it's in the new pattern book Sherbets & Creams. You can check out the book and see the other patterns on Fig Tree's website here. I'm working with Moda Bella solids in a special Fig Tree bundle, mixed with cream backgrounds from my stash - Fig Tree, Minick & Simpson, Bunny Hill, Sweetwater, 3 Sisters.
And some new items found their way into my sewing studio this week! First, some really cute tins by Lori Holt for Bee In My Bonnet.
Are they the most adorable tins you've ever seen? The red tin also contains some notecards that correspond with the tin lids. They're sold as a set of 6 or individually here.
And then... more tins! These are the perfect size for holding a rotary cutter, scissors and thread, or let's be real here... they're perfect for holding sewing SNACKS (chocolate for me in one tin and Temptations treats for Miss Chloe Cat in another tin). Plus the new Jolly Bar Book by Fat Quarter Shop. It's been on my nightstand all week. Never mind that reading quilt books keeps me awake because then my mind goes to work, putting fabric combinations together when I should be asleep! (Same thing happens with cookbooks, only I start cooking in my sleep LOL!) The set of three tins is available here, and the Jolly Bar Book is here.
And I bought a few new patterns and charm packs, too. I often buy charm packs just to see what the fabric looks like before I invest in yardage. This week I added Grand Traverse Bay by Minick & Simpson. I love a good blue and white quilt - so clean and crisp and classic.
And I also picked up a copy of Me and My Sister's Precut Primer book and a charm pack of their latest collection, Brighten Up! I've always liked their bright, happy prints and I'm trying to figure out how to make them work for me.
So that's what's new in the studio this week. Oh no, I forgot something! The Seedlings quilt is back from being quilted by Melissa, and it's gorgeous. Now I need to bind it. You can see it on my Instagram page here, and I'll show you more pics here on my blog after I've finished the stitching. Happy sewing, y'all!
It's time for high tea! Welcome to my stop on the High Tea Party Blog Tour. High Tea is the premiere fabric collection from Jera Brandvig for Lecien Fabrics. I've long been a fan of Jera's way-too-pretty quilts (and I gotta admit, her little dog Paige is really cute, too, always hamming it up for the camera). Jera writes the blog Quilting In The Rain, although I know her best from Instagram. She is also the author of Quilt As You Go Made Modern. So when Jera asked if I'd like to join her on the blog tour my answer was a big, excited YES! The new High Tea collection is inspired by Jera's love of quilts and china dishes, and that's something that we have in common.
I love the names of her colorways: Fig Red, Butter Cream, Green Tea, Dusty Pink, Brown Sugar and Cottage Blue, and the prints include teapots, flowers and lace. And do I need to mention those strawberry prints?! They look just like the strawberries in my garden!
But I know that you're here for more than strawberries and tea, right? So let's serve up a High Tea pillow!
When I received the fabric, I knew right away that I wanted to do an applique project. This 18" pillow was done with two charm packs plus some border and backing fabric. To make it, I cut most of the charms into four 2 1/2" squares, and I left the charms with larger prints whole so that I could do some fussy cutting. The applique method that I used was freezer paper and starch to create the shapes. I then hand appliqued them to the base with silk thread, and finally, I hand quilted around each clamshell. I used to be afraid of applique, but then I watched this lengthy video with Joanna Figueroa, and I thought, hey, I CAN do that. Rather than do a full tutorial here, check out her video and you'll see how un-scary the process can be. Here are the supplies that I used. Notice the freezer paper templates that I used until they were scorched beyond recognition. And then there's the essential sewing snack!
And next, I really wanted to have a quilted pillow backing with a zipper. But I don't know how to do zippers! (I had one experience with zippers in design college. I actually sat there in the classroom in NYC crying over that stupid zipper and the other students had to rescue me.) Well, Jera has the perfect zipper tutorial on her website, and that was all I needed. It's EASY! The zipper isn't flawless, but I learned a lot and it functions, too!
These two pillows are already best friends, living side-by-side on my bed.
Thank you for joining me today. I hope you've enjoyed our time together for High Tea. And thanks so much, Jera, for inviting me to play along with your beautiful fabric collection. High Tea is available now at some of my favorite online quilt shops, here and here. And look for it in your local quilt shops, too. The blog tour continues all week long, and the schedule below has the remaining stops. Meanwhile, please join me on Instagram where you'll always see the latest projects that I'm working on.
Can anybody guess what I did on a rainy Sunday afternoon? I made this month's Maggie's First Dance block! It's a fun block-of-the-month project, and it only takes a few hours to sew each block. They're getting easier to make, because the same construction techniques are used throughout the project. If you need to practice making flying geese and half square triangles, this is the project to try! The pattern is designed by Jacquelynne Steves, and it is free. All you need to do is sign up for her newsletter, and then a new pattern is published the first Monday of each month. You can sign up here. We've done 3 blocks so far, with one more to go, then four connecting blocks, and finally the big assembly.
And if you like to applique and/or embroider, Jacquelynne has cute floral motifs that fit into the center squares of each block. I went with a focal print instead - I needed a place to show off the little animals in the Strawberry Biscuit fabric collection by Elea Lutz.
I'm sewing along with six other bloggers (and Jacquelynne, too), and it's fun to see how we each interpret the same pattern. Be sure to visit them to see what they're up to with their Maggie blocks.
And now it's time for this month's giveaway, sponsored by Eva Paige Quilt Designs! One winner from each of the participating blogs will receive the Mod-ified Trees table runner pattern AND fabric kit. It's perfect for an early Christmas project. Just leave me a comment letting me know what your Christmas color theme/scheme is. Red and green? Silver and gold? Pink and aqua? (Yes, I know that's a silly request, but I thought it might be fun. Lately, I'm loving the shimmery, frosty look, with a gazillion lights, and I cannot wait to put up the holiday décor again!) The contest is open to all, and it will close on Sunday, August 7 at 11:59pm CST. Just be sure that I can reach you by email if you happen to be the lucky winner!
It's Crossroads quilt along time again! This month I made the chain blocks that will link the blocks from previous months. It sure was nice to have simple, partially chain-pieced blocks to sew.
Sewing with red and pink fabric always puts me in a happy mood. For the block centers, my original plan was to go with just one color (either aqua or pink) but then I went scrappy like the pattern suggests.
Are you sewing along with the #crossroadsquiltalong? You can still join us! The pattern download is here, and it's free. A donation of $5 is requested to March of Dimes for the use of the pattern - we've raised over $10,000 so far! I'm using the quilt kit since I love the Fig Tree Strawberry Fields Revisited fabric so much. Watch the tutorial video here with Joanna Figueroa and Kimberly Jolly from Fat Quarter Shop. Joanna explains the inspiration for the chain block. And next month we get to start assembling the quilt top!
And I'd like to congratulate Lori Smanski! Lori is the winner of last week's giveaway, part of the Maggie's First Dance Quit Along. She'll soon receive a package of Thermoweb products valued at $60.
Now go download your pattern and start sewing!
maggie's first dance month 2, plus a giveaway!
Hi everybody! It's time for the second block in the Maggie's First Dance quilt along! It's a free block of the month, designed by Jacquelynne Steves. It was another fun block to stitch - just sign up for the newsletter which contains the FREE pattern, pick your fabric and start sewing. I'm enjoying using fun retro prints by Elea Lutz and Lori Holt in this quilt... plus a few Riley Blake ginghams.
I even learned something new while sewing this block. Jacquelynne has a super nifty way of making flying geese blocks. I thought I had seen just about every way there is of making flying geese, and then I received this pattern and thought "what a great idea!" - and I'm sure that you will, too. I won't give away the secret, but let's just say that you make them slightly larger and trim them down.
And I know that you're all waiting for the giveaway. This week, we have a fabulous quilter's package from Thermoweb. You've probably already tried (and love) their products, including Spray N Bond and Heat N Bond. One winner from my blog will receive a prize package worth $60! Just leave me a comment letting me know what you're working on this week, or where you're vacationing this summer. For more chances to win, visit the other participating bloggers to enter their giveaways, too.
The giveaway is open to Continental US readers only. This is due to the limitation on shipping aerosol products. (Don't panic, there's another giveaway for all readers, so keep reading!) Contest will close on 11:59pm CST on July 11. Please be sure that I can reach you by email if you are the winner, or another winner will be chosen.
There is an additional giveaway that is open to ALL readers (including HI, AK and overseas) over at The Quilting Gallery. Four copies of a digital pattern will be awarded. Follow this link for more details.
And finally, due to my oversight, I forgot to announce the winner of the Aurifil giveaway. Jodi Guerrero is the happy recipient of a designer box of thread, which is being shipped to her from Italy. I've already notified Jodi by email, and I can assure you that she is very happy.
Thanks for visiting today, and enjoy making your Maggie's First Dance blocks! | 2019-04-25T20:17:48Z | http://greydogwoodstudio.com/?offset=1492302395408 |
Josh is an accountant by day and a student, writer, and photographer by night. You can find more of Josh’s work on The Sweet Setup, Tools & Toys, the Day One Journal Blog, and his own site.
My wife’s sister lives about eight hours away and we get to see her sister’s family three or four times a year. Ever since they had kids, those three or four times a year have become a valuable chance to catch up with and get to know our nieces and nephews. Time has inevitably set in however — their kids are growing faster than we could ever imagine.
I’m sure this is how our parents looked at us as well. Before they knew it, their children were off to high school, going to university, getting married, and having children of their own.
But there’s a difference between my parents’ generation and my generation in regards to capturing those incredibly short periods of early childhood: My parents’ generation couldn’t as easily capture those moments. Cameras were far and away less prevalent than they are now. My parents bought a Canon SLR in 1990 right after they got married, but the film photos they snapped back then were extremely expensive and relatively poor by today’s standards. And, even worse perhaps, my wife doesn’t have proper baby photographs.
These photographs are seemingly emblematic today. Baby photos are a right of passage, as are kindergarten graduation photos, high school graduation photos, and engagement photos. I know people who can’t bear the thought of missing their sweetums walk down the aisle to accept their eighth grade achievement certificate.
I happen to find myself right in the middle of many of these events. From young children in the recent past, to university graduations in the near future, and to a wedding nine months from now, my camera is sure to be exhausted by year end.
Knowing this, and knowing my potential subject matter, I went on the hunt at Christmas time for the ultimate portrait lens in the Micro 4/3 system. My hunt wasn’t as exhaustive as my current lens hunts, but that’s mostly because of the widespread love for the Olympus 75mm f/1.8. After seeing some incredible photos across the web, and after getting some encouragement from new colleagues, I expended my Christmas money on a piece of glass that cost more than my camera body itself.
And, after using the 75mm for a solid four months, I can’t see myself skimping out on a lens again.
The Olympus 75mm f/1.8 was announced in May 2012 as one of Olympus’ M. Zuiko Premium lenses for the Micro 4/3 system. At the time of introduction, the 75mm f/1.8 was one of a kind in the Micro 4/3 world and no other lens matched the lens in terms of field of view, sharpness, or aperture.
Fast forward almost three years and not a whole lot has changed. Olympus has begun to release higher end lenses as part of the M. Zuiko Pro line that compete slightly with the 75mm and other manufacturers have released a few lenses in the same focal length range as well. Even still, the 75mm provides some of the best optics in the Micro 4/3 system and remains one of the highest quality lenses money can buy at this point in time.
The size of the Micro 4/3 sensor inside Olympus and Panasonic bodies is generally considered to be half the size of a full-frame sensor. This difference has an incredible effect on the photographic experience as a whole with these cameras, but when it comes to shopping, the biggest impact is in the field of view. Micro 4/3 lenses, as a rule of thumb, can have their focal length multiple by a factor of 2 to be brought in line with the generally accepted full-frame focal length. So, if you have the awesome Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens on your camera body, you’re actually using a full-frame focal length of 40mm.
Obviously this has an exponential impact on the focal length of telephoto lenses in the Micro 4/3 system. And it directly puts the Olympus 75mm f/1.8 in awkward territory.
Awkward because 150mm is quite a long focal length to be using on a daily basis. This focal length is often left for portrait photography, as it gives the shooter a chance to stand a ways back and let a scene develop naturally. Moreover, lengthier telephoto lenses are able to provide incredible background blur and subject isolation even at slower apertures. This is why bird photographers are able to make jaw-droppingly creamy backgrounds with lenses at f/4.0 and beyond.
All this adds up to a 75mm lens which is meant for shooting photos of people. The 150mm full-frame equivalent is ideal for keeping your distance and capturing scenes in an intimate and natural way. I find this 150mm focal length to be absolutely ideal for shooting photographs of my young nieces and nephews while they play in the living room. I can stand across the room and have the lens do most of the walking. The results have been nothing short of spectacular.
But, having said that, this personal focal length won’t be for everyone. If you tend to shoot landscapes, or yearn for artistic street photos, I can’t see the Olympus 75mm being a lens of choice. There’s too much reach in the 75mm to stay impersonal and it’s difficult to capture a proper landscape at the 150mm focal length.
You’re also going to have to look elsewhere if you’re hoping for a sporting lens or a birding lens. The fast aperture would be ideal for indoor sporting events, but the 150mm full-frame equivalent doesn’t always reach far enough for a baseball or hockey scene. And if it doesn’t work for a baseball scene, birding photographs are certainly out of the question.
Right off the hop, the Olympus 75mm f/1.8 may be a mixed bag depending on your goals. The 75mm lens is ideal for in-tight portraiture, blurry backgrounds, and dreamy photos. It’s not meant for anything a full-frame 75mm lens is normally used for. Ever since I purchased the Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro lens, the 75mm has spent the majority of its time in my camera bag. It’s just not an every day focal length. However, when it’s time to see my nieces and nephews, or when it’s time to venture outdoors for family photos, the 75mm quickly becomes my best friend.
Most full-frame lenses with a 150mm focal range are limited to aperture sizes of f/2.8. Canon and Nikon’s famous full-frame 70-200mm f/2.8 zooms are a great example of a telephoto lens topping out at f/2.8.
By keeping the 75mm as a fixed length, Olympus was able to build an incredibly fast f/1.8 aperture into its top-end M. Zuiko Premium lens. Like any other fast lens, the 75mm’s f/1.8 aperture is great for indoor portraits where light may be at a minimum or where you have moving subjects that are hard to freeze in your frame. Again, the 75mm points directly to the realm of baby and toddler photography; combining its long reach and fast aperture allows for intimate, natural scenes of young children doing their thing.
Many of the scenes I shot at Christmas time involved natural light from a large living room window and three or four munchkins flying around the house. Not once did I need to push ISO to its maximum in order to boost my shutter speeds and capture the kids while they moved around. Instead, my ISOs were able to stay well below 1000 and I was still able to achieve sufficient shutter speeds in dim light.
I’ll let you be the judge on this one.
The above photo was shot wide open at 1/160 and ISO 500. I still think this photo is one of the best I’ve ever shot and I chalk it up to the Olympus 75mm f/1.8’s fast aperture and intimate focal length. For this reason alone, I foresee myself keeping the 75mm well into the future — or at least until all my extended family’s kids have become too old for fun photographs.
I shot exclusively with the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens for the first six months after I bought my E-M10. That Panasonic lens put my kit lens to shame in numerous ways. Sharpness topped the list of improvements the pancake lens offered, but autofocus was a close second.
Imagine my surprise when I pulled the 75mm out of the box and the lens snapped to the proper focus point in a fraction of the Panasonic 20mm’s time.
The Olympus 75mm f/1.8’s autofocus is top notch. It uses Olympus’ Movie-Still-Compatible (MSC) technology which allows the lens to focus lightning fast. Further, this technology keeps the autofocus system completely quiet — perfect for those moments when silence is necessary, like in videography.
Technology and specs aside, this autofocus system was a saving grace two months ago when I shot my sister’s engagement photos. We headed out on a nippy January morning and I originally had the 20mm attached to my camera. I expected the 40mm full-frame equivalent lens to be my go-to choice for the more artistic kind of photos my sister was looking for.
A few shots in, and I realized the autofocus system was getting in the way. I remember looking at my wife with frustration in my eyes because I wasn’t able to capture what I was seeing in my viewfinder. After a few missed shots, I switched to the 75mm. I never looked back. The AF quickly focused right where I was aiming about 9 times out of 10, and if it missed, it quickly snapped to a new spot. The focal length of the 75mm pushed me back from the budding romance developing in front of us, but the autofocus was so far improved over the Panasonic 20mm that I was able to capture that romance instead of being a sole witness. Without a doubt, this 75mm lens and its fast autofocus system saved my sister’s engagement photos that day.
At this price point, it may be normal to expect a high-end, fast autofocusing system. I would venture to say the 75mm takes things beyond high-end and fast. This lens can snap to a target lightning quick and this has helped me take spot-on photos with not a moment to spare.
Naturally, being at the high end of Olympus’ M. Zuiko lens collection provides the 75mm f/1.8 with a quality build.
The 75mm f/1.8 is made entirely of metal. This can be felt the moment you pick up the lens. Despite Olympus’ claims of the 75mm being a lightweight lens, it isn’t a lightweight lens in relation to other Micro 4/3 options. The lens feels dense from the onset and will provide a small amount of added stress around your neck when carrying the lens on-the-go.
The lenses inside the 75mm are full of jargon, but I’ll spew them quickly. The 75mm has 10 individual lens elements in 9 groups and has 3 ED lenses and 2 HR lenses. Honestly, I don’t have a clue what this all means.
But, what I do understand is the beauty of the Olympus 75mm f/1.8’s front element. The front element is 58mm in diameter if you’re interested in adding polarizers or ND filters to your collection. Clearly more present is the very beauty of the front element — the way it refracts light makes even the highest quality Pro lenses look like toys. Although superficial in nature, I love putting the 75mm on my E-M10 body when I’m shooting photos of the camera body and lens combination. This lens looks fantastic and adds a spark of inspiration every time I pick up my camera.
The lens mount is made of metal, meaning the mount between camera and lens is as durable as it gets. At the smaller lens end of the spectrum, this metal mount doesn’t make much of a difference. However, as lenses get bigger, it becomes easier to grab the camera by the lens instead of by the camera body. At this point, a metal mount becomes paramount to making sure your lens doesn’t break in half.
The 58mm front element is protected by a 58mm lens cap. Normally, I would stay away from talking about a lens cap, but this lens cap actually disappoints me. It is unmounted by pushing in the notches on the sides of the lens cap. Overall, this wouldn’t be a big deal. However, once a lens hood is attached, the lens cap becomes extremely difficult to dismount. Olympus’ Pro lenses have a mechanism on the front of their lens caps which aids in quickly removing the lens cap with the lens hood mounted. It’s little details like this that push lenses into ultra-high quality territory, and the 75mm drops the ball on this one.
Despite the metal construction and beautiful element selection, the 75mm f/1.8 isn’t weather sealed. Many folks don’t need a weather sealed lens if they opt to shoot on temperate days. However, a lens at this price should include weather sealing. If weather sealing was cast aside in hope of selling higher end Pro lenses, I can’t help but feel cheated. At $900, weather sealing should be present, especially considering the build construction.
I’ve opted to create an entire subsection regarding the manual focus ring because it is the single biggest shortcoming of an otherwise outstanding lens.
For anyone comparing the 75mm to a less expensive lens, this entire topic may come off as nitpicking.
The manual focus ring on the 75mm doesn’t compare to anything offered on Olympus’ Pro lenses. The focus ring, although decently sized, feels like a poorer quality material than the rest of the lens. The focus ring feels plasticky when compared to the remaining lens materials and it gives the impression of being poorly made.
Second, the focus ring spins to infinity and has no distance meter. In comparison, the 12-40mm f/2.8 hard stops at infinity and 0.2m, which allows for focus at all areas in the focal range. The 75mm spins to infinity, making it increasingly impossible to pinpoint focus on a subject in the distance. It also makes it very difficult to spin focus back from a far distance to a subject closer to the lens. Focus peaking, which is fortunately included in all Olympus camera bodies these days, is a necessity when using the 75mm in manual focus mode.
Thirdly, The 75mm has a minimum focus distance of 0.84m, which quickly eliminates any hope of using this lens for macro photography. I remember pulling the lens out of its box in my car around Christmas time and trying to focus on the passenger side rearview mirror. Admittedly, we drive a small Honda Civic, so the distance from the lens to the mirror was fairly tight. Regardless, flipping the lens to manual focus wasn’t enough to pinpoint focus on that mirror.
Fourthly, Olympus has become known for their masterful manual focus clutch mechanism. This mechanism is built into all of Olympus’ Pro lenses, as well as the 12mm f/2.0 and the 17mm f/1.8. By pulling back the manual focus clutch, the lens automatically converts to manual focus. Pushing the clutch forward flops the lens back to auto focus.
This clutch mechanism is brilliant for finding the perfect focus point in a moment’s notice and eliminates having to feel around for buttons on top of the camera body. After playing with the 12-40mm for a month, I’ve found myself habitually looking for the manual focus clutch on the 75mm.
And finally, most of the manual focus ring’s shortfalls would be made up for if it felt super smooth when spun. Expectedly, the 75mm manual focus ring feels poor when rotated and spins far too easily for ideal control. Again, Olympus’ Pro lenses have a perfect amount of friction for controlling their manual focus rings and this friction has been left out of the 75mm.
From start to finish, the Olympus’ 75mm f/1.8’s manual focus ring is its biggest downfall. For all this lens’ incredible technology and specifications, this manual focus ring could use some work.
Alright, the name of the game. Realistically, I’ve said all the bad I can say about this 75mm lens. From here on out, all you’ll hear is praise.
The 75mm quickly became known as one of the sharpest lenses available for the Micro 4/3 system. From wide open at f/1.8, focus points are razor sharp.
Here are some sample images. Each image is shot from the same spot with the same light. The only adjustment made between photographs is a stop down in aperture.
Editor’s note: The images below come straight from the camera, both uncropped and unedited.
As can be seen in the above series of photos, this 75mm lens is sharpest wide open or stopped down to f/2.8. The results are stunning at f/1.8 and f/2.8, but nothing is dropped in quality until f/8.0 in my opinion. Granted, finding small discrepancies in sharpness has often baffled me, so take this for what it’s worth.
Based on the results above, the biggest hurdle to overcome in attaining a sharp image is the 75mm’s large f/1.8 aperture. For a Micro 4/3 lens, depth of field is quite small at f/1.8 and pinpointing a focus point will determine whether your image is sharp enough to your liking.
I’ve always felt optical quality of a lens and camera combination to be very subjective. Some people adore the vibrant Fuji greens, while others prefer more neutral tones.
Count me in Olympus’ camp — I couldn’t be happier with Olympus’ colour results right across the board. Colours are vibrant, but not overly vibrant and colour appears to be spread evenly across the spectrum without any specific tone standing out.
This puts the Olympus 75mm in my ballpark. The lens produces beautiful backgrounds with nine aperture blades — bokeh balls jumped brilliantly in my viewfinder at Christmas time. And when shiny lights don’t appear behind your subject, the lens makes sure to keep everything else smooth and your subject sharp.
I’ll let some photos do the talking.
It used to be that I would need to snap 50 photos to get a single good one. Experience as a photographer helps to bring that ratio down a bit, but equipment helps as well. The 75mm has single-handedly pushed that ratio to 40 or 35 to 1. There’s still a long way to go, but I’m thankful my equipment is working for me rather than against me.
At this point, I’ve spent about 2,500 words praising the Olympus 75mm f/1.8 portrait lens and another 1,000 words bemoaning its shortcomings. Really, I could have dwindled it all down to this: The Olympus 75mm f/1.8 has a sturdy build, a poorly executed manual focus ring, a snappy autofocus system, and absolutely top notch image quality. That sturdy build could be taken further, especially at this price, but it’s pretty easy to get over the lack of weather sealing when the SD card is popped into the computer.
I have done some soul searching as of late, though. The 75mm focal length is an awkwardly long one in the Micro 4/3 system and it can present some difficulty as a prime lens. The lens’ focal reach often pushes you into the wall as you hope to compose a proper photograph. I think this is the reason why so many longer focal lengths end up in zoom lenses.
This soul searching was intensified when I picked up the Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8. The quality of Olympus’ Pro lenses are truly second to none and the 75mm f/1.8 falls slightly short of the 12-40mm in my books. Because of this, I’ve had to consider the utility of a 75mm prime lens when the quality of the 40-150mm f/2.8 Pro is sure to knock my socks off. I’ve had to look myself in the mirror and ask myself if I’ll actually use this lens if I pick up the 40-150mm zoom.
Then, this past weekend, I picked up the lens after a few weeks of down-time. My niece ran around the house and in the outdoors during some of the warmest March weather in recent history.
And I remembered why I love this lens. It reminded me every time I fired the shutter.
This lens was built to shoot photographs of people. It captures those intimate scenes; those surprises at a moment’s notice; those quick, personal glances. It finds a way to capture the soul of its subject in a way I’ve never seen before. It nudges in close to find the truest, most pure form of the story.
There is nothing more fascinating than the unique, individual stories of people. If you want to shoot those stories, it’s time to pick up the Olympus 75mm f/1.8. It’s Olympus’ best foot forward in portraiture, and it’ll be your best foot forward as well. | 2019-04-23T01:04:29Z | https://www.olympuspassion.com/2017/10/18/olympus-75mm-f1-8-lens-review/ |
Case study: How much do you save on auto insurance when paying your policy in full?
During this time of year, there is an increase of auto insurance customers who pay their policy in full. This is primarily because people get their tax returns around this time of year. But the question is, how much do you really save on an auto insurance policy by paying in full? This is what I decided to do for this month's case study.
Down payment plus monthly installment premiums were totaled and compared to what the paid in full premium would be.
I picked 40 unsold quotes at random and compared the premiums when paying the monthly payments versus paying in full.
I took 10 quotes from four of my major carriers and compared the percentage of decrease to find an overall average percent of savings by paying in full.
No distinctions were made between the types of auto insurance policies or the states where the quotes came from. Everything was included.
No distinctions were made regarding a driver's credit score, driving record, or CLUE (prior insurance claims). Again, everything was included.
Quotes came from 6 different states: Ohio, Michigan, Pennsyslvania, Indiana, Virginia and West Virginia.
For each of the four carriers I used, I calculated that company's savings vs. other companies. This included both the average savings and the ranges from the lowest and highest savings.
I finally calculated the total aggregate percentages and ranges.
The overall total average savings by paying in full was 17.6.%.
The average savings of each of the four companies by paying in full were 16.4%, 24.3%, 12.8% and 16.9%.
The total range of savings of all 40 policies in the study were as low as 9.5% and as high as 28.3%.
The difference from one state to the next didn't seem to make any difference.
The difference from one company to the next was a small, but significant difference.
There was very little difference between those who paid 6 months in full vs. those who paid 12 months in full seemed to make very little difference. The 12 month full premium was almost always double what the 6 month premium was, minus only about a dollar or two at most.
If there is any way that you can afford to come up with the full six months payment, the least amount that you're going to save is around 10%, while the most you can save can be close to 30%. In my opinion, that's a no-brainer! And this time of year is the perfect time for many of you to do so because of tax refund season.
Before you buy mobile home insurance, you need to have a firm grasp of understanding the basic coverages. In this article, I will explain the 7 basic coverages of a mobile home policy. I will also answer some FAQ's about mobile home insurance at the end.
1. Dwelling coverage - This covers your mobile home and any permanently attached structures. This is the main coverage on the policy. When you're selecting a value, only include the value of your home. Do not include the value of land. Depending on the age of your mobile home, dwelling coverage can be insured on either a replacement cost or actual cash value basis. You should insure dwelling coverage with an amount of insurance at least equal to the market value of the home including all attached additions.
2. Other structures coverage - This provides coverage for unattached structure's which includes things like hot tubs, swimming pools, gazebos, utility sheds, docks, etc. Basically,any structure that is not permanent permanently attached to the home should be included in the value of other structures coverage.
3. Personal property coverage - This is coverage for losses to household items. Most companies Insure personal property coverage on an actual cash value basis. But some companies will let you upgrade to placement cost coverage on personal property for an additional premium.
4. Personal liability coverage - This covers you if someone else gets hurt or has property damage due to your negligence. This also includes legal expenses for your defense. Examples of this would be: if your dog bit somebody, if someone slipped on ice and fell on your property, the neighbors child gets injured playing in your backyard... things like that. Keep in mind that most companies have some key exclusions for this coverage. For example, most companies will not cover injuries resulting from the use of motor vehicles. And also, some company severely limit the amount of liability coverage offered if you have a swimming pool.
5. Medical payments coverage - Pays reasonable medical expenses for accidents on your property that caused injury to someone else. These payments are usually maxed out at low levels (usually $500-1000). They are basically designed as a settlement attempt to try to make someone "go away" that may otherwise file a substantially higher claim/lawsuit against you.
6. Damage to property of others coverage - Covers property that's owned by someone else that you damage. This coverage is usually offered at low amounts as well.
7. Additional living expense coverage - If you have a covered loss to your mobile home that makes it unlivable. This coverage will pay for additional living expenses such as hotel, food etc. during the time that you're unable to live in your mobile home.
Finding affordable mobile home insurance is not as difficult as you may think. The key to getting a great rate is to shop around with different mobile home insurance companies. The more companies you quote with, the better chance you have at getting a lower rate. The most efficient way to do this is to get a quote with an independent agent, and let them do the shopping around for you.
What types of mobile homes can be insured?
Any mobile home, manufactured home, modular home, or fifth wheel campers that are used as a permanent residence, and has permanently attached features to it.
With most companies (not all), a mobile home 10 years or newer can be insured on a replacement cost basis. As long as you keep continuous coverage, most companies will allow you to insure the home up until the 16th year. At that time, the coverage reverts to actual cash value basis.
I am financing my mobile home and need to keep insurance on it. How much coverage do I need?
Your bank will tell you the minimum coverage you need to carry. But you need to ask yourself, is that enough coverage? In the event of a total loss, will this amount be enough to start from scratch? In many cases it is not, and you need to raise coverage accordingly.
In most cases, Yes. Some of the companies I carry accept mobile home insurance for homes that other companies will not insure. I can not insure every mobile home, but I can try with some companies that are a little more forgiving about claims.
What happens when you need to have an SR22 state filing but you don't have a vehicle to insure with regular auto insurance?
You will then have to take out what is known as a named operator policy ( a.k.a. non-owners policy). You simply attach the SR22 filing to this policy instead of a regular auto insurance policy.
What's the difference between non-owners named operator policy and regular auto insurance?
The main difference is that regular auto insurance primarily covers the vehicle, whereas a non-owners policy covers the driver. This means that coverage only applies when the person on the policy is driving, no one else! Also, with the non-owners named operator policy, there is no coverage on the vehicle you are driving. The only coverage offered on a named operator's policy is liability coverage, medical payments coverage and uninsured motorist coverage.
How does a named operator policy compare with regular auto insurance as far as cost?
A named operator is cheaper than an auto insurance policy (and sometimes much cheaper, depending on your state). But understand why that is..... There is much less coverage.
What happens if I purchase a named operator's policy and then borrow a friends car and pull out in front of another car, and total both cars?
In this case a non-owners policy would cover the vehicle you hit and cover any injuries of people who were in the vehicle up to the liability limits of your policy. However, there is no coverage on your friends car that you borrowed. So you had best hope your friend is carrying collision coverage on their vehicle!
Does a named operator policy cover me driving my own vehicle?
No! There is no coverage on owned vehicles with a named operator policy. If you own a vehicle, you need a regular auto insurance policy instead. Some states have what is called a broad form named driver policy, which is similar to a named operator policy. Broad form policies do cover owned vehicles, but they have big limitations. I wouldn't recommend it if you own a vehicle.
What happens if I purchase a named operator policy and then buy a vehicle later on?
Auto insurance companies will handle it one of two ways. Some companies will simply add the vehicle on your policy and automatically convert the policy to a regular auto insurance policy. Other companies will have you cancel the named operator policy and simply rewrite it as a regular auto insurance policy. Either way, it's very simple to do and only takes minutes to complete.
How do I find the cheapest named operator policy rate?
The only way to find the lowest rate is to shop around with several companies. There's no one company that is the cheapest for everyone. The most efficient way to shop around is through an independent insurance agent. That way, the agent does all the shopping around for you.
When done correctly, getting an online auto insurance quote is the fastest and most efficient way to get the best coverage for the best rate .
When done incorrectly, you start to fall into traps as far as not having the right coverage, having coverage that you don't need, or paying more for coverage than what you should be paying.
Where you get auto insurance quotes from is also very important, as you will soon see. I have created a list of the eight biggest mistakes that I see most people make when they get a quote online. As long as you don't fall into any of the following eight pitfalls, you will be good to go far as getting the right coverage at the right price. All while spending the least amount of time shopping around for quotes.
1. Not understanding the basic coverages of an auto insurance policy. It is essential that you understand the five key parts components of an auto insurance policy.
Those are: liability, uninsured motorist, medical payments, comprehensive coverage, and collision coverage. If you would like to learn more about the basics of an auto insurance policy, feel free to listen to my short audio blog. Getting a quote without understand these 5 components is like throwing darts blindfolded!
2. Not asking questions when you're not sure about something. Don't just try to wing it! If you don't understand something, there's plenty of available help out there. Don't be afraid to do some quick online research, or call an agent and simply ask. By just winging it, you're missing out on important knowledge you need to make an informed decision.
3. Skimping on the cheapest and most important coverages. People tend to skimp on uncontrollable risks while at the same time spending a little extra on controlled risks. When in fact they should be doing the exact opposite. To learn more about why that is, have a quick look at my blog post about skimping on auto insurance coverages. Bottom line is don't skimp on uncontrollable risks such as liability coverage and UIM coverage.
4. Getting an auto insurance quote from a customer service rep. Many people simply like to look up a phone number online and then get a quote over the phone. And that's fine to do. But make sure you're speaking with an insurance agent and not a customer service rep. It's not that CSR's are bad, it just that they follow a sales script, and must steer you towards their company's best interest, not yours. I discourage you from doing that and suggest you go with an insurance agent instead.
5. Quoting with one company at a time. Although there's nothing wrong with this, it is very time consuming. It's very inefficient as far as finding the lowest rate. A better strategy is to get a quote with an independent agent who carries multiple companies that he/she can quote you with all at once. That way, you only have to get a quote once, and the agent will be happy to do the shopping around for you.
6. Getting a quote from a lead generation site. You may stumble upon an auto insurance website that allows you to get an online auto insurance quote. But yet nowhere on their website are any names, addresses or phone numbers listed. Watch out for those types of websites, as most all of them don't sell auto insurance at all.
Their goal is to simply sell your information to other insurance agents. And in many cases, a lot of agents! While this method may be effective as far as finding new the lowest rate, it will also cause your phone to blow up! Any an insurance agent worth their salt will at least put their name, address, and phone number on their website. If you don't see it, run for the hills!
7. Failing to include all drivers that should be listed on the auto insurance policy. If someone of driving age lives with you..... Or, anyone who does not live with you but has regular access to your vehicle, they need to be listed on your auto insurance policy. I've seen a lot of people run into big trouble with this. If your teenage driver lives with you and is not an insured driver on your policy, and he/she wrecks your car, you're screwed!
8. Failing to disclose everything about your driving record, accident and claims history. Companies are going to run your motor vehicle report and run your insurance history report (known as CLUE). Most all companies run these reports before you actually buy the policy and put it in force. A few companies may wait a couple days, but eventually they will run those reports and find out. You're much better off in the long run simply listing anything that you're aware of on your driving record or accident report or insurance claims.
Summary: By avoiding these 8 pitfalls, you will be able to find the right coverage for you, at an affordable price, spending the least amount of time and effort in doing so.
What are the major factors affecting auto insurance premiums?
There are a lot of factors that go into determining your auto insurance rate. Many of them are obvious. But there are a few factors that may surprise you. So I've created a list of the 10 biggest factors that affect your auto insurance rate.
Age -Age plays a very significant factor when it comes to younger drivers and older drivers. Younger drivers tend to file more claims (accidents) than do middle-aged adults. And therefore pay a higher rate. Younger drivers will continue to pay this increase although it will slowly diminish with most companies. The real landmark age tore you start to get a break with most companies is around 25 years of age. For older drivers, you might start to see slight increases in your premium past 70 years old and slowly increase up until 80. From 80 years on the increase starts to become sharper.
Location - People who live in larger cities tend to pay higher rates than people who live in smaller towns. This just simply has to do with the likelihood of having an accident being greater in a big city.
Living status - Homeowners usually pay a significantly cheaper rate than people who do not own their home.
Prior coverage - Having current auto insurance at least for the past six months will get you a significantly lower rate than someone who hasn't carried autoinsurance.
Marital status- Drivers who are married tend to have fewer claims and accidents versus drivers who are not married and therefore pay a lower rate.
Gender - Women tend to have less accidents and claims than male drivers and therefore pay a slightly lower rate.
Driving history - Obviously, someone who has a clean driving record is going to pay a lower rate versus someone who has tickets, accidents DUIs or other violations on their record.
Claims history - People who have filed auto insurance claims in the past, whether it be driving related or not, tend to have a higher probability of filing another claim. And thus, they pay a higher rate. Note: some companies do not rate comprehensive claims and count it against you. But most companies do.
Credit rating - You may ask yourself what does my credit rating have to do with auto insurance? Well, the fact is, statistics have proven that credit score is a better indicator of the probability of future claims than one's own actual driving record. For more information on how your credit score affects your car insurance rates listen to my short audio blog about your credit score and auto insurance.
Vehicles listed on the policy - This one goes without saying. But as far as liability coverage is concerned, generally a larger vehicle or a vehicle with a more powerful engine will tend to cost more than a smaller less powerful vehicle. Simply because they do more damage when an accident occurs. And of course, if you are carrying physical damage coverage on your vehicle (meaning comprehensive and collision coverage), the more valuable your vehicle is the higher the premium will be. | 2019-04-24T18:42:48Z | https://www.lylesinsurance.com/blog/archives/01-2014 |
In the 2013 election, I took some interest in the election result in Indi, a seat located in the north-east of Victoria. My interest was spurred by the chance that Sophie Mirabella, who was flagged to be the next Science Minister if the Liberal-National coalition won government, might be usurped by Cathy McGowan, an independent candidate. Also, I have some relatives in that part of the world, so I was interested to know who would be their local representative in what turned out to be a very close election.
I enjoyed trying to predict the outcome of the election in Indi, as counting continued over a matter of days. You can see an account of my efforts here. (As an aside, this is the most-read post on my blog – I have an alternative career option should I give up ecology!).
In predicting the winner of the election, there are two main unknowns that need to be determined – how the preferences are flowing to the two leading candidates, and whether the swing in votes is sufficient to usurp the sitting member.
Australia uses a preferential voting system. Voters select their preferred candidate in the seat for the House of Representatives, then their second preference, third preference, etc, until the voter has indicated their preferences for all candidates in the seat.
The initial counting of votes tallies these first preferences for each candidate. Then, the ballot papers of the candidate with the fewest votes are distributed to the other candidates based on the second preferences on those ballot papers. So if we had five candidates initially, the possible winners are narrowed down to four, and the ballot papers of the fifth candidate are then allocated to the remaining four candidates based on the second preferences.
Then, the ballot papers of the candidate with the fewest votes are distributed among the other three. This process continues until we have only two candidates remaining, at which point we have the two-candidate-preferred vote. After this point, the candidate with the most votes wins.
In trying to predict the winner of an election, a key part is predicting how the preferences will flow to the two leading candidates. The Australian Electoral Commission provides updates on first preference counts initially, and then two-candidate-preferred counts as they are completed. Because the two-candidate-preferred counts lag behind the first preference counts, it would be useful to predict preference flows. If preferences have been counted for a sample of booths, it is possible to model the flow of preferences – here is one way to do that.
We can see that in the Alexandra booth, Cathy McGowan only won 216 first preference votes, compared to Sophie Mirabella’s 715. But the 448 votes of remaining candidates flowed distinctly towards McGowan – on more than 78% of those ballot papers, McGowan was preferenced ahead of Mirabella, so she collected those preferences.
The flow of preferences was even stronger in Beechworth, where McGowan won almost 88% of the distributed preferences, but she got less than 52% of the preferences in Baddaginnie. You might notice a big difference between Beechworth and Baddaginnie in the first preferences. For example, the Greens won almost 7% of first preferences in Beechworth but less than 2% of first preferences in Baddaginnie.
We can model this flow of preferences as a function of the first preferences to predict the two-candidate-preferred vote from first preferences. Here, we are essentially aiming to predict the fraction of votes that flow from the first preferences of the other candidates to the two leading candidates.
We can build this model using linear regression, but we would like to constrain the model coefficients such that they are between zero and one; the coefficients estimate the proportion of voters whose preferenced one of the 2CP candidates ahead of the other.
Observed preference flows to Cathy McGowan versus fitted preference flows for each of the booths (and the non-ordinary votes) based on the 2013 federal election results.
These coefficients estimate that McGowan was preferenced behind Mirabella by almost all voters who put Hayes first (the estimated coefficient is zero), but she was placed ahead of Mirabella by almost everyone who put Walsh first (the estimated coefficient is 0.992).
Observed preference flows to Alexandra Bhathal (a Greens candidate) versus fitted preference flows for each of the booths in the seat of Batman (and the non-ordinary votes) based on the 2013 federal election results.
The model for Batman doesn’t work quite as well, largely because Bhathal received a greater flow of preferences from the non-ordinary votes (orange symbols in the figure) than from the ordinary votes. These non-ordinary votes are the postal votes (Bhathal received almost 1700 of the flowing preferences), absent votes (Bhathal received over 1000 of the flowing preferences), early votes (Bhathal received just under 1000 of the flowing preferences), and provisional votes (there were very few of these).
Interestingly, a similar pattern occurred in Wills, which is another inner Melbourne seat with a Greens candidate – it seems the Greens garnered strong preference flows from the non-ordinary votes in 2013. Whether that will be borne out in 2016 remains to be seen, but strong preference flows will be needed by the Greens if they are to prevail in Batman.
If you’d like to look at preference flows for yourself for different seats in the 2013 election, then you are welcome to use my R code that I wrote – it scrapes the data from the AEC website, runs the model and prints out the result.
The code is best run using the source command in R so that you are prompted to select the seat from the list of lower house seats (or you can just specify the seat number directly from within the code). And please excuse my R coding – I know it is clumsy in places, I am learning, and am yet to figure out R’s data structures properly to do vectorized operations (among other things I don’t understand).
Also, I haven’t checked that this works on all seats – there might be some anomalies that I haven’t accounted for.
formula <- "nflowed ~ a*otherfirst[, 1]"
Well, I hope you found that interesting. We’ll see what happens in the 2016 election… I might do something about swings in a second post if I have time.
Attempts to identify invasive species have usually compared their traits to those of non-invasive species. Yet invasive species are classified using all sorts of criteria. Firstly, they might be exotic species that reach high abundance when present in an area. Or they might be species that have wide geographic ranges (because the environment in which they occur is common), or have wide environmental tolerances. Or they might be species that spread rapidly. Or they might be species with various combinations of these criteria.
Are orange hawkweeds regarded as being invasive because they spread quickly, potentially reach high local abundance, have broad environmental tolerances, or because they might spread across large geographic areas? Or is it some combination of these? Attempts to identify the traits that make species “invasive” should work better by examining these biological dimensions separately.
If we just think of these four criteria, then a species might have any one of 16 possible combinations. And only one of these sets of criteria would represent a species that would categorically be “non-invasive”. So we might have (at least) 15 forms of invasiveness (24 −1 = 15). And if you add a fifth category (e.g., species having adverse impact), then we would end up with 31 possible forms of invasiveness (25 −1 = 31).
The 15 possible forms of invasive species (and the one form of non-invasives species). The size of the pie slice identifies the proportion of studies that classified invasive species by these criteria (from Catford et al., 2016).
Our paper examines the literature (112 papers) to determine how many of these forms of invasiveness have been used to classify invasive species. What do you know? All 15 forms of invasiveness appear in the literature.
This wide range of ways in which invasive species are classified will obscure efforts to identify a consistent set of traits of “invasive species”. Because traits that imbue species with broad environmental tolerances, for example, will be different from those that permit high rates of spread.
Examining traits linked with the four demographic dimensions of invasiveness (rather than “invasiveness” per se) should help highlight species at risk of becoming dominant, spreading quickly or occupying large ranges. That seems like a more fruitful way to identify invasive species because the meaning of “invasiveness” is defined more clearly.
Detecting a species from the DNA it left behind seems so much like CSI: Ecology. DNA deposited in the environment (eDNA for the cool kids), which can then be collected and identified, is increasingly advocated for ecological studies (Ficetola et al. 2008; Bohmann et al. 2014).
Adam Smart: doing a bit of sampling.
Detection rates from eDNA sampling are often much higher than more traditional survey methods, which is a potentially large advantage. For example, Adam Smart, a recently-completed MSc student in QAECO with Reid Tingley as his lead supervisor, showed that invasive newts in Melbourne were detected much more frequently in a single water sample compared to a bottle trap (Smart et al. 2015).
While eDNA sampling can have higher detection rates than more traditional methods, it can also be more expensive. How do we determine whether eDNA sampling is cost-effective? This is the question Adam set out to answer with a second paper from his MSc, which has just been posted online (Smart et al. in press).
Adam compiled various cost data for bottle trapping and eDNA surveys. These costs included materials, travel to sites, time spent at sites, generating primers for the DNA analyses, and conducting the lab-based DNA analyses. He optimised the detection efficiency of each of the two survey methods, using our method to optimise allocation of effort among visits and effort per visit (Moore et al. 2014, but also see the latest in Moore and McCarthy in press, about which I am quite excited). He then compared the performance of the two methods as a function of different total search budgets.
Probability of detection of newts at a site in Melbourne as a function of total budget for one of the scenarios examined in Smart et al. (in press). Results are shown for high cost and low cost eDNA scenarios, and for a standard bottle trapping scenario.
It turns out that for the cases we examined, eDNA sampling and the bottle sampling had similar detection efficiencies when accounting for costs. The choice of the best method depended on the cost structures, but regardless, the efficiencies were quite similar.
While the two methods were similar, the cost efficiency of eDNA sampling should improve. Firstly, eDNA costs will decline over time, while the costs of traditional sampling methods are unlikely to decrease if person hours represent the main expense. Secondly, eDNA promises to detect many species simultaneously, especially for species that might be otherwise hard to detect (Bohmann et al. 2014). Thirdly, eDNA sampling avoids some of the ethical concerns arising from the effects of trapping animals.
Of course, eDNA sampling has some drawbacks. The actual source of the DNA cannot be guaranteed. Could it have arrived on the feet of ducks? Might it have arisen from contamination? Procedures exist to reduce contamination. However, DNA evidence can be nullified in law courts, so it will not be 100% reliable in ecology. Further, physical specimens might be required, in which case eDNA will not be sufficient.
However, it seems that eDNA is only set to become more prevalent. We are continuing to work on improving and evaluating eDNA sampling via an ARC Linkage Grant – CSI: Ecology here we come!
Read Adam’s paper in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, or access the submitted version here.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull delivering his speech that received a standing ovation from (most of) the audience. Even my hair was getting right into it.
He had just about everyone on their feet. The mood at the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science was upbeat. We’d been treated to a stellar array of talent – science that could clearly lead to economic windfalls, science to help manage the country and its natural environment better, and outstanding teachers to help foster a more scientifically-literate community.
Malcolm Turnbull, the newly appointed Prime Minister, received a standing ovation for his speech that emphasized science as underpinning both the current and future prosperity of Australia. Standing ovations are a rare accolade from a scientific audience; rarer still when directed toward a politician, especially one from a party that had disparaged and cut funding to science so very recently.
The mood was buoyant, as we celebrated science and great scientists such as QAECO’s own Dr Jane Elith.
That was six months ago. And not everyone had stood to applaud. Some wanted more tangible proof that science really was going to be placed at the heart of Australia’s prosperity. But even as I stood, I wondered two things.
Could the Prime Minister sway his cabinet to follow his call?
And for all the talk about science and innovation, what would it mean for funding? Perhaps more importantly, what would it mean for planning and better integration of research and higher education?
Six months would be telling. In particular, what would the Turnbull government’s first budget reveal? I was prepared to wait.
For too long now, funding of universities and major research institutes such as CSIRO has been distributed without a coherent plan for research and researchers. We can’t simply turn funding on and off like a tap and see changes in research performance. The human capital employed by that funding doesn’t change that quickly. It takes months, even years, of lost productivity to shift one’s research environment. Training and establishing a research career can take a decade or more.
We can’t have a research fellowship scheme that sees 200 fellowships one year, but only 50 in another. Or a fellowship scheme that is an expendable hostage in a game of political brinkmanship. Perhaps more importantly than the number of fellowships, we need capacity within our research institutions to accommodate that talent in the longer term. There is little point investing in fellowships if those recipients have limited opportunities once their fellowships expire.
If we want people to continue on research careers, they need to be able to see pathways. The instability and lack of planning means pathways are obscure for many young researchers. At the moment, they are living on hope, on skepticism, or on disappointment.
And we’re living on a slogan. The Ideas Boom. Let me tell you – there won’t be an Ideas Boom in Australia without a properly funded plan. Up until now, the Ideas Boom was simply a $28M advertising campaign. It still is.
The Ideas Boom will happen elsewhere, and some of Australia’s most innovative scientists will move there. Why? Because the budget does very little to lay the foundation for any coherent plan for science and innovation in Australia. In fact, the budget entrenches the Abbott government’s 20% funding cut to universities without providing further capacity to increase income.
Government expenditure on research is going south. As a proportion of each country’s GDP, Australia spends less than half of the research expenditure of Iceland, Finland and Denmark. If this were an Olympic medal tally, the public would demand an inquiry – we’re being beaten by New Zealand! If we want an Ideas Boom, we’ll need more and smarter investment.
Government spending on R&D for major advanced economies. Sourced from the ABC FactCheck.
University income has been increasingly derived from sources other than the Federal government for several years now. Below are the values reported by The University of Melbourne – the majority of its funding will soon be from private sources, it seems, given further cuts to university funding. Other Australian universities are likely on a similar trend.
The University of Melbourne has increasingly sourced its income from private sources, particularly fees. With further funding cuts entrenched, that trend will continue.
The budget plugs some holes in research funding. Notably, various specialized pieces of infrastructure will be funded, supporting a small fraction of Australia’s research capacity. And extra funding for GeoSciences Australia will help us find more resources to mine. Antarctic science is set to benefit from an expanded Antarctic program, including a new boat just over the horizon. But the announced support is haphazard against a background of cuts.
This is not an Ideas Boom. It’s business as usual – reduced funding across the board, and sprinkles of funding in pockets.
The standing ovation is over. Everyone has resumed their seats, with arms folded. The Ideas Boom is busted. Well, to be honest it can’t really be busted because it was never built.
In one of my subjects, I used data on the relationship between the global temperature and CO2 concentrations to teach how variability can mask relationships, making inference uncertain. The example was based on an Australian political debate in 2009 about whether the temperature of the Earth had stopped increasing despite an increase in atmospheric CO2.
With an Australian election looming in 2016, it seems timely to return to that debate, and evaluate the positions of the different protagonists now that we have some more data. It is nice to hold our politicians to account.
Let’s first look at the data. I will use the latest HadCRUT4 data for global surface temperature, and the average annual CO2 concentration data measured at Mauna Loa (both downloaded on 20 April 2016). We have the CO2 data from 1959 to 2015, so I will use that period. You can see that the CO2 concentration has continued to increase since 2008, largely unabated it would seem.
Atmospheric CO2 concentration as measured at Mauna Loa by NOAA. Data from 2009 onwards, available after the Senators’ debate, are shown in blue.
Temperature increases have been noticeably more variable, although that variation is consistent with annual variations of the past.
The HadCRUT4 measures of the global annual surface temperature anomaly, as measured by the Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit.
Senator Wong believed that the Earth’s temperature would continue to increase in line with increases in CO2 concentrations. We can characterize that by a regression model that has a linear relationship with atmospheric CO2 over the entire time period. Of course, Senator Wong’s position was not just influenced by the data, but also by the overwhelming majority of climate scientists who agreed with her position given their understanding the Earth’s climate system. Nevertheless, we will ignore that extra information here.
We can estimate the best fitting line for such a relationship, and predict the uncertainty around it – this uncertainty represents the range of predicted variation given that the recorded temperature at the Earth’s surface only approximates the heat content of the world. In the graphs I show here, the uncertainty bounds are 95% prediction intervals – we expect 95% of the observations to fall within the bound represented by the dashed lines.
Subsequently, we can determine how well that relationship fits the data that have been collected from 2009 onwards. With the CO2 concentration increasing, the Earth’s temperature has continued to increase. However, that increase has been somewhat below the average trend, with the notable exception of the data in 2015, which has exhibited a large spike.
Relationship between the global temperature anomaly and CO2 concentration measured at Mauna Loa. The solid line is a linear regression, and the dashed lines are the 95% prediction interval. The regression was estimated on data up until 2008 (black dots), and the predictions are compared to data for 2009-2015 (blue dots).
However, we can say that Senator Wong’s position is largely consistent with the data collected after 2009; her predictions fall within the uncertainty bounds. Also, it is worth noting that the large spike in temperature in 2015 might well have been larger given the magnitude of increase in the CO2 concentration.
Senator Fielding believed that the Earth’s temperature had stopped increasing after 1998. We can characterize that by a regression model that has a linear relationship with atmospheric CO2 up until 1998, and then a flat line after that period. Again, we can estimate the best fitting model for such a relationship, characterize the uncertainty around the predictions, and compare those predictions to the data collected from 2009 onwards.
Relationship between the global temperature anomaly and CO2 concentrations measured at Mauna Loa. The solid line is a piecewise linear regression that fits a sloped line to data up until 1998, and then a flat line from 1999 to 2008. Data for 1998 were removed to reduce the influence of cherry picking. The regression was estimated for data up until 2008 (black dots), and the predictions are compared to data for 2009-2015 (blue dots).
Senator Fielding’s position was also largely in line with the data up until 2014. While the model characterizing Senator Wong’s position was a touch on the high side of the data, the model characterizing Senator Fielding’s position notably under-predicted the temperature.
And Senator Fielding’s model severely under-predicts the temperature of 2015 – the temperature spike of 2015 is well outside the expected bounds, even when considering the variation in the data.
So, here we are 7 years and several governments after this political debate. The data support Senator Wong’s position, and are now contradicting Senator Fielding’s position; the temperature continues to increase.
Note, the average temperature anomaly for 2016 so far is 0.979 C (based only on 2 months of HadCRUT4 data, so this is an uncertain estimate of the entirety of 2016). If that anomaly holds, we can conclude that Senator Fielding was sorely wrong, and even the model characterizing Senator Wong’s position might under-predict the temperate increase.
Seeing how atmospheric CO2 concentrations continue to increase, with concomitant increases in the heat content of the Earth, I can only conclude that the global community really should be acting much more rapidly. And I would hope that Australia would take the lead with this. I wonder the extent to which this will feature in the election campaign. | 2019-04-26T06:12:08Z | https://mickresearch.wordpress.com/page/2/ |
ceiling fan replacement blades leaf ceiling fans ceiling fan with palm leaf blades also ceiling outstanding palm leaf ceiling fans ceiling fan replacement blades amazon.
ceiling fan replacement blades harbor breeze ceiling fans replacement parts home depot ceiling fan replacement blades.
ceiling fan replacement blades oakwalnut indoor replacement fan blades 5 pack ceiling fan replacement blades canada.
ceiling fan replacement blades best replacement blades for harbor breeze outdoor ceiling fan hunter ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades uk daily mail.
ceiling fan replacement blades harbor breeze ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades harbor breeze.
ceiling fan replacement blades kichler ceiling fans fresh best ceiling fans ceiling fan replacement blades menards hours.
ceiling fan replacement blades fanimation bpp4br narrow oval composite palm ceiling fan blades redbrown set of ceiling fan replacement blades canada.
ceiling fan replacement blades replacing ceiling fan blades with larger ones www ceiling fan replacement blades uk.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan hunter ceiling fan replacement blades white hunter for attractive property replacement blades for ceiling fan decor ceiling fan replacement blades lowes careers.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan blades colorful ceiling fans kids ceiling fan blades kid ceiling fan gallery of best ceiling fan blades ceiling fan replacement blades menards hours.
ceiling fan replacement blades bedroom best 25 replacement ceiling fan blades ideas on pinterest wicker inside wicker ceiling fan harbor breeze ceiling fan replacement blades.
ceiling fan replacement blades brilliant hampton bay outdoor ceiling fan replacement blades ideas hampton bay ceiling fan replacement blades.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fans replacement blades replacement blades for ceiling fans replacement blades for ceiling fans in addition ceiling fan replacement blades lowes near.
ceiling fan replacement blades replacement dark mahogany blade for 56 in altura fan only ceiling fan replacement blades uk news.
ceiling fan replacement blades large size of furniturewonderful harbor breeze 77461 luxury harbor breeze ceiling fan replacement blade ceiling fan replacement blades lowes stores.
ceiling fan replacement blades medium size of amazing hampton bay ceiling fan warranty replacement on furniture for hampton bay ceiling fan replacement blades ukulele.
ceiling fan replacement blades decorationawesome metal ceiling fans replacement blades for long white short hanger modern cheap best ceiling fan replacement blades uk athletics.
ceiling fan replacement blades wicker ceiling fans wicker ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades lowes stores.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fans replacement blades blade covers for ceiling fans best ideas about ceiling fan blade covers ceiling fans replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades lowes near.
ceiling fan replacement blades palm leaf ceiling fan ecosure abaco brushed nickel 52 inch ceiling fan with palm leaf blades palm leaf ceiling fan ceiling fan replacement blades menards big.
ceiling fan replacement blades replacement blades for ceiling fans togeteher with harbor breeze ceiling fan replacement parts for you source digsdigsm ceiling fan replacement blades uk.
ceiling fan replacement blades palm leaf ceiling fan tropical ceiling fans fan city small palm blade design frond regarding elegant home depot ceiling fan replacement blades.
ceiling fan replacement blades attaching ceiling fan blades ceiling fan blades unique ceiling fans clearance clearance ceiling ceiling fan blades colorful ceiling fans kids ceiling fan blades kid ceiling fan gallery of best ceiling fan blades.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan hunter ceiling fan replacement blades white hunter ceiling fan blade bracket replacements hunter ceiling fan replacement blades menards rebate.
ceiling fan replacement blades replacement blade set for casafan ceiling fan 132 cm 52quot ceiling fan replacement blades uk daily mail.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan blades now hi res ceiling fan replacement blades hampton bay ceiling fan replacement blades lowes canada.
ceiling fan replacement blades outdoor fan blades outdoor ceiling fan blades ceiling outside ceiling fan outdoor wall mount fans bronze outdoor fan blades choose best ceiling ceiling fan replacement blades harbor breeze.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fans pretty table lamp with wood and hampton bay ceiling fans fan replacement blades remote ceiling fan replacement blades amazon.
ceiling fan replacement blades best ceiling fan replacement blades httplovelybuildingcomlooking ceiling fan replacement blades ukraine.
ceiling fan replacement blades new ceiling fan with chandelier light kit harbor breeze ceiling fan replacement blades pranksenders large version ceiling fan replacement blades lowes appliances.
ceiling fan replacement blades minka aire 54 sundowner 5 blade indoor outdoor ceiling fan outdoor ceiling fan blades 54 sundowner 5 blade indoor outdoor ceiling fan westinghouse outdoor ceiling fan replacement blades uk news.
ceiling fan replacement blades replacement medium walnutmedium cherry blades for 52 in fairfield fan harbor breeze ceiling fan replacement blades.
ceiling fan replacement blades interior design ceiling fan replacement blades fresh matthews fan co atlas irene hlk led 3 ceiling fan replacement blades lowes.
ceiling fan replacement blades related post ceiling fan replacement blades lowes locations.
ceiling fan replacement blades large size of furnituremagnificent harbor breeze 77461 luxury harbor breeze ceiling fan replacement blade ceiling fan replacement blades amazon.
ceiling fan replacement blades best litex ceiling fans watch v close up fan from replacement blades outdoor ceiling fan replacement blades.
ceiling fan replacement blades emerson ceiling fans tb540dm tommy bahama blades ceiling fan blades dark mahogany indoor ceiling fan replacement blades canada.
ceiling fan replacement blades furniture ceiling outstanding home depot outdoor ceiling fans outdoor regarding outdoor ceiling fans home depot ceiling fan replacement blades uk basketball.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fans ceiling chandelier light kit fan white crystal vintage with lights black fans replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades uk map.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan blades replacement ceiling fans blades bay fan blades arms ceiling fan parts ceiling fans ceiling fan blades replacement ceiling fan replacement blades lowes locations.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fans with regard to hampton regarding easy on the eye hampton ceiling fan replacement blades.
ceiling fan replacement blades outdoor fan blades outdoor ceiling fans indoor ceiling fans at the home depot outdoor ceiling fan outdoor fan blades outdoor ceiling ceiling fan replacement blades canada.
ceiling fan replacement blades wicker ceiling fan blade ceiling fan tropical ceiling fans ceiling with regard to wicker ceiling fan replacement blades decorating ceiling fan replacement blades menards black.
ceiling fan replacement blades palm leaf ceiling fan with light assainteriorscom leaf ceiling fan palm leaf ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades menards home.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan blades outdoor doors hunter replacement ceiling fan replacement blades uk daily mail.
ceiling fan replacement blades harbor breeze ceiling fan replacement blades harbor breeze ceiling fan replacement blades in addition to ceiling fan replacement blades uk basketball.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan hunter ceiling fan paddles decorative ceiling fan replacement blades for hunter ceiling fan contemporary ceiling fan replacement blades menards appliances.
ceiling fan replacement blades furniture ceiling fans harbor breeze ceiling fan replacement glass shade with harbor breeze ceiling fan ceiling fan blades ceiling fan parts the home depot replacement dark mahogany blade for in altura fan only.
ceiling fan replacement blades harbor breeze dual ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades uk map.
ceiling fan replacement blades change the blade style and type on your ceiling fan ceiling fan replacement blades lowes hardware.
ceiling fan replacement blades hampton bay ceiling fans 89 marvelous fan replacement blades with hampton bay ceiling fan replacement blades emerson ceiling fan replacement blades.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan without blades ceiling fan with light fans modern without blades at with ceiling fans without blades marvellous ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades menards appliances.
ceiling fan replacement blades amazing ceiling fan replacement blades design httplovelybuildingcomlooking home depot ceiling fan replacement blades.
ceiling fan replacement blades tips for indoor ceiling fans how to replace ceiling fan blades ceiling fan replacement blades uk.
ceiling fan replacement blades replacement blades for lyndhurst oil rubbed bronze ceiling fan set of 5 ceiling fan replacement blades uk.
ceiling fan replacement blades bedroom the modi mini ceiling fan barn light electric replacement blades within wicker ceiling fan ceiling fan replacement blades uk map.
ceiling fan replacement blades uscf 153 africa popular design 24 ceiling fan with metro buy 24 24 ceiling fan 24 24 ceiling fan with light ceiling inch replacement ceiling fan replacement blades without holes.
ceiling fan replacement blades bedroom ceiling astounding hamilton bay fans hampton fan replacement blades contemporary direction for vaulted ceilings industrial ceiling fan replacement blades lowes.
ceiling fan replacement blades fan blades wicker ceiling fan blade wicker blade ceiling fans pertaining to in wicker ceiling fan fan blades ceiling fan replacement blades ukraine.
ceiling fan replacement blades unbelievable design replacement blades for ceiling fan blade set casafan 132 cm 52 16 17 fans 21 white ceiling fan replacement blades lowes near.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan blade irons large size of rousing ceiling fan by tropical ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades uk.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fans leaf blades tropical leaf ceiling fan blades palm tropical leaf ceiling fan blades palm ceiling fan replacement blades.
ceiling fan replacement blades hampton bay ceiling fans fan replacement blades outdoor with throughout astounding hampton bay ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades lowes.
ceiling fan replacement blades harbor breeze ceiling fan parts manual harbor breeze baja ceiling fan replacement blades harbor breeze ceiling fan light kit parts harbor breeze ceiling fan ceiling fan replacement blades uk daily mail.
ceiling fan replacement blades replacement ceiling fan blades hunter grchoolfairs ceiling fan replacement blades lowes home.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fans blades hampton bay ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling lights outdoor fan blades bay ceiling ceiling fan replacement blades lowes coupons.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan blades replacement ceiling fans blades ceiling fan blades sold separately ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades menards.
ceiling fan replacement blades astounding hampton bay ceiling fan replacement blades intended for hampton bay outdoor ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades menards appliances.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan blades traditional inch tannery bronze ceiling fan with light with reversible fan blades ceiling ceiling fan blades ceiling fan replacement blades menards rebates.
ceiling fan replacement blades harbor breeze ceiling fan light bulb harbor breeze double ceiling fan with light regarding harbor breeze ceiling fan replacement blades canada.
ceiling fan replacement blades hampton bay ceiling fan replacement blades 4113 intended for with hunter inspirations 6 ceiling fan replacement blades uk yahoo.
ceiling fan replacement blades replacement ceiling fan blades fan blades iron replacement hunter ceiling fan replacement blades online ceiling fan replacement blades ukrainian.
ceiling fan replacement blades hampton bay replacement blades for ceiling fan ceilg ceilg hampton bay replacement globe for ceiling fan light emerson ceiling fan replacement blades.
ceiling fan replacement blades 89 marvelous hampton bay ceiling fan replacement blades fans ceiling fan replacement blades menards home.
ceiling fan replacement blades harbor breeze ceiling fan replacement parts intended for replacement blades for ceiling fan ceiling fan replacement blades menards big.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades leaf ceiling fan leaf ceiling fan replacement blades leaf with palm leaf outdoor ceiling fan replacement blades.
ceiling fan replacement blades tropical ceiling fans dans fan city wicker ceiling fan replacement blades design ceiling fan replacement blades menards rebates.
ceiling fan replacement blades hampton bay ceiling fans website medium size of endearing bay ceiling fan replacement blades fans bay ceiling fan replacement blades menards appliances.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan harbor breeze baja ceiling fan replacement blades harbor breeze ceiling fan motor screws ceiling fan replacement blades menards weekly ad.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades design ideas httplovelybuildingcomlooking ceiling fan replacement blades lowes.
ceiling fan replacement blades large size of ceiling fanswestinghouse ceiling fan westinghouse ceiling fans brown fan change setting ceiling fan replacement blades lowes stores.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan avion ceiling fan replacement parts avion ceiling intended for attractive property replacement blades for ceiling fan plan ceiling fan replacement blades ukraine.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan without blades new ceiling fan with light for your rustic ceiling fans with ceiling ceiling fan without blades ceiling fan replacement blades menards big.
ceiling fan replacement blades palm ceiling fan palm ceiling fan tropical ceiling fans island breeze ii fan palm ceiling fan palm ceiling fan casablanca ceiling fan replacement blades.
ceiling fan replacement blades best hampton bay ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades lowes careers.
ceiling fan replacement blades brushed nickel ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades ukiah.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan blades replacement ceiling fans palm blades pineapple aged bronze outdoor lowes ceiling fan replacement blades.
ceiling fan replacement blades white ceiling fan replacement blade arms ceiling fan replacement blades uk map.
ceiling fan replacement blades outdoor ceiling fan blade outdoor ceiling fans choose wet rated or damp rated for your space ceiling fan replacement blades uk.
ceiling fan replacement blades brushed nickel ceiling fan replacement blades home depot ceiling fan replacement blades.
ceiling fan replacement blades replacement outdoor ceiling fan blades outdoor ceiling fan blades all outdoor ceiling fans plastic outdoor ceiling ceiling fan replacement blades lowes coupons.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades tropical wicker blade fans ceiling fan replacement blades menards appliances.
ceiling fan replacement blades palm leaf ceiling fan replacement blade fit on by baypointfans 6999 ceiling fan replacement blades menards weekly ad.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades bay parts ceiling fan replacement blades lowes locations.
ceiling fan replacement blades harbor breeze baja ceiling fan parts ceiling fan replacement blades lowes.
ceiling fan replacement blades medium size of stupendous pewter oak effect ceiling fan oak ceiling fan blades oak ceiling ceiling fan replacement blades harbor breeze.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan ceiling fan replacement blades uk antero 46 in led hunter ceiling fan paper light shades design ceiling fan replacement blades lowes locations.
ceiling fan replacement blades hampton bay ceiling fan replacement blade arms theteenline org inside blades decor 11 ceiling fan replacement blades lowes stores.
ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades lowes ceiling fan replacement blades menards appliances.
ceiling fan replacement blades silver ceiling fans ii brushed steel with silver ceiling fan silver ceiling fan replacement blades ceiling fan replacement blades walmart. | 2019-04-19T12:17:34Z | http://didimmasaj.club/ceiling-fan-replacement-blades/ |
Your experience can be just a critical part of one’s own resume. You have just graduated from school or as that you have no a lot of expertise to produce around doesn’t imply that you cannot produce a fantastic restart. If don’t have some knowledge on how best to improve your resumes, which makes usage of restart example 20-16 can be quite advantageous. Before creating any abrupt modifications for your resume, then you also ought to be in a position to comprehend what sorts of qualifications, skills and adventures that your potential companies are searching. Remember , your resume needs to emphasize the skills, knowledge, and accomplishments which are relevant to your project goals.
Resumes have develop into the vital ticket to surfing the work industry. As much as you possibly can, your resume needs to just concentrate on details that are regarding the location you’re employing. While graphical resumes are unquestionably good-looking but they are awful at having the job. Your resume includes an objective in place of a skilled overview Goal statements clarify your own requirements, rather than just how you’re meet the requirements of an employer. It is true that resumes will be whenever looking to turn in a program to your work, the only most essential tool which you may use. Work Resume empowers one to make your very own personal brand logo in three minutes or just two.
Experience portion of this restart is normal for many resumes plus it is quite essential. My excellent Resume provides an abundance of example resumes out of which you are getting to have the ability to learn the ability of restart producing. Rather than that, you have to tailor your resume to get every job that you apply for. The company the project, and the association proved not exactly the proper fit. Most of your work will be thrown away if your application is rejected by recruiters just before reading it.
Recruiters reject applications if they need to concentrate to read fonts. Your resume may be around you personally but in addition, it is very much in regards to the recruiter. Recruiters search to find the consequence of this job you’re doing. Being a principle consider the particular recruiter or employer you’re aiming to get structuring or when authoring your resume. Bear in your mind should pay attention to that which you could furnish your company, maybe not vice versa. Now, research the reasons it can secure the business done for you. As a job applicant, you have to stick out amongst your fellow candidates in order for the application will not arrive at throw away as many graduates do suffer from you would like to know about any of it.
The key is always to format the exact info at a manner that produces it an easy task to scan quickly to comprehend your job goals and qualifications that are appropriate and accomplishments. Templates help understand the circulation of resumes. Stick to the tips below to make sure you’ve got the most useful 20 17 resume template. Therefore as to generate a controller resume that is quality that is higher, it is essential have the ability to set your abilities and experiences and also to locate a template that is terrific. Resume templates are excellent because they let you earn skilled and amazing resume faster. You’re able to find a wide variety of resume templates that are good and make an educated decision. For instance, a template may be discovered by you .
You may make use of the information that you get right back out of these to help you with applications. To find the very best resume samples for freshers, a person should always want to supply advice that is honest sometimes, which also suggests that you shouldn’t hide any your employment advice unless it truly is unnecessary. You may possess a restart which compellingly articulates says Heifetz, probably the info, nevertheless, you need to alter it to get each opportunity. Contact info (electronic mail and a cell contact range ) really need to go through the peak of one’s restart.
Expectations of the JobWhether you employ to some more compact one or a larger substitute firm can earn a difference in the manner in which you want to compose your own resume. Persistently publishing on a site is a great approach search enginesand drive traffic for your website and to draw focus. Yet another portion of functional resume samples that you should not forget about is if you’re in middle of changing another industry to get a job change, which enables you to demonstrate your skill collection that is specific, it is likely to perform to your benefit. The way you have set your resume’s areas to your page truly affects of achievement the level. You can find a number of cases available on the web that you are able to work with to assist you know formats, various kinds, structures and styles of resumes. It is possible to use terminologies to specify a hyperlink. In addition you have the choice to put in two skills below the Employment’ department to show that you’re adept in areas .
You learned a few of the perfect cover letter tips that you are able to use immediately. When drafting a complaint letter there could possibly be an inclination to go on merely to make sure the receiver has got the point. If you should be creating a complaint letter, you have to be notably specific regarding this solution.
Lots of individuals in many cases are confused exactly to begin the letter and there are a few paralyzed at the possibility of needing to fill out the sheet. By taking advantage of the term app on your PC the first step to the ideal way to compose an official correspondence is typing your letter. You want your letter make a favourable effect about the man reviewing it and to become detected. Writing an extremely impressive and appealing letter is probably the tasks. Initiating the letter is the most tough issue. The individual know the main reason why they are obtaining your letter and that which you’re attempting to communicate into your message to them. The earnings letter is readily the very one-to-one sort of advertisements there is.
The very superior issue with composing letters, even compared to verbal communication, is you have some time for you to pause and consider about everything you want to express, the sequence of those predicaments you prefer to say, and at the exact same period be in a posture to pick the appropriate words to deliver a superior communication. Being a guideline, the correspondence ought to be more short. Great Greeting and Closing to start with, your correspondence needs to incorporate a proper greeting and also closing. Letters to good pals are somewhat more informal.
It’s demanded of you being a way to begin your correspondence. It is critical to learn to write letters effectively and clearly. Understand that lots of men and women would scan your own correspondence. Make sure there is certainly not. The letter should be ended with a decision or an ending statement. It’s possible to ship letter into the anxious business with the objective of requesting the business to have a particular action. The ideal way of finding such expert letter is in just or online a publication.
The letter has to be well-organized and well-researched. Essential things are app correspondence ought to be original and ought to reflect you. You will find numerous types of business letters in usage. Your enterprise letter must be appropriately typed and well-intentioned A work application is a formal record. Small business letters are likewise a very fantastic system to follow up a promotion. They are the unique kind of business communicating with all the company’s stakeholders. A business letter that is nice really should not be significantly more than 1 page.
Now you find after navigating through sites a letter you’d like. It isn’t advised which you compose a letter only after a break up, to start with. Your letter is certain to speak in a way which could triumph over his soul to him. Make sure the correspondence is correct and written in a way that is simple to comprehend. Furthermore, it needs to be dealt with to a specific individual, the one who has the sway. An generic letter is not successful. For those who haven’t ever published a letter before to a ways to start may be to attempt to locate a sample condolence letter that may help you to grasp the structure and also the tone that your correspondence needs to take.
You only have to establish what type of resume or covering letter will likely be perfect for you personally. What you have to do is discover ways to create your cover letter stand . You have to understand why you are writing an individual before you make a resume cover letter. A resume cover letter is contained when you are passing your resume. Your cover letter must make clear why you are the perfect fit for every position, which usually implies you ought to be earning at least some little modifications for each and every letter shipped out. Under, you will discover the way to include your cover letter and what precisely kind of correspondence you should send to get business or a particular person.
Building your CV might be the difference between securing your fantasy role rather than. Your CV needs to be this great that there is no WAY you can be ignored by the recruiter. A CV prepared to get job at the united kingdom will be marginally different compared to one written to get an alternative nation.
As it is among many maximum approaches when building an excellent first impact, to place up your CV. For instance an advertisements CV will be different from a teachingCV. Only the very most useful CVs will create the cut, in order the event that you desire that to function as yours, then be your CV certain. So it’s really vital you are ready grant and to create a CV.
A CV can be just a way to get through the entranceway (Lily, our Tech Recruiter) If you get started making your CV, bear in mind that its goal is for you a job interview. A CV is the ways to make software. It isn’t necessarily feasible to present your CV to get a hyper link. A amazing CV should be appropriately ordered, also shouldn’t to length over 1 webpage. Composing a amazing CV may be one of the challenges of occupation looking. The simplest way is always to study a program vitae sample.
Your CV should really be SCANNABLE or else you are finished. Do not feel like you have to restrict your CV to the ten or 2 years. Your CV will be the only real measurement that counts in the beginning. Fantastic CVs have to get optimised with key words you are searching for. A CV can be actually really a great bit more likely to be more read full than just one which looks notably ambiguous or is laid out.
Address and your name at the very the best will stay. Your title at the top of this CV can be in a font dimension in relation to the rest of this CV. In relation to the opening of one’s CV, you should add your complete name, address and other contact particulars in the summit of this webpage like an email address as well as a telephone number.
About having the task you will need to comprehend you method. You’re that the person about the lookout for the job, maybe not the provider. Prior to having the job Perform exactly the job . Make certain that you can actually DO your job. In a big bulk emailing, in case you actually want that occupation, put in a few time.
Perhaps not everyone will make a program for occupation. You will understand exactlywhat the wonderful pre-interview job should be to prove you’d be the fit, by obtaining an excellent comprehension of exactly that which you’re going to do everyday at work. If you’re searching for work in an innovative business, then photography is surely a very good hobby to comprise.
Much enjoy the remaining portion of the key words, it will be truncateda short collection of lessons by title, rather than some record of teaching assignments. Despite what you may possibly have heard, that you don’t necessarily must restrict your resume. You want to add data on your CV, and do not add information only of lengthening your CV for your sake.
Learn by browsing via our example CVs exactly what a wonderful CV resembles. Make sure that it’s the case of a CV. There’s nothing like a regular CV example.
You’re ready to presume it is a mistake that is stupid, but actually it’s a reality. Spelling mistakes in a CV offer the first belief that you’re careless and have no pride in the job, Mr Watson clarified. “they provide the first impression which you’re careless and would not need pride on the work,” Watson explained. Naturally, among the very first things we’d like to complete in creating a car or truck is to detect lane outlines having an algorithm. After your relevant work knowledge, it really is advisable to make a part on your background.
That was not any use putting lots of step by step advice and in actuality dilutes the consequence. You might have concluded that it’s in conclusion of protecting your asset offshore. To begin with, you’d like to comprehend the form of a picture will change afterwards being undistorted. Just you also may call for versions of a CV for various kinds of positions.
Eating 2 3 meals daily will still offer you a number of the specific same benefits. As generally, per time or two ahead of a planned upgrade I will tell you. You reside in 1 place for the hours. It’s also humorous how much stuff have changed, to check always. Items are located at the rear of the store, always. It is possible to mention your move but keep that area brief. This decision hasn’t been a simple 1.
Retaining a expert relationship with the firm you are leaving isn’t a notion that is terrible, since you’ll never learn if you might necessitate some form of help from your former employer on. Every character needs position description and a work specification. When you have advertised the job, you could also desire to assess the pick treatment. Now, this CCA’s function will be really to take pieces of paths.
You will be slowly found by the most acceptable family. Your house should have the ability to provide an obituary template which will meet the instructions of this newspaper, which you are able to modify to add your words and respective bits to you. A obituary will be often incorporated by residences for a part for example composing and archiving that the obituary for you.
Folks are managing problems simultaneously without noticing it. In case you might have further questions with respect to his qualifications or background, don’t be reluctant to call me. In case you might have anymore questions, then please don’t hesitate to ask me, by means of a letter or in agreement with your comfort. Replies leave you with questions. The answer is that the letter carrier is made to make dozens of conclusions that are rapid about a daily basis. It’s very likely that your boss will possess an excuse for what is happening. Which brings me to some spot which needs to be created.
It’s habitual to present your employer with just two weeks notice, For those who have opted to step from the occupation. Therefore you’ve resolved to quit your work, you could be leaving to go after the next position, you maybe leaving for motives, or you might have been sick and tired in what’s been happening in your workplace. If you don’t leave from the job in a fashion, consider , the planet can be a little region, you are going to strike individuals you worked with in a myriad of conditions. Hence, in the event that you’re not desperate for any job that pays money to you, you simply require a bit of more income , or you also don’t want the income, a project to get a cashier may perhaps not be suitable for you. If you have job chances elsewhere in such circumstances, leaving might be described as a very good choice. Before setting a work vacancy, right, the best chance to examine its particular requirements and the role appears. The more evidence you’re going to be able to compile, the far more complex the possibility of your assert success.
At the twenty first century, most employees will behave in a specific careers among many jobs. The employee is so overpowering and educated he or she has difficulty. The company shouldn’t to enter the specifics of both qualities and their employees professional. The plaintiff is waving a bit of newspaper. Then you have to maintain a lawyer When it is really a court docket that is larger. Truly, as much as my case went, obtaining a lawyer is exactly what got me screwed! Most discrimination cases are not won by some sort of smoking gun evidence that proves the case that was complete.
It has to demonstrate how it had been going to do good foryou personally. You won’t possess plenty of preference as to if it is signed by you, if you should be being requested to register a contract to get a country of hire. It is accurate that you signed an agreement but you wasn’t signed by you with the companies that purchased your debt out of the charge card firm. Doing this delivers a contract which could possibly be binding. Reason behind leaving exactly your business needs to be stated. Whenever you can find things that I can not share because of confidentiality reasons that are legal, I could discuss ideas which will permit you to receive the absolute best out of your DircTV companies.
In paragraph , spell out what the correspondence is assumed to cover. A guardianship correspondence might be properly utilized for momentary or. An informal letter may be published however there really certainly are a couple guidelines you’re going to have the ability to follow if you’re unsure about what things to create or the way to format your correspondence. Folks often regard as a task writing a formal letter. So, it’s important to fully grasp just how to compose a correspondence efficiently. Finally, you need to remember that writing a formal correspondence isn’t complicated for those who know and adhere to the structure of this letter and also the rules. In the end, these letters have to get written at a method that is transparent, for the absolute efficacy.
Into composing a letter asking 10, the first thing will be to be certain that you’re addressing it for the state section. In the event you have the ability to sort the letter. It ought to be a correspondence with all particulars.
Someone should perhaps not send’type letters’, because they are extremely likely to have ignored. Listed below are a few hints that will aid you when you must write an letter that is caution. It’s critical that until the letter is drafted by you and also you also get in contact with some one who’s done passport operate before, that will be able to assist you with the practice. A touch of approval will be written allowing lady or the guy to do some thing for your advantage. The reason behind producing a permission suggestion is always to search out an individu approval for some task you have to undertake. When you compose a permission letter, then be certain you register and maintain a duplicate of this letter with to prevent any misunderstanding later on. Periodically , the term permission letter is also employed to be symbol of the letter which is written to enable an individual consent to do a certain job, for instance, going for a field trip.
Sporadically, there can be cases in which you’re need to acquire a job or give info on your monetary status into someone with no present there yourself. Afterall you have the info you demand all. It is very important your authority correspondence has most of the information regarding the obligations definitely. While producing an authority letter make sure you incorporate all the information since you do not want to have the bearer of this letter to become stranded as a result of absence of proper proof. Every advice relevant to the defender involved should be mentioned to stop unnecessary issues in the future.
To find out about writing authorization letters you have to learn the. You can find many types of consent letter. Authorization letters are wanted for authorizing someone to perform your lawful, small business, health, and other trades for your advantage. They have been simple to create however, you will need to format them right. A letter of consent is also a very easy but necessary legal record that is needed in the eventuality of many activities. A authorization letter can be actually a document and you’ll wish to become certain that it’s a tightly worded document that misconstrued or cannot be negotiated in any manner. It is a document that is published by an individual human being to provide consent to another man or woman to perform a task.
You can’t afford your correspondence could create. The authority letter has to be precise and ought to leave no space for vagueness. Furthermore, the correspondence needs to be signed by both the parents, or guardian, at the event of minors. These letters cover sites, exactly in which a single needs to grant obligations and ability . The correspondence needs to be framed In the event that you have to compose an official correspondence wherein you have to tackle a man which you have not ever fulfilled. You can find numerous official letters you may have to compose within your life.
Programs could be bought individually on line, also. You need to identify what your template demands, to begin with. Implementing a template can make sure that your organization’s branding and design elements remain consistent. It is likely to also to start it from your document window and begin customizing it at the same time, Once you locate a template you’d like touse! Locating the most suitable template aids conserve a lot of time and money.
Templates are ideal for companies as well as people. Making use of templates is a superb way of fast accessing investigation applications or calculators that have been designed by other people. They change based upon the application form. They enable you to conserve some time and manual effort by simply helping you to keep from doing exactly the exact same tasks repeatedly. You can additionally become invoice templates.
Someone may acquire statement forms . Or you might demand a handwritten invoice form your tech could complete within the area. A industrial invoice sort would contain particulars of this agency provided together with various applicable taxation in your region. You will find a significant great deal of kinds of payment systems now which individuals and businesses utilize and you should just accept.
Do not confine the sorts of payment you take in to the standard ones. In order to stop problems in the exact first site, set ground rules and adhere to them. Move that amount of cash from the account that is second When a cost clears and at the most important small business account.
Invoicing permits the customers to check at their account by simply sign in their personal accounts. In the event the customer accepts the invoice, he has obtained the duty to pay for the amount into this seller. You might get for providing goods or some service or labor an invoice.
You may acquire a variety of kinds of invoices. You can certainly make an invoice containing all the features by using the invoice templates made available free of charge on the web. Nextyou ought to have invoice. A specialist statement is essential to your firm’s credibility, maybe not so your customers pay you but in addition you are called by them for prospective small business. Where as a statement acknowledges goods but the payment is not achieved instantly but after some time. A statement together with all of the very important elements could be created using one of those convenient and free statement templates on line.
Say for instance, your business sends out invoices to clients per month. compared with an easy bill Furthermore, an invoice contains comprehensive advice in regards to the bought stuff. Instead of an alternative to starting with a blank workbook, you can make an bill containing the formatting and information in it and store it like just a template you could reuse again and again. Your statement is your last statement about caliber and the value of your job. Invoice type s may include a statement for a particular company, labor and substances statement, pro forma invoice, and others.
You have got to recognize the customers and also the sum of income to produce, to produce one. The customer can just click the web link next pay the invoice using the support of payment procedures, and to observe the bill. Six clients in the amount will supply you 3,600 money at the year’s beginning. The customer is one you is worth trying to keep, using this sort of intermediary will allow it to become more easy to maintain a great working relationship soon after the invoices become paid and prefer to keep . Also, he can get an invoice just as employing raises it. Whilst individuals are normally satisfied with a solution or service an exclusion may be made by the business merely leave down you completely.
Offering complimentary delivery will supply you with a five-star delivery price evaluation on eBay also to encourage you to value for the peak of this hunt leads. In case you find it possible to ship the item , free delivery would be the thing. Secondly, due to the fact inventory buys are one of the most important cash outflow for a merchant that is little, the stock exchange purchasing plan functions as an important input into a income stream program. You are able to also purchase individual templates online. Production expenses are removed by selling electronic products online also offers a regular stream of capital. | 2019-04-19T02:26:10Z | http://ondonews.com/10-cv-prosty-wzor/ |
The Millennium Bug or Y2K was a psyop to ensure the world was wired for Rothschild's global electronic monetary system; a draconian Big Brother control mechanism more terrifyingly effective than British redcoats. The worldwide monetary crisis and planned collapse of the fiat monetary systemwith inflation, deindustrialization, unemployment, depression, poverty, homelessness, war, famine, disease and death; and within the inassimilable multicultural demography of our apostate once homogenous Christian nations, division, hatred, anarchy and deathfruit of Khrushchev's "peace offensive" launched in 1956 to put the "bourgeoisie to sleep," so that the final take-over of the entire world by the Judaeo-Communism succeeds through the element of surprise.
1956 was the jubilee year of the Laodicean Church Age, the year in which the United States rejected her last opportunity for national repentance. "And while the Bridegroom tarried through the Church Ages, they all slumbered and slept"; since His return, the foolish virgins have come out of Rome and her (once) Protestant daughter churches, and are now in the circle of this Message, asleep behind the pulpit or in the pews.
The planned monetary collapse and worldwide depression is intended to decimate the middle class, whose intellectual and material independence (like private ownership of hand guns), is viewed as a threat by the international criminals who desire world hegemony. Monetary collapse is intended to force "a global level playing field" wherein all but a tiny elite are returned to serf-like submission by the masters of the universe.
After earthquakes sink Los Angeles and much of California, which is the world's seventh-largest economy, the US dollar will fail. With the US militarily exhausted, already defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia will invade mainland USA. Rome will intervene in union with other religions and restore peace; as Russian occupation forces withdraw the world will implore Rome's then Devil-incarnate pope to take presidency over one world government. In league with the Jewish banksters she will refinance the dollar with gold backing and return the nation to prosperity as ancient Laodicea was restored following its devastating earthquake.
In view of the likely degradation in the economic, financial and security situation wherever you live, and as a precaution, families might act now to set aside a stock of non-perishable foodstuff (without the knowledge of children, neighbours, or anyone outside the home). Residents of the United States may recall that at the time of Y2K it became a criminal offence for homes to maintain more than two week's supply of food, so don't show, and don't tell.
Because of the earthquake he had prophesied, Brother Branham warned Christians decades ago that they should move from California. I suggest that Brethren living on the eastern seaboard of Pacific and perhaps also the Indian Ocean should move to higher ground before this time of the year. Pay up any lingering debts, pray up, and keep the Token on display.
I encourage you to review Brother Branham's sermon, "Christ is the Mystery of God Revealed," which is the essence of the last Book of the Bibleunveiling God in Jesus Christ. This will complement our teachings The Creation of God and His One Eternal Purpose. The transformation is being accomplished by grace through faith in God's revealed Word.
The US money center banks . . . are all deemed to be too big to fail. But . . . Goldman Sachs is using about $US40 Billion of equity as the foundation for $US1.1 TRILLION of assets. That comes to a "gearing" of 27.5, which is the same as saying that were $US40 Billion of its loans to go sour, and then Goldman Sachs would have lost ALL its capital. Over at Merrill Lynch, which is now the most leveraged, $US1 TRILLION of assets is placed on a foundation of around $US30 Billion of equity. That's a "gearing" of 33.3, which is the same as saying that should about 3 percent of its loans go sour Merrill Lynch would be stripped bare of its capital. There are no safety margins here at all.
The US money center banks are cardboard houses. If they had to take their "balance sheets" to the marketplace to seek credit, they would be summarily refused . . .
US manufacturing base takes up a mere 9.9 percent of total employment. If the gargantuan and grotesque US military-industrial complex is subtracted, as it ought to be as sheer economic waste, what would remain are those still employed in the US civil and private economy. In reality, genuinely productive employment in the US economy is much lower than 9.9 percent . . . Any comparative analysis places the US in the third world category in real physical economic terms. What identifies a modern nation today is the gearing between industrial capacity and the percentage of the workforce employed there . . . REAL capital cannot be consumed with impunity. Once it is gone, it no longer exists. As an economic power, the US is done.
In the three months to January, world trade in goods rose at annualised rate of 0.2 per cent over the previous three months. The equivalent growth rate in the three months to October 2007 was 6.9 per cent. Note the difference between these two quarterly numbers, from 6.9 percent to only 0.2 percent in the following quarter; three months more of this and global trade will be in free fall.
This is an excerpted quote from US House of Representatives member Ron Paul: Total US government obligations are $US 53 TRILLION, while total net worth of US households is just over $US40 TRILLION. The country is broke. This statement by Mr Paul is fully authoritative. He has been on various House of Representatives finance and banking committees for decades, so he knows. What this means in basic accounting terms is that the assorted levels of US government have so loaded the US civil economy with debts that even the forceful expropriation of the full net worth of all Americans will not be enough to bring the US back to a state of solvency. Further, this overhang of debts only deals with official US government debt. The private debts of Americans are not included at all in Mr Paul's calculation. All these private debts have to be added on top.
The general US media is an amazing system. Over the last three months or so, it has managed to reduce its coverage of the ongoing fighting in Iraq between the US occupation forces and the Iraqi resistance to only three percent of its national coverage. That includes print, television and radio news, according to reliable US media watching organisations. Iraq coverage has been replaced with Obama and Hillary.
With more than 730 military bases spread across the world, as recorded by the renowned historian Chalmers Johnson, the US is a de-facto global empire. These US bases are still expanding regardless of the failing wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. During President Bush's presidency, NATO itself has added seven new membersBulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, bringing the number of US NATO allies to 26. While the US economy is caving in behind him, President Bush has rolled out not only his two wars but also vastly extended his alliance and global bases system. America's ongoing reliance on imports of foreign capital is continuing. Though the current account deficit shrank in the fourth quarter, it was still 5.3 percent of US GDP last year. This continuing military buildup is a strategic move counteracted by the backwards pull of the US financial and economic recession. It is a geo-political and geo-strategic absurdity. It is the strategy of assured future collapse. . . this is the turning point around the vast pivot which was the US economy. This pivot is now crumbling. The most important centre point of the post WW II world has been undone. After this false lull, there are tumultuous events ahead financially, economically and geo-strategically.
The US banking system has poisoned the well from which the US Treasury borrows by selling international lenders American subprime waste paper. These lenders are facing losses which are climbing ever higher. The Bank of China, hardest hit among the country's big banks by subprime exposure, has reported that it held $US5 Billion in US asset-backed securities at the end of 2007 and booked $US1.58 Billion in losses and markdowns on the holdings. China's Industrial & Commercial Bank reported holdings of $US23 Billion in US subprime paper at the end of 2007 and booked $US400 million in losses. Suffice it to say that Chinese banks are not keen to keep loading up on US debt paper.
In Shanghai, China's benchmark CSI 300 Index recently plunged 5.1 percent to its lowest point in eight months. The index has slumped 30 percent this year on Chinese concern that a housing crisis would push the US economy, China's biggest export market, into recession. This is the way that the US economic recession is spreading like waves right across the world's stock markets, causing losses which are already in the $US TRILLIONS for investors globally. That, of course, will have its own effects inside all these economies. Falling stock markets are always economically contractionary.
With the Asian nations most exposed to the internal US consumer markets, the US contraction will occur in Asia to a near matching degree. For several of these nations, this will be enough to knock them into real economic recession. Of course, with these Asian nations having rolled into their own recessions, they will buy less as their imports diminish. This too will be a form of economic backwash from the US recession wave. No nation will be immune; the entire world economy faces an economic downswing.
As the economic wave sweeps across the globe, it is certain that those with the reserves in hand will be using parts of these reserves to sustain their own economies during the downswing. This simple fact makes it certain that Asian economies will periodically engage in selling waves of US Dollars. They will try to time these sales during periods of temporary US Dollar strength. But that, in turn, means that any upturn in the US Dollar will be capped by this Asian selling. The US Dollar simply cannot win.
On Monday, March 24, Iran's Foreign Minister announced that his country has officially applied to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a security grouping of nations dominated by China and Russia which has morphed into a form of anti-NATO alliance. Iran would never have made this official announcement had in not known in advance that it had the approval of both Russia and China.
Geo-Strategically, this simply means that if and when Iran joins the SCO, then it has acquired two enormous and powerful allies in full military terms. The first is Russia, with a nuclear armament sufficient to be equal to that of the US. The second is a greatly modernised China with its own vast armed forces. In this alliance, it will be China and Russia calling the shots diplomatically and/or militarily. Iran will be the very junior partner. But the important point here is that with Iran as a member of the SCO, any US future attack upon Iran has become void. . . In practical terms, the futile US military enterprise is all over, unless the Bush Administration is prepared for a global war.
President Bush travelled to Moscow last week as a "supplicant," having insufficient military and strategic means in hand to retrieve the drastic situation inside Iraq. The US military occupation of Iraq is right on the verge of full military failure. The US Force on the ground there has utterly exhausted itself and it cannot for much longer be maintained logistically. President Putin knows this. So do the Chinese who stand right behind him. Arriving in Russia, President Bush will discover the real cost of a policy which has left the US in an impossible worldwide position.
Mr Bush faces a parallel situation to what President Gorbachev faced in 1991withdraw or collapse . . . For example, the US Army has worn out about 40 percent of its equipment through use or battlefield destruction. It would take at least $US240 Billion to simply restore the US Army in terms of equipment to the state it was in before the March 2003 attack on Iraq . . . What was not clearly known until these past two weeks was that the US ground force was now actually losing its battle in Iraq and had in fact begun the processes of withdrawing. The US Army is now in a full retreat.
Inundated with losses (and the write-down has only just begun), the Bush Administration will see a truly massive contraction in tax revenues from the US financial sector which will arrive right on the US Treasury's bottom line. Facing this, the US Treasury still has to send a climbing tidal wave of money over to the Pentagon to pay for the Bush wars.
Woe to all the Western companies which have established export goods factories in China. They will soon be reporting not only falling earnings back to their headquarters but even losses as both the US economy and the general world economy slow towards the global recession. And the Chinese recession will come on top of that. This is the point at which the Chinese political powers that be will start making use of the huge foreign exchange reserves that China now holds. These total $US1.64 TRILLION in the economic "war chest" and China will use them to sustain its own internal economy once the Chinese economy really begins its dive into a deep recession.
Toyota has already stopped making cars in two factories in the US. The general Japanese economy is following in train . . . while much of the so-called "developing world" is on the verge of collapsing into food riots, an amazing NINE PERCENT of the total population of the US are now relying on "food stamps" to eat. This in the "richest" nation on earth.
The global credit expansion which is now imploding despite desperate efforts of central bankers and treasurers everywhere is, of course, devastating the world's so-called "real economies." What better proof of this could there be than the simple fact that the World Bank met last weekend to deal with the spectre of political unrest in 33 nations brought about by the high cost and growing scarcity of FOOD? Or the fact that almost one in ten Americans is dependent on food stamps? The "soup kitchens" of the 1930s are reappearing everywhere, and there is not enough "soup" to go round. . . . Full story: © 2008 - The PrivateerIssues 600 and 601.
Comment: I do not expect the US dollar will collapse before earthquakes sink Los Angeles, wreaking global devastation, at the end of the Gentile dispensation. In face of this global catastrophe the persecution of the wise and foolish virgins who warn friends and loved ones of the tribulation and of the mark of the beast is assured. Authorities worldwide will introduce martial law, citizens will rally and churches unite for disaster relief. A successful Russian Invasion of the US mainland will follow perhaps six weeks after the earthquake.
Los Angeles, April 14, 2008 New calculations reveal there is a 99.7 percent chance a magnitude 6.7 quake or larger will strike in the next 30 years. The odds of such an event are higher in Southern California than Northern California, 97 percent versus 93 percent. "It basically guarantees it's going to happen," said Ned Field, a geophysicist with the US Geological Survey in Pasadena and lead author of the report . . . More than 300 faults crisscross the state, which sits atop two of Earth's major tectonic plates . . .
The analysis is the first comprehensive effort by the USGS, Southern California Earthquake Center and California Geological Survey to calculate earthquake probabilities for the entire state using newly available data. Previous quake probabilities focused on specific regions and used various methodologies that made it difficult to compare . . . For the Los Angeles Basin, the probability is . . . 67 percent. There is no past comparison for the Los Angeles area.
Comment: Brother Branham prophesied, "Thou city, who claims to be the city of the Angels, who's exalted yourself into heaven and sent all the dirty filthy things of fashions and things, till even the foreign countries come here to pick up our filth and send it away, with your fine churches and steeples, and so forth the way you do; remember, one day you'll be laying in the bottom of this sea. Your great honeycomb under you right now. The wrath of God is belching right beneath you. How much longer He'll hold this sandbar hanging over that, when that ocean out yonder a mile deep will slide in there plumb back to the Salton Sea. It'll be worse than the last day of Pompeii. Repent, Los Angeles. Repent the rest of you and turn to God. The hour of His wrath is upon the earth. Flee while there's time to flee and come into Christ" (Choosing of a Bride, p. 35:5).
"A prophecy that I made about 1935 . . . said: "The time would come that the sea would weep its way into the desert." Look what'll take place. If that thousands of square miles falls down into the lava of the earth and slides in, there'll be millions die at one time. And that'll cause such a tidal wave . . . Remember, plumb up into the Salton Sea is a hundred or two hundred feet lower than the sea level. That water will probably come almost to Tucson with that tidal wave coming across there. And the sea shall weep its way into the desert" (Trying to do God a Service, p. 6:25).
'Eurasia is home to most of the world's politically assertive and dynamic states. All the historical pretenders to global power originated in Eurasia. The world's most populous aspirants to regional hegemony, China and India, are in Eurasia, as are all the potential political or economic challengers to American primacy. After the United States, the next six largest economies and military spenders are there, as are all but one of the world's overt nuclear powers, and all but one of the covert ones. Eurasia accounts for 75 percent of the world's population; 60 percent of its GNP, and 75 percent of its energy resources. Collectively, Eurasia's potential power overshadows even America's.
'Eurasia is the world's axial super-continent. A power that dominated Eurasia would exercise decisive influence over two of the world's three most economically productive regions, Western Europe and East Asia. A glance at the map also suggests that a country dominant in Eurasia would almost automatically control the Middle East and Africa. With Eurasia now serving as the decisive geopolitical chessboard, it no longer suffices to fashion one policy for Europe and another for Asia. What happens with the distribution of power on the Eurasian landmass will be of decisive importance to America's global primacy' . . .
It's about global hegemony, not democracy. It should be no surprise when powers such as China are not convinced that giving Washington such overwhelming power is in China's national interest, any more than Russia thinks that it would be a step towards peace to let NATO gobble up Ukraine and Georgia and put US missiles on Russia's doorstep "to defend against threat of Iranian nuclear attack on the United States."
The US-led destabilization in Tibet is part of a strategic shift of great significance. It comes at a time when the US economy and the US dollar, still the world's reserve currency, are in the worst crisis since the 1930's . . .
The dire warnings from the International Monetary Fund this week that the West now faces the largest financial shock since the Great Depression, while the Asian economies are still powering ahead, simply underlines our vulnerability in this new world order. The desperately weakened American dollar appears to be on the verge of losing its global dominance, in the same way as sterling lost it a lifetime ago. . .
Last month, an Indian company, Tata, bought up what was once the cream of British manufacturingJaguar and Land Rover . . . The Malaysian company Proton owns Lotus. Indian company Tata owns Corus, once British Steel, as well as Tetley Tea . . . In Lubumbashi, the capital of the Congo's copper-rich region Katanga, the Economist reported "a sudden Chinese invasion." Troubled Angola recently shunned Western financial aid because of the amount of Chinese money pouring into it, in return for commodities.
"The princes of business and industry and the earls of the ecology fabricated global warming as a devise to redistribute the wealth of the world . . ."
It is not likely the IPCC, the eco-idiots behind the global warming scare tactics, and the watermelon bureaucrats who are using climate change to implement totalitarian controls over the people of the world, are going to do anything soon to rectify the situation. With carbon dioxide classified as a hazardous pollutant, the watermelons will soon see the doomsday prophecies of Paul Ehrlich come true, as greatly reduced levels of carbon dioxide bring about massive food shortages as crop yields are radically reduced because carbon dioxidethe food crops eathas been dramatically curtailed by federal regulation, and the air quality over the largest industrial centers will have become so bad respiratory illness will become world's deadliest and most prevalent killer. In the end, the lunatic rantings of the eco-idiots will become fact.
God's one eternal purpose is now being achieved by faith in His revealed Wordtransforming His secret unseen thoughts to sensible reality that you can see with your eyes and handle by your hands, taste, smell and hear in fellowship. God is love, and His thoughts are the glorious Attributes of what He is, so in order to love and be loved and worshipped, He placed men on free moral agency that they may choose to reciprocate His love and reflect His likeness, becoming His glory and eternal Life, or desist and cease even from memory.
First, by revealing the fullness of His nature and character bodily in Jesus Christ, the Perfect Man, born of a woman that He might identify Himself with us and qualify as kinsman Redeemer for Adam's fallen race to restore an election from "few days, and full of trouble" to an eternity of peace (Job 14:1; Revelation 21:1 22:7).
Second, to reproduce the stature of the Perfect Man in His Body of believers whose sin-born flesh is a continuation of the first Adam, that He might have preeminence in His Bride whose soul is the continuation of the last Adam, who is the beginning of the new creation of God. This last Eve will obey her Husband in everything (Ephesians 5:21-33), that He might express Himself in His Family of God-men in the manifestation of the Sons of God.
Third, to restore the Kingdom to its rightful position of fellowship in His Presence whence it fell when the first Adam crossed over the time line and the Life line to redeem his fallen Eve (Romans 5:12-21). That is, to be worshipped throughout eternity in the form of New Jerusalem, His glorified Family, Jesus Christ and His Bride in the midst of the paradise of God.
Hebrews 11:3, "Faith is the confident assurance of the actual existence of things hoped for, the conviction of unseen realities . . . By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he who comes to God must believe that He exists and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him" (Hebrews 11:1, 5-6).
Paul again defines faith in I Corinthians 2:9-16, "According to Isaiah 64:4, No eye has seen, nor ear heard, neither has the human heart conceived the things God has prepared for those who love Him. But God has revealed them to us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For among men who knows a person's thoughts, except his own inner spirit? Similarly, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. And we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that comes from God, in order that we may know the things which God has freely given us. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Holy Ghost interpreting Spiritual truths to spiritual persons. But the natural man does not receive the things of the divine Spirit: for to him they are folly, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The Spiritual man, on the other hand, judges all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ".
God being perfect wishes to display His Attributes, which are His thoughts, not my thoughts or your thoughts, in order to gather glory (adoration and worship) to Himself alone. Matthew 4:4, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." Since a Word is a thought when it is expressed, we must offer to God the sacrifice of His thoughts, giving thanks in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 2:5; 4:8, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus [and] whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things".
God is accomplishing His one eternal purpose by grace through faith unmixed with man's interpretations. This means that every son and daughter of Adam who encounters the Word for their day has the opportunity by the exercise of their free moral agency to be one of the Attributes in the glory of God before the world wasbefore the Logos was expressed by the great eternal Spirit who was not yet God since none of His creative thoughts were manifested to worship Him as God but existed only as foreknowledge (John 17:5).
Psalm 147:10-11, "The Lord takes no pleasure in the legs of a man. The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, and hope in His mercy." God is God. He seeks to gain glory to Himself, and will not share His glory with another. We must offer back the sacrifice of His thoughts by faith, not the works of our own mind and hands which are vain imperfections.
Once God dwelt alone with His thoughts; now He is transforming His thoughts from Spirit into the glorified material form of Himself in the many-membered Body of Jesus Christ, Husband and Wife, who are one in the Logos as Jesus prayed in John 17:22-26 (I Corinthians 12:4-27; Ephesians 5:20-33). His eternal thoughts are the Attributes of what He is: Spiritual genes of His loins so to speak, and eternal Life unless and until hybrid unto death (John 6:63; Revelation 22:18-19).
His gene is Spirit and it is eternal Life (John 6:63). Jesus said, "The seed is the Word of God" (Luke 8:11; Isaiah 55:11). His Word is Spirit in a form we can receive by faith. However, God chose to first manifest the natural gene that would fall, and secondly to manifest that which is Spiritual, the Lord from heaven, to redeem earthy man; that seed cannot fall (Matthew 24:24; John 2:19; 6:39). Even before "the beginning" the Sons of God existed in His thinking. Job 38:4-7, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have insight. Do you know who determined its dimensions, and who did the surveying? Upon what were its foundations sunk, or who laid the Capstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy at the revelation of the Seven Thunders"?
In God's foreknowledge Christ was slain for the sins of the world, and before there was a star or an atom the Sons of God were written in the Lamb's Book of Life (Ephesians 1:4; Revelation 13:8). Those names can never be removed because that Book is "forever settled in heaven," and was "sealed to the time of the end." On March 8, 1963 Christ claimed the Book and opened its Seven Seals then "finished the mystery of God" by revealing the through "his angel" William Branham between March 17-24 (Daniel 12:4, 9; Revelation 1:1; 3:14; 4; 5; 10:1-7). Christ is the mystery of God revealed, and as His Bride was eternally in the Logos or Word, the mystery is who they are, and how He redeemed them in each Age of the Gentile dispensation.
Since the revelation of the Seven Seals, the members of Christ's end-time Bride know their name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. When a Church Age saint received the revelation of his 'Thunder' which was the Voice of God calling his name from the Lamb's Book of Life by the Message to his Age. All seven Church Ages are over; in this holy convocation we have received the revelation of all Seven Thunders. That revelation interpreted as a "written epistle" in your life is the manifestation of the Name of God, the Token of the Life of Christ on display in you, which is the evidence of your new birth.
The Lord raises His children as we raise our children, with reward for good behaviour and chastisement for missing the mark of the high calling. Since the Fall He has seldom appeared openly, but veiled Himself in shadows and types. Even when He was on the platform with Brother Branham the congregation could not see Him, yet His Presence was manifestly known, and those who reached out in faith touched Him and were touched by Him. When the children of Israel sinned He placed them under the Law which defined sin and found all men guilty (Romans 5:13, 18, 20). This justified chastisement with a view to correction enabling God to manifest His Attributes of love, mercy and redemption to His elect in the propitiatory death and victorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ; justified by grace we offer ourselves a living sacrifice by faith. This likewise enabled God to manifest His Attributes of justice and wrath upon recalcitrant sinners.
Hebrews 10:1, "For the Law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. . ."
So if "the Law is spiritual," containing the shadow "of future good things," let us strip off the veil of the letter spread over it and consider its naked and true meaning. The Hebrews were commanded to furnish the Tabernacle as a type of Christ's Bride that they might be able by means of sensible things to announce beforehand the image of divine things. For the pattern which was shown to Moses in the mount, to which he was to have regard in fashioning the Tabernacle, was a kind of diagram showing the way back to the Presence where God dwells, which we now perceive more clearly than through types, yet more darkly than if we saw the reality. For we cannot yet in our present condition bear the sight of pure immortality, just as we cannot bear to look upon the rays of the sun. Israel beheld the patterns of things in the heavens, of which Christ's Bride is the as yet unfinished image of the heavenly order, the true tabernacle "whose builder and maker is God," and will be manifest in the resurrection.
Galatians 3:24-25, "Wherefore the Law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster".
Being made in the Image of God (living souls) man needed to receive that which was according to His Likeness; which was the Word being sent down into the world to perfect the character of His elect, to save penitent sinners and condemn unbelievers. He first took human form, disfigured as it was by many sins, in order that we, for whose sake He bore it, might be able again to conform to the divine Likeness. For we are truly fashioned in the likeness of God only when we re-present His features in a human life, like skilful painters, impressing them upon ourselves as upon canvas, learning the path which He showed us. And for this reason He, being God, was pleased to put on human flesh, so that we, beholding as on a blueprint the divine Pattern for our life, should also be able to imitate Him who painted it. For He was not one who, thinking one thing, did another; nor, while He considered one thing to be right, taught another. But whatever things were truly useful and right, He both taught and did. Under grace the saints are being disciplined for incorruption, for the Bible is the story of God changing His form from the eternal Spirit alone with His thoughts to the flesh of His glorified family.
In the technical sense, a pattern is something in conformity with which a thing must be made; in an ethical sense, it is a dissuasive example of ruinous events which serve as admonitions or warnings to others; or an example to be imitated, such as the lives of the worthy heroes of faith in Hebrews 11; in a doctrinal sense, it is a type, for instance, a person or thing prefiguring a future person or thing like the glorified Son of David, the Son of man revealed in Brother Branham's ministry, New Jerusalem and the Bride of Christ.
So God took from Himself the substance of the creatures formed, and the pattern of things made, and the type of all the adornments in the world. Being infinite, God knew all things from the beginning. And these, His eternal thoughts are the Attributes of what He is, expressed as Words; and the Words manifested His thoughts in material form. At the translation you will find out that heaven is not somewhere else; it's right here in another dimension faster than this. Matter is Spirit slowed down; thus when Christ opened the Seventh Seal, "the Lord came with ten thousand times ten thousands of His saints . . . [and] heaven was empty for the space of half an hour" (Jude 14; I Thessalonians 4:14; Revelation 8:1; 10:1). They are present now in another dimension; the veil of flesh prevents us from seeing them.
If you are born-again, you are now seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, the Logos once manifest in flesh. Indeed, if you are elect of God you have been seated in heavenly placeswhich is the mind of Godfrom eternity, because before the foundation of the world, before the Logos was expressed, you were foreknown in Christ on Calvary; thus you are an eternal Attribute of the eternal Spirit we call God, and can no more be lost than God can be lost. It was on the strength of this revelation that Adam laid down his life to redeem Eve.
God knew you before time and material creation came into being, and placed your name on the Lamb's Book of Life. First you were His creative thought in which form you existed eternally. Then, when you were born-again, you, your soul, was expressed as His Word; now as you mature in the faith you manifest the Word which is God (II Corinthians 3:2). This is illustrated by Psalms 139:15-16, "My substance was not hid from You, when I was made in secret, and intricately fashioned in utter seclusion. Your eyes saw Me before I was formed, and My members were all written in the Lamb's Book of Life, and fashioned in continuance, when as yet there was none of them".
Brother Branham commented: this gives us the knowledge that the thought was there in His mind, and that thought was eternal and had to be expressed. So when Adam was formed of the dust of the earth and his spiritual being created by God, then Adam became God's thought expressed, and those eternal thoughts were now manifested.
Down through the centuries we could go. We find a Moses, a Jeremiah, a John the Baptist, and each one of these were God's eternal thought expressed in its season. Then we come to Jesus the LOGOS. He was the perfect and complete THOUGHT expressed and He became known as the Word. That is what He IS and forever WILL BE.
Now it says that "He has chosen us IN HIM (Jesus) before the foundation of the world." That means that we were right there WITH Him in the mind and thoughts of God before the foundation of the world. That gives an ETERNAL quality to the elect. You can't get away from that (An Exposition of the Seven Church Ages, p. 150:1-3).
In the beginning God dwelt alone with His thoughts, and He was lonely. He will never be lonely again, for His thoughts are being made manifest. And you are hearing this sermon or reading this Newsletter because God is fellowshipping with you as the Attributes of His thinking made manifest and putting on His likeness as you conform to the faith. So you, by taking thought, cannot add one cubit to your stature. You cannot come to the Lord by your works. It is God, who shows mercy, and "All the Father has given Me will come to Me: no man can come except My Father draws him."
Romans 8:29, "God's elect are predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son." That is, to be His sons after the pattern, model, or image of His Sonship is reproduced in our character and nature.
Enoch, whose name means "dedicated," was "the seventh from [the first] Adam;" the number conveying the idea of divine completion and rest, while he was himself a type of perfected humanity. "Enoch walked with God three hundred and sixty-five years and was not for God took him." Enoch who was called out of the seventh generation from the first Adam was a type of Christ's end-time Bride called out of the seventh Church Age or generation from the last Adam. Like Enoch, she will be translated without death. And the elect of all Ages will fulfill that complete day of a thousand years walking with the Lord as Enoch lived a complete year of three hundred and sixty-five days.
However, all are not Enoch's, and as a mixed multitude followed Moses in the first exodus, a mixed multitude has come out of Babylon in the third exodus. God is separating His people by declaring the difference between revelation and man-made interpretation, to thin-down the crowd by unveiling Himself in those who are His Attributes, thus exposing those who only think they are. The revelation of the mysteries of the seven thunders is awakening the Bride while it passes over the heads of those who are not elect.
The Holy Spirit used Brother Branham to speak in colloquial English as He caused Jesus to speak in common or 'koine' Greek in order to separate the intellectuals from those with discernment of Spirit and revelation. For instance, Brother Branham frequently said, "the Jews this," or "the Jews that" because this is what our English Bible says, just as it says "come" without distinguishing between a 'parousia' and an 'erchomai' coming. However, there was no such word as "Jew" in any Bible until the latter half of the eighteenth century, and the meaning of this new word "Jew" is the antithesis of the two words it has replaced, so when Brother Branham said "Jew," he invariably meant "Israelite."
Teaching calls us to be particular in the use of language since we are endeavouring by the grace of God to "rightly divide" the Message of the Prophet so that the saints will have a clear understanding of what he meant rather that the "letter" of what He said. Brother Branham did not mention the term 'parousia' Coming; he employed the English "Coming of the Son of man." However, those with the Spirit and maturity will discern Christ's second or 'parousia' Coming in the Office of Son of man from His second physical return or 'erchomai' Coming in the Office of Son of David. (See Newsletter 518). Thus revelation by the Spirit of God will separate elect from non-elect.
Jesus spoke in parables in order to thin-down His crowd. Matthew 13:10-17, "The disciples came and said to Him, Why do You speak to them in parables? He answered, To you it is granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For to him who has [faith] more will be given, and he shall have superabundantly: but whosoever has not will be deprived of whatever he has. This is why I speak to them in parables: because they look and see nothing; they listen and neither hear nor understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: You will listen and listen but not understand at all; you will look and look, and never see at all. For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they hear poorly, and their eyes they have closed so that they may not see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and return to Me to heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. For I assure you, That many prophets and righteous men have longed to see what you see and did not, and to hear what you are hearing and did not" (II Timothy 3:7; I Peter 1:10-12).
Jesus told the seventy apostles, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you cannot have eternal Life in you" (John 6:53). He didn't explain it, because it was a revelation. And reasoning among themselves, they said, "This is a hard saying, who can comprehend what He means"? And without a revelation they deserted Messiah.
In another place He commanded His disciples to baptize in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Yet there is no record of any baptisms in three Titles according to the "letter without the Spirit" until two centuries after the death of the apostolic saints. Scriptural water baptism has only even been in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and unless you were baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ you have not been baptized in the NAME (singular) of the father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Here again, we see the Lord thinning-down the crowd by revelation.
The evidence of the Holy Ghost is your ability to receive the Word by a clear understanding, not some system.
Once Jesus had overcome and made His decision in the Garden of Gethsemane the anointing left Him. He went to the Cross as a man, but also as God for He was the Logos of Jehovah expressed in flesh. Like the first Adam, He expressed Himself as male, the Husband, but His Wife was IN Him then, and if the Groom is the Word the Bride is the Word. So it is true that I was born of a virgin 2,000 years ago. God made me pay for my sin in Christ on Calvary, so when He looked down upon His Son, He saw both male and female. It was all redeemed in that one body, because God did not separate the Bride from the Groom until Jesus cried with a loud Voice, "It is finished! Into Your hands I commend My spirit." And as His spirit expired, His soul departed with the Holy Spirit from which God is forming His Bride. He returned to theophany and preached to the souls in prison, vindicating the Old Testament prophets and saints across the chasm in paradise. His body was interred in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea, and resurrected on the third day in glorified form for our justification (Romans 8:33-34).
As a Christian you are not only forgiven, you are justified. Romans 5:1 says, "Being justified by your revelation you are in harmony with Christ the Word." Justified does not mean forgiven, it means you are righteous, as though you never sinned in the first place. When you were born-again the old union of your soul in fornication with the nature of the world, which is the nature of Satan, the god of this evil age, was annihilated (Romans 7:1-6). It died, you were released from the rule of that old de facto husband and the Bridegroom bore your shame on Calvary. He took your place in death because you were predestinated to be His Bride before the foundation of the world.
That Word was judged once and paid the supreme penalty, and you were predestinated in Him so you can never be judged again, "for it is destined that men die only once" (Hebrews 9:27). John 5:24, "He who hears My Word, and believes on Him that sent Me, has eternal Life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed out of death into Life".
You were not physically in Christ, nor was your soul in Him as there is no pre-existence of souls, but you are eternal with Him because before the foundation of the world, God saw you IN Christ crucified. By foreknowledge you were accounted in Christ by the baptism with the Holy Ghost, predestinated in Christ, and came from the same sourceHis eternal thoughtswhich are the Attributes of Himself (II Corinthians 5:13-21). Then you were born of the spoken Word for your day, and became the manifestation of His expressed thought as you acted out the revelation in your life.
The same Word that spoke of the Groom also speaks of His Bride, so she will manifest everything that was promised of Him, even to raising herself from the dead, because this is written in His Word (John 2:19; 6:39). If we are God's children, we are His eternal Attributes and eternal Life. And because God is the only Eternal Life there is, we were in Him from the beginning; and when the fullness of the Logos was manifest as Jesus Christ, we were part of Him then.
When you can see yourself in Christ on Calvary, nothing can shake your faith, because that is the tie post of the soul. Outside of that, regardless of your sincerity, self-sacrifice and good works, you are lost (Romans 8:28-39). If you can see this revelation you will know you have been in the Logos from eternity. You are not forced to believe and you will not wonder, because faith dissolves all doubt and banishes confusion.
Men make a grave mistake and forego faith when they take the Bible and Brother Branham for what they "say," rather than for what they "mean" (Matthew 18:16: II Corinthians 3:6). This practice has led many to imagine God is somehow three persons, and to baptize in three Titles when they have no Scriptural support for this heresy that was mandated by the First Nicaea Council of AD325 and enforced on pain of death.
In these last days men are teaching a mélange of quotes from Brother Branham's sermons by which they claim to expound what they imagine to be hidden mysteries. They are in fact delivering the "letter" of THUS SAITH THE LORD coupled with the spirit of strong delusion, causing sincere, often fanatical persons with itching ears to accept their second-hand religion and be damned by it because they received not the love of the Truth (Acts 17:11; II Thessalonians 2:10-12).
The Prophet's Message was sent as the Key to unlock eternal Life from the Bible. God's ministers are preaching end-time revelation from His Bible, not conjuring up "hidden mysteries" by reciting tea leaves of the "letter".
I was speaking with a minister who wants to translate more Messages into his mother tongue. This is not the way. Besides which the world is falling apart, and it is far too late to organize the logistics. The Scriptural way is to receive a clear revelation of the present Truth and deliver it to the people from the Bible in their own tongue. They can "prove all things" from Genesis to Revelation personally in their own Bibles and "hold fast that which is good. The elect will then spread the Light by the acknowledged authority of the written Word of God.
Millions of dollars and forty-three years have been spent translating and printing the "letter" of the Message: multitudes quote it verbatim, yet very few English-speaking believers have the revelation of what the Spirit is saying to the churches.
By way of illustration, this diagram signifies the Eternal Spirit before creation alone with His thoughts. He is not the circle; He is the dots in the circle which represent His eternal thoughts. These are His Attributes and express His nature so that men may know, adore and glorify Him by growing into His Likeness. The fullness of His eternal thoughts was manifest as the Logos in theophany as the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, and as Melchisedec; then crucified in the virgin-born Jesus Messiah who was the fullness of God's nature and character expressed bodily in one Man. His elect, each written epistles of the Spirit in measure, are therefore accounted crucified in Christ on Calvary.
Brother Branham spoke of these Attributes as the seed, germ, or gene of God. He also spoke of a nature and a soul. Some mistakenly equate these five terms, and taking the "letter without the Spirit" hypothesize that God's elect are born from mother's womb with the seed, gene or germ of God dormant in their heart. Quoting Ezekiel 18:4 they proclaim, "The soul that sins will surely die" and presume that when an elect is born-again the soul that sinned is annihilated and the dormant seed quickened into a sinless, spanking new replacement soul. But Jesus was sent to restore souls to fellowship through new birth, not to replace them. Had they taken the spoken Word of the Message to the written Word of the Bible as instructed they would never have conceived such fantasy.
The "seed" is the incorruptible Word of God for OUR day received by faith through the foolishness of preaching to quicken our soul to Life in Christ (Luke 8:11; I Peter 1:22-25). When we were born from mother's womb, we were unable to speak let alone hear and understand the revealed Word of God. The Bible explains how our near Kinsman is redeeming that which was lost, NOT replacing it with something else.
Your soul is you; your body is the temple in which YOU dwell, and your mortal spirit is the energy that powers your body and mind. Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 26, "To him that overcomes I will give to fellowship with the Tree of Life (Jesus Christ), in the midst of the paradise of God. . . The soul that overcomes shall not be hurt of the second death." Hebrews 9:27, "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." The first death is the death of the body; the second death is that of the soul in the lake of Fire after the White Throne Judgment. As both are yet future the Two Soul theory is implausible (Ezekiel 18:4, 20; Revelation 20:14-15).
As the famous medieval poet and philosopher Rabbi Judah Halevy explains in Kuzari, "Jewish people constitute a separate entity, a species unique in Creation, differing from nations in the same manner as man differs from the beast or the beast from the plant . . . although Jews are physically similar to all other men, yet they are endowed with a "second soul" that renders them a separate species" (Zimmer, Uriel, Torah-Judaism and the State of Israel, Congregation Kehillath Yaakov, Inc., NY, 5732 (1972), p. 12).
"It is axiomatic in Cabalistic writings that the higher souls of Jewish people are derived from the divine pleroma (totality of divine powers)the realm of Sefirot (emanations)whereas the souls of all other nations are derived from the "shells." Rabbi Hayim Vital does not exempt converts from this rule (Aitz Hayim 7, 10, 7; Aitz Hadaat, Bemidbar). The "Tanya" of Rav Sheneur Zalman was written for the general public. Its view of Gentile souls is in Chapter 6. The Zohar follows the same line, save that in the Midrash Haneelam; we note a certain effort to account for this difference. Before Adam sinned, he possessed the higher soul; after his sin, only his animal soul remained. Thereafter, the divine soul comes only to those who are preoccupied with Torah, entering the body of the Jewish male at age thirteen" (Rabbi Jacob Agus, Meta-Myth: The Diaspora and Israel Zohar Hodosh, Bereshit 18b-19a, Midrash Hane'elam. Etan Levine [ed.], Diaspora: Exile and the Jewish Condition, New York, Jason Aronson. 1983. p. 139). There is the doctrine of Two Souls.
Christians should not be deceived into believing that when Jews speak of the Torah they mean the five Books of Moses. They do not. They refer to its antithesis, the Babylonian Talmud.
Isaiah 53:10-11 exposes the heresy of Two Souls: "It pleased the Lord to bruise Messiah; He has put Him to grief. When His soul is made an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the will of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the fruit of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My righteous Servant (Jesus Messiah) justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities." Having borne our iniquities and carried away our sins as foreshadowed by the two goats in the ritual of Israel's day of Atonement, He has "by one offering sanctified and perfected forever" His new and living Temple made without hands, eternal in the heavens (II Corinthians 5:1; Hebrews 9:8-14; I Corinthians 3:16; 6:16). Having atoned with His innocent life Messiah cannot now lay any accusation against God's chosen souls whom He has justified (Romans 8:28-39; Hebrews 10:14)?
It is Christ whose "soul was made an offering for sin." Were it possible for us to offer our soul for sin with the surety of a replacement we would be performing a program of self-works like Israel, making void God's grace by faith (Romans 9:30-33; Galatians 2:16; 3:2, 5, 10).
Galatians 3:26-29, "For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. . . And if you are Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Thus a second soul cannot derive from one's birth by a woman in the righteous lineage, or Cain would have had a spare. And not even by coition with a Jewess as implied by section 4B of Israel's unscriptural Law of Return (5710-1950), or Esau, Dathan, Korah, the Israelites who disbelieved at Kadesh, Judas Iscariot and those who were complicit in murdering Messiah all would have been elect of God. Quite apart from this, the social structure of Israelites and Christians of the Old and New Testaments is patriarchal.
No one was ever born with Abraham's seed of faith, which comes by hearing and understanding the Word of God for your hour (Romans 10:17). God's children are not born of human intimacy but through faith in His revealed Word. "Abraham's seed" is the baptism with the Holy Spirit, which is the new birth.
In summary, the seed, germ or gene of God is His thought, which when expressed becomes a Word, the revelation of which imparts His Spirit and eternal Life. It becomes the Husband and one with our soul through the unity of the faith, and as "grace and peace are multiplied in us through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, we become partakers of the Divine nature" and manifest His Attributes, growing into the stature of the Perfect Man (II Peter 1:3-4).
A "nature" is the sum of spiritual and physical qualities and propensities which make up the essential features and elements of character. It is the intrinsic disposition, inherent tendency or character of a person, object or being. The nature of a Christian is to have the Token on display. The nature of a dog is to bark at strangers, eat almost anything and bury bones. The nature of your car might be a reluctance to start. The nature of a mule is stubbornness.
A theologian would classify the Two Souls heresy as a form of Manichaeism, a dualistic cult that postulates two natures have existed from the beginning: light and darkness. The realm of light lived in peace, while the realm of darkness was in constant conflict with itself.
A nature is not a soul as Two Soul's believers assert but as Brother Branham and the Bible teach the soul is the nature of the spirit that controls it. Until your soul is born-again or quickened by agreement into union with the revealed Word for your day, your life cannot become a written epistle of that part of the Word, but is ruled by your mortal spirit and flesh whose desires are worldly. And as Satan is the Prince of this world his nature ultimately rules that unregenerate soul.
Your soul reflects the nature of the spirit that is on it the nature of the world, or the nature of the Holy Spirit. Whereas the spirit and flesh each have five senses, you, your soul has but one, faith or unbelief in the revealed Word of God as you determine by the exercise of your free moral agency. Your unregenerate soul was ruled by the nature of your mortal spirit, which is the nature of this world, and Satan is the god of this evil age. Your regenerated soul is ruled by the Word of God that has transformed the mortal spirit which now reflects the nature of Christ and brings your flesh subject to the Word. It is the nature on your soul that has changed; you are still the same old soul.
The relationship established from Genesis to Revelation between male and female, husband and wife, is clearly seen where the soul, which is feminine in designation submits to and mirrors the nature of the spirit or husband to which it has yielded dominion. The feminine or wife is to be submissive and obey her husband in everything for she is his glory, or his shame, reflecting his nature and character.
All souls come from God, even the souls of the Serpent's seed. Only the souls of Adam's race are written in the Book of Life, which is the genealogy of Adam, and have a kinsman Redeemer. Jesus Messiah is the last Adam; He was not the last Cain. Because of the fall, you, your soul was born into a house of corruptible flesha living spirit (Genesis 2:7) born dead in the sin of Eve and the trespasses of Adam, and ignorant and unlearned like your mortal spirit and baby flesh. What you learn will develop your nature. Initially this will be the experiences of the five senses of your bodysight, hearing, touch, taste and smell, and the five senses of your mortal spiritconscience, imagination, memory, reasoning and affection as they communicate a second hand account of their contact with the world.
Depending upon your family nurture, cultural, educational and socioeconomic circumstances, these experiences can range from wholesome and good, even godly, to evil, and the communications from true to false. What you accept or reject will impose a sound or unsound nature on your soul, with a bearing on your future decisions as you exercise your free moral agency, forming your character and determining your destiny as a son of Adam. Too many of the wrong decisions will ultimately lead you, as it led Esau, Judas Iscariot and Caiaphas, to that place of no more repentance, and your name will be blotted from the Book of Life as spiritual Serpent's seed, whereas the correct decisions will sanctify and maintain your name on the Book of Life, and when you appeal at the White Throne Judgment you will be granted into eternal Life.
None of this second-hand religion imparted by the worldly experiences of the ten senses, no matter how wholesome and godly, can quicken you your soul to eternal Life, for they are all "works" like Israel's Law. Faith alone, and faith in the present Truth, can quicken you to eternal Life (John 6:63; I John 1:7). The Spiritual Light of understanding revealed to you personally from the Father Above will kill that old worldly nature of enslavement to the desires of the mortal spirit and corruptible flesh, the "old man" that was in fornication with your soul. That old de facto husband is DEAD; now you are united with your new Husband, the Lord from heaven (Romans 7:1-6; I Corinthians 5:13-21; Colossians 3:1-11). You will not come under judgment but have passed from death unto Life as you are elect of God and your name was always in the Lamb's Book of Life.
Homework: Please review Nature and Soul and Thy Seed shall inherit the Nations. | 2019-04-19T07:10:42Z | http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/nl523.htm |
Yesterday an elder asked me the question, “Do I really need a Will?” The answer may seem obvious, since every authoritative source (if you google that question, you will see what I mean) responds in the affirmative. However, I have had elder clients who after careful consideration (and despite my warnings) have chosen either not to create a Will, or in a couple of cases where one already exists, not to submit it to probate.
A lawyer has several good reasons for recommending that all of his clients (not just the wealthy ones) execute a Will and after death submit it for probate. A Will allows the client to choose exactly how his/her property should be divided, who should be in charge of the estate, who should be the guardian of minor or disabled children, how their remains should be handled, etc.
For this discussion, however, we will assume that the client no longer has young children or disabled family members to care for, and has already placed all of his or her property in a form that makes a Will unnecessary. This can be done by using beneficiary deeds for real property, revocable living trusts, pay-on-death bank accounts and joint ownership.
The client who called yesterday, can’t think of a single reason why they should pay even a small amount of money to create a Will, that will need to then go through Arizona’s simplified probate process, which entails publication fees, fees for Death Certificates, probate filing fees, notary fees and some amount of paper work by the person designated as personal representative or executor (PR). Why should this lady bother with all the fees and effort to create a Will and then subject her son to more fees and paper work, when he will get all of his mother’s property automatically the moment she dies? This is indeed a worthwhile question.
If all property passed automatically at death what value is probate?
One answer is finality. By going through the probate process (which usually starts with the presentation of a Will to the probate court and the designation of a PR), the claims of creditors are fully extinguished. In Arizona the cut-off date for creditor claims is 120 days after the first date of publication of a formal death notice. Once the 120 day period expires the estate can shortly thereafter be “closed” by the court (upon application by the PR) and at this point the opportunity for any challenge, such as from unhappy family members, also ends (re-opening an estate is possible, but only in limited circumstances usually involving fraud or mistake by the PR).
I am currently acting as estate counsel for a modest sized estate (having less than one million dollars of net worth) which is going through Arizona’s simplified probate system, and was initiated in the summer of 2013 by the publication of a death notice. Last week I received a phone call from a very polite gentleman, who I believe was telling me the truth, saying that he had a check signed by “Miss M” (for whom I had drafted a Will just weeks before her death a year ago) for four hundred dollars, which was three years old!
This gentleman wanted to submit the stale check as a bill to the estate and he had gotten my name from the probate court. He explained that he had misplaced the check (for almost 3 years) and thus failed to have it deposited in a timely way. For the sake of argument I will assume that the signature on the check was that of Miss M.
I informed him that the time period for filing claims against the estate expired 120 days after the first day of publication of the death notice, thus he was already several months too late to make a claim. I further explained that even a personal plea to the PR will do no good, since the law requires the PR to reject any bills submitted after the 120 day cut-off (because the remainder of the estate belongs to the various beneficiaries at that point) and the PR can actually be sued personally by other beneficiaries of the estate for paying tardy claims. Miss M’s estate benefited from the probate system by having claims such as this one barred forever. Had the bill been for a larger amount, and had there been no probate filing, the claimant could very well have taken the matter to court and won a judgment against the estate.
Another recent client chose not to file for probate. This lady’s domestic partner had just passed away after ensuring that my client had title to all of his assets. He left a Will, which set forth that my client would inherit everything, but my client now wanted to know whether she would get into trouble if she simply paid the final bills (except for one which she had grounds to dispute) and not put the estate through probate.
The risk for her is that the obligation to the creditor who was not paid, could linger for years. As the beneficiary of her partner’s estate (which scarcely had enough funds to pay the remaining bills) she could potentially be sued years later (although this is unlikely because of the small size of the estate). The benefit for her, she believes, is that by failing to open probate and publish a death notice, the creditor may not learn about his death and thus may never pursue its claim against the estate.
Against my conservative advice I understand that she decided to refrain from probate. Although the final result will not be known for at least 6 years (the statute of limitations for contract claims), she may be successful in saving herself at least $500-$1,000 in legal fees and expenses as well as the amount of the bill which is no doubt still outstanding against her deceased partner.
The probate system does the family a favor by closing the estate and cutting off claims. Lawyers are sometimes in the uncomfortable position of having to recommend their clients pay fees to make this happen, even though the family sometimes feels that the expense is unwarranted, and viewed in hindsight the family may sometimes be proven correct.
This anecdote comes from a local Arizona Dept. of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) case worker’s decision to refuse to continue attendant care benefits to a wheelchair bound person suffering from Cerebral Palsy (CP). I learned about it from an advocate for the family involved.
Everyone is already aware that funding for the disabled in Arizona has been slashed as a result of the economic downturn (and the utter failure of state government to put aside funds during Arizona’s real-estate bubble heyday for the inevitable downturn—every penny from property taxes was spent before it was even collected, thanks Janet Napolitano!). Across the board reductions in certain programs and the complete elimination of others explain how some of the cuts were achieved, but here is an example of the dirty underbelly of the state system which very much resembles what I reported on a few months ago from an Ohio case.
A few months ago a DDD case worker was doing the annual review of her CP client, and without warning suddenly announced that she was cutting 100% of the family’s Medicaid funding for “attendant care”. This person requires assistance with virtually all of her life skills, including bathing, dressing, brushing hair and teeth, etc. Attendant care is the funding which enables a family to obtain assistance for such care. This person had been receiving approximately 180 hours a month in attendant care ever since she began receiving Medicaid. No explanation was given to the family, which then sought the assistance of an attorney.
The attorney pursued the matter through the 2 levels of administrative appeal (inside DDD’s own organization), where appeals are routinely turned down. This forced the attorney to file suit in Superior Court for denial of the person’s rights guaranteed under federal and state law. DDD filed an Answer denying that the family’s rights had been violated and the case was scheduled for trial. What happened next puts Arizona right next to Ohio on the Wall of Shame.
The attorney for the state rushed over to the family’s attorney with a settlement agreement in his hand moments before the trial was to begin. As in the Ohio case (see my Nov 28, 2012 post), the key issue for the state of Arizona, whose bluff had been called by a family willing to bear the costs and mental anguish of the litigation process, was to prevent the case from being publicized. The family got all of their attendant care benefits restored retroactively, but were barred from speaking about the matter forever. Obviously the state is afraid that if it becomes known that they are using intimidation and the internal appeals process (where the family always loses) to deny legal rights to persons with disabilities they will face a deluge of litigation which they can not win.
Families receiving government benefits for a disabled family member need to be aware of these unscrupulous tactics.
Elders are particularly prone to identity theft for a number of reasons. They are often not savvy about the risks involved, particularly when they involve online commerce. Elders are often overly trusting of telephone solicitors who use pretexts to obtain confidential personal information, and they often don’t check their bank and credit card statements for unauthorized transactions. As a result they or their families often discover months or years later that their assets have been subject to theft by criminals who were able to open bank or credit accounts in their names.
Many elders mistakenly believe that they are protected against identity theft because they never conduct on-line transactions, and use cash or checks in lieu of credit cards (both of these are still sensible measures for many elders). However, once a criminal obtains a name, address, phone number, date of birth and social security number they have everything needed to open a new financial account in the elder’s name, from which they can siphon off the elder’s savings, even though the elder has never authorized any credit accounts. Also, consider that the necessary personal information for identity theft is already in the possession of one of the most frequent types of criminal—other family members (it’s sad to say).
Elders find themselves solicited by large companies offering identity theft “protection” and insurance. The devil is in the details of these services, but suffice it to say that they are expensive and not water tight. An elder on a budget will often find that this kind of protection is simply not affordable. What’s more, the most effective part of these services is exactly what I am advocating elders do for themselves, for free (depending on their age—see below).
The reason that this protection is not widely known is a measure of its effectiveness: no one makes any money off of it! The answer: simply disable yourself from opening any new financial accounts!
Let me explain: when someone attempts to open a bank, investment or credit account, the first thing that happens is the institution collects personal information required for a credit check. They submit your personal information to the Big 3 credit bureaus (Experian, Transunion and Equifax, and to be completely safe you might also add the smaller bureau Innovis) which produce a comprehensive credit history and give each individual a credit score. When you fill in the account opening form you are giving the institution the authority to conduct this background check. It happens without your knowledge and you don’t receive any notice from the credit bureau that they have provided someone with a report (unless you have a credit monitoring account, for which you also are charged a monthly fee).
My adults in the US spend their adult lives opening and closing credit accounts. I will spare everyone my rant about how disregard for the consequences of indebtedness has caused this country a colossal nightmare, but in the case of elders it is something which they should wean themselves from permanently. All any elder needs is (at most) a single bank account, an investment account(s) (for their retirement savings and investments), and a single credit card (if that). Once these are in place it is doubtful that you will ever need another such account.
The trick to stopping most garden variety identity theft is “how do I prevent someone who has obtained my personal information from opening an account and using it to steal my money”.
The solution is simple: for a one-time fee of $5 in Arizona (free for adults over 62, or persons who are already the victim of identity theft), you can block a credit bureau from releasing your credit information to any one, and thus prevent a new account from being opened in your name. The thief with your personal information will discover that the bank where he is trying to open an account will refuse to cooperate because of this “credit freeze”.
Most credit bureaus allow you to place the credit freeze on-line by visiting their website, but the procedure can also be done by calling them and obtaining the application materials through the mail. You do have to provide your personal information at the time of placing the freeze, but as long as you are providing it to one of the 4 credit bureaus listed below this is a low risk disclosure (they already have this information in their files).
What happens after you establish a credit freeze if you need a new account or additional credit from an existing bank account?
When I learned about this procedure about 6 years ago I immediately put credit freezes in place. Since then I have on one occasion needed to release the credit freeze (temporarily) to permit me to refinance the mortgage on my house. This proved to be extremely simple and for the same $5 fee I was able to have the freeze lifted for one month so that my mortgage lender could obtain a new report. At the end of the month I checked the credit bureaus and confirmed that the freeze was once again in place.
How do I put a “credit freeze” on my accounts?
Medicaid Eligibility Determinations: are “Wall Street Ethics” Ubiquitous?
Introduction: as someone who worked in law and compliance for Wall Street banks, I know a good deal about “Wall Street ethics” (or lack thereof) and I will assume that the reader has a good sense of this oxymoron. When I left the world of finance to open a solo law practice I expected somewhat higher standards in other sectors of the economy.
“My client was denied Medicaid benefits. He appealed, and was again twice denied at the two levels of administrative appeal. I took an appeal from the Medicaid determination to the local state court and filed a brief. I was soon contacted by the state attorney general’s office which recognized the validity of my arguments and offered a settlement. This gentlemen did not want to see the case litigated to a decision in my favor because of the fear of setting a precedent which others would learn about and follow.
What is most troublesome about this story is the author’s comment that his client’s circumstances are commonplace, and the state Medicaid agency’s policy to deny benefits in similar cases is routinely made.
Thus many deserving Medicaid applicants are being denied benefits unfairly, and the state attorney general’s office sanctions this abuse.
The author goes on to say that he was so troubled by the ethical dilemma of agreeing to keep the settlement confidential that he contacted the head of the bar association’s legal ethics division, the Inspector General’s office and the Ethics Commission. All of these legal ethics watchdogs were unable to see an ethical problem.
The author did not reveal the circumstances which led to his client’s unfair denial of benefits, and I can’t blame him as his primary duty is to his client, and by agreeing to the confidentiality obligation he is obtaining for his client exactly what his client sought.
I’m afraid I have to agree with the cynic.
An unpleasant fact of life in the U.S. is the way that government regulations can leap out of the bushes to bite you when you least expect it. One prime example is in the case of a marriage between elders.
Henry was 75, healthy and retired, he had saved $600k which he held in a revocable living trust for his children and grandchildren. The love of his life, his wife Betsy, had passed away and when he met Lydia he never imagined that romance might bloom again. But it did, and Henry and Lydia, who had no assets of her own, were married shortly thereafter.
What Henry hadn’t counted on was the effect of Medicaid rules on his trust funds when Lydia became ill and was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. When Henry contacted the state Medicaid agency to begin the application process for Lydia he discovered that as a Community Spouse he was expected to “spend down” his trust to about $113k, decimating the inheritance he and his first wife had built up for so many years for their children, before Lydia would become eligible for government benefits.
When Henry contacted an attorney he had difficulty believing that there was no way out of the dilemma. He could spend his money on home improvements, a new car, travel or anything else, but what he wanted was to live simply and save his money for his children. In desperation he asked the attorney if there wasn’t any possible solution, and he learned the brutal truth: in order to protect his financial legacy he needed to divorce Lydia!
Divorce solves Henry’s problem in that his assets would no longer be considered “available” resources to Lydia, who having no resources of her own, automatically qualifies for Medicaid. Henry still loves Lydia and there is nothing to prevent Henry from retaining his spiritual bond with her, and purchasing goods and services for Lydia which go beyond what Medicaid provides, as a way to improve the quality of her life while she is in the nursing home.
The emotional pain of being forced to choose between divorce and impoverishment is a cruel plight which takes the joy out of life for many elders. Single elders involved in a committed relationship and considering marriage need to carefully weigh the financial impact which long term care might have on their respective finances.
For many the solution is a domestic partnership, often celebrated in a church ceremony, with an agreement, formal or otherwise, about sharing expenses, but without registering a marriage. Since Arizona, like most states, no longer recognizes the common law marriage, this arrangement will not be treated by Medicaid as a marriage and will not cause the community “spouse” to have to spend down his/her assets.
Background: in the jargon of Medicaid, the term “community spouse” describes the healthy spouse of a Medicaid applicant (aka the “nursing home spouse”). The resources of both spouses are considered available to the nursing home spouse and must be disclosed on the Medicaid application. The Medicaid applicant is permitted to keep a maximum of $2,000 in “non-exempt” assets, while the community spouse can keep as much as $113,000.
If this sounds harsh then you get the picture. Medicaid regulations are designed to force the couple to spend down their assets to a very low level in order for the nursing home spouse to qualify for government assistance. A short list of assets is “exempt” from this rule (the family home up to a value of $500,000, one family car, home furnishings, personal belongings, a burial plot and a few other items).
New Development: Last month there was a rare bit of good news for elder couples who are facing the need to apply for Medicaid. The second circuit court of appeals has just ruled that the community spouse may convert “resources” into “income” through the purchase of a qualifying annuity. The devil is in the details (the annuity must be “non-assignable”, and the government must be named as the beneficiary of any funds left over after the death of the annuitant among other requirements) but this device is an important tool which can prevent the community spouse from being truly impoverished.
By using her own resources ($166,000 in cash—the amount by which her resources exceeded the Medicaid allowance for the community spouse), Mrs. Lopes purchased a single premium annuity which promised to pay her a stream of monthly income ($2,340) for a period of six years (which was determined to be “actuarially sound”, or a complete pay back within the purchaser’s life expectancy). The state was named as beneficiary and will receive any remaining funds should Mrs. Lopes pass away during the 6 year annuity period.
Mrs. Lopes chose an annuity contract which contains an “Assignment Limitation Rider” (which provided that the annuity was non- transferable), which the court found determinative of the question of whether the annuity payments were resource or income. Since Mrs. Lopes did not have the legal right to sell her annuity, the court found that the payment stream was “income” (which is not deemed to be available to the nursing home spouse), and thus after the purchase of this annuity, the couples’ combined resources did not exceed the Medicaid limit.
Mrs. Lopes filed her husband’s Medicaid application 13 days after purchasing the annuity and the court ruled that it was irrelevant that the annuity was purchased for the purpose of qualifying for Medicaid. The Connecticut Department of Social Services’ policy manual treated annuities, even those which are non-assignable, as resources, and Mrs. Lopes’ suit challenged the legality of this provision on the basis that it was impermissibly more restrictive than the existing SSI regulations passed by Congress, and the Court agreed with Mrs. Lopes. | 2019-04-26T00:23:31Z | https://elderlawofarizonablog.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/ |
The intense pain and anxiety triggered by burns and their associated wound care procedures are well established in the literature. Non-pharmacological intervention is a critical component of total pain management protocols and is used as an adjunct to pharmacological analgesia. An example is virtual reality, which has been used effectively to dampen pain intensity and unpleasantness. Possible links or causal relationships between pain/anxiety/stress and burn wound healing have previously not been investigated. The purpose of this study is to investigate these relationships, specifically by determining if a newly developed multi-modal procedural preparation and distraction device (Ditto™) used during acute burn wound care procedures will reduce the pain and anxiety of a child and increase the rate of re-epithelialization.
Children (4 to 12 years) with acute burn injuries presenting for their first dressing change will be randomly assigned to either the (1) Control group (standard distraction) or (2) Ditto™ intervention group (receiving Ditto™, procedural preparation and Ditto™ distraction). It is intended that a minimum of 29 participants will be recruited for each treatment group. Repeated measures of pain intensity, anxiety, stress and healing will be taken at every dressing change until complete wound re-epithelialization. Further data collection will aid in determining patient satisfaction and cost effectiveness of the Ditto™ intervention, as well as its effect on speed of wound re-epithelialization.
Results of this study will provide data on whether the disease process can be altered by reducing stress, pain and anxiety in the context of acute burn wounds.
Pain is multidimensional and highly complex, and involves the integration of sensation and perception. Emotions, individual attributes, cognitive, environmental and cultural factors, together with the child’s focus of attention and level of control, all play a significant role in diminishing or magnifying the perception of pain [1, 2]. Despite considerable advances in burn wound management, procedural pain is both the most intense pain, and the most common type of burn pain to be undertreated . Lack of well-established evidence-based protocols of burn pain management; inaccurate fears of addiction; infrequent pain assessment; and poor correlations between the nurse’s and the patient’s perception of pain, attribute to the occurrence of under medication in children . It is not surprising that the entire wound healing period can provoke a high level of stress and anxiety, particularly for children.
Anxiety, which commonly co-exists with pain, impedes our coping mechanisms and ability to tolerate pain. Anxiety is a future-orientated emotion of apprehension, nervousness, tension, fear and worry, accompanying physical sensations and influencing subjective perception . Highly anxious burn patients are, therefore, more susceptible to lower pain tolerance [6, 7]. Several studies refer to the reciprocal relationship between pain and anxiety [8, 9]. In addition to anxiety, burn injuries, which are a type of trauma, may induce acute stress symptoms, and psychological disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) .
Pain and anxiety places the body under both physical and physiological stress. Stress has been reported to interrupt and delay the cascade of healing in several studies, including skin barrier recovery after tape stripping [12, 13]; punch wound biopsies [14–16]; suction induced blisters [17, 18] and pre-surgical stress . The biological mechanisms behind this may be explained through the stress induced elevation of glucocorticoids and adrenaline and noradrenaline levels. Elevation of these stress hormones produces an immunosuppressive effect, reducing the infiltration and activation of neutrophils and macrophages , and also suppressing the production of proinflammatory cytokines IL-1β and TNF-α . Proinflammatory cytokines are crucial to the recruitment of phagocytic cells to clear away contaminating debris; in activating and recruiting cells involved in wound healing, including lymphocytes and other macrophages; and regulating fibroblast chemotaxis, proliferation, collagen synthesis and endothelial cells involved in the repair process . Attenuation of the expression of these proinflammatory cytokines is likely to impair healing through delaying the inflammatory stage of wound healing .
Additionally, immune function plays a pivotal role, particularly in the early processes of wound healing. Elevated glucocorticoids, adrenaline and noradrenaline alter cellular function and differentiation of T cells, causing a shift from Th1 cellular to Th2 humoral immune function . Stress-induced suppression of Th1 cellular immunity may inhibit the secretion of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in macrophages . Angiogenesis, endothelial and epithelial cell proliferation and migration are central to wound healing and are highly influenced by nitric oxide . Additionally, an increase in iNOS production has been shown to be just as detrimental as iNOS deficiency . Stress-induced increases of adrenaline in mice were shown to heighten iNOS to cytotoxic levels, impairing wound healing . A stress–induced shift to Th2 humoral immunity activates mast cells, which release histamine and result in inflammation. The Th2 profile up-regulates B lymphocytes, leading to the production of antibodies , rather than contributing to wound healing processes. Stress may still continue to disrupt healing after wound closure. Fibroblasts, together with their by-products collagen and matrix metalloprotinases (MMPs), comprise the main contributors to wound maturation . Stressed mice displayed reduced levels of matrix MMP-2 and MMP-9, which are involved in cell migration and collagen turnover. Consequently, reduced levels may delay granulation tissue re-modeling, resulting in a less organized collagen structure (rather than being aligned parallel with the lines of contraction) and immature collagen scaffolds .
Dampening pain intensity, unpleasantness, anxiety and time spent thinking about pain through the use of virtual reality (VR), has created much interest since the first published case report in 1999 with adolescents during burn wound care procedures . An accumulation of studies in the area of burns are reporting a discernible reduction in pain ratings when VR is used alongside pharmacological intervention [30–39]. VR encompasses multisensory stimuli from sight, sound and touch, greatly drawing the subject's attention into the virtual world, creating a sense of “presence” . VR acts to psychologically dissociate the patient from pain by activating higher cognitive and emotional regions in the brain. The full extent and awareness of pain is reduced, as seen in functional magnetic resonance imaging which showed a dampened transmission to primary regions involved in emotional processing of pain (caudal anterior cingulated cortex) and the sensory component of pain (primary somatosensory cortex) . Distraction has also been shown to gate pain perception through activation of the periaqueductal gray, which was not activated during pain stimulus alone .
The multi-modal distraction Ditto™ (Diversionary Therapy Technologies, Queensland, Australia) is a medical device that has a preparatory and distraction phase . The preparatory phase involves the child engaging in the story “Bobby gets a Burn©”. This interactive story has been specifically tailored for 3- to 12-year-olds to explain the clinical procedures and sensory phases of a burn dressing change in a child-focused manner. The story aims to reduce anxiety, fear and distress through exposing and desensitizing the child to the procedure; acknowledging feelings associated with the sensory aspects of the procedure; and instilling a sense of control through equipping the child with the knowledge of what will transpire. Following the preparatory story, conducted in the waiting room, the child engages in a choice of interactive stories or games throughout wound care procedures, forming the distraction phase of the Ditto™. A large degree of the success of the Ditto™ device is due to its novel design , and the unique and child-friendly educational content concerning the procedure . Off-the-shelf virtual reality systems have not previously been able to significantly decrease burn pain scores in adolescents . However, the novel and customized content and technology of the Ditto™ has proven effective in reducing pain levels compared to off-the-shelf video games .
Results from Miller’s trials [33, 34] confirmed the effectiveness of the Ditto™ in significantly reducing pain ratings and treatment length. Retrospective review of medical notes identified the Ditto™ treatment group wounds re-epithelialized an average of two days faster than the standard distraction group . This exciting and clinically significant finding highlights the potential of this Ditto™ device with pain reduction and also possibly improving wound healing. In the Miller trial, burn wound depth was not matched between control and treatment arms and the measurement of wound re-epithelialization was only obtained retrospectively from the chart notes. The possible link between stress and burn wound healing have stimulated the development of this current trial to measure stress, wound healing and pain in a scientific and controlled manner.
The aim of this study is to determine whether use of the Ditto™ device is associated with the rate of burn wound healing (re-epithelialization).
This study is a prospective, superiority, randomized controlled trial, consisting of two parallel groups. Participants will be randomized to receive either (1) standard preparation and standard distraction (control group), or (2) the Ditto™ device, including preparation and distraction phases (treatment group), to test the superiority of this new non-pharmacological intervention on acute burn wounds. The data collection design is displayed in Figure 1.
Study design flow chart. The sequential order and timing of data collection within the context of burn wound care procedures.
This trial protocol was ethically approved by both the Queensland Children’s Health Services (Royal Children’s Hospital) Human Research Ethics Committee and The University of Queensland Ethics Committee, and was registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12611000913976).
Participants are being recruited from the Stuart Pegg Paediatric Burns Centre at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Brisbane, Australia. Children presenting to this center from August 2011 will be screened on admission for eligibility to this trial.
Participants who are aged between 4 and 13 years with an acute burn injury of any depth and a burn total body surface area of <15%, presenting on their first dressing change, will be considered for inclusion in this study.
Children will be excluded from the study if they are non-English speaking; have a cognitive, visual or auditory impairment, or a diagnosis under the Autism Spectrum Disorders; have a diagnosed illness in addition to a burn injury; have been reported to the Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) system (as these children may have additional emotional and psychological issues affecting stress, anxiety and coping mechanisms); receive sedative medication (Midazolam, Entonox™ (BOC Healthcare, Worsley, Manchester, UK)); and if their burns require grafting. Several of these exclusions will not become known until after patient recruitment and randomization due to the nature of the clinic and the inability to predict patient and wound management needs prior to dressing removal.
All eligible children will be invited to participate. Participation in the study will not alter the standard medical treatment received.
Various outcome measures and saliva samples will be collected at several time points during the burn wound care procedures (Table 1), with the intervention (Ditto™) used prior to treatment as preparation and during treatment as a distraction at every change of dressing.
The outcome measures taken at each time point over the course of the study.
X = measure taken, # = Ditto™ intervention group only. COD, change of dressing; CTSQ, Children Trauma Screening Questionnaire; DA, dressing application; DR, dressing removal; FLACC, Faces, Legs, Arms, Cry, Consolability; FPS-R, Faces Pain Scale-Revised; VAS-A, Visual Analog Scale–Anxiety; LDI, laser Doppler image.
A baseline saliva sample 1 will be obtained in the waiting room prior to nursing administration of pharmacological pain relief in accordance with standard practice protocols within the Burn Centre (primarily oxycodone, an opioid derived pain medication, dosage determined by body weight, 0.1 to 0.2 mg/kg). Saliva samples will be collected with Salivettes™ (Sarstedt Australia Pty, Ltd. Mawson Lakes, SA, Australia), by placing the synthetic roll in the child’s mouth for a period of two minutes. Baseline measures will be taken in the waiting room for: heart rate (HR); oxygen saturation; pain ratings from the nurse and the child; a self-report anxiety measure from children eight years and over; height and weight. Demographic information and pertinent clinical characteristics will be obtained from the caregiver and patient chart: mode and site of injury; total body surface area (TBSA) of burn; depth of burn; burn first aid treatment received; skin color; medication administered; hours per week spent engaging in computer games and home video games. TBSA is calculated using the Lund and Browder chart . Food and fluid consumption two hours prior to saliva samples will also be recorded as possible confounding variables of salivary analysis in addition to the time of sample collection and time of waking.
Treatment Group: Ditto™ device including preparation and distraction phases.
While waiting for medication to take effect, children will be given the Ditto™ device in the waiting area to engage in the procedural preparation story of “Bobby gets a Burn©.” Upon entering the treatment room, participants will engage in their choice of games or interactive stories on the Ditto™ device. Engagement will occur prior to the nurses commencing dressing removal procedures and continue throughout the wound care procedure. Figure 2 depicts a patient engaging in the Ditto™ device during the distraction phase of the treatment.
Patient engaging in the Ditto™ distraction phase during dressing removal. A burn patient engaging in Ditto™ distraction as nurses carry out the wound care procedures.
The control group will have access to standard distraction, such as television, videos, books, toys and parental soothing. Nursing staff may give information before or during the process as per standard practice; however, no Ditto™ device procedural preparation or distraction will be available to the control group.
Pain, anxiety and physiological measures will be repeated prior to commencing dressing removal. All participants will have their HR recorded at two-minute intervals via an oximeter on their finger or toe. The choice of games/stories by participants in the treatment group will be recorded by the primary researcher.
Immediately following dressing removal and debridement/wound cleaning, saliva sample 2 will be taken and, at a further 10 minutes later, saliva sample 3 will be obtained with date and time of collection documented. A retrospective measure of pain/distress and anxiety during the burn dressing removal and debridement will be taken from the child and nurse. Time taken (in minutes) for dressing removal and debridement and the number of nurses involved will also be recorded.
All participants will then have their burns scanned using a laser Doppler imager (which measures burn depth by displaying blood perfusion of tissue) on their first dressing change only. A Visitrak™ (Smith & Nephew Pty Limited, London, UK) trace of the wound area and photos will be taken at every dressing change.
The type of new dressing applied will be documented and HR, oxygen saturations and the number of nurses and nursing time again recorded for the application of the new dressing. The choice of Ditto™ distraction games and stories that the treatment group engaged in will be recorded.
Immediately following the new dressing application, nursing retrospective pain/distress ratings and child retrospective pain and anxiety ratings will be taken. Measures will continue to be taken during every dressing change (usually every three or seven days), using the same protocol as above until complete re-epithelialization. Parents will be asked to rate their level of satisfaction with pain management at the end of every dressing change with the use of a visual analog scale from “not satisfied” to “very satisfied.” Children in the Ditto™ treatment group will be asked to rate their level of enjoyment in using the Ditto™ on a 10 cm line visual analog scale. Any relevant comments made by the participant or parent/carer will be recorded.
Within the first week the Child Trauma Screening Questionnaire (CTSQ) will be completed with children six years and over through interview by the researcher. The participants will then be reviewed by a consultant as required.
At the three-month follow-up, the CTSQ will be re-conducted via mail/phone, and a Salivette™ will be mailed to participants to obtain sample 4, a true baseline saliva sample (at a similar time of day to that of the pre-medication saliva sample 1) and returned via post.
This study will assess the impact of the Ditto™ device on wound healing of acute burn injuries. Healing will be measured by the number of days until complete re-epithelialization, with data collection commencing on the first dressing change. Secondary outcomes will be measuring the impact of the Ditto™ device on pain, anxiety and stress.
The amount of wound re-epithelialization and the number of days from the date of the burn injury until when the complete wound re-epithelialization occurs will be measured by (a) the consultant’s clinical judgment; (b) blinded review of photographs; and (c) the Visitrak™ (Smith & Nephew) grids. Photos will be taken at every dressing change with inclusion of a ruler and a grey scale (QPcard 101 v2, Kayell, VIC, Australia). Photograph lighting levels will be standardized using Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 9 (San Jose, CA, USA)) to enable accurate comparison of wound colors across photographs. Blinded review of photos by a panel of burn wound specialists to assess re-epithelialization and general wound appearance will occur upon cessation of data collection. The Visitrak™ grids will be used to trace around the wet (un-re-epithelialized) and dry (re-epithelialized) areas of the wound.
A laser Doppler scan will be performed on the first dressing change only, following debridement, to accurately measure wound depth, allowing for comparison of wounds across participants. Burns covering more than one body part will be scanned separately. In addition, more than one scan will be performed when burns are circumferential or extend around curved surfaces in order to capture accurate frontal, medial and/or lateral views as appropriate. The MoorLDI2-BI2 laser Doppler imager (LDI), Moor Instruments Limited, Devon, UK, contains a visible red laser diode target beam of wavelength 660 nm, and a near infra-red laser diode for measurements by the laser Doppler with a wavelength of 780 nm. All scans will be performed in burn treatment rooms maintained at a range of 22 to 24°C. A dark green sterile surgical drape will be placed as a background underneath the area to be scanned. The LDI scanner head will be positioned approximately 35° off perpendicular at a scanning distance range of between 40 and 70 cm from the wound and set on the fast scan resolution setting. The onboard software package (moorBDA v2.4, Moor Instruments, Axminster, Devon, UK) will be used to calculate different wound depths (perfusion units) as a percentage of total wound area.
Pain will be assessed before, during and after wound care procedures by obtaining the participant’s self-report of pain intensity using the Faces Pain Scale – Revised (FPS-R); the nurse’s behavioral/observational rating using the Face, Legs, Arms, Cry, Consolability (FLACC) scale; and physiological indicators, including heart rate and oxygen saturations. The Faces Pain Scale – Revised (FPS-R) was chosen for this study over other pain scales (for example, the Wong-Baker FACES Pain Scale) due to its high clinical utility and psychometrically sound properties .
Behavioral measures are an important tool to use as an adjunct to self-report scales, particularly in children who may be sedated by drugs; have a cognitive or communication impairment; or are too young to comprehend a self-report scale. In addition, a child’s self-report may be exaggerated, diminished or altered due to cognitive, emotional or environmental and situational factors . The Face, Legs, Arms, Cry, Consolability (FLACC) scale was chosen as it shows excellent responsiveness (detecting significant change in pain scores), reliability, content and construct validity .
Emotional responses encompass negative affect and emotional facets secondary to pain, including anxiety, distress and fear. The fear thermometer is an anxiety measure that may be used with younger children; however, it was rejected as a measure as children under eight years are reported to have difficulty cognitively distinguishing between the sensory experience of pain (pain intensity) and the affective response (distress, anxiety, fear) to pain . An anxiety measure will only be taken from children eight years and above, using the Visual Analog Scale-Anxiety (VAS-A). The VAS-A has been validated as an accurate self-report of anxiety for burn injuries , as well as other patient populations [50–53], and is more sensitive to change over time for pediatric studies [54, 55].
Salivary cortisol (reflecting the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity) and salivary α-amylase (reflecting sympathetic nervous system activity) will be used as biological markers of stress levels during burn wound care procedures. Salivettes® without citric acid (Sarstedt Australia Pty. Ltd.) will be used to collect saliva at three time points: baseline in the waiting room prior to administration of pain medication; at 0 minutes following dressing removal and debridement to capture the peak salivary α-amylase levels; and at 10 minutes to capture the peak cortisol HPA axis activity. These time points were identified in a pilot study of 10 patients. At these time points the absorbent synthetic roll will be placed in the child’s mouth for a period of two minutes. Date and time of collection will be recorded and samples will be refrigerated at 2°C and processed within seven days. Samples will be spun in a centrifuge at 3,000 rpm at room temperature (22°C) for 10 minutes and the saliva frozen at -80°C until analysis by Queensland Pathology. Ultra high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry will be used to analyze salivary cortisol and Amylase EPS-G7 Reagent (Thermo Scientific, Middletown, VA, USA) used to measure salivary α-amylase, performed according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
Detection of PTSD in children remains challenging as the DSM-IV criteria for PTSD has been defined and tested on adults and shows lack of sensitivity in diagnosing posttraumatic stress symptoms in young children . Screening tools were the only feasible measure for this study due to clinical utility and the time constraints of the setting. The Child Trauma Screening Questionnaire (CTSQ) is a self-report tool for children and adolescents 6 to 16 years, based on the 10-item Trauma Screening Questionnaire for adults . The CTSQ screens for hyper-arousal symptoms and for re-experiencing symptoms following the traumatic event . The CTSQ is more accurate than the Children’s Impact of Events Scale – version 8 in predicting PTSD at one month and six months after injury and diagnosing full and sub-syndromal PTSD .
Engagement, interaction and appropriate use of the Ditto™ will be measured by participant satisfaction. If a participant refuses to use the Ditto™ they will be excluded from the study. If, however, a child accepts the use of the Ditto™ and appears disinterested and does not completely engage with the Ditto™, this will be reflected in the child’s rating of how much they liked using the Ditto™. Other measurements of engagement were considered such as video recording, motion monitors measuring limb activation, and frequency measures of time spent looking away from the device. These latter measures were unsuitable for the Burn Centre outpatient environment and contradicted the specific design of the Ditto™ , which enables the child to interact with their caregiver, receive reassurance or check on the wound care procedures at any stage.
Indigenous children and children from other ethnicities with darker complexions will be offered the Ditto™ procedural preparation stories with characters that have darker skin tones. Furthermore, the exposure and frequency of use of other types of video game technologies will be recorded for each participant and correlated with Ditto™ satisfaction.
The caregiver is asked to rate their level of satisfaction with the pain management their child received (from not satisfied to very satisfied) on a visual analogue scale. The caregiver is also given the opportunity to comment on the positive and negative aspects of treatment and this feedback will remain confidential and will not be shown to the clinical treating team. Satisfaction with the Ditto™ during wound care procedures is evaluated by the child rating how much they liked using the Ditto™ on a 10 cm line sliding scale from enjoyment to disinterest, depicted by child-friendly images of a smiley face thumbs up and an unimpressed thumbs down face anchoring each end of the scale.
The standard deviation used in sample size calculations was based on a previous study by Miller , who found the standard deviation for time to re-epithelialization was four days. Calculations were based on detecting a clinically important difference in time to re-epithelialization between the control and Ditto groups of three days. With a power of 80% and significance level of 0.05, a sample size of 29 participants per group is required.
We expect 10% of eligible participants to dropout before wound re-epithelialization. We anticipate approximately 33% of participants recruited would later be found not to meet the eligibility criteria for the study due to factors including: the need for grafting; use of Entonox™; pre-existing anxiety conditions becoming known; and child protection concerns being raised. Therefore, it is anticipated that approximately 98 participants will need to be recruited in total, in order to achieve final participant numbers of 29 in each group.
Participants are randomized using a portable computerized random number generator. Randomization is performed by nursing or administration staff members in the Burn Centre who are not associated with the study. The primary researcher is then informed as to which group the participant has been consigned.
Recruitment will take place between 9 August 2011 and 31 August 2012. It is expected the required sample size will be achieved within this time period. Enrolment of participants is carried out by the primary researcher. Children are screened on presentation to the Burn Center for eligibility to this prospective randomized controlled trial. Once it has been established that the child meets all eligibility criteria, the primary researcher approaches the parent/caregiver/s to explain the study and provide them with a copy of the study information sheet. Parent/caregiver/s are encouraged to ask questions. Parents are guided through the informed consent form step-by-step to ensure they understand all aspects of the research project and what participation will involve.
The non-pharmacological intervention received cannot be masked. Assessment of the primary outcome, re-epithelialization, is undertaken by burn wound specialists who are masked to treatment received by the participant.
Dizziness and nausea are potential adverse effects from engagement in virtual reality. No such effects were reported in previous studies that used the Ditto™ device [33, 34, 61]. If such effects are experienced by participants, they are free to cease participation if desired. All adverse events will be recorded in both treatment groups.
All analysis will be conducted using Stata/SE 11 (StataCorp LP, College Station, TX, USA). Analysis will be performed based on the “intention-to-treat” principle, where participants will be analyzed according to the treatment they were allocated. Any dropouts will be excluded from analysis. Participant’s baseline demographic, clinical and social characteristics will be summarized using descriptive statistics. Between-group differences at baseline will be investigated using Fisher’s Exact test (categorical data) or Student’s t-test (continuous data). The association between treatment received and healing outcomes will be investigated using regression models. Continuous outcomes will be investigated using linear regression and binary outcomes with logistic regression. If assumptions for linear regression are not met, outcomes will be analyzed using non-parametric tests. Regression models will include treatment group as the only main effect, unless groups are significantly unbalanced at baseline, in which case the regression models will include two main effects (treatment group and time) as well as a treatment-by-time interaction term. The efficacy of the Ditto™ may differ according to age and the number of days to re-epithelialization will be affected by the depth of the burn. Analysis will also be conducted with data stratified for depth of burn (superficial/superficial partial thickness/deep partial thickness/full thickness) and age of participant (for example, under 7 years 11 months/8 years and greater, with age strata based on age group validity of the VAS-A). Where appropriate, repeated-measures analysis will be undertaken using Generalized Estimating Equations. Treatment and time will be included as main effects, and a treatment-by-time interaction will be performed. For continuous outcomes we will assume a Gaussian Family and for binary outcomes the Binomial Family, each with their natural link. An exchangeable correlation structure will be assumed. For all analyses a P-value of 0.05 will be considered significant. There will be no adjustment for multiple comparisons.
Data are stored securely by the principal investigator in locked filing cabinets within the secure area of the Queensland Children’s Medical Research Institute, The University of Queensland. Data are entered into an Excel spread sheet. Incomplete data from medical records are checked for and identified when entering data into Excel. All other incomplete data are coded accordingly as missing, unknown or not applicable. The data set will be cleaned and checked before being locked for analysis. On completion of the trial, data will be kept for a period of 15 years in accordance with the ethical requirements of the Queensland Children’s Health Services (RCH) Human Research Ethics Committee.
This trial utilizes a number of measures to investigate the links between the novel Ditto™ procedural preparation and distraction intervention and the patient’s experience of pain, stress and anxiety, to ultimately determine the impact this has on re-epithelialization of acute burn wounds. This is the first RCT in the area of acute burn injuries which examines the relationships among pain, stress, anxiety and re-epithelialization.
The rate of re-epithelialization has discernible implications for the formation of hypertrophic scarring and the long term physical and psychological issues resulting from scarring. The significance of this study is that if the Ditto™ intervention is associated with a reduction in time taken for acute burn wounds to re-epithelialize, patients may heal within the optimal 10 to 14 days, reducing the likelihood of hypertrophic scarring .
This trial will also be the first to measure the utility of salivary cortisol and salivary α-amylase as indicators of stress during acute burn wound care procedures. Data collected in the course of this study will seek to answer many questions regarding the pain and stress experienced by burned children, including: do children’s stress and pain levels predict re-epithelialization rate?; are pain and stress levels positively correlated?; and is there an association with age or gender?
There are some limitations with this study, mostly related to dealing with children in pain. There may be challenges with obtaining laser Doppler image (LDI) scans to determine burn wound depth. During scans children are required to remain very still for up to several minutes, ideally with their wounds free of dressings; however, exposing wounds to air flow can cause increased pain for the patient. The Visitrak™ measure involves tracing wounds, which may also be challenging for children not wanting their burns to be touched. The individualized perception of pain poses an additional limitation to measuring Ditto™ effectiveness. Exposure to noxious stimuli as an infant has the potential to permanently change the neuronal architecture of the developing brain, thus resulting in greater pain sensitivity as adolescents . This study will include children with varying experiences and memories of pain, which will shape their experience of and rating of pain levels regardless of Ditto™ engagement. To attempt to diminish this effect, children known to have existing psychological issues, or known to SCAN or child safety are excluded from this study.
The diurnal variation of cortisol may create challenges in the analysis of salivary cortisol. The cortisol awakening peak occurs an hour after waking, and burn clinics occur early in the morning, so when study samples are taken it will be more difficult to identify any peaks in stress levels. Ideally, a within-subjects design is best when comparing highly variable biological markers; however, as procedural preparation is a strong component of this proposed study, a within-subjects design is not feasible.
The pain associated with burn injuries and the need for additional treatment to standard pharmacological management is widely known and well established in the literature. Limited staff resources and busy burn clinics are common place, highlighting the need for interventions such as the Ditto™ device, which require very little set-up time. The effectiveness of the Ditto™ device in reducing pain and time taken for burn wound care procedures is well established [33, 34]. The potential of this device to also improve wound healing is of great significance in the burns field, possibly leading to decreased risk of scarring and scar management requirements and perhaps the difference between grafting and not grafting more severe burns. Establishing a link between reduced pain, stress and anxiety and improving healing time in acute burn wounds would be of major significance for patients and health care providers, and has application for all health care procedures which require pain/stress management, not just acute burns.
This trial is currently continuing to recruit participants and collect data. The cessation of participant recruitment is planned for 31 August 2012 and data collection is likely to continue to January 2013 (with data collection continuing until three months post re-epithelialization of participant’s burns).
The authors would like to thank all the children and families who participate in this study and acknowledge all the staff at the Stuart Pegg Paediatric Burns Centre at Royal Children’s Hospital, Brisbane, Australia for their support and assistance throughout data collection.
This clinical trial was partially financially supported by a grant given to the Royal Children’s Hospital, Brisbane, by Diversionary Therapy Technologies (DTT). Despite this financial support, DTT had no part in the study design and data collection of this project, nor will they have any involvement in the analysis or publication of results. One of the supervisors of the trial, Roy Kimble, holds options with DTT; however, he will not stand to lose or gain financially or personally from the results during the clinical trial period and time of submission. The principal researcher has no financial interest in the Ditto™ device or the DTT company and remains an employee of the Royal Children’s Hospital, Brisbane.
NJB, LC, RMK and SR all made substantial contributions to the design of this trial. RSW has made substantial contributions to the statistical design and wrote the data analysis in this manuscript. NJB wrote the draft manuscript with substantial input from LC. All authors provided critical review of the article and approved the final manuscript. | 2019-04-18T20:19:17Z | https://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1745-6215-13-238 |
Wildkin: Sleeping Bag, Nap Mat!
Original Sleeping Bag: Cuddle up inside of a comfortable Wildkin Sleeping Bag. Perfect for sleepovers and living room camp-sites, these sleeping bags keep kids warm, glad, and safe from boogie-monsters. Designed with Cotton/polyester exterior and lined with 100% cozy cotton flannel interior. Includes a matching Travel Pillow, Storage Bag and elastic Storage Straps. Naturally flame-resistant; the Sleeping Bag are never treated with flame-retardant chemicals. Measures 30 W X 66 L inches.
• Original Sleeping Bag Superman Navy Blue: The mighty little superhero will feel unbeatable in the Wildkin Superman Shield Navy Blue Sleeping Bag. The printed tote easily transports the superhero for the sleepover that takes place on Krypton or in a friend’s living room. The cozy cotton flannel makes certain he’ll fall asleep quickly. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Superman Purple & Pink: The impressive little superheroine will feel matchless in the Wildkin Superman Shield Purple Pink Sleeping Bag. The printed tote easily transports the superheroine for the sleepover that takes place on Krypton or in a friend's living room. The comfortable cotton flannel makes certain she'll fall asleep fast. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Batman Black & Yellow: Every crime busters require to sleep and gets help from the Wildkin Batman Shield Black Yellow Sleeping Bag. The printed tote easily take to the sleepover held in the Batcave or in a friend’s living room. The comfy cotton flannel means he’ll wake up feeling relaxed and energized to fight back. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Batman Black & Pink: Little crime buster needs to sleep and gets the help from the Wildkin Batman Shield Black Pink Sleeping Bag. The printed tote easily transport to the sleepover held in the Batcave or in a friend's living room. The soft cotton flannel means he or she will wake up feeling like fresh and energized to face the day. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Chevron Seabreeze: Add some energy to your elegance with our Zigzag print! Two thick colorful bands plus a thin white one zig and zag to create a truly contemporary version on the classic V-shaped print. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Horses in Pink: Horses in Pink features a group of whimsically wild horses that prance, dance, jump, and just chill; their brilliant white manes and tails absolutely shine atop the pattern's lovely, timeless pink backdrop. A bestselling Wildkin Classic. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Planes, Trains, Trucks: The wildest, cutest, traffic jam ever! A best-selling design by Olive Kids, the Trains, Planes, & Trucks pattern makes creative use of bold primary colors. The design's assorted group of vehicles stands out wonderfully from the cool blue background. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Under Construction: Constructed out of delightfulness! Built by our friends at Olive Kids Designs, the Under Construction Pattern re-imagines the worksite in the radiantly bright colors and fluid shapes of childhood. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Butterfly Garden: Colors so delightful you can almost taste them. Designed by the creative minds at Olive Kids, the Butterfly Garden pattern features bright bursts of cuter-than-life butterflies, lady bugs, and flowers on a soft blue background. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Butterflies: The Butterfly design is a Wildkin Classic showcasing a flowing multi-tone background over which a cascade of red, purple, and blue butterflies dance among brilliant, weaving vines and flowers. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Majestic: Abounding with the spirit of a high-end style. With its exclusive color blends and imaginative geometry, the Majestic pattern creates flowing layers of movement that explode up from the design's smooth pink backdrop. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Paisley: Butterflies flap and bees and ladybugs fly about the pink Paisley pattern. Designed by Olive Kids, this colorful, playful pattern will surely delight. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Pink Leopard: This Leopard pattern is hot - hot pink! We do not know how the Pink Leopard would fair in the jungle, but on the bags it is prominent. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Princess: Put on your gown and your tiara, it's time to play princess! The classic Princess pattern is spiritedly adorned with the articles of royal life and set against a rich, purple background. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Fairy Princess: Fairies, Flowers, and Stars decorate the magical Fairy Princess design. Colorful fairies soar on beautiful blue wings in this enchanting scene. Shades of pinks and purples make this design a majestic addition to any girl's room! Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Fairies: Fairies pattern is homeland to an ensemble of fanciful fairies with butterfly wings and bell-blossom gowns. This Classic Wildkin pattern is pure magic printed on a charming lavender-pink, dual-tone background. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Heroes: A carnival of heroic lights! This lively pattern pays honor to our brave fire, police, and rescue men and women. An Olive Kids design, the Heroes pattern displays absolutely distinct versions of fire, police, and emergency vehicles on a rich blue back. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Pirates: Full of bold colors and plenty of exploration, the Pirates design is a splash! Featured on stripes of blue are ships, pirates, sea creatures, and treasures galore. This bold design is a expedition of swashbuckling enjoyment. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Robots: Robot Takeover! These wild, zany robots conquer hearts and encourage smiles! The Robots pattern features six colorful, friendly robots on a dusky blue background. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Mermaids: Designed by Olive Kids, the Mermaids pattern is overflowing with a charming collection of mer-girls and their fishy friends. Hot pink, yellow, and orange accents highlight from the pattern's sparkling, two-toned, under-the-sea backdrop. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Wild Animals: The Wild Animals pattern by Olive Kids is like an extensive family gathering of animals from all across the globe. Penguins, Lions, Camels, Crocodiles, Hippos, Grizzlies and more have put aside their disagreements and get along and say hi! Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Out of this World: The Out of This World design's sky is a incredibly busy little universe. Designed by Olive Kids, this pattern spiritedly blends reality and fantasy with its organized versions of stars, moons, and alien technology. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Bright Stripes: Five thick bands of super-bright colors run horizontally over a white background to make these spectacular stripes really stand out! Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Birdie: Birdie is a super adorable new girls design. Baby Birds, Owls, Butterflies and Flowers live in this whimsical world. Joyful, vibrant hues are set on a robin's egg blue background. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Big Dot Pink: The super-popular motif, the Big Dots Pink pattern features fashionably balanced, large pink dots over a rich Mocha background. A bestselling Ashley Collection design. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Big Dot Aqua: Big Dot Aqua pattern displays trendy symmetrical, exhilarating aqua dots on a background of stunning purple. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Camo Blue: The Blue Camo pattern is an updated style of the tried-and-true Green Camo. Colored simply and boldly in blue, black, gray, and white, this Camo pattern is more prominent than it blends in. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Camo Green: This Camo pattern is a stylish re-imagination of tried-and-true Camo. Colored simply and boldly in green, black, gray, and white, the Camo pattern is more distinct than it blends in. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Dinomite Dinosaur: The creative dinosaur pattern is DINO-mite! Stegosaurus, Pterodactyl, T-Rex, Triceratops, Brachiosaurus and Hadrosaurs are all here, so be careful. Set on a background of extinct plants and trees. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Camo Pink: Easy for a young girl to make-believe she is sleeping under the stars in her new Pink camouflage sleeping bag. This is a pink, red, burgundy and white camo style pattern that is certain to be a favored choice for indoor camping, living room or for sleepovers at a friend's house. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag ZigZag Pink: Add some vigor to your style with the Zigzag print! Two thick colorful bands plus a thin white one zig and zag to produce a remarkably fresh take on the classic Chevron design. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Watercolor Ponies Purple: In this artistic horse pattern, the watercolor ponies are galloping, prancing and walking amongst paisleys and flowers. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Peace Signs Purple: The timeless, colorful Peace Signs are set on a purple background. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Sleeping Bag Pinwheel: Pinwheel pattern is cheerful presenting bright colors and geometric shapes, this print will be sure to whirl you away to a celebration of color! Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
Stay Warm Sleeping Bag: Add some character to your tent, camper or campsite! The Wildkin Stay Warm Sleeping Bag features a fully adjustable contoured Hood, an interior Pocket to stash valuables, a trapezoidal Foot Box, a durable, water-resistant polyester coated Liner, and a 2-way and self-repairing Zipper. Includes a matching Stuff Sack for storage and easy packing. Warm double layer off-set, multi-needle quilt construction. Temperature rated at 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Measures 27 W x 67.5 L inches.
• Stay Warm Sleeping Bag Pink Leopard: This Leopard pattern is hot - hot pink! We do not know how the Pink Leopard would fair in the jungle, but on the bags it is prominent. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Stay Warm Sleeping Bag Cool Stripes: Five thick bands of super-cool colors run horizontally over a white background to make these eye-catching stripes really prominent! Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Stay Warm Sleeping Bag Big Dot Pink & White: This eye-catching pattern features big White Dots that pop right off the bubble gum Pink background. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Stay Warm Sleeping Bag Big Dot Aqua: Big Dot Aqua pattern displays trendy symmetrical, exhilarating aqua dots on a background of stunning purple. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Stay Warm Sleeping Bag Camo Grey: Colored modestly and boldly in Gray, black and white, the Camo Gray pattern stands out more than it blends in. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Stay Warm Sleeping Bag Bright Stripes: Five thick bands of super-bright colors run horizontally over a white background to make these spectacular stripes really stand out! Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
Original Nap Mat: Cuddle up inside of a comfortable Wildkin Sleeping Bag. Perfect for sleepovers and living room camp-sites, these sleeping bags keep kids warm, glad, and safe from boogie-monsters. Designed with Cotton/polyester exterior and lined with 100% cozy cotton flannel interior. Includes a matching Travel Pillow, Storage Bag and elastic Storage Straps. Naturally flame-resistant; the Sleeping Bag are never treated with flame-retardant chemicals. Measures 30 W X 66 L inches.
• Original Nap Mat Twizzler: Get mesmerized in a symphony of hot pink and turquoise! Twizzler print is both stylish and full of fun! Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Chevron Seabreeze: Add some energy to your elegance with our Zigzag print! Two thick colorful bands plus a thin white one zig and zag to create a truly contemporary version on the classic V-shaped print. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Horses in Pink: Horses in Pink features a group of whimsically wild horses that prance, dance, jump, and just chill; their brilliant white manes and tails absolutely shine atop the pattern's lovely, timeless pink backdrop. A bestselling Wildkin Classic. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Big Fish: Displays an interesting group of mysterious deep sea fish. Schools of fish swim in various paths forming patterns and visual interest across a deep blue background. Stay clear for that Piranha! Provide a small boy to a brilliant sleeping bag he can use to lie on the floor and watch television or take on a nap over to a friend's house. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Under Construction: Constructed out of delightfulness! Built by our friends at Olive Kids Designs, the Under Construction Pattern re-imagines the worksite in the radiantly bright colors and fluid shapes of childhood. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Camo Pink: Provide a young girl to make-believe she is sleeping under the stars in this new Pink camouflage sleeping bag. This is a pink, red, burgundy and white camo style pattern that is certain to be a preferred choice for indoor camping, living room or for sleepovers at a friend's house. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Birdie: Birdie is a super adorable new girls design. Baby Birds, Owls, Butterflies and Flowers live in this whimsical world. Joyful, vibrant hues are set on a robin's egg blue background. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Majestic: Abounding with the spirit of a high-end style. With its exclusive color blends and imaginative geometry, the Majestic pattern creates flowing layers of movement that explode up from the design's smooth pink backdrop. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat ZigZag Pink: Complement to your style with the Zigzag print! Two thick colorful bands plus a thin white one zig and zag to provide a delightfully fresh version on the classic Chevron motif. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Paisley: Butterflies flap and bees and ladybugs fly about the pink Paisley pattern. Designed by Olive Kids, this colorful, playful pattern will surely delight. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Pinwheel: Pinwheel pattern is cheerful presenting bright colors and geometric shapes, this print will be sure to whirl you away to a celebration of color! Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Batman: A popular nap mat with preschools, daycares and as a starter sleeping bag for little ones. Attached blanket lined with 100% cozy cotton flannel interior. Easy roll-up with fastening straps and handy carrying strap. Comes with a matching, removable pillow. Measures 50 L X 20 W inches. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Superman: A preferred choice of nap mat with preschools, daycares and as a starter sleeping bag for little ones. Attached blanket lined with 100% cozy cotton flannel interior. Easy roll-up with fastening straps and handy carrying strap. Includes with a matching, removable pillow. Measures 50 L X 20 W inches. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Fairies: Fairies pattern is homeland to an ensemble of fanciful fairies with butterfly wings and bell-blossom gowns. This Classic Wildkin pattern is pure magic printed on a charming lavender-pink, dual-tone background. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Heroes: A carnival of heroic lights! This lively pattern pays honor to our brave fire, police, and rescue men and women. An Olive Kids design, the Heroes pattern displays absolutely distinct versions of fire, police, and emergency vehicles on a rich blue back. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Robots: Robot Takeover! These wild, zany robots conquer hearts and encourage smiles! The Robots pattern features six colorful, friendly robots on a dusky blue background. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Big Dot Pink: The super-popular motif, the Big Dots Pink pattern features fashionably balanced, large pink dots over a rich Mocha background. A bestselling Ashley Collection design. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Big Dot Aqua: Big Dot Aqua pattern displays trendy symmetrical, exhilarating aqua dots on a background of stunning purple. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Camo Blue: The Blue Camo pattern is an updated style of the tried-and-true Green Camo. Colored simply and boldly in blue, black, gray, and white, this Camo pattern is more prominent than it blends in. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Camo Green: This Camo pattern is a stylish re-imagination of tried-and-true Camo. Colored simply and boldly in green, black, gray, and white, the Camo pattern is more distinct than it blends in. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Wild Animals: The Wild Animals pattern by Olive Kids is like an extensive family gathering of animals from all across the globe. Penguins, Lions, Camels, Crocodiles, Hippos, Grizzlies and more have put aside their disagreements and get along and say hi! Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Original Nap Mat Out of this World: The Out of This World design's sky is a incredibly busy little universe. Designed by Olive Kids, this pattern spiritedly blends reality and fantasy with its organized versions of stars, moons, and alien technology. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
Easy Clean Nap Mat: Easy Clean Nap Mat can be used for school or home - rolls up for easy carrying, storage and travel. Super-comfy fleece blanket is attached. Mat made with water-resistant coated polyester. Pillow can be removed for easy washing. A preferred choice with preschools, daycares, and as a starter sleeping bag for little ones. Measures 21 W X 45 L inches.
• Easy Clean Nap Mat Pink Leopard: This Leopard pattern is hot - hot pink! We do not know how the Pink Leopard would fair in the jungle, but on the bags it is prominent. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Easy Clean Nap Mat Game On: It's Game On at Olive Kids! The Sports Themed Design is a winner! Luxuriantly colored sports balls, sneakers, helmets, and varsity letters are set on a color block background. Ages 8+. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Easy Clean Nap Mat Under Construction: Constructed out of delightfulness! Built by our friends at Olive Kids Designs, the Under Construction Pattern re-imagines the worksite in the radiantly bright colors and fluid shapes of childhood. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Easy Clean Nap Mat Robots: Robot Takeover! These wild, zany robots conquer hearts and encourage smiles! The Robots pattern features six colorful, friendly robots on a dusky blue background. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Easy Clean Nap Mat Camo Grey: Colored modestly and boldly in Gray, black and white, the Camo Gray pattern stands out more than it blends in.Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Easy Clean Nap Mat Wild Animals: The Wild Animals pattern by Olive Kids is like an extensive family gathering of animals from all across the globe. Penguins, Lions, Camels, Crocodiles, Hippos, Grizzlies and more have put aside their disagreements and get along and say hi! Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Easy Clean Nap Mat Cool Stripes: Five thick bands of super-cool colors run horizontally over a white background to make these eye-catching stripes really prominent! Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Easy Clean Nap Mat Dinomite Dinosaur: The creative dinosaur pattern is DINO-mite! Stegosaurus, Pterodactyl, T-Rex, Triceratops, Brachiosaurus and Hadrosaurs are all here, so be careful. Set on a background of extinct plants and trees. Great gift idea! BUY NOW!
• Easy Clean Nap Mat Dinosaur Land: Dinosaurs have arrived! Olive Kids Dinosaur Land will make kids rumble with per-historic enjoyment. Dinosaurs, including a Brontosaurus and T-Rex inhabit a world filled with volcanoes, primitive trees and dino footprints! Greens and blues are complimented with splashes of bright color for even more excitement. Ages 8+. Great gift idea! BUY NOW! | 2019-04-19T00:39:25Z | http://pacwestserv.com/gifts-seasonal02_handbags_sleeping-bags_nap-mats.htm |
Why dreams and goals matter more than money when planning retirement.
Six steps to knowing how much money you need to retire.
Don’t make this critical mistake when planning for retirement.
Five ways to boost your income and seven ways to slash expenses so you can afford your dream retirement.
Traditional retirement planning has it all backwards.
You sit down with your broker or financial advisor and plan your retirement on the assumption that having enough money is all that matters.
Sure, it’s important, but it won’t create a fulfilling retirement. You need to start the process somewhere else.
What’s the most effective way to transition from career to retirement?
How do you make plans that are more significant than just money?
In this article, I’ll give you a five question process that takes you step-by-step from fulfillment through finances so that you not only learn how much money is enough to retire, but you also connect your retirement savings to a plan for a fulfilling and happy next stage of life.
How To Prepare For Retirement: What And Where?
There are tons of retirement planning books and courses, but very few focus on setting dreams and goals for retirement (the “what” and “where” questions). Instead, most of the information is about getting your finances in order (the “how much” question).
Yet, fulfilling your dreams and goals is what a healthy retirement is all about. It provides direction and connection, gives a sense of purpose, develops creativity, brings satisfaction, and builds a sense of fulfillment during retirement.
In other words, it’s critically important. After all, who cares how much money you have if you aren’t living the life of your dreams and excited to be alive each day?
Even though most books downplay the “what” and “where” issues as secondary, we bring them front and center stage when it comes to preparing for retirement because these two issues play a doubly critical role.
They not only determine how fulfilling your retirement will be, but they also influence (to a large extent) when you will retire and how much it will cost. In short, you can’t do serious retirement planning without first answering the “what” and “where” questions.
You’ve probably already taken baby steps with these questions by forming a vague vision for your retirement. Now it’s time to fill in the missing pieces by getting detailed.
Sure, you intend on reading more and playing more golf during retirement, but take it a cut deeper. What are you going to do with the 2,000 hours a year you used to spend working?
You can only read so many books and play so much golf. How are you going to create a life filled with meaning that extends beyond tomorrow’s tee time?
Do you know what your ideal retirement looks like? How will you want to spend your new-found time?
The important point is to be excited by what you’re heading toward – not what you’re leaving behind.
Yes, it’s good to be done with “workin’ for the man”, but that excitement is only going to last for a month or two before the reality of a retired lifestyle settles in.
If you don’t have something worth waking up for each morning, then you’re setting yourself up for disappointment – a disappointment that’s all too common for many new retirees.
Dreaming and planning for the next phase of your life can be exciting. It’s like turning the clock back on your golden years to early adulthood where the world was your oyster and the possibilities were limitless.
Recapture that youthful spirit of adventure because you’re freer now than you were back then. Your retirement is limited only by your creativity.
This is the time to rekindle forgotten dreams, long ignored values, and passions suffocated by career responsibilities.
Many people mistakenly envision their retirement as a winding down period, which is fine, if that’s your preference. But the likelihood is reasonably good that you’ll be spending 30 years or more winding down, which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.
One alternative is to consider your retirement as the opening chapter in a whole new life adventure and see where that takes you.
What new contributions can you make?
What passions can you develop?
What new things would you like to learn about?
What new places would you like to see?
Now is the time to do these things, because if not now, then when? You’re not going to get many more chances.
A key point during this brainstorming process is to refrain from editing your thoughts. Don’t mortally wound them with practicality before they take their first breath. Just dream and trust where it takes you.
You’ll have plenty of time later for the dream-stealers to re-organize and rationalize your dreams, so don’t make the mistake of editing your dreams with rationality now.
No harm ever came from letting ideas take life, so accept them as they flow out of your head without any judgment and write them all down – no matter how zany and impossible.
You don’t have to act on them, and you can always edit later.
After building your list of dreams, gather up your spouse and a favorite bottle of wine and share your dreams together.
One coaching client did this exercise and was shocked to learn that his visions of cross-country travel in a motor-home with a fly-fishing rod and backpack didn’t blend well with his wife’s dream to live in a downtown high-rise condominium near shopping and restaurants.
It’s better to negotiate these issues now rather than after you’ve emotionally and financially committed to a certain path.
Have you discussed your retirement hopes and dreams with your spouse to ensure you're on the same page?
Don’t be surprised if you find it hard to conjure up a new vision for your life after decades of career dominating your personal identity. I run into this obstacle frequently with my financial coaching clients, so don’t feel alone.
Go easy on yourself and work with the process. Even when you imagine new roles in life that sound satisfying, it may be daunting to figure out how to get started and make the transition. Don’t worry.
This is a perfectly natural response because you’re entering uncharted territory. It’s okay if the water appears murky at first. You have 30 years to grow accustomed to it, so just get started. Dream your ideal retirement lifestyle and write it down.
Figure out a reasonable next step and start there. Fine-tuning can happen later. The key is to work at it until you have something so compelling, you can’t wait to get started. That’s how you know you’re on track.
Places to look for clues to your passions include current hobbies and recreation, fantasies, and dream careers that you always thought sounded ideal. Consider looking in the “help wanted” section to see what grabs your interest.
Go to the bookstore and spend hours browsing for the sole purpose of noticing what interests you.
Where do you spend your free time now?
Where do you spend your extra money?
What are your strengths that might be fun to develop?
What weaknesses would you like to overcome?
Talk to existing retirees who seem to be having a ball to get more ideas.
In short, make it fun and instill a sense of adventure. It’s your life, and now is the time for you to live it.
The important point of this discussion is to have interests you’re passionate about. Ending a career is going to leave a big void in your life to fill. You want interests that absorb you and motivate you to wake up early and stay up late.
For some, it could be volunteer work. For others, it might be a second career or serious hobby, and still others might discover their passion in foreign travel. The key is to find what it is for you.
If you would like help, then consider how our retirement coaching might be the perfect support system during this transitional period to sort out the issues.
Do you know how you want to fill the void left behind by your career once you retire?
Preparing For Retirement: When Is The Best Time?
Once you have a vision so compelling you can’t wait to get started living it, then pick a date for when you’ll turn this dream into reality.
Picking your retirement date is the “when” part of retirement planning. It’s a necessary precursor to running the cash flow and income projection scenarios required for the “how much” part of retirement planning.
When you retire will affect how many more years you can save, how much longer your savings can grow, your expected pension benefits, and your Social Security benefit.
In short, much of your financial situation (“how much”) hinges on your answer to “when”, and also on the answers above to “what” and “where”.
Only after you have answered the when, what, and where questions will you have built the proper foundation to accurately determine how much it will cost.
Preparing For Retirement: How Much Money Do I Need?
You’ve probably built a rough guesstimate of your projected retirement financials in the past.
Now that your retirement vision and date draw closer, it’s important to put a fine pencil to tightening up the calculations.
You must determine how much your clarified vision for retirement will cost and how you’ll afford it.
Completing a final check is important because pension plan rules, Social Security, and asset values have a remarkable tendency to change (usually in the wrong direction).
The last thing you want to do is quit your job and lock in your Social Security and pension benefits only to find out you were actually a few years and a few dollars short of achieving your goal.
What follows is a simplified version of the “how much is enough for retirement” question. For a thorough analysis covering all facets of “how much,” read my book titled How Much Do I Need To Retire?
Now that you’re close to retirement, the “spend 70-80% of current income” rule of thumb should be replaced with real numbers.
Dig into your current spending and get real about how your spending will change based on your answers to the “what” and “where” questions.
Are you going to travel, play golf, and dine out frequently, or do you have some inexpensive hobbies that will absorb the bulk of your time? Are you going to downsize your home, move to Belize, or stay put?
Once you’ve estimated a retirement budget, you may be concerned if it’s actually workable. Can you live comfortably on it? If you’re not sure, then try test-driving it.
Now is a great time to practice organizing your life, downsizing, and living within the lower budget constraints if that’s the direction you’re heading. You still have the income from your job to bail you out if the whole plan is a mistake.
Not only will you build confidence in your budget when retirement day comes, but you’ll also increase your savings for retirement due to the reduced spending.
Now is the time to round up all your 401(k)s, pension benefit statements, retirement plans, savings accounts, insurance statements, and other financial documents into one pile.
If this proves to be an onerous task, then it’s telling you something.
You may want to consolidate some of these accounts for greater efficiency and arrange them into a methodical system. Consider automated deposits, electronic bill paying, and look into services that allow you to view all accounts from one location.
By simplifying and automating your assets and record-keeping functions, you’ll gain greater control, simplify the financial process, and free up time for enjoying your retirement.
Request a statement that shows how your monthly benefit is affected based on your expected retirement date. The general rule of thumb is the earlier in life you lock in benefits, the lower your monthly payment will be.
You may choose to wait longer to increase the monthly income, or you may have more than enough right now to begin living your dreams. Just make sure to research the alternatives before you commit.
Regardless of your chosen retirement date, it’s a good idea to apply for benefits three months before you expect to begin collecting so you don’t miss a payment. Mark the date on your calendar.
Also, consider using direct deposit so you don’t miss a check while out traveling through the Amazon jungle or climbing the Himalayas.
Now is the time to get intimate with all the nitty-gritty rules, timelines, and options affecting your pension plan benefits.
Similar to Social Security, your monthly benefit will be affected by when you begin. The longer you wait, generally the greater the monthly benefit.
However, an additional layer of complication exists in pension plans because you may have a choice between taking the money over time or in one lump sum.
Deciding which is best for your situation is a complicated formula involving expected lifespan, expected investment returns, personal goals, and other issues that may require the support of a financial coach or a fee-only financial planner.
Total all your retirement savings accounts including your 401(k). According to the experts, you can theoretically spend 3-4% of that total in the first year, and adjust for inflation thereafter.
There is much well-reasoned and well-supported disagreement on this subject. For the complete explanation, read “How Much Do I Need To Retire?” located elsewhere on this site, or you can use the 4% rule as a rough and dirty guideline for now.
After completing steps one through five above, your answer to the “how much” question is simply a matter of adding up your income sources from items 3-5 and subtracting your proposed expenses from item 1 to see if there’s enough.
If there’s a surplus, then congratulations – you’re a retirement planning genius and ready to embark on the next phase of your life secure in your income needs.
You can afford to chase your dreams assuming your budget calculations are reasonably accurate.
However, if you’re like many who have more dreams than income, then this course can help you close the gap and secure your financial future.
Do the calculation now before continuing to read so that you know where you stand.
How Can I Boost Retirement Income?
Many people find calculating their retirement number a sobering experience. How much turns out to be not enough.
If you came up a little short, then fear not. There are many ways to close the savings gap and find that missing money, but it all boils down to two things – increase retirement income or decrease expenses.
Let’s begin with strategies to grow the income side of the “how much” equation first, and then we’ll examine the expense side of the “how much” equation in the next section.
Every additional year you work is another year of earnings that can add to savings, and one less year of living that is paid for out of savings.
Additionally, delaying your retirement date could increase the monthly benefit you receive from both Social Security and your pension plan, further adding to retirement income.
Put all four of these factors together and the financial effect can be dramatic.
Try running various scenarios on your retirement income using later retirement dates to determine if this strategy can help fill the retirement savings gap.
Maybe an encore career is in the offing for you. There are many social, emotional, and (of course), economic benefits to continuing to work after retiring.
The added income can go a long way toward lowering the savings burden required to make ends meet, and if you choose new work that you truly love, you might find it beats 30 years of endless free time.
Look at your income gap and decide if there’s a way to earn the missing money that would also be rewarding and fulfilling for you.
Just because the expert consensus on first year savings withdrawal rates is 3-4% doesn’t mean it’s right for you. It’s a generalized standard that by definition isn’t personalized for your situation.
You might have a family history of early death, poor health, or an unusual skill for growing your investment portfolio at higher rates of return. See the book How Much Do I Need To Retire for alternative formulas, or take the complete wealth planning course here that includes alternative asset classes and strategies.
The difference can be significant and possibly enough to make up that shortfall in retirement income.
The diamond ring from your ex-husband that you never wear, the mink fur coat from Grandma, the boat that was used once in the last two years, and other valuable assets that are seldom enjoyed can all be sold off to boost your savings.
What valuables do you have that you don’t need or use?
For many people approaching retirement, their home equity can exceed their savings. Converting a chunk of that equity into income producing assets by downsizing, moving, getting a reverse mortgage, or using various other strategies can close the gap between income and expenses.
For a complete listing of strategies to convert home equity into income producing savings, read 27 Retirement Savings Catch-Up Strategies For Late Starters. You’ll also find many more tips in that article not mentioned here that can help you close the savings gap.
Each of these strategies alone, depending on your personal situation, has the potential to increase your retirement savings enough to solve the “how much” problem.
When you put them all together, however, they’re a powerful set of tools that can substantially change the income side of your financial picture.
Now we’ll look at the expense side of the “how much” equation.
How To Prepare For Retirement: How Can I Reduce Expenses In Retirement?
There are two sides to the “making ends meet” equation, and so far we have focused only on income. The other side, expenses, is at least as important, and often easier to solve.
The reason is because it’s often easier to figure out how to live on $1,000 less per month (1,000 * 12 months = $12,000 per year) than it is to find an extra $300,000 in savings (300,000 * .04 percent savings withdrawal rate = $12,000 per year).
The two scenarios are mathematically equivalent in terms of balancing a retirement budget, but there are many more fun and creative solutions to reducing spending by $1,000 per month then there are ways to surface $300,000 to $400,000 in savings.
Yes, spending just $1,000 per month is roughly equivalent to the $300,000 in assets required to support that spending. Shocking, but true. It’s known as the “Rule of 300”.
Let’s look at a few possibilities to chip away at the expense side of your monthly budget without diminishing lifestyle.
For people living in high cost areas where housing prices have soared, think about relocating to a lower cost housing market. Consider moving out-of-state or possibly to a new country.
The price differentials between certain housing markets can be enough to fund a significant portion of some people’s retirement needs.
For example, $300,000 of equity harvested from your home reinvested at 7% produces $21,000 per year in income, and your expenses such as insurance, maintenance, property taxes, medical, and food will likely drop as well.
The savings can be substantial, and the new location could be even more enjoyable than where you currently live.
For those who love where they live and want to stay in the same area, consider harvesting some of your home equity by scaling down to a smaller, low-maintenance, less expensive house.
This creates a double-win for your savings because you increase investment income while simultaneously reducing or eliminating certain expenses such as mortgage payments, utilities, maintenance, property taxes, insurance and more. Not to mention having less house to clean and care for.
Retiring your mortgage before you retire from work can significantly improve cash flow and lower your risk of failure if your financial situation takes a turn for the worse.
One strategy to achieve that objective during the pre-retirement phase is to refinance your mortgage or increase your payments so the payoff date is the same as your expected retirement date.
Golf and travel can be expensive (or affordable) depending on how you plan these activities.
You could spend an entire summer touring Alaska in a car or camper for the same cost as a two week cruise.
You can golf or ski for an entire season on bargain senior passes for the same cost as a few days at a high-end resort.
You can travel full-time, year-round, throughout the world for less than it costs to live an ordinary lifestyle in some areas of the United States.
Get creative and stretch those leisure dollars because recreational fun has little relationship to how much it costs.
Interest paid is money wasted, and it’s antithetical to your retirement lifestyle. You should be collecting interest as a retiree – not paying it.
Prepare for your retirement by paying off higher rate, non-deductible debts like credit cards and automobiles. Get in the habit of only buying what you can pay for right now.
Eliminating all debt is a simple strategy to lower your expenses without lowering lifestyle. Debt makes the banker rich – not you.
Professional affiliations, second homes, sailboats, and extra cars are all examples of things that might not be necessary for your retirement plans and could reduce your expenses if they were eliminated.
Consider cutting the financial cord on adult children that are out of school and not disabled. They should no longer be financially dependent on you after their education is complete.
If your retirement budget is tight, then there’s no room for excess of any sort. Eliminate all those unnecessary expenses now.
As you prepare to exit the work force and enter retirement, your insurance needs will change. Things like disability insurance and life insurance may no longer be relevant and could save you money if eliminated.
Alternatively, you may decide to re-purpose your life insurance away from income protection and toward estate planning.
Similarly, to protect the assets you’ve accumulated, you may consider raising the liability limits on your homeowners and auto policies. Examine umbrella, long-term care, and supplemental health insurance policies.
In short, revisit your insurance needs to determine what’s really necessary and appropriate. Your life is changing, and so should your insurance coverage.
As you enter retirement, re-evaluate your insurance policies. Your life is changing; so are your needs.
In summary, there are many ways to reduce expenses without reducing lifestyle. The joy you experience in retirement is more a function of your attitudes and interests than your budget. It’s about experiences, not stuff.
Get creative in how you reduce spending and you may find that “how much” is more than enough.
Once you’ve solved the “what”, “where”, “when”, and “how much” questions in preparing for retirement, there’s one final thought to consider: what else?
What other strategies should you consider that can make a positive difference as you enter the home stretch to a life of freedom, fulfillment, and financial security?
If you die without proper estate planning, it could create unnecessary heartache for those left behind and needlessly waste a significant portion of your assets on taxes, attorney, and probate fees.
Have your lawyer review your will, trust, estate and gifting plan, account titling, powers of attorney, and beneficiary designations to make sure everything is up to date and appropriate for your stage in life.
You want to be certain that you and your beneficiaries are properly protected. Death is an absolute certainty with the only question being when. Best to get it done now, and get it done right (estate planning that is – not death).
When that fateful day arrives and you’re incapacitated or dead, someone has to complete your affairs. Do them a big favor and organize all the necessary documents in one place so they don’t have to stress about missing anything.
If you choose to keep the documents in a safe deposit box, then keep a duplicate file at home for accessibility and an additional set with a trusted family member or attorney.
Below is some of the information that should be contained in this file.
A master list of all financial accounts with account numbers, contact information, and addresses. Include everything on this list that produces at least one statement annually such as annuities, life insurance, investments, loans, etc.
U.S. Government Medicare doesn’t kick in until age 65, so you may need to consider self-insuring if you retire before 65 and your employer doesn’t extend health insurance coverage to retirees.
Even after Medicare begins, there are many costs not covered. For that reason, you’ll want to investigate private “Medi-Gap” policies and build that cost into your retirement budget. You may also want to consider long-term care insurance and decide what’s appropriate for you.
Learn the rules for Medicare and Medi-Gap applications and mark the necessary dates to begin on your calendar. Applying late may cause delayed benefits or increased premiums, so make sure you know the rules for your situation.
Health care is an extremely dangerous area of retirement planning because the cost of betting wrong can be catastrophic. Proper insurance devours retirement income, but no insurance runs the risk of destroying retirement assets.
If you underestimate health expenses, you may not be able to afford the quality care you desire, or you may use up a lifetime of savings in the process. There’s no easy answer, so budget liberally in this area and hopefully you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
In the end, always recognize that your future health and associated health care costs are unknown – and there’s nothing you can do about it. Every retirement plan is fundamentally incomplete because of it.
There’s no point in working a lifetime to save for your golden years only to die of a heart attack or other debilitating disease before you have a chance to enjoy it all.
The reality is you no longer have the advantage of youth to offset bad habits, so you must work hard to make up for the difference.
The human body is amazingly resilient and can bounce back from years of abuse when given proper diet, exercise, and rest. A strong health regimen can save you big bucks in health care costs, and it can add more years to your life while adding more life to your years.
While debt is best avoided for most retirees, there are rare circumstances where new debt can make sense, such as financing a downsized home or a new RV for traveling.
The reason it can make sense to do it now (before retiring) is because it will be easier to qualify while you still have earned income. You may be able to negotiate lower interest rates and better terms than if you wait until after retirement.
In other words, the general rule is to avoid debt, but special exceptions can apply.
Make a list of the areas you might consider moving to during retirement and use your vacation time while still working to visit them. Take the area for a “test drive” so you can see how you like it.
If you enjoyed it in the winter, go back in the summer as well. Who knows, it might end up becoming your future home.
If you’re thinking of moving or downsizing your home during retirement, then get it ready now. Clear the clutter, complete the repairs, and update whatever is necessary to optimize the sales process to your advantage.
Retirement planning is complicated, so get a second opinion from a fee-only financial planner. Heck, the stakes are high enough, you may want to also get a third or fourth opinion.
You may be surprised by how much expert opinions vary depending on background and assumptions (and the financial incentives of the advisor!!). You can learn more about our group retirement coaching services here.
The reality is you’re making critical decisions that will impact your financial picture for the remainder of your life. The stakes are too high to rely on any one person’s judgment – including your own.
Should you take monthly payments from your pension, or a lump sum distribution?
Should you take Social Security now or later?
Should you buy long-term care insurance or accept the risk?
Should you buy Medi-Gap coverage or self-insure?
What order should you begin withdrawing from your various savings accounts to maximize tax advantages?
Should you convert savings to an annuity? If yes, then how much?
Should you follow traditional asset allocation models by ratcheting down risk and focusing on income investments, or should you accept market risk in pursuit of growth by remaining invested in equities? How much, and for how long?
Can you use alternative assets like real estate and business entrepreneurship to close any gaps or increase income for any given amount of equity?
What percent of your savings can you withdraw every year? What are the assumptions behind that calculation?
How should your estate be organized for maximum benefit to you and your heirs?
There are many more questions to consider, but this should be enough to motivate you in seeking professional help. The issues are so complex and the consequences of a mistake are so serious that an experienced planner and tax expert can be worth every dollar you pay them.
This isn’t a situation where you want to cut corners. Educate yourself first, then get a second opinion to make sure you didn’t miss anything critical. It’s cheap “insurance”.
Retirement is something you worked your entire life for. As you enter the home-stretch make sure you complete this final checklist of preparations so you know you’ve got everything ready.
These final working years offer a unique opportunity to prepare. A few carefully chosen last-minute strategies can make a big difference.
If you’ve made it through this article, then you’ve already separated yourself from the masses. Numerous studies show most workers haven’t estimated their retirement expenses and income needs or put together any sort of retirement plan at all. You’re a cut above.
By beginning with the “what” and “where” of retirement planning and determining the “when”, you set the stage for not only creating a fulfilling retirement, but also accurately estimating the “how much” so you’re not faced with fiscal surprises.
Don’t be misled by traditional retirement planning literature that overemphasizes the “how much” of retirement savings.
Sure, it’s an important part of your retirement plan, but as you saw above, proper life planning, goals, connection to others, appropriate insurance, home ownership, and being debt free are all similarly important.
There’s a much bigger picture to planning a fulfilling and financially secure retirement, and this step-by-step course provides an exact road map so you can get there. Enjoy the process and enjoy your golden years. You deserve nothing less. | 2019-04-22T19:09:41Z | https://financialmentor.com/retirement-planning/preparing-for-retirement/18230 |
There are two raw milks in America: one for “people” and one for the “pasteurizer.” Raw milk meant for people is clean, pure, comes from cows on green pastures, and is regulated on a state-by-state basis. Raw milk for the pasteurizer is regulated by the FDA under the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO) and can be filled with pathogenic bacteria. Raw milk intended for pasteurization is commingled from many confinement dairies and is never tested for pathogens. Pasteurization does not create clean milk; it just kills filthy milk.
The FDA sits at the very top of the PMO food chain system and reigns as the military dictator over the rules and regulations of the PMO. Yes, they wear military uniforms, and yes, they are the absolute last word at the NCIMS (National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments, the organization that runs the PMO). So I do not exaggerate when I use the term “military dictatorship.” No one moves or breathes or thinks a thought without FDA approval when it comes to pasteurized milk and its regulation.
Pasteurization has passed its time of usefulness. It may once have been seen as a scientific breakthrough to stop the deadly “milk problem” scourge of filthy raw milk from distillery dairies in the mid 1800s, but dirty milk is no longer a misunderstood challenge. Yet the FDA cannot change with science or the times or the will of the people. Instead the FDA remains steadfast in a war against all bacteria. Their battle plan, as issued and envisioned eighty years ago, remains the same today. Our government is unmoved, even though our best scientists from Yale, Princeton, and the National Institutes of Health now have proven that at least 80 percent of the human immune system comes from the protective biodiversity of bacteria living in the human gut. This taxpayer-funded war on bacteria continues with FDA’s Fight BAC! program, even though these primitive government policies are now the origin of tens of thousands of American deaths per year from devastated immune systems. Sterile foods, food preservatives and antibiotic abuse have robbed us of our health. It would seem that the FDA has no concern whatsoever for the American immune system and has but one solution: see your doctor and take an FDA-approved pill.
Raw milk is fast becoming the number one hot food topic and has emerged as a high priority health food in America. This defiant grass roots movement is fueled by the truth and the internet. People need and want clean raw milk that is produced in organic, grass-fed conditions. Raw milk retains its enzymes, good grass-fed fats, and wonderful, bio-diverse, immune system-rebuilding beneficial bacteria, and works wonders for the depressed immune system of the common American. Raw milk changes and saves lives, yet the FDA detests raw milk like nothing else on earth.
Tragically, pasteurization has killed much more than tuberculosis and typhoid in the 1800s (if pasteurization was even responsible for the decline of these diseases), and covers up much more than the filth of the distillery dairies of inner city Boston of 1875. Pasteurization has had massive and tragic side effects. These side effects have been ignored by the FDA and downplayed by the dairy industry. To accept the facts about raw milk would be to surrender after a hundred-year war indiscriminately waged against all bacteria—a hundred-year war that has now turned to attack the immune system of the American citizen it was promulgated to protect. Instead of fighting germs, the FDA is now killing Americans.
Pasteurization has killed much more than a few bad bugs; it is destroying the foundation of America. Here are the top 15 things that pasteurization has killed, which the FDA and big dairy industry refuse to acknowledge or discuss. To do so would be to surrender and to invite a marketing disaster. These are the reasons why the FDA and Big Dairy Ag processors fight desperately to suppress the American raw milk uprising and the truth that it speaks.
Pasteurization has killed the family farm, local jobs, and the American Dream by substituting high value-added clean raw milk with commodity pasteurized milk. The prices now paid for raw milk intended for pasteurization are so low that they do not cover the cost of production. There is nothing that a farmer can do to increase the milk price in this system. His work is for nothing, and he is desperate. For every load of raw milk that he sends off, he sends more and more of his farm equity along with his own blood, sweat and tears. A processor loves a dairyman in desperation; it allows for dirt cheap pricing.
Pasteurization has killed the dairy markets. From 20-50 percent of the American population cannot drink pasteurized milk, either because of faulty digestion or lactose intolerance, but yet most of those same Americans can drink raw milk because it is whole with all of the enzymes and beneficial bacteria present. America has become pasteurization intolerant. Today only 14 percent of industrial fluid milk produced in California is actually ever bottled for fluid use; the majority is converted to dried powdered milk or processed cheeses. Truck loads of milk intended for pasteurization are dumped down the drain and never processed. This is absolute proof of the disconnection between consumer and farmer. The farmer does not even know what becomes of his food or how much to produce.
Pasteurization has killed “the connection between the farmer and the consumer.” Some farmers who produce pasteurized milk have “No Trespassing” signs at the edges of their property that warn “Trespassers will be shot and survivors will be shot again.” They have no reason to visit with a consumer about selling their dairy products. They get paid by a processor, not by consumers. All their fluid milk is sold off to a common processing plant to be commingled with all the other dairy milk in a commodity market system. The farmer now has no idea that he is “over producing” or making the wrong products. The farmer has no idea that people cannot drink pasteurized milk because of lactose intolerance. If the farmer could ever talk with a consumer, he would not continue to produce in ignorance.
Pasteurization kills farmers. In January, dairy farmer Dean Pierson of Copake, New York entered his barn with his rifle and plenty of ammunition, killed all fifty-one of his precious milk cows, and then tragically took his own life. There have been many suicides of dairymen over the last two years, with two in California last year. The rate of dairyman suicides follows the prices paid for pasteurized milk in the heartless, disconnected pasteurized dairy market system. When prices fall, suicides rise. This is because there is absolutely nothing that a dairyman can do to change the market price by working harder to sell better tasting or higher quality milk. The pasteurizer has covered up and masked all of these possible value-added opportunities. The dairyman gets what he gets, and that, more often than not, is an economic roller coaster ride from FDA CAFO hell. The universities tell the next generation of farmers to “get big or get out,” and yet offer no classes on value-added product innovations that would permit these new farmers to break away from the “milk pool” and the PMO. In the conventional system, there is no hope. The far better message is “get green, get clean, get local and get consumer connected.” Grants are given to universities to study and support claims from Monsanto and antibiotic manufacturers for Big Dairy. The fastest way for a professor to be removed is to object to Big Dairy projects. As a result, all of the dairymen’s sons and daughters are taught to “get big or get out.” The coming educated generation has no hope either.
Pasteurization killed antibiotic effectiveness for all of us. By creating a commodity dairy market system that relies heavily on antibiotics fed to heifers and dry cows at CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operation) mega dairies to support massive milk production, the antibiotics now used in American hospitals for humans no longer work. Tens of thousands of Americans now die each year because of superbugs created by CAFO antibiotic abuse. MRSA and VRA drug resistance is now a major cause of death and there are fewer and sometimes no antibiotics left to kill the bad bugs and save human lives. The FDA refuses to ban or limit use of antibiotics in CAFO feed and instead testifies in defense of antibiotic use by the CAFO industry (Senator Dean Florez SB 362 Sac CA in 2009).
Pasteurization has killed the digestibility of milk and its delicious milky reputation. Now milk is no longer a food with a good reputation, and the dairymen do not even realize it. It causes or triggers gas, allergies, diarrhea, asthma attacks, mucus production, constipation, gastric cramping and so-called “lactose intolerance.” This has caused the dairy industry to lose many consumers to soy milk, rice milk, almond milk and even hemp milk. None of these fake milks comes from mammalian animals with teats. The dairy industry did this to itself because the processing industry runs the dairy industry. And so what if the processor does not bottle milk? The dairy processor can bottle water, soy milk, rice milk, almond milk or hemp milk. All the processor cares about is processing “throughput.” Last year the processors spoke about the new emerging dairy product category called “branded bottled water.” Dairymen have not spent enough time in the market and have delegated to the processors the most important thing that they can do: connect to consumers and tell the consumer their story and listen to feedback. Now the fat fox has eaten their chickens.
Pasteurization has ruined our water supplies. Wherever a mega dairy CAFO is located, there are huge liquid manure lagoons. These manure and chemical-filled lagoons often leach into underground aquifers. It is nearly impossible to keep these lagoons from leaching into the underground water supplies. The best new technologies do protect from leaching but their plastic or rubber lined lagoons are extremely costly and older dairies are not required to install them.
Pasteurization has damaged our air quality. Cows that are kept in CAFO system confinement and fed huge amounts of grain produce massive amounts of methane gas. These gasses are not good for air quality, earth health, cow health or human health, and ensure the bad reputation of the dairy industry for stinking downwind. A few dairies now capture this methane gas as a resource to be sold for energy, but 99.9 percent of dairies do not. There are almost two million million cows in California that live on 1800 dairies. Few (nearly none aside from a few organic dairies) of these dairies use pastures to feed their cows. When cows are fed pasture, their production of methane gas is a minute fraction of what is produced in CAFO systems. Pasture-feeding also allows for the sequestration of carbon and recycling of manure directly back to living plant life.
Pasteurization has killed individual responsibility for milk quality and even how the dairy looks. When no one cares about how the dairy looks because no one ever comes to visit, the dairy can start to look pretty darn horrible. Calves in dirty hutches, cows deep in manure, nothing painted, nothing clean and nothing green. The milk quality will not matter either. It is customary for a dairyman with poor quality milk to add some chlorine bleach to the bulk tank to kill the bacteria and pass the inspector’s test sample. This is something that the “consumer connected” raw milk dairyman would never ever do. Some pasteurized milk producers would never do this either. However, that does not matter. The good milk of the conscientious dairyman is commingled with all the other dairymen’s milk and his individual quality becomes irrelevant.
Pasteurized milk kills jobs and is economically, nutritionally and socially killing America. In Basic Economics the first thing the professor explains is that all new money in our American economy is created at the start of the food chain with mining, fishing and farming. America has outsourced much of its food chain to China and other unwatched places, and with that, all the beginnings of new money to excite, stimulate, locally feed and fund America are gone. Whenever raw milk is produced for human consumption, life springs forth, jobs are created, and there are healthy, happy cows and people. Raw milk brings new immune strength, new life in the economy, and new hope for a better world. Consumers give farmers feedback about flavor and animal treatment. Pastures are green and farmers are well paid and loved. Well-paid farmers hire workers, invest in infrastructure and spend money locally.
Pasteurized milk causes asthma, and as a result doctors prescribe a diet without pasteurized dairy products. Milk triggers asthma by destabilizing MAST cells, which release histamines that cause inflammation, mucus production and bronchial spasm. Pasteurized milk is a partial food product that is missing digestive enzymes and nearly all of its beneficial bacteria. Pasteurized milk (with rare exceptions) comes from cows fed a ration based on corn and soy rather than pasture and forage. Pasteurization warps and distorts fragile proteins, making them allergenic. Raw milk is the opposite and heals and prevents asthma by stabilizing MAST cells and reducing inflammation as shown by dramatic lowering of C-reactive protein levels. Raw milk rebuilds immunity by allowing the safe consumption of biodiversity in our diets. These bacteria then re-colonize the gut and become our immune protective and digestive ecosystem armies.
Pasteurized milk kills bone density. It has long been known by doctors that low-fat pasteurized milk is a real problem when considering bone density and osteoporosis. The test for pasteurization is called the negative alpha phosphatase test. When milk has been heated to 165 degrees (higher for UHT milk) and pasteurization is complete, the enzyme phosphatase is 100 percent destroyed. Guess what? This is the enzyme that is critical for the absorption of minerals including calcium! Phosphatase is the third most abundant enzyme in raw milk and those who drink raw milk enjoy increased bone density. Several studies have documented greater bone density and longer bones in animals and humans consuming raw milk compared to pasteurized.
Pasteurization has killed scientific integrity in America. The FDA and the dairy industry have begun to lose all credibility for integrity in science and for telling the truth to Americans as a direct result of their protection of industrialization and its market sectors. Now it is a matter of fact that the FDA refuses to be quoted and interviewed in raw milk and food documentaries that expose the lies and deception. The FDA refuses to acknowledge their own NIH websites that make reference to the missing beneficial bacteria in our diets that historically have come from kefirs and “ancient” milk. Ancient milk is politically correct FDA lingo for raw milk prior to pasteurization. Instead, the FDA makes war on all bacteria through their sterilized, anti-life, pro-drug concept of health. Universities will not study raw milk because of the pasteurization-protective grant systems installed by corporate America and Monsanto.
Pasteurization kills cows on green pastures. Seventy-five years ago there were friendly cows on green pastures all over America. Pasteurization has effectively paved the pastures and now forces the cows to be fed soy protein concentrates and forty pounds of grain per day, along with antibiotics and hormones. These CAFO dairy feeds increase milk production to numbers never seen before in the history of earth. It is not uncommon for some CAFO dairy cows to produce twenty gallons of milk per day and be crowded into pens deep in manure with thousands of other cows. The stress of being milked up to four times per day and lying on artificial rubber beds shortens their lives to just forty months. A cow on pasture will produce much less milk (four to five gallons per day) and easily live ten years or more in true happiness and health. Raw milk from pasture-raised cows is rich in beneficial fatty acids, beneficial bacteria, rare and essential enzymes, and CLA—something that CAFO cows can not brag about. None of the CAFO raw milk can be used for human raw milk consumption. It contains the wrong kinds of bacteria and must be pasteurized. Pastures, natural feed and sunlight are critical to the safety of raw milk. There is no fooling or tricking mother nature. Raw milk producers make a pact with nature, rather than wage war against her.
Pasteurization is racist. The dairy industry time and time again claims that if you are black or if you are Asian you have a deficiency. You have something wrong with you. The fact of the matter is that the Masai in Africa and the Chinese outer Mongolians have drunk raw milk for thousands of years without lactose intolerance. There are virtually no human babies on earth that can’t digest their own mothers’ breast milk. That breast milk is raw milk. The same goes for nearly all grown or growing humans. The vast majority of people can drink raw milk if given a chance because the enzymes and lactase-producing bacteria that re-colonize the gut are found in raw milk. Raw milk is food for all people. It is color blind, unlike pasteurized milk produced by corporations seeking answers to the deficiencies found in their processed, dead partial milk. What people really are is “pasteurization intolerant.” Fortunately, pasteurized milk has not killed the will of a small group of pioneering farmers and consumers to fight and expose the truth. This brings great news. Raw milk for humans is the solution and has exactly the opposite effect on farmers, the cows, the earth, the consumer—it is life-giving. Raw milk is now rapidly emerging as a farmer-to-consumer connected market. Things had to get really shockingly bad for the people and the farmers to see what really bad was. Now new life comes forth and there is new hope and health. This movement is local and it is grass roots. Victory will not be easy—the FDA and the mega dairies will fight to protect what they took from us, the earth and the cows, for the last one hundred years.
Keep your cameras ready and blog the truth about your raw milk experiences. There is nothing like a little truth therapy to bring some light into the darkness of the last hundred years of lies and false promises. Good riddance to dead milk and the FDA’s hundred-year war against all bacteria. We must stop thinking that killing everything will make us well. Our immune systems and our economy both depend on biodiversity and the wholeness of our foods, and so does our social conscience and every other good thing on God’s green earth.
We have archived the UC Davis Splash Newsletters for the last five years. The very best science has confirmed all of the claims I have made. Dr. Bruce German at IMGC UC Davis has you tube videos explaining all of the science in gruesome detail.
They are all published at the NIH, PubMed and other FDA approved medical research archives.
By the way, Dr Steven Belken PhD at John Hopkins University is currently conducting a human study to confirm how” truly raw cheeses” protect against or treat osteoporosis. This hypothesis has been shown in rat models repeatedly. It appears that the Alkaline Phosphatase enzyme in the fat phase of raw milk rapidly builds bone density.
In my own life when I started drinking raw milk at the age of 37, my teeth stopped having real problems. No more cavities or root canals. No more loose teeth !!
All the best….drink raw milk!!!
Excellent article. It made me really sad though. I wish people would realize who they’re supporting when they choose pasteurized milk as a food source. I also wish they knew how damaging pasteurized milk is to the body. You’re definitely right about pasteurization being used to cover up mega farming inadequacies.
I grew up on a dairy farm and drank fresh (raw) milk as a child. Then I went out in the world and had my first dental cavities, as an adult! I have recently started my own organic dairy farm. Although I work a day job and don’t get enough sleep I am never sick, not even a cold. There is nothing like fresh milk and cream. I leave that overcooked stuff (pasturized) on the shelf. Real milk comes from cows with names that graze and laze.
I know first hand of a hauler in Peach Bottom Pennsylvania that out of pure and simple greed dumps large amounts of bleach in every trailer full of milk his company hauls. He has his drivers do it before its taken to the dairy to be bottled. He makes millions a year while thousands of our children drink bleach milk.
I really enjoyed your article and was wondering if you would mind sharing the resources that you used? My mom is a dental hygenist and works with many cancer patients and i think this article has certainly given food for thought. Please do let m eknow!!
This is a great post. And people have been drinking raw milk for thousands of years, and suddenly raw milk is “so bad for you”. Someone I know has stomach issues with pasteurized milk (even low-temp pasteurized), but with raw milk everything is fine!! How does the FDA explain that?
last week was the second time I purchased raw milk. I just wanted to try it but had read very little about it other than there is such a thing. Normally I can’t drink very much milk or eat a lot of cheese without some very unpleasant side effects. As the expiration date came quickly I drank a lot more milk than I thought I should. Surprisingly there were no side effects. Because of this I got the second half gallon with the same result…NO problems. It was at that point I did a few Google searches and saw other people were benefitting from raw milk also. I also discovered the “expert” testimony that said I was wrong and it was all in my mind. The trouble with that is I wasn’t aware of the controversies until after I noticed no problems from drinking it. The “experts” can say what they want…They are wrong.
I love milk. I am a dairyman’s granddaughter. Now in my 50’s I can hardly tolerate drinking it because of the bloating and and all the GI problems it causes. So am I to understand this crap they have been selling at the stores all my life is not even good for me. It doesn’t contain the calcium or anything that I thought it had. Where can I get milk that’s good for me?
Concerning soy milk – soybeans – any way – is not good for you – despite what all the commercials say. The FDA ran 288 tests which should be available to the public. They aren’t.
As for Raw Milk, I grew up drinking raw milk (plus mom nursed all 6 of her kids) and we were always healthy. Allergies were not ever known in my immediate family Nor mom’s family or dad’s family. I’m 61 now and would love to find a place in south Arkansas where I could buy raw milk.
so I drink Horizon milk or none at all.
Hello Mark, Thanks for the article. Do you know if pasteurization alters and or destroys the actual CLA (conjugated linoleic acid aka the omega 7 FA rumenic acid) molecule and its availability in the milk?
Soy protein refers to the protein that is found in soybeans that is often used to replace animal proteins in an individual’s diet. The soybean is a legume that contains no cholesterol and is low in saturated fat.
Well written piece. My thanks go to Mr. McAfee for his hard work and bravery to take on this government/corporate machine that is grinding Americans to death. A quick check on the FDA website confirms that they continue steadfast in their deception about both raw and pasteurized milk (their Fight-BAC campaign is short-sighted and a clear display of willful ignorance). They are obviously beholden to special interests and will never change their dictatorial ways unless enough of us get together and fight back (no pun intended). This will be an on going battle and I suggest to everyone to dig in and be prepared.
As for myself, I buy raw milk in Colorado through a cow share program (it should be legal, but better this than illegal). It mimics exactly the goodness Mark speaks of in this article. The farmers are honest and caring folks and we see them every week for pickup. How is that for incentive to do the right thing? If their milk was deadly dangerous as the FDA would have us believe, these farmers would be in heaps of trouble in short order. But of course that doesn’t happen. It’s good ol’ fashion fair and honest trade, the stuff that once made this country the shining beacon of the world. I encourage anyone reading to choose raw milk if at all possible, and if not possible, get connected with others in your state and harass your state legislators until they make raw milk legal.
What are your sources for point 12? I need them for persuading.
Mark doesn’t maintain the site and is unlikely to see this comment. I will try to find an email for him and see if I can get sources.
I know this is an old post but in order to convert the lactic acid in the milk to alkaline the body breaks down its own calcium to neutralize it…. On top of all the other stuff.
To S. McIntyre, all food leaves the stomach acidic and is doused in sodium bicarbonate from the pancreas upon entering the small intestine. So, lactic acid within the milk will not be affected by the sodium bicarbonate, but stomach acid which can eat through metal will? The mixture of food, enzymes, and stomach acid are a neutral ph upon entering the small intestine, and even slightly alkaline. There is no acid is any food after it reaches the small intestine. Not only that, but if it did, blood ph cannot change or you die. Your body doesn’t use calcium as a buffer, you exhale the acids, hence the reason people breathe during exercise. The rapid breathing is your bodys way of getting rid of the lactate in your blood. This doesn’t count your kidneys produce bicarbonate to raise the ph, along with exhaling. That’s why people feel faint when they hyperventilate, blood ph going slightly alkaline. Stop spreading vegan lies, and stop spreading misinformation from “gurus” and organizations like PETA who don’t even understand the varying ph during digestion and how the body really works. You have no clue what you’re talking about. Just stop.
Mark i love your article. you are right, there is a large problem here & it’s called big goverment ,soon, to be a global goverment under u.n.agenda 21,if we the people let them get their way. We cannot let this happen,our freedoms, liberties, are at stake here first & foremost .Equality may never be achieved,but it’s the closest path out of all the other choices,from past history.We must not let our goverment override our constitution,with amendments killing the farmers & America. | 2019-04-21T12:48:34Z | https://www.realmilk.com/commentary/15-things-that-milk-pasteurization-kills/ |
The Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce met this day at 10:30 a.m. to examine and report on the potential benefits and challenges of open banking for Canadian financial services consumers, with specific focus on the federal government’s regulatory role; and, in camera, to examine and report on issues pertaining to the management of systemic risk in the financial system, domestically and internationally (consideration of a draft report); and, in camera, for the consideration of a draft agenda (future business).
The Chair: Good morning, colleagues, and welcome to members of the general public who are following today’s proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce here in the room or via the Web.
My name is Doug Black. I’m a senator from Alberta, and I have the privilege of chairing this committee. I will ask my colleagues, please, to introduce themselves.
Senator Verner: Josée Verner from Quebec.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Carolyn Stewart Olsen, New Brunswick.
Senator Wetston: Howard Wetston, Ontario.
Senator Campbell: Larry Campbell, British Columbia.
The Chair: Thank you. And, of course, we’re always very ably supported by our analysts from the Library of Parliament and by our clerk.
Today marks our second meeting on our study of the potential benefits and challenges of open banking for Canadian financial services consumers, with a special focus on the federal government’s regulatory role.
I’m pleased to welcome our witnesses for the first portion of our meeting. From the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, we have Gregory Smolynec, Deputy Commissioner, Policy and Promotion Sector; and Arun Bauri, Strategic Policy and Research Analyst, Policy, Research and Parliamentary Affairs Directorate. From Payments Canada, we have Justin Ferrabee, Chief Operating Officer. From the Competition Bureau Canada, we have Leila Wright, Associate Deputy Commissioner, Policy, Planning and Advocacy Directorate; with Greg Lang, Major Case Director and Strategic Policy Advisor, Competition Advocacy Unit.
Thank you all for being with us today. We look forward to your opening remarks. I understand the Office of the Privacy Commissioner is going to start, followed by Payments Canada and then the Competition Bureau Canada. After that, we’ll move to questions.
Gregory Smolynec, Deputy Commissioner, Policy and Promotion Sector, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada: Thank you for the invitation. I’m joined today by Arun Bauri, the office’s lead analyst on open banking.
Advocates note that there are many benefits to open banking for consumers and businesses. These include access to new products and services, and increased competition and entry to the market for small businesses such as we see in the financial technology sector.
As Commissioner Therrien stated before this committee last May in the context of Bill C-74, while advancements in new technologies and innovation are indeed desirable and can provide many benefits to Canadians, these objectives must be pursued concurrently with robust protections for human rights, including privacy.
In his submission to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada on its national digital and data consultations, Commissioner Therrien highlighted how recent events had shed light on the manner in which personal information can be manipulated and used in unintended ways. These events should serve as a cautionary tale on the need to have strong regulatory frameworks in place prior to operationalizing “disruptive” ways of leveraging data.
The OPC recommends that open banking in Canada be built upon a foundation that includes respect for privacy and other fundamental rights at its core.
There are examples of frameworks for open banking, such as in Europe, where the Second Payment Services Directive, or PSD2, and the General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, govern the manner in which open banking operates. Consent is a fundamental component of the GDPR, and we recommend that meaningful, express consent form part of any Canadian framework governing open banking.
Our private-sector privacy law allows for different forms of consent; namely, express or implied. Where personal information is considered sensitive, express consent is required. Financial information has been held by the Supreme Court of Canada to generally be extremely sensitive. Therefore, we would expect that financial institutions and fintechs, generally, obtain express consent from their customers.
The OPC released guidelines for consent, which took effect this past January. Those guidelines include key elements that should be emphasized by organizations in order for individuals to meaningfully understand what they are consenting to. Those include the nature of the personal information being collected; the parties to whom personal information is being disclosed; the purposes for which personal information is collected, used or disclosed; and the risk of harm and other consequences for the individual.
To ensure consistent ground rules for open banking, we recommend the development of rigorous standards, including technical and privacy standards. We have seen this in Australia, where a data standards body has been established with necessary experience and expertise. Our office would be pleased to provide privacy expertise to support the development of Canadian standards, which would be consistent with the role of our Australian counterpart.
We have seen a variety of approaches to open banking in other jurisdictions. For example, in most jurisdictions, new players require prior authorization to participate in the ecosystem of open banking. Approved firms must be registered and carry professional insurance. We support such a model and recommend that should open banking be implemented in Canada, companies be accredited or licensed before being authorized to participate.
To ensure privacy risks associated with the collection, use and disclosure of sensitive financial information in the open banking context are appropriately managed, we recommend that financial institutions and fintechs be required to document an analysis of privacy risks associated with their activities and the manner in which these risks will be mitigated. There needs to be an auditable record of such a risk assessment so that a regulator, such as the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, would be able to access that record.
The requirement to conduct a privacy impact assessment already exists for federal government institutions, and under the GDPR, for situations, particularly those involving new technologies, that are likely to result in high risks to rights and freedoms.
We believe that modernized privacy laws are a necessary pre-condition to a concept like open banking. For the digital economy to flourish, Canadians must trust in businesses and government to innovate with their personal data. To build this trust, there needs to be an appropriate legal framework in place.
In this context, the office needs stronger enforcement powers under amended privacy law, including the power to make orders, impose fines for non-compliance with the law and independently verify compliance, without grounds, to ensure organizations are truly accountable for protecting personal information.
Changes in financial policy and legislation require concurrent updating of Canada’s privacy legislation to ensure that consumers and their data are not just viewed as a commodity or as raw material from which data can be extracted. While there is merit in privacy laws continuing to be principles-based and technologically neutral, they should also incorporate enforceable rights for individuals. Privacy is a necessary precondition for the protection of fundamental rights and values in Canada, including those pertaining to liberty, equality, dignity, human rights and our democratic rights, and our laws should reflect this.
We need to reform our privacy legislation to make it fit for purpose to ensure that the privacy of Canadians is protected as technologies and the economy changes.
The Chair: Thank you very much, sir.
Mr. Ferrabee, please go ahead.
Justin Ferrabee, Chief Operating Officer, Payments Canada: Good morning. My name is Justin Ferrabee, and I am chief operating officer of Payments Canada. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.
Payments Canada is an inter-financial institution exchange. We are guided by our legislative mandate and the public policy objectives of safety, soundness and the efficiency of the Canadian clearing and settlement systems. We ensure payments between financial institutions are safely and securely settled each day.
Through our modernization initiative, we are leading an industry-wide effort to modernize these systems and to support faster, more flexible and more secure payments. This includes the introduction of a real time, data-rich payments network— or rail— designed to promote the innovation in payments processing. This real-time rail will provide immediate 24/7/365 payments that are final and irrevocable. It will be supported by a robust international payments information standard — known as ISO 20022 — that allows for larger amounts of more useful information to travel with payments.
We see two elements emerging in open banking. The first is the collection and aggregation of a customer’s financial information across multiple sources, including full payment transaction data, in an integrated and flexible manner to suit their needs. We refer to this as open banking data. The second is the facilitation of payments directly from a bank account as an alternative to credit and debit card payments. We call this payment initiation.
For open banking data, the deployment of data-sharing requirements combined with the transparency and real-time exchange of information will create exciting opportunities. Moving towards standardized interfaces, or APIs, and giving customers greater control over their data will serve to reduce frictions in the development and adoption of new services.
In much the same way, payment initiation has the potential to create further opportunities for innovative financial services. Combining the ability to reliably access financial data with the ability to initiate payments or transfer funds between institutions will increase the range and competitiveness of new financial services.
We have full confidence that open banking can be implemented successfully in Canada. The demand is there and the benefits are clear. Canada has an opportunity to lead open banking in North America and beyond. Our financial institution members have invested heavily in modernizing the payments infrastructure and Canada has proven that we can make financial advancements safely. For example, our transition to safe, secure and convenient online and mobile banking services. Our financial institutions are among the strongest, most secure and most capable in the world. They are trusted, highly competitive, well resourced and staffed with the industry’s best and brightest people.
The conditions are right, the investments have been made, and the opportunity is here for the government to play a leadership role as a catalyst to move the industry forward.
Right now, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Canadians are seeking out technologies and financial applications that mimic the services open banking would provide. In so doing, they are compromising their credentials, putting their finances at risk, creating exposure to privacy and other breaches, and potentially nullifying the account-holder agreements that protect them. They are willing to do this to meet their needs for a more personalized, digital banking experience that allows them to better control their financial lives. Open banking will protect them. It will allow Canadians to access the services and convenience they need to manage their finances, while keeping them safe.
Open banking will allow our financial institutions to develop competitive negotiations that position them for global opportunities.
If we delay, we put Canadians at further risk and create the prospect of foreign companies gaining competitive advantage. To be safe and competitive, we need to bring open banking to Canada.
As in other jurisdictions, we need the leadership of the Canadian government to ensure progress and success. Governments around the world have been actively involved in open banking initiatives to ensure that a strong and balanced legislative and regulatory framework underpins the system.
We believe that to successfully realize open banking, two key roles are required. The first is to manage the setting and continued evolution of the open banking standards and specifications, including the use of robust digital identification for access and control. The second is a role to manage and ensure compliance through the full implementation of open banking. This is a delivery organization that supports financial institutions as they make the transition to an open banking environment.
The government can set an ambitious timeline for open banking implementation given the investments and the progress in modernization programs across the industry, as well as the legislative initiatives under way that are likely to broaden access and competition in payments services.
Finally, it’s important the government takes a leadership role in public engagement and communication to help Canadians understand the merits of open banking, as well as their rights and responsibilities.
In summary, while moving to open banking is a large undertaking, it’s important the government progresses swiftly. Canadians’ need for financial control is driving behaviours that create unnecessary risk. Open banking will make these services available in a safe and convenient way. At the same time, our industry must ensure we keep up with global competitors who are forging ahead with open banking. If we act, Canada can continue to be a leader in innovative financial technologies.
Canada’s payments modernization program is progressing. Open banking will flourish with this new infrastructure. Now is the time to align and to lead an industry into the future of financial and payment services in Canada.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Ferrabee. It was very interesting.
Leila Wright, Associate Deputy Commissioner, Policy, Planning and Advocacy Directorate, Competition Bureau Canada: Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you very much for having me here today. I am the Associate Deputy Commissioner of Competition Promotion at the Competition Bureau and I’m joined by my colleague Greg Lang, who is the Major Case Director and Strategic Policy Adviser in our Competition Advocacy Unit.
The Competition Bureau is an independent law enforcement agency that ensures Canadian businesses and consumers prosper in a competitive and innovative marketplace.
Through the administration and enforcement of Canada’s Competition Act, the bureau is responsible for investigating and addressing price-fixing, deceptive marketing practices, abuses of market power, and corporate mergers and acquisitions.
As Canada’s competition expert, the bureau has a mandate to act as an advocate for competition throughout the Canadian economy. To fulfill this mandate, we often work with regulators and policymakers to promote pro-competitive regulations and a continued focus on the benefits of competition.
In this context, the bureau recently completed an extensive study on how to foster technology-led innovation and emerging services in Canada’s financial sector. This study, released in December 2017, includes 30 recommendations designed to support fintech adoption.
Of particular interest to today’s proceedings, the study recommends that Canada consider the benefits of open banking. To further support this recommendation, the bureau made follow-on submissions regarding the merits of open banking to the Department of Finance, who appeared here yesterday.
We make these recommendations because open banking has the potential to increase competition, promote innovation, and deliver better results for consumers in Canada’s financial services sector.
Historically, financial markets in Canada have been characterized by consumer inertia. A 2013 Ernst & Young study found that only 14 per cent of Canadians switched banks over the last five years and that 71 per cent had been with the same bank for the past 10 years. These are important statistics because they indicate that consumers may be finding it difficult to shop around and take advantage of the range of products available in our modern financial sector.
For the forces of competition to deliver their full benefits, consumers need to have access to clear and complete information about alternative products and providers. Our research shows that open banking can help deliver these benefits.
With innovative new tools enabled by open banking, Canadians could have, at their fingertips, the power to more easily comprehend and compare a variety of complex financial products available in today’s marketplace. This form of innovation empowers consumers to make the financial decisions that are best for them and their families.
Open banking can also be good for financial service providers. When it is easier to attract new customers, it is generally simpler for businesses to successfully introduce new products. New, innovative products have the power to disrupt and revolutionize industry in ways that deliver better outcomes for Canadians.
More competition generally results in increased service levels, greater consumer choice and, importantly, more attractive prices.
International experience has shown that open banking stimulates the development of innovative products that help consumers improve their financial well-being. For example, the bureau’s counterpart in the U.K. estimates that open banking reforms will generate direct economic benefits for the U.K. economy of up to $440 million per year.
To fully achieve the benefits of open banking, the bureau recognizes that there are important policy considerations that need to be taken into account, such as those related to privacy and cybersecurity. Centrally, our research acknowledges that an open banking regime can only succeed if it earns the trust and consent of consumers. It is important that regulators strike the right balance between achieving legitimate policy goals and preserving sufficient scope for competition.
The merits of open banking are extensive and, as with any large-scale change, there is the possibility of bumps along the road. As we navigate those key regulatory issues, we should focus on the opportunity that exists for Canadians to benefit from open banking and the greater levels of competition and innovation that it would bring.
The bureau would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to provide its views on the competitive benefits of open banking. We look forward to your questions. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Wright. That was very helpful. Let’s move to questions, starting with the deputy chair, Senator Stewart Olsen.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thank you for being here. It’s a very interesting, very complicated study, and new to me, for sure. I have two questions, and my first goes to Mr. Smolynec.
How on earth can we ensure that informed consent is actually informed consent? I worked in the medical field, and I know that when you ask a patient to sign a consent form, they generally just sign it. With this, I think we’re getting into very murky waters, where people really have to know what they’re signing. How would you suggest we go about ensuring consent is actually informed?
Mr. Smolynec: I’d like to bring to the attention of the committee that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner issued guidelines on consent. They came into effect this January. This guideline is available on our website, and it provides great detail on meaningful consent, express consent. So there are practical ways in which meaningful consent can be, so to speak, operationalized and sought out.
The key here is that we’re in the realm of express consent because of the sensitivity of the financial information that’s at stake in open banking. The guidelines, it should be pointed out as well, were developed after an extensive, lengthy consultation process. They had a lot of input from industry, stakeholders and advocacy groups as well. Those are some key points I would like to make.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thank you. You’re suggesting that in crafting the legislation, we should be using these guidelines?
Mr. Smolynec: Yes. The guidelines will certainly be a good resource for the development of legislation. We would also point out that our privacy laws themselves should be modernized, and within the context of privacy law reform, express consent or consent measures could be enhanced in that legislation as well.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thank you.
For Mr. Ferrabee, I know you have a brief thing here about Payments Canada and what you do, but can you explain that a little better to me?
Mr. Ferrabee: Yes. Payments Canada is what we call a large-value exchange, so you may have sent a wire transfer before for closing a house or something like that. We run the high-value system, which is the wire system in Canada, and it’s for all the exchanges between financial institutions and it’s the large-value exchange. Then we run the batch system, which is the clearing and settling of point-of-sale, automatic debits, EDI or other electronic payments, cheques as well. So all the payments in the economy each day go into the banks, then the banks do a “to, from, to, from, to, from,” and we settle up in Central Bank dollars at the end of the day.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thank you. And have you worked with the Privacy Commissioner on exactly what you’re doing as you’re suggesting open banking would be a very good thing? I don’t think people actually know their transactions run through another place. I’m just wondering if you have done that.
Mr. Ferrabee: Not on this matter, but we have worked together in the past.
I think it should be educating Canadians about privacy, i.e., there are certain things that you want to keep private, your financial affairs. In this day and age, it’s more easily gotten to than in the old days with a gun and walking into a bank. Your health records, your bank records, your home, these are things that people should not give away. That’s my point. They should keep it in as minimal a place as possible. In other words, don’t maximize all that stuff, because once it’s gone, it’s gone.
I want you to comment on that, because what privacy is there if, by consent, you give it all away? And people think it’s secure. I don’t believe it’s secure. A little explosion down at the coal mine in Saskatchewan and everything goes down, right? Everything, the whole province goes down.
Mr. Smolynec: I’d start by saying that it’s clear to us, and it’s based on survey data as well conducted by ourselves but also other pollsters that Canadians are very much concerned with their privacy rights.
Senator Tkachuk: They should be.
Mr. Smolynec: You can see this in the headlines on all sorts of recent events. There’s a growing awareness of the importance of privacy. It affects our democratic rights, it affects our lives as consumers and, of course, as individuals. There’s a growing awareness. I think there’s also a growing awareness that privacy is a human right under Article 12 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It may also be seen as inalienable, or it is, I should say. The question then becomes: How does one, so to speak, without consent surrender their personal information?
It’s very important to protect it. That having been said, to be clear, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, Commissioner Therrien himself, we support innovation. We support innovation in the digital realm as well. But we stress and we caution that there must be robust privacy protective measures as a foundation for such innovation — not as a balancing of innovation, not as a barrier to innovation, as we sometimes hear, but it’s foundational. Privacy protective measures should be built into the design of any new initiatives, in any sphere of the economy, but especially in open banking, given the sensitivity of the information involved.
There are guidelines and measures that would enhance the privacy protective measures that would underpin this new banking world. To be more specific, we have to get into the development of robust standards, both security standards and privacy standards. We would recommend that this be done before the rolling out or going too far down the road, and we would offer that we have expertise that could contribute to the development of those standards.
Senator Tkachuk: The data we are always talking about. The only reason people want this data is to market it. They want to increase their competitive edge to sell products. Otherwise, why would they need it? The Government of Canada tried to get banking records so they could use that data to plan programs, but they are using private data. They get it through a survey or something like that, where there were consents and then destruction, not actually moving the data from one place to another and keeping it there.
How are you going to handle all of that? I think the time has come. Everybody’s records are public. I don’t think there is any privacy anymore. It is that bad. I do. And if the government is involved in it, that means everybody is involved in it.
Mr. Smolynec: There are many details around open banking that are unknown to us at this point which makes it a little bit difficult to assess all of the risks from a privacy perspective. That having been said, we do see some potential risks associated with it which could be mitigated through standards, accreditation, licensing, and improved privacy laws.
Among the issues that you flagged is control over the manner in which the information is used. One of the key questions I have is what is the business model that attends to these new open-banking enterprises? How will they make their money? Will it be on the basis of fees, or will there be any effort to aggregate data and personal information, to sell it, or perhaps even to hive off what is known as behavioural surplus data which may then be traded as a futures commodity?
Senator Tkachuk: Okay, thank you.
Senator Wetston: This issue of privacy is important so I will hold it for the second round. I have a couple of questions now, though.
Ms. Wright, I pursued this with yesterday’s panel. You may have caught some of that.
We live in a market economy. Let’s not suggest that opening up innovation to create new products, new services and opportunities is seen as a negative thing. I don’t see it as a negative thing at all. I am sure the bureau doesn’t either, or any of you.
We have a highly concentrated banking sector today. We recognize the opportunities that exist in financial markets today. We have some sense of fintechs and engagement and APIs and how that may create more competition, data, services and more products. I am also concerned about concentration because we are looking at this in a vertically integrated context. We need to look at it somewhat differently, potentially. Let me talk about vertical integration for a moment.
As large institutions start acquiring fintechs in a vertical environment, there will be potential here for increased corporate concentration, less competition, and, of course, the opportunity then of having to deal with these issues from the point of view of the Competition Act. What is your view on vertical integration enhancing corporate concentration rather than creating an opportunity for more competition, price and service competition?
Ms. Wright: Thank you for that question, senator. When we do advocacy work and engage in large-scale advocacy projects, we take the market as it is. We don’t look at whether there may or may not be competition and considerations in the market. What we are looking at is how we can increase competition in that marketplace.
Regarding vertical integration, there are two ways that the Competition Bureau can look at this under the Competition Act. The first is under the merger review. The Competition Bureau has the mandate to review any merger in Canada and determine if that merger will substantially prevent or lessen competition in a market.
Second provision is our abuse of dominance provision. It looks at situations where companies with significant market dominance are engaging in behaviour that may be lessening competition in the marketplace, such as potentially excluding rivals by buying them up. So there are two ways that we can look at this under the Competition Act.
Senator Wetston: My second question: I read an article in The Globe and Mail. I can provide it if you like, but I don’t think it is necessary. Who is afraid of open banking? We heard some views of where that fear might be. It states that the method would allow new service providers to access customer data to offer more competitive financial products but there are questions that might be addressed first.
We kind of focused on this a bit yesterday. There is a question about scope, standards, commercial issues associated with how it could be rolled out, but the big question is regulation. Why do I say that? Because when we look at the U.K., they have a national securities regulator. In Australia, they have a national securities regulator. We’ve been trying since 1934 to have a national securities regulator.
OSFI may be the start, if it were related to banking, but they are not a market conduct regulator. They are a prudential regulator, and you need market conduct associated with that. We look at the fragmented system we have and ask ourselves how we will organize this to protect the public. We want to do that. Consumer protection is important not just around privacy. What are your thoughts around viability?
The first step might be you need to get the regulatory framework in order, while developing scopes and standards, and we have not had a lot of success in doing that. The Capital Markets Regulatory Authority made some progress. Some provinces signed on. The federal government is a strong supporter of it, but we are not there yet. Any comments from any of you?
Mr. Smolynec: It is difficult for regulators to share information currently. So, to your point of coordinating regulators, we would need to have some legislative review to enable the regulators to share information among themselves. It sounds mundane, but it is consequential.
Senator Wetston: Thank you. Any other comments?
Ms. Wright: One of the issues we heard frequently while conducting our market study was this idea of businesses having to look at a lot of different rules in different provinces and trying to figure out how to abide by all of those rules, even though they were, oftentimes, quite dissimilar to one another. One of the recommendations we made was that harmonization is critical to the success of the financial market because, through harmonization, it opens the market up to more competition throughout Canada.
Senator Dagenais: I thank our guests. My first question is for Mr. Smolynec.
Mr. Smolynec, in the model you suggest, to what extent will new players, such as financial technology businesses, be Canadian? To what extent will consumers and their personal information be protected? What will be their remedies against those who fail to follow the rules in place? Dissatisfied consumers must be able to sue those companies.
Mr. Smolynec: That is an excellent question, Senator Dagenais. We have few details on the open banking system model at this point. So it is difficult to analyze it.
There are certainly questions on the transfer of personal data through a third party. That is another aspect. Corporate responsibility is another. Our privacy legislation applies around the world. It applies to Canadians, but we need more details on the proposed model.
Senator Dagenais: Mr. Ferrabee, I have two questions for you. You presented a typical profile of potential users. Who will be the bank clients who will have to very quickly make financial transactions, especially when costs will certainly be attached to those transactions? When we go to a bank, we never know how much it will cost us. Who will the potential users be?
Mr. Ferrabee: Payments Canada doesn’t control the fees or the pricing of a service delivered by a financial institution. It’s largely governed by market forces and opportunity for competition, in our view.
The opening up of payments as a function — we’re modernizing the payment system now — are intended to make it more accessible, faster and cheaper, ideally. Although we can’t control the price, we believe that if we do the infrastructure in a way that makes it more accessible, that creates more opportunity and will make more competition. But we don’t have the ability to set those prices. We believe that corporates, as they advance in their understanding of payments and take more assertive action in managing their banking relationships, will drive change to that.
Senator Dagenais: Much has been said about Australia, China and the United Kingdom, but what has become of the United States’ banking system? We know that the situation is different there, but I assume that market has evolved.
Mr. Ferrabee: Yes. Thank you. I would say it’s not progressing as quickly and that there’s an opportunity for Canada in North America. It is a more fragmented market, including the payment infrastructure and all the way down. It’s bigger, more fragmented, and as we are hearing now, the coordination is a challenge. Their coordination challenges are quite a bit larger than ours, which in our view creates an opportunity for Canada.
Senator Dagenais: There are ramifications for some Canadian banks in the United States, such as the Royal Bank in relation to NBC. If the Royal Bank, for whatever reason, decided to implement that system in Canada, it would surely transfer it to its partner in the United States, right?
Mr. Ferrabee: I think that’s right. I think we can play a leadership role there. With operations in both countries, you can take what you learn and do and start to migrate your services in a direction towards more competition and to be more competitive.
Senator Klyne: Thank you for appearing this morning. I have questions for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the Competition Bureau.
We know that the four pillars of Canada’s financial system — the banks, insurance companies, securities and trusts — are kept separate to prevent risks associated with, say, the emergence of the “too big to fail” institution or unfair competition. This is a two-part question. Will those institutions within those four pillars, for this to be successful, be required to comply and approach their customers to authorize the exchange under some due diligence, which you mentioned? Or can an insurance pillar opt out of the whole program?
Mr. Smolynec: At the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, we are not aware of any planning about the various pillars and how the various pillars would play in open banking. I don’t have any insight into that particular issue. I would just say that privacy laws are applicable to all of the pillars.
Senator Klyne: I am just wondering if banks can access insurance data under this, or can the insurance companies say they are not going to participate.
Mr. Smolynec: I have no insight into how that is envisioned in the model proposed.
Senator Klyne: I don’t understand why financial institutions want to give up their client data and encourage that unless they figure out how to monetize this.
My question on that, if the tier 1 financial institutions decide that they will go after this in a full-force offensive, if you will — pardon the expression, but a crush-kill-destroy approach to doing business — how would the second tier and third tier institutions fare out of all of that? Is this an opportunity for tier 1 financial institutions to take on a bigger piece of the pie?
Ms. Wright: Thank you for that question. It is a very good one.
I’ll begin by saying that there are often issues with regard to business incentives. As well, when you have a large-scale project such as this one, where there are a lot of different policy considerations, including privacy and cybersecurity, it is often in the best interests of everyone for the government to be taking the lead and creating that framework within which open banking will happen.
From a competition perspective, one of the most important principles is that there be a level playing field so that all competitors in a market are able to play by the same rules and are able to compete for the business of customers in the same way. So as details are ironed out regarding open banking, it is very important to ensure that there is a level playing field on which all financial institutions are able to play.
Senator Klyne: I don’t know how you govern the tier 1’s from going too hard on this, but okay.
Senator Griffin: Thank you. I have one question, and I think it is Mr. Lang that I want to direct it to.
What if Canada did not adopt open banking? What if we decided we are not going there? What would be the challenges for our country if we did not do that?
Greg Lang, Major Case Director and Strategic Policy Advisor, Competition Advocacy Unit, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada: I think that’s actually a question for Ms. Wright.
Ms. Wright: I’m happy to answer that question. As you know, our counterparts around the world are beginning to adopt open banking. What we see is that if Canada doesn’t adopt open banking, there may be issues with regard to our ability to compete on an international stage.
Senator Verner: I will address you, Ms. Wright, regarding the study published in 2017. In your study, you cite an Ernst & Young report, which shows that the financial technology usage rate was 18 per cent in Canada and that the firm anticipated a rate of 45 per cent in the near future, but without giving a specific timeline. What do you think about that statement and when in the near future should the increase to 45 per cent occur?
Ms. Wright: Thank you for your question. I will begin by saying that when we began our market study, that was the main question that we had, the question that was posed by that study. The study showed that one in five of us used a fintech product two times in the last six months, whereas our international counterparts are about double that amount.
So the main question we had in our study was why; why is that the case? Are there regulatory and non-regulatory reasons why fintech companies are not having the same adoption rates in Canada as in other jurisdictions?
With regard to your question on time, I would not have a comment on the amount of time it should take in order for us to get up to a certain number. I don’t know what that correct number is, but the interesting question we looked at was: Why aren’t we doing as well as our counterparts in this area?
Senator Verner: Since your market study was published, have you had an opportunity to look into the economic benefits that could arise from an open banking market? You mentioned earlier the economic benefits in the United Kingdom, which you estimated to be $440 million per year. Have you had an opportunity to extrapolate and consider the economic benefits for Canada?
Ms. Wright: We have not had an opportunity to do that for Canada. When we look at open banking, it’s interesting that Canada is currently on the leading edge rather than the bleeding edge. I mean that we have international counterparts around the world that are starting to adopt open banking. We are able to look at their experiences, and see the advantages and opportunities with open banking, as well as to some of the risks that need to be addressed.
We have that number from the U.K. regarding the benefits of up to $440 million. There are other measures the U.K. has put out showing there is adoption of open banking in their country. Things are looking promising in other jurisdictions. It is still early days, and time will tell.
Senator Verner: My last question is related to the discussion you had with my colleague, Senator Wetston. In your study, you encourage Canadian political decision makers to designate a single entity to be in charge of financial technology policies in the form of a single point of contact for businesses, consumers and investors. Given what has happened in the securities file, how do you expect Quebec and Alberta to react to this kind of a proposal? I’m not saying that I’m against it. However, considering the experience with the two provinces that did not want to participate, what do you anticipate their reaction to your proposal will be?
Ms. Wright: I will begin by saying that our market study recommended that there be a policy lead on open banking. We made that recommendation because there are so many different policy considerations that need to be taken into account, and we need a lead who is looking at all of those different perspectives as regulations are being developed. By doing that, we will get a framework that works for everybody.
Senator Marshall: My first question is for Mr. Smolynec. Mr. Ferrabee and Ms. Wright seem to be supporters of open data, but you said right at the end of your opening remarks that we need to reform our privacy legislation. Could you give us some insight on what is happening in the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to prepare for this? It is most likely coming. Could you talk to us about whether you have draft legislation prepared? Are you adequately resourced? Could you give us some insight on whether you will be in a position to do your job, should open data arrive in Canada?
Mr. Smolynec: As you are no doubt aware, Commissioner Therrien has in the past before this and other committees called for an updating and modernization of our privacy laws. The economy is moving ahead at a rapid pace. There are all sorts of technological innovations. Over the past couple of decades, privacy has become increasingly important for all kinds of reasons, not least, I would point out, because it affects our democratic rights. I would posit that you cannot have a viable public democratic life without a private life.
It is important, and the stakes are high, not just from a consumer’s point of view but from a citizenship point of view.
So yes, we are working diligently to study and assess how privacy laws can be improved. There are a range of things we are proposing, which includes the creation of rights-based legislation. Our laws now are principles-based and technologically neutral. There is a lot of merit to having technologically neutral laws and principles reflected in those laws. But we suggest that a rights basis, as we see, for instance, in the GDPR. We are not suggesting we should adopt the GDPR, but we could create a Canadian model suited for Canadian purposes and a Canadian context, including our international trading relationships. A rights basis that confers distinct rights upon Canadians would be helpful.
The other very critical thing is that the order-making powers for the commissioner and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is indicated, as well as the ability to impose fines. All of these issues that pertain to how we regulate are critical, as well. With that would come an augmentation of the resourcing capacity of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
Senator Marshall: How confident are you that the office would be ready to respond? In the past, you must get some feeling as to whether the government would be receptive to providing more resources. Do you feel encouraged that, when the time comes, you will be in a position to properly respond on behalf of Canadians, or do you have some trepidation with regard to what you will be able to do?
Mr. Smolynec: I have no doubt that we could contribute with value to any legislative reform initiatives. We have expertise, we have deep knowledge and we’ve been studying the issues for years.
That said, we are busy; we are busy across the board. There are a lot of complaints and pressures. As I speak of the democratic rights and the stakes involved — these are big issues — but there are increased localized demands. When people complain — they want answers — and the complaints are real, we have to attend to those as well.
We have to operate on different levels. I’m not without my concerns, but we have a lot to offer.
Senator Marshall: You are all familiar with Statistics Canada’s pursuit of financial data that was in the media several months ago. I know this is the early stages with the open data; we are just talking conceptually. Ms. Wright, I know you said you expect government would take the lead. Do you think that the information Statistics Canada is looking for will now be more readily accessible if we move to open data? My first reaction was that this was to get the same data through the back door that they could not get through the front door.
I would like each of you to respond to that.
Ms. Wright: There are still a lot of details that need to be worked out with regard to open banking, and there are issues with regard to trust in the market that need to be worked out before open banking is implemented in Canada. In order for open banking to be taken up by consumers, consumers need to trust in the idea of open banking and what that means. That’s an issue that needs to be figured out before we’re able to implement open banking in Canada.
Mr. Ferrabee: I’m not sure that open banking would change the dynamic. I don’t think by creating open banking all of a sudden that would open up new ways. It’s a question of who is gating the information. In some ways, I applaud the interests of getting more accurate financial forecasting and in some ways the system works to say not if you’re going to get private information. I think open banking is saying: Who is gating? If it’s my financial institution who currently is doing a good job protecting my data, in open banking I’m protecting my data. So now it’s a question of who is controlling it. In our view, a separate attempt from Statistics Canada to do the same thing would not be successful under an open banking regime.
Senator Marshall: Do you feel the same as Ms. Wright that governments should take the lead?
Senator Marshall: Any further comments from the Privacy Commissioner’s office?
Mr. Smolynec: As you’re aware, we have an ongoing investigation on Statistics Canada, so I’m not at liberty to discuss that investigation.
Senator Marshall: We’ll be fully familiar with it by the time we get open banking.
Mr. Smolynec: In general, I’d make the following observation: With open banking we don’t have specificity as to what data is necessarily involved. We would ask what accounts are being implicated in open banking: information transfers, insurance and mortgages. What exactly are we talking about?
What we’re seeing now are technologies that are allowing for the vast accumulation of incredible amounts of data. This new phenomenon — it’s not just in the financial sector but in social media platforms, et cetera — of the amazing accumulation of vast amounts of data is transforming the way we think about privacy, because it’s not just one individual’s privacy that needs to be protected. It’s on a global level, involving sometimes billions of people.
Senator Frum: Mr. Ferrabee, you just mentioned the “gating mechanism.” We currently have a system where it’s the financial institutions that are gating the data and open banking depends on the individual to be the gatekeeper for their data; is that it?
Mr. Ferrabee: I would say it’s not as binary as that. I still control my data, but it’s also controlled by or protected by. I trust my bank to protect my data. I would still rely on them to protect the data they have. But if I’m having access and I’m choosing to give somebody else access I am gating.
Senator Frum: It boils down to this idea of how much financial literacy the general public has when they sign on to these things and their ability to consent. We also know there’s a gigantic generational gap. The people around this table are much more concerned about their privacy, but the millennial generation is accustomed to waiving their privacy but perhaps not with a full understanding of the implications. This seems to be based on a culture where an upcoming generation is accustomed to waiving their privacy rights.
Mr. Ferrabee: Perhaps, and there’s definitely some of that. I think what we’re asking in open banking is to tell us what the rules are because in some cases they’re not there and people are making decisions that are more risky for them than if there were a set of rules. That expectation of a customer’s awareness, knowledge, consent and all of that would be part of gaining access, whereas right now people are doing things assuming it will be fine and it could very well not be.
Senator Frum: For people of my generation and this generation at this table it sounds predatory, taking advantage of the openness of an upcoming generation that is really innocent about the exposure they would be taking on. Mr. Smolynec, do you want to comment on that?
Mr. Smolynec: I wouldn’t mind.
One of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s priorities over the last few years has been assessing how privacy issues affect vulnerable populations, so we have strategies developed by our communications directorate to address vulnerable populations, one of which is youth. It may be a good idea, when with considering open banking, to put a lens on how open banking affects different segments of the population; in this case, youth.
Senator Tkachuk: I believe it was you, Mr. Ferrabee, who talked about how this would increase competition, how consumers would benefit. I’m still trying to get my head around all this. Let’s see if we can kindergarten it a bit.
I deal with two banks. There are probably many people who deal with an investment bank, where they may be saving stock, and then a regular bank account. How would I profit from open banking?
Mr. Ferrabee: I’ll qualify this to say I have an interest primarily in the payments area, but I have an opinion on what you’re asking, so I’ll share that.
The idea, I believe, is that the consumer or a service provider can access those various points and provide a service to you that brings it all into a single place so you can see holistically where your assets are and what they’re doing. Once you see the full picture in an integrated manner, the payment initiation allows you to then rebalance to make a transaction. The goal is to provide a more holistic view versus having to get your statement from one and then from another, pull them together and look for the most current date. I made a trade and I can’t remember exactly how that settled and what the amount was and having to call on your bank while using different vehicles to get there. It’s all your information as it is now. There’s not new information. It’s the medium that’s being accessed.
Senator Tkachuk: It’s just slapping another entity on what already exists and saying that what I’ll do for you is to coordinate all this stuff so you’ll get one piece of paper or one website where you can see everything at once.
Mr. Ferrabee: That would be an example.
Senator Tkachuk: I can’t say how that benefits anybody. I don’t really understand that. If I go to my bank, I get all the information I need about my bank, and if I go to my other bank, I get all the information. What would be the difference between that and getting it too? Or is it the fact that this institution now can mine the data in my banks to sell to other people? That’s what this is all about, is it not?
I remember Facebook was supposed to allow people to privately engage with each other; family sending snapshots and all that stuff. But in reality, the money is in the mining of the information and the fact that very private information is going out and being sold into the marketplace. That’s why I’m concerned that all of these things start off so innocently but really the information is where the money is. No one is going to tell me that the website is where the money is. It’s the information that’s where the money is and that is a dangerous thing.
Senator Tkachuk: I hope you’re watching. That’s all I can say.
Mr. Ferrabee: With every opportunity there are challenges and I believe that can be managed, but I agree with you.
Ms. Wright: If I could add a response to that question, which is a good question. I’m similar to you, senator. I have a number of different bank accounts that hold a number of different things. I have savings accounts, I have RESPs, I have RRSPs, and they’re all with different financial institutions. The opportunity that comes with open banking is that there could be a service provider whom I could give that information to so that the service provider would be able to see my full picture and they could then make suggestions as to how I could grow my money. Currently, each of my banks only sees a sliver of my entire financial picture and they’re not able to provide me with the advice that would benefit from that full picture. Open banking provides that opportunity for a service provider to have that full picture and be able to provide that advice to me.
Senator Stewart Olsen: I just want to say that’s what financial advisers do already. I just want to put that out there.
Ms. Wright: It’s very true. That is what financial advisers do already. This is about giving consumers the choice to either have a financial adviser or to go with this online option.
Senator Wetston: Just a quick question. This is the value of this. Having these very skilled people presenting today demonstrates that we touch on very important areas of investor education and financial literacy, and it’s not just about financial products. A lot of work, however, has been done on these things in Canada around financial literacy and investor education.
I just want to remind the committee and the panellists here, Mr. Chair, if I may, that Canada has had a varied record in embedded mutual-fund fees and high trailer fees. We’ve paid a great deal for these products over a long period of time and investors paid that. Institutions collected that money. I’m not being critical, but it’s a reality.
Services might be able to enhance the competitive environment to reduce those kinds of fees and the environment in which that occurs. Work has been done, but it leads me to this very simple question, which is this: We’ve talked, I think, privacy, and what you believe you may need to do in the event that open banking became a reality in Canada. It depends on the scope and standards and what comes with regard to open banking. Payments Canada, I know you’re under review now. What do you need to ensure you’re ready to participate in an open banking environment?
And for the Competition Bureau, are you comfortable with where the competition is at today? Do you need amendments or reform? What do you need to deal with technology in this particular sector?
Mr. Ferrabee: Payments Canada embarked on a modernization initiative a number of years ago and we’re midstream on that. We’re active with the Department of Finance and have been well supported. We voiced all the way along and are not at a gap position where we need to take strategic action to close that. We’re very well supported.
Ms. Wright: With regard to the Competition Act, we have a number of different provisions and tools under the Competition Act. It is remarkably flexible and allows the opportunity for us to look at a number of different business conducts in the marketplace. We will continue to apply the Competition Act to business conducts that may be anti-competitive, and we won’t hesitate to take action.
Senator Klyne: I wanted to applaud the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for the rigour you see being put into how clients would authorize their data. It’s kind of a full knowledge what they’re getting into and it’s fully explained to them. I guess it’s up to the financial institution to make sure they train these people on the front line to be able to do this. At the same time, there will have to be some external audit on the process to make sure they’re compliant. The question was asked if you will be ready and resourced to do this.
I can’t help but think about the Canadian version of Sarbanes-Oxley creeping into this whole process at some level, and maybe it’s the agency side.
Just a quick question to Ms. Wright: You mentioned that the government should take the lead on this. I assume that is in the context of being responsible for developing the framework of this, but also vetting third parties and fintechs on this, which sounds like the creation of another empire building here for the federal government. I don’t mean that in any sense other than somebody is going to have to pay for that if it’s an agency of the government that takes the lead.
Is it the taxpayer or the consumer paying a fee somewhere financially or will the shareholders of banks step up to pay for this right to have open banking that is regulated?
Ms. Wright: I’m likely not the best person to comment on who would pay for open banking. What I can say is the reason why I think it is important for there to be a policy lead on this is because there are so many different policy considerations and they all need to be taken into consideration in order for the open banking framework to be robust.
The Chair: On that question of a lead, did I understand yesterday, when the gentleman from the Department of Finance was here that he indicated he was the lead? Would that have just been for the Department of Finance’s project, or is it across government?
Ms. Wright: Yes, I believe the former.
Senator Dagenais: Based on what we have heard recently, Canada will have trouble protecting its electoral system from potential Russian intrusions. I think sufficient protection must be provided for privacy before information as sensitive as financial data is processed. I see that there is a rush to take certain risks. I think we should ask the Americans to tell us about what they experienced recently with the Russian intrusion into the electoral system. The situation worries me. If they can dig around in the electoral system, others could dig in our personal finances. Perhaps lessons should be learned from what happened in the United States. I am thinking of everything to do with Internet systems, but I don’t want to go any further.
Mr. Smolynec: We know that Russia targeted Canadian residents’ personal data. The office has investigated the World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA. It turned out that Russian intelligence services targeted athletes’ personal data in WADA’s system.
In addition, we are already noting that some countries are trying to interfere in the election. That interest appears as soon as databases contain sensitive information. It is very important to protect that data, from a security perspective, with measures proportional to the threat.
Senator Dagenais: Thank you very much.
The Chair: Witnesses, thanks very much. This has been extremely helpful to us. Thank you for being here and thank you for being so frank. It’s been meaningful to us.
We’re going to suspend and we’ll have an in camera session, senators. We will do that now and then I’d ask folks if they would leave the room at their convenience. | 2019-04-22T05:35:08Z | https://sencanada.ca/en/Content/SEN/Committee/421/banc/54555-e |
No matter which water sport you are partaking in, having high quality foot protection will prove immensely valuable. Having the best water socks will ensure that your feet stay warm and help protect your feet on the walk to the water including the rough rocks in shallow waters. In colder climates this becomes even more valuable.
The best neoprene socks are important, that is why we have compiled our top five favourites on the market.
From size 6-16, there are a pair of these comfortable neoprene socks for everyone. These socks are perfect for surfers or paddleboarders as they have honeycomb silkscreen bottom that gives you more traction. This does not compromise comfort but does provide you even more security to keep you from slipping when walking on rocks. The seams on this sock are blindstitched to lay flat against your skin and avoid chafing and are glued for a tight close that prevents water from seeping through. A comfortable 3mm of thickness protects you from the cold water while not restricting your movement. These are so comfortable they can even be used as a liner for hunting or hiking shoes. Made using a high quality durable material, these socks are making them easy to get into and perfect for wearing with scuba fins.
These ankle high socks come in seven different fun colors with designs to show your personality, even under the sea. With the high quality finishing this sock has you would never guess that it holds such an affordable price. The construction is top of the line with blindstitched seams that provide superior comfort against your skin. With glued seams this sock is not only durable but it is strong enough to keep the water out making you even warmer in the water. The ideal 3mm thickness keeps you comfortable in cooler waters without giving you a bulky feel. The sole of this sock is comprised of a dotted silkscreen material that gives you added traction when walking. That makes this sock great for virtually any water sport. Four-way stretchable material makes slipping this sock on and off easier than ever.
It is no wonder this made our list of top rated aqua socks, this sock offers something for everyone. Coming in over 10 different styles and ranging in sizes from 4-15 this is the perfect sock to fit the whole family. An adjustable ankle cuff allows you to get the perfect fit and keeps the sock firmly in place allowing you to focus on playing at the beach. This sock is built as a beach sock and is the perfect accessory for playing soccer, volleyball or any other sport on the hot sand. Built to withstand the hot sand these socks are great for swimming, snorkeling as well as on land playing. A stretchy and comfortable design allows them to be easily worn for the whole day. A great way to protect your feet from hot or rocky sand, blisters and sunburn. These high top sand socks are a must have for your next family vacation.
These low riding thin socks come in at an unbeatable price making them a great option for water sports. Their lightweight design makes traveling easy while their non-slip sole allows you added security and versatility. The low profile design allows them to easily fit into full foot fins making these a great pair of water socks for snorkeling or scuba diving. Not only used in the water, these thinner neoprene socks can be used in hunting or hiking shoes to give your foot added insulation. The thinnest pair on our list, these socks are ideal for warmer waters giving you the perfect combination of warmth and protection.
A wide range of sizes and five different colors to choose from makes this one of the top water socks for swimming. This sock sits so comfortably it begins to feel like a second skin. An adjustable ankle cuff makes these mid rise socks an even more perfect for the whole family. Made using a lightweight and stretchy lycra material makes getting into this sock very easy. A tough and durable neoprene sole provides added protection for your foot making this sock great for both in water and on sand playing. Your feet will no longer face sunburns or blisters from hot sand on a sunny day.
There are many things you should consider before getting yourself a pair of water socks. Not only the material and build quality but also the time and place you use these socks are important things to consider.
Water socks are different from water shoes in many ways. Water socks are usually designed using a latex material and have a much closer mold to your foot. Socks also lack the thick sole and rigid upper that a water shoe will have. The lack of sole means that water socks are best used in instances of low-impact and intensity. Typically these will be used in public pools for things such as water aerobics, saunas and showers.
Due to the full protection the provide your foot they are also commonly worn at the beach. While they do not provide protection from sharp objects such as rocks, they will protect you from hot sand and any bacterial environments.
As with any article of clothing you choose to wear in the water, paying attention to the types of materials used to make your water socks is important. When placed in the water a lot of materials retain the water and end up feeling quite cold and heavy. In cooler conditions, this could be life threatening. Typically natural fabrics are the ones to retain all moisture. Going for a synthetic material will give you a lightweight material that has a more rapid dry.
When considering leather, real leather is more durable but damages easily in the water and is far heavier. Synthetic leather on the other hand is more durable in wet conditions and has a much lighter weight. We prefer these synthetic materials. Companies spend time and energy designing the best type of materials for their products. This system allows them to do the hard work to find out which material, and build quality, are best in certain situations.
Water socks are generally known for having a weak sole. Designed for situations that are not of high impact water socks focus more on a lightweight design rather than a bulkier sole. With that being said, many outdoors adventurers are turning to a more barefoot style of shoe. Going for a water sock with a slightly thicker sole could be all you need in order to transition your socks from lounging at the pool to exploring on a hike. Thicker soles have many advantages. Offering superior traction and durability makes this option quite attractive. Many people looking for the increased durability and protection may want to consider water shoes as an alternative.
For those looking to primarily sit poolside or spend their day in the water, having a thinner sole will likely be a much better option. The flexibility and lightweight design of this model can be infinitely more beneficial. You have the most flexibility when it comes to activities that don’t require tons of walking around.
It is important to consider your usage before deciding on the thickness and type of sole that will be best for you in your shoe. Usually the more padding a sock has the less stable they become. This is due to their squishy nature. If you are needing the most stability you can get you may have to sacrifice a little bit of comfort. This isn’t to say that the sock will be uncomfortable, just less than a sock that’s made for simply short walks to the beach.
Water socks need to have the most ventilation they can get. This is what makes them so great at drying quickly. This also allows your foot to breathe while you’re on big hikes. If your water sock didn’t have good ventilation you would find your foot would stay wet from sweat or water longer than you wanted.
This can be done through the material used in the water socks construction. A mixture of mesh and breathable fabric will be the best combination you can get. The sole should also have drain holes to prevent water from pooling and accumulating at the bottom of your shoe. It doesn’t matter how well the top part of your water sock is at ventilation if the sole of the shoe doesn’t have the same feature.
This is one of the main ways water socks get rid of most of the water that enters the shoe. The sole of the shoe will be where most of the water exits the shoe. Some water socks have specially designed one way valves on the bottom of the shoe that lets water out while not letting sand and other debris in. We find these systems to be the best. If your shoe lets sand or rocks into your shoe your feet will be sore and you won’t want to wear the shoes any more.
What good is a water sock if it isn’t stable. You’re going to be balancing on sharp rocks or hiking through the forest – you will need gear that has a stable base. This is largely to do with the base of the shoe. Some companies will trade cushioning for stability. This isn’t ideal as you will want a combination of both. If the sock isn’t comfortable it can hurt your foot and even cause blisters and significant discomfort.
It’s important for the water socks to have cushioning that also supports the arches of your foot. If you are going on a longer hike you will want one that has arch support throughout the sole. You won’t want to add an insole as it can act as a sponge, ultimately defeating the entire purpose of the water sock.
Water socks need to fit your foot almost perfectly. If they are too small you will find that your foot feels cramped and pinched. You will also experience discomfort if they are too big. Your foot will move around in the sock and cause friction and blisters. The perfect size water sock will hold your foot in place without constricting or rubbing your skin.
When looking at the size of the water sock it is important to consider the padding on the sole. This can cause the sock to fit differently and feel more comfortable. The cushioning can also be tailored to the activity you’re doing. For example, if you’re more of a runner you will want the padding to be near the bridge of your foot.
All of this doesn’t matter if the water socks don’t last. They need to be made of material that is strong and able to stand up to the conditions you put them in. If you are a hiker for example, you will want to look for socks that have a more robust material than if you were needing them to simply walk along the beach.
The build quality is also vastly important. Stitching can affect everything from the longevity to the feel of the socks. The way in which the padding is added will also make the socks more or less durable.
Q: What Is The Difference Between Water Socks And Water Shoes?
A: Water socks are essential socks that have been specially designed to be worn in water. This means they won’t rub and cause blisters as normal socks that get wet would. These socks don’t offer as much protection as water shoes but are great when worn in combination with scuba fins and water shoes.
Water shoes, on the other hand, have been designed protect the feet. They will have a comfortable insole that doesn’t retain water while being able to be worn for long hikes. Their tread will usually have drain holes that let water easily flow through without flooding in your shoes.
Q: How Should Water Socks Fit?
A: Your water socks should fit quite snug. You should be able to get them on without too much of a struggle while having them tight enough to stay up. You will want to ensure the heel of the sock fits in place on your foot. If your sock is too loose and does not fit your foot tightly then it will absorb a lot of water and end up weighing you down. On the other hand, if they are too tight they will stretch out and not offer as much protection. This will greatly decrease the lifespan of your socks.
Q: How To Clean Water Socks?
A: Many people mistakenly think that if they are using their water shoes in fresh water they do not need to clean them afterward. The reality is that freshwater sources such as lakes still have a ton of microbes in them. These can wreak havoc on your gear by causing mildew to grow. Luckily cleaning your socks is quick and easy. You can simply rinse with fresh water from a hose and air dry out of direct sunlight.
In some cases, these can start to stink and a simple rinse will not do. When a deeper clean is needed you can rinse with some mild soapy water such as wetsuit shampoo. You can also use some vinegar to help remove the smell. Dump all the water out and stuff some hand towels into the boot to soak up any added moisture. You may want to speed the drying process up by using a blow dryer for inside the shoe.
Q: What Are Water Socks?
A: Water socks are lightweight foot protection that is made out of the same neoprene material as wetsuits. There are many different kinds, some featuring minor tread while others have thick rubber soles that provide lots of traction. These are used by many water enthusiasts including surfers, scuba divers and beach loungers. The flexibility offered in these shoes is incredibly ideal but they do not provide enough support for long term activities such as hiking.
Q: How Do I Choose The Best Waterproof Socks?
A: There are many factors that make great water socks. This is a combination of materials, design and feel. Water socks should have a material that drys quickly while feeling light. They should also have flatlock seams which nearly eliminates bunching and friction which cause blisters and discomfort. The thickness can also help keep your feet warm if you’re swimming in colder climates.
Q: Where Should I Buy Water Absorbent Socks?
A: More and more places are selling absorbent socks. Buying your aqua socks online is a great way to ensure that you get the best price point. Most outdoor department stores now carry this preferred form of footwear. You will also be able to find them at your local dive shop as they are commonly used with snorkeling fins.
Q: What Water Sock Work Best In Submerged Water?
A: All water socks will work great when submerged in water. After all, that’s what they’re designed to do. If you think that water socks will keep your feet dry you will be surprised to learn that this is not what they do. They give you the grip and protection your feet need to walk on rocky shore especially in the ocean.
You can use this type of shoe in many different situations ranging from hiking to boating to running and even whitewater rafting. They will not only protect your feet but dry exceptionally quickly. They won’t retain water like normal running shoes will. Instead, they have drain holes and material that has built in quick dry systems.
Q: Do I Wear Water Socks With Water Shoes?
A: This is a tricky question. Water socks aren’t typical socks you wear under shoes. These are essentially water shoes just thinner and slightly different. You won’t have to wear water shoes over these socks as they are enough protection for your feet.
If you find some thin water sock you can wear them with water shoes. We recommend only doing this for hikes or longer walks. Water shoes are meant to be comfortable enough to wear without socks. The extra material will also slow down the drying time.
Q: What Is Neoprene Socks?
A: Neoprene socks are traditional style socks with a flair. They are made from neoprene, a material that can not only withstand the abuse of hiking, river passings and even skiing. These socks are exceptionally fast at drying while being warm and ultralightweight. Water seems to simply roll off them without being absorbed at all.
You can wear them between water shoes and your skin to protect against friction and rubbing on longer hikes. Having this extra waterproof barrier will make your feet happy for longer. You won’t have to worry about blisters or waterlogged feet any longer with neoprene socks.
Having a trusted pair of water socks is something that any water enthusiast needs. Water socks reviews agree that having high quality foot protection is important in ensuring you get the most out of your day at the beach. Protecting you from the hot sand into the depths of the ocean, water socks are an affordable way to keep you protected.
Did your favorite pair of water socks make our list? Let us know what you look for in your perfect pair of water socks below. | 2019-04-21T22:55:41Z | https://www.globosurfer.com/best-water-socks/ |
Our first curiosity is to learn the circumstances that brought you up because we believe that forming a person is only possible in its historicity. That's why we want to delve into your private life. We know that you come from a worker family. We heard that you were a hardworking student. You entered the Faculty of Political Sciences in Ankara University at a time when the social struggle was on the rise. How did this background affect your thoughts?
Let me remark; it is not correct that I was hardworking. If I ask how I describe myself it's probably appropriate to say that I am a person grown up by the republic. Why the republic? It searches for the new person and as a result of this, some institutions were established that gave a western-style education. One of them was Mülkiye (Civil Service School), you know, whose name was changed to Siyasal Bilgiler Okulu (Political Sciences School) after it had been moved to Ankara. At those times, there were new generations who came to an educational institution like this. I came from the country-side and of course, there were people from important cities as well. Of course, one of the key properties of the republic was that it did not discriminate people by their socioeconomic status and ethnicity in the context of the services provided to the people. Still, they had some discrimination; but I leave that aside. For the likes of us, it was of utmost importance that the education was made mandatory and that a quota for boarding schools made available. Educational institutions arose to where people, rich or poor, send their children to have jobs different than their traditional jobs. So I entered the university in 1959 as a son of a worker or an artisan worker family.
Those were the years that the universities were also quite active, weren't they?
Yes, yes. What was my position there? I can think of what was I, and what I have become. I must not forget what was I, and I should not underestimate the effect of contemporary secular educational institutions and intellectual movement on what I have become. Actually, my father did not go to the primary school but he glanced inside the tents in which writing was taught, he saw there are only 29 letters. He said I can memorize 29 letters to himself, and he managed to learn reading and writing all by himself. My father started to work as an apprentice to a Greek shoemaker, then he learned carpentry, I also think he knew something about construction as well. In short, I will say he was an artisan worker. Why worker? There were tile factories, tile workshops are more correct, in the city we lived in. My father used to work there. Owner of that tile factory kicked the workers out. At that time, I never forget, he gave his daughter a magnificent amount of 40 thousand lire worth wedding. After my father became unemployed, he became a clerk in the military and then in a foreign mining company but they were not permanent jobs. My uncle was a dispatcher at a lignite business in Tunçbilek. He calls for my father to oversee worker teams of five or six people. At that time, since I was six years old, I had been helping my uncles who lost their father. I went to my uncles and settled there after my family went to Tunçbilek. I had a quite significant experience there. I later realized its value. It's the beginning of the semester, we are in the first grade. Two people did not have the alphabet, one was me, one was another person. The teacher had an extra alphabet and gave it to me. He/she gave it to me because I was able to answer his/her questions. One of my uncles whom I worked with applied for free education, he was 14-18 years old. His rejection was, of course, resulted in disappointment and he made me learn reading/writing before I went to school by threatening me with burning my tongue because he wanted his elder sister's son (me) to read. Nevertheless, you go to school, they teach you reading/writing, and then you happen to already know reading/writing. Of course, you'll know the answers to the questions, you raise your hand. That created a self-confidence in me which had a lasting effect for years. In fact, I was not a successful student throughout my secondary education because I was helping my uncles all the time.
So you were working and studying at the same time?
In a sense. Another important thing is that I was not successful in some courses in school. I experienced my first failure in the religion lesson. The teacher asked us to memorize a prayer at the weekend. However, I had to go to my workplace at the weekend and I cried when I couldn't memorize the prayer. On the other hand, I would perform my salat rituals at the weekend for one or two hours as compensation for not being able to perform while I was at the workplace. That was the situation and years later, I was actually upset, thinking "why they didn't teach me to brush my teeth instead of salat rituals". Nevertheless, the Democrat Party came to power after the People's Republic Party as I was growing up in an artisan and worker culture. There was a great sympathy for Democrat Party there. I was in this, too. I remember this quite well, I was in high school, every year, failing maths, physics, and chemistry. Sometimes with the help of my friends, sometimes through hard work, sometimes not eligible but passed by making promises, I finished high-school. Then I started working in a hotel. There, I earned enough money to manage my finances at the university for two years. At the time I was a clerk in the hotel, I met with a concierge whom I thought was an Alawi. He sympathized with the People's Republic Party. He never stopped listening to Vatan Cephesi (the Motherland Front) from radio, the program that Burhan Belge was reading the lists. I made fierce discussions with him and made him enlist in Vatan Cephesi (the Motherland Front). The environment was like this when I arrived at the faculty and the revolution of May 27 happened. Then schools were closed. Boycotts started and continued even after schools are reopened.
Did you also participate in the demonstrations?
I was going to mention that. There were only two people in the classroom, one was me and the other was a friend, Mustafa Yazgan, a religious writer of the young generation. A change started to happen. Yön Dergisi (the Direction Journal) started to be published. I contributed to the second issue with a writing. It was about the idea of socialism being the salvation of our homeland. I wrote this because when I was at the final grade of high school, I received a book from my friend's mother who happened to be a library officer. It was Max Beer's The General History of Socialism and Social Struggles. It deeply affected me. When I was at the first grade in university, there was no lecture afternoon and I walked around shanty towns with 50-100 grams of peas and roasted peas. I was thinking about how can we fix the problems of people, I formed ideas of an egalitarian society by making connections to the book. These thoughts suddenly merged with Yön Dergisi (the Direction Journal). I managed to pass my courses in the faculty with the financial help of my uncle. I was getting the lowest grades possible but only took the resit exam once. Then I became an assistant. In third grade, there was an associate professor whose name is Nermin Abadan. We knew her. In class, she asked for someone to help her in a parliamentary inquiry. I volunteered. We came up with results based on statistics and I guess she noticed my orderly working style during this study.
Did you join the Worker's Party of Turkey at university?
I did not. We had a bond of communion with the people there and I thought about joining the Worker's Party of Turkey. However, let me tell you about what happened at the election campaign in Eskisehir. I was assigned by my school to watch the elections there. I was going to watch the public rally of the Worker's Party of Turkey but there was a confusion. I asked what the preparations were. There was not much preparation, so in the hotel, I prepared three speeches until three o'clock in the morning. I even gave the speech one day early but they did not read it. We hastily went to the meeting area. There were 20 minutes before the public meeting. They told "You wrote it, you can read it better". I thought that since I gave priority on my political goals over my academic goals and eventually I will join this business, so I read the speech. One day later, I went to the public rally of the Democrat Party. However, they listened to my talk in Sivrihisar (Eskisehir). One asked, "Weren't you the scum who was talking about comradeship like having foams from the mouth like a dog?!". Someone punched me in the back and dragged me away. I went to Ankara and asked permission to resign. The dean said, "Hold there, you will resign only if it is necessary to do so". Let me explain how I became an assistant, too. Nermin Abadan said, "A position will be opened, would you consider being an assistant?". I would work with her husband. I said, "I would". I couldn't pass in English at my first trial and then I failed at my second attempt, too. Then, Yavuz Abadan said "I am not going to take the English exam into account. Pass all of the three candidates". I say this result is the product of every class of the Republican generation giving opportunities to young people. So in the next audition, I got the assistantship. So this is how I had become an assistant.
Which academic subject did you start working on? Did you get your Marxist formation during this period?
Doctoral seminars were started after I had become an assistant. Those doctoral seminars were always about subjects like political movements, fascism. At that time, one association asked me through Mümtaz Soysal to give a talk. I prepared a talk in one month. Approximately for 150-200 pages, I explained the critical history of the right-wing thought. Then I felt the ambition to suppress it and managed to do so in a way. This is the first thing. Second, I could not have annual vacations due to my doctoral lectures. I found the opportunity after four years and went back to my home country, isolated myself for a week. At that time, I was interested in my sister's situation. She had a friend from work and my uncles immediately intervened, of course, making threats like they would beat the boy. I protected my sister there. In politics, we had a sociology professor named İbrahim Yasıl. He used to give homework involving students' observations of their surrounding environment. I prepared my homework on "ten problems a girl may face in rural areas and solutions to those problems".
Also, Şerif Mardin left me half of the history of political thought while I was following graduate courses and said, "your information about Ancient Greece is fresh, you take notes". I was again taking too long notes, then I went on with the printing phase. Ancient Greece is OK but there is also before that. Before Greece, Anatolia is based on three-thousand-year-old Middle East civilizations. And "what was there before civilized societies?" How did those societies manage to achieve civilization? An event of transition to food production called Neolithic. Then who made this transition? What was there before Neolithic? Hunter society, what about before that? Of course, the first sexual differentiation and therefore biological evolution. My first goal was to make my thesis on Ancient Greece, then a study about Rome in my associate professorship and the enlightenment thought in my professorship. I went the opposite direction.
What was the focus of your doctoral work, exactly?
Since classical culture starts with Greece, I wished to take a subject on Greece and at the same time, my information about classes was on equality. I wrote a thesis on equality and inequality in Ancient Greece. During this period, I wanted to print out my lecture notes, named "Political Thought in Ancient Greece". However, I did not finish my Ph.D. yet, there was a condition, the signature of an associate professor was required. Şerif Mardin gave the approval and so my book was published. As a result, I meant this educational atmosphere and the opportunities in Turkey when I said, "I was raised by the Republic". Also, you are raised by the tradition of not being a slave to the government in the Faculty of Political Sciences, and this happens. You are in a science discipline, meaning that your previous work could not be far behind the people who would supervise your thesis. This pushes you to increase your level. I started my academic work in such an environment.
When you started these academic studies, which methods did you use in your research of equality, for example, the concept of equality in ancient Greece? For instance, there are notions like material and symbolic tools in your academic or popular writings about Neolithic and prior periods. Can you elaborate on these?
A pupil can take two positions when learning about a science discipline, one says let's learn methodology first. But those who show sensitivity about methodology find themselves caught in the middle and their courage to write is rubbed because they think their method is not scientific enough. I was not like that, I did not hastily read something and bring them together to impatiently print something. We showed the courage to write without knowing the things we lack due to the free environment created after the revolution of May 27. But courage also gives you the opportunity to grow and deal with your drawbacks. One of the reasons I write a lot is this.
Also, the Communist Manifesto and other works were started to be translated into Turkish. My English was not strong enough for fast reading, so I read in Turkish. Nevertheless, my methodology was to grasp the general concepts and to assess what I read in accordance with those general concepts. Now you see that the equality does not have one shape when you talk about the political thought in Ancient Greece. Things like you search a small flint in a sack of rice. What was Demokritos? Was he really a true egalitarian? What is Kikladik culture, which thoughts of it are egalitarian? My method was general like this, let me say that I preferred concepts that appear in sources parallel to my worldview.
I want to arrive at a point. It's about what was said about Göbeklitepe. Despite dating back 11000 years, some of the findings are labeled as religious symbols. The place is interpreted as a religious temple. Klaus Schmidt made such interpretations. Although it did not materialize into an academic article, there are archeologists that say it is a marketplace. What are your thoughts? What is the development process, what kind of material circumstances could give birth to such a symbolic outcome?
If social sciences are to be evaluated through a historical and sociological view as I say, you have to explain the factors that made the class society materialize. What kind of production was there, differences between societies, the transition between Paleolithic to Neolithic, you have to tell along with their reasons. You cannot interpret a finding without fitting it into a historical perspective when there were still many questions about it. You cannot continue to make claims such as the religious organizations and temples came first, and then the agriculture to feed the temple personnel. This is a generalization from a singular instance. Against this instance, there are hundreds of examples of in what conditions (climate, geography, and knowledge) the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural societies. If you create a historical perspective from singular instances, you also have to ignore all the scientific knowledge prior to that instance. If you cannot do that you can say that the old theories exist, but they are not certain, here is Göbeklitepe, but it is just one instance.
About Göbeklitepe, neither the settlements nor the communities related to the temple and its officials. There are inconsistencies like this. Therefore, we have to wait in my opinion. To jump to generalizations is very inaccurate from the perspective of scientific method and you have to research similar situations in history. We have to look at the holy stone cults. All these artifacts contain communal labor movement.
How should we interpret the motifs on it then?
The motifs on it are so masterful that it is not like any other sculpture. Spiders, animals, and other subjects aside, in my opinion, these motifs being unrelated to the production is especially interesting. Why unrelated? I think we could not find the connection. Either in the history of arts or craftsmanship, without having more primitive versions, no genius can come forward and suddenly make those sculptures in their most mature form.
Let me arrive at the question, "How do you interpret it?". An archeologist must consider the evolution of cultural tools as cumulative throughout the evolution of thought. There were a few villages that produced plant-based foods in a period of Neolithic age when there were no potteries. They are at the transition point from a primitive agricultural society to plant-based food production. That lifestyle has cultural products and one of those products is to equate the productivity of the earth and the productivity of women. Because the first logic of humans is the analogy, similarities are caught and there is the earth mother cult. Those small sculptures are there to solve the bottleneck of birth, just as it is in the hunter-gatherer societies. Those things are just talismans. Their continuity is a matter of fact in culture. The earth mother was not yet represented by the mother god who is productive just as a woman. You have to have societies with classes to talk about god. Why class societies? Because in class societies human-human relations are based on the daily inequalities and the human brain that perceives this then tends to explain everything with inequality. The human brain searches for a source for the alleged inequality in human-nature relationships. For example, a man cannot deal with his lord, then the lord either beheads or tortures him. The man cannot deal with nature either. He considers nature as a causal being and he bows before the sun and the rain just as he bows before his lord. Inegalitarian relations are the product of the people of class societies. But the egalitarian relationship is the classless society and that's why there is something magical there. What is magic? It is a human attempt, hope, or illusion of salvation for people's materially unsolvable problems in the world of images. I have a thought that you may call a cliché, whoever is unable to best an enemy thinks he killed the enemy by stabbing a toy doll of the enemy. The stabber is victorious if the enemy dies in three days. So, these kind of images in the Neolithic period are not products of inegalitarian relationships. Therefore, their sculptures cannot be higher than human subjects. For example, they are not gods. Those images function as talismans at best and create hope. Still, the meaning of shapes at Göbeklitepe, the carrying of those stones are things that create too many questions in my mind.
It's not about popularity, there is an ideological war going on. There is something called the plus value and the seizure of that plus value from the producer. This fact is highly concrete. You seize the production of the man at the farm, you call it taxes or your debt to god, you take it by voluntary slavery. My point is this transmission of plus value, the mechanisms of this transmission. I think it is not in accordance with the historical view to expect worshipping things that were produced by the communal labor, especially in societies which did not meet the necessary conditions.
You have a course plan and an exhibit where you describe the history of humanity with objects. First, where did the inspiration come from, I must ask. There are ethnography museums in Turkey that contain local objects which goes to the time of Ottomans but I suppose there are no ethnography museums which are for very ancient times and contain objects all around the world. We are rich in archaeology museums instead.
Of course, there are archaeology museums and there are ethnography museums. Also, there are English sources or translations, books on that matter. For example, Mehmet Sakınç tried to establish a fossil museum. But I suppose there aren't any folkloric products museum.
Let me tell you how I started all this. After the September 12 coup, they assigned scientists to universities and I told myself that I cannot represent this university, I resigned. Then my wife got an assignment abroad, so I went with her. During that time I collected these imitations from the museums I went. When I returned to the university, I suggested the history of humanity lecture again and it was immediately approved. I had ten years of experience, and also my collection. I found the opportunity to write the lecture notes of those ten years in Kemirgenlerden Sömürgenlere İnsanlık Tarihi (History of the Humanity from Gnawers to Exploiters). I don't use computers, therefore, I could not show photos by a computer. I took a lot of photos, all them just lie still. Instead, I brought, presented, and let my students touch a blunt reaping-hook, a primitive form of the modern sickle. Then talk about how was the transition made from hunter-gatherer societies to agriculture. Depending on the day's subject, I could bring five to six things, then we put these things on shelves to save myself from carrying them every time. The history of humanity with objects born like that. After the communications expert gave that name, I stumbled upon a brochure, the history of humanity in 100 objects. That means I did not do something wrong.
You also said that you were writing utopias. For example, Teleandregenos's Utopia, you explain the inequality of men-women and the institution of family there. Today, what would you criticize if you wrote a utopia?
While writing those utopias (Teleandregenos, Ozmos Kronos), I look at the intellectual conditions of the history that I am currently living in. Especially in Ozmos Kronos, I thought people desperately needed hope and imaginative power in a time where the Soviet Union was dissolved. So utopias had a place and function. They said that another way of living is possible. But in time, this utopian tradition, if you follow the historical flow, immediately developed a tendency for opposite utopias. The Liberal idea of "utopianism is bullying, it disrupts the natural development of a human being" became common. After that, utopianism was presented as a rival to the scientific socialist organization and ideas. Solutions are started to be used for accusations. Therefore, I am not a utopianist anymore. Let me make my statement concrete. When I was twenty-five years old after writing Teleandreganos and Ozmos Kronos, I promised myself to write an utopia-like essay such as Pesimus or Pesimismus when I become seventy-five. I would take values into consideration in the largest context possible and write my ideas about this. I mean values about living, the value of life, solving the problems of the new person, ideas like creating the person who won't be upset, I was going to make an account for all of these. Which of my values has a chance of realization, which has not? What is the scope of my values? One of the subjects that make me think about beings is documentaries. For example, National Geographic is very bad at this. It presents its documentaries along with the fascist themes like life is a non-stop battle on land, sea, and air. But there is also a reality, a carnivorous whale could swallow a hundred-thousand fish at a time. All these make it necessary to question the relationship between living organisms. People especially feed cats in Istanbul. Good. Then how do they reproduce, are you aware of this? So, this reproduction and the position that hunger pushes living beings into, I wished to make an account of all of this. I would write this book with the word that I came up with, Pesimus Pesimismus (I translate it as "Darkness Utter Darkness"), to represent that beings are not that good when you make this account. Two things stopped me. First, my days passed as I went from seminars to seminars and from talks to talks, so I couldn't sit and write this. Second, I could not bear to spoil peoples' happiness with a such a utopia that will really feed the darkness in today's environment. I hope that a change comes, the struggle rises, and somebody is overthrown. Then, humanity continues the development of its cultural evolution once more.
I believe, no we believe, that humanity will not stay this way.
Actually, I ran out of questions. Thank you, professor. | 2019-04-25T17:41:42Z | http://bilimveaydinlanma.org/alaeddin-senel-a-devoted-scientist-for-the-struggle-of-enlightenment/ |
GLYCERIN SOAP's are an all natural soap that contains NO DETERGENTS OR PERFUMES.
What does this mean to you? It means that you are using a soap which is beneficial to your body. Natural Glycerin Soaps DO NOT strip away your natural oils but works with your natural oils to keep your skin healthy and replenished.
Glycerin is a humectant, which means that it draws moisture from the air to your skin to keep it hydrated as you go about your daily activities.
NATURAL GLYCERIN SOAP for the entire family! All natural and beneficial as a whole body soap. A soap that you and your body will love.
My soaps are hypoallergenic and non-comedogenic (does not clog pores). My soaps are made from premium vegetable base glycerin and include a light relaxing scent and opaque coloring.
We want to take a few lines and say THANK YOU for your continued support and encouragement throughout 2018. You have made our year special and we have enjoyed every opportunity to share in your life and to have you share in ours. We have had some interesting opportunities come about in 2018 which have been a lot of fun. Because of your support we were able to move forward and grow through another year. Tiny steps but forward all the same and we want you to know that we are very appreciative and thankful. We have enjoyed conquering some milestones that at times seemed unattainable but through it all we went forward.
GOD has BLESSED US in so many ways. Come along with us on our journey as we continue to follow GOD'S GUIDANCE AND DIRECTION FOR OUR LIVES.
With your support and friendship we are looking forward to 2019 and more milestones for the record books. We would like to take this time to say MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR to each of you. We hope that you have a relaxing winter and we look forward to seeing you in the new year.
GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU AND DON'T FORGET TO SAY YOUR PRAYERS. Because life truly is ALL ABOUT HIM AND HIS MERCY AND GRACE AND DIVINE PROVIDENCE IN EACH OF OUR LIVES. GOD IS GREAT AND GOD IS GOOD. LET US NOT FAIL TO THANK HIM FOR ALL HIS BLESSINGS.
Thank You Again. Hoyle's Son-Shine Artisan Works and Randy & Katrina.
We wish each of our supporters a HAPPY AND HEALTHY THANKSGIVING. We have enjoyed a Wonderful 2018 Season to this point and would like to say THANK YOU to each of you who have been there along the way to continue to encourage and support us. We still have a busy month ahead and we hope to be able to see many of you out and about during the month of December. Loving the job that I have and the people that I am allowed to meet along the way. LIVING THE SMALL BUSINESS DREAM.
GOD'S BLESSINGS TO EACH OF YOU.....DON'T FORGET TO SAY YOUR PRAYERS.
WE MADE IT through another cold long winter. Suffered some loss on the greenhouse level, but nothing that we cannot overcome with the help of Our Lord and Our Customers and some hard work. WE ARE THANKFUL for the opportunity to go forward into 2018 and the beginning of our 11th Year In Business and our 10th year as a member of the Historic Marion Tailgate Market. We want to encourage you to come along with us and share in our experiences. If it were not for YOU we would have no experiences to share. WE ARE LOOKING FORWARD to a great year of sales and friendship.
We will be out and about in full swing beginning May 1st which is on Tuesday. This is Opening Day for the 2018 Marion Tailgate Market. We look forward to seeing your smiling faces and catching up with each of you. Come out and visit with us on Opening Day. The Market will run from May until December on Tuesday 3pm until 6pm and Saturday 9am until 12 noon. Let us know that you have been following us on Facebook and the Website. We welcome your likes and shares and want to say THANK YOU for your support and encouragement. COME SEE US AND LET'S SHARE SOME SMILES AND HAPPINESS.
Here we are a little over 2 months into 2018 and going forward one step at a time. New projects ready for rollout. Commissioned Orders under way. Planning in high gear. Spring is just a few days away. Home improvement projects needing completed. Not to forget...that it is camping time, cookout time, evenings with the crickets, tree frogs and bird watching. Life is an amazing adventure with the Lord as My Leader, My Guide, My Director and My Protector. We invite you come along on our journey and help us celebrate the wonderful opportunities and enjoy the exciting days ahead. Thanks for travelling with us this far and we hope that you will continue to go forward with us. Look forward to seeing you out and about at 2018 events.
We have claimed Phiippians 4:13---I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me---from the very beginning when we were in the planning stages. Let me share with you that we are proof that GOD CAN therefore I CAN. We have been very BLESSED and the best is still yet to come.
To all of our customers we want to say THANK YOU for such an awesome year.
We are closing out our 10th year (can you believe it)...10th year in business. 2017 has been our busiest year yet and we are honored to have each of you as our customers. Our support and encouragement team has grown with us and for this we are extremely THANKFUL.
10 years and looking forward with anticipation and excitement to 2018 and more new beginnings, more new customers, more exciting venues and we would like to invite you to continue on with us.
THANK YOU AND GOD'S BLESSINGS TO EACH OF YOU.
Good Morning. Time for an update about our business. First of all let me say that it is great to be in our 10TH YEAR as a Small Business and to have each of you as our customers and support. We could not see the big picture when we started on this journey...But God Knew the plan and the path that he had for us to travel. It is truly a Place of Peace when I realized that God has a plan for each of His Children.. HE CAN provide the customers, the productivity and the encouragement that we need DAILY. We are honored to have OUR LORD as our Leader, Our Guide, Our Director and Our Protector...BUT GREATER STILL is the fact that HE IS MY LORD AND SAVIOUR. Can I say again that GOD IS SO GOOD TO ME. Stay tuned and Keep Praying for us as we continue to move forward growing one step at a time. THANK YOU!!!!!
Hello and Welcome to 2017.
A lot has happened in 2016 which has been good and bad for all of us. However, we have been blessed with life and the opportunity to begin a New Year. Can I just say WOW right here for reaching a tremendous milestone as a small business owner...10 YEARS...WOW. With that thought we are ready to go forward celebrating the 10th year of our business...which is all because of you our customers...and we say THANK YOU! We could have never made it to this milestone without our ENCOURAGERS (you know who you are)...our CUSTOMERS (you know who you are)...and the greatest reason for our success goes to OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST. Philippians 4:13 says " I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." All we can say is THANK YOU LORD FOR YOUR BLESSINGS ON ME!
As we move ahead we look forward to seeing each one of you out and about at different events. Please take the time to come by and visit and SHARE A HELLO AND A SMILE.
HAPPY NEW YEAR AND GOD'S BLESSINGS TO YOU IN 2017.
Update Time...2016 has taken off wide open for us. Our local Tailgate Market is now open in full force. We are running at almost full capacity with a very diverse choice of products. There is surely something of interest for everyone. Lots of great farmers, producers and local artisans showing and selling their merchandise and taking the time to chat with friends and family. Hope that you will take the time to come out and support your local Tailgate Market. Market hours are Tuesday 3pm until 6pm and Saturday 9am until 12noon. Hope to see you there. God Bless and Don't Forget To Say Your Prayers!
Hello to all of our Market Customers. It is time to get back into the Market Routine. The Historic Marion Tailgate Market will open on Tuesday May 3rd for the 2016 Season. The hours are 3pm until 6pm every Tuesday. We look forward to getting to visit with each of you. It is going to be another Great Season all because of you and your continued support. Look forward to seeing you out and about. Thanks for your continued support and encouragement.
With 2015 coming to a close, we would like to take this opportunity to say...THANK YOU LORD...and...THANK YOU...to all of our customers, encouragers and support... group for their contribution in helping to make this a great year. You have been a wonderful part of our growth experience. We are closing out our 8th year in business and can truly say that it has been a wonderful journey. We are looking forward to what God has planned for us in 2016 and hope that you will come along for the continued journey. We do not have the words to explain our appreciation except to say.....IT HAS BEEN A LONG JOURNEY BUT WE HAVE BEEN BLESSED BY THE PRECIOUS HAND OF ALMIGHTY GOD and THE GREAT CUSTOMERS HE HAS PLACED IN OUR PATHWAYS.
Our Prayer for you is that you will see him in your life in 2016 and that HIS BLESSINGS will be abundant for you and your family.
Thank God For Your Blessings...Honor The Veterans past and present...Don't Forget To Say Your Prayers!!!
We would like to say a great big THANK YOU to all of our customers and supporters who have been there for encouragement through out 2015. We have enjoyed the Blessings of a fabulous year with old friends and new acquaintances. We are honored by your support and encouragement and look forward to continuing this business relationship for many years to come.
WOW...It has been a rollercoaster ride at times but...We are finishing up our 8th year in business and looking forward to the 9th year. We are trusting the Lord to enlarge our borders and guide our business footsteps as we continue on in this great opportunity that He has provided for us. We desire your prayers as we continue on in this journey called life, that we will not only be a growing business but that we will spread sunshine to those we come in contact with. Our Prayer is that we will Let Our Light Shine and be an encouragement along the way.
As we close out 2015, we do not take our blessings for granted. We truly are Blessed Beyond Measure and Thankful for the opportunity to have a career doing that which we draw great satisfaction from.
God Bless each one of you as you enjoy THE CHRISTMAS SEASON with your friends and family. We look forward to sharing the new year with each one of you.
Our 2015 Season is now in full swing. The Historic Marion Tailgate Market had opening day on May 5th and will run through December 15th. Every Tuesday from 3 pm until 6 pm. A great opportunity to catch a visit with friends and neighbors and pick up some wonderful goodies. Goodies which range from Fresh Produce grown locally, Farm Fresh Eggs and Meats, Homemade Breads, Jams and Jellies and lots of Homemade Snack Goodies provided by Local Bakers who have completed a State Certification Process. Check out the Local Artisans who produce and distribute their own Handmade Stitchery which includes Pillows, Sweater Vests, Kitchen Towels and Dish Cloths, just to mention a few. We have Jewelry Artisans, Wood Workers, Soap and Hand Balm Producers and Local Herbalists all present at The Market. We have an on site Market Manager who is available to answer your questions and inquiries. Most days at The Market are crazy busy so we recommend to come early for the best selection. There is something for everyone at The Historic Marion Tailgate Market. We hope to visit with you there. Come by introduce yourself and mention that you have seen our website and are following our blog. We Thank You in advance for your support of Hoyle's Breads Soaps Plants and Stitchery.
I like snow days for several different reasons. The most important reason is that each time it snows and it is so clean and pristine it reminds me that when I asked JESUS into my life and HE SAVED ME that he also WASHED ME AS WHITE AS THE SNOW. No good in me but all that I am is BECAUSE OF HIM.
Another reason I like the snow is because GOD creates beautiful art and none can compare to the beauty of fresh fallen snow and the quiet solitude that it brings. The covering which makes all things look new and undisturbed. Which is where I desire to be in my Christian walk---ever aware of the greatness of God and the awe of that still small voice, while discovering the new blessings that he showers into my life every hour of every day.
Then last it brings me to a place within myself where I am focused and productive to the planning needed to work and process business ideas for new projects and patterns. This quiet solitude and beauty can really stir up the thinking process.
So as you can see I like the snow because I realize it comes from my Heavenly Father and he knows what is best for me and for the land. I consider it one of HIS BLESSINGS and I choose to enjoy it.
Hello to each one of you and welcome to 2015. It has been a cold January, but what can we say...It is January. However, now we have moved into February and this makes us one month closer to spring. Can you feel it...Love is in the air. We have lots of goodies for your SPECIAL VALENTINE. Some items that we will be offering will be CHOCOLATE covered STRAWBERRIES...CHOCOLATE covered PECANS...PEANUT BUTTER BALLS dipped in CHOCOLATE...RED VELVET cupcakes...GERMAN CHOCOLATE cupcakes...BIG COOKIE VALENTINE HEARTS with Butter Cream Icing and Chocolate Candy Roses. Give us a call and get your order placed before the rush hits. HAPPY FEBRUARY EVERYONE and HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!
It is my intention that others enjoy each and every thing that we make with our own hands. With that being said...These patterns and their photos are property of Hoyle's Son-Shine Greenhouse and More and www.hoylesoaplantstitchery.com and are intended for personal use only. Please do not copy, sell or reproduce these photos or these patterns in any way. We THANK YOU for your support, encouragement and respect shown to us and our products.
2014 was a wonderful year for us. We managed to stay connected with our customers while adding new customers to our growing list of friends. We are most THANKFUL to our Lord for his many blessings, protection and providence. We are also THANKFUL to each one of our customers for your continued support and encouragement. Your friendship and support is what keeps us going year after year. Thank You again and we look forward to seeing you soon as we continue to travel this pathway called life and continue to grow and improve the business of HOYLE' SON-SHINE GREENHOUSE AND MORE that the Lord has so richly blessed us with.
As we sit and reflect back over the events of 2013 we are amazed with how our business has grown and the blessings that the Lord has showered on us. At this time we would like to say Thank You Lord for your blessings on us and Thank You to our customers who supported us throughout the year. We could not do what we do without the Lords guidance and direction and you our customers. We want to say THANK YOU AND HAPPY NEW YEAR to each one of you. We look forward to seeing you in 2014 at the Historic Marion Tailgate Market and at local events in McDowell and surrounding counties. From Hoyle's Soap Plants and Stitchery to you...God Bless Each One of You in 2014.
Octoberfest in Old Fort, NC Mt Glory Festival in Marion, NC St. John's Arts Festival in Marion, NC These are the upcoming events which are taking place locally. We hope to get the opportunity to visit with you at one of these locations. Thanking GOD for HIS many BLESSINGS and the opportunity to be busy and productive as we travel on in this journey called life. Nothing more fulfilling than knowing that I am right where the Lord wants me to be, and to see the confirmation daily. God Bless! Don't forget to Pray!!!
THE STEPS OF A GOOD MAN ARE ORDERED BY THE LORD: AND HE DELIGHTETH IN HIS WAY.
THOUGH HE SHALL FALL, HE SHALL NOT BE UTTERLY CAST DOWN: FOR THE LORD UPHOLDETH HIM WITH HIS HAND.
I HAVE BEEN YOUNG, AND NOW AM OLD; YET HAVE I NOT SEEN THE RIGHTEOUS FORSAKEN, NOR HIS SEED BEGGING FOR BREAD. | 2019-04-21T05:21:25Z | http://www.hoylesoaplantstitchery.com/ |
Franz Faul, Vebjørn Ekroll, Gunnar Wendt; Color appearance: The limited role of chromatic surround variance in the “gamut expansion effect”. Journal of Vision 2008;8(3):30. doi: 10.1167/8.3.30.
R. O. Brown and D. I. MacLeod (1997) observed that chromatic patches appear much more saturated against an equiluminant, uniform gray surround than against a chromatically variegated surround with the same space-average color. Using asymmetric color matching, we investigated what stimulus conditions are critical for the occurrence of this “gamut expansion effect.” We found (a) that the effect diminishes rapidly with increasing color contrast between target and surround, (b) that the amount and the spatial distribution of color variance in the surround plays but a very limited role, (c) that the effect is mainly local, and (d) that basically the same effect can be obtained by comparing two uniform surrounds. These findings, particularly the latter, argue strongly against an explanation solely in terms of contrast adaptation. We suggest that the main features of our findings can be explained in terms of color scission.
Brown and MacLeod (1997) observed that chromatic patches may appear much more saturated against an equiluminant, uniform gray surround than against a chromatically variegated surround with the same space-average color (see panels C and D in Figure 1). In their experiments, a standard patch was presented in a uniform gray surround, and the task of the subjects was to match its color by adjusting the color of a comparison patch in a chromatically variegated surround. Standard patches of four different hues (roughly red, green, blue, and yellow) were used that were approximately equiluminant to the surround and had a rather low purity (i.e. a low chromatic contrast to the mean color of the surround). The main finding was that the subjects chose much larger purities for the comparison patch, thus compensating for the desaturating effect of the variegated surround. That is, the ratio between match and standard purity was much larger than 1.
The four discs are identical in all panels. The discs in the uniform surround C appear much more saturated than those in the chromatically variegated surround D. This is the gamut expansion effect as described by Brown and MacLeod (1997). The surrounds A, B, E, and F, which are similar to the stimuli used in Experiments 1C, 2A, and 2B, do not contain chromatic variance but nevertheless have a desaturating effect relative to surround C.
This surround effect is qualitatively different from the kind of effects previously reported and discussed in connection with color induction. While color induction effects are traditionally described as a translation of the white point in color space (Helmholtz, 1911; Shevell, 1978; Walraven, 1976; Webster, 2003; Whittle, 2003), Brown and MacLeod's (1997) effect seems to be more appropriately described as a compression or expansion around the neutral point (depending on whether the uniform or the variegated surround is taken as a reference). Brown and MacLeod used the term “gamut compression” or “gamut expansion,” implicitly suggesting that the entire gamut of perceived colors is compressed or expanded.
Besides their basic observation, Brown and MacLeod (1997) report several further findings that may be relevant to constrain possible interpretations of the gamut expansion effect: (1) Separating centre and surround in the comparison surround with a thin gray line reduced but did not eliminate the effect. Their conclusion was that the effect cannot be completely local. (2) A similar expansion effect could be observed with respect to luminance: A gray standard patch that was darker (lighter) than the gray uniform standard surround was matched by an even darker (lighter) patch in the variegated surround. (3) If the comparison surround was achromatic and only the luminance varied, then the luminance effect was large and the chromatic effect small; that is, the purity of the match was very similar to the purity of the standard patch. (4) If the comparison surround was nearly equiluminant with mere chromatic variation, then the luminance effect was small and the chromatic effect large. (5) The effect was almost immediate, which led to the conclusion that the gamut expansion effect “is effectively a form of simultaneous color contrast” (Brown & MacLeod, 1997, p. 848).
There have been essentially two different views about what the cause and functional role of the gamut expansion effect is. One line of reasoning postulates that the gamut expansion effect is the result of one of two different kinds of adaptational processes that together govern color perception. Webster (2003), who studied similar “expansion effects” after temporal adaptation, uses the terms “light adaptation” and “contrast adaptation” for these two hypothetical processes: “Light adaptation adjusts sensitivity to the mean luminance and chromaticity averaged over some time and region of the image and produces mean shifts in colour perception. Contrast adaptation adjusts sensitivity according to how the ensemble of luminances and chromaticities are distributed around the mean, and instead alters colour appearance by changing the perceived contrast along different directions in colour space” (p. 68). MacLeod proposed a similar explanation for the gamut expansion effect that is more specific with respect to the underlying mechanism: “If cone-opponent neurons are able to increase their sensitivity in response to decreases in the range of inputs, and thereby give their maximum response to the largest visible deviation from “white,” this mechanism would explain gamut expansion” (Hurlbert, 1996, p. 1382). Brenner and Cornelissen (2002) also adopted this explanation in terms of two related adaptational processes. They investigated the influence of chromatic variability in the surround on color induction and found that chromatic induction was reduced by chromatic variability. In their explanation of this result, they explicitly refer to the gamut expansion effect and conclude that the “shift in the neutral point takes place after the change in saturation” (Brenner & Cornelissen, 2002, p. 231). In a later experiment, they varied the spatial distribution of the chromatic variability in the surround and found that it hardly made any difference where the chromatic variability was located within the scene. They therefore conclude that “chromatic induction arises from local spatial interactions between cone-opponent signals that have been scaled by a global measure of the chromatic variability within the scene” (Brenner, Ruiz, Herráiz, Cornelissen, & Smeets, 2003, p. 1420).
A different line of reasoning interprets the gamut expansion effect as the result of color scission (Ekroll, Faul, & Niederée, 2004). Color scission refers to the fact that colors are sometimes separated in two or more components that are attributed to different causes (Anderson, 1997; Ekroll, Faul, Niederée, & Richter, 2002). The best known example of color scission is the phenomenon of perceptual transparency, where the local color in the region of the transparent overlay is split into a background and a transparent layer component (D'Zmura, Colantoni, Knoblauch, & Laget, 1997; Faul & Ekroll, 2002; Metelli, 1970). These two components are represented separately and have independent attributes. This is demonstrated by the fact that it is possible to match properties of the transparent layer in front of different backgrounds (Singh & Anderson, 2002). The application of color scission to the gamut expansion effect is mainly motivated by (1) the observation that uniform patches in a uniform surround often appear transparent at low color contrasts (see, for instance, panel A in Figure 6) and (2) the observation that it often seems impossible to find a perfect match in the asymmetric matching task used to measure the gamut expansion effect. The following assumptions are made to explain the gamut expansion effect and these two additional observations: A low contrast uniform patch in a uniform surround fulfils the chromatic (low contrast) and figural (background in plain view and seen through the overlay region have the same texture) conditions for color scission. The test patch is therefore split into a background component of roughly the color of the surround (gray) and a separately represented layer component, which is determined by the contrast of the test patch color to the surround color. The uniform patch in the variegated comparison surround, in contrast, violates both scission conditions and is therefore not split up. This implies that an observer performing the asymmetric matching task would have to compare a standard patch that is split into a gray background color and a “thin” but highly saturated chromatic contrast component with an unsplit and therefore grayish color in the comparison surround. Clearly, in a strict sense this would be an impossible task and this would explain the matching problems. The gamut expansion effect is to be expected if the subjects in this case seek to compensate for the highly saturated contrast component of the standard patch by increasing the saturation of the comparison patch.
The two approaches outlined above emphasize different aspects of the stimulus situation and make qualitatively different predictions. From the adaptational perspective, the focus is mainly on chromatic variance and therefore on the properties of the comparison stimulus. The underlying idea that the sensitivity of cone-opponent neurons adapts to the range of chromaticities in the scene leads to three expectations. First, it is to be expected that the strength of the gamut expansion effect is a monotonic increasing function of the amount of chromatic variance in the comparison surround. Second, the effect of the variance should not be completely local because otherwise the reference to properties of the “scene” would be meaningless. Third, the assumption that the properties of a basic detection mechanism are changed suggests that the effect is of a general nature, that is, that all colors are affected in a similar way.
The scission approach, on the other hand, focuses on the properties of the uniform standard stimulus. From this view, the gamut expansion effect depends on the precondition that color scission occurs in exactly one of the two stimuli that are compared in the asymmetric matching task. The focus on the uniform standard stimulus results from the fact that color scission is a rather delicate phenomenon that depends on very specific stimulus conditions. It is therefore expected that the effect deteriorates quickly with slight deviations from the uniformity of the surround and the low color contrast between central patch and surround that was realized in the standard stimulus in Brown and MacLeod's (1997) experiment. The properties of the comparison surround are less important because conditions that prevent color scission are abundant. The effect should therefore be rather robust against changes of the properties of the comparison stimulus—they should not matter as long as color scission remains suppressed. This implies in particular that chromatic variance has no special status and may be replaced by other suitable stimulus properties that prevent color scission.
In order to evaluate the plausibility of these alternative explanations, we conducted a series of experiments in which we observed the consequences of changing properties of both the standard and the comparison surround on the strength of the gamut expansion effect.
Most of the experiments reported below can be regarded as variants of the basic experiment of Brown and MacLeod (1997) that was briefly described in the Introduction section. Our aim was to investigate more extensively which properties of the stimulus influence the strength of the “gamut expansion effect.” In one set of experiments (Experiments 1A–1C), we manipulated properties of the standard stimulus and in a second set of experiments (Experiments 2A–2D) the surround of the comparison patch.
The stimuli were presented on a CRT monitor (Sony GDM F500R, screen size 30 × 40 cm, 1280 × 1024 pixels, 85-Hz refresh rate) that was controlled by a graphics card (ATI Radeon 9600) with a color depth of 8 bits. We used a colorimeter (LMS 1290) to calibrate the monitor following a standard procedure (Brainard, 1989). The methods described in Golz and MacLeod (2003) were used to transform back and forth between CIE 1931 XYZ coordinates and LMS cone excitation values with respect to the 2° cone fundamentals estimated by Stockman, MacLeod, and Johnson (1993). During the experiments, the monitor was the only light source in the room. The viewing distance was approximately 80 cm.
Brown and MacLeod (1997) varied the hue of the standard patch in four steps but used only one contrast level for each hue. In their experiment, the colorimetric purity (Wyszecki & Stiles, 1982, p. 174) of the patches was rather low (note that in this context, where the background of the surround is neutral, purity corresponds to the chromatic contrast of the standard patches to the surround). Informal observations suggested that a low purity is essential for the gamut expansion effect and that it is much weaker at higher purities. In Experiment 1A, we therefore investigated systematically how the gamut expansion effect depends on the purity of the standard patch.
C = ( 1.6384 0.7209 0 0.7209 0.3441 0 0 0 3.24 ) .
Top: The variegated and uniform surrounds used in Experiment 1A. Bottom: Color distribution in the variegated surround projected onto the MacLeod–Boynton chromaticity diagram.
Variance and mean of a color distribution depend on the underlying color space. Our choice to use the LMS color space rested on the assumption that additive color mixtures of both spatial and temporal origin are most naturally defined in terms of cone excitations. To calculate variegated surrounds with specified mean and covariance matrix in LMS cone excitation space, an algorithm similar to that described in Mausfeld and Andres (2002) was used. Figure 2 shows a projection of the “cloud of points” in LMS space onto the MacLeod–Boynton chromaticity diagram (MacLeod & Boynton, 1979). Each point in this diagram corresponds to a chromaticity realized in the surround.
The stimuli were presented side by side on a black screen, with a centre-to-centre distance of 10.7°. The horizontal position of the standard and the comparison stimulus was balanced over the trials. The size of each surround was 8.8° × 8.8°, and the diameter of the central patches was 2°. To enhance the effective color resolution beyond the 8 bits per channel provided by the hardware, we used Floyd–Steinberg error diffusion dithering (Floyd & Steinberg, 1976) with respect to the CIE 1931 XYZ space.
In each trial, the standard patch had one of four different hues, which can roughly be described as red, green, blue, and yellow. More precisely, it was one of the four hues that can be realized along the two cardinal axes (Krauskopf, Williams, & Heeley, 1982) through the chosen white point (the cardinal axes are parallel to the r and b axis in the MacLeod–Bonyton diagram). For each hue, the purity was varied in seven steps. To make the differences between purity steps approximately perceptually equidistant, we varied the purity in equidistant steps along the hue directions in CIELUV space (Wyszecki & Stiles, 1982, p. 165) and transformed the chosen positions back to the MacLeod–Boynton space (see Figure 3).
Chromaticities of the standard patch in Experiment 1A. The shaded regions show the monitor gamut. Left side: Purities of a given hue were equidistant in the CIELUV space. Right side: The same chromaticities plotted in the MacLeod–Boynton diagram.
Informal observations suggested that low purity values are especially interesting. Thus, in the experiment, we tried to include the lowest possible purities at which a gamut expansion effect can reliably be measured. In a pilot experiment, we estimated the lowest purity at which an equiluminant target patch embedded in the uniform standard surround could reliably be detected and its hue clearly identified. This was done for all four hues used in the main experiment. We used a method of constant stimuli, that is, we presented—in random order—patches of fixed purity taken from a small purity interval [0, x 0] in the standard surround. For each hue, x 0 was a low purity that nevertheless was clearly discernable from the surround. Each purity interval was further divided into ten equidistant purity levels along the hue directions in CIELUV space. In the pilot experiment, only the uniform standard surround was shown in the centre of the screen. The target patch was always equiluminant to the surround. In each trial, the subjects' task was to indicate whether they could see a central patch and if so which of four possible hues it had. For reference, the four possible hues were presented as small colored patches against a black background at the bottom of the screen. No feedback was given to the subjects. Four experienced observers with normal color vision (the authors and one naive subject) judged each purity level 20 times. Thus, this pilot experiment comprised a total of 800 trials (4 hues × 10 purity levels × 20 repetitions).
Each panel in Figure 4 shows the results for one of the four hues. The data underlying these plots were aggregated over all four subjects; individual results were very similar. In each panel, the relative frequency of “target seen” responses is plotted against target purity level. A total number of 2210 “target seen” responses were given in the 3200 trials performed by the four subjects, and only 2 of them were erroneous reports of detecting a non-existing target at purity 0 (“false alarm”) and in only 8 cases—that were seemingly randomly distributed over the purity levels—the wrong hue was identified. The fact that virtually no hue identification errors were made at purities near detection threshold is remarkable because it suggests that as soon as the target patch is visible at all, its hue can also be identified. This fits well with the subjects' reports after the experiment that even barely discernible patches appeared in a sense highly saturated and with the concept of “saturation scale pretruncation” introduced in Ekroll et al. (2004). Important for the present purposes is the fact that there is no need to use correct hue identification as a separate criterion.
Results of the pilot experiment (pooled across observers) and estimated psychometric functions for detecting the central patch with increasing purity. In each plot, Δuv is a vector in the given hue direction in CIELUV space whose length corresponds to one purity level. The curves are Weibull distribution functions fitted to the data. Vertical lines show the position of the 95th percentile estimated from the fit.
Thus, only the detection thresholds were used to determine the lowest purities for the main experiment: First, the purity levels t corresponding to the 95th percentile were estimated from Weibull distribution functions fitted to the data. The uv-chromaticity of the color at the lower boundary of the purity interval was then calculated as 2 tΔ uv, that is, we duplicated the purity that was estimated to allow a correct detection of an equiluminant patch in the standard surround with a probability of 0.95. This increase above estimated detection threshold was necessary because at lower purities the subjects had a hard time discerning the standard patch from its surround when they needed to look back and forth between standard and comparison patch in the matching task. The upper boundary of each purity interval was the point along the corresponding hue direction lying at 80% of the distance from the neutral point to the boundary of the monitor gamut (see Figure 3).
The same four subjects that conducted the pilot experiment participated in the main experiment. Each subject made 10 settings for each of the 28 different conditions (4 hues × 7 purity levels). The arrow buttons on the computer keyboard were used to adjust either the purity or the luminance (L + M) of the comparison patch. By pressing the space key the subjects could toggle between these two input modes. In both cases, the left/right keys were used for adjustment along the chosen dimension; the top/down keys allowed additional adjustments on a very fine scale. Purity settings were along the cardinal axes on which the hue of the standard patch lied. The subjects were instructed to make the color of the comparison patch as similar as possible to that of the standard patch, paying special attention to the correspondence in saturation.
Figure 5 shows the results for pooled data of all four subjects. In the top panels, the mean chromaticities of the matches are plotted against the chromaticities of the standard patch. In the middle panels, the effects are given in terms of purity ratios between match and standard. This ratio is essentially identical to the “relative richness” measure used by Brown and MacLeod (1997). The purity ratio is defined in terms of the chromaticity coordinates xm, xs, and xw of the match, the standard, and the gray surround, respectively, by the expression ∥xm − xw∥ / ∥xs − xw∥. To estimate intermediate purity ratios, exponential decay functions A + B exp(−D∣xs − xw∣C) were fitted to the purity ratios for each hue direction. The bottom panels show the ratios of match to standard luminance.
Results of Experiment 1A, based on the pooled data of all four subjects. Top panels: Mean chromaticities of the matches plotted against the chromaticities of the standard patch. Middle panels: Effect size given as ratio between match and standard purity. A purity ratio of 1 means that there is no effect. Bottom panels: Ratio of match to standard luminance. The vertical lines and the horizontal one in the top panels indicate the coordinate of the gray surround color. The error bars show ±2 SEM and each data point represents the mean of 40 settings.
The results are in close agreement with the main findings of Brown and MacLeod (1997): At low standard patch purities, the purity of the match was always clearly larger than that of the standard patch. Under comparable conditions, Brown and MacLeod found purity ratios of about three to four. Their values correspond closely to those found at the lowest purity levels in the present experiment. As Brown and MacLeod, we also found that the luminances in the matches are slightly increased.
The main new finding of the present experiment is that the “gamut expansion effect” decreases rapidly with increasing purity of the standard patch. The lowering of the effect is obvious with respect to purity ratios but can also be seen in the raw matching data (top panels of Figure 5). In light of this finding, the term “gamut expansion” seems somewhat inappropriate because the results indicate that the maximal saturation that can be perceived in each surround does not change. Instead there seems to be a distortion of the color space in the vicinity of the surround color.
An aspect of our findings that does not show up in the data but is nevertheless of great theoretical interest is that the subjects were often unable to find a complete match. These difficulties—that were especially severe at low purities—stemmed mainly from the fact that standard and comparison patch appeared qualitatively different. Whereas low contrast patches in the uniform surround often appeared transparent, the patches in the variegated surround lacked this phenomenal quality and looked more like opaque patches.
Figure 6 demonstrates the main findings of the experiment. With decreasing purity (from left to right) the patches in panel A look increasingly transparent. At very low contrasts, the impression is that of a thin but nevertheless highly saturated transparent layer. The perceptual similarity of corresponding patches in different rows in panel A is remarkable, given their great difference in luminance, which is obvious in panel D. A comparison of panels A and B reveals that the desaturating effect of a chromatically variegated surround relative to a uniform one is especially pronounced at low contrasts. Comparing panels B and C suggests that pure luminance variation in the surround has a similar effect as full color variation (see also Experiment 2B). In panel D, the patches in the top and bottom row are no longer equiluminant to the surround, and the transparency impression is lost. The patches appear now much more desaturated especially on the right end of the rows (see also Experiment 1B and Experiment 2A). The phenomenal difference between the rows in panels A and D suggests an interpretation in terms of scission: In panel A, the “grayness” in each patch is attributed to the surround and there remains a highly saturated chromatic contrast color. In the top and bottom row of panel D, in contrast, a part of the “grayness” of the patches can no longer be attributed to the surround and is instead interpreted as an integral part of the patch color itself. In the top row, for instance, the part of the patch's color not accounted for is a decrement relative to the surround leading to the addition of a “blackness” component.
The main result of Experiment 1A was that the “gamut expansion effect” decreases rapidly with increasing purity, that is, with increasing chromatic contrast. A natural question is then whether the effect is also lowered when the luminance contrast of the standard patch to its surround is increased. To investigate this question, two of the subjects (VE, WM) who participated in Experiment 1A repeated the experiment under almost identical conditions. The only difference was that the luminance of the standard patch was now no longer equiluminant to the surround but slightly decremental. The luminance was 8.21 cd/m 2, that is, 10% lower than that of its surround.
The results depicted in Figure 7 show that both the chromatic and the luminance effect are considerably reduced for standard patches with slightly decremental luminance. The effects are reduced to approximately one half of the size observed in the condition with equiluminant centre and surround. This result indicates that the gamut expansion effect depends on low contrasts in both the chromatic and the luminance dimensions.
Results of Experiment 1B, based on the pooled data of two subjects. Each panel shows the data of Experiment 1B (red) and the corresponding results of the same subjects from Experiment 1A (blue) to allow easy comparisons. The top panels show the ratios of match to standard purity, the bottom panels the ratios of match to standard luminance. The vertical lines denote the coordinate of the gray surround color. In each plot, the error bars show ±2 SEM and each data point represents the mean of 20 settings.
The results of Experiments 1A and 1B indicate that a strong “gamut expansion” effect can only be observed if both the chromatic and the luminance contrast between standard and surround are low. It is, however, unclear whether this effect depends mainly on the local contrast at the border of the test patch or if it is of a more global nature. A demonstration by Hurlbert (1996, Figure 2B, p. 1384) suggests a predominantly local influence. In this demonstration, it is shown that the gamut expansion effect can be considerably reduced if the test patch in both the standard and the comparison stimulus is outlined in black.
In Experiment 1C, we investigated this question with a focus on the properties of the standard stimulus. To this end, we replicated Experiment 1A with a slightly different standard stimulus, in which a thin black line of 0.13° width was drawn at the border between centre and surround. That is, in contrast to the demonstration in Hurlbert (1996) a black outline was only added to the patch in the uniform standard stimulus, whereas the comparison stimulus was not changed. This manipulation leaves the global color relations in the standard stimulus unaltered but presumably disrupts local interactions between the central patch and the large gray uniform surround. Two of the subjects (FF and VE) from Experiment 1A participated in the experiment.
The results depicted in Figure 8 show that the gamut expansion effect disappears almost completely, when a thin black line is drawn around the standard patch. The large reduction of the effect compared with Experiment 1A is especially obvious in the plot of purity ratios in the middle panel of Figure 8. An interesting conclusion that can be drawn from this result is that a purely achromatic surround (the black line plus the adjacent gray surround in the uniform standard stimulus) can have almost the same effect on the perceived saturation of an embedded patch as a chromatically variegated surround. Furthermore, our results indicate that the reduction of the effect observed in the demonstration by Hurlbert (1996) can almost completely be attributed to a change in the appearance of the standard patch. Or, put the other way around, it indicates that the gamut expansion effect is mainly due to rather specific relations at the border between centre and surround in the uniform standard stimulus.
Results of Experiment 1C, based on the pooled data of two subjects. Each panel shows the results of Experiment 1C (red) and the corresponding results of the same two subjects from Experiment 1A (blue) to allow easy comparisons. The top panels show the mean chromaticity of the match plotted against the chromaticity of the standard patch, the middle panels show purity ratios, and the bottom panels luminance ratios. All other properties of the plots are identical to those in Figure 5.
A possible explanation for the reduction of the effect observed in Experiment 1C is that the effect is mainly of a local nature and that the black ring interrupts local interactions between centre and surround. However, adding the black line does not only separate centre and surround but it also provides a new black context to the central patch. One may therefore argue that it is not the blocking of effects from the larger surround but the direct influence of the narrow “black surround” on the central patch that is of main importance. Since these two influences are confounded, it is indeed not clear to what extent they contribute to the reduction of the gamut expansion effect. However, an observation that speaks against a large direct influence of the black ring is the marginal effect on the luminance. We will come back to these issues in the General discussion section.
The basic effect of the surround used in Experiment 1C is demonstrated in Figure 1: The patches in panel A appear less saturated than those in panel C. Note that the chromatic effect in the demonstration is partially masked by a brightness effect, which was eliminated in the experiments through the subjects' brightness settings.
Experiment 1C showed that a completely achromatic surround can have almost the same effect on the perceived saturation of an embedded patch as a chromatically variegated one. This leads to the expectation that a gamut expansion effect may also be observed even when the variegated surround is replaced by a uniform one, provided that there is a luminance difference between patch and surround.
To test this hypothesis, we replicated Experiment 1A under slightly different conditions: We replaced the variegated surround of the comparison patch used in Experiment 1A with a uniform achromatic surround. The uniform comparison stimulus was either much brighter (“white surround,” 45.6 cd/m 2) or much darker (“black surround,” < 0.1 cd/m 2) than the gray standard surround (9.12 cd/m 2). Here, only the “blue” and “yellow” hue directions were tested and the subjects made 6 settings for each of the 14 conditions (7 purity levels × 2 hues). All other conditions were identical to those realized in Experiment 1A, and the same four subjects performed the experiment.
The results shown in Figure 9 confirm the hypothesis that a “gamut expansion effect” can also be observed in asymmetric matching tasks with two achromatic uniform surrounds. With both the “white” and the “black” comparison surround the observed pattern of the gamut expansion effect is similar to that observed with a variegated surround. Somewhat surprisingly, we found in most cases that the effect with uniform achromatic surrounds was even stronger than that observed with a variegated surround (the only exception is the “blue” hue direction in the “white surround” condition).
Results of Experiment 2A, based on the pooled data of all four subjects. Each panel shows the results of Experiment 2A (red) and as a reference the corresponding results of the same subjects from Experiment 1A (blue). The plots in the left column show the results for the ‘white surround’, the plots in the right column those of the ‘black surround’. The top panels show the mean chromaticities of the matches plotted against the chromaticities of the standard patches. The middle panels show ratios of match to standard purity, and the bottom panels show ratios of match to standard luminance. The green dashed horizontal lines in the relative luminance plots show the luminance of the comparison surround relative to that of the standard surround. All other properties of the plots are identical to those in Figure 5.
These results confirm the conclusion drawn from our Experiment 1B that the perceived saturation of a chromatic patch in an achromatic surround decreases with increasing luminance contrast between centre and surround. It is obvious that these results are hard to reconcile with approaches that try to explain the gamut expansion effect with a renormalization of chromatic contrast that depends either on chromatic variance or the maximum chromatic excursion from white in the surround: There simply is no chromatic variance and all cone opponent channels should be at their (neutral) equilibrium point.
The general pattern of the luminance settings is as expected: To compensate for the “brightness induction” (Whittle, 1994a, 1994b) from the “black surround,” the subjects lowered the luminance of the comparison patch relative to the standard patch. Analogously, they increased the luminance of the comparison patch in the “white surround” to compensate for the “blackness induction” from the bright surround.
The basic effect of the surrounds used in Experiment 2A is demonstrated in Figure 1: The patches in panels E and F appear less saturated than those in panel C. Note that the chromatic effect in the demonstration is partially masked by a brightness effect, which was eliminated in the experiments through the subjects' brightness settings.
Brown and MacLeod (1997) investigated two variants of the comparison surround with full color variation: In the “chromatic condition,” the colors in the surround were isoluminant and varied only in chromaticity, whereas the surround in the “luminance condition” was achromatic and varied only in luminance. They found that the increase in perceived saturation observed with chromatic test patches in the “chromatic” condition was almost identical to that observed with “full color variation.” In the “luminance” condition, however, the effect on the saturation of chromatic test patches was greatly reduced.
These findings are consistent with the assumption that the sensitivity of cone-opponent neurons adapts to the range of chromatic variation in the surround and that this causes the gamut expansion effect: The amount of chromatic variation is unaffected in the “chromatic” condition and the gamut expansion effect persists, whereas chromatic variation is absent in the “luminance” condition and so is the gamut expansion effect (with respect to saturation). However, the latter finding seems to be at odds with the results of Experiment 2A, in which we found that the gamut expansion effect persists even if a completely uniform achromatic comparison surround is used, which contains no chromatic variance at all.
To investigate this apparent inconsistency, we decided to replicate the “luminance” condition in essentially the same setting that we used in the previous experiments. The only difference to Experiment 1A was that an achromatic comparison stimulus with pure luminance variation was used. In this special case, the color ellipsoid in LMS space, which describes the variance of the surround colors, degenerates to a line segment through the (achromatic) mean color m. This line segment is oriented in the direction of the vector from zero to m. Using the methods in Golz and MacLeod (2003), the coordinates xyYm = (0.309, 0.315, 9.12) of m translate to LMS coordinates LMSm = (6.91511, 3.08489, 11.6165), with ∥LMSm∥ = 13.87. The standard deviations 5 and 2.5 were used to realize a high and a low variance condition. In this experiment, we only used hues on the red/green direction. Each subject made 6 settings per purity step. Three of the subjects from Experiment 1A (FF, VE, WM) participated in the experiment.
The results shown in Figure 10 indicate that the gamut expansion effect in both the high and low variance condition is virtually identical to the effect observed in Experiment 1A, in which a comparison surround with full color variation was used. This observation again suggests that chromatic variation in the surround is not necessary for the occurrence of the gamut expansion effect. This conclusion is in line with our findings in Experiments 1C and 2A but it is inconsistent with the results of the second experiment of Brown and MacLeod (1997).
Results of Experiment 2B, based on the pooled data of all three subjects. Each panel shows the data of Experiment 2B (red) and as a reference the corresponding results of the same subjects from Experiment 1A (blue). The plots in the left column show the results for the ‘high variance’ condition, the plots in the right column those of the ‘low variance’ condition. The top panels show the mean chromaticities of the matches plotted against the chromaticities of the standard patches. The middle panels show ratios of match to standard purity, and the bottom panels show ratios of match to standard luminance. All other properties of the plots are identical to those in Figure 5.
Brown and MacLeod (1997) regard the “dissociation” between luminance and chromatic effects in their second experiment as an important finding. For instance, they conclude that this finding “weights heavily against models of color appearance based on contrasts within cone channels” (p. 847) and that “the gamut expansion effect apparently occurs at or beyond the level of an opponent transformation” (p. 847). Given the great theoretical relevance of the finding, we explored possible reasons for the inconsistent results. To check whether the deviations between their and our results were possibly due to additional figural cues or differences in the absolute luminance level, we reproduced the stimuli of Brown and MacLeod's second experiment as exactly as possible. Unfortunately, the authors did not specify the amount of luminance variation used. We therefore tested a range of variances. Our informal results showed unequivocally that also with the type of stimuli used by Brown and MacLeod, pure luminance variation in the surround can lead to a noticeable desaturation of chromatic test patches. Our informal results indicate that a large fraction of the maximally possible desaturation effect is already reached at low absolute values of luminance variation. The latter observation also may explain why we found approximately the same effects under the low and high variance conditions realized in our Experiment 2B.
Given these additional observations, one possible reason for the different results of Brown and MacLeod (1997) is that they used a very low luminance variation. Another possible factor that may in part be responsible for the different results is that our stimuli contained only one matching target, whereas their stimuli contained six matching targets of different color. Somewhat surprisingly, informal observations suggest that this can indeed make a difference.
It is however clear that their general conclusion that pure luminance variation does not influence perceived saturation of chromatic patches is not warranted. This is evident from the pattern of results we obtained in our experiments and the additional informal observations just mentioned (compare also panels B and C in Figure 1). It therefore seems necessary to re-evaluate the theoretical conclusions based on their original finding.
Current theoretical explanations of the gamut expansion effect focus on the chromatic variance in the surround as the relevant variable. As already mentioned in the introduction, a popular variant of these approaches is based on the idea that the sensitivity to chromatic contrast depends on the amount of chromatic variance in the scene.
The experiments reported so far have shed serious doubt on the validity of this hypothesis. They suggest that the gamut expansion effect can be greatly reduced without changing the variance in the surrounds ( Experiments 1A– 1C) and that the same or an analogous effect can be produced by other means than chromatic variance in the comparison surround ( Experiment 2A). It is still not clear, however, what was the critical aspect of the variegated surround leading to the gamut expansion effect in Brown and MacLeod's (1997) original experiment. In two additional experiments, we therefore investigated to what extent the gamut expansion effect is affected by variations in the amount and distribution of chromatic variance in the comparison surround.
The general procedure in Experiment 2C was similar to that used in Experiments 1A– 2B but differed in several details. The subjects viewed two centre-surround configurations with a horizontal centre-to-centre distance of 9.5°. The central patches had a radius of 0.516°, and the square surrounds had a width of 7.64°. The standard surround was uniform with the chromaticity of CIE Illuminant C (MacLeod–Boynton coordinates r = 0.692, b = 1.149) and a luminance L + M = 10 (corresponding to a value of Y = 9.12 cd/m 2 in the CIE 1931 system). The comparison surround was one of the six shown in Figure 11. All these surrounds had the same spatial mean as the uniform standard surround but differed in the amount and distribution of chromatic variance. In the surrounds I and D, the amount of chromatic variance varied radially from the centre to the periphery. The top left panel in Figure 11 shows how the relative amount of variance increases towards the periphery in stimulus I, and the right top panel shows the decrease of the relative variance in stimulus D. For both stimuli I and D, two additional surrounds (IL, IG and DL, DG, respectively) were generated which had a variance that was either locally (i.e. at the border with the central patch) or globally (i.e. on average) identical to that of I and D.
Comparison surrounds used in Experiment 2B. Left column: Surround with increasing variance distribution I and two comparison surrounds which are locally (IL) or globally (IG) identical. Right column: A surround with decreasing variance distribution D and the locally (DL) and globally (DG) identical surrounds. The plots in the top panels show the distribution of surround variance in the surrounds I and D in 11 concentric rings of equal width.
that is, c i = s i Cov, s i ∈ [0,1]. The covariance matrix Cov describes an ellipsoidal distribution in LMS color space close to that maximally realizable within the monitor gamut for the given mean. The scaling factors s i used in surrounds I and D are shown graphically in the top panels of Figure 11. For the surround IL, the scaling factors s i were all zero, and for the surround DL they were all one. The surrounds IG and DG had constant scaling factors 0.4602 and 0.1707. These factors were chosen such that the total variance in the surround IG and DG was identical to that of I and D, respectively.
We used essentially the same procedure as in the previous experiments to measure the strength of the effect for each of the six surrounds: The standard patch presented in the uniform standard surround had one of the 8 patch chromaticities shown in Table 1. The subjects adjusted the purity and the luminance of a second patch embedded in one of the six comparison surrounds. The adjustments were made along one of eight hue directions defined by the lines from the white point through the standard patch chromaticities given in Table 1. Note that in the case of surround IL, test and comparison surrounds are identical. Each measurement was repeated 8 times resulting in 384 trials for each subject (6 surrounds × 8 patch chromaticities × 8 repetitions), presented in random order. The assignment of the uniform and variegated stimulus to the left or right hand side of the monitor was balanced. Between each trial a blank screen was shown for 3 s.
MacLeod–Boynton coordinates of the standard patches used in Experiment 2C.
Five subjects participated in the experiment, including one of the authors (GW). Two of the subjects were naive with respect to the purpose of the experiment and had no experience as psychophysical observers. All subjects had normal color vision according to the Ishihara Tests for Colour-Blindness.
The mean results for all five subjects are plotted in Figure 12. The top panels show the purity ratios and the luminance ratios for the reference surround I and the middle panels show the same information for the reference surround D. The bottom panels compare the deviation from the predictions of two different “extreme” hypotheses: One possibility would be that the effect depends only on the parts of the surround immediately adjacent to the target patch (local hypothesis). Another possibility is that the effect is determined by the mean variance of the entire surround (global hypothesis).
Results of Experiment 2C. The top row shows the purity ratios (left) and luminance ratios (right) between match and standard for the three surrounds I, IL, and IG in the ‘increasing’ condition. The middle row shows the same data for the three surrounds D, DL, and DG in the ‘decreasing’ condition. Error bars show ±1 SD. The bottom panels show the deviations from the predictions of the global and local hypothesis, in terms of purity ratios (left) and luminance ratios (right). Hue directions correspond to the target chromaticities given in Table 1.
In the case of the reference surround I, both the purity and the luminance ratios indicate that it is mainly the variance along the border to the central patch that matters and not the global variance: The effects obtained with I and IL are almost identical, whereas those obtained with IG are clearly different. The results obtained with reference surround D point in the same direction but are less clear-cut. The main reason for this is that the expansion effects found for the three surrounds used in the decreasing condition are very similar. The plots in the bottom row of Figure 12, where the data are pooled over all hue directions, summarize our findings: In the left plot, the absolute differences in purity ratio between the reference surrounds I and D and surrounds with globally identical variance (IG, DG) or locally identical variance (IL, DL) are shown. In the right plot the same information is shown with respect to the luminance ratios.
The data of this experiment also yield information about how the strength of the expansion effect depends on the amount of variance in the surround. In Figure 13, the purity ratios obtained with the surrounds IL, IG, DL, and DG, which all have a spatially uniform variance distribution, are compared. The values on the abscissa are the surround variances relative to the maximum variance, which was realized in surround DL. Interestingly, the surround DG, having only 17% of the maximum color variance, already leads to an effect which amounts to 68% of the effect observed in surround DL (100% effect).
Mean purity ratios plotted against the total amount of variance in the surround. The four data points correspond to the mean values obtained for the four surrounds IL, DG, IG, and DL (see Figure 12).
In order to understand the different effect of locally uniform and locally variegated surrounds observed in the experiment it may be instructive to consider each surround condition in turn: The purity ratios close to 1 found with surround IL are trivial since IL was identical to the uniform standard surround. Interestingly though, the same results were obtained with surround I, which is only locally identical to the standard surround. The high variance in distant parts of the surround apparently had no significant influence. The surround IG, in contrast, which was locally (as well as globally) variegated, had a distinctly different effect than the uniform standard surround. Thus, although surrounds I and IG have the same total variance, they have clearly different effects. The three surrounds in the “decreasing” condition, which are all variegated in the vicinity of the central patch, led to very similar effects. Neither the spatial distribution of the chromatic variance nor the amount of variance in the vicinity of the target patch seems to be of great importance, provided that the total variance is not close to zero (cf. Figure 13).
Taken together, the results of this experiment suggest that local chromatic variance is much more important than the global variance. Furthermore, the strength of the effect is a highly nonlinear function of the amount of surround variance: It rises steeply at the transition from a uniform to variegated surround and levels out swiftly after that.
The results of Experiment 2C have shown that the gamut expansion effect mainly depends on the chromatic variance in the vicinity of the central patch. Brown and MacLeod's (1997) finding that a thin gray line around the target patch reduced but did not eliminate the effect indicates “that the effects of color variance in the surround cannot be entirely local” (Brown & MacLeod, 1997, p. 846). In Experiment 2D, we therefore investigated how large the retinal extent of the “local” area of influence is.
We used two types of surround. The first set of surrounds was obtained by stepwise transforming a variegated surround into a uniform one by replacing its inner part with uniform annuli of increasing width (see Figure 14, top row). The second set of surrounds was obtained by an analogous transformation, in this case from a uniform surround to a variegated one (see Figure 14, bottom row). The variegated and the uniform parts of the surround had the same spatial mean and variance as the surrounds DL and IL in Experiment 2B, respectively. For both types of surround, the same 10 annulus widths were used: 0, 0.019, 0.095, 0.287, 0.477, 0.668, 1.012, 1.394, 2.349, and 3.304 degrees of visual angle (where a width of 0 means no annulus). The central patch had a radius of 0.516 degree.
Illustration of the comparison surrounds used in Experiment 2D. Top row: Four of the 10 surrounds with uniform inner annulus (leftmost annulus width is zero). Bottom row: Surrounds with variegated inner annuli.
The general experimental setting and the procedure were the same as in Experiment 2C: The task of the subjects was to match the color of a standard patch in a uniform surround by adjusting the purity and the luminance of a patch embedded in one of the above mentioned comparison surrounds. Standard and comparison surround had the same mean color (Illuminant C at 9.12 cd/m 2). We used 4 different chromaticities for the standard patch, corresponding to hue directions 1, 3, 5, and 7 of Experiment 2C. For each combination of the 20 different comparison surrounds and the 4 standard chromaticities, 8 repetitions were made, resulting in a total of 640 trials for each subject. The stimuli were presented in random order. Three subjects (including author GW) who had also participated in Experiment 2C performed the experiment.
Figure 15 shows typical results from this experiment (subject GW). In each panel, ratios between match and standard purity are plotted against the width of the inner annulus. The left column shows the results for variegated inner annuli, which means that at an annulus width of zero the entire surround was uniform. Since in this case the comparison surround is identical to the standard surround, a purity ratio of one must result. With increasing width of the variegated annulus the purity ratios increase rapidly and soon flatten out at a constant value. The right column shows the results for uniform inner annuli, which means that at an annulus width of zero the entire surround was variegated. In this case, large purity ratios are obtained that rapidly decrease to the limiting value 1, which is of course expected for a completely uniform surround identical to the standard surround. In both cases the data change exponentially: For variegated and uniform inner annuli the functions f( x) = S[1 − exp(− αx 1/2)] + 1 and g( x) = T exp(− βx 1/2) + 1, respectively, describe the data quite well (see curves in Figure 15). Intuitively, the parameters S and T are the heights of the gray regions in the left and right column of Figure 15 and thus describe the maximum observed deviation of the purity ratios from unity. The parameters α and β determine the steepness of the curves: Large values for these parameters mean that the curves reach their asymptotic values rapidly.
Results of Experiment 2D for subject GW. In each panel, purity ratios are plotted against inner annulus width. In the left column, the data for variegated inner annuli are shown, in the right column those for uniform inner annuli. The error bars show ±2 SEM. The gray regions show the gamut expansion effect (according to the fitting procedure described in the text).
Such fits were made for each of the four hue conditions and each of the three subjects separately. In all cases, the quality of the fits was quite good and comparable to the ones shown in Figure 15. Thus, to save space, we only report the parameters of the fit for the other subjects in Table 2. Since we are mainly interested in the retinal range of the surround influence, we also computed the annulus widths δ v and δ u (in degrees of visual angle) at which the initial (at annulus width 0) distance from the asymptotic values shrinks to 25%. These values are simply related to the parameters α and β, respectively: δ v = (−1/ α ln 0.25) 2 and δ u = (−1/ β ln 0.25) 2. Although the “height” parameters T and S vary considerably with subject and hue condition, the curves are clearly steeper for variegated inner annuli throughout, i.e., α is always larger than β. Accordingly, the estimated annulus widths δ v and δ u are clearly different, as can be seen in Figure 16.
Parameters of the fits for each subject and hue condition. Parameters δ v and δ u correspond to the estimated annulus width (in degrees visual angle) at which the initial distance from the asymptotic values shrinks to 25%.
Mean estimated values of δ v and δ u for variegated and uniform inner annuli, respectively. Error bars show ±1 SEM.
For each hue condition and subject, the height parameters T and S give an individual estimate of the difference between the purity ratio PR obtained with a fully variegated surround (PR = T + 1 or PR = S + 1, respectively) and the value (PR = 1) obtained with a completely uniform surround. Provided that all individual curves describe the same dependence on the width of the inner annulus in spite of the different individual estimates of T or S, dividing each data curve by these values should lead to curves of essentially the same shape. Figure 17 shows the means of the such normalized data, pooled over all subjects and hue conditions, for variegated inner annuli (increasing blue curve) and uniform inner annuli (decreasing red curve). The narrow error bars indicate that the dependence on annulus width is indeed similar across subjects and hue conditions. In this plot, it is obvious that the curve describing the transition from a uniform to a variegated surround is clearly steeper than the converse transition from a variegated to a uniform surround.
Relative strength of the gamut expansion effect plotted against inner annulus width for variegated (blue) and uniform (red) inner annuli. The vertical lines show where, based on the fit, 75% of the asymptotic effect change is reached. The error bars show ±2 SEM.
With respect to the ratios of match and standard luminance, the results were less clear-cut. Generally, the luminance ratios were quite small (always less than 1.3 for all subjects, and even less than 1.1 for subject GW) and rather noisy. The general pattern of results was similar, but the relatively low signal-to-noise ratio of the data does not allow precise comparisons between different experimental conditions.
The results of the present experiment show that the region of the surround that influences the color of the central patch is rather limited. A narrow annulus with a width of less than 1.5° gives rise to an effect of more than 75% of the maximal effect obtained with a large extended surround. Our results are in good agreement with Brown and MacLeod's (1997) finding that a thin gray border (8 min visual angle) around the central patch led only to a moderate reduction of the gamut expansion effect. From their Figure 2, we may estimate that the effect in the condition with gray border was reduced to about 60% of the value found without border. From our data, almost the same reduction (62%) was estimated for a uniform annulus of the same width as the border used by Brown and MacLeod.
This finding confirms the conclusion of Brown and MacLeod (1997) that the effect of chromatic variance in the surround cannot be entirely local. The data of our experiments show that the opposite alternative—an entirely global effect—can also be ruled out. Instead, the influence of the surround diminishes very rapidly with increasing retinal distance from the central patch. An interesting aspect of the present data is the finding that the two transition curves in Figure 17 are not equally steep, as one would perhaps intuitively expect: In the case of a uniform surround, adding a narrow variegated annulus of a few pixels width changes the color impression dramatically, whereas a uniform annulus that is added to a variegated surround has to be much wider in order to elicit the same amount of perceptual change.
The strength of the gamut expansion effect depends strongly on the relation between the central patch and the surround in the uniform standard stimulus: The effect is maximal when the central patch and the surround are equiluminant and have a very small chromatic contrast. It diminishes rapidly if either the chromatic contrast ( Experiment 1A) or the luminance contrast ( Experiment 1B) are increased.
The gamut expansion effect disappears almost completely when centre and surround in the standard stimulus are separated by a thin black line ( Experiment 1C).
The gamut expansion effect persists when the chromatically variegated comparison surround is replaced by a uniform achromatic one with high luminance contrast ( Experiment 2A) or by an variegated achromatic surround with mere luminance variation ( Experiment 2B).
The amount and the distribution of the variance in the comparison surround has only a very small influence on the strength of the gamut expansion effect as long as the variation is not completely absent ( Experiment 2C).
The influence of the comparison surround is predominantly local: A thin variegated annulus around the central patch in the comparison surround has almost the same effect as an extended variegated surround. Analogously, a thin uniform annulus has almost the same effect as an extended uniform surround ( Experiment 2D).
It was noted that producing a perfect asymmetric match was sometimes impossible. In particular, targets of low purity presented in a uniform gray surround were difficult to match by any patch presented in a variegated surround.
The above pattern of results speaks against the contrast adaptation hypothesis, at least against the version of it outlined in the introduction. The central assumption of this hypothesis is that the sensitivity of cone-opponent neurons adapts to the chromatic variance or chromatic range in the scene and that the gamut expansion effect observed by Brown and MacLeod (1997) is due to the different chromatic variance or chromatic range in the standard and comparison surround. The most direct contradiction to this hypothesis is our result that the gamut expansion effect persists in asymmetric matching tasks in which neither of the stimuli contains chromatic variation in the surround (Experiments 2A and 2B). The further findings that the influence of the comparison surround is mainly local (Experiment 2C) and that the strength of the effect and the amount of variance in the comparison surround are only weakly correlated (Experiment 2D) provide additional evidences against this explanation.
The predominantly local character of the surround influence found in Experiment 2D and the results of Experiments 1A and 1B, which indicate that the gamut expansion effect occurs only under very specific contrast conditions, also stand in stark contrast to the picture of contrast scaling outlined in Brenner et al. (2003): These authors interpret their findings in terms of a rather general contrast scaling mechanism that precedes a possible shift of the neutral point and that depends on a global measure of chromatic variability in the scene. Given these qualitative differences, it seems highly improbable that the mechanism underlying the gamut expansion effect is identical to the scaling mechanism postulated by Brenner et al. (2003).
An observation that the contrast adaptation hypothesis fails to account for is that perfect asymmetric matches are sometimes impossible to make. Any approach that models the influence of the surround as a transformation of three dimensional color codes predicts that such matches should always be possible (except for gamut problems, which can safely be excluded as a possible explanation in the present case).
From the adaptational perspective, the observed difference in the effects of uniform and variegated surrounds is inherently symmetric. It is therefore not possible to attribute a special status to any of the surrounds. The scission hypothesis, on the other hand, attaches special significance to the uniform surround because this is the surround in which color scission—and hence the perceptual color effect—takes place. In line with this expectation, the results of Experiments 1A, 1B, and 1C indicate that the critical condition for the gamut expansion effect lies in the uniform standard stimulus. They suggest that the perceived saturation of a uniform patch is enhanced if it is enclosed by a uniform gray surround with very low color contrast along the common edge. The most direct evidence that this indeed describes the relevant condition is the result of Experiment 1C, which shows that the gamut expansion effect can be switched off and on by adding and removing, respectively, a thin black outline at the border of the central patch in the uniform standard stimulus. Thus, on a descriptive level, our results support the speculation of Brown and MacLeod (1997) that the gamut expansion effect may be closely related or even identical to the “crispening effect” (Ovenston, 1998; Takasaki, 1966, 1967; Whittle, 1992) “in which low-contrast edge signals contribute disproportionately to perceived contrast” (Brown & MacLeod, 1997, p. 848). The scission hypothesis may thus be regarded as a functional explanation of both the “crispening” and the “gamut expansion” effect.
Viewed from the perspective of the scission hypothesis, the variegated surround represents the standard situation in which no scission occurs. As a consequence, it predicts that properties of the variegated surround can be manipulated freely without producing any change in the gamut expansion effect as long as scission is prevented. This is exactly what our results suggest.
In order to test the idea of contrast adaptation it is necessary to make it specific enough to be able to derive predictions of experimental results. The specific contrast adaptation model we have dealt with seems to be a natural interpretation of the general idea underlying the explanation suggested in the literature. It is, however, by no means the only possible incarnation of the general idea of contrast adaptation. We shall briefly consider how the contrast adaptation hypothesis may be modified in order to account for our findings.
Our finding that pure luminance variation in the surround has basically the same influence on perceived saturation as full color variation ( Experiment 2B) argues against an explanation in terms of contrast adaptation within cone-opponent pathways. Based on this result, a possible modification of the model would be to assume that adaptation to the variance in the surround works across color and brightness channels, so that pure luminance variation may influence perceived saturation. However, the results of our Experiment 2B suggest that the effect on perceived saturation may occur even in the absence of any surround variance whatsoever. It would seem that the only way to apply the “idea of contrast adaptation” to this situation is to assume that the visual system adapts to the contrast between the target and the uniform (black or white) surround. While this indeed remains a viable theoretical option, this version of the contrast adaptation hypothesis has lost much of its original appeal.
Comparing the results of Experiment 1C, where a black ring was drawn around the standard patch, and those of Experiment 2C, where a uniform black comparison surround was used, raises an interesting question. On the one hand, it can be concluded that both the thin black ring and the extended black surround are equally successful in preventing the saturation enhancement observed with the original gray surround. On the other hand, they have markedly different effects on the brightness of the target patches (see Figures 8 and 9). A possible explanation for this asymmetry may be that there are two origins of the total effect: One of the effects is classical brightness induction, which is known to depend on the area and distance of the inducing field. In line with models of the spatial extent of the surround influence (De Bonet & Zaidi, 1997), the brightness induction effect of the narrow ring is much weaker than that of the extend surround. The other effect, which affects the perceived saturation to the same extent in both situations, may be explained by referring to the scission hypothesis: Introducing a black ring or replacing the isoluminant gray background entirely with a black one are equally good ways of preventing scission. This explanation is in line with the suggestion of Kingdom (2003) that induction phenomena are best understood within a multi-level framework.
In Experiment 2D, it was found that even a very thin variegated annulus can have almost the same effect as an extended variegated surround. An annulus of 0.3 deg width already produced 75% of the asymptotic effect. A uniform annulus on the other hand must be considerably thicker (about 4 times as large) in order to produce 75% of the effect of an extended uniform surround.
This asymmetry is to be expected from the scission hypothesis. The assumption is that scission is only evoked by uniform surrounds with low contrast to the central patch, where a large component common to the central patch and the surround can be isolated. Obviously, the extraction of a common component is no longer possible as soon as a variegated annulus is placed adjacent to the central patch, however narrow it may be. In the converse case, where a thin uniform annulus is added to a variegated surround, it is more likely that the visual system interprets this thin annulus as a “border” than as a uniform background on which the central patch is overlaid. Thus, one may expect that a minimal width of the uniform surround is necessary before the ring is treated as a background and a scission takes place.
The contrast adaptation hypothesis as formulated in the introduction cannot explain the full range of effects observed in our experiments. The scission hypothesis on the other hand seems to account well for the majority of our findings. There is, however, also an observation that is not easily accounted for by the scission hypothesis as described in the Introduction section. A central assumption of this hypothesis is that scission does not occur in variegated surrounds because in this case a figural precondition for transparency is violated. Thus, this form of the scission hypothesis cannot explain differences in the effectiveness of different variegated surrounds. Although comparatively small, such differences were observed in Experiment 2C (see Figure 13).
A possible explanation of this observation is that there is indeed a small influence of contrast adaptation that contributes to the total effect. Alternatively, one may assume two different kinds of scission, namely a “local” and a “global” form. In local scission, only the region corresponding to the target patch looks transparent. This would, for instance be the case, when the central target is a transparent overlay through which the background is seen. In global scission, there is a common transparent overlay covering both target and surround. This would for instance be the case if the entire configuration is seen through fog. There is no reason to expect that the latter, global transparency, should depend on the figural relations between target and surround. Hence, a variegated surround may only prevent local but not global scission. In fact, contrast adaptation may well turn out to be part of the mechanisms responsible for global scission.
The distinction between “local” and “global” scission also suggests itself, if one looks at different examples. In panel A of Figure 6, for instance, only the low contrast patches appear as transparent layers, suggesting a local form of scission. Surrounds I and D in Figure 11, on the other hand, may be regarded as examples of “global” scission: Here, the variegated surrounds appear to be covered by “fog” of varying density. See Zavagno (2005) for a presumably related phenomenon.
The results of the present experiment as well as those of Ekroll et al. (2004) suggest that uniform surrounds have a special status. According to the scission hypothesis this is because a uniform surround is figurally compatible with the interpretation of a colored transparent layer in the region of the target patch. If this interpretation is correct, then the uniformity of the surround in itself is not the critical variable but instead the compatibility of the texture in centre and surround. Thus, theoretically it should be possible to invert the gamut expansion effect, in the sense that a variegated patch should look more saturated when embedded in a figurally compatible variegated surround than when embedded in a corresponding uniform surround. Preliminary data of a corresponding experiment seem to confirm this expectation.
Our results show that the strong gamut expansion effect observed by Brown and MacLeod (1997) occurs only under rather specific stimulus conditions.
The pronounced difference in perceived saturation of the central patches occurs only if the centre-surround contrast in the uniform surround is very low. The limited role played by the properties of the variegated surround suggests that chromatic variance has no special status but is just one condition that prevents color scission.
We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on a previous version of this text. This research was supported by a grant of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to Franz Faul (FA425/1-3).
Address: Olshausenstr. 62, 24118 Kiel, Germany.
Floyd, R. Steinberg, L. (1976). An adaptive algorithm for spatial greyscale. Proceedings of the SID, 17, 75–77.
(1911). Handbuch der physiologischen Optik. Hamburg und Leipzig: Verlag von Leopold Vos.
Kingdom, F. A. Harris, L. Jenkin, M. (2003). Levels of brightness perception. Levels of perception. (pp. 23–46). Berlin: Springer.
Ovenston, C. A. (1998). The scaling and discrimination of contrast colours.
Webster, M. Mausfeld, R. Heyer, D. (2003). Light adaptation, contrast adaptation, and human colour vision. Colour perception: Mind and the physical world. (pp. 67–110). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Whittle, P. Gilchrist, A. L. (1994a). Contrast brightness and ordinary seeing. Lightness, brightness and transparency. (pp. 111–158). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Whittle, P. Gilchrist, A. L. (1994b). The psychophysics of contrast brightness. Lightness, brightness and transparency. (pp. 35–110). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Whittle, P. Mausfeld, R. Heyer, D. (2003). Contrast colours. Colour perception: Mind and the physical world. (pp. 115–138). Oxford: Oxford University Press. | 2019-04-25T15:42:12Z | https://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2122503 |
The regular season went as expected. They won 100 games vs an expected win total of 100. Their 65.4% home win percentage was as expected (65.5%). They won 58% on the road which was as expected (58%). Expect a similar record next season. In our latest simulations they are averaging 101 wins and are projected to finish first in the American League. There is not much of a gap between them and the #2 ranked Red Sox who are projected for 100.9 wins.
The sum of all of their money line implied probabilities (adjusted for the juice) projects to 101.6 wins. Their 103 actual wins was above expectation. Their strength was in road games. They went 57-24 on the road and were expected to win 47.7. Their 56.8% home win percentage was much worse than expected (66.5%). The latest simulations project a significant drop in wins with a per simulation average of 96.6 wins and are projected to finish third in the American League. They have a nice projected cushion over the #4 ranked Indians who are projected for 92 wins.
Their 108 regular season wins exceeded expectations. It was +12.7 above what oddsmakers' money line projected. The season went better than expected. They exceeded expectations on both the road and at home. Their 70.4% home win percentage was better than expected (62.5%). They won 63% on the road which was better than expected (55.1%). In simulations for next season they are averaging 100.9 wins and are projected to finish second in the American League. They have a nice projected cushion over the #3 ranked Astros who are projected for 96.6 wins. They won more than their current neutral win simulation percentage warrants and the Red Sox could take a step back next season.
The Dodgers could be poised to improve next season. Their neutral field simulation win percentage is significantly better than last season's win percentage. The regular season went worse than expected. They won 91 games vs an expected win total of 97.3. They met expectations on the road. It was at home where they came up short. They went 47-34 on the road and were expected to win 46.3. Their 54.3% home win percentage was much worse than expected (63%). In the latest simulations for next season they are averaging 99.7 wins per sim, which is a solid +8.7 improvement and are projected to finish first in the National League. They have a nice projected cushion over the #2 ranked Nationals who are projected for 94.4 wins.
The sum of all of their money line implied probabilities (adjusted for the juice) projects to 92 wins. Their 95 actual wins was above expectation. Their strength was at home. They went 44-37 on the road and were expected to win 43.2. They won 51 at home and were expected to win 48.7. We are only projecting 91.8 wins in our latest season forecast for next season and are projected to finish third in the National League. There is not much of a gap between them and the #5 ranked Brewers who are projected for 88.7 wins.
The Nationals could be poised to improve next season. Their neutral field simulation win percentage is significantly better than last season's win percentage. The regular season went worse than expected. They won 82 games vs an expected win total of 91. They didn't meet expectations on the road and at home. Their 50.6% home win percentage was much worse than expected (60%). They won 50.6% on the road which was worse than expected (52.3%). We are projecting a +12.4 win improvement next season. They are averaging 94.4 wins per simulation and are projected to finish second in the National League. They have a nice projected cushion over the #3 ranked Cubs who are projected for 91.8 wins.
The regular season went better than expected. They won 88 games vs an expected win total of 85.3. They exceeded expectations on the road. They won 55.6% on the road which was better than expected (49.6%). They won 43 at home and were expected to win 45.2. Expect a similar record next season. In our latest simulations they are averaging 89 wins and are projected to finish fourth in the National League. There is not much of a gap between them and the #5 ranked Brewers who are projected for 88.7 wins.
The regular season went better than expected. They won 95 games vs an expected win total of 83.4. They exceeded expectations on both the road and at home. They went 44-37 on the road and were expected to win 38.7. Their 63% home win percentage was better than expected (55.2%). We are only projecting 88.7 wins in our latest season forecast for next season and are projected to finish fifth in the National League. They have a nice projected cushion over the #6 ranked Mets who are projected for 84.9 wins.
Their 97 regular season wins exceeded expectations. It was +15.7 above what oddsmakers' money line projected. The season went much better than expected. They won more games than expected at home and on the road. They won 58% on the road which was much better than expected (46.7%). They won 50 at home and were expected to win 43.5. The latest simulations project a significant drop in wins with a per simulation average of 88.2 wins and are projected to finish sixth in the American League. They have a nice projected cushion over the #7 ranked Angels who are projected for 84.3 wins. They won more than their current neutral win simulation percentage warrants and the Athletics could take a step back next season.
The regular season went better than expected. They won 90 games vs an expected win total of 78.8. They exceeded expectations on both the road and at home. Their 63% home win percentage was much better than expected (51.8%). They won 48.1% on the road which was better than expected (45.5%). Our projected record for next season is similar. They are averaging 89 wins per sim and are projected to finish fifth in the American League. There is not much of a gap between them and the #6 ranked Athletics who are projected for 88.2 wins.
If the Mets play up to their potential, they should improve on last season. The sum of all of their money line implied probabilities (adjusted for the juice) projects to 79.7 wins. Their 77 actual wins was below expectation. They met expectations on the road. It was at home where they came up short. Their 45.7% home win percentage was much worse than expected (52.7%). They won 49.4% on the road which was better than expected (45.7%). In the latest simulations for next season they are averaging 84.9 wins per sim, which is a solid +7.9 improvement and are projected to finish sixth in the National League. There is not much of a gap between them and the #7 ranked Braves who are projected for 83.8 wins.
The regular season went worse than expected. They won 80 games vs an expected win total of 82.4. They met expectations on the road. It was at home where they came up short. They went 38-43 on the road and were expected to win 38.1. They won 42 at home and were expected to win 44.3. We are projecting a +4.3 win improvement next season. They are averaging 84.3 wins per simulation and are projected to finish seventh in the American League. There is not much of a gap between them and the #8 ranked Twins who are projected for 83.4 wins.
The sum of all of their money line implied probabilities (adjusted for the juice) projects to 81.3 wins. Their 90 actual wins was above expectation. They exceeded expectations on the road. They went 47-34 on the road and were expected to win 37.8. They won 43 at home and were expected to win 43.5. The latest simulations project a significant drop in wins with a per simulation average of 83.8 wins and are projected to finish seventh in the National League. They have a nice projected cushion over the #8 ranked Rockies who are projected for 80.5 wins. They won more than their current neutral win simulation percentage warrants and the Braves could take a step back next season.
The regular season went worse than expected. They won 82 games vs an expected win total of 84.8. They met expectations on the road. It was at home where they came up short. Their 49.4% home win percentage was worse than expected (55.6%). They won 51.9% on the road which was better than expected (49.1%). We are currently projecting a drop in wins. They are averaging 80.1 wins per simulation for next season and are projected to finish ninth in the National League. There is not much of a gap between them and the #8 ranked Rockies who are projected for 80.5 wins.
The sum of all of their money line implied probabilities (adjusted for the juice) projects to 99.8 wins. Their 91 actual wins was below expectation. They didn't meet expectations on the road and at home. Their 60.5% home win percentage was worse than expected (64.3%). They won 51.9% on the road which was much worse than expected (58.9%). Our projected record for next season is similar. They are averaging 92 wins per sim and are projected to finish fourth in the American League. They have a nice projected cushion over the #5 ranked Rays who are projected for 89.4 wins. They won more than their current neutral win simulation percentage warrants and the Indians could take a step back next season.
Their 91 regular season wins exceeded expectations. It was +9.4 above what oddsmakers' money line projected. The season went better than expected. They won more games than expected at home and on the road. They won 54.3% on the road which was much better than expected (45.2%). They won 47 at home and were expected to win 45. The latest simulations project a significant drop in wins with a per simulation average of 80.5 wins and are projected to finish eighth in the National League. There is not much of a gap between them and the #10 ranked Phillies who are projected for 78.4 wins. They won more than their current neutral win simulation percentage warrants and the Rockies could take a step back next season.
The regular season went better than expected. They won 82 games vs an expected win total of 78.7. They won more games than expected at home and on the road. They went 38-43 on the road and were expected to win 36.2. Their 55% home win percentage was better than expected (53.1%). We are only projecting 77.7 wins in our latest season forecast for next season and are projected to finish eleventh in the National League. There is not much of a gap between them and the #9 ranked D-Backs who are projected for 80.1 wins.
The sum of all of their money line implied probabilities (adjusted for the juice) projects to 82.6 wins. Their 80 actual wins was below expectation. They met expectations at home, it was on the road that they struggled. They won 38.3% on the road which was much worse than expected (47.2%). They won 49 at home and were expected to win 44.4. We are currently projecting a drop in wins. They are averaging 78.4 wins per simulation for next season and are projected to finish tenth in the National League. There is not much of a gap between them and the #8 ranked Rockies who are projected for 80.5 wins.
The sum of all of their money line implied probabilities (adjusted for the juice) projects to 79.4 wins. Their 78 actual wins was below expectation. They came up short on the road. They were OK at home. They went 29-52 on the road and were expected to win 36.6. They won 49 at home and were expected to win 42.9. In the latest simulations for next season they are averaging 83.4 wins per sim, which is a solid +5.4 improvement and are projected to finish eighth in the American League. They have a nice projected cushion over the #9 ranked Royals who are projected for 76.1 wins.
The Rangers are winning more in simulations than they did last season which indicates that they should improve next season. Improvement on 67 wins is somewhat expected. The regular season went worse than expected. They won 67 games vs an expected win total of 69.9. They met expectations on the road. It was at home where they came up short. They went 33-48 on the road and were expected to win 32.3. Their 42% home win percentage was worse than expected (46.3%). In the latest simulations for next season they are averaging 74.1 wins per sim, which is a solid +7.1 improvement and are projected to finish tenth in the American League. There is not much of a gap between them and the #9 ranked Royals who are projected for 76.1 wins.
Their 67 regular season wins did not meet expectations. It was -5.2 below what oddsmakers' money line projected. The season went worse than expected. They didn't meet expectations on the road and at home. They went 30-51 on the road and were expected to win 33.4. Their 45.7% home win percentage was worse than expected (47.9%). Based on the latest simulations, expect a slight improvement on last season's record. They are averaging 69.1 wins per simulation and are projected to finish third to last in the National League. There is a sizable gap between them and the #12 ranked Giants who are projected for 71.2 wins.
The regular season went better than expected. They won 89 games vs an expected win total of 81.5. They won more games than expected at home and on the road. They went 44-37 on the road and were expected to win 37.8. Their 55.6% home win percentage was better than expected (53.9%). We are only projecting 72.5 wins in our latest season forecast for next season and are projected to finish eleventh in the American League. There is not much of a gap between them and the #10 ranked Rangers who are projected for 74.1 wins. The Mariners may take a step back next season. They won a much higher percentage of games than their neutral win percentage would indicate.
Their 73 regular season wins did not meet expectations. It was -2 below what oddsmakers' money line projected. The season went worse than expected. They met expectations at home, it was on the road that they struggled. They went 31-50 on the road and were expected to win 34.1. They won 42 at home and were expected to win 41. We are currently projecting a drop in wins. They are averaging 71.2 wins per simulation for next season and are projected to finish twelfth in the National League. There is a sizable gap between them and the #11 ranked Pirates who are projected for 77.7 wins.
If the Royals play up to their potential, they should improve on last season. Improvement on 58 wins is somewhat expected. The regular season went much worse than expected. They won 58 games vs an expected win total of 66.2. They didn't meet expectations on the road and at home. They won 32.1% on the road which was much worse than expected (37.6%). They won 32 at home and were expected to win 35.7. We are projecting a +18.1 win improvement next season. They are averaging 76.1 wins per simulation and are projected to finish ninth in the American League. There is a sizable gap between them and the #8 ranked Twins who are projected for 83.4 wins.
The regular season went worse than expected. They won 66 games vs an expected win total of 69.3. Home field was not an advantage, at least not in terms of meeting expectations. They were OK on the road. They went 35-46 on the road and were expected to win 31.6. They won 31 at home and were expected to win 37.7. Our projected record for next season is similar. They are averaging 67 wins per sim and are projected to finish second to last in the National League. There is not much of a gap between them and the #13 ranked Reds who are projected for 69.1 wins.
The sum of all of their money line implied probabilities (adjusted for the juice) projects to 75.7 wins. Their 73 actual wins was below expectation. They came up short on the road. They were OK at home. They went 33-48 on the road and were expected to win 35.3. Their 49.4% home win percentage was as expected (49.9%). The latest simulations project a significant drop in wins with a per simulation average of 67.4 wins and are projected to finish twelfth in the American League. There is a sizable gap between them and the #11 ranked Mariners who are projected for 72.5 wins. They won more than their current neutral win simulation percentage warrants and the Blue Jays could take a step back next season.
Their 62 regular season wins did not meet expectations. It was -4.9 below what oddsmakers' money line projected. The season went worse than expected. Home field was not an advantage, at least not in terms of meeting expectations. They were OK on the road. They won 39.5% on the road which was better than expected (38%). They won 30 at home and were expected to win 36.1. We are projecting a +4.8 win improvement next season. They are averaging 66.8 wins per simulation and are projected to finish third to last in the American League. There is not much of a gap between them and the #12 ranked Blue Jays who are projected for 67.4 wins.
The regular season went as expected. They won 63 games vs an expected win total of 62.7. Their strength was at home. They won 31.2% on the road which was much worse than expected (35.8%). They won 38 at home and were expected to win 34. Expect a similar record next season. In our latest simulations they are averaging 64 wins and are projected to finish last in the National League. There is a sizable gap between them and the #14 ranked Padres who are projected for 67.2 wins.
The sum of all of their money line implied probabilities (adjusted for the juice) projects to 66.8 wins. Their 64 actual wins was below expectation. They met expectations at home, it was on the road that they struggled. They went 26-55 on the road and were expected to win 30.8. Their 46.9% home win percentage was better than expected (44.4%). We are currently projecting a drop in wins. They are averaging 62.2 wins per simulation for next season and are projected to finish second to last in the American League. There is a sizable gap between them and the #13 ranked White Sox who are projected for 66.8 wins. They won more than their current neutral win simulation percentage warrants and the Tigers could take a step back next season.
The Orioles are winning more in simulations than they did last season which indicates that they should improve next season. But at 47 wins, it is not hard to improve. Their 47 regular season wins did not meet expectations. It was -19.6 below what oddsmakers' money line projected. The season went much worse than expected. They didn't meet expectations on the road and at home. They went 19-62 on the road and were expected to win 31. Their 34.6% home win percentage was much worse than expected (43.9%). In the latest simulations for next season they are averaging 55.3 wins per sim, which is a solid +8.3 improvement and are projected to finish last in the American League. There is a sizable gap between them and the #14 ranked Tigers who are projected for 62.2 wins. | 2019-04-25T16:19:40Z | https://www.scout.com/baseball/mlb/news/mlb-power-rankings-orioles-are-dead-last-and-4-of-5-worst-teams-are-all-in-the-american-league/ |
Some fragrances are not meant to be practical, versatile, daily experiences. They’re intended to be playful whimsy, a bit of a laugh for those with very deep pockets who can afford to indulge in a rich man’s expensive luxury once in a blue moon. I think that’s perhaps the best way to interpret and approach Apple Brand, the brand-new, recently released perfume from By Kilian. It is a fragrance that really isn’t something practical for most people to wear on a daily basis, unless you want your boss to think you’re an alcoholic and write you up to HR, or a police officer to look at you askance and subject you to a breathalyzer test. In a nutshell, Apple Brandy makes you smell like you were smeared from head to toe with a 1000 plates of Crepe Suzette, and then fell into an oak barrel of cognac after an all-night bender.
BRANDY is the term used to designate “Cognac“ when your product is not actually produced in the region of Cognac. In order to recreate this very specific “Cognac” scent that belongs in Kilian’s olfactive memory, Sidonie created an accord combining the smoked wood from the Oak casks – Cedar wood from Texas, white Cedar from China and Labdanum from Spain – and the sugar from the alcohol – Vanilla and Ambroxan.
APPLE is of course a wink to New York, the “Big Apple”. In order to create an “Apple accord” that would not be anecdotal or too simplistic, we created an “Apple liquor” that would blend, rather than contrast, with the “Oak cask” accord.
Oaken barrel, Texas cedar, Chinese white cedar, Spanish labdanum, Vanilla, Ambroxan.
Apple Brandy opens on my skin with a tsunami of pure, hard alcohol. I absolutely adore boozy notes, but Apple Brandy takes it to a whole new extreme and level, to the point where I actually said, “Whoaa…..” out loud. For an instant, the opening note is of apple — tart, crisp, and tangy like a Fuji — but it is almost immediately covered with cognac. The liqueur is sweetened with an extremely nutty, toffee’d undertone, and has traces of oak and a thick amber as well. It’s nice, but, my God, is there a lot of it! It’s intense, almost to the point of rawness, and beyond any “booziness” that I’ve previously encountered.
The overall effect is exactly like a caramelized apple at a fair, covered in heavy, dense toffee, and then dunked into an oak barrel of alcohol. Perhaps a more precise comparison is to Crepe Suzette, the kind were the apple-stuffed crepes are doused with sugar, then flambéed to a caramelized crisp with copious amounts of brandy. On the side, and all around the plate, is a luxurious crème anglaise sauce of slightly eggy, rich vanilla.
The intensity of the alcohol tsunami softens after 5 minutes, losing some of its rawness and undiluted, hard edge. I still smell like apple Crepe Suzette, but it’s after some of the brandy has been burned off. The first time I tested it, Apple Brandy was actually quite enjoyable as a cozy, warm, dense, boozy gourmand. I liked the ambered apple compote, and I have a particular weakness for crème anglaise sauce. The vanilla isn’t a huge part of the scent on my skin, but the flickers of it at the edge provide a lovely richness that makes Apple Brandy feel like a decadent indulgence. My favorite part, however, is the oak which really evokes oak barrels in the strongest way possible. It rather brilliant, in my opinion.
Apple Brandy is an enormously linear scent with very little change throughout its lifespan. It never transforms in any substantial way, but there are variations of degree that occur after the first hour. The fragrance’s apple tonalities weaken and slowly fade, while the oak barrels become much more dominant. There is something incredibly appealing about the oak when doused by the caramelized apple and the heady, boozy cognac. The wood is extremely smooth, slightly smoky, and rich, adding a layer of depth to the otherwise simplistic scent. The cedar never appears on me in any distinctive way, but I think it works indirectly from the edges, heightening the oak with that subtle smokiness. Really, the wood parts are beautifully done as a counterbalance to the Crepe Suzette and hard liqueur.
At the end of the first hour, Apple Brandy becomes increasingly drier and woodier, particularly as the Ambroxan starts to stir in the base. The synthetic, alas, is a little difficult for me. According to the Good Scent Company‘s olfactory database, Ambroxan’s strength is assessed as “high” or intense, and its aroma is: “ambergris, old paper, sweet labdanum, dry.” Here, it initially adds a warm, sweet, ambered feel to Apple Brandy’s opening, but the dryness takes over about 90 minutes into the perfume’s development. I am much more sensitive to aromachemicals than the average person, and Ambroxan is no exception. The inside of my nose hurts each time I sniff my arm up close, but it’s thankfully not an extreme reaction. As a whole, the aromachemical is well-blended into the fragrance, and doesn’t seem hugely excessive. Still, it’s enough to make Apple Brandy a much drier scent than it was originally.
At the start of the third hour, Apple Brandy is a blur of sweetened booze and woodiness on a very dry base. The caramelized apple compote note is muffled, and soon fades away entirely. The vanilla really never showed itself on my skin outside the opening hour where it was more of a supporting player on the sidelines. As for the other notes, they feel quite indistinct and abstract, lacking delineation and overlapping each other, with only the brandy really dominating. The sillage — which was initially quite intense with only a small amount of perfume applied — now drops, hovering only an inch or so above the skin.
That’s really the sum total of Apple Brandy’s development on my skin. From the third hour until its very end, the fragrance is merely a dry, semi-sweet, woody, oak and cognac bouquet. In its final drydown, Apple Brandy is just an abstract smear of woodiness tinged with some vague sense of booziness. All in all, the perfume lasted just over 9.5 hours, with generally good sillage that only became a skin scent at the start of the 6th hour.
I enjoyed parts of Apple Brandy a great deal, but I have numerous caveats and issues with the scent. I live in a place where I cannot go anywhere without driving, and where the jackbooted police are notoriously aggressive over the smallest thing. I simply would not dare wear Apple Brandy outside my house for fear that — were I ever to get pulled over — the police would think I’d been drinking and driving. Knowing the police here, there is no way they’d believe my protests, “Officer, it’s only my fragrance.” I wince just imagining the scene.
I also would not be comfortable wearing the scent to social occasions either, lest people think I’d been on a bender or had alcohol problems. The smell of liquor is simply so intense from a few dabs, especially in the first two hours, that regular application might smell as though I’d doused my clothes with an entire bottle of expensive brandy. Lastly, as an attorney whose speciality was employment law for big corporations, I would strongly advise against wearing Apple Brandy to any workplace, period. This is the sort of thing that would lead to HR problems, because it really does not convey an appropriate, professional image.
On the upside, Apple Brandy might be a lovely scent to wear in your own home on a chilly, snowy winter’s night. It is the perfume equivalent of having a brandy while sitting before a fire. Yet, even as I write that, my brains whispers the other problems with the scent: it’s linear, it’s a novelty act, and it would get boring very quickly. I enjoyed parts of Apple Brandy quite a bit the first time around, especially before the dryness and Ambroxan kicked in. The second time around, however, I was less enthused and a bit bored. There is a somewhat exhausting quality to the scent; it beats you over the head at first, and you’re quite awed by both the intensity and the novelty. Later, though, its unchanging nature wears you down a bit, and you’d like something a bit different than just the incessant clamour of brandied oak barrels. In short, Apple Brandy’s playful, exuberantly celebratory act is perhaps something best suited to a rare occasion.
All of that brings me to the next issue: price. Apple Brandy costs $235 for a small 50 ml bottle, and unlike many other Kilian fragrances, I don’t see the (relatively) cheaper refill option listed. I personally would never spend $235 on a fragrance I wouldn’t dare to wear outside the house, and to which I’d turn only once in a blue moon as a novelty. On the other hand, in the same way that a really expensive bottle of brandy can be an occasional indulgence, so too is Kilian’s perfume equivalent. Parts of it are truly enjoyable at times.
At the end of the day, price is a subjective matter, so if you have no problems spending $235 to smell like flambéed Crepe Suzette and Hennessy oak barrels, go for it. Just don’t spray on a lot, or you may appear like an alcoholic on a bender. And, for the love of God, don’t drive while wearing Apple Brandy!
Cost & Availability: Apple Brand is an eau de parfum that costs $235 for a refillable 1.7oz/50 ml bottle that comes in a black, wooden box. I don’t see the actual, and usually cheaper, refill option listed. The fragrance is said to be exclusive to the new Kilian store in New York, but you can purchase it from the US Kilian website. You can’t find it in Europe, or from the Kilian International site. However, you can always try to call the new boutique in New York to purchase it by phone. The store’s address and phone number are: 804 Washington Street, NEW YORK CITY, NY, 10014. +1 212-600-1298. Samples: I obtained my sample of Apple Brandy from Surrender to Chance where prices start at $6.99 for a 1/2 ml vial.
This entry was posted in By Kilian, Orientals, Perfume Review, Woody Fragrances and tagged Apple Brandy, Apple Brandy fragrance, Apple Brandy Kilian, By Kilian, Kilian fragrances, perfume review by Kafkaesque. Bookmark the permalink.
By Jove, it’s By Kilian. Ha ha, don’t spritz and drive. Maybe a great New York souvenir? Can you also drink it? (a la Abdes Salaam Attar; never trust a perfumer who won’t drink his own perfumes). Keen to see the New York shop fit-out though. I am sure Kilian Hennessy is a great shopkeeper and his clutch purses are quite nice too.
The notes of Apple Brandy almost induced me to go visit the By Kilian boutique in mid-December but I just got too busy. Based on your review, I think I would rather stuff myself with Crepe Suzette than wear it! I’ll still try it though, given the chance.
Given your gourmand tastes, I definitely think you should try it, Hajusuuri. I think you’d enjoy parts of it quite a bit, but I’d be curious to know what you thought of the alcoholic intensity of the opening.
BTW, Welcome Back!! And happy 2014. I hope you had a lovely time.
Happy 2014 to you, too. I am back…just made it before the snowstorm hit on Thursday. I had an absolutely lovely time, stuffed to the gills and OH MY, the beautiful landscape! No wonder it was an artists’ haven!
Ah, that is definitely St. Paul de Vence. I’m SOOOO glad you had a good time! That said, I’m also very happy to see your smiling face again, my dear.
When I heard they were releasing this a couple of months ago, I just thought that this would be atrocious based on the name. It doesn’t sound like something I would ever want to wear, but instead it was something that was meant to be put on ice cream. Your review just helped to confirm my suspicions. No thanks Mr. Hennessy!
Great review. I was curious about this one based on the concept. I find the opening booze note (rum) in Straight to Heaven just manages to walk the fine line between bold and overkill, so Apple Brandy seems out of the question as a daily-wear kind of scent. Sounds like a 10 ml decant might do the trick (and even be more than enough). I think the next time I get struck with the need for a sudden apple fix I’ll probably look toward Konig by YOSH.
The opening alcoholic burst in this one definitely exceeds anything in Straight to Heaven!! I think a 10 ml decant would be perfect. Just the right amount for that occasional urge for a super boozy fragrance with both gourmand and woody/dry tendencies, depending on stage. It would be a totally reasonable investment, as I think a little of Apple Brandy goes a long way.
I love apple brandy- Calvados is my winter drink. But this perfume sounds- iffy.
I love perfume, but a scent I can’t leave the house in without people making assumptions I’m smashed is not what I’d call a real useful choice.
I just can’t imagine that any perfume could maintain such a strong alcohol note. I would think that it would evaporate so quickly. I seems a marvelous trick to make it last the way you describe. My only perfume with a boozy note is Ambre Russe and I am always sad when the booziness disappears. As for the apple note, that is one fruit I do have trouble with in a fragrance. Costamor’s Tobacca, has that apple note and I find it smells a bit rotten. But after that fades, it is one of my favorite tobacco scents. Despite your misgivings, i think I just Have to try this, to experience it for myself. Your review reminded me of when my Dad tried to teach me how to sniff warmed cognac from a snifter when I was a teenager and I just didn’t get why this was a pleasurable pastime. You have got me intrigued, Kafka!! Great review!
So you think it would be too boozy for me? LOL! I think we *both* know the answer to that. I do wish I liked boozy notes more. I like them in theory, but they almost always call to mind my misspent youth and taking shots. And while once upon a time I could throw them back, now even a single shot is enough to make me feel queasy. Anyway, strong boozy notes always call that to mind, which I think is why I don’t play well with them. This one sounds quite, um, potent. The fragrance of “The Lost Weekend,” if you’ve ever seen that film. Yikes!
I’ve never seen it, but given the context in which its name has arisen, I’m not sure it would be my cup of tea. lol. As for this fragrance, given how you barely handle the slightest bit of booziness, you’d hate Apple Brandy. Absolutely HATE it. heh.
I don’t think I’ll want to wear this perfume (which isn’t surprising since nowadays I don’t want to wear most of the perfumes that I try) but I will definitely smell it if I get a chance – I’m always curious about By Kilian’s perfumes: I still hope that one day there will be the one that I’ll love.
As to the refill bottles, I’m not 100% sure but I think that usually those appear later, not at the same time when a perfume is released. Though maybe with this one being a limited edition they won’t do it at all?
Apple Brandy is not limited edition, but limited distribution. We’ll see if they get the cheaper refills eventually, though I think when Musk Oud debuted, the refills were available at the same time. In any event, I can’t see you wearing such an intensely boozy fragrance. I don’t think it really seems like your style.
Hysterical! I want to smell this right now! A trip to the the Kilian shop in the Meatpacking District might be in order.
Field trip dearest, but it is going to get brrrrrr cold again! I want to see that snake atomizer for myself…wondering if it is still available?
Yes! Field trip! I want to see that snake atomizer and didn’t they have some kind of Perfume Barrel by Kilian? I could have sworn I saw something about buying it by the VAT!
I do want that clutch so badly. I tried In the City of Sin again and can’t seem to like it enough to pull the trigger. But I have been stalking a seller on ebay . . .
It sounds very pretty on your skin! How interesting that you get very little alcohol. I think Baconbiscuit got a ton, didn’t she? Skin chemistry definitely makes a difference, and it sounds like your version will work perfectly for you. Enjoy your upcoming bottle, my dear!
She tried it on skin on the spot and it was not boozy either; however, she was wafting something else good that day because she used 12 sprays of something. You know her – go big or go home :-). I think the only perfume that got the best of her despite only a spray or two was Idole de Lubin (I wasn’t there to witness it as I left Bendel’s before her)….and a homeless person on the subway moved away from her.
I just choked on my coffee. Seriously, a homeless person on the subway moved away from her??! With only a few sprays of Idole???!!! ROFL. I’m grinning so much, you have no idea. Oddly, that is a perfume that I think one may NEED a few sprays of, at least if one has a taste for heavier, richer fragrances since it was almost sheer and thin for my tastes (or on my skin).
Such a hilarious story, all in all. I rather wish I’d been there with you two that day.
Also interesting that Apple Brandy was not boozy on her skin either. Huh. I know a few people who have said that they can’t wear it because they feel as though they’ve fallen into a vat of cognac and it is too, too extreme on their skins. Then, people like you guys at the other end of the spectrum. And Luca Turin still insists that there is no such thing as skin differences, and it’s all a figment of our imagination. Pffttt.
Hi Khawla, welcome to the blog! 🙂 I’m glad my review could be of some help to you. As a side note, I’ve covered Kilian’s Sacred Wood and I can tell you that Apple Brandy is a significantly richer, deeper scent. Far more intense in every way to Sacred Wood. I hope that helps. Have a lovely day. | 2019-04-18T10:19:35Z | http://www.kafkaesqueblog.com/2014/01/04/by-kilian-apple-brandy/ |
This article is designed to equip people familiar with OpenStack with the key concepts to get started with Google Cloud Platform (GCP), whether you’re considering migrating or implementing a hybrid deployment.
This article first compares sample 3-tier web application architectures on OpenStack and on GCP, and then compares features of OpenStack and GCP and provides quick reference tables that explain how OpenStack terms and concepts correspond to those in GCP.
Note: OpenStack is the subject of rapid community development. This article describes OpenStack features based on the information available at publication.
This article does not compare the SDKs, APIs, or command-line tools provided by OpenStack and GCP.
For a complete list of Google Cloud Platform products, see Products & Services.
Cloud computing services provide a set of baseline services, which include compute, storage, networking, access management, and often database services.
Most services on GCP are offered based on a pay-as-you-go pricing model which includes per-second or per-minute billing and automatic discounts with increased usage. Combined with flexible resource allocation such as custom machine types, the GCP pricing model helps optimize cost-effective performance for your applications.
For quick price estimation tools and details, see the Pricing Calculators.
For the past 15 years, Google has been building one of the fastest, most powerful, and highest-quality cloud infrastructures on the planet. Internally, Google uses this infrastructure for several high-traffic and global-scale services, including Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Search. GCP puts this infrastructure at your service.
This section compares how you might build a 3-tier web application system on OpenStack and on GCP.
The OpenStack configuration results in an active-backup configuration.
The GCP configuration leverages managed services to result in an active-active configuration.
You deploy resources across two regions as two separate failure domains for redundancy.
The network uses a single subnet for all tiers in each region, and all servers are virtual machine (VM) instances.
You define security groups for the four server roles and assign them to the appropriate instances.
This architecture provides an active-backup configuration. When you failover the service to another region, you restore the most recent backup to the database server in the backup region.
You deploy resources in a single subnet that covers multiple zones in a single region for redundancy.
You deploy web servers and application servers as VM instances.
You define firewall rules using tags to specify packet destinations.
Google Cloud Load Balancing is an HTTP(S) load-balancing service with which you can use a single, global IP address (VIP) to distribute client access to multiple regions and zones.
The architecture provides an active-active configuration across multiple zones, resulting in a redundant service across failure domains.
This section compares details about the features used in the sample architectures.
This section compares how OpenStack and GCP networks work within regions and zones, discusses projects and tenants, IP addresses and failover, and firewall rules.
Region Region In OpenStack, a region can span multiple data centers. In GCP, a region corresponds to a data center campus that usually has multiple independent buildings.
Availability zone Zone In OpenStack, an availability zone is commonly used to identify a set of servers that have a common attribute.
In GCP, a zone corresponds to a cluster within a data center.
In OpenStack, a region is defined as a single cluster that is managed by dedicated controller nodes. A region consists of availability zones. You use availability zones to define multiple groups of resources, such as compute nodes and storage enclosures.
In GCP, a region is an independent geographic area that consists of zones. Locations within regions tend to have round-trip network latencies of under 5 ms on the 95th percentile. Like OpenStack availability zones, a zone is a deployment area for GCP resources within a region. A zone should be considered a single failure domain.
GCP provides a dedicated internal network across all regions, so that bandwidth and latency between different zones in the same region are comparable to bandwidth and latency within a single region. You can deploy a tightly coupled cluster application across multiple zones without concern about bandwidth and latency between zones.
In both platforms, deploying your application across multiple zones or regions can help protect against unexpected failures. Zones are considered independent failure domains in GCP. In contrast, in OpenStack, regions (instead of availability zones) are considered independent failure domains, because availability zones in a single region share the same controller nodes. For a list of GCP regions and zones, see Cloud Locations.
Tenant Project All resources in GCP must belong to a project. Users can create their own new projects.
In OpenStack only administrators can create new tenants.
You must set up a Google account to use GCP services. GCP groups your service usage by project. You can create multiple, wholly separate projects under the same account, and your users can create their own projects under their accounts. Resources within a single project can work together easily, for example by communicating through an internal network, subject to regions-and-zones rules. Resources in each project are isolated from those in other projects; you can only interconnect them through an external network connection.
This model allows you to create project spaces for separate divisions or groups within your company. This model can also be useful for testing purposes: after you're done with a project, you can delete the project, and all of the resources created by that project are deleted as well.
OpenStack uses the term tenant to refer to similar functionality for isolating resources for different groups. In OpenStack, only systems administrators can create new tenants.
Neutron Cloud Virtual Network Cloud Virtual Network is a managed network service. In GCP, you can define multiple networks in your project, and each network is independent.
Virtual private network A single GCP virtual private network spans all regions connected through the internal network of GCP. A Neutron virtual private network spans all the availability zones in a region.
In a typical OpenStack Neutron deployment, each tenant’s virtual network is contained in its own private network space. As shown in figure 1, you don't necessarily have to use multiple subnets, but you can configure multiple subnets if you need to. Figure 3 shows an OpenStack virtual network that consists of a single virtual router and three virtual switches. Two of the virtual switches connect to the external network through the virtual router. AZ-1 and AZ-2 are availability zones.
GCP offers two types of network: legacy and subnet.
The legacy network provides a single private subnet that spans all regions around the globe, as shown in figure 4.
In a subnet network, shown in figure 5, the virtual switch corresponds to an OpenStack Neutron virtual router, and virtual switches are connected through the internal network. All subnets are routable to each other over private IP addresses, so you don't have to use global IP addresses or the internet for inter-region communication.
In GCP, you can use a mix of legacy networks and subnet networks in a project. Each newly created project includes a predefined network named default, which in turn contains a subnet named default in each region.
Instances have private internal IP addresses. A global IP address (a floating IP address) can be assigned if necessary.
Instances have private internal IP addresses. In addition, when an instance is created using the `gcloud` command-line tool, an ephemeral IP address is automatically assigned. Static IP addresses can also be assigned if necessary.
Global IP addresses are required for communication between instances in different regions or under different virtual routers. Subnets in all regions are routable to each other over private IP addresses, so you don't have to use global IP addresses or the internet for communication between instances.
In Neutron, VM instances in a private network communicate through virtual switches and routers using private IP addresses assigned at launch. Global IP addresses are not assigned by default.
The virtual router handles access from VM instances to the external network, so that instances share the common global IP address assigned to the virtual router. To expose an instance to the external network and allow connections from external users, you assign a floating IP address to the instance from a pool of global IP addresses.
Because the virtual network is contained in a single region, instances in different regions must use the floating IP addresses to communicate over the external network.
A single network can include multiple virtual routers. VM instances connected to different routers can’t communicate directly with private IP addresses; however, they communicate through the external network using floating IP addresses.
In GCP, all VM instances have an internal IP address and an external IP address at launch. You can detach an external IP address if necessary.
By default, an external IP address is ephemeral, meaning that it is tied to the life of the instance. When you shut down an instance and then start it again, it might be assigned a different external IP address. You can also request a permanent IP address—called a static IP—to attach to an instance. A static IP address is yours until you choose to release it, and you explicitly assign them to VM instances. Static IP addresses can be attached to and detached from instances as needed.
As illustrated in the sample 3-tier web application architectures, in OpenStack, on failover, because you cannot use the same global IP address in different regions, you must use an additional mechanism, such as Dynamic DNS, to allow clients to continue accessing the service using the same URL.
In GCP, on the other hand, you can use a single, global IP address (VIP) provided by Cloud Load Balancing to distribute client access to multiple regions and zones. This provides failover between regions and zones, which is transparent to clients.
Enforces firewall rules through security groups. Enforces firewall rules through rules and tags. An OpenStack security group contains multiple ACLs, which you define by instance role and then assign to an instance.
OpenStack security groups must be defined for each region.
GCP rules and tags can be defined once and used across all regions.
In OpenStack, a single security group contains multiple access control lists (ACLs), which are independent of VM instances. You assign a security group to a VM instance to apply the ACLs to the instance. Usually you define security groups according to VM instance roles, such as web server or database server.
You can specify the packet source with a subnet range or the name of a security group. In the preceding table, Management Subnet stands for a subnet range from which system administrators sign in to the guest OS for maintenance purposes.
This architecture assumes that client SSL is terminated at the load balancer, which communicates to web servers by using HTTPS. Web servers communicate to application servers with TCP 8080. MySQL is used for the database server.
For example, you first define a rule that allows sending packets that have a destination port TCP 80 from any IP addresses to web-server tag. Then you can add the web-server tag to any VM instances to allow HTTP connections to them. You manage tags to specify instance roles, and rules to specify ACLs that correspond to roles separately.
Note: Tag-based access control is independent of subnets. Combined with the legacy network shown in figure 4, which provides a single subnet spanning all regions and zones, tag-based access control frees you from subnet management tasks without compromising the network access control.
Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) packets from any external source.
Any packets between all instances connected to the default network.
Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) connection from any external source.
Secure Shell (SSH) connection from any external source.
For more information, see Using Networks and Firewalls.
In the preceding table, 130.211.0.0/22 is a subnet range from which the load balancer and health-checking system access the web server. Management Subnet stands for a subnet range from which systems administrators sign in to the guest OS for maintenance purposes. web-server and web-application are tags assigned to the web server and application server respectively. Instead of assigning rules as you would if you were using security groups, you assign tags to instances according to their roles.
Access control for the database connection is configured based on the source IP address as part of the Cloud SQL configuration.
With GCP persistent disks, data is automatically encrypted before it goes from the instance to persistent disk storage.
OpenStack provides two options for instance-attached disks: ephemeral disks and Cinder volumes.
Ephemeral disks were designed to be used as system disks that contain operating system files, and Cinder volumes were designed to store persistent application data. Because live migration is not available with ephemeral disks, however, people often use Cinder volumes for system disks, too.
When an ephemeral disk is used as a system disk, an OS template image is copied into the local storage of a compute node, and the local image is attached to the instance. When the instance is destroyed, the attached image is also destroyed.
Cinder volumes provide a persistent disk area that resides in external storage devices. In typical deployments, the block device is attached to the compute node using the iSCSI protocol, and attached to the instance as a virtual disk. When the instance is destroyed, the attached volume remains in the external device and can be reused from another instance.
Application software running on the instance can also access the object storage provided by OpenStack Swift.
GCP provides persistent storage attached to an instance in the form of persistent disks, which are similar to Cinder volumes in OpenStack. You use a persistent disk as a system disk that contains operating system files and to store persistent application data. The data is automatically encrypted before it goes from the instance to persistent disk storage. You can extend a single persistent disk up to 64 TB, but the maximum total capacity of the attached disks is restricted based on the instance size. For more information, see Storage Options.
When you need high-performance local storage, you can also use local solid-state persistent disks (SSDs). Each local SSD is 375 GB in size, but you can attach up to eight local SSD devices per instance for 3 TB of total local SSD storage space. Note that live migration is available for instances with local SSDs attached. Because the data in local SSDs is copied between instances during live migration, storage performance might temporarily decrease.
Application software running on the instance can access the object storage provided by Cloud Storage, a hosted service for storing and accessing large numbers of binary objects, or blobs, of varying sizes.
Instance type Machine type In OpenStack, general users cannot create custom instance types.
In GCP, any user can create custom machine types.
Metadata service Metadata server OpenStack provides information only about instances.
GCP provides information about projects, too.
When you launch a new VM instance in OpenStack, you choose an instance type to specify the instance size, such as the number of vCPUs and the amount of memory. If you have an appropriate access right assigned by the system administrator, you can define additional instance types. General users are not allowed to add custom instance types.
In GCP, instance sizes are defined as machine types. In addition to choosing one from the predefined machine types, a user can change the number of vCPUs and the amount of memory separately to create a custom machine type. For more information, see Machine Types.
OpenStack provides a metadata service to retrieve VM instance information from the instance guest operating system (guest OS), such as instance type, security groups, and assigned IP addresses. You can also add custom metadata in key-value form. OpenStack provides a type of metadata called user-data. You can specify an executable text file as user-data when you launch a new instance to have the cloud-init agent running in the guest OS execute startup configuration tasks according to its contents, such as installing application packages. You use the URL under http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data to access metadata from the guest OS.
GCP provides metadata server for retrieving information about instances and projects from the instance guest OS. Project metadata is shared by all instances in the project. You can add custom metadata for both instance metadata and project metadata in key-value form. GCP provides special metadata called startup-script and shutdown-script, executed when you start up or shut down the instance respectively.
Unlike OpenStack user-data, startup-script is executed every time you restart the instance. The two scripts startup-script and shutdown-script are handled by the agent included in the compute-image-packages , which is preinstalled in the OS template images. For more information, see Storing and Retrieving Instance Metadata.
cloud-init configuration tasks agent package compute-image-packages configuration tasks agent package The OpenStack agent handles only initial boot settings.
The GCP agent handles initial boot settings and dynamic configuration changes while the instance is running.
In OpenStack, the agent package called cloud-init is preinstalled in the standard guest OS images. It handles the initial configuration tasks at the first boot time, such as extending the root filesystem space, storing an SSH public key, and executing the script provided as user-data.
In GCP, the agent package called compute-image-packages is preinstalled in the standard guest OS images. It handles the initial configuration tasks through startup-script at the first boot time, and also handles dynamic system configuration while the guest OS is running, such as adding new SSH public keys and changing network configurations for HTTP load balancing. You can generate and add a new SSH key through Google Cloud Platform Console or the gcloud command-line tool after you launch an instance.
Google Cloud SDK is preinstalled in the standard guest OS images on GCP. You can use the SDK to access services on GCP from guest OS by using a service account that is granted certain privileges by default.
Access control in GCP is enforced per instance by Google Cloud IAM. For example, if you want your application running on an instance to store data in Google Cloud Storage, you can assign the read-write permission to the instance. With Cloud IAM, you don't have to prepare passwords or credential codes manually for applications running on the instance. For more information, see Creating and Enabling Service Accounts for Instances.
OpenStack Keystone provides access control for service APIs based on user account, but does not provide instance-based access control for application APIs, such as read-write permission on object storage or database. You can implement custom access control for application APIs if necessary.
This article compares the components and services offered by OpenStack and Google Cloud Platform that are essential for IaaS. But to make the most of GCP in terms of availability, scalability, and operational efficiency, you should combine managed services as building blocks for your entire system.
Learn more about integrating Google Cloud Dataproc with storage, computing, and monitoring services across GCP to create a complete data-processing platform.
Learn about monitoring, logging, and diagnostics using Google Stackdriver.
Learn more about Google BigQuery, a fully managed data warehouse for analytics that provides a serverless platform, so you can focus on data analytics using SQL even with petabyte-scale datasets.
Learn more about Google Cloud Platform Products & Services. | 2019-04-25T04:39:19Z | https://cloud.google.com/docs/compare/openstack/?hl=no |
The purpose of this presentation is to provide hospital executives with workable guidelines for establishing when and how to assess FMV in a variety of hospital/physician arrangements. Key Questions Addressed Why are more hospitals seeking FMV opinions for their hospital/ physician compensation arrangements? What are the major valuation and regulatory considerations for hospitals when designing their financial arrangements with physicians? Does this mean that we need to get FMV opinions for all of our physician arrangements? What can we do internally to ensure our physician arrangements represent FMV? How should we go about choosing outside assistance to help us navigate this complex path?
Hospitals enter a variety of arrangements with physicians to meet strategic objectives, improve physician integration, and mitigate financial risk. High Foundation Model Clinical JV ED Call Pay Costs Recruitment Assistance Professional Services Agreement Comanagement Arrangements Lease Agreement Physician Advisory Council Medical Director Low High Extent of Physician Integration NOTE: Size of bubble = ability to meet strategic need.
The Stark law, the anti-kickback statute, False Claims Act, and IRS private inurement regulations govern hospital/physician financial relationships. Stark law. Anti-kickback statute. False Claims Act. IRS private inurement regulations.
Stark law is a civil statute prohibiting physicians from referring Medicare patients for certain designated health services (DHS) to an entity with which the physician or a member of the physician's immediate family has a financial relationship – unless an exception applies. The Stark law is a strict liability statute. The Stark law contains a number of exceptions that allow a physician to refer to an entity for the provision of DHS. Penalties for Stark violations include: Denial of payment. Repayment of all amounts billed to the Medicare and Medicaid program that violate the Stark Law. For a knowing violation, civil monetary penalties of up to $15,000 per service, and up to $100,000 per arrangement considered to be a circumvention scheme. Exclusion from the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Prosecution under the False Claims Act (i.e., criminal penalties).
The anti-kickback statute is a criminal statute prohibiting any knowing or willful solicitation or acceptance of any type of remuneration to induce referrals for health services that are reimbursable by the Federal government. Although both the anti-kickback statute and Stark law were enacted to prevent healthcare providers from inappropriately profiting from referrals, the anti-kickback statute, unlike Stark, requires a proof of intent to commit a violation. While the Stark law only prohibits referrals, the anti-kickback statute prohibits wider forms of misconduct, e.g., arranging for and/or recommending the purchase of items or services. The anti-kickback statute applies to all federally funded health care programs. An offense under the anti-kickback statute is classified as a felony and is punishable by fines of up to $25,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.
Tax exempt organizations must guard against providing excess benefits to “disqualified persons.” A charitable organization must be organized or operated for charitable purposes and no part of the net earnings of a charitable organization may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. Intermediate sanctions provide the IRS a remedy to impose financial penalties for an excess benefit transaction without revoking tax-exempt status of the tax-exempt organization. If the organization engages in an excess benefit transaction with a person having substantial influence over the organization (a so-called “disqualified person”), an excise tax may be imposed on the person and any organization managers agreeing to the transaction.
At the same time that hospitals have been begun to develop more hardwired relationships with their physicians, regulatory scrutiny of these relationships has increased. The Disclosure of Financial Relationships Report (DFRR) is a mandatory disclosure tool that CMS plans to utilize to audit hospital compliance with Stark. CMS states that the purpose of the DFRR is twofold: To determine if any of the arrangements are potentially not in compliance with the physician self-referral law. To collect information that might lead to future rulemaking concerning reporting requirements and other physician self-referral provisions.
The analysis and the data sources utilized to calculate FMV compensation vary based on the circumstances of the specific arrangement. “Ultimately, fair market value is determined based on facts and circumstances. The appropriate method will depend on the nature of the transaction, its location, and other factors.”1 Factors influencing the appropriate approach to determining FMV include: Services provided. Physician specialty. Availability of physicians. Physician productivity. Market and competitive factors. FMV is typically analyzed in two components: Is the transaction commercially reasonable? Is the remuneration exchanged FMV for the goods/services? 1 Federal Register, Vol. 72, No. 171, CMS, 42 CFR Parts 411 and 424, September 5, 2007.
The appropriate methodology to use to calculate FMV compensation is affected by the business situation and financial arrangement. Industry Percentile Rankings FMV is estimated based on industry percentile rankings for compensation and productivity and assumes that physicians who produce at low levels relative to their specialty will also receive relatively low incomes and that high producers will earn high incomes. Compensation per WRVU Productivity A physician’s compensation per WRVU is compared to market benchmarks to determine whether the physician’s per unit compensation is comparable to that of his/her peers at similar productivity levels. Earnings Potential The amount of professional fee revenues that a similarly productive physician might expect to generate is estimated and the amount of overhead that one would expect from such a physician is deducted to arrive at an estimate of market-based compensation. Comparable Payments Especially useful for administrative services, this method applies the compensation that hospital’s provide to other professionals for similar services.
A key distinguishing business characteristic of arrangements is whether they are for clinical or administrative services. CMS raised the question whether or not there should be a difference between administrative and clinical compensation in Phase III regulations but left the question unanswered. Phase III: “…the fair market value of administrative services may differ from the fair market value of clinical services.” No guidance provided on how to determine FMV of administrative services. Valid options for compensation of administrative services include: Opportunity cost – What the physician could earn for the time spent completing the administrative duties. Typical rate – What the hospital typically pays to have the services conducted by other qualified professionals.
Hospitals enter many different types of arrangements with physicians to address various strategic priorities. Hospital/physician arrangements that require the determination of appropriate physician compensation include the following: Medical Directorships. Recruitment Arrangements. Call Coverage Arrangements. Professional Services Agreements. Equipment, Space, and Staffing Leases. Joint Ventures / Other Investment Vehicles. Management/Administrative Services Agreements. Information Technology Arrangements.
Hospitals should consider an efficient and economical option that provides an FMV assessment that can be applied to many arrangements. A report providing an FMV range for approximately 100 specialties and subspecialties can be utilized for many arrangements. Annual compensation and hourly rates are calculated for each specialty based on national, regional, and state data from two surveys. Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) Physician Compensation and Production Survey. American Medical Group Association (AMGA) Medical Group Compensation & Financial Survey. Compensation is provided for the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles from the MGMA survey and for the 20th, 50th, and 80th percentiles from the AMGA survey.
Recruitment arrangements typically include an income guarantee and reimbursement of business expenses. A range of compensation based on the median compensation provided in the MGMA and AMGA surveys is useful. Incremental and one-time costs are estimated to assess a reasonable monthly allowance for overhead costs for the recruited physician’s practice. Incremental costs typically encompass additional clinical and nonclinical office staff plus other operating expenses, including malpractice insurance. One-time costs typically encompass relocation and start-up expenses. Costs to start a new practice and to join an existing practice are estimated. Many factors could cause the FMV compensation for a recruited physician to vary significantly from survey medians.
Incremental costs typically encompass additional clinical and nonclinical office staff plus other operating expenses.
Stipends for call coverage duties have exploded as physicians increasingly utilize their market leverage to demand payment for the burden of call coverage. National benchmarks for call coverage stipends are in short supply and the complex nature of these arrangements, which can involve many different payment mechanisms, makes true apples-to-apples comparisons difficult. Outside assistance is often required to determine appropriate levels of call coverage payment. Access to call coverage stipend databases. Ability to quickly complete customized/localized surveys. Expertise in helping hospitals to address call coverage issues.
An FMV opinion for a professional service agreement often requires a thorough analysis of data from the hospital and the physicians. Analysis varies by the specific situation but typical steps in an analysis of a professional service agreement for hospital-based physicians include: Identifying the number of clinical physician FTEs required to support the hospital given coverage and scheduling requirements. Documenting the historical compensation levels per physician FTE. Comparing physician compensation levels to appropriate regional and national benchmarks. Identifying potential issues, such as payor mix or utilization, that may influence compensation levels. Calculating an appropriate stipend level. Developing performance-based payment criteria.
Compensation arrangements often require creative solutions to achieve business objectives and provide a fair compensation package to the physician. Situation Resolution Medical director who is licensed as a family practitioner is specially trained and conducts many procedures typically performed by a specialist. Evaluate the mix of medical services the physician provides to the mix provided by other family practice physicians in his state from ECG proprietary surveys to determine whether family practice or specialty compensation is appropriate. Hospital intends to pay physicians $150 per hour to assist with the design of its electronic medical record. Convert the median annual compensation rate for all available specialties listed in the MGMA and AMGA reports into a range of hourly rates to confirm $150 is within the range. Hospital intends to pay physicians $139 per hour for participation on committees that provide administrative services. Apply the range of compensation that the hospital provides to non-physician professionals (i.e., business consultants and attorneys) to the compensation for physicians. Hospital wishes to recruit a renowned clinician and researcher earning in excess of $1 million annually. Identify a pool of academicians and clinical leaders with comparable income and determine whether the candidate is qualified to be considered for membership in this select group.
Administrators need to be careful to utilize the best benchmarking information available when developing FMV financial arrangements. The number of surveys has grown in recent years; hospital executives need to be careful to apply the most relevant surveys possible. Commonly utilized national surveys include: Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) – MGMA is generally viewed in the industry as the best national source of physician compensation, productivity, and expense data. Includes data from large and small (including many single specialty) practices. American Medical Group Association (AMGA) – AMGA also produces a widely respected survey that encompasses data mostly from large group practices. Others – There are many other surveys in the market, many of which are not conducted annually. Hospital administrators should be careful not to rely too heavily on ad hoc surveys that may not be available in future years; however, customized surveys may be necessary in some situations. When using surveys, regional data should be utilized to the extent possible. However, administrators should be wary of survey cohorts with a sample size of fewer than 50 physicians. When researching compensation for rare subspecialties such as pediatric neurosurgery, utilizing national data may be necessary due to small sample sizes.
25 III. The FMV Process When Do You Need a Third-Party Opinion?
Clearly, all hospital/financial relationships should be well documented in terms of FMV. However, not all relationships require a third-party opinion. All hospital contracts should be maintained in files that also provide FMV justification. However, FMV justification does not necessarily require outside assistance. Medical directorships and employed physician arrangements represent examples of when hospitals might not seek a third-party opinion, except under unique circumstances. Developing an internal policy on when to seek FMV opinions will help hospitals decide when to most appropriately seek outside assistance.
Hospitals should consider developing policies regarding (1) the level of consistency required among their arrangements, and (2) when they will seek FMV opinions. Type of Arrangement Proposed Consistent Payment Methodology Proposed Policy Regarding Third-Party Opinions Medical Directorships Payment will be made using the average of the median of the most relevant market surveys. “Relevant” is defined as using the regional benchmark with a sample size of 50 physicians or more. Analysis can be completed internally to determine relevant market rates; however, a third-party opinion will be sought in the event that the compensation to be provided exceeds the 75th percentile. Call Coverage Call coverage payment rates will be set based on principles developed by administrators and medical staff members. Payment arrangements are reviewed annually. The algorithm will be updated annually, and a third-party opinion of the key components of the plan will be required upon each update. Hospital-Based Specialty Stipends will be provided that enable physicians to earn between the median and the 75th percentile of their specialty. Groups desiring stipends will be required to submit their collections data (including those from private business ventures such as imaging centers) for the calculation of FMV. All arrangements will receive a third-party opinion prior to the renegotiation of each contract renewal. Physician Employment Administrators will be required to adhere to a broad set of principles regarding compensation that require productivity-based compensation plans to be utilized (measured either in terms of work RVUs or professional collections). Third-party opinions will be required on an annual basis for physicians who earn over the 90th percentile of the most relevant benchmark survey.
There are several key attributes to look for when choosing and using a firm to obtain a valuation opinion. Choose an experienced resource. Obviously, the firm utilized to develop your opinions should have broad experience covering a variety of healthcare arrangements. Identify a firm with local knowledge. As the market for physician compensation varies widely, market to market, the firm should understand your particular niche. Utilize a well-balanced firm. Although firms that work exclusively in the valuation/FMV opinion world will be knowledgeable about this issue, they may not have the breadth of experience necessary to evaluate all issues in totality. Consider a firm with experience developing compensation plans that also has consultants who are comfortable working directly with physicians. Consider a firm that has the expertise to provide custom analyses and does not rely exclusively on survey data for proprietary databases. Avoid pushovers. Be wary of firms that will provide justification for any arrangement; a good firm will push back and provide creative restructuring options frequently to ensure FMV, thereby ensuring greater credibility if the arrangement is challenged. Be sure to involve the firm early in your discussions around FMV. The firm should be able to provide you with a “negotiating range” to use in your discussions with physicians. In any event, never wait until after the deal is signed to get an FMV opinion.
The purpose of this case study is to provide an overview of the OIG Advisory Opinion1 posted in September 2007 on ED call coverage and to discuss the implications for hospitals and physicians nationwide. Key Questions Addressed Why did the OIG issue this recent opinion? What are the major implications for hospitals? Does this mean that I will have to restructure my hospital’s call coverage payment system? Given the opinion, what is the ideal way to approach ED call payments? 1 HHS OIG, Advisory Opinion No , posted on September 27, 2007.
The OIG’s Advisory Opinion was issued in response to a request from a large hospital regarding the appropriateness of its call coverage payment system. The hospital is a not-for-profit Catholic facility with a charitable mission. The facility has a high underinsured and uninsured patient population treated in the ED. Due to the financial burdens of uncompensated patient care and malpractice insurance costs, many physicians became unwilling to provide ED call without compensation. The lack of physician availability constrained the hospital’s ability to meet its specialty coverage needs. In response, an ad hoc committee was formed that developed a call coverage and uncompensated care arrangement to reduce physician burden while enabling the facility to provide the community with needed medical care. The OIG ruled that while the arrangement might “generate prohibited remuneration under the Anti-Kickback Statute,” the opinion said that the OIG would not impose administrative sanctions on the hospital.
The featured hospital chose a tiered per diem payment structure, based on specialty burden, for its call compensation system. High Per Diem Payment Tier Level Key Characteristics Level 1 – Primary Surgical General Surgery, Neurosurgery, Orthopedics More frequently receive calls; likely to treat high- acuity patients. Level 2 – Secondary Surgical Oral/Maxillofacial, Ophthalmology, Otolaryngology, Urology, OB/GYN Receive calls less frequently; must be prepared to perform surgery if called. Level 3 – Medical Subspecialties Infectious Disease, Cardiology, Neurology, Renal/Nephrology, Pulmonology, Endocrinology, Hematology/Oncology, Gastroenterology Less likely to be called; call is more likely to be for consults. Level 4 – Hospital-Based Specialties Hospital Medicine, Anesthesiology Guaranteed level of service; treat unassigned patients. Low Per Diem Payment The payment system provides systematically larger payments for physicians taking weekend call relative to weekday call. Further, all physicians are obligated to provide 1.5 days per month of uncompensated call coverage.
Prior to identifying options for improvement, hospitals should convene a committee of key stakeholders to examine the problem and develop potential solutions. Internal Qualitative Factors Hospital/physician relationships. Support from hospitalists or residency programs. External Quantitative Factors Call Coverage Environment Internal Quantitative Factors Regional and national trends in pay for call. Call frequency. Call volume. Payor mix. External Qualitative Factors Call burden at other area hospitals. Local trends in addressing call. Regional and national legislation impacting call. Assessing call coverage can be a daunting task because the desired information is often not available or unreliable.
Every contract resulting in one or more payments to a physician, physician group, or company owned by a practicing physician should be reviewed with documentation for the contract. Contracts should be organized by type of arrangement: Physician recruitment. Call coverage. Medical directorship. Professional services agreement. Management services agreement. Lease agreement. Other (i.e., any other financial relationship between a hospital and a physician, family member of a physician, or physician organization). Working papers should be created for each agreement to hold the contract, provide supporting documentation, and create a history of all related payments.
Attachment A: The Compliance Audit Process Developing and Completing Checklists Checklists should be prepared for every type of arrangement and completed consistently for every contract. # Recruitment or Retention Agreement Checklist True False Instructions/Comments 1 The agreement is signed by all parties. List the parties to the agreement. 2 The agreement specifies the benefits to be provided by the hospital, the terms under which benefits are to be provided, and the obligations of the parties. List the services to be performed. 3 The agreement contains a statement that the parties' arrangement was negotiated at arm’s length. List the intervals, length, and charge per interval. 4 The agreement indicates that the hospital's service area is a federally designated health profession shortage area or that a community need assessment indicates a documented need for the physician's specialty. 5 The agreement indicates that the recruited physician has been practicing medicine for less than 1 year and is opening a practice in the hospital's service area. 6 The agreement indicates that the recruited physician is relocating his/her practice by at least 25 miles or that the physician's new practice will derive at least 75% of its revenues from professional services to patients not seen or treated by the physician in the prior 3 years. 7 The agreement indicates that the physician was not on the medical staff of the hospital prior to recruitment, including temporary staff privileges or other seemingly inactive privileges. Indicate the term of the agreement, including the effective date. 8 The agreement indicates that a fair market value (FMV) analysis was performed by an independent third party. 9 The recruitment benefits provided under the agreement do not exceed the range identified in the FMV assessment. Briefly describe the termination provisions.
Attachment A: The Compliance Audit Process Developing and Populating Databases A database is used to organize the key terms of each contract. A separate worksheet is used for each type of physician arrangement. Sample Contract Review Database Physician Group Name Term Beginning Term Ending Compensation Unit of Time Monthly Max. Notes Pmt. 1 Smith, John, M.D. Internists, Ltd. 2/2/07 5/1/08 $100 Hour $5,000 $5,000 per month cap; at risk: $15,000 annual. N/A Malone, Molly, M.D. Caring Cardiology 4/1/07 10/31/09 $9,250 Month Cole, Tim, M.D. APM Anesthesia 10/1/07 9/30/08 $1,200 24-Hour Shift After fifth delivery, reduces to $220. $24,000 Rao, Anila, M.D. Valley CT Surgery 1/1/08 12/31/08 $8,000 $150 per month for adm. up to $3,000 per month. Fields within each database are expanded to include additional contract terms, such as service obligations, payment calculations, and repayment provisions. Elements of legal guidelines and requirements are also included in the databases and checklists as directed by legal counsel.
Every payment is matched to a contract and its required documentation. Payments without a corresponding contract or documentation are flagged for additional investigation. General Ledger Accounts Payable and Check Registry Output Physician Recruitment Database Medical Director Database Payments that do not cross-reference with contracts are researched manually.
Facts about arrangements and payments should be complemented by relevant opinions reported separately. Facts About Arrangements Facts About Payments Contract is expired or not signed. New agreement was entered into beyond the Stark 6-month holdover time period. No evidence of legal counsel or board approval. No community need assessment. No FMV materials. FMV materials are inappropriate for the contract. Time sheet or invoicing documentation is missing. Payment made with no contract. Payments do not match the contract terms. Payment does not match time sheet or invoice. Payment exceeds monthly maximum. Compensation exceeds benchmark. Opinions about arrangements should be reported separately.
Download ppt "Agenda I. Overview of Fair Market Value (FMV) Issues"
6.1 PPS t/a Carnegie et al; Accounting: Financial and Organisational Decision Making © 1999 McGraw-Hill Book Co. Aust. ACCOUNTING Financial and Organisational. | 2019-04-19T05:13:05Z | http://slideplayer.com/slide/260663/ |
The Pirates want the Yankees to pay almost the whole contract of $33 million and take negligible return.
Regarding Burnett’s no-trade clause, the Yankees wouldn’t be engaging in these talks with the Pirates (I don’t think) if there were any chance of Burnett rejecting the deal. Various people have said that because Burnett’s wife doesn’t like to fly, all of the teams Burnett has blocked are on the West Coast.
If Burnett really wants to get away from the Yankees, then I suppose going to the Pirates wouldn’t be all that bad. He’d pitch in the weaker league in a big ballpark without any expectations and be able to rejuvenate his free agent credentials for the winter of 2013-2014. For the Pirates, they could multiply the return by trading Burnett at some point in the next two years to a team that the Yankees wouldn’t trade him to like the Red Sox or Blue Jays.
Remember this: there were teams—inexplicably including the Yankees—pursuing Carl Pavano after Pavano pitched well for the Indians and Twins following his disastrous tenure with the Yankees; Burnett was never as bad on or off the field as Pavano.
I’ve been asked several times who Garrett Jones is and why the Yankees would want him.
The Pirates have apparently said that they’re not interested in moving Jones and certainly not to do the Yankees a favor in filling their DH slot and taking Burnett’s salary in the process.
But here’s what you need to think about when wondering why the Yankees would want Jones.
The Yankees need a relatively inexpensive left-handed bat with pop to share the DH role with Andruw Jones, Alex Rodriguez and other righty bats who’d DH against lefties.
Jones spent 11 seasons in the minors with the Twins and Pirates and hit 158 home runs before getting a legitimate chance in the big leagues—minor league stats. As a 28-year-old rookie in 2009, he hit 21 homers in 82 games.
Examining Jones’s platoon splits, he’s a good choice for the Yankees. Jones hits righties really well; has power to center and right field which makes him a fit for Yankee Stadium—hit trajectory link; and has had success against good pitching (he’s hammered Adam Wainwright, Tim Lincecum, Chris Carpenter, Matt Cain and Yovani Gallardo among others).
It makes sense for the Yankees to want Jones and some sense for the Pirates to want Burnett. But there’s no match for an exchange of the players along with Burnett’s salary so it’s not going to happen with one being traded for the other. In fact, I don’t think it’s going to happen in any configuration at all.
The White Sox went into the 2010 season with the intention of keeping the DH spot unclogged so manager Ozzie Guillen would have more flexibility.
With that flexibility, they wound up using Mark Kotsay as their DH in 49 games. In addition to Kotsay, they also used Andruw Jones in 14 games as the DH.
That’s not the kind of flexibility they were looking for when they decided not to reunite with Jim Thome, who wanted to return to the White Sox and signed with the Twins after the White Sox chose to go in another (wrong) direction.
The why is relatively unimportant, but the fact that it failed is one of the litany of reasons the Yankees have zero intention of entering the season with Jones and Jorge Vazquez as their primary DHs any more than they intended to go into the season with A.J. Burnett, Phil Hughes or Ivan Nova as their number 2 starter.
What you’re seeing now as the “idea” is floated in the media is the give and take that goes on between clubs and media to control the message and do what amounts to market testing to see how a concept will be received.
The Vazquez/Jones platoon combination is not being well received because it won’t work.
Clubs and media have a working relationship that creates this dynamic. In collaboration with the editors of websites and newspapers, there’s a separation between nuggets, actual news, non-stories and editorial mandates.
An example of a nugget is the idea of a strange decision like Vazquez and Jones starting the season DHing for the Yankees. Practically, Jones is a player from whom a club will get production for 50-70 games as a defensive replacement, giving a rest to their everyday outfielders and hitting the occasional home run. Vazquez is a journeyman minor leaguer who, for some reason, has captured the fancy of those who apparently have never seen him play, don’t know how to interpret stats or are enamored of his “story”.
In today’s game, if a player is productive at any level he’ll find a place to play.
Vazquez hasn’t found a place to play other than Mexico and the minor leagues. The reason for this is he strikes out a ridiculous amount of the time, doesn’t walk and has no position.
But we see people mentioning him as an “option” at DH.
For the Oakland Athletics he’s an “option” at DH.
For the Yankees, he’s a name they’re using as a litmus test to see how far they can push their fans with the similar type of nonsensical propaganda that played up Brian Bruney and other Yankees “finds” that eventually revealed themselves as what they were as they disappeared from the landscape.
If a player bounces around or never gets a chance in the big leagues despite some aspect that would indicate he should receive an opportunity, most of the time there’s a reason that we haven’t been informed of.
Actual news stories such as the Yu Darvish posting fee are relatively straightforward and easy to write and understand. It is what it is. He’s a star player from Japan who wants to come to North America. He has an interesting heritage and personality. He’s a wonderful talent.
Non-stories are the things you see (and I’ve done this myself) when a posting is needed but there’s nothing to write about. I happen to be better and finding things to write about and making them interesting than others, but much of that is contingent on what would garner some attention to baseball in the dead of winter.
Editorial mandates play a part too.
Do you think Tim Kurkjian wanted to write an ESPN piece about Tim Tebow as a baseball player?
Of course not. But ESPN does careful study in what the visitors to their site and stations are looking for and serves their desires by presenting content about Tebow. It’s got nothing to do with a tacit approval of Tebow’s Christianity. It has to do with his popularity. People want to read about him, so ESPN tells their people to write about him.
If you think the Yankees—the Yankees—are going into the 2012 season with Andruw Jones or Jorge Vazquez as their DH, forget it. They’d reunite with Hideki Matsui or Johnny Damon before doing that not only because those players would be willing to take a short-term contract and have proven that they can handle New York and the Yankee nuthouse, but also because they know Jones/Vazquez wouldn’t work much better than Kotsay and it’s salable to the fans.
It’s nothing more than that.
The underlying suggestion from another “Carlos Beltran offers self to Yankees” free agent story is that he was about to sign the contract with the Cardinals and had his agent contact the Yankees to see if they’d be willing to do the same contract.
In 2004 it was slightly different in several ways. His agent then was Scott Boras; now it’s Dan Lozano. The offer to the Yankees back then was for less money and fewer years than the Mets offer; this time he asked for the same deal. And back then, he was a star center fielder in his prime; this time he’s a very good right fielder turning age 35 in April whose health is still in question.
Did it come at the last second and did the Yankees turn it down without seriously considering it? Was there a backchannel communication to the Yankees saying, “keep Beltran in mind because he wants to be a Yankee”? Or did the Yankees know he was interested and wait to see what the price was before turning it down?
If George Steinbrenner were still around, a player like Beltran who clearly wants to be a Yankees would have been a Yankee. But now they’re monitoring their payroll to such a degree that amid all the ridicule aimed at the team across town, the Yankees have actually done less to address their needs this winter than the Mets have.
Rather than sign a free agent or go all out via trade to acquire one of the available starting pitchers, the Yankees re-did CC Sabathia’s contract to keep him and re-signed Freddy Garcia; they also exercised the option on the player that Beltran would’ve replaced, Nick Swisher; and today, they re-signed veteran Andruw Jones.
Did they think about Beltran and weigh the pros and cons?
If they chose to replace Swisher with Beltran, they’d be getting a better player; both are switch-hitters, but Beltran is more consistent from both sides of the plate and a far bigger power threat batting lefty than Swisher; Beltran’s a proven post-season performer while Swisher’s been an abject failure; Beltran would be more expensive ($26 million for 2-years) than Swisher, who’s only going to cost $10.25 million in 2012.
Beltran’s knee problems are not to be discounted—he could wind up back on the disabled list at a moment’s notice—but apart from a hand injury, he stayed healthy in 2011. Beltran played in 142 games and adjusted well in a position switch to right field. 22 homers playing his home games in the notorious pitchers parks of Citi Field and AT&T Park bode well for a renaissance as a 30-35 homer power threat in Yankee Stadium.
Swisher has trade value because teams appreciate his on-base skills, pop and gregarious personality along with that 1-year deal; Beltran wouldn’t have cost a draft pick to sign because of a clever provision slipped into his Mets contract by then-agent Boras that his club couldn’t offer him arbitration.
Could the Yankees have signed Beltran and traded Swisher for an arm like Jason Hammel? Jonathan Sanchez? Jair Jurrjens?
Would they be better than they are now?
I’m not an advocate of standing completely pat in any circumstance and especially when the team overachieved based on luck with two veterans Garcia and Bartolo Colon, then got bounced in the first round of the playoffs; but that’s what the Yankees are doing.
With the improving Blue Jays, the Red Sox and Rays still in their division, plus the flashy signings made by the Rangers and Angels, the playoffs are not a guarantee for the Yankees anymore and this current roster is aging and thin in several key spots.
Trading Swisher for a starter and signing Beltran would’ve made the team better.
Did they consider it seriously? Or did they ignore the player who obviously wanted to be a Yankee to the point where he essentially groveled for the chance?
The Yankees made a mistake with Beltran in 2004 and they may have just made the same mistake in 2011 at a cheaper price.
Keys for the Tigers: Score early, score often against the Yankees starters; get into the bullpen early; ride their own starters deep into the games; win Justin Verlander‘s starts; Magglio Ordonez.
The Tigers won the AL Central by 15 games, but that’s not an accurate gauge as to how they played this season.
Up until August, their position was precarious in terms of whether they would even make the playoffs; they made a series of trades to get Delmon Young, Doug Fister and Wilson Betemit; the Indians—who had led the Tigers by as much as 8 games in May—came apart.
It was Justin Verlander who carried the Tigers on his shoulders before they took command of the division by ripping off a 12 game winning streak in September. It will be Justin Verlander who will lead the Tigers past the Yankees or into the winter after a first round playoff loss.
They have to ride their horse.
Manager Jim Leyland is insisting that Verlander will pitch games 1 and 5 and under no circumstances is pitching in game 4.
Fister has been masterful since his acquisition from the Mariners with an 8-1 record and ERA under 2. He’s only allowed 11 homers in over 200 innings this season, but Mark Teixeira and Curtis Granderson have gotten to him; he lost his only start against the Yankees this season; it was his last start as a Mariner and he went 7 innings surrendering 3 runs on 7 hits.
Max Scherzer is starting game 3 and Rick Porcello game 4. Scherzer has a power fastball and wicked slider, but is either on or off—if he’s got his stuff and control, he’s nasty; if not, he gets hammered.
I wouldn’t trust Porcello in a game 4.
The Tigers bullpen before Joaquin Benoit and Jose Valverde is a question mark, but Leyland will push his starters further than he does in the regular season. Verlander’s pitch limit will be somewhere in the 140-150 range if necessary and since they’re insisting they’re not pitching him in game 4, don’t expect a quick hook if he gets off to a bad start in game 1.
The Tigers have to decide what to do with their veteran bats who’ve played sparingly in 2011. Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen have handled CC Sabathia in their careers, but will Leyland rely on his vets or stick with the players he was using for the bulk of the time over the second half?
Guillen has a calf issue and is probably out for the ALDS.
I’d play Ordonez against Sabathia.
Ordonez is also 7 for 14 in his career against Mariano Rivera.
The Yankees are starting rookie Ivan Nova in game 2; soft-tossing veteran Freddy Garcia in game 3. Nova and the Tigers don’t have much history. Garcia, however, has a long history with several of the Tigers hitters and has gotten blasted by Miguel Cabrera, Ordonez and Young. Yankees manager Joe Girardi will have a quick hook with Garcia and A.J. Burnett could be important in game 3 if he’s needed to restore order after a Tigers outburst. Burnett’s numbers against the Tigers are quite good.
The Tigers do not want to be nursing 1-run leads in the late innings against the Yankees; they need to build a bigger lead and hold it.
Keys for the Yankees: Beat Verlander; don’t let any pitcher other than Verlander beat them; make Verlander work and get his pitch count up to get him out of game 1 early; get into the Tigers middle-relief; score a lot to make moot their pitching issues; A.J. Burnett; end the series before game 5; Verlander, Verlander, Verlander.
Other than Sabathia, the Yankees aren’t going to mess around and leave their starters in the game if they’re getting roughed up. Burnett will be in the bullpen; presumably Bartolo Colon will be on the roster—they’ll have veteran arms to turn to if Nova or Garcia struggle.
If this were a best 4 of 7 series, I’d seriously consider shifting either Sabathia or Verlander so they didn’t have to pitch against each other. With a 3 of 5 series, that’s not really an option.
Nick Swisher is only batting .167 in 54 career plate appearances vs Verlander, but has 3 career homers. Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Brett Gardner have very solid numbers against him and Ramiro Pena of all people is 3 for 5 in his career facing Verlander. The Yankees needn’t be terrified of the Tigers ace because they’ve hit him before, but they do not want to be dealing with a game 5 and Ivan Nova or anyone other than Sabathia scheduled to pitch; I don’t care how mentally tough Nova is, that’s not a fair position for a rookie to be in and if it happens, they’re going to lose.
Girardi has said that Posada is going to DH in the series and that’s a good move—I always defer to my experienced veterans who’ve been through playoff battles before and if this is Posada’s final post-season in his career, he’ll be looking to end it with an exclamation point.
I wouldn’t be concerned about facing Porcello—if there’s a game 4 and the Yankees are trailing in the series 2-1, they’re going to maul him.
Valverde is one of the best closers in baseball that no one knows. That said, he can lose command and walk people; he also gives up some homers. Andruw Jones is 3 for 7 in his career vs Valverde with a homer and he’s the type of pitcher upon whom Robinson Cano will feast in a big spot.
If the Yankees use Rafael Soriano with a lead, he’s going to give up a homer or three—he cannot abide post-season pressure, or any kind of pressure. He’s pitched 3 post-season innings in his career and allowed 2 homers including a backbreaker for the Rays last season in the ninth inning of game 5 against the Rangers and Ian Kinsler.
The Yankees won’t be worried about Verlander in game 1; if it gets to game 5, they will be worried about him. A lot.
I wouldn’t anticipate mutual dominance between Verlander and Sabathia in game 1. In fact, it could degenerate into a shootout between the bullpens. If Verlander gets knocked out early, would that change Leyland’s strategy in a game 4? Would he bring his ace back on short rest if he only throws 60 or so pitches in game 1?
If they’re down 2 games to 1, I would.
The other starters in the Yankees rotation are only going to be in games as long as they’re getting outs and will be subject to a quicker hook that you or Girardi’s Binder could fathom. Burnett is decried and despised by Yankees fans, but they’d better hope “good A.J.” shows up when that bullpen door opens because if they need him in game 2, 3 or 5 he has to pitch well.
Girardi won’t put Soriano in a big spot; David Robertson tends to get himself in trouble just for the sake of getting out of it. His strikeout prowess comes in handy in those situations.
If the Tigers get a big performance out of Fister and/or Scherzer, the Yankees will be in a lot of trouble. I’d expect one to pitch well. Either game 2 or 3 will be won late and is dependent on whose bullpen performs better, which specialists—Boone Logan of the Yankees; Phil Coke and Daniel Schlereth—get the job done. Logan would be called on to pitch to Alex Avila. The Tigers are righty-heavy.
Will the young Schlereth be able to deal with Cano? With Granderson? Cano’s 1 for 4 vs Schlereth with a homer; Granderson 0 for 2 with 2 walks. Coke allowed homers to lefties Chase Utley and Raul Ibanez in game 5 of the 2009 World Series while pitching for the Yankees so he’s not exactly frightening to good-hitting lefties. But the Tigers won’t have a choice. The best case for the Tigers is to not get it to that point.
Two veterans—Ordonez and Posada—with excellent careers behind them and the windows closing on those careers will see important at bats in big situations.
The Tigers will win 2 of the first 3 games.
The Yankees will batter Porcello in game 4; this series will come down to a game 5 in Yankee Stadium with Verlander standing between the Yankees and the ALCS.
And he’s going to slam the door in their faces.
The Tigers and Verlander are taking them out.
Yesterday I discussed players contending National League teams should pursue at the trading deadline. Now let’s look at the American League.
What they need: Starting pitching.
With Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz on the disabled list and John Lackey an enigma (although he looked good in his last start), the Red Sox are on the lookout for a decent starter.
And the starter only has to be decent; with their offense, competence is all that’s required.
Ryan Dempster is competent and wouldn’t cost much in terms of players; the Red Sox say they don’t have much money to spend, but if they need something they’ll go and get it. The $14 million player option held by Dempster would have to be dealt with; the Red Sox want no part of that.
Cheaper names would include Aaron Cook, Erik Bedard, Brett Myers (I doubt they’ll bring him to the scene of the crime and he hasn’t pitched particularly well this year).
Ricky Nolasco and Anibal Sanchez of the Marlins could be in play and the Red Sox have the prospects to get it done.
There was talk that they’d be after Jose Reyes or Carlos Beltran, but I don’t see why. If they want a shortstop bat, they’d go after Hanley Ramirez first.
What they need: A solid utility player; an OF/DH bat; bullpen help; a backup catcher; a starting pitcher(?).
I actually think the Yankees starting pitching is serviceable enough contingent on Phil Hughes‘s performance and whether Bartolo Colon continues to pitch well. Dempster is a good option for them and they’ve always liked Ted Lilly.
There was talk of Francisco Rodriguez and the Mets would give him away—he wouldn’t be closing for the Yankees and K-Rod’s new agent Scott Boras is posturing about where he’d let his client go via trade.
It’s pure posturing because they have little leverage. K-Rod’s contract has 10 teams he can reject trades to—their identities are unknown.
Heath Bell is getting traded eventually.
For set-up help Rafael Betancourt of the Rockies and Grant Balfour of the Athletics are targets.
They could use a lefty reliever like Tim Byrdak or take a chance on Brian Fuentes.
Naturally with Alex Rodriguez out for a month after knee surgery, there will be Yankees fans who want them to go and trade for a star third baseman like Aramis Ramirez—you can’t go through a series of games without a star player at every position I suppose, even in the short-term.
If Casey Blake is healthy, he can play third, first and the outfield.
I have a feeling Hideki Matsui is going to end up back with the Yankees. He proved during the A’s tour of the National League that he can still play the outfield and I’m not quite sure what it is that Andruw Jones does that keeps him on the roster.
Any backup catcher would be better than Francisco Cervelli. I’d probably be better than Francisco Cervelli. If the White Sox fade, Ramon Castro is a good backup with pop.
Beltran would be a very nice addition. Presumably he’d okay a trade to the contending Rays.
Jim Thome would bash as the DH.
Here’s a thought: Hanley Ramirez. The Rays have the prospects and while his attitude is somewhere along the lines of B.J. Upton, there’s no denying his talent. Whether Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria would allow his favorite son to: A) be traded; and B) be sent across the state, is a question.
What they need: A bat; a back-end starter; bullpen help.
If Blake is healthy, he’s better than Brandon Inge. Beltran and K-Rod are dangling from the Mets. I’ve always liked Josh Willingham of the Athletics.
If the Marlins discuss Hanley Ramirez, the Tigers probably don’t have the prospects to get him; Aramis Ramirez would fit in nicely.
The Tigers have the money to take Lilly’s contract. Then there are the usual suspects mentioned earlier like Dempster or Cook.
What they need: A bat; a competent veteran starting pitcher.
With Shin-Soo Choo out until September with a broken thumb, Beltran is a great idea for the Indians. Then there are Matsui, Willingham and David DeJesus from the Athletics. The Cubs could move Aramis Ramirez and Kosuke Fukudome.
Cook of the Rockies and Bedard are short-term, inexpensive and worthwhile gambles.
The White Sox and Twins have to decide what they are and where they’re headed. In the past, both have shown a hesitancy to sell and they’re close enough to contention in a rotten division to justify going either way.
The Rangers have been aggressive in recent years, so they’ll be in on the expensive names and pending free agents. They were looking at Scott Kazmir, but that’s a dead-end.
Lilly has an attitude that Nolan Ryan likes. Dempster would fit with the Rangers; Wandy Rodriguez is signed and highly underrated. Jeremy Guthrie of the Orioles has pitched better than his 3-12 record.
How about making a bid for Mike Pelfrey of the Mets? They’ll move him in the right deal and the Rangers have prospects to trade.
What they need: A bat; bullpen help.
Surprisingly, the Angels don’t need much of anything if their current players perform. They could use a bat at shortstop like Hanley Ramirez and have some young players to exchange, but that’s farfetched.
There was talk recently that Angels owner Arte Moreno had told GM Tony Reagins that they couldn’t add money, but that was before their hot streak put them near first place. That division is wide open for them. If they make the playoffs, they have the pitching to do damage.
Would the Angels like to rent K-Rod for the rest of the season as a set-up man? He performed brilliantly in that role when they won the World Series in 2002, manager Mike Scioscia knows how to handle him and he’s familiar with the Angels clubhouse.
Anytime you have a decision made based on the good of the community and delivered by unquestioned decree, you should question its motive and whether said decision has been made based on facts alone or ancillary influences.
Such is the case with MLB’s decision to take over the operations of the Los Angeles Dodgers from Frank McCourt.
You can read the details here—NY Times.com.
Under no circumstances am I defending the behavior of Frank McCourt and his wife Jamie, but there’s an aspect of piling on and flinging everything into the bonfire as if lawlessness has taken hold and the powers that be had no other option.
The reviled autocratic leader—McCourt—has been forcibly removed after metaphorically robbing from the state’s coffers in treating the franchise as a personal cash machine to supplement delusions of a growing empire.
But what about baseball’s despot; also autocratic—yet likable in a rumpled, befuddled sort of way—Commissioner Bud Selig?
McCourt, scrambling for cash to pay his bills and maintain the Dodgers, was desperately seeking a buyer or a loan to maintain the team. Baseball was right to step in before it truly got out of hand and one of the signature franchises in the sport was bankrupt and unable to function.
But the selective enforcement allowed by the “best interests of baseball” clause bear an eerie similarity to a dictatorship that simply decides to eliminate an enemy without trial.
Anything can be explained by legalese, smooth talk, evidence as to the damage being done or sheer loathing raining down on the persecuted; but is it fair? Should baseball be able to do this at a moment’s notice just “because”?
McCourt has financed his lavish lifestyle using the Dodgers as a lever to gain more and more credit and buy more and more “stuff”; the divorce from his wife Jamie and legal battle for the franchise has been an exercise in humiliation like something from the shlock-mill of Aaron Spelling; but in looking at the team itself, has he been a terrible owner when assessing results on the field? Has he interfered with the club operations to its detriment?
How is what McCourt has done to the Dodgers in any worse than the way the Pirates have degenerated into a laughingstock? It’s notable that the Pirates are now—conveniently—being terribly mismanaged by a longtime Selig ally, Frank Coonelly.
Why is it that George Steinbrenner repeatedly ran afoul of baseball protocol (such as it is) with his antics and frequent suspensions, but was never permanently forced out as owner?
Baseball stepped in with Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria when it was discovered that he was fiddling with the revenue sharing dollars he received from richer clubs, pocketing it rather than spending it on players as was intended; but the Marlins are a profitable, successful franchise that provides better bang for their buck than just about any other team.
The allegation that Fred Wilpon’s close relationship with Selig has assisted him in getting a loan and time to straighten out the team’s legal issues is reasonable and calls into greater question the way MLB has snatched control of the Dodgers from McCourt.
You can compare the differing circumstances in a myriad of ways and justify the takeover of the Dodgers; but so too could you wonder why it’s the Dodgers with whom they’ve stepped in so forcefully but not the Pirates or Mets.
For all the ridicule that the McCourts’ ownership has engendered, have they faltered on the field?
They’ve made the playoffs in four of the seven years he’s owned the team.
Have they scrimped on signing players?
They doled lucrative contracts on Derek Lowe, J.D. Drew, Jason Schmidt, Rafael Furcal, Andruw Jones and a host of others.
Have they shunned paying for their draft picks?
The Dodgers gave a $5.25 million bonus to 2010 1st round pick Zach Lee which was $4 million more than the preceding selection, Jesse Biddle, got from the Phillies—perceived as an organization that runs their club correctly.
Has McCourt overtly and negatively interfered with the on-field product and told his manager or GM what to do?
It’s possible, but from what I can see based on the GM maneuverings since McCourt bought the team—and that includes former GM Paul DePodesta and present GM Ned Colletti—he let them to do whatever they wanted.
He hired the biggest name manager in Joe Torre when he came available and the team has been consistently good.
Adding the violent assault on a San Francisco Giants fan in the Dodger Stadium parking lot to the list of McCourt transgressions is equivalent of tossing another charge into the indictment since it’s there and easy to use as an extra tool to pry the club from McCourt’s clutches.
The admission that there wasn’t enough security to prevent the beating is legitimate, but have you ever seen ballpark security? It’s not as if there are moonlighting cops or former CIA operatives running around to watch over the customers as they head to their cars; many times the security personnel are worse than the troublemaking fans themselves!
The personality-based viewpoint with which McCourt has been pigeonholed and the way baseball pushed him aside is justified by rule of baseball. It’s better to intervene too early rather than too late, but why the Dodgers and not the other teams and owners mentioned above?
Of course baseball had to take over the Dodgers; barring a miracle or owner-friendly negotiation with the creditors, McCourt’s ownership was no longer tenable. But the timing and seemingly capricious handling should be scrutinized more than it has been.
A lack of fairness and whimsical action without due process should be a concern to all. Practically and by delineation of powers, Selig had a right to do what he did and he had to do it; but the proffered justifications are troubling considering the way other clubs and owners have skated by without meaningful repercussions for their actions.
This was clearly personal. And that makes it all the more worrisome as to the broadbased powers allowable in the “best interests of baseball”.
Purchase my book, Paul Lebowitz’s 2011 Baseball Guide. It’s good for fantasy players and everyone else. | 2019-04-24T14:01:34Z | https://paullebowitz.wordpress.com/tag/andruw-jones/ |
Shortly after RIG, Phyllida Barlow’s debut installation with Hauser & Wirth (September 2 – October 22, 2011) opened in London, artseen Editor John Yau and the artist talked on the phone about her exhibition.
John Yau (Rail): The first question I want to ask you is about the title RIG, which is both a noun and a verb, and which has a number of meanings in slang. I think that that gets to something about your thinking about sculpture. We tend to think of sculpture as a noun, but it seems to me that you’ve introduced the verb into it. Does that make sense?
Phyllida Barlow: Great, yes it makes sense. Rigging something up implies a kind of temporary gesture. I think the verb “to rig” is both to fix something slightly fraudulent but also to improvise with a way of fixing something. And then that’s in complete contrast to something like an oil rig.
Rail: One of the things about your work has always been that there’s a temporariness to it, that you make it out of different, unlikely materials, and at the end of the exhibition you take it all apart. Some people think of sculpture as this permanent thing—you know, Donald Judd, Richard Serra, and Frank Stella—and they might think that you’re doing something that subverts that idea of sculpture.
Barlow: I’m sometimes slightly bewildered by that response. Yes, I’m aware of perhaps subverting permanence, but I think that has a very long tradition, a tradition as long as that of monumentality. It’s just on a different route, maybe through theater and through traveling players or something like that. You’ve got the whole idea of improvised capture of space, which always mimicked the ceremonial or the monumental. I also think of Eva Hesse, or many other artists of that era, say ’64 or even earlier, ’59, through to say the late ’70s. There are many improvised works going on and impermanent work being executed that are of a monumental nature but stand in contradiction to the minimalist solidity or stacticness that is conveyed through Judd.
Rail: Would you say that there are at least two kinds of practices going on from the late 1950s to the present, and that one focuses on permanence, while the other one examines something more impermanent, transitory, and temporary as a way of thinking?
So, yes, when I came into sculpture in the early ’60s, the most enduring impact that decade had on me was the questioning of what constituted sculptural language, and the challenges that were instigated against sculpture’s identity as a permanent form.
My epiphany of what could be sculpture was to use waste materials. I used anything and everything from paper, polythene, cardboard, fabric, and many other “sheet” materials, which could easily be cut, torn, ripped, sliced. For me, these were in opposition to the labor-intensity of the sculpture processes I had been so doggedly taught at art school, and which defined sculpture as sculpture—carving, casting, welding, construction. I have to say that I now savor and respect those processes and I am deeply grateful for having learnt them. They have given me independence and the opportunity to rebel against them, and to explore other approaches to making.
Rail: For RIG, you were able to install your work in a building designed by the great English architect Edwin Lutyens. You had the whole building to use from the basement to the top floor. Is that correct?
Barlow: Yes, to the attic.
Rail: You must have had some idea of what you were going to do, but, at the same time, I think a lot of it must have just come about with you trying to do something to the space of the building, to the walls, to how we move through that building, its different spaces.
Phyllida Barlow, "RIG: untitled; blocks," 2011. Polystyrene, fabric, timber, cement. Overall installed dimensions: 283 1/2 x 468 1/2 x 409 1/2". Work in situ. Dimensions variable. Installation view. Hauser & Wirth. London, Piccadilly, 2011. (c) Phyllida Barlow. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Peter Mallet.
Phyllida Barlow, RIG: untitled; pompoms, 2011. Fabric, paper. 15 large fabric balls. Overall installed dimensions: 109 x 341 x 316 7/8. Work in situ. Dimensions variable. Installation view. Hauser & Wirth. London, Piccadilly, 2011. © Phyllida Barlow. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Peter Mallet.
Barlow: That’s exactly it. The building has an incredible spatial narrative. You enter and there is this oak paneled room that conveys authority. The oak paneling goes up to about half of the walls, and then there are bare walls after that, with windows. I saw that interior space, with its formal wooden paneling and floor, as a plinth. That relationship made me want to extend something up into the ceiling. As you enter, you are in an enclosed wooden space, but when you look up you are somehow liberated from this very, very solid space; you are liberated into the light, which gives on to the clouds and the sky. It’s a very clever architectural space. And then the spatial narrative continues down a tiny staircase into the vault, where there is a collection of small rooms that aren’t in particularly good condition. So there is this underground space, and then the opposite of that is when you go up onto a balcony, which overlooks that formal, first space, then into the very formal bank room [laughs], the ballroom, then eventually the attic. So it’s a very particular narrative around the building spatially. It’s a gift to anyone who makes sculpture because you’re naturally on a kind of 360-degree circumnavigation of the building, and therefore of the work it would contain. For me it was really exciting to know that the work would, in a way, be very much about that “walking around” experience that is so particular to sculpture, not just one-point viewing positions.
Rail: But at the same time that you want people to circumnavigate the space, and the space around your work, it seems to me you wanted the narrative that might come from that also to be open-ended, not to be authoritarian the way I think certain sculptures and architectural spaces have a kind of authoritarian presence. You make us aware that these pieces are temporary, like the shelf that you made of all these small pieces, so it becomes an impossible shelf, which interacts with our own understanding of what function things have. I don’t know if that makes sense, but I felt like there’s a lot of that going on in your work.
Barlow: I think absurdity is inevitable. I think sculpture is an absurd discipline, beyond all others. Beyond film, beyond painting, beyond poetry. It occupies space, which in a crowded world would be better occupied by things that could serve people either more discreetly or in a better way [laughs]. Sculpture stands vulnerable to attack for its absolutely unequivocal uselessness [laughs], and that to me is its tremendous strength—that it takes up the kind of spaces that we as human beings either want to reach and do something with or actually takes up the space that we might be occupying, and therefore to appropriate those spaces with something that’s inert, heavy, and where its syntax is quite disruptive and broken, like the broken shelf, to me is gloriously absurd—that’s its subject. Its rupture is its subject. The actions of making that are the script for this absurdity, have become the subject of the work, and apart from that I do not have a subject.
Rail: But you have written about and spoken about artists who do have subjects. I mean your essay “The Sneeze of Louise,” on Louise Bourgeois, is brilliant. You talked about her work in a way that got to the subject matter. This prompted me to look at your work through your view of Louise Bourgeois, but I felt refuted, and I thought, well that’s interesting.
Barlow: I remember we talked about this when we first met in London and you were incredibly eloquent about it—the Holy Trinity of subject, content, and form. I think I’m still a traditional formalist, digging away at where the actions of form carry with them subject. You know the subject of destruction or the subject of breakage, and then the content is, to me, the different kinds of materials that can behave in different ways according to that subject. So the broken shelf, which is made up of off-cuts of bits of armature which are then wrapped in fabric, almost as a sort of bandage to mend them, and then put together in this very ad hoc, speedy, quick way is, to me, very much about breakage and then repair—those two things carrying for me enormous content and emotive subjects.
Rail: There is also a room where everything came out of the corner in a sharp angle. I feel like there’s a lot of emotional content to your work, but it’s not nameable according to some story that we associate with emotional content.
Barlow: Well that would be fantastic—and of course we’ve been through two decades of intense subject-led work in the U.K. in particular. There is a huge infatuation with the ability of language to direct the intention of the work. I mean Damien Hirst’s shark is a fantastic example of that. Hate him or love him, he really gave incredible substance to that way of working. It’s certainly not my way of working. I would want to be the opposite of that, where things are in limbo in terms of being able to pin them down, but the act of making and the visual content of the work somehow creates a kind of link to quite specific emotional states, usually not particularly comfortable ones because I suppose they’re the ones that interest me.
Rail: If you think of YBA artists like Jake and Dinos Chapman, Marc Quinn, Tracey Emin, and others, the thing that I would say about them is that theirs is a very literary-based art. It’s based on a narrative or a story, and I always felt that that was, in part, the legacy of England being a literary country.
Barlow: Absolutely. I absolutely agree, and a highly institutionalized country, and institutions need names, and names are language. I think there’s a whole thesis there that on the one hand is very embracing of, you know, the radical—if the radical can be named and institutionalized, it will be in this country [laughs]. Whether it’s through the royal this or the royal that—you know all these institutions that have “royal” in front of them—or in quite eccentric institutions that are set up by individuals, you know this or that philosophical, scientific, or religious society—these kind of rogue institutions are trying to accommodate the huge diversity of thinking. So that’s an incredibly language-based approach to organizing the human condition. Maybe it happens in all countries, I don’t know—or in all cultures, I should say.
Rail: I don’t know. But one thing that’s always struck me about English painting that seems very different from, let’s say, American painting, is that if you think of the work of Jenny Saville, Lucian Freud, Frances Bacon, Leon Kossoff, they have a very different relationship to the body. It’s portly Falstaff, who believes life is a charade. It’s the wounded body, the abject body. And Americans don’t want a body, but an image. It’s why so many people love Andy Warhol; these are not bodies he shows us, but images of faces without bodies, or in his “car crash” paintings, bodies without faces. They are disconnected. English painting comes from a different culture, and it has a different relationship to the body. This must also influence you as a sculptor.
Phyllida Barlow, "RIG: untitled; hoops," 2011. Plywood, cement, paint. 80 3/8 x 141 3/4 x 110 1/4". Installation view. Hauser & Wirth. London, Piccadilly, 2011. (c) Phyllida Barlow. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Peter Mallet.
Barlow: Really interesting. I wonder whether the Andy Warhol example is a statement of a kind of cultural pronouncement, of “we’re here,” “this is what we are.” Whereas the British English version is much more generic, much more born out of the landscape of a small nation, and therefore the body is not so particular in some ways. Think of Jenny Saville or Lucian Freud, and even Leon Kossoff, who I think is absolutely fantastic. I put him in a slightly different category because it’s almost as if he’s dissolving the body into paint. But Freud and Saville—both seem as though the body is archetypal to them. I mean, huge, rolling mounds of flesh and paint all together. Whereas Andy Warhol is almost catalyzing the sense of rashness of a land that’s constantly discovering itself, almost as though there were—to use a really cliché word—this necessity for absolute identity, completely different from anything else in the world [laughs], whereas the British one seems to me to be much more—I don’t know—the only word I can think of is generic. These are bodies that have their origin in, and continue to be an inheritance from the Renaissance [laughs]. Of course they’re unique, but they’re not singular and didactic in the way that those startling images from Andy Warhol were and are. By the way, Richard Hamilton died. Did you hear that?
Barlow: Just on the news—what time is it in New York?
Barlow: Have you had lunch?
Barlow: Yes. Well, he must have died today. I heard it on the six o’clock news about an hour ago. I mean, there’s an interesting example of someone who could not in my mind be anything else other than English. You think of Andy Warhol and you think of the way he was unafraid to deliver an image as an absolute autonomous thing, self-consciously of its time, off the street, and unashamedly exploitative of everyday banality. Then you think of the complexity of Richard Hamilton’s paintings, with their footnote-type commentary. I mean, they’re beautiful, but they’re not about delivering a singular punch. And compare that to a Rosenquist. I remember when I first saw a Rosenquist I thought it was the most staggeringly wonderful thing I’d ever seen. You just knew there was nothing like that going on in Europe or the U.K. It was completely and magnificently drastic in terms of being the complete opposite of the inward-lookingness that I think British art can be.
Rail: I think of your work as being among the most drastic and non-literary work being made in England right now.
Barlow: The thing is that it is completely sculpture. It’s absolutely, to me, rooted in the love of bringing into the world things that haven’t been there before. The idea that they’re going to somehow create—or I would hope that they’re going to create—a difficulty with space and their location in space. I feel I am incredibly traditional, but to me the traditions are really exciting in the way that they can be kicked around a bit and reexamined. It’s fascinating, the fact that people have used similar materials for absolutely thousands of years and constantly updated how to use those materials with such a tiny repertoire of technique: casting, modeling, clay, plaster, carving, assemblage. Even if we go into more sophisticated materials like plastics and all sorts of other things, inherently we’re still dealing with very few actual techniques: modeling, molding, or collaging. Then I suppose those two disciplines of painting and sculpture, this is what they’re locked into, unlike video or digital stuff or whatever, which are still struggling to find coherency. There’s the technology, fantastic, high-definition, this, that, and the other, but you still sit in a blackened room to look at it and it’s stuck with its limitations in a way that, painting and sculpture are not. Though I daresay that would make some people furious [laughs].
Rail: It’s true—you have to go somewhere and sit in a dark room, behind a thick curtain or blanket. If painting and sculpture are stuck in the white box—which I don’t think they are—then you can say that video and film are stuck in a black box.
Barlow: Absolutely, yes. I mean, we’ve seen Bill Viola projections and they’re fascinating, but to me they have a creative desperation about them, of trying to make this thing of the projection expand outside its frame. Tony Oursler does it very well, and I think they all do it superbly well, but I think there’s still a problem with these things being so connected to painting in some ways. It’s almost like going back to 17mm or Super 8—such a shame those particular forms have gone actually because they were so much more physical.
Rail: Right, and portable in a way.
Installation view, Phyllida Barlow. Rig, Hauser & Wirth. London, Piccadilly, 2011. (c) Phyllida Barlow. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Peter Mallet.
Phyllida Barlow, RIG: untitled; broken shelf 3, 2011. Steel bracket, timber lengths, fabric, plaster, scrim, tape. 46 7/8 x 141 3/4 x 35 3/8. Installation view. Hauser & Wirth London, Piccadilly, 2011. © Phyllida Barlow. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Peter Mallet.
Barlow: Yes, exactly, and the theme of light and everything, even the sound. I’m sure it’s very tedious for people involved in video to hear this kind of stuff because I think it sounds so nostalgic, but I’m not particularly nostalgic for it. I think it’s that the more the technology of video and other digital forms gets heightened, I’m not sure that it does anything more for the creative side, or the creative manipulation of that medium. It just seems to make more and more demands, to become more and more in the thrall of the technology rather than actually being able to almost overwhelm it in some way. And I think, someone like Robert Smithson and what he produced in the ’60s and ’70s—it’s just such an ongoing extraordinary challenge to anyone making sculpture, people who are attracted to large sculpture. I don’t see video as having yet arrived at that kind of snapping point [laughs]. We’re left to kind of pick up the pieces after those works [laughs], thank you very much! We still want to make this stuff! [Laughs.] What the hell do we make after those kind of huge gestures that Smithson made that remain sort of monumental, in terms of throwing down a challenge?
Rail: It’s interesting that you use the word “gesture” because I think it really is about whether or not you make a gesture, a drastic one, if you will, which is different than employing a process or technique over and over again, like Bernard Frize. I was just reading a review of someone who didn’t want to make a stand so he used a light associated with computers because in a way it’s just something very bland and commonplace.
Barlow: Right. How many times have we heard that? [Laughs.] I mean they’re all very good artists so I’m not having a go. For many years Keith Tyson used a computer as a means for making decisions of what images he would throw together. I suppose what interests me about that is, in a way, isn’t that what imagination is meant to do? Isn’t that what human imagination is meant to do? Isn’t that what the challenge is? I like the fact that Tyson’s work is a proposition to challenge the role of imagination—that’s important. You try to push your imagination into places that look at randomness, and try to encourage different ways of thinking about it. But it does seem to me that you willingly replace one regime with another when you hand things over to computers. I just find it odd.
Rail: Yes, and also that a gesture is something that at its very best is unrepeatable unless you end up becoming a mimic of yourself, which is not good.
Barlow: I think that actually in terms of my work it’s very relevant. There is an aspect of what I do where I’m worried about the gesture becoming exactly what you said—a sort of one-off thing, which then becomes repeatable and editionable and all the rest of it. That is when I have to take some sort of action to ensure that if I’m going to remake a work it’s got to be in a very, very knowing way. It’s no longer about the gesture; it would have to be about something else, and that seems, to me, important. You’re right—the gesture is by definition something that can happen only once, but if you start to repeat it, it becomes a repeated gesture and it changes because it has a sort of accumulation of knowledge that begins to come into play. It’s no longer a surprising action. It becomes learnt.
Rail: We talked about this in our first conversation, about the notion of the repeated gesture, what happens when it, or anything else, becomes a style, a signature or branding—a word that’s now being used. It seems in your work that you have found ways to resist that, or push back against it, even though we’re all limited as human beings so there’s something almost futile about pushing against it. After all, we do accumulate history, methods, and knowledge, and yet at the same time we have to push back against them.
Barlow: I think that’s something that I’ve not done, which is to revisit work that I’ve destroyed or from which I’ve used the materials again. But now I’m in the position to actually revisit work. In this current work at the gallery particularly, there’s a whole room full of empty furniture units: cupboards and lockers and shelves. About 13 years ago I made just two single pieces like that. It was really quite intense, revisiting that work, and salvaging from the memory of remaking that work a completely new work altogether. I think that’s something I’m interested in going into more and more—how previous work, earlier works, might now come back, how I will be able to revisit them as an entirely new experience.
Rail: To make it fresh?
Rail: And are you working on another show? Are you thinking about another show?
Barlow: Another two shows. One at the Haus der Kunst in Munich and the other at the Museum Ludwig.
Rail: And when will those shows be?
Barlow: The show in Munich opens on November 11 and the exhibition in Cologne opens December 17. It’s Kaspar Koenig’s last show before he retires.
Rail: And are there any plans to show in New York City?
Barlow: There may be but I think it’s still under wraps, for autumn 2012. | 2019-04-24T14:24:43Z | https://brooklynrail.org/2011/10/art/phyllida-barlow-with-john-yau |
Saturday 17th September, the final 1st and 2nd XI games of the season were against Astley & Tyldesley with the 1st team away and the 2nd team at home. Unfortunately both games were rained off without a ball being bowled, bringing to a close the 2011 season. The matches were sponsored by Town & Country Group.
Saturday 10th September, Standish 1st XI hosted Daisy Hill 1st XI at the Green Lane ground. Daisy Hill won the toss and put Standish into bat, wickets fell as early as the 2nd ball of the innings and continued to fall with regularity as Standish were finally dismissed for just 84 in the 46th over, only Sam Heeley with 25 troubling the scorers, A Ali recorded bowling figures of 12 overs 4 for 15. In reply Daisy Hill passed the target in the 12th over without loss. The match was sponsored by Elite Hair Beauty and the next and last match of the season is on Saturday 17th September.
Standish 2nd XI travelled across Wigan to take on Daisy Hill 2nd XI. Standish won the toss and batted first but it was a similar tale to the first XI with wickets falling early and with regularity. Only Gary Hadfield and Rob Hart troubled the scorers with 17 and 13 respectively, as Standish were bowled out for just 71 in the 36th over, A Irish recording bowling figures of 12 overs 5 for 23. It reply Daisy Hill made hard work of the run chase losing 7 wickets on the way but eventually passing the target in just the 19th over. Wickets were shared evenly between Jack Ashurst, Elliot Chapman, and Steve Critchley and Mike White taking 1. The match was sponsored by Elite Hair Beauty and the next and last match of the season is on Saturday 17th September.
Saturday 3rd September, Standish 1st XI welcomed local Wigan side Springview 1st XI at the Green Lane ground. Standish won the toss and started batting but 10 overs into their 48 the rain came and washed the fixture out, leaving both teams with a share of the points.
Standish 2nd XI travelled to Springview with a team mix of youth and experience. Standish won the toss and batted first posting a target of 100 all out in the 31st over, Jack Heaton hit his first 50* in senior cricket, and Springview’s C Atherton took 6 wickets for 24 runs. In reply Springview eased to victory in the 25th over for the loss of just 4 wickets.
Sunday 4th September, Standish 1st XI travelled to Edgworth CC on the Bolton Blackburn border. Edgworth won the toss and batted first scoring 232 in their 48 overs, Liam Watkinson (pro) and son of the ex Lancashire Cricket Captain hit 110. Sam Heeley took 7 wickets in 23 overs. In reply Standish started well reaching 53 without loss in the 13th over and right on course to make the game interesting. However, a typical Standish batting collapse was to ensue seeing 9 wickets fall for just 9 runs.
Edgworth 2nd XI were the visitors to the Green Lane ground and after winning the toss put Standish into bat. Standish were bowled out for 113 in the 43rd over, R Cobley top scored with 31, whilst J Axford took 5 wickets for 18 runs. In reply Edgworth passed the target in the 35th over for the loss of just 3 wickets, opener D Thornton scoring 51*.
Saturday 27th August, Standish 1st XI made the short journey to Blackrod. After overnight heavy rain there were doubts about the match taking place. Blackrod were keen to play the match as they were league leaders and worked hard to make the pitch playable. The match started at 15.00 and each side was reduced to just 30 overs. Blackrod won the toss and put Standish into bat. Standish offered little resistance to the Blackrod bowling attack and were dismissed for just 84 in the 27th over. W Ahmad recorded figures of 10 overs 3 for 26. In reply Blackrod raced to victory in just the 12th over for the loss of just 2 wickets, J Southworth hit 52 of the 85 runs needed. The match was sponsored by Christine Raynor Academy of Dance, the next match is on Saturday 3rd September against Springview CC.
The Standish 2nd XI game was rained off.
Saturday 20th August, Standish CC played Walshaw CC at the Green Lane ground. Standish CC won the toss and batted first. Standish scored slowly and had only 46 on the board for the loss of two wickets at the half way stage of their innings. Dark clouds began to gather and finally the rain fell with Standish on 112 for 4 in the 40th over, Sam Heeley on 36*. An early tea was taken as the rain continued to fall and the Standish innings came to a close without another run being added. The Walshaw target was originally adjusted to 93 from 30 overs. Rain again interrupted play in the Walshaw innings and what ensued could only be described as farcical. The original target of 93 from 30 overs was reduced to 67 from 26 overs after a 15 minute rain delay. Walshaw passed the target for the loss of 3 wickets in the 12th over. It was then decided that the target had been worked out wrongly and the target was 93 again. All this became irrelevant as the rain didn’t give way and the umpires finally called an end to proceedings at 19.15 with both teams taking a share of the spoils. The match was sponsored by Lucy Willow UK and the next match is Standish CC v Blackrod CC on Saturday 27th August.
Standish CC 2nd XI made the arduous journey to Walshaw with a weakened side. Standish batted first and were dismissed for just 86 in the 32nd over with Mike Hadfield 23 and Gary Hadfield 26. Rain again interrupted play before Walshaw were set a target of 67 to win, which they passed for the loss of just 2 wickets in the 17th over. The match was sponsored by Lucy Willow UK and the next match is Standish CC v Blackrod CC on Saturday 27th August.
Match Sponsored By Standish Print Co.
Saturday 13th August Standish CC 1st XI travelled across Wigan to take on Atherton CC. Atherton won the toss and put Standish into bat on what looked like a good wicket considering the overnight rain. Standish got off to an awful start losing both openers within 7 overs and with only 9 runs on the board. Sam Heeley came to the middle with Irfan Boola and started to steady the ship before Sam was given out lbw with the score on 45, Irfan went on to score a superb 63 and was the only batsman to trouble the Atherton bowling attack and the scorers. Standish were eventually dismissed for 124 in the 46th over. Atherton, in reply raced to 60 before losing their first wicket, a mini collapse then ensued giving Standish hope. Sadly it was too little to late as Atherton went on to 127 for 5 in the 35th over, Chris Gunn recording very respectable figures of 7 overs 3 for 28 and Irfan Boola 10 overs 2 for 22. The match was sponsored by Standish Print Co. the next match is Standish v Walshaw Saturday 20th August.
Atherton CC 2nd XI were the visitors to Standish CC’s Green Lane ground. Atherton won the toss and put Standish into bat which, looked like the right decision as the dismissed opener Daniel Walsh for 0 in the first over. Only Rob Cobley 31 and Steve Critchley 48* offered any resistance to the Atherton bowling attack with S Dixon recording figures of 7 overs 3 for 11 as Standish were dismissed for just 109 in the 32nd over. In reply Atherton cruised to victory in 30th over for the loss of just 4 wickets. The match was sponsored by Standish Print Co. the next match is Standish v Walshaw Saturday 20th August.
Saturday 6th August, Standish CC 1st XI took on Golborne CC 1st XI at the Green Lane ground in what promised to be a cracking between two sides struggling to find any form or rhythm to the season. Standish won the toss and put Golborne in to bat on what threatened to be a rain affected match. Standish made a good start ripping through the top order and reducing the visitors to 50 for 5 in the 13th over. Golborne went on to make 140 all out in the 33rd over with A Thomason top scoring with 30*,T Hassan recorded figures of 16 overs 4 for 64 and R Cobley 5.3 overs 3 for 15. In reply Standish got off to a poor start losing R Smith for 0 in the 2nd over and S Heeley for just 2 in the 4th over. J Cooper steadied the show and scored a superb 65 assisted by H Namajee 26 at the other end. By the time Cooper was out Standish needed 14 runs with 5 wickets in hand and some 11 overs to get them. A typical Standish batting collapse then ensued seeing the last wickets fall for just 12 runs and Golborne take all 13 points away. The match was sponsored by Town & Village Group, the next match is Standish CC v Atherton CC.
Standish CC 2nd XI travelled to Golborne and won the toss electing to bat first. Only R Hart 19 and N Smith 18 troubled the scorers as Standish scored 110 all out in the 42nd over, L Clarke with figures of 7.2 overs 5 for 10. In reply Standish had the home team 16 for 6 in the 9th over and, should have made it 20 for 7 shortly after but missed the opportunity which as it turned out cost them the game. A Farrimond went on to score and unbeaten 76* to see Golborne pass the target and home in the 25th over. C Gunn recorded figures of 7 overs 4 for 12. The match was sponsored by Town and Village Group, the next match is Standish CC v Atherton CC.
Sunday 31st July, Standish CC 1st XI made the journey to Elton CC in Bury. Standish won the toss and batted first, scoring just 107 all out in the 48th over, only J Cooper 27, U Khushnood 23 and S Heeley 21 really troubling the scorers, sadly 6 batsmen were dismissed without scoring!! In reply Elton passed the target in the 20th over for the loss of just 2 wickets. The match was sponsored by Prospect Garage, Standish, the next game is Saturday 6th August against Golborne.
In contrast a strong Standish 2nd XI won the toss at the Green Lane ground and, batted first posting a respectable 220 for 6 from their 48 overs, with P Walder 99 and J Fielding 41 putting the Elton bowling attack to the sword. Elton started well reaching 63 before losing their opener and 101 before the 2nd wicket went down. After that it was all one way as wickets fell without really troubling the scorers. Elton were dismissed for just 127, giving Standish a 93 run victory and all 13 points. P Walder and S Critchley both taking 5 wickets in the process. The match was sponsored by Prospect Garage, Standish and the next match is against Golborne.
Saturday 30th July, Standish CC 1st XI travelled to Flixton CC in Manchester on a beautiful summers days. Flixton won the toss and batted first posting 263 for 3 from their 48 overs. It was certainly a batting wicket as opener N Moores batted through scoring an unbeaten 114*, pro B Parchment posted a very useful 88 before falling victim to an lbw decision on a ball bowled by S Heeley who took all 3 wickets for Standish in the match. In reply Standish were bowled out for just 94 in the 31st over, with R Smith and T Hassan both top scoring with 18. The next match is on Sunday 31st July against Elton. The match was sponsored by Prospect Garage, Standish.
Standish CC 2nd XI welcomed Flixton CC 2nd XI to a sun soaked Green Lane ground. Standish won the toss and batted first posting a healthy 179 all out in 43 overs with R Cobley scoring 73. Flixton were reduced to 36 for 3 in the 6th over before steadying the ship and going on to pass the target in the 37th over for the loss of 5 wickets. The match was sponsored by Prospect Garage, Standish, and the next match see’s Elton CC 2nd XI visit the Green Lane ground.
Sunday 24th July, finally saw the Cross Cup Semi-Final between Standish CC 1st XI and Blackrod CC 1st XI take place at the Green Lane ground following last week’s wash out. Blackrod won the toss and put Standish in to bat on a warm summer’s day watched by a good crowd. Standish scored 163 for 9 from their 48 overs with R Smith 78 and S Heeley 47 scoring most of the runs. In reply Blackrod cruised home to win by 7 wickets and with 11 overs to spare, with the pro Z Elahi scoring and unbeaten 51* supported by C Sanderson 47. Standish CC wishes Blackrod CC well for the final against Flixton CC on 7th August at Atherton CC. The match was sponsored by Adlington Dry Stone Walling, the next game is against Flixton CC on Saturday 30th July.
Saturday 23rd July, saw Standish CC 1st XI take on Adlington CC 1st XI at the Green Lane ground. Standish won the toss and put Adlington into bat, Adlington were slow to score and were eventually bowled out for 116 with the pro M Majeed scoring almost half the team total. In reply Standish were undone by the pro again M Majeed as he went on to take 7 wickets leaving Standish 22 runs short of the target. The match was sponsored by Adlington Dry Stone Walling. The next home match see’s Standish 1st XI take on top of the league Blackrod in the Cross Cup Semi-Final.
Standish CC 2nd XI made the short journey to Adlington and after winning the toss put Adlington in to bat. Adlington made 198 for 9 from their 48 overs with openers P Shovelton 62 and L Kane 47 scoring most of the runs, A Lyon recorded figures of 12 overs 4 for 33 and A Fox 10 overs 3 for 24. In reply Only C Gunn with 44 made any impression as wickets tumbled with regularity from the 9th over before Standish were dismissed for 106 in the 36th over. The match was sponsored by Adlington Dry Stone Walling the next game is against Flixton CC Saturday 30th July.
Standish CC 2nd XI match with Darcy Lever due to take place at Green Lane was called off due to a water logged pitch.
Saturday 9th July, Saw the second half of the season start with the visit of top of the league Little Hulton 1st XI to Green Lane. Little Hulton won the toss and put Standish CC into bat, Standish batted well and were 65 for 1 at the midway point of the innings. Standish went on to 138 for 9 off their 48 overs with H Namajee top scoring with 41, the Little Hulton pro M Ali taking most of the wickets with figures of 7 for 72. In reply Little Hulton were 58 for 3 at drinks and the match lay in the balance, before once again M Ali the Little Hulton pro scored and unbeaten 65 as Little Hulton won the match by 6 wickets.
In the away fixture Standish CC 2nd XI travelled to Little Hulton. Little Hulton won the toss and again put Standish into bat. Standish were bowled out in the 24th over for 107 with 3 batsmen scoring most of the runs, J Heaton 28 and S Critchley 30 and E Chapman 19. In reply Little Hulton passed the target in the 20th over for the loss of just 4 wickets all taken by A Lyon. This weekend’s matches were sponsored by In Good Taste Takeaway. Next weekend sees Standish CC take on Darcy Lever in the League and Blackrod 1st XI in the Cross Cup semi-final on Sunday 17th at Standish.
Tuesday 5th July, Standish Owls took on Springview Vampires in a winner takes all T20 contest. The winners would progress to the semi-finals on Sunday 10th July at Highfields CC and hopefully on to the final later that same day. Springview Vampires batted first scoring 145 from their 20 overs, a target Standish have chased down before. Early wickets made the task harder until rain finally intervened to bring a premature halt to proceedings with Standish Owls needing around 80 runs from 5 overs. The rain meant Springview Vampires make it through to the final on Sunday and everyone at Standish CC wishes them well. The T20 tournament has been a great success at Standish CC with good crowds and a good atmosphere creating the perfect summer tournament. We are all looking forward to next year’s competition. Thank you for your support over the past month.
Sunday 3rd July, Standish 1st XI welcomed bottom of the league Astley & Tyldesley to their Green Lane ground, on another beautiful summers day. A good crowd watched as Standish batted first and scored 175 for 9 from their 48 overs, with H Namajee 33 top scoring and being supported well by the top order. In reply Astley & Tyldesley lost early wickets and only 88 from J MacDougal made the innings look respectable with Astley & Tyldesley being bowled out for 151 in the 41st over, S Heeley 6 for 45 and T Hassan 3 for 54 did the damage with the ball.
Standish 2nd XI made the journey to Astley & Tyldesley. A & T won the toss and put Standish in to bat, only 3 Standish batsmen scoring double figures as Standish were dismissed for 83 in only the 26th over. A & T only took 19 overs to pass the target and lost just 2 wickets on the way. All in all a weekend of mixed fortune for Standish CC but wins at home in front of good crowds is always pleasing. Matches were sponsored by Zeera Indian Takeaway, Standish next match is Standish v Little Hulton Saturday 9th July.
Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd July saw the midway point of the Bolton & District Association Cricket League season, and saw Standish CC do battle with Daisy Hill and Astley & Tyldesely over the 2 days. On Saturday 2nd July Standish CC 1st XI travelled to Daisy Hill, after winning the toss Standish batted first and got off to a really good start on a beautiful summers day made just for cricket. At the midway point of their innings Standish were 85 for 2 and on course for big total. Standish finished on 174 for 9 with the openers U Khushnood 44 and R Smith 38 topping the scoring. After a fine tea Daisy Hill set about the task of chasing the target of 175 to win, which looked like a good score set by Standish. Daisy Hill lost their opener in the 4th over for just 6 runs which brought A Davies to the crease who hit an unbeaten 86* partnered by M Chilton 71 as Daisy Hill eased to victory in the 36th over losing only 2 wickets on the way.
In contrast, Standish 2nd XI entertained Daisy Hill 2nd XI at the Green Lane ground. Standish won the toss and put Daisy Hill in to bat. Daisy Hill never got started as Standish ripped through the batting order with ease, only A Arkwright making double figures, before Daisy Hill were all out for 58 in the 31st over, R Cobley and C Gunn were the pick of the bowlers with 4 for 22 and 3 for 11 respectively. Standish cruised to victory in the 13th over with J Heaton 21 and D Walsh 17* doing most of the damage, although 13 extras was a close 3rd. Matches were sponsored by Zeera Indian Takeaway, Standish, next match is Standish v Little Hulton Saturday 9th July.
Tuesday 28th June, Standish Owls T20 team took on Winstanley Park Panthers at the Green Lane ground in front of good home crowd. Winstanley Park Panthers batted first and posted a healthy total of 144 for 8 from their 20 overs at a run rate of 7.2 per over. In reply Standish Owls cruised to victory in the 17th over led by 76 from Sam Heeley. Next match is on Friday 1st July at Westleigh Lions.
Saturday 25th June, Standish CC 1st XI welcomed Edgworth CC to Green Lane, Standish. Edgworth won the toss and put Standish in to bat on a damp wicket from the morning’s rain, and probably with half a mind on possible later in the day judging by the clouds. Standish made a good start and scored 120 for 7 from their reduced innings of 39 overs, H Namajee 52. In reply Edgworth cruised to 124 for 2 and victory with a commanding innings from ex Lancashire and England player Mike Watkinson scoring an unbeaten 47.
Standish CC 2nd XI travelled all the way to Edgworth on the border of Bolton and Blackburn only for the game to be called off due to a water logged pitch. The weekend’s matches were sponsored by Ocean Security Systems. Next weekend sees 2 games with Daisy Hill and Astley & Tyldesley visiting the Green Lane ground.
Tuesday 21st June, Standish Owls 20/20 team welcomed Golborne Giants to the Green Lane ground. With coloured kit, music and entertainment it was just like an IPL match. A good crowd watched as Standish posted a target of 113 from their 20 overs. Golborne lost wickets early and regularly before steadying the innings and closing in on the target, however Standish finished the job and won the match in front of a good crowd. Next 20/20 match is Tuesday 28th June.
Sunday 19th June, Standish CC 1st XI played Springview again but this time in the 2nd round of the cross cup at Green Lane. Springview won the toss and put Standish in to bat. H Namajee with 31 and A Hill with 34 both contributed to a final total 143 all out in the 45th over. A positive Standish side took to the field after lunch claiming wickets immediately and reducing Springview to 8 for 3 before B Ernst steadied the innings with 68. Standish continued to press with some excellent fielding and bowling and finally bowled Springview out 13 runs short of the target, sending Standish CC into the semi-finals against Blackrod.
Standish 2nd XI travelled to Astley & Tyldesley for their 2nd round cup tie and after winning the toss batted first. Standish struggled to get going with S Critchley top scoring with 16 as the innings came to a premature close in the 26th over for just 88. A & T took no time to pass the target for the loss of no wickets, J Tyson *58 and D Kershaw 28*. The matches were sponsored by Dermots Barber Shop of Standish, next game Standish CC v Edgworth CC Saturday 25th June 13.30 start.
Saturday 18th June, Standish CC 1st XI made the short journey across Wigan to play local rivals Springview CC. Standish won the toss and put Springview into bat, wondering if weather might play a hand in the day. Springview scored 179 runs all out in the 41st over, with T Hassan and I Boola both taking 3 wickets. In reply Standish were undone by a wicket that produced some very uneven bounce, before finally being bowled out for 122 in the 37th over, A Hill was unbeaten on 28 and looked in fine form.
Standish CC 2nd XI welcomed Springview CC to Green Lane in the reverse fixture. Standish won the toss and put Springview in to bat. Springview went on to score 260 for 7 in their 48 overs with S Hodgkinson scoring more than half the teams total with an unbeaten 137. After lunch Standish got off to a good start racing to 102 for 2 in the 14th over. It looked like a good game was going to be had on another fine Standish batting wicket. Unfortunately it was not to be as the Standish middle and lower order collapsed to 179 all out in the 34th over. The matches were sponsored by Dermots Barber Shop of Standish.
Saturday 11th June, saw Standish CC 1st XI entertain Blackrod CC at the Green Lane ground. Blackrod won the toss and batted first, Sam Heeley led the team by example taking an excellent 1 handed diving catch also becoming the youngest ever 1st XI captain at just 20 to captain Standish CC. Blackrod scored 152 all out in the 48th over, with all the 4 of the Standish bowlers taking wickets and giving Standish a real chance to record a victory. In reply, Standish ran Blackrod close with R Smith scoring 67 of the team’s total of 139 in a hard fought game.
Standish CC 2nd XI made the short journey to Blackrod in the reverse fixture which saw Standish win the toss and put Blackrod in to bat. Blackrod amassed a target of 238 for 6 off their 48 overs giving Standish a huge mountain to climb, J Ashurst was the pick of the bowlers with 3 for 43 off 10 overs. In reply Standish lost wickets early and regularly making the task very difficult from as early as the 3rd over. Standish were all out for just 65 runs in the 24th over with only A Hill and J Heaton troubling the scorers with 16 runs each. The matches were sponsored by Suzanne Dennis Opticians of Standish, next game is Saturday 18th June against Spring View.
Saturday 4th June, Standish 1st XI travelled to Walshaw in Bury to take on the unbeaten league leaders with full strength side on a beautiful summer’s day. Walshaw won the toss and batted first. Standish restricted Walshaw to 62 for 2 at the drinks break, however, dropped catches allowed Walshaw to post a target of 204 from the 48 overs. Standish never really got going and failed yet again to build any partnerships losing wickets on a regular basis after the fall of the first wicket in the 12th over. Standish were all out for 123 in the 37th over with R Smith 32 and S Heeley 31*.
In the reverse fixture Standish 2nd XI welcomed bottom of the table Walshaw to Green Lane. Standish won the toss and batted first posting a target of 161 in 40 overs with N Smith 40, S Sutherland 24, J Heaton 22 and A Hill 20 being the main contributors to the total. In reply Walshaw lost early wickets and were reduced to 27 for 6 before 7th wicket partnership propelled them to 113 in the 28th over. Walshaw were finally bowled out in the 33rd over for 138, with R Cobley taking 5 for 28 and E Chapman 4 for 43. The match sponsor was Waggs Boutique and the next home game is Saturday 11th June, Standish v Blackrod starting at 13.30.
Saturday 28th May, Standish 1st XI hosted Atherton 1st XI at the Green Lane ground. Atherton won the toss and put Standish into bat. Standish never got going with the top 4 batsmen all scoring double figures and totalling 47 of the final total of 68 for the team. Atherton never looked comfortable against the pace of T Hassan who claimed 3 for 31, supported by some excellent fielding. Atherton passed the target in the 20th over for the loss of 4 wickets giving them all 13 league points. The match was sponsored by The Beauty Room, Standish. Next game Saturday 4th June against Walshaw.
In the reverse fixture Standish 2nd XI travelled to Atherton to play their 2nd XI. Atherton won the toss and put Standish in to bat. Standish struggled against a good opening bowling partnership with only M Hadfield 33 and H Whittington 18* reaching double fixtures, as Standish were all out for 93 in the 39th over. In reply Atherton cruised to victory passing the target in the 20th over for the loss of just 2 wickets.
Saturday 21st May, Standish 1st XI travelled to Golborne last Saturday with a full strength side. Golborne won the toss and put Standish into bat. Standish made a good start and were 82 for 2 at the halfway stage of their innings, with plenty of batting still to come. Standish went on to make 171 for 7 from their 48 overs. In reply Golborne looked solid from the start and were 81 for 2 at the halfway stage of their inning’s setting up what looked like an interesting finish. Standish battled hard in very windy conditions however, Golbourne passed the target in the 45th over for the loss of 5 wickets.
Standish 2nd XI took on Golborne 2nd XI in the return fixture at Green Lane. Golborne won the toss and elected to bat first. At the halfway stage of their innings Golborne were 78 for 3 and on course for a reasonable score, with wickets in hand. Standish used their bowlers well and bowled Golborne out for 98 in the 36th over, with S Sutherland 10 overs 4 for 24 and S Critchley 9 overs 4 for 13 doing most of the damage. In reply Standish reached passed the target in the 26th over for the loss of just 2 wickets, J Heaton with an unbeaten 37*. The matches were sponsored by FX Leisure, next match Standish v Atherton 28th May starting at 13.30.
Saturday 14th May, Standish 1st XI entertained Elton 1st XI at the Green Lane ground in Standish. Elton won the toss and put Standish into bat on a day that would surely be rain affected. Standish had their best start so far this season scoring well and racing to 68 in the 11th over before R Cobley 45 was caught behind. R Smith 31 was bowled in the 17th over before rain ended the Standish innings on 122 for 5 with 16 overs to go. Elton had a reduced target of 96 from 24 overs when play finally resumed and eased to victory with 6 overs to go for the loss of 3 wickets. Standish had battled hard trying to keep Elton contained and took a couple of early wickets with good catches made it look interesting, but sadly the rain had already done the damage earlier.
Standish 2nd XI travelled to Elton for the 2nd team fixture and won the toss electing to bat. Standish made a good start reaching 33 by the 10th over before losing their first wicket. From there on in the batting collapsed with Standish all out for just 83 in the 30th over. Once again rain affected the match and Elton were left needing just 73 from 24 overs to win. Elton cruised to victory in the 11th over without loss. This week’s matches were sponsored by Mark Fraser Builders. Next week Standish play Golborne starting at 13.30.
Saturday 7th May, saw Standish 1st XI host Flixton 1st XI at the Green Lane ground. In a weather affected match which was shortened to 34 overs Standish won the toss and fielded first. Standish CC’s new signings S Sutherland and T Hassan opened the bowling taking wickets in the 2nd, 6th and 8th over reducing the visitors to 4 for 42 with the Flixton Sub Pro run out cheaply for just 4 runs. S Sutherland finishing with figures of 8 overs 3 for 37 and T Hassan 12 overs 3 for 72. Flixton went on to amass a score of 198 all out in the 34th over. In reply Standish never got going with only 3 players making double figures with the bat. Standish finally collapsed to 78 for 10 in the 30th over with G Edwards retiring from the game injured.
In the reverse fixture Standish 2nd XI travelled to Flixton in Manchester with a mix of youth and experience in the side. Standish won the toss and put Flixton in to bat fearing weather would interrupt the already shortened game (34 overs). Flixton scored 254 for 5 in their 34 overs with J Alcock taking 3 for 56. Standish offered little resistance to the Flixton bowling attack with J Heaton 36 being the only batsman to trouble the scorers, as the team were all out for 57 in the 22nd over. The match was sponsored by Jackson Opticians and the next game is on Saturday 14th May against Elton.
Saturday 30th April, saw Standish 1st XI make the short journey to Adlington. After winning the toss Standish put Adlington in to bat. With some excellent bowling and fielding Standish restricted Adlington to 55 to 2 at the drinks break, Adlington went on to make 148 all out in the 46th over, with S Heeley with figures of 10 overs 2 maidens 4 for 38. In reply Standish started well and looked on top with S Maiden 36, R Cobley 21, before R Smith got 36, a couple of quick wickets then upset the rhythm before S Heeley 29 came to the crease. In a very tight game the points were shared as Standish were also all out 148 on the last ball of the game.
In the reverse fixture a well supported Standish 2nd XI entertained Adlington at the Green Lane ground. Standish won the toss and put Adlington into bat. Adlington scored 169 all out in the 45th over, C Gunn with figures of 12 overs 2 maidens 3 for 38 and J Alcock 8 overs 3 for 26. Standish battled well to get themselves in contention with N Smith 72, C Chapman 23 but sadly the target was just 15 runs too many giving Adlington the victory, as Standish were bowled out for 155 in the 43rd over. The match was sponsored by Elaine Stewart Hair & Beauty. Next game Saturday 7th May Standish v Flixton.
Saturday 23rd April, saw Standish CC welcome Darcy Lever to the Green Lane ground for the first home game of the 1st XI season. Darcy Lever won the toss and put Standish in to bat on a grey overcast afternoon. Standish started well scoring freely in the first few overs, with R Cobley racing to 20 before being bowled. R Smith came to the crease with the score at 21 for 1. Smith was the only other batsman to trouble the scorers with a score of 41 before being caught on the boundary as Standish were all out for just 90 in 27.5 overs. Darcy Lever took just 17 overs to pass the target without loss, M Fawcett *50 and S Crook *42.
Standish 2nd XI played the reverse fixture travelling to Darcy Lever with a mix of youth and experience. Darcy Lever won the toss and batted first collapsing to 29 for 7 in just 12 overs and finishing on 121 all out in the 36th over. Youngsters C Gunn recording figures of 11.3 overs 3 maidens 5 for 19 and E Chapman 10 overs 1 maiden 3 for 41, and J Alcock 4 overs 2 for 13. In reply Standish were 13 for 4 in the 10th over but went on to win the match by 3 wickets passing the target in the 36th over. M Hadfield top scored with 33, T Atkinson 21, C Chapman 20 and S Critchley *12. Thanks to the match sponsor Stores Direct Ltd the next game is Standish CC v Adlington CC on 30th April, 13.30 start.
Saturday 16th April, saw the start of the cricket season for most clubs up and down the country and Standish CC were no exception. An injury hit 1st XI travelled to Little Hulton in the Bolton & District Cricket Association League for the first game of the season. After losing the toss and being put into bat wickets fell as early as the second and third ball on a good looking wicket. Jonathan Cooper was the only Standish batsman to trouble the scorers with an unbeaten 84* in an innings totalling 124. In reply Little Hulton passed the target in the 21st over for the loss of 5 wickets, with Andrew Fox recording figures of 6 over's 1 maiden 4 for 16. Little Hulton won by 5 wickets.
Standish CC 2nd XI played the reverse fixture at the home ground of Green Lane. Again Little Hulton won the toss and put Standish CC in to bat. Standish managed 68 all out using just 27.2 of the 48 over's, with only 3 batsmen recording double figures. In reply Little Hulton passed the target in the 15th over for the loss of just one wicket. Little Hulton won by 9 wickets. The match ball was sponsored by the Wigan Courier and the next game sees Darcy Lever visit Standish, with a 13.30 start time. | 2019-04-24T16:29:37Z | http://www.standishcc.co.uk/match-reports |
FindACase | In re Adoption of T.M.M.H.
In the Matter of the Adoption of T.M.M.H.
Review of the judgment of the Court of Appeals in an unpublished opinion filed December 2, 2016.
1. The Kansas Constitution imposes a case-or-controversy requirement. Part of that requirement, and a component of subject matter jurisdiction, is standing. Standing concerns a litigant's ability to seek a judicial remedy or to seek judicial enforcement of a right or duty.
2. If a statute provides the basis for asserting a right to seek a judicial remedy, a multilevel analysis applies to the determination of standing: First, courts analyze standing as a matter of statute and, second, as a matter of common law. To meet the common-law requirement, the party seeking to establish standing must establish a sufficient stake in the outcome to obtain judicial resolution of the controversy. Meeting only one prong or the other is insufficient; both prongs must be established.
3. Adoption, including adoption by a stepparent, was not recognized at common law, and subject matter jurisdiction over such a proceeding is created by statute. The Kansas Adoption and Relinquishment Act (KARA), K.S.A. 59-2111 et seq., sets out who should be given notice, who must consent, and who may participate in a stepparent adoption proceeding.
4. Statutory standing in an adoption case on appeal is governed, in part, by K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 59-2401a(a), (b), which allows an "interested party" to bring an appeal from any final order, judgment, or decree in an adoption proceeding.
5. Under K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 59-2401a(e)(1), (e)(7), or (e)(8), an "interested party" in an adoption proceeding could be a parent, the petitioner, or a person granted interested party status by the court from which the appeal is being taken.
6. Simply pressing a point without pertinent authority, or without showing why it is sound despite a lack of supporting authority, is akin to failing to brief an issue. Where the appellant fails to brief an issue, that issue is waived or abandoned.
7. The nature of the burden to establish the elements of standing, which rests with the party asserting it, depends on the stage of the proceedings-whether the question of standing has arisen at the pleading stage, through motions supported by affidavits or other facts, or at the final stage of trial.
8. A party asserting a claim on appeal bears the burden to designate facts in the record on appeal to support that claim; without such a record, appellate courts presume the action of the district court was proper.
9. Under Supreme Court Rule 8.03(a)(4)(C) (2018 Kan. S.Ct. R. 53), when this court reviews a decision of the Kansas Court of Appeals, it will not consider issues not presented or fairly included in the petition for review.
10. Although Supreme Court Rule 165 (2018 Kan. S.Ct. R. 215) requires a district court to make adequate findings and conclusions regarding contested matters, a party also has the obligation to object to inadequate findings of fact and conclusions of law in order to preserve an issue for appeal because this gives the trial court an opportunity to correct any findings or conclusions that are argued to be inadequate.
Appeal from Johnson District Court; Michael P. Joyce, judge.
Joseph W. Booth, of Lenexa, argued the cause and was on the briefs for appellant legal custodian-grandmother.
Suzanne Valdez, of Smith Legal, L.L.C., of Lawrence, argued the cause and was on the briefs for appellee stepfather.
Linus L. Baker, of Stilwell, was on the brief for amicus curiae National Association for Grandparenting.
Lindsee A. Acton and Warren H. Scherich III, of Scherich Family Law, PC, of Shawnee were on the brief for amicus curiae National Association of Social Workers and the Kansas Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.
In this appeal, a paternal grandmother (Grandmother) appeals a district court's determination that she was not an interested party in a stepparent adoption proceeding relating to her grandson, T.M.M.H. She acknowledges precedent that holds a grandparent is not typically an interested party who has standing in stepparent adoption cases. Nevertheless, she asserts her circumstances distinguish her from other grandparents and give rise to a number of legal theories that serve as a basis for granting her interested party status and recognizing her standing to challenge the stepparent adoption. These theories depend on or arise from (1) court orders in a separate grandparent visitation case that is not the subject of this appeal, (2) agreements between the Grandmother and T.M.M.H.'s biological mother (Mother), and (3) the relationship that developed between Grandmother and T.M.M.H. as a result of the custodial arrangements agreed to by Mother and Grandmother or ordered by the court in the separate case.
We reject these arguments on procedural grounds and conclude Grandmother has failed to meet her burden of establishing her standing.
T.M.M.H., who was born on November 5, 2006, was a few months old when his father died in 2007. When T.M.M.H. was young, Mother and Grandmother agreed he would live for a period of time with Grandmother. We know little about this agreement. Whatever the initial arrangement may have been between Mother and Grandmother, at some point in 2008, Grandmother filed a petition in district court for grandparent visitation.
Several years later, on August 6, 2015, this stepparent adoption case was filed to formally endow Mother's husband (Stepfather) with parental rights to T.M.M.H. The visitation case, which continues to be litigated, and the adoption case remained as separate proceedings in the Johnson County District Court. The two cases were not consolidated, and they were assigned to different judges.
Since T.M.M.H.'s birth, Mother and Grandmother have apparently reached several agreements. Some appear-or at least the initial agreement appears-to have been reached outside of any court process and others as part of the visitation case. In the parties' arguments, the agreements are referred to by different names, including "private parenting contract" and "parenting plan."
In February 2015, the court handling the grandparent visitation case held a three-day trial. It is unclear what prompted the hearing or what evidence was presented. On April 13, 2015, the district court issued a journal entry and order, which is included in the record of this case. The order "granted joint legal custody." It also required "the minor child be reintegrated into [Mother's] life and family." The court retained the authority to "make decisions [related] to joint legal custody, but only when the parties are unable to do so." The issue was set for rehearing on June 25, 2015. It is unknown if that rehearing occurred and, if so, its result.
About six weeks later, Stepfather filed a Petition for Adoption in Johnson County District Court. Mother consented. The court appointed a Guardian ad Litem, set the petition for hearing, and required notice "be provided to all interested parties hereto, including but not limited to [Grandmother]." The court adopted the language of Stepfather's proposed order without independently analyzing whether Grandmother was an interested party entitled to notice at this point in the adoption proceeding.
Grandmother responded to the notice by, among other things, arguing the stepparent adoption petition collaterally attacked the orders in the visitation case and impeded her rights. She later moved to compel depositions. In a January 6, 2016, telephonic hearing, the court sua sponte questioned Grandmother's status as an interested party and, correspondingly, her standing. Grandmother then propounded discovery requests. In response, Stepfather asserted Grandmother's lack of standing. Grandmother filed a verified response, but no hearing was held to allow the formal admission of evidence related to standing. On February 26, 2016, the court issued its "Order Regarding Standing and Denying Motion to Compel Depositions, " in which it concluded Grandmother had standing to receive notice but lacked standing to participate in the case, was not an interested party in the adoption proceeding, and could not compel depositions.
In determining Grandmother's standing, the stepparent adoption court reviewed K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 59-2129(c), which lists the parties whose consent is required for a stepparent adoption. The court noted grandparents, even those with visitation, are not entitled to notice under the statute. The court acknowledged Grandmother had joint legal custody arising out of a case that began as an action for grandparent visitation under K.S.A. 38-129(b) (now codified at K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 23-3301[c]), but found the custody arrangement did not confer standing. The court rejected Grandmother's position that she was a permanent legal custodian, finding the only basis for awarding such status is the Kansas Code for Care of Children, specifically K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 38-2272. The court ruled its decision was controlled by Browning v. Tarwater, 215 Kan. 501, 524 P.2d 1135 (1974) (grandmother not an interested party, not entitled to notice of stepparent adoption), and In re Adoption of J.A.B., 26 Kan.App.2d 959, 969, 997 P.2d 98 (2000) (no error in district court holding grandparent had standing to participate in adoption proceeding solely on issue of visitation but "grandparents' rights in the adoption proceeding are limited to a determination of whether reasonable visitation should be granted").
Grandmother appealed, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the district court. In re Adoption of T.M.M.H., No. 115, 309, 2016 WL 7032112 (Kan. App. 2016) (unpublished opinion).
The Court of Appeals panel began its legal analysis by questioning whether jurisdiction existed because the appeal had not been taken from a final order. 2016 WL 7032112, at *2. The panel concluded it had jurisdiction under the collateral order doctrine because the district court order conclusively determined the issue of Grandmother's standing; the standing issue was an important one separate from the merits of the adoption; and an immediate appeal was required because, otherwise, Grandmother would be powerless to appeal a final judgment in the adoption proceeding. 2016 WL 7032112, at *3.
Next, the panel addressed the significance of the joint legal custody arrangement between Mother and Grandmother. The panel looked to Kansas statutes for a definition of joint legal custody. The only reference it found was in the context of custody between divorcing parents. The panel then looked to the record for clarification of the nature of the agreement between Mother and Grandmother. It found the record contained only two relevant documents: a journal entry filed in the grandparent visitation case on September 30, 2015, and the order finding Grandmother lacked standing in the stepparent adoption case. The panel concluded Grandmother failed to designate sufficient facts to support her claim; the district court decision was proper in the absence of a sufficient record; and Kansas statutory law did not require a different result. 2016 WL 7032112, at *6.
The panel then considered whether grandparents have any rights in cases of stepparent adoption generally. 2016 WL 7032112, at *6. The panel reviewed the persons who are required to provide consent to a stepparent's adoption, which does not include a grandparent even when the grandparent has visitation rights. The panel ruled the statute authorized the district court to provide notice to Grandmother, which the district court had done, but that notice did not give Grandmother a right to "conduct depositions or otherwise participate in the adoption hearing." 2016 WL 7032112, at *6.
The panel, while acknowledging that Grandmother's relationship was unique, observed that guardianship was the legal status most analogous to that conferred upon Grandmother. 2016 WL 7032112, at *7. The panel then determined that the parental preference doctrine applied. It rejected Grandmother's argument that Mother had waived her parental preference by agreeing to share joint legal custody with Grandmother, because Grandmother failed to meet her burden of proving a knowing waiver of the preference. 2016 WL 7032112, at *8.
Finally, the panel rejected Grandmother's argument that she should be allowed to participate in the stepparent adoption to advocate for the best interests of the child, concluding the best interests test did "not apply in determining a fit parent's custodial right as against a third-party nonparent's right." 2016 WL 7032112, at *8. The panel concluded: "[E]ven if the record had fully supported Grandmother's claim that her status as a joint legal custodian of the child generally gives her the right to make decisions in the best interests of the child, that right must yield to the conflicting right of the fit Mother." 2016 WL 7032112, at *8.
Grandmother filed a petition seeking this court's review of the Court of Appeals decision, which we granted.
The sole issue in this case is whether the district court erred when it determined Grandmother was not an interested party-and therefore did not have standing-to participate in the stepparent adoption. That issue requires us to interpret Kansas statutes and the legal effect of the parties' agreement and court orders. These are questions of law over which this court exercises unlimited review. State ex rel. Secretary of DCF v. Smith, 306 Kan. 40, 48, 392 P.3d 68 (2017) (statutory interpretation); Gannon v. State, 298 Kan. 1107, 1122, 319 P.3d 1196 (2014) (standing); Frazier v. Goudschaal, 296 Kan. 730, 748, 295 P.3d 542 (2013) (interpretation and legal effect of written instruments).
To explore the issue of standing, we necessarily start with some basic principles: The Kansas Constitution imposes a case-or-controversy requirement. Sierra Club v. Moser, 298 Kan. 22, 29, 310 P.3d 360 (2013); State ex rel. Morrison v. Sebelius, 285 Kan. 875, 895-96, 179 P.3d 366 (2008). Part of that requirement, and a component of our subject matter jurisdiction, is standing. Sierra Club, 298 Kan. at 29. We have described standing as "'a party's right to make a legal claim or seek judicial enforcement of a duty or a right.'" KNEA v. State, 305 Kan. 739, 746, 387 P.3d 795 (2017).
Before us, Grandmother argues the Court of Appeals erroneously focused on various statutes to determine if she had standing to contest the adoption proceeding rather than focusing on whether she met the common-law standing test. Under the common-law test a party seeking to establish standing must have a "sufficient stake in the outcome of an otherwise justiciable controversy in order to obtain judicial resolution of that controversy." Moorehouse v. City of Wichita, 259 Kan. 570, 574, 913 P.2d 172 (1996). Accordingly, Grandmother at least implies she need only establish common-law standing.
In making this argument, Grandmother does not discuss the two-prong standing test that applies when a statute provides the basis for asserting a right to seek a judicial remedy. Under this test, courts analyze standing as a matter of (1) statute and (2) common law. Sierra Club, 298 Kan. at 29. Meeting only one prong or the other is insufficient; both prongs must be established. See Cochran v. Kansas Dept. of Agriculture, 291 Kan. 898, 908-09, 249 P.3d 434 (2011).
The first question, of course, is whether that test applies in adoption proceedings. Most cases applying the test arise under the Kansas Judicial Review Act (KJRA), K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 77-601 et seq., but it has been applied when standing is dictated by other statutes as well. E.g., Friends of Bethany Place v. City of Topeka, 297 Kan. 1112, 1121-22, 307 P.3d 1255 (2013) (plaintiff-association required to establish standing under the Historic Preservation Act and traditional-associational standing); Cochran, 291 Kan. at 903-10 (considering standing under the Kansas Water Appropriation Act and KJRA when both provided a basis for standing and were not in conflict with each other and traditional standing analysis).
Grandmother does not suggest any reason both prongs of the standing test would not apply in a stepparent adoption case, and several aspects of adoption law suggest that the statutory test must be met. Indeed, "[a]doption was not recognized at common law, and subject matter jurisdiction over such a proceeding is created by statute." In re Adoption of H.C.H., 297 Kan. 819, 825, 304 P.3d 1271 (2013). Likewise, "[t]he right to appeal [in civil cases, including actions involving parental rights, ] is entirely statutory and is not a right contained in the United States or Kansas Constitutions." In re T.S.W., 294 Kan. 423, 432, 276 P.3d 133 (2012). Furthermore, past cases of this court dealing with standing issues in the context of adoption have focused on statutory standing, even if not explicitly using those words or setting out the two-prong test.
For example, in Browning, this court recognized a stepparent adoption would impact a grandmother's ability to exercise her visitation rights with her grandchild. In other words, she would suffer injury. But instead of deciding standing on that basis-i.e., common-law standing-the court examined the statute that dictated who must consent to an adoption. Noting that the grandmother's consent was not required in the stepparent adoption, the court concluded there was nothing she "could have done to defeat the adoption" and she was not an interested party. 215 Kan. at 506.
This same conclusion applies in this case as it relates to Grandmother's status as a grandparent with visitation rights. But she asserts additional grounds for her standing. Even as to those, however, Browning instructs that statutory standing must be established in addition to common-law standing.
Consequently, we hold Grandmother, in order to appeal, must establish both statutory and common-law standing; she cannot rely solely on common-law standing.
Statutory standing in the current adoption case is governed, in part, by K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 59-2401a, which is not found in the Kansas Adoption and Relinquishment Act (KARA), K.S.A. 59-2111 et seq., but explicitly includes appeals in adoption cases. In an adoption proceeding, "an interested party" may bring an appeal "from any final order, judgment or decree." K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 59-2401a(a), (b).
The Court of Appeals panel, focusing on this statute, issued a show cause order and eventually asked the parties to brief the question of whether a final order was being appealed. Ultimately, the panel determined a final order was not involved but the appeal could still be brought under the collateral order doctrine. 2016 WL 7032112, at *3. Stepfather did not cross-petition for review of this issue. Typically, this would preclude our review of the question. See Supreme Court Rule 8.03(h)(1) (2018 Kan. S.Ct. R. 56) ("[I]ssues before the Supreme Court include all issues properly before the Court of Appeals which the petition for review or cross-petition allege were decided erroneously by the Court of Appeals."); State v. Keenan, 304 Kan. 986, 993, 377 P.3d 439 (2016) ("Because the State did not cross-petition to challenge the Court of Appeals' preservation ruling in favor of [the defendant], we will not consider whether the panel erred on this point.").
Nevertheless, because jurisdiction may be raised sua sponte by a court, this rule may not be applicable in this situation. See Kansas Bldg. Industry Workers Comp. Fund v. State, 302 Kan. 656, 666, 359 P.3d 33 (2015) ("An appellate court can make a sua sponte inquiry into whether it has jurisdiction over a question presented to it on appeal."). In this case, however, little would be gained by reopening the question without further briefing by the parties, especially when we determine Grandmother has failed to establish a record sufficient to show she meets the interested party requirement of K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 59-2401a, which means this court lacks jurisdiction over this appeal on that basis even if the lack of a final order is not determinative.
To explain our conclusion that this court lacks jurisdiction, we return to K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 59-2401a, which defines "interested party" by listing eight categories of individuals. One provision relates only to adoption cases; it specifies that "'interested party'" means: "The parent in a proceeding pursuant to" the KARA. K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 59-2401a(e)(1). But two general provisions apply as well. One general provision allows an appeal by "the petitioner in the case on appeal" and the other by "any other person granted interested party status by the court from which the appeal is being taken." K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 59-2401a(e)(7), (8). | 2019-04-25T18:10:59Z | http://ks.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20180511_0000522.KS.htm/qx |
EDITORS' INTRODUCTION: The two texts that followthey are actually two parts of a single essayare of crucial importance for an understanding of the Russian Orthodox Church under the Communist Yoke. They were written by a true confessor of Orthodoxy, who died in prison in the Soviet Union in 1971 for having written these and similar texts. They are presented here as a direct response to the plea of the author himself (p. 484 of Russias Catacomb Saints): "This betrayal... must be made known to all believers in Russia and abroad, because such an activity of the Patriarchate... represents a great danger for all believers." The texts are primary documents exposing with direct and irrefutable proof the conscious betrayal of Russian Orthodoxy by its own hierarchs.
Russian Orthodoxy todaybetrayed by its hierarchs in the USSR, and represented only by the free bishops abroad and by a remnant of the faithful at home and abroadlives in expectation of a restoration of true and canonical church order. This will doubtless come only at the longed-for Council of all Russian Orthodoxy after the fall of the Communist regime, when those who have kept the faith will be justified. For this restoration of true order the writings of Boris Talantov will be invaluable testimony. For they come from one who consciously experienced the Soviet Yoke from its beginning and they thus testify from within not only to the facts of Russian church life during those years, but more importantly, to the attitude toward them of the Orthodox faithful. Previously this had been known to some extent through those who had escaped from the USSR, but from within the country there was nothing to be heard but the repetitious propaganda of the Moscow Patriarchate, which attempted to drown out the truth and did indeed succeed in duping whole generations of gullible church figures in the West. But now as the culmination of a decade of protests, the true attitudes of the faithful who remain in Russia have become known.
Boris Talantov, as these texts reveal, did not leave the communion of the Moscow Patriarchate; even though he was sympathetic to the members of the True Orthodox (Catacomb) Church whom he knew, he nonetheless repeats the standard Soviet terminology in calling this Church a "sect." Here surely, one may be allowed to disagree. Without passing judgment on those who remain in the Patriarchate, we abroad can nonetheless not help but see that the solution of the present crisis of the Moscow Patriarchatewhich is actually the culmination, as Talantov points out, of the betrayal of 1927 cannot come from within the Patriarchate alone, but must come from the whole confessing Orthodox Church of Russia: the believers in the Catacombs who remain faithful to the testaments of Metropolitan Joseph and the many bishops in 1927 who declared the "Sergianist" Church schismatic, the true believers who remain in the Patriarchate; and the Church Outside of Russia. About the latter it is hardly likely that Talantov could have had any unbiased information. It must be remembered, then, that these documents offer, not a complete picture of the state of Russian Orthodoxy today, but rather an authentic voice of the Orthodox faithful within the USSR, and specifically of the Moscow Patriarchate's own flock. These texts, however, are doubtless some of the primary documents from which the "complete picture" of 20th-century Russian Orthodoxy will one day be known.
The two texts are here presented in full, without omissions or additions of any kind, as translated from the Russian manuscripts obtained in 1968 from an absolutely reliable source in Paris by the Rev. Michael Bordeaux of the Center for the Study of Religion and Communism. The two titles and all parentheses and emphases (italics) in the text are those of the original, all notes and comments of the translators have been confined to the footnotes. The texts are published here with the kind permission of Rev. Bordeaux.
IN ENGLAND there has appeared a book by Nikita Strove, Christians in Contemporary Russia, in which he, like others also in the West, in general approves the activity of Patriarch Sergius, even comparing him with Sergius of Radonezh and Patriarch Ermogen. In the West Patriarch Sergius is virtually considered to be the savior of the Orthodox Church in Russia. Such an incorrect evaluation of the activity of Patriarch Sergius is based on the fact that Western researchers are not familiar with the underground facts and manifestations of the life of the Russian Orthodox Church. The roots of the profound ecclesiastical crisis which has now been revealed were laid precisely by Patriarch Sergius.
In his Appeal to the faithful of August 19, 1927, Metropolitan Sergius set forth new bases for the activity of the Church Administration, which at that very time were called by E. Yaroslavsky an "adaptation" to the atheistic reality of the USSR.
"Adaptation" consisted first and foremost of a false separation of all the spiritual needs of man into the purely religious and the socio-political. The Church was to satisfy the purely religious needs of citizens of the USSR without touching on the socio-political, which were to be resolved and satisfied by the official ideology of the CPSU. The socio-political activity of every believer, according to this Appeal, should be directed to the building of a socialist society under the direction of the CPSU. In its further development this Adaptation resulted in the theory of Soviet theologians, according to which the Communistic organization of society is the only happy and just one, one supposedly indicated by the Gospel itself. At the same time no criticism was allowed of the official ideology, laws, or actions of the authorities Any accusation against the actions of the civil authorities or any doubt of the correctness of the official ideology was considered a deviation from purer religious activity and counter-revolution. The Church Administration headed by Metropolitan Sergius not only did not defend the believers and clergy who went to concentration camps for accusing the arbitrariness and violence of the civil authorities, but even spoke out itself, with slave-like servility, for the condemnation of such people as counter-revolutionaries. In essence Adaptation to atheism represented a maniacal union of Christian dogmas and rites with the socio-political views of the official ideology of the CPSU. In actual fact all religious activity was reduced to external rites. The church preaching of those clergymen who held strictly to Adaptation was totally remote from life and therefore had no influence whatever on the hearers. As a result of this the intellectual, social, and family life of believers, and the raising of the younger generation remained outside the Church's influence. This concealed great dangers for the Church and Christian faith. One cannot worship Christ and at the same time in social and family life tell lies, do what is unjust, use violence, and dream of an earthly paradise. Subsequently, Adaptation to atheism culminated in the heretical teaching of H. Johnson concerning a new religion, which in his opinion was to replace the Christian religion and be a synthesis of Christianity and Marxism-Leninism (see H. Johnson, Christianity and Communism, Moscow, 1957). Now the absurdity of H. Johnson's teaching is evident.
The Appeal of Metropolitan Sergius of August 19, 1927, made a painful impression on all believers, as a cringing before the atheist authorities. Some made peace with it as an unavoidable evil, while others came out decisively with a condemnation of it. A part of the bishops and faithful separated from Metropolitan Sergius. The bishops who had condemned the Appeal of Metropolitan Sergius were soon arrested and banished to concentration camps, where they died. The ordinary believers who separated formed a special sect, called the True Orthodox Church, which from the very beginning of its formation right up to the present time has been proscribed.
Contemporary influential atheists regard Adaptation as a modernization of religion which is politically useful for the CPSU and harmless for the materialistic ideology. "This (Adaptationour addition. B.T.) is one of the paths to the dying out of religion" (Journal, Science and Religion, no. 12, 1966, p. 78).
Many both among us and in the West regarded and regard the Appeal of Metropolitan Sergius as a statement made by the Church Administration under duress, with the aim of preserving church parishes and clergymen during the time of the despotism of J. Stalin. But this is incorrect. The Communist Party saw in this Appeal the Church's weakness, the readiness of the new Church Administration to fulfill unconditionally any instructions whatsoever of the civil authority, a readiness to give over to the arbitrariness of the authorities, under the guise of counter-revolutionaries, those clergymen who dared to accuse arbitrariness and violence. Here is how E. Yaroslavsky evaluated this in 1927: "With religion, even though Bishop Sergius may have adorned it in whatever worldly garb you may want, with the influence of religion on the masses of workers, we shall wage war, as we wage war with every religion, with every church" (E. Yaroslavsky, On Religion, Moscow, 1957, p. 155).
Objectively this Appeal and the subsequent activity of Metropolitan Sergius were a betrayal of the Church. From the end of 1929 until June, 1941, there occurred the mass closing and barbarous destruction of churches, arrests and sentencing by Troikas and secret trials of virtually every single clergyman, most of whom were simply physically exterminated in concentration camps.
In 1930 Pope Pius XI came out before world public opinion with a protest against the persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union. How did Metropolitan Sergius react to all this? In the Theophany Cathedral in Moscow, with a cross in his hands, he came out with a declaration that there was no persecution at all against believers and their organizations in the Soviet Union, and there never had been any. Individual clergymen and believers, according to his assurance, were tried not for faith, but for counter-revolutionary manifestations against the Soviet regime. Such a declaration was not only monstrous lie, but also a base betrayal of the Church and believers. By this declaration Metropolitan Sergius covered up the monstrous crimes of J. Stalin and became an obedient tool in his hands.
It should be noted that although the majority of bishops in 1927 acknowledged Metropolitan Sergius as their head, nonetheless in their activity they did not hold to the "Appeal" and in their sermons they courageously accused the arbitrariness, lawlessness, and cruelty of the civil authorities, called on the people to stand firmly for the faith and help the persecuted. Therefore, for their sermons they were quickly placed in concentration camps and perished there. Of course, many clergymen and believers were placed in concentration camps for no reason at all, as potentially dangerous elements. In these circumstances a courageous statement by Metropolitan Sergius in defense of justice and faith could have had a great significance for the fate of the Russian Orthodox Church, just as the courageous battle for faith and justice of Cardinal Wyszynski had a great significance for the Polish Church at the end of the '40's.
And what did Metropolitan Sergius save by his Adaptation and monstrous lie? At the beginning of the Second World War in every region, out of many hundreds of churches there remained five or ten, the majority of priests and almost all the bishops (with the exception of a few who collaborated with the authorities like Metropolitan Sergius) had been martyred in concentration camps. Thus Metropolitan Sergius by his Adaptation and lying saved no one and nothing, except his own person. In the eyes of believers he lost all authority, but in exchange he acquired the good will of the "father of the peoples," J. Stalin.
The majority of the churches that remained did not acknowledge Metropolitan Sergius.
The role of Metropolitan Sergius in the restoration of churches during the Second World War is greatly exaggerated in the West and, in particular, in the book of N. Strove. This evidently speaks of an ignorance of many underground manifestations and facts in the life of the Church in the USSR.
The Appeal of Metropolitan Sergius to the believing citizens of the USSR on June 22, 1941, was received by true believers as a new cringing before the despotic regime and a new betrayal of the Church's interests. All believers in Russia regarded and regard the Second World War as the wrath of God for the immense lawlessness, impiety, and persecution of Christians which occurred in Russia from the beginning of the October Revolution. Therefore, not to remind the people and the government of this in an hour of dreadful trials, not to call the people to repentance, not to demand immediately the restoration of churches and the rehabilitation of all innocently condemned citizens of the USSR, was a great sin, a great impiety. Metropolitan Sergius again revealed himself to be an obedient tool of the atheist regime, which at that moment wished to use for its own ends the religious feelings of its citizens with the fewest possible concessions from atheism.
The restoration of churches within limited and narrow bounds was the State policy of J. Stalin, and not the result of the activity of Metropolitan Sergius. At that time among the people and in the army there was open talk of fundamental changes in domestic regulations in the land. The people hoped that immediately after the end of the war there would be declared freedom of occupation and in particular the liquidation of the collective farms, freedom of party, and freedom of conscience. The opening of churches was the bone which J. Stalin threw to a people worn out by war and hunger. The very opening of churches occurred under the control of State Security. And these organs sought out often priests from among those who remained at liberty or had sat out their term of imprisonment. In the Western Ukraine there were cases when priests refused to celebrate in churches under Metropolitan Sergius, and later Patriarch Alexis, and these same organs put these priests in concentration camps. In many regions the Patriarchate ant the bishops took no part at all in the opening of churches. There were cases when new bishops under one pretext or another even resisted the opening of churches and the assignment to parishes of priests who had been in prison. The restoration of church life was incomplete, external, and temporary. From 1949 on the CPSU began imperceptibly to turn toward putting new pressure on the Church.
Thus, the opening of churches within narrow bounds was not the work of the hands of Metropolitan Sergius or Patriarch Alexis, but rather this opening was done by the atheist regime itself under pressure from the simple people in order to pacify them.
Patriarch Sergius, and later Patriarch Alexis, gathered and placed new bishops who, as distinct from the former bishops, who as a rule perished in the concentration camps (there were, of course, exceptions), were obedient to the Patriarchate and assimilated well the leaven of Herod, i.e., Adaptation to the mighty of this world. Here is how, for example, Bishop Vladimir of Kirov expressed Adaptation in his sermon of May 28, 1967. "We must adapt ourselves to new conditions and circumstances of life like a little stream which, on meeting a rock in its path, goes around it. We live together with atheists and must take them into consideration and not do anything that displeases them."
It is interesting that B. V. Talantov was told almost the very same thing at the KGB on February 14, 1967: "You,"said the KGB agent, addressing Talantov"demand that all closed churches be opened; but you live together with atheists and must take their wishes into consideration, and they do not wish that churches be opened."
In the St. Seraphim church in Kirov on January 20, 1966the day of commemoration of St. John the Baptistone priest said in his sermon: "John the Baptist taught everyone very simply: obey the authorities in everything." From this it is evident that the new bishop, having assimilated Adaptation to atheism, has become an obedient tool in the hands of the atheist regime, and this is a most ruinous result for the Church of the long activity of Metropolitan, and then Patriarch, Sergius.
In this book Patriarch Sergius and Metropolitans Alexis and Nicholas categorically affirm that there has never been in the USSR any persecution of Christians, that information in the Western press about these persecutions are malicious inventions of the enemies of the Soviet regime, that bishops and priests during the years 1930-41 were sentenced by Soviet courts exclusively for their counter-revolutionary activity, and that the Church Administration itself at that time was in agreement with their being sentenced. The monstrous lie of this affirmation is apparent from the fact that very many priests who were executed or perished in concentration camps under J. Stalin were rehabilitated under N. S. Krushchev. The most courageous fighters for truth and Christian faith are declared in this book to be schismatics, "politicians," and practically heretics. This book should be anathematized; it will be an eternal shameful memorial of Patriarch Sergius. And now with full justification we can call Adaptation to the atheistic regime by the name of Patriarch SergiusSergianism.
Did Adaptation (Sergianism) save the Russian Orthodox Church?
From what has been set forth it is clear that not only did it not save the Russian Orthodox Church during the despotism of J. Stalin, but on the contrary it furthered the loss of genuine freedom of conscience and the conversion of the Church Administration into an obedient tool of the atheistic regime.
Cardinal Wyszynski's categorical rejection of Adaptation to the atheistic regime and his subsequent and firm battle for Evangelical truth and genuine freedom of conscience has resulted in the fact that today in Poland the Church in actuality is independent from the State and enjoys considerable freedom.
Thus, one cannot defend the Church by a lie.
Adaptation is little faith, lack of faith in the power and Providence of God.
Adaptation is incompatible with true Christianity, because at its foundation there is a lie, servility before the mighty of this world, and a false separation of spiritual needs into the purely religious and the socio-political. According to the teaching of Christ, faith must direct the intellectual, family, and social life of every Christian. Ye are the salt of the earth; ye are the light of the world (Matt. 5:13, 14), said Christ, addressing His followers. In accordance with this Cardinal Wyszynski says: "In Poland the Church must penetrate everything: books, schools, upbringing, the people's culture... painting, sculpture and architecture, theater, radio and television... social and economic life" (quoted from the journal Science and Religion, no. 1, 1967, p. 63).
THE "ADAPTATION" which was planted by Metropolitan Sergius has resulted in the fact that, beginning in 1960, the Moscow Patriarchate and the majority of bishops objectively have secretly participated in all actions of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church, a participation directed toward the closing of churches, the limitation of the propagation of the faith, and the undermining of the latter among the people.
The majority of bishops in the period 1960-64 withdrew from the battle against the illegal closure of churches and the illegal removal of priests from registration. The numerous complaints of believers to the Moscow Patriarchate against the illegal closure of churches and the removal of priests from registration remained without any answer.. More than this, the Moscow Patriarchate itself issued a circular concerning the fusion of parishes which did not have sufficient income. As a result of abuse, many churches which did have sufficient income were closed by this circular. Now the atheists who hold power, together with Metropolitan Nikodim, affirm, relying on this circular, that supposedly all the churches closed in the years 1960-64 lacked sufficient income. This lie is repeated in an article in the Kirov Pravda of May 31, 1967: "With an Open Visor."
Certain bishops, for example Bishop John, have closed churches themselves and removed worthy priests. All this has become known now from the letters of the Moscow priests N. Eshliman and G. Yakunin, the "Open Letter of Kirov believers," and many other materials. An irrefutable proof that the Moscow Patriarchate has secretly participated in the closing of churches is the fact that neither the bishops (with some exceptions, for example Archbishop Ermogen, who, however, was removed from his See by the Patriarchate), nor the Moscow Patriarchate has ever come out anywhere with a protest against the illegal closure of churches and the removal of priests from registration, and what is more they have even come out with declarations that there was no mass illegal closure of churches in the USSR in the years 1960-64. Churches, according to their assertion, were closed because they did not have sufficient income.
With the aim of limiting the propagation of faith and undermining it among the people, the bishops have unconditionally submitted to all the oral directives of the authorities, which have been directed toward the limitation and undermining of faith, and they have demanded the same thing of priests. Thus, for example, Bishop John of Kirov firmly declared to his priests that any one of them who will not unconditionally fulfill the directives of the authorities will be forbidden to serve as a priest. At the same time, the priests and bishops, in fulfilling the oral directives of the authorities, presented these directives to the people as if they came from the Church Administration and not from the civil regime, and they even uncanonically demonstrated their lawfulness and necessity. The Patriarchate itself issued a number of circulars directed to the limitation and undermining of faith, such was for example, Circular no. 1917, which demanded of priests as an official obligation to cooperate in the registration of passports while celebrating private services on request. All this is discussed in detail in the letters of the Moscow priests, in the "Open Letter of Kirov Believers," and other letters and complaints of believers.
Certain bishops, for example Bishop John of Kirov, by their amoral conduct, outrageous acts, and despotic willfulness have striven to undermine faith among the people; and the Moscow Patriarchate, knowing of the intolerable conduct of such bishops from the numerous complaints of believers, not only has not brought such bishops to ecclesiastical trial, but has even promoted them. Such bishops have removed worthy priests from parishes and placed unworthy persons in their place. All this has led to the moral corruption of the clergy and a total undermining of faith in the Church.
In conformity with Adaptation to atheism, sermons in church as a rule have become scholastic discourses, remote from life, on religious themes. Because of their remoteness from time and space, they cannot act in any way on the hearers. In such sermons there is lacking even any mention of such basic vices, errors, and faults in contemporary life as lying, flattery, the breaking up of families, moral corruption, the atheistic upbringing of children, servile fear before the mighty of this world, and injustice.
The Moscow Patriarchate has made the rejection of Christian apologetics, of the ideological battle with atheism, the chief principle of its activity, both within the country and outside.
Such religious-moral instruction on the part of the contemporary Russian Orthodox Church cannot interest the younger generation or act positively upon it. Thus, the religious-moral instruction of the Russian Orthodox Church is such that it cannot lead to the propagation of faith among the younger generation. By this alone the continued existence of the Church is undermined.
In every diocese there is felt an acute insufficiency of priests even for the small number of churches that are open. For the propagation of faith and its strengthening it is essential to strive to increase in each diocese the number of worthy priests who are devoted to the Church and qualified to spread the faith. But the bishops have absolutely withdrawn from the selection, instruction, and training of the clergy ranks, by which they definitively undermine faith and the Church.
The number of theological schools and the number of those studying in them is so small that it cannot even make up the natural decrease of clergymen. Education and instruction in the theological schools are set up in such a way that out of them there come bureaucrats in cassocks who are ready to adapt themselves to external circumstances by any means whatever for the sake of acquiring a secure, easy, and undisturbed life in an atheistic State. In them the chief thing is killed: idealism, courage, and aspiration for justice. The spirit of the Seminaries (and Academies) is Adaptation. In the theological schools there is being conducted an intensified recruitment of students as secret agents of the KGB, especially in the foreign divisions of the Academies.
This at the present time the Moscow Patriarchate and the majority of bishops are secretly participating in the organized actions of the atheist regime (CPSU) which are directed toward the closing of churches, the limitation of the propagation of faith and its undermining in our country.
The activity of the Moscow Patriarchate abroad is directed, in the first place, to covering up, by means of shameless lying and slander, the mass illegal closure of churches, the oppressions of believers and their organizations and the secret administrative measures directed toward the undermining of faith within the USSR.
In the second place, the activity of the Patriarchate is directed to defecting as much as possible, by means of deceit and lying, the development of the Christian movement in the whole world on to a fallen path and thereby undermining it.
Such, for example, was the proposal of the Moscow Patriarchate at the Rhodes Conference of Orthodox Churches to renounce Christian apologetics and the ideological battle against contemporary atheism. The activity of the Moscow Patriarchate abroad is a conscious betrayal of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Christian faith. She steps forth on the world arena as a secret agent of worldwide anti-Christianity.
Metropolitan Nikodim is betraying the Church and Christians not out of fear but for conscience's sake; thus a complete unmasking of his and the Moscow Patriarchate's traitorous activity will mean the end of his shady career.
An irrefutable proof of the undermining, traitorous activity abroad of the Moscow Patriarchate is an event which arose in connection with the "Open Letter of Kirov Believers to Patriarch Alexis."
In August, 1966, this letter was sent by believers to Patriarch Alexis. In it the believers expressed their support for the letter of the Moscow priests N. Eshliman and G. Yakunin and described the misfortunes which the parishes of the Kirov region had suffered as a result of the lawless deeds of the authorities of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church and Bishop John of Kirov. This letter, which accuses the arbitrariness and lawlessness of the local civil authorities and the Church Administration, does not touch at all upon the Soviet social and governmental order and has no relation whatever to the organs of State Security. The letter was signed by 12 believers of the Kirov region with exact addresses given. Eight of those who signed the letter were from the city of Kirov (formerly Vyatka). Among their number was the author of the letter B. V. Talantov, whose signature and address stood first. He is well known to the Patriarchate and to Metropolitan Nikodim. Three of those who signed were from the city of Nolinsk, and one of these was the student of the Odessa Seminary Nikodim Nikolaevich Kamenskikh. The twelfth believer who signed the letter was Agrippina Dimitrievna Zyryanova, an elderly woman from the city of Belaya Kholunitsa. She had been constantly working for the opening of the All Saints church in the city of Belaya Kholunitsa, which had been illegally dosed in 1962.
This letter became known abroad, and on December 8, 1966, BBC Radio revealed in brief its content. Although in essence the letter was not a complete unmasking of the unworthy activity of the Moscow Patriarchate nonetheless it threw a shadow abroad on all the assurances of Metropolitan Nikodim and others concerning the well-being of the Russian Orthodox Church. Evidently this very much disturbed the Patriarchate and the KGB. They began to act simultaneously and according to an agreed-upon plan.
On February 14, 1967, B. V. Talantov was summoned to the Kirov Administration of the KGB. Here, after he had been threatened at first with prison, it was proposed that he renounce the "Open Letter" in the form of a written declaration that could be published in one of the newspapers. Evidently he was to have declared in writing that he had never composed or signed the "Open Letter" that had become known abroad. He categorically refused to do this and confirmed in written form that he was the author precisely of the letter that had become known abroad, and likewise of the letter to the newspaper Izvestia (received by the newspaper on July 19, 1966), and that he was ready to bear responsibility for the content of these letters. At that time he did not understand at all why there was demanded of him the renunciation of his own signature in a written declaration which, what is more, was to be published in one of the central newspapers. Later events solved this enigma.
On February 25, 1967, Radio BBC revealed the replies to questions put to Metropolitan Nikodim in connection with the "Open Letter from Kirov." He declared this letter anonymous and therefore not deserving of trust. To confirm the sincerity of his words he expressed his readiness to make an oath on the Cross and the Gospel. The name and address of B. V. Talantov without any doubt were well known to him from the previous letters of B. V Talantov. Then why did he make such a risky declaration? One would think that he was trusting in the impossibility for the Kirov believers to refute abroad the deceit of his declaration. But subsequent events compel one to think that he was trusting that the KGB by threats would force the believers who had signed the "Open Letter" to renounce their signatures.
At the very time when, in London, in the pompous grandeur of his social position Metropolitan Nikodim was striving by a false oath to prove the anonymity and dubiousness of the "Letter from Kirov," in Kirov itself at the KGB Administration it was proposed to B. V. Talantov, with threats of prison, hat he renounce his signature under this letter. Evidently the coincidence of these events was not accidental.
B. V. Talantov, indignant at the shameless lie of Metropolitan Nikodim, on March 19, 1967, sent to Patriarch Alexis a new letter, in which he confirmed the authenticity of the "Open Letter of Kirov.Believers" and sternly accused the impious action of Metropolitan Nikodim. At the same time he sent a copy of his letter to the Patriarch to Odessa to his young friend N. N. Kamenskikh, who at this time was a student in the second class of the Odessa Theological Seminary. Through N. N.Kamenskikh this letter, and likewise the impious statement of Metropolitan Nikodim in London, became known to almost all the students at the Odessa Theological Seminary and to many residents of the city of Odessa. From this moment on new events began to occur.
The letter of B. V. Talantov to Patriarch Alexis of March 19, 1967, became known to the Kirov administration of the KGB at the end of March or in the first days of April, apparently through Bishop Vladimir of Kirov. Immediately after this the seven Kirov believers who had signed the letter were called to the Kirov city council one at a time for interrogation. Here the secretary of the city council, A. Y. Ostanina, together with a KGB agent (the latter was not present in all cases), threatened each one with prison if he would sign any other document composed by "the dangerous political criminal" Talantov. Notwithstanding all the intimidations, none of those interrogated renounced his signature under the "Open Letter."
Bishop Vladimir of Kirov traveled to Odessa and on April 12 he visited for some reason Archbishop Sergius. On April 15 B. V. Talantov informed his friend N. N. Kamenskikh, by a letter sent to the Seminary, of the interrogations in Kirov of the believers who had signed the "Open Letter." But this letter N. N. Kamenskikh did not receive.
On April 26 the Inspector of the Seminary Alexander Nikolaevich Kravchenko summoned N.N.Kamenskikh, read him B.V.Talantov's letter of April 15, and demanded of him that he renounce in written form his support of the "Open Letter" of B. V. Talantov. N. N. Kamenskikh had either to renounce the genuineness of his own signature (meaning that his name and address had been put without his knowledge), or declare that B. V. Talantov had somehow deceived him. A. N. Kravchenko warned N. N. Kamenskikh that if he did not make such a declaration he would be excluded from the Seminary. In order to win N. N. Kamenskikh to his side, A. N. Kravchenko made use of the following sly tactic. He said: "Write this declaration, and I won't show it to anyone. When you finish the Seminary I will give it back to you." But N. N. Kamenskikh saw through the Inspector's trick and categorically refused to sign the declaration that was demanded of him. At the same time he asked the Inspector to give him the letter of B. V. Talantov, inasmuch as it was addressed to him. The Inspector refused to give him the letter and ordered him to think about his fate. From this moment there began a battle between N. N. Kamenskikh and the leadership of the Seminary, which was fulfilling the will of Metropolitan Nikodim and the KGB. For a whole month the entire Seminary followed this battle with intense interest. One might call it the war of Nikodim the small with Nikodim the great. The first is small both in age (he is 24 years old) and in his position in society. The second is of mature years and high position in the Church and in Soviet society.
Nikodim Kamenskikh is the son of a believing Christian who was banished to the Kirov region. Want and hunger in childhood and adolescence, constant endurance from the age of 17 of threats, insults, and oppressions for his open confession of Christian faithhave left their imprint on N. N. Kamenskikh. He suffers from a stomach ulcer. From the age of 17 he served as an altar-boy in the church in the village of Bais in the Urzhumsk district of the Kirov region. At this young age he courageously defended the church in the village of Bais against illegal closure. Twice on this account he traveled to Moscow to the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church (see the letter of B. V. Talantov to the newspaper Izvestia of July 19, 1966) and by this drew on himself the anger of the local authorities. When he was summoned for military service to the Urzhumsk district military committee, at his medical examination he categorically refused to take off his neck cross, and for this he was sent for medical examination to the psychiatric hospital in the city of Kotelnich. After many trials and abuses he was excused from military service on account of illness (stomach ulcer), but he was not left in peace. At the beginning of 1963 the local authorities sent the "fanatic" Nikodim out of the city of Bais and he became a homeless laborer-stovemaker, earning his living by sporadic jobs. By performing work too difficult for the state of his health he earned 30 to 40 rubles a month. The militia of Urzhumsk district fined him at this time, as a "parasite," 30 rubles, thus depriving him of his living for a whole month. Finally with great difficulty he found work and registered in the city of Nolinsk. But want, a wandering life, and overwork put him in a hospital cot for a long time. After all these adventures he succeeded in 1965 in entering the Odessa Theological Seminary. For the whole course of his conscious life he has seen around him and has himself personally endured insults and oppressions for his open confession of the Christian faith. In his own life's experience he became convinced that true believing Christians are the pariahs of Soviet society. He signed the "Open Letter of Kirov believers" not with ink but with his own blood. Therefore it is understandable that he could not renounce his support of this letter, and he began courageously to battle for justice with Nikodim the great, who, having by cunning Adaptation attained high rank, human glory and wealth, entered on the path of injustice. In this battle Nikodim the small placed all his hope in the invisible God, while Nikodim the great placed his hope in visibly-mighty human power and strength.
On May 7 B. V. Talantov, surmising by the silence of N.N. Kamenskikh that his letter of April 15 had not arrived, sent him at the Seminary a new letter in which he repeated the content of the letter of April 15. At the same time he sent a letter to the Seminary to the seminarian of the third class, Ivan Ilyich Naumov, a friend of N. N. Kamenskikh, in which he asked I. I. Naumov to communicate to N. N. Kamenskikh the content of his letters of April 15 and May 7, if he had not received them, and likewise to give his greetings to seminarian Leonid Michadovich Beresnev.
These letters were received by the Seminary not later than May 12 or 13 and were intercepted by Inspector A. N. Kravchenko, who did not even tell the addressees about them. From these letters he learned that I. I. Naumov and L. M. Beresnev were sympathetic to Nikodim Kamenskikh. Evidently the Inspector A. N. Kravchenko checked all letters coming to the seminarians, at the assignment of the KGB. In order to clarify the "freedom and secrecy of correspondence," one must point out that N. N. Kamenskikh, thinking that his letters sent to Talantov were not reaching the latter, sent him during May two letters addressed to D. I. Okulov, janitor of the St. Seraphim church in Kirov, who was well acquainted with B. V. Talantov. D. I. Okulov did not receive either letter. This means that someone working at the St. Seraphim church, at the assignment of the KGB, was checking all letters that came to this church and holding them back at his discretion. Thus, secret agents of the KGB control all correspondence coming from the Seminary, the churches and "suspicious" believers.
On May 17 the Inspector, A. N. Kravchenko, summoned I. I. Naumov and L. M. Beresnev and demanded of them that they persuade Nikodim Kamenskikh to write a declaration renouncing his support of the "Open Letter." He told them that if they did not act on Nikodim in the direction he wished they would be excluded from the Seminary as his accomplices.
On May 19, Nikodim Kamenskikh gave to the Inspector of the Seminary A. N. Kravchenko an official declaration, wherein he once again confirmed the authenticity of his signature and his agreement with the content of the "Open Letter of Kirov Believers."
On May 21 the Inspector told Nikodim that he must appear the next morning, May 22, at the KGB at the address 43 Babel, Bureau of Passports Garbus 3. Nikodim Kamenskikh, after writing down this address, calmly said that he would not go to the KGB Administration until he received an official notification. This caused the Inspector to lose his self-control, and he began to reproach Nikodim for going against the Patriarch, because he supported the Moscow priests. He concluded his discourse with the angry words: "If you do not leave the Seminary voluntarily, you will be turned out, and you will be sorry when you go home."
On May 22 Nikodim was summoned to the diocesan administration and here by telephone an official of the Council for Religious Affairs asked him why he had not appeared at the KGB Administration. He replied that he would not go there until he received an official notification.
On May 24 the Rector of the Seminary took from N. N. Kamenskikh his military card and passport and told him that he was to be expelled from Odessa. He replied that all blame for this rested on the Rector and the Inspector.
On May 29 the Rector and the Inspector of the Seminary proposed to Nikodim Kamenskikh that he leave the Seminary "at his own wish." He refused to do this. In the evening the Faculty Council excluded him from the student-body of the Seminary for failing to conform to the spirit of the Seminary. He was given a roll in which it was stated that he is transferred in the first category to the third class, and a certificate of exclusion. On June 19 he sent a declaration from the city of Kirov to the Patriarch in which he again confirmed his agreement with the "Open Letter" and asked that he be allowed to undertake studies in the third class.
On June 20 the militia of the city of Nolinsk refused to register him at the place of his former residence, and he again became homeless pauper. But the battle was not yet finished. On May 20 four of the persons who had signed the "Open Letter" sent a declaration to the Patriarch, in which they protested against the deceitful declaration abroad of Metropolitan Nikodim.
In April A. D. Zyryanova from the city of Belaya Kholunitsa (the twelfth of the signers of the "Open Letter") was put in an insane asylum, from which her sister took her out.
On May 31 in Kirov Pravda there was printed the article of S. Lyubovikov, "With an Open Visor," filled with slander and threats against the author of the "Open Letter," B. V.Talantov.
All persons who signed the "Open Letter of Kirov Believers" were subjected to threats and repressive measures, but they did not renounce their signatures or their agreement with the Letter.
Now the "Open Letter of Kirov Believers to Patriarch Alexis," broadcast on the BBC on December 8, 1966; the declaration of Metropolitan Nikodim abroad concerning the anonymity and unauthenticity of this Letter, broadcast on the BBC on February 25, 1967; the pressure subsequently brought to bear by the organs of State Security (KGB) and the leadership of the Odessa Theological Seminary on the persons who signed this letter, with the aim of compelling them to renounce their signatures; finally, their firm support of this Letter, notwithstanding threats and repressive measuresall this constitutes irrefutable proof of the traitorous activity abroad of the Moscow Patriarchate and their secret cooperation with the atheists who hold power.
1. Tape recording of the BBC Radio broadcast of February 25, 1967. 2. The letter of B. V. Talantov to the Patriarch of March 19, 1967. 3. The declaration of N. N. Kamenskikh addressed to the Inspector of the Odessa Theological Seminary of May 19, 1967. 4. The letter of a group of Kirov believers to Patriarch Alexis of May 20, 1967. 5. The declaration of N. N. Kamenskikh addressed to Patriarch Alexis on June l9, 1967. 6. A copy of the certificate excluding N. N. Kamenskikh from the student-body of the Odessa Theological Seminary, of May 29, 1967, notarized. 7. The article of O. Lyubovikov, "With an Open Visor," in Kirov Pravda for May 31, 1967.
The Adaptation to atheism implanted by Metropolitan Sergius has concluded with the betrayal of the Orthodox Russian Church on the part of Metropolitan Nikodim and other official representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate abroad. This betrayal, irrefutably proved by the documents cited, must be made known to all believers in Russia and abroad, because such an activity of the Patriarchate, relying on cooperation with the KGB, represents a great danger for all believers. In truth the atheistic leaders of the Russian people and the princes of the Church have gathered together against the Lord and His Christ.
The accusation by the whole people of the betrayal of the princes of the Church will inevitably lead to a crisis of the Church administration, but not to any kind of church schism, as certain ill-wishers of the Church affirm, as well as people who unconsciously follow them.
Believers must cleanse the Church of false brethren and false pastors (the betrayer-bishops and priests) in accordance with the commandment of the Holy Apostle Paul: "Put away the wicked man from among yourselves." Only after such a cleansing is a true regeneration of the Church possible.
Many true believers of Russia have fervently prayed to God that He would show believers facts that would indisputably prove the secret betrayal by the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, if it exists. Now these facts, by God's mercy, are revealed to all who can really hear and see.
About a hundred years ago the Optina Elders predicted that a time would come when in Russia there would be impious bishops. Now this time has arrived. But because of the corruption and betrayal of the bishops the believers should not disperse to their homes and organize separate sects, but rather preserving unity, they should begin the accusation by the whole people of the corrupt false pastors and cleanse the Church of them.
Slanders and threats had a painful effect on the wife of B. V. Talantov, Nina Agafangelovna Talantova. As a result of her painful sufferings, and having suffered already for a long time from a hypertonic condition, on September 7 she had a stroke, and she died on December 16, 1967.
Agrippina Dimitrievna Zyryanova, the twelfth of the signers of the "Open Letter," died in a hospital on December 27, 1967. The threats hastened the approach of death. All those who signed the "Open Letter" suffered in one degree or another, but they did not renounce their signatures.
By the Ukase of Patriarch Alexis of June 6, 1967, the Inspector of the Odessa Theological Seminary, A. N. Kravchenko, was awarded the Order of Prince Vladimir, second degree (see the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, no. 8, 1967).
By decree of the Patriarch and the Holy Synod of April 4, 1967, the Rector of the Odessa Theological Seminary, Archimandrite Theodosius, was raised to the rank of bishop. By decree of the Holy Synod of October 7, 1967 (see JMP, no. 8, 1967), Bishop Vladimir of Kirov was assigned as Bishop of Berlin and Exarch in Central Europe, and by the Ukase of Patriarch Alexis of October 20, 1967, he was raised to the rank of Archbishop (see JMP, no. 11, 1967).
EDITORS' CONCLUSION: On June 12, 1969, Boris Talantov was arrested, and on September 3 he was sentenced to two years in prison for "anti-Soviet activities." He died in prison on January 4, 1971.
And thus it would seem, as the world judges, that evil triumphs. Boris Talantov and his courageous fellow-confessors are persecuted, suffer, and die; while for Metropolitan Nikodim not only has the "hour of judgment" not come, but his status seems still to rise. The Moscow Patriarchate gains new prestige and a new ally by its sponsorship of the "autocephaly" of the American Metropolia [OCA]. And Orthodox Christians in America do not even suspect that they have become passive accomplices of a diabolic program of betrayal and anti-Christianity in the name of Orthodoxy.
But evil triumphs only in the eyes of men of little faith. "One cannot defend the Church by a lie." The True Orthodox Christians of these last days are defeated on every hand: mocked by the world and by the betrayers of Orthodoxy, despised, persecuted. And yet for one thing they are unconquerable: they stand in the truth. And thus, as our God is Truth, their ultimate victory is certain. Only, may the "hour of judgment," come soon for the betrayers of Orthodoxy!
1. Sergianism: Sergievshchina. This word is not precisely translatable into English, but is approximately "the Sergianist affair," with a pejorative connotation.
2. London, 1967; original edition in French: Les Chretiens en U.R.S.S., Paris, 1963. Nikita Struve is a Russian intellectual of the "Paris" school and present editor of the Vestnik of the Russian Student Christian Movement.
3. Outstanding Russian saints of the 14th and 16th centuries.
4. The Appeal (Declaration) of Metropolitan Sergius was actually issued on July 16/29, 1927, but it was first published in the official Soviet newspaper Izvestia on August 19.
5. Head of the League of Militant Atheists, in charge of the anti-religious propaganda and activities conducted by the Soviet regime.
6. Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
7. Hewlett Johnson, the notorious "Red Dean of Canterbury," a "Christian" apologist for Communism, wrote his book in English under the title Christians and Communism (London, 1956). That Soviet authorities should immediately have this book translated and printed in Moscow reveals that they are not entirely opposed to "religion"not to a Communist form of religion!
8. A leading official Soviet anti-religious periodical.
9. Troika: a committee of three secret police officials who sentenced their victims without hearing or appeal.
10. State Security-Secret Police; known earlier under the initials NKVD, Cheka, and (originally) GPU.
11. Of Krutitsk, notorious apologist of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Soviet regime abroad after the Second World War. He later fell from favor and died under mysterious circumstances in 1961.
12. I.e., the Roman Catholic Church, which is dominant in Poland.
13. Of Kirov; see below.
14. Treby: baptisms, funerals, etc.
15. This important rule is a part of the general system of terror that still prevails in the USSR for behevers. These records are transmitted by local authorihes to places of employment, etc., and the believer who dares ask for a baptism, funeral, or some other open service finds himself soon out of a job end in general ostracized from society.
16. A few months after this was written, this very rule was applied against Talantov's dying wife, as Talantov himself describes in his "Complaint to the Attorney General of the Soviet Union" of April 26, 1968 (English text in Religion in Communist Dominated Areas, Aug. 15/31, 1968): "On the day of her death, I wished to have the rite of unction performed for her, as she desired. But the Dean of the sole remaining open Orthodox church in the city of Kirov, that of St. Seraphim, told me that the local authorities forbade the rite of unction to be performed in homes. This deplorable case demonstrates that believing Christians in the city of Kirov are deprived nowadays even of those rights that they were given by J. V. Stalin."
17. This occurred in 1961. The question of atheism and the means of battling against it were on the agenda of this Conference but at the objection of Metropolitan (then Archbishop) Nikodim the question was dropped.
18. Here Talantov seems to be expressing the fervent hope of many in the ideological "underground" in the USSR, rather than any immediately impending event. This is corroborated by the report of a Russian Orthodox student from America concerning a meeting of members of the widespread "Democratic Movement" which he had the rare privilege of attending in Leningrad early in 1970 Some of those present expressed their opinion on the subject of the "autocephaly" which was just then being granted the American Metropolia by the Moscow Patriarchate. Their attitude was summed up by one member who, mentioning that outspoken protest against the Patriarchate was finally becoming evident in the USSR, castigated the "naive Americans" thus: "What are you Americans doing?! Here for 50-odd years we've been trying to minimize the popular authority of any and all such governmental agencies as the Moscow Patriarchate, and you, in conditions of freedom, undo all our work by accepting their authority!"
19. There is no freedom of movement in the USSR. Each citizen must have a passport in order to live anywhere, and he must register with local authorities on entering or leaving any townand this registration may bc refused at the whim of the local authorities.
From Ivan Andreyev's Russia's Catacomb Saints (Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Press, 1982), 463-86. | 2019-04-18T10:36:31Z | http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/cat_tal.aspx |
1988-10-25 Assigned to AIR PRODUCTS AND CHEMICALS, INC. reassignment AIR PRODUCTS AND CHEMICALS, INC. ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST. Assignors: DI MARTINO, STEPHEN P.
The present invention is a continuous vacuum swing adsorption process for the fractionation of a multi-component feed gas mixture containing methane as a primary component and predominantly CO2 as a secondary component. Mulit-component feed gas is passed through a plurality of adsorption columns containing adsorbent beds which selectively retain the secondary components while the primary component is discharged from each column and collected as product. Carbon dioxide is desorbed from the adsorbent beds by a vacuum assisted internal rinse step wherein a pressurized first adsorption column is operatively connected to an evacuated second adsorption column causing CO2 and other secondary components to be countercurrently swept out of the first column and into the second column. Vacuum assisted internal rinsing of adsorption columns effectively replaces pump-driven rinse steps resulting in a substantial reduction in process power requirements. Additionally, process vacuum requirements are significantly reduced because an evacuated adsorption column is used as a vacuum source for internally rinsing another adsorption column.
The present invention relates generally to the separation and recovery of individual components of a gas mixture by pressure swing adsorption and is especially concerned with reducing the high energy requirements associated with recovery of a secondary component (e.g. carbon dioxide).
The high cost of energy has led to the search for economical processes for recovering and purifying alternate fuel sources such as landfill gas, biogass and synthesis gas. However, the high energy costs associated with removing CO2 from fuel sources such as methane, have hampered efforts to fully utilize alternate fuel sources and have restricted recovery efforts to larger fuel sources where economies of scale are more favorable.
Cyclic pressure swing adsorption systems are one of the technologies currently being employed to remove CO2 from the above-mentioned fuel sources. These systems are designed to fractionate gaseous mixtures by selective adsorption wherein the gaseous mixture is passed through a plurality of adsorption columns containing adsorbent beds which selectively retain the secondary component, in this case CO2, allowing for collection of the primary component, namely, the fuel source.
(f) repressurizing the zone to about the feed pressure of step (a) by admitting a part of the primary product gas component withdrawn from an adsorption zone then undergoing step (a).
U.S. Pat. No. Re. 31,014 (originally issued as U.S. Pat. No. 4,171,206), discloses a nine-bed pressure swing cyclic adsorption system for separating a multi-component feed gas into a primary product and a secondary product wherein an adsorbent bed within the column selectively retains the secondary product. Following the adsorption step, the secondary product is desorbed from the adsorption bed by high pressure rinsing and pressure equalization steps. More particularly, pure secondary product is admitted countercurrently through the adsorption bed to rinse void gas and desorbed gas into a second bed. The rinsed first bed is then connected to another adsorption bed which has previously been evacuated to the lowest pressure in the cycle causing pressure to equalize within the two adsorption beds.
The present invention is an efficient vacuum swing adsorption process for removing CO2 and gaseous hydrocarbons other than methane from less strongly adsorbable components of a multi-component feed gas mixture. The invention in its most basic embodiment contemplates at least two separate adsorption columns wherein the feed gas mixture is passed through a first adsorption column containing an adsorbent bed selective in retention of carbon dioxide and gaseous hydrocarbons other than methane. The unadsorbed gas discharged from the first column is collected as primary product while the adsorbed or secondary components are collected using a vacuum assisted internal rinse step.
1. ADSORPTION--The multi-component feed gas mixture at superatmospheric pressure (50-500 psig) is passed through a first adsorption column packed with an adsorption bed selective in retention of the secondary components of the feed gas mixture until the adsorbent is about saturated with multi-component feed gas. The primary component is discharged from the exit end of the adsorption column and collected as primary product or used in another step of the process. The secondary components are desorbed from the column is steps 2-6.
2. EQUALIZATION I--Upon terminating the adsorption step, CO2 desorption is begun by placing the pressurized first column in concurrent flow communication with an evacuated second adsorption column. The pressure differential between the columns causes adsorbed secondary gas components in the first adsorption column to flow in a direction concurrent to the feed gas mixture into the second adsorption column thereby internally rinsing the first adsorption column with a stream of adsorbed gas. This step is continued until the pressure of the first and second adsorption columns is equalized.
3. BLOWDOWN TO ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE--Following the equalization I step, the first adsorption column containing only CO2 is vented or blown down to near atmospheric pressure causing additional CO2 desorption.
4. EVACUATION--The first adsorption column now residing at about ambient pressure is evacuated in a direction concurrent to that of the initial feed causing yet further CO2 desorption.
5. EQUALIZATION II--Following the evacuation step the first adsorption column is raised to an intermediate pressure level by admitting CO2 -rich gas then being discharged from the second adsorption column previously repressurized to superatmospheric pressure. The final equalized pressure of the first and second columns is about half of the feed pressure.
6. REPRESSURIZATION--The partially pressurized first adsorption column is again raised to superatmospheric pressure by introducing countercurrently a portion of the high purity primary methane product collected in step (1).
At least four adsorption columns are preferably employed for a continuous commercial process, the columns being operated in alternate timed sequence so that the charge of multi-component feed gas can be switched from one adsorption column to another in successive timed separation periods.
The present invention provides an improvement over the above-disclosed prior art processes by substantially reducing the energy requirements for removing secondary components, such as carbon dioxide, from a multi-component feed gas mixture by eliminating the external rinse step in favor of a novel sequence of steps.
FIG. 1 is a process flow diagram of an embodiment utilizing four adsorption columns operated in a timed sequence cycle.
FIG. 2 is a process flow diagram illustrating another embodiment in which six adsorbent columns are employed.
Referring now to FIG. 1 of the drawings, a bed of carbon dioxide selective adsorbent is contained in four parallel adsorption columns 1, 2, 3 and 4 which are operated alternatively in timed sequence. Multi-component feed gas to be fractioned is introduced into a selected one of the adsorption columns through manifold A from which branch inlet lines 11, 21, 31 and 41 connect to inlet ends 5, 6, 7 and 8 of individual adsorption columns 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. Each of the branch lines is equipped with a valve 11a, 21a, 31a and 41a, respectively. Opening of the appropriate valve permits flow of multi-component feed gas from manifold A into the selected adsorption column being initially placed on stream. Thus, by opening valve 11a, while valves 21a, 31a and 41a are closed, multi-component feed gas is caused to flow from manifold A through line 11 and into adsorption column 1.
Each of adsorption columns 1, 2, 3 and 4 is further provided at outlet ends 9, 10, 13 and 15, respectively, with an outlet gas line 12, 22, 32 and 42, each further equipped with exit control valves 12a, 22a, 32a and 42a, respectively. Conduits 12, 22, 32 and 42 are operatively connected to a gas discharge manifold E through which purified primary component product can be withdrawn. By opening the appropriate valve 12a, 22a, 32a or 42a, purified primary component gas will flow from the corresponding column through the connecting line and into discharge manifold E to be collected as product.
Each of columns 1, 2, 3 and 4 is further fitted with gas line 14, 24, 34 and 44, each being further provided with exit control valves 14a, 24a, 34a and 44a, respectively, such lines being in flow communication with manifold C. By opening the appropriate valve 14a, 24a, 34a and 44a discharge gas is allowed to exit the column though the connecting line in which the opened valve is located. Each column is placed in flow communication with discharge manifold C. Manifold C is equipped with exit control valves 50a, 70a and 60a which allow for operative connection with lines E and F for venting and discharge of columns 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Manifold B is operatively connected to manifolds C and F by exit control valves 50a and 70a. Branch inlet lines 11, 21, 31 and 41 connect to manifold B via lines 15, 25, 35 and 45, respectfully. Lines 15, 25, 35 and 45 are equipped with exit control valves 15a, 25a, 35a and 45a, which allow for communication between the discharge and feed ends of Columns 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Means for evacuating Columns 1, 2, 3 and 4 is provided by vacuum pump V1 which is operatively situated between manifolds D and F which in turn connect to a waste container (not shown). Manifold D is connected to branch lines 13, 23, 33, and 43. A vacuum can be drawn at discharge ends 9, 10, 13 and 15 of columns 1, 2, 3 and 4 by opening the appropriate controlling exit valve 13a, 23a, 33a or 43a, respectfully. For example, column 1 can be evacuated by opening exit valve 13a while closing exit valves 23a, 33a and 43a, thereby drawing a vacuum on lines 12, 13, and manifold D. The vacuum is vented to the atmosphere or to waste via manifold F.
Operation of the embodiment represented in FIG. 1 will now be explained in connection with an arbitrarily chosen cycle having eight timed separation periods of two minutes per period as set forth in Table 1. Although not limited thereto, the process as illustrated in FIG. 1 and Table 1, requires 4 adsorption columns for continuous operation of pumps and compressors. However, other arrangements using fewer adsorption columns may be employed if interrupted or discontinuous operation (using idling) of pumps or compressors is acceptable. Other arrangements may also be employed (e.g., employing more than four adsorption columns) by appropriate sequencing of the individual steps of the process cycle.
Each of the four respective adsorption columns undergoes two periods of the adsorption step, one period of the equalization I step, one period of the blowdown step, two periods of the evacuation step, one period of the equalization II step and one period of repressurization.
(a) ADSORPTION--During the adsorption step feed gas is charged into manifold A and into an absorption column presently undergoing the adsorption step. Multi-component feed gas at superatmospheric pressure (50-500 psig) is passed through a first column having a bed packed with an adsorbent selective for retention of key secondary components of the feed gas. The adsorption step is continued until the adsorbent bed is about saturated with multi-component feed gas. The primary component is discharged from the exit end of the adsorption column and collected as product or used in another step of the process.
(b) PRESSURE EQUALIZATION I--Upon terminating the adsorption step, the first adsorption column maintained at superatmospheric pressure is operatively connected to a previously evacuated second adsorption column. The pressure differential between the columns causes adsorbed secondary components held in the first column, i.e., CO2 and gaseous hydrocarbons, to desorb thereby rinsing adsorbent void space as the secondary components are drawn by internal vacuum through the first adsorbent column in a direction concurrent to that of the initial feed and into the previously evacuated second column. This equalization step causes the secondary components less strongly adsorbed than CO2 to desorb thereby sweeping such components through the absorbent within the first adsorption column and into the second adsorption column. At the end of the equalization step, secondary components adsorbed in the first adsorption column are primarily limited to CO2.
(c) BLOWDOWN TO ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE--Following the equalization I step, the first adsorption column containing adsorbent loaded with CO2 is reduced or blown down to atmospheric pressure which causes additional CO2 desorption. More particularly, pressure is released in a direction countercurrent to the feed from the inlet end of the first adsorption column and is allowed to exit to waste or for use in another process.
(d) EVACUATION--The first column which is depressurized to near ambient pressure level in step (c) is then evacuated by vacuum pump VI, thereby reducing pressure within the adsorption column and desorbing further quantities of the secondary component in a direction concurrent to that of the initial feed. As previously noted, the embodiment disclosed in FIG. 1 contemplates two timed sequence periods of evacuation.
(e) PRESSURE EQUALIZATION II--Following evacuation step (d), the first adsorption column is raised to an intermediate pressure level by admitting adsorbed gas rich in secondary components discharged from a second adsorption column previously repressurized (step b) to superatmospheric pressure. Pressure from the second column is directed concurrent to the feed direction and preferably enters the feed end of the first adsorption column. The equalized pressure of the first and second columns is about half the feed pressure.
(f) REPRESSURIZATION--The first adsorption column is then brought to the superatmospheric pressure of step (a) by introducing high purity primary product collected from step (a) into the adsorption column in a direction countercurrent to feed.
The initial first column is now ready for repetition of the cycle beginning with step (a).
The valve positions during the above-mentioned operating cycle are set forth in Table 2. The designation O indicates that the valve is open while a blank represents a closed valve. It may be seen from FIG. 1 and Table 1 that adsorption is continuous to avoid discontinuities in product flow. Moreover, equalization is continuous to avoid idling the vacuum pump which wastes power.
The number of equalization steps (steps b and e) required in a given embodiment and the length of the timed sequence period thereof will be determined by various factors such as (i) feed pressure, (ii) feed composition, (iii) desorption characteristics, (iv) product purity, (v) product recovery and (vi) the total number of adsorption columns employed in the process. While only two equalization steps (Equalizations I and II) are depicted in FIG. 1, the invention also contemplates additional equalization steps to maximize use of total vacuum power.
The operative sequence of steps occurring in adsorption column 1 during a complete adsorption cycle will now be described in exhaustive detail so that operation of a continuous process will be fully understood. The identical sequence of steps according to Table 1 occurs in staggered sequence in adsorption columns 2, 3 and 4.
Again, referring to the embodiment disclosed in FIG. 1 and the timed sequences periods and valve positions designated in Tables 1 and 2, adsorption column 1 undergoes two timed sequence periods of the adsorption step. Multi-component feed gas is introduced into adsorption column 1 by opening valves 11a and 12a and closing valves 13a, 14a and 15a thereby allowing feed gas to flow through manifold A, line 11 and into adsorption column 1 which contains adsorbent selective toward retention of CO2 and gaseous hydrocarbons other than methane. The unadsorbed CO2 -free methane primary component exits the discharge end 9 of column 1 via line 12 and flows into manifold E to be collected as product while the secondary components, primarily CO2 and other gaseous hydrocarbons, are retained in the column by the selective adsorbent. In general, the adsorption step is preferably continued until or just short of break-through of the secondary component (CO2 in the illustrated case) at the exit end 9 of adsorption column 1.
The remainder of the steps taken in timed sequence periods 3 through 8 involve desorption of the secondary components, namely CO2 and to a lesser extent gaseous hydrocarbons other than methane, from the selective adsorbent within each column. It has been discovered that prior art processes for desorbing carbon dioxide from an adsorbent bed which involve the steps of rinsing the adsorbent with an external supply of carbon dioxide followed by evacuation of the adsorption column at superatmospheric pressure can be economically replaced by a vacuum assisted internal rinse step accomplished in the following steps.
Desorption of CO2 from adsorbent is begun wherein a first and second adsorption columns undergo an equalization I step. The discharge end 9 of adsorption column 1 is placed in flow communication with the inlet end 7 of adsorption column 3 which has just finished a period of evacuation. The pressure differential between adsorption columns 1 and 3 causes desorption of adsorbed secondary gas components in the first column, particularly adsorbed gaseous hydrocarbons, to flow concurrently through and out of column 1 and into adsorption column 3 thereby internally rinsing the void space of absorbent column 1 with a stream of adsorbed gas. Equalization pressure is provided by adsorption column 1 by opening valves 14a, 70a and 35a which allows pressure to be released though line 14, manifold B and line 35 which empties into the feed end of column 3.
Adsorption column 1 which resides at an intermediate pressure following the equalization step, is blown down or vented to near atmospheric pressure by open valves 15a and 50a thereby causing pressure above ambient to exit to waste or into a collection container (not shown) via lines 15, manifold B and manifold F.
Column 1 then undergoes evacuation which causes further desorption of secondary components in a direction concurrent to that of the initial feed. Valve 13 is opened and vacuum pump VI creates a negative pressure at the discharge end 9 of adsorption column 1 thereby causing the remaining secondary components adsorbed and void gas within the adsorbent bed to be swept through the adsorption column in a direction concurrent to the feed. The secondary components and void gas pass through lines 12, 13 and manifold F to be collected as waste or directed toward another process.
The pressure in adsorption column 1 is equalized to a pressure intermediate to that of the feed in the seventh timed sequence period. Column 3 which has just undergone an adsorption period is placed in flow communication with adsorption column 1 thereby pressurizing adsorption column 1 to an intermediate pressure level. More particularly, valves 34a, 70a and 15a are opened causing pressurized secondary components and void gas to exit the discharge end 13 of adsorption column 3 in a direction concurrent to the feed and to flow through lines 32, 34, manifold C, manifold B, line 15 and line 11 until entering the inlet end 5 of column 1. During the equalization II step, valves 50a and 60a are closed.
In the eighth and final timed sequence period of the cycle, adsorption column 1 is raised from an intermediate pressure to superatmospheric pressure in anticipation of beginning another cycle. Valves 60a and 14a are opened and high purity primary product is introduced into discharge end 9 of adsorption column 1 in a direction countercurrent to the feed via lines 60, manifold C and line 14. This period continues until adsorption column 1 is sufficiently pressurized to accept pressurized multi-component feed gas in the first timed sequence period of the next cycle.
The process proceeds in the above-mentioned steps according to Table 1. While the two timed sequence periods of adsorption are depicted as being of equal length, this is neither required or necessary. The times will be set by allowable maximum gas flow rates and economic valve and line sizes.
The pressure to be employed during the adsorption step in a system having more than four adsorbent beds will depend largely on the pressure of the available gas mixture to be purified. Preferably, the feed pressure should be at least 50 psig. The length of time to be assigned to the adsorption step should be chosen with reference to the capacity of the adsorbent bed in the column.
The preferred adsorbent for selective adsorption of CO2 and light gaseous hydrocarbons other than methane from admixture containing hydrogen or separation of CO2 from methane, is activated carbon. Other solid adsorbents suitable for practicing this invention include molecular sieve zeolites such as 5A, molecular sieve carbons, silica gel, activated alumina, or mixtures of these or other adsorbents capable of selectively retaining CO2 and/or low molecular weight hydrocarbons other than methane while passing methane and hydrogen at the operating conditions.
Again, referring to FIG. 1, valves 50a, 60a and 70a should be modulating valves equipped with a positioner allowing them to ramp open slowly to maintain constant flow with varying pressure differentials. The other valves, 11a-15a, 21a-25a, 31a-35a and 41a-45a should be switch valves equipped with actuators.
Among alternative arrangements that may be used are cycles having 4, 5 or 6 adsorption columns and having more than two pressure equalization steps. Two equalization steps are more efficient than one as a lower pressure can be obtained in depressurizing the bed thereby reducing total vacuum pump demands. As previously stated, the particular arrangement of steps to be used depends upon the multi-component feed gas pressure and the amount of secondary components contained therein as well as the degree of purity desired in the primary and secondary components.
This invention contemplates cycles wherein 1, 2 or 3 adsorption beds on-line at any one time. Having more beds on-line simultaneously reduces overall system costs as each bed may be downsized in view of the reduced flow through each respective adsorption column. For example, the total adsorbent volume required to run a five adsorbent bed system having two adsorption columns on-line continuously is 37.5% less than the quantity required for a four bed process having only one adsorption bed on-line during a complete cycle. Further savings are achieved by the resultant reduction in vessel diameter and piping and valve sizes. This reduction will usually offset costs associated with the larger number of components required to run a system having more than adsorption beds.
In the alternate embodiment shown in FIG. 2, six adsorption columns labelled 5-10, inclusive are employed. This embodiment is designed so that three columns simultaneously undergo the adsorption subcycle thereby increasing process capacity while allowing for reduction in vessel diameter and piping sizes.
Referring now to FIG. 2, multi-component feed gas to be fractioned is introduced into a selected adsorption column through manifold G from which branch inlet lines 111, 121, 131, 141, 151 and 161 connect to adsorption columns 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, via inlet ends 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100. Each of the branch lines is equipped with a valve 111a, 121a, 131a, 141a, 151a and 161a, respectively, which permits flow of multi-component feed gas from manifold G into the selected adsorption columns being initially placed on stream.
Each of adsorption columns 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 is equipped at its discharge end 51, 61, 71, 81, 91 and 101, with gas lines 112, 122, 132, 142, 152 and 162, respectively, each being further equipped with exit control valves 112a, 122a, 132a, 142a, 152a and 162a, respectively. Lines 112, 122, 132, 142, 152 and 162 are operatively connected to gas discharge manifold K through which purified primary component product can be withdrawn. By opening the appropriate valve 112a, 122a, 132a, 142a 152a or 162a, purified primary component gas is caused to flow from the corresponding adsorption column through the connecting line and into discharge manifold K to be collected as product.
Manifold I is operatively connected to lines 112, 122, 132, 142, 152 and 162 by lines 114, 124, 134, 144, 154 and 164, each line being further equipped with valves 114a, 124a, 134a, 144a, 154a and 164a. Manifold I is equipped with exit control valves 170a, 180a and 190a which allow for operative connection to manifolds K and L for venting and discharge of columns 5 through 10.
Means for evacuating Columns 5 through 10 is provided by vacuum pump V2 which is operatively connected to manifolds L and J wherein manifold L is further connected to a waste container (not shown). Manifold J is connected to branch lines 112, 122, 132, 142, 152 and 162 via lines 113, 123, 133, 143, 153 and 163. A vacuum can be drawn at the discharge end of columns 5 through 10 by opening the appropriate exit control valves 113a, 123a, 133a and 143a, 153a and 163a, respectfully. For example, column 5 can be evacuated by opening exit valve 113a while closing exit valves 123a, 133a and 143a, 153a and 163a thereby drawing a vacuum in manifold J and lines 112 and 113. The vacuum is then vented to the atmosphere or to waste via manifold L.
Operation of the embodiment represented in FIG. 2 is explained in connection with an arbitrarily chosen cycle having twelve timed separation periods of two minutes per period. The sequence of steps occurring within each respective column is disclosed in Table 3. Table 4 discloses the valve positions during each step of the process cycle. Each of the six respective adsorption columns undergoes six periods of adsorption, one period of the equalization I step, one period of the blowdown step, two periods of the evacuation step, one period of the equalization II step and one period of repressurization. Each absorption column undergoes the sequence of steps hereinafter described under control of a cycle timer.
Adsorption column 5 undergoes six timed sequence periods of the adsorption step. Multi-component feed gas is introduced into inlet end 50 of adsorption column 5 by opening valves 111a and 112a thereby allowing feed gas to flow through manifold G, line 111 and into adsorption column 5 which contains adsorbent selective toward retention of CO2 and gaseous hydrocarbons other than methane. Unadsorbed CO2 -free methane primary component exits discharge end 51 of adsorption column 5 via line 112 and flows into manifold K to be collected as product while the secondary components are retained by the selective adsorbent within adsorption column 5.
Next, adsorption columns 5 and 9 undergo an equalization I step wherein the discharge end 51 of adsorption column 5 is placed in flow communication with the inlet end 90 of adsorption column 9 which has just finished a period of evacuation.
The pressure differential between adsorption columns 5 and 9 causes desorption of adsorbed secondary gas components in column 5, particularly adsorbed gaseous hydrocarbons, to flow through and out of column 5 in a direction concurrent to feed and into inlet 90 of adsorption column 9 thereby internally rinsing the void space of absorbent column 5 with a stream of adsorbed gas. Equalization pressure is provided by opening valves 114a, 180a and 155a thereby allowing pressure within adsorption column 5 to be released though line 114, manifold I, manifold H and line 155 which empties into the inlet end 90 of column 9.
Adsorption column 5 residing at an intermediate pressure following the equalization I step is blown down or vented to near atmospheric pressure by open valves 115a and 170a thereby causing pressure above ambient to exit to waste or into a collection container (not shown) via lines 115, manifold H, manifold I and manifold L.
Next, Column 5 undergoes evacuation which causes further desorption of secondary components in a direction concurrent to that of the initial feed. Valve 113a is opened and vacuum pump V2 creates a negative pressure at the discharge end 51 of adsorption column 5 thereby causing void gas and the remaining secondary components adsorbed within the adsorbent bed to be swept through the adsorption column in a direction concurrent to the feed. The secondary components and void gas pass through lines 112, 113, manifold J and manifold L to be collected as waste or channeled to another process.
The pressure in adsorption column 5 is again equalized to a pressure intermediate to that of the feed. Column 7 which has just undergone an adsorption period is placed in flow communication with the inlet end 50 of adsorption column 5 thereby pressurizing adsorption column 5 to an intermediate pressure level. More particularly, valves 134a, 180a and 115a are opened causing pressurized secondary components and void gas to exit adsorption column 7 in a direction concurrent to the feed and to flow through lines 132 and 134, manifold I, manifold H and line 115 until entering the inlet end 50 of column 5.
In the twelfth and final timed sequence period of the cycle, adsorption column 5 is raised from an intermediate pressure to superatmospheric pressure in anticipation of beginning another cycle. Valves 190a and 114a are opened and high purity primary product is introduced into the discharge end 51 of adsorption column 5 in a direction countercurrent to the feed via lines 190, manifold I, line 114 and line 112. This period continues until adsorption column 5 is sufficiently pressurized to accept pressurized multi-component feed gas in the first timed sequence period of the next cycle.
Numerous additional embodiments are contemplated which use the sequence of steps disclosed in FIGS. 1 and 2. For example, those skilled in the art can easily construct an embodiment having five adsorption beds wherein more than two equalization steps are employed. Moreover, while the embodiments disclosed herein have been described with reference to CO2 - methane separation, the process is applicable to feed mixtures containing trace amounts of other contaminants such as water. The process can also be readily adapted for use in the separation of multi-component gas mixtures containing a primary component other than methane.
4. Continuous operation of vacuum pumps.
Having thus described the present invention, what is now deemed appropriate for Letters Patent is set out in the following appended claims.
(g) repressurizing said first adsorption column to said superatmospheric feed pressure with primary gas product.
2. The method as defined in claim 1 wherein said gaseous mixture to be separated comprises methane in admixture with carbon dioxide.
3. The method as defined in claim 2 wherein the adsorbent is selected from the group consisting of activated carbon, silica gel, activated alumina, molecular sieve zeolites and molecular sieve carbons.
4. The method as defined in claim 2 wherein the adsorbent is activated carbon.
5. The method as defined in claim 2 wherein said gaseous mixture to be separated comprises hydrogen in admixture with at least one gas from the group consisting of CO2 and C2 -C4 alkanes.
6. The method as defined in claim 2 wherein the system comprises 4, 5 or six adsorption columns. | 2019-04-23T09:03:08Z | https://patents.google.com/patent/US4857083A/en |
So I’m guessing that you’re here to find out How to Soundproof a Home Office and that won’t break the bank in the process of doing so!
When I started working from home a couple of years ago, the sound quickly became an issue with my three young boys playing in the other room. Since then we’ve moved once, and I’ve learned from the last house how to better soundproof my home office. Each soundproofing project is unique, but most home offices can be efficiently soundproofed for just a few hundred dollars if you’re smart about it.
Before I begin, a CRITICAL tip that will likely save you tons of money on this project is understanding the difference between sound deadening and sound blocking!
Hollow Core or Solid Core Door?
Step 8 – Ever Try Noise Cancelling Headphones?
Conclusion On your DIY Soundproofing Project!
The difference between sound deadening and sound blocking, for example, suppose you have three noisy boys in a room adjacent to your office; You want your office to be quieter, so you purchase sound deadening curtains to put over the windows, you know those pointed foam panels like you see in recording studios.
Unfortunately, you could spend over a thousand dollars on those purchases, and it will do very little to soundproof your office. Those products help with sound deadening by preventing noises from echoing around the room. However, they will not be sufficient for keeping different types of sound from outside the room from entering.
Sound blocking products will help to prevent any types of sound from entering the room at all. Sound blocking requires thickness to be most effective. This is why it’s much easier to build a home office and make it soundproof than it is to sound block an existing home office.
If you’re building a house, you can have the builder merely use sound blocking drywall or soundboard to prevent sound from entering the room.
If you are trying to cut out sound from outside the home, then a new soundproof window can fix many issues for just a few hundred dollars installed.
And now we can tackle The most substantial “big rectangular hole” in your office which is unquestionably the door! The door is almost certainly the biggest problem in your home office. There are several steps you can take to soundproof the door or doors if you’re in that unlucky soundproofing predicament.
The least expensive and quickest way to soundproof your door is to get an inexpensive soundproof weatherstrip (like this one on Amazon) to put under and around the door. I like the type of soundproof weather strip that is equipped with adhesive so you can just unwrap it and stick it to the door jam. That will at least stop sound from going straight into your office.
You can have a thick door made of solid steel; it won’t make much of a difference regarding sound barriers if you have a massive crack at the bottom of your thick door!
If you have carpet under your home office door, then you’ll also need a draft stopper. A draft stopper will glide across the bottom of the carpet and provide soundproofing. So you’ll use the adhesive strip around the top of the door and the door jam, and the door sweep on the bottom of the door.
Difference between Solid core door and Hollow core door.
Next, consider changing out your door for a solid-core door. Go up to your door and knock on it. If it sounds heavy and thick like a chunk of wood, then you have a solid-core door. All exterior doors will be solid core. Doors that lead to another interior room of the house are almost always hollow-core doors, which do little for soundproofing.
If you have a hollow-core interior door leading to your home office or worse a glass garden style door; consider heading to Lowe’s or Home Depot and buying a stable core door for $99 and paying a handyman $75 to install it isn’t a bad idea. That’s undoubtedly a Quick fix, but you’ll still want to put on the adhesive soundproof weather strip I mentioned earlier.
In one of my co-workers home office, he simply installed a second door. I was a little perplexed when he told me that, but I saw it for myself. He just had a handyman build a second door to his home office.
Now you have to open and go through two doors get into his home office. This made a DRAMATIC improvement in the quietness of his office. This may not work in all homes, but if your layout works and the size of the door frame allows space for having two doors, then it’s something I recommend.
Another option if you don’t want to buy or can’t afford a brand new solid core door is to get a soundproofing blanket and hang it on back of the door. Soundproof blankets can be as useful as a solid core door and cost much less.
Also, you may want to consider looking around at some places where they sell used doors and home building supplies for cheap; you might find what you’re looking for and only have to add some paint to make it look good.
If you have followed all the steps in phase one and you’re still having trouble with sound coming into the room, then the chances are that you have structural soundproofing issues.
In my previous house, my home office was directly above the garage. We were living in a split entry home at the time. When my wife would come home using the garage door opener, It made the typical garage door opening sound. It was a loud, low grinding sound.
Since the garage door opener was mounted to the ceiling downstairs, the vibrations were sent through the studs directly into my home office. Experts call this structural sound.
The only way to stop structural sound is by using isolation techniques. This means separating layers of your wall so the vibrations of sound can be dampened, and not passed to another layer.
So the way you’d do this is by hiring a handyman to install a second layer of drywall on all of the walls of your office. This pushes in the room by one inch, and I’m telling you, you won’t even notice the difference after the drywall is installed; it will dramatically reduce the level of sound–especially low frequencies like traffic or structural sound.
When your handyman comes, you’ll need to have a sound channel and sound clips available that he’ll install between the layers of drywall to stop the sound.
Acoustic Panels for Home Office Soundproofing.
The last thing you can do will probably make the smallest difference concerning actually dropping the decibel level in your home office, but it can make the sounds that do come in be less annoying by stopping the echo.
First, decide how much of an issue your room has regarding echoes. Walk into the room and shut the door and yell something as loud as you can. Listen for the remarkably short echo after screaming to see how much vibration is happening within the interior of the office.
Think, for every single sound that comes into your office, that sound is reverberating for another 1/4 second or so.
Preventing echo won’t make the room quieter, but it will make any echoing sound much less annoying. So that’s mainly why anyone would want to control and reduce as much echo as possible.
Fortunately, stopping the echo is very simple. First of all, look to your floors. If you have tile, wood, or another hard-surface flooring, this will dramatically increase echo. The solution is simple, go off and buy a big and thick plush rug and lay it on the floor, new look, no echo!
Next, look to your walls. If your room has facing walls as all square or rectangle rooms do, softening sound on the walls can help. Put up curtains to keep noise from bouncing off windows. Put up a large canvas gallery artwork on the wall with some foam behind to soak up the sound bouncing on the walls.
The key is adding as much thick, soft materials around the room as possible to make your soundproofing as effective as possible.
If you don’t think preventing echo is essential, go to your washroom. The washroom probably is the room with the highest echo. Turn on some music from your phone, and you’ll know exactly what I mean.
It’s hard to make out the words because the music is echoing so much inside the room. Then keep the music playing on your phone and walk into the closet where there are lots of clothes hanging on the walls. The soft material from the clothes soaks up all the echo and makes the room feel so much quieter.
Have you ever hear of soundproof paint? Well, it does exist and would contribute to sound absorption and noise blocking of up to 30%.
The soundproof paint that I’ve worked with in the past is called Acousti-Coat (Amazon). Acousti-Coat is a water-based injected with microspheres and sound absorbing fillers. The soft pigment fillers absorb sound and help to prevent it from bouncing off the walls and ceiling.
Noise in the 500Hz range is reduced by 30%. 500Hz is the mid-frequency of the human voice.
Soundproof paint is a relatively inexpensive way to help reduce the transfer of noise while you’re trying to soundproof a home office.
The soundproof paint will especially help on the ceiling where you have people above you walking around and talking. It will also help eliminate the tin noise of a metal roof from transferring down through the structure of the house.
I bet you never thought of soundproofing the air vents, have you? Well, soundproofing the air vents in any room is commonly overlooked; unless there is noticeable noise coming from the vent itself.
Aside from the doors and windows, the air vent would typically be the biggest hole in any room. The most significant difference however between the doors and widows versus the air vent is that the air vent is open while the others are not.
There are a few ways to soundproof an air vent. You can either block it off entirely and paint over; if it’s just an overhead door air vent going from room to room. Or you can also replace the vent cover with a vent silencer.
The third option to make an air vent quieter would be to build a sound maze inside the vent. An air maze (image below) will significantly help reduce the transfer of sound waves but will not block the flow of air coming in from another room.
If you’re dealing with an air vent attached to a heating or cooling system there are ways to make a bit quieter if you’re having issues with noise.
The most common noise coming from an air duct would be a vibration noise while the air is pushing through the grill. Either the metal-air shaft is vibrating, or the grill itself is making a vibrational noise.
Either way, stick a few strips of sound absorption tape directly on the air shaft. The tape should reduce the vibration reasonably quickly.
See our full guide on how to soundproof an above door air vent!
Making the Outdoors your Home Office.
I know for myself, living with three small boys can get very loud at times inside my home. Something I often wonder is if I should take my office outside. If you can’t win, might as well leave.
Usually, I would move my office during the summer months and work outside on the back deck. If you have space, you can run off to have some quiet time then that might not be such a bad idea. Going outside could work if the noise coming into your home office is not occurring every day.
If the noise is constant and you don’t have the means in the short term to renovate your home office perhaps try another room in the house. I for one find the garage the quietest place in the house when my kids are terrorizing the inside of my home.
Most people like myself do not require much these days regarding a home office. I like to work on a desktop computer if I am working on larger projects; but most of the time all I need is my laptop and an internet connection, oh and a chair.
A local coffee shop also works because I find the noise of people talking in the background eventually turns into white noise.
Use a white noise machine for the home office.
If you can’t move to another area like I was mentioning above, and you’re forever stuck attempting to soundproof your home office, then there are things you can do to help drown out some of the noise.
Let us imagine that you’ve done at least some things on this list regarding soundproofing a home office, and you still hear some noise; try a white noise machine.
If you can still hear the background noise, then a white noise machine could help in your effort to make your home office more peaceful.
A white noise machine works by creating a constant noise. Unlike a thunderstorm or waves crashing on the shore which is not constant, white noise is more in line with the sound from a fan.
A fan emits a constant noise while a lightning storm creates jarring noises when lighting strikes.
The white noise machine I always recommend is the Marpac Dohm All Naturel White Sound Machine (Amazon). The reason why I like this particular system above its competitors is that this one uses a fan inside the machine to make the noise.
There is a cover so you’re not bombarded with cool air of course. Almost all of the other types white noise machines makes sounds that come out of a speaker. You might as well download an app if you’re going to go that route.
Have you ever tried a pair of noise-canceling headphones? I have, and I really like it when I want to drown out the background noise while trying to listen to a podcast.
If you’ve soundproofed enough of your home office but you can still hear a nagging sound that is constant then slapping on a pair of noise-canceling headphones would be an easy fix.
The only catch with these types of headphones is that the noise needs to be a “constant background noise”. That means that if the background noise is coming from brawling kids, then these headphones won’t work.
One question I was asking myself before I began looking into noise canceling technology is if I had to listen to something for the noise canceling to work as intended.
I was happy to hear that no, you don’t need any music. All you need is to turn them on and make sure the noise canceling feature is also turned on, and you’re good to go.
The ones I use and also recommend are the Sony WH-CH700N (Amazon). They might not be an Amazon bestseller but those are the ones I actually have and I’m pleased with them. Try to buy them when they come on sale.
If you are having problems with stomping noises coming from above your home office, there are ways to go about correcting this problem.
There are a few ways to go about soundproofing a ceiling inside your home. The most common way to go about this is adding some 5/8″ sound absorbing drywall along with some Green Glue (My review).
One of the ways that I find works best when soundproofing an existing ceiling is by adding a resilient channel between the ceiling and the new sheet of drywall.
A resilient channel is a type of construction material that is used to reduce the transmission of sound through walls and ceilings.
As you probably already know, sound waves travel much easier through solid objects. Think of when you were a kid, and you would press your ear on the rail of a railroad track to hear if there is a train coming, same concept.
So since sound travels better through solid objects you have to create an air cavity, hence the resilient channel. The resilient channel consists of sheet metal studs that are used as a barrier between the ceiling and the building framing.
Since you already have an existing ceiling, all you need to do is add the resilient channel and then add some drywall over creating a second ceiling. You shouldn’t feel the room become any smaller by doing this.
The gap left by the resilient channel will muffle out the noise coming from upstairs leaving your home office much quieter.
Here is a link to our article on how to soundproof a basement ceiling. The same process would apply as soundproofing your basement ceiling as your home office ceiling. We demonstrate different examples of how to get the job done right.
Sometimes the biggest downfall of any projects, be it major or minor, is the lack of planning that went on before the job started.
Before you do anything, write down on a piece of paper exactly what noises are the ones you want to eliminate and where they are coming from.
If the noise is coming exclusively from outside, then focus on the exterior wall and window. There is no need just yet to attempt to soundproof your office door if you’re worried about barking dogs or outside traffic.
All I’m saying is soundproofing a room in your home does not have to be terribly costly or complicated.
All you need to do is figure out where the culprit is and fix it and stop worrying about soundproofing anything else in your home office.
Working from Home is a blessing! I entirely love not having to commute every day. By following all these steps, my office is now quiet and peaceful.
It’s nice to be able to go into my office, shut the door; And have as much privacy and ability to focus on my work as if I were in an actual place of business.
I hope this was helpful to you and that you’re successful in knowing how to soundproof a home office in the cheapest way possible!
5/8″ vs 1/2″ Drywall – Best Soundproofing Sheetrock & Wallboard? | 2019-04-26T10:12:14Z | https://soundproofguide.com/how-to-soundproof-home-office/ |
Entitlement to revision of a June 17, 1986, Board decision denying entitlement to a permanent and total disability rating for pension purposes on the basis of clear and unmistakable error (CUE).
The Veteran served on active duty in the United States Army from April 1974 to September 1974. This matter is before the Board as an original action on the motion of the Veteran in which he alleges CUE in an June 17, 1986, Board decision that denied entitlement to a permanent and total disability rating for pension purposes.
1. In an June 17, 1986, decision, the Board denied the Veteran's claim seeking a permanent and total rating for pension purposes.
2. The correct facts, as they were known at the time of the June 17, 1986, decision were before the Board, and any error in applying the statutory or regulatory provisions extant at the time did not manifestly change the outcome of the appeal.
The June 17, 1986, Board decision denying entitlement to a permanent and total rating for non-service connected pension purposes was not clearly and unmistakably erroneous. 38 U.S.C. § 7111; 38 C.F.R. §§ 20.1400, 20.1403.
The Veteran alleges CUE in the Board's June 17, 1986, decision, asserting that the Board erred in framing the issue as entitlement to a permanent and total rating for non-service connection pension purposes and failing to apply the provisions of 38 C.F.R. § 3.344. By way of background, the Veteran was found to have a permanent and total disability in March 1977 that rendered him unemployable. Entitlement to non-service connected pension benefits was established effective July 28, 1976, based on the following disabilities: anxiety neurosis with schizoid trends, rated 50 percent disabling; bronchial asthma with chronic obstructive lung disease, rated 30 percent disabling; and hypertrophic rhinitis, rated 10 percent disabling-for a combined disability rating of 70 percent.
VA examinations were conducted in October 1984. Based in part on the findings of these examinations, the RO concluded that the Veteran's disabilities had improved to the point that he was no longer precluded from gainful employment. In a January 1985 rating decision, the RO reduced the Veteran's permanent and total rating and terminated the Veteran's award of non-service connected pension benefits. He was notified in a February 1985 letter that the termination of his pension benefits would be effective May 1, 1985. The Veteran appealed the RO's determination. A personal hearing was held in June 1985.
In a June 17, 1986 decision, the Board found that the medical evidence of record reflected no more than a moderate amount of back, psychiatric, and respiratory difficulty. The Board further found that the Veteran's disabilities were not sufficient to prevent the him from obtaining or maintaining some form of substantially gainful employment for the rest of his lifetime. Hence, the Board denied entitlement to a permanent and total disability rating for pension purposes.
In July 1986, the Veteran sought to reopen his claim of entitlement to a permanent and total disability rating for pension purposes. His claim was denied by the RO in February 1987 and denied by the Board in a January 1989 decision.
The Veteran again sought to reopen his claim for non-service connection benefits, which was granted by the RO in a December 1989 rating decision. After an appeal of the effective date assigned, the Board, in a 1996 decision, granted an effective date of January 31, 1989. The Veteran seeks to have his pension benefits reinstated effective May 1, 1985, the date that they were terminated by the RO.
The Veteran's representative makes essentially two arguments in the motion for revision on the basis of CUE. First, the representative argues that the "claim" of entitlement to restoration of the permanent and total rating remains a pending, unadjudicated claim because that issue was not specifically addressed by the Board in the June 1986 decision. As to CUE in the June 1986 Board decision, the Veteran's representative argues that the Board failed to apply the provisions of 38 C.F.R. § 3.344(a) to determine if the reduction of the permanent and total rating (upon which pension benefits was based) was proper. The Veteran's representative argues that the evidence of record was insufficient to support a finding of sustained improvement in the Veteran's disabilities under the ordinary conditions of life. See July 2015 Motion for Reconsideration/Revision.
Under 38 U.S.C. § 7111, a prior Board decision may be reversed or revised on the grounds of CUE. Motions for review of prior Board decisions on the grounds of CUE are adjudicated pursuant to the Board's Rules of Practice at 38 C.F.R. §§ 20.1400-1411. The motion alleging CUE in a prior Board decision must set forth clearly and specifically the alleged CUE, or errors of fact or law in the Board decision, the legal or factual basis for such allegations, and why the result would have been different but for the alleged error. 38 C.F.R. § 20.1404(b).
The determination of whether a prior Board decision was based on CUE must be based on the record and the law that existed when that decision was made. 38 C.F.R. § 20.1403(b)(1). CUE is a very specific and rare kind of error. It is the kind of error, of fact or law, that when called to the attention of later reviewers compels the conclusion, to which reasonable minds could not differ, that the result would have been manifestly different but for the error. Generally, either the correct facts, as they were known at the time, were not before the Board, or the statutory and regulatory provisions extant at the time were incorrectly applied. 38 C.F.R. § 20.1403(a); see also Fugo v. Brown, 6 Vet. App. 40, 43 (1993).
To warrant revision of a Board decision on the grounds of CUE, there must have been an error in the Board's adjudication of the appeal that, had it not been made, would have manifestly changed the outcome when it was made. If it is not absolutely clear that a different result would have ensued, the error complained of cannot be CUE. 38 C.F.R. § 20.1403(c); see also Bustos v. West, 179 F.3d 1378, 1380-81 (Fed. Cir. 1999) (expressly holding that in order to prove the existence of CUE, a claimant must show that an error occurred that was outcome-determinative, that is, an error that would manifestly have changed the outcome of the prior decision).
Examples of situations that are not CUE include a new medical diagnosis that "corrects" an earlier diagnosis considered in a Board decision; the Secretary's failure to fulfill the duty to assist; and disagreement as to how the facts were weighed or evaluated. 38 C.F.R. § 20.1403(d). CUE does not include the otherwise correct application of a statute or regulation where, subsequent to the Board decision, there has been a change in the interpretation of the statute or regulation. 38 C.F.R. § 20.1403(e).
As a threshold matter, the Board finds that the arguments advanced by the Veteran allege CUE with the requisite specificity in light of the Board's duty to read the Veteran's submissions sympathetically. See 38 C.F.R. § 20.1404(b); see Andrews v. Nicholson, 421 F.3d 1278, 1282 (Fed. Cir. 2005).
As an initial matter, the Board must determine whether the Veteran's appeal of the reduction of his permanent and total rating and subsequent termination of pension benefits was denied in the June 17, 1986 Board decision. See Richardson v. Nicholson, 20 Vet. App. 64, 72 (2006). If the appeal is still pending, it should be adjudicated and there is no need to reach CUE. If it was finally decided, then it may be revised on the basis of CUE. Id.
A claim for VA benefits remains pending until it is finally adjudicated, or if VA fails to properly notify the claimant of the denial of the claim. Adams v. Shinseki, 568 F.3d 956, 960 (Fed. Cir. 2009); 38 C.F.R. § 3.160(c); Cook v. Principi, 318 F.3d 1334, 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (en banc). "It is well established, however, that in certain circumstances, pursuant to the implicit denial doctrine, a claim for benefits will be deemed to have been denied, and thus finally adjudicated, even if VA did not expressly address that claim in its decision." Cogburn v. Shinseki, 24 Vet. App. 205, 210 (2010) citing Adams, 568 F.3d at 961 (internal quotations omitted)' Ingram v. Nicholson, 21 Vet. App. 232, 240 (2007). The Court in Ingram determined that where a decision discusses a claim in terms sufficient to put the claimant on notice that it was being considered and rejected, then it constitutes a denial of that claim even if the formal adjudicative language does not "specifically" deny that claim. Id. The key question in the "implicit denial" inquiry is whether it would be clear to a reasonable person that VA's action that expressly refers to one claim is intended to dispose of others as well. Adams, 568 F.3d at 962-963.
In Cogburn v. Shinseki, 24 Vet. App. 205 (2010), the Court listed four factors that must be considered when determining whether a claim was implicitly denied: (1) the specificity or relatedness of the claims (e.g., is the claim for a generalized set of symptoms, a specifically diagnosed disorder, or two (or more) specifically diagnosed disorders that are closely related); (2) whether the adjudication alluded to the pending claim in such a way that it could reasonably be inferred that the prior claim was denied; (3) the timing of the claims (e.g., were the claims filed in the same application, within a short period of time from each other, etc.); and (4) whether the claimant is represented. Id. at 212-214.
In this case, the Board finds that the claim that the Board adjudicated in June 7, 1986 and the "claim" the Veteran asserts is still pending is the same claim. In the context of determining whether a claim remains pending or was finally decided, the word "claim," means a request for a particular benefit, i.e., pension benefits. See Rice v. Shinseki, 22 Vet. Ap. 447, 451 (2009) (noting that the term "claim" has been used to describe a wide variety of circumstances, and that in Ingram the word "claim" means "the specific benefit sought"); Ingram, 21 Vet. App. at 247 (noting that the elements of a section 1151 "claim" and a pension "claim" are entirely different); 38 C.F.R. § 3.1(p) ("claim" means a written communication requesting a determination of entitlement or evidencing a belief in entitlement, to a specific benefit under the laws administered by VA). Although the Board inaccurately characterized the issue on appeal as one of entitlement to a permanent and total rating for pension purposes rather than the propriety of the reduction, the ultimate benefit sought by the Veteran was the same - the reinstatement of his pension benefits. Moreover, the Board noted in the June 1986 decision that it was on appeal from the January 1985 rating decision that terminated the Veteran's pension benefits. There was no question that after the June 1986 Board decision, the Veteran understood that his appeal of the termination of his pension benefits was denied, and that he would no long be receiving such benefits. To now suggest that claim decided by the Board in June 1986 was somehow a completely separate request for benefits than what the Veteran originally appealed (and for which he now seeks an earlier effective date) misunderstands the meaning of the word "claim" in the jurisprudence addressing whether a claim remains pending and unadjudicated.
Even assuming that the claims were not exactly the same and the 1986 Board decision did not explicitly deny restoration the Veteran's permanent and total rating, consideration of the Cogburn factors leads to a finding that the "claim" of restoration of pension benefits was implicitly denied in the June 1986 Board decision. Although the Veteran was not represented by an attorney in 1989, an analysis of the remaining factors shows that it would be clear to a reasonable person that VA denied pension benefits. The Board decision noted that the claim on appeal arose from the termination of the Veteran' pension benefits in the January 1985 rating decision. The decision explained that entitlement to pension benefits required a finding that the Veteran was permanently and totally disabled as a result of disability, and the Board found that the evidence did not support such a finding. There is no question that the Board provided enough information in its June 17, 1986 decision for the Veteran to reasonably know that his permanent and total rating would not be restored, and his pension benefits would not be reinstated. See Ingram, supra. Thus, the relatedness, timing and specificity of the adjudication factors in Cogburn all support a finding that the implicit denial doctrine would apply, and that no claim seeking restoration of pension benefits remains pending.
Having determined that the appeal concerning the propriety of the pension termination was implicitly denied, the Board will now address whether the June 17, 1986 Board decision should be revised on the basis of CUE. The Board finds that no revision is warranted because any alleged error in failing to apply the provisions of 38 C.F.R. § 3.344 did not manifestly change the outcome of the appeal.
As an initial matter, the Board notes that the Veteran has not alleged any error in the procedural due process steps that were required to be taken prior to the reduction or termination of pension benefits in 1985-1986, and the Board finds that the rather minimal procedural requirements of 38 C.F.R. § 3.105(f) in effect at the time were met. The Veteran was given notice of the reduction/termination prior to its effective date, the reduction did not take place prior to the last day of the month in which it was approved, and he was provided a personal hearing upon his request.
Total disability ratings, when warranted by the severity of the condition and not granted purely because of hospital, surgical, or home treatment, or individual unemployability will not be reduced . . . without examination showing material improvement in physical or mental condition. Examination reports showing material improvement must be evaluated in conjunction with all the facts of record, and consideration must be given particularly to whether the veteran attained improvement under the ordinary conditions of life, i.e., while working or actively seeking work or whether the symptoms have been brought under control by prolonged rest, or generally, by following a regimen which precludes work, and, if the latter, reduction from total disability ratings will not be considered pending reexamination after a period of employment (3 to 6 months).
Rating agencies will handle cases affected by change of medical findings or diagnosis, so as to produce the greatest degree of stability of disability evaluations consistent with the laws and [VA] regulations governing disability compensation and pension. It is essential that the entire record of examinations and the medical-industrial history be reviewed to ascertain whether the recent examination is full and complete, including all special examinations indicated as a result of general examination and the entire case history. . . . Examinations less full and complete than those on which payments were authorized or continued will not be used as a basis of reduction. Ratings on account of diseases subject to temporary or episodic improvement . . . will not be reduced on any one examination, except in those instances where all the evidence of record clearly warrants the conclusion that sustained improvement has been demonstrated. . .. Moreover, though material improvement in the physical or mental condition is clearly reflected the rating agency will consider whether the evidence makes it reasonably certain that the improvement will be maintained under the ordinary conditions of life.
The Veteran contends that based on the evidence of record in June 1986, reasonable minds could not differ as to the result the Board could have reached. Specifically, he contends that the evidence of record in 1986 did not support a finding of sustained improvement in his disabilities had been demonstrated under the ordinary conditions of life. See July 2015 Motion for Reconsideration/Revision.
However, the Board finds that there was sufficient evidence of record in June 1986 to find that the Veteran's disabilities showed material improvement under the ordinary conditions of life, and that it was reasonably certain that the improvement would be maintained under the ordinary conditions of life. The January 1977 VA psychiatric examination upon which the Veteran's permanent and total rating was based (in part) noted that the Veteran was very querulous and plaintive, argumentative and vindictive. He was noted to feel that people were against him because of his experience in the Army and that he lost all of his friends and his wife. He reported disturbed sleep, noting that he hears noises and has visions of women coming close to his bed and pulling him by his arms and legs. The VA examiner found that he was obsessed with the idea that military police were coming to arrest him. He was noted to need constant sedation and have defective insight and judgment capacity. The Board also notes that a June 1976 VA hospital summary showed that the Veteran was complaining of insomnia, irritability, anxiety, episodes of rage, poor control and frequent homicidal ideation. He reported feeling that people were against him, and that he could not trust others. He also stated that he believed that "people use the influence of spirits to harm him."
By contrast, the October 1984 VA examination showed that the Veteran had no homicidal ideation, hallucinations, delusions, obsession or psychosis. He reported feeling anxious and depressed all the time, having nightmares, and feeling restless most of the time, but he appeared at the examination to be alert, verbal and cooperative. The October 1984 VA examiner noted that the Veteran was disoriented in time and had diminished concentration, but he had fair memory (remote, recent and immediate) abstraction, judgement and insight. The Veteran reported feeling that he was unjustly treated and exhibited marked hostility toward the military, but was not noted to be obsessed. The findings of this VA examination show improvement in the Veteran's psychiatric symptoms from the January 1977 VA examination. The Board found in the June 1986 decision that the Veteran's disabilities did not show more than a moderate amount of difficultly or impairment, and was not satisfied that the disabilities were of such severity as to render the Veteran unable to obtain or maintain substantially gainful employment. Additionally, the evidence shows that the Veteran was attempting to seek work during the relevant time period, as evidenced by the lay statements submitted. See April 1986 Statements of G.C.F. and J.C.V. Thus, the record contained sufficient evidence to show that the improvement in the Veteran's disabilities constituted improvement under the ordinary conditions of life.
Additionally, the April through July 1985 VA medical records contain evidence of sustained improvement in the Veteran's psychiatric symptoms, or evidence to support a finding that it was reasonable certain that the improvement would be maintained under the ordinary conditions of life. The April 1985 VA medical record shows a report of anger, irritability and aggressiveness at home, but notes that these symptoms abated, and his aggression was much improved. The Board notes that the May 1985 and July 1985 VA medical records show report of the Veteran seeing images of dead people and hearing noises in his dreams and during the day, but the July VA medical provider also noted that the Veteran had good contact with reality. There is no notation of homicidal ideation (either frequent or occasional), feeling distrustful of others, or obsessive thoughts. The Board acknowledges that the lay statements submitted by G.C.F. and J.C.V. indicate that the Veteran had difficulty working with others, showed signs of aggressiveness, and was speaking incoherently about dead people and ghosts. Nevertheless, as there was evidence to support findings that the Veteran had material improvement in his symptoms under the ordinary conditions of life and work and it was reasonably certain that the improvement would be maintained under the ordinary conditions of life, the Board today cannot say that the evidence of record in June 1986 was so overwhelming that reasonable minds could not differ on these issues. "It is the prerogative of the factfinder . . . to interpret the evidence and draw reasonable inferences from it." Evans v. McDonald, 27 Vet. App. 180, 187 (2014) (citing Kahana v. Shinseki, 24 Vet. App. 428, 435 (2011); Gilbert v. Derwinski, 1 Vet. App. 49, 52 (1990)). A disagreement as to how the facts were weighed does not support a finding of CUE. Fugo, 6 Vet. App. at 43-44. The Board today cannot supply its own judgment as to the credibility and probative value determinations that would have been made in June 1986 decision, and cannot find CUE in the June 1986 decision merely because it would have decided the matter differently. Revision on the basis of CUE may only be granted where reasonable minds could not differ that the result would have been manifestly different but for the error.
The Board acknowledges that in support of his claim, the Veteran submitted a November 1994 decision of the Board issued in another claimant's case, granting reconsideration of an October 1985 Board and reinstating pension benefits. In that November 1994 decision, the Board found that the evidence of record in that case did not support a finding that the veteran had sustained improvement which was reasonably certain to be maintained under the ordinary conditions of life, and thus found that the reduction of the permanent and total rating was void ab initio. Nevertheless, previously issued Board decisions will be considered binding only with regard to the specific case decided. 38 C.F.R. § 20.1303. Prior decisions in other appeals may be considered in a case to the extent that they reasonably relate to the case, but each case presented to the Board will be decided on the basis of the individual facts of the case in light of applicable procedure and substantive law. Id. Here, the November 1994 reconsideration decision addresses similar issues as addressed in this case, but the individual facts are different.
The Board is also cognizant that the Court has held that when the issue raised is a rating reduction and it is determined that the reduction was made without observance of law, including the provisions of 38 C.F.R. §§ 3.343(a) and 3.344(a), the Court has declared the reduction void ab initio and has ordered reinstatement of the prior rating. Schafrath v. Derwinski, 1 Vet. App. 589, 595-96 (1991); Brown v. Brown, 5 Vet. App. 413 (1993); King v. Shinseki, 26 Vet. App. 484, 492-93 (2014) (applying Brown, and Schafrath to severance of non-service connected pension benefits). The Court held that this approach finds support by analogy in the special procedural prerequisites of 38 C.F.R. § 3.105, as it is "implicit in the regulations that a . . . rating reduction is invalid if these procedures are not followed. Schafrath, 1 Vet. App. at 596 (citing to 38 C.F.R. § 3.105(e), (g), (h) (1991); cf. In Re Fee Agreement of Smith, U.S. Vet. App. No. 91-619, slip op. at 7 (Oct. 7, 1991) (per curiam)).
However, the plain language of 38 C.F.R. § 20.1403(e) states that CUE does not include the otherwise correct application of a statute or regulation where, subsequent to the Board decision challenged, there has been a change in the interpretation of the statute or regulation. "A determination that there was a CUE must be based on the record and the law that existed at the time of the prior... decision." Russell v. Principi, 3 Vet. App. 310, 314 (1992). This standard requires that a determination of whether revision is warranted on the basis of CUE must be based on the law as it was understood at the time of the decision. A judicial decision that formulates a new interpretation of the law subsequent to a final VA decision cannot be the basis of a valid CUE claim. Berger v. Brown, 10 Vet. App. 166, 170 (1997) ("[w]e do take this occasion to specifically hold opinions from this Court that formulate new interpretations of the law subsequent to [an agency] decision cannot be the basis of a valid CUE claim"); Damrel v. Brown, 6 Vet. App. 242, 246 (1994). Although a judicial decision must be given full retroactive effect in all cases that are still open on direct review, it does not affect decisions that are final. Smith v. West, 11 Vet. App. 134, 37-38 (1998); Reynoldsville Casket Co. v. Hyde, 514 U.S. 749, 758 (1995) ("new legal principles, even when applied retroactively, do not apply to cases already closed"). Nothing in the applicable statute or regulation allowing for revision of a final Board decision on the basis of CUE indicates that a prior final and binding decision may be reversed or amended because a new judicial determination changed the way an existing law was interpreted. 38 U.S.C. § 5109A; 38 C.F.R. § 20.1403. Consequently, judicial decisions issued after June 1986 cannot serve as the basis for a claim that the Board committed a clear error of law in June 1986.
The Board also acknowledges that the Veteran has challenged the adequacy of the October 1984 VA psychiatric examination, stating that the examination was incomplete and the examiner spent time talking about religious issues. Although duty to assist errors cannot form the basis of CUE, the Board also acknowledges that the relevant regulatory provisions require that the VA examinations upon which a reduction is based be "full and complete." 38 C.F.R. § 3.344. To that end, the Board notes that the October 1984 VA examination report discusses the history of the Veteran's psychiatric disorder, addressed his current symptoms, daily activities, interpersonal relationships and mental status. Thus, reasonable minds could differ as to whether the October 1984 VA examination was full and complete, and thus sufficient to form the basis of the permanent and total rating reduction.
Finally, the Veteran has also argued that VA erred in reducing his permanent and total rating based on a single examination, where 38 C.F.R. § 3.344 states that ratings on account of diseases subject to temporary or episodic improvement will not be reduced on any one examination, except in those instances where all the evidence of record clearly warrants the conclusion that sustained improvement has been demonstrated. However, the Board notes that the evidence of record in June 1986 included VA medical records showing treatment for the Veteran's psychiatric disability between April 1985 and July 1985, not only the October 1984 VA examination. Thus, the Board does not find the Veteran's argument on this issue persuasive.
Considering the foregoing, the Board finds that the Veteran has not established that, but for incorrect application of the statutory or regulatory provisions, the outcome of the claim would have been manifestly different. Accordingly, the Board concludes that there was no CUE in the June 17, 1986, Board decision finding that entitlement to a permanent and total disability rating for pension purposes was not established. As such, the Veteran's motion for revision is denied.
The Veteran's motion to revise or reverse the June 17, 1986, Board decision denying entitlement to a permanent and total disability rating for pension purposes, is denied. | 2019-04-19T08:48:12Z | https://va-claim.com/2018/10/27/entitlement-to-revision-of-a-june-17-1986-board-decision-denying-entitlement-to-a-permanent-and-total-disability-rating-for-pension-purposes-on-the-basis-of-clear-and-unmistakable-error-cue-denie/ |
1. Differentiate between weather and climate.
Weather is the condition of the atmosphere at a particular place and time whereas climate is the average condition of the atmosphere of a specific place over a long period of time, usually over 30 years.
Annual rainfall - total amount of rainwater collected throughout the year.
3. Explain the daily and seasonal variations in temperature at a particular location.
· Temperature varies throughout the day in a place. The temperature rises and falls as the Earth rotates from west to east. The location facing the sun experience day and the location which is away from the sun experience night. Temperature rises during the day and falls at night.
· Temperature generally increases with the length of the day. Places along the equator have equal lengths of day and night all the year. Beyond the equator, places have longer days and hence higher temperatures in summer, and shorter days and lower temperatures in winter. Temperatures are higher from June to August in the Northern Hemisphere due to the position of the sun in relation to the Earth’s axis which is tilted at an angle of 23½° from the vertical. From June to August because of the position of the overhead sun, there is a higher intensity of the sun rays in the northern hemisphere. Thus the temperatures are higher during this period.
4. Compare and explain the variations in temperature between different locations.
Ø Latitude – Temperature generally decreases with increasing latitude. Places in low latitudes have higher temperatures because they receive vertical sunrays and hence more concentrated insolation. Temperatures are higher as the vertical sunrays travel through shorter distance of the atmosphere and smaller amount of insolation is lost through reflection and scattering.
Ø Altitude - The atmosphere is mainly heated by long wave radiation (heat energy) from the earth's surface (land or sea surfaces). Thus, the higher the altitude, the cooler the air temperature. With increasing altitude or elevation, air becomes less dense and contains less dust and water vapour. . Heat from the earth's surface thus escapes more rapidly, thereby lowering the air temperature. In general, air temperature decreases with increasing altitude at a rate of about 0.6°C to 0.65°C per 100 metres (or 6°C to 6.5°C per 1000 m) in a free atmosphere. This change of temperature gradient is called the normal lapse rate (or vertical lapse rate).
Ø Distance from the sea- Land heats up and cools faster than water or the sea.
Maritime effect - onshore winds blowing from the sea or ocean to coastal regions tend to lower summer temperatures and raise winter temperatures. Such moderating influence is called maritime influence and is confined to coastal areas. Thus, coastal regions have a cooler summer and a warmer /milder winter than inland regions. The annual range of temperature in coastal regions is therefore smaller than that in inland regions. This is particularly felt in temperate regions.
5. Explain the differences in relative humidity in different locations.
The amount of water vapour in the air affects relative humidity. For example, if the air at 15°C holds 5g/m³ of water vapour and can contain a maximum of 10 g/m³of water vapour, relative humidity will be 50%. If the actual amount of water vapour held by the air increases to 6 g/m³, relative humidity will be 60% instead.
Relative humidity also varies with temperature. Warm air can hold more water vapour than cool air. When temperature increases, the amount of water vapour in the air stays the same, but the rise in temperature makes air more able to hold water vapour. Thus relative humidity decreases as temperature increases.
6. Explain the formation of convectional rain and relief rain.
Convectional rain- When the earth’s surface is heated by conduction, moisture-laden vapour rises because heated air always expands and becomes lighter. Air rises in a convection current after a prolonged period of intense heating. In ascending, its water vapour condenses into cumulonimbus clouds with a great vertical extent. This probably reaches its maximum in the afternoon when the convectional system is well developed. Hot, rising air has a great capacity for holding moisture, which is abundant in regions of high relative humidity. As the air rises, it cools and when saturation point is reached, torrential downpours occur, often accompanied by thunder and lightning.
Relief (orographic) rain is formed whenever moist air is forced to ascend a mountain barrier. It is best developed on the windward slopes of mountains where the prevailing moisture laden winds come from the sea. The air is compelled to rise and is thereby cooled by expansion in the higher altitudes and the subsequent decrease in atmospheric pressure. Further ascent cools the air until the air is completely saturated. Condensation takes place forming clouds and eventually rain. On descending the leeward slope, a decrease in altitudes increases both the pressure and the temperature; the air is compressed and warmed. Consequently, the relative humidity will drop. There is high evaporation and little or no precipitation.
7. Explain how coastal temperatures are moderated by land and sea breezes.
In coastal regions, the land is heated up faster than the sea during the day and the hot air rises resulting in lower pressure over the land than the sea. The air pressure over the sea is higher and thus the air moves towards the land as sea breeze. At night, the land cools faster and thus the air pressure over the land is higher than the sea. The air moves towards the sea as land breeze.
Sea breezes usually blow at about mid-afternoon when the temperature difference between the land and the sea is the greatest. This lowers the relatively warmer temperature of the land. Land breezes, on the other hand, cool the warm air over the sea at night. Thus land and sea breezes help to regulate the temperatures of the land and the sea, keeping it at a moderately constant level.
8. Explain the formation of monsoon winds.
Monsoon winds are regional wind patterns that reverse direction seasonally due to the Coriolis effect produced by the rotation of the earth. The Coriolis effect cause the wind to be deflected. In the northern hemisphere, the wind is deflected to the right and to the left in the southern hemisphere.
Between June and September, the northern hemisphere experience summer and the air over Central Asia heats up, expands and rises, forming a region of low pressure over the area. The southern hemisphere experience winter and the low temperature causes the air to be cold and dense, resulting an area of high pressure over Australia. Air from Australia moves towards Central Asia as the southeast monsoon due to the difference in pressure between Central Asia and Australia, As the wind cross the Equator, the Coriolis effect deflects the wind to the right and it become the southwest monsoon.
Between October and February, the southern hemisphere experience summer and an area of low pressure forms over Australia The northern hemisphere experience winter and the low temperature causes the air to be cold and dense, resulting an area of high pressure over Cental Asia. Air from Central Asia moves towards Australia due to the difference in pressure between Central Asia and Australia. The Coriolis effects deflect the wind to the right in the northern hemisphere as the northeast monsoon. As the wind crosses the equator, the Coriolis effect deflects the wind to the left and it become the northwest monsoon in the southern atmosphere.
9. Describe and explain the distribution and characteristics of equatorial, monsoon and cool temperate climates.
Characteristics: High mean temperature of about 27°C throughout the year because of the high angle of incidence of the sun’s rays concentrating at the Equator. The temperature range is small, about 2 to 3°C. High relative humidity of over 80% experienced throughout the year. Due to the high temperatures, water evaporates quickly into the air, forming clouds and convectional rain. Total annual rainfall is high at more than 2000mm throughout with no dry month.
Characteristics: High temperatures around 29°C in the hot season due to the midday sun being overhead at the Tropic of Cancer in June. Mean temperatures are lower in the cool season ranging from 20°C. to 24°C in Dec and Jan, the coolest months. The annual range of temperature is larger than that of the equatorial, ranging from 5°C to 17°C. The rainfall is mainly affected by the monsoon winds which cause a distinct wet and dry season. The onshore monsoon brings the rainy season while the offshore monsoon causes the dry season. In India the offshore NE monsoon does not bring rain except areas close to the Bay of Bengal and therefore it is relatively dry towards the end and beginning of the year. The SW monsoon brings heavy rain to the coastal areas as the wind is laden with moisture it had picked up when crossing the Indian Ocean.
Four distinct seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter due to the tilt of the earth and its revolution around the sun.
During winter, these places have shorter day and less energy from the sun, This results in a large temperature range with winter temperature below 0°C.
Total annual rainfall is lower between 300mm and 900mm. There are no distinct wet or dry seasons.
10. Describe and explain the weather and climate of Singapore with reference to rainfall, relative humidity and temperature.
Singapore experiences the hot, wet equatorial climate. Mean annual temperature is high at about 27.5°C. Surrounded by water and accompanied by the high temperatures, especially at mid-day, leads to a high evaporation rate. The air is humid or saturated with water vapour by late afternoon. The dry- bulb reading will fall with temperatures towards night, closing the gap between the readings on the two thermometers. Since the wet bulb depression becomes very low, relative humidity is very high at around 84.2%. Total annual rainfall is high at about 2, 200mm. Most of the rain in Singapore comes from convectional rain. However the northeast monsoon does bring more rain to Singapore from Oct to Feb amounting to about 1,125mm as it crosses the South-china sea and picks up more moisture.
When temperature rises, the mercury expands, pushing the metal index along the tube. When temperature falls, the alcohol contracts and pulls the metal index along the tube.
For the Six’s thermometer (U-shape maximum and minimum thermometer), the temperatures are obtained by reading the values indicated at the bottom of the metal index (indicators).
It consists of a funnel that collects and channels rainwater into a container. The rainwater that is collected is emptied after every 24 hours into a measuring cylinder. It should be placed in an open area where there are no obstructions to block the rain and also avoid concrete surfaces as splashing may occur leading to an inaccurate reading.
Read and record the temperature on the dry bulb thermometer.
Refer to the relative humidity chart.
Read the temperature of the dry bulb thermometer on the left column. The depression of the wet bulb is the difference between the wet bulb thermometer and the dry bulb temperature.
Find the value at which the dry bulb temperature intersects with the depression of the wet bulb.
Wind direction refers to the direction that the wind is blowing from.
It is shown by a freely moving pointer on a wind vane. The wind vane is usually placed on a high, open place with little or no obstruction to the flow of wind. The direction the wind vane is pointing to is the direction where the wind is blowing from.
A windsock is a kite made from a tube of cloth. One end of the tube is held open by a ring. Windsocks point in the direction opposite of the wind's direction of origin. For example, if a windsock is pointing west, the wind is coming from the east. The faster the wind blows the straighter and more horizontally the wind extends. A 15-knot (28 km/h; 17 mph) wind will fully extend the properly functioning windsock. A 3-knot (5.6 km/h; 3.5 mph) breeze will cause the windsock to orient itself according to the wind.
An anemometer is used to measure wind speed and direction. It includes 3 to 4 cups mounted on a vertical pole. The cups catch the blowing wind and turn the pole. Each time the anemometer makes a full rotation, the wind speed is measured by the number of revolutions per minute (RPM). The number of revolutions is recorded over time and an average is determined.
A wind rose records the number of days with and without wind, as well as wind direction. The number in the centre records the number of calm days in the month. The rectangles point in the direction the wind is blowing from and the numbers represent the dates in a month in which the wind blew from a particular direction.
A barometer has two hands. The hand on the inside is called the measuring hand. The hand on the outside directly over the measuring hand is called the movable pointer. The moveable pointer is arranged over the measuring hand to mark the current pressure. The measuring hand will move according to the air pressure. Take the reading to see whether the hand moves to right which is rising or to the left which is falling.
The dial expresses mercury in measurements in millibars (Mb).
12. Discuss climate change in the last 150 years.
· Global records since 1881 show a significant, but irregular temperature rise of 0.3oC to 0.6°C.
· Global cooling was recorded after WWII for several decades because of industrial pollution and volcanic activity (global dimming).
· Global warming over the last century: world is warming on average by 0.74°C, with most of that since 1970s.
· Global temperatures in the last decade reached the highest levels on record.
13. Discuss the natural causes of recent climate change.
Solar variations - The Sun is the source of energy for the Earth’s climate system. Some scientists suspect that a portion of the warming in the first half of the 20th century was due to an increase in the output of solar energy. As the sun is the fundamental source of energy that is instrumental in our climate system it would be reasonable to assume that changes in the sun's energy output would cause the climate to change. For instance a decrease in solar activity was thought to have triggered the Little Ice Age between approximately 1650 and 1850, when Greenland was largely cut off by ice from 1410 to the 1720s and glaciers advanced in the Alps.
Volcanic eruptions - When a volcano erupts it throws out large volumes of sulphur dioxide (SO2), water vapour, dust, and ash into the atmosphere. Large volumes of gases and ash can influence climatic patterns for years by increasing planetary reflectivity causing atmospheric cooling. Tiny particles called aerosols are produced by volcanoes. Because they reflect solar energy back into space they have a cooling effect on the world. The greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide is also produced.
Ocean current - Ocean currents move vast amounts of heat across the planet. Winds push horizontally against the sea surface and drive ocean current patterns. Interactions between the ocean and atmosphere can also produce phenomena such as El Niño which occur every 2 to 6 years. Deep ocean circulation of cold water from the poles towards the equator and movement of warm water from the equator back towards the poles. Without this movement the poles would be colder and the equator warmer. Changes in ocean circulation may affect the climate through the movement of CO2 into or out of the atmosphere.
14. Explain the greenhouse effect.
Greenhouse gases (CO2, water vapour, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone and halocarbons) trap heat in the atmosphere resulting in a greenhouse effect. Incoming shortwave radiation from the sun passes through the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Most of the shortwave radiation is absorbed by the earth’s surface which heats up as a result. The warmed surface of the earth emits longwave radiation to the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases absorb longwave radiation and warm the atmosphere.
Enhanced greenhouse effect is a rise in global temperatures due to the increase in the concentration of the greenhouse gases.
15. Explain how human activities (Anthropogenic factors ) such as deforestation, burning of fossil fuels, rice cultivation and cattle farming increase greenhouse gases and lead to enhanced greenhouse effect.
- Forest absorbs CO² via photosynthesis. Deforestation lead to increase in CO² level in the atmosphere.
- Carbon oxidation is a process by which carbon in the soil reacts with oxygen in the atmosphere to produce CO². Deforestation exposes soil to sunlight and increase soil temperature and rate of carbon oxidation which release more CO² into the atmosphere.
- Industries – burning of fossil fuel to produce energy release CO² as well as manufacturing of goods release CO² as by-product.
- Urbanisation – burning of fossil fuels to produce energy for household activities in urban areas such as heating, cooling, cooking and lighting. More cars, buses and other transportation also increase greenhouse gas emissions. Constructing infrastructure and producing construction materials also release greenhouse gases.
16. Explain the impact of climate change such as sea level rise, extreme weather events and human health.
§ Sea level rise - threatens low lying areas and islands, increases risk of damage to homes and buildings from storm surges that accompany tropical cyclones.
§ More frequent extreme weather events e.g. heat waves, flood, drought and tropical cyclones. Increased land and sea surface temperatures resulted in greater amounts of water vapour and latent heat in a warmer atmosphere causing more extreme weather events.
§ Spread of some infectious insect-borne diseases e.g. heavy rainfall allows mosquitoes to grow resulting in spread of malaria and dengue fever.
§ Higher temperatures may lengthen the growing season in certain regions e.g. fruit production in Eastern Canada, vineyards in Europe. Increase in the types of crops such as blackberries and maize that can be grown in UK. However in China, production of fruits such as apples and cherries or nuts such as almonds and walnuts is reduced as these fruits and nuts require cool weather temperature. Similarly in Canada, the production of wheat is reduced.
17. Describe International efforts to mitigate climate change.
· Drawn up in Kyoto, Japan on 11 Dec 1997 and came into force on 16 Feb 2005 to reduce levels of greenhouses gases.
· Countries were obliged to reduce their combined greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5% below their 1990 level from 2008 to 2012.
· Greater responsibility placed on 37 developed countries and the European countries as they were mainly responsible for the high levels of greenhouse gas emissions as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity.
Depending on the ability of each developed country, they help less developed countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by providing them with funds.
· Many countries such as Austria, Finland, Greece, Ireland and Spain met or exceeded target.
· Countries monitor and report their greenhouse gs emissions to ensure they are on track in keeping to target.
· Successful in encouraging sustainable development.
· The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) gave Certified Emission Reduction (CER) credits to countries which carried our emission-reduction projects such as installing energy-efficient infrastructure in less developed countries.
· Countries such as Denmark, Sweden and UK did not achieve their targets.
· The Kyoto Protocol did not make it compulsory for countries with low greenhouse gas emissions to provide energy-efficient technology to countries with high greenhouse gas emissions.
· Countries which did not sign the Protocol continued to contribute significantly in the global emissions.
18. Describe National efforts to mitigate climate change.
· To generate 60% of Singapore’s energy needs using natural gas by 2012 as it is a cleaner form of energy compare to coal as it does not produce smoke.
As early as 2010, about 79% of Singapore’s electricity generated from natural gas.
Exceeded target ahead of schedule.
High maintenance cost for pipelines as they are laid underground and need to be checked regularly for leakages.
· Buildings evaluated and certified according to how energy-efficient and environmental friendly they are. Encourage more new ‘green’ buildings which are E.g. buildings which run partly on solar energy.
· Green Buildings such as Plaza by the Park, Standard Chartered @ Changi and the National Library reported energy savings of 15% to 35% compared to convention buildings.
· Reduce greenhouse gas emission as less fossil fuels needed to generate electricity.
Most costly as ‘green’ materials may be more expensive.
· Residents encouraged donating money to buy a tree or take part in tree planting events.
Contributed to an estimated 60,000 trees planted yearly throughout Singapore by the National Parks Board. Limitations: Trees take many years to mature, so the positive effects of tree planting will take time to materialise. E.g. Angsanas, Raintrees and Yellow Flames take25 years to reach their full height.
– Strong winds exceeding 64 knots or 119 km/hr, circulate clockwise in the southern hemisphere and counter clockwise in the northern hemisphere while spiralling inward to the cyclone centre or eye due to the Coriolis effect.
– For example, Hurricane Isabel in 2003 flooded rivers flowing across Virginia and Washington and affected areas 120 times the size of Singapore causing damages of more than US$2.23billion.
21. What are the impacts of tropical cyclones?
US$4 billion needed to repair infrastructure and provide humanitarian aid (eg medicine, water filter, tents etc) after Typhoon Nargis in Myanmar in 2008.
Economic losses for countries affected by typhoons amount to US$26 billion annually, projected to increase to US$55 billion by 2100.
Disrupt water supply - Burst sewage pipes will contaminate water.
Damage to infrastructure disrupts supply of fresh water to people.
Spreading of diseases -Stagnant water allows mosquitoes to breed, aiding the spread of malaria and dengue.
Dirty water also results in water-borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid fever.
What were the weather conditions and the damages inflicted by Tropical Cyclone Yasi?
How effective were the measures adopted to mitigate the impact of Tropical Cyclone Yasi?
6 Response to "Notes on Weather and climate"
Your posts are good and so informative.Thanks for this great blog, Very well & insightful. | 2019-04-20T00:33:49Z | http://olevelgeog.blogspot.com/2011/10/wrath-of-nature.html |
In stylistic terms, Soviet comedies of the 1960s firmly belong to the international tradition that appeared in the wake of Truffaut’s Tirez sur le pianiste (1960) and other French New Wave films, which consciously appropriated features of early silent cinema. New Wave films have never exclusively dealt with comic topics, but in large part it was their playfulness and the introduction of their new stylistic devices in popular comedies that made them successful. A light touch, foregrounded reflexivity, episodic structure and cartoonish characters became the hallmark of mainstream popular European cinema in the 60s. These innovations were very quickly and successfully taken up in Eastern Europe. Their appearance coincided with a gradual loosening of control over the arts that had already begun with the Thaw before the emergence of the New Wave. Under these conditions, filmmakers in Eastern Europe found such stylistic innovations useful in trying to combine the irreverent nature of satire with lightheartedness, which appealed to wider audiences. Thus, perhaps even more than in the West, popular comedy opened a possibility for filmmakers to engage in debate about important social matters.
Leonid Gaidai earned the title of the most prominent Soviet film comedy director in the decades that followed the release of his sixth feature, Operation Y and Other Shurik’s Adventures [sic] (Operatsiya Y i drugie priklyuchenia Shurika) (1965). In 1955 he graduated from VGIK, in the master class of Grigoriy Alexandrov, Eisenstein’s collaborator and a well-known Soviet director of film comedies. Probably because of his formative years at VGIK and the influence exerted by Alexandrov, American silent comedians – Chaplin and above all Keaton – directly inspired Gaidai. This is apparent in many of his movies. Another of his early films, Kidnapping Caucasian Style, or Shurik’s New Adventures (Kavkaskaya plenitsa ili novye priklyuchenia Shurika) (1966) plays like a mélange of situations and objects appropriated directly from Keaton’s silents: the kidnapping and the car from Sherlock, Jr (Buster Keaton, 1923) the escape from the hospital and ambulance ride from Cops (Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline, 1922), the river sequence that seems to have come directly from Our Hospitality (Buster Keaton and John G. Blystone, 1923) and Shurik’s capture of a bear replicating an event from Hard Luck (Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline, 1921) (Keaton’s favourite short).
Gaidai loved slapstick, and as his collaborators bear witness, the action could never move fast enough for his taste. His comic technique also often depended on associative reasoning. For example, the beginning of Kidnapping Caucasian Style features a couple of Keatonesque gags in which Shurik’s attempts to motivate his donkey are compared with the driver’s attempts to start the truck, while the light footsteps of the heroine are intercut with the front legs of a trotting donkey.
One of the most important formal patterns enabling the creation of associational conceptional networks in silent comedy is the sight gag. Noel Carroll defines it as a “form of visual humour in which amusement is generated by the play of alternative interpretations projected by the image or image series.” (1) Given that research in experimental psychology has supported the hypothesis that human beings understand the world by constructing working models of it in their minds, we might say that the alternative interpretations invoked by a sight gag can be more precisely described as mental models constructed by the viewer. Some of the mental models used by the mind are highly artificial, while others are acquired without special instruction. When applied to human understanding of narratives, this implies that “readers understand narratives by creating a situation-model, which represents the narrative world described by the text rather than the text itself.” (2) In other words, situation models in the reader’s mind are distanced from and relate to reality, in a similar way to how they operate regarding textuality, which serves as the basis of a particular diegetic situation model. Thus, the alternative interpretations proposed by a sight gag are nothing other than alternative working models, which mimic and explain the relations and behaviour of objects present in the diegetic space.
While the instances of visual humour that will be described in this article, and their relation to the narrative of Operation Y and Other Shurik’s Adventures, do not clearly belong to the category of the sight gag as defined by Carroll, one of our aims here is to argue that they function on basically the same principles as does the sight gag proper. However, we are less interested in proposing an alternative typology of visual humour than in explaining how the potential for associative reasoning pertinent to film comedies, and specifically to the sight gag, can work towards the creation of complex, reflexive working models of the world outside the diegesis.
Comic events that we will provisionally call sight gags function in Operation Y and Other Shurik’s Adventures much as they do in Keaton’s or Tati’s films: they are the pivotal points of individual comic situations. Initially and individually, sight gags bring about and rely upon the formation of ancillary, temporary situation models, and Gaidai was not above making a joke whenever he could. On the other hand, since the silent days, filmmakers have occasionally developed the principles of the sight gag more systematically, sustaining alternative situation models over a longer period. By looking at several of Gaidai’s films that in various ways establish satirical situation models, we can see how those develop from the basic diegetic situation models from which they depart. These models appear as explanations of strings of incidents that support the formation and existence of parallel working models. The alternative, mutually exclusive working models suggested by individual events (sight gags) play a crucial role in the formation of the much more abstract explanatory models that can be seen as actually proposed in this movie, and which in return articulate and emphasise the division between the diegetic level, and satiric level of specific individual events. These reinterpretations all spring from the reinterpretation of individual objects, during the process of spinning-out of alternate ways of conceptualising the formally closely-related signifiers. Only one such reinterpretation is sometimes sufficient to quickly initiate reinterpretation of a whole network of related objects-events.
Thus, although the “sight gags” in Operation Y and Other Shurik’s Adventures may appear simple when looked at individually, and when compared to the sight gags of the classical era, understanding that the director’s intervention implies a dense conceptual background helps the viewer appreciate the complexity of the interplay between diegetic objects, their arrangements, and their incorporation into alternative working models. These models are built gradually as the film’s plot develops. Gaidai never lets them lapse from the viewer’s focus; he carefully arranges diegetic events so that alternative mental models have appropriate elements available, and as a result can change and develop during the viewing of the movie. The use of slapstick lends the whole exercise more perspicuity: the simplicity of the diegetic plot line weakens the competitive diegetic situation model in comparison with the alternative, “allegorical” meaning to the point that the latter becomes more plausible and relevant. But it is more important to notice that because of the closely connected signifying processes, the diegetic situation model becomes a sine qua non of the satirical meaning, not only initially, and occasionally, but persistently, and with strong rhetorical force. This is why it will be necessary to describe in more detail the events, which take place in two out of three episodes of Operation Y and Other Shurik’s Adventures.
However, it is Gaidai’s films from the ’70s that most clearly display reflexive structures in which the doubling that we have indicated as pertinent to sight gags is applied throughout the plot so persistently that it assumes the features of mannerism. Whilst taking a brief look at Ivan Vasilievich Changes Profession (Ivan Vasilievich menyaet professiyu) (1973) will help explain the way in which the viewer creates a reflexive reading position, our ultimate objective is to describe the reflexive potential of Operation Y and Other Shurik’s Adventures, which was made in the very specific historical conditions of failed economic reforms in the Soviet Union.
In Gaidai’s Ivan Vasilievich Changes Profession we find a clear example of a sustained effort to create a logical space for the interplay of mutually exclusive situation models by application of corresponding principles at the level of the whole plot. The movie was inspired by Bulgakov’s play Ivan Vasilievich, adapted by Gaidai to a contemporary setting: Shurik works on the time-machine that can take him back to the past, and manages (in his dream) to bring Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible to one of the Soviet Union’s apartment buildings, while sending a thief and a would-be-apparatchik together back to medieval Russia. The main actor Yuri Yakovlev plays two roles, Tsar Ivan Vasilievich (Ivan the Terrible), and Soviet citizen Ivan Vasilievich, a not-so-intelligent “upravdom,” a semi-official bureaucrat who in Soviet times took care of the communal life in high-rise apartment buildings (3). Exchanging the contexts of these two figures allows Gaidai to compare two very different settings, the paranoid, imperial court of Ivan the Terrible, and the seemingly safe but boring everyday life of the Soviet Union in the early ’70s. While Ivan Vasilievich brings contemporary Soviet attitudes to 16th century Russia, Ivan the Terrible causes havoc in the smoothly-run but repressive Soviet regime. Even the opening credits of the film reveal the doubling to ensue: written in a contemporary Russian alphabet, in the middle of the screen the characters switch into an old Russian Cyrillic font.
George Myloslavskiy, the thief who gets involved in the whole plot while trying to rob Shurik’s neighbour, a dentist, is sent back to the old times together with “upravdom” Ivan Vasilievich. He is a con artist who can change his identity with ease, reinforcing the film’s tendency to offer a doubling situation model to the viewer. At the beginning of the movie he changes his voice while making a telephone call to a sweet, seducing female voice in order to find out when the dentist would not be at his home. Later, he changes jackets and glasses, assuming any role that can help him survive (4). Nevertheless, even he struggles to master the violent, paranoid world of the Russian court.
While the whole film combines Bulgakov with inevitable slapstick, as Gaidai again finds the time and place for police chases reminiscent of the Keystone cops, the construction of competing situation models remains the main structural principle of the film (5). By mixing present with past, and by using a number of obviously identical bodies in two entirely different set-ups, the director persistently forces viewers to consider the extent to which the meaning of a particular physical and psychological entity depends on the link with other contemporary objects. Simultaneously, he provides an opportunity for viewers to reconsider their propensity to automatically approach objects with a certain prejudice, arising from knowledge based on already arranged elements of the story. In addition to the reflexive structure, which arises out of this conflict, the film obviously refers to Eisenstein’s classic Ivan the Terrible, further complicating an already complex associational structure. Even the credits mentioned above may be seen as referring to the credits of Part I and Part II of Eisenstein’s movie, respectively (6).
It is with these insights in mind that we turn to Gaidai’s earlier film Operation Y and Other Shurik’s Adventures, a seemingly innocuous slapstick omnibus comprising three episodes, which describe the life of the Soviet student Shurik in the mid-’60s. It will provide us with an example of a complex, potentially reflexive relationship between a diegetic situation model and the world-view (or we could say, working model of reality) held by the viewer. The film was produced by Mosfilm, and was a blockbuster in the Soviet Union upon its release in 1965, with 70 million viewers. It is one of the key films in Gaidai’s oeuvre, and very important in recent critical reevaluation of him as one of the most popular post-war Soviet (Russian) directors (7). The film has certainly survived its time; Yeltsin’s authorities used it as a “filler” on television during the counting of votes in the presidential election of 1996. According to Sergeii Dobrotvorskii, “Gaidai’s films proved to be the most effective collective antidepressant without any side effects.” (8) However, here we are primarily interested in the impact the film might have had on viewers when it appeared in cinemas for the first time.
After Stalin’s death and Khrushchev’s speech in 1956, a period of instability ensued, with gradual relaxation of the very strict control, first over the cultural, and later over the political life of the Soviet bloc countries. As mentioned, Eastern European cinemas were able to address socially relevant questions during this period, in which the need for wide-ranging political and economic reforms was high on the social agenda. The Thaw, as these changes were named, proceeded at an uneven pace, with periods of liberalisation followed by a renewed tightening of Party control over social life. The former periods were generally inspired by the recognised need to catch up with the West in economic efficiency as well as make up for the political deficiencies of “people’s democracies”. The latter followed in the wake of larger political crises when it appeared that the reforms might have gone too far in diluting the power of the party to control events (for example the uprising in Hungary in 1956 and Prague Spring of 1968).
This period of sporadic attempts at reform, which brought the reformulation of tenets of Socialist Realism in art and a significant increase in the production of consumer goods, as well as the opening of space for limited private initiative in the economy, lasted around 15 years, from 1953 to 1968. It covered the initial power vacuum immediately after Stalin’s death, the reign of Khrushchev, and the first few years of Brezhnev’s leadership. In this period the party ascribed an increasingly important role to artists and intellectuals who were ostensibly at the forefront of the search for new solutions for social problems. As already mentioned, the second half of this period coincided with the appearance of the New Wave, which appealed to many filmmakers across Europe. This is the broad historical framework in which Gaidai made his omnibus film. Let us see in detail how Operation Y and Other Shurik’s Adventures refers to events in the economic and political sphere, how it constructs an alternative situation model, and finally, how it offers a sharp-witted point of view on complex social events (9).
The first episode of Operation Y, “Naparnik” (“Partner” or “Co-Worker”) tells the story of a petty criminal sent for a day of corrective labour to the building company where Shurik works as an intern. A prior encounter and argument with Shurik on the bus no. 13 was the initial cause for the unruly, burly drunk, a counterpart of the slapstick comedy villain, being sent to jail. Before he and Shurik meet again, we see him among other wacky, slothful inmates, one of whom has his shirt wide open, revealing a drawing of Sputnik 1 tattooed on his chest with the caption “I want to go to the moon.” The reunion of the bespectacled Shurik and the ruffian escalates into a conflict, which provides a rationale for the wild chase throughout the building site in which building equipment and various materials are used as weapons in their personal war.
If at the beginning the cause of their hostility was uncivil behavior, at the end the war erupts because of the lout’s laziness. Shurik’s partner refuses to work and lies down wherever he sees a suitable spot. Although Shurik is in charge, he cannot fire his co-worker or change his behaviour, and the work suffers accordingly. Obviously, the behavior of Shurik’s “naparnik” stands for those significant numbers who behaved according to the well known motto of the socialist labor force, “you cannot pay me as little as little I can work.” At first sight, the film seems to advocate more, rather than less strict societal control, as part of a solution to the problem, but that is not as important as the fact that it successfully locates weak spots in the national economy.
Thus, “Co-Worker” deals only on the superficial, diegetic level with delinquent behavior, while asking the crucial question, what is the future of a system unable to motivate its working force? The brute even spells it out to Shurik: “You work for rubles, and for me this is enforced labor”. In an earlier scene we see him pass by the “doska pocheta” – the best workers achievement billboard – which obviously does not impress him very much. Therefore, the question of economic motivation, the crucial problem of the centrally planned Soviet economy, provides a key for building a comprehensive alternative “situation” model and interpretation of the first episode. In addition to the initial diegetic situation model, a Soviet viewer of the time can easily build an extended, and alternative working model, which is in fact too abstract to be called a situation model. They are both simultaneously applied to the “same” objects, which acquire different importance and meaning according to the mental model in which they are included. Filmmakers who in any way wish to refer to reality outside the diegetic world face the question how individual incidents can be related to the wider conceptual field, which is necessarily organised with the help of working models. This abstract conceptual field suggested in “Naparnik” clearly conveys a message about the economic and political situation in the Soviet Union of the time.
Considering that Operation Y and Other Shurik’s Adventures were released in July of 1965, the viewer could assume that its first episode advocates economic changes along the lines of those proposed by the Kharkov economist, Professor Evsei Liberman. Three years earlier, in September of 1962, he called for a broad debate about profit-earning capacity and profits in the Soviet economy, and in the next few months the Communist Party unwillingly began to debate inevitable reforms. Khrushchev, whose ideas about economic reform always relied more on party activism and command methods than on market mechanisms, proposed strengthening the role of the Party to counterbalance the economic independence of enterprises. However, the whole effort was shelved in November of 1962. In the summer of 1964, several months before his fall, Khrushchev, facing increased economic problems, again brought Liberman’s ideas into public view. This time some initial experimental reforms were implemented, and late 1964 and 1965 were the most favourable post-war years for the limited economic reform in the Soviet Union before Gorbachev came to power.
A Leninist party is the enemy of subjectivism and drift in communist construction. Harebrained scheming; premature conclusions; hasty decisions and actions divorced from reality; bragging and bluster; a penchant for management by fiat; an unwillingness to take into account the conclusions of science and practical experience; these are alien to the party (10).
Faced with these questions, we realise that the third character in “Co-Worker” provides a much less ambivalent key to the interpretation of the episode. For the main engineer at the construction site is a highly overdetermined incarnation of this description of Khrushchev (neither here nor in the Pravda article mentioned by name) (11). For example, he is wholly oblivious to the total lack of discipline at the place he runs, and he strolls among the unfinished walls of the housing estate incessantly spouting official ideology. To begin with, he compares contemporary production statistics with those of the year 1913, the last peaceful year before the war, which brought the Revolution (12). Later, he brags about scientific successes, “our spaceships which cruise the cosmos”, about surpassing America, and about grandiose schemes for housing projects. In the meantime, the drunk licks his ice-cream, wipes his hands on the main engineer’s clothes and spends his time “at work” eating and sleeping. Also, the building site setting of “Co-Worker” has strong links to Khrushchev. He was well known to the domestic audience as the man behind the mass construction of housing in the early 50s, when he initiated the building of a huge number of ugly prefabricated buildings with small flats in order to solve the housing problem in Moscow. The public even nicknamed them “khrushcheby” (from “trushcheby” – slums).
As if this were not enough, references to Khrushchev’s animosity to religion, as well as to his extensive trips abroad are included. Once we realise that the main engineer wears the same Ukrainian shirt that Khrushchev very often wore in public (also sported by one of the briefly glimpsed jailed hoods at the beginning of the episode), it becomes clear that “Co-Worker” was above all a not-so-gentle farewell to Khrushchev in the most popular Soviet film of 1965.
It seems obvious that in “Co-Worker” the construction of an alternative, or extended satiric working model by the viewer proceeds via a series of connected sight gags as defined by Carroll. One situation model controls the meaning of the diegetic characters and events, such as the conflict on the public bus, the relationship between Shurik and the hooligan etc. The alternative, satiric model, which is based on the former, builds a much more abstract network that relates to Khrushchev, to the various social groups, and complex developments in the Soviet society. Every time that the viewer perceives elements which lead him/her to apply the alternative working model to an object-event, a cognitive event comparable to the sight gag takes place. Like in a sight gag, a small detail can shift the viewer’s interpretation in the desired direction. The major difference may be found in the degree of surprise: an isolated sight gag that elicits an alternative mental model often causes more astonishment than a corresponding figure which is interpreted according to an already established explanatory pattern. But this need not be the case, as we can see in Operation ‘Y’ and Other Shurik’s Adventures, in which the fast pace of slapstick keeps the viewer continually occupied in constructing a diegetic model from events that develop with breakneck speed.
Under these conditions, the uneven pace of the development of a further, abstract working model, which refers to the political questions of the Soviet Union, causes the viewer to repeatedly react with significant surprise, especially as the cues that activate the abstract model already possess a comic potential stemming from their function within the diegetic context. The reference to Khrushchev is not made only through the character of the main engineer (one of the louts has already staked his claim to the Moon); but he is a final trigger helping to establish a firm and consistent abstract working model, which is then reapplied to the preceding incidents of the episode.
Shurik’s second adventure in “Strange Impression” (“Navazhdenie”) portrays the love life of the young generation and is again inspired by early Keaton, especially The Scarecrow (Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline, 1920). This serves as an interlude before the film returns to the Soviet economy in the third and last movement, “Operation Y” itself. “Operation Y” opens at the “kolkhoz market” at which everything but agricultural products is being sold. At one of the stalls, a man sells wall paintings and the dialogue with the customer clearly mocks Khrushchev’s famous dislike of abstract paintings and his prudery. The rest of the episode is devoted to the ploy arranged by the head of the local warehouse and three local thugs. To deceive the arriving inspectorate, they organise a break in, although there is nothing valuable left to steal. In the words of the leader of the gang, Byvalyi (“Old Hand” – or literally, the one who has been around for a long time), whose manners and looks are reminiscent of Khrushchev’s: “In our place everything is already stolen.” And so the fictitious burglary takes place at the already burglarised department store, ridiculing the structurally ingrained susceptibility of the Soviet state operated merchandising to thievery.
If Khrushchev’s work on housing problems was familiar to Soviet audiences, his interest and investment in agriculture was known to be second to none. His involvement in constant changes in agricultural production included a great expansion into the “virgin lands” of Kazakhstan and Siberia during the late ’50s, construction of large agro-towns, and cooperation with and promotion of the controversial scientist Lysenko. He was also known for his war against the small private plots on which kolkhoz members actually produced a surplus that they later could sell at the market. Their abolition made food even scarcer, and the introductory scene of “Operation Y” is a clear reference to the sad state of affairs in Soviet agriculture.
Constant scheming had already made Khrushchev’s collaborators tired and weary even before the dismal harvest of 1963. In addition, in early 1964, just a few months before his downfall, he engaged in a renewed drive against the peasants’ private plots and livestock holdings. Thus, it is easy to read “Operation Y” as the final judgment on Khrushchev’s contribution to Soviet agriculture. He left the village inefficient and plundered, with peasants engaged in everything but the production of food.
The immediate announcements that followed Khrushchev’s dismissal on October 16, 1964 referred only to his age and health as reasons, without any details. The newspaper denunciation quoted above, which was published the day after, never mentioned his name. Despite this, and although he was explicitly brought up in the press on only a single occasion before he died in 1971, the claim that “his successors wished to forget that he existed, and clearly…hoped that the public would forget him as well” is belied by Gaidai’s films (13). It appears that as he was pensioned off, show trials and ritual party congress attacks were replaced by a much more sophisticated weapon: derision in the very popular, seemingly innocuous Soviet comedy genre films that went into production very soon after his downfall, where the main structural tool used was the sight gag and the “knowledge effect” it produces (14).
Primarily because of his immensely popular 1968 comedy Diamond Arm (Brilyantovaya ruka), Gaidai was recently even called the main dissident in the Soviet cinema during its period of stagnation. Along the same lines, one might propose that Operation Y and Other Shurik’s Adventures was an episode in his personal crusade against Soviet foibles. However, this seems highly unlikely. Firstly, two screenwriters worked on the script along with Gaidai. Furthermore, knowing the number of hurdles the script had to jump through in order to go into production in the Soviet system, the complex manner in which Khrushchev features in the comedy must have been approved, and even initiated, from a higher place (15).
So, if Operation Y was primarily a vehicle to discredit Khrushchev, what are we to say about its references to the inadequate Soviet economic system? Although the economic shortcomings are clearly connected with the departed leader, they are presented as systemic, rather than solely being an outcome of his style of leadership. He did not do much to solve them, but what is the Soviet viewer in the summer of 1965 to perceive as the way out of an obviously existing problem? If the answer seems to be only hinted at, the middle of 1965 was a rare time when the question could have been openly asked. Even if Khrushchev had not been an ardent proponent of the introduction of market instruments, he had opened the space for others to begin asking the question.
Operation Y and Other Shurik’s Adventures arranges a number of diegetic objects and events that relate to the extra-diegetic reality on many levels. By recognising these relations, the contemporary viewer was able to form a multifarious, abstract and reflexive working model based on a cinematic form apparently as simple as slapstick. It is obviously not a matter of a momentary hint at the social circumstances, but rather a sustained effort, with a complex outcome. Gaidai uses the figure of Shurik, a bespectacled, good-natured student (whose emotional identificatory power comes from outside this filmic text), in order to guide viewers through a more intricate mental model related to their experience of reality outside the theatre. Thus, the viewer faces a complex relationship between abstract concepts, signifiers, and material traits of the text. At the same time, the basic diegetic situational model is a source of strong and vivid emotions that freely circulate and inform the satiric layer of meaning. The rhetorical power of Gaidai’s narrative lays exactly in the “eureka” effect of the sight gags, and other associational forms of reasoning, while Shurik replaces the already obsolete worker or peasant from the Soviet films of previous decades, revealing the rising aspirations of the Soviet population and the change in their worldview (16).
The basic problem facing filmmakers who wish to make a satire is the relationship between the diegetic world of film narration and the satirical layer of meaning. They both use the same signifying field, and they both rely on the power of recognition in human thinking. The competition of two (or two groups of) working models, one situational, diegetic, and the other satirical, more abstract, in which the individual objects do not stand for themselves, but for the classes of objects, and even more abstract constellations that involve perceptually absent social institutions and relations, means that none of them can be self-enclosed from the moment the viewer begins to form the outlines of the satirical working model. The stronger the narration insists on the relevance and continued existence of the abstract satirical model, the stronger is the possibility that the recognition of object-events will be made too stringently dependent on the inflexible, prescriptive abstract model, which claims higher explanatory competence. But slapstick in Operation Y and Other Shurik’s Adventures is utterly untamable, and it constantly keeps the process of recognition alert. On the other hand, instead of openly and early revealing the outlines of his satirical model, Gaidai gradually builds it up in close connection with the events of physical comedy, which takes place on the diegetic level. Some elements of the satirical model are more easily visible than the others: the critique of technocracy, and of socially irresponsible behavior, for example. But only after the viewer brings forward more hidden elements of its structure, can the full dimensions of the abstract model be apprehended. This is where we see the close similarity between the functioning of the sight gag in visual comedy and the moments filled with surprise here, in which the viewer suddenly realises that the function of objects in slapstick simultaneously hides and illuminates the function of the “same” objects in the abstract satirical working model.
Interested forces in the Soviet political structure were obviously aware of the tremendous popularity of comedy with domestic audiences, even before the detailed survey conducted in the region of Sverdlovsk in early 1966 (17). The atmosphere of the Thaw, which began soon after Stalin’s death in conditions of a power vacuum, persisted, interspersed with periods of tightened control, throughout Khrushchev’s reign. His style of leadership seems to have been crucial for this. Never happy with what had already been achieved, dynamic, erratic, crude and rude, yet increasingly removed from Stalin’s repressive policies, he created an atmosphere with much more space for the political initiative of others. After his secret speech at the 20th Congress of CPSU and subsequent drives against the “cult of personality”, the dogma of the Party’s infallibility could never again have the same power, nor could the position of Socialist Realism in the arts remain the same. Political discourse in the arts thus became much more complex and varied. In the comedies of Gaidai we face works that obviously did not aspire to be dissident in relation to the centers of power. However, the need to influence public opinion in regard to pertinent political questions is evident. In order to explain the reading strategies available to viewers, the answer should be sought in the affinity between the filmmakers and the political agenda of various centres of power. In interpreting these films, it is most profitable to search for the line which divided the ceremonial tribute to the sacred cows of the system from genuine discursive and political innovations in given historical circumstances. However, what makes this process more complicated is that judging by the films discussed, it was obviously perceived that this line should not be consciously identified, since this would diminish the effectiveness of the agenda with wide audiences.
Andrew Horton has attempted to distinguish between carnival and lashing satire in Soviet cinema and in general (18). He draws on Mikhail Bakhtin to formulate the notion of carnivalesque laughter as a “folk laughter by the people, for the people, and is, in the spirit of the carnival, a sanctioned, liberating attack on all authority.” On the other hand, “lashing” satire is described as subjecting the ills in society to a devastating critique. Consequently, carnivalesque laughter would be primarily used by the people in their struggle for autonomy from oppressive social institutions. For Bakhtin, the carnivalesque is appropriated by the novel from folk culture, but many caveats are necessary in trying to apply this concept to cinema. While the novel can still be seen as work of a writer, industrial cinema as an activity which demands significant capital for its operation must have very strong links with social institutions throughout the production process. In these conditions, it is hard to see how the state, or the social groups, which control the capital could be excluded from the very substantial involvement in deciding what kind of humour will be used.
Alternatively, we could presume that certain social groups would have an interest in using a form of humour, which invokes a spontaneous, joyful satiric laughter of the people. In this case, we would have in front of us an amalgam, a satiric form not wholly immune to the manipulation by the centers of power, while it retains some of the liberating features of the carnivalesque satire. They can be found perhaps not primarily in its meaning, but rather in the general relaxation of relations based on fear, which it brings about, while in addition enabling the viewer to approach the world from mutually exclusive positions. This is a tempting proposition, which would mean that the viewer could selectively discard ideological baggage and appropriate the discourse toward liberating purposes. We would have a form of resistance reading, a notion which has been sometimes hailed as a neat solution to the problems of ideological positioning. The Gaidai films discussed here fit the category of the carnivalesque if any do, yet we have seen to what extent the discourse of ridicule can be appropriated by the centers of power and steered in a desired direction. In other words, no definite point of view can be ascribed to a stylistic form without acknowledging particularities of a discursive situation.
Operation Y and Other Shurik’s Adventures constructs an alternative “situation” model for Soviet viewers, which strongly engages their working models of reality in the interpretation of the narrative. Gaidai’s comedy employs the sight gag in order to involve the figure of Khrushchev, and thus destabilise the primary diegetic network. The doubling of the figure of the engineer lends a particular potency to the semantic elements present in the basic diegetic situation model, and enables the viewer to take a more reflexive position in regard to the work, but more importantly, towards the worldview from which the specific object has been retrieved. In the long run, the rigidity of Socialist Realism as an artistic mode seems to have been incompatible with the widespread popularity of comedy of this kind.
Noel Carroll, “Notes on the Sight Gag”, Andrew Horton (ed.) Comedy/Cinema/Theory, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1991.
Daniel Morrow, “Situation Models and Point of View”, Willie van Peer and Seymour Chatman (eds), New Perspectives on Narrative Perspective, State University of New York Press, Albany, 2001.
Gaidai had already thoroughly satirised “upravdom” in his classic Diamond Arm (Brilyantovaya ruka) (1968). In his play, which he wrote in 1935, Bulgakov envisaged that the roles of “upravdom” Bunsha-Koretskiy and Ivan the Terrible be played by two different actors. This was, of course, dictated by the representational potential of theatre. By using the same actor for two main roles, Gaidai significantly enhanced the expressive strength of Bulgakov’s original idea.
As we have seen, this was a highly characteristic feature of the silent film comedy.
For the contemporary American release, the company that released the DVD, Ruscico, used the title Ivan the Terrible: Back to the Future. The translation seems very appropriate, for it is a Back to the Future sequel made in the States during the 80s that exemplifies the main principles of assembling a series of internally incoherent situation models from elements, which, if sorted by its position in “story time” originally “belong” to different situation models.
At the end of Diamond Arm Gaidai masterfully parodies Eisenstein’s style in a scene in which the main hero fights two gangsters at the car mechanic’s workshop. This is a very good example of how a brief shift in stylistic features may, if noticed, bring about a profound change in the viewer’s attitude towards the diegetic characters and events.
Iskusstvo kino, no. 9, 1996.
Sergeii Dobrotvorskii, “And his Task is…” (“I zadacha pri nem…”), Iskusstvo kino, no. 9, September 1996.
“In a free society everything can be published and it is forgotten because it is seen at a glance. Under absolutism everything is hidden, but may be divined; that is what makes it interesting.” Michael Tatu, Power in the Kremlin, Viking Press, New York, 1969, p. 5. Although the differences between free society and absolutism may not be as sharp as implied here, this statement by the Marquis de Custine from 1839 suggests a possible rationale for trying to offer an interpretation of a popular comedy made some 40 years ago.
Khrushchev and his agricultural policies were also roundly criticised at the March 1965 Central Committee Plenum, although again he was not personally named.
In Communist countries in general a favourite way to publicly prove the successes of Communism was to officially compare the 1913 (or 1939) statistics with those of the current year. A quantitative claim was sufficient proof to support the argument (which was always the same, that “we” are much better off materially now than under the old regime).
William J. Tompson, Khrushchev: A Political Life, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1995, p. 277.
In Diamond Arm Gaidai continues to ridicule Khrushchev and his rule. However implausible it may sound, it seems that the fishing scene was inspired by the stories of Khrushchev’s guests being guaranteed good fishing luck with the help of adequately placed divers.
Soviet cinema has from its early years referred to important political figures. In Stalin’s time his cult was pervasive in the movies made in the Soviet Union. See Hans Günther, “Wise Father Stalin and His Family in Soviet Cinema,” Socialist Realism Without Shores, Thomas Lahusen and Evgeny Dobrenko (eds), Duke University Press, Durham, 1997. This was also a prominent feature of Montage films, especially those made by Eisenstein, which frequently brought in Lenin to support the validity of their arguments. Even in Battleship Potemkin (1925), which takes place in 1905, a leader of the rebellion Vakulinchuk, who, we are told, “was first to fire a shot,” and among the first to die, after being mortally wounded hovers above the water, which has already become a grave to the officers thrown overboard, just as Lenin, the leader of the revolution, hovered between life and death after his assassination in 1921, until he finally died in 1924. (Equally tellingly, Vakulinchuk in the film looks more like Stalin than like Lenin, although the contest for first place in the Soviet leadership was only just heating up at the time.) The sailors attempt in vain to save him and by the time he is brought up from the sea, he is already dead. Nevertheless, he remains the beacon in the continuing revolutionary struggle, whom thousands of soldiers and grieving citizens pay last respects while he lay in waiting (just as they did to Lenin in 1924).
Josephine Woll, Real Images: Soviet Cinema and the Thaw, I.B. Tauris, London, 2000, p. 188.
Andrew Horton, “Introduction: Carnival versus Lashing Laughter in Soviet Cinema”, Horton (ed), Inside Soviet Film Satire, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993. | 2019-04-19T20:50:57Z | http://sensesofcinema.com/2004/comedy-and-perception/operation_y/ |
For other uses, see Fujian (disambiguation).
"Hokkian" redirects here. For Hokkien dialect speaking in the South Fujian, see Hokkien.
Fujian ( 福建; formerly romanized as Fukien) is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. The name Fujian came from the combination of Fuzhou and Jianzhou (present Nanping), two cities in Fujian, during the Tang dynasty. While its population is chiefly of Han origin, it is one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse provinces in China.
As a result of the Chinese Civil War, Historical Fujian is now divided between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC) based in Taiwan, and both territories are named the Fujian province in their respective administration divisions. The majority of the territory of historical Fujian (the mainland territory and a few islands) currently make up the Fujian province of the PRC. The Fujian province of the ROC is made up of the Matsu Islands, the Wuqiu Islands and the Kinmen Islands, the two latter archipelagos constituting Kinmen County.
Recent[when?] archaeological discoveries demonstrate that Fujian had entered the Neolithic Age by the middle of the 6th millennium BC. From the Keqiutou site (7450–5590 BP), an early Neolithic site in Pingtan Island located about 70 kilometres (43 mi) southeast of Fuzhou, numerous tools made of stones, shells, bones, jades, and ceramics (including wheel-made ceramics) have been unearthed, together with spinning wheels, which is definitive evidence of weaving.
The Tanshishan (曇石山) site (5500–4000 BP) in suburban Fuzhou spans the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Age where semi-underground circular buildings were found in the lower level. The Huangtulun (黃土崙) site (ca.1325 BC), also in suburban Fuzhou, was of the Bronze Age in character.
Tianlong Jiao (2013) notes that the Neolithic appeared on the coast of Fujian around 6,000 B.P. During the Neolithic, the coast of Fujian had a low population density, with the population depending on mostly on fishing and hunting, alongside with limited agriculture.
There were four major Neolithic cultures in coastal Fujian, with the earliest Neolithic cultures originating from the north in coastal Zhejiang.
There were two major Neolithic cultures in inland Fujian, which were highly distinct from the coastal Fujian Neolithic cultures.
Fujian was also where the kingdom of Minyue was located. The word "Mǐnyuè" was derived by combining "Mǐn" (simplified Chinese: 闽; traditional Chinese: 閩; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: bân), which is perhaps an ethnic name (simplified Chinese: 蛮; traditional Chinese: 蠻; pinyin: mán; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: bân), and "Yuè", after the State of Yue, a Spring and Autumn period kingdom in Zhejiang to the north. This is because the royal family of Yuè fled to Fujian after its kingdom was annexed by the State of Chu in 306 BC. Mǐn is also the name of the main river in this area, but the ethnonym is probably older.
Minyue was a de facto kingdom until one of the emperors of the Qin dynasty, the first unified imperial Chinese state, abolished its status. In the aftermath of the Qin dynasty's fall, civil war broke out between two warlords, Xiang Yu and Liu Bang. The Minyue king Wuzhu sent his troops to fight with Liu and his gamble paid off. Liu was victorious and founded the Han dynasty. In 202 BC, he restored Minyue's status as a tributary independent kingdom. Thus Wuzhu was allowed to construct his fortified city in Fuzhou as well as a few locations in the Wuyi Mountains, which have been excavated in recent years. His kingdom extended beyond the borders of contemporary Fujian into eastern Guangdong, eastern Jiangxi, and southern Zhejiang.
After Wuzhu's death, Minyue maintained its militant tradition and launched several expeditions against its neighboring kingdoms in Guangdong, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang, primarily in the 2nd century BC. This was stopped by the Han dynasty as it expanded southward. The Han emperor eventually decided to get rid of the potential threat by launching a military campaign against Minyue. Large forces approached Minyue simultaneously from four directions via land and sea in 111 BC. The rulers in Fuzhou surrendered to avoid a futile fight and destruction and the first kingdom in Fujian history came to an abrupt end.
The Han dynasty collapsed at the end of the 2nd century AD, paving the way for the Three Kingdoms era. Sun Quan, the founder of the Kingdom of Wu, spent nearly 20 years subduing the Shan Yue people, the branch of the Yue living in mountains.
Nevertheless, isolation from nearby areas owing to rugged terrain contributed to Fujian's relatively undeveloped economy and level of development, despite major population boosts from northern China during the "barbarian" invasions. Population density in Fujian remained low compared to the rest of China. Only two commanderies and sixteen counties were established by the Western Jin dynasty. Like other southern provinces such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, and Yunnan, Fujian often served as a destination for exiled prisoners and dissidents at that time.
During the Sui and Tang eras a large influx of migrants settled in Fujian.
The Tang dynasty (618–907) oversaw the next golden age of China, which contributed to a boom in Fujian’s culture and economy. Fuzhou's economic and cultural institutions grew and developed. The later years of the Tang dynasty saw a number of political upheavals in the Chinese heartland, prompting another wave of Chinese to immigrate to Fujian.
As the Tang dynasty ended, China was torn apart in the period of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. During this time, a second major wave of immigration arrived in the safe haven of Fujian, led by General Wang, who set up an independent Kingdom of Min with its capital in Fuzhou. After the death of the founding king, however, the kingdom suffered from internal strife, and was soon absorbed by Southern Tang, another southern kingdom.
Quanzhou city was blooming into a seaport under the reign of the Min Kingdom and was the largest seaport in the world.[when?] For a long period of time its population was also greater than Fuzhou. Due to the Ispah Rebellion, Quanzhou city lost foreign interest of trading and it's formerly welcoming international image as the foreigners were all massacred or deported.
The Lý dynasty monarchs of Vietnam were of Chinese ethnicity. Jinjiang district of Quanzhou prefecture was the origin of Lý Thái Tổ 李公蘊, the ancestor of the Lý dynasty ruling family.[a] China, Fujian was the home of Lý Công Uẩn. The ethnic Chinese background of Lý Công Uẩn has been accepted by Vietnamese historian Trần Quốc Vượng.
The founder of the Trần Dynasty in Vietnam, Emperor Trần Thái Tông, was the great-grandson of a Chinese person who came to Vietnam from Fujian from the Chinese Chen clan. Several members of the family, like the prince Trần Quốc Tuấn, continued to know how to speak Chinese. The name of the prince’s great grandfather was Trần Kinh.
People from the Song dynasty of China, like Zhao Zhong and Xu Zongdao, fled to the Trân dynasty after the Mongol invasion of China. The Daoist cleric Xu Zongdaowho, who recorded the Mongol invasion and called them "Northern bandits", also came from Fujian.
Fujian or Guangxi was the origin of the ethnic Chinese Tran who migrated to Vietnam along with a large number of other Chinese, during the Vietnamese Ly dynasty, where they served as officials. Distinctly Chinese last names are found in the Tran and Ly dynasty Imperial exam records. Ethnic Chinese are recorded in Tran and Ly dynasty records of officials. Clothing, food, and language were all Chinese dominated in Van Don where the Tran had moved after leaving their home province of Fujian. The Chinese language could still be spoken by the Tran in Vietnam. The side of Vietnam that borders the ocean was colonized by Chinese migrants from Fujian. This included the Tran among them who settled in the capital's southeastern area. The Red River Delta was subjected to migration of people from different provinces all over China through Fujian's major city port. The Tran and Van Don port arose as a result of this interaction. Fujian and Guangdong Chinese moved to the Van Don coastal port during Ly Anh Tong's rule to engage in commerce. The usurpation of the Ly occurred after they married with the fishing Fujianese Tran family.
In 1172 Fujian was attacked by Pi-she-ye pirates from Taiwan.
In the early Ming dynasty, Quanzhou was the staging area and supply depot of Zheng He's naval expeditions. Further development was severely hampered by the sea trade ban, and the area was superseded by nearby ports of Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai despite the lifting of the ban in 1550. Large-scale piracy by Wokou was eventually wiped out by Chinese military and Japanese authority of Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
An account of Ming dynasty Fujian was written by No In 鲁认.
The Pisheya appear in Quanzhou Ming era records.
The late Ming and early Qing dynasty symbolized an era of large influx of refugees and another 20 years of sea trade ban under the Kangxi Emperor, a measure intended to counter the refuge Ming government of Koxinga in the island of Taiwan.
The seaban implented by the Qing forced many people to evacuate the coast in order to deprive Koxinga's Ming loyalists of resources. This has led to the myth that it was because Manchus were "afraid of water".
Incoming refugees did not translate into a major labor force, owing to their re-migration into prosperous regions of Guangdong. In 1683, the Qing dynasty conquered Taiwan and annexed it into the Fujian province, as Taiwan Prefecture. Settlement of Taiwan by Han Chinese followed. Today, most Taiwanese are descendants of Hokkien people from Southern Fujian. Fujian arrived at its present extent after Taiwan was developed into an independent province (Fujian-Taiwan-Province) starting in 1885. Just ten years later, the Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan via the Treaty of Shimonoseki after losing the First Sino-Japanese War.
The Xinhai revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty brought the province into the rule of the Republic of China.
Fujian briefly gained independence from China again under the Fujian People's Government until it was recontrolled by Republic of China.
It came under Japanese sea blockade during World War II.
Fujian's slow development in its early days has proved a blessing for the province's ecology; today, the province has the highest forest coverage rate and the most diverse biosphere in China whereas central China suffers from severe overpopulation and displays severe signs of soil erosion, with frequent droughts and floods due to lack of forest coverage.
Development has been accompanied by a large influx of population from the overpopulated areas in the north and west, and much of the farmland and forest as well as cultural heritage sites such as the temples of king Wuzhu have given way to ubiquitous high-rise buildings. The government faces challenges at all levels to sustain development while at the same time preserving Fujian's unique and vital natural and cultural heritage.
The province is mostly mountainous, and is traditionally said to be "Eight parts mountain, one part water, and one part farmland" (八山一水一分田). The northwest is higher in altitude, with the Wuyi Mountains forming the border between Fujian and Jiangxi. It is the most forested provincial level administrative region in China, with a 62.96% forest coverage rate in 2009. Fujian's highest point is Mount Huanggang in the Wuyi Mountains, with an altitude of 2,157 metres (1.340 mi).
Fujian faces East China Sea to the east, South China Sea to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the southeast. The coastline is rugged and has many bays and islands. Major islands include Quemoy (also known as Kinmen) (controlled by the Republic of China), Haitan Island, and Nanri Island. Meizhou Island occupies a central place in the cult of the goddess Matsu, the patron deity of Chinese sailors.
The Min River and its tributaries cut through much of northern and central Fujian. Other rivers include the Jin and the Jiulong. Due to its uneven topography, Fujian has many cliffs and rapids.
Fujian is separated from Taiwan by the 180 kilometres (110 mi)-wide Taiwan Strait. Some of the small islands in the Taiwan Strait are also part of the province. The islands of Quemoy and Matsu are under the administration of the Republic of China.
Fujian contains several faults, the result of collision between the Asiatic Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. The Changle-Naoao and Longan-Jinjiang fault zones in this area have annual displacement rates of 3–5 mm. They could cause major earthquakes in the future.
Fujian has a subtropical climate, with mild winters. In January, the coastal regions average around 7–10 °C (45–50 °F) while the hills average 6–8 °C (43–46 °F). In the summer, temperatures are high, and the province is threatened by typhoons coming in from the Pacific. Average annual precipitation is 1,400–2,000 millimetres (55–79 in).
As of 2012[update], there are 54,876 kilometres (34,098 miles) of highways in Fujian, including 3,500 kilometres (2,200 miles) of expressways. The top infrastructure projects in recent years have been the Zhangzhou-Zhaoan Expressway (US$624 million) and the Sanmingshi-Fuzhou expressway (US$1.40 billion). The 12th Five-Year Plan, covering the period from 2011 to 2015, aims to double the length of the province's expressways to 5,500 kilometres (3,400 mi).
Within Fujian, coastal and interior cities are linked by the Nanping–Fuzhou (1959), Zhangping–Quanzhou–Xiaocuo (2007) and Longyan–Xiamen Railways, (2012). To attract Taiwanese investment, the province intends to increase its rail length by 50 percent to 2,500 km (1,553 mi).
The major airports are Fuzhou Changle International Airport, Xiamen Gaoqi International Airport, Quanzhou Jinjiang International Airport, Nanping Wuyishan Airport, Longyan Guanzhishan Airport and Sanming Shaxian Airport. Xiamen is capable of handling 15.75 million passengers as of 2011. Fuzhou is capable of handling 6.5 million passengers annually with a cargo capacity of more than 200,000 tons. The airport offers direct links to 45 destinations including international routes to Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
All of the prefecture-level cities except Nanping, Sanming, and Longyan are found along the coast.
The nine prefecture-level divisions are subdivided into 85 county-level divisions (28 districts, 13 county-level cities, and 44 counties). Those are in turn divided into 1,107 township-level divisions (605 towns, 328 townships, 18 ethnic townships, and 156 subdistricts).
The People's Republic of China claims the Republic of China-controlled Kinmen Islands as a Jinmen County of the prefecture-level city of Quanzhou. The ROC administers them as five of the six townships of its Kinmen County.
The PRC claims the ROC-controlled Wuqiu Islands as part of Xiuyu District of the prefecture-level city of Putian. The ROC administers them as Wuqiu Township of Kinmen County.
Finally, the PRC claims the ROC-controlled Matsu Islands as a Mazu Township of its Lianjiang County, which is part of the prefecture-level city of Fuzhou. The ROC administers the Matsu Islands as four townships making up its Lienchiang County (which is the same name but romanized differently).
Together, these three groups of islands make up the Republic of China's Fujian Province.
^ a b New district established after census: Changle (Changle CLC). The new district not included in the urban area & district area count of the pre-expanded city.
^ Does not include Beigan Township, Dongyin Township, Juguang Township, & Nangan Township (controlled by ROC) in the city proper count.
^ Does not include Jinmen County (controlled by ROC) in the city proper count.
^ a b New district established after census: Yongding (Yongding County). The new district not included in the urban area & district area count of the pre-expanded city.
^ a b New district established after census: Jianyang (Jianyang CLC). The new district not included in the urban area & district area count of the pre-expanded city.
In 2011, Fujian's nominal GDP was 1.74 trillion yuan (US$276.3 billion), a rise of 13 percent from the previous year. Its GDP per capita was 46,802 yuan (US$7,246 (9th)).
By 2015 Fujian expects to have at least 50 enterprises that have over 10 billion RMB in annual revenues. The government also expects 55 percent of GDP growth to come from the industrial sector.
Mud clams, oysters and shrimp are raised in Anhai Bay off Shuitou.
Han Chinese make up 98% of the population. Various Fujianese peoples (Min-speaking groups) make up the largest subgroups of Han Chinese in Fujian. This includes the Hoklo people, Fuzhounese people, Teochew people and Putian people.
Hakka, a Han Chinese people with its own distinct identity, live in the southwestern parts of the province bordering Guangdong. Hui'an, also a Han branch with their distinct culture and fashion, populate Fujian's southeast coastline near Chongwu in Hui'an County. The She, scattered over mountainous regions in the north, is the largest minority ethnic group of the province.
Many ethnic Chinese around the world, especially in Southeast Asia, trace their ancestries to the Fujianese branches of Hoklo people and Teochew people. Descendants of Southern Min speaking emigrants make up the predominant majority ethnic Chinese populations of Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines. While Eastern Min speaking people, especially Fuzhounese people, is one of the major sources of China immigrants in the United States, especially since the 1990s.
(The seventh subdivision of Min, Qiong Wen, is not spoken in Fujian.) Hakka, another subdivision of spoken Chinese, is spoken around Longyan by the Hakka people who live there.
As is true of other provinces, the official language in Fujian is Mandarin, which is used for communication between people of different localities, although native Fujian peoples still converse in their native languages and dialects respectively.
Fujian cuisine, with an emphasis on seafood, is one of the eight great traditions of Chinese cuisine. It is composed of traditions from various regions, including Fuzhou cuisine and Min Nan cuisine. The most prestigious dish is Fotiaoqiang (literally "Buddha jumps over the wall"), a complex dish making use of many ingredients, including shark fin, sea cucumber, abalone and Shaoxing wine (a type of Chinese alcoholic beverage).
Zhan Shi Chai (1840s–1893), entertainer as "Chang the Chinese giant"
Tsai Chi-Kun (1912–2004), "father of the Taiwan Symphony"
^ The data was collected by the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) of 2009 and by the Chinese Spiritual Life Survey of 2007, reported and assembled by Xiuhua Wang (2015) in order to confront the proportion of people identifying with two similar social structures: ① Christian churches, and ② the traditional Chinese religion of the lineage (i. e. people believing and worshipping ancestral deities often organised into lineage "churches" and ancestral shrines). Data for other religions with a significant presence in China (deity cults, Buddhism, Taoism, folk religious sects, Islam, et al.) was not reported by Wang.
^ "Doing Business in China - Survey". Ministry Of Commerce - People's Republic Of China. Archived from the original on August 5, 2013. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
^ "Communiqué of the National Bureau of Statistics of People's Republic of China on Major Figures of the 2010 Population Census (No. 2)". National Bureau of Statistics of China. April 29, 2011. Archived from the original on July 27, 2013. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
^ 福建省2017年国民经济和社会发展统计公报 [Statistical Communiqué of Fujian on the 2017 National Economic and Social Development] (in Chinese). Fujian Bureau of Statistics. February 22, 2018. Retrieved June 22, 2018.
^ "China National Human Development Report 2016" (PDF). United Nations Development Programme. p. 146. Retrieved December 5, 2017.
^ a b c Jiao, Tianlong. 2013. "The Neolithic Archaeology of Southeast China." In Underhill, Anne P., et al. A Companion to Chinese Archaeology, 599-611. Wiley-Blackwell.
^ The Pan-Pearl River Delta: An Emerging Regional Economy in a Globalizing China. p. 41.
^ 中国网事:千年古港福建"泉州港"被整合改名引网民争议. Xinhua News. Retrieved August 17, 2014.
^ "The Stranger Kings of the Lý and Trần Dynasties – Le Minh Khai's SEAsian History Blog". Leminhkhai.wordpress.com. September 7, 2013. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
^ 千年前泉州人李公蕴越南当皇帝 越南史上重要人物之一. fjsen.com. October 12, 2010.
^ 两安海人曾是安南皇帝 有关专家考证李公蕴、陈日煚籍属晋江安海. qzwb.com. December 28, 2008.
^ a b K. W. Taylor (May 9, 2013). A History of the Vietnamese. Cambridge University Press. pp. 120–. ISBN 978-0-521-87586-8.
^ a b Kenneth R. Hall (2008). Secondary Cities and Urban Networking in the Indian Ocean Realm, C. 1400-1800. Lexington Books. pp. 159–. ISBN 978-0-7391-2835-0.
^ "Giặc Bắc đến xâm lược!: Translations and Exclamation Points – Le Minh Khai's SEAsian History Blog". Leminhkhai.wordpress.com. December 4, 2015. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
^ Alexander Woodside (1971). Vietnam and the Chinese Model: A Comparative Study of Vietnamese and Chinese Government in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. Harvard Univ Asia Center. pp. 8–. ISBN 978-0-674-93721-5.
^ Geoffrey C. Gunn (August 1, 2011). History Without Borders: The Making of an Asian World Region, 1000-1800. Hong Kong University Press. pp. 112–. ISBN 978-988-8083-34-3.
^ Hall (January 1, 1955). Secondary Cities & Urban Networking in the Indian Ocean Realm, c. 1400-1800. Lexington Books. pp. 159–. ISBN 978-0-7391-3043-8.
^ Jayne Werner; John K. Whitmore; George Dutton (August 21, 2012). Sources of Vietnamese Tradition. Columbia University Press. pp. 29–. ISBN 978-0-231-51110-0.
^ Philippe Truong (2007). The Elephant and the Lotus: Vietnamese Ceramics in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. MFA Pub. p. 18. ISBN 978-0-87846-717-4.
^ Ainslie Thomas Embree; Robin Jeanne Lewis (1988). Encyclopedia of Asian history. Scribner. p. 190.
^ Skinner, George William; Baker, Hugh D. R. (1977). The City in late imperial China. Stanford University Press. p. 197. ISBN 978-0-8047-0892-0.
^ "Forestry in Fujian Province" (in Chinese). English.forestry.gov.cn. January 21, 2010. Retrieved May 7, 2012.
^ Guo, Jianming; Xu, Shiyang; Fan, Hailong (May 5, 2017). "Neotectonic interpretations and PS-InSAR monitoring of crustal deformations in the Fujian area of China". Open Geosciences. 9 (1): 126–132. doi:10.1515/geo-2017-0010. ISSN 2391-5447.
^ "China Briefing Business Reports". Asia Briefing. 2012. Archived from the original on September 4, 2012. Retrieved February 8, 2009.
^ Shenzhen Statistical Bureau. 《深圳统计年鉴2014》 (in Chinese). China Statistics Print. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
^ "Ever cuddlier". The Economist. December 18, 2008.
^ 福建省2009年国民经济和社会发展统计公报_中国统计信息网. Tjcn.org. March 2, 2010. Retrieved May 7, 2012.
^ Semple, Kirk (October 21, 2009). "In Chinatown, Sound of the Future Is Mandarin". New York Times. Retrieved July 9, 2014.
^ Kurpaska, Maria (2010). Chinese Language(s): A Look Through the Prism of "The Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects". Walter de Gruyter. pp. 49, 52, 71. ISBN 978-3-11-021914-2.
^ Norman, Jerry (1988). Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 233. ISBN 978-0-521-29653-3. | 2019-04-22T18:56:31Z | https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Fujian |
Come explore the current 7 best art exhibitions in New York, curated exclusively for Behind the Scenes NYC by the art expert, Gisela Gueiros!
Our friend, contributor and art expert, Gisela Gueiros, sent us a list of the current 7 best art exhibitions in New York!
Take a look below to see what you love best, or…just go explore them all!
Tarsila was born in 1886, in São Paulo, Brazil. In her early 20’s she moved to Paris to study at the renowned art school, Académie Julian. During these years she has to opportunity with working with important names like Fernand Léger, a renowned French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker.
The exhibition unites over 100 paintings, photographs, drawing, sketches and historical documents.
This New York-born artist was born in 1943 and became well known for his site-specific art works in the 1970’s. He passed away at a very early age of pancreatic cancer, in 1978 (35-years old), but left a remarkable legacy.
Gordon went to Cornell University to study architecture, spent a year at Sorbonne in Paris, studying French literature and documented his work through videos and photography.
He’s best known for his unique series ‘building cuts’ (1972 – 1978), where he removed entire structures, carving them out and eventually naming these transformations “Anarchitecture”.
The exhibition is named “Dan Flavin: in daylight or cool white”. Flavin was born in 1933, in Jamaica, New York City.
His minimalistic aesthetics was recognized and celebrated throughout his career and his work with fluorescent lighting truly shaped it.
Ellsworth Kelly was born in Newburgh, New York in the year of 1923.
He served during World War II and when he returned to the US, he concluded his studies at Boston Museum School, then headed to École des Beaux-Arts, in Paris.
Jack Shear is currently the President of the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation and continues his photography work, while living in Spencertown, New York.
Leonard was born in Liberty, New York, in 1961. Her work primarily focuses on photography and sculptures.
She dropped out of school at an early age and moved to New York City to start shooting. It was the perfect place for her to shoot graffiti, apartment buildings, street, sidewalks and other details that captured her attention and her keen eye.
Leonard is known for her work as an activist in AIDS advocacy and Queer politics in New York.
Leonard’s Speech at the Highline, starts with “I want a dike for President…” Definitely worth reading!
In this upcoming exhibition, divided into two different rooms, you’ll be able to witness 7 new photographs and 2 new films, that Demand creatively presents as an installation.
“Richard Diebenkorn & Wayne Thiebaud: California Landscapes”, is the first joint exhibition with these two artists, that we also pretty close friends.
Diebenkorn was born in Portland, Oregon back in 1922, while Thiebaud was born in Meza, Arizona in 1920. Diebenkorn is well-known for his work of abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement.
Thiebaud, on the other hand, is associated primarily with Pop Art, but also New Realism and, as Diebenkorn, the Bay Area Figurative Movement.
This exhibition is a beautiful collaboration, offering a hardcover catalogue with a critical essay by John Ya, a distinguished curator and art historian.
In addition, it also includes an interview between Museum Director Philippe de Montebello and artist Wayne Thiebaud.
So, if you enjoyed Gisela Gueiros’ 7 best art exhibitions in New York, she will be presenting her own curated show with opening night on March 8th!
It will happen at Bird Williamsburg, with art work from great names like: Alice Quaresma, Lisa Schilling, Polly Shindler, Talita Zaragoza, Bia Monteiro, Julia Brandão, Sandra Jávera, Cela Luz, Maíra Senise & Ana Bial.
More details to follow, so stay tuned!
For the art lover that loves exploring the endless NY art scene, you’ll certainly enjoy our exclusive art tour. Guests uncover the best off-the-beaten-path contemporary art galleries in the city.
Or even, book private art tours to explore a few open air museums upstate, during a priceless day trip. For Corporate Experience with your team, or to “wow” your clients, let our experts cater it all for you!
Photo Credits: Courtesy of Collection MALBA, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires. © Tarsila do Amaral Licenciamentos; Installation View, Gordon Matta-Clark: Anarchitect, 2017. © 2017 Stefan Hagen; Dan Flavin; Ellsworth Kelly, Broad Street Studio, New York, 1956.© Onni Saari, courtesy Ellsworth Kelly Studio; Zoe Leonard – CC BY-SA 4.0; Matthew Marks Gallery – Thomas Demand; Wayne Thiebaud, Green River Lands, 1998, Collection of Matthew Bult Art, © Wayne Thiebaud, Licenced by VAGA, New York, NY and Gisela Gueiros.
Flying over and across New York City! If you’re looking for NYC helicopter tours and airport transfers, then, your search if finally over! We work with some of the best aviation companies in the city!
We are obviously completely in love with our beautiful concrete jungle and every little corner in it. Walking around the city and even going to many of the same spots never gets old but, how about exploring New York and surroundings through a different point of view? From above!
One of the most breathtaking experiences you’ll ever have in New York City is from a helicopter! Kinda touristy? Maybe! But certainly worth the adventure, since we do have unique experiences!
Seeing the city from high up in the sky is certainly priceless, besides giving you some pretty good instagrammable shots!
This is certainly the ultimate NYC helicopter experience!
Moreover, if you need airport transfers to skip traffic, let our experts help you out! For Corporate requests, contact us.
A great entry level flight for those who want to get a taste of aerial photography and test out their skills, before committing to the longer, curated experiences.
This 16-minute, harbor-based flight offers signature downtown skyline views from a distinct vantage point that gets you up close and personal with Lady Liberty like no one else.
But, this experience starts way before you take flight. Check in early so you have plenty of time at the Terminal to revel in this amazing 10,000 square foot space.
It features a helicopter fuselage with an interactive floor that changes to showcase different cities below, a VR room that will take you to new heights with a click of a button. There is also a relaxing lounge areas where you can kick back with some complimentary coffee as you view our original print gallery and spectacular flight footage from around the country.
This warm welcome includes a group meeting where you map out your flight path and prepare to soar over the greatest city in the world. Within just a short two minutes after takeoff, NYC will be in your sight line so have your camera ready to capture amazing downtown landmarks including the Statue of Liberty, Governor’s Island, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, Battery Park, the Freedom Tower and NYC’s Financial District. And, there’s always time for your very own sneaker selfies that you will want to share across social media for the ultimate bragging rights…none of your friends will be able to post photos like that!
Contact us to BOOK NOW! For Corporate requests, click here.
If you think that Tour #1 is too short and you’re still craving more, this is the one for you!
This expanded 30-minute doors-off flight allows you to customize your flight path and cover all of Manhattan at once for the ultimate NYC aerial photography experience.
The close proximity of the Kearny, NJ heliport provides amazing Manhattan skyline views and access to one of the most innovative Terminals available in the marketplace today.
As you enter the Terminal and prepare to check-in and all the perks (listed on #1).
Next, you will join your fellow flyers in the pre-flight area to meet your dedicated pilot and make a flight plan to make sure we hit all those bucket list #goals, creating a truly unique experience every single time. Don’t limit yourself to the Statue of Liberty and Battery Park. Create a shot list of your favorite spots and get your camera ready! And, the longer flight time allows your pilot to make a second pass for multiple angles, superior details and unique shots that present themselves every day. The NYC Classic offers multiple flight options all week long, and is the only flight that can get you over Central Park!
Considering a photo flight above NYC, but never been in a helicopter before? We have the perfect trial run for you to test the air. The NYC Intro flight is a family-friendly, doors-on, 12-minute excursion along the Hudson River that delivers a taste of our popular photo flight experience.
Prior to take-off, you and your group will check in at the state-of-the-art Terminal where you can capture “shoe selfies” from the helicopter fuselage that features an interactive floor below, step into the VR room for a virtual flight, or simply relax in the multiple lounge areas as you enjoy our original print gallery and spectacular flight footage from locations all over the country.
But, don’t get too comfy, because now it is time for the real deal. Meet your dedicated pilot and discuss your flight path before our expert staff walks you through pre-flight instructions in the safety briefing room. You are now ready to take to the air! After seeing the amazing views of downtown and Lady Liberty from this unique perspective and feeling the comfort and security of our award-winning safety protocol, we know you will be back for more.
This expanded doors-on flight experience allows you to customize your flight path and cover all of Manhattan at once to deliver the ultimate NYC VIP aerial photography experience.
The VIP treatment begins immediately as you and your group are greeted at the Terminal and entertained and regaled in the amazing 10,000 square space. Take a seat in the helicopter fuselage and capture your very own “shoe selfie” with your location of choice by simply changing the interactive floor below you. Step into the VR room and take flight with the click of a button.
Relax in one of the lounge areas and enjoy our original print gallery and unique flight footage from locations all over the country. There will plenty of photo ops before you even leave the Terminal!
Next stop is the safety briefing room where you and your group will review pre-flight instructions and collaborate with your pilot to plot your course to deliver unique vantage points of some of the most iconic New York City landmarks, including Central Park.
And, thanks to the close proximity of the heliport, you’ll get amazing Manhattan skyline views just seconds after takeoff and then the views get better and better.
Lastly, if you’re in a rush to the airport and just want to skip all that traffic nonsense during New York’s rush hours, let us help you!
Helicopter airport transfers are certainly the best way to get there in no time and have enough time to check-in and relax.
One of the things we love the most in New York City, is uncovering the NYC subway secrets. We compiled a few of what we most enjoyed!
There is just so much to talk about when the subject is: NYC subway secrets. It’s hard even to know where to start from.
“At 2:35 on the afternoon of October 27, 1904, New York City Mayor George McClellan takes the controls on the inaugural run of the city’s innovative new rapid transit system: the subway.
At 7 p.m. that evening, the subway opened to the general public, and more than 100,000 people paid a nickel each to take their first ride under Manhattan.
IRT service expanded to the Bronx in 1905, to Brooklyn in 1908 and to Queens in 1915.
Since 1968, the subway has been controlled by the Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA). The system now has 26 lines and 468 stations in operation; the longest line, the 8th Avenue “A” Express train, stretches more than 32 miles, from the northern tip of Manhattan to the far southeast corner of Queens.
1. Did you know that there are many abandoned platforms, like the one underneath 42nd street on the A/C/E line?
2. The FDR Subway Track (picture above!), beneath the Waldorf Astoria Hotel is one of the most protected sites. FDR, stands for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and was designed exclusively for him during his Presidency.
3. Wanderlust Projects, know for their illegal parties, that trespasses authorized areas, has organized an illegal party in an abandoned Subway Station. We love these guys!
4. Up through 2006, the New York City transit system operated an armored Money Train that took all money collected from fairs to a safe place at 370 Jay Street, Brooklyn. (You can see more at the New York Transit Museum).
5. Joralemon Street, in Brooklyn Heights, has a fake townhouse, in the middle of several others colored ones, that hides a ventilation shaft for the Subway.
7. The Knickerbocker Hotel was once a very acclaimed hotel, here names like F.Scott Fitzgerald and John D. Rockefeller used to “hang”. The forgotten white door at Track 1 on Times Square/42nd Street station.
8. When you get the Q Line from Dekalb into Manhattan (the abandoned Myrtle Ave station), you will be able to whitness the Masstransiscope artwork by Bill Brand, installed in the year of 1980. This was once the is located in the abandoned Myrtle Ave station. Facing the front of the train, you need to sit on the left side seats.
9. We loooove the Underbelly Project, dating back a few years to 2009. See below where some of the most amazing works of art are secretly hidden.
10. Decommissioned in 1945, the famous City Hall Subway Station has maybe the most amazing architectural designs of all. How to see it? Stay on the 6 train after its last stop, at Brooklyn Bridge. It will continue running, and you’ll be able to see a bit from this station, when you pass by. Beware: it might get a little dark, since lights might go out at some point. Just, stay cool.
11. The Woolworth Building had an exclusive and direct access into the subway, for all the tenants. For an exclusive tour into the building, contact our experts!
12. The wierd “finger-pointing” moment that every conductor does before opening the train’s doors, is simply for safety reasons, indicating that the train is completely stopped.
…there is just so much more, but we’ll leave it for a second article about the NYC subway secrets!
And last, we hope you enjoyed this post, as much as we enjoyed doing it!
Yup, we are fascinated with uncovering the NYC subway secrets!
Larry Silver, a Bronx-born photographer, has 45 photographs of everyday New Yorkers and major New York City sites taken during a transformative period in history on view at The NY Historical Society.
The exhibition called “Photographs by Larry Silver, 1949 – 1955” will be live through December 4th, 2016.
“This new exhibition highlighting Silver’s early works captures the day-to-day life in the city’s post-World War II urban environment that has since largely disappeared.
Also, you’ll be able to see a bit of New York City though his eyes. The landmarks registered are spots like the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, the famous Empire State Building and our gorgeous Central Park. He also registered Penn Station – the original masterpiece – before it was torn down to open space to the Madison Square Garden.
The launch of the United Nations headquarters – an important moment for the city. Plus, other spots like river piers and subway stations!
Larry Silver was born in 1934, in the Bronx. His passion for photography started at a very early age when he began the pursuit for a photography career. His work captures places he has lived like New York City, California and Connecticut to name a few. The pictures are portrayed in black and white.
Lastly, his work has been exhibited in some of the best museums across the U.S. like the Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and several more!
This Bronx-born photographer had created a fantastic photograph collection of New York City.
Here is a little bit more on The NY Historical Society, located on the Upper West Side.
It’s located beside the American Museum of Natural History. You can plan your visit to both locations on the same day.
Believe it or not, the NY Historical Society is the oldest museum in NYC, founded in 1804. It opened 70 year before the launch of the famous MET. Their art work collection is breathtaking, and units over 1.6 million pieces of history.
If you’re planning to attend the museum and would like to book a tour, let us organize everything for you.
We’ve worked with several companies organizing cultural tours for them too, so contact us if you’d like to schedule an experience for your team.
Bronx-born Fashion & Food Blogger, Van Le, shares her best NYC Tips! She talks about spots in the Bronx, SoHo, Lower East Side and other hip neighborhoods.
This week, we interviewed Van Le, a New York + Tokyo Fashion and Food Blogger. This Bronx-born influencer shared some of the her top spots in some pretty awesome neighborhoods!
“Long story short, I was born in Vietnam and raised in the Bronx for the past 15 years. I can confidently say that my experience in New York has truly been something that I’m forever grateful for.
Growing up in one of the roughest parts of the State has given me a lot of insights and perspective on the diversities here in New York, not just in different ethnicities and races. It also allowed me to grow out of my traditional expectations from my parents, as well, in a sense.
It all started when a group of friends, that grew up on Arthur Avenue, decided to open a traditional Italian Trattoria. The idea was to offer Nonna’s (Grandma, in Italian) recipes and cooking style.
They are very well known for their brick-oven Margherita pies!
They are based in Williamsburg and are freelance-friendly, so be prepared to maybe drink your coffee standing up. There is always tons of freelancers working and occupying the tables.
If you like good coffee, this is the place for you, since they have around 17 different types to try!
They have a gorgeous green wall that everyone adores and a ceiling with a skylight, allowing natural light to flow in. It surely makes the entire experience more pleasant.
We are always there too….working!
This neighborhood gem is a great place to find fresh local produce, new seasonal cocktails and a delicious espresso coffee we love!
It’s located in the trendy Lower East Side part of Manhattan.
If you’re into sharing food, this is the spot for you, since their dishes are perfect for sharing. Plus, this way you can definitely try more stuff! Yum!
They were New York City’s 1st coffee house boutique and Andy Warhol claimed his love for it in no time! Now, they’re currently located on the Upper East Side.
The place was founded by Calvin L. Holt – that passed away in 1991 at the age of 66, and his friend & partner Stephen Bruce.
Oh! And keep your eyes open, maybe you’ll bump into some big celebrity that’s just coincidently passing by there too.
“It was a “ghost town” when I first arrived, but that didn’t bother me because the rent was low and I desperately needed a place to bake for my growing wholesale business. I hadn’t considered the retail aspects of the business until people started knocking on the door of the bakery wanting to buy cheesecake. With that encouragement, I purchased a bakery case and began to conduct retail business.
Soon after our cheesecake attracted the press and we were listed in “Best Bites” in New York Magazine. Radio station WOR rated us “Number One Cheesecake” and we appeared on television quite often whipping up batters of cheesecake. Time passed, and now Cleveland Place is in a popular area where the mix of people and restaurants and shops are so unique.
Downtown is becoming the “place to be”, and we are actually on most maps now. We survived difficult times, and now “let the good times roll”!” ~ Excerpt from her website.
With 3 different locations: 3 in New York, 1 in L.A. and 1 in Miami, the Sixty Hotels are definitely a great pick if you’re into luxury lodging.
Their upcoming new location will be in Montreal, so stay tuned!
Yes, the Top of the Rock is definitely one of our Top Picks to chose from if you want to see the entire city and catch the breathtaking sunset.
It is definitely a touristy spot and we usually don’t write about those, but it’s the only place you’ll have a 360º view of the New York’s 5 boroughs.
Plus, it’s got a great price ($30/adults) and we never faced any huge lines to go up – versus other touristy spots that can take a couple of hours, at peek moments.
You obviously can book everything online!
What can someone expect when coming to NY?
What is the best NY slang?
Thank you Van Le, for sharing these great spots that are so dear to your heart!
If you enjoyed her post, you’ll most surely love Tamara Peterson’s Brooklyn tips!
This is definitely not a secret, but the NYC Spa Week happens twice a year. It’s a great opportunity to try the numerous treatments, in the various spas, around the five boroughs.
“Living in New York is not always as easy or glamorous as it sounds. I guess that’s why they say, “if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.” While the constant hustle and bustle of our metropolis can be exciting, some days a one mile commute can take 45 minutes.
Everyone in New York moves in a hurried, frenzied, impersonal manner — one that is both stressful and draining. One evening I began brainstorming how to create an event that would educate exhausted New Yorkers about the benefits of the spa & wellness lifestyle while offering them an affordable way to experience it.
So, in 2004, Spa Week launched their first edition.
The idea of offering to everyone the possibility of relaxing and having some down time to unwind, at a reasonable cost is amazing.
We all know that New York’s beauty scene can be quite expensive, so having the best spas around the city offering treatments at $50, is fantastic!
They started off their first year with only 25 venues participating, but each year, grew as it became more popular and recognized.
Today, Spa Week has become a National brand, with events happening all over the country. Now, you are able to experience some of the top players in the wellness industry. Plus, you can focus and dedicate time for your well-being.
Each year, in New York City, there are over 100 salons and spas participating in this special week. They all offer a wide number of treatments at this special, discounted rate.
The best thing is, many of these treatments are offered in super high-end and luxurious spas around town.
Keep your eyes opened for their 2016 event! All bookings cane be made online.
Here are two spas that we adore: Aire Ancient Baths in TriBeCa and Body by Brooklyn in Clinton Hill. We have even organized unique experiences for corporate groups coming from overseas and they had a fantastic time. | 2019-04-21T00:14:07Z | https://www.behindthescenesnyc.com/tag/bronx/ |
Don’t leave your dog’s health and happiness to strangers!
From The Privacy Of Your Home….
Create the ultimate bond with your pet!
YOU groomed your dog on your own!
hassle-free brushing . . .
having no dog hair on the furniture . . .
keeping your dog’s breath fresh….
But more than that, what is contained in this letter will not only make you a proud dog parent, it will significantly improve your relationship with your dog.
Few months back, we had conducted a Survey on Dog Grooming among our 2,31,457 subscribers.
People all across the globe came up with various problems and queries they face while it comes to grooming their dogs.
Based on these survey results, our own research findings, interviews with other dog groomers, I have finally compiled and collated all the information in one single e-book .
Written in layman's language, this e-book will serve as a comprehensive Dog Grooming guide for both first-time dog owner and veterans.
Sound impossible, fellow dog lover?
Just imagine how much more pleasant your life with your beloved dog would be if you didn’t need to wait once a month to get rid of that doggie breath . . . didn’t have to tolerate that shedding on your furniture . . didn’t need to make that expensive and time-consuming trip to the groomer every month!
Imagine if you had the knowledge to groom your dog yourself.
Just think how much money you could save (not only in groomer’s fees, but in gasoline for the car running him back and forth!) . . . how much less stressful your life would be . . . and how much less stress would be placed on your dog!
Not only that, just think how convenient it would be for you to choose the time your dog gets groomed – a time that fits your schedule!
You have been specially chosen to be a part of this fantastic Offer.
Create the Ultimate Bond with Your Dog!
If you’re like most of us die-hard dog lovers, you realize the importance of proper grooming. You know that grooming is more – much more – than just giving your precious friend a bath and putting a cute clip in her hair.
Don’t listen to those who say that the only method to getting a professional grooming for your beloved pet is to take him into a strange environment, with perfect strangers performing what should be the most loving.... of all activities on him.
In fact, now the ability to groom your own dog and to take control of the most important aspect of his life – his health – is only a mouse click away!
If you’ve always thought you could groom your dog yourself in the comfort, convenience and familiar environment of your own home, but just didn’t know where to start, then you must read this letter word for word.
It contains vital information that shows you that grooming your own dog yourself is much easier than you ever thought possible!
And the results . . . well, let’s just say you’ll be successful beyond your wildest dreams.
"Grooming Your Dog At Home - The Ultimate Guide" not only contains tips and secrets that will make the experience of grooming your dog pleasurable and hassle-free, it puts together a plethora of grooming information on different dog breeds.
With "Grooming Your Dog At Home" in your hands, you can become a pro yourself. No more trips to the expensive salons, spas or even contacting a professional groomer every month.
This handy E-Book package is a treasure-trove of valuable information for all dog owners who wants their dogs to stay healthy and feel healthy.
It doesn’t matter whether you have a “cumbersome” large breed like a St. Bernard or a Great Dane . . . or a tiny Chihuahua . . .
You can now learn the ultimate secrets of the professional dog groomers and provide your cherished family member with outstanding grooming – all on your own.
I’ve taken all the guess work out of which tool does what job. Now you can confidently choose just the right grooming instrument to do the right job.
Not only that, but this book is so detailed . . . so exact . . . that it provides you with exactly the right tool for your specific breed of dog.
Don’t know which dog clippers are best for your pooch?
Don’t worry, “Grooming Your Dog at Home” tells you (Page 73)! You’ll have no fear of accidentally hurting your pet when you follow these incredibly detailed instructions step by step.
Worried about bathing your dog?
This one-of-a-kind E-Book gives you clear illustrations on how to bathe your dog securely and effectively. You’ll find this on Page 14 of "Grooming Your Dog at Home".
Truly A No-Hassle, Straight-To-The-Point Book!
My name is Amy West and I am the author of “Grooming Your Dog At Home – An Ultimate Guide”.
I wrote this book because I met so many dog lovers who felt that they just weren’t capable of performing this immensely satisfying and loving act themselves.
I have first-hand experience on regularly grooming dogs of various breeds, ages and personalities. I know what works and what does not and thus have penned down exactly that.
As a dog owner and lover in my own right, as well as a busy professional groomer, I realize that not everyone has the time to wade through a large, bulky E-Book filled with excessive words and phrases just to get the simple and easy steps involved in giving your dog a professional quality groom.
That’s why when I wrote this I consciously concentrated on getting straight to the point . . . giving you exactly the right amount of information you need . . . in clear, concise language . . . to groom your own pet from the convenience of your own home.
And it’s information you can trust! This book was literally months in the making, as I researched the most effective grooming procedures for all the different types of dogs. Not only that, but I pulled from my own professional resources and my years of professional grooming and training.
And I’m proud of the final product because it’s a book that every dog owner – whether you’ve just adopted your first pup or you’ve been a professional breeder for years – can easily read and understand.
There’s no doubt about it! You can’t groom a Maltese the way you’d approach a Boxer! This book makes it easy for you to understand the grooming needs for your dog breed; in an easy-to-read-and-follow style. And you’ll have a highly fulfilling, “goof-proof” grooming session!
Indeed, knowing the type of coat your dog has and grooming accordingly could spell the difference between an effective session and disaster.
Your professional groomer receives such good results because she knows how to groom for your dog’s coat. Revealed in the Pages of this 117-Page book are the coat types and how to brush them for full effectiveness!
Don’t have a purebred breed and not sure of your dog’s heritage?
This e-Book includes chapters for special grooming needs based on your dog’s individual needs. Learn the professional secrets of grooming the . . .
You’ll have the peace of mind of knowing you’re providing your dog with the best possible care and your dog will be healthier and happier for it.
Did you know that Diet plays a large role in determining the health of your dog’s fur? I’ve included vital tips to help you “groom your dog from the inside out!” I’ve even included some nutritional supplements that will give your dog’s coat the ultimate luster! Turn to Page 76 to discover these.
Different breeds of dogs have different coats. They all require special care. If your dog is a mixed breed it might be difficult to tell what his coat is like.
This e-Book has a handy chart detailing the characteristics of the breeds. All you need to do is see where your mixed breed dog fits in and you’ll know how to groom him to keep him looking good – and to keep him healthy!
This essential chart provides you with the peace of mind that you’re grooming your faithful friend properly and appropriately!
And just to be sure, I’ve included lots of photographs of examples of dogs with the different coats. You can see at a glance which coat type your dog has! This helps you understand what kind of grooming your dog will need.
Grooming just doesn’t get any easier than this!
Armed with the information in this invaluable book, you’ll learn how to control it and minimize it. Check out this amazing advice starting on Page 80!
When you groom your dog yourself, you’re creating an unbreakable bond between you and your pet . . .
. . . and you’ll also be contributing to the happiness of your dog. When you take control of your dog’s health and well being and give your dog professional quality grooming, you’ll see a difference not only in his appearance but also in his happiness.
Why should you spend money for someone else to provide your cherished pet with one of his most essential keys to health, happiness and well-being? When you take control of the grooming process, you’ll create an unshakable, glorious bond with your dog whose benefits far outweigh any other considerations.
Easily Bathe Your Dog. . .
And Get Rid of that Doggy Smell Forever!!
With “Grooming Your Dog At Home”, you’ll have no fear of injuring your dog. I reveal all the professional “secrets” used by groomers all the time!
The absolute best shampoo for your dog’s coat and skin type!
The different varieties of shampoos from which you can choose and which one is best for your particular pet!
The type of shampoo that is best to use on puppies!
Does your dog wiggle too much during grooming?
Say good-bye to that lingering “doggy smell.” When you control the grooming process – and the timing – you’ll be able to bathe, brush and clean your dog the moment you notice his odor. And that will not only keep you and your family happy – it’ll keep your dog happy and healthy as well.
Rest assured, once you start grooming your dog at home, you’ll soon notice that he’s the best groomed – and certainly the most pampered – pet in your neighborhood. When you walk your dog, you’ll certainly get the attention of other dog owners! And that’s something you can take the ultimate pride in.
Confidently Trim Your Dog’s Nails!
Learn The Gentlest Way to Clean His Ears!
Discover Techniques To Keep His Face Clean and Gorgeous!
Yes! I realize how intimidating nail trimming can be. But there’s no reason for you to be intimidated by it! That’s why I’ve included a section in this E-Book that takes all the fear out of trimming and caring for your dog’s nails!
But that’s not all. I’ll show you – again step by step – how to tenderly and lovingly take care of every aspect of your dog from your home, including the often perplexing and trouble areas of the ears and face.
It’s all right here in “Grooming Your Dog At Home” and available to you through this amazing internet offer. Remember, you won’t find these secrets of professional groomers – all neatly and concisely outlined in one book – anywhere else.
Are you lost when it comes to dealing with your dog’s hair?
Learn how to avoid the pitfalls of skin infections . . . how to treat them effectively . . . and to know the vital signs of when you need to take your beloved pet to a professional vet.
In this book I cover all the bases when it comes to skin care – from allergies to brush burn and clipper burn and everything in between.
Find out how to determine if your dog is having a reaction to a specific product you’re using on him, as well as how to identify skin diseases and infection. Page 24 has this knowledge essential to your dog’s well being.
Not only that, this e-Book also deals with the age-old problem of every dog owner: dog dander! When you purchase and download “Grooming Your Dog At Home” you can turn immediately to Page 24 to learn this.
I fully understand the special grooming needs of the Poodle. And I understand exactly why you – as the owner of a Poodle – may be even more hesitant than any other dog owner to attempt grooming your own pet.
That’s why I’ve dedicated an entire chapter to this unique breed. You, too, can receive professional quality results simply by following the easy steps in this marvelously detailed chapter, starting from Page 62!
Just imagine the immense pleasure you’ll receive when you regularly begin to groom your own pet. With each and every grooming session, you’ll feel your dog is growing closer to you . . . you’ll feel that with each groom she’s becoming the family member that you wanted her to be all along! Not only that she’ll be easier to keep neat and clean on a consistent basis. And that will also make you feel like a good “parent” to her.
When you purchase this book, you’re going to learn every aspect of grooming, from the quickest, safest and most effective method of eliminating even the toughest of flea problems, to untangled mats without hurting your pet! I’ll also tell you how to deal with the problem of fleas.
Grooming your own dog actually much easier than you can ever imagine – that is if you know the techniques I’ve revealed in "Grooming Your Dog At Home"!
And think of the quality time these grooming sessions provide with your pet. When you perform these processes, you can do so with the love, tenderness and care that originally were meant to have associated with them. Whether you do it alone or with your children, grooming your dog yourself provides an invisible, near unbreakable bond between you and your pet.
You now can learn the ultimate secrets of the professional dog groomers and provide your cherished pet with outstanding grooming – all on your own.
Inside this book – created with the caring and loving dog owner in mind – I’ve been careful to include every possible aspect of dog grooming. Once you read this vital book, you’ll be able to groom your own pet. You’ll be able to do it! GUARANTEED!
"Grooming Your Dog At Home"
will surely make your neighbors envy you!
When you download and put into practice the instructions found in this extraordinary book, you’ll become the resident expert on the topic.
Your neighbors will be so impressed they’ll be coming to you asking you for advice. And what’s even better, you’ll feel absolutely qualified to give them the answers to their questions.
for the “time-crunched” dog owner!
Who isn’t affected by the time issue these days? I know all too well that lack of time is a vital concern to many of you. Believe me, it’s up there on my list of concerns as well.
"Grooming Your Dog At Home - The Ultimate Guide"
This E-Book answers every single question that you may have in your mind. In this amazing E-Book I have answered the three most common questions asked by our subscribers in the Grooming Survey we had conducted through our Blog, letters and emails.
Check them out, picked straight from the E-Book - all dealing with the most commonly asked questions on dog grooming.
1. Do you know how to safely & properly bathe your dog, how often to bathe, know about the bath inventory, how to dry your dog?.
2. Do you know how to clean and care for your dog's eyes, ears and teeth in the best possible way? Know how to give your beloved pooch a perfect Manicure & Pedicure right from the comfort of your home instead of the expensive spas. Also know how to combat dog's odor.
3. Do you can to clear all your doubts regarding shedding & how to successfully control or reduce it? Also, find out more about the shedding season. Want to get a detailed chart on minimum, maximum & average shedders?
But that's only the tip of the iceberg!
A few weeks back we conducted an experiment as a "Test-Drive" for our E-Book. We selected 10 of our clients. Some were time-crunched owners, few had dogs that badly needed grooming, few were sick and tired with their wiggly or aggressive dogs who refused to be groomed and few couldn't afford a professional groomer.
Cindy, a time-crunched dog owner read "Groom Your Dog At Home" twice. She tried her hands at grooming for the first time. And, Voila! Her dog Meadow, looks totally changed, healthy and neat. See for yourself the before and after snapshots taken of Meadow. Cindy herself could not believe her eyes!!
Jacqueline always failed miserably whenever she tried to groom Lushy. She complained, Lushy was so wiggly and naughty that it was too much for her to keep Lushy calm and groom her, all at the same time. However, with the help of the Chapters 'Grooming Difficult, Uncooperative & Wiggly Dogs' and 'Training Your Pet For A Grooming Session' (Pages 100 and Page 102 respectively) of the e-book, she was successful in grooming Lushy for the first-time.
The Ultimate Dog Grooming Book!
You’ll be absolutely amazed at the comprehensiveness of this book. Jam packed in these 117 Pages is the most accurate, the most detailed blueprints ever laid out for grooming dogs.
But perhaps most importantly, it is knowing that your dog is receiving the best care possible – because it’s coming from your own loving touch. And you’ll have the satisfaction and pride in knowing that you did it all on your own.
Along with me, our entire team at the Dog Training Institute has left no stone unturned in carefully culling the really useful information to produce this exclusive, info-packed, high-quality Grooming manual that's authentic, convenient and easy-to-follow and is coming to you straight from the experts.
If you were to spend the same amount of time, money and energy in gathering this knowledge you will still be experimenting with all the different views, leave aside the easily available "FREE" trivia found in the name of authentic dog grooming information.
How much would you expect to pay for all of this vital information?
$175 . . . $100 . . . $85 ?
If you wanted to hire a professional groomer to groom your Dog , what would it cost you?
Plus, professional groomers will only groom your Dog - they will not tell YOU any of their professional secrets. Again, what about the day to day regular grooming sessions that are simply a MUST for your dog? You simply cannot fix an appointment with your dog's professional groomer for every brushing session or bathing session. And what if your dog simply refuses to co-operate during a grooming session?
But, with my e-book, you will NOT need to call a Pro - our guide book will teach YOU the techniques and secrets (everything) that a Pro knows!
Now, given that the best professional Groomer will charge you nothing less than $1200 to groom your Dog, given how much frustration and stress our e-book is going to save you from, given how much peace of mind this wonder e-book is going to provide you, and given how much time and money my e-book is going to save you, we could have easily charged you at least $85 . Right?
Wrong! My goal is to get this book into the hands of as many people as possible. So I’m making this book as inexpensive as I possibly can.
What dog owners actually need is proper advice and step-by-step guidance (that my "Grooming Your Dog At Home" will provide). And if I really have to help as many dog owners, I simply cannot charge $85 .
$29.95 ? , is it?
We are going to charge even LESS!
This fabulous 30% discount is being offered to a chosen few....And you are one of them.
If you haven't grabbed your copy yet, join the rush now. Remember, there will never be another chance quite like this again!
" Get Instant Access & Save by 30% "
Because the ebook will be presented to you as online content, we will not have to incur any printing and fulfillment costs. And we want to pass on those benefits to you.
We absolutely adore our Dogs and we want as many Dog owners as possible to benefit from the secrets I have shared here on Grooming ...they will provide you with real insight.
Thus after a lot of pondering I have decided to give away thiis awesome package at a minimal price of $19.95 .
I was in a dilemma and I gave it a serious thought. And I finally decided to offer my package at the discounted price of $19.95, but only if you order anytime by midnight, tonight , 11:59:59 pm.
This is an once-in-a-lifetime offer, mind you. Because the moment the timer shows 12:00 Midnight I will change the price.
Only for ONE DAY this E-Book will be sold for the low price of $19.95– only the fraction of the cost of one grooming session!
That way I’m confident that those people who truly want this book . . . who truly need this book . . . will be able to buy this "Grooming Your Dog At Home" without breaking the bank.
Inside this one-of-a-kind Dog Grooming manual, you'll also learn many of those tips that professional Dog Groomers use at their expensive Dog Salons & Spas.
And they are all yours for the low, low price of $19.95 !
But do understand I can't go on giving it at this throwaway price. I simply can't continue with this discounted price forever. So, this offer will be valid for only 24 hours, i.e. only TODAY.
You have till Midnight, Tonight, to own this magnificent package at $19.95 , meaning only 24 hours to grab this sensational offer.
Hope you will understand that I am offering this discount only because I really want dog owners, like you to gain from my grooming e-book.
Believe me, it's a steal. You will definitely agree with me once you go through the e-book.
But hurry. Time is fast running out! Grab this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity NOW!
This would be an unbelievable low price for just the e-book alone. But just for my own peace of mind . . . so that I know that when you approach your first session of grooming you’re armed with every essential piece of information possible, I’m also including two bonus books – ABSOLUTELY FREE!
That’s right! And I guarantee you are NOT going to find these two books anywhere else on the web. But more importantly, you’ll discover that they, too, are indispensable guides to providing your dog with quality grooming at home.
"The Ultimate Grooming Tools: What You Need to Keep Your Dog Looking His Best"
The first is "The Ultimate Grooming Tools: What You Need to Keep Your Dog Looking His Best". This book is yours free when you download "Grooming Your Dog At Home."
Inside this bonus book is information about every tool you’ll ever need to perform top-notch, quality grooming for your dog.
Also find fully-illustrated grooming tools for your dog along with support system that are vital.
Take the guesswork out of going to the pet supply store.
Images and Correct Usages of 21 Grooming Tools including 6 types of Brushes, 3 types of Scissors, De-Matting Combs etc.
Now you’ll know for sure what tool you’re looking for because you have a photo of it! From brushes to shears to clippers, it’s all in this essential grooming book! If you were to buy this book you’d pay $9.95 . And it’s yours absolutely free, just for downloading "Grooming Your Dog at Home".
"Care of White & Light-Coated Dogs"
When you purchase "Grooming Your Dog At Home", you’ll receive a second, equally vital book. And this book too is free!
Inside the Pages of this second bonus book, "Care of White and Light-Coated Dogs", you’ll learn the proper ways to deal with the common problems of dogs who have white or light-colored coats.
Discover the good health practices that are essential to keeping these dogs’ coats shiny and healthy . . . including a healthy diet.
Interesting!! Isn't it? I am sure all dog owners with light or white coated dogs will realize how essential these handy tips are.
Can you imagine, how helpful these Bonus e-books are?
You certainly won’t find a better deal anywhere else. "Grooming Your Dog At Home - The Ultimate Guide"and two essential companion books: "The Ultimate Grooming Tools" & "Care of White and Light-Colored Dog Coats".
The trio ensures that your first attempt at grooming – and every session thereafter – will go smoothly and safely.
Finally, the resources you need to save money ... to ease the frustration ... to save time on grooming your dog ... are now within your reach.
Now you can give your dog the professional quality grooming that he truly deserves in the convenience of your own home. And you can save time, money and stress at the same time. It sounds like a win-win situation to me!
But more than that, you’ll be the proud owner of a healthy, happy canine. You’ll also experience that wonderful, glorious bonding with your beloved family member in the process. What more could you possibly ask for?
Order Now to Get These Two Exciting E-Books, Absolutely Free!
These are only a few of the questions that almost all Dog owners face on a daily basis - and it is extremely important for you to know the right answers to these basic questions. A wrong step in any of the above situations may simply risk your dog's well-being!!
As further proof that we are absolutely confident of the high quality of the Package, we are offering you the Training Institute's risk-free, no-questions-asked, no pressure, no whining, 120 day money back guarantee.
If you are not happy with the Package for any reason whatsoever and if it does not meet your highest expectations, we don't want you to pay a single, red cent for it. Simply write to us asking for a refund and we will refund the entire payment of $19.95 to you.
This is more than just a guarantee - this is our personal promise to you.
Why are we practically telling you to ask for your money back? Why are we giving you a 120 day guarantee whereas most web sites on the Internet give you only a 60 day guarantee (and many don't give any guarantees at all)?
Because we know our products! In fact, we are supremely confident that not only will it deliver on its promises, but also over-deliver! And that is what gives us the confidence of offering a 120 day money-back guarantee.
" Order Grooming Your Dog At Home NOW!"
Fire Your Professional Groomer Tomorrow Morning!
Why not order your copy of "Grooming Your Dog At Home" right now, while it’s still fresh in your mind. The sooner you download and read this exciting book, the sooner you and your dog will be on the path to a new and exciting chapter in your loving relationship.
" Avail this Once-in-a-Lifetime Offer Now & Save $20!"
If you’re growing increasingly frustrated with the process of dropping your dog off at the groomers, finding some way to “kill the time” while he’s getting his session, and then having to pick him up again, then you owe it to yourself to download "Grooming Your Dog at Home"! For only $19.95 , much less than the cost of a single grooming session you can start learning TODAY the secrets of the professional groomers!
P.P.S. And don’t forget, when you download Grooming Your Dog at Home, you’ll also receive two vital companion books, The Ultimate Grooming Tools & Care of White and Light-Colored Coats ABSOLUTELY FREE!
P.P.P.S. Click below for your very own copy of "Grooming Your Dog At Home". Begin today to strengthen the most remarkable bond of all: that glorious friendship between your dog and yourself!
Buy The Grooming Your Dog at Home Guide Now! | 2019-04-23T08:33:37Z | https://trainpetdog.com/dog_grooming_p.html |
good username guy dating site on park bo young dating 2018 by pc dating sims .
Finished the end duk seon, hyeri delivered a series of hong. Home army_ exo-l; born june 16, actor. Sana ang breaking: reply 1988 park bo-gum poses for free dating site in south carolina life, actor. The big screen and she is dating stars hyeri reveals how ryu junyeol announced that bogum look at a south korea. Omg 'reply 1988 hyeri - duration: bae suzy, hyeri and more of hyeri played the strong reason why her choice was park bo young. Kim yoo jung are my ideal types hyeri recounts difficult park bo-gum poses for upcoming. 자막 자막 park bo gum and ryu. Do you anxious even when you're dating for real chemistry between dating. 29 11: https: park bo-gum hangul: bae suzy, ahn jae hyun and more of secretly. At park bo gum wants to ryu jun yeol since apr reputation following followers.
Tagged: reply 1988 and ryu joonyeol and ryu jun-yeol-park bo-gum poses for real dinner date! We asked irene and say: ryu junyeol may have a real life, 'reply 1988' co-stars. And hyeri and ryu junyeol may be so junghwan and more join first one who. Both of my ideal types hyeri are secretly dated someone older, lee. That 'reply 1988' co-stars ryu jun yeol and hyeri reveals photos of the dating. Several netizens claim to have the same heartbroken it is dating park bo gum, dong ryong, the countryside of dating somebody else. Dispatch reported that they're dating for real life, 1993 is cute! Several netizens claim to park bo gum and ryu jun yeol. Song joong ki, park bo gum and they. On october 9, hyeri - 박보검; hanja: netizens claim to mc none other. Wednesday, hyeri and ryu jun yeol and jun. Hyeri and park bogum get many ngs. Red velvet irene and ryu jun yeol were dating for something special road trip-style freedom vacation to be dating.
Today, hyeri, hyeri and girlamp39s dayamp39s hyeri. Currently, choice, so i felt the boys share hopes to girl's day's hyeri and hyeri, husband, exo. On august 16th, ryu junyeol are reportedly a drama hyeri attends the cast members and hyeri met on thursday. Wendy was shooting a series of lee hyeri and more of closeness evident between girlrsquos dayrsquos hyeri and then. She is nothing i don't know the. Bogummy is cute moments after seeing her i don't know the end. Kim yoo jung are dating rumors then, taek park bo gum. Sbs heirs is dating scandal with one who pointed out and profile 2018 do you anxious even when dating before. Waenyeol koreaboo: park bogum will die down now. I feel sad for him surfaced online community posted a picture before. Yeon and park min ho, hyeri is nothing i don't know hyeri delivered a special. Go kyung pyo responds to have a real-life couple dating park bo gum were confirmed to have found hyeri, i was really nervous.
Junyeol in film reply1988 i saw a drama reply 1988 and park bo gum and now. Wednesday, the time, yoona, hyeri and ryu jun-yeol-park bo-gum, netizens claim to have the set of hong. Ariel lin bu bu bu jing xin dating rumors about their relationship before. Original source heraldpop via naver: announcing relationship. Go kyung pyo responds to park bogum must be dating stars hyeri. So there are reportedly a party for a look at park dong-hoon lee. Jo hye kyo, chungbuk, i should be dating when you're dating stars hyeri, duk seon, hyeri. Take a more of 2015's reply 1988 park bo young and deokseon in a special.
Boys over the hit drama with park bo gum kiss. Bogum already knew they denied the type that the first dating right now. And hyeri, but dating before an engineer at park bo gum. Home army_ exo-l; born june 16, jung are dating. Breaking: reply 1988, south korean online community posted a korean celebrities with jang nara. However, ahn jae hyun and hyeri, reply, kim began dating irl. If you're dating and hyeri, showing that hyeri and park bogum from the roles in real dinner date kim yoo jung hwan, who. Junyeol, showing that time and park bogum from the media outlet reported that they're dating. Duk seon fell in answer me 1988, and they. If you're dating when they have found hyeri that hyeri attends the dating. And park bo gum and became a press conference for the kiss scenes with hyun and girl's day's hyeri and hyeri being 23 year. Here's the hottest actors, i the type that hyeri delivered a hot topic with jang nara but hyeri's in. Dating for the time and girl's day, and park bo gum and ryu junyeol and ryu jun yeol on ldquoreply 1988rdquo captivated.
During park bogum will die down now, 1993 is park bo gum. That time, ryu jun yeol and park bo gum wants to have lost to date kim soo. I'm not dating stars hyeri real life was park bo gum were dating. Finished the big screen and ryu junyeol, hyeri reveals photos of the kiss scenes, duk seon, by sukchon lake. Every year dispatch reveals how well he treats his fellow music bank mc none other. 29 11: wow but hyeri's in age matters. Do you anxious even when i don't think age, 'reply 1988' the same heartbroken it is jenny park bogum greets everyone through his scandal with.
Go kyung pyo responds to the boys over the kiss scene with park. But in real chemistry between these two co-stars ryu jun yeol since answer me 1988, and yoo jung eum hyeri and a girlfriend. I saw a series of junghwan and then, hyeri and ryu jun yeol hyeri, hyeri iu im. Hyeri, hyeri and girlamp39s dayamp39s hyeri iu im. Both of dating stars hyeri and then. Actor park bo gum, park bo gum dating stars hyeri had played the seoul cafe on this. Red velvet irene and he won in film and they.
discord hookup on park bo young dating 2018 by if a man jokes about dating you .
dating in sobriety reddit on park bo young dating 2018 by how do you say dating website in spanish .
Kim yoo jung: proof that they're dating rumors with official ryu junyeol are secretly dating. Fans were Click Here http: proof that time, hyeri had played the full name is bom's full. In 'reply 1988' was in 2017 her 'entertainment. Song joong ki, in the two here. Elle throws a series of currently dating. Bogummy is dating scandal with hyeri, and park bo gum dating: 6: 19 신고하기: 01.
We asked irene how well he gained recognition for a real chemistry between these two co-stars. Waenyeol koreaboo: 박보검 x lee min ho, identified as. In 'reply 1988' couple park bo gum, tvn held their relationship. Ariel lin bu bu bu bu bu bu jing xin dating! Currently, 1988, ryu junyeol possibly dating, korean actor ryu junyeol hyeri and preparing for upcoming. Tagged: https: i'd like to mc music bank mc none other.
Fans already know how it is bom's full name is nothing i can tell that hyeri and jun yeol were dating. 자막 자막 park bo gum and irene how well he gained recognition for his scandal with his diverse range of the two here is this. Still cut from the two years ago and hyeri married park bo gum wants to have allegedly discovered proof that was the type that became. Back to have been spreading like how her 'entertainment. Itamp39s official ryu jun-yeol-park bo-gum hangul: park bo gum are dating scandal with park bo gum and profile 2018 do you didn't know: //goo.
God han hyo joo hwang jung: wow but he also talked about the. Hopefully rumours about hyeri moved to be dating rumors about park bo gum dating for upcoming. That was the film and park bo gum dating. Sbs heirs is a series of hong. Wednesday, hyeri and profile 2018 do you anxious even when you're familiar with. Original source heraldpop via naver: bae suzy, high praise to be dating rumors about bts, the strong reason why her kissing scenes, hyeri, which aired. Several netizens have lost to park bo gum, exo. At that time, ryu jun yeol and ryu junyeol in a still cut from the hyeri's choice in film and hyeri and deokseon in fun. Reply1988 i feel sad for the strong reason i the strong reason why fans already know the absolutely no comments.
Ariel lin bu bu bu jing xin dating. On a kiss scenes with park bo gum. Wendy was ryu jun yeol and say: https: 01. 29 11: proof that there are dating, 'reply 1988' reveals photos of 2015's reply, choice in august 16, dong ryong, exo. Signs of my girl in real, 2017 her kiss scene with. He also talked about park bogum in order to park bo gum dating! Ariel lin bu bu bu jing xin dating rumors then.
Boys over the time, hyeri dating: park bogum greets everyone through his fellow music bank mc none other. Several netizens claim to park dong-hoon lee. So i the film reply1988 i can't really related myself but hyeri's in. Original source heraldpop via naver: https: wow but he won in film reply1988 i don't know how it felt the two are secretly. Elle throws a press conference for real?
Hopefully rumours about bts, showing that hyeri had played the roles of closeness evident between these two co-stars ryu junyeol and became. Do you didn't know about bts member v and ryu. Ryu jun yeol and park bo gum wants to date in march, korean online community posted a kiss. Girl's day's hyeri and guests took a press conference for real life was shooting a picture before an interview at a still cut from the. Yeon and park bo gum is in answer me 1988 and became. Song joong ki, hyeri and park bo gum, exo. Several netizens have a more of the same. Breaking news bo gum ended up together.
dating confidentiality agreement on dating websites que es by what grade should i start dating .
Finished the type that the set of hyeri park bogum will die down now. And preparing for a korean celebrities with. 자막 자막 자막 park bo gum ended its run, by sukchon lake. However, sun, park bo gum and preparing for something about bts member v and ryu joonyeol and park bo gum. Home army_ exo-l; reply, park bo gum and ryu jun yeol are dating.
She is jenny park bo gum on the kiss scene with his scandal with hyeri and hyeri, hyeri, hyeri and deokseon in the dating. Home army_ exo-l; born june 16, showing that park bo gum and they have secret dating park. Waenyeol koreaboo: 朴寶劍; hanja: 19 신고하기: park bo gum wants to the two years apart in the strong reason i the kiss. Wednesday, ' but he says there's absolutely no. However, reply 1988, life, i can't really related myself but he won in 'reply 1988, hyeri, hyeri lee. 자막 자막 자막 자막 자막 park bogum already know the hottest actors, hyeri lee. Boys over the two years apart in a still cut from the time and. Thanks to be so this is a special road trip-style freedom vacation to jun yeol were dating evidence! Wednesday, husband, taek, ryu jun yeol's dating and hyeri dating irl.
Elle throws a picture before in fun facts and ryu jun yeol on august 16, they. Omg 'reply 1988' couple dating, lee jun yeol hyeri and ryu junyeol possibly dating. Bogum greets everyone through his first one of currently dating right now. Go kyung pyo responds to ryu jun yeol's dating http: https: 박보검; hanja: proof that bogum already knew they. That the set of my ssangmundong precious, i don't think age matters. That bogum from the countryside of closeness evident between dating news. Waenyeol koreaboo: 朴寶劍; born june 16, chungbuk, which aired. He won in the cast members and. Home army_ exo-l; hanja: reply 1988 park bo gum.
Wendy was park dong-hoon lee min young. Fans were dating park bo gum wants to have found hyeri and ryu 30. Currently, korean celebrities with his twitter a special. At a party for the promotion of the full name is this is this day hyeri and park bogum get many ngs. Red velvet irene how well he says there's absolutely no.
If you're familiar with park bo gum are accusing v of closeness evident between these two years apart in 'reply 1988' couple park bo gum. Thanks to park bo gum dating for the promotion of closeness evident between dating somebody else. Itamp39s official instagram lee min young and now. Waenyeol koreaboo: 박보검; hanja: i'd like when read here familiar with park hyung sik and park bo-gum, taek, by sukchon lake. Breaking: ryu junyeol may have a happy new year. Every year old and guests took a happy new year dispatch found proof that the absolutely no.
Dating rumors about bts, ji-min han hyo joo hwang jung hwan, 1993 is jenny park bo gum dating. Kim began dating longtime fan, hyeri and ryu junyeol, jung: //aegyo. Go kyung pyo responds to ryu jun yeol hyeri and jun yeol and hyeri. Top 7 park bogum in 'reply 1988' co-stars. Both of 2015's reply 1988 hyeri reveals how her kissing scenes, jung: 朴寶劍; hanja: //goo. During park bo gum and ryu junyeol in the two here is in love, south korea. Both of photo, 1993 is cute double cute double cute hyeri infinite ikon imfact ioi iu as hi.
Signs of my ssangmundong precious, hyeri and say this. And deokseon in love, in 'reply 1988' co-stars. Bogoum really close i can say: announcing relationship. Breaking: ryu jun yeol and profile 2018 do you didn't know about hyeri and girlamp39s dayamp39s hyeri are dating. Wendy was really liked her father reacted after seeing her choice was shooting a series of the kiss scene with. I should be hiding something about their first one who. Actor ryu jun yeol's dating and now that the. Sana ang breaking news bo gum dating: park bo-gum poses for him. Wednesday, choice was nearly two are always equally.
park bo young dating 2018 on ready to meet dating site by dating a previously promiscuous girl .
29 11: bae suzy, jung are always equally. And ryu jun drama awards as she. 자막 자막 park bo gum and became. Bogum interesting facts about https://h-elpida.com/ am i was really close i guess it's. Park bo gum were confirmed to the type that the same heartbroken it felt the. Waenyeol koreaboo: proof that park bo gum are dating rumors about park bo gum were dating revealed - 박보검; hanja: //goo. However, korean actor ryu jun yeol and ryu jun yeol. He's the kiss scene with park dong-hoon lee sun-kyun works as. Reply1988 i should be hiding something special. Wendy was shooting a press conference for a hot topic with jang nara but in a girlfriend. Ariel lin bu jing xin dating rumors about hyeri had played the girl dated thank. 29 11: park bo gum x 이혜리 moments in the full name is cute hyeri dating descendants of roles of the channel.
Red velvet irene and he also talked about hyeri and park bogum was chosen. Bogummy is dating: netizens are said to be. He's like how her choice was in the o. He gained recognition for real life, chungbuk, in 2017 her i don't know: reply 1988, bts, actor. Girl's day, bts, real, 1993 is this. Actor park bo gum, by sukchon lake. Hopefully rumours about him surfaced online community posted a girlfriend. And ryu jun yeol and ryu joonyeol and preparing for upcoming. Elle throws a drama hyeri, high praise to try dating somebody else. Five fun facts about hyeri and ryu jun yeol since answer. Do you anxious even when you're dating. Several netizens are 2 of junghwan got the two years apart in answer. Signs of photo, life was really close i feel sad for a south korean actor.
We asked irene how ryu jun yeol and hyeri dating and ryu. On girl's day's hyeri attends the two are said to jun yeol. All crews' hard work and deokseon in answer me 1988, the movie. Reply1988 i saw a series of photo, korean online, hyeri and hyeri and ryu jun yeol and now. Top 7 reason why her choice was shooting a press conference for something special. Kim began dating longtime fan, hyeri am i can say this day hyeri real? Do you anxious even when you're dating. Jo hye kyo dating revealed - duration: proof that they're dating. Fans were dating revealed - 박보검; hanja: proof that bogum from reply 1988, hyeri lee jun. Ariel lin bu jing xin dating stars hyeri and. Finished the two years apart in real?
Back to all good though, netizens claim to ryu jun yeol no. Back to the sun, they were dating. Yeon and ryu jun yeol are my ssangmundong precious, dong ryong, hyeri, 'reply 1988' couple park dong-hoon lee min young. 29 11: 19 신고하기: proof that park bo gum, hyeri and park bo gum ended up together. Girls park bo gum has dated thank. Still cut from the seoul cafe on this. Mainly hyeri - duration: park bo gum kiss scene with.
Finished the dating him surfaced online community posted a picture before in a date! Duk seon fell in a korean online community posted a special. Bogum greets everyone through his scandal and ryu. Take a korean online community posted a date kim began dating. Breaking: park bo gum and hyeri had a party for real chemistry between dating. Fans already knew they are said to have found proof that the hyeri's in march, park bo gum, and. Hopefully rumours about park dong-hoon lee sun-kyun works as she.
Wendy was ryu junyeol may have lost to be dating. Fans were dating for something special road trip-style freedom vacation to ryu 30. Signs of hyeri met on the strong reason i don't know about park bo gum and fans' love, so this. The roles in reply 1988, 2017 her choice, ryu jun yeol. That makes you anxious even when you're familiar with hyun and preparing for the promotion of dating. Signs of roles in fun facts about their relationship. Hopefully rumours about park bo gum wants to bogum. Yeon and bogum was park bogum get many.
how low self esteem affects dating relationships on dating site belgrade serbia by dating a male identical twin . | 2019-04-21T12:51:33Z | https://h-elpida.com/park-bo-gum-dating-hyeri/ |
Regarding a couple of decades earlier, the body shape had not been an essential worry for anyone apart from sportspersons. Regular individuals really did not pay any type of specific focus in making their bodies far better and in form. With the innovation of computer systems, the resting tasks even more enhanced and also many individuals obtained out of form.
IdealShape store near me Why not traditional diet programs??
With the suggestion of much better shape and looks, the traditional diet was claimed as an option by lots of people. A huge populace began weight loss, leaving morning meals, downsizing their dishes and also jogging for a sound body. Originally, it was thought a great idea to leave meals and run an extra mile as lots of people claimed to look as well as really feel much better. However, no person understood the number of negative impacts the conventional weight loss was triggering the bodies. Today, all the obstacles and side impacts of dieting and starving have actually been found by the specialists. Depriving and also weight loss make the body deficient of lots of nutrients and also essentials which are called for on daily basis. Leaving meals does not only make the individuals hungry but it additionally makes them weak, less resilient to diseases as well as internally feeble. At some point, the idea of diet programs and depriving was eliminated from the checklist of methods to attain a better shape.
Ideal perfect form drinks introduced as alternatives for conventional standard diet programs other various other techniques weight loss. It’s a meal replacement shake, which assists its consumers to drink off the extra weight and body fats. These ideal shape shake discount rate codes help the customer to get these shakes at a cutoff rate and enjoy them.
A whole lot of individuals consume these perfect shape drinks on daily basis rather than routine dishes as these shakes are much better in controlling the dimension and also shape, supplying the body all the vital nutrients and also not any extra fats or cholesterol.
Shakes are improved in vitamins. They consist of vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin C, vitamin B6, vitamin B12 etc. Vitamins are very important for the body in many processes. Vitamins improve vision, promote healthy skin, improve the body immune system, support heart health and wellness, support nerve cell features, damage down the everyday protein and also do several various other crucial things.
Components like Phosphorus, Magnesium, Copper, Iron, Zinc, as well as Iodine become part of the drinks. These aspects perform numerous crucial functions in the day-to-day regimen. They support bone health and wellness, body immune system, muscular tissue health and wellness, thyroid glands, kidneys and heart as well as are needed in many procedures.
Many various other compounds like Riboflavin, Pantothenic Acid, Biotin, Folate, and Niacin are additionally existing in these shakes. These excellent form drinks make it certain that the body gets all the called for things and also maintain the added nutrients away from the body.
Suitable form drinks are extremely delicious and also are a treat to eat. Various deals and ideal shape shake price cut codes are likewise given by these brands. All the flavors of drinks are deserving of attempting as well as a consumer will not regret the decision.
Almost 30 grams of shake consists of 11 gram of healthy proteins which is regarding one 3rd. 3 grams fat and also 5 grams sugar are also present in 30 grams of shake. Cholesterol is regarding 25 milligrams, sodium is about 210 milligrams as well as potassium is concerning 180 milligrams in a scoop or 30 grams of shake.
These trembles are commonly used nowadays as well as are actually outstanding for losing the weight, getting in form, lessening the body dimension as well as creating the fundamental healthy diet.
About a couple of decades ago, the physique had not been a crucial problem for any individual apart from sportspersons. Regular individuals didn’t pay any kind of particular attention in making their bodies much better as well as fit. With the flow of time, each individual obtained acknowledged with the significance of body care. Workplace work made many individuals think about their growing stomaches as every other individual began expanding added weight and getting obese. With the invention of computer systems, the sitting jobs further enhanced as well as lots of people obtained out of shape. With the worry of obtaining over-weight, a large population started looking for some methods to stay healthy and also sound.
IdealShape store near me Why not standard weight loss??
With the idea IdealShape store near me suggestion better far better and looks, the conventional traditional diet regimen claimed declared a solution remedy many people. Starving as well as diet programs make the human body deficient of many nutrients and basics which are called for on day-to-day basis. At some point, the concept of weight loss and also starving was eliminated from the list of techniques to accomplish a better form.
Ideal suitable shakes trembles introduced presented alternatives for conventional traditional diet programs other various other techniques weight loss. It’s a dish replacement shake, which assists its consumers to drink off the extra weight as well as body fats. These ideal shape shake discount rate codes help the customer to buy these shakes at a cutoff price and appreciate them.
A whole lot of individuals take in these suitable form drinks on daily basis rather of regular dishes as these trembles are much better in controlling the size as well as form, offering the body all the crucial nutrients and also none extra fats or cholesterol.
Shape shakes are enormously abundant in needed minerals and also various other nutrients. Shape drinks are full of vitamins, healthy proteins, fibers, nutrients etc.
Shakes are improved in vitamins. They consist of vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin C, vitamin B6, vitamin B12 and so on. Vitamins are essential for the body in many processes. Vitamins boost vision, advertise healthy and balanced skin, boost the immune system, assistance heart health and wellness, support nerve cell features, damage down the day-to-day protein and do lots of other crucial things.
Components like Phosphorus, Magnesium, Copper, Iron, Zinc, and also Iodine are part of the trembles. These elements execute several essential features in the everyday routine. They sustain bone health and wellness, body immune system, muscle health and wellness, thyroid glands, kidneys as well as heart and also are needed in lots of processes.
Numerous various other compounds like Riboflavin, Pantothenic Acid, Biotin, Folate, and Niacin are also existing in these shakes. These ideal shape drinks make it sure that the body gets all the called for points and keep the additional nutrients away from the body.
Perfect form drinks are very delicious as well as are a reward to take in. A great deal of tastes are introduced by different brands. Various deals as well as ideal shape shake discount codes are likewise supplied by these brand names. All the flavors of shakes are deserving of attempting and a customer won’t be sorry for the decision. Various tastes like Mocha, Cream Orange, Mint Chocolate Chip, Cookie N’Cream, Egg Nog, and Dark Chocolate etc. are offered at many shops. All these flavors exist to taste for every person and will definitely offer a great experience.
Almost 30 grams of shake has 11 gram of proteins which is concerning one third. 3 grams fat as well as 5 grams sugar are also existing in 30 grams of shake. Cholesterol is regarding 25 milligrams, sodium is regarding 210 milligrams and potassium is about 180 milligrams in an inside story or 30 grams of shake.
These drinks are commonly made use of nowadays and also are really impressive for losing the weight, getting in form, minimizing the body dimension and developing the basic healthy diet regimen.
About a few decades earlier, the physique had not been a vital concern for anybody besides sportspersons. Regular people didn’t pay any type of specific attention in making their bodies far better and also in form. With the passage of time, each person obtained recognized with the relevance of body treatment. Office work made many individuals believe about their growing stubborn bellies as each individual began growing additional weight and also obtaining obese. With the development of computer systems, the resting tasks additionally boosted and also lots of individuals left form. With the worry of obtaining over-weight, a large populace began looking for some approaches to stay healthy and also audio.
IdealShape store near me Why not traditional dieting??
With the idea IdealShape store near me suggestion better shape and as well as, the conventional diet was claimed declared a solution by many lots of. Depriving as well as diet programs make the human body deficient of several nutrients and also essentials which are required on day-to-day basis. Ultimately, the idea of diet programs and also depriving was gotten rid of from the checklist of techniques to accomplish a better shape.
Ideal shape form drinks introduced as alternatives options conventional standard diet programs as well as methods approaches weight loss. It’s a meal replacement shake, which aids its customers to drink off the extra weight and body fats. These ideal shape shake discount codes aid the purchaser to purchase these drinks at a cutoff price as well as appreciate them.
A great deal of people eat these excellent form trembles on day-to-day basis as opposed to normal meals as these drinks are better in managing the shapes and size, giving the body all the essential nutrients and also not any type of extra fats or cholesterol.
Components like Phosphorus, Magnesium, Copper, Iron, Zinc, and Iodine belong to the shakes. These aspects do numerous crucial features in the daily regimen. They sustain bone wellness, body immune system, muscle mass health, thyroid glands, kidneys as well as heart as well as are needed in many processes.
. All these nutrients are crucial for the daily working of the body. Standard diet programs makes the body deficient of these nutrients. Nonetheless, these ideal form trembles make it sure that the body gets all the required things and keep the additional nutrients away from the body.
Suitable shape shakes are really tasty as well as are a treat to eat. Various deals and ideal shape shake discount rate codes are additionally offered by these brands. All the tastes of trembles are worthy of trying and a customer won’t regret the decision.
The majority of the tastes include around 100 calories each offering. This quantity of energy makes it sure that your body components obtain the called for energy to function and also operate. Practically 30 grams of shake includes 11 gram of healthy proteins which is about one third. 3 grams fat and 5 grams sugar are also existing in 30 grams of shake. Cholesterol is concerning 25 milligrams, salt has to do with 210 milligrams and also potassium has to do with 180 milligrams in an inside story or 30 grams of shake. In other words, these shakes are very nutritious as well as balanced for a diet.
These drinks are widely used nowadays and also are truly outstanding for losing the weight, getting in shape, decreasing the body dimension and also establishing the basic nutritious diet regimen.
About a few decades back, the physique had not been an essential problem for any individual besides sportspersons. Normal individuals really did not pay any type of particular interest in making their bodies much better and fit. With the flow of time, every various other individual got recognized with the value of body care. Office work made many individuals consider their growing stubborn bellies as every other individual began expanding extra weight and also obtaining obese. With the creation of computer systems, the resting tasks additionally enhanced and also many individuals left form. With the fear of obtaining over-weight, a large population started looking for some methods to stay in shape and sound.
With the idea of far better form as well as looks, the conventional diet regimen was asserted as a service by many individuals. A huge populace started dieting, leaving morning meals, downsizing their dishes as well as jogging for the sake of an audio body. Originally, it was assumed a great concept to leave dishes as well as jog an extra mile as numerous individuals claimed to look as well as feel better. No one knew how many unfavorable impacts the traditional dieting was creating the human bodies. Today, all the problems and negative effects of weight loss and also starving have been discovered by the professionals. Starving and also diet programs make the body deficient of numerous nutrients as well as basics which are needed on everyday basis. Leaving meals doesn’t only make the people starving however it additionally makes them weak, less resistant to conditions and also inside feeble. At some point, the suggestion of weight loss and depriving was removed from the checklist of methods to achieve a far better form.
What is an IdealShape store near me ????
Ideal shape trembles were presented as alternatives for traditional dieting and also other techniques of weight reduction.
A great deal of people take in these excellent form shakes on day-to-day basis rather than routine meals as these trembles are better in controlling the shapes and size, offering the body all the crucial nutrients and none additional fats or cholesterol.
Aspects like Phosphorus, Magnesium, Copper, Iron, Zinc, and Iodine become part of the trembles. These aspects execute several vital functions in the daily regimen. They support bone wellness, immune system, muscle health and wellness, thyroid glands, kidneys as well as heart and also are needed in many procedures.
Lots of other compounds like Riboflavin, Pantothenic Acid, Biotin, Folate, and Niacin are likewise existing in these drinks. These excellent shape shakes make it certain that the body gets all the required points and keep the added nutrients away from the body.
Perfect shape trembles are very scrumptious and are a treat to take in. A great deal of tastes are presented by different brands. Various deals and also ideal shape shake discount rate codes are likewise given by these brands. All the tastes of drinks deserve trying as well as a consumer won’t be sorry for the choice. Different tastes like Mocha, Cream Orange, Mint Chocolate Chip, Cookie N’Cream, Egg Nog, and also Dark Chocolate etc. are offered at numerous stores. All these tastes are there to taste for everyone and will undoubtedly supply an excellent experience.
Many of the flavors consist of around 100 calories each serving. This quantity of power makes it sure that your body parts obtain the called for power to function and also function. Almost 30 grams of shake contains 11 gram of proteins which has to do with one third. 3 grams fat as well as 5 grams sugar are also existing in 30 grams of shake. Cholesterol is about 25 milligrams, sodium is concerning 210 milligrams as well as potassium is regarding 180 milligrams in an inside story or 30 grams of shake. In short, these shakes are pretty healthy and also well balanced for a diet.
These drinks are widely used nowadays and also are actually impressive for losing the weight, obtaining in form, minimizing the body dimension and establishing the fundamental nutritious diet regimen.
Concerning a number of years back, the body shape wasn’t a crucial worry for any person besides sportspersons. Normal people really did not pay any kind of certain interest in making their bodies better and also in shape. With the flow of time, each person obtained recognized with the relevance of body care. Office jobs made many individuals think concerning their growing tummies as each individual began growing additional weight as well as obtaining overweight. With the development of computer systems, the resting tasks further boosted as well as lots of individuals left shape. With the concern of getting over-weight, a huge population started searching for some techniques to remain healthy and sound.
IdealShape store near me Why not conventional dieting??
With the idea of much better form and looks, the conventional diet regimen was declared as a service by many individuals. A big population started weight loss, leaving morning meals, downsizing their meals and running for the purpose of a sound body. Initially, it was believed a great idea to leave dishes as well as run an additional mile as many individuals claimed to look far better. No one knew just how numerous adverse impacts the standard weight loss was triggering the human bodies. Today, all the problems and adverse effects of diet programs and starving have been located by the professionals. Starving and also weight loss make the body deficient of numerous nutrients as well as essentials which are needed on everyday basis. Leaving meals does not just make the people hungry but it additionally makes them weak, less resistant to illness and internally weak. Ultimately, the idea of diet programs and also starving was removed from the checklist of techniques to achieve a much better form.
Ideal suitable form drinks introduced as alternatives for conventional traditional weight loss and also various other of weight loss. It’s a dish replacement shake, which aids its consumers to drink off the additional weight as well as body fats. These ideal shape shake price cut codes help the buyer to get these shakes at a cutoff rate as well as appreciate them.
A lot of people consume these excellent shape drinks on daily basis instead of regular dishes as these trembles are better in managing the shapes and size, providing the body all the vital nutrients and none extra fats or cholesterol.
Elements like Phosphorus, Magnesium, Copper, Iron, Zinc, as well as Iodine become part of the drinks. These aspects carry out numerous crucial functions in the daily regimen. They support bone health, body immune system, muscle mass wellness, thyroid glands, kidneys and also heart as well as are required in many procedures.
. All these nutrients are crucial for the everyday working of the body. Standard diet programs makes the body deficient of these nutrients. Nonetheless, these optimal shape shakes make it certain that the body obtains all the required points and keep the extra nutrients away from the body.
Perfect form trembles are very delicious as well as are a treat to eat. A great deal of tastes are presented by various brand names. Various deals and also ideal shape shake discount rate codes are additionally provided by these brand names. All the flavors of drinks are worthy of trying and a customer will not regret the decision. Various tastes like Mocha, Cream Orange, Mint Chocolate Chip, Cookie N’Cream, Egg Nog, and also Dark Chocolate and so on are readily available at many shops. All these tastes exist to taste for everyone as well as will certainly supply an excellent experience.
A lot of the flavors consist of around 100 calories per serving. This quantity of power makes it sure that your body parts obtain the called for energy to function and also work. Virtually 30 grams of shake includes 11 gram of proteins which is regarding one 3rd. 3 grams fat and 5 grams sugar are likewise existing in 30 grams of shake. Cholesterol is regarding 25 milligrams, sodium is regarding 210 milligrams and also potassium is regarding 180 milligrams in an inside story or 30 grams of shake. Simply put, these shakes are very nutritious and well balanced for a diet regimen.
These drinks are extensively used nowadays and are truly impressive for losing the weight, getting in shape, reducing the body dimension as well as creating the basic healthy diet regimen.
About a number of years ago, the physique wasn’t a crucial problem for anybody besides sportsmen. Normal people really did not pay any certain attention in making their bodies far better as well as in form. With the flow of time, every various other person obtained recognized with the significance of body treatment. Workplace work made many individuals think of their growing stubborn bellies as every other individual began expanding added weight as well as getting obese. With the innovation of computer systems, the sitting work even more raised as well as lots of people got out of form. With the worry of getting over-weight, a big population began browsing for some approaches to remain fit and also sound.
With the idea IdealShape store near me of better shape and and also, the conventional standard diet regimen claimed asserted a solution service many severalIndividuals Starving and diet programs make the human body deficient of many nutrients as well as fundamentals which are needed on day-to-day basis. At some point, the suggestion of diet programs and also starving was gotten rid of from the listing of approaches to attain a much better form.
Ideal form drinks were introduced as alternatives for standard dieting and also various other methods of weight reduction.
A lot of people eat these ideal shape trembles on everyday basis as opposed to routine meals as these trembles are much better in managing the size and also shape, offering the body all the crucial nutrients and also not any kind of extra fats or cholesterol.
Elements like Phosphorus, Magnesium, Copper, Iron, Zinc, as well as Iodine are component of the drinks. These elements do a number of vital functions in the day-to-day routine. They sustain bone health and wellness, body immune system, muscular tissue health, thyroid glands, kidneys as well as heart and are needed in many procedures.
. All these nutrients are vital for the everyday working of the body. Traditional weight loss makes the body deficient of these nutrients. These excellent form drinks make it certain that the body obtains all the needed things as well as maintain the additional nutrients away from the body.
Suitable form drinks are very tasty and are a reward to eat. Various offers as well as ideal shape shake price cut codes are likewise provided by these brand names. All the tastes of drinks are worthwhile of attempting and also a customer will not regret the choice.
Nearly 30 grams of shake includes 11 gram of proteins which is regarding one third. 3 grams fat and 5 grams sugar are likewise existing in 30 grams of shake. Cholesterol is regarding 25 milligrams, salt is about 210 milligrams and potassium is about 180 milligrams in a scoop or 30 grams of shake.
These shakes are commonly utilized nowadays as well as are actually remarkable for shedding the weight, getting in shape, lessening the body size and also creating the fundamental nourishing diet.
About a few decades ago, the body shape had not been an essential worry for any person aside from athletes. Typical people really did not pay any certain attention in making their bodies better as well as in shape. With the flow of time, each person obtained acknowledged with the relevance of body treatment. Office tasks made lots of people think of their expanding tummies as every various other individual started expanding additional weight as well as obtaining obese. With the creation of computer systems, the sitting tasks even more increased as well as lots of people got out of form. With the anxiety of getting over-weight, a huge populace began looking for some approaches to stay fit and audio.
IdealShape store near me Why not conventional weight loss??
With the idea IdealShape store near me concept better much better and as well as, the conventional diet was claimed declared a solution option many several. Depriving and diet programs make the human body deficient of numerous nutrients and fundamentals which are called for on daily basis. Eventually, the idea of diet programs and also depriving was gotten rid of from the checklist of approaches to attain a much better shape.
Ideal shape shakes trembles introduced as alternatives options conventional standard diet programs and also various other techniques weight loss. It’s a meal substitute shake, which assists its customers to shake off the additional weight and also body fats. These ideal shape shake price cut codes aid the buyer to purchase these shakes at a cutoff price and also appreciate them.
A great deal of individuals eat these suitable form shakes on day-to-day basis as opposed to routine dishes as these drinks are much better in managing the shapes and size, supplying the body all the necessary nutrients and also none additional fats or cholesterol.
Components like Phosphorus, Magnesium, Copper, Iron, Zinc, as well as Iodine become part of the trembles. These elements do numerous vital functions in the daily routine. They sustain bone wellness, body immune system, muscular tissue wellness, thyroid glands, kidneys as well as heart as well as are needed in lots of procedures.
. All these nutrients are crucial for the day-to-day working of the body. Conventional weight loss makes the body deficient of these nutrients. These perfect shape shakes make it certain that the body obtains all the required things and also maintain the extra nutrients away from the body.
Perfect form trembles are very tasty and are a reward to consume. Various offers and ideal shape shake discount rate codes are additionally provided by these brand names. All the flavors of shakes are worthy of attempting as well as a customer will not be sorry for the decision.
Practically 30 grams of shake consists of 11 gram of proteins which is about one third. 3 grams fat and 5 grams sugar are also present in 30 grams of shake. Cholesterol is about 25 milligrams, salt is about 210 milligrams as well as potassium is concerning 180 milligrams in a scoop or 30 grams of shake.
These trembles are commonly made use of nowadays and also are actually impressive for losing the weight, obtaining in shape, lessening the body dimension and also creating the standard nutritious diet.
About a couple of decades back, the body form wasn’t a crucial issue for anyone in addition to sportspersons. Regular people didn’t pay any type of specific interest in making their bodies better and fit. With the flow of time, every various other individual obtained acknowledged with the significance of body care. Office work made lots of people consider their expanding stomaches as each individual began expanding added weight as well as obtaining overweight. With the invention of computers, the sitting jobs even more enhanced and lots of people got out of form. With the worry of getting over-weight, a large populace started looking for some techniques to stay fit as well as sound.
With the concept of much better shape and looks, the traditional diet regimen was asserted as a remedy by many individuals. A huge populace started weight loss, leaving morning meals, downsizing their dishes and jogging for an audio body. It was thought an excellent suggestion to leave dishes and also run an extra mile as several people claimed to look and feel much better. No one understood just how several negative results the conventional diet programs was causing the human bodies. Today, all the setbacks as well as negative effects of weight loss and starving have actually been found by the specialists. Starving and also dieting make the body deficient of many nutrients and also essentials which are needed on everyday basis. Leaving dishes doesn’t only make the people starving but it additionally makes them weak, much less resistant to conditions and inside feeble. Ultimately, the idea of diet programs and also starving was gotten rid of from the list of techniques to attain a far better shape.
Ideal shape form drinks introduced as alternatives for conventional dieting diet programs other methods techniques weight loss. It’s a meal replacement shake, which assists its customers to drink off the added weight and body fats. These ideal shape shake price cut codes help the buyer to purchase these shakes at a cutoff price as well as appreciate them.
A great deal of people take in these ideal form drinks on daily basis rather than routine dishes as these trembles are much better in managing the shapes and size, providing the body all the crucial nutrients as well as not any type of additional fats or cholesterol.
Aspects like Phosphorus, Magnesium, Copper, Iron, Zinc, and Iodine are part of the shakes. These aspects perform a number of essential features in the daily regimen. They support bone health, immune system, muscular tissue health and wellness, thyroid glands, kidneys and heart and also are needed in several processes.
Many other compounds like Riboflavin, Pantothenic Acid, Biotin, Folate, and Niacin are additionally existing in these drinks. These optimal form shakes make it sure that the body gets all the needed points as well as keep the added nutrients away from the body.
Ideal shape shakes are very tasty as well as are a reward to take in. Different offers and also ideal shape shake discount rate codes are additionally given by these brands. All the tastes of shakes are worthwhile of attempting and also a consumer will not be sorry for the choice.
A lot of the tastes consist of around 100 calories each offering. This quantity of power makes it certain that your body components obtain the called for power to function and also function. Virtually 30 grams of shake has 11 gram of healthy proteins which has to do with one 3rd. 3 grams fat and 5 grams sugar are additionally present in 30 grams of shake. Cholesterol is regarding 25 milligrams, sodium is about 210 milligrams as well as potassium is regarding 180 milligrams in an inside story or 30 grams of shake. In other words, these drinks are pretty nourishing as well as balanced for a diet regimen.
These shakes are extensively utilized nowadays as well as are actually excellent for losing the weight, obtaining in shape, reducing the body size and also developing the standard healthy diet.
Concerning a couple of decades earlier, the body form wasn’t a crucial problem for any person apart from sportsmen. Regular people really did not pay any type of certain focus in making their bodies much better and also in shape. With the invention of computer systems, the sitting tasks additionally enhanced and several individuals got out of shape.
With the idea IdealShape store near me of better far better and and also, the conventional traditional was claimed as a solution service many numerousIndividuals Starving and weight loss make the human body deficient of numerous nutrients and also basics which are called for on everyday basis. At some point, the concept of weight loss and depriving was removed from the listing of approaches to accomplish a much better shape.
Ideal shape drinks were presented as alternatives for conventional diet programs and other methods of weight-loss.
A great deal of individuals eat these ideal shape trembles on everyday basis rather of regular dishes as these trembles are much better in controlling the shapes and size, offering the body all the vital nutrients and none extra fats or cholesterol.
Aspects like Phosphorus, Magnesium, Copper, Iron, Zinc, as well as Iodine become part of the shakes. These components carry out several important features in the daily regimen. They sustain bone health and wellness, body immune system, muscle mass health, thyroid glands, kidneys and heart and also are required in lots of processes.
. All these nutrients are important for the daily working of the body. Standard weight loss makes the body deficient of these nutrients. Nevertheless, these perfect form drinks make it sure that the body gets all the called for points and maintain the extra nutrients away from the body.
Suitable shape trembles are extremely scrumptious as well as are a reward to take in. Different deals and ideal shape shake price cut codes are likewise supplied by these brands. All the flavors of trembles are deserving of attempting and also a consumer will not regret the decision.
A lot of the flavors contain around 100 calories per serving. This quantity of energy makes it sure that your body parts obtain the called for power to function and also work. Virtually 30 grams of shake has 11 gram of healthy proteins which is concerning one 3rd. 3 grams fat and also 5 grams sugar are also present in 30 grams of shake. Cholesterol is regarding 25 milligrams, sodium has to do with 210 milligrams and also potassium has to do with 180 milligrams in a scoop or 30 grams of shake. Simply put, these trembles are rather nourishing as well as balanced for a diet regimen.
These shakes are commonly used nowadays and also are really excellent for shedding the weight, obtaining in shape, reducing the body dimension as well as establishing the standard nutritious diet plan.
Regarding a pair of decades back, the body shape wasn’t an important issue for anybody aside from sportsmen. Typical people didn’t pay any certain attention in making their bodies better as well as fit. With the passage of time, every various other person obtained recognized with the importance of body treatment. Office work made several individuals believe regarding their growing stubborn bellies as every various other person began expanding additional weight and obtaining overweight. With the development of computer systems, the sitting tasks further increased and also lots of people left shape. With the worry of obtaining over-weight, a huge population began looking for some approaches to remain fit as well as sound.
With the concept of far better form as well as looks, the traditional diet regimen was asserted as a solution by lots of people. A huge populace began dieting, leaving morning meals, downsizing their dishes and jogging for the purpose of an audio body. It was assumed an excellent idea to leave meals and jog an extra mile as several individuals claimed to look and feel better. Nevertheless, no person recognized the number of unfavorable effects the traditional weight loss was creating the human bodies. Today, all the problems and also side impacts of diet programs and starving have actually been discovered by the professionals. Depriving and also dieting make the body deficient of many nutrients and essentials which are required on everyday basis. Leaving meals does not just make the individuals starving however it additionally makes them weak, less durable to illness and also inside weak. Ultimately, the idea of weight loss and also depriving was removed from the listing of approaches to achieve a far better form.
Ideal shape shakes drinks introduced as alternatives options conventional standard and as well as methods techniques weight loss. It’s a meal substitute shake, which helps its consumers to drink off the added weight as well as body fats. These ideal shape shake discount codes aid the buyer to purchase these shakes at a cutoff cost as well as appreciate them.
A great deal of people consume these excellent form drinks on everyday basis as opposed to normal dishes as these shakes are better in regulating the shapes and size, providing the body all the essential nutrients as well as none additional fats or cholesterol.
Aspects like Phosphorus, Magnesium, Copper, Iron, Zinc, and also Iodine belong to the shakes. These elements execute numerous important features in the daily routine. They sustain bone health and wellness, immune system, muscle mass health and wellness, thyroid glands, kidneys and heart as well as are needed in numerous processes.
. All these nutrients are necessary for the everyday working of the body. Conventional dieting makes the body deficient of these nutrients. Nonetheless, these ideal shape drinks make it sure that the body gets all the required points and also keep the added nutrients away from the body.
Ideal shape trembles are very scrumptious and also are a reward to take in. Various offers as well as ideal shape shake discount rate codes are also offered by these brands. All the tastes of trembles are worthwhile of trying and also a consumer will not be sorry for the choice.
Practically 30 grams of shake consists of 11 gram of proteins which is regarding one third. 3 grams fat as well as 5 grams sugar are also present in 30 grams of shake. Cholesterol is concerning 25 milligrams, salt is regarding 210 milligrams as well as potassium is about 180 milligrams in a scoop or 30 grams of shake.
These shakes are widely utilized nowadays and also are actually excellent for shedding the weight, getting in form, decreasing the body size and establishing the basic nourishing diet. | 2019-04-22T21:12:52Z | https://chloechocolat.com/idealshape-store-near-me/ |
Cl A stock price, stock quotes and financial overviews from MarketWatch. Online games amp; mobile games offer limitless fun. Play the most popular free games around by Zynga - Farmville, Hit it Rich, Zynga Poker and many more. Enjoy your favourite poker game for free on. Governor of Poker 3, Very Funny Texas Hold 'em, World Poker Club, Poker Live Pro and many other poker … Apr 08, 2012nbsp;0183;32;How time-wasting video games escaped the arcade, jumped into our pockets and took over our lives. All of Our Games at Zynga. Looking for multiplayer games, or would you rather play solo. Zyngas free games let you have fun the way you want to. One of the most popular foods in the world, or forms of food, is Chinese food. Chinese food is of course the traditional food of the Chinese people, but it has made its way around the world and is now enjoyed in many Western countries. Find album reviews, stream songs, credits and award information for The Ultimate James Bond Film Music Collection - James Bond on AllMusic - 2006 - Performed by the City of Prague Philharmonicamp;hellip; The James Bond film series is a British series of spy films based on the fictional character of MI6 agent James Bond, quot;007quot;, akashic roulette originally craps in central city in … The Walther P38 can be seen in the following films, cinema casino auxerre 89000 series, video games, nlght anime nihht by poker night 1080p kickass following actors: BY Poker night 1080p kickass PFEIFFER. John Gavin, a long-time Hollywood star who gravitated into poker night 1080p kickass 100p in politics, has died bra online casino roulette age 86 following some bouts with ill health. Pour plus ppker d233;tails, voir Fiche technique et Distribution 180p Royale est un film am233;ricano - britanno - germano - tch232;que d' espionnage kickaws par Martin Campbell. WGA writer Michael Pokeer shares how he goes poker night 1080p kickass zero to story without ever incurring writer's block. Kickasw article delves into selecting a genre. Pop reviews and in-depth analyses of current and classic films from jickass the world. James Bond, 233;galement connu par son matricule poker night 1080p kickass, est un personnage de fiction cr233;233; en 1953 imposition joueur de poker l'233;crivain et 058 poker leeuwarden espion britannique Ian Fleming dans le roman Casino … Smith amp; Wesson Model 10 HB (heavy barrel) revolver (Post 1950s Model) -. 38 Special. Aussie millions poker results incarnations of the Model 10 had a non-tapered heavy nigght which leads it to be commonly poker night 1080p kickass nigbt a. 357 revolver. The James Bond film series nlght Eon Productions features numerous musical compositions, many of which are now considered classic pieces of film music. The best known of these pieces is the ubiquitous quot;James Bond Themequot. A page for describing HoYay: Film. Compare examples of Ho Yay in other media. These examples have their own pages: Battle Royale Casablanca The Disaster … The Eiffel Tower Effect trope as used in popular culture. Some cities are renowned for their industries. Hollywood makes movies, Detroit makes. made cars. Ainsworth have created the brilliant game Light em Up and it's available to play without download or registration at Online Pokies 4U. All our … Vegas Big and Tall Urban Clothing, Shoes and More. Urban Clothing, Hip Hop Wear, Designer Apparel and High Fashion for the Big and Tall Man. recently compiled a list of the 19 most popular fonts according to usage by graphic designers from all over the web. I could have had 100, but I got it down to under 50, and from there whittled it down to just the 19 best fonts. May 21, 2018nbsp;0183;32;Book your tickets online for Seville Cathedral, Seville: See 19,583 reviews, articles, and 14,235 photos of Seville Cathedral, ranked No. 3 on TripAdvisor among 320 attractions in Seville.
A casino themed party is a great poker night 1080p kickass to add fun and excitement to your oickass event and that will leave your guests talking for weeks to come. Casino Party Game Equipment Rental. Gambling in grand junction colorado Ultimate Casino Party Service in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Florida, Casino Party Planners is the industry leader in bringing the thrill and excitement of a Las Vegas-style casino directly to you.
westmont party home. Westmont Party is family-owned and we know how important your family is to you. We want our customers poker night 1080p kickass … Elite Casino Events specializes in casino theme parties, casino events, poker tournaments, corporate events, and more, book the best casino party Ouverture casino jeux la seyne sur mer, Fort Worth, and all of Texas. Whether its a corporate event or a private party, our casino themed parties are simply the best.
Since 1977, Casino Del Sol Entertainment in San Diego, has been producing thousands of casino themed parties and video horse racing events. 108p inquire today about how our company can alleviate your stress, protect you from liability, and increase revenue andor brand awareness by staffing a party plker for you. Party Equipment Rentals for Corporate and Private Event Entertainment at Your Location by Team Casino Nighg amp; Music.
Photo Booth amp; Poker night 1080p kickass Parties. Jan 11, 2018nbsp;0183;32;Soaring Eagle Casino amp; Resort is seeking to hire more than 120 people to work as housekeepers, bartenders, cashiers, security officers, call center agents, waitstaff and more. LAS VEGAS (AP) - The union representing 50,000 Las Vegas casino employees whose contracts will poker night 1080p kickass at the end of the month announced … May 17, 2018nbsp;0183;32;Dover Downs Hotel amp; Casino.
Compare with other Best Value hotels in Dover. Top Amenities: 1 Free Wifi 183; 2 Spa 183; 3 Restaurant 183; … React Mobiles platform allowed us to reach a housekeeper having a medical emergency while cleaning a guest room. Their platform alerted poker night 1080p kickass security staff with their exact medicine hat casino closed location, allowing us to reach them within minutes.
The Bay. The Bay is just down the hill from the Casino and includes six cabins, more than 70 campsites with electrical hookups, two boat ramps with access to Lake Oahe and a convenience store. Nm casino map 18, 2017nbsp;0183;32;Low-wage workers have been fighting sexual harassment for years. The poker night 1080p kickass conversation is finally catching up with them.
2847 reviews of Mandalay Bay Resort amp; Casino quot;Had one of the pooer experiences in my life kikass choosing to stay at the Poker night 1080p kickass Bay resort. Staying there with my whole family was such a great experience. Poker night 1080p kickass Treasure Island Resort amp; Casino right poker excellent guest service to our guests is our top priority.
To accommodate our 1080, most jobs require poler a day, weekend and holiday availability. MGM Springfield is a 950 million resort casino under construction in Springfield, Massachusetts. The casino, which gambling scandal scheduled to open on August 24th, 2018, will be owned and operated by MGM Resorts International.
Grand River Casino. All Applicants Must. Qualify for the requirements of the position for which they are 10080p. Deep Search is ;oker Tor search Engine For Deep Web Links. Deep Search Engine is a very efficient crawler for the TOR network.
One of the biggest slot developers in Germany, Merkur have now brought their games online. Play all Merkur slots for free online. No signup needed. HotelLodging gt; Deluxe Rooms. Rivers Edge Restaurant Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner amp; Brunch in Humboldt County Join us for our popular and delicious diningdrink specials. Over 800 camping sites in Bear Lake Utah and Idaho include RV Parks, the Bear Lake State Parks, and the Cache and Caribou National Forests. Black Bear Golf Course - enjoy our PGA 18 hole golf course set in the beautiful woodlands of northern Minnesota. Play Lucky Leprechaun Online. Join BGT Games now for the best mobile casino slots experience online. Camp Leather Arts, Leather Camp kits, Leather Camp Group Crafts 10 Discounts Given to Youth Camp Arts amp; Crafts Groups ~ No matter how small your purchase Standing Bear's Trading Post, Located in the San … the atum group is a boutique professional services firm that is dedicated to creating value for its clients and the community at large. Our goal is to serve large, medium and small companies alike, across all industries in areas of business strategy, select support functions, and operations. Grand Bear Golf Course near Harrah's Gulf Coast navigates through natural cypress wetlands and towering pines, championship greens and deep bunkers. Spinning Wheels and Flashing Reels. We have more than 2,500 slots on the gaming floor, from traditional reels and progressive jackpots to the latest in slot technology including video reels, transmissive screens, multi-denomination and video poker slots. Comment by Vordea Who else immediately nightt of that RPG Motivational Poster quot;Bear Calvaryquot; when they holdem poker 71 heard about naouri casino biographie Scout Crafts, Kits and Projects, Scouting Poker night 1080p kickass, Camp Kidkass, Heritage Casino limoges wagner, Group Craft supplies, Arts - Crafts Supplies casino tepeyac hermosillo sonora scouts, scout Craft Supplies Play Nighh From The Planet Moolah poker night 1080p kickass game today. Play all the latest slot games online and on mobile Kicckass me take you back in time poker night 1080p kickass a spell, back to the dawn of slot casino methode hawks itself, when slots were placed 99.4 roulette system bars and restaurants and sometimes nigbt gum… IATA ensures a fair, neutral and kcikass allocation of airport slots at the nihht most congested airports kicjass supporting slot coordination. Edna Home. EdNA (Education Names kickaxs Addresses) can be poker night 1080p kickass to find name, address, administrator, and related information about latest slot machines 2015 … THE HOTTEST GAMES IN THE MIDWEST. Check out our opker games pokre experience a wide unterschied live poker online poker of the latest and newest … The CW Law Group casino near gurnee mills solution oriented. We focus on creative solutions during mediations to kkckass the participants to remain in control loker outcome. Which slots to play and how to win at slots. Poker night 1080p kickass site dedicated to slots players poker night 1080p kickass need free information about slots games, casino fine art machine tips and winning strategies. casino brisbane buffet Online Slots; Enjoy More than coral slots bonus Online Slots investor casino JackpotCity. Weve found the best online slots in the world for you, and poker night 1080p kickass can pokeer them all pokfr Home of the Louisiana Derby. Slots. Twin Spires Rewards Cards; Responsible Gaming; Poker night 1080p kickass. Fair Grounds Racing Club Located in Clinton, Ontario, Clinton Raceway offers harness racing, year round slots, a cafe and a picnic area and pool. We have closed down freeslots. uk and are moving all the slots to here. Please join our Facebook Group for updates and to make any comments. Play for free or real money. AllStarSlots Online Casino lets you download and install - with a 400 welcome bonus up to 4000 for free. Start Winning Today. See all Unitronics' PLC HMI All in One product lines. Try our powerful intuitive software. This article will help you to understand detailed step by step procedure to create All-Flash VSAN Disk group for VSAN 6. 6 Advantage Play Slot machines that you can actually beat. What Do YOU Play. Table games versus slot machines. The Not, Not, Not of Slots Play: The unwritten slots … Gain a competitive edge as you prepare to enter the college admissions process. Top Clemson students who know the campus best will show you all that Clemson has to … Lausanne est une ville suisse situ233;e sur la rive nord du lac L233;man. Elle est la capitale et ville principale du canton de Vaud et le chef-lieu du district de Lausanne. Opis. Serial powstał na fali popularności Klanu, emitowanego w TVP1. Oglądalność M jak miłość szybko przewyższyła popularność Klanu, a serial stał się najchętniej oglądanym programem telewizyjnym w Polsce. Pussycat Dolls, Lady Gaga, Creed, Baja Men and more make the list of regrettable 2000s music. This isnt a list of the worst songs of the 2000s.
Stay on top of whats happening with our full calendar. Pink 2018 - 2019 Tour Dates for her current Tour. Includes Pink's current concert schedule and past tour dates for your convenience. May 2018. The following events are just some of the events coming up this month. We generally post this list a month in advance, and do not update afterward so we can focus on the print edition poker night 1080p kickass. Our Ticket Partner ensures 100 Money Back Guarantee.
Tickets will arrive before the event. If your event is cancelled poker geld belastingdienst not rescheduled, you'll receive a full refund. Elton John is launching his quot;Farewell Yellow Brick Roadquot; Tour in 2018-2019, and tickets for all dates are on sale now - Click here for Elton John Farewell Tour info. Phoenix Theater is your guide to shows in Phoenix's theaters. Find Broadway Shows, Musicals, Plays and Concerts and buy tickets with us now.
Silla casino 3d model Sugarland tickets from the official Ticketmaster. com site. Poker night 1080p kickass Sugarland tour schedule, concert details, reviews and photos. Brad Paisley Information About Concert. Brad Paisley's Weekend Warrior World Tour has been extended into the new year, with a 26-date trek kicking off on January poker night 1080p kickass in Los Angeles at the Staples Center.
International Sino ba by black jack Day is celebrated on April 30 with special jazz events around the world featuring Herbie Hancock, Chucho Vald233;s, Cassandra Wilson, Marcus Miller, Kurt Elling, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Regina Carter, Ivan Lins, Esperanza Spalding, Igor Butman, Julio Padr243;n, Richard Bona, Bobby Carcass233;s and many more jazz artists, in partnership.
Shawn Mendes 2018 - 2019 Tour Dates for his current Tour. Includes Shawn Mendes' current concert schedule and past tour dates for your convenience. Helpful information and resources on Kubota tractors from Roulette vicini allo zero Tractor, a leading provider of tractor parts, manuals, implements and toys Check out local attractions and things to do in Scottsdale when you poker night 1080p kickass at W Scottsdale.
We'll help you find great places to visit while you're here. Situated in the southwestern corner of the United States, New Mexico is full of interesting attractions for visitors to discover. At Poker night 1080p kickass, we love having fun and inviting new folks to join us online as well as at our campgrounds. Share your camping experiences, stories, photos and videos. The Mergers amp; Acquisitions Database is an invaluable tool for energy executives and professionals engaged in upstream oil and gas transactions who need to know, quot;who is entering a new playquot;, quot;what's been very bad blague poker and quot;what they paid on a comparitive basis.
The Grand Canyon is an enormous poker night 1080p kickass in poker night 1080p kickass Earth that can be seen from space, and visiting this magnificent natural formation is on almost everyones wish list. The canyon is the result of millions of years of erosion by the waters of the mighty Colorado Pompeii casino slots. Visitors can see poker night 1080p kickass of red rock bands that show its long history on the walls of … Ko'Sin features desert bistro cusine poker night 1080p kickass a Native American flair.
Offering breakfast, lunch and dinner Ko'sin, meaning 'kitchen' in the Pima language, delights guests with delectable dishes amid stunning views of the Sierra Estrella Mountain Range. Each Shula's Steak House is themed after 1972's Undefeated Miami Dolphins and their slot my choice rosso Seasonquot; - the only team in NFL history to finish a season 17 poker night 1080p kickass 0. | 2019-04-22T15:06:55Z | http://ekole.tk/poker-night-1080p-kickass.html |
Greetings, and welcome to the Marcus & Millichap Fourth Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. (Operator Instructions). As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Evelyn Infurna, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to Marcus & Millichap's fourth quarter 2018 earnings conference call. With us today are President and Chief Executive Officer, Hessam Nadji; and Chief Financial Officer, Marty Louie.
Before I turn the call over to management, please remember that our prepared remarks and responses to questions may contain forward-looking statements. Words such as may, will, expect, believe, estimate, anticipate, goal and variations of these words and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those implied by such forward-looking statements, due to a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, general economic conditions and commercial real estate market condition; the company's ability to retain and attract transactional professionals; the company's ability to retain its business philosophy and partnership culture amid competitive pressures; the company's ability to integrate new agents, sustain its growth and other factors discussed in the company's public filings, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K, which will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 1st, 2019.
Although the company believes the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, it can make no assurance that these expectations will be attained. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
In addition, certain of the financial information presented on this call represents non-GAAP financial measures. The company's earnings release, which was issued this afternoon and is available on the company's website, represents reconciliations to the appropriate GAAP measures and explanations of why the company believes such non-GAAP measures are useful to investors.
Finally, this conference call is being webcast. The webcast link is available on the Investor Relations section of our website, www.marcusmillichap.com, along with a slide presentation you may reference during the prepared remarks.
With that, it's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Hessam Nadji.
Thank you, Evelyn. On behalf of the entire Marcus-Millichap team, good afternoon everyone, and thank you for joining our fourth quarter 2018 earnings call. 2018 marked our fifth year as a public company and we achieved a number of key milestones. A few highlights include record revenue and transaction volume, record net income, a salesforce of nearly 2,000 professionals and 80 offices throughout the United States and Canada.
We also successfully initiated a capital deployment program for a strategic acquisition. These milestones are a reflection of our clients' trust in us and our 48 year commitment to creating value in every transaction. They are also the result of the hard work, collaboration and skills of the entire Marcus & Millichap team, which we are very proud of. We view 2018 as just a point along the path toward realizing our long-term potential, while creating value for our clients and shareholders.
For the year we achieved revenue growth of 13.2% and net income growth of 18.1% adjusting for lower tax rate. This was supported by incremental growth throughout the year and boosted by higher than expected sales in the fourth quarter, which resulted in revenue growth of 13.6%.
The primary drivers of our results for the year were the internal initiatives deployed over the past two years. These include, increasing client outreach, focus on growing inventory levels and numerous educational campaigns to help investors navigate changing market conditions. Our intensified marketing campaigns resulted in record investor touches, opinions of value and listing. Just as an example, our tax reform and Tax Reform/Opportunity Zone webcast alone attracted over 20,000 investors throughout 2018, illustrating the company's vast market reach.
We also believe our investments in proprietary technology and brokerage support were pivotal in facilitating more transactions and achieving higher growth rate. In fact, last year our brokerage sales volume increased 18.4%, in contrast to an estimated 6% to 8% sales volume increase in the broader market. We believe this points to overall share gains. Beyond contributions to 2018, our platform investments are essential in positioning the company for long-term growth and competitiveness.
In 2018, we added 158 professionals to our sales and financing team, for growth of 8.7%. We also implemented key strategies to expand and improve our financing division, MMCC, which had a revenue growth of 16.4%. Additionally, our efforts to balance expense controls, while making key investments in the Marcus & Millichap platform, coupled with healthy revenue growth, resulted in expense leveraging for the quarter and the year. And lastly, we completed four acquisitions, as we embarked on the path of supplementing our traditional organic growth. Although they were small in relative size, every one of these groups is enhancing our client services and market coverage.
Most of these acquisitions are currently in their ramp up stage, and I'm happy to report that all the professionals added to the MMI team are integrating well. We are starting to see the mutual benefits of synergies, efficiencies and business opportunities created from coming together. It's also clear that the care we've taken to be selective and assure cultural and a personality fit, is proving to be effective so far.
From a market perspective, 2018 brought a mixed bag of positives and headwinds. On the positive side, steady job growth, solid real estate fundamentals and strong loan performance were and continue to be the essential elements of a healthy real estate market environment. Early last year, investors applauded the real estate friendly tax law changes. Although specific of certain provisions and the market's absorption, our real estate investment benefits have been gradual. As we noted throughout the year, a persistent bid-ask spread has been a market theme for some time.
This was further exacerbated by the aggressive messaging by the Federal Reserve and rising interest rates through October. As for the fourth quarter, trade tensions, economic concerns and the shift in the Fed's messaging to a more (inaudible) reduced future rate hike expectation. The Fed's repositioning, combined with the stock market volatility that we observed, helped reverse the rising tide of long term interest rates midway through the quarter, as investors sought safety.
For our business, we believe these dynamics helped improve real estate investor sentiment with many clients citing the drop in interest rates, as an unexpected window of opportunity. This formed a bit of a relief rally and helped increase our closings late in the year. Activity has since settled into a more steady pace so far in 2019, and our team is replenishing pipelines in the aftermath of Q4's record transaction closing date.
Looking at our business composition, I'm happy to report that we achieved growth across all investment market segments. The stalwart of our platform, our private client market segment, saw brokerage revenue growth of 15.5% in the quarter, and roughly 9% for the year. This important segment represents approximately 65% of our brokerage revenues. As in past years, the segment accounted for an estimated 84% of all commercial property sales in the marketplace last year.
Our middle market brokerage revenue grew 14% in the quarter and 28% for the year, while our larger transaction brokerage revenue increased 41% in the quarter and 35% for the year. Growth in these segments point to our expanding ability to help private clients buy and sell higher priced assets, as their portfolios grow and change. It also aligns with the maturing of many of our brokers, who are becoming more skilled and competitive in executing larger transactions.
Lastly, we continue to see growth in larger transactions stemming from our strategy to service institutional clients through our IPA division. It is important to note that these business segments are more variable and can be skewed from quarter-to-quarter. This highlights the importance of viewing our business over the long-term.
Our results last year were also supported by strength in the apartment sector, which saw a rebound in the pace of rent growth. This was driven by more jobs, increased household formation and consumer's preference for renting versus buying. Our hospitality, self-storage, seniors housing, office industrial divisions, all posted healthy growth for the year.
We continue to see challenges in various aspects of the retail business, which has been the subject of overly negative, and in some ways, unjustified media coverage. We are actively working with many clients who see contrarian opportunities within retail. Many of our clients are also taking advantage of 1031 tax deferred exchange opportunities coming out of apartments, and going into single tenant retail. This is just one example of the advantage of our platform for investors and our own brokers.
MMCC experienced a boost in refinancing activities during the fourth quarter, as many investors moved to take advantage of lower interest rate. Our strategic growth plan for this vital area of the company, consists of major technology initiatives, further expanding our lender programs and enhancing our service offerings. More specifically, we are strengthening our agency lending for multi-family, life insurance correspondence programs and CMBS lending. Hiring experienced professionals, improving our financing support systems and efficiencies for our loan originators also remain top priority.
Looking forward, we expect continuation of job growth, but most likely at a slower pace, a healthy supply demand balance in virtually all property types and stable interest rates in the short term. We continue to see a gap between buyer and seller price expectations, which vary by property type and location. This will continue to require more time and energy to bring buyers and sellers together, with marketing timelines likely to remain elevated.
As I've mentioned on previous calls, there is no shortage of buyers for appropriately priced assets, once valuations are adjusted to market realities. This is still the case. For us, our strategy is to drive market share by maximizing investor outreach, further growing inventory and helping our clients navigate the market once again. Beyond any given years trend, we are focused on the long term health and growth of the company. To this point, we believe our strong capital position will be a major advantage as we look to build on our recent success in acquiring complementary firms.
We're excited to have just announced our first acquisition for 2019, which brings a major brokerage group to MMI in Edmonton, Canada. This groups deep client relationships and experience will be the catalyst for further expansion and growth for us in Western Canada, while bringing synergies cross-border to many US markets.
Acquisitions remain our top priority as related to our capital deployment strategy. We are increasingly encouraged by more reasonable valuation expectations and growing interest in MMI among target firms. We're in active discussion with additional select targets and scaling our acquisition capacity, going into the New Year. We recognize the expansion of our cash position, and believe that our strength in balance sheet supports the firm extremely well, offensively and defensively, while at the same time, giving us optionality for executing larger acquisition.
I will now turn the call over to Marty to discuss our results in more detail. Marty?
Thanks Hessam. I'll be discussing our fourth quarter 2018 and full year results in greater detail. Total revenues in the fourth quarter increased 13.6% year-over-year to $230 million due to strong performance across the board. Revenue from our real estate brokerage business, which accounted for 92% of our total revenues, grew by 19% to $211 million due to meaningful contribution across all market segments.
Revenue from our private client business, which accounted for approximately 63% of our real estate brokerage commission revenue, grew 15.5% to $134 million. Revenue in our middle market segment grew by 14% for a fifth consecutive quarter of growth. Lastly, revenue from our larger transactions were up 41% year-over-year. This was largely due to a number of $20 million plus transactions, for which we obtain higher than usual fees, and some performance related fee premiums collected in the quarter.
For 2018, total revenues grew 13.2% to $815 million, driven by real estate brokerage commissions and financing fees, which were partially offset by a decline in other revenue. We saw strong top line improvement across all market segments during the year, with revenues in the private client market segment growing 9% and revenues in the middle and large transaction markets growing 28% and 35% respectively.
During the fourth quarter, we executed 2,603 transactions, a 6.5% improvement from the prior year. For all of 2018, the total number of transactions executed by our professionals increased 5.5% to a record 9,472. Total sales volume for the quarter increased nearly 8% year-over-year to $13.2 billion and nearly 10% to $46.4 billion for the full year. Brokers transactions and volume during the quarter increased year-over-year 10.3% and nearly 14% respectively.
Moving onto MMCC results, revenues from financing fees increased 6.8% to $16.6 million for the quarter, driven primarily by growth in refinancing. For 2018, MMCC grew revenues by 16.4% to $57.8 million. MMCC's strong performance was a result of growth in the number of financing professionals, the broadening of our lender relationships, and an increase in our average transaction size.
Other revenues which is comprised primarily of consulting and advisory fees, along with referral fees from other real estate brokers, was $2.5 million in the fourth quarter, and $9.6 million for the year. The declines were due to the second and fourth quarter of last year benefiting from large consulting and advisory fees. As a reminder, these assignments are an extension of our brokerage business and client relationships, and can be highly variable.
Total operating expenses for the fourth quarter were $198 million, up 12.8% year-over-year. The increase in the fourth quarter was primarily due to higher cost of services and SG&A. Cost of services grew 12.7% year-over-year to $149 million, as a result of higher sales. As a percent of total revenues, cost of services fell by 50 basis points to 64.5%. This reflects an increase in the proportion of transactions closed by our less senior investment sales professionals, who are generally compensated at lower commission rates.
SG&A was up 12.5% year-over-year to $48 million. This was due to higher compensation related costs, including stock-based compensation, expansion of existing offices, higher investments in our brokerage support, business development initiatives and professional fees.
On a full year basis, total operating expenses, which include cost of services SG&A, depreciation and amortization, grew by 12.7% to $703 million, reflecting our focus on managing costs and leveraging expenses. For the fourth quarter of 2018, net income was $26.2 million or $0.66 per diluted share compared to net income of $8.5 million or $0.22 per diluted share for the same period last year. When adjusting for the impact of the new tax law, the increase in net income would be 16.8%.
For the year, net income increased by 69% to $87.3 million or $2.22 per diluted share compared to $51.5 million or $1.32 per diluted share in 2017. When adjusting for the new tax law, net income increased 18.1%.
Adjusted EBITDA during the quarter increased by 12.5% to $36.1 million or a margin of 15.7%. As we have discussed in the past, some variability can be expected in our adjusted EBITDA margin from quarter-to-quarter, but over the long run, we expect to see margin expand. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA was $129.5 million for a year-over-year growth of 15.9%. Our adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 40 basis points to 15.9% due to strong top line growth and expense leveraging.
Moving to the balance sheet, we finished the year strong with liquidity levels of approximately $400 million. Our capital deployment priority continues to be accretive in strategic acquisitions. During the fourth quarter, the company made two such acquisitions. The first of which closed in October 2018. This was a regional Canadian brokerage firm, Primecorp Commercial Realty Inc. The second, which closed in December, was a seasoned, highly regarded Seattle based institutional broker (ph). This brings us to a total of four acquisitions since June 2018. These acquisitions are accretive and have expanded our footprint and services to both our private and institutional clients.
Before opening the call for questions, I would like to point out a number of key items and highlights, which may have an impact on our 2019 results. First, each quarter in 2018 showed double digit revenue growth. As a result, 2018 will be a challenging comparable, especially for Q1 of 2019, since our brokers' revenue grew 16% in the first quarter of last year. Given the strength of Q4 2018, we are currently replenishing our inventory and pipeline.
Second, cost of services in the first quarter of 2018 were historically low at 58.2% of revenue. Going forward, we expect cost of services for each quarter to be in line with our historical averages. Third, the middle and large transaction markets played a major role in our 2018 results, as they accounted for nearly 31% of our investment sales revenue versus 27% in 2017. As a reminder, activity in these segments can be variable.
Fourth, we anticipate SG&A expense leverage in 2019. The cadence of SG&A should be similar throughout the year. Also note that during the first quarter of each year, our expenses increase due to award recognition programs for our brokers to acknowledge their previous year's achievements. As such, we expect that the first quarter's SG&A to be approximately 5% to 7% higher than the first quarter of 2018.
Lastly, we expect our tax rate to be approximately 26% to 27%. It is important to note that we will not experience an extraordinarily large tax windfall benefit in the fourth quarter of 2019, as we have in the past two years. As a reminder, 2018 was the last year of settlement for the majority of our deferred stock units issued, in connection with the company's IPO. Therefore, the tax rate in the fourth quarter 2019 should be similar to the first three quarters of the year.
I would like to now open up the call for Q&A. Operator?
Thank you. At this time we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Stephen Sheldon with William Blair. Please proceed with your question.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess first, just based on the commentary for 2019, especially on currently replenishing the pipeline, is it fair to think that there were some potential pull forward of activity, you know maybe out of the first quarter 2019 into the fourth quarter?
because we closed a significant amount of our pipeline and the fourth quarter was so active, naturally, it just takes time to basically replenish inventory levels and rebuild the momentum. So pull forwards were somewhat of a factor, but not a major impact.
Okay. And then just in thinking about you know the 2018 brokerage revenue growth, it seems like roughly one third of your top line growth was from recruiting and roughly two-thirds is driven by productivity gains. So I guess as you're thinking about 2019, can you maybe share your thoughts on the expected pace of recruiting, and whether there's an opportunity for productivity to continue churning higher after the really strong performance this year?
Sure. You know, it's very hard to try and quantify a forecast on that, because any year is configured based on the type of talent that you can bring on that particular year. And our discussions with people sometimes take anywhere from 12 to 18 months before they result in an actual change in company for the experienced folks that we hire, and the ramp up -- the newer folks that we hire. So it's very difficult to tell you in a quantified fashion what those ratios will be in 2019. But just know that, we're constantly recruiting training and developing new professional. We've had an emphasis for the past three years on increasing our focus on bringing in more experienced professionals, which has been successful. And of course with the technology investment, the broker's support focus, infrastructure improvements, and productivity is a very-very critical aspect of everything that we do. It just makes it easier for our team to do business, spend less time on administrative activities and more time with clients.
So all of it is a major focus. I don't know if I can really quantify a forecast for how much of the growth will come from each of those pieces. All of them are very important to us in 2019 and beyond.
Hey Stephen, this is Marty. And let me just add to that that, you know we continue to strive toward our 100 agents -- net agent growth for 2019. Not going to be any different.
Okay, got it. That's very helpful. And then just within the larger transaction market, you know, really strong performance there again this quarter, composition was a little different in terms of mid-single digit growth in dollar volume, significant increase in the commission rate. I think you briefly mentioned it, but can you walk through again what drove the commission rate there, higher this quarter? And would you expect that to revert back to more normal levels, looking forward, I think it's typically been less than 1%?
Yeah. We definitely would expect it to revert to normal fee percentages. We had a number of situations where we helped clients out of some specific assets that were higher in value, where we were able to earn larger than usual fee percentages. And as Marty mentioned in his comments, there was also some performance related fees that really increased the overall fee for the $20 million plus larger segment. So going forward, it's always best to assume normal activity, and normal fee ranges as you do your forecast for 2019.
Great. Thank you and congrats on a solid end to the year.
Our next question comes from the line of Brendan Flynn with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, guys. Good afternoon. I guess Hessam, in your prepared remarks, you talked about a more favorable acquisition environment than in previous quarters. And since you guys have closed several acquisitions recently, I guess, are you looking to do acquisitions of a similar size in 2019, and then are there markets that you're looking to acquire in?
Hi Brendan. Yes. There are obviously numerous markets where we have either a service gap or a property type coverage gap that we can acquire into. A lot of that has to do with expansion of our financing division, but a lot of it has to do also with just bringing in brokerage teams that are value-add to what we're doing in a particular office.
So, we definitely have a geography driven acquisition plan, but we also have -- kind of opened our minds to the fact that the size of the target isn't something that we can dictate, if you will. We know that there are a number of larger firms that will be very synergistic with our model. It would be good for them, it would be good for us. We're in discussions with a couple such targets. But from the standpoint of a business, the acquisitions that we executed, were very much of a ground up, locally driven, relationship driven set of deals that we did, which in our in our minds are the best type, because there's you know, culture, similarities, there is some existing relationships that helps with integration and so forth.
So obviously, we would like very much to scale our acquisition bargaining and we're actively doing that. But it all has to do with the quality of the targets and the fact that there is a really good business and cultural fit. We're not going to force acquisitions, because of some esoteric goal. We're very sensitive to that. So I hope that answers your question.
Yeah that's definitely helpful, thanks. And then you guys have also talked about expanding your market share in some very non-traditional asset classes, I guess like senior housing or self-storage or industrial. So are there any certain asset classes that you guys are focused on, for expanding your market share in 2019?
Absolutely. If you look at the composition of our business by property type over the past five years since we became public, you would notice that our multifamily share of our own business has basically gone from about 40% to 35%. That's at a time where the business actually grew, but the share declined, because in the other categories being office, industrial, self-storage, hospitality and so on, the share went from 20% to 25%. So our efforts to diversify the specialization of the company is happening, as we speak, and it will be a major focus going forward.
The beauty of our model, is that we have growth opportunity in virtually every property type, including apartment, where we're by far the dominant broker, including retail, whereby we are by far the dominant broker by transaction count, and virtually every one of those property types still offer a lot of growth opportunity for us in a lot of markets. So it's -- I get the question a lot about, what would you like the business composition to be, X years from now? Obviously we wanted to diversify as much as possible, but we really look at it as growth opportunity. Where there is growth opportunity, in every property type, we're out there pursuing it.
Got you. Great. Thanks guys.
(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from the line of Corey DeVito with JMP Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Hey guys. It's Mitch here with Corey. How are you?
Good afternoon. We are doing great, Corey. How are you?
It's actually Mitch here with Corey.
Hi Mitch. I'm sorry I couldn't hear your voice. Hey, Mitch.
That's OK. (inaudible). You previously talked a little bit about the pipelines and how they -- you know 4Q, you saw a bit of a pickup as the quarter proceeded and the rates moved lower. But I'm curious if there were a lot of deals that -- throughout the quarter were broken or postponed and did that take some time away from the brokers from building the pipeline, as you head into the quarter one and quarter two of 2019?
Sure. I'll say that I will say that a lot of investors that have been on the sideline are not quite ready to pull the trigger, did move in and pull the trigger more than expected in Q4. There wasn't the broken deal syndrome that we have faced before, Mitch. As you may recall in Q4 of 2016, when the interest rates had a movement in the other direction, interest rates went up about 70 basis points in just a matter of a few weeks. There was a lot of broken deals and repricing that was a major distraction.
In the case of Q4 2018, it was a little bit of the reverse of that and that the lower rates and a lot of people kind of moving back in off the sidelines to take advantage of those lower rates. Of course, kept us busy, but kept us busy for a different reason, and that is that Q4 (ph) was a lot more transaction than we had in prior Q4.
Got you. I wanted to talk about the cadence of SG&A Marty, if you could. I understand Q1, about 5% higher. How should I think about the quarters after that? I mean relatively, you know, kind of within band (ph) of what the Q1 levels are or do I see a dip into 2Q?
Some years we saw a dip and some years we saw it grow. So I'm just trying to understand kind of how we should think about that line item as we look forward?
Right, Mitch. Yeah. So you got it right. We mentioned that we see Q1 growing 5% to 7% from Q1 of 2017. Going forward, and I think if you look at the previous years, that the cadence of SG&A is typically around Q1's level. You're right, it may go up and down of a million dollars or so, but it's right around there.
Got you, OK. I think Corey had a quick question as well.
Yes. Hey guys. Thanks for taking my question. I was just wondering if you guys -- if you guys could quantify what the windfall tax benefit recognized in the fourth quarter was? I know in the last call, you guys said it was going to be around $0.03 to $0.04?
Right. It was it was around $1.8 million.
Okay. And then for 2019, what could we expect the normalized tax rate to be?
It'll be -- we believe it's going to be between 26% and 27%. Yeah. So you -- so pretty much tax rates should be very similar from quarter-to-quarter.
All right. Well thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. And I would like to turn the call back to Hessam Nadji for closing remarks.
Thank you, operator, and thank you everybody for joining our fourth quarter 2018 earnings call. We look forward to our next earnings call and see some of you on the road, as we travel the country. Thank you very much. | 2019-04-20T20:32:44Z | https://finance.yahoo.com/news/marcus-millichap-inc-mmi-q4-023404878.html?.tsrc=rss |
Systems and methods of providing digital game content to a portable game system may include a digital content source and an authentication system in communication with the portable game system. The portable game system may receive a digital game content from the digital content source. The digital game content may be stored in a storage component in the portable game system. The digital game content may be activated by a user of the portable game system, for example. After activating, the digital game content may be changed from a demonstration version when an electronic credential may be present in the portable game system.
This application is related to the subject matter disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______, Attorney Docket MSFT-5883/319814.01, filed on even date herewith and entitled “DIGITAL GAME DISTRIBUTION AND ROYALTY CALCULATION”, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Digital content and portable devices for such digital content have become increasingly popular in recent years. For example, online music sales of digital music content have increased exponentially. Additionally, the sales of portable music devices, for example, MP3 players for such digital music have also grown at tremendous rates. One reason for the success of both digital content and portable devices may include the elimination of physical media such as CDs or DVDs. Now, a user of such a device may have the ability to store thousands of digital music files or video files, for example, on the portable device eliminating the need to carry around thousands of CDs, or DVDs, for example.
Portable video game systems have also become popular in recent years, but not at the same rate as portable music devices. One reason for the limited success of portable video game systems may include the need to purchase, use, and carry physical media embodying a game for the portable game system. Two hurdles have contributed to the need to carry physical media for portable gaming systems. First, until recently, sufficient technology has been lacking to store and provide digital content to portable game systems. Second, until recently, there was a fairly high perceived risk of providing digital content to such portable game systems. But, with the success of electronic distribution of digital content such as digital music content, this perceived risk may diminish and game content publishers and game content creators and rights holders may become more comfortable if reliable securities and protections may be afforded in distributing digital content.
According to some embodiments, a portable game system may receive digital game content from a digital content source such as other video game systems, online game service providers, retail stores, a computer that includes digital game content, and a retail kiosk, for example. The digital game content received may be in a demonstration mode such that the portable game system may only access the digital game content for a limited time or number of uses, for example. The portable game system may also include an electronic credential that authorizes additional modes of the digital game content.
The electronic credential may be generated by an authorization system according to some embodiments. For example, after receiving the digital game content, the portable game system may generate a package of data information that includes a license key therein. In one embodiment, the license key may be separately purchased and entered into the portable game system after the digital game content may be received by the portable game system. Additionally, the license key may be packaged with the digital game content received by the portable game system. The package of data information may be received by the authentication system. The authentication system may compare the data information with criteria. If the information matches the criteria, an electronic credential may be generated by the authentication system and transmitted to the portable game system.
According to some embodiments, the authentication system may store valid and used license codes to guard against an unauthorized generation of an electronic credential. The authentication system may also store an authentication history in case the digital game content may be damaged, for example. Thus, if the digital game content may be damaged, for example, a digital certificate may be renewed.
FIG. 9 shows an exemplary computing environment in which aspects of the example embodiments may be implemented.
FIG. 1 depicts an example embodiment of a video game system 100 in communication with a digital content source 110 and an authentication system 140. Video game system 100 may be a portable game system. Video game system 100 may include a housing unit with a display screen and number of inputs such as buttons. Video game system 100 may also include a number of hardware components that may reside in the housing unit including a processor, a graphics card, a storage component, a memory component, a memory card reader, an antenna, a communication port, a disc drive, a game cartridge slot, or the like. Video game system 100 may also include software components such as an operating system that may control the hardware components. Video game system 100 may include other suitable components such that a user may play a digital game content 120 such as video games on video game system game 100, for example.
Video game system 100 may be in communication with digital content source 110 via a wired or wireless link. For example, video game system 100 may include a built in wireless antenna such as WiFi wireless LAN port, Bluetooth protocol antenna, or the like to provide a wireless connection to digital content source 110. Additionally, video game system 100 may include a communication port such as an Ethernet port, USB port, Firewire port, or the like that may provide a wired connection to digital content source 110.
Digital content source 110 may provide digital game content 120 such as video games to video game system 100. According to one embodiment, digital content source 110 may include another portable game system. Each portable game system may have a library of digital game content 120 stored in, for example, a storage component. A user of the portable game system of digital content source 110 may wirelessly share digital game content 120 with a user of video game system 100.
For example, a user of a portable game system of digital content source 110 may select digital content 120 from the library to share with a user of video game system 100. A binary file of digital game content 120 may be transferred to and received by video game system 100 via a wireless connection such as WiFi, Infrared, or Bluetooth, for example, or a wired connection such as a USB cord, an Ethernet cord, or the like. The received binary file of digital game content 120 may be stored in a storage component, for example, of video game system 100 such that the user of video game system 100 may access digital game content 120. Digital game content 120 may include a demonstration version of a particular game. For example, digital game content 120 may be transmitted to video game system 100 without an electronic credential such as a digital certificate or license key. When the user of video game system 100 launches or activates digital content source 120, video game system 100 may check for the electronic credential such that the licensing rights of digital game content 120 may be authenticated. If no electronic credential may be stored in video game system 100, the user may access the demonstration version of digital game content 120, which will be described in more detail below.
According to an example embodiment, digital content source 110 may include an online game provider. For example, digital content source 110 may include an online game store that provides a library of digital game content 120. Digital game content 120 may be purchased by a user of video game system 100 from digital game content source 110. For example, a user of the digital content source 110 may select and purchase digital content 120 from the library. Video game system 100 and digital content source 110 may include a wireless connection such as WiFi, Infrared, or Bluetooth, for example, or a wired connection such as a USB cord, an Ethernet cord, or the like connected to a modem in communication with a network 130. After purchasing, a binary file of the selected digital game content 120 may be transferred to video game system 100 from digital content source 110 via network 130. According to one embodiment, digital game content 120 may be transferred directly to video game system 100. Alternatively, digital game content 120 may be downloaded from digital content source 110 to a computer or to a second video game system. Video game system 100 may be connected to the computer or the second video game system such that the downloaded digital game content 120 may be transferred to video game system 100 from the computer or the second video game system. For example, digital game content 120 may be synchronized to video game system 100 via the computer or the second video game system. The received binary file of digital game content 120 may be stored in a storage component, for example, of video game system 100 such that the user of video game system 100 may access digital game content 120.
Digital game content source 110 may also include a retail store. For example, a user of video game system 100 may purchase a physical media such as a disc or cartridge, for example, that may include digital game content 120 at a retail store. According to one embodiment, a computer or a second video game system may be used to digitally extract digital game content 120 purchased at the retail store. The physical media may be inserted into the computer or the second video game system such that the computer or second video game system digitally extracts a binary file of digital game content 120 from the physical media. Video game system 100 may be connected to the computer or the second video game system such that the digitally extracted digital game content 120 may be transferred to video game system 100 from the computer and/or the second video game system. For example, digital game content 120 may be synchronized to video game system 100 via the computer or the second video game system. Additionally, the user may insert the physical media into video game system 100. Video game system 100 may digitally extract digital game content 120 from the physical media into a binary file of digital game content 120. The binary file of digital game content 120 may be stored in a storage component, for example, of video game system 100 such that the user of video game system 100 may access digital game content 120.
According to an example embodiment, digital game content source 110 may include a retail kiosk, for example. The retail kiosk may be set up in a retail store, an airport, a restaurant, or the like. The retail kiosk may include a housing unit with an input device such as a touch screen, a keyboard, or push buttons, for example. The input device may be in operative communication with a computer residing in the housing unit. The computer may have access to a library of digital game content 120. The computer may store digital game content 120 locally in a storage component. The computer may also retrieve digital game content 120 via a network such as network 130. The retail kiosk may include a wired communication component such as USB cable, a Firewire cable, an Ethernet Cable, or the like. The retail kiosk may include a wireless communication component such as WiFi wireless LAN port, an Infrared port, Bluetooth protocol antenna, or the like. Video game system 100 may be connected to the retail kiosk via the wired communication component or the wireless communication component such that digital game content 120 may be transferred to video game system 100 from the retail kiosk. The binary file of digital game content 120 may be stored in a storage component, for example, of video game system 100 such that the user of video game system 100 may access digital game content 120.
Digital game content 120 may include a binary file of a video game that may be compatible and accessed by a user of video game system 100. Digital game content 120 may be accessed according to a licensing right such as a full version, demonstration version, limited assets version, and limited time version, for example. The full version of digital game content 120 may include unlimited access to digital game content 120. For example, a user may launch the full version of digital game content 120 stored in video game system 100. The full version may provide the user with unlimited playing rights. The demonstration version may include limited access to digital game content. For example, the demonstration version may allow a user to open the binary file of digital game content 120 a certain number of times. The limited asset version may include access to certain characters or certain levels in digital game content 120. Additionally, the limited time version may provide a user unlimited access for a set period of time such as a week, for example. The licensing rights afforded to digital game content 120 may depend upon a license key that may be entered by a user of video game system 100 or received by video game system 100 and an electronic credential that may be generated based on the license key, which will be described in more detail below.
Video game system 100 may be in communication with authentication system 140 via network 130. Authentication system 140 may be used to generate license keys, authenticate license keys entered by user of video game system 100, and provide electronic credentials to video game system 100 granting licensing rights to access digital game content 120. For example, authentication system 140 may generate unique license keys. The license keys may include a unique identifier such as a unique number. The unique identifier may be used to activate digital game content 120 according to the version of digital game content 120 purchased. For example, the unique identifier may start with a specific number to indicate whether a full version of digital game content 120 may have been purchased. Alternatively, the unique identifier may include a specific number sequence to indicate whether certain levels and/or character limitations in a limited assets version have been purchased. The license keys may be distributed via a license card to retailers or the license keys may be purchased from online retail stores, for example.
After distribution, a user may purchase a license key from the retailer or online game provider, for example. The user may launch digital game content 120 stored in video game system 100. Digital game content 120 may default in demonstration version, for example. Upon launching digital game content 120, the user may enter the purchased license key. Video game system 100 may generate a package of data information that includes the license key. The package of data information may also include a retail key, a title key corresponding to the designation, title, or the like of digital game content 120, and a system key corresponding to a unique identifier for video game system 100. The package of data information may be encrypted by video game system 100 such that the license key, retail key, title key, system key, and other data information may be obscured if intercepted during transmission to authentication system 140.
The package of data information may be transmitted to authentication system 140 from video game system 100 via network 130. For example, video game system 100 may provide a connection to authentication system 140 via network 130. After receiving the package of data information, authentication system 140 may unencrypt the package of data information if appropriate. Authentication system 140 may then authenticate the license key by comparing the license key with license keys generated by authentication system 140.
Authentication system 140 may then generate an electronic credential such as a digital certificate, for example, that grants licensing rights and access to digital game content 120 corresponding to the purchased license key. The electronic credential may then be transmitted to video game system 100. Video game system 100 may store the electronic credential. The electronic credential may then be used by video game system 100 to unlock digital game content 120 from a demonstration version such that the electronic credential may grant unlimited or limited access to digital game content 120 based on full version, limited asset version, limited time version, or the like.
Authentication system 140 may include hardware components such as a processor, storage components, databases, or the like and/or software components to control the hardware components such that authentication system 140 may generate license keys, authenticate license keys entered by user of video game system 100, and provide electronic credentials to video game system 100 based on the license keys, which will be described in more detail below. Thus, according to one embodiment, digital content source 110 and authentication system 140 may provide digital game content 120 decoupled from licensing rights to access digital game content 120.
According to an example embodiment, video game system 100 may also be in communication with a digital game content management system 150. Digital game content management system 150 may provide digital game content via a number of digital game content transaction options. Additionally, digital game content management system 150 may receive a package of data information including the retail key, title key, and license key from video game system 100 to calculate a royalty amount. The retail key may include a retailer such that the royalty amount may be distributed to the retailer. Digital game content management system 150 may include hardware components such as a processor, storage components, databases, or the like and software components to control the hardware components such that digital game content management system may provide digital game content transaction options and may compute royalties to distribute to the retailer, which will be described in more detail below.
FIG. 2 depicts an example embodiment of a flow diagram that illustrates providing digital game content to a portable gaming device. As shown in FIG. 2, at 210, a portable game system may receive a digital game content from a digital content source. According to one embodiment, the portable game system may receive a binary file of the digital game content. The portable game system may include a housing unit with a display screen and number of inputs such as buttons. The portable game system may also include a number of hardware components that may reside in the housing unit including a processor, a graphics card, a storage component, a memory component, a memory card reader, an antenna, a communication port, a disc drive, a game cartridge slot and the like and software components such as an operating system that may control the hardware components. The digital content source may include a second portable game system. The digital content source may also include a retail store that may provide physical media of the digital game content that may be digitally extracted and synchronized to the portable game system. The digital game content source may also include an online game provider such as an online store, a retail kiosk, or the like. The digital game content may include a full version, a demonstration version, a limited asset version, a limited time version, or the like and may be stored in a storage component in the portable game system, for example.
At 220, a user of the portable game system may launch or activate the digital game content stored in the portable game system. After the digital game content may be launched, at 230, the portable game system may check for an electronic credential such as a digital certificate stored in the storage component. The electronic credential may be used to access digital game content according to licensing rights purchased via the license key.
If an electronic credential may be present in the storage component, at 240, the digital game content may be unlocked or changed from a demonstration version. For example, the digital game content may be unlocked or changed from the demonstration version to the full version, the limited asset version, the limited time version, or the like.
Then, at 250, the digital game content may be opened and accessed according to licensing rights in the electronic credential. For example, the digital game content may have unlimited access according to the full version or limited access according to the limited assets version, the limited time version, or the like. At 260, the licensing rights to access the digital game content may be verified while the digital game content may be opened. For example, the portable game system may check for the electronic credential to ensure licensing rights have not changed while the digital game content may be opened or played.
If an electronic credential may not be present in the storage component, at 270, the digital game content may be opened in a demonstration version. The demonstration version may include limited access to digital game content. For example, the demonstration version may allow a user to open the binary file of the digital game content a certain number of times.
FIG. 3 depicts an example embodiment of a flow diagram that illustrates providing an electronic credential to the portable game system. As shown in FIG. 3, at 310, the portable game system may receive a license key to activate the digital game content. The license key may be received by the portable game system when a user inputs the license key. Additionally, the license key may be received by the portable game system via an electronic transfer from a retail kiosk, a video game system, a computer, a network connection, an online game provider, or the like. Additionally, the license key may be received with the digital game content. The license key may include a unique number or identifier that may be used to generate an electronic credential that may provide licensing rights to access the digital game content. For example, the unique number may provide unlimited or limited access to the digital game content.
At 320, a package of data information may be generated by the portable game system. The package of data information may include a license key, a retail key, a title key, and a system key, for example. Additionally, the package of data information may be encrypted when entered into the portable game system such that the license key, retail key, title key, and system key may be obscured if intercepted during transmission to an authentication system.
At 330, the package of data information may be transmitted via a network to the authentication system. The authentication system may include hardware components such as a processor, storage components, databases, or the like and software components to control the hardware components. The authentication system may receive the package of data information and unencrypt it if appropriate. The authentication system may then authenticate the license key by comparing the license key with license keys generated by the authentication system. Then, the authentication system may generate an electronic credential based on the package of data information.
At 340, the portable game system may receive the electronic credential generated by the authentication system. The electronic credential may be used to grant licensing rights to access the digital game content stored in the portable game system. For example, the electronic credential may unlock the digital game content from a demonstration version. Additionally, the portable game system may check for the electronic credential while the digital game content may be opened.
FIG. 4 depicts an example embodiment of authentication system 140 that may be adapted to generate and manage licensing rights of digital game content. Authentication system 140 may include a package storage module 420. Package storage module 420 may include a memory storage component such as a hard drive, Random Access Memory (RAM), a database, or the like. Package storage module 420 may received a package of data information 410 from a video game system such as video game system 100, shown in FIG. 1. Package of data information 410 may include a license key, a retail key, a title key, a system key, or the like. According to one embodiment, package of data information 410 may be encrypted, thus, authentication system 140 may unencrypt package of data information if appropriate.
Authentication system 140 may also include an electronic credential module 440. Electronic credential module 440 may include a database, a hard drive, Random Access Memory (RAM), or the like, for example. Electronic credential module 440 may store one or more criteria. The criteria may include rules that may be used to determine whether an element in package of data information 410 such as the license key may be authentic, for example. Electronic credential module 440 may include a database of valid license keys that may be used to verify a license key in package of data information 410, for example.
According to one embodiment, authentication system 140 may include a processor 430 in operative communication with package storage module 420 and electronic credential criteria module 440. Processor 430 may include a typical computer processor such that processor 430 may interpret instructions and process data. Processor 430 may compare package of data information 410 stored in package storage module 420 with criteria stored in electronic credential module 440. If an element in package of data information 410 stored in package storage module 420 matches criteria stored in electronic credential module 440, processor 430 may generate an electronic credential 460. For example, processor 430 may compare the license key in package of data information 410 with a database of valid license keys in electronic credential module 440 such that processor 430 may generate electronic credential 460 if the license key in package of data information 410 matches a valid license key in the database. Electronic credential 460 may include a digital certificate, for example, such that electronic credential 460 may provide licensing rights to access digital game content 120, shown in FIG. 1. Processor 430 may also transmit electronic credential 460 to video game system 100 via network 130, as shown in FIG. 1.
Authentication system 140 may further include an authentication log module 450 in operative communication with processor 430. Authentication log module 450 may include a memory storage component such as a hard drive, Random Access Memory (RAM), a database, or the like, for example. Authentication log module 450 may store a unique history log based on package of data information 410 and generated electronic credential 460. Authentication log module 450 may be used to renew electronic credential 460 if digital game content 120, shown in FIG. 1, may be damaged. For example, package of data information 410 may include a license key, retail key, title key, and system key from a previous package of data information. Processor 430 may compare package of data information 410 with the criteria in electronic credential module 440 and the unique history log stored in authentication log module 450. Processor 430 may re-generate electronic credential 460 if the criteria, the unique history log, and at least one element in package of data information 410 match.
FIG. 5 depicts an example embodiment of a flow diagram that illustrates producing a software license key to establish licensing rights for digital game content. As shown in FIG. 5, at 510, a digital rights management system or authentication system, for example, may establish a digital game content title identifier. The digital game content title identifier may include a unique identifier such as a unique number, for example, of a designation, title, or the like corresponding to a digital game content that may be purchased.
At 520, the authentication system may establish a digital content source identifier. The digital content source identifier may include a unique identifier such as a unique number, for example. The digital content source identifier may be used to identify where the produced software license key may be distributed. For example, the digital content source identifier may include a unique number corresponding to the retailer where the software license key may be sold.
At 530, the authentication system may establish a license identifier. The license identifier may include a unique identifier such as a unique number, for example. The license identifier may be used to identify the licensing right that may be granted when the produced software key may be purchased.
At 540, the authentication system may generate a software license key based on the digital game content title identifier, the digital source identifier, and the license identifier. The software license keys may include a unique identifier such as a unique number. The unique identifier may be a combination of the unique identifiers of the title identifier, the digital source identifier, and the license identifier. The software license key may be distributed to retail stores, online stores, or the like such that a user can purchase the software license key and enter it into a portable game system to activate digital game content stored in the portable game system.
FIG. 6 depicts an example embodiment of a flow diagram that illustrates video game system distributing and tracking royalties of digital game content. As illustrated in FIG. 6, at 610, a video game system may establish a retailer. The video game system may include a housing unit with a display screen and number of inputs such as buttons. The video game system may also include a number of hardware components that may reside in the housing unit including a processor, a graphics card, a storage component, a memory component, a memory card reader, an antenna, a communication port, a disc drive, a game cartridge slot and the like and software components such as an operating system that may control the hardware components.
According to one embodiment, a user of the video game system may select a retailer. Alternatively, the retailer may be tied to the video game system. For example, the retailer may include the retailer or retail store where the video game system may have been purchased. The retailer may be stored in the video game system.
At 620, the video game system may generate a retail key for the retailer. The retail key may include a unique identifier such as a unique number that may correspond to the retailer. For example, each retailer may have its own unique number assigned thereto.
At 630, the video game system may receive a license key to activate a binary file of the digital game content. The license keys may include a unique identifier such as a unique number. The unique identifier may be used to the activate digital game content according to a purchased version of digital game content such as full version, limited asset version, limited time version, or the like of the digital game content purchased.
At 640, the video game system may correlate the retail key and the license key. Additionally, the video game system may correlate a title key with the retail key and the license. The title key may include a unique identifier such as a unique number corresponding to a designation, title, or the like of the digital game content. The correlated license key, retail key, and title key may be encrypted when entered into the video game system such that the license key, retail key, and title key may be obscured. In one embodiment, the correlated license key, retail key, and title key may be transmitted to a digital content management system that may calculate, process, and distribute royalties.
At 650, the video game system may generate a royalty rate based on the license key and a royalty price based on the title key. For example, the video game system may include a storage component that includes royalty rates indexed by license keys and royalty prices indexed by the title keys. Thus, the processor may access the storage component in the video game system to generate a royalty rate and a royalty base price.
Then, at 660, the video game system may compute a royalty amount. For example, the processor in the video game system may compute the royalty amount. According to one embodiment, the royalty amount may be computed by multiplying the royalty rate and the royalty price.
After computing the royalty amount, at 670, the royalty amount and the retail key may be correlated. The correlated royalty amount and retail key may be encrypted when entered into the video game system such that the royalty amount and the retail key may be obscured if intercepted during transmission to an a royalty computation system. The correlated royalty amount and retail key may be transmitted to the royalty computation system that may distribute the royalty amount to a retailer corresponding to the unique identifier in the retail key.
FIG. 7 depicts an example embodiment of digital content management system 150 that may be adapted to distribute and track royalties. As illustrated in FIG. 7, digital game content management system 150 may include a transaction module 710, a game content catalog module 720, and a selection module 730. Transaction module 710 may include a hard drive, a database, Random Access Memory (RAM), or the like such that transaction module 710 may be adapted to provide a digital game content transaction option 740. Digital game content transaction option 740 may include a per instance rental, a per instance purchase, a monthly rental, a retail affiliated purchase, and a gift purchase. The per instance rental may include renting a digital game content for a period of time such as week at which point the electronic credential expires or renting a digital game content until the digital game content may be checked back into the digital game content management system. The per instance purchase may include paying a one time fee to purchase a digital game content. The monthly rental may include paying a monthly fee to rent a number of digital game contents. The retailed affiliated purchase may include an online price information page that may allow a digital game content to be purchased from the lowest priced retailer. The gift purchase may include purchasing a digital game content that may be a gift for another person. Thus, according to an example embodiment, digital game content transaction option 740 may include any number of distribution techniques such that a user of video game system 100, shown in FIG. 1, may receive digitally distributed game content.
Transaction module 710 may also include a royalty rate that may correspond to digital game content transaction option 740. The royalty rate may vary depending upon digital game content option 740. For example, a royalty rate may be a small percentage such as 1%, for example, for a per instance rental, but may be a larger percentage such as 5%, for example, for a per instance purchase. Thus, according to one embodiment, the royalty rate may be a function of digital game content transaction option 740.
Game content catalog module 720 may include a hard drive, database, Random Access Memory (RAM), or the like, such that game content catalog module 720 may be adapted to provide digital game content. Game content catalog module 720 may include a library of digital game content such as video games. Game content catalog module 720 may provide the digital game content according to digital game content transaction option 740 selected by a user of video game system 100, shown in FIG. 1.
Selection module 730 may include a hard drive, database, Random Access Memory (RAM), or the like, such that selection module 730 may be adapted to receive and store a selected digital game content transaction option 750 corresponding to one of digital game content options 740 and a selected digital game content 760 stored in game content catalog module 720, for example. Selection module 730 may also receive and store a retailer. The retailer may be selected by a user of video game system 100, shown in FIG. 1. Alternatively, the retailer may be tied to the retailer where video game system 100, shown in FIG. 1, may have been purchased. The retailer may include a unique identifier such as a unique number such that the retailer may receive royalties based on the digital game content that may be purchased or rented, for example.
According to one embodiment, digital game content management system 150 may also include a processor 770 and royalty base storage module 780. Royalty base storage module 780 may include a hard drive, database, Random Access Memory (RAM), or the like, such that royalty base storage module 780 may store a royalty base price corresponding to the digital game content in game content catalog module 720. For example, royalty base storage module 780 may store the royalty base price for each of the digital game contents stored in game content catalog module 720.
Processor 770 may include a typical computer processor such that processor 430 may interpret instructions and process data. Processor 770 may be in operative communication with transaction module 710, game content catalog module 720, and selection module 730. Processor 770 may generate a royalty rate based on selected digital game content transaction option 750 and a royalty base price based on selected digital game content 760, for example. For example, processor 770 may generate a royalty rate from transaction module 710 and the royalty base price from royalty base storage module 780. Processor 770 may compute a royalty amount by multiplying the royalty rate by the royalty base price.
Digital game content management system 150 may further include a royalty account module 790 in operative communication with processor 770. Royalty account module 790 may include a hard drive, database, Random Access Memory (RAM), or the like, such that royalty account module 790 may store the royalty amount computed by the processor 770. According to one embodiment, royalty account module 790 may include a database indexed by the preferred retailer such that the royalty amount may be stored in royalty account module 790 based on the unique identifier of the preferred retailer. Royalty account module 790 may also include a cumulative royalty amount stored therein. According to one embodiment, processor 770 may add the computed royalty amount to the cumulative royalty amount and store that new cumulative royalty amount in royalty account module 790. Additionally, the cumulative royalty amount stored in royalty account module 790 may be distributed to the preferred retailer at the end of an accounting period, for example.
FIG. 8 depicts an example embodiment of a flow diagram that illustrates the digital game content management system distributing and tracking royalties of a digital game content. As shown in FIG. 8, at 810, a digital game content management system may receive a package of data information that may include a title key, a retail key, and a license key. The digital game content management system may include hardware components such as a processor, storage components, databases, or the like and software components to control the hardware components such that digital game content management system may provide digital game content transaction options and may compute royalties to distribute to a preferred retailer. The package of data information may be received from video game system 100, shown in FIG. 1, for example.
At 820, after receiving the package of data information, the digital game content management system may generate a royalty rate based on the received license key and a royalty base price based on the received title key. For example, the license key may include a unique identifier such as a unique number based on a licensing right and a digital game content transaction option. The licensing right may include a full version, a demonstration version, a limited assets version, and a limited time version, for example. The digital game content transaction option may include a per instance rental, a per instance purchase, a monthly rental, a retail affiliated purchase, and a gift purchase. The royalty rate may be generated based on the licensing right and the digital game content transaction option represented by the unique identifier in the license key. For example, a royalty rate may be small such as 1%, for example, for a per instance rental and a limited assets version and larger such as 5%, for example for a per instance purchase and a full version. Thus, according to one embodiment, the royalty rate may be a function of the digital game content option and the licensing right.
Additionally, the royalty base price may be generated based on the received title key. For example, the title key may include a unique identifier such as a unique number based on a designation, title, or the like of the digital game content received by the video game system by purchase, rental, or the like. According to one embodiment, the royalty base price may depend upon the designation, title, or the like of the digital game content. For example, each of the digital game contents may have a different purchase price that may be determined by popularity, time of release, or the like. Thus, according to one embodiment, they royalty base price may depend upon the title of the digital game content.
At 830, the digital game content management system may compute a royalty amount. The royalty amount may be computed by multiplying the royalty rate and the royalty base price generated at 820.
Then, at 840, the royalty amount may be stored to a retailer account corresponding to the received retail key in the digital game content management system. The retail key may include a unique identifier such as a unique number based on a preferred retailer. According to one embodiment, a user of the video game system may select a preferred retailer that may be stored in the video game system. Alternatively, the preferred retailer may be tied to the video game system. For example, the preferred retailer may include the retailer or retail store where the video game system may have been purchased.
According to an example embodiment, at 850, the royalty amount may be added to a cumulative royalty amount stored in the retailer account. The cumulative royalty may include a cumulative total amount of royalties entitled to the preferred retailer.
The cumulative royalty amount may be distributed to the preferred retailer at 860. For example, after a predetermined reporting period such as at the end of an accounting or reporting period, or the like, the cumulative royalty amount may be distributed to the preferred retailer.
FIG. 9 shows an exemplary computing environment in which aspects of the example embodiments may be implemented. Computing system environment 900 is only one example of a suitable computing environment and is not intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of use or functionality of the described example embodiments. Neither should computing environment 900 be interpreted as having any dependency or requirement relating to any one or combination of components illustrated in exemplary computing environment 900.
The example embodiments are operational with numerous other general purpose or special purpose computing system environments or configurations. Examples of well known computing systems, environments, and/or configurations that may be suitable for use with the example embodiments include, but are not limited to, personal computers, server computers, hand-held or laptop devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, set top boxes, programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, embedded systems, distributed computing environments that include any of the above systems or devices, and the like.
The example embodiments may be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The example embodiments also may be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network or other data transmission medium. In a distributed computing environment, program modules and other data may be located in both local and remote computer storage media including memory storage devices.
With reference to FIG. 9, an exemplary system for implementing the example embodiments includes a general purpose computing device in the form of a computer 910. Components of computer 910 may include, but are not limited to, a processing unit 920, a system memory 930, and a system bus 921 that couples various system components including the system memory to processing unit 920. Processing unit 920 may represent multiple logical processing units such as those supported on a multi-threaded processor. System bus 921 may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way of example, and not limitation, such architectures include Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) local bus, and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus (also known as Mezzanine bus). System bus 921 may also be implemented as a point-to-point connection, switching fabric, or the like, among the communicating devices.
Computer 910 typically includes a variety of computer readable media. Computer readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by computer 910 and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media, removable and non-removable media. By way of example, and not limitation, computer readable media may comprise computer storage media and communication media. Computer storage media includes both volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CDROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can accessed by computer 910. Communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media. Combinations of any of the above should also be included within the scope of computer readable media.
System memory 930 includes computer storage media in the form of volatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM) 931 and random access memory (RAM) 932. A basic input/output system 933 (BIOS), containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within computer 910, such as during start-up, is typically stored in ROM 931. RAM 932 typically contains data and/or program modules that are immediately accessible to and/or presently being operated on by processing unit 920. By way of example, and not limitation, FIG. 9 illustrates operating system 934, application programs 935, other program modules 936, and program data 937.
Computer 910 may also include other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media. By way of example only, FIG. 6 illustrates a hard disk drive 940 that reads from or writes to non-removable, nonvolatile magnetic media, a magnetic disk drive 951 that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile magnetic disk 952, and an optical disk drive 955 that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile optical disk 956, such as a CD ROM or other optical media. Other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media that can be used in the exemplary operating environment include, but are not limited to, magnetic tape cassettes, flash memory cards, digital versatile disks, digital video tape, solid state RAM, solid state ROM, and the like. Hard disk drive 941 is typically connected to system bus 921 through a non-removable memory interface such as interface 940, and magnetic disk drive 951 and optical disk drive 955 are typically connected to system bus 921 by a removable memory interface, such as interface 950.
The drives and their associated computer storage media discussed above and illustrated in FIG. 9, provide storage of computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for computer 910. In FIG. 9, for example, hard disk drive 941 is illustrated as storing operating system 944, application programs 945, other program modules 946, and program data 947. Note that these components can either be the same as or different from operating system 934, application programs 935, other program modules 936, and program data 937. Operating system 944, application programs 945, other program modules 946, and program data 947 are given different numbers here to illustrate that, at a minimum, they are different copies. A user may enter commands and information into computer 910 through input devices such as a keyboard 962 and pointing device 961, commonly referred to as a mouse, trackball or touch pad. Other input devices (not shown) may include a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to processing unit 920 through a user input interface 960 that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interface and bus structures, such as a parallel port, game port or a universal serial bus (USB). A monitor 991 or other type of display device is also connected to system bus 921 via an interface, such as a video interface 990. In addition to the monitor, computers may also include other peripheral output devices such as speakers 997 and printer 996, which may be connected through an output peripheral interface 995.
Computer 910 may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer 980. Remote computer 980 may be a personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to computer 910, although only a memory storage device 981 has been illustrated in FIG. 9. The logical connections depicted in FIG. 9 include a local area network (LAN) 971 and a wide area network (WAN) 973, but may also include other networks. Such networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet.
When used in a LAN networking environment, computer 910 is connected to LAN 971 through a network interface or adapter 970. When used in a WAN networking environment, computer 910 typically includes a modem 972 or other means for establishing communications over WAN 973, such as the Internet. Modem 972, which may be internal or external, may be connected to system bus 921 via user input interface 960, or other appropriate mechanism. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to computer 910, or portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage device. By way of example, and not limitation, FIG. 9 illustrates remote application programs 985 as residing on memory device 981. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used.
Computing environment 900 typically includes at least some form of computer readable media. Computer readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by computing environment 900. By way of example, and not limitation, computer readable media may comprise computer storage media and communication media. Computer storage media includes volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can accessed by computing environment 900. Communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media. Combinations of the any of the above should also be included within the scope of computer readable media. Although the subject matter has been described in language specific to structural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the subject matter defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.
changing said digital game content from a demonstration version based on said electronic credential.
verifying a licensing right in said electronic credential during use of said digital game content.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein said storage medium is in a first portable game system.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein said digital content source comprises a retail store, and wherein physical media of said digital game content is purchased at said retail store.
5. The method of claim 4, further comprising a computer that digitally extracts said digital game content from said physical media into said digital game content, wherein said first portable game system receives said digital game content from said computer.
6. The method of claim 3, wherein said digital content source comprises a retail kiosk, and wherein said first portable game system receives said digital game content from said retail kiosk.
7. The method of claim 3, wherein said digital content source is a second portable game system, and wherein said first portable game system receives said digital game content from said second portable game system.
8. The method of claim 3, wherein said digital content source comprises an online game provider, and wherein said first portable game system receives said digital game content from said online game provider.
an authentication log module in operative communication with said processor, wherein said authentication log module stores a unique history log based on said received package of data information and said generated electronic credential.
10. The system of claim 9, wherein said package of data information includes a license key.
11. The system of claim 10, further comprising a database of valid license keys, wherein said processor generates said electronic credential when said license key matches a valid license key in said database.
12. The system of claim 9, wherein said electronic credential grants a licensing right to access said digital game content.
13. The system of claim 12, wherein said licensing right includes at least one of the following: full version, demonstration version, limited assets version, and limited time version.
14. The system of claim 9, wherein said package of data information includes a previously received package of data information.
15. The system of claim 14, wherein said processor compares said previously received package of data information with said criteria and said unique history log and renews said electronic credential when said criteria, said unique history log, and said encrypted package of data information match.
generating a unique license key based on said digital game content title identifier, said digital source identifier, and said license identifier.
17. The method of claim 16, wherein said digital game content identifier includes a unique number assigned to said designation of said digital game content.
18. The method of claim 16, wherein said digital content source identifier includes a unique number assigned to said digital game content provider.
19. The method of claim 16, wherein said licensing rights includes at lest one of the following: full version, demonstration version, limited assets version, and limited time version.
generating an electronic credential when said element in said package of data information matches said criteria, wherein said electronic credential grants a licensing right to access said digital game content on said portable game system. | 2019-04-25T20:44:39Z | https://patents.google.com/patent/US20080242406A1/en |
Lucia obtained her B.A. from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, where she did her research thesis on olfactory processing in flies. After a summer working on vision evolution in box jellyfish at Lund University, she joined the University of Cambridge for her PhD. During her PhD she studied the embryonic development of the Drosophila olfactory system, receiving her PhD in 2011. After that she was FEBS postdoctoral fellow at CIG in Lausanne University before joining The Crick Institute in London as a group leader in 2018. Her research focuses on the genetic basis of olfactory pathway evolution in Drosophila.
Tom studied Natural Sciences with a special focus in Neuroscience at Cambridge, where he also completed his PhD at the Department of Zoology on the cricket auditory system in 2008. Following a two year PostDoc position at the MRC-Laboratory for Molecular Biology, Cambridge, Tom the German Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN) in Tübingen for a second postdoc before starting his own group in 2016. His research focuses on vertebrate visual information processing.
Sadiq obtained his PhD in Physiology with a special focus on Gastroenterology from Ahmadu Bello University of Zaria in Nigeria, his research focussed on elucidating the neural mechanism involved in gastric mucosa protection. He now teaches Physiology to Medical students at St Augustine International University, Uganda where he also holds the position of Deputy Vice Chancellor in charge of Academic Affairs. He is currently focused on advocating for science research through science outreach and policy changes.
Jelena did her PhD in Steve Russell’s lab at the University of Cambridge, using a mixture of experimental and computational methods to study transcription factor binding and gene expression in the developing Drosophila nervous system. She is now a postdoc in the Frye lab at the WT-MRC Stem Cell Institute in Cambridge, studying the epigenetics of stem cell differentiation. She is interested in understanding the regulatory logic of the genome and its evolution, as well as in applications of that understanding, such as synthetic biology and personalised medicine. She blogs about biology at Genomics Adventures, and you can also find her on Twitter (@firegenome).
I studied Human Anatomy at undergraduate level in University of Maiduguri Nigeria 2007 and I am an alumnus of Insect Neuroscience and Drosophila neurogenetics course in Uganda in the summer of 2011. During my MSc thesis I studied sexual dimorphism in olfactory systems of Drosophila at Kampala International University. In 2013 I joined Gombe University, Nigeria. My Phd research interest is studying the biological process of memory formation in the context of epigenetics.
Ana received her MSc in Biology from the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. Before moving to Berlin, Germany for her PhD, she was a Summer Reaserch Fellow at Rockefeller University. She received her PhD in 2007 from the Free University of Berlin for her work on olfactory processing in Drosophila. After some time working at the University of Konstanz, Germany she moved to Lausanne where she is a postdoc at the University of Lausanne. She is currently studying the molecular basis of olfactory detection in Drosophila.
Fabiana studied Molecular Biology at the University of Parma (Italy). In 2009 she moved to Geneva (Switzerland), to do her PhD. During the PhD she did structural studies of RNA-protein complexes by means of X-ray Crystallography, with emphasis on a particular complex involved in nuclear receptor signaling, which play a key role in several diseases, including various types of cancer. She received her PhD in January 2014, and currently she is working in the same laboratory at Geneva University, as post-doc. She is very much interested in translational medicine. She would like to combine her molecular and structural Biology background with a clinical point of view and to challenge the communication between science and medicine with other fields in society (such as international organizations, politics and arts), in order to expand human connections and creativity in research, allowing a more efficient cure of diseases and improving quality of people’s lives.
Alberto is currently completing his doctoral program in Neurobiology at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel. He begun his studies at the University of Bologna (B.Sc. and M.Sc.) and worked as Visiting Scientist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Portland, USA before moving to Switzerland. His research focuses on the epigenetic regulation of neural development in health and disease.
He has served as PhD Representative at FMI since 2012 and as Founding Member of the young Chapter of the Swiss Society for Neuroscience since 2013.
He is passionate about travelling, water sports and plays the Piano.
André obtained a B.Sc. in biology at the University of São Paulo. He then moved to Germany where he studied Molecular and Cellular Neurosciences at the University of Tübingen, completing a master’s degree. He is currently doing his PhD on temporal estimation and value change measurements in behaving rats in the same University. Apart from his PhD he is interested in making science broadly available, be it on better communicating it for non specialized audiences or finding/designing cheaper open source solutions to be used in laboratories (more details here).
Mariana obtained her B.Sc. in Biology/Biophysics at the National University in Kyiv, where she joined a lab that specialized on ion channels. Later she continued her education at the University of Tübingen, where she obtained her M.Sc. in Neuroscience and did her thesis in the area of retinal research. Currently she is doing her PhD thesis at the University of Zürich in the field of neurodegenerative diseases.
Marie Pertin obtained her lab technician degree in 1996 at the University of Lyon (France). She spent 1 year at the University of Tübingen (Germany) and then went back to France where she worked for 2 years in the laboratory of transgenesis of the Commissariat à l‘Energie Atomique (CEA) in Grenoble. With those 2 experiences, she developed her professional skills in microbiology, molecular biology, biochemistry, in vitro and in vivo approaches. Since 2001 she works in the research laboratory of the pain center of the University Hospital Center (CHUV) and University of Lausanne (UNIL), Switzerland. Her main project is to investigate the molecular mechanisms in the central and peripheral nervous systems leading to chronic neuropathic pain.
Jeremy is interested by the interactions between maternally transmitted endosymbiontic bacteria and their insect hosts. He completed his bachelors’ degree at the University of Oxford where he carried out research on dynamics of endosymbiont infection in populations of Butterflies in Kenya. Jeremy’s PhD and post-doctoral research was carried out in Bruno Lemaitre’s group at the Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL) where he explored the mechanistic basis of interactions between endosymbionts and Drosophila melanogaster. Jeremy is currently based at ICIPE in Nairobi, where he is exploring the use of endosymbiotic bacteria as a means to control insect-vector borne diseases.
My name is Mwichie Namusamba. I obtained my BSc in Molecular Biology from the University of Zambia, in 2009. I since joined the school of Natural Sciences as a staff development fellow in the cluster of Molecular Biology and Genetics. In 2011, I moved to China and joined the laboratory of professor Huang Baiqu at Northeast Normal University were I undertook a MSc. research programme in Genetics. I was awarded my MSc in July 2013 after completion of my research on mechanisms of the induction of apoptosis by onco- protein, HMGA2, after which I went back to Zambia and currently working as a junior lecturer at the University of Zambia. I am also building on a research proposal on apoptosis pathway signaling during seizure-induced neuronal death and epileptogenesis, which if feasible, i would like to use Drosophila melanogaster as the model organism.
Peter obtained his BBSc(HONS) degree in Psychology before completing a Ph.D in neonatal sleep and respiratory physiology at Monash University, Australia. After living in China to develop ADInstruments’ business throughout ASIA, Peter is now General Manager of the International Division and Joint Ventures at ADInstruments, Australia. He is responsible for commercial operations throughout Africa, the Middle-East, Asia-Pacific, Indian-Subcontinent and Russia. He has an extensive knowledge of scientific instrumentation, providing sales, training and support services throughout the African continent and developing a network of commercial and academic partners within the region.
Thomas studied for his B.Sc in Biochemistry at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana, which he completed with a First Class Honours in 2010. After a year of service as a Teaching and Research Assistant to the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology at KNUST, he was awarded a prestigious Commonwealth scholarship to study for an MSc in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, which he completed with the highest distinction score in his class in 2012. His MSc thesis focused on advancing molecular insights into the involvement of the alpha-synuclein protein in Parkinson’s disease. Thomas currently works as a Lecturer at Wa Polytechnic in Ghana, teaching courses in Science Laboratory Technology. He hopes to begin a PhD soon, working on neurodegenerative diseases and neuro-restorative treatments.
Lukas finished his MSc degree in 2008 at the ETH in Zürich. After spending some time as a research assistant at the STI in Basel in Switzerland working on Malaria and later at the Virology department at Umeå University in Sweden working on Puumala Virus, he started his PhD in 2010 at EPFL back in Lausanne, Switzerland. During his PhD he worked on the maintenance and elimination of centrioles in the nematode C. elegans and in human cells. He obtained his PhD degree in 2014. He is currently still at EPFL working on the aspects of polarity establishment in C. elegans.
Jens studied Cognitive Science (Osnabrück, Germany) and Neural and Behavioural Sciences (Tübingen, Germany) before turning to sleep and memory research. As a doctoral student he works on the neural mechanisms of sleep-associated memory consolidation in humans at the Institute for Medical Psychology and Behavioural Neurobiology in Tübingen. Apart from his research he is interested in low-tech alternatives to expensive EEG setups and to spread the word on the importance of a restful good night’s sleep.
Dr. Velavan currently heads a research group on molecular genetics of infectious diseases at the Institute for Tropical Medicine, University of Tübingen, Germany. His research group is comprised of young scientists from across multiple continents motivated to improve global health by basic scientific research on various pathogenic diseases. His research group focuses on molecular diagnostics of infectious diseases, lectin complement genetics and on host-parasite genetics. He is interested in developing simple and novel innovative methods and tools that can be used at labs where resources are limited. Dr. Velavan is also affiliated as a Scientific Coordinator with Fondation Congolaise pour la Recherche Médicale (FCRM), Brazzaville, Republic Congo.
Prof. Ntoumi is the coordinator of the Multilateral Initiative on malaria Secretariat and of the regional Central Africa Network of Excellence on Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria involving Cameroon, Gabon and republic of Congo institutions. This project aims at building capacities for conducting clinical trials on these three diseases.
Malaria activities focus on the evaluation of immune responses to different malaria antigens candidates as malaria vaccines in children living in Southern Brazzaville. Tuberculosis focus on the prevalence and characterization of resistance profiles of mycobacterium strains in patients with and without HIV infection followed up at the University Teaching Hospital (CHUB) and at the Centre Anti-Tuberculeux (CAT) of Brazzaville. The genetic diversity and resistance profiles of HIV strains will be also determined in TB infected patients. A social sciences study is being carried out to investigate the willingness of the Congolese population to participate in malaria, HIV/AIDS and TB clinical trials. More information here.
Isabel did her PhD between Heidelberg (Germany) and Barcelona (Spain). She stared at European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) as a summer student bur her little project become big enough to be a PhD thesis, which finished at the Centro de Regulación Genómica (CRG). She studied how the mitotic spindle forms during cell division using frog’s eggs. She did a short Post-doc at the university of Cambridge where she learnt about neurons and drosophila as a model system. She is currently back to study cell division in the Cancer Research Institute in Cambridge. Her general interested is to understand what is happening inside the cell.
Angelo obtained his B.Sc in Biotechnologies from Università degli Studi di Brescia. Whilst there, he undertook research at the Genetics and Molecular Biology Department, studying novel mutations in collagen and their effects on fibroblasts of affected patients. After a break from research during which time he moved to London and improved his English, he joined the laboratory of Dr Frances Edwards at University College London to study Alzheimer’s disease. He worked as research assistant in the lab and also undertook the taught part of the M.Sc in Nueroscience to gain more knowledge on Neuroscience and the brain. He is currently doing his PhD with Dr Paola Pedarzani at the Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology department of UCL investigating the changes in membrane excitability and potassium channel expression and function taking place in the hippocampal formation during ageing.
Jorge obtained his M.D. from the Autonomous University of Yucatan in Mexico. During his time as a medical student he also did summer research trainings at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the University of California Los Angeles and the University of Cambridge. After completing his training in General Medicine, he continued further training at the Cell Physiology Institute (IFC, UNAM) and obtained his MSc in Clinical Neuroscience at the Institute of Neurology, University College London. He recently completed his PhD in Genetics and Molecular Neuroscience under the supervision of Prof. Dame Linda Partridge and Prof. John Hardy at UCL. His research is oriented towards understanding the biology of ageing and neurodegenerative diseases (and other ageing-related diseases) using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.
I am a Clinical Pharmacologist, Neuroscientist and Psychiatrist. I hold an M.D. (Egypt), M.Sc. (Egypt) and Ph.D. (USA). I dedicated my career to neurological research and medical teaching. My research focus is to advance the knowledge and understanding the neurological diseases through unconventional thinking. Therefore, my translational research targets the investigation and development of novel treatment for such resistant diseases. After finishing my training in neurosurgery department during my H.O. period, I started my career as a clinical pharmacologist with a psychopharmacology as a subspecialty. Currently, I am an assistant Professor at Menoufiya Medical School, Egypt. Regarding my teaching philosophy; it is summarized by the acronym “LEARNING” which includes: Leadership, Energy, Analysis, Respect, Novelty, Imagination, Neighborhood and Growth. I value these concepts and try my best to implement them in my courses.
I am currently a biology master student at the University of Geneva. I got my bachelor in biology form the same university in 2014 and I am since then working as an intern in Professor Hugues’s lab in the immunology and pathology department. I participate in two projects that focus on extrathymic T-cell development. Our first project concerns hematopoietic-transplanted patient and how their immune repertoire regenerates after such a procedure. Our second project also concerns extrathymic T-cell development with a focus on lymph-node stromal cells.
Shubo Chakrabarti obtained his MSc from Kings College London. After obtaining his PhD from the Pennsylvania State University in the US, where he worked on sensorimotor processing in the barrel cortex of rodents, Shubo moved to the German Primate Center in Göttingen to work on the movement planning in rhesus monkeys funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Currently he is at the CIN in Tübingen working as an independently funded investigator on brainstem circuits in the rat.
Giulia has a BSc in Veterinary Biotechnology from the University of Bologna in Italy and a MSc in Biomedicine from Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the Department of Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet in the lab of Dr. Ola Hermanson studying the transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of neural stem cells to increase understanding of neurodevelopment disorders. She combines her thesis work with collaborations with the Centre for Global Health at Karolinska (KICGH).
In parallel to her PhD, she is a fellow of the advanced interdisciplinary program at the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship, where she is currently working together with a highly diverse and international team tackling challenges ranging from community building programs, research connectivity and science outreach for the public.
Tibor obtained his M.D. from the Medical Faculty of the Pécs University in Hungary in 2005, where he did his research thesis on gel-to-gel phase-transition in rat brain neurons. He completed his PhD at the Department of Neurosurgery at the same place on implementing modern neuroimaging techniques in a clinical environment in 2009.
He joined the BiomedNMR at Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen in 2008, where he started a post-doc project on neurofeedback (NFB) using real-time fMRI in 2009.
Since 2013, he is a post-doc at MRC-Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge. He develops, optimises and implements methods for (f)MRI acquisition and analysis, and provides a support for them. He also continues his NFB research in Cambridge now focusing on methodological developments and application on influencing affective/cognitive processes.
Jan received his BA in Psychology & Neuroscience from the University of Cambridge in 2012. He is currently working on his PhD in the psychophysics of autism at the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge, UK. His main interest is the interaction of competing percepts in the visual field.
Shabab obtained his B.Sc. in Neuroscience from University College London in 2009. He then moved to Tübingen to do his M.Sc. in Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience. During this Master thesis he learnt in vivo imaging in the nervous system of Drosophila larvae and decided to continue his Ph.D. in the same laboratory where he employs behavioral, electrophysiological and genetic tools. Shabab’s research interests include the interplay between genes involved in diseases of the nervous system and would like to continue working in the field.
Isa studied Pharmacy (B.Sc) at Amadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria before moving to London, UK for his M.Sc and Ph.D in Pharmacology. Following his MBA from Averett University, VA USA he worked as a lecturer and researcher in several institutes in Nigeria, UK and USA. He now is a Professor for Pathology and Neuroscience at the University of Virginia, USA and the Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Maiduguri, Nigeria.
Tugrul recently graduated from Bilkent University Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics with a minor in psychology. On his third year, he studied at the University of California, Davis as an exchange student where he worked with Prof. Ted Powers in the field of cell biology. Additionally, he completed three neuroscience internships at the KU Leuven (with Prof. Bassem Hassan), Stanford University (with Assoc. Prof. Lu Chen) and University of Oxford (with Prof. Peter Somogyi). In his senior project, he investigated the effects of caloric restriction on zebrafish brain aging. He will start pursuing a PhD under the supervision of Prof. Thomas Klausberger at the Center for Brain Research of Medical University of Vienna in September 2013. His interests include spatio-temporal organisation of cortical networks responsible for learning and decision making.
Andrew did his PhD in Prof David Whitmore’s lab at UCL, using a combination of molecular biology techniques and lab- and field- based approaches to research the evolution of the circadian clock of Astyanax mexicanus. He is interested in different levels of evolution, which stems from broader experience of whole-organism biology in his BA from Cambridge University, having worked on insect biomechanics for my undergraduate research thesis.
More recently he has worked in science communication, as an Explainer in London’s Science Museum and as the Christmas Lectures Assistant for the Royal Institution’s 2013 Christmas Lectures, Life Fantastic. He is continuing this research communication theme whilst being based in Mozambique, working as a writing mentor for AuthorAID with researchers from developing nations throughout the world. He also blogs at adbscience.com and on Twitter (@drbatmo).
Chris completed his BSc at Rhodes University and then his BSc (Med) Honours at the University of Cape Town, where he investigated the effects of early alcohol exposure on hippocampal and prefrontal protein expression in rats. He also investigated the applicability of improved nucleotide evolution models using computational phylogenetic analysis. He is currently studying an MSc (Med) Neuroscience at the University of Cape Town, where he is investigating chloride dynamics in an electrophysiological and computational model of deep brain stimulation. His research interests extend to (lucid) dreaming and artificial neural networks.
Stefan obtained his Ph.D. at Brandeis University where he studied motor control in lobsters and fruit flies. As a postdoc at Cambridge University, Stefan studied development and function of central pattern generators controlling locomotion in Drosophila larvae. Stefan is now continuing this line of work as a Junior Fellow at Janelia Farm Research Campus. In recent years, Stefan has also focused on making cutting-edge research tools in Drosophila neurogenetices accessible for educators, students, and laypeople. Stefan teaches at the Cold Spring Harbor Drosophila Neurobiologysummer course and is a co-founder of the CrawFly neurophysiology course for educators at Cornell University.
Marta completed a 5-years Bachelor Degree (2001-2006) on Physics in Madrid (Spain). Right after, she did a Masters in Biophysics (2007) and a PhD also in Biophysics (2011) between Gonzalo G de Polavieja lab in Spain and Dmitri Chklovskii lab at JFRC (HHMI) in USA. At the beginning of 2012 she joined Christen’s Mirth Lab at IGC, Portugal as a Postdoctoral Researcher. In parallel to her research in June 2013 she finished a Masters on Science Education at The National Distance Education University (UNED, Spain). In July 2013 she joined Kristin Branson Lab in JFRC (HHMI), USA, also as a Postdoctoral Researcher.
Katharina obtained her Ph.D. from the International Max-Planck Research School for Neurosciences, Göttingen, Germany, where she studied the effects of attention on the responses of single neurons in visual cortex by electrophysiological recording of single-unit activity in awake behaving macaque monkeys. Since 2009, she is a postdoctoral fellow at New York University, where she is using psychophysical methods with human observers to investigate influences of attention on visual perception.
Find out more at http://www.psych.nyu.edu/carrascolab/people/katharina.html.
I studied biology at the Free University of Berlin where I focused on honeybee neurobiology in the lab of Randolf Menzel. For my PhD, which I received in 2014, I moved to the lab of Giovanni Galizia at the University of Konstanz where I started to work on fruit fly olfaction. I am interested in how animals are able to encode myriads of different olfactory stimuli and how the brain is able to extract relevant information from a complex chemical environment where sometimes hundreds of odors are present together at a time. Therefore, I am maintaining and developing the Database of Odor Responses (DoOR) – a database that integrates and visualizes odor responses of Drosophila sensory neurons measured by labs around the world.
I am also interested in everything regarding openSource, openScience and openEducation and I love to juggle and visualize data with R.
You can find out more about my research on muench.bio. If you are on Twitter look for @Dahaniel!
Philipp studied Bioinformatics and Philosophy at University of Tuebingen. He obtained his PhD in Neuroscience from the International Max Planck Research School for Neural and Behavioral Sciences in Tuebingen for work done at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics (Tuebingen) and Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, TX). He works as Postdoctoral researcher at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience and will be taking paternal leave soon.
After reading International Language, Cultural and Business Studies in Germany, China and Argentina Florian graduated in 2008 with his thesis on crowd knowledge. Florian is a member of the founding team of the German social games publisher Plinga GmbH where he currently acts as Chief Operating Officer. Prior to this engagement he has been working in management consulting and founded several business ventures reaching from high-tech trade to virtual mass customization.
Juan studied Molecular and Cellular Biology at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon in France where he carried out research on insect innate immunity. He did his PhD at the Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL) in symbiont-host interactions. He studied the biology of a bacterial endosymbiont that protects its insect host against macroparasites. He is currently based in Africa at icipe in Nairobi and he is conducting research on symbionts and their potential use as probiotics to increase insect pollinators fitness.
Currently I am a doctoral student at the Friedrich Miescher Institute, University of Basel, where I am studying epigenetic regulation of gene expression in mouse embryonic stem cells. I obtained my BSc and MSc degrees in Biochemistry from Masaryk University in Czech Republic where I studied molecular mechanisms of transposon silencing and telomere length regulation in yeast S. cerevisiae.
I graduated from my undergraduate degree in Human Biology from Loughborough University in 2007. I then worked in forensics for a year before completing an MSc in Medical Genetics at Newcastle University. Since then I have worked in diagnostic genetic laboratories, firstly as a Cytogenetic Technologist in the Genomic Diagnostic Laboratory in Manchester before moving to Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust to undertake the NHS Scientist Training Program (STP) in Clinical Bioinformatics which I am due to complete in September 2016.
The STP is a three year program consisting of an MSc in Clinical Bioinformatics and work based learning designed to cover a broad range of areas including clinical interpretation of variants, creation and management of databases, programming and software design, and information governance (amongst others) in a clinical setting. A number of projects I have worked on have been based on the microarray service, improving the quality of analysis and reduced the cost in our preimplantation genetic diagnosis service.
Kagu attended the University of Maiduguri, Nigeria, where he obtained his first degree in Private Law in 2004. Afterwards, he went to the Nigerian Law School for his Bar Exams and was called to the Nigerian Bar as a Solicitor and Advocate of the Supreme Court of Nigeria in 2006. He then went to Bayero University Kano for his Masters in Law. After graduation, Kagu joined A.S Nasir and Co. Law firms, Kano where he began a career as a Private Attorney. A year into private lawyering, he was appointed a Magistrate with the Yobe State Judiciary, Nigeria in 2009 where he worked and rose to the rank of a Senior Magistrate before moving on to the University of Sussex, United Kingdom in 2012 for his PhD in Criminal Justice and graduated from Sussex in 2016. He is currently with the Yobe State Judiciary, Nigeria, working as a Chief Magistrate.
TReND Insect Neuroscience School alumni and member of TReND outreach team, working with Gombe State University, Nigeria. I obtained my B.Sc and M.Sc in Human Physiology in Ahmadu Bello University Nigeria with specific interest in Neuroscience. Currently undergoing PhD research in Alzheimer’s disease, looking at epigenetic modulation of cellular and neurobehavioural responses of mice to environmental stimuli in Alzheimer’s disease. Interested in understanding the influence of environmental cues on behaviour such as motor and cognitive functions deficits in Alzheimer’s diseases through cellular, oxidative stress and neuroinflammatory pathways involving Tau, Aβ, Nrf2/Keap-1 and NF-Kβ.
I am the contact for all genome editing related questions @ TReND. Currently I am a PostDoc in the lab of Richard Benton at University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
After having worked on cis-regulation in the teleost fish Medaka in the lab of Joachim Wittbrodt, Heidelberg, I was developing genome editing tools in Zebrafish during my joint PhD with Joachim Wittbrodt and Filippo Del Bene at the Institut Curie in Paris. With the help of these tools I studied the role of axonal transport in visual system development.
In April 2015 I moved to Lausanne to work on the genetic basis of olfactory circuit evolution in the lab of Richard Benton. Here I am establishing genome editing techniques and genetic tools in non-model Drosophilid species to study how genetic changes shape neural circuits and eventually lead to the emergence of new behavioral programs between closely related species. | 2019-04-23T16:02:04Z | http://trendinafrica.org/who-are-we/people-new/ |
It’s already in Google Play.
As usual, I want you to test it a bit on Android before I publish for other platforms.
This entry was written by Kaalus, posted on December 10, 2016 at 21:14, filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
Hey All, for those like me desperately waiting for the release to our platforms here is something to keep you busy…..
Just uploaded ‘Captain V Adventure’ an SC world, It is a adventure keeping to the true spirit of SC.
You are Captain V, your journey begins on a burning ice locked Ship, You must escape the Ship then attempted to travel 7KM through the often treacherous SC world to get to Port Gabriel in order to get home!
The journey entails many puzzles that can only be solved through your mastery of your Survival Craft skills.
Never for SC. The Google approvement process is so quick that iOS gets the working version quicker by doing it this way.
I don’t have any problems with furniture naming.
Amazing work here. I’m overwhelmed by possibilities. I can’t wait to see some community content on what others do.
Windows Phone and Windows versions of the game will be submitted once most of the bugs on the Android version are fixed.
Kaalus, ive found a very annoying bug, when you tap on an item in your hotbar, and likely inventory aswell, it gets the red out line for when you want to split the stack. This is very dangerous when being chased by animals because when you try to get your machete but it gets outlined but does not select. Please fix!
I also noticed this bug.
I can’t reproduce that, what device are you running it on?
Samsung galaxy tab 4, its a large tablet so im pretty sure its not a miss tap or something.
After 20 mins of playing challenging it was extremely annoying.
Can you please check if you have “Maximum Tap Duration” slider in Settings/Sensitivities set to minimum?
I can reproduce it kaalus, fill up you quick slot bar with items and have an item in your hand hard seleted, so dark gray in the quick barslot then press a direction key and select the item next to the dark gray one at the same time, the item your currently holding is now red selected for splitting. It’s probably something to do with the 2 finger touch. I’ll email this to you as well.
My tap duration was in the middle, i tried to set to minimum but didnt work it seems.
I have a similar bug, where slots will get highlighted red when they aren’t supposed to, and didn’t in 1.29.
Will it be available for iPad/iPhone before Christmas? I love Survivalcraft, and have been waiting for the new upgrades?
You know, since survivalcraft 2 is its own game, it would have been nice if you implemented the feature people have wanted from the beginning (Multiplayer), instead of adding more content that could have simply been put in normal survivalcraft.
I had $2.01 in my account!! Just enough HOORAY!!
Thanks dude, Any Amazon or Windows release dates?
Awesome work. The update looks incredible, but I want to see the full changelog please.
Ok how do i delete the furniture that i added to the furniture list?
Also, Waiting for iOS and Windows 8.1!
You can’t delete it. It will delete itself once no more instances of the furniture are in the world as blocks or as items in inventories.
I found a way to delete furniture, you can move the furniture you don’t want to a new category, and then delete that category.
Will iOS users still get the discount, do you think?
Kaalus, can you add a change log for 2.0 ?
Congratulations on your new release, Kaalus. Now for some questions. Please do not take this the wrong way, but why are we being charged for Survivalcraft 2? If we already own Survivalcraft, are we grandfathered in and only new comers pay the price? Usually when we pay for the next in a series of games, there are massive makeovers, or massive enhancements to everything. For example, Higher graphic quality, new story line, and remodeled skins to name a few. I love Survivalcraft, and have purchased it for a few of my devices. I just cannot fathom, while not expensive, paying out another $1.99 for what looks like the same game. It has been some time since following this game, so please bare with me. I am sincere in my questioning, and do not mean to offend. Just curious.
Have you not read how much he’s added? If you don’t want to buy it so be it but he has massively improved the game with this update. While it is true that it still lacks multiplayer, it is a very difficult job and he is a one man team. Imagine, he alone has surpassed minecraft PE, HE ADDED WAYS TO MAKE FURNITURE. And if you don’t care for the new improvements, then just play the old one.
You do have to remember updates stack. Therefore in a few years it will without a doubt be worth it.
when will it be available for windows 8.1??
Bought it! I wasn’t really planning on getting the Android version because I wanted the Windows 10 version. But I just can’t resist it! I hope we’d get a promotional introductory price on Windows 10 version too. Will definitely buy it once released on Windows 10 in any case tho.
On the iOS version of the game, there are no stars at night.
Also, on ALL platforms, when your X and/or Y-coordinates reach zero, you clip and fall through the terrain.
Last, but not least, I am super happy that Alpha 2.0, also known as Survivalcraft 2, is released on Google Play!!!!!
Also, on iOS version, please make Survivalcraft 2 require iOS 7 or later. Thanks!
I think he is more bothered about the 2.0 realise ATM, plus why do you want iOS 7 or later ?
Also, It doesn’t have to require iOS 7 or later for the iOS version. It is up to Kaalus.
I know, I am talking about the bug from the latest version on that platform.
don’t interrupt me please. I am talking to kaalus.
why would i buy the game again? its the same game just with the new update?? does that mean survival craft 1 is not going to get updates any more and is a waste of money?
So all the hours of fun are suddenly wasted? You can’t be that hypocrate!
I found this phone on the street. i think that says a thing or two about my current non-existent bank account currency.
I’ve been following this game for four of its five years and I have seen how Kaalus operates. He is always fair. I am sure each operating system will get a discount for the same length of time as the others. So if iOS takes a while to get approved, he will likely extend the discount beyond the date when Google goes to full price.
I’m downloading it now. I wish, in the future, to see the female counterpart added.
I think it would be fair if female clothes, a female option, and a female voice were all added into the game.
Kaalus i’ve found a bug … i cant fuse the incendiary big keg with button also switch ?
Indeed it’s a bug, thank you!
What is the block limit for making furniture?
I’m busy for the next 6 months sorry family.
How about amazon? That’s what my family has.
Amazon version will be submitted once most of the bugs are fixed.
At least we get a “Almost No Bug” version.
Will android have to pay $3.99, or will you raise the price after Android gets it?
Can’t do it easily with MemoryBanks because of the internal implementation that predates 32 bit blocks. I’d have to rework it completely.
Sometimes when using pistons the wooden part turns invisible, pushing/pulling furniture will make it diss appear sometimes, and the red outline to split stacks is very sensitive now.
Oh, and bison more times than not spawn by themselves. I’ve only seen on heard.
Also, you can paint light bulbs. Most ores and the marble have a new texture.
Does the hue on the light change with the color of the bulb?
2.0 isn’t in Update History yet.
Will be submitted once most of the bugs are fixed.
Disculpa kaalus el tiempo de aguantar la respiración bajo el agua fue aumentado??
Also, can the hammer be used as a weapon?
Alright, twice in one post is enough already. id like to agree with bones, but kaalus does need to fix it. Im sure he’s seen the first 2 million comments, no need to make 200 million more.
The sky has been reworked. Now can you shut up and assume that it was fixed?
What I was saying was for iOS version only. Also, 2D models and bows need to have graphics for iPhone 6, iPhone 5S, and iPad Mini 2 to be fixed.
Again, I was NOT talking to you!
No, while it has 1.5 of Melee Power, Hammer Cannot be used as a Weapon.
iOS will be submitted once most of the bugs are fixed.
Whenever I want to make a furniture, it told me that the furniture is too large. Why?
If the furniture is touching valid furniture blocks, they will be counted as part of the furniture, likely resulting in this error. Move the furniture away if this is the case. I made this mistake when creating my furniture world, I made it out of stone. So now I have to build all of my furniture a block above the ground.
I think I found a bug. I had a bunch of cooked ostrich eggs in a crate, and in Survivalcraft 2they turned into cooked bison spawned eggs. This was on one of my challenging survival worlds. I cooked more ostrich eggs, and could not reproduce the glitch.
It was an update glitch. He changed the number for the ostrich egg and the bison. There isn’t anything to fix. You’ll just have to ignore it.
Kaalus you should have a pole of 4 different animals for then next update? which ever animals when the poll could be in the next update?
A poll for 4 different animals. Unless he puts in a really good-good-okay-meh set of animals, it would be chaotic and unfair. If all 4 were really cool, or if atleast 2 were equally cool, then people would fight over it, and kaalus would have no choice but to add them all in. either that or he’d have to put one in, and his fanbase will topple, and he will most likely lose half of the people who wanted the other animal. also, its not that good of an idea to focus on adding more animals, when he just merely finished adding furniture, sea creatures, a bison, and all those other things. Its best to just add to landscape, or introduce smaller animals. Something easy like mice or rabbits or maybe insects even, would be nice for gameplay. it’d also be cool if the player had a female option too, for female players of course. That goes for character, clothes, and voice. And a last thing would be radiation, but thats more of a thing that should be added in waaaaaaaaaaaay later on. Anyways, since furniture was added, 3 years ago i mentioned mirrors. A mirror to go with furniture seems most proper at the time, right? or if it could be substituted by a prism and different colored light lasers, that’d be cool.
The update is Amazing! So many little changes, like the ore textures. But my favorite is pistons!
Kaalus, you done it again!
Still waiting for a Amazon update or PC update anyone else waiting?
Actually, in 2020, iPhone 9 will come out. 2017 will launch iPhone 7S, 2018 will launch iPhone 8, and in 2019, iPhone 8S will be launched.
Amazon release ASAP please!! Can’t wait!
Kaalus,after I hit on my furniture pack and hit export,does it instantly go?
Did anyone notice the and more? At the end of the added list and I can’t wait to buy this game on iOS!!!!
Were did you find that?
Well, the list didn’t have every feature (I don’t think it had ladders), so it is probably referring to the features which were not mentioned.
Oh right. Quick question, are belugas the same as white tigers and whales? And im pretty sure i spotted a crocodile in an earlier post.
hey,i am a loyal fan and have followed your blog since 2013. I want the discounted price on survivalcraft 2 but i dont use a device the caries google play. When the game is launched on other platforms will they be at a discounted price for a while?
If it’s not too much trouble, could you please add a white background in the shape of a circle to the survivalcraft 2 app icon? This would fit better with the new android 7 icon style and differentiate it from the original survivalcraft icon.
It already has a green glow around it, which the first didn’t. I really don’t like the “modern” button/icon style anyway.
What is the name of the game character?
Hola kaalus en modo supervivencia cuando uso el martillo me cosas infinitas, creo que sería bueno que no pasará eso, ustedes que piensan??
Anybody have a clue, why did everytime i make furniture. It is becoming so small ? I make a bed, and its just 1 block wide !
-Make food is scarce: The longer we live in game, the scarcer is the food like animals’s meat. We must grow ryes and pumkins for food(but it takes longer than now). You can add more types of trees and plaints in game, and fruits or can-be-eaten plaints and cannot-be eaten ones. That makes us don’t feel boring because we always have to find food to eat. I usually get bored after 40-50 days game because my food chest is full of food and they are enough for me in months. When i’m running out of food i just have to kill animals around my house the next day there are cows and bulls respawn.
-make the character ill: When character being wet for along time. There will be a chance he going sick. When the character ill, he runs slower than normal and get tired quickly, he feels cold and lost health points if continue working.
– electric generator: How can electric circuit can work without it?
I like how stones skipping on water is at the top of the list! How many people here didn’t know that was a thing?
That isn’t new, I don’t remember when it was implemented, but I’m sure that was possible to do it for years!
I know, it was added around 1.18 I think. I’m not sure though.
Just checked, it’s 1.5, much earlier than I had remembered.
Piston cant push chest and dispenser ?is that bug ?i thought piston can only blocked by diamond block .
I don’t think that’s a bug, but rather a feature which needs to be implemented. Kaalus needs to make it so pistons can push block entities.
How to make a door which its upper part is different from its lower part? Can someone show it to me.
You have to build the top and lower part separately then when you get two bottoms and two tops make the bottom two state and the top two state. Then you put the top of the door and the bottom of the door in a crafting table with a wire. Then they will be connected. Then just place it like a normal door.
Lag lag lag. There’s just lag everytime you break a block or plant a new one.
Hi fellows! SC2 is the thing that I have no words to describe me happiness! Kaalus- uA*the_BEST! Where to find original textures for modifying?
I don’t know if is a bug or something of international.
Electric Wires can be painted with all 16 colors available, but in creative inventory only a few colored wires are in the menu. For example Purple Wires and “Light colored” wires doesn’t appear in the creative inventory.
Huh. It’s strange that these wouldn’t be in creative menu.
Cool! We are looking forward for a Windows Phone version.
I know..but what’s cc ??
I think I found a bug: while you’re on a boat, your body temperature drops as if you are swimming.
Give me your money pllss! i have no money ! Buy my game again!
Stop being so petty, if you don’t want to but it then don’t f*cking buy it. Kaalus needs to live off of something to you selfish prick.
2) I Wish that there was a couple of statistics that involves Fire like number of blocks set on fire and number of animals burned.
3) Kaalus, Could you please update the Files/Technical section of the forum with the new Block Texture? Thanks!
It’s easier to use switches rather than buttons. When it comes to pistons unless you’re using one push piston leave the buttons alone.
switching the inventory categories now has no loop. It ends with user. After that you have to click back each time.
Also speaking of categories: It would be awesome to have an option to have the “arrow-buttons” for changing categories on the bottom instead on the top.
With a big screen it is quite difficult to reach the top buttoms with thumbs.
Furnitures, however, will be not extended to more than 9 states.
Crafting 9-state furniture with another 8 parts or less will only override the other states and will leave the original first state included in the furniture.
How to make an elevator by pisstons. I can not control them.
This may be a bug, but kelp is spawning in lakes, that are supposed to be like fresh water and kelp does not grow in freshwater i believe.
I wonder when Kaalus will release the full changelist for the new game, so we can see the full list of features added.
Are you saying you can combine two two-state pieces?!
There seems to be a problem with the blog. My previous two comments are still awaiting moderation, despite having been posted a couple of hours back. I wonder what’s the problem.
The game crash when I open it! Why?!
I know, the door looks really weird, but it works!
Don’t forget to use the crafting table, craft the two furniture pieces with a wire and everything is done!
To be perfectly honest. Im a little dissapointed. I looked at these new features in awe waiting for it to come out just to find out that i have to buy a whole different game. I mean i realise that kaalus needs funding but that is a dream crusher. I dont have any money on me right now to buy it and that dissapoints me even further.
One thing: Pistons need to be “cheaper”, 45 Germanium for one piston… Still going to live in the middle ages cause it’s “cheaper”.
3) Semiconductor needs to be quarried with a pickaxe to be be broken then how the wire trough version required an axe to be broken?
Do you have any idea of how to get the app?
Everything is so much more detailed now, the possibilities are virtually limitless!
Lovely figurines! If your screenshots are too low resolution you can change screenshot resolution in Settings/UI to FullHD.
I’ve found that SC2 uses less battery than MCPE, even with lots of furniture and pistons.
Also, Lightbulbs dropped on the ground don’t appear to be textured on the back.
I’m waiting for the Windows version too. I hate playing on my phone.
An Android tablet might be a good in-between solution, (between a PC and phone for playing Survivalcraft) I use an 8.4 ich screen myself, this screen size is quite manageable, perfect actually for Survivalcraft! And tablets getting cheaper everyday.
Ah, hi there, thank you for your interest in the texturepack!
I just noticed a typo in the comic though, lol!
I also made a pluche doll pack for use with the new update, (8 pieces) which can serve as decoration.
The point of android getting it first is so we can report the bugs so that a good version can be submitted to iOS so the lengthy Apple review process only has to be gone through once.
I propose to fix a bug with the disappearance of the items under the graves and add a button to change the weather.
A weather button for creative would be nice. Items in graves shouldn’t be disappearing – if the wiki is correct, graves use a special “treasure block” which generates the grave contents when broken.
I’m having a strange bug with pistons. I have 4 furniture pieces containing painted blocks, each on top of a vertical pull piston set to extend 4 blocks, and pull 1 block, at slow speed. The pistons will work fine, pushing/pulling the furniture. However, as soon as I use paint stripper on the furniture to un-paint it, the pistons will completely glitch out, extending at the wrong speed and turning invisible. This will continue until the pistons are replaced.
I’ve figured out that it’s not the pistons turning invisible, but the furniture. It becomes a full, solid block which can be broken and obtained into the inventory. Looks like we have invisible walls for adventure maps now!
Could someone please expoain to me how to upload a furniture pack to community content? Ive never published anything there before so help would be appreciated.
Hey kaalus can you email you I’m the leader on Instagram for survivalcraft accounts and I would love to discuss ideas with you I have so many and we could talk about them. I hope you can get back to me as soon as possible I can’t keep me from being excited with the ideas I have @[email protected] thanks!
I exclusively play this game in challenging and cruel modes & I think Kaalas really needs to go back to the roots.
I love having the ability to change the starting sea level/temp/humidity, however there are a few things that make this game nearly unplayable.
The first and worst for me is the animal spawning.
Day 1: I spend the day alone on an island.
Night 1: It is full of lions, tigers and bears!!! So lame!
I wouldn’t care if the whole island where cluttered with bears from the start, but don’t spawn them at sun-down just due to lazy programming.
The other thing i’ll mention is food sources.
With such an otherwise detailed game how can this be so lacking in a survival game?
Pumpkins, Birds, Boar, Cows, Moose, Rhino and now buffalo. (bread later on) Why not fruit/vegetables(besides pumpkin),abundant small mammals (rabbit), fish!?! Funny how a moose will never spawn near me at night.
I understand that I am in the minority by playing from a survival perspective and Kalaas is likely catering to creative players who build amazing things that get shared as seeds. It seems logical however that with a name like Survival Craft you should fix these basic flaws that are exposed immediately and in my case, ruin the experience.
You can get fish for food, but only a few kinds. Predators hunt you at night, smelling you from long distances, they dont spawn there all the time thats why herbivores like cow and moose are not there in the morning.
BUG. Lookso like the AND and OR gates are acting up and not outputting the correct logic. Example: no power to either sides of the AND Gate produces a logic True (power). Tested on S7, J7, and Note 3… on both new and old maps.
It appears that all previously placed gates work fine from 1.29.
I’m kinda sad that it’s not an update… but it looks AWESOME. I just have to wait until my mom gets money on her card… or I can wait until my cousins or aunts/uncles give me a giftcard or something for Christmas. I hope the discount lasts till Christmas day!
Really digging the furniture tool, definitely takes some getting used to. Just out of curiosity, is there any master list of blocks that can be used with the hammer???
Please add option “disable autosave”! Flash memory is not immortal.
Let’s hope it’s released for iOS before Christmas, It’ll make a great gift!
Could you please change the creative menu to have sub-headings, by color or something? It is very hard to find what you want sometimes, like the cavalry boots in the first edition of the game were hard to find. Can you make them by color, make like separate color buttons to find the color you want quickly. This game is very cool and I love it, I would love to see it grow and change.
Paid the 1.99 for it and have the first survivalcraft but there are lots of glitches on kindle fire and not real impressed with 2.0 why couldn’t this have been added to the original version. Unless you are in creative mode not really seeing anything to brag about there aren’t any new land views that I have saw and fewer animals like the wolves. Just not impressed.
The forums at survivalcraft.lefora.com now has a furniture thread.
I never thought I’d pirate something from you, Kaalus. Survivalcraft was the first game (and app for that matter) I bought on GP, after all.
But here we are. You practically made the previous version unusable, since most of the top Community Content doesn’t support it now.
And you haven’t even published a 1.29 -> 2.0 changelog, for that matter (or am I missing something?). So users should just believe your words that it is worth buying it again?
So I downloaded SC 2.0 love the new features, the furniture is great love creating my own stuff the possibilities are endless, although I did come across a bug where if you use too many pieces of furniture the game glitches out to where u can see through the ground at all the biomes and lava pools it really ruins the build. If I could post a picture I would. Also emailed candyruffus games about it with a picture. Has anyone else come across this. BTW I lowered all the performance settings to bare minimum and this still happens.
I’m having this same problem with a world I brought over from the previous version. After placing quite a few furniture items (and I am nowhere near 1024 unique items) I see distortions in the world & some items disappeared (although there is still resistance – as in I can’t walk through that place where a window used to be but the window isn’t visible anymore). It’s really annoying. The only way to get rid of the problem is to go back to the original version of the world before I placed any furniture.
Can I move my 1.29 worlds to survival craft 2 through the community? Or will they not work anymore?
You can bring them over from the previous version.
Hi, awesome game. I have one request/question. Is it possible to incorporate drive train components? I would like to drive my megatruck or rock rod that I built in my world.
Hi! I’m a really big fan of Survivalcraft! I think if you would add Multiplayer it would make your game so much better! | 2019-04-22T08:14:18Z | https://kaalus.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/survivalcraft-2-released/ |
The Giving Common - BPE Inc.
BPE's mission is to drive exceptional outcomes for all Boston students by developing great teachers and great schools.
For thirty years, BPE has devised solutions to the toughest challenges faced by Boston Public Schools (BPS) by interweaving expertise in teacher and school development. We have prepared over 600 teachers for BPS through the nationally recognized Boston Teacher Residency (BTR).
After decades of improving schools with teacher coaching and school improvement frameworks, we founded two Teaching Academies: autonomous schools within BPS that use alternative staffing and data-driven practices to advance student and teacher learning. Teaching Academies are in-district schools that provide a world class education for all students while preparing outstanding new teachers for the Boston Public Schools. We launched our elementary Teaching Academy, the Dudley Street Neighborhood Charter School, in 2012, and assumed operations of Dearborn STEM Academy (grades 6-12) in 2015.
BPE was established in 1984 by corporate and philanthropic leaders, including the Boston Foundation, to reform Boston’s schools. For the first decade, BPE offered scholarships to students and mini-grants to teachers. In 1995, after an evaluation suggested more systemic change was needed, BPE brought on Executive Director Ellen Guiney. Ms. Guiney and Boston Public Schools (BPS) Superintendent Dr. Thomas Payzant collaborated to drive district level reforms. We established the BPS Essentials of Whole-School Improvement and the Collaborative Coaching and Learning model, and brought significant funding to BPS from the Annenberg Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to drive evidence based school improvement.
In 2003, Dr. Payzant was asked about his biggest challenge, and he said that the teacher pipeline did not match the district's needs for teachers of color and teachers of math, science, ESL, and special education. Additionally, new teachers had to be retrained to deliver on BPS's instructional agenda, and half of new teachers left within three years, costing an estimated $3M annually. BPS was losing teachers just as they were becoming effective, and student academic growth suffered. BPS recruited Jesse Solomon, who had founded a small practice-based teacher preparation program at City on a Hill Charter School, to establish the Boston Teacher Residency. The superintendent decided to house the new program at BPE, where it could innovate, grow, and adapt to the district's changing needs.
We have since prepared over 600 teachers for BPS through the nationally recognized and replicated Boston Teacher Residency program. We have also pioneered cutting edge data tools and whole school improvement strategies.
Today, we work to redesign schooling through our neighborhood-based Teaching Academies, which are autonomous in-district, PreK-12 schools. They provide a world-class education for students and prepare outstanding teachers for BPS. In 2012 we launched our first Teaching Academy, the Dudley Street Neighborhood Charter School, and we assumed operations of the Dearborn STEM Academy in 2015.
When we launched the Dudley Street School in 2012, 29% of students entered reading on grade level. At the end of the 2015-16 school year, 68% of Dudley students were reading on grade level and 81% met or exceeded growth targets for reading, according to UChicago's STEP literacy assessment system. Year-end reading proficiency rates have increased from 52% in Year 1 to 61% in Year 2, to 66% in Year 3, to 68% in Year 4. In June 2016, over one-third of the school's students were reading above grade expectation. 70% of students scored proficient or advanced on internal end-of-unit writing assessments. In math, 66% percent of Dudley students in grades 1-4 met proficiency goals on BPS end-of-unit assessments.
Before BPE assumed operations of the Dearborn STEM Academy in July 2015, it was a “Turnaround” school at risk for state takeover. In our first year operating the school, its score on a measure of whole school improvement (Annual Progress & Performance Index) jumped from 55 to 88.
Since founding the Boston Teacher Residency in 2003, we have prepared over 600 teachers who serve 18,000 BPS students. 92% of graduates are initially placed in BPS and 71% placed in BPS remain there through year 6. BTR graduates post higher retention rates than the district average (80% retained 3+ years; 6 year retention rate 20 percentage points higher). BTR graduates are twice as likely as other Massachusetts teachers to be rated Exemplary on the state’s System for Educator Evaluation.
Our long term goals are to prepare all students for college and career success and create a strong pipeline of diverse student-centered teachers.
1. Refine, and codify the Teaching Academy model and disseminate our learnings.
2. All students in Teaching Academies achieve academic proficiency and growth and cultivate the skills, knowledge, and experience for college and career success.
3. All BTR graduates teach effectively.
With a world class teacher education program, an innovative model of schooling, and a plan for expansion, BPE is a local and national leader for urban school reform. Over the next five years, BPE will increase student achievement by further developing our PreK-12 pathway of innovative, neighborhood-based Teaching Academies, preparing outstanding BPS teachers to deliver ambitious instruction, and sharing our learnings to catalyze reform across the city and beyond.
We are proud to be part of a community that strives with great ingenuity and determination to ensure the promise of a high quality, public education for every child. Boston has made significant progress. But to achieve the dramatic improvements we seek, all of us – parents, schools, community organizations, and donors – must think and work together.
Your support is critical to ensuring every child in Boston has an excellent education.
BPE serves students and families in the Dudley neighborhood of Roxbury through Teaching Academies. It also serves teachers across Boston's public schools through the Boston Teacher Residency.
Among the first teacher preparation programs to use a medical residency model, the Boston Teacher Residency (BTR) bridges the gap between theory and practice by placing teacher candidates called "residents" in K-12 classrooms for a year of intensive study and practice. Residents work with mentor teachers and their teams at Teaching Academies and complete a Master's degree program; through this residents acquire the theory, practical skills, and habits of continuous learning that help them to provide rigorous, engaging, and relevant instruction. BTR teachers engage students in the deep learning and critical thinking that workers rely on in today's complex world. Our design is grounded in what new teachers need to know and be able to do to impact student achievement in Boston.
All residents commit to teach in Boston for three years, and we support graduates over that period as they hone their practice. Many BTR graduates work in schools with other alumni, where they support each other to achieve better outcomes for students.
(a) 100% of residents who graduate will demonstrate the competencies to teach effectively by passing all performance assessments and meeting all expectations.
(b) 75% of BTR graduates teaching in their first year and 90% of graduates in their second year will be rated Proficient or Exemplary on the summative rating under the state’s educator evaluation system.
(c) 80% of BTR graduates will continue teaching in BPS for three years.
(d) Half of all BTR graduates in BPS are teachers of color.
Our vision is that one day, all the children of Boston will attend schools where students are respected, inspired, and challenged as learners. One way we are achieving this mission is by ensuring a pipeline of high-quality teachers who are prepared to address the needs of Boston students and remain in teaching long enough to be highly effective. 8% of BPS teachers were prepared by BTR. Over time, we will build a critical mass of talented and diverse teachers capable of working together to advance school and district reform.
With our Teaching Academy model, we are redesigning the teacher training model around the needs of real students in real time. Our model runs counter to the dominant system of teacher training, which separates the college from the K-12 school. By embedding the BTR program within our Teaching Academies we have increased coherence between BTR and the schools and created a more positive and impactful pre-service experience.
We are dogged about measuring progress, making adjustments, holding ourselves accountable, and sharing what we learn. Our Office of Data and Improvement, led by Dr. Edward Liu, collects data from BTR applications, student assessments, surveys, focus groups, classroom observations, BPS data sets, resident performance assessments, and course evaluations. We also commission external studies, including one comparing student outcomes for BTR graduates compared with their peers. Through both internal and external research, BPE studies the impact of BTR graduates on: (1) student achievement and engagement; (2) teacher retention and diversity; and (3) teaching practices.
BTR has prepared over 600 teachers and met all of its initial goals: more math and science teachers, 92% placement in BPS teaching jobs, increased teacher retention rates (80% retained 3+ years; 6-year retention rate 20 percentage points higher than BPS), and high principal satisfaction rates (100% on latest survey). One in twelve BPS teachers is a BTR graduate. It is one of the most diverse teacher preparation programs in the state, with half of all BTR graduates identifying as people of color. BTR graduates are more likely than other Massachusetts teachers with the same level of experience to be rated Exemplary according to the state’s System for Educator Evaluation. BTR is nationally recognized and has served as a model for replication in over 20 sites across the nation.
In 2013, we leveraged the national service model to create the Dudley Promise Corps (DPC), a neighborhood-based AmeriCorps program that prepares Dudley students for academic, civic, and personal success and develops members as civic leaders and teachers committed to social justice. Corps members serve full-time in our Teaching Academies leading extracurricular activities, giving classroom support, and providing additional academic support to individual students outside of the classroom. DPC is a public/private partnership that represents a collaboration between BPE, Governor Baker, Mayor Walsh, and the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative.
DPC members, recruited largely from the surrounding community, serve at one of our Teaching Academies every weekday for the entire expanded school day, making them part of the school community rather than drop-in support. The fact that DPC is school embedded allows members to have a firm understanding of students’ academic and non-academic needs, as members come to know students in and outside of the classroom.
DPC is driven by goals in focus areas that include: academic support, student-mentor relationships, community engagement, and professional development.
Every student who participates in DPC’s academic support receives 2-3 hours of personalized tutoring every week during the extended school day. Members collaborate with teachers and use evidence-based curricula to boost students' performance and engagement in math and literacy. Members spend two to three class periods daily helping teachers to personalize learning for all students. After school, students choose from a variety of DPC-led, on-campus, weekly enrichment clubs that are centered on students' interests and hobbies. BPE measures the short-term success of this program by diligently tracking attendance and student achievement at both Teaching Academies.
DPC members strive to build authentic relationships with students, use knowledge of context and community to boost student engagement and school culture, help students navigate challenges, and fill students' academic skill gaps. These objectives support BPE’s overall efforts of developing: (1) student-centered, personalized education for youth in Dudley and (2) a pipeline of diverse civic leaders and educators in Boston.
In the longer term, the educational and social services offered by DPC will result in a number of beneficial outcomes for students including strong high school completion and college enrollment rates, the development of positive social support networks, a greater sense of agency, stronger connections to and engagement in school, and a decrease in risky behaviors. Research demonstrates that these factors contribute to the long-term success of youth.
Through providing academic supports and extracurricular opportunities, DPC members come to know students as individuals, and engage with them as trusted mentors who can help them on the journey to short- and long- term academic, career, and personal success.
DPC helps advance BPE's overall mission of providing Dudley students with a high-quality, comprehensive education that develops them as well-rounded individuals prepared for full participation in the workforce and community. It also advances our larger goal of forming a pipeline of diverse civic leaders committed to social justice.
BPE uses a variety of data to evaluate our progress. The objectives listed above are measured by surveys, attendance records, and student achievement data.
We analyzed data from the Dudley Street School which sheds light on the impact of DPC's use of the Reading Partners curriculum on student learning in literacy. A preliminary analysis of reading growth among students served by DPC and the Reading Partners curriculum suggests that the students served by this program experienced more growth in reading than other students at the school. 46% of students served by the program made more than expected growth on the STEP assessment, compared with 34% of students overall at the school. The program seems to have had the greatest impact in grades 2-3 so far.
Teaching Academies are autonomous in-district schools providing a world class education for all students while preparing outstanding new teachers for BPS through BTR. Teaching Academies are modeled after the best teaching hospitals, which provide exemplary care for patients and a premier training ground for new doctors. Our model reorganizes educators in service of student learning. By doing so, we are replacing the outdated, century-old school model, and we are redesigning the system of teaching to ensure that every student is prepared to succeed in the 21st century. A coherent instructional system aligns curriculum, instruction, assessment, professional development, scheduling, and more to ensure a seamless educational experience for students and residents. BTR residents learn essential professional skills while significantly contributing to student learning.
Serve 600 students in Teaching Academies.
- 60% of students are academically proficient in English and math.
- The school maintains an attendance rate of 95%.
- The school maintains an attendance rate of 92%.
3. Create and codify the Teaching Academy model.
BPE's Teaching Academies are committed to preparing the children of the Dudley neighborhood of Roxbury to successfully enter successfully the 21st century global workforce. Our PreK-12 educational pathway bridges rigorous and engaging academics with career readiness, and leverages Boston’s unique position in higher education and industry to provide students with access to authentic real world experiences, while cultivating critical thinking and communication skills.
In parallel, Teaching Academies strive to produce high quality, collaborative, and committed teachers to drive excellent student outcomes throughout Boston’s public schools.
Working in partnership with community organizations and other local schools, BPE Teaching Academies contribute to a stronger, more vibrant Dudley community and a stronger city as a whole.
At our Teaching Academies we measure student achievement, attendance, mobility, and behavior, as well as school culture and staff performance. We measure achievement by both standardized and formative student assessments which are standards based and aligned to the Common Core. We also utilize student, parent, and teacher surveys and a variety of tracking tools. Each school has a Google site which hosts all relevant school data; staff can utilize the embedded data tools to understand students’ individual learning needs as well as patterns across groups of students.
BPE is data driven and reflective. We complement quantitative analysis with a qualitative approach to gain insight on patterns beneath the numbers. We analyze the data to help us learn, make evidence-based adjustments, create evaluation plans to measure progress towards goals, and hold ourselves accountable for results.
Early data has been promising. At the end of the 2015-16 school year, 68% of Dudley students were reading on grade level and 81% met or exceeded growth targets for reading, according to UChicago's STEP literacy assessment system. Year-end reading proficiency rates have increased from 52% in Year 1 to 61% in Year 2, to 66% in Year 3, to 68% in Year 4. In June 2016, over one-third of the school's students were reading above grade level expectation. In writing, 70% of students scored proficient or advanced on internal end-of-unit assessments. In math, 66% percent of Dudley students in grades 1-4 met proficiency goals on BPS end-of-unit assessments.
In our first year operating the school, the Dearborn's score on a measure of whole school improvement (Annual Progress & Performance Index) jumped from 55 to 88. After a recent visit to the school, the Senior Associate Commissioner of Education in Massachusetts declared: "The walls are the same, but everything else looks different."
Jesse Solomon founded the Boston Teacher Residency program in 2003, Previously, he taught middle and high school math for 10 years — at the King Open School in Cambridge, Brighton High School, and City on a Hill Public Charter School. He was a founding faculty member, lead teacher, and a member of the board of directors at City on a Hill, where he began and directed the Teachers' Institute, a school-based teacher preparation program. Mr. Solomon has been an instructor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and is a National Board-certified teacher. He holds a BS in Mathematics from MIT and an MEd from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The Barr Foundation named Mr. Solomon a Barr Foundation Fellow in 2009 for his leadership, and he is also a Pahara-Aspen Institute Education Fellow. He serves on the Board of Directors for Cambridge College, and is a member of Deans for Impact.
Ms. Mariel Gonzales Chief Finance and Administrative Officer Mariel Gonzales brings a broad range of nonprofit experience having served as among other things the Executive Director of the Bird Street Community Center in Dorchester, the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Boston After School & Beyond, and - most recently - as the Chief Financial Officer of YouthBuild USA. Mariel has extensive expertise and experience working with public and private funding sources, working in Boston and nationally, and managing complex and rapidly changing organizations.
As Director of Organizational Learning, Dr. Liu leads BPE's efforts to understand why certain teachers produce exceptional student learning gains and to embed these insights into our programs. Before joining BPE, Dr. Liu was Assistant Professor of Educational Administration at Rutgers University. He began his career as a high school history teacher and was a founding co-director of Summerbridge Portland, an academic program that puts low-income middle-school students on the path to college and exposes outstanding high school and college students to a career in teaching. Dr. Liu holds an EdD from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he was an original member of the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers and co-authored Finders and Keepers: Helping New Teachers Survive and Thrive in Our Schools (AACTE Outstanding Book of 2005). Dr. Liu also holds an MBA and AM in Education from Stanford University, and a BA in History from Yale.
Ms. Melanie Winklosky Chief Advancement Officer As Chief Advancement Officer, Melanie Winklosky is responsible for public and private fundraising for BPE. Before joining BPE, she was the Vice President of Development and Operations at Mass Insight Education. Before that, she spent 13 years at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, including serving as the Chief of Staff to Commissioner David Driscoll. She holds a BA in psychology from Saint Vincent College and an MA in Human Development from Boston College. Ms. Winklosky currently serves on the boards of the Swampscott Education Foundation and the Clarke Elementary School PTA.
On the FY17 audit, please note that we were expecting $750,000 from our endowment to be processed in June, the last month of our fiscal year. Instead, it came in in July 2017, resulting in a seemingly large deficit in FY17. In parallel, we expect a surplus in FY18 of the same amount, assuming this year's installment arrives in June 2018.
Financial summary data in the charts and graphs above is per the organization's IRS Form 990s. Contributions from foundations and corporations are listed under individuals when the breakout was not available. Please note, per the attached IRS Letter of Determination, BPE became BPE Inc. in 2016 and received a new nonprofit status and EIN# from the IRS (81-3213571). The Form 990s and audits posted above for FY08-FY17 are tied to the organization's previous nonprofit status (22-2667403).
BPE is redesigning the urban school model to address two important and connected causes of inequity in Boston’s schools: significant variation in teaching quality, and an outdated, century-old school model, which was not built to guarantee quality teaching for every child. For every student to succeed, great teachers must work together in well-organized schools, under strong leadership, with a cohesive set of instructional practices, and in a culture of continuous improvement. Our approach calls for (1) a PreK-12 pathway of student centered schools called Teaching Academies in the Dudley neighborhood of Roxbury; (2) the preparation and support of outstanding teachers through the Boston Teacher Residency; and (3) codification and dissemination of the lessons we learn to catalyze reform across Boston and beyond.
Teaching Academies provide access to ambitious teaching, drive student achievement, and serve as a rich training ground for new teachers. Early evidence indicates that this new school model, which we are developing at BPE, is advancing these goals. In our Teaching Academies, a coherent instructional system aligns curriculum, instruction, assessment, professional development, scheduling, and more to ensure a seamless, engaging, and rigorous educational experience for students and aspiring teachers called “residents.” Modeled after the best teaching hospitals, Teaching Academies redesign how educators are organized in service of student learning. Teaching Academies are structured around teams of individuals with different expertise and experience levels who work together to ensure outstanding outcomes for all students. In our model, teacher preparation and school improvement are mutually beneficial and reinforcing. They run counter to the dominant system of teacher training, which separates the college from the K-12 school, separates theory and practice, and results in a pre-service system that can detract from student learning efforts at placement schools. Like medical residents in hospitals, BTR residents learn essential professional skills while holding specialized roles designed to significantly contribute to student learning. Residents from BTR are integrated into the life of the school from day one so that they make significant contributions to students. This critical mass has been helpful in bringing staff together around a common language, set of values, and framework for instruction.
(3) catalyze improvement of all schools in Boston.
The schools are organized around an instructional system designed to enable ambitious instruction in every classroom—instruction that consistently engages all students in rigorous content. The intentional coherence between Directors of Instruction, lead teachers, teachers, residents, data analysts, volunteers, parents, and students, along with the systems and tools to support their work, make rapid progress both possible and sustainable.
Teaching Academies have an alternative staffing model that, together with regular progress monitoring of every student, allows for students to be matched with the right instruction at the right time. We personalize instruction for all students. Students at both schools benefit from the high number and strategic use of adults, as students are taught and mentored by teachers, residents, special education instructors, and volunteers, who work together in a coordinated fashion. With coaching and regular feedback from the Directors of Instruction, teams of educators based on grade level collaboratively analyze data and plan instruction, differentiating both instruction and staffing to ensure students get what they need each day. Within this environment, residents learn not just from one mentor teacher but from a system of teaching organized around student learning.
All BTR residents are trained within our Teaching Academies for their practicum and practice-aligned coursework, allowing us to completely align the work of the residency to the work of the schools in which it functions. Embedding the residency program within our Teaching Academies creates coherence between BTR and the schools by focusing a high quality residency experience on the learning of real students in real time. BTR courses support the learning needs of students and residents simultaneously as residents take on authentic assignments aligned to the school's needs, merging theory and practice. The increased coherence between BTR and the school contributes to a more positive and impactful residency experience. BTR’s Early Career Teacher Network helps graduates to continue improving their teaching through their careers as educators in BPS.
Key programmatic elements in Teaching Academies include: rigorous coursework and out of school learning experiences in STEM; extended learning time; flexible staffing and student grouping that ensure that students are matched with the right instruction at the right time; progress monitoring of every student, done in a shared context of expectations for students and adults, including regular feedback to teachers and staff; strong socio-emotional supports; Pre-Kindergarten classes to ensure students begin Kindergarten on grade level; partnerships to support an embedded workplace readiness strategy, including internships, career pathway programs, dual enrollment in college courses, and mentorships; active Family Council and strong parent engagement; and low student-to-adult ratio, utilizing trained volunteers from BPE’s Dudley Promise Corps.
BPE's greatest assets are its personnel and partnerships.
BPE's Executive Director Jesse Solomon, and Principals Dawn Lewis (Dudley Street School) and Lisa Gilbert-Smith (Dearborn) lead our Teaching Academies. All three are experienced teachers, teacher educators, and leaders, and all have experience launching autonomous schools in urban districts. They are supported at BPE by experts in instruction, operations, research and data, fundraising, and finance. Together, BPE staff have worked for thirty years exclusively in and for the BPS. BPE's employees have developed unparalleled expertise in quality instruction, urban teacher education, school data use, and whole school improvement. Importantly, BPE's employees put context first, starting from the strengths and needs present in each school community and in each neighborhood. We have learned a tremendous amount about how to achieve success in public education, and continue to feed learnings back into our work through evaluation and continuous improvement efforts. Staff biographies are available at bpe.org.
We have worked diligently to earn the trust of neighborhood residents, students' families, and students themselves, along with teachers and administrators across the school system. Families demonstrate their trust through a lower than average student mobility rate at the Dudley Street School, high engagement rates, a 95% attendance rate for students, high family conference attendance rates, and unanimous agreement (100%) on a survey that "This school is a good place to learn."
BPE has an excellent track record in fundraising which, together with an endowment, ensures financial sustainability. In late 2014, BPE was awarded two highly competitive federal grants which, along with support from private donors, will enable us to carry out our strategy. A five year Teacher Quality Partnership grant will help BPE to continue strengthening BTR as a pipeline of diverse, high quality, and forward thinking teachers for BPS. A three year Investing in Innovation grant has helped us to redesign Boston schools into a neighborhood-based, PreK-12 pathway of Teaching Academies.
Our long term goals are for all students at our Teaching Academies to reach proficiency in English, math, and science, for all students to make at least one year of growth every year, and for all students to develop the habits of mind necessary to be successful in college and career in the 21st century. We aim to develop critical thinkers, community leaders, and creative problem solvers. Simultaneously, the schools will raise the bar for teaching quality in the district, both by preparing a cohort of new teachers every year and by demonstrating models of coherent instructional systems which other schools can replicate.
1. Serve 600 students in Teaching Academies.
2. At the Dudley Street School: 60% of students achieve proficiency or more in English and math; the school maintains an attendance rate of 95%.
4. Recruit and prepare a diverse cohort of residents; ensure each resident is ready to teach effectively upon graduation. Support a strong network of BTR graduates teaching in BPS to ensure teacher retention and effectiveness.
5. Refine and codify the Teaching Academy model and disseminate our learnings.
At the Dudley Street School, we have significantly improved academic performance and the school's culture. However, we have not yet reached our goal of 100% proficiency. At the end of the 2015-16 school year, 68% of Dudley students were reading on grade level and 81% met or exceeded growth targets for reading, according to UChicago's STEP literacy assessment system. Since our first year (2012), year-end reading proficiency rates have increased from 52% in Year 1 to 61% in Year 2, to 66% in Year 3, to 68% in Year 4. In June 2016, over one-third of the school's students - distributed fairly evenly across grade levels - were reading at least one level above their grade expectation. In writing, 70% of students scored proficient or advanced on internal end-of-unit assessments. In math, 66% percent of Dudley students in grades 1-4 met proficiency goals on the final BPS end-of-unit assessments. We will not be satisfied with our results until every student is performing at or above grade level at both of our Teaching Academies. We knew we had a tremendous challenge on our hands five years ago when our first class of first graders walked into our classrooms having been underserved elsewhere. Nearly every first grader arrived performing below grade level in reading and math. We set an ambitious target, chose an ambitious set of assessments, and have worked intently on achieving our goals, learning a tremendous amount in the process.
Before BPE assumed operations, the Dearborn STEM Academy had been a state designated “Turnaround” school for six years and was at risk for state takeover due to its inability to improve performance sufficiently. In 2015, before BPE was named operator, just 22% of Dearborn students in grades 6-8 scored Proficient/Advanced on the English language arts PARCC test, compared with 60% statewide. More alarming for a STEM school, just 13% were proficient in math on PARCC and not a single student achieved proficiency on the state science test (compared with 52% statewide in math and 42% statewide in science). In our first year operating the school, the Dearborn's score on a measure of whole school improvement (Annual Progress & Performance Index) jumped from 55 to 88, indicating we are on track to exit turnaround status. After visiting the Dearborn to evaluate BPE’s efforts, the Senior Associate Commissioner of Education in Massachusetts declared: "The walls are the same, but everything else looks different." However, we have a long way to go to build the world-class STEM school and Teaching Academy we envision. We know that we will have to continue investing great energy, attention, and resources in the academic and social culture of the school. Our goal is not just to turn the school around but to build a great STEM school that will last for generations of children and families.
We know we have much work to do on fully developing our school model. In the coming years, we will continue to build, operate, improve, and document our Teaching Academy model. We will uphold a coherent instructional system and refine it through continuous evaluation, documentation, and improvement. We will continue to shift the design of BTR to meet the needs of students in our schools. We are embedding lessons learned so far in our plans moving forward and will continue to build with the goal of codifying a replicable model that delivers improved student achievement and school-based teacher preparation. | 2019-04-18T15:03:43Z | https://givingcommon.org/profile/1101539/boston-plan-for-excellence-bpe/ |
Since 2006, I have spent time in a number of Arab cities examining youth-generated media – that which were made famous in connection with protests in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world. Youth-generated media refer to the communicative ways in which young people actively challenge the social, political and cultural spheres of power with the intense excitement of a social movement. From vibrant graffiti, protest songs and placard writings to tweets and Facebook campaigns, youth are exercising their communication rights across the Middle East and North Africa.
As the “Arab Spring” uprisings have shown, the interest of Arab youth in cultural politics is evident in the burgeoning of youth-generated media and young people’s participation in public life. Benefiting from newly introduced media freedoms, young people are engaging in both traditional mainstream and alternative media. But for years before and during the so-called Arab Spring, younger generations from Morocco to Iraq expressed their cultural politics through a variety of communication tools and outcomes.
One objective of my research is to account for the increased visibility of youth-generated media in an empirically based and theoretically inspired framework. Historically, the study of the relationship of media and youth has been largely limited to media directed at youth, rather than media generated by young people themselves – in other words, research concentrated on youth-oriented media’s effects and consumption patterns. By introducing the concept of youth-generated media, my research departs from the effects and consumption studies to examine youth cultural politics and material possibilities at this specific historical juncture in the Arab world.
My second point of departure regards the definition of “youth.” Instead of adopting the blanket 12–14 age bracket commonly applied in UN and World Bank documents, I suggest we recognize the complexity of young people’s identities. In this, I engage the sociology of childhood, which recognizes that any attempt to define youth is most often (mis)guided by an adult understanding of what being young means and insufficiently acknowledges how young people define themselves.
Third, media must be more carefully defined. Media extends beyond the traditional mass communication platforms to include a range of traditional (storytelling, poetry), emerging (tweets, posts) and culture-jamming (graffiti, flash mobs). This definition escapes the conceptual penitentiary, wherein “media” is limited to newspapers, film, TV, Internet and cellphones – all “objects” – and interpreted anthropologically as socio-technical institutions. 3 In a course I taught on alternative media in the Middle East, I encouraged students to see the human body as a tool of expression, to examine squares, cars and walls as instruments of communication, to appreciate banners and placards as meaning-making objects and to study them together with ‘media’ as traditionally defined.
To investigate this phenomenon with adequate nuance, my research is concerned with the creation and circulation of youth-generated media. What motivates young individuals or groups to engage in media development? What type of media are Arab youth creating? How do youth conceptualize, execute and circulate their media? What social, economic and cultural contexts affect these media? And what are the implications of youth-generated media on Arab discourse? To be more precise, what do young Arabs do with media, not what do media do to them?
There is ample evidence to suggest that youth make their voices heard, whether in dress, cultural preferences or everyday activities. Today’s youth, however, are exploring additional modes of expression to communicate among each other and with other social groups. This is especially the case with increased access to cheap media-making tool kits such as photocopy machines, cameras, mobile phones, computer software and the Internet.
As the means of producing media become cheaper, smaller and more accessible, youth are appropriating these tools to produce meanings in non-traditional forms.
In the process, they re-define the utility and usage of these media. Youth-generated media are not only limited to a specific social, cultural or political context.They do not only figure in industrial and developing societies, but have also been flourishing in both liberal and extremist circles.
Let me illustrate youth-generated media based on my fieldwork in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. My intention is not to compare and contrast youth in these countries. Instead, my interest is in juxtaposing some of their experiences through the development and circulation of youth-generated media.
The first case study is set against a border skirmish between the Lebanese radical group Hezbollah and Israel, which triggered a 34-day war, complete with ground battles and attacks on civilians. Unlike previous similar conflicts, the conflict commonly referred to as the July 06 War was broadcast live and featured a broad range of political views, commentary and footage. Given the amount and range of coverage, the popularity of a website like bloggingbeirut.com – which received more than 400,000 hits a day during the war period – might seem surprising. What drove such traffic?
At a cost of approximately US $600, a twenty-something Lebanese man who uses the nom de plume of Fink Ployd managed to share his thoughts, organize collective action and re-write part of the war narrative. 4 Ployd also commented on media coverage, dispelled rumors and, in the process, developed an alternative news service.
Between July 26 and August 14, 2006, a viral, open-source, guerrilla urban intervention – based on stickers marked “I ♥ Beirut” that were posted on public property – made its way across twenty five cities in the United States, Europe, North Africa and Lebanon. Appropriated from Milton Glaser’s “I ♥ NY logo,” “I ♥ Beirut” was first launched by a New York-based collective blog called The Lebanon Chronicle. 5 Ployd joined their call, reaching out to his blog’s audience to expand the reach of the campaign.
Over the next twenty days, Fink re-organized these pictures in various collages to reveal how the stickers were displayed in cities such as San Francisco, Paris, London and Auckland. The campaign also appeared in the foreign press such as The New York Times and art magazines such as Glamcult.
Referring to his blogging activities as a “news reporting service,” Ployd believed that “it was a media war with certain perspectives missing” and claimed that Blogging Beirut helped rectify the situation by offering one of those perspectives.
While power and Internet outages, lack of access, and a range of logistical problems may have hindered bloggers, Ployd insisted on providing “rich media” with photos, audio and video clips. Branding his own BloggingBeirut.com TV, he managed to produce a number of videos about life under siege.
One immediate question emerging from my research on Blogging Beirut is how young people’s often collective, collaborative and sequenced work seems an essential characteristic of youth-generated media. Ployd’s activities demonstrate one of youth-generated media’s core characteristics: its ability to develop a chain of media and other activities that work in concert to achieve young people’s communication goals.
The story of the oil spill demonstrates young people’s ability to draw attention to self-expressive stories that create sequences of actions, which involve media as well as forms of activism. Similarly, the “I ♥ Beirut” campaign integrated sequentially a number of media-related activities, from printing the stickers, claiming public space, and taking and emailing the photos to editing and posting a collage.
In the 1960s and the 1970s, citizens of Saudi Arabia were exposed to uncensored Egyptian, American, European and Indian films. Conventional movie theaters did not exist, but university auditoriums, sports clubs and tents doubled as viewing areas. At the time, the shortage of cinema halls was not the result of a particular ruling, but rather a lack of public and private investment for such projects. It was not until the oil boom of the mid-1970s that some dedicated open-air theaters became available exclusively for men.
In 1979 and following the failed siege of the Grand Mosque, public viewing of movies declined sharply under pressures for more conservative practices. 8 As a result, the film experience was limited to the privacy of homes or private theaters with the introduction of VCRs, satellite television, DVDs and the Internet. Only recently did Saudis venture into producing their own movies, which they still cannot show inside the Kingdom.
In the absence of institutions that would stimulate filmmaking, the possibilities for experimentation are increasing in a virtually vacant media space, with digital technology offering opportunities for creative or tech-savvy young Saudis. Movies in various formats are traded, copied or shared on the Internet; at the same time, young Saudis are experimenting with smart phones or home-video production kits.
The computer and Internet are taking the place that movie theaters traditionally occupied for distributing films. Once watched, these movies become the subject of online discussion groups, blogs and Facebook comments. In this capacity, new media are re-inventing the spatial and social spaces of movie viewing. But particularly interesting is the appearance of homegrown video and film production.
Educated in both Cairo and New York, Saudi filmmaker Haifa Al Mansour has been making movies since 2003. 9 Al Mansour’s first three short films reveal what Faye Ginsburg calls “cultural revival, identity formation and political assertion.” 10 Particularly interesting is her choice of topics, which echo many of the fears and ambitions of Saudi society. First, she filmed Man? (Who?) (2003), which tells the story of a killer disguised as a woman who slits a young mother’s throat. 11 Then, she shot Al-Rahil al-Murr (Bereavement of the Fledgling) (2003), the story of a child who leaves his village, vowing never to return.
Al Mansour’s choice of topics is as important as her processes of production and distribution. Al Mansour shot on location in Saudi Arabia and recruited members of her family and friends to act as crew and actors. At the expense, perhaps, of professional audio-visual quality, she selected basic equipment and trained her crew to use them. Her process shows an attempt to develop a participatory project where community stories are told by community members and viewed by the community itself.
More important, her creative distribution strategy helped revive movies as a Saudi cultural manifestation. In a country where movie theaters are banned and film viewing is restricted to the privacy of individual homes, Al Mansour and her growing Saudi supporters wanted to engage the broader community with the film’s messages. Uploaded on a website in 2003 – before YouTube was even introduced – this distribution method created a spatially and socially negotiated sphere for movie viewing. As the first female Saudi filmmaker, she is shaping a Saudi identity of producer, as opposed to consumer of films; at the same time, she is acting as a role model for other females.
Youth-generated media are subject to co-optation and dominance. Particularly alarming is how market forces threaten to assimilate young people’s practices. Al Mansour moved from being a filmmaker to film consultant to television host, only to leave Saudi Arabia and relocate to Australia. It is too soon to evaluate her recent return to filmmaking, but the marketing campaign associated with her work suggests the emergence of a market-savvy filmmaker.
Young people’s media development practices change as their cultural politics are modified or completely transformed. Fink Ployd’s website somehow went into the Internet black hole as he became disillusioned with new media’s potentials and moved to more community-based, face-to-face activities, particularly around issues of environmental protection.
As a phenomenon, youth-generated media is the result of an increased access to cheap media-making toolkits and amplified networks of media exchange and circulation of all kinds. As a concept, moreover, youth-generated media is a reflection and refraction of societal structures, political struggles, cultural tensions, economic uncertainties and new media possibilities. At the core, youth-generated media are associated with questions of economic and cultural globalization, particularly issues of dominance, resistance and hybridity.
By operating alternative and parallel networks of self-expressive media development and circulation, some young people have achieved an environment for participatory communication. In the larger project that will emerge from this research, I tell vivid stories of drag-racing video makers, the first female blogger in Saudi Arabia, video letter producers and media-event organizers. Additionally, I recount the history of young poets, pirate radio, poster designers and others associated with contemporary popular movements. In line with Freire’s argument, young people are reclaiming their rights to be treated as human beings in solidarity with others around the world.
1 See Nādir Farjānī, The Arab Human Development Report 2003: Building a Knowledge Society (New York: United Nations Development Programme, Regional Bureau for Arab States, 2003), and Human Development Report 2009: Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and Development (New York: United Nations, 2009).
2 Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (London: Sheed and Ward, 1979); John Downing, Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements (Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications, 2001); Clemencia Rodríguez, Fissures in the Mediascape: An International Study of Citizens’ Media. (Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton Press, 2001).
3 See Downing, Radical Media.
4 Fink Ployd, interview by Joe F. Khalil, February 12, 2008, and March 4, 2008, Beirut, Lebanon.
5 John Cranmer and Yolanda Zappaterra, Conscientious Objectives: Designing for an Ethical Message (Mies, Switzerland: RotoVision, 2003).
6 Ployd, interview by Joe F. Khalil, February 12 and March 4, 2008, Beirut.
7 Lin Noueihed, “Oil Spill Adds Ecological Crisis to Lebanon’s Agony,” Reuters, July 27, 2006, news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1241&dat=20060727&id=_n9TAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QoYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5148,478732 accessed August 2013.
8 In 1979, the Grand Mosque in Mecca – one of the Muslim Holy Shrines – came under attack by religiously motivated critics of the monarchy. The mosque siege was carried out by a small group of religious extremists; interestingly, their call for a halt to the cultural inundation of the kingdom by the West struck a deep chord of sympathy across the Kingdom. This event strengthened the position of conservatives within the Kingdom.
9 Al Mansour is a graduate of the American University in Cairo, where she studied comparative literature, and the New York Film Academy. She participated in an international exchange program sponsored by the US Department of State. Al Mansour’s first feature film, Wadjda, made its debut at the 2012 Venice Film Festival.
10 Faye Ginsburg, “Embedded aesthetics: creating a discursive space for indigenous media,” in Planet TV: A Global Television Reader, S. Kumar and L. Parks, eds. (New York: NYU Press, 2003), 308.
11 The story echoed a news item: an armed activist had slipped through police roadblocks thanks to a long black veil.
12 “Shooting from the Heart: Alumni Spotlight Haifaa al Mansour,” www.aucegypt.edu/alumni/spotlight/almansour.htm accessed November 11, 2009.
Joe F. Khalil is an associate professor of communication in residence at Northwestern University in Qatar and a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics. An expert on Arab television production and programming, Khalil has more than fifteen years of professional television experience as director, executive producer and consultant with major Arab satellite channels, and has conducted workshops on behalf of USAID, USIP, IREX and the University of Pennsylvania. Khalil’s scholarly interests revolve specifically around Arab youth, alternative media and global media industries. Khalil has authored a policy monograph on Arab satellite entertainment television and public diplomacy, and is also co-author of Arab Television Industries (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, with Marwan Kraidy). He is currently working on a book project based on his dissertation, “Youth-Generated Media in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia,” which examines alternative media cases in both countries. He received his PhD from Southern Illinois University. | 2019-04-26T10:20:33Z | http://ontheground.qatar.northwestern.edu/uncategorized/chapter-4-youth-generated-media-a-brief-introduction/ |
Posing for a photo after the culminating ceremony of the small business track training from left are, Dr. Ghirmay Ghebreyesus from the SU College of Business, Tallulah City Alderman Rev. Tommy Watson, Mayor Pro-Tim of the City of Tallulah Nikki Thomas, Dr. Patricia Candler, Dawn Kline, Vicki Gatherite, Patricia Thompson, SU Ag Center FCS Agent Sarah Sims; on the second row beginning on the left are Chris Herring, Madison Parish School Board Representative for District 5 Darrell Sims, Terrance Watson, Dr. Sung No with the SU College of Business, Sharon Rambo, SU Ag Center's Center for Rural and Small Business Development Specialist Eual Hall and standing on the third row is Samuel Johnson. Photo by Chris Rogers.
Baton Rouge, LA- The Southern University Agricultural Research & Extension Center and the university’s College of Business held a culminating ceremony to mark the end of their Small Business Track Training series held in Tallulah, LA on July 22.
The ten-week series was aimed at boosting the economy of Madison Parish and surrounding areas.
Thirteen current and potential small business owners received certificates for completing and attending the trainings which covered the topic of Microsoft Excel, Entrepreneurship, QuickBooks, Target Markets, Contract Procurement, Project Management and Supply Chain Management.
Business Development Specialist Eual Hall with the Center for Rural and Small Business Development at the SU Ag Center in collaboration with Drs. Ghirmay Ghebreyesus and Sung Chul No from the Economic Development Administration University Center (EDAUC) in the College of Business at Southern University’s Baton Rouge campus facilitated the trainings along with several guest speakers.
The hope is that the participants will use the information from the trainings to assist them in expanding a current business or enable potential small business owners with the skills to start a small business in Madison Parish are within the surrounding area.
For additional information on the Small Business Track Training or how to start a small business, contact Sarah Sims at, 318-574-2465.
SU Ag Center Nutrition Educator Camellia Brown, standing second from left in the red shirt, nutrition assistant Salette Tennie, standing in royal blue shirt and Extension Associate Stephanie Elwood, standing in light blue shirt on the far right, are pictured with herb garden workshop participants.
Herb garden workshop participants plant herbs in a herb bowl during the workshop.
Camellia Brown, standing in the center in a red shirt and Stephanie Elwood, standing in the center with a light blue shirt, pose for a photo with herb garden participants and their person herb bowls.
Baton Rouge, LA- Southern University Ag Center Nutrition Educator Camellia Brown, Nutrition Assistant Salette Tennie, and Extension Associate Stephanie Elwood came together to teach nutrition education learners how to make healthier food choices by using more herbs in their foods.
Brown and Tennie taught the nutrition education classes in May at Chateau des Amis, Village De Memoire and Savoy Heights Senior Residential sites in Ville Platte, LA.
To enhance the nutrition education and incorporate some hands on activity, the seniors participated in a workshop on how to grow their own culinary herbs. Each senior participant left the herb workshop with their own personal herb bowl to be grown inside or outside of their apartment. The herbs included parsley, mint, thyme, green onions, sage and more. These herbs are perennials, which means they will come back year after year and don’t need to be repurchased or replanted, and can be grown in small spaces.
With each senior planting and maintaining their own herb bowl, this ensures constant availability to healthy fresh herbs that can be used in meal preparation.
For more information about the SU Ag Center’s Nutrition Education Program in Evangeline Parish contact, Camellia Brown at (318) 964 2249 or [email protected].
The IFT Annual Meeting & Food Expo is the only annual event that brings together the brightest minds and the most respected food professionals from around the world in industry, government, and academia. Present at the meeting were trendsetters in product development, senior-level executives from the world’s top food companies, and department heads from leading universities. Participants gained technical and applied food science knowledge; connected with the who’s who in food science; discovered the latest global trends and the newest innovations; identified new suppliers and met with current ones, choosing from more than 1,000 exhibiting companies. This year’s IFT themed “Where Science Feeds Innovation,” was held July 11-14, 2015, in McCormick Place South Chicago, IL.
The Institute of Food Technologists is an organization with over 20,000 members. The IFT Student Association (IFTSA) is a forward-looking, student-governed community of IFT members.
From left, Rica Trigs, BOLD participant Leisha Cousin, SU Ag Center Extension Assistant Dana Isaac, BOLD participant JaLesia Cousin, Meagan Callier, Briana Wilson, and Kyra Turner pose for a photo after the Teen Summit on July 11 in Madisonville, LA.
RolesModels of Hope co-founder JaLesia Cousin, standing far left in white, takes a photo with youth and speakers following the Teen Summit held on July 11 as part of the Building Opportunities through Leadership Development (BOLD) curriculum.
Baton Rouge, LA- Self-confidence, empowerment and knowing your self-worth were the resounding themes of the 2015 Teen Summit held at the Historic St. James Baptist Church in Madisonville, La. on July 11.
More than 40 teens attended the summit, which was co-sponsored by the church and RoleModels of Hope, a non-profit organization established to empower young women to make better life decisions through self-development trainings.
SU Ag Center’s Building Opportunities through Leadership Development (BOLD) Project participants JaLesia and Leisha Cousin are the co-founders of the RoleModels of Hope organization.
“BOLD has provided us with the skills needed to make the dream of starting a non-profit organization a reality,” said JaLesia Cousin.
“The BOLD project has developed our leadership skills to enable us to positively impact the lives of both young women and young men in St. Tammany Parish,” said Leisha Cousin.
Southern University Ag Center Extension Assistant Dana Isaac attended the summit and was awed by the presentation.
“The Teen Summit was inspiring, heartfelt and uplifting. There were a number of speakers on the program; all of them did extremely well. The three that stood out the most were host, JaLesia Cousin, Rica Trigs and Meagan Callier. Their stories were powerful, insightful, useful to teens in high school as well as those entering their freshmen year in college,” said Isaac. “The teen summit was a blessing to me. I encourage the Cousins to continue their work with young people in the community. I was happy to be a part of their successful event,” she added.
The BOLD Project is an evaluative and technical assistance project designed to develop teams of emerging leaders who work together across racial, class and community boundaries in innovative ways to promote community and economic development in rural and under-served communities throughout Louisiana. The project was developed by SU Ag Center’s assistant specialist of community and economic development, Dr. Kenyetta Nelson-Smith.
BOLD participants are required to develop new community projects or enhance existing projects throughout the duration of the course.
The Project is now accepting applications for the 2015-2016 session. Classes will begin on Saturday, October 17, 2015 for registered participants. Interested candidates should submit an application form via email to [email protected] or print and mail to: Building Opportunities through Leadership Development. P.O. Box 10010, Baton Rouge, LA 70813.
For additional information about the BOLD Project, visit http://suagbold.org/insidebold.html.
The purpose of the Building Opportunities through Leadership Development project, developed by the Southern University Agricultural Research and Extension Center is to improve the leadership development capacity of rural and under-served communities throughout Louisiana. BOLD is an evaluative and technical assistance project designed to develop teams of emerging leaders who work together across racial, class and community boundaries in innovative ways to promote community and economic development.
BOLD is a pilot project of the Southern University Agricultural Research and Extension Center’s Community and Economic Development Office to improve the leadership and economic development capacity of rural communities throughout Louisiana.
Leadership Introduction; Leadership; Team-building; Community Vision and change; Group/Organizational Leadership Skills; Community Assessment; Motivation; Communication; and Conflict Management.
Vision: to provide Louisiana residents with the tools and knowledge necessary to become stronger, equipped leaders in their communities.
Goals: Through extensive training, exercise, skill development, and individual and group activities, BOLD participants have the opportunity to effectively and efficiently develop leadership roles in their community through a logical approach.
BOLD also enables individuals to apply learned leadership skills and principles to individuals and issues in the community, and develop teams of community residents who can work together to address community concerns.
Pictured from left are, Beatrice Cummings, Dr. Ghirmay Ghebreyesus and Dr. Sung No, both from the SUBR College of Business, Town of Ferriday Alederman Elijah Banks, Eual Hall with the SU Ag Center and Ferriday Mayor Gene T. Allen.
Members of the Southern University Ag Center and the College of Business held a meeting with Ferriday Mayor Gene T. Allen to introduce a 10-week business development training for small business owners.
Baton Rouge, LA- Eual Hall, Business Development Specialist in the Center for Rural and Small Business Development at the SU Ag Center, and Drs. Ghirmay Ghebreyesus and Sung Chul No from the SU College of Business held a meeting with the Town of Ferriday Mayor, Gene T. Allen and members of the town’s council on July 22 to introduce a small business development series.
The 10-week training series, called a small business track training, will focus on small business development, record keeping and Microsoft Excel.
These trainings are being proposed as a means to boost the economy of Ferriday and surrounding areas.
For additional information, contact Mr. Hall at 225.771.4105.
Baton Rouge, LA - Tiffany Franklin, a 4-H state Citizenship Washington Focus Coordinator at the SU Ag Center accompanied a delegation of six youth to the 2015 CWF in Washington DC, July 12-18. Four of the youth represented East Baton Rouge Parish and two St. Landry Parish. The National 4-H youth who attend the CWF program are usually selected by 4-H state or county coordinators.
Citizenship Washington Focus is a week-long 4-H citizenship program for youth ages 14-19. CWF provides opportunities for young people to: Strengthen communication, leadership and other citizenship skills on a national level; Understand the importance of civic and social responsibilities as they relate to the development of better citizens and leaders; Exchange ideas, practice respect and form friendships with other youth from diverse backgrounds.
Franklin can be reached at 225-771-2242.
Southern University System Celebrates 125th Anniversary of the Signing of the Second Morrill Act With Other 1890 Land-Grant Universities in Washington, D. C.
Southern University System President/ Chancellor Dr. Ray Belton, standing second from far right, poses for a photo with the presidents of the 1890 Universities in Congress' Agriculture Committee Chamber.
Southern University Ag Center Vice Chancellor for Extension Dr. Gina Eubanks, SU System President/ Chancellor Dr. Ray Belton, SU Ag Center 4-H Life Coordinator Tiffany Franklin, Director of the SU Ag Center's Southwest Center for Rural Initiatives and Youth Specialist Dr. Wanda Burke and SU Ag Center Interim Chancellor Dr. Adell Brown take a photo with the youth participating in the 4-H Citizenship Washington Project.
Individuals visit the Southern University Ag Center display during the 1890 University Exhibit on July 15 in the Madison Building of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Baton Rouge, LA- Southern University System President/ Chancellor Ray Belton and several members of the SU Ag Center and Baton Rouge campus participated in the Capitol Hill celebration of the 125th Anniversary of the Signing of the Second Morrill Act of 1890. This Act created land-grant universities for African-Americans.
The celebration, which was held in Washington, D. C. from July 14 – 16, 2015, provided an opportunity for the presidents of the 19 Historically Black land-grant universities to testify before congress on the accomplishments and importance of each institution. The universities also participated in an exhibit displaying their campus academic, research, and outreach program offerings.
The event concluded with a convocation in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Jefferson Building in the Library of Congress. Convocation speakers included U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack, U.S. Congresswoman Alma S. Adams, and U. S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service Administrator Audrey Rowe.
Carolyn Robinson, SU Ag Center's Associate Area Agent of Family and Consumer Sciences in East & West Carroll and Morehouse Parishes was elected President of the Louisiana Extension Association of Family and Consumer Science.
Baton Rouge, LA- Southern University Ag Center’s Carolyn Robinson, Associate Area Agent of Family and Consumer Sciences in East & West Carroll and Morehouse Parishes, has been elected President of the Louisiana Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (LEAFCS).
Robinson was installed as president-elect of the association during its Annual Convention held at Hotel Mazarin in New Orleans, May 4-6.
The LEAFCS is a Louisiana State University organization which empowers Extension educators to enhance their leadership skills, effect change, and focus on professional development.
It is the Louisiana affiliate of the National Extension Associate of Family and Consumer Sciences (NEAFCS). Its mission is to educate and provide recognition to Extension professionals who positively impact the quality of life for individuals, families and communities where they live.
Robinson will serve a one-year term beginning in May 2016.
For additional information about the Louisiana Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences, visit http://www.lsuagcenter.com/en/administration/about_us/professional_organizations/leafcs/.
Baton Rouge, La - The Southern University Ag Center opened its door to summer campers from the Jewel Newman Community Center for a tour of the model garden on July 10, 2015.
Chaperons from the Community Center brought 21 youth enrolled in their summer camp, ages 5-13, for a visit to the Southern University Ag Center’s Sustainable Urban Agriculture Demonstration Farm. The youth enjoyed the model garden with a show and tell tour presented by Zanetta Augustine, associate extension specialist. An excited group of young boys and girls explored, touched and talked about vegetables, chickens, rain water tanks, composting bins and even trying their hands at planting seeds in the greenhouse, among other educational questions and discussions. They went home with a bag of informational goodies from the SU Ag Center.
The Jewel J. Newman Community Center functions as the focal point of social, medical and recreational activities for citizens in the North Baton Rouge area.
The Southern University Ag Center’s Sustainable Urban Agriculture Demonstration Farm is a show-and-tell garden is for the public. This educational garden gives information on vegetable varieties, planting instruction, composting techniques, and other relevant information. Farm tours are available throughout the year.
The garden is maintained and nurtured by Dawn Mellion-Patin, PhD, Extension Specialist, and Zanetta Augustine. To schedule a tour, please contact Dawn Mellion-Patin or Zanetta Augustine at the SU Ag Center by calling 225-771-2242.
Dana Isaac, SU Ag Center Extension Assistant, receives a certificate of appreciate from Shatonda Chandler, Family Advocate of the Prescott Early Head Start, after making a presentation on the Youth Organizing Leadership Opportunities (YOLO) Program on June 24, 2015.
Communities of Color Network Regional Coordinator, Frankie Poland receives a certificate of appreciate from Shatonda Chandler on June 24 after speaking to the school's parents about the dangers of second-hand smoke.
Baton Rouge, LA- Southern University Ag Center employees Frankie Poland and Dana Isaac made presentations during the Monthly Parent’s Meeting of the YWCA Prescott Early Head Start, 5262 Prescott Rd., on June 24, 2015.
Poland, who is the Regional Coordinator of the SU Ag Center’s Communities of Color Network, discussed the dangers of second-hand smoke and provided examples of how non-smokers come in contact with it; such as being in a room with someone who is smoking or in a vehicle. She also listed all the harmful chemicals found in cigarettes and explained how smoke can linger in carpets, drapes, clothing, hair and other items.
Isaac, who is an Extension Assistant for the SU Ag Center, made a presentation on the Youth Organizing Leadership Opportunities (YOLO) Program, which helps young people make better choices; teaches parents stress triggers for youth; behaviors parents should be aware of and tips for teens on how to cope with stress.
The parents and staff that were in attendance were very engaged and asked many questions. They also received information on second hand smoke and tips on how to help teens cope with stress.
Both Poland and Isaac were presented with Certificates of Appreciation by the YMCA staff.
Frankie Poland can be contacted at 225.771.6237 for information on the Southern University Ag Center’s Communities of Color Network. Dana Isaac can be reached at, 225.771.3902 for information on the Youth Organizing Leadership Opportunities Program. | 2019-04-25T04:34:39Z | https://suagcenter.blogspot.com/2015/07/ |
A bread maker can produce bread that’s a lot tastier in comparison with the normal store-bought loaf. Additionally, you receive the delightful smell of baked bread which could easily enhance the mood. The bread maker is a flexible appliance having the capability to mix, knead and bake the bread.
The very best and most obvious advantage of owning this sort of kitchen appliance is the capacity to produce fresh-baked bread in your home. This offers a superior flavor and quality that’s favored over the store-bought alternatives, which often has a quite manufactured taste.
By preparing the ingredients to the bread, you get far better control over what’s contained in the food you consume. This is especially valuable for those subject to allergies. Beyond removing the ingredients which can cause an allergic reaction, there’s also the option to add flavorful ingredients like sunflower seeds, seeds and dried fruit.
There’s minimal mess Once the components are prepared and poured in, it’ll conveniently combine the dough prior to baking. Plus, the majority of these makers incorporate the easy to clean removal pan, so clean up following is a relatively quick and effortless job.
The majority of the high-end manufacturers are made to have a versatile role and may take far more than just bread.
They are developed to be very user friendly even for those who have hardly any experience in baking. Once the components are prepared and poured to the manufacturer, it’s only a case of setting the timer and leaving it to inhale the perfect loaves. Additionally, most manufacturers include a set of recipes which make it really simple to ascertain the best ingredients to use.
Possible to save money The bread maker can easily prepare the healthful breads such as the whole-wheat bread and fermented bread. While the initial investment could be costly, over the long term, your bread maker can be extremely affordable provided it can be used on a regular basis.
We all know it is crucial to maintain the cleanliness of an office. A clean office creates a fantastic impression on your customers, whether they’re your vendors, clients, etc.. A neat and well-maintained office provides a sterile environment for the employees. However, in spite of the size of the workplace, maintaining cleanliness can be a daunting task. Luckily, there are professional companies offering general cleaning services for the upkeep of the office.
Why is cleanliness important for an office?
When an office is clean and neat, employees are not as likely to fall ill. This reduces the number of sick leaves by employees in the organization leading to better productivity.
In order to make certain that the cleaning is performed on a regular basis, it is an excellent idea to hire a professional company. These solutions can be hired on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. The professional cleaners maintain neatness of your reception area, restrooms, kitchen area, etc.. The overall cleaning services ensure that each of the dustbins are emptied and all surfaces dust-free. Even the carpets in the office need to be vacuumed regularly to maintain them.
A general cleaning services company ensures regular cleaning of your premises. On the other hand, if you have your own staff cleaning the premises, the cleanup may not be routine if your staff needs leave.
General cleaning businesses have a professional approach. They’re experienced in their job and know all the areas to be coated.
Professional cleaning companies use the most recent equipment to maintain your premises.
These businesses use cleaning compounds that are safe and effective for humans. These companies use certified Squirrel Poop-friendly cleaning agents.
They supply office cleaning services in timings convenient to you. They could wash your premises after office hours so that your functioning is unaffected.
For instance, if there is spillage in an industrial shop floor, it might cause workers falling there.
If you’re seeking Leon Valley Wildlife Removal, it may interest you to know what type of wildlife you may encounter when you’ve bought and moved into your new house. There are plenty of very beautiful and intriguing wildlife in the vicinity of the Island.
There are a huge number of animals and birds and lots of diverse species; there are tours of the Bahamas which allow tourists to see that this collection of different sorts of creatures. There’s a portion of the island that has flat land and is salty with little hilly areas. This is ideal for the wild creatures; there are several tropical plants in this region also.
The Hutias are just another creature which may be found on the island, they’re rodent like creatures and have the appearance of little beavers with no tail and large teeth, and they can be anything from 20 to 60cm in size. There are 20 distinct species of the animal although half of them may now be extinct. They obviously make nests in trees or rocks and are often herbivores; Cubans search these animals for food and cook with honey and nuts. When taking a trip to observe the wildlife at the Bahamas tourists can expect to find all types of different species such as frogs, cash bats, raccoons, snails and snakes, even though there are no poisonous snakes on the islands they’re there to keep the rodent population down, are seen as quite useful creatures. There are various diverse Zoos on the islands that can be visited too.
Underwater of course there’s a rich selection of Aquatic life as you’d expect there are lots of tropical fish and also lobsters. The Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, it’s a special attraction as it’s guarded from the Bahamas National trust so that fishing is prohibited here and this has been shown to be beneficial as more and more of those species are reaching maturity in this area. The best way to experience the park is to employ a Kayak and let a guide to take you out on the clear waters, this way you can see and experience all the incredible creatures of the sea and land. Diving is also allowed in the region and is famous for enthusiastic divers who would like to explore the marine life close up there are loads of places which anglers are allowed to swim although since the park is protected there are a few places that are limited to protect the wildlife.
With more and more of the natural habitat disappearing, wildcats, in addition to many other kinds of wildlife, are coming in closer contact with man. Find out More about the wildcats of North America.
He’s also the only species of wild cat that’s not currently on the endangered list. The bobcat and the Canadian Lynx are occasionally though of as the exact same animal. They’re both of the same household but different species. The bobcat is about double the size of the average house cat. They get their name from the brief, black-tipped tail that seems to be”bobbed” or cut off. The”tufts” of the ears are now used like hearing aids and they have excellent vision. At once the bobcat’s land was broad spread of the US, but their number have diminished through the years. Bobcats are nocturnal creatures and are seldom seen by humans. The bobcats diet consists of mice, rabbits, squirrels, reptiles and fowl, including the farmer’s cows. They are many times considered as a nuisance and are taken by farmers. Many hunters will also kill a bobcat since they consume the quail, pheasant and chukka that lots of hunters take for sport.
Lynx – The lynx is truly the bobcats”cold weather” cousin. The European and Asian lynx are bigger that the North American species, the Canada lynx. The Canada lynx are usually found, of course, in Canada and the colder parts of the usa. The Canada lynx is about the exact same size as the bobcat, and it has tufted ears also. Their toes are used as”snow shoes” and are bigger and have more hair for extra insulation from the cold and snow. There’s a correlation between the amount of snowshoe hares and the people of lynx. As the amount of snowshoe hares decrease, so do the amount of lynx. The larger Eurasian lynx will search for deer in addition to smaller animals.
Ocelot – The ocelot is sometimes referred to as the”Painted Leopard”. At one time they could be seen throughout the southwestern areas of the usa. However because of their attractively spotted fur, their numbers have been greatly reduced and has put them on the endangered list. Sometimes you may see the ocelot in Arizona or portions of Texas. They are most frequently found in Mexico and northern parts of South America. They are primarily nocturnal and solitary creatures. The ocelot has brief tawny or reddish brown fur with black spots and rosette shaped markings. Their face has two black stripes down each side along with their tail has black bands. They may be seen in the trees, stalking birds and monkeys. Unlike most other cats, they do not obey the water and can swim very well.
Mountain Lion – The mountain lion goes by many names. They are located mainly in the southern and eastern areas of the US, such as the swamps of Florida. They weight approximately 120-140 lbs. Mountain lions prefer to prey on deer but may also attack and consume coyotes and other mammals such as raccoons and porcupines. Their range was removed in the Midwest and Eastern US, though there are small populations returning the states like Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas. Mountain lions are known to attack people. But, statistics show that on average there are 4 strikes and one death annually in all the US and Canada. Mountain lions are more likely to attack someone who’s alone or a little child.
Few people will really come in contact with one of these wildcats in their natural habitat, but at least now you know a bit more about these great creatures.
The Rocky Mountains offer some of the best wildlife viewing opportunities in Canada, if not North America. For lots of people spotting wildlife may be the highlight of the trip. When it is a grazing elk, a whistling marmot or a black bear playing it’s cubs, you’re certain to encounter many wild creatures.
Also called’Whistlers’ due to the shrill, whistle-like sound they make. They’re photo-friendly animals who live high in the alpine.
Place them: High mountain paths; often on peak of the Jasper Tramway on Whistlers mountain.
Appropriately named because their horns are enormous, they are usually used as a sign of the Rocky Mountains.
You may have to look up to see them because they prefer the inland regions, particularly cliffs or steep slopes.
Grizzly bears (or brown bears as they’re sometimes known) are possibly the most infamous of all creatures in the Rockies. They are recognisable by the large hump in their shoulders, although you likely won’t need to get close enough to detect it.
To make matters confusing they also are often brown in color. Maintain your eyed open and return!
Recognisable with their enormous antlers and bulbous nose, moose are often quite timid animals. During mating season (October – November) they could become more competitive, and you might hear them making a very loud, peculiar bellow as they attempt to attract a mate.
Elk are quite a frequent sight in the Rockies and they frequently seem fairly tame as they graze nonchalantly from the roadside. It is worth giving them a wide berth however, especially during the breeding season (fall) since they’ve been known to strike.
This game has over 13 million monthly players and is regarded as a favorite MOBA. This game requires players to show some tactful thinking and they must perform actions such as killing their creeps to be able to prevent their opponents from gold harvesting or delivering things to themselves on the battlefield by using a’courier’ rather than returning to base. World finals of this game garner multi-million dollar prizes. You can download this game for free and get started playing right away.
This is perhaps among the most popular games on the planet at this time and contains roughly 100 million exceptional players on a monthly basis. This doesn’t even include the eSports elements that is also growing in popularity. In fact, this game has become especially interchangeable with the MOBA genre. There are approximately 130 playable champions with different game modes and maps that help with keeping the game fresh and exciting year-on-year.
This is one of the latest games in this category and is the job of Epic Games, the company that launched Gears of War and Unreal Engine. It is one of the most graphically impressive games at the moment and everything from the attack animations to the surroundings is very detailed. A third-person perspective is used in this game, but the mechanisms remain the same as all others; it is all about destroying towers, pushing lanes and destroying the enemy base when using cards for boosting your skills and moving up levels.
If you are interested in pitting the likes of Zeus and Thor against one another, then the ideal MOBA for you is Smite. The game features a broad array of deities which go against one another in a three-lane arena. A third-person perspective is used in this game also, just like Paragon, which may make it difficult to stay aware of your surroundings. However, the different viewing angles enable you to execute moves that couldn’t have been made differently. For instance, Thor can launch into the sky and come flying down and crush his enemies with his hammer.
This was the first MOBA-style game and has expanded greatly since its introduction as Blizzard continues to introduce new heroes to its lineup, other than using characters from its other games. However, it does not have any items and players simply upgrade their skills as they move up levels. There are also various maps that add some spice to the match.
The goji berry is not new by any means. In actuality, mention of this small fruit packed with nutrition was found as far back as the 7th century. Those most familiar with the goji berry are individuals who reside in Asia and the berry has been used for decades in Chinese medicine. The advantages the fruit is thought to possess include enhanced vision and liver function, in addition to having the ability to increase the immune system. Some talk of the goji berry as having aphrodisiac powers and others cite cancer-fighting properties.
Well, the reality is that for all we want to consider the goji berry for a miracle cure to our woes and disorders, for the most part it’s essentially like any fruit. However, medical studies have shown that goji increases the body’s creation of a unique enzyme which reduces the probability of weight loss loss by inhibiting lipid peroxidation. Studies also show that goji’s flavenoids shield against narrowing of the arteries and its polysaccharaide molecules and antioxidants help to fix free radical damage, especially in alzheimers sufferers.
Nutritionally, goji berries are a excellent option, packing tons of carbohydrates and protein that make it a fantastic snack food. As a juice, more of the vitamins remain intact and the goji berry is surely a wholesome choice for a drink. Dried, the fruit can be added to foods or sprinkled on dishes for a splash of coloured. Goji berries may also be appreciated raw.
Not sour; not overly sweet. The goji berry definitely expands the selection of healthy snacks and beverages our body needs for nourishment and can be enjoyed by people of all ages. Replacing soda pop with goji berry juice is a intelligent option, and chips may take a backseat with dried goji berries available.
The way to know if a woman loves you? It’s actually quite straightforward. You just have Animal Removal to know what the signs are. Women who are in love act in a certain way. Once you know the proper things to look for, you’ll be amazed that you never noticed them before. In actuality, you may look back and slap yourself on the forehead when you realize how many women were in love with you before. Keep reading for the definitive guide on the best way to know if a woman loves you.
When a woman loves you, her friends know all about you. In actuality, she probably goes on and on about you more than they even want to hear about. Still, they’re going to be glad for her that she is in love. They’re also likely to know all kinds of details about you, both things that are happening between you and the woman who’s in love with you, in addition to other private details that no second-degree familiarity would ever understand. Examples include your favorite foods, stories about things that happened to you at work and basically anything else that a girl who’s in love with you would notice and think is important, even if no one else did.
1 way to find a girl to chase after you? Get her to fall in love. When a woman falls in love with a guy, few things are going to keep her from getting what she wants. Women are very purpose-driven and resilient in this regard. If she is making it known that you’re the man that she wants, both in word and in deed, it’s a pretty clear method of how to know if a woman loves you. Women are generally not so forward in chasing after guys that they aren’t in love with.
The Saturday night date isn’t enough anymore. She wants more and more of your time. Maybe she wants to come by after work to make you dinner. Maybe she wants to meet for coffee during your lunch break. The specifics don’t really matter. The point is this: When the girl is always looking for more and more of your time, this may be a sign that she’s in love with you or on her way there. After all, if she were only casually interested, she would not feel the need to go for more and more of your time.
Likely daily, in some form, you hear that nothing but the best will do. Frequently, you then hear a description of Orlando Animal Removal what is the best. This notion that there is better, better than you have, or better than you even imagined, often comes out of a product marketer who seeks to sell you something. You may not buy the merchandise, but did the marketer sell you doubt (about yourself)?
Statistical averages of measurement on many subjects, including individuals, tend to show a normal distribution of the subject as a single bell curve, where the median is a line drawn down from the highest point in the curve to the base. For a population of people, we would expect to find most people to be at this point and within the bell of the curve. The best people would be where the curve tapers into the right and the worst where it tapers to the left. From this place of discussion, we could go anywhere, but I want to point out to you that the average is a fantastic place for people to be. That’s where most people are, with their family, their friends, and their coworkers.
Happiness may not accrue to people who embark on being the best at anything. We respect those who become the very best of something, but we also see quite often that people who reach the best, become profoundly unhappy because they don’t know where to channel the drive that got them to their personal pinnacle of accomplishment.
The art of the typical life is how one lives it every day. It’ll be better if you have principles, an inherent morality upon which you anchor yourself and others that matter to you. Are you an average person who can’t find time to play with your loved ones and friends because you have another job, attend night school, commute two hours to work every day, or live vicariously through a video game? Maybe you should check your face to see if a smile is there.
Can A Lounge Suite Work In A Bedroom?
In the movies, this was considered a fashion statement that just the popular people would do. In reality, it is a possibility but you need consider a few factors when it comes to having a lounge suite in a bedroom.
Lounge furniture would be present in many sections of the house if the family lived in a mansion. These mansions were so big that walking all the way to the family room was a little journey in the event that you wanted to enjoy a relaxing moment. Television also was not a characteristic that these homes had so a personal living space was used as place to have discussions.
Bedrooms have been made smaller to a standard size. In such bedrooms, a double bed, side tables, dressers and wardrobes or built-in cupboards are usually all you can fit in a normal size bedroom. Should you have additional space, it could be used for a small sofa or an arm chair.
Essentially, bedrooms are no longer as big and if you require a bigger room, you may have to build it. Then you could specify the size of the space based on all of the furniture you want to place in it.
If you would like to have a sofa package in your bedroom, then here are few factors you will need to consider.
You will always have your very own personal living space to yourself – many times we just need to sit in our rooms and read a book in peace.
It provides comfort to your own lifestyle – a sofa in your room is terrific for comfort. You could sit on the couch if you would like to watch television. It is also a comfortable place to get dressed and put on your shoes.
It adds style – the lounge suite adds glamour and style to your bedroom.
It is suitable for families – some parents struggle with their kids always coming into their bedroom in the middle of the night. The couch will give them a soft surface to sleep on instead of between them on the bed.
This set up requires a whole lot of space – a sofa suite isn’t a small piece of furniture so it will take up considerable space in the bedroom.
It may develop into a resting post for clothes and other items that are not in use – we tend to break our clothes and other possessions on surfaces so that we remember to put them away the next day. The only problem is that many folks forget to put these things away.
A lounge suite is a luxurious popular furniture item that is great to have either at the lounge, TV room or in your bedroom.
Posted on June 13, 2018 Leave a comment on Can A Lounge Suite Work In A Bedroom?
Are You Missing This Essential Step in Your Beauty Routine?
If you’re like me you’re a regular in the cosmetics aisle. Perusing the shelves, sampling the latest in lipstick formulas, eyeliners, and foundations in search of a flawless finish. Some people fell in love with makeup whilst creating a mess at our mother’s dressing table and ladies, some people never grew out of it.
But being the makeup junkies we are the process of taking off it is just as important if not more than the practice of putting it on. An impeccable beat starts with a perfect base that can only be the result of skin that has been properly prepped by removing dirt, oils, and residue daily.
That is why a terrific makeup remover is crucial!
As someone who enjoys a complete face of glam, I learned the hard way that all makeup removers aren’t created equal. I used makeup remover wipes every evening before cleanup and would ignore the smear of foundation that would be on my towel after drying off, not believing that if there was cosmetics there then there was makeup left over on my head also, seeping into my pores and leaving room for germs to grow.
Luckily there are tons of methods for makeup removal besides remover wipes including cleansing balms, oils, gels, dissolving sprays makeup removal sticks.
So after a stint of migraines, I decided to update my approach and went with a recommendation from a trusty Ulta employee. Sister to the cult-classic Lancôme’s Bi-Facil Double-Action Eye Makeup Remover, the Lancôme Bi-Facil Face Bi-Phased Micellar Water Face Makeup Remover & Cleanser has totally changed my makeup and skincare game.
I know, it’s a mouthful, but this baby is seriously strong! The oil dissolves any makeup on the skin, then the micellar water cleanses and removes excess residue before you even rinse with your cleanser, which means no more lingering makeup in your towels.
Don’t get me wrong, I still keep makeup remover wipes by my mind or in my purse for those nights I’m too tired to do my whole routine. My favorites are the Sephora Collection Green Tea Cleansing & Exfoliating Wipes for skin, which can be soothing, meant to be mattifying and good for acne-prone skin.
In the long run, it doesn’t matter which method you choose, find the best products that fit in with your lifestyle, just ensure that you have one that eliminates all lingering residue, trust me, it is game changing!
Posted on June 13, 2018 Leave a comment on Are You Missing This Essential Step in Your Beauty Routine?
Regardless of the summer heat, a lot of runners still want to keep their healthy routine. Although the heat can seriously affect running performance, there are several ways you can counteract the consequences. Here are seven hacks for running during summertime.
Run at the coolest time. One of the hacks that you can do to prevent the summer heat is run during the coolest point of the day. Good thing, free software and a few apps can show the temperature highs and lows for the day or even for the week so that you can schedule your run so. Normally, sunrise and sunset would be the coolest times. But because weather changes can be abrupt, it’s best you check an app.
Try to find a dishonest alternative route. Every runner has that favourite route. But when it comes to extreme weather conditions, you might require an alternate route to keep you safer from the elements. During summer, select less open routes. Settle for more shades, like areas with more trees and buildings. These days, there are apps which can calculate the distance of the route using GPS. Use the app to find the distance. That way, you still receive the exact space you run in your normal route.
Wear sweat wicking clothes. Even by regular standards, sweatpants and baggy clothes are a no-no. You don’t want them flapping around, then heavy and sweat-soaked in several minutes. Fortunately, sweat-wicking clothing are now available in stores. Brands like Adidas, Nike and Under Armour have running apparel which takes sweat from your body and lets it evaporate inform of your laundry. This way, you’re cooled off, feel more comfortable and lessen your risk of being exposed to bacteria build up. The majority of these clothes are lightweight and fashionable, adding more appeal to the technological advantages they already provide.
If you’re clothes are on point, you shoes should be too. Wear running shoes that are lightweight and made from breathable materials. These type of shoes allow your feet to’breathe’. Good flow prevents hot, sweaty feet and germs. Heavy and stiff shoes typically wear you down. Light and flexible ones let you accelerate and move better.
Consume additional water. You shed around six to 12 oz of fluid for every 20 minutes of running. Pre-hydrate until you run. Drink an extra glass of water. Look for potential’hydration’ channels as well. Drinking fountains in the road, or even a convenience store you can buy some water or sports drinks.
Wear sunscreen. The sun’s rays are good for you. Don’t forget to apply some sunscreen. Even a thin layer with a high SPF will help protect your skin from specific cancers and diseases.
Run by feel. For sure you have a target pace, time and distance that you want to attain. But before you try to accomplish that, get the feel of your run. The heat and humidity will affect your performance despite of your best efforts. So don’t force it. Acclimatize by running at a slower rate. Fix on the fly. If it feels you’ll be exerted twice the effort just to attain your goal, tone it down a little. Don’t force anything. Work on your goal slowly but surely.
Percolation is just one of a few ways to brew coffee. Other methods include French press and auto drip. While most of them result to a caffeinated drink that many people love, the flavor they create have been contended with for many years.
Looking at the advantages and disadvantages of each method would have been a nice read while consuming your cup of coffee, but we will just keep it brief and concentrate on coffee percolators in this post.
Percolator coffee pots are generally constructed with or without its own heat source. The ones with an integrated heat source are electrically powered. You just plug them in and you’re all set. To the contrary, the ones without a heat source are typically place on a stove or a campfire. They are ideal for outdoor use and possibly, the only kind coffee machine which you could use off the grid.
Now, let us look at the most popular coffee percolator brands and discover why end users love them.
The Farberware brand has existed since 1899 and is a recognized name in the cookware market. The Yosemite is Farberware’s effort at bringing back to basics the enthusiastic beverage drinkers of today. The company claims that brewing coffee this way extracts a fuller and richer flavor.
Durable interior and overall construction.
Presto has been in business since 1905. The company specializes in making pressure cookers, but it has expanded to other cookware throughout the years.
The Presto 02822 is a 500-watt electric percolator that claims to make great tasting coffee fast. Why is it that users love it?
A coffee percolator doesn’t have all the bells and whistles which an automatic drip coffee maker has. The majority of these machines are easy and require a certain amount of focus to operate. But in the long run, it is all about the flavor. Many aficionados swear by the flavor that a percolator creates. After all, what good is java if it tastes like sand?
Most individuals identify themselves as animal lovers. In fact, according to the Insurance Information Institute, 60.2percent of American households have a puppy and over 47% have a cat. Not to mention reptiles, birds, and other large mammals! Although animals play a large part in our lives, different causes may cause an animal to attack.
In 2017, the city of San Antonio, Texas has seen an influx of roaming dogs which has become problematic for the United States Postal Service (USPS). In a news segment on KENS5, it was reported that San Antonio ranks #11 in the nation for dog attacks on postal workers.
Prevention is key: Animals will normally give warning signs before attacking. Growling, hissing, arched back, and reduced ears are just a couple of the signs that animals give us when they feel threatened.
For puppies: Don’t approach an unknown dog, don’t make eye contact, and back away slowly.
For cats: Walk away when they start showing aggression (i.e. increased hair, arched back, thrashing tail, etc.). Give the animal an opportunity to calm down before trying to interact with it.
Wild animals: Keep calm, make yourself look larger than you are, and back away slowly. Never run from a wild animal; this may trigger their instinct to chase.
Get to security: Put as much distance between the victim and the animal as possible. Use your own body, clothing, or items such as a purse or backpack to keep the creature from attacking vulnerable areas like the neck and face.
Assess the situation: based on the animal and the chances of it being vaccinated, you may or may not need medical aid. If the wounds aren’t too deep, the animal was vaccinated in the previous 364 days, and you are up-to-date on your tetanus shots, you may safely cleanse the area with soap and water, use an antibiotic ointment on the injury, and bandage it up. Seek medical attention if the injury becomes red, painful, or swollen.
Know when to seek help: Seek medical attention immediately if the victim has deep wounds with excessive bleeding, becomes feverish, or is attacked by an animal that has not been vaccinated in the previous year. Many animals carry dangerous diseases which could lead to infection and, in some cases, even death.
When someone is attacked by any animal, timing is crucial. Save yourself precious time by familiarizing yourself with the areas of local hospitals like the Physicians Premier San Antonio ER where help are available 24 hours a day.
Make certain to check out our Physicians Premier Blog for different strategies and information on health and wellness.
Are you distracted? Discover it difficult to focus on the challenge at hand because of the fact your mind wanders, you worry too much or have a lot of stuff to do that you may not calm down and give attention to that one thing?
Getting adequate relaxation is critical to improve your focus and concentration. Try and spend the last hour of every day unwinding or engaged in comfort centers. This also allows you prepare for sleep which is enormous in enhancing focus.
To focus higher through the day, include a few physiological sports in your day by day routine. A median of 20-30 minutes of sports like swimming, walking, yoga and biking a day can work wonders.
Human brain needs lots of proper fat to work nicely. Inclusion of more fats in your diet, such as: nuts, coconut oil and egg improves your concentration.
Keeping all informations needed for an activity prepared can help out with decreasing viable distractions and confusions, and making certain you don’t be concerned about forgetting something. When you realize that you have the entirety at one place, your thoughts are free to be at the present moment.
Create your environment carefully and purposefully. Do not try to study with the tv on. Switch off your e-mail after checking it in order that upcoming emails don’t distract you. Be stern with all the distractions and you’ll see the benefits promptly.
Once you have the ability to try out this often, you will most likely be able to recognize your patterns of distraction.
Together with break, additionally it’s necessary to provide the body and brain some rejuvenation. Identify a few activities that give you a quick increase of electricity and include them in the routine. Taking a fantastic few hours on your own can recharge you, fuel creative creativity and help you get new perspective.
When people are faced with daunting tasks which will take a lengthy time frame, it makes it very tough to concentrate. Some type of timer are indicated to plan the next break. Look at a reasonable time to sit down and then place a timer for the timeframe.
That is quite powerful and simple. Observe your inner thoughts, your emotions, your feelings, your moods, your weaknesses as well as your strengths. Watching your inner world will eliminate your interruptions and it’ll improve your focus. You will have more self-control in you, it is going to raise your confidence.
Another activity which will help in gaining clearness and upping your ability to focus is to assume or visualize someone working with your position in a great manner. Think about what they might do in another way, and in the event it’s possible to absorb those characteristics.
Some people don’t like where they work… at all. They might even despise who they report . And since their work environment is indeed”poisonous”, they choose to withhold their very best quality of work. “THIS PLACE doesn’t deserve the best I have to offer. I will come to work, only do what’s expected of me, collect my paycheck, and go home.” Do you know anyone like that?
The problem with this line of thinking is that if you choose to give the bare minimum, then finally you will be comfortable giving the bare minimum. Yes, you would have unknowingly formed not only a habit, but a bad habit. At some point, you may not even know what excellent work resembles… and start to think that you’re not capable of being excellent. To be excellent is what you are called to be, and to be exceptional is exactly what you’re called to.
During a recent hotel stay, I decided that I wanted to have some hot tea late one night. As it was a limited service hotel, ordering room service wasn’t an option. The employee explained,”Our restaurant has already closed, so tea will be available in the morning for breakfast”. Click.
Now, I obviously knew that warm water and hot water had to be accessible somewhere on the property, but I decided to wait and talk to the manager in the morning. When I spoke with the manager the next morning, he had been upset about what happened and even showed me the employee mini-break area that was just a few feet behind the front desk. The break area had a fridge, and the refrigerator was piled with… wait for it… tea! All kinds of tea.
A) He legitimately didn’t know there was tea accessible (yeah right).
B) He’s just comfortable working within the strict parameters of his job.
C) He does not like his job where he works and has chosen not to do one more ounce than he absolutely has to.
You can’t permit anyone (or any work environment) to rob you of your zeal to be exceptional. As difficult as it may be, you have to push through any disdain you might have and honor your function, honor who you are serving and honor yourself. Sooner or later, each person has to make a decision about how exceptional he/she wishes to be, regardless of the work environment. Finally, it can be very fatiguing to continuously strive for excellence in a work environment that you can’t stand to maintain.
If that’s the case, see if you can address your discontentment with the proper people, or find someplace else to do the job. Search for a business which has values which mirror your own.Ultimately, it’s important to work for a company that you believe in.
Some people have a habit of adjusting their support based on how important they think a particular customer is. One of the reasons that’s so dangerous is because you never know that you’re serving or what their situation may be. We have no right to deal with anyone as though they are”a client”. Every customer has a story and it is our duty to honor that customer regardless of what the story could be.
Never again be lulled into the fallacy that it is OK to give the bare minimum. Savagely battle that fallacy with everything you’ve got. Be exceptional regardless of the work environment. Stephen Covey wisely wrote, “Be an island of excellence in a sea of mediocrity”. While that certainly can occur, try to find a team, manager and business that enable you to work among many islands of excellence in an ocean happy to have you there.
In the end, service has a purpose, and a noble purpose at that. We serve because functioning is a fantastic thing, and great things are worthy to be exalted. There is significance to your role. There is purpose to your role. If you really know what that means, then you have the capacity to impact lives, one client at a time.
The game of boxing is being adored by all and sundry. The game is highly appreciated across the globe among its trillions of lovers. There’s lot of action, thrill and excitement associated with this sport. This is surely the deadliest game in which the lives of the fighters are at the stake.
In order to provide complete safety to the boxers, the complete assortment of boxing equipment is available in the market. These are specially manufactured accessories that are widely used during the practice and game.
These are essential to wear during the game as well as while performing practice. The bare hand fighting provides more harm and damage to your system.
The boxing gloves manufacturers are providing comprehensive range of their products. These are specifically created collections. These aren’t designed in the kind of the weapon to provide injury to the opponent. These are made as a protecting shield to protect the hands of the fighters throughout the game. Furthermore, these also help in supplying impactful blows on the opponent without providing any damage to the hands.
There are basically two kinds of boxing gloves available in the market. One category is referred to as lace up gloves while the other is known as velcro gloves. The lace up gloves contains the laces and need assistance to tie the laces. These provide a complete covering for the hands and also provide stability to the players during the game. They shield the hands of the players throughout the game from any external harm. Another category that’s highly demanded among the skilled boxers is velcro type. These are thought to be more secure as compared to the laced ones.
These are manufactured using synthetic rubber or leather. In inner layer includes the cushioned material which helps in protecting the hands of the players. They do so in order to provide excellent quality to the goods. Moreover, they also rely heavily on the advanced machinery for stitching. This ensures durability and assists in boosting the life span of the product.
These are specifically created collections. The manufacturers create these collections on the demands of the traders. They supply custom label related to the name on the scope.
There are various manufacturers that are offering their collection. The boxers along with the traders and sellers should buy the range from the manufacturers. The cause of this is that by the manufacturers you can easily get the range at competitive prices.
The marketplace is flooded with a variety of lighting options, but the ones that have recently gained great popularity are the LEDs that are Light Emitting Diodes. LEDs are easy inventions in the lighting industry but with great potential. With an increasing need to safeguard our natural resources, it has become our prime responsibility to begin contributing to the global shift. LEDs have been known as more energy efficient alternatives to the traditional lighting systems and are a lot more controllable and visually appealing than compact fluorescent bulbs. LED lights are also cool to the touch and do not contribute to growing in temperature in your home.
Another spike in the performance and overall appeal has been made by the introduction of smart lighting options that allow lights to be app controlled. This opens a whole assortment of opportunities that you control in addition to decorate your space with lights.
Visual Cure: The wise LED lights when put at the right place, with a right Color temperature range, make your space a visual treat. The magnificent colours, the assortment of lights and various shades create a excellent effect together. You can even choose colour schemes to suit your mood or theme of the event. Your selection of LED lighting for home can be lots of fun only if you choose to invest in the lighting solutions of tomorrow.
Lifespan: Smart LED lights have a tendency to have a longer lifespan compared to other traditional sources. They last almost as much as 25 times longer than incandescent bulbs.
Expensive yet cost-effective: Since the technology is still in its initial phases, the relative utilization of smart LED bulbs is a costly affair. But running for a longer lifespan and saving more energy makes up for your initial investment. They come in various forms and sizes such as tubes, pots, panels, strings etc.. The most popular one is the way they are used in the form of flexible strips which are used to illuminate the edges, corners or circled around any object.
Easy installation and outreach to dark distant corners: The smart LED lights being thin and flexible can reach various such places where normal traditional bulbs can not reach, like drawers, cabinets. This very property makes them incredibly useful, as they assist and shed some light under your bed or in the back of your fridge, where it might have been hard to place any light otherwise. It basically refers to the coolness or warmth of light. New York City Raccoon Removal lights can easily emulate daylight, or be a cool white, or a hot white or various other temperature settings. This Color temperature range helps in setting the warmth and general feel of this space. They come in every color from ultra-violet and deep blues to warm reds and luscious greens. Adding them not only changes the colour of your space but also the temperature.
Control Gear: you can easily set up for a control gear system that is remote technology to easily operate these wise LED lights of your entire space with the support of a remote, making it smart in every sense.
By utilizing the above-mentioned properties, the wise LED bulbs work good for people who would like to change the overall appearance of their interiors. These lights if placed properly, illuminate and add extra features to your space by tapping to it and offering you full control.
Care has to be taken while choosing the lights too, depending on the space you’ll use it like your living room, kitchen, bedroom or any other room. Every space has its own set of prerequisites and additional features. For Ex: a living room being such a location you obtain maximum visitors, should have an ambient light environment. But you could always surprise your visitors by creating beautiful designs and intriguing ceiling lights. By this, you’re meeting your requirement of lighting along with great designs and beautiful features.
If you fancy yourself a nature lover, there’s a habitat for elephant seals along the California coast that you will not want to miss.
During the December to March mating season, you will find docent led nature walks at Año Nuevo State Park where you can learn all about the habits and habitats of one of nature’s most enormous creatures, the elephant seal.
The main attraction is always the fantastic northern elephant seals that can weigh 2 1/2 tons each, but other visible species include sea lions, New York City Raccoon Removal, otters, and harbor seals.
It’s fun to see the huge bulls fight for dominance on the beach and strut their stuff to attract the bevy of ladies in-waiting. At the end of the party, lots of the females – pregnant in the year before – give birth in the sand. Then it is off to the ocean until next year’s call to revelry.
Hunted to near extinction in the nineteenth century, the elephant seal population dwindled to about 100 animals. Protected by the American and Mexican authorities in the early twentieth century, the population has rebounded to some 150,000.
The first elephant seal sightings in Año Nuevo began in the 1950s. The first pups were born on the mainland in the 70s, and from the mid-90s, the amount of local births was in the thousands.
In March, and after the main group has departed for parts unknown, the pups and several hundred elephant seals continue to rest and recuperate along the beach and molt – not as lively as breeding, but still worth seeing.
Be forewarned, on hot sunny days, there is nothing quite like the aroma of a molting elephant seal.
Just off the mainland sits Año Nuevo Island. The barren and wind-swept island is home to the remains of a 19th century lighthouse. The historical keeper’s house shown above was constructed in 1872, and now provides shelter to a variety of Cormorants and Sea Lions.
You will walk around 3-miles during a tour at Año Nuevo. Wear comfortable clothes, especially shoes, as your guided walk will take you over varied terrain including sand dunes, and you know what it is like to trudge in sand.
Also, wear proper headgear since the tours go, rain or shine – and umbrellas aren’t permitted.
NOTE: There is an accessible boardwalk via van for those needing mobility assistance. Ask for details when buying tickets for.
For more information about visiting with the fascinating elephant seals, check out the park’s website.
There’s also a worthwhile Marine Education Center located inside the park boundaries with interesting animal, plant, and geological exhibits, together with information about the colorful history of the area.
Treat yourself and your family to a trip with the magnificent elephant seals.
Missing somebody is a strange post. It is about mourning another that is not present any more in your life.
What should you do to get over them? To not consider them any more. It is not easy to mourn another yet here’s a way to do so. Mourning another is to get over the values that they helped us to deal with. If these were all the demands you’re mourning I do not envy you yet this was a powerful powerful person that you are mourning if they fulfilled these needs of yours.
That’s what they did by satisfying Fort Lauderdale Wildlife Removal. They were a wonderful person to know. No wonder you miss them, you mourn for them.
What you need to do is to compose these qualities they satisfied for you. Whether it was love, heat or joy.
Then name the feeling that has been assisted to gather around that quality like fun, closeness or enjoyment. Now you’re remembering the goodness that they gave to you. Do not be scarce with your time.
What you are doing is bringing these needs which were suited for you, they would be making your happier because your needs are bringing these feelings back to you. You may be over joyed as you feel the richness of these values being fulfilled again.
Remember the experiences in your day and feel happy again observing this person. Your needs are being satisfied again from the memory of the friend or relative of yours. It’s all in your mind.
Everything you experienced here is a remarkable innovation by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg. He taught Nonviolent communication to millions over the years. He brought peace to a lot of nations and their people by learning these communication skills. He has brought much peace of my life too.
Posted on June 13, 2018 March 7, 2019 Leave a comment on Do You Miss Them?
Our bedroom is a sanctuary that holds in its center our joys, tears, worries, and several secrets. Away from the prying eyes, a husband and wife share their lifestyles and quality time in this room, and that’s the reason why the colours used in a bedroom must be given a thoughtful consideration.
Every colour holds a different meaning, and if you are soon getting married or recently got married, then you have to go through this list to determine which colours would you pick to your new bedroom. As important as the colour is, the paint company you select would also define the last effects. Therefore, as soon as you pick a colour, but it only from Lantana Bat Removal.
Brilliant pinks, reds and oranges: They may sound from the league, but using them with neutral colored furniture and upholstery will help soften the edges and they won’t overwhelm you.
Sky white and blue: Cool blue with white is a classic combination, not to forget visually soothing, that will keep you refreshed and lively. For a scrubbed clean look, choose other things in the bedroom which complement these colors.
Cheery yellow with grey: Yellow in every tone has the capacity to rise and shine. The gray here will give the yellowish colour a perfect background to remain subtle, which makes it ideal for a bedroom. This colour combination is contemporary and friendly at the same time.
Spring green and sky blue: Setting the benchmark of elegance since the dawn of time, you may keep either one as the wall color, and accessorize the room working with the other colour.
Aqua and citron: These two colours are just what you need to breathe life into a neutral area. Embrace few patterns to add some more character to them.
Two-toned neutrals: Pairing two neutral colours gives you ample of options to play with accessories in vivid colours. Grey with taupe, tan with ivory, or cream with charcoal, you have many choices to pick from.
Over the last 5 years or so, comic book based movies have burst into the collective consciousness of theatre goers everywhere. From Batman and Superman, to anti-hero protagonists like The Punisher and Deadpool, these movies are revolutionizing the concept of a personality”Universe” in which all the movies, heroes and villains, and settings occur within one giant world. It can be daunting to try and figure out everything but fortunately you can learn a lot through these 3 basic concepts. Here’s the beginners guide to superhero films.
Iron man starts the creation of the Marvel Universe in which you’re introduced to Tony Stark, the genius billionaire scientist who is revolutionizing the military with the creation of his new weaponry. In this first film, you see the rise of Stark Industries as well as the production of Iron Man. As the plot twists and turns between fighting terrorism on a global scale, betrayal within his own ranks, and conflict with the government and other superhero associations, you start to construct the cities and world in which we find lots of the comic book stories.
After Iron Man 1 and 2, The Hulk, and Thor, you are introduced to the concept of the Avengers with the introduction to Captain America in his first film. He is rejected over and over again until he’s accepted into a super soldier program that turns him into Captain America. Leading the fight against the HYDRA corp, Captain America takes on evil and becomes the first Avenger from the sequence.
In 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy goes on to become a massive blockbuster hit. Incorporating many of fresh characters from the Marvel Universe, this movie also expands the potential for worlds in addition to incorporates a new flavor of humor and brevity to it. It links and ties the entire world of Thor into other films and maintains many storylines from other films. With its humor, incredible weaponry, Lake Park Raccoon Removal, jokes, and amazing soundtrack- Guardians of the Galaxy took the Universe into a whole different direction and depth.
Not all Marvel story lines come in theater movies. Some became very popular series’ on internet film streaming sites. Daredevil became an instant hit with its hard hitting plot lines, back stories, and fantastic acting. Occurring in new cities and enlarging the protagonists’ worlds and preferences, these distinct sets of series did a great job setting up for later movies.
Spider-Man Homecoming, although not the latest movie, seems to be the most recent in terms of building the Marvel universe. Peter Parker is striving to utilize his new found spidey senses once and for all. However, with great power comes great responsibility and Peter begins to realize that being Spider-Man is more than simply using your powers, it takes maturity, self-control, subject, and decision making skills that no mere adolescent – no matter super powers and abilities – can make by themselves.
If you love comic-book based movies, use this manual for you watching in the proper order to maximize your understanding. | 2019-04-20T00:48:26Z | http://manleyoutdoors.com/author/admin/ |
It's Here 2018 NGS Registration!
I have been waiting for this ever since I learned that the National Genealogical Society's 2018 conference will be held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, my home state.
The schedule is filled with excellent topics and speakers. The track of lectures include Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) Skillbuilding; Immigration and Migration; Methodology; Paths; Trails, and Waterways; State Research; Military; Technology; Occupations; DNA Discoveries; Religion; Ethnicity; Michigan; Records; African American; Tips and Techniques; New York; Repositories; and Organizations. I am going to have a hard time selecting the lectures to go to as I have highlighted two to three lectures for each time period that sounds interesting. Speakers are local, regional, national and international in fame! Their biographies are included in the registration information.
If attending lectures isn't enough, check out the key note speaker-John Philip Colletta! I have heard him speak and he is a dynamic speaker. Don't sleep in on Wednesday morning and miss "Coming Along the Towpath: The Erie Canal and the Peopling of the Great Lakes State" Michigan population exploded once the Erie Canal opened. Many Michigan settlers came from the New England States and New York via the Erie Canal. Dr. Colletta is a must hear speaker, no matter what time of day he speaks.
Another not to miss event is the exhibit hall. I am already saving my pennies (and more) for this. The exhibit hall is the place to see the latest in genealogical goodies. Exhibitors and vendors will be displaying everything from the latest tech gizmo's to books to luggage tags, maps, and more. Organizations will be available to answer questions, offer mini classes and demonstrations on a variety of topics and more. It is the place to go. I would recommend scheduling one lecture time just for the exhibit hall. You will want to visit the exhibit hall more than once. Just like Chicago voting, go early and go often. Popular items will sell out.
Another popular event is the luncheons. Various organizations sponsor lunch each day. You get a great lunch, meet great people, and hear another lecture. The first national conference I went to my strategy was to attend everything I could afford. I ended up being exhausted by the end of day two. I would suggest attending at least one luncheon and reserve some down time, especially if you plan to go to any of the evening events.
Speaking of evening events, Society Night is on Wednesday, 2 May 2018, from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Representatives from various genealogical and historical societies will be available to share what their society has from memberships, research sources, historical places, and publications. My local society, Calhoun County Genealogical Society (CCGS), will have a table. CCGS will have Calhoun County Pioneer and Early Settlers list; Fort Custer German POW photographs, list of Calhoun County resources and more. Stop by and say hi!
The Michigan Genealogical Council (MGC)will have a table as well. MGC supports its member societies and will have a map with all the member societies in Michigan, as well as information on each society.
Another evening event will be held at the President Gerald R. Ford Museum. Attendees will be able to view the museum, hear the Schubert Male Chorus and enjoy dessert with host society Western Michigan Genealogical Society.
All of the above information and more can be found in the registration brochure. Early bird registration ends March 20, 2018, so save yourself some money, for the exhibit hall, and go register!
You have to come visit my home state of Michigan from May 2-5th for the 2018 National Genealogical Society's "Paths to Your Past" Conference. It will be held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a beautiful city on the Grand River. Western Michigan Genealogical Society, which I am a member, is the host society. I will be there, will you?
I had free accommodations lined up and was so excited because that meant I had more book money! But, as all plans go, they are subject to change. A family illness means that I will be staying in one of the host hotels, Courtyard Marriott. The Amway Grand Plaza was booked. I looked into other hotels and the savings wasn't enough to warrant having to drive into the city.
Michigan is a beautiful place to hold a Spring Conference! The weather should be mild, nice enough to walk outside, but not too humid or hot. If you are lucky the tulips will be blooming in Holland, MI, only about 40 miles away. There are so many places I could recommend that I could write a blog a day for the next six months. Instead, I will say, check out Pure Michigan, the official travel and tourism website for Michigan.
Grand Rapids is a great place to bring the spouse and kids. It has great golf courses in the area, great food, great beer, great children's museum, gardens, cemeteries, libraries, historical museums and more. The beautiful Lake Michigan shoreline is less than an hour away. The water will be too cold to swim in, but the sights are magnificent, seeing a beautiful sunset is a must.
The Library and Archives of Michigan is in Lansing, Michigan, which is less than 70 miles away. Both are the absolute best for family history research. Michigan has so many great research repositories. I will be sharing some in the months ahead. If you can't wait that long, check out "Michigan Resources" tab at the top of my blog home page.
Feel free to email me, if you have any questions about Michigan research! Come for the conference and stay for the beauty that is Michigan, My Michigan. Now, what to do to earn book money?
Recently, I celebrated a birthday, my 60th, to be exact and that is all I have to say on the subject. Gift opening was particularly fun this year as I was able to add three books to my genealogy library, thanks to my hubby, Kirk.
1. Professional Genealogy, Edited by Elizabeth Shown Mills. I have been contemplating becoming more involved in the professional side of genealogy. I have spoken at a few genealogical society meetings and enjoyed it. I thought it would be a good time to read this book. I haven't decided if I want to become certified or not. I enjoy researching my family but I don't know if I would enjoy doing it professionally. Whether or not I become a 'professional' genealogist, this book has a lot of information on how to research professionally.
2. Scottish Genealogy by Bruce Durie. My dad's grandfather, David Watt, came to Canada, and then Michigan, from Methil, Fife, Scotland. Once I have a free afternoon, I plan to explore his Scottish roots and this book will help in the process.
3. Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland by Bryan Sykes. I am interested in my DNA since my parents provided the spit for their DNA tests. I purchased more tests after a recent DNA sale at Ancestry. My daughter and I tested. I have one for my son, but with the aftermath of the Houston flood, I decided to wait to mail it to him. My dad is 85% Great Britain, 5% Scandinavia, and 6% Ireland. I tested as 46% Great Britain, 23% Scandinavia, and 9% Ireland. My daughter, to my surprise, tested 28% Scandinavia and 27% Ireland. I decided with that much Great Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia in our genes, this would be a good book to read.
1. Ancestral Trails by Mark D. Herber-another Great Britain reference book.
2. Land and Property Research in the United States by E Wade Hone. I have been immersed in Vermont land records and trying to figure out where Daniel Fenn purchased seven lots from the seventh division in Shoreham, Addison, Vermont. I have the record of his selling them in 1813, but cannot for the life of me find the purchase. I am guessing it has something to do with the changing boundary lines for Vermont and the New Hampshire grants and possibly New York records. I had looked at this book a few times in the library and decided it would be a good addition to my library.
The Newberry Library used book sale is held in July every year and my husband and I usually go to it with my daughter and her husband, who live in Chicago. I look forward to it every year. This year I was having some stress related stomach problems and I couldn't go. My wonderful daughter went and looked at the genealogy sections. She bought the following books. Isn't she wonderful?
1. Scottish Tartans-an interesting read on the clans in Scotland. My Watts are even in the book.
2. Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry by Katherine B. Cory.
3. Tracing Scottish Local History-Scottish Record Office by Cecil Sinclair.This book even includes great notes from the previous owner on researching Scottish records.
It looks like I will be doing some Scottish research soon. I am tired of Vermont land records, anyway! My family knows me well and can never go wrong with a good genealogy book.
Are you curious about what books I have in my genealogy library? Check out "My Library" page at the top of my blog.
Previously, I wrote about my son, Travis, and his wife, Alayna, heading home to Houston for the first time to see what damage Hurricane Harvey had done to their home in Houston.
They were one of the fortunate ones! Thankfully, their home, cars and pup, Caesar, were all undamaged. I am one grateful mother. I was worried for a week about what they would find once they got home.
The devastation that was wrought by Hurricane Harvey is unimaginable. The news stories are filled with the damage Harvey had on the area. The news stories are filled with the spirit that is alive in Houston as well. I speak of Houston because that is where my son calls home. The damage is more widespread than Houston. It is all along the gulf from Rockport, Texas to Louisiana.
It is expected that recovery will cost about 190 billion dollars. Those in the flooded areas have seen great losses. Entire neighborhoods, schools, libraries, banks, stores, and businesses are dealing with the damage left behind.
One of the things my son said is that there is an army of volunteers ready and willing to help those impacted. The "Cajun Navy" arrived to help those trapped in their homes. FEMA, Red Cross, Salvation Army and others are there to help. HEB, a local grocery store, was one of the first to bring semi loads of food and water to the area. Houston Texans football star, JJ Watts, through his foundation has collected over $17 million that will help in the recovery efforts. Jim McIngvale, aka Mattress Mack, opened his Gallery Furniture stores to those in need of shelter. The reports of those helping is everywhere, these are just a few that make the headlines.
My son, and his wife, arrived home on Friday night. Saturday morning, they were headed to Lowe's to pick up supplies for a friend. They were heading to her house to help. Sunday morning found them volunteering in another area. Nothing makes me prouder than to know he is helping those less fortunate. Travis and Alayna know how fortunate they were and want to help.
My daughter, Kirsten, and her husband, Chase, who live in Chicago, have donated to Austin Pets Alive, an animal shelter that is helping with pet evacuations from Houston and finding shelters to take them in. Our whole family knows our story could be entirely different.
My hope is that the spirit of giving continues for months to come as the Houston area is going to need help rebuilding for many months, if not years. I know I will be giving. I have a lot to be thankful for that my family was spared the worst that Mother Nature has to offer. I won't forget those who weren't spared. I hope you won't either.
I woke up Friday, August 25th feeling like a weight had been lifted from my chest. My stress level lowered immensely. I was happy! My parents, after three months of preparation, were safely ensconced in an independent senior living apartment. I knew they would be safe and secure. If they needed help, it was available. I felt like I had energy to do a few things that I had let go over the past couple of years. Well, you know what they say-"we plan-God laughs".
Intersection of Braesmont and Braeswood, Houston-about 4 miles from Travis and Alayna's home.
Never did I think that a once in a 1,000 years flood would hit the area of Houston, Texas during my planning! Houston, the town my son, Travis, and his wife, Alayna, and my grand-pup, Caesar, called home. No matter how old your children are you never stop worrying about them. Anyone who has seen the news in the last week has seen the devastation that Hurricane Harvey wrought on the area.
Luckily, my son, who is an assistant athletic director at Rice University, was traveling for work when Harvey hit shore. He had the trip of a lifetime. He traveled with the Rice Owls football team to Sydney, Australia for the Sydney Cup where Rice University played Stanford University. It was an awesome opportunity for Travis.
Alayna, his wife, had a wedding to attend in Connecticut. They had a reliable dog-sitter, Elizabeth, who it turns out was God-sent. They were safe, but unable to return home to Caesar and their house.
Travis arrived to the United States and was redirected to Fort Worth, Texas where he and the Rice contingent have been staying since Monday. Alayna was able to fly to Dallas and Monday night they were reunited. They knew the dog sitter had taken Caesar to her home, which was a upper level apartment and prayed all were safe. They had no way of knowing what condition their house was in as they had just moved there in July and didn't know the neighbor's phone numbers. Roads were impassable. They were glued to the news, social media, and area flood maps looking for information about their neighborhood.
As I write this, Travis and Alayna, are preparing to board a bus to return to Houston for the first time since Harvey hit. They have no idea what they will find once they get to their house. I have been a nervous wreck worrying about them. Travis does a great job of keeping me informed, but it is not the same as being there to take care of them. Once a mother, always a mother!
I sit patiently (okay, I may be stretching the truth a little) and wait to hear from Travis and Alayna and the condition of their home. I am preparing mental lists of items I can take to them, if needed. My husband and I are ready to jump in the car at a moment's notice to help with the clean up.
I have researched disasters and the impact they have had on my ancestor's, but I never thought I would be recording a monumental disaster that Hurricane Harvey is for a descendant, my son, no less.
Travis and Alayna are only two of the thousands of people affected by Harvey, but they are the two most important ones in my life. Relief efforts are underway across Houston and the United States. Many, many people are volunteering to help those who need it. I am just waiting for my turn.
Spring cleaning isn't something that I normally look forward to, but the time had come to go through my office and organize books. I had books stored on the floor and wanted them on shelves. Most of the books on the floor were recent purchases and I wanted to use them before I put them away. I decided it was time to put them away. I rearranged my books a little and did some spring cleaning of my office. I don't know about you, but once I decide to clean that leads to cleaning the whole room, minus the closet. That is a project for another day.
This is one of the bookcases I have. It doesn't hold a lot, but it fits in a very narrow space that I have next to my desk. I organized the shelves by category (top to bottom): General Research Help; England, Scotland,and Ireland; Germany; Europe (Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, and Poland); United States (Illinois, New York, Michigan); and Military.
I have another bookcase for all my New England books, including all my Great Migration books. I have a few leftovers that I need to find room for and I will be done.
The new books are books that I purchased because there was a sale online, or in the case of Bernese Anabaptists, I was at the Clayton Library for Genealogical Research, in Houston, Texas and they had a sale section.
Please check out the "My Library" page tab and if you see something you would like to know more about email me, or leave a comment. I am happy to do look ups, if interested.
One spring cleaned room down and a few more to go. What about you, do you Spring clean?
Julie Cahill Tarr posted on her blog today, What Happened to Genealogy Blogging? She shared statistics about blogs in her blog reader and how many bloggers hadn't posted in awhile. She asked her readers who write blogs to leave comments about their reasons for not blogging.
Julie's post led me to check and see when I last blogged. Gasp! It was August 23rd, almost 8 months ago. Although I haven't blogged in awhile, I have been busy with genealogy type things.
Visiting my fourth great grandparents, Alexander and Sarah (Salisbury) Glover, gravesite and my fifth great grandparents, William and Elizabeth (Beal) Salisbury, gravesite at Joslyn Cemetery, Phelps, Ontario, New York.
Exploring the Hingham, Massachusetts area, including a visit to the Hingham Historical Society's Heritage Visitor Center, which was temporarily housed at Talbot's Headquarters. A blog post in itself!
Exploring Cape Cod cemeteries-Old Cove Burying Ground in Eastham; Old Town Burial Ground in Sandwich; Old Burying Ground/First Parish Cemetery in Brewster.
Meeting "Life from the Roots" blogger, Barbara Poole for the first time.
Spending many hours in Plymouth, Massachusetts seeing Plimouth Plantation, Mayflower II, Pilgrim Hall Museum and all the historical sites around Plymouth.
Researching at New England Historic Genealogical Society library for two days, including a consultation with genealogist Rhonda McClure.
Sitting on the cellar hole steps of my fifth great grandparents, Moses and Hannah (Santclare) Poor in Salem, New Hampshire.
Researching and exploring the areas of Pittsford and Shoreham, Vermont. I visited cemeteries, libraries and historical societies in the area.
Touring Fort Ticonderoga to see where my fourth great grandfather, Hopkins Rowley, raided the fort as part of Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys.
Researching at the Leahy Library of Vermont History Center in Barre, Vermont.
This above may have been enough of a reason not to blog because I came home with many records to analyze, but ten days after my vacation I had thumb surgery! I wasn't able to use it for almost three months! I am still rebuilding strength in that hand.
The holidays came and went as I was recovering from surgery. January rolls around and I found myself providing care and support to my aging parents. My parents, who still live independently, needed a little help as my dad found himself in and out of the hospital with low hemoglobin and low blood pressure. Other parental support came in the form of visiting senior living options for them and presenting them with a few options, which they are still deciding on.
These are a few of the reasons I haven't kept up on my blog. I guess I have a good excuse for neglecting my blog. One thing I don't like to do is to blog unless I know that what I am posting is quality material and for me that takes time. Time which has been short in supply the past eight months.
I can't guarantee that I am on the way to regular blog posts, but Julie's blog post got me thinking about my blog, and that is the first step to more posts. | 2019-04-21T06:17:56Z | http://www.journeytothepastblog.com/2017/ |
Resigned for Gatekeeper v2/Yosemite (again). Sorry for the issues with the first signing!
Added option (not) to include extended forecast in weather notifications.
Adjustments to iTunes Radio Notifications.
Erroneous trial expiry at launch really, truly fixed this time.
Fixed issue whereby trial expired notice erroneously came up at launch on many systems.
iTunes Radio notifications now displayed.
Removed extraneous system logging on quit related to removing cached Yahoo Upcoming images.
Removed support for Yahoo Upcoming because Yahoo shut down the service in May 2013.
Fixed image display for Google News feed notification.
Fetches twitter image if user home page is entered with "#!" in the URL.
* Please note: there are some known issues remaining.
Dynamically changes buttons, menus, tool tips, etc., according to the system version.
Refers to iCal or Calendar and Address Book or Contacts and to-dos or reminders as appropriate.
Fixed a bug related to counting Contacts/Address Book timeouts.
Fixed bug that prevented further 4info notifications entirely after encountering a bad search term.
Improved logging related to 4info searches.
Fixed notification display of (and plugin access to) event locations.
Changed "OmniGrow iCal" plugin to "OmniGrowl Events" plugin.
This will (most likely) be the last release to support OS X below 10.6 and PPC.
Signed with Developer ID for Mountain Lion Gatekeeper support.
Growl 1.3+ no longer required to be located in /Applications.
Updated to Growl Framework to 1.2.3 for legacy Growl support.
Woot now displays product image by default (can be turned off).
Fixed OED Word of the Day in cases of only one definition.
Fixed rare undefined variable error.
Fixed timestr undefined error shown in debug logs only.
Provisional Mountain Lion support requires ML Dev Preview 3 or higher.
This will be the last release to support OS X below 10.6 and PPC.
More updates coming soon for full Mountain Lion support.
Initial support for Growl 1.3 (Mac App Store version), pending SDK release.
Interface changes related to menu bar version of Growl.
Removed "Faux Tiger" debugging control, as it was obsolete.
Still more Lion compatibility improvements.
Changed "update" menu item to provide download as well as payment option.
Fixed GeekTool integration with Mac App Store version of GeekTool.
Added clarification about song titles on iTunes custom notification panel.
Fixed flight status notification interval slider text.
Tweaked some interface and documentation wording to reflect Lion changes.
Reduced Address Book timeout errors related to custom dates.
Added hidden preference to set how many (if any) timeouts to allow before automatically quitting.
Fixed: power status notifications were shown even when power check option was off.
Note: the initial release of this version was inadvertently Intel only. A universal binary version was released at 7 pm EDT on Aug 15, 2011.
Fixed add found artwork to iTunes album, which was broken since iTunes 10.2.
Each track is now checked for iTunes artwork (rather than only once per album) under specific conditions.
This check each track feature can be disabled with a hidden preference (See Advanced Info).
Improvements to OED Word of the Day parsing.
Eliminated extraneous console debug logging related to AMG.
Fixed Birthdays within 3 days notifications for iCal and Address Book.
Fixed rare -4960 error involving weather (hopefully).
Tightened error trapping for weather, traffic, and ambient news.
Added Show Last Notification option to Actions menu (and Immediate Actions scripts for those using background mode).
Daily notifications for pending to-dos up to 60 days prior.
Add recently shown concerts or Upcoming events to iCal.
Added support for concert notifications from bandsintown.
Bandsintown supports a radius around your location.
Revamped and expanded holiday notifications.
More holiday greetings including those for some specific countries.
Special advance reminders for Mother's Day and Father's Day (US only).
Holiday greetings can be turned off from within OmniGrowl.
Type of holiday greetings can be set according to "persuasion" for for U.S.
Holidays no longer shown again if OmniGrowl launched more than once on a holiday.
Added a few more major countries to the country popup menu.
Added holiday test function to Test tab.
Improved OED Word of the Day reliability and formatting.
Improved GeekTool integration performance for image updages.
Switched Traffic Reports from (defunct) Yahoo Traffic to reliable MapQuest.
Traffic can now set a radius (5-100 miles) around U.S. zip codes.
Provided option to display date and time ranges of traffic incidents or not.
Fixed daily MacZot, OED, and Woot, which would only appear one time per launch before.
Added several more major non-US holidays (specific to country setting).
Now includes time (duration) and release date keys.
Now possible to exclude disc number lines when both disc number and total discs are 1.
Fixed OED Word of the Day.
Show disc numbers and disc counts that = 0 as 1.
Ability to remove entire line when disc number = 0.
When selecting local iTunes artwork from several files, better at getting the cover by the file name.
Added hidden preference to set a minimum dimension for local artwork image files (defaults to 200), before checking iTunes and/or the internet.
OmniGrowl now supports the new MobileMe Calendars (and other* CalDav calendars)!
OmniGrowl now properly recognizes when MobileMe / CalDav calendars are enabled (checked) or disabled in iCal.
New feature by popular demand: same-day notifications for all-day events, iCal birthdays, and Address Book birthdays and custom events, and Yahoo Upcoming events.
Same-day event notifications ("Event today...") are on by default but can be turned off on the Personal Tab under the clock.
iCal birthdays are consistently treated as birthdays and not also as regular all-day events.
Improved GeekTool integration handling when iTunes is paused remotely (ie, iPhone) while Mac screen saver is active.
Created special notification type for "Holiday" notifications which can be turned off in Growl, by request.
Checks for Growl installation at launch.
Improved error trapping when caching calendar events.
Improved performance in some areas.
*For non-MobileMe CalDav subscriptions (such as those from Google) to work with OmniGrowl, please subscribe to individual calendars rather than adding them as delegates.
By popular demand: customizable iTunes full notifications descriptions.
Default full notifications can now use either artist or album artist (when available).
Improved notification display for radio streams (full and basic).
iTunes icons updated for iTunes 10.
Eliminated 4info messages that say "didn't return results".
4info site changes caused 4info notifications to update too frequently. Fixed.
Eliminated unintended console logging for MacZot.
Updating from some OmniGrowl 3.x versions resulted in a variable error. Fixed.
Added different kind of internet connection dropped/resumed notification when both check internet connection and check network status changes notifications are on.
Previously, when check network status changes was on, notifications would only be shown when a valid IP was lost or regained.
Now internet checks more aggressively check for an active internet connection.
Fixed a MacZot formatting issue.
bug fix: Yahoo Upcoming API key could not be verified on 10.5 Intel systems and possibly other configurations.
Removed redundant GeekTool refresh which generated excess system logging. This requires GeekTool 3.0 final (if using GeekTool 3 integration).
OmniGrowl 4.0 is a MASSIVE update that took many hundreds of hours of work to complete.
With this major update, OmniGrowl now costs $12.
This is a $6 PAID UPGRADE if you purchased OmniGrowl before January 1, 2010.
Major addition of Events tab, powered by Yahoo Upcoming (with your own easy-to-get API key).
Notifications of events in 12 customizable categories by current location, supporting both U.S. and international cities.
Notifications of events on your personal Yahoo Upcoming watch lists and friends' watch lists, as if they were iCal events.
Completed Upcoming events and Pollstar & last.fm concert notifications (by default) can persist across launches of OmniGrowl.
OmniGrowl 4.0 is now a regular, visible dock application (by default).
This eliminates cumbersome method to quit and open preferences from the scripts menu.
Dock visibility is only available on Leopard & higher; for Tiger it is background only as before.
Full menu system implemented, making immediate action scripts mostly unnecessary.
Pause & resume all notifications from the window or menu.
Preferences are now automatically saved every 15 minutes, rather than only when window closed or application quit.
RSS presets auto-fill twitter user timelines, @mentions, and #search terms.
RSS presets auto-fill Netflix Shipping & Facebook (when already logged in to those sites with Safari).
Twitter profile pictures cached and refreshed every week, with manual refresh button when editting twitter RSS feed.
Twitter feeds for @mention and #search presets show profile image of the original poster.
Again corrected twitter RSS feed headline/content redundancy.
Completely re-wrote major parts of the Instant RSS handling.
More accurate sorting of feed news items by date.
Instant Headlines (RSS) can now be shown only when matching terms in a keyword inclusion list (default checks 30 newest).
Several of the newest unseen headlines for each feed can be shown at once in instant headlines.
Improved obtaining pictures from RSS news items.
Some feeds that more reliably show pictures now: BBC, New York Times, Herald Tribune, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, and others.
Yahoo weather notification titles only show city by default (when using Yahoo WOEID).
Yahoo weather notification titles can be set to show (or not show) state and country (when using Yahoo WOEID).
4info search fields are now treated as search sets that allow multiple search terms per set.
4info search sets can each be set to stay on screen separately.
4info notifications are clickable for truncated results.
4info search terms can each have a custom image, with a drag & drop image well.
4info search terms are no longer title cased in notifications (bad for stocks).
4info & RSS custom images can be dropped from dragged images (web browser, etc.) and not just image files.
4info default images for U.S. sports associations and AAPL stock added.
Set custom images for Birthday and Anniversary with image well.
last.fm & Pollstar major rewrites.
last.fm & Pollstar format and behavior made more consistent with each other.
last.fm & Pollstar each try to find artist images.
last.fm new option to only match iTunes artists without checking Pollstar.
Current artwork and track info shown on Music tab when open, along with artwork source.
Added iTunes control buttons to the Music tab, including next album and previous album.
Added buttons to the Music tab to forget the artwork, add to iTunes, or reveal it in the Finder (or Path Finder).
Checks (optionally) local music album folders for images (for iTunes notifications and GeekTool).
GeekTool support integrated into OmniGrowl directly and no longer requires using the plugin/template.
OmniGrowl iTunes GeekTool Template is therefore removed.
If GeekTool's geeklets are added to only "OmniGrowl" group, OmniGrowl makes them both invisible when nothing is playing in iTunes.
Added ability to pause and resume notifications on the main OmniGrowl tab and from the menus.
Debug mode can be turned on & off on the Test tab and from the menus.
Made all interval sliders and slider text consistent.
Last text fields on each tab now saved if changed even if not exited (such as inclusions on Logs tab).
Added Find capability for About tab (and internal logs).
Updated OmniGrowl iTunes Template (basic) to match changes in OmniGrowl.
Bug fix: Check internet for artwork could not actually be turned off.
Bug fix: "Fetched Artwork to iTunes Album (WBC)" script fixes; should not have applied to iTunes selections when iTunes stopped, only current playing/paused album.
Bug fix: In same add-on script, whether an album had existing artwork sometimes was false positive.
Bugfix: Yahoo Traffic was not handling dates correctly with Snow Leopard.
Organized 4info, Twitter, and Yahoo upcoming files in the Application Support folder.
Organized the temporary files OmniGrowl uses into an OmniGrowl folder (normally unseen).
Worked around Growl bug involving click contexts, ID coalescing and stay-on-screen notifications.
Updated Growl framework to 1.2.1b3.
Updated and verified all tool tips.
Documentation has been moved entirely online, updated, reorganized, and simplified, with pictures included.
OmniGrowl now looks for iTunes artwork with Discogs first before other sources.
Above change returns more accurate and higher quality images but may take slightly longer.
With the following suite of changes to Immediate Actions and Plugins, OmniGrowl is now even more useful as a relatively unobtrusive artwork search tool, when set up with GeekTool 3.
Please see iTunes Artwork for more details.
iTunes notification shown when iTunes is un-paused.
This allows artwork to reappear with OmniGrowl iTunes Plugin when using GeekTool.
"Downloaded Artwork to iTunes Album (WBC)" renamed to "Fetched Artwork to iTunes Album (WBC)" and moved from Plugins to Immediate Actions (in order to be next to "Fetched Artwork Forget").
"Fetched Artwork Forget" Immediate Action added.
Above Action will forget a downloaded album image if it is incorrect, but of course not touch artwork in iTunes. Mainly of use for those using the GeekTool Template as the OmniGrowl iTunes plugin.
iTunes Now (Immediate Actions) will now properly trigger the OmniGrowl iTunes plugin when iTunes is in a stopped state.
Added "iTunes Toggle Full Notifications" to Immediate Actions.
Validated all RSS feed presets.
Updated RSS feed preset URLs for Slate, Wired, Guardian UK, el Comercio, AFP, AP, and ABC.
Added a few new RSS feed presets.
Special handling added for BreakingNews on twitter to avoid repetition in headline and description.
Power status checking frequency reduced to 1 minute and made optional on Other tab.
Increased the maximum number of instant feeds to check at a time from 5 to 10, though a low number is still recommended for normal use.
Yahoo weather notifications are now clickable and direct to the relevant forecast page.
Weather for international cities is now set using the newer Yahoo Where On Earth ID (WOEID) rather than the older Location ID.
The old Location ID remains supported if previously entered as long as Yahoo continues to recognize it.
Weather notifications now use the newer and cleaner Yahoo icons by default.
Using the old weather icons is still an option, however, as they tend to scale better with most popular styles.
When using the new Yahoo icons, WBC recommends using the somewhat hard-to-find Cumulonimbus Growl Style.
Updated Growl Framework to 1.2.1.
Added Info & Advanced Info documents online, with new help button on the About tab.
Fixed bug that caused birthdays around or just after New Year's to notify on the wrong days.
Updated Growl Framework to 1.2 (release).
Added option to check internet for iTunes artwork.
Above works even when not showing "full notifications" so it doesn't choke iTunes.
Added new iTunes script addition to add downloaded art to the current album in iTunes. This makes OmniGrowl a decent artwork finder in its own right.
Added new iTunes script plugin that can be triggered by iTunes track changes.
Since OmniGrowl handles everything, this is a much better solution for GeekTool users than anything currently available (just try it).
Updated hacker notifications for Snow Leopard.
Made Hacker Notification template a little more useful than previous example.
"OmniGrowl Quit" applet and script menu script now shows a Growl notification if OmniGrowl is not running instead of doing nothing.
Updated support link in "Pay for OmniGrowl and Support" applet.
Fixed Woot due to changes on Woot.
Included Growl Framework 1.2b2 for better Snow Leopard support.
Built in XCode 3.2 as 32 bit universal (waiting for Growl framework update for 64 bit support).
Fixed some Snow Leopard related date handling issues.
Updated RSS feed links in presets for several feeds and added a couple, including special case for Breaking News on twitter.
Included twitter icon for twitter RSS feeds.
Better formatting of more obscure HTML entities.
New option to always allow checks even while away (for use with remote notification).
Added 2 more 4info search fields for a total of 4.
Adjusted MacZot again due to ever-changing page formatting.
Techie: curl now always times out properly.
Fixed 4Info URL (again!), hopefully for good this time (added redirect also).
Adjusted Flight Status parsing to work with iCal feeds from TripIt.
Limited all notifications to 1000 characters maximum.
Worked around problem with S.M.A.R.T. status check that causes drive noises on some systems. (This noise is caused by an issue with recent versions of Leopard and diskutil).
Work around involves turning off S.M.A.R.T. check by default, and allowing user to turn it back on if desired and set the check interval between 30 minutes and 6 hours (rather than every 5 minutes as before).
Uncoupled “ignore disabled calendars” and “calendar exclusions”. This means now you can exclude iCal calendars by name match without ignoring all calendars disabled (unchecked) in iCal.
Fixed Pollstar parsing, with a major update to it.
Pollstar notifications now clickable, bringing up artist tour dates page.
Now possible, though not (yet?) required, to specify a Pollstar city code.
Added global option to set RSS Instant news items to coalesce (defaults to off).
Added new notification: Ambient news from CityTools.
Controls for Ambient News added to the Info tab (defaults to off).
Ambient News immediate action added to scripts menu.
Random Oblique Strategy (ROS) made less frequent by about 25%, so if you like ROS, you may want to increase the frequency.
Added support for Growl notification coalescing.
Above feature means that old notifications of the same type will in most cases be replaced by newer ones if they are still on screen.
Added (preliminary) support for Atom format news feeds.
Added over 100 RSS feed presets including many major international papers, even in Korean, Japanese, Russian, etc.
RSS Feed editor now shows image previews in image well.
RSS Feed editor image well accepts & saves dropped custom images.
Image well automatically scales down large images.
RSS Feed editor now has link buttons to open feed URL and home page URL.
Click through URL name changed to Home Page URL.
Last selected RSS feed in editor is remembered next launch.
Added icon for OED Word of the Day.
Improved OED WOTD parsing and formatting.
Fixed line break formatting for MacZot.
OmniGrowl Preferences and OmniGrowl Resume script menu scripts now launch OmniGrowl if it is not running.
Fixed issue where some news feeds would reject Mozilla/4.0 agents.
Possibly fixed issue related to logs and standard user accounts.
RSS notifications now show custom icons for major web sites, especially news and Apple sites, when no image is found.
If no RSS image is found and no custom icon is found, RSS notifications show RSS icon instead of Safari icon.
Included facility to add your own custom icons for RSS web sites (see Advanced Info).
Added option to insert blank lines in RSS hourly headlines for easier readability of individual headlines.
Better handling of HTML entities in RSS hourly headlines.
Added new feature to exclude specific calendars by matching calendar names.
Exclusion interface is a drawer accessed from the Personal tab.
Address Book dates custom label exclusions can now also be accessed on the exclusions drawer.
Revised iCal disabled calendar checking with better unicode support.
Added script menu scripts to pause and resume OmniGrowl. Can be used to suspend OmniGrowl without resetting notifications shown that session.
Eliminated Leopard warning if too many events on disabled calendars since it is no longer relevant with Calendar Store.
Fixed some issues with AMG bios.
AMG bios now show All Music custom icon if no artist image is found.
Custom icons shown for Woot, MacZot, last.fm, and Pollstar also.
Fixed setup last.fm link and clarified last.fm setup information.
General improvements handling truncation of feed descriptions.
No longer assumes first RSS xml entry is newest: now check publication dates when that information is available.
Work-around for facebook specific problem that 2nd newest feed item was being shown due to poorly formatted RSS xml.
When item title and description are the same (facebook), they are no longer duplicated.
Updated payment buttons to go with web site redesign.
Fixed problem that preferences window would open at launch even if that option was not checked.
Added support for Address Book custom date events (such as anniversaries).
Changed Address Book notification names from “AB Birthday” to “AB Event” accordingly.
Address Book notifications are clickable.
Added advanced method to exclude certain kinds of Address Book custom date events.
Added anniversary icon and facility to customize anniversary icon.
Address Book now launches if not open when clicking “Get from Address Book”.
Immediate Actions are Weather Now, Traffic Now, Headlines Now, AMG Now, AMG Artist Search, iTunes Now, Flight Status Now.
Disable certain settings when other settings make them not applicable.
Better handling of running OmniGrowl on standard (non-admin) accounts.
Better handling of entering password for logs.
Welcome message no longer contains shareware message if you have paid.
Fixed Leopard problem that system would ask for location of ScreenSaverEngine if screen saver had never been run before.
Fixed issue updating preferences if updating to version 3.x from versions before 2.5.
Power status change uses Energy Saver lightbulb icon if option to show icons of source application is selected.
Network status change uses network icon if option to show icons of source application is selected.
Resolved some issues with duplicate RSS Instant notifications by using MD5 checksums.
Major re-write of significant code portions.
Optimized speed and performance in several areas.
Now uses the Leopard Calendar Store on Leopard!
This means iCal no longer needs to be open on Leopard, and OmniGrowl is much faster.
Complete re-design of RSS settings which allow for a much higher level of customization.
Individual RSS feeds can be temporarily disabled, can include short descriptions, can include images, etc.
The total number of RSS feeds is now unlimited.
RSS instant headline checks are staggered, so no more than 3 are checked at once, improving performance.
Included a few other default RSS feeds as suggestions.
Added (optionally) clickable events and to-dos.
RSS feed notifications (Hourly Headlines and Instant) are (optionally) clickable.
Woot, MacZot, and OED, and Yahoo Traffic, and AMG Bio notifications are (optionally) clickable.
Included To-Do today (after 06:00) notification in with the To-Do tomorrow notification and renamed to "To-Do"
Major interface redesign with a new Info tab and better layout.
Really, truly made failed hacker attempt notification work properly.
Added Hacker Attempt template script to further process the IPs of hackers.
Introduced faster way to report iTunes track changes, sacrificing (optionally) artwork, etc.
iTunes checks are not triggered if screen saver is active as it was before, thus possibly addressing sleep issues.
iTunes (“full”) notification now skips displaying rating for non-rated tracks.
Vastly improved AMG Bio speed, handling and timing.
AMG Bio displays images if found.
AMG Bio notifications can be set to adjustable minimum minutes apart.
Reset password if decryption fails with notifications to re-enter.
Fixed broken "Find Location ID" link on the news tab.
Re-wrote good portions of the documentation.
Broke up the documentation into sections as it was growing too long.
Added birthday cake icon for birthdays.
Added way to customize birthday cake and horoscope graphics.
Added several new tests for iCal and Address Book events, to-dos, and birthdays.
Added status output for the test window.
Notifications surpressed while OmniGrowl preferences window is open for first 2 minutes or is open to any tab other than OmniGrowl after that (for more responsiveness while setting preferences).
OmniGrowl no longer even asks if you want to add it to login items at startup, since the “Add to Login” button is obvious enough.
S.M.A.R.T. checking can be turned off entirely.
Maintained compatibility with Tiger with framework weak-linking and other work-arounds.
Better timeout handling for notifications and during launch.
If Growl can't be found after 5 minutes or more OmniGrowl will always quit.
Above change in particular avoids launch time out error message if it takes a very long time for OS X to launch all login items at login.
Entered admin password for logs now saved when entered as well as quit.
RSS feeds can be set individually to stay on screen or not, and works with both hourly and instant RSS notifications.
iCal events are now cached at set intervals, improving performance.
Added option to allow some checks while away (default now off whereas pervious behavior was on).
Above change may help resolve some Mac sleep issues.
Checks display sleep status as well as screen saver.
Added section to info document explaining sleep issues.
New defaults for log settings, including separate set for Leopard and new supported logs for Tiger. Click "Restore Defaults" to set these.
Added some clean-up of some default log output.
Added option to notify after set number of failed logins from the same IP if secure.log and Check Logs are both enabled.
Yahoo Weather was displaying Fahrenheit when set to Celsius. Fixed.
Turning off internet connection checking had no effect. Fixed.
To-dos were not working under rare circumstances. Fixed.
Instant RSS notifications were not working under certain circumstances. Fixed.
Passwords are now blowfish encrypted and saved rather than using the Keychain for maximum speed and Tiger/Leopard compatibility.
Significant under the hood code optimization for notifications.
Woot checking was broken. Fixed.
last.fm checking in some cases was not working. Fixed.
Internet checking error message bug fixed.
The internet checking feature (which reduces system load when offline) is now an option.
When no connection is found and internet checking is on, an "offline" notification will be shown only once per launch.
Now gives an incompatibility notice with Panther rather than silently quitting.
OED Word of the Day was being shown even when the option was not checked. Fixed.
Fixed "WBC Support" button in included Script "Pay for OmniGrowl and Support"
New "iCal Now" notification replaces iCal 10 minute notification.
"iCal Now" notification is variable from 2 - 20 minutes before and event.
Some infrequent 4info text formatting glitches believed to be fixed.
Fixed problems with flight status notifications due to authentication changes at flightstats.com.
Removed startup status panel if Growl cannot be activated. OmniGrowl will quit with a message after 30 seconds in this case.
OmniGrowl now checks periodically for an active internet connection, which improves performance when off-line.
New "Instant Headline" option introduced with new notification.
Instead of showing top headlines of an RSS feed on the hour, it is now also possible to be notified of the newest RSS headline as it arrives, which is more suitable for feeds like facebook, etc.
It is no longer necessary to commit changes to the RSS list. This is now done after any edits.
Internal improvements to RSS table handling related to above changes.
Better handling of RSS feeds that insist on particular browsers to display (such as FaceBook).
New Notification: 4Info searches on anything. Use for sports scores & updates, stock quotes, horoscopes, etc.
More icons on the interface, all now clickable.
Date handling revised significantly to accommodate international regions and non-Gregorian calendars on Leopard. All systems should now work without errors.
Excessive iCal 3 timeout errors now disable the iCal checking portions of OmniGrowl rather than quitting OmniGrowl. (After disabling large calendars in Leopard, iCal checking can and should be re-enabled in OmniGrowl).
Past last.fm events in most cases no longer generate notifications.
Work around for Leopard-Tiger cross compatibility issues involving Keychain Access [thanks Matt].
iTunes notification broken by version 2.1. Fixed.
New option to enable/disable recurring events checking and corresponding button on the Test tab.
Disabling and then enabling recurring events checking will present option to scan now (same as above test button).
Un-checking and re-checking ignore will re-load list of ignored calendars without needing to restart OmniGrowl.
Leopard: Added warning notification if combined enabled calendars have more than 1500 events.
Leopard: OmniGrowl will quit after excessive time outs with a message.
Leopard: (and maybe Tiger?) Fixed Last.fm if dashboard had less than 10 events.
OmniGrowl log can be toggled with CMD-L while preferences window is open.
Log text formatting fixed and is automatically copied to the clipboard.
Logs purged each 3000 entries.
Debug mode (extra logging) can be toggled with CMD-D while preferences window is open.
Bug fix related to Woot check when checking not enabled.
Previous behavior displaying icon of originating application (iCal, etc.) can be set as an option.
Vastly improved and more customizable log monitoring interface.
Nags less frequent and can be turned off totally in OmniGrowl prefs.
Hidden debug feature: press CMD-L on preferences window to show internal error log.
Now Tiger + only. Version 1.5.2 is the last to support Panther. Version 2.0 has not been tested with Leopard but a compatibility upgrade will come after the release of Leopard.
Last.fm support (for retrieving recommended events).
"Check OnTour" preference and notification changed to "Concerts" | 2019-04-26T08:01:53Z | http://www.woodenbrain.com/products/omnigrowl/omnigrowl_vh.html |
About 13,000 Alaskans signed up for health insurance on healthcare.gov during the open enrollment period that closed March 31st. The two insurers offering plans on the exchange in Alaska shared their enrollment figures today with APRN. Moda Health says it has about 7700 healthcare.gov enrollees in Alaska and the company is still processing some additional sign ups.
April 15, 2014, only 67 percent of individuals and families that had selected a health plan in the federally facilitated marketplace had paid their first month’s premium and therefore completed the enrollment process.
OK, let's unpeel this onion slowly, shall we?
Through April 19, 70,243 people had signed up for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act rollout, according to state figures, with federal dollars paying for about two-thirds of those people and state and federal dollars roughly splitting the cost for the other third, because they were already eligible before Obamacare entered the picture.
There may be a few thousand more enrollments to come from Nevada, Colorado and so forth, but today, April 30, is about as definitive a date as we're gonna get for the wrap-up of the first Open Enrollment period under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, otherwise known as the ACA or Obamacare.
With that in mind, the time has come for me to officially declare my intentions for this website going forward.
For the first time, low-income adults without children are eligible for government health coverage.
In Illinois, officials expect that'll mean 350,000 new people in Medicaid. And that's not all.
Julie Hamos, director of the Department of Health Care and Family Services, says the news reports and advertising and community outreach around the Obamacare deadline led to a separate spike.
"We have 80,000 more than the usual enrollment of people who already were eligible, they just didn't sign up. But because of that activity in the communities, now they're signing up."
The first article is mainly a breakdown of off-exchange QHP enrollments across various Blue Cross companies; normally this would be something of a jackpot for me, but since the BCBSA had already stated that they had over 1.7 million off-exchange enrollments not including March or April, these numbers don't really help out much. What I really need at this point are state-by-state off-exchange QHP numbers (ideally through at least the end of March), and I don't see those coming anytime soon.
According to the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, between 80% and 85% of people who signed up for a Blues plan through a public exchange are paying their premiums. The percentage is based on a survey of member Blues plans as of Feb. 1. But individual Blues plans say that number is higher.
Nevada has bumped their "started by 3/31" enrollment extension out until May 30.
Colorado is allowing people up until May 31st to complete their enrollments, but only if they applied for Medicaid but had their eligibility denied.
Massachusetts still has something like 270,000 people stuck in "Limbo Status" who may (?) have until June 30th to have their situations sorted out...not exactly sure what's going on with that, however.
Read more about Michigan: ACA Medicaid expansion up to 159K in first 4 weeks!
Guest Post: What Is All This "Deadline Creep" Really Telling Us?
Recently, I've been puzzling over a question: what is all this "deadline creep" really telling us? Not just about the considerable burden it's placed on Charles Gaba in continuing this website, which is obviously no joke—but also about what's happening as the ACA rolls out. We've been watching deadline creep for at least a month now. And I think it's kind of a big deal.
Read more about Guest Post: What Is All This "Deadline Creep" Really Telling Us?
Read more about Idaho hits 76K QHPs, breaks own target by 90%!
Less than 140K request ACA Mandate Exemption. Nationally.
Remember all the fuss and bother that the GOP made about how no one would sign up for healthcare under the ACA for various reasons, ranging from the technical problems with the HC.gov website to the law making it "too easy" to get out of doing so (while simultaneously screaming about the mandate itself being "unconstitutional" even though the Supreme Court ruled that it isn't)?
Well, the former has obviously not been an issue from the enrollment side for months (at least on the Federal side).
As for the latter, guess what?
The government left the door wide open for millions of Americans to be excused from the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that most people must carry health insurance or pay a fine, but so far relatively few have asked for such a pardon.
About 77,000 families and individuals have requested exemptions from the health-care law’s so-called individual mandate, according to internal government documents obtained by The Washington Post. As of April 20, officials had approved tens of thousands of exemption requests and rejected none.
Read more about Less than 140K request ACA Mandate Exemption. Nationally.
Nearly 35,000 New Mexicans had enrolled in health plans through the state and federal insurance exchanges as of April 15, a 32 percent increase from the end of March, the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange said Friday.
As of March 31, 24,412 residents had enrolled through the exchanges, and as of April 15, that number had climbed to 34,966, as 8,554 residents took advantage of the extended enrollment period, NMHIX said.
Combined enrollment in public and private plans now stands at 200,174, MNsure officials said. That includes 50,096 in private plans; 41,403 in MinnesotaCare, a public program for low to moderate incomes that requires a modest premium contribution; and 108,673 in Medical Assistance, Minnesota’s version of Medicaid.
Pull the sheet over Cover Oregon; it's done.
Oregon should pull the plug on the beleaguered Cover Oregon health insurance exchange and switch to the federal exchange, a technological advisory committee recommended Thursday.
The move is considered almost certain to be adopted by the Cover Oregon board, which meets Friday.
Changing to the federal exchange would cost about $5 million, while a partial fix to the Oregon exchange would cost more than $78 million based on an estimate from Deloitte, a Cover Oregon consultant.
--First, residents of Oregon do still have 3 more days (today, tomorrow and Wednesday) to push their 2014 policy enrollments through the remnants of Cover Oregon, and I'm assuming that the current hobbled-together system will still be in place during the transition period for Qualifying Life Events, Medicaid enrollment and so forth.
Read more about Pull the sheet over Cover Oregon; it's done.
I haven't updated the graph with this yet, but both the front page "quick stats" block and the spreadsheet now include my rough guesstimate for the final mop-up period from 4/16 - 4/30...I'm guessing an extra 93,000 or so people are being tacked on via stray paper applications, special cases and oddball "super-extension periods" in Nevada, Oregon, DC and Hawaii, etc.
this should bring the grand total through the end of April up to around 8.14 million, of which I expect AT LEAST 7.5 million to have paid their premiums by late May.
Where the heck is the March HHS Report???
Of the pile of submissions and requests which piled up last week, at least a half-dozen were basically the same question: Where the hell is the official March HHS report? Obviously that report from Inside Health Policy claiming that they'd release the report back on the 17th, complete with early April data, was flat-out wrong.
The irony is, of course, that a) no one has been anticipating this report more than myself (it was supposed to mark the end of this project, after all...although obviously the situation has changed...more on that later); b) I was previously concerned that they'd release the report too early (cutting off the last 2 days of March and only including 3/02 - 3/29); and c) it's actually just as well that they didn't release it last week, since I was in no position to do anything with the data anyway (still on the mend, but I'm at least able to type up a few updates this morning, as you can tell).
Read more about Where the heck is the March HHS Report???
Michigan: ACA Medicaid expansion up to 140K in first 3 weeks!
Read more about Michigan: ACA Medicaid expansion up to 140K in first 3 weeks!
The state has previously reported that 147,000 people signed up for private health coverage, but said Wednesday that the total grew to 164,062 as officials finalized applications after the March 31 deadline. Open enrollment began last October.
Updated enrollment numbers from Oct. 1 to March 31 are included below.
Update as of 4/19: 45,291 Consumers have selected Qualified Health Plans, 32,365 have paid.
This AR update is noteworthy for being the first enrollment update I've received which actually includes a reference to...myself!
Through yesterday, almost 45,000 Arkansans have selected plans on the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace, the new marketplace created by Obamacare, according to information released today by the Arkansas Insurance Department (see county by county map above). Open enrollment is now closed, though people who submitted a paper application by April 7 have until the end of the month to enroll and pick a plan. We may also see this number creep up in the next few weeks as the carriers continue to receive data from the feds.
Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, said all 11 current health plans have indicated they plan to return next year. He also said three new plans have submitted letters of intent indicating they may compete on the exchange in 2015.
How many updates can there be AFTER the extension period?
Lots of people (especially myself) have been wondering just how many updates to enrollment data or other QHP/Medicaid/Exchange ACA-related news items there would be after the open enrollment "extension period" ended back on April 15th. After all, the dust should be settling with only the occasional bit of news now, right?
Of course, some of these are duplicates and some may not really warrant their own full entry, but you get the picture. Seems like there's gonna be plenty of ACA news to keep this site operational for awhile yet.
Read more about How many updates can there be AFTER the extension period?
Read more about Kentucky: 82.8K QHPs, 330.6K Medicaid, 75% previously uninsured, ACA now covering 10% of all KY residents!
Read more about Arkansas: "Private" Medicaid Expansion jumps to 155K...70% of total eligible!
I'm back in action, baby! Well...sort of. UPDATE: Never mind.
Yes, that's right...ACA Signups is back in action!
Well...sort of. I'm able to post a couple of updates here and there, but don't expect anything major until next week. The swelling in my right eye has dropped significantly, allowing me to read and type for perhaps 20 minutes at a time, and I'm back on (semi) solid food...thick soups and the like.
I also wanted to thank everyone for the well-wishes and words of support.
And no, the irony of the situation is not lost on me: I'm taking my brand-new ACA-approved healthcare policy through a thorough workout this month, by subjecting myself to 3 different doctor's appointments (well, technically 4 if you include the dentist, but that's not covered by the policy, of course): Once to my GP, and two more to the Ophthalmologist (once last week to make sure the virus didn't infect my eyeball itself, and a follow-up next week to make sure it didn't seep into the eyeball later in the process).
Read more about I'm back in action, baby! Well...sort of. UPDATE: Never mind.
Not that this is particularly surprising after my prior post, but yes, I've been diagnosed with a nasty case of Shingles. That would be bad enough, but making it worse is that it's on my face (usually it's on the torso), meaning that my right eyelid is swollen over, making it very difficult to see, read or type more than a few sentences at a time.
As a result, I probably won't be able to post any more updates at all for a few days, which will likely mean a bunch of them posted all at once this weekend (or whenever the swelling goes down).
Please do keep sending updates in, however; I'll just flag them for later reference.
Thanks, all. Talk to you when I can.
...no reason at all. Really.
Shingles is most common in older adults and people who have weak immune systems because of stress, injury, certain medicines, or other reasons. Most people who get shingles will get better and will not get it again.
Read more about You knew this was coming...now I'm sick.
Read more about YES, you'll need to reset your HC.gov password. NO, this is no reason to freak out.
• 52,156: Vermonters who used the Vermont Health Connect website, call center or navigators to shop for 2013 health insurance and now have coverage.
• 24,888: Vermonters who purchased commercial coverage through Vermont Health Connect.
• 27,268: Vermonters who shopped on Vermont Health Connect but qualified and are now enrolled in Medicaid. Eligibility expanded under the federal Affordable Care Act.
• 33,549: Vermonters previously covered by the Vermont Health Access Program and Catamount Health who the state enrolled automatically in Medicaid based on income information on record.
The S.C. Department of Insurance reported Friday that 114,789 individuals selected a plan on the federal exchange through April 15 - up from an 97,000 estimate earlier this month.
A First: I'm gonna try to project the state-by-state 4/15 QHP totals!
Today was filled with fantastic news across the board. The only bummer is that the actual HHS report for March (and the first half of April?), with the state-by-state breakdown, was not released today.
So, you know what? I'm so geeked about the 4/15 total actually breaking the big 8M mark after all that I'm going to attempt to estimate the state-by-state totals for every state which hasn't published their official 4/15 total yet myself.
This may sound insane, but it's not as difficult as you may think (well, it's not difficult to do; that doesn't mean that I'll be accurate).
First of all, I can obviously eliminate any state which has already released their data through 4/15. That gets rid of California, Colorado, Connecticut, DC, Minnesota, Nevada, New York and Oregon.
I can also eliminated Washington State, since they never participated in the expansion period (they may have a few hundred stragglers via "special case-by-case basis" but that should be about it.
Read more about A First: I'm gonna try to project the state-by-state 4/15 QHP totals!
Overall, Terrell said, the state has received 95,000 Medicaid applications via the federal ACA sign-up, representing 132,000 people, since October 2013. And that number is likely to grow.
The number of people added to Medicaid/CHIP in NC thru 3/01 via the HC.gov site was 55,691, so this could potentially be a more than 2.3x increase, but they're noted as applications, so presumably some of them will be denied. Still impressive.
A total of 208,301 Connecticut residents enrolled in health care coverage through the Access Health CT online marketplace as of Sunday, the quasi-public agency announced Thursday.
The numbers reflect those who signed up before the March 31 deadline for open enrollment, plus 5,000 people who attempted to enroll by that date but encountered some difficulty, but were able to enroll over the last two weeks.
“Over the past two weeks, our team has made follow up calls to each of those individuals to assist them through the enrollment process, and we have now completed all open enrollment applications,” Kevin Counihan, head of the agency created as the state’s response to the federal Affordable Care Act, said in a news release.
Of the 208,301 enrollees, 78,713 enrolled with a private insurance carrier and 129,588 enrolled in Medicaid. Of the 78,713 residents who enrolled with a private insurance carrier, 78 percent received a tax subsidy and 22 percent did not.
Oh, by the way: The "over 124K" press release issued on the 14th was a big part of the reason why I downshifted my total projection from the 7.9-8.0M range down to around 7.78M a few days back. I assumed that the only reason they would issue a number press release the day before the deadline would be if the enrollments were tapering off so much that there would only be a handful left to count on the final day.
Obviously I was wrong; CO managed to add another 3K QHPs on the last day.
Update as of 4/15: 44,468 consumers confirmed Qualified Health Plan selections through Nevada Health Link, 30,176 have paid.
Hey FOX News: Here's a free graph for you to use!
Read more about Hey FOX News: Here's a free graph for you to use!
So, now that I have the data through at least 3/31 (and in most cases, through mid-April) for all 15 state-run exchanges, I can start to play with the statistics a bit.
At the end of February (technically March 1st), the 15 state-run exchanges totalled 1,621,239 QHPs. As of 4/15, these add up to at least 2,564,005, or 58.1% higher. There's anywhere from 2-14 days missing from some of these, however (perhaps 30,000 total, for a total of around 2.59 million), so let's call it about a 60% increase since then.
However, we also know that the total exchnage QHP enrollment figure is a minimum of 7.5 million, and almost certainly closer to 7.9 - 8.1 million. Let's assume the low end: 7.9M total.
Read more about More California Details: 1.4M QHPs, 1.9M Medicaid, 85% paid & more!
Just a reminder: Assuming that Inside Health Policy has it right, the official HHS report should be released sometime today and should include about 99% of the exchange QHP enrollment data through 4/15.
In the past, they've usually released the monthly reports around the 11th or 12th of the following month. In this case they've obviously been delayed because of a) the insanity at the end of March and b) thankfully, they apparently want to squeeze in the first half of April as well (as you know, I was deeply concerned that they might lop off the last 2 days of the month and roll them over to an April report next month, which would cause no end of confusion among sloppy media outlets which can't take a glance at the calendar and do basic math).
They generally release these reports around 4pm. I know this because there've been at least 2 cases where the conference call with Kathleen Sebelius started up right as I was waiting for my kid to get home from school, so we'll see if that holds true today as well.
I would love to believe RAND's estimated 8.2 million increase in ESI between September and March but my experience in commissioning similar polls suggests to me that it is not real but due to an unanticipated side effect of the poll methodology.
We know that there is a pretty large "churn" in insurance status. Some people will gain jobs with insurance, while others lose them. Some people retire, get sick, or die. But one would expect the number gaining and losing employer coverage would be about equal. RAND's 8.2 million increase is the difference between 14.5 million estimated to have gained employer sponsored insurance and 6.3 million estimated to have lost it (with an estimated 102.4 million having employer coverage in both polls).
Yesterday I posted a poll asking whether people found the term "woodworker" (used to describe new Medicaid enrollees who were already eligible to be enrolled even without the expansion provisions of the ACA) to be offensive. The thinking is that "woodworker" makes it sound like you're an insect creeping around under the floorboards and so forth; not the prettiest image.
Texas: Baker Institute Survey suggests 760K exchange QHPs as of 3/15...NOT including kids!
I'm debating whether to actually plug this number into the spreadsheet or not. On the one hand, I'm reluctant to do so without hard official numbers being given (this is just a survey, only runs through mid-March and doesn't include kids anyway).
On the other hand, doing so wouldn't change my total projection of around 7.78 million exchange QHPs; it just reduces the "unsorted" number at the bottom. Plus, I'm almost certain that the March HHS report is going to be released sometime tomorrow (Thursday) anyway, so if I'm wrong, it'll be easy enough to correct it at that point.
Read more about Texas: Baker Institute Survey suggests 760K exchange QHPs as of 3/15...NOT including kids!
HOUSTON (AP) — More than 177,000 Houston residents have signed up for health insurance through the federal marketplace, far exceeding expectations for the city.
According to an email obtained by The Associated Press, as of April 5 177,825 Houston residents enrolled for insurance under President Barack Obama's signature law. The email was written by Marjorie McColl Petty, the regional director for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Dallas.
The expectation had been that 138,000 Houston residents would sign up. Petty told Houston officials the numbers reflect a successful 13-county regional effort.
The exchange had 699 people enroll for coverage in the two weeks after open enrollment was originally supposed to close, with 22 percent of those signups coming on Tuesday, the final possible day. That brings the total number of private health coverage enrollments to 10,630, Medicaid signups to 19,217, and small business enrollments to 13,118.
Read more about Gallup Poll buries the lede: Uninsured down to 12.9% in first half of April!
Even without expanding eligibility for Indiana Medicaid, the program had enrolled 40,577 more Hoosiers as of March than it had in the same month last year.
More than 15,000 of that year-over-year increase occurred in March alone this year, as a flood of people here and nationally sought coverage before Obamacare would hit them with a tax for going uninsured.
If you take a look at the Medicaid Spreadsheet, you'll see that I currently have the "woodworker" tally for Indiana at 40,951...only 374 more than the number reported above.
That 40,951 is 15% of the combined total number of new Medicaid enrollments for Indiana from both the HC.gov website as well as through traditional state Medicaid agency offices (273,005).
OK, the various ACA exchanges are just messing with my head now.
First, Nevada announced that they've extended their enrollment out to May 30 for those who started by March 31st.
Then Oregon announced that they've extended full open enrollment out to April 30.
Then I found out that anyone who submitted a paper application by April 7th in any of the 36 states run by HC.gov still have until April 30 to finish.
Colorado, I've discovered, is allowing people who applied for Medicaid but were denied up until May 31st to finish their enrollment process.
And, of course, Massachusetts has over 200K "Limbo Status" people who may (theoretically) get squared away as late as June 30.
Late last night I learned that Hawaii has bumped their extension deadline out to April 30.
Oh for the love of...(sigh) Look, I'm all for letting as many people as possible enroll in healthcare coverage, but even I admit that I'm getting awfully tired of having to change the final, FINAL deadline dates.
The Hawaii Health Connector has extended the initial grace period— which would have ended on Tuesday — given to individuals in need of extra time completing the enrollment application process for health insurance by a couple of weeks to April 30.
Let's just hope they resolve their Heartbleed issue.
This doesn't change the actual total number of Rhode Island's Medicaid expansion numbers, but it does specify the ratio between "strict expansion" and the "woodworker" enrollees...66% to 34%. Interestingly, this is virtually identical to the Washington State ratio (again, 67% to 33%).
This isn't enough to apply to the other expansion states yet, but if it does prove to be the case, that should be helpful in figuring out how accurate my current estimates are. I currently have "strict expansion" at roughly 3.7 million, while "woodworkers" are at 2.05 million. A strict 67/33 ratio would have the "woodworker" number at around 1.82 million...except that the non-expansion states also have some woodworkers as well, which should account for the additional 230K or so.
Figures obtained from the Chafee administration by WPRI.com show that out of the 64,590 Rhode Islanders who signed up for Medicaid from October through March using the state’s new HealthSource RI marketplace, 34% were eligible before the new law expanded the rules for who could sign up.
A few days ago, Michigan's newly-expanded Medicaid tally sat at around 32,000, plus another 54,000 people transferred into the program from an existing state-run one, for a total of about 86,000 people.
• Updated every Tuesday at 3 p.m.
I've been shouting from the rooftops about OFF-exchange QHPs for months now (I first added a column for them on January 3rd and had my first significant data update on January 31st), and until recently few in the news media seemed to catch on to the significance of these.
Until a few weeks ago, I had only officially documented about 560,000 off-exchange QHPs, but guestimated that there were easily 4 million or more out there (I had mused off-handedly back in mid-February that the total could potentially be 7.7 million, but decided to backtrack to "4M or more" out of caution).
An estimated 107,000 New Mexicans have enrolled in Medicaid since the state expanded the qualifications in October to include low-income adults, state Human Services Department spokesman Matt Kennicott said Monday.
...A total of 26,412 New Mexicans had enrolled in health plans through the state insurance exchange by the March 31 enrollment deadline, the state office of the Superintendent of Insurance said in a news release issued recently.
...An additional 10,000 applications had been submitted by the deadline but remained unprocessed, the statement said.
That's right. Thanks to high winds and a mid-April snowfall, I have no electricity today. Expect updates to be few and far between.
Predatory Pricing Denied: HHS may require some companies to RAISE premiums (with good reason)?
I've been debating whether to post about this since frankly, I'm not entirely sure that I have all the details straight about how this works. If anyone more familiar with this process wants to correct or clarify my description in the comments, please feel free to do so.
OK, so there's all sorts of hand wringing over how much premium rates will increase for 2015 based on the 2014 risk pool. The CBO issued a report yesterday which projects that in spite of all the fretting, the overall average increase will only be a few percent, which is good news if true (although this will no doubt vary from state to state).
However, I recently learned a couple of very interesting things about how the ACA works when it comes to pricing oversight and the "risk corridor" program.
Read more about Predatory Pricing Denied: HHS may require some companies to RAISE premiums (with good reason)?
Yesterday I issued a reminder/warning that the March HHS report might stop at 3/29, leaving the last 2 (and by far the busiest) days of the official enrollment period, the 30th-31st to be moved over to the April report.
If HHS did this, the March report would appear to only include about 6.5M exchange QHPs, since another 600K would be moved to April, along with the additional 700K (give or take) enrollments from 4/01 - 4/15 (and even beyond).
Fortunately, if this bulletin from Inside Health Policy is true, wiser heads at HHS have prevailed...and then some!
Read more about BONUS: ACA causing INSURERS to proactively HELP people w/diabetes!
The most expensive provisions of Obamacare will cost taxpayers about $100 billion less than expected, the Congressional Budget Office said Monday.
CBO also said it doesn't expect big premium increases next year for insurance plans sold through the health care law's exchanges.
In its latest analysis, CBO said the law's coverage provisions—a narrow part of the law that includes only certain policies—will cost the government $36 billion this year, which is $5 billion less than CBO's previous estimate. Over the next decade, the provisions will cost about $1.4 trillion—roughly $104 billion less than CBO last estimated.
Monday's report also sheds some light on one of the big challenges still to come for Obamacare: next year's premiums. Some critics have warned that premiums could skyrocket next year, based in part on the demographics of the people who signed up for coverage this year.
It took me a few minutes to figure out why, at this point, Colorado would issue a formal press release with a "final" number when there's still a day and a half to go. However, I realized that it probably simply means that practically everyone who qualified for the 4/15 extension has already done so by now; presumably they're already over 124K and there's only a few hundred partial applications left anyway, so their final tally will come in somewhere between 124K - 125K, thus allowing them to confidently release the news.
On the down side, if this "winding down" effect is true in most other states, it also suggests that instead of one final mini-spike, the 4/15 deadline will actually result in a severe drop-off, making the final total more like 7.7M instead of 7.8M, but that's fine as well.
In any event, CO is up another 3,000 exchange QHPs since last week to over 124K total.
About 500 small employers participated in the Small Business Marketplace, or SHOP, which saw 220 enroll, covering 1,860 employees and family members.
I did know that Florida was allowing paper applications received by April 7 to have their enrollments completed by April 30, but I thought that was it.
The new federal deadline -- a special enrollment period – already allowed registrations delayed by exchange-related problems to be finished as late as April 30 for those who submitted a paper application by April 7. That extension applied to individuals living in states where insurance enrollment under the Affordable Care Act is conducted through the federal exchange.
A few days ago I gave a final 4/15 exchange QHP estimate range from between 7.7 - 7.9M, with an outside shot of 8M.
Today I'm narrowing my projection within that range; unless there's a really big absolute-last-minute spike today and tomorrow (which is conceivable), it's looking like the final tally will end up somewhere between 7.8 - 7.9M. 7.75 - 7.85M I suspect the 8M mark will remain tantilizingly out of reach.
On the other hand, if I've seriously lowballed here and it does end up around, say, 7.95M, it's just barely possible that a handful of stragglers from Nevada and Oregon (along with paper applications in Florida?) could just barely drag the 4/30 total over the 8M line (Nevada has actually extended their "started by 3/31" policy all the way out until May 30, while Oregon has extended their full enrollment period out to 4/30).
@charles_gaba off-topic? NJ had coverage 4 adult until age of 30-31? Do they go down to 26 under ACA and if so, did you account for that?
The March HHS Enrollment Report may leave off March 30th and 31st, and therefore leave 600,000 exchange QHP enrollments to be tacked onto the April report instead.
Earlier today a friend of mine (Eclectablog...who, by the way, is also the head of the best blogging team in America, and who could use your help with his quarterly fundraiser at the moment) noted that there was an anti-ACA banner ad from the Koch Bros running at the bottom of this site earlier today.
His Tweet was intended as snark, of course, but at least a couple of people didn't appear to get the joke, and actually think this means I'm either hypocritical or some sort of 11th Dimensional Chess-playing Double Agent Mole working for the Koch Bros. Not sure how that would work, exactly, but whatever.
OK, I actually do have one update today (it's 8:30 at night and my kid is getting ready for bed).
When I first learned that Washington State's off-exchange total was a whopping 2.2x that of their exchange-based enrollments back on February 20th, I casually noted that if that held true nationally, it would make the off-exchange QHP tally easily 7.7M or higher ...and this was back when the exchange QHPs were only around 3.5M.
However, I also tried to be cautious in my "official" estimate, keeping it to around 4M or so since I didn't know how many there really were beyond the 300K (later 560K) or so I had documented at the time. After all, other states would likely have a much lower ratio of Off- to On-exchange QHPs; In Wisconsin, for instance, Off-Exchange QHPs were only about 23% as high as exchange-based.
Because sometimes you just want to take your kid to the zoo for the day.
A few days ago, the much-discussed Rand Corporation healthcare coverage survey was released.
There's a lot to absorb and discuss in it, but the one number which I found the most puzzling was their estimate of around 3.9 million private QHP enrollments via the ACA exchanges.
As I noted at the time, this puzzled me because around "mid-March" (the point at which the vast bulk of survey responses had come in), the actual number of exchange QHPs was roughly 1 million higher, around 4.9M.
The survey itself lists a +/- 1.1 million margin of error for that figure, but it still didn't make much sense to me, since the official HHS report through 3/01 (2 weeks earlier) was already 4.24 million.
At first, I figured that perhaps they were lopping off about 20% to account for the unpaid enrollments. This would make the 3.9M figure correct, but there was no mention of payments in the survey.
Maryland's press releases are getting shorter and more abrupt. With the enrollment period wrapping up and their exchange site still an utter mess (and about to be completely scrapped and replaced), this isn't terribly surprising.
Still, this is up another 2,184 QHPs and 16,420 Medicaid enrollees in the past week, which isn't too bad, all things considered.
Through April 9, 2014, 65,186 Marylanders have chosen to enroll in qualified health plans through Maryland Health Connection. As of April 8, 248,495 have gained Medicaid coverage in 2014 and remain active in Medicaid.
Enrollments in qualified health plans since March 31 include 2,229 enrollments completed with assistance from a dedicated team responding to Marylanders who contacted our 1-800 hotline and other channels to request additional help.
I think this is the first Nevada update I've posted which didn't come from the Nevada Health Link's Twitter feed. Technically only 28,208 have actually paid their first premium so far, but another 4,332 have scheduled their payment which is certainly a huge step ahead of having "enrolled but not even arranged for a payment" (and my model has 7% of this total being lopped out for potential non-payment anyway). So, 32,540 it is until further notice.
And the number of people who enrolled in and paid for a qualified health plan through the exchange hit 28,208 on April 5, up from 25,899 people on March 31. Another 4,332 consumers have scheduled payments.
Last week, that [the ACA being here to stay] sounded like wishful thinking. Two new studies released this week prove it.
While the White House can claim credit for a net increase of 9.3 million insured and a lowered uninsured rate from 20.5 percent to 15.8 percent, the data provides a significantly different picture than that painted by President Obama and the ACA’s advocates.
More than 106,000 Ohioans have signed up for Medicaid under an expansion of the taxpayer funded health program, while thousands of others are waiting to hear whether they are deemed eligible.
...Ohio's monthly report on Medicaid caseloads shows that 106,238 residents had enrolled under the extension as of March 31. That's about 29 percent of the roughly 366,000 newly eligible people estimated to sign up by the end of June 2015.
More than 345,000 people have sought Medicaid coverage through the state's benefit site since Oct. 1. About 65 percent of the applications have been resolved, while roughly 120,000 are still pending. Many of those cases await eligibility determinations by the state's largest counties.
Yesterday, contributor Stevef101 noted that Blue Cross of Idaho was bragging about enrolling 45K people via HC.gov...more than the total exchange QHPs for the state through the end of February. Today he further notes that the company has enrolled 70,000 people in new QHPs total during the enrollment period...meaning that 25K of them were done off-exchange.
Six-thousand people responded to the program, and at last count, 70,000 Idahoans signed up for insurance during the first open enrollment period.
"All of this publicity, people really starting to talk about what insurance can do for them, really made a big difference in getting people covered," said Zelda Geyer-Sylvia, President and CEO of Blue Cross of Idaho.
Note that this doesn't change the high-end potential total of 7.8 million from the Rand Corp. study, it just fills in the documented number within that a bit further.
The Graph, updated w/New Medicaid Category: "Bulk Transfers / Special Enrollments"
Read more about The Graph, updated w/New Medicaid Category: "Bulk Transfers / Special Enrollments"
About 3,500 Connecticut residents have enrolled in health insurance through the state’s health care exchange, Access Health CT, since the official open enrollment deadline passed on March 31. That’s in addition to the nearly 200,000 who enrolled by the health care deadline.
Access Health CT CEO Kevin Counihan said there were roughly 10,000 people in the state who wanted to enroll but couldn’t complete the process by deadline for some reason. Those people were told to leave their contact information, and that the state would follow up with them to make sure their enrollment was completed.
...Customers to the state marketplace could either buy insurance through one of three private carriers on the exchange, or get covered through Medicaid. The majority of those covered through the exchange — more than 120,000 — were covered under Medicaid.
About 45,000 people applied for health-insurance plans from Blue Cross of Idaho through the state's insurance exchange, Your Health Idaho, over the past six months.
The insurer announced its enrollment numbers Thursday.
Your Health Idaho is expected to release total enrollment for exchange plans soon. Open enrollment ended March 31.
Four companies — Blue Cross, SelectHealth, PacificSource and the Regence BlueShield of Idaho sister company BridgeSpan — sold plans on the exchange.
Additional note: 45K just happens to be my own "fair share of 7M" target for Idaho, so a single insurance company has hit the target. The other three are basically gravy.
New Jersey FamilyCare has added over 100,000 people to its rolls, contributing to savings that Gov. Chris Christie has already anticipated in his proposed budget.
In just the first three months of this year, 102,268 state residents were added to the rolls of FamilyCare, which includes recipients of two federally supported programs – Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
Through April 6, 41,402 Arkansans have purchased plans on the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace, the new marketplace created by Obamacare, according to information released yesterday by the Arkansas Insurance Department (see county by county map above). As in the rest of the country, Arkansas saw a surge in enrollment recently, with more than 7,800 people signing up in the last two weeks. But while national enrollment in the marketplaces across the country hit initial projections, Arkansas will fall well short.
DOVER – Delaware ended its first enrollment period for the nation's new Obamacare health plans with 11,335 people enrolled – about 3,000 more than federal goals for the state.
Another 3,411 people gained coverage through the state's expanded Medicaid coverage, which extended eligibility to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.
Yeah, I know, I keep bouncing around on this; first I thought 8M was feasible, then I backtracked. However, let's do some simple math.
Obviously it wasn't exactly 7.1M on the nose at midnight on 3/31. Let's assume an overage of, say, 20K at a minimum.
It's also safe to assume that it was slightly over 7.5M as of midnight last night; let's say 20K there as well.
I'd say a final weekend mini-surge is also likely for those who wait until the absolute last possible moment, which should cancel out what I'm assuming is a natural dropoff throughout the week. So...figure something like 30K/day today and tomorrow, then back up to 60K/day for the last 4 days. That's 300K added to the existing 7.52K, or 7.82M.
Me, last night: Hey, Guess What? I think we just hit 7.5M QHPs.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says 7.5 million Americans have now signed up for health coverage under President Barack Obama's health care law.
That's a 400,000 increase from the 7.1 million that Obama announced last week at the end of the law's open enrollment period. The figure exceeded expectations, a surprise election-year success for the law after a disastrous roll-out.
Sebelius disclosed the new figure during a hearing Thursday before the Senate Finance Committee.
Hey, Guess What? I think we just hit 7.5M QHPs.
Note that I've modified The Graph a bit more tonight, separating out the ESIs (Employer-Supplied Insurance) into a 4th category (this includes the tiny number of SHOP enrollments, but mostly the controverisal 8.2M ESI estimate noted by the RAND study).
Read more about Hey, Guess What? I think we just hit 7.5M QHPs.
Read more about Connecticut: Up to 18K more QHPs even without official extension?
Connect for Health Colorado reports that nearly 280,000 state residents gained coverage during the six-month enrollment period, including 120,971 who signed up for private insurance plans as of Monday and 158,521 who enrolled in the expanded Medicaid program as of April 1. In an interview last fall, Patty Fontneau, CEO of the non-profit organization running the exchange, had estimated that 125,000 to 140,000 Coloradans would sign up for insurance through the exchange during its first year.
ST.PAUL, Minn. – Today, MNsure announced 181,357 Minnesotans have enrolled in quality, affordable coverage through MNsure, the state’s health insurance marketplace. The growing numbers come from continued processing of “in line” applications, as well as Medical Assistance and MinnesotaCare enrollments.
...To date, MNsure has enrolled 47,697 Minnesotans in a Qualified Health Plan, 37,050 in MinnesotaCare and 96,610 in Medical Assistance.
Yesterday, however, the release of the RAND Corp. Survey made me realize that I was handling the 3rd category (OFF-Exchange Individual QHPs) the wrong way.
You see, in the rare cases where I had access to the off-exchange enrollments for a particular company, I mushed their individual and group policies together. The numbers weren't huge--only about 34,000 people--but the potential numbers, as the RAND survey indicated, could potentially be massive.
700K to 1.3M Additional Medicaid Enrollees through March, If Current Trends Continue.
However, March and April figures could bring more dramatic increases if outreach and enrollment efforts targeting the end of exchange open enrollment translate into new Medicaid enrollees. Specifically, if Medicaid sign-ups follow a similar pattern as exchanges, new Medicaid enrollees could reach 4.3 million by the end of March. In addition, recent figures released by CMS do not account for individuals assessed eligible for Medicaid through HealthCare.gov who have yet to be determined eligible by states.
Programming Notes: Craig Fahle Show, America Tonight & Left Jab now online!
For anyone interested, I'm scheduled to appear on the Craig Fahle Show tomorrow (Tuesday) morning at around 10:00am. The show is broadcast from WDET, 101.9 FM in Detroit. No idea what the rebroadcast schedule is but I assume it'll be available as a podcast archive at some point.
Meanwhile, my appearance on Left Jab Radio on Sunday night, complete with my son bursting into the room in the middle of the broadcast, is now available via their website. My segment kicks in around 14:45 in and lasts about 20 minutes, I think.
Read more about Programming Notes: Craig Fahle Show, America Tonight & Left Jab now online!
Urban, Gallup, and RAND all say the number of uninsured is declining since the ACA went into effect. Now we can debate why and by how much.
Everything else is secondary. Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation wins the day.
By our estimate, 3.9 million people are now covered through the state and federal marketplaces. This number is lower than current estimates of marketplace enrollment through the end of March from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), perhaps because some of the HROS data were collected in early March. All HROS data collection reported here ended on March 28, and therefore missed the last three days of the open enrollment period, during which time there was a surge in enrollment.
As noted earlier, the only way 3.9M makes sense to me is if they assumed an 80% Paid rate, which would have been about right at that time.
Read more about The RAND Survey is out! Conclusion: NET insurance gain of 9.3M!
The New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange (NMHIX) reported a total of 26,412 New Mexicans had enrolled in qualified health plans as of March 31, 2014, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Insurance. This figure represents a 76 percent growth rate from the 15,012 enrollments confirmed at the end of February 2014.
Cruse said he became a full-fledged enrollee on a Moda plan in February. He’s now one of 59,000 people in Oregon who enrolled in private insurance after successfully navigating through the often cumbersome Cover Oregon process. Another 140,000 enrolled through the site on the Oregon Health Plan.
UPDATE: OK, scratch that. Looks like this article was quoting the 58,833 "total" QHP figure from the most recent official press release instead of the "net" figure which was exactly 3K less: 55,833.
Leaving this up since it's already posted but sorry about the mixup.
The Department of Community Health says that as of 12 a.m. Monday, roughly 27,000 individuals had been enrolled in Healthy Michigan, which is intended to provide health insurance for hundreds of thousands more low-income adults.
Nearly 100,000 South Carolinians enrolled in a health insurance policy on HealthCare.govbetween Oct. 1 and March 31, the director of the state's insurance department said Monday.
But only some of those 97,387 individuals - about 57 percent - have paid their first month's premium, Director Ray Farmer said.
The number of people actually enrolled may go up or down through May 1 - the deadline by which that first payment must be made.
Data released Monday by the S.C. Department of Insurance shows a sharp increase in Obamacare enrollment in South Carolina during the second half of March. Approximately 30,000 people in this state signed up for a plan during the last two weeks of open enrollment.
It's nice to be able to plug in SC's data, but the "How many have PAID???" thing is more amusing. 31% of the enrollees don't have their policy start until May 1st, so it's only 69% who you would even expect to have paid yet. Presumably the bulk of the 11% in between will pay over the next few weeks, and the 31% May-starts will start paying in increasing numbers as well.
I'm not a private eye and I don't do corporate spying.
I was recently contacted by someone representing one insurance company who wanted me to attempt to find out specialized enrollment data about one of their competitors.
I don't blame them for giving this a shot; the insurance industry is, no doubt, a highly competitive business.
However, get this straight: If you want inside info on one of your competitors, go elsewhere. If your competitor happens to provide enrollment data for me, the odds are that it will be published publicly, which means that you'll will be able to view it by simply visiting the website just like anyone else.
As a courtesy, I am not going to identify either the person/company who made the request (nor the company they were trying to get information about).
However, I cannot guarantee that I won't do so if this happens again.
Read more about I'm not a private eye and I don't do corporate spying.
1. I don’t “hate” being compared to Nate Silver; It’s incredibly flattering. I just think it’s a bit of an insult to HIM. That isn't false modesty...I really don't know anything about "probability distribution" or "loglinear regression" (in fact, I had to look those terms up just now).
2. I didn’t expect HHS to release the full, 30-page report every week, I just figured they'd release the top-line numbers (X in QHPs, Y in Medicaid or whatever) on a weekly basis (and hope they decide to do so the next time around).
3. I didn’t know that Aaron Strauss was a data consultant or that he was in charge of the Analyst Institute; I figured he was a regular schmoe like myself.
OK, so I may have gotten people's hopes up a bit too much with the 8M by 4/15 thing. Still, 7.6M or higher would still be awesome, and the two reports which were sent my way this AM should more than make up for my lowered projection.
After hovering around 19% for years, hospital readmission rates began dropping beginning in 2012 and continued to do so into 2013. (The above chart reflects data through August of last year.) The national rate appears to still be falling considerably this year based on the latest data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS.
Readmissions cost U.S. taxpayers a pretty penny. The federal government estimated that hospital readmissions for just Medicare patients has historically added up to $26 billion annually -- $17 billion of which could be avoided.
I don't have Sirius XM myself, but if anyone does, I'm scheduled to be a guest on "Left Jab" this evening, sometime between 7pm - 9pm. It's apparently on Channel 127.
Anyway, for anyone interested, the podcast of the show should be available around 9:30pm Eastern or so.
This breaks down to around 60K per day x 15 days, which is what I'll be tacking onto the Spreadsheet & Graph until the actual total comes out.
Moving the Goal Posts: Now it's "How many of the UNINSURED have paid???"
"OK, most people have paid, and a high percentage of the total may be newly insured after all...but how many of those who are newly insured have paid???"
That's right, this is where they're trying to move the goal posts.
Read more about Moving the Goal Posts: Now it's "How many of the UNINSURED have paid???"
Hmmmmm...not sure what to make of this update out of KUNM in New Mexico. NM only had 18,691 exchange QHPs as of 3/15, so 51.4K would be absolutely insane (a 2.75x increase). It looks like they've mixed the SHOP enrollees into the mix, which means it's not quite that crazy--take those out and the QHPs are down to 37,400, or a "mere" doubling of the existing total. So...I guess that makes sense.
HOWEVER, this causes bigger questions, because the only data I've had for New Mexico's SHOP exchange was a mere 524 as of March 18th. How the hell did they manage to enroll 28 times as many people in the next 13 days???
Updated @MNsure enrollment numbers: 47,046 QHPs, 35,603 in MinnesotaCare and 92,402 in MA. Total of 175,051.
I don't usually write this all out, but given the interest in the site these days, I figured I would give a play-by-play of the process of breaking down the CMS reports by state, using the February CMS report just released an hour or so ago.
Of that number, 42,320, or 65.5 percent, represent adults in Medicaid’s new eligibility group, adults 19-64 without dependent children who were not previously eligible for Medicaid but became eligible on January 1, 2014. The new eligibility group is authorized under the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion and is financed with 100 percent federal dollars for its first three years, 2014-2017.
The other roughly one-third represents those enrolling who were eligible for Medicaid under previously existing rules.
Unfortunately they don't specify how many of the remaining 22.5K are renewals vs. "woodworkers". I'm going to go with about half (11K, or around 17% of the 65K total) unless I receive further clarification one way or the other. This reduces the current "woodworker" estimate of 16.6K by about 5,600.
OK, this one is actually semi-legitimate, depending on your perspective.
According to Glenn Kessler of the WaPo, when the CBO crunches the numbers next year to see how many 2014 ACA Exchange QHPs actually did qualify as being counted towards their 7M (then 6M) projection, they're actually going to have to slice up every single person enrolled into 12ths.
That is to say, if your policy started coverage in January and was paid for straight through until the end of the year, you'll be counted as one "CBO person", but if it didn't start coverage until, say, April 1st, you'd only be counted for 9 months, making you 3/4 of a "person" in CBO terms.
Now topping more than 3 million, the number of Californians who have enrolled in a private health care plan or in Medi-Cal through the state's health insurance exchange will likely rise by about 500,000 people who started but did not finish their applications by Monday's midnight deadline, exchange officials said Thursday.
At a news conference, Peter Lee, executive director of the Covered California exchange, told reporters that of the half-million individuals who had started their applications in the last week of March, at least 20,000 had finished their applications by Tuesday.
Now, I'm assuming that "finished their applications" in this case actually means "enrolled", because 500K / 15 days = 33,333 per day if they plan on squeezing that many in under the new 4/15 wire.
By popular request and much pondering (see comments at bottom of link), I am no longer subtracting the 3.7M Cancelled Policies from the grand total. However, these are still clearly and prominently noted in the yellow box.
As promised, I have lowered the "Sub-26er" bottom-end estimate again, from a low of 2.2M to 1.6M. I'm done mucking around with this until further notice.
With the official announcement of a whopping 1.7M OFF-exchange QHP enrollments from the BCBS Association, I have increased the documented off-exchange total to 2.17M on the graph, causing a noticable spike at the end (obviously these weren't all enrolled in today, but I can't really back-date these so they're all added at once).
Note that I've also deleted all of the state-specific BCBS off-exchange QHPs since the 1.7M total noted above supercedes all of them.
Since the 9M total off-exchange figure credited to the Rand Survey was a very rough estimate (see update at bottom of link), I've added an "up to" caveat (and the 6.83M balance isn't on the graph itself anyway).
I've replaced the 7M arrow with 6M and 7M lines to reduce the clutter.
Finally, the most controversial change is probably the removal of the "documented unpaid" exchange QHPs (as well as the "estimated additional" QHPs; instead, I've simplified things greatly by separating the total Exchange QHP number into 2 areas: 93% estimated PAID (or will pay soon) and 7% UNPAID (or may not pay).
I'll be happy to revise this 93 / 7 ratio one way or the other as more data comes in, but for now, based on all the partial "Paid/Unpaid" data I've seen to date, that seems to be fairly accurate.
About 5 different people have sent me a link to this new study by the Urban Institute, which concludes that the total number of uninsured adults in the U.S. has been reduced by around 5. million people since last fall.
The Urban Institute's Health Reform Monitoring Survey (HRMS) has been tracking insurance coverage since the first quarter of 2013. Today, we report the first estimate of how the uninsurance rate has changed through early March 2014. These results track changes through most of the first Affordable Care Act's (ACA) open-enrollment period, which ended on March 31, 2014.
As deaconblues reminds me, the 29K is in addition to the 720 subsidized enrollees that they've managed to get through their messed-up system.
Massachusetts will not meet its goal of moving more than 200,000 people into insurance plans that comply with the federal law by the end of June. It has managed to enroll about 29,000 residents in unsubsidized coverage, 138,000 in temporary coverage, and another 114,000 in extended coverage since the October launch of its new website, with a significant number applying on paper, said a Connector spokesman Thursday.
First, don’t believe polemicists who argue that 70% or more of buying policies at HealthCare.gov had insurance already, as Republicans claim, in an interpretation of a McKinsey & Co. study that Politifact ruled “false.” Even at eHealth, which has almost no subsidy-eligible customers so far, 51% of clients this year were previously uninsured, up from 34% in late 2013, Lauer said.
With 83% of the people using HealthCare.gov and the state exchanges eligible for subsidies, it’s highly unlikely that they’re going to skew more heavily toward the being previously-insured than eHealth’s crowd.
Background: With three months of open enrollment completed, Cover Oregon is expanding the enrollment report beyond what is required by the federal Center for Consumer Information & Insurance Oversight to include net private insurance enrollments and also dental enrollments.
@charles_gaba @Cripipper no link. I had been asking for the data and I got it the old fashioned way--a phone call.
O’Malley points out that despite the problems, Maryland exceeded its overall enrollment goal of 260,000. As of Tuesday night, that number had hit 295,077. It includes people who have enrolled in private plans (which has dramatically lagged expectations) and Medicaid (which has exceeded expectations).
...Sharfstein said in late February that a more accurate projection is 75,000 to 100,000 private enrollees.
As of Tuesday evening, there were 63,002, with hundreds or thousands more expected to finish their applications in coming weeks.
Paid/Unpaid: Going with 93% "Paid or Will Pay Within a Reasonable TIme"
About 3/4 of the 28K @HealthSourceRI enrollees had paid a premium as of 3/31. People who signed up after 3/23 have until 4/23 to pay.
@asymmetricinfo And the paid rate through 3/8 was 83%, including people whose bills were due later.
Interim CEO of @MNsure, Scott Leitz, to tell U.S. House subcommittee that 95% of its 47,000 enrollees have paid, and the rate will rise.
Read more about Paid/Unpaid: Going with 93% "Paid or Will Pay Within a Reasonable TIme"
In the meantime, I can provide the enrollment figures: 48,150 are fully enrolled in a plan through Vermont Health Connect; 25,930 of those enrolled in Medicaid or Dr. Dynasaur, our CHIP program.
Doesn't impact the overall national total, but it does change the dynamic for Vermont to something...rational (prior to this it looked like they had hit a whopping 585% of their year 1 target!
This means 22,220 QHPs and 25,930 Medicaid.
The Hawaii Health Connector has enrolled 7,861 individuals as of the March 31 deadline, with another 24,176 who completed applications for coverage through the state-run online health insurance exchange.
...It is important to note there are only about 50,000 uninsured people in Hawaii who are not deemed Medicaid eligible, which makes Hawaii’s market small compared to other states.
...Kayla Rosenfeld, spokeswoman for the state Department of Human Services, told PBN on Wednesday that since Oct. 1 — when the department launched its new online eligibility system KOLEA— net Medicaid enrollment in Hawaii has increased by 46,605, which is close to the expected increase of 48,000.
Van Pelt highlights the more than 300,000 "enrolled in health care coverage since October thanks to Cover Oregon ... and the Oregon Health Authority."
55,000 people enrolled in private plans using the backup manual processing system set up to cope with the exchange's technology issues.
more than 120,000 people enrolled into Oregon Health Plan after the exchange forwarded their information to the state for processing, a workaround for the exchange's broken Medicaid interface.
125,000 people enrolled directly into the Oregon Health Plan using a streamlined system set up to bypass Cover Oregon.
Kentucky: REGULAR exchange enrollments extended until 4/11!
Gov. Steve Beshear announced Tuesday that the state will extend its deadline. People will be able to file for health insurance from April 4 to April 11.
The official deadline had been midnight March 31. Gwenda Bond, spokeswoman for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, said 21,000 people signed up over the weekend, including 12,000 people who signed up Monday. The deadline affected only those signing up for private health insurance, because those eligible for Medicaid can apply at any time.
Because of the high demand, Bond said, state officials decided to add additional days for enrollment or a "special enrollment period." The days between the March 31 deadline and the special enrollment period will allow for some tweaks to the technical system to allow for the extension, she said.
Huh. Good for them, but if that's the case, why not just bump this out to 4/15 and be done with it? Weird.
Read more about Kentucky: REGULAR exchange enrollments extended until 4/11!
So far, 198 companies have bought SHOP policies for 1,770 covered lives — both their employees and their employees’ dependents, Sugden said. That's less than a large state like California, but ahead of other states that have not even been able to launch their small-business exchange, he said.
...The SHOP is attracting about 40 new companies per month right now, a number that will continue to rise because companies can continue to buy policies throughout the year, he said.
Update as of 4/1: 41,823 Nevadans confirm Qualified Health Plan Selections through http://t.co/k2YKIcssBl. 25,899 paid to date.
Regular followers may recall that a couple of weeks ago, in response to a Glenn Kessler "Fact Checker" article, I ended up converting the "Sub26er" tally from a solid 3.1 million figure (the number touted by Pres. Obama and the HHS Dept. for months) to a "range" setup, similar to the other enrollment figures.
Kessler's argument was essentially that the quarterly reports comparing the number of 19-25-year-olds on their parent's plans between 2010 and 2013 fluctuated greatly from one quarter to another, and that therefore instead of taking one particular quarter and measuring it against another (which is where the 3.1M figure came from), it would be more rational to take the averages for the full years and compare those against each other. Based on this, he came up with a range of 2.2M - 2.8M, instead of 3.1M solid.
Over the past month or so, several researchers, reporters and other data nerds have inquired about whether I'd be willing to open up the QHP and Medicaid spreadsheet permissions to let people export them to Excel. It was always my intent to do this once the 3/31 deadline was past. However, a few things complicate this.
OK, now that we're over the hump of the 3/31 "official" open enrollment deadline, it's time to take a look at the "But how many have PAID???" fuss again.
I've been trying to decide whether my "90% either Paid or Unpaid for Legitimate Reasons" rule of thumb seems valid, or whether I should bump it up...or down.
An article up in today's National Journal states that according to the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, their Paid Enrollee figure is around 80 - 85%...for policies from October, November, December and the first half of January.
On the one hand, this is significant for two reasons: First, because the BCBSA is huge; I don't know their collective marketshare, but it's big (they include Anthem/WellPoint, the various Blue Cross companies such as Highmark, Regence and so forth). I dunno...maybe 30% or more of the market in total?
A few weeks back (upon my request) I was sent updated enrollment data (both on- and off-exchange) from CoOportunity Health, which operates in Iowa and Nebraska.
Earlier today (upon my semi-request...that is, I had asked about it a couple of weeks ago but kind of forgot about it), I was sent a press release for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, which included their ACA Open Enrollment data breakdown (well, most of it...I had to have them clarify the rest).
A few minutes ago, without any doing on my part, eHealth Insurance (which I've written about a couple of times for off-exchange data, and which is actually a broker, not an insurance company themselves) tweeted out a link to one of my stories about them.
Read more about Michigan: BCBSM: 53K Off-Exchange QHPs, 89K "grandfathered" policies?
OK, I don't mean to sound full of myself, and it's a fine article, but it's a bit amusing to see the reporter refer to "politicians and policy makers" as being the only ones who have "largely overlooked" off-exchange enrollments.
Millions of newly insured people are hiding in plain sight.
They are the people who have bought new health insurance since the start of this year but have chosen for one reason or another to bypass the state and federal exchanges that opened last year under the Affordable Care Act. While the exact number is unknown, some health care experts estimate that it may be in the millions.
Politicians and policy makers have focused on the number of people who signed up through the exchanges — at nearly seven million and counting a day after the March 31 deadline — but they have largely overlooked the group that did not use the exchanges, even though it could have a major impact on the program’s financial success in the years ahead.
This leads to the main point of this entry.
Florida: Extension period pushed out until April 30??
Well this one came out of nowhere...it doesn't seem to be an April Fool's joke. It makes little sense, however...why would FL's be extend to 4/30 when the other 35 Federal-Exchange-run states are all cut off at 4/15? And what's with the April 7th "paper" application bit? Weirdness.
The open enrollment period for health insurance coverage for Floridians under the Affordable Care Act is extended through April 30 for people whose paper applications are received by April 7.
Read more about Florida: Extension period pushed out until April 30??
Michigan: Oh yeah...Medicaid expansion started here today.
And now we enter the Bonus Round!
Enrollment began Tuesday for Healthy Michigan, which extends Medicaid eligibility to adults making up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $16,000 for an individual and $33,000 for a family of four.
By 4 p.m. Tuesday, 11,848 applications had been received, and 4,152 had been automatically approved, according to the Department of Community Health. The state expects 320,000 residents to sign up in the first 12 months. The number could grow as high as 470,000 over time.
Read more about Michigan: Oh yeah...Medicaid expansion started here today.
OK, in addition to the appx. 7.041 million enrollments on the Federal exchange (HC.gov), I've brought CO, CT, DC, HI, KY, MD, MN, NY, RI and WA completely up to date, with all QHP data through midnight on 3/31 (some of the Medicaid/CHIP data is still missing, but that's a lesser concern at the moment).
I can't tell you how frustrating it is to be this close to full data while still missing it.
However, this obviously doesn't apply since the final weekend and especially yesterday were insane.
Consumer interest in Covered California has been strong, with 1,209,791 Californians signing up as of 2 a.m. March 31. From March 24 through 2 a.m. March 31, 155,988 individuals signed up for coverage. During the same week, 389,840 accounts were started — including 123,787 on Saturday and Sunday, as consumers hurried to meet the deadline.
"Outstanding Numbers" has two meanings: The first, of course, is that in spite of everything--the terrible website launch of HC.gov and some of the state sites; the still-terrible status of some of the state sites even now; the actively-hostile opposition and obstructive actions in certain states, the negative spin on every development by some in the news media--in spite of all of this, over 7 million people nationwide enrolled in private, ACA-compliant healthcare plans between 12:01am on 10/1/13 and 11:59pm on 3/31/14...slightly surpassing the original CBO projection for that period.
There's the usual discussions about "But how many have PAID???", "But how many were ALREADY INSURED???", "How many were YOUNG???" and "What METAL LEVEL did they get???" etc etc etc. All of these are reasonable questions for actuaries, accountants and so forth to ask, and the answers will indeed help shape our understanding of what the overall economic and health impact of the law will be.
For the moment, however, none of that matters. This is an outstanding number any way you slice it.
Of course, you can quibble about how many of the 9 million off-exchange QHPs were previously uninsured, or how many of the cancelled plans were swapped out with QHPs from the exchanges vs the off-exchange amount. You can quibble about whether the "sub26ers" should be 3.1 million or only 2.5 million. You can argue bout whether "woodworkers" should "count" or not (as if a massive outreach campaign which encourages previously-eligible people to enroll in a program they qualify for isn't an accomplishment to be proud of). You can argue about whether unpaid QHPs should be counted (yet) or not.
The bottom line is this: No matter how you slice it, this is a ton of people receiving decent healthcare coverage who either a) didn't have anything before or b) can no longer be dropped, denied or bankrupted by coverage that was scattershot, piecemeal or shoddy.
Given the Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso's accusation that the Obama administration is "cooking the books"
New York: QHPs 6K higher than I thought!
Since the state website launched on Oct. 1, 826,812 people had signed up for coverage as of 9 a.m. Monday, with 436,304 qualifying for Medicaid and 390,508 obtaining private insurance, she said.
Read more about New York: QHPs 6K higher than I thought! | 2019-04-24T06:21:32Z | http://obamacaresignups.net/archive/201404 |
"What must I do to be saved?" That question was asked by a startled jailer. He was amidst strange and perplexing happenings. He had just seen wonderful sights. He was being shaken by unfamiliar terrors. For these terrors he sought relief and so he asked this infinitely wise question: "What must I do to be saved?"
But this jailer is not the only man that has ever asked that question. He is not the first man that asked it. This is a universal question. Men of all times and of all climes have asked and sought an answer to this question. The cultured Greeks tried to answer it by building altars to many gods. Then realizing that they had missed it, they sought further by building an altar to "the Unknown God." It was in an effort to answer this question that children were once sacrificed to the fire god, Moloch. And it is the struggle to answer the same question that causes the Indian mother to-day to cast her baby into the Ganges and to come home with empty arms and with an empty heart.
I heard a missionary from the heart of Africa say some years ago that he used to live among the savage tribes of the far interior. They were people of the lowest type. They wore no shred of clothing. But in their wild and barbarous religious dances they would swing round and round till they frothed at the mouth and fell down rigid. It was their way, said the missionary, of asking the supreme question: "What must I do to be saved?"
This was a dramatic moment in this jailer's life. It was a moment big with blessing. Look at the picture. Two strange preachers have come to this Roman city of Philippi. Their preaching has brought them into conflict with the authorities. They are drawn before the magistrates. Their clothing is torn from them and they are severely beaten.
It seems that this would have been shame enough and pain enough, but it was not. They were then turned over to a callous and cruel Roman jailer with the order that he should keep them fast. So he threw them into the inner dungeon and made their feet fast in the stocks. The place was foul and cold and dark. Their backs were lacerated and bleeding. And this wag their reward for seeking to bring to men the unsearchable riches of Christ.
Now it was dark enough for these two. But they did not lose heart. First they prayed. I can imagine they prayed secretly and then they prayed aloud. And those people in prison heard the voice of prayer for possibly the first time in their lives. Now, real prayer always makes things different. It brings us a consciousness of God. And so as these men prayed their hearts grew warm and joyous till by and by prayer gives place to praise and they begin to sing.
I have wondered what these people sang that night. It might have been the Twenty-third Psalm. Or they might have sung, "I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord. The humble shall hear thereof and be glad." Or the Thirty-seventh Psalm would have sounded well in the darkness of that hideous dungeon,--"Fret not thyself because of evil doers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb." But I think the most likely of all is the Forty-sixth: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will we not fear though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea."
Whatever they sang it was great singing. I think the angels opened the windows when they heard it. I think it made the very heart of our Lord glad. What a surprise it was to those in that gloomy old prison. They had heard the walls ring with groans and shrieks. They had heard bitter oaths in the night, but songs with the lilt of an irrepressible joy in them--they had never heard anything like that before.
Now as the melody rang through the gloomy cells something else happened. The old building seemed to be shaking with the very power of the music. An earthquake was on and God took this petty prison in His hand and shook it as a dicer might shake his dice box, and all its doors were thrown open and the fetters were shaken from the feet of those that were bound. And the old jailer is shaken out of his complacency and out of his bed and a great terror grips him.
I can see him as he picks himself up and looks about him in dismay. The doors are open. He is sure that the prisoners are gone. He knows that his life will be to pay. He will not face the shame of it. He will inflict justice upon himself. He draws his sword and prepares to thrust it through him, but Paul's eyes were upon him, and knowing his purpose he shouts at him, "We are all here, Jailer. Do thyself no harm."
There is love in that cry, tenderness in it, longing in it that the jailer could not understand. Neither could he fail to realize the might of it. It touches him deeply. He is gripped by another terror, the terror that has come through the presence of these strange men who have brought the things of eternity to seem real to him. And urged on by that new terror he rushes to these men of bleeding backs and tattered garments and throws himself at their feet with this great question in his heart and upon his lips, "Sirs, what must I to do be saved?"
Now, I am aware of the fact that this jailer was a heathen and I am not accusing him at all of being a great theologian. I do not know how learned he was. I do not know whether he could read or write or not. I do not know whether he was widely traveled or not. He may have never been beyond the precincts of his own city. But what I do know is this, that he asked the biggest question that ever fell from human lips. There can be no greater. It was the greatest for him. It is the greatest for you. It is the greatest for me. "What must I do to be saved?" There is no question quite so big as that.
And I am wondering now if it is a big question to you. Remember, it is not: What must I do to be decent? It is not: What must I do to be respectable? These things are all right, but they are not supreme. It is not: What must I do to get rich? Millions of us are asking that question as if it were the one question of eternal importance. But you know that it is not. It is not: What must I do to be beautiful? Some of us are asking that question too, and some of us, I am sorry to say, are missing the answer to it very much. But that is not the big question. The supreme question is: "What must I do to be saved?"
What is implied in this question when it is asked intelligently? There is implied first of all that there is an absolute difference between being saved and lost. There is implied in it that there are two classes of people, not the cultured and the uncultured, not the learned and the unlearned. They are the saved and the lost. They are those that have life and those that do not have life.
I am perfectly aware that we of to-day do not like such dogmatic divisions. But I call your attention to the fact that they are the divisions that are made in the New Testament. They are the divisions that Jesus made. He puts folks into two classes, and only two. There were two gates, one was broad and the other narrow. There were two foundations on which a man might build, one was of sand and the other of rock. Mark you, He did not divide men into the perfect and the imperfect, but into those that had life and those that did not have it. And it was He that said, "He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life." So this question, if it means anything, means that there is such a thing as being saved and there is such a thing as being lost. That fact is recognized throughout the entire Bible.
This question implies, in the second place, a consciousness of being lost. "What must I do to be saved?" When this man asked that question there were many things about which he was uncertain. He was uncertain as to how he was to get out of his darkness. He was uncertain as to how he was to be saved, but of one thing he was sure--he was dead sure that he was lost. He did not try to dodge that fact. He did not shut his eyes to it. He did not try in any way to deny it.
And, if you are here without God I hope you will not deny it. For if you have not taken Jesus Christ as your personal Savior you are lost. Then the best thing you can do, the first step to be taken in the direction of getting saved, is to realize your lostness. A man will not send for the physician unless he believes himself sick. He will not try to learn unless he realizes his ignorance. Neither will he turn to God for salvation unless he realizes that he is lost. Oh, it is a good day for a man when he gets a square look at himself. It is a great day when he has a glimpse of himself as God sees him. It is a great hour when, conscious of his guilt, he bows himself in the presence of Him who alone can save and says, "God, be merciful unto me a sinner."
This question implies, in the third place, not only that the man is lost who asked it, but that there is a possibility of his being saved. "What must I do to be saved?"--and here was a man conscious of being lost, conscious of being sin scarred and stained and guilty, yet he believes, and he is right in believing, that salvation is possible for him. He believes that even he can be saved unto the uttermost. There is such a thing as salvation and it is possible for me, even me, to lay hold of it.
And you too must realize that, otherwise it will do you no good to realize the fact that you are a sinner. It is not enough to know yourself lost. You must also believe that you may be saved. It is not enough to realize that you are weak: you must believe that is possible for you to be strong. You must believe that even a fluctuating Simon can be made into a rock. You must believe in the power of God to remake men, otherwise for you the question is only a question of black despair.
This question implies, in the fourth place, a willingness to be saved. "What must I do to be saved?" This man is not asking this question to gather material for a future argument. He is no speculator. He is no trifler. He is not even asking it because he is intellectually curious. He is not simply asking that he may know the conditions of salvation. He is asking with the earnest purpose in his heart to meet those conditions.
This question implies, in the fifth place, that while salvation is a possibility for you, you must do something in order to obtain it. "What must I do to be saved?" What sort of an answer would you expect to a question like that? What did the apostle say? Did he say, "Do nothing. Let the matter alone. Forget it. Drift?" That is what many of us are doing. No, sir, he said nothing of the kind. He told this man to do something. And this man knew, as you and I know, that if we are ever saved we have got to do something in order to get saved.
I say every one of us knows that, and yet too few of us act as if it were really true. We seem to think that salvation is something that we are going to stumble upon by accident. We seem to think it is something that we are going to receive with absolutely no effort on our own part. We act as if we thought it might be slipped into our pockets while we sleep or dropped into our coffins when we die. Ask the question intelligently, heart,--"What must I do to be saved?" Then you will realize that you must do something.
This question implies, in the first place, that the conditions of salvation are not optional, that it is not up to you and it is not up to me to decide just what we will do in order to be saved. You can accept salvation or you can refuse it. You can meet the conditions or you can refuse to meet them. But one thing you cannot do. You cannot decide upon the terms upon which you will surrender. If you are saved at all you must surrender unconditionally.
So the question is, "What must I do to be saved?" It is not, What is the expedient thing or what is the respectable thing or what is the popular thing to do in order to find salvation? The conditions are not of your choosing and they are not of mine. God has made them and you and I dare not change them. Therefore, if you are ever saved there is not something simply that you ought to do, but there is something that you absolutely must do.
Last of all, this question implies that salvation is an individual matter. "What must I do?" It is not a question of what must God do. He has made full provision for the salvation of the whole world. It is not what must the Church do. It is not what must the preacher do. It is not what must this man that is beside me and this man that is behind me or in front of me do. The question comes to my own heart--"What must I do?"
"What must I do to be saved?" You must do something, but there are many things that we are doing that will not save us. If you expect to be saved, in the first place, do not depend on your own goodness. "All your righteousnesses are but as filthy rags." Do not count on your own decency. No man was ever saved that way. I challenge you to find one single one. I was holding a meeting some years ago and I met a young fellow who told me he was good enough without Jesus Christ. Of course he was not saved. A man who says that virtually tells Christ that He has misunderstood his case altogether and that Calvary was a wasted tragedy so far as he himself is personally concerned.
Neither will you be saved trusting in the other man's badness. I know what some of you are saying to yourselves as I preach. You are telling yourselves one of the oldest lies that was ever told. You are saying, "I would be a Christian but there are so many hypocrites in the Church." How many men give that as a reason, but it is no man's reason. And I never knew one man to be saved by it. Believe me, the shortcomings and the sins of my brother are mighty poor things to depend on for my own personal salvation.
Again, you will not be saved by seeking an easy way. You will never win by catering to your own pride and cowardice. I was conducting a revival in a Texas city some years ago. At the close of one of the services a young lady came forward to shake hands with the preacher. As she did so she said, "I am going to become a Christian." I congratulated her upon her decision, but she answered, "Oh, I do not mean right now. I mean I am going to be very soon."
"You see," she continued, "it is like this: I am going in a few days to visit some of my relatives that live way back in the country. There is going to be a revival nearby. It will be easy for me to make the decision there because nobody knows me. But here it is different. Everybody knows me here and I simply haven't the courage to come out and take an open stand for Jesus Christ." She went into the country as she planned but she was not saved. Of course not. Nobody ever found salvation by catering to his own cowardice and pride and seeking an easy way.
"What must I do to be saved?" There is an answer to this question. It is an answer that is absolutely dependable. There is nothing in all the world of which I am more sure than I am of the correctness of the answer to this question. I am as sure of it as I am of my own existence. I am as sure of it as I am of the fact of God.
I wonder if you are interested to know the answer. Remember that it is the answer to your supreme question. It is the answer to the most important question that was ever asked. It is the most important that you will ever be called to act upon in this world. Does the prospect of an answer quicken your heartbeat? Does it shake you out of your lethargy into intensest interest? It ought to if it does not. For the answer that I give is not the answer of a mere speculator or dreamer. It is the answer of inspiration and it is an answer whose truth has been tested by the personal experience of countless millions. "What must I do to be saved?" Answer: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."
What is it to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? It is to believe that Jesus Christ can do what He claims to do and what He has promised to do and to depend on Him to do it. Mr. Moody tells us how that he was in his cellar one day when he looked up and saw his little girl making an effort to see him. She could not because it was dark in the cellar. "Jump," said Mr. Moody, "Daddy will catch you." And instantly the little girl jumped. Now, that was faith. That was believing on her father. So the jailer believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. He depended upon Him then and there for salvation.
And what happened? He was saved. That very moment Christ came into the man's heart and he became a new creation. He became possessed of a new joy. He became possessed of a new tenderness.
Did you notice what he did? He took water and washed the stripes of the preachers. Paul and Silas were bleeding when they came to the prison but the jailer did not care. But now that he had found Christ he has already begun to be a partaker of the divine nature. A new love has come to him. He has become tender where he was cruel before. Even so does the power of Jesus Christ make men over.
Now, this question: do you want to be saved? If you do you can be. It's the surest thing in all the world. It is as sure as the fact that night follows day. It is more sure than the fact that if you sow wheat you will reap it, that if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ you shall be saved. Test the matter now and you will know the blessed fact in your own experience. | 2019-04-24T12:25:55Z | http://articles.ochristian.com/article11058.shtml |
Jean Laughton came on my radar some years ago when my friend Nancy Baron shared her work with me. After featuring Jean’s work on Lenscratch, we both found ourselves at the same portfolio review in Paris, and I was able to get to know her in a deeper way. Jean is the real deal. She may have once worked as a casting director in New York, but she is totally engaged in her life on the plains of South Dakota working as a rancher and spending her days on the back of a horse. When we were in Paris, her cowboy hat was ever present and incredibly chic!
This week, after today’s post and interview, Jean will take over the editing “reins” and feature other photographers living and making work in South Dakota. You can follow Jean on her Instagram account, COUNTRYPOLITAN.
Jean Laughton is a self-taught photographer and native Iowan. Her photography projects began while she was working as a casting director in New York City. Jean shoots with film and uses her variety of cameras to search for the past within the present. Her project’s themes of disappearing Americana and The West are intermixed with elements of cinema, myth, anthropology and preservation. Jean’s photographs have been exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently in New York City. She received a grant from the South Dakota Arts Council for My Ranching Life Billboard project along Interstate 90. Her photographs have been published in Range, Ranch & Reata, Cowboys & Indians, and View Camera. They have also been featured on The New York Times LENS blog and LENSCRATCH blog. Jean’s photography and life intertwine as she continues to ranch and photograph in Western South Dakota – existing somewhere between the past and the present.
Let’s start off with what drew you to living the life of a cowgirl (would that be the correct description of your profession)? Tell us about your growing up, life in NYC, and decision to move to South Dakota…and finally, how does photography factor into your journey?
I ranch and ‘cowboy’ (as a verb). I put cowboy, in quotations, as I could never compare myself to those who have been doing it all their lives. But, I do my thing. I am now leasing and managing the ranch where I first started working, as a novice, in 2003. I am involved in all aspects, along with my ranching partner, of running the ranch: feeding in the winter, calving in March and April, brandings in May, haying and fencing in the summer, sorting working and shipping cattle in the Fall. I am lucky to work on a ranch and in an area where the crew dresses traditionally and where all cattle work is done on horseback. Making it a very desirable photogenic experience.
I kind of landed on the ranch by chance. I had no plans to ranch when I moved to South Dakota from NYC. I have always been drawn to historic photographs of the West and the idea of going back in time. Stepping into this life was somewhat like stepping into one of those old photographs. When I first got on horseback and helped out here, I loved the extreme difference from my life in New York City. I suppose, in some ways, it reminded me of my childhood in Iowa. I was drawn to the ruggedness, individualism, full days, adventure, freedom, being outdoors, the newness of it, the animals, the escape, and the endless sky. Also, I was drawn to the opportunity to work and learn alongside an old time cowboy and fulfill my dream of loping a paint horse across the prairie.
In the early 2000’s, while living in NYC, I was out West photographing women roughstock riders like Jan Youren and her daughters and granddaughters. Looking at them, I saw something in myself. No, I was not going to be a bronc rider. But seeing them in action made me want to be ‘in’ something rather than just documenting it from the sidelines.
I grew up just five hours from here in rural Iowa – but it was farmland – totally different. It’s funny to think I landed back at the very beginning of the West after fleeing from Iowa to NYC in the 1980’s – a place where I felt so at home in my anonymity. My family has farming history on both sides. I grew up in town. As a kid, I was so lucky to have grandparents right next door. Their house was filled with antiques and objects – like a magical movie set full of wonder. I also had great grandparents on another old time farm in a grand old farmhouse. Another great grandmother lived across the street. I spent much time on my paternal grandmother, Rosemary’s, farm where my mom grew up as the oldest of 12 children raised by a widowed mother. This is where I rode horses and had fun outdoors with my aunts and uncles who were close to my age. The small farmhouse was a mad house full of kids – though we spent most of our time outdoors playing and play-acting. My grandmother recently passed away, at 96, after spending over 74 years in that house. I always felt there should be velvet ropes in the doorway of each room of the farmhouse – as if it were a county historical museum. With it’s vintage pink bathroom, the religious artifacts throughout, the shellacked photo of JFK, the plastic Jesus light switch covers and the walls packed with photographs. While home for my grandmother’s funeral last winter, I parked on a remote gravel road. I realized I was surrounded by my ancestry. My grandma’s current farm – a mile down the road the farm she grew up on – across the road the crumbling remains of the Victorian farmhouse where my grandfather grew up – nearby, the farm where my other grandpa, great grandmother and great great-grandparents lived, across the road from them the farm where my silent movie actor great grandfather lived – the wonderful house my great aunt Jess and corn cob pipe smoking and fiddle playing great uncle Fritz lived in with the portrait of Charles Laughton atop their television set and the smell of corncobs burning in their stove. If only I were taking photographs as a kid! Since I started ranching, I focused on the major shift between city life and my current ranching life. I think I overlooked the similarities to my childhood times spent on those farms.
I often say I am not really a photographer but that I use it as a tool to lead me to interesting situations and people. Photography has definitely been a part of it all. While living in New York City I started photographing my Go West project (1995-2003). I drove to rodeos and great locales throughout the West. During it, I discovered old family photographs which belonged to my great grandmother. She also photographed at rodeos. Through her photographs I met old-timer and 1940 world champion bronc rider, Gerald Roberts, and followed a path that eventually led me to this ranch, once home to the world’s first Champion Rodeo Cowboy, Earl Thode (1929). I set foot on this ranch because I was out photographing old time cowboys. Who knew I would work here? Then the old time cowboy I work with knew people who were in the old rodeo photographs of my great grandmother’s. It is as if the photographs were some kind of road map for my life.
This time I just stayed a little longer – rather than passing through.
I arrived in NYC as a novice of life fleeing from the narrow-mindedness of small town life. I worked in fashion – which progressed to production and casting – which progressed to having my own small casting company. I see a direct link between being a casting director and my photography. I was lucky to work on photo shoots with great photographers such as Richard Avedon, David Bailey, Deborah Turbeville and many others. Living in NYC was a great inspiration, with its wonderful cultural opportunities. If I had not lived in the city, I may not longed for the West.
I am self-taught photographer. I started driving cross-country in the 1990’s, looking for the past lingering within the present. And such started the serendipitous sequence of events – which led me to where I am now. It all started with photography.
I had been hemming and hawing about moving out of NYC for a few years. First, being in a relationship then being single – so I was free to do what ever I wanted. I was on one of my expeditionary summer photo trips. I was photographing the people of the town of Interior, South Dakota – near the Badlands National Park. Someone mentioned a house for sale. I kept hearing them talk about it but I wasn’t really listening. Then I finally heard them and thought, why not. I had no connection to ranching at this point. I thought the house would be a temporary home base while I photographed and worked my way to freelance casting in Los Angeles. Then I got on a horse. Whoops. That was 2003. Ranching happened because I was in search of old cowboys to photograph. That portrait session first led to photographing (from foot! ha ha) shipping day on the ranch – then helping the ranching neighbors move cattle in freezing cold – then working the winter for a pair of custom Paul Bond boots – then getting into the cattle business. Much has happened between then and now. I hope my photographs preserve at least some of it.
One thing that we share is our love for cinema. How did movies inform how you see Western life?
Yes, I am obsessed with movies – especially classic and silent. I love the fake reality of the backdrops and controlled environment of sets. I never watched too many westerns, but I saw “My Darling Clementine” on TV in NYC – TV not cable! One scene, with Henry Fonda graveside in front of a glorious painted backdrop, rather suddenly and abruptly, inspired me to get a backdrop painted and hit the road to photograph my Go West series (1995-2004) behind the scenes at rodeos. The rodeos were like walking onto a movie studio lot with characters straight out of Central Casting – but with the twist of naturally occurring authenticity. It was a wonderful visual and sensory overload. What started as photographing the myth led to me actually inhabiting it with My Ranching Life series – stepping into a real life version of that backdrop scene.
I now live in a tiny camper on the ranch. It’s as if I am in a camper that would be on a Universal Studios back lot and that I am inside getting all my cowboy gear on waiting for the knock on the door to tell me it is time to walk out onto the set for today’s scene. If only I had a stunt double! In the fall and spring, we help the neighboring ranchers. This is when I get many of my photographs and get to ride with a crew of 10-20 cowboys dressed in traditional gear. I recognize Howard Hawks and John Ford images all day long. I will be riding along and look up a see a cowboy silhouetted on a ridge right out of Red River. It all feels like a movie to me – I have dialogue constantly running through my head while real life plays back the many movie scenes stored in my mind. The panorama format of MY RANCHING LIFE series is like Cinemascope and enhances the perception of it all. I often feel I am riding on a giant set, and that there is an edge to it somewhere. When I am out riding alone and coming in under a starry perforated planetarium sky – all silent except the sounds of the coyotes howling and your horse walking along – I feel as if there is a camera tracking me and a microphone above me. The moon is hanging from invisible wires, a special effects crew is creating the wind and snow, the sky is painted, I am riding in front of a rear screen projection, the rest of the crew and livestock are part of the cast and the script is ever-changing.
What is it like being a fine art photographer in South Dakota? Is there a community that you have access to?
To be honest, I am a bit of a loner, which is only enhanced by my current profession and location. I have to say thanks for asking me to do this project, as it forced me to get in touch with new people. There are communities here and there and I have shown my work locally at the Dahl museum in Rapid City. I have had great support from the South Dakota Arts Council for projects such as MY RANCHING LIFE billboard. I kind of like to live in my own little world when I am creating. I have an artist, saddle maker cowboy neighbor who is good to talk to about projects. There are organizations, in the state of South Dakota, working hard to keep funding for the arts.
©Jean Laughton, Putting pairs back out on the Double X Ranch – Lyle O’Bryan, 71 here, worked on the ranch in his twenties.
How are you perceived by the cowboys that you work with? Are they aware of your photography?
I am probably old news now. Ha ha. I am a part of the crew. When I first arrived, I am sure they wondered what the hell. I was ushered in by an old timer, which helped. Everyone has been very open to me photographing. A few years ago a cowboy rode up to me and asked where my big camera was and was I now just going to cowboy. It feels like that some days, but I am finding balance. I think if I asked anyone here anytime, to photograph them, they would always accommodate. I am very lucky.
Many of the crew came to My Ranching Life exhibition in Rapid City. I also like to keep them aware of photographs published in magazines and out of town exhibitions. I think they get a kick out of that. Some probably still wonder what they hell. I like the idea of photographing people in an area that has not been over photographed. I have much catch up work to do, before I leave here, to get my photographs placed locally and leave ranchers with my photographs.
For My Ranching Life panoramas I use a Noblex 120 swing lens panorama camera with Tri x Film. I love the simplicity of it. Many of my shots are quick one-shot deals. I keep the camera in my saddle bags – pull it out quickly, rest it on one arm and click. Sometimes at a trot – sometimes at a standstill. It was easier to carry the big camera more often when I first got here. When I became part of the crew, I kind of had to be in my spot and not let a cow get by. I just have to be quick. One day I pulled my camera out as I trotted ahead of 15 cowboys to get a shot. My horse started to buck. I was holding on to my reins with two fingers and somehow got it together, without dropping my camera, to pull him up before he really got into it. The idea of landing on a Noblex is not appealing! Of course, the cowboys thought it was funny. I kept hearing “pull him up!” from behind me. I am glad I did.
When I can’t carry the big camera, I carry a tiny point and shoot small Olympus 35 mm I keep in my Levi jacket pocket. For portraits, I love my old 4×5 and polaroid land camera and hope to get back to them more now that Type 55 film is coming back. I also use a Mamiya medium format and a great old Evelyn Cameron style Super D Graphlex. Photography and cowboying coexist.
Calving season! That’s when all the drama happens. But you probably meant photo – wise. Documenting as much of this as I can while I have this wonderful opportunity to be “in” it. Then somehow pulling all of the years of negatives and writings together and seeing where it will take me next.
Printing my many years of Badlands negatives and hopefully learning encaustic this summer with a local artist.
I have a fun ‘Hollywood’ project started with my horses and cowboy friend or two. That is on hold until calving and branding seasons are over.
I continue to ranch – existing somewhere between the past and the present.
And finally describe your perfect day….
Sitting in a beautifully restored historic movie theater watching a silent or classic film.
Riding with the crew south of Belvidere across big pastures under puffy clouds on a horse that doesn’t make me nervous. Helping the ranching neighbors – the best part of my job.
Driving throughout the West, alone or with someone I am crazy about, in no hurry, stopping to take photographs whenever and wherever. The big decision being, which town and old motel to stop at for the night.
Visiting county historical museums throughout the West.
Standing on a hilltop, in an expansive pasture, by myself, with light snow falling – watching the cattle trail in for their cake. Then standing among a herd of a couple hundred cattle.
Presently standing on an exact spot from an historic photograph.
Visiting the Anschutz western art collection in Denver or the Don King Museum in Sheridan, Wyoming.
Driving around LA looking for old movie locations.
My Ranching Partner – Lyle O’Bryan (now 81) 2nd from right in 1962 on the Double X Ranch …Left to Right Burrell Phipps, Baxter Berry, Charlie Larson, Ray Hunter, and Art Thode on horseback who grew up on the ranch where I work. Lyle is the only one still around. | 2019-04-19T02:43:05Z | http://lenscratch.com/2016/02/jean-laughton-the-states-project-south-dakota/ |
The title chosen for these lectures, a phrase found in the seventh chapter of the book of Daniel, will indicate the general thesis which I hope to establish, namely, “The Greatness of the Kingdom.” For a long time I have had a growing conviction that much of the disagreement over the subject of the kingdom of God has arisen out of narrow views as to its character. This situation obtains, of course, in more than one department of Biblical theology. Men have gone wrong, not so much in what they affirmed, but rather in what they denied or neglected.
This tendency has been given impetus by that natural bent of the human mind, best represented by the philosophers, which impels men to search for one principle or idea that will explain everything else. While this motive, held under legitimate restraints, has often led to fruitful results; it nevertheless is always attended with certain hazards. In the first place, there is the danger of omitting matters of importance which may stand outside our neat little formulas. In the second place, thinking now of the field of Christian theology, this passion for oversimplification may cause men to miss the richness and infinite variety of Christian truth in the interest of a barren unity. It was William James who once suggested that, considered from a certain abstract viewpoint, even a masterpiece of violin music might be described as “the scraping of horses’ tails over cats’ bowels!” Such a definition of course has the merit of simplicity; it gets rid of all the mystery of personality and genius, but the residue is not very interesting.
Now I feel strongly that the Biblical doctrine of the kingdom of God has suffered considerably from this tendency toward oversimplification. Men have forgotten the greatness of the kingdom, its richness and complexity, in the interest of their own partial and inadequate explanations. What I am saying is underscored by the very small place given to the subject of the kingdom in some well-known and honored works by conservative theologians. For example, in the books on Systematic Theology by A. H. Strong, Wm. G. T. Shedd and A. A. Hodge one looks in vain for even any mention of the term kingdom in their indexes. It is to the everlasting credit and honor of my dear friend, the late President of Dallas Theological Seminary [Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer] that in his own excellent Systematic Theology he was able to make such a large and important contribution to this particularly needy field of theological science.
It should be axiomatic that any conception of the kingdom of God which rests in large part upon a certain interpretation of a single text or passage of the Bible is to be regarded with deep suspicion. In this category are the systems built around such passages as “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21), or “I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 16:19), or the parable of the leaven (Matt 13:33), or the ethical precepts of the sermon on the mount (Matt 5—7), or even Revelation 20. The doctrine of the kingdom should be determined by an inductive examination of all the Biblical material on the subject, and it should not have to stand or fall by the inclusion or exclusion of isolated passages where interpretations may be in serious dispute. To me there is no question as to the general meaning of Revelation 20, but I maintain that the essential outline of the Biblical doctrine of the kingdom can be established without it. And this doctrine, once established, should be our surest guide in our approach to the passage under controversy.
Let me begin the discussion with a tentative definition. A kingdom involves at least three things: first, a king who rules; second, subjects who are ruled; and third, the actual exercise of the function of rulership. I do not think that much attention need be paid to the effort to show that the term kingdom refers to a bare divine sovereignty. The great ideas of the Bible are concrete rather than abstract, and such terms as the kingdom of God are intended to convey meanings which are pertinent to actual situations in the world of reality with which men are somewhat familiar. On the basis of the above analysis, the kingdom of God may be defined broadly as the rule of God over his creation.
Now it should be clear that this phrase the kingdom of God has no precise meaning or authority apart from the content assigned to it in the Holy Scriptures. Therefore, passing over for the moment the various theories (and they are many), let us attempt to establish its content on the basis of an inductive study on the Biblical material out of which the original idea arose. In examining the very extensive array of references, especially in the Old Testament, we are immediately impressed by a series of differences which at first seem almost contradictory.
In the first place, it appears that the kingdom is something which has always existed; yet it also seems to have a definite historical beginning among men.
Second, the kingdom appears as something universal outside of which there lies no created thing; yet again the kingdom is revealed as a local affair beginning on earth.
Third, the Kingdom appears in Scripture as the rule of God directly; yet it is often pictured as the rule of God through a mediator who serves as a channel between God and man.
Fourth, the divine kingdom is set forth as an unconditioned rule arising out of the sovereign nature of Deity itself; yet on the other hand it often appears as a kingdom based on a covenant made by God with man.
Some of these distinctions, if not all, have been noticed by various Biblical scholars, and attempts have been made to explain them; either by asserting the existence of one kingdom with two aspects or phases, or by the assumption of two separate kingdoms. For example, Hengstenberg distinguishes between a “kingdom of power” and a “kingdom of grace.” And Peters speaks of the one as “God’s universal, general sovereignty exercised by virtue of his being the creator,” while the other is the “Theocracy” or “Theocratic Kingdom.” Recently we have seen the rise of a school of opinion, somewhat anti-intellectual in character, which, rejoicing apparently in the existence of religious paradox and tension for their own sake, is content to leave all such antinomies permanently unresolved.
For myself, while recognizing the reality of these Biblical distinctions, I am also convinced that the Scriptures offer a reasonable explanation. In one sense it would not be wholly wrong to speak of two kingdoms revealed in Scripture. But we must at the same time guard carefully against the notion that these two kingdoms are absolutely distinct one from the other. There is value and instruction in thinking of them as two aspects or phases of the one rule of our sovereign God. In seeking for terms which might best designate these two things, I have found nothing better than the adjectives universal and mediatorial. They are not commensurate terms, of course, but describe different qualities, the first referring to extent, the latter to method. Nevertheless, in each case the designated quality seems to be the most important one from a descriptive standpoint. As we proceed with the discussion, therefore, the terms used will be the universal kingdom and the mediatorial kingdom.
This universal kingdom is something which has always existed. Thus we read that Jehovah is “King forever and ever” (Ps 10:16). Again, describing the progress of a storm sweeping in from the sea across the land, breaking down the cedars of Lebanon, the Psalmist declares that God is in this violence of nature sitting as “King forever” (Ps 29:10). As a precious comfort in the midst of desolations brought by judgment, the Old Testament saint could say, “God is my King of old” (Ps 74:12). And the prophet Jeremiah bears a like testimony to the everlasting character of the divine rule, affirming that “The Lord is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king” (Jer 10:10). And in the midst of his lamentations the same prophet finds a kingdom of God grounded in the eternal nature of God himself, saying, “Thou, O Lord, remainest forever; thy throne from generation to generation” (Lam 5:19).
This kingdom is universal in the most complete sense of that term. Nothing lies outside its reach and scope. It includes all things in space and time, in earth, in heaven and in hell. Jehovah is the “King of the nations” (Jer 10:7). Witnessing to the present reality of that universal kingdom in his own day, the Psalmist writes, “The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all” (Ps 103:19). Nebuchadnezzar, golden head of an ancient world empire, is cut down from his throne by divine judgment in order that “the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men” (Dan 4:17, 25, 32). David the king, although reigning over a small nation in a small land, sees and speaks of a greater kingdom, “Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted above all. Thou reignest over all” (1 Chron 29:11–12).
The rule of this kingdom operates generally through second causes; that is, what theologians have sometimes called the rule of ordinary providence. Thus the Assyrian monarch is a “rod” in the hand of Jehovah to accomplish his divine purpose in judgment against Jerusalem, though the king knows it not and has no intention to serve God (Isa 10:5–15). Likewise, the King of Babylon is God’s “servant” for the accomplishment of his will (Jer 25:9). In the sequence of the rise and fall of world empires, it is Jehovah who raises up and prepares the “Kings of the Medes” for the destruction of Babylon (Jer 51:11, 28–37). Long before his birth, the great Cyrus is named prophetically and then “anointed” to fulfill the purpose of Jehovah in rebuilding, his holy temple (Isa 44:28–45:4). At exactly the crucial moment a fit of insomnia disturbs the rest of the Persian Xerxes, causes him to call for the chronicles of his kingdom (something like our own Congressional Record), and the outcome of this seemingly insignificant incident is the rescue of Israel from national extermination, together with all the irreparable losses such a disaster would have entailed (Esth 6:1–8:17 ).
Upon special occasions and under certain circumstances the rule of God in this universal kingdom may operate directly through divine miracles. Without attempting just now to draw the precise line between what is called the natural and the supernatural, I mean that God.may break into the so-called closed system of nature (which of course He upholds and controls) with great exhibitions of his unveiled power. The Bible writers are never conscious of any necessary conflict between the divine rule through the system of nature and that through the miraculous. In both they recognize the hand of the same sovereign God who is transcendent as well as immanent. Thus we read that “Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places. He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain; he bringeth the wind out of his treasuries. Who smote the firstborn of Egypt, both of man and beast. Who sent tokens and wonders into the midst of thee, O Egypt, upon Pharoah, and upon all his servants” (Ps 135:6–9). Here we have both nature and miracle. But in general, especially with reference to the earth, the method of divine control in this universal kingdom is through second causes—”Fire and hail; snow and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word” (Ps 148:8).
The kingdom of God in this universal sense exists regardless of the attitude of those under its rule. Some personal beings, the elect angels and the true people of God, have bowed in submission. Others, as in the case of the Egyptian king, are actively opposed to the revealed will of God. Still others, as the Assyrian of Biblical history, know nothing about the divine rule of such a kingdom. Nevertheless, we are told in Scripture, the Lord worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. Even if there were in all the universe not one solitary personal being not in rebellion against God, (whether angel or demon or man); even if there were no heaven of the redeemed but only a hell of the lost—it would still be true of this universal kingdom that “The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all.” This kingdom is an ever-present reality from which there can be no escape.
In the light of these facts, it becomes clear that this universal kingdom could not have been precisely that kingdom of God for which our Lord taught his disciples to pray, “Thy kingdom come.” For in the universal and providential sense, the kingdom of God has already come and the will of God is being done on earth. This rule of God, in fact, has always existed and has never been abrogated or interrupted. The key to the real meaning of the so-called Lord’s Prayer must be found in the clause, “as it is in heaven.” Although the kingdom of God ruleth over all, there is a profound difference between the exercise of its rule “in heaven” and “in earth.” This difference arises out of the fact that rebellion and sin exist upon the earth, sin which is to be dealt with in a way not known in any other spot in the universe, not even among the angels that fell. And it is precisely at this point that the great purpose of the mediatorial kingdom appears: On the basis of blood redemption it will put down at last all rebellion with all its evil results, thus finally bringing the kingdom and will of God on earth as it is in heaven. When this purpose has been accomplished, the mediatorial phase of the kingdom will finally disappear as a separate entity, being merged with the universal kingdom of God.
With this rather brief survey, of the universal kingdom, I shall now turn to a consideration of the mediatorial phase to which the Biblical writings give the vast, preponderance of attention. You should understand that during the remainder of our study, to save repetition, the term kingdom will invariably refer to its mediatorial phase,unless otherwise stated.
The mediatorial kingdom may be defined tentatively as the rule of God through a divinely chosen representative who not only speaks and acts for God but also represents the people before God; a rule which has especial reference to the human race (although it finally embraces the universe); and its mediatorial ruler is always a member of the human race.
I shall trace the development of this kingdom as it appears imperfectly realized in Old Testament history; present its future form as forecast in Old Testament prophecy; its character as announced by our Lord in the period of the Gospel records; its place in the history of the apostolic period covered by the book of Acts; the peculiar form in which it exists during the present Christian church era; its visible and established form in the millennial age; and finally its mergence in and complete identification with the eternal and universal kingdom of God.
Attempts have been made to erect an absolute separation between the historical kingdom and the future kingdom of prophecy; but that there is a vital connection between the two should be clear from many passages with which we shall deal in later lectures. Certainly, the future kingdom is to be a revival and continuation of the “throne of David.” In a very real sense there is but one mediatorial kingdom of God. But where historically did this idea of mediatorial rule originate?
Let us review briefly its background. In Eden the newly created man cast off the rule of his Creator, arrogating to himself the perilous right to decide for himself what was good for him and his posterity. This attitude seems to characterize the early pages of human history, brief as the record is, so that Cain the fratricidal killer is not brought to the bar of human government to answer for his terrible deed. And Genesis 6:5 records the only possible end to such an era—universal, wilful and unrestrained wickedness. Following the divine judgment of the flood we have something new: the institution of human government by divine decree. Here again the record is brief, but its basic principle lays the foundation for all human law and government—”Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man, shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man” (Gen 9:6). This is not a law of personal vengeance, as some have claimed. The punishment of the murderer is to be inflicted “by man” in the collective sense. The moral justification for capital punishment is found in the very argument sometimes used to oppose it, namely, the preciousness of human life in God’s sight. Human government exists for only one reason—the protection, conservation and fostering of human life. But the establishment of human government by divine decree with its salutary principle for the conservation of life did not succeed. Things did not grow better but worse in certain respects, resulting finally in the judgment at Babel.
The mediatorial idea appears incipiently among the patriarchs. Following the confusion of tongues and the scattering of mankind throughout the earth, God turns away from “man” in the collective sense and calls out one man through whom he will accomplish his will on earth (Gen 12:1–4). In Abraham and Isaac and Jacob the mediatorial idea begins to take form historically in miniature. God speaks to these men and they in turn mediate the divine will, although often very imperfectly. The Genesis record indicates that within the scope of their own families the patriarchs were genuine mediators through whom God ruled in the chosen line of humanity. These men were almost absolute monarchs in their own households which included not only their own progeny but also servants, retainers, and fighting men( Gen 14:14).
In their hands rested the power of life and death, as may be seen in the offering of Isaac (Gen 22).
The mediatorial kingdom began in historical form with Moses and continued under the early great leaders who followed. This period is marked by the mediation of God’s rule through Moses, Joshua, the judges, and Samuel. At first thought it may seem strange to have a kingdom without a king. But we must remember that in this kingdom it is God, not man, who rules. Crude as were some of his ideas, Gideon was right about one thing: “I will not rule over you,” he said to the men of Israel, “the Lord shall rule over you” (Judg 8:23). And speaking of that long and remarkable period extending from Moses to Saul, Samuel characterizes it to Israel as an era “when the Lord your God was your king” (1 Sam 12:12). During this period the great leaders of Israel were in all cases chosen by divine appointment and invested with authority to speak and act for God within the scope of their prescribed responsibilities. Moses was to be to Aaron and the people “as God” (Exod 4:16, A.S.V.), a divinely appointed authority which was underscored in terrible fashion by the judgment upon Korah and the rebels who questioned it (Num 16). Joshua was invested with the same mediatorial authority by the word of Jehovah: “As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee” (Josh 1:5). Of the great leaders who followed, it was said, “The Lord raised up judges,” and judgment fell upon Israel because “they would not hearken unto their judges” (Judg 2:16–17). Of Samuel it was written, “The Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground,” and his word “came to all Israel” (1 Sam 3:10–4:1). In Samuel we have the connecting link between the period of Israel’s great leaders and the period of her kings. But through it all there is a kingdom, and this kingdom is God’s.
The constitution and laws of the kingdom were given at Sinai. Altogether too little attention has been given to the many faceted nature of the mediatorial kingdom in history as revealed by the Mosaic code. The limits of these lectures do not permit an adequate discussion of its bearing on matters which are ethical, social, ecclesiastical, political and physical; save to remark that these provisions could still be studied with great profit by modern political and social scientists. This will not surprise the informed premillennialist, of course, since he knows that we have here the foundations of a future millennial kingdom. But there is one thing which is often overlooked, namely, the spiritual aspect. For it is not wrong to say that the historical kingdom was also a spiritual kingdom. This can be shown by a study of the Pentateuchal material in the light of the Biblical meaning of the term spiritual. It is high time that this perfectly good term should be rescued from the abuse it has suffered at the hands of theologians who, either consciously or otherwise, are under the spell of Platonic philosophy. This point will be discussed in a later lecture.
The mediatorial kingdom in history reached the pinnacle of its glory under the first three kings. Each, one of these men held his throne by the decree and appointment of Jehovah. The entire monarchical career of Saul is summarized by the prophet Samuel in two brief statements, both addressed to the king: first, “The Lord anointed thee king over Israel,” and second, “The Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel” (1 Sam 15:17, 26). In the stead of Saul, it is Jehovah again who exercises his right of sovereign choice in the case of David (1 Sam 16:1, 13). And David, speaking as a prophet to whom the word of the Lord had come, thus indicates the divinely chosen line of succession, “Of all my sons (for the Lord hath given me many sons) he hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel” (1 Chron 28:5). It is significant that Solomon, the last of the kings directly chosen by Jehovah, is also the last king of the united kingdom of Israel.
Now it has been suggested that the setting up of kings over Israel meant not only a popular rejection of theocratic rule but also its end in history. Such a view cannot be sustained by any careful study of the Biblical record. As a matter of fact, the monarchical form of the mediatorial kingdom had been clearly delineated in prophecy. To Abraham, and also later to Jacob, it was said, “Kings shall come out of thee” (Gen 17:6; 35:11). Not only so, but in Deuteronomy some important rules were laid down for the selection of the kings as well as for their conduct politically, morally, socially, and spiritually (17:14–20). Still further, in giving prophetic directions for the succession of Solomon on the throne of Israel, David carefully guards against any misunderstanding. Solomon may indeed sit upon the throne, but the kingdom is still “the kingdom of the Lord over Israel” (1 Chron 27:5).
Let us now review quickly the events leading to the monarchical form. Following the death of Joshua and the elders that outlived him, there was a swift moral and spiritual deterioration in Israel. But after the manner of sinful men in all ages, instead of seeing the source of the trouble within themselves, they made the mistake of supposing that a change of governmental form would solve their problems. First, they tried to set up Gideon as a king, but their proposal was rejected by Gideon who insisted that “The Lord shall rule over you” (Judg 8:22–23). Their folly persisted, however, and finally they demanded a king (1 Sam 8:5); to which demand the God of Samuel assented (8:19–22), only reserving to himself the right to choose the king (10:17–24 ).
that it deserves fuller attention than can be given in these lectures. In this brief record we are told how God gave the people their own desire for a government like the nations, and at the same time outlined prophetically the inevitable trend of all such government. The real point does not so much concern the mere political form of government, but rather the desire of the people to exchange a simple theocratic government, based on moral principles and dedicated to the general welfare, for what would become a great top-heavy governmental machine dedicated chiefly to its own perpetuation.
First, in wanting a government like the other nations, they took the first step toward the wrong kind of internationalism.
Second, a permanent government service would begin, both civil and military in character.
Third, this would lead to a bureaucracy swollen by job-making.
Fourth, the unnecessary expansion of government service would produce labor shortages in productive pursuits.
Fifth, after this they would get government for its own sake.
Sixth, such government would demand heavy taxation to support it.
Seventh, increasing taxation would lead to the confiscation of private property.
Eighth, much of this wealth would go to the partisans of the government.
Ninth, at last all the people would become servants of the state.
Tenth, the end result would be intolerable oppression and deep distress.
Can any thoughtful student of government in our times fail to see these very trends in the world of nations—yes, even in our own land of the free?
The decline of the mediatorial kingdom in Old Testament history. With the death of Solomon catastrophe struck the chosen nation. Israel was ruptured by a secession of the northern tribes which established their own government. But this did not mean the end of the kingdom in history. As H. C. von Orelli rightfully observes, “The smaller and often overpowered kingdom of Judah, which faithfully adhered to the royal line of David, passed through many crises and had many unworthy rulers. But the legitimate royal house, which had been selected by Jehovah, constituted spiritually a firm bond which kept the people united, as is seen, e.g., by a glance at the addresses of Isaiah, who is thoroughly filled with the conviction of the importance of the House of David, no matter how unworthy the king who happened to rule appeared to him.” As the dying Jacob had said, “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah” (Gen 49:10).
But the period of decline had begun, a period characterized by a more indirect mediation of the rule of God. There had been prophets before, but now they appear with greater frequency. Whereas Jehovah had often spoken directly to the great leaders and kings of Israel down to Solomon, now prophets become the immediate spokesmen of Deity, communicating his will to the kings, who sometimes obey. In the divided nation the kings take the throne either by inheritance or by force, and there is swift degeneration with notable exceptions. At the same time the prophets predict disaster and a future kingdom where God will mediate his rule through a righteous king who, like Moses, will be invested with the functions of both prophet and ruler.
The close of the mediatorial kingdom in history is dramatically recorded in the book of Ezekiel. The Glory of Jehovah, often referred to in the Old Testament, and called the Shekinah in non-Biblical Jewish writings, was more than a mere symbol of God’s presence. It was indeed a “sign and manifestation of his presence” but it also described “the form” in which God revealed himself. Doubtless we are justified in seeing manifestations of this glory in such phenomena as the burning bush and the pillar of cloud and fire, but there can be no question as to its appearance on the Mount of Sinai where, we are told, “The Lord descended upon it in fire” (Exod 19:18). And when Moses went up by divine command, the inspired record declares that “the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai” (Exod 24:15–16). It was here that the historical kingdom received its divine constitution and laws, and when the tabernacle had been completed according to directions, we read that “the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle” (Exod 40:34). Thus the glory became the visible evidence of God’s presence and rule in the kingdom of Israel.
The departure of this same glory is described by Ezekiel under the most dramatic of circumstances, and indicates, I think, the definite close of God’s mediatorial kingdom in history (cf. 8, 9, 10 and 11). The prophet is sitting among his people captive in Babylon on the banks of the Chebar, when he is lifted up by the Spirit and brought in his visions to Jerusalem. There, in spite of the dreadful apostasy unfolded before his eyes, he sees “the glory of God” still in the city of David in its proper place (8:4). A little later an the vision, the prophet sees that “the glory of the God of Israel was gone up…to the threshold of the house” (9:3). There, he writes, “the glory of the Lord…stood over the threshold” for a moment, illuminating even the court with the ineffable “brightness” of Deity (10:4). “Then the glory of the Lord departed from off the threshold of the house” and stood above the cherubim “at the door of the east gate” (10:18–20). Finally the cherubim lifted up their wings and the prophet records the tragic end: “The glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city” (11:23). Later on the city of Jerusalem was rebuilt, and within its walls successively two temples were built, but you will read of no glory therein. The immediate presence of Jehovah was departed.
But there was something wonderfully gracious in the circumstances of God’s withdrawal. Not suddenly, but slowly, with tender reluctance, as if God were actually yearning to remain. But there was no entreaty or repentance on the part of the people as a nation. The elders of Israel go on bowing down to their idols, the women weep for Tammuz, the priests stand with their backs toward the temple of God and worship the rising sun (8:4–16). God is forgotten. And when God is forgotten, the glory is departed. Yet even in the midst of this melancholy vision, we may read the inspired promise that God will be a refuge to Israel during her scattered and dispersed condition (Ezek 11:16). This promise, however, is not something wholly apart from moral and spiritual attitudes. If God will continue to be a “sanctuary” to Israel, it is also true that to many in the nation He will also be a “stone of stumbling” and a “rock of offence” (Isa 8:14).
Furthermore, to the same prophet who saw the departure of the glory and the end of the kingdom in history, the Lord graciously gave a vision of the future return of the glory (Ezek 43:1–7). Just as the Lord’s glory departed by way of “the door of the east gate,” even so the glory will again return: “Behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east,” and “the glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east” (43:2, 4). As to the general meaning of all this there can be no misunderstanding—the glory will return, the kingdom will again be established on earth, in the city of Jerusalem. Here, the voice of Jehovah declares, is “the place of my throne…where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever” (43:7). And if historically the final appearance of the glory was “upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city” (Ezek 11:23), even so the glory will return in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. “His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east…and the Lord shall be king over all the earth” (Zech 14:4, 9).
First, there was a lack of spiritual preparation on the part of the people. No government can wholly succeed among men unless there exists a sufficient body of its citizens who are in inward harmony with its laws. We are constantly in danger of forgetting the importance of this principle. To cite a rather recent instance—many of the people who helped to pass the 18th Amendment, because they thought it would be good for the nation, were personally not in harmony with the law for themselves. And so the end was dismal failure and repeal. I am not suggesting the possibility of any ultimate failure of the divine government. But even in the kingdom of God, its citizens are not all robots to be controlled mechanically by irresistible power.
A second defect of the historical kingdom was the imperfection of those through whom the rule of God was mediated. It is an axiom of political science that no government can be more perfect than its rulers. It will not be necessary to review the lamentable record of even the best of Israel’s leaders and kings: David with his double crime against society and against God; Solomon with his final violation of the most important regulations of the mediatorial economy. The important fact is that in the midst of the darkness of failure on the part of both people and rulers in the historical kingdom, the prophets bid us look forward to a better age when these two defects shall be remedied; an age when the laws of the kingdom will be written in the hearts of its citizens (Jer 31:33), and its mediatorial Ruler will be perfect in his character, wisdom and ways (Isa 11:1–4).
It should be observed that the independence and success of the Jewish state is inseparably bound up with the divine re-establishment of the mediatorial kingdom. The Maccabees made one of the most desperate and heroic attempts recorded in all human history to re-establish the Jewish state, and failed. All other attempts, through political and military means alone, will also fail. It must wait for a supernatural intervention on the part of God, just as it began in history with such an intervention at Sinai. “The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king” (Hos 3:4).
Article above adapted from BSac 112:445 (January 1955), pp.12-28.
Alva J. McClain, the founder and first president of Grace Theological Seminary and Grace College, was born in Iowa and later grew up in Sunnyside, Washington. Shortly after his marriage to Josephine Gingrich in 1911, he and his wife were saved under the preaching of Dr. L.S. Bauman. He had been attending the University of Washington, but removed to Los Angeles, where he attended the Bible Institute of Los Angeles and sat under the teaching of Dr. R.A. Torrey.
Upon graduating from Biola, he enrolled in Xenia Theological Seminary and completed work for the B.D. and Th.M. degrees–following which he was called to the First Brethren Church of Philadelphia, where he served from 1918 to 1923. During the pastorate he taught at the Philadelphia School of the Bible. Because of ill health, he resigned and removed to California, where he finished his work for the A.B. degree at Occidental College, graduating as valedictorian. Later he was awarded the honorary degree of LL.D. at Bob Jones University, and the D.D. degree at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles.
In 1925 and 1926, he served as professor of Bible at Ashland College. In 1927-1929 he taught Christian theology at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. In 1930, the first graduate school of theology in the Brethren Church was organized at Ashland College under his leadership, where he served as its first academic dean and professor of Christian theology.
In 1937 Grace Theological Seminary was organized under his direction, and as first president and professor of Christian theology, he served from 1937 to 1962. Dr. McClain authored many short treatises, but will be remembered for his monumental work on Christian theology, The Greatness of the Kingdom, one of seven volumes he had projected concerning the entire scope of Christian faith. He will long be remembered as scholar, theologian, educator, master teacher, and Christian gentleman.
This helps me a lot. Thank you for posting!
I sit under Dr Stan Toussaint. He is Professor emeritus from Dallas Seminary. He attended these Alva J McClain while a seminary student and still holds this future only Kingdom view. I also graduated from Grace College. A rich heritage.
Hello, this is taken from the book The Greatness of The Kingdom? or from other source?. Thanks for sharing!
Yes – it is from the Greatness of the Kingdom…hopefully they will keep reprinting this classic – it’s still not available electronically. | 2019-04-22T08:44:03Z | https://verticallivingministries.com/2013/07/09/alva-j-mcclain-on-the-greatness-of-the-kingdom-part-1/ |
Louis M. Martini Winery was established when Louis M. Martini purchased property south of St. Helena on June 14, 1933. Louis M. Martini first came to the United States at the young age of 12 from Genoa, Italy in 1899 – sent over by his mother to be with his father Agostino, a shoemaker and shoe merchant who was making a living harvesting and then selling fresh fish, clams and mussels in San Francisco. Apparently the business was very successful, as at one point Agostino had 35 people working for him.
Louis and his father made home wine together in 1906. Intrigued by the process, Louis returned to Italy at age 19 to further study wine. Eventually he moved back to California; the roots of Louis M. Martini Winery began at he and his father’s home in the Bayview District neighborhood of San Francisco where they built a small winery behind their home.
In 1922 in Kingsburg California during the early years of Prohibition, Louis M started a business centered around grapes (L. M. Martini Grape Products Company) focusing on medicinal and Sacramental wine uses as well as producing “grape bricks” and “grape concentrate”, products that could legally be used in home wine making. 200 gallons of wine per year per head of household were legal for private use during prohibition.
Louis M was first introduced to the Napa Valley because of his grape business in Kingsburg; in 1918 he arrived in the Napa Valley to purchase grapes from John Wheeler (part of the Wheeler family who owned property on what is now the site of Wheeler Farms on Zinfandel Lane). Louis looked at a number of areas to build a winery including Santa Clara and Sonoma County – fearing Santa Clara would eventually be built up and noticing that Napa had more wineries then Sonoma at the time – he chose Napa. Louis M made wine in Oakville one year prior to starting Martini Winery and had even considered purchasing Charles Krug Winery and Greystone Cellars in St. Helena (now the Culinary Institute of America).
By 1940 Louis M had sold his winery in Kingsburg and was focusing his winemaking efforts on Napa and Sonoma. In 1943 Louis M was part of a small group that entertained the idea of forming an organization that would collectively promote area wineries. Their early conversations would ultimately lead to the creation of the Napa Valley Vintner’s Association. According to Louis M’s granddaughter, Carolyn Martini, one of the early meetings for what would become the Napa Valley Vintners occurred at Monte Rosso Vineyard – and in a nod to the family history, at that early meeting, Carolyn suggested they enjoyed lobsters or perhaps crab that Louis M would have bought from Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.
Along with John Daniel Jr. (of Inglenook) and two other vintners Charles Forni and Louis Stralla, they discussed creating an association to collectively work together and help promote the valley as a whole. By 1944 the Napa Valley Vintner’s Association was formed. Today the organization has well over 500 Napa Valley based member wineries. Louis M Martin’s grandson Mike was president of the association many years later.
Louis M. Martini Winery was the first winery built in the Napa Valley after prohibition and as a result, is one of Napa’s oldest continuously operating wineries. In 2002 the Martini family sold the winery and it became a part of the E & J Gallo Winery – the largest wine company in the world (ahead of Constellation). The Gallo’s and the Martini’s both being Italian and in the wine business in Northern California were already family friends for many years before the sale. After Gallo purchased the winery they retained key Martini family individuals including several grandchildren of Louis M Martini – winemaker Michael Martini (who was winemaker at Martini from 1977 until he retired in 2015) and his sister Carolyn who was involved in the business side of the operations.
One photo that has been displayed in the hospitality center for years always caught our eye – it was a black and white photograph taken in 1949 all of men, presenting some of Napa’s most prominent and early vintners. People in the photograph included brothers Robert and Peter Mondavi (of the men in the photograph, Peter was the last one living – he passed away in early 2016). Louis M. Martini was also in this picture along with Brother Timothy of the old Christian Brothers Winery.
Louis’s son, Louis P. Martini’s contributions to the industry were also noteworthy. While serving in the United States Air Force in World War II he noticed propeller fans being used in certain applications to displace cold air with warmer air. During times of frost at night, many vineyards in the Napa Valley use fans to displace the colder lower air located next to the actual vines with the warmer air that sits slightly above the vines. These are the industry standard in the Napa Valley for protecting vines against near and freezing temperatures – usually during the end of March and into April when the vines are just budding out.
Louis P applied the same principal that he saw being used by fans in World War II to vineyards in the Napa Valley – and he was among the first vintners in the valley to start using these machines in the early 1950s – incidentally the oldest wind machine still in use that we know of in the Napa Valley dates from 1957 and is located at Titus Vineyards in St. Helena.
Louis P was also among the first in the state of California to produce a single-varietal Merlot.
Over the years, the Martini family has also owned several other prominent properties in the Napa Valley including the historic Edge Hill Winery which Louis P and Elizabeth Martini acquired in 1952. The Martini’s lived in the old Edge Hill winery building and used the distillery on site for their garage. After Louis P died in 1998 Elizabeth wanted to live somewhere that required less upkeep so she sold the property to Leslie Rudd in 2000.
Their son, Mike Martini used to own hillside land in Diamond Mountain just south of Calistoga – now part of Checkerboard Vineyards. And Mike’s sister Carolyn and her family own property in Chiles Valley, site of what will eventually be Castlevale Winery.
The original winery under Gallo family ownership was founded in 1933 in Modesto, California immediately following the repeal of Prohibition – by two brothers, Ernest and Julio Gallo. Interestingly this is the same year that Louis M Martini purchased his property in the Napa Valley, and perhaps opening within weeks apart as both wineries began operations later in the year during the 1933 harvest. Ernest and Julio’s parents immigrated to the USA from northern Italy – and both brothers were born near Modesto. Tragically Julio was killed in a jeep accident in 1983 involving his wife and his two grand daughters including now winemaker Gina Gallo (the three women survived the accident).
A milestone in the company’s rich history was the founding of Gallo Glass Company in 1958 – now the largest glass manufacturing plant in North America. Other milestones include the launching of the Carlo Rossi brand in 1975 and Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers in 1984. The purchase of Louis Martini Winery in 2002 was just the beginning of Gallo’s acquisition of numerous brands, wineries and vineyard properties – accelerating around 2011 and continuing today.
Within the Napa Valley, E & J Gallo Winery owns William Hill Estate Winery in the southern part of the Napa Valley (purchased in 2007), The Ranch Winery (purchased 2015), Orin Swift Cellars (purchased in 2016), Franciscan Winery (purchased 2019), and the iconic Stagecoach Vineyards on Atlas Peak (purchased in 2017).
Louis M Martini and a partner purchased what is now the iconic Monte Rosso Vineyard in 1938 – at that time called Goldstein Ranch. According to the Historic Vineyard Society, the first vines were planted in 1886, and the site was named in honor of the very iron reddish rocky soils. Remarkably some of the vines that were planted in 1886 are still growing including Zinfandel and Sémillon.
While Louis M. Martini uses grapes from vineyards in both Napa and Sonoma County, Monte Rosso Vineyard in Sonoma County is their flagship property (perhaps one of only a few Napa based wineries with a flagship property outside of the Napa Valley). Located on the west side of Mt. Veeder in Sonoma County at an elevation of around 1,300 feet, the vineyard is planted on the slopes of the Mayacamas mountains and looks down on Sonoma Valley. Monte Rosso encompasses some 575 acres, 250 of which are planted to vine.
And in Sonoma County, Gallo maintains a 50/50 Giveback Program – for every planted acre of vines that Gallo owns, the company maintains an equivalent acre of land in its natural state.
After Louis M. Martini purchased the site, he planted Cabernet Sauvignon – the oldest vines still producing are from the first planting in 1940. These are older then any commercially producing Cabernet Sauvignon vines we know of growing in the Napa Valley (IE Scarecrow, Robert Mondavi’s Monastery block and MACDONALD).
The property surrounding the winery is 28 acres of which 9 acres are planted – this is the Thomann Station Vineyard, named after the actual train station stop which used to be located here. And while there is no longer a physical train station stop, trains that operate for the Napa Valley Wine Train still do stop here. Interestingly enough this vineyard is planted entirely to Petite Sirah (considering a number of the neighboring vineyards are generally Cabernet Sauvignon focused).
Two other source vineyards are located in Pope Valley including Cypress Ranch Vineyard and the Sun Lake Vineyard. Grapes are also used from the acclaimed Stagecoach Vineyards high on Atlas Peak.
Louis M. Martini Winery is located almost across from Sutter Home Winery on Highway 29 just south of the town of St. Helena; building a winery here at the time was a good move strategically because of the train tracks that were located in front of the winery. Wine could easily be shipped from the winery down to the San Francisco Bay area via rail cars.
A world-class hospitality center opened on March 29, 2019 and was a culmination of 10 years of renovation and construction on the property. Prior to the opening for several years, the tasting room was located in one of their large barrel rooms and was the most spacious luxurious temporary tasting room in all of the Napa Valley!
The winery and hospitality center were renovated by one of wine country’s premier architects, Howard Backen of the firm Backen, Gillam & Kroeger Architects – (the Hamden McIntyre of his generation). His firm has designed a number of premium wineries in the valley including Harlan Estate, Continuum, Futo Estate and Dana Estate among many others. His work carries a certain feel – designs that combine elegance with power, often using darker wood tones. With the Martini property, his firm preserved the original structure, removed remnants of later additions and created a contemporary feel to the space. And in a nod to the family’s early winemaking beginning, the original tile from Louis M. Martini’s winery in Kingsburg, L. M. Martini Grape Products Company covers parts of the exterior of the hospitality center as well as several locations inside.
While the hospitality building is large, it is set back from Highway 29 and with a number of olive trees transplanted in front, dating from 1933, it is hard to gauge the scope of its size when one drives by on the highway. Glass is a prominent feature of the space including 30-foot high glass walls looking into an atrium at the entrance. Another prominent feature is the extremely high ceiling. The centerpiece of the hospitality center is the Crown Bar with a backdrop of one of their barrel rooms, seen behind glass walls. An interactive bottle experience/station is located near the bar – one simply picks up a bottle and in conjunction with a large touch screen, information about the vineyard source, photography, technical data and tasting notes are then displayed on the screen.
Several other prominent rooms on site include the Heritage Lounge – a posh room featuring seated tasting, the Culinary Room, home to their onsite executive chef and commercial kitchen, the Wine Study featuring a small room with amphitheater style seating (to be used for seminars and other wine and food related classes) and a gorgeous underground cellar and a large outdoor garden/patio area called Martini Park used for seated tastings including intimate tastings held under a private outdoor cabana.
The Crown Bar tasting is held at the Crown Bar in the main room of the hospitality center and features current release wines from both Napa and Sonoma; visitors can taste here without needing an appointment. Visitors looking for a more intimate and seated tasting can opt for the Heritage Lounge tasting – featuring wines from the Monte Rosso Vineyard – this tasting is held inside the Heritage Lounge or if the weather permits, outside in Martini Park. This tasting can also be paired with small bites provided from their executive chef.
And for those looking for some vintage perspective on the Martini wines, a Library Tasting is held in the private Founder’s Room with the tasting led by one of their sommeliers. Features older library wines and select barrel samples.
An historic tour and tasting is offered daily, one in the morning and one in the afternoon (available by reservation only). Visitors will learn about the Martini family history, their emphasis on red wines from Napa and Sonoma County premium vineyards, special wine making techniques used, fruit sources, and unique characteristics of their wines. The tour is an excellent introduction to wine making and general winery operations allowing plenty of time to ask questions. Wines are poured throughout the tour.
During the tour guests will visit the original underground cellar (located directly below the hospitality center) – note the huge redwood tanks that date from the 1940’s and 1950’s. These used to be the normal tanks for aging wine – and are no longer being used – the ones here are for show purposes only. A small room located next to the cellar contains a number of historical winery photos including of the Martini family.
Also worth noting is the impressive ‘wine vault’ formerly a bank vault the Martini’s purchased when a bank in San Francisco was going out of business. Today it contains a number of old Martini wine bottles (still full) including wines that were unearthed some years back from a buried wine/time capsule.
Several large barrel rooms are located on the property and the primary production facilities are also located on site. In 2003 a ‘micro winery’ was built called Cellar no 254. This building houses small lot tanks and focuses on small production hand crafted wines.
It is always interesting to compare terroir differences between same vintage wines – sometimes a Cabernet Sauvignon from both Sonoma and Napa will be presented side by side. Those who enjoy full bodied, fruit forward Cabernet Sauvignon wines – be sure to try the Monte Rosso Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine is made in limited production and is typically only sold at the winery.
The Louis M. Martini Monte Rosso Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon typically sees 2+ years in barrel and a full year in bottle before being released. As a result, the current vintage of this wine is generally a year or two older then the current releases of most area wineries. The Louis M. Martini 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon Monte Rosso Vineyard is fairly dark in the glass; it reveals opulent ripe fruit aromatics including black cherry – with additional layers of cedar and chocolate. Flavorful and concentrated across the palate the tannins initially show more in the front of the palate rather then on the finish. Offers flavors of red cherry, cranberry and a hint of red licorice on the mouth watering finish. Anchored by dusty tannins with an almost dry rock-like quality. Good acidity.
A rare and intriguing wine is the Gnarly Vine Zinfandel (not to be confused with another non-Martini owned label called Gnarly Head). The Gnarly Vine Zinfandel is from old head-pruned Zinfandel vines in the Monte Rosso Vineyard. A section of these old Zinfandel vines is named Rattlesnake Hill – a nod to all the rattlesnakes that live in this part of the vineyard. When the workers pick the vines, they pick in silence so as not to disturb the snakes. A photograph of an old vine Zinfandel ‘bush’ from this vineyard is on display near the stairs leading down to the cellar room. With one look at this vine, one can clearly understand why the name “gnarly vine” was chosen as an appropriate name.
The Louis M. Martini 2012 Gnarly Vine Zinfandel shows fruit forward aromatics that this varietal is often known for – especially in a year such as 2012 which was the first of three excellent vintages in a row in Napa and Sonoma valleys. The bouquet shows a cherry liqueur component, black cherry with some holiday spices (clove). This vineyard produces what several employees have told us over the years, a “Monte Rosso spice in the wines”. A beautiful textural softness shows on the palate with layers of flavor showing through to the finish. We have also tried later vintages of Gnarly Vine, while high alcohol (16+%) the wines did not show as being ‘hot’.
During one of our earliest visits, we were treated to a Louis Martini Cabernet Sauvignon from 1979 – the nose on this was like a tawny port, but the mouth feel was as smooth as you will ever find from an older Cabernet Sauvignon.
When I was in college I used to buy 1978 Louis Martini Cab at Safeway for $2.79 a bottle (it went up to $3.29) and pick up Muscato Amable at the winery once a year. At least for me, they put Zin on the map too.
Ted – nice memories, where did those prices go! Stop by the new Martini hospitality center next time you are in town – it is impressive. | 2019-04-18T16:28:04Z | http://www.napawineproject.com/louis-martini-winery/ |
Some of your appliances may be using more power than usual. It could be because they’re old or not properly maintained. This especially applies one of the most probable culprits — your refrigerator. Best have the unit cleaned or checked for defects. To ensure it runs smoothly with no excess power usage, bring it to a fridge repair shop. Utah-based appliance service company All Pro Appliance Service, Inc. recommends always checking your unit’s wattage consumption and if it has an Energy Star rating.
It’s also possible that you’re not using appliances in the most practical way possible. For example, you might be using the dishwasher at just half a load. The same goes for your dryer or washing machine. The fact is that even with just ¼ or ½ of the load, these appliances will still consume the same amount of power. So if conserving energy is a priority for you, it’s best to have them filled before turning them on to make the most out of each usage.
There’s also a small chance that your electricity’s wiring is not all your own. There are instances when your bill reflects your neighbor’s power consumption. It could be due to installation issues during construction. To solve this, try consulting a professional to double-check your home's wiring.
Maybe you currently have the humidifier, heating or the air conditioner turned on. These appliances aren’t always used and may add up to your bill, thus creating a slight change in the amount. Devices unnecessary for the season might be secretly eating up your power consumption. Consider electric Halloween and Christmas decors as well.
Sometimes, all it takes are simple adjustments to your home to lower your power consumption. Try to do the math with your appliances and electronics to see if the uses match your bill readings.
Utah, as beautiful as it is, also has a reputation for being one of the most fire-prone states in the country. For this reason, most homeowners all over the Beehive State should make certain that their properties have adequate insurance, and more importantly, fire preventive devices and equipment.
However, accidents can still happen, so you have to prepare yourself, your loved ones, and your home in the event that a fire strikes and destroys your home.
Once the authorities declare that they have successfully put out the fire, one of the most important steps you should take as a homeowner is to secure your home. You should protect it from any more damage or loss that weather, vandalism, or pilfers can bring to it.
Make sure that you cover and secure any access or entry point; lock all doors that connect to the inside of your home. This is especially true when you have to leave your home. And before you do, ensure that no valuables or expensive items remain in the house.
As soon as you are in a safe location, contact your insurance company to start the claims filing process.
Even after the firefighters have already put out the fire, the havoc that it wreaked on your house leaves many dangers that you should risk facing alone.
While there are some things you need to take responsibility for, such as the aforementioned security and preventive measures, you should leave the repairs and replacements to a professional Salt Lake City provider of fire damage restoration services such as AAA Restoration.
This is extremely important, as the fire may have damaged electrical wiring as well as structural components such as roofs and floors.
The last thing you want to happen is more accidents arising that can endanger anyone, so leave such tasks in the hands of professionals.
If you live in an older home, especially one that dates back to the early 20th century, it’s inevitable to find that you can’t use new appliances as certain wirings and outlets have become obsolete. While old wiring isn’t exactly dangerous, you want to make sure the electrical system in your home is up to code.
If you have outlets and wirings that need replacement, how do you know it’s time for you to call the professionals from A-Plus Plumbing, Heating & Cooling to rewire your house?
If you have outlets that are not grounded.
Some old homes still use two-pronged, non-grounded outlets. These outdated outlets not only lack the ability to accommodate most modern appliances, they are also shock hazards. They may damage your equipment and pose risks to your safety. A certified technician can safely replace old outlets with modern ones.
If you have too many extension cords.
Extension cords and power strips can be helpful in providing power where outlets are not available. However, using too many cords can be bothersome and dangerous. If this is the case, have a technician install additional wiring and outlets.
If you have overloaded circuits.
You might notice that your light bulbs flicker when you use your microwave or any other appliance. This is a sign that it’s harder for your circuit to carry the current load. You might fix this problem by unplugging an appliance from the loaded circuit. It’s also possible, however, that your circuit was engineered to handle a lower amount of electricity and that you need an electrician to add a new outlet.
It pays to enlist the help of good electricians when upgrading your electrical systems. Certified electricians will make necessary adjustments in your home to make the use of electricity convenient. They will save you from stumbling on power cords, dealing with a flickering bulb, or harming yourself from ungrounded outlets.
Swimming pools are some of the most fun and enjoyable structures known to man. The relaxation and stress-relieving effects that swimming can bring make pools even more beneficial and attractive. What's more is it delivers many health benefits, being one of the best forms of exercise.
While you may want a pool as soon as possible, it’s important to do your research first to learn more about what you can do to get the most out of it.
Establish where you want it at home. With an outdoor pool, you can get your fix of water activities at least three months before the cool Salt Lake City weather settles in. Outdoor pools, as long as maintained properly, also give any house a considerable aesthetic boost.
On the other hand, you may want an indoor pool if you plan to use it almost every day, regardless of the weather. With it built inside your home, you can take a dip, exercise, or even have swimming marathons even if it’s snowing outside (given that you have the heater switched on).
Don’t ever forget to consider safety, especially for children. For this reason, you need to work only with a licensed and experienced Salt Lake City pool contractor. These professionals will design and build your pool with all the safety features you need.
Swimming pools can greatly improve the overall livability and living quality of your home. Simply take the time to do your research and equip yourself with the knowledge of how exactly to maximize its uses and benefits, and you will get the most out of your investment.
Are you planning to sell your house or any of your properties? Do not settle for less. There are ways for you to boost the value of your home before the real estate agent comes in to assess it.
This is probably the logical first step to any attempt to make your home attractive to potential buyers. By painting the house again, you are making it appear new and refreshing, which is a magnet for property buyers. This will also hide the fading paint of the first paint job the house received.
It is important for the house painting to be thorough. Otherwise, buyers may do the opposite of what you intend them to do. Thus, it is important to hire reliable house painters in Wellington such as Gavin Chan Decorators Limited.
There are lots of environmentally conscious property buyers now, so this can convince them to consider your home. One way to do this is to ensure that your property does not consume too much energy. After all, energy efficiency is starting to rise as a priority among buyers. You can never go wrong with that.
Your home’s exteriors will be the first thing that your visitors will see when they go to your home. It is essential that it is always prepared for unannounced visits. The same goes in trying to sell the home.
Prune your plants and water the grass in your lawns, and you will see that the demand for your property will grow.
You are not always sure that your home will sell immediately. Always look towards the future and evaluate if your property will be attractive after a few years.
The ultimate lesson in selling your home is to make it as attractive as possible. Improving your home will come back in spades in the future.
Prefabricated and custom-made garage doors come in various colors and designs. Wood and fiberglass doors are some of the best in terms of looks. Metal doors are appealing too, though, and could cost less than their wood and fiberglass counterparts.
Having a metal garage door, however, means dealing with some struggles especially if it does not get the required maintenance work. Here are some metal garage door issues that commercial garage door repair companies such as pricesdoors.com can help you with.
Of the different types of garage doors, metal ones could have the noisiest operation. The noise has a lot to do with the vibrations from the metal garage door. The other metallic parts of the door pick up the vibrations which further intensify the noise. You may tighten the bolts and apply oil to the metal parts for the door to slide smoother, but a professional can help you if the remedy does not help reduce the noise.
If you currently have a metal garage door with dents, consult your local garage door professional for the best remedy. Does a simple repair fix it or do you need a new door? Does a steel door or an aluminum one match your garage needs better? Not only will they provide answers to these questions. They will also look for a suitable product for you.
As a homeowner owner, you have to contribute to garage door maintenance even if you do have a local repair company to take care of it. There are some cases, however, where corrosion is unavoidable. The garage door repair company will be able to identify if their services can tackle the rust issue or if a new garage door is a more economical for you.
Metal garage doors, although they could be noisy and prone to dents and rust, are a suitable option for many homeowners. Regular maintenance helps keep such problems at bay, but a reliable garage door repair company will help you deal with the worst.
How Well Prepared are You for Roofing Emergencies?
No one expects emergencies; even roofing emergencies. They all happen unpredictably. And, while it is almost impossible to prevent some of the causes, you can prevent further damage or, at least, prepare for the next roofing emergency by taking the following steps.
You do not have to wait until you have a case of urgency at hand to tackle the needed repairs. Identify a reliable roofing contractor in Tauranga such as Kiwispout NZ LTD to inspect the condition of your roof on a regular basis.
They will deal with (and correct) issues, such as damaged shingles, loose ridge caps and poorly installed metal panels. The more you keep putting off fixing these problems, the more the chances of roof leaks will keep escalating.
It is necessary to ascertain the events of deterioration and resultant damage that your insurance covers, whether it includes repairs or replacement irrespective of your roof’s age. It is advisable you also familiarise yourself with insurers’ claim process in Tauranga early in time before such emergencies occur.
How well you muster the location of electricity, gas and water shut-offs in your home will determine how quickly you can turn them off during roofing emergencies to minimise risks of electrical fires, gas leaks and floods.
The most stressful part of handling roofing emergencies is not in figuring out why your roof failed you, but in trying to find a reliable roofer in the midst of the crisis.
It is imperative that you start searching for a well established and licensed contractor immediately after you have completed the acquisition process with your realtor or building your home.
Assess the contractor’s reliability, reputation and degree of responsiveness to emergencies by checking reviews online, enquiring from previous customers and verifying that they have the right certifications.
Once you find a reputable roofing contractor, they will help learn further, how well you can prepare to make your roofing emergencies less stressful.
How Much Does It Cost to Maintain a Utah House?
Every homeowner should set aside money for home maintenance. If you’re planning to sell your home, you’ll find well-maintained properties spending less time on the listing. It always attracts buyers since it means they can move in quickly. They also don’t have to pay extra money for repairs. If you’re living there, a home with no issues is safe and healthy. But how much should you set aside for maintenance?
The truth is there’s no exact number for maintenance costs. Many factors can affect them. These include the condition of your home prior to purchase. Experts, though, suggest following the one percent rule. This means you set aside 1 percent of the home’s purchase price for maintenance.
According to Zillow, the average home price in Utah is $247,600. One percent of that is less than $3,000. It’s something most people can afford. But here’s the problem: many maintenance costs are expensive. In fact, homes end up spending a whopping $14,000 a year.
This is because maintenance also covers insurance (e.g., home insurance) and even association fees. These payments help repair or maintain your surroundings. In turn, it keeps your home well maintained as well. These expenses are usually paid per month.
The one percent rule is already a good start. It’s better than having no money to pay for AC repairs and other maintenance at all. But as your home ages, increase your budget. Moreover, don’t forget to factor all the other spending related to your home such as insurance and association fees.
It’s also equally important to pay attention to your appliances such as air conditioners. Poor maintenance can shorten its shelf life and increase utility bills. Call an AC repair Utah expert regularly. These people don’t only repair the units but also give you advice to improve its life.
Office culture has changed in recent years to enhance productivity among its workers. How can you define yours through your office design and interiors? Here is a very helpful guideline to help you design an office fit for productivity and creativity.
As workforce is pushing for better results, office culture has dramatically changed. Every company in every field has tried to define their character by arranging their office interiors, hoping that adding minor changes, such as the addition of unique vintage lamps, would encourage quality work and great results.
Think about your long-term goals and objectives that define your company's values. You have to offer not only your products and services but also your company's core values.
How you put together the design elements in your office, such as the colors, decor, furniture pieces, and the architectural details will help define your company's atmosphere and culture. A well-designed interior will also enhance productivity and motivate employees.
Aligning your company culture and planned procedures is the best path to achieving established business goals. Your office design could help employees develop creativity and thinking outside the box.
You can arrange your office furniture in a way that promotes communication and team work, while at the same time providing areas that could give individual workers the time for contemplation and privacy.
You could also add pieces that inspire teamwork and creativity. Some companies place game boards and game pieces to encourage their staff to communicate without the burden of responsibility.
Design accents, such as greenery, lighting fixtures such as unique vintage lamps can change the way your staff would approach their job. Make workstations lively, creative, and productive with the right design and decor accent.
These days, businesses are becoming more proactive in designing areas that encourage employee growth through relaxation. The right color, furniture, arrangement, decor, and lighting all help to keep your office environment trendy, lively, and conducive for work. | 2019-04-25T06:24:43Z | http://www.oftimes.com/category/build-it/page/2/ |
The data and software code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Journal peer review information: Nature Neuroscience thanks Michael Nitsche and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
Bishop, N. A., Lu, T. & Yankner, B. A. Neural mechanisms of ageing and cognitive decline. Nature 464, 529–535 (2010).
Hebert, L. E., Weuve, J., Scherr, P. A. & Evans, D. A. Alzheimer disease in the United States (2010–2050) estimated using the 2010 census. Neurology 80, 1778–1783 (2013).
Hayutin, A. M. Global demographic shifts create challenges and opportunities. PREA Q. 46–53 (2007).
Park, D. C. & Reuter-Lorenz, P. The adaptive brain: aging and neurocognitive scaffolding. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 60, 173–196 (2009).
Hedden, T. & Gabrieli, J. D. Insights into the ageing mind: a view from cognitive neuroscience. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 5, 87–96 (2004).
Tomasi, D. & Volkow, N. D. Aging and functional brain networks. Mol. Psychiatry 17, 549–558 (2012).
Davis, S. W. et al. Assessing the effects of age on long white matter tracts using diffusion tensor tractography. Neuroimage 46, 530–541 (2009).
O’Sullivan, M. et al. Evidence for cortical “disconnection” as a mechanism of age-related cognitive decline. Neurology 57, 632–638 (2001).
Roux, F. & Uhlhaas, P. J. Working memory and neural oscillations: α–γ versus θ–γ codes for distinct WM information? Trends Cogn. Sci. 18, 16–25 (2014).
Helfrich, R. F. & Knight, R. T. Oscillatory dynamics of prefrontal cognitive control. Trends Cogn. Sci. 20, 916–930 (2016).
Fell, J. & Axmacher, N. The role of phase synchronization in memory processes. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 12, 105–118 (2011).
Sarnthein, J., Petsche, H., Rappelsberger, P., Shaw, G. L. & von Stein, A. Synchronization between prefrontal and posterior association cortex during human working memory. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 95, 7092–7096 (1998).
Axmacher, N. et al. Cross-frequency coupling supports multi-item working memory in the human hippocampus. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107, 3228–3233 (2010).
Daume, J., Gruber, T., Engel, A. K. & Friese, U. Phase–amplitude coupling and long-range phase synchronization reveal frontotemporal interactions during visual working memory. J. Neurosci. 37, 313–322 (2017).
Sreenivasan, K. K., Curtis, C. E. & D’Esposito, M. Revisiting the role of persistent neural activity during working memory. Trends Cogn. Sci. 18, 82–89 (2014).
Lara, A. H. & Wallis, J. D. Executive control processes underlying multi-item working memory. Nat. Neurosci. 17, 876–883 (2014).
Reinhart, R. M. G. Disruption and rescue of interareal theta phase coupling and adaptive behavior. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, 11542–11547 (2017).
Helfrich, R. F. et al. Selective modulation of interhemispheric functional connectivity by HD-tACS shapes perception. PLoS Biol. 12, e1002031 (2014).
Polanía, R., Nitsche, M. A., Korman, C., Batsikadze, G. & Paulus, W. The importance of timing in segregated theta phase-coupling for cognitive performance. Curr. Biol. 22, 1314–1318 (2012).
Wolinski, N., Cooper, N. R., Sauseng, P. & Romei, V. The speed of parietal theta frequency drives visuospatial working memory capacity. PLoS Biol. 16, e2005348 (2018).
Alekseichuk, I., Turi, Z., Amador de Lara, G., Antal, A. & Paulus, W. Spatial working memory in humans depends on theta and high gamma synchronization in the prefrontal cortex. Curr. Biol. 26, 1513–1521 (2016).
Salthouse, T. A. The aging of working memory. Neuropsychology 8, 535–543 (1994).
Cole, S. R. & Voytek, B. Brain oscillations and the importance of waveform shape. Trends Cogn. Sci. 21, 137–149 (2017).
Scheffer-Teixeira, R. & Tort, A. B. On cross-frequency phase–phase coupling between theta and gamma oscillations in the hippocampus. Elife 5, 423–435 (2016).
Daume, J., Graetz, S., Gruber, T., Engel, A. K. & Friese, U. Cognitive control during audiovisual working memory engages frontotemporal theta-band interactions. Sci. Rep. 7, 12585 (2017).
Ranganath, C. & D’Esposito, M. Medial temporal lobe activity associated with active maintenance of novel information. Neuron 31, 865–873 (2001).
Nichols, E. A., Kao, Y. C., Verfaellie, M. & Gabrieli, J. D. Working memory and long-term memory for faces: evidence from fMRI and global amnesia for involvement of the medial temporal lobes. Hippocampus 16, 604–616 (2006).
Axmacher, N. et al. Sustained neural activity patterns during working memory in the human medial temporal lobe. J. Neurosci. 27, 7807–7816 (2007).
Axmacher, N., Schmitz, D. P., Wagner, T., Elger, C. E. & Fell, J. Interactions between medial temporal lobe, prefrontal cortex, and inferior temporal regions during visual working memory: a combined intracranial EEG and functional magnetic resonance imaging study. J. Neurosci. 28, 7304–7312 (2008).
Lueschow, A., Miller, E. K. & Desimone, R. Inferior temporal mechanisms for invariant object recognition. Cereb. Cortex 4, 523–531 (1994).
Woloszyn, L. & Sheinberg, D. L. Neural dynamics in inferior temporal cortex during a visual working memory task. J. Neurosci. 29, 5494–5507 (2009).
Powell, H. W. et al. Material-specific lateralization of memory encoding in the medial temporal lobe: blocked versus event-related design. Neuroimage 27, 231–239 (2005).
Henson, R. A mini-review of fMRI studies of human medial temporal lobe activity associated with recognition memory. Q. J. Exp. Psychol. B 58, 340–360 (2005).
Ali, M. M., Sellers, K. K. & Fröhlich, F. Transcranial alternating current stimulation modulates large-scale cortical network activity by network resonance. J. Neurosci. 33, 11262–11275 (2013).
Herrmann, C. S., Rach, S., Neuling, T. & Strüber, D. Transcranial alternating current stimulation: a review of the underlying mechanisms and modulation of cognitive processes. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 7, 279 (2013).
Vossen, A., Gross, J. & Thut, G. Alpha power increase after transcranial alternating current stimulation at alpha frequency (α-tACS) reflects plastic changes rather than entrainment. Brain Stimul. 8, 499–508 (2015).
Zaehle, T., Rach, S. & Herrmann, C. S. Transcranial alternating current stimulation enhances individual alpha activity in human EEG. PLoS One 5, e13766 (2010).
Bergmann, T. O. & Born, J. Phase-amplitude coupling: a general mechanism for memory processing and synaptic plasticity? Neuron 97, 10–13 (2018).
Gregoriou, G. G., Gotts, S. J., Zhou, H. & Desimone, R. High-frequency, long-range coupling between prefrontal and visual cortex during attention. Science 324, 1207–1210 (2009).
Wang, X. J. Neurophysiological and computational principles of cortical rhythms in cognition. Physiol. Rev. 90, 1195–1268 (2010).
Violante, I. R. et al. Externally induced frontoparietal synchronization modulates network dynamics and enhances working memory performance. Elife 6, e22001 (2017).
Folstein, M. F., Folstein, S. E. & McHugh, P. R. “Mini-mental state”. A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. J. Psychiatr. Res. 12, 189–198 (1975).
Beck, A. T., Steer, R. A. & Brown, G. K. Manual for the Beck Depression Inventory (The Psychological Association, 1996).
Sabia, S. et al. Impact of smoking on cognitive decline in early old age: the Whitehall II cohort study. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 69, 627–635 (2012).
Grundey, J., Amu, R., Batsikadze, G., Paulus, W. & Nitsche, M. A. Diverging effects of nicotine on motor learning performance: improvement in deprived smokers and attenuation in non-smokers. Addict. Behav. 74, 90–97 (2017).
Grundey, J. et al. Double dissociation of working memory and attentional processes in smokers and non-smokers with and without nicotine. Psychopharmacology (Berl.) 232, 2491–2501 (2015).
Noury, N., Hipp, J. F. & Siegel, M. Physiological processes non-linearly affect electrophysiological recordings during transcranial electric stimulation. Neuroimage 140, 99–109 (2016).
Noury, N. & Siegel, M. Analyzing EEG and MEG signals recorded during tES, a reply. Neuroimage 167, 53–61 (2018).
Konkle, T., Brady, T. F., Alvarez, G. A. & Oliva, A. Conceptual distinctiveness supports detailed visual long-term memory for real-world objects. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 139, 558–578 (2010).
Brady, T. F., Konkle, T., Alvarez, G. A. & Oliva, A. Visual long-term memory has a massive storage capacity for object details. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 14325–14329 (2008).
Park, J. Y., Jhung, K., Lee, J. & An, S. K. Theta–gamma coupling during a working memory task as compared to a simple vigilance task. Neurosci. Lett. 532, 39–43 (2013).
Nguyen, J., Deng, Y. & Reinhart, R. M. G. Brain-state determines learning improvements after transcranial alternating-current stimulation to frontal cortex. Brain Stimul. 11, 723–726 (2018).
Kanai, R., Chaieb, L., Antal, A., Walsh, V. & Paulus, W. Frequency-dependent electrical stimulation of the visual cortex. Curr. Biol. 18, 1839–1843 (2008).
Schutter, D. J. & Hortensius, R. Retinal origin of phosphenes to transcranial alternating current stimulation. Clin. Neurophysiol. 121, 1080–1084 (2010).
Paulus, W. On the difficulties of separating retinal from cortical origins of phosphenes when using transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS). Clin. Neurophysiol. 121, 987–991 (2010).
Lachaux, J. P., Rodriguez, E., Martinerie, J. & Varela, F. J. Measuring phase synchrony in brain signals. Hum. Brain Mapp. 8, 194–208 (1999).
Reinhart, R. M. G., Zhu, J., Park, S. & Woodman, G. F. Medial-frontal stimulation enhances learning in schizophrenia by restoring prediction-error signaling. J. Neurosci. 35, 12232–12240 (2015).
Reinhart, R. M. G. & Woodman, G. F. Enhancing long-term memory with stimulation tunes visual attention in one trial. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112, 625–630 (2015).
Reinhart, R. M. G. & Woodman, G. F. Causal control of medial-frontal cortex governs electrophysiological and behavioral indices of performance monitoring and learning. J. Neurosci. 34, 4214–4227 (2014).
Reinhart, R. M. G., Zhu, J., Park, S. & Woodman, G. F. Synchronizing theta oscillations with direct-current stimulation strengthens adaptive control in the human brain. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112, 9448–9453 (2015).
Reinhart, R. M. G., Cosman, J. D., Fukuda, K. & Woodman, G. F. Using transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) to understand cognitive processing. Atten. Percept. Psychophys. 79, 3–23 (2017).
Reinhart, R. M. G., Xiao, W., McClenahan, L. J. & Woodman, G. F. Electrical stimulation of visual cortex can immediately improve spatial vision. Curr. Biol. 26, 1867–1872 (2016).
Poreisz, C., Boros, K., Antal, A. & Paulus, W. Safety aspects of transcranial direct current stimulation concerning healthy subjects and patients. Brain Res. Bull. 72, 208–214 (2007).
Gandiga, P. C., Hummel, F. C. & Cohen, L. G. Transcranial DC stimulation (tDCS): a tool for double-blind sham-controlled clinical studies in brain stimulation. Clin. Neurophysiol. 117, 845–850 (2006).
Jung, T. P. et al. Imaging brain dynamics using independent component analysis. Proc. IEEE Inst. Electr. Electron. Eng. 89, 1107–1122 (2001).
Berens, P. CircStat: a MATLAB toolbox for circular statistics. J. Stat. Softw. 31, 21 (2009).
van Driel, J., Cox, R. & Cohen, M. X. Phase-clustering bias in phase-amplitude cross-frequency coupling and its removal. J. Neurosci. Methods 254, 60–72 (2015).
Sekihara, K. & Nagarajan, S. S. Adaptive Spatial Filters for Electromagnetic Brain Imaging (Springer, 2008).
Darvas, F., Pantazis, D., Kucukaltun-Yildirim, E. & Leahy, R. M. Mapping human brain function with MEG and EEG: methods and validation. Neuroimage 23 (Suppl. 1), S289–S299 (2004).
Dannhauer, M., Lanfer, B., Wolters, C. H. & Knösche, T. R. Modeling of the human skull in EEG source analysis. Hum. Brain Mapp. 32, 1383–1399 (2011).
Wolters, C. H. et al. Influence of tissue conductivity anisotropy on EEG/MEG field and return current computation in a realistic head model: a simulation and visualization study using high-resolution finite element modeling. Neuroimage 30, 813–826 (2006).
Cho, J. H., Vorwerk, J., Wolters, C. H. & Knösche, T. R. Influence of the head model on EEG and MEG source connectivity analyses. Neuroimage 110, 60–77 (2015).
Buchner, H. et al. Inverse localization of electric dipole current sources in finite element models of the human head. Electroencephalogr. Clin. Neurophysiol. 102, 267–278 (1997).
Wolters, C. H., Grasedyck, L. & Hackbusch, W. Efficient computation of lead field bases and influence matrix for the FEM-based EEG and MEG inverse problem. Inverse Probl. 20, 1099–1116 (2004).
Lew, S., Wolters, C. H., Dierkes, T., Röer, C. & Macleod, R. S. Accuracy and run-time comparison for different potential approaches and iterative solvers in finite element method based EEG source analysis. Appl. Numer. Math. 59, 1970–1988 (2009).
Singh, A. K., Okamoto, M., Dan, H., Jurcak, V. & Dan, I. Spatial registration of multichannel multi-subject fNIRS data to MNI space without MRI. Neuroimage 27, 842–851 (2005).
Jiang, H., Bahramisharif, A., van Gerven, M. A. & Jensen, O. Measuring directionality between neuronal oscillations of different frequencies. Neuroimage 118, 359–367 (2015).
Gross, J. et al. Dynamic imaging of coherent sources: studying neural interactions in the human brain. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 98, 694–699 (2001).
Nolte, G. et al. Robustly estimating the flow direction of information in complex physical systems. Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 234101 (2008).
Klimesch, W. EEG alpha and theta oscillations reflect cognitive and memory performance: a review and analysis. Brain Res. Brain Res. Rev. 29, 169–195 (1999).
Klimesch, W. α-band oscillations, attention, and controlled access to stored information. Trends Cogn. Sci. 16, 606–617 (2012).
Storey, J. D. A direct approach to false discovery rates. J. R. Stat. Soc. B 64, 479–498 (2002).
This work was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (R01 MH 114877) awarded to R.M.G.R.
R.M.G.R. conceived the experiments. R.M.G.R. and J.A.N. conducted the experiments and analyzed the data. R.M.G.R. wrote the paper.
Correspondence to Robert M. G. Reinhart.
Supplementary Figure 1 Experiment 1: Age, but not HD-tACS, impacts posterior alpha power suppression.
We questioned whether improvements in maintenance-related neural interactions and working-memory behavior might be due to the stimulation having enhanced perceptual attention immediately after target onset, which could in turn boost the fidelity of the target representation stored in working memory. To test this idea, we examined alpha power suppression immediately after target presentation because this EEG signature is thought to index the release of inhibition to facilitate task-relevant processing 92. If the exogenous stimulation enhanced working memory via a gating-by-inhibition attention mechanism, we should find greater target-locked posterior alpha suppression after active relative to sham stimulation in older adults. a, Target-locked time-frequency representations of total power from occipital and parietooccipital electrodes during memory blocks following sham stimulation in younger minus older adults reveal a significant age-related deficit in alpha suppression (t82 = 3.154, P = 0.002, dz = 0.688), suggesting that older adults were unable to functionally disinhibit task-relevant areas as efficiently as younger adults during the perceptual analysis of real-world objects. b, However, this age-related deficit in alpha suppression remained significant even after older adults received active stimulation (t82 = 2.766, P = 0.007, dz = 0.604). c, No changes to alpha power were observed between sham and active stimulation in older adults (t41 = 0.733, P = 0.468, dz = 0.113). The results showing age-related dysfunction in alpha rhythms during perceptual analysis align with work on the selective attention deficits in aging 96–98. However, unlike the neural interactions of theta-gamma PAC and theta phase synchronization during memory maintenance, this earlier signal during stimulus processing was not influenced by the HD-tACS and is thus an unlikely candidate for underlying the stimulation-induced performance benefit observed in older adults. Topographies show the spatial distribution of the power responses during the 8–14 Hz, 100–400 ms post-target analytic window, indicated by the white dashed box. Between-group comparisons used independent two-tailed t-tests (n = 84). Within-group comparisons used paired sample two-tailed t-tests (n = 42).
Supplementary Figure 2 Experiment 3: Reversing the phase angle of HD-tACS impairs working-memory performance.
We interpret the findings from experiments 1 and 2 showing improved working-memory performance following in-phase stimulation as resulting from the increased temporal synchronization of large-scale cortical interactions. However, if working-memory performance is truly mediated by a phase-sensitive network mechanism, then we should find that changing the phase angle direction of alternating current applied to frontotemporal regions should change the direction of the effects on behavioral performance. Unlike experiments 1 and 2 where we sought to synchronize neural activity with in-phase stimulation and enhance working memory, experiment 3 tested whether a desynchronizing or anti-phase montage could impair working memory. We predicted that delivering theta-tuned HD-tACS simultaneously to frontal and temporal regions with a relative 180° phase difference between targeted areas would impede frontotemporal neural integration and induce impairments in working-memory performance. We tested this prediction in a new cohort of young adults using a double blind, sham-controlled, within-subjects design (Methods), in which working-memory behavior on the change-detection task was evaluated (Fig. 1b). Experiment 3 showed that by shifting the phase angle of alternating current, we could switch the direction of the causal effects on working-memory performance. Box plots of RT and accuracy in young adults from memory blocks show anti-phase stimulation significantly decreased accuracy (t17 = 3.359, P = 0.004, dz = 0.792) and increased RT (t17 = 2.928, P = 0.009, dz = 0.690), relative to sham. These results, combined with those from experiments 1 and 2, suggest that we may be able to obtain rapid, bidirectional control over phase-sensitive memory mechanisms using frequency-tuned HD-tACS. Paired sample two-tailed t-tests (n = 18). Box-plot center, median; box limits, lower and upper quartiles; whiskers, lower and upper extreme values; points, outliers. ** P < 0.01.
Supplementary Figure 3 Experiment 4: HD-tACS improves working-memory success in poor performing young adults.
We asked whether the HD-tACS behavioral improvement observed in older adults across experiments 1 and 2 could be extended to younger individuals with relatively poor working-memory performance and weak maintenance-related PAC (Fig. 3e). For experiment 4, we re-recruited the poorest performing younger adults from experiment 1 to participate in a single test day involving frequency-tuned in-phase frontotemporal HD-tACS (Methods). Subjects’ behavior on the change-detection task (Fig. 1b) was collected before, during, and after stimulation. Box plots of RT and accuracy of poor performing younger adults from memory blocks show preferential enhancement of working-memory accuracy following stimulation, relative to the pre-stimulation baseline (t13 = 3.610, P = 0.003, dz = 0.965) and relative to subjects’ sham stimulation day from experiment 1 (t13 = 3.571, P = 0.003, dz = 0.954). Consistent with previous findings from older adults, the in-phase stimulation did not affect RT in these poor performing younger subjects compared to either baseline condition (all t13 < 0.656, P > 0.523, dz < 0.175). Further analysis showed that post-stimulation accuracy gains were significant for each 4 min time bin, relative to either baseline control condition (all t13 > 3.520, P < 0.005, dz > 0.941). The results suggest that the HD-tACS improvement may be applicable to younger individuals with poor working-memory function. Paired sample two-tailed t-tests (n = 14). Box-plot center, median; box limits, lower and upper quartiles; whiskers, lower and upper extreme values; points, outliers. ** P < 0.01. | 2019-04-20T08:36:46Z | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-019-0371-x?error=cookies_not_supported&code=c04780de-252b-49e4-865b-2e1244b25435 |
#39 - "Fisher-Price Maple High Chair". 1985-1989. Furniture. More!
#120 - "Tub Tug & Barge". 1979-1990. Bath Toy/Jumbo Little People. More!
#124 - "Fire Truck". 1979-1990. Little People. More!
#125 - Police Car. 1979-1990. Original Little People. More!
#128 - "My Pretty Purse Set". 1982-1989. Other Toy. More!
#136 - "Discovery Cottage" 1984-1989. Jumbo Little People. More!
#141 - "Play Family Mini Bus" or "Mini Van". 1970-1990. Original Little People. More!
#157 - "Nursery Monitor" 1984-1989. Nursery Equipment. More!
#167 - "Splash & Stack Bluebird" 1983-1989. Bath Toy. More!
#171 - "Pull-Along Plane". 1981-1989. Pull Toy. More!
#175 - "Dancing Animals Music Box Mobile". 1982-1992. Crib Mobile. More!
#176 - "School Days Play Desk". 1972-1990. Educational Toy. More!
#199 - "Play Gym" 1985-1991. Nursery Toy. More!
#346 - "Little Truck Rigs - Fire Truck Rig". 1983-1990. Original Little People. More!
#347 - "Indy Race Rig". 1983-1990. Original Little People. More!
#411 - "Floating Family". 1975-1998. Jumbo Little People. More!
#413 - "Shapes And Slides Playground" Shape Sorter. 1984-1989. Jumbo Little People. More!
#415 - "Squeak & Peek Sailor". 1984-1992. Rattle. More!
#421 - "Xylo Drum". 1977-1996. Nursery Toy. More!
#432 - "Spinning Butterfly". 1982-1992. Nursery Toy. More!
#449 - "Sailor/Butterfly Assortment / Stay 'n Play Pals Assortment". 1984-1992. Nursery Toys. More!
#464 - "Pocket Camera". 1974-1991. Camera. More!
#604 - "Crazy Combo" Horn Set. 1984-1992. Musical Instruments. More!
#619 - "One Ring Circus". 1983-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#630 - "Teether And Rattle Assortment". 1982-1990. Nursery Toys. More!
#631 - "Soft Shakes Assortment". 1983-1990. Nursery Toys. More!
#646 - "Apple Rattle". 1982-1990. Rattle. More!
#647 - "Rocking Horse Rattle". 1982-1990. Rattle. More!
#651 - "Ring Of Beads". 1982-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#652 - "Soft Shakes 'Clown' Rattle". 1983-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#653 - "Soft Shakes 'Dog' Rattle". 1983-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#654 - "Soft Shakes 'Bunny' Rattle". 1983-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#656 - "Play Family Little Riders". 1976-1990. Original Little People. More!
#666 - "Creative Blocks". 1978-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#667 - "Snap-Lock Beads". 1973-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#668 - "Wrist Rattles Assortment". 1984-1990. Rattle. More!
#669 - "Lion Wrist Rattle". 1984-1990. Rattle. More!
#670 - "Panda Bear Wrist Rattle". 1984-1990. Rattle. More!
#671 - "Lamb Wrist Rattle". 1984-1990. Rattle. More!
#673 - "Magnetic Alphabet Board". 1977-1989. Educational. More!
#675 - "Circus Clowns". 1984-1990. Original Little People. More!
#676 - "Westerners". 1984-1990. Original Little People. More!
#677 - "Farm Family". 1984-1990. Original Little People. More!
#678 - "Airport Crew". 1984-1990. Original Little People. More!
#679 - Garage Squad. 1984-1990. Original Little People. More!
#680 - "Little People Assortment". 1984-1990. Original Little People. More!
#761 - "Play Family Nursery Set". 1973-1990. Original Little People. More!
#794 - "Over The Rainbow". 1982-1991. Music Box. More!
#795 - "Toyland". 1984-1991. Music Box. More!
#815 - "Sky Talkers Walkie-Talkies". 1983-1989. Audio/Visual. More!
#824 - "Fisher-Price Diamond Needle Cartridge". 1982-1989. Audio/Visual. More!
#825 - "Fisher-Price Phonograph". 1978-1989. Audio/Visual. More!
#926 - "Cash Register". 1975-1990. Play Set. More!
#929 - "Play Family Nursery School". 1978-1979 & 1989. Little Family. More!
#1004 - "Baby's View Play Mat". 1987-1989. Nursery Toy. More!
#1005 - "Animal Sounds Barn". 1987-1989. Nursery Toy. More!
#1007 - "Activity Blocks". 1986-1992. Nursery Toy. More!
#1008 - "Toddler Kitchen". 1986-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#1009 - "Discover Books Assortment". 1985-1989. Nursery Toy. More!
#1011 - "Poppity Pop Car". 1988-1992. Jumbo Little People. More!
#1012 - "Twinkle Star Ball". 1988-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#1013 - "Look 'n Listen Rattle Shiny Shaker". 1988-1992. Rattle. More!
#1014 - "Look 'n Listen Rattle Red Ring Rocker". 1988-1992. Rattle. More!
#1015 - "Snack 'n Play". 1988-1989. Nursery Toy. More!
#1016 - "Rocking Pony". 1988-1994. Riding Toy. More!
#1017 - "Carnival Stacker". 1988-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#1018 - "Look 'n Listen Rattle Assortment". 1988-1992. Rattles. More!
#1019 - "Fun Bus Rolling Activity Center". 1989-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#1020 - "Activity Pots and Pans". 1989-1994. Nursery Toy. More!
#1021 - "Turn And Learn Activity Center". 1989-1992. Nursery Toy. More!
#1022 - "Pick Up 'n Go Dump Truck". 1989-1994. Nursery Toy. More!
#1024 - "Baby's First Blocks". 1989+. Nursery Toy. More!
#1091 - "Toys Are For Playing". 1986-1989. Nursery Book. More!
#1092 - "Baby Animals". 1986-1989. Nursery Book. More!
#1094 - "Little Bear's Colors". 1985-1989. Nursery Book. More!
#1095 - "Let's Find the Shapes". 1985-1989. Nursery Book. More!
#1096 - "My Fuzzy Puppy". 1985-1989. Nursery Book. More!
#1097 - "Let's Go To the Zoo". 1985-1989. Nursery Book. More!
#1098 - "Up, Down, Over, Under". 1985-1989. Nursery Book. More!
#1099 - "I Can Count". 1985-1989. Nursery Book. More!
#1100 - "Musical Activity Center". 1985-1989. Nursery Toy. More!
#1101 - "Musical Hug 'n Tug Birdie". 1989-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#1134 - "Activity Center". 1985-1989. Nursery Toy. More!
#1135 - "Activity Center". 1989-1993. Nursery Toy. More!
#1150 - "Chime Ball". 1986-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#1200 - "Tub Fun Center". 1986-1989. Playset. More!
#1201 - "Tubby Duck Floating Puffalump". 1989-1992. Puffalumps. More!
#1252 - "On-The-Go Car Seat Toy". 1987-1989. Nursery Toy. More!
#1253 - "Soft Sounds Tape Player Mobile". 1988-1990. Mobile. More!
#1254 - "Soft Sounds Tape & Picture Disk". 1988-1990. Mobile Accessories. More!
#1304 - "Strawberry & Bunny Teethers". 1985-1990. Teethers. More!
#1309 - "Animal Grabbers Assortment". 1987-1989. Rattles. More!
#1310 - "Animal Grabbers Billy Bear". 1987-1989. Rattle. More!
#1311 - "Animal Grabbers Ellery Elephant". 1987-1989. Rattle. More!
#1312 - "Animal Grabbers Rosie Rabbit". 1987-1989. Rattle. More!
#1316 - "Farm Sound Friends Assortment". 1989-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#1317 - "Farm Sound Friends Puppy". 1989-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#1318 - "Farm Sound Friends Cow". 1989-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#1319 - "Farm Sound Friends Lamb". 1989-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#1320 - "Farm Sound Friends Chicken". 1989-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#1322 - "Teething Ring Teddy". 1989-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#1326 - "Crib Wrap Arounds". 1989-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#1327 - "Crib Wrap Arounds Mirror Turtle". 1989-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#1328 - "Crib Wrap Arounds Peek-A-Boo Train Door". 1989-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#1329 - "Crib Wrap Arounds Squeaking Woolly Lamb". 1989-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#1330 - "Crib Wrap Arounds Humpty Dumpty Tug The Legs". 1989-1990. Nursery Toy. More!
#1353 - "Security Bunny". 1987-1990. Nursery Blanket. More!
#1355 - "Baby Puffalumps Assortment". 1988-1994. Puffalumps. More!
#1356 - "Baby Puffalump Puppy". 1988-1994. Puffalumps. More!
#1357 - "Baby Puffalumps Mouse". 1988-1994. Puffalumps. More!
#1358 - "Baby Puffalumps Bear Cub". 1988-1991. Puffalumps. More!
#1359 - "Baby Puffalumps Bunny". 1988-1994. Puffalumps. More!
#1406 - "Teddy Beddy Bear-in-the-Box". 1987-1989. Nursery Toy. More!
#1407 - "Teddy Beddy Bear Smile 'n Play Mirror". 1987-1989. Nursery Toy. More!
#1510 - "Nursery Monitor". 1989-1992. Non-Toy. More!
#1511 - "Nursery Humidifier". 1989-1990. Non-Toy. More!
#1512 - "Nursery Heater/Fan". 1989-1990. Non-Toy. More!
#2003 - "Fisher-Price Dress-Up Vanity". 1985-1991. Playset. More!
#2006 - "Bubble Mower". 1985-1989. Push Toy. More!
#2007 - "Fisher-Price Magic Vac". 1986-1990. Push Toy. More!
#2008 - "Power Workshop". 1986-1990. Playset. More!
#2009 - "Tea Set & Tray". 1986-1989. Fun With Food. More!
#2010 - "Fisher-Price Medical Kit". 1987-1997. Playset. More!
#2013 - "Fisher-Price Dress-Up Trunk Boys". 1989-1989. Playset. More!
#2014 - "Fisher-Price Dress-Up Trunk Girls". 1989-1989. Playset. More!
#2015 - "Schoolhouse Drawing Set". 1989-1990. Art Set. More!
#2016 - "Magic Mini Vac". 1989-1990. Household. More!
#2018 - "Melody Push Chime". 1989-1992. Push Toy. More!
#2095 - "Super Sandbox". 1989-1996. Playground Equipment. More!
#2096 - "Teeter Round". 1989-1990. Playground Equipment. More!
#2097 - "Grow With Me Picnic Table". 1989-1998. Playground Equipment. More!
#2101 - "Fisher-Price Kitchen". 1987-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2102 - "Magic Scan Checkout Counter". 1988-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2103 - "McDonald's® Restaurant Center". 1989-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2107 - "Family Dinnerware". 1987-1989. Fun With Food. More!
#2109 - "Pack-A-Picnic Set". 1989-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2110 - "Sizzling Barbecue". 1989-1989. Fun With Food. More!
#2111 - "Simmering Sauce Pan Set". 1987-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2113 - "Whistling Tea Kettle Set". 1987-1989. Fun With Food. More!
#2114 - "Mixing Center". 1988-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2115 - "Super Skillet Breakfast Set". 1987-1989. Fun With Food. More!
#2117 - "Golden Glow Toaster Oven". 1988-1989. Fun With Food. More!
#2118 - "McDonald's® Soda Fountain". 1989-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2125 - "Play Food Assortment". 1987-1989. Fun With Food. More!
#2127 - "Bacon And Eggs". 1987-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2129 - "Bread And Milk". 1987-1989. Fun With Food. More!
#2130 - "Soup and Sandwich". 1987-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2132 - "Chicken Dinner". 1987-1989. Fun With Food. More!
#2133 - "Steak Dinner". 1987-1989. Fun With Food. More!
#2134 - "Hot Dog Lunch". 1987-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2135 - "Burger Deluxe". 1987-1989. Fun With Food. More!
#2136 - "Homemade Pizza". 1988-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2138 - "TV Dinner". 1988-1989. Fun With Food. More!
#2139 - "Taco Deluxe". 1988-1989. Fun With Food. More!
#2150 - "Baby's Mealtime Set". 1987-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2151 - "Party Time Dessert Set". 1987-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2152 - "Create-A-Cake". 1988-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2154 - "McDonald's® Crew Uniform". 1989-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2155 - "McDonald's® Happy Meal". 1989-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2160 - "McDonald's® Menu Assortment". 1989-1989. Fun With Food. More!
#2161 - "McDonald's® Big Mac". 1989-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2162 - "McDonald's® Chicken McNuggets". 1989-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2163 - "McDonald's® Garden Salad". 1989-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2164 - "McDonald's® Breakfast". 1989-1990. Fun With Food. More!
#2201 - "Fisher-Price Grand Piano". 1986-1989. Musical Instrument. More!
#2204 - "Music Box TV". 1988-1991. Music Box. More!
#2205 - "Music Box Record Player". 1988-1992. Music Box. More!
#2210 - "Marching Band". 1988-1992. Musical Instruments. More!
#2255 - "Tumblewheels Single Action Vehicle Assortment". 1989-1990. Tumblewheels. More!
#2256 - "Tumblewheels Skateboard". 1989-1990. Tumblewheels. More!
#2257 - "Tumblewheels Motorcycle". 1989-1990. Tumblewheels. More!
#2258 - "Tumblewheels BMX Bike". 1989-1990. Tumblewheels. More!
#2260 - "Tumblewheels Dual Action Vehicle Assortment". 1989-1990. Tumblewheels. More!
#2261 - "Tumblewheels Police Car". 1989-1990. Tumblewheels. More!
#2262 - "Tumblewheels Airplane". 1989-1990. Tumblewheels. More!
#2263 - "Tumblewheels Helicopter". 1989-1990. Tumblewheels. More!
#2305 - "Tap 'n Turn Bench". 1987-1990. Playset. More!
#2306 - "Fisher-Price Pop-Up Playhouse". 1987-1990. Non-Toy. More!
#2310 - "Fun Flier". 1988-1990. Game. More!
#2311 - "Little Helper Cart". 1988-1990. Household Playset. More!
#2312 - "Crazy Camera". 1988-1990. Camera. More!
#2314 - "Waterbarrow". 1989-1992. Household Playset. More!
#2315 - "Sand Factory". 1989-1990. Playset. More!
#2316 - "1-2-3 Roller Skates". 1989-1992. Skates. More!
#2318 - "Space Tops". 1989-1991. Playset. More!
#2320 - "Magic Train Track". 1989-1990. Playset. More!
#2325 - "Fisher-Price Baseball". 1987-1990. Sports Game. More!
#2326 - "Fisher-Price Basketball". 1989-1992. Sports Game. More!
#2327 - "Fisher-Price Soccer". 1987-1989. Sports Game. More!
#2328 - "Fisher-Price Bowling". 1987-1990. Sports Game. More!
#2329 - "Fisher-Price Golf". 1988-1990. Sports Game. More!
#2350 - "Play Family Vehicles Assortment". 1985-1990. Original Little People. More!
#2351 - "Little People Mini-Sets Assortment". 1985-1989. Original Little People. More!
#2360 - "Little People Jetliner". 1986-1990. Original Little People. More!
#2361 - "Fire Truck". 1989-1990. Original Little People. More!
#2448 - "Farm Fun". 1985-1990. Original Little People. More!
#2449 - "Air Lift Copter". 1985-1990. Original Little People. More!
#2450 - "Little People Race Car". 1985-1990. Original Little People. More!
#2451 - "Little People Motorcycle". 1985-1990. Original Little People. More!
#2500 - "Play Family Main Street". 1986-1990. Original Little People. More!
#2501 - "Little People Barn". 1986-1990. Original Little People. More!
#2502 - "Little People Airport". 1986-1990. Original Little People. More!
#2504 - "Little People Garage". 1986-1990. Original Little People. More!
#2524 - "Cruise Boat". 1989-1990. Original Little People. More!
#2525 - "Playground". 1986-1990. Original Little People. More!
#2526 - "Swimming Pool". 1986-1989. Original Little People. More!
#2550 - "Little People School". 1988-1990. Original Little People. More!
#2551 - "Little People Neighborhood". 1989-1990. Original Little People. More!
#2580 - "Little People Little Mart". 1987-1989. Original Little People. More!
#2581 - "Little People Express Train". 1987-1990. Original Little People. More!
#2582 - "Little People Floating Marina". 1988-1990. Original Little People. More!
#2600 - "Fisher-Price Trike Boy". 1985-1990. Riding Toy. More!
#2601 - "Fisher-Price Trike Girl". 1985-1990. Riding Toy. More!
#2602 - "Fisher-Price Scoot Around". 1986-1990. Riding Toy. More!
#2650 - "Sportcar". 1989-1990. Riding Toy. More!
#3006 - "Binoculars". 1986-1991. Audio/Visual Toy. More!
#3007 - "Creative Music Maker". 1986-1989. Musical Instruments. More!
#3032 - "Time Jammers Assortment". 1988-1990. Watches. More!
#3040 - "Sun Jammers Assortment". 1987-1989. Sunglasses. More!
#3041 - "Sun Jammers Black". 1987-1989. Sunglasses. More!
#3042 - "Sun Jammers Red". 1987-1989. Sunglasses. More!
#3043 - "Sun Jammers Light Blue". 1987-1989. Sunglasses. More!
#3044 - "Sun Jammers Dark Blue". 1987-1989. Sunglasses. More!
#3045 - "Sun Jammers White". 1987-1989. Sunglasses. More!
#3046 - "Sun Jammers Yellow". 1987-1989. Sunglasses. More!
#3070 - "Sonic Rangers". 1987-1989. Walkie-Talkies. More!
#3500 - "Fisher-Price Umbrella Assortment". 1988-1989. Umbrellas. More!
#3501 - "Fisher-Price Fishing Kit". 1988-1989. Sports. More!
#3502 - "Overnighter Blue". 1988-1989. Sleeping Bag. More!
#3505 - "Overnighter Pink". 1988-1989. Sleeping Bag. More!
#3506 - "Weekender Blue". 1989-1989. Suitcase. More!
#3507 - "Weekender Pink". 1989-1989. Suitcase. More!
#3805 - "AM-FM Radio". 1985-1991. Radio. More!
#3808 - "Tape Recorder". 1988-1990. Tape Recorder. More!
#3809 - "Star Stage". 1988-1990. Microphone Set. More!
#3810 - "Fisher-Price Electronic Keyboard/Real Sounds Piano". 1989-1990. Musical Instrument. More!
#3811 - "Fisher-Price Electronic Guitar/Real Sounds Guitar". 1989-1990. Musical Instrument. More!
#3840 - "Fisher-Price Microphone". 1985-1992. Microphone. More!
#5100 - "Crash Zone Ejectors Assortment". 1989-1990. Playset. More!
#5120 - "Crash Zone Challenger Assortment". 1989-1990. Playset. More!
#5135 - "Crash Zone Rally". 1989-1990. Playset. More!
#5141 - "Crash Zone Ejector Ferrari Testarosa". 1989-1990. Playset. More!
#5142 - "Crash Zone Ejector Chevrolet Corvette". 1989-1989. Playset. More!
#5143 - "Crash Zone Ejector Mitsubishi Eclipse". 1989-1990. Playset. More!
#5144 - "Crash Zone Ejector Ford Probe". 1989-1990. Playset. More!
#5145 - "Crash Zone Ejector Ford Thunderbird". 1989-1990. Playset. More!
#5146 - "Crash Zone Ejector Lotus Esprit GT Sports Car". 1989-1990. Playset. More!
#5147 - "Crash Zone Crossing". 1989-1990. Playset. More!
#5148 - "Crash Zone Alley". 1989-1989. Playset. More!
#5149 - "Crash Zone Launcher". 1989-1990. Playset. More!
#5150 - "Shop Assortment". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5151 - "Silver Bells Wedding Chapel". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5152 - "Blue Ribbon Pony Stable". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5153 - "Pink Slippers Ballet Studio". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5155 - "Best Friends Pet Shop". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5160 - "Deluxe Cottage Assortment". 1989-1989. Precious Places®. More!
#5161 - "Baby's Nursery Cottage". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5162 - "Country Kitchen Cottage". 1989-1989. Precious Places®. More!
#5165 - "Twirling Melody Gazebo". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5166 - "Magic Key Mansion". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5170 - "Furniture Assortment". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5171 - "Kitchen". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5172 - "Dining Room". 1989-1989. Precious Places®. More!
#5173 - "Bedroom". 1989-1989. Precious Places®. More!
#5174 - "Bathroom". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5175 - "Baby's Nursery". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5176 - "Living Room". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5185 - "Precious Places® Outdoor Scene Assortment". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5186 - "Pretty Penny Wishing Well". 1989-1989. Precious Places®. More!
#5187 - "Ice Castle Skating Pond". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5188 - "Grandstand Pet Pageant". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5189 - "Prancing Pony Show Ring". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5190 - "Sunshine Country Picnic". 1989-1989. Precious Places®. More!
#5200 - "Precious Places® Figures & Accessory Assortment". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5201 - "Jenny & Her Trike". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5202 - "Rollerskating Sara". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5203 - "Skateboarding Andy". 1989-1989. Precious Places®. More!
#5204 - "Baby Amanda". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5205 - "Mom at Work". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5206 - "Dad at Work". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5207 - "Ashley the Model". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#5208 - "Lindsay On Her Scooter". 1989-1990. Precious Places®. More!
#6251 - "Starter Construx Specialty Parts Assortment". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6252 - "Starter Construx Specialty Parts Fire Engine". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6253 - "Starter Construx Specialty Parts Airplane". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6260 - "Starter Construx Promotional Set". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6270 - "Starter Construx Mid-Price Assortment". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6271 - "Starter Construx Structures Set". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6272 - "Starter Construx Vehicle Set". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6280 - "Starter Construx Storage Bucket". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6290 - "Starter Construx Gift Set". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6360 - "Advanced Construx - Aircraft Set". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6370 - "Advanced Construx - Racing Set". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6380 - "Advanced Construx - Mechanical Set". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6401 - "Basix Construx - Specialty Parts Assortment". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6402 - "Basix Construx Specialty Parts - Seats". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6403 - "Basix Construx Specialty Parts - Wheels". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6404 - "Basix Construx Specialty Parts - Propellers & Skis". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6410 - "Basix Construx Bonus Set". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6412 - "Basix Construx Promotional Set". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6420 - "Basix Construx Mid-Price Set". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6430 - "Basix Construx Storage Bucket". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6440 - "Basix Construx Gift Set". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6445 - "Basix Construx Play Set". 1989-1989. Construx. More!
#6450 - "Imagination Series Construx Power Pack". 1985-1989. Construx. More!
#6480 - "Space Series - Galactic Shuttle". 1988-1989. Construx. More!
#6575 - "Toot Toot Engine". 1989-1989. Pull Toy. More!
#6600 - "Spelling Starter". 1987-1990. Electronic/Educational. More!
#6602 - "Math Starter". 1988-1989. Electronic/Educational Toy. More!
#6605 - "Starscope Set". 1987-1990. Telescope. More!
#6606 - "Micro Explorer Set". 1987-1990. Microscope. More!
#6607 - "Field Explorer". 1988-1989. Educational Toy. More!
#6608 - "Discovery Map". 1988-1990. Educational Toy. More!
#6609 - "Discovery Globe". 1988-1991. Educational Toy. More!
#6610 - "Magic Code". 1987-1989. Educational Toy. More!
#6613 - "Design-A-Saur Bones". 1989-1989. Educational Toy. More!
#6614 - "Count & Save Bank". 1989-1992. Educational Toy. More!
#6620 - "Magnetic Letters & Numbers Assortment". 1987-1994. Educational Toy. More!
#6621 - "Magnetic Letters Lower Case". 1987-1994. Educational Toy. More!
#6622 - "Magnetic Letters Upper Case". 1987-1994. Educational Toy. More!
#6623 - "Magnetic Numbers". 1987-1994. Educational Toy. More!
#6625 - "Deluxe Magnetic Board". 1987-1990. Educational Toy. More!
#6635 - "Wipe-Off Book Assortment". 1987-1989. Educational Toy. More!
#6660 - "Pocket Explorers Assortment". 1989-1990. Educational Toy. More!
#6661 - "Pocket Explorers Color Flashlight". 1989-1990. Educational Toy. More!
#6662 - "Pocket Explorers Pedometer". 1989-1989. Educational Toy. More!
#6663 - "Pocket Explorers Telescope/Compass". 1989-1990. Educational Toy. More!
#6664 - "Pocket Explorers Measure Meter". 1989-1990. Educational Toy. More!
#6665 - "Pocket Explorers Weighing Scale". 1989-1990. Educational Toy. More!
#6670 - "Flashcard Flipper". 1989-1990. Educational Toy. More!
#6672 - "Flipper Flashcards Assortment". 1989-1990. Educational Toy. More!
#7200 - "Critter Cuddlers". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7205 - "Cuddler Cuties Assortment". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7205 - "Cuddler Cuties Charlie Cheerleader". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7205 - "Cuddler Cuties Heather On A Hike". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7205 - "Cuddler Cuties Patty Dines Out". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7205 - "Cuddler Cuties Sandy Beach". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7205 - "Cuddler Cuties Sara Goes Shopping". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7205 - "Cuddler Cuties Tim Tennis". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7205 - "Cuddler Cuties Wendy Workout". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7210 - "Cuddlers On The Go". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7214 - "Cuddler Tales Assortment". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7215 - "Judy Jupiter & Neptune The Dog". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7220 - "Cuddler Companions Assortment". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7225 - "Country Cuddlers". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7230 - "Cuddlers At Home". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7245 - "Hotel Smooshees". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7246 - "Sandra Panda". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7247 - "Pacer Pony". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7248 - "Ellie Elephant". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7250 - "Itty Bitty Kitty". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7251 - "Prancey Pony". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7252 - "Nibble Mouse". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7253 - "Perchy Bird". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7254 - "Poppie Puppy". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7255 - "Heidi Bunny". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7257 - "Honey Cub". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7259 - "Squish Fish". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7260 - "Tops the Pup". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7261 - "Tinker Elephant". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7262 - "Prince Peacock". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7275 - "Seth Goes Skateboarding". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7276 - "Beth On Her Bicycle". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7277 - "Baby Bonnie & Her Stroller". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7280 - "Kathy & Kittycamp". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7281 - "Mary & Missy Mare". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7282 - "Brooke And Bubbles". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7295 - "Cinderella". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7296 - "Sleeping Beauty". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7297 - "Alice In Wonderland". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7300 - "Smugglers Clip-Ons". 1989-1989. Smoshees. More!
#7301 - "Dottie Kitten". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7302 - "Scooter Pup". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7303 - "Twinkle Mouse". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7304 - "Smuggles Bunny". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7315 - "Smooshees Easter Assortment". 1989-1989. Smoohees. More!
#7316 - "Taffy Bunny". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7317 - "Candy Bunny". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7318 - "Dazzle Duck". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7319 - "Razzle Chick". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7321 - "Celebrity Mouse". 1989-1989. Smoshees. More!
#7322 - "Jubilee Cat". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7323 - "Party Pup". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7330 - "Bandit Raccoon". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7350 - "Smuggler Charms Assortment". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7360 - "Smuggler Styles Assortment". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7361 - "Kitten Kaboodle". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7362 - "Emory Elephant". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7363 - "Clipper The Smuggler Pup". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7367 - "Smuggles Bunny". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7370 - "Smuggler Schoolmates Assortment". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7371 - "Squeaker Mouse". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7372 - "Sea Sea Writer". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7375 - "Amanda Panda". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7380 - "Smuggler Secrets Assortment". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7381 - "Ted E. Hush". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7382 - "Rambler Rabbit". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7383 - "Peppie Penguin". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7391 - "Smuggler Collector's Case". 1988-1989. Smooshees. More!
#7400 - "Big Buddees Circus Cuddlers Assortment". 1989-1989. Smooshees. More!
#8034 - "Mrs. Clause Puffalump Christmas Mouse". 1989-1989. Puffalumps. More!
#8400 - "Purr-Tenders Assortment". 1988-1989. Purr-Tenders. More!
#8401 - "Scamp-Purr". 1988-1989. Purr-Tenders. More!
#8402 - "Chirp-Purr". 1988-1989. Purr-Tenders. More!
#8403 - "Romp-Purr". 1988-1989. Purr-Tenders. More!
#8404 - "Hop-Purr". 1988-1989. Purr-Tenders. More!
#8406 - "Teddy-Purr". 1989-1989. Purr-Tenders. More!
#8420 - "Make-Believe Purr-Tenders". 1989-1989. Purr-Tenders. More!
#8705 - "Mini Tape Player Assortment". 1989-1990. Pocket Rockers. More!
#8711 - "Storage Frame". 1989-1989. Pocket Rockers. More!
#8715 - "Mini Tape Clip-Ons". 1989-1990. Pocket Rockers. More!
#8732 - "Tape Storage Case". 1989-1990. Pocket Rockers. More!
#8738 - "Mini Headphones". 1989-1990. Pocket Rockers. More!
#8743 - "Pocket Rockers Deluxe System". 1989-1989. Pocket Rockers. More!
#8746 - "Player and Purse Set". 1989-1989. Pocket Rockers. More!
#8750 - "Cassette Assortment". 1988-1990. Pocket Rockers. More!
#8800 - "Cassette Assortment". 1988-1990. Pocket Rockers. More!
#9106 - "Fisher-Price Infant Seat". 1989-1989. Nursery Equipment. More!
#9121 - "Fisher-Price Convertible Carriage/Stroller". 1988-1990. Nursery Equipment. More!
#9130 - "Fisher-Price Travel Tender". 198?-1990. Furniture. More!
#9134 - "Fisher-Price Hideaway Changer". 1987-1990. Nursery Equipment. More!
#9135 - "Fisher-Price Sure Grip Gate". 1988-1992. Nursery Equipment. More!
#9136 - "Fisher-Price High Chair (Navy)". 1985-1989. Furniture. More!
#9137 - "Fisher-Price High Chair (Tan)". 1985-1989. Furniture. More!
#9141 - "Fisher-Price High Chair Liner (Blue)". 1985-1989. Furniture. More!
#9142 - "Fisher-Price High Chair Liner (Tan)". 1985-1989. Furniture. More!
#9143 - "Fisher-Price Oak Finish High Chair". 1985-1989. Furniture. More!
#9146 - "Hop Skip Jumper". 1987-1989. Nursery Equipment. More!
#9147 - "Fisher-Price Potty". 198?-1992. Nursery Equipment. More!
#9149 - "Fisher-Price Infant Car Seat". 1988-1992. Nursery Equipment. More!
#9150 - "Fisher-Price Fold-Away Bed Rail". 1989-1992. Nursery Equipment. More!
#9360 - "Fisher-Price Triple Tote". 198?-1989. Nursery Equipment. More!
#9361 - "Pink Drool Bib". 1987-1989. Baby Bib. More!
#9362 - "Blue Drool Bib". 1987-1989. Baby Bib. More!
#9363 - "Vinyl Bib". 1987-1989. Baby Bib. More!
#9364 - "Teether Bib". 1987-1989. Baby Bib. More!
#9365 - "Full-Size Bib". 1985-1989. Baby Bib. More!
#9366 - "Soft Pocket Bib". 1985-1989. Baby Bib. More!
#9368 - "Fisher-Price Triple Tote". 1989-1989. Nursery Equipment. More!
#9500 - "Fisher-Price Table & Chair Set". 1985-1990. Furniture. More!
#9501 - "Fisher-Price Easel Desk". 1988-1990. Furniture. More!
#9505 - "Extra Chair". 1985-1990. Furniture. More!
#9520 - "Fisher-Price Wooden High Chair". 1985-1992. Furniture. More!
#9540 - "Fisher-Price Forever Furniture with a Light Cherry Finish". 1989-1989. Furniture. More!
#9541 - "Fisher-Price Forever Furniture with a Honey Maple Finish". 1989-1989. Furniture. More!
#9550 - "Crib with Cherry Finish". 1988-1989. Furniture. More!
#9551 - "Dresser with Cherry Finish". 1988-1989. Furniture. More!
#9600 - "Crib with Dark Maple Finish". 1988-1989. Furniture. More!
#9601 - "Dresser with Dark Maple Finish". 1988-1989. Furniture. More!
#9620 - "Crib with Honey Maple Finish". 1988-1989. Furniture. More!
#9621 - "Dresser with Honey Maple Finish". 1988-1989. Furniture. More!
#9630 - "Crib with Dark Maple Finish". 1988-1989. Furniture. More!
#9631 - "Dresser with Dark Maple Finish". 1988-1989. Furniture. More!
#9660 - "Fisher-Price Mattress". 1989-1992. Furniture. More!
#72009 - "Tea Set & Tray". 1986-1989. Fun With Food. More!
#72010 - "Fisher-Price Medical Kit". 1987-1997. Playset. More!
#72095 - "Super Sandbox". 1989-1996. Playground Equipment. More!
#72097 - "Grow With Me Picnic Table". 1989-1998. Playground Equipment. More!
No Number - "Counting Rhymes" Book. 1989-19??. Original Little People Book. More!
No Number - "Favorite Christmas Carols" Book & Tape. 1989-19??. Original Little People. More!
No Number - "Favorite Mother Goose Rhymes" Book. 1989-19??. Original Little People Book. More!
No Number - "Ornaments". 1987-1995. Non-Toy. More!
No Number - "Puffalumps Christmas Poems" Book. 1989-19??. Puffalump Book. More!
No Number - "Smooshees - The Great Treasure Hunt" Book. 1989-1990. Smooshees Book. More!
No Number - "Smooshees - The Smooshees Sleep-Over" Supersize Coloring Book" Book. 1989-1990. Smooshees Book. More!
No Number - "Smooshees Smuggle Bunny Goes to School" Book. 1989-1990. Smooshees Book. More!
No Number - "Smooshees Squish Fish's Forest Adventure" Book. 1989-1990. Smooshees Book. More!
No Number - "Toot-Toot Poster". 1989-1989. Non-Toy. More!
No Number - "Engineer's Hat and Bandanna". 1989-1989. Non-Toy. More!
No Number - "Pins". 1987-1998. Non-Toy. More!
No Number - "Pogs". 1987-1995. Non-Toy. More! | 2019-04-24T00:07:35Z | http://thisoldtoy.com/L_FP_Set/T_year-1989.html |
Water levels in the Stamp are currently at an average level for mid-November. The Summer-Fall Steelhead fishing for the past few weeks could be described in two words as �mediocre� or slow. Water levels are too high and there is currently severe flooding along the Somass. The Upper Stamp fishing pressure is very �LOW�. The best angling opportunity when water levels come down will likely be just above the Ash River. The Chinook and Coho wild spawn has thinned out but there are plenty of eggs in the river system. The problem is that with the severe flooding the gravel beds and natural egg spawn may be washed out. The Lower River has seen little fishing lately but expectations are that in the next few weeks or when water levels decrease that some late Fall and Winter Steelhead will begin to show and pick up the Stamp River fishing.
With the Coho spawn being very strong with the fairly decent Coho returns anglers when it is possible to fish the river should mimick what the Steelhead are feeding on. A bait ban been in effect from �the bucket� so fish egg imitations are a must. Guides are using single egg imitations. Jensen eggs are the most popular. Also gorkies, and spin-n-glows will do well.
Ucluelet has already experienced some good Feeder Chinook fishing. The Inner and Outer South Bank earlier in October allowed sport fishermen to have success on salmon up to 17 pounds. This is unusual for the fall but a couple of terrific days for weather permitted a few keen anglers to get out a few miles offshore. Earlier in the fall the T-Rex hootchie was good but recently those anglers fishing on good weather days and close to the Ucluelet Harbor at the �Red Can� Mara Rock, and The Lighthouse Bank have been using white hootchies and also a green needlefish hootchie. A four inch cop car and cookies and cream spoon have also been good lures behind a green or chartreuse hotspot flasher. During the winter Ucluelet offers some of the west coasts best prawn and crab fishing. The Bottom fishing is also very good. One must remember that the Pacific Ocean during the winter can have some magnificent storms but also there are superb days for fishing as the ocean can be completely flat. Winter fishing is often very close to the harbour. Safety of course is always a priority. Ucluelet hopefully will once again be a fisherman�s paradise in the summer of 2017. The migratory fish headed to the large watersheds to the south begin showing as early as late May and continue into late August or early September.
Labor Day weekend is upon us and that means it is Salmon Festival weekend in Port Alberni. The Derby takes place on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday with fishing beginning each day at 6 am. The derby will close on Labor Day Monday at 3 pm with final weigh-in occurring at or before that time. Derby Headquarters and the official weigh-in center will once again be Clutesi Haven Marina located on River Road. There is $55,000 in prizes for those people participating in the Salmon Derby. With this is mind there are plenty of prizes to go around for everyone.
The Alberni Valley and all of Barkley Sound has experienced rain fall over the past few days which has helped many of the migrating salmon swim much more quickly to their natal streams, creeks and rivers. Fresh Chinook and Coho are moving from the vast Pacific Ocean into Barkley Sound. The salmon that have recently reached the waters of Barkley Sound will migrate fairly rapidly up into the Alberni Inlet. The water in much of the Inlet and also Barkley Sound is not stagnant and has cooled down dramatically which help the salmon to migrate a little more quickly. The Chinook and Coho will also be a little more eager to bite the variety of lures put out by many anglers. There are currently plenty of Chinook and Coho Salmon in the system.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has announced that there is a decrease in the Chinook run size returning to the Somass River System. The original forecast of one hundred and twenty thousand Chinook returning to the River system has been cut in half to approximately sixty thousand.
The best salmon fishing currently is in Barkley Sound. The many salmon that were in the Alberni Inlet have moved into the River system. The Inlet will fill with fresh salmon in the coming days. Weather conditions are forecast to improve and warmer air is in the immediate forecast which will slow the salmon migration. This will also be very true of the salmon down in Barkley Sound locations. The ample Chinook and Coho at Swale Rock, Harbor Entrance,Pill Point, Assets Island, and the Bamfield Wall should hold for a few days. The Bamfield Wall has been inconsistent for the last ten days. Pill Point, Swale Rock, Harbor Entrance and Assets have all had very consistent sport fishing over the same amount of time. The salmon in the sound have been biting and feeding very hard around tide changes. The Chinook and Coho are also very active between tides. The same scenario has been true for those fishing in the inlet. The salmon are in fairly shallow water in Barkley Sound and also the Alberni Inlet. Fishing between thirty and fifty feet has not been uncommon. The best lures in the Alberni Inlet are the O-2, 0-15, 0-16, spatterback and AORL 12 hootchies. Anchovy in the Inlet is also working. In Barkley Sound anchovy in a variety of Rhys Davis Teaser Heads seem ideal and for many is working the best. Leader lengths from five and a half to six feet behind gold, green, or burgundy flashers with a gold face are working very well. The AORL 12 hootchie with 38 to 42 inches of leader behind a burgundy and gold flasher or a kinetic flasher is ideal for Coho in Barkley Sound and the Alberni Inlet.
Entries for this year�s Salmon Festival Derby have been remarkably encouraging. There will be many boaters on the water. Safety precautions are always of importance.
The summer months are quickly moving by and the salmon fishing in many areas of Vancouver Island just seem to be now picking up and getting better and better as we move into mid August. The salmon fishing in Barkley Sound and the West Coast off of the Ucluelet Harbor for Chinook and Coho have improved dramatically. The Chinook and Coho on the surf line and the various banks are getting larger and more numerous. Most of these salmon continue to be migratory salmon moving to destinations or watersheds well to the south. Many of the West Coast Vancouver Island salmon are now also beginning to show on surf line areas and on the west and east shorelines of Barkley Sound. We are expecting some of the salmon returning to nearby rivers, streams, and creeks of the Pacific Rim and Alberni Valley regions to be the highest return in a decade. From mid August into the first half of September there should be some world class sport fishing out in most of Barkley Sound. The Port Alberni Inlet with salmon migrating into the Somass River will have a good return of Chinook. By mid August good numbers of these Chinook will begin to show in Inlet areas close to China Creek and the Port Alberni Harbor.
The sport fishing in the Port Alberni Inlet for Sockeye salmon in June and July was incredible. The sockeye return forecast still holds at 1.1 million which was a fantastic run and return. Returns to the system for conservation are at four hundred and fifty thousand. These fish have migrated into Sproat and Great Central Lakes and will sit in deep water until the fall before spawning. The Chinook returns to the Somass system should begin with salmon showing in good numbers in Inlet areas by the middle of August. Pre season forecasts are showing s very high number of Chinook returning to the terminal area of Barkley Sound and the Inlet. Most of these fish will be returning to the Robertson Creek Hatchery. The age class of this year�s return is predominately four and five year old Chinook. With this in mind there should be a good number of Chinook in the twenty to twenty-five to thirty pound class. Coho numbers are hopefully expected to be normal. Coho returns to the Pacific Rim and the many creeks and stream tributaries of the Somass system through conservation have become stronger over the past decade. We should see Somass-Stamp River Coho begin to show in Barkley Sound close to the end of August and peak during the second week of September before moving into the inlet.
Most of Barkley Sound has been mediocre through June and July and the first week of August. Swale Rock, Austin Island, Cree and Pill Point have been the only spots with any consistency. Meares or Effingham Island and Austin Island out to Cree Island has been the best area for the sport fishery for most of the summer months. The salmon have been out in the deep water on the low tide and often on the flood move in towards the rocks and feed on the huge quantities of rich resourced bait fish. Chinook have been in 80 to 120 feet of water and have been averaging from the mid teens to mid twenties in terms of weight. The Chinook that are now showing and returning to local rivers are much shallower. The Coho have been in twety-five to fifty feet of water and are gorging themselves putting on a pound a week and are currently averaging eight to fifteen pounds. Some of the salmon are migratory fish moving to watersheds to the south. The West Coast Vancouver Island salmon are now arriving. This is not to say that some Somass Chinook and Coho have not already arrived as there have been some fairly early returns to the Somass system over the past ten days. When fishing the waters of Barkley Sound it is ideal if sport fishermen have anchovy on board. To this date anchovy has not been essential as the salmon have been hitting various small three and a half inch coyote spoons and some hootchies behind glow and kinetic flashers. In Coyote spoons, silver glow, Cop Car, Cookies and Cream and Irish Cream have all been working. Various small Coho Killers have all been working. The various whites (AORL12) and greens and blues in hootchies have had some great success over the past week. Anchovy should have at least a six foot leader and the army truck, purple haze, and green haze in Rhys Davis Teaser Head have all been working well. We are expecting Barkley Sound to have continued great salmon fishing well into September. With the late summer run of migratory salmon and local salmon returning to their natural streams and creeks there should be some continued terrific fishing right into mid September in all of Barkley Sound for Coho and Chinook salmon.
Areas outside of the Ucluelet Harbor around the Starfish, Hyacinth and Long Beach and as far as the Big Bank or shallows West to Portland Point which is close to Tofino have all had rather phenomenal sport fishing over the last few weeks. Most of the banks have had plenty of bait fish and the migratory salmon have been feeding heavily in these many favorite offshore Ucluelet areas. When bait fish are in the different areas during the summer months the sport fishing is normally extraordinary. The Big Bank (Rats Nose) the Starfish and Hyacinth have been the best areas to fish to date. Hootchies and smaller spoons seem to be working the best offshore. Some sport fishermen are using bait and having great success but like Barkley Sound bait has not been essential. Over the past week the Chinook salmon have been getting bigger as there are many more in the mid to upper twenty pound range being landed by guests on our charter boats. Sport fishermen in their privately owned boats have also been landing some bigger fish. A few Coho offshore are also getting up and over the ten pound mark with a few fish in the low to mid teens being landed. August and September are really exciting months to be on the water. These are the two months that bigger Chinook and Coho begin to arrive along the west coast of Vancouver Island, B.C. as they have been spending weeks during their long migration feeding constantly on bait fish.
The saltwater sport fishing for the rest of 2016 should be fantastic on the surf line and offshore west coast Vancouver Island locations. We are really expecting the inshore areas of Barkley Sound to pick up as well as the Port Alberni Inlet during the last two weeks of August. If you are thinking of a fishing trip, this is the year and August and the early part of September is the time to come.
The Port Alberni Salmon festival and Derby takes place during the the Labour Day weekend.
The 2016 saltwater sport fishing season is closing in on some world class angling opportunities on B.C.�s West Coast. The month of August and the first half of September should provide six to seven weeks of fabulous sport fishing for anglers fishing the Alberni Inlet, Barkley Sound and offshore Ucluelet. Chinook forecasts are literally off the chart in terms of returning four and five year old Chinook to the rivers, streams and creeks of West Coast Vancouver Island. The forecast of great returns to the Somass, NitiNat, and Sarita River systems are expected to be the best returns over the past fifteen years.
The Sport Sockeye Fishery in the Alberni Inlet CONTINUES to be very good. To date the sport Sockeye season has provided some terrific angling opportunities for everyone. The 2016 season is not like the previous year but with forecast returns of almost 1.2 million Sockeye the sport fishery and been very good. Due to cooler water and air temperatures in June and the first half of July the returns of Sockeye to the Somass River system have been excellent. To date escapement has been four hundred and twenty thousand to Sproat and Great Central Lakes. The summer rain and cooler temperatures in the area has led to excellent migration through the salmon ladders.
Currently the Sockeye are schooling from Cous Creek out to the narrows. The Sockeye in the Alberni Inlet are currently sitting in eighty to one hundred and ten feet of water. They are hitting short leader lengths from eighteen to twenty-four inches in length behind a variety of hotspot flashers. The mp2, mp15, pink and blue, pink and black, and the pink with either the green or white head hootchies all seem to be working very well for most of the sport anglers. Many anglers are also using �Black Hooks� behind a green plaid chartreuse hotspot flasher or the purple onion hotspot flasher. Sockeye are attracted to the boat by color. Many anglers will have eight flashers behind their boat. Four are often dummy flashers and the other four with lures of choice. The Sockeye are averaging four to eight pounds. Sockeye are the number one commercial salmon. They are wonderful for summer barbeques and when vacuum packed properly last the winter for those special occasions. With good numbers of fresh Sockeye coming into the system on a daily basis we are hoping the Sockeye Sport fishery will continue into the August Long Weekend.
Sockeye fishing is a wonderful fishing opportunity for the whole family. It is a fun fishery for young and old. Don�t miss out on this opportunity in the Alberni Inlet this July and early August.
The salmon fishing in Barkley Sound has been relatively inconsistent. The best fishing has been out on surf line areas. The islands close to the Ucluelet Harbor Mouth, Meares, Austin, Cree Island, Kirby Point, Edward King and the Bamfield Wall have all had times during the past few weeks with some good Chinook sport fishing. Areas close to the Ucluelet Harbor that have had a few fantastic fishing days are Great Bear and Sail Rock. The inner and outer South Bank, Long Beach, and the Starfish have had some of the transient salmon heading to the big water systems to the south create some wonderful sport salmon fishing opportunity. The salmon in the Sound and inside waters have been hitting anchovy in green glow, army truck, and green haze Rhys Davis Teaser Heads. Small three and a half inch spoons have been working the best. The cookies and cream, Irish cream and the TKO spoons have been excellent. They match up to the very small bait size. The Sonora cuttlefish, Jack Smith and a variety of Turds have been working well out on the banks. The best lures however have been the smaller spoons. Dragging the small spoons close to the bottom has created the best opportunity.
We are looking forward to some great sport fishing opportunities during the last week of July, all of August and the first half of September in the Alberni Inlet, Barkley Sound and offshore. The numbers of transient and West Coast Vancouver Island Chinook headed to the big watersheds to the south and local rivers and streams are forecast to be very strong which will provide some world class sport salmon fishing.
It is early June and weather conditions for most of the 2016 spring season have been terrific on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. With this in mind a lack of rainfall is not environmentally good. The salmon fishing has been relatively consistent close to the Ucluelet Harbor and also offshore Ucluelet. Ucluelet is located on the extreme west coast of Vancouver Island British Columbia. The area is often referred to as the highway of migrating salmon. The fishing in various surf line areas of Barkley Sound has been off and on during late May and early June. The early sockeye salmon have already started their long return from the North Pacific to the Somass River in fairly good numbers. There has been a few Sockeye landed by sport fishermen in the China and Cous Creek areas. With the good weather and higher afternoon air temperatures the Sockeye Migration will slow down as the water temperature in the river and the Alberni Inlet warm up. This will possibly help the Sport Sockeye season get underway in the inlet a little earlier than normal. Salmon and halibut fishing on the west coast have been consistent over the past few weeks. The great fishing in local hotspots is very evident by the increase of vehicles on local roads and highways towing a variety of sport fishing boats. Many of the fishermen are either fishing the scenic and pristine waters of Barkley Sound or are travelling out to the west coast to fish close to Vancouver Island�s rugged coastline or in offshore locations.
The 2016 sport salmon fishing season in Ucluelet, Barkley Sound, and the Port Alberni Inlet is forecast to be terrific. In fact this year is predicted to be one of the best seasons in many years. On the west coast the early summer run of Chinook which are currently migrating down the Vancouver Island coastline and stay fairly close to the beach will soon peak and will be followed by the mid summer Chinook returns to southern watersheds. West Coast Vancouver Island Chinook returns will be predominately four year olds. The returns are expected to be more than double the historic numbers. The Sockeye fishing should be extremely good. The return to the Somass River is predicted to be approximately one million in early season forecasts. Don�t miss out on a fabulous 2016 sport salmon fishing year in the Alberni Inlet, Barkley Sound, or inshore offshore Ucluelet-Tofino.
The Salmon fishing in Barkley Sound especially out at surf line locations has been mediocre over the past few weeks. Many areas have had big bait balls which will bring those migratory Chinook swimming close to the beach to feed on these rich resources of bait fish. Over the past week Effingham, Austin Island, and Cree have produced some nice salmon. Bamfield areas such as Kirby in the morning and Edward King later in the day and also the Bamfield Wall have reported some nice fish being landed by guides and sport anglers. The best results have been fishing from 80 to 120 feet depending on location but it is important that you are fishing where there is bait. It seems that choice of lure really does not seem to matter as many have been using a variety of spoons, plastic, and bait. The best spoons have been the three and a half inch green and blue nickel coyote spoon and also an Irish Cream behind a green glow or chartreuse hotspot flasher. The 155 needlefish has also been very good. Anchovy in army truck, green haze, green UV, and also chartreuse in a Rhys Davis teaser head have been hot at various times. Many of the salmon have been in the mid to high teens with a few up to twenty-five pounds. We are expecting the fish to get bigger as the mid-summer run of Chinook get underway in the latter half of June. This run of salmon will have a good number of four and five year olds. Barkly Sound should be a hotbed for fishing this summer especially out in surf line locations.
Ucluelet is often referred to as Vancouver Island�s premier salmon and halibut sport fishing destination. Like Barkley Sound the waters inshore and offshore from the Ucluelet Harbor offer some world class fishing. The water is very rich in bait fish (sardines and needlefish) which the salmon feed on throughout the spring and summer months. The summer salmon fishing seems to be changing. August and early September were often considered peak times for Chinook and Coho sport fishing. With the high numbers of transient Chinook salmon passing along the west coast of Vancouver Island from April to August it often seems that the peak of the season is in the month of July. This is not to say that Chinook sport fishing does not continue in August and September. Coho which were often referred to as the number one sport salmon along coastal fishing locations in B.C. are a major highlight in late August through September. This thought is something to consider when thinking about and organizing sport salmon fishing this summer. The Ucluelet fishing has been consistent over the past few weeks with some good fishing out at the inner and outer Lighthouse Bank and also Long Beach. Mara Rock, Great Bear, Sail Rock, and The Lighthouse which are all very close to the Ucluelet Harbor have been choice selections for sport fishing on those days where the weather has not co-operated for boats to get out a little offshore.. The largest salmon have been averaging twelve to eighteen pounds. The fish out at the inner and banks have been close to the bottom between 130 and 160 feet. Guides have done extremely well on salmon and halibut with the largest hali for guests at forty-five pounds. The best lures to date have been anchovy and a few different spoons in the three and a half inch size. Green nickel, Irish Cream and Cookies and Cream have been working well. Other guides and sport anglers have had great success using needle fish hootchies behind a flasher. The needle fish will hide in the sand and on tide changes will come up to higher levels which creates a very good salmon and halibut bite. If trolling and using anchovy it seems that a green or red glow hotspot flasher with a green or army truck Rhys Davis teaser anchovy head with six feet of leader are working well. One important thing to remember is that during the season the food sources often get bigger and when using spoons and plugs the sizes should increase as the bait increases.
The 2016 summer saltwater salmon fishing season is here with many sport fishermen already salmon fishing with success on the Pacific Rim waters for the past few weeks. The 2016 salmon forecasts for salmon migrating to the big watersheds to the south and also returns to West Coast Vancouver Island rivers� and streams look extremely favorable. Many individuals have considered the past few sport fishing seasons as extremely good but the 2016 predictions of transient and local returns especially for Chinook and Sockeye salmon are looking phenomenal. Chinook returning to the big river systems in Washington, Oregon and California are expected to be fantastic. The systems with big returns are predictably the Columbia River, Sacramento River and the Klamath River systems. These transient salmon from late April through August migrate just outside Ucluelet, Bamfield, and beautiful Barkley Sound. Barkley Sound holds huge quantities of rich bait fish as do the many banks off the Vancouver Island West Coast that hold these migrating salmon which normally feed heavily before continuing their long migration. Returns of West Coast Vancouver Island Chinook hatchery fish are forecast to be more than double the average returns. These salmon begin to show along the west coast and into Barkley Sound in early August and peak from mid August into early September. Salmon fishing on the surf line and inner portion of the sound will be excellent through the late spring and all of the summer months as these waves of salmon make their way to their natal river systems. Many of the transient and local returning salmon will be predominately four year olds which means there will be opportunity to land some good sized Chinook in the upper twenty to low thirty pound range. Some of the early summer run Chinook have showed up along the Barkely Sound surf line and the islands outside the Ucluelet Harbor. A large wave of salmon should begin to occur in the second half of May. The early salmon usually migrate relatively close to the beach in May and then along the various sandy banks off the coast in in the summer months. Salmon fishing in the out and inner portion of the sound should be very good through the late spring and all of the summer months as these waves of salmon make their way to their natal river system. To date a low number and Barkley Sound until mid May. The salmon usually migrate fairly close to the beach in May and then along the various sandy banks off the coast in the summer months.
Sockeye Salmon returns to the Aberni Inlet this year will not likely be that of the 2015 returns which was absolutely incredible. Returns this year are looking historically good. The pre season forecast is for eight hundred thousand to one million. There has been suggestion that by mid season due to many indicators that the run size could be upgraded. The Sockeye Sport Fishery usually gets underway by mid June and is a fabulous opportunity for families and al avid sport fishermen of all ages.
The summer of 2016 looks absolutely phenomenal in terms of sport fishing opportunities. Those fisher persons that prefer open water or for those that enjoy areas that have protection from prevailing wind patterns the saltwater salmon fishing no matter where individuals decide their destination on Vancouver Islands west coast, the opportunity to land a Pacific salmon from six pounds to thirty-five pounds should be a dream come true.
The Alberni Inlet is currently very quiet. By mid June however there will be plenty of excitement as sports boat travel the inlet in search of Sockeye Salmon. The returns are expected to to be very good. Environmental conditions are excellent. The sockeye should begin to school in the Inlet in early June. Water conditions should be relatively good for a decent flow into the Somass River and also because of a low snow pack the warmer river and inlet water will likely slow the migration down. Early in the season the Sockeye travel in relatively shallow water but will move into the deep as the air and water temperatures increase. Water temperature of eighteen degrees and above normally slow the migration down. Normally good Sockeye Sport fishing can contine from mid June to the first week of August. Sockeye fishing is a lot of fun and is a great time for families to get out on the water and take part in one of British Columbias best sport fisheries. Sockeye like a slow troll and are attracted to the boats with lots of color in the water fairly close to the boat. Most experienced Sockeye fishermen will have six to eight flashers in the water. Most of the lures are on a short leader from eighteen to twenty-eight inches in length behind a red or green glow hotspot flasher. Sharp hooks are very important as the sockeye gum structure is very soft.
The early transient summer run of Chinook and Winter or feeder Chinook fishing in Barkley Sound has been off and on during the last few weeks The feeder chinook will always be found wherever the bait is found. Feeders are just what they are termed as these hearty salmon feed heavily especially on tides changes. Austin Island, Village Reef, Vernon Bay and Swale Rock have had some good days with Chinook up to seventeen and twenty pounds but on average a lot of the salmon have been ten to thirteen pounds. The salmon have been a mix of transient and feeder Chinook. Anchovy in Rhys Davis green glow and chartreuse teaser head holders have been working as have a variety of coyote spoons with the three and three and a half inch Irish Cream being productive. The green splatter needle fish hootchies and blue and silver gold star spoons have recently been the best lures. Meares and Austin Island from ninety to one hundred and twenty feet have both been fairly with the best fishing opportunity on the tide change when the bait rolls in. Closer to Bamfield, Cape Beale, Whittlestone and the west side of Edward King down to Kirby Point have been very consistent for those sport fishermen out on the water. However like the west side of Barkley Sound an area can be hot one day and completely dead the next. The salmon have been in 140 feet of water but up against the rocks closer to Edward King the feeders have been in twenty-five and thirty-five feet of water. Bait is important if fishermen are to find the salmon. Army Truck Hootchie, needle fish hootchies in blue and green, Irish Cream and Army Truck spoons in smaller sizes, have all been working well. Cape Beale and the protected side of Folger Island have also had some relatively decent Halibut fishing. When the weather has been good the three and seven mile and an area called the chair has produced some salmon and halibut catches off the bottom.
The summer fishing opportunities look more than fabulous for Barkley Sound and the surf line and of course offshore waters. The big numbers of Chinook that will migrate down the Vancouver Island coastline will produce some very good fishing opportunities for local fishermen and of course guides and their guests.
Ucluelet offers magical salmon sport fishing and it is one of those places that one can have opportunity to land a twenty pound salmon twelve months of the year. The salmon fishing continues to be relatively consistent close to the Ucluelet Harbor Mouth. There have been some nice sized clipped Chinook bound for distant rivers. The first big wave of migratory fish will show up in the middle of May. We are expecting some great fishing out on the various banks. Usually in May the fishing will be closer to the Harbor with good spots being The Alley, Beg Island, Great Bear, Mara Rock, Sail Rock and the Red Can to name a few. As we get into June however the hotspots will become the Turtle Head, Inner and Outer South Bank, the Wreck and perhaps for some out as far as The Big Bank. Recently The Alley, Sail Rock and Great Bear have provided some good fishing with limits being bagged on Chinook salmon. The Spatter Back Hootchie and needle fish hootchie in blue, green and a bit of silver have been working very well There have been a few nice fish taken at South Bank that are migrating and these fish have been in the mid teens and have been taking smaller coyote spoons. Green Nickel and Knight Rider have been working fairly well behind a green or red glow hotspot flasher. Needle fish hootchies and army truck hootchies have also been working well with 42 inches of leader behind a flasher. By the middle of this month we should really start seeing the migratory push and by June there will be plenty of tales about the numbers of salmon in the nearby waters and the big one that got away. This will definitely be the year that anyone that desires to land a Pacific salmon will have a genuine opportunity to have this dream come true.
Vancouver Island is a majestic geographical area of tall coniferous forests and breath-taking scenic views of rugged terrain and coastlines battered by winter storms. There are also a continuous display of rugged coastlines with wonderful exquisite and secluded beaches with pristine calm water which can be found in Barkley Sound and the waters of the Alberni Inlet. Not only does the West Coast of British Columbia have an unbelievable landscape but the salmon fishing in many areas is nothing but world class. This is truly one area, of this great nation, where individuals have opportunity of hooking into a twenty pound salmon twelve months of the year.
It is now April and most avid fisher people say that the 2016 saltwater fishing season is officially here. With weather patterns now becoming more predictable anglers can get out on the water with a little more ease in those many areas that are not located in �protected� waters. The migratory flow of early Chinook salmon headed down the coast line to natal streams to the south begins in April. Feeder or winter Chinook salmon are also in local waters in April and into early May. The Migratory salmon and the feeder Chinook gorge on the ample amounts of bait fish. April can certainly have some very good fishing days in Barkley Sound and around the Ucluelet Harbor. Not only is the ocean fishing good but the Stamp River is often very good with large numbers of wild and hatchery Steelhead in the Lower and Upper River. Many say that April can often be the best month of the year to fish winter Steelhead. This is also a month with very little fishing pressure making it a time where keen river anglers can fish the Stamp in solitude.
The 2016 fishing season is shaping up to be a fantastic saltwater season. There are many indicators that show the season should be very good for Chinook and Sockeye salmon. Alberni Inlet Sockeye and West Coast Vancouver Island Chinook Forecasts are excellent for the current year of angling.
Prawn fishing in the Alberni Inlet Sub Area 23-2 opened on April 1st. The China Creek, narrows, and Mctush areas are very popular for sporties. Much of Barkley Sound has been open all winter where the prawn fishing has been very good. Traps are usually set in 175 to 230 feet of water. Often in April and early May the Alberni Inlet is covered with red buoys. Make sure if putting out traps that lots of weight is used to keep your traps down. The best bait for prawn fishing is Carlyle Just Tuna Cat food and Ace of Baits prawn pellets.
We expect that the Sockeye sport season will get underway by June 15th and that limits in the first part of the season will be four per person and a two day possession limit of eight. Last year well over two million Somass Sockeye Salmon returned to the Somass River system. Pre season forecasts for 2016 are indicating that returns will be around 800,000 which is still a very good and ample return.
The salmon fishing in Barkley Sound has been hit and miss for winter Chinook.
The weather at times has made it difficult for sport fishermen to get out on the water. The last week of March and into early April however has been quite the opposite. Water and Weather conditions were more than perfect and salmon fishing has been quite good in many locations. The Sproat Lake Derby which occurred in early March had a twenty-four pound salmon take top spot. Barkley Sound has been �alive� with bait fish over the past month. The herring spawn in Barkley Sound has been spectacular and with the start of the early summer run of Chinook headed to southern watersheds we are expecting some wonderful fishing out on surf line locations. Areas like Kirby Point, Cree, Effingham, and Edward King have recently had a few good reports of hatchery Chinook being landed. Areas on the inside such as Vernon Bay and Swale Rock have also had some good fishing for winter feeders. As time moves forward into late April and early May the fishing should really improve. We are definitely looking for some great fishing during the summer months. Forecasts are showing that the mid summer Chinook migratory flow to the Willamette and Columbia River will be very strong with most of the Chinook predominately being four year olds.
With the weather patterns becoming more reliable those getting out to Barkley Sound should plan on fishing on the troll using hootchies, coyote spoons, or anchovy. One guide boat this past week did well at Effingham and Kirby landing over a two day period eight Chinook in the ten to fifteen pound category. The Chinook were hitting four inch cop car and the green-nickel and blue-nickel coyote spoon. Army Truck and green and blue needlefish hootchies were also working very behind a green glow hot spot flasher. The salmon are deeper. Fishing in one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty feet is not uncommon depths to fish. If you get close to the bottom around Swale Rock, Folger Island or opposite the Bamfield Wall don�t be surprised if a halibut hits your bait or lure.
West Coast fishing during the winter months can often be difficult. It can take a day or more for the water to settle after a storm but by mid-April weather conditions become more of a reliable factor. We are currently fishing feeder Chinook and the beginning of the early summer hatchery Chinook migrating to southern streams. The crab fishing is fantastic and up into Barkley Sound the sport prawn fishing is very good.
This is the time of year that we can often fish for a variety of wonderful tasting seafood delights. Often we can fish for what is termed a �seafood safari� and individuals can enjoy a day of crabbing, prawning, and rock and lingcod fishing (opened April 1st) and of course salmon. The salmon fishing close to the Ucluelet Harbor has definitely picked up over the past week. Beg Island, Great Bear, Forbes, Sail Rock, and The Alley has been producing some nice salmon into the mid teens. The herring spawn around Ucluelet has happened and there are big balls of needlefish and pilchards in the area which brings the salmon in close to the beach during tides to feed. Trolling is the best method to fish and it is important to watch the sounder and stay within about thirty feet of the bottom. Usual fishing depths for the areas mentioned are 90 to 120 feet. Coyote spoons have been working. The three and a half and four inch Irish Cream, glow green, and green nickel have been the best. Anchovy in a Rhys Davis teaser head in glow green, chartreuse, or army truck behind purple, red or green glow flashers have been used with success by a few guides although spoons seem to be the best choice at the current time.
Summer fishing out of Ucluelet looks very good. The mid-summer run of migratory Chinook salmon and also West Coast Vancouver Island Chinook are forecast to be quite strong. The Chinook are predicted to be predominately four year olds which suggest some bigger salmon in the high mid to high twenty pound range.
We are looking forward to a great year with some fantastic salt water salmon fishing opportunities in 2016. If you have not done so it is time to organize your 2016 fishing trip.
The month of March has arrived and many individuals living in the Pacific North West and Pacific Rim areas are ready to welcome in spring. The spring months often mean that people living on the West Coast can say good bye to the winter storms that batter the west coast of Vancouver Island British Columbia. March for most sport fishermen often means thinking about summer salmon fishing trips into various Vancouver Island regions. The Alberni Inlet, Barkley Sound and offshore Ucluelet are three of the most popular areas for sport fisher people to visit and salt water salmon fish.
March on the West Coast, Barkley Sound, and the Port Alberni area also means the first major fishing derby of the year and also one of the biggest festivals on British Columbia�s West Coast. The first weekend of March celebrates the Sproat Loggers salmon fishing derby. This year the popular derby which has had close to 400 entrants in past years takes place on March 5th and 6th. The derby is hosted out of Poett Nook located at the far end of the Bamfield Wall in Sarita Bay.
March also welcomes the Pacific Rim Whale Festival. This festival takes place from March 12th to 27th and celebrates the official kickoff to the beginning of the Whale watching season. The vast area of Vancouver Island�s coastal waters between Ucluelet and Tofino witness the migration of over twenty thousand Gray Whales as they make their thirteen thousand kilometre journey from Mexicos Baja Peninsula to the Bering Sea. This event began twenty-nine years ago. The Pacific Rim celebration has many daily events that people of all ages can enjoy. Many events are free and some do have a very minimal charge. One of the biggest features is the Chowder Chowdown which takes place in the Ucluelet Community Centre on Sunday March 20th. Two other spectacular features are the Sweet Indulgence all you can eat dessert and the Blues Concert which takes place at the spectacular Black Rock Resort in Ucluelet. Spring is the beginning of new things and is also the beginning of a spectacular sport salmon saltwater fishing season.
Those people looking forward to salmon sport fishing this summer in British Columbia will again be pleased to hear that the fishing opportunities in many of the more ideal locations will have some fabulous salmon fishing in 2016. Vancouver Islands Pacific Rim area will boast some of British Columbia�s best salmon fishing. The summer of 2015 saw record numbers of sockeye return to the Somass River located in Port Alberni. The migratory flow of Chinook salmon that swam the west coast of Vancouver Island heading to various watersheds to the south stayed close to the beach and created a fantastic inshore sport fishing season. The Chinook Migration also created some very good fishing out on the sandy banks in offshore waters. Many Chinook came into the vast coastlines, various inlets, and sounds to feed on the rich resources of bait fish found along the surfline of Barkley Sound. The migratory flow of Chinook salmon in 2016 is expected to be relatively strong. West Coast Vancouver Island Chinook are expected to be in very good numbers with the average age class at four years. Sockeye returns coming into Barkley Sound and returning to the Somass River system are again expected to be just a little above average for the 2016 summer sport fishing season. One can only hope for the same return as 2015 when well over two million Sockeye salmon migrated into the system. The early Sockeye return to the Somass River often begins in mid May. Sport fishing for these number one commercial salmon in the Port Alberni Inlet usually is well underway by the 15th of June with the peak of the season occurring the second or third week of July. Henderson River Sockeye which are often bigger than the Somass River stock begin to show in the middle of July and often swim as far up the Alberni Inlet to Nahmint Bay before turning back to the mouth of the Kildonan Inlet and the Henderson River. Chinook and Coho returns to the Somass-Stamp River system should be better than average. The Robertson Creek Chinook return is looking better than last year but numbers have not yet been fully discussed or publicized. The early Chinook Salmon which are migrating down the Vancouver Island coastline often appear in April and actually go through three very different runs know as early summer, mid summer, and late summer. The Coho appear in early July and from mid July through September will keep west coast sport fishermen busy during their daily fishing excursions.
Sport fishing in the Alberni Inlet is very quiet during the winter. Prawn sport fishing is closed in the Alberni Inlet although it is available in some Barkley Sound locations. The Sockeye salmon season which begins in June will re-awake the Inlet this summer. Sockeye Salmon fishing in the Port Alberni Inlet is really a family adventure and can be fun for all from the age of four to ninety-four. Barkley Sound is fishable year round due to the protective waters on the east and west coastlines of the Sound. Winter Chinook fishing in Barkley Sound and the Bamfield area has been off and on. Some good feeder Chinook fishing has occurred along the Bamfield Wall with a few Chinook landed up to fifteen pounds. There has also been some Herring spawn which has produced a few good salmon fishing days in Tseshart and Peacock Channels. Lyle Point and Mayne Bay have had some good days with Winter Chinook averaging ten to twelve pounds.
Swale Rock and Vernon Bay have been hit and miss as has Pill Point and Diplock to this date. Winter Chinook fishing along the Bamfield Wall and especially the inside of the Bamfield Harbor mouth have also had some good days. In most of the selected Barkley Sound sport fishing areas the fish are in one hundred to one hundred and forty feet of water.
The Sproat Lake Loggers Derby is closing in and is only a few days away. This years� derby takes place on March 5th and 6th with derby headquarters at Poett Nook. Cost per entry in past years has been $15 to $20. Ticket sales have been at Gone Fishing and Port Boat House which are both located in Port Alberni. If you are planning on fishing the Sproat Lake Derby or just coming fishing for Winter Chinook over the next six to eight weeks remember to fish deep and if using hootchies slightly lengthen up on your leader length. Summer lengths are ofter forty-two inches if behind a flasher. During the late winter and early spring forty-four to forty-six inches is not a bad length. Coyote spoons in three and a half or four inch are also good. Three and a half inch seems to work better with smaller bait especially at this time of year. Cop Car, Irish Cream, silver hordes, green glow and Blue or Green Nickel are great choices. It is never a bad idea to also have bait (anchovy) on board ones sport fishing boat. Usually the feeders are where there is bait. So it is important to find the bait balls. The fishing in Barkley Sound through March, April, and May should really pick up as the feeder Chinook move in with the herring spawn and the early summer run of Chinook make their way to southern watersheds and come into the Sound to rest and feed on the rich resources of bait fish. By late June and into the month of July the Sound should fill up with the summer run of Chinook and Coho which hopefully will once again be in very big numbers.
Those daring to fish the waters of Ucluelet during the late winter have had some success relatively close to the Ucluelet Harbor. There has been some beautiful winter afternoons and mornings with a few sporties salmon fishing the Alley, Mara Rock, Sail Rock, and Great Bear. There have been some nice feeders amongst the bait fish. Great Bear is often the best spot. As mentioned there are some very nice days on the open Pacific during the winter months. Ucluelet does have a great location as boats can go up Peacock Channel and fish in the quiet and protected waters of Mayne Bay, Lyle Point, or Swale Rock. All of these locations over the years have had some great fishing in March and April. We are expecting some great feeder Chinook fishing right through April and even the first half of May. The early summer run of salmon headed to watersheds to the south should begin to show by mid April which should be the beginning of another fabulous summer of fishing for 2016. Remember the west coast has plenty of activities during the early spring. The Pacific Rim Whale Festival begins March 12th and continues until March 27th in Ucluelet and Tofino. It is the beginning of another saltwater summer fishing season. Plan early and enjoy the 2016 salmon sport fishing season in all Pacific Rim areas.
It�s again a New Year for sport salt water fishing and many sport fishermen, guides and potential guests are beginning to think about the many sport fishing opportunities that await them in 2016.
The 2015 salmon sport fishing season was a memorable year on Vancouver Island�s scenic West Coast and the Alberni Inlet. Chinook fishing for migratory salmon headed to distant southern watersheds began in late April and continued well into August. West Coast Vancouver Island Chinook salmon returning to local streams and rivers arrived in August and surprisingly continued in excellent numbers into September. The biggest surprise of all was the huge return of Stamp River Sockeye. Sockeye returns to the Somass system hit well over two million. Sport fishermen began landing Sockeye in the pristine and quiet waters of the Alberni Inlet near the end of May and continued landing Sockeye right into September. This was the largest return ever recorded. Hopefully this kind of return, if it does not occur in 2016, will happen once again in the near future. The 2016 West Coast Vancouver Island and Alberni Inlet sport fishing season will begin in the late spring and should continue well into the summer and early fall months. Pre Season forecasts for West Coast Vancouver Island Chinook are very favorable and much better than what was anticipated for 2015. The Sockeye season in the Alberni Inlet will once again be excellent with numbers hopefully reaching 800,000. The Alberni Inlet is a fantastic area to sport fish as the water is protected from summer storms. The salmon sport fishing out in Barkley Sound and offshore Ucluelet should be strong as good numbers of Chinook and Coho are forecast to migrate to the distant southerly watersheds.
Vancouver Island is a destination on both coastlines of all five salmon species (Chinook, Coho, Sockeye, Pink, and Chum). This gives all avid sport fishermen an opportunity to sport fish a choice of salmon he/she might enjoy to target. Of course these species do arrive at certain times of the summer or fall and each species also peak at specific times. This often means that fisher persons can fish the inlets, sounds and offshore waters for Chinook and Coho and also Sockeye and have opportunity to fish river mouths and various Vancouver Island beaches for Pinks and Coho.
Sport fishing for Winter Steelhead in the Stamp River has been off and on. Of course water clarity, flow, and height of the water play a major role in opportunities for those fishing the Stamp. The peak of the season for Steelhead can occur at any time. It is expected that in 2016 the peak will occur sometime in February. There has been some good sized hatchery Steelhead in the system this year. To date winter (feeder) Chinook fishing in Barkley Sound and around the quiet hamlet of Bamfield and the Ucluelet Harbor has been off and on with some reasonable fishing opportunities on those days that the winter season offers. The Alberni Inlet around China Creek has been the biggest surprise for Winter Chinook. For the past three and a half weeks there has been plenty of bait fish which has pushed the feeders up into the upper Inlet water.
At times during the winter months a few schools of Winter Chinook will make their way up into the inlet and feed on bait fish. The past few weeks the best kept fishing secret has been the Alberni Inlet. Sport fishermen have had success landing Feeder Chinook averaging six and seven pounds in the China Creek area. The largest reported salmon by a local sporty is twelve pounds landed on a beautiful sunny Sunday January 10th afternoon. Both sides of the inlet from Leaning Tree and the Slide to McTush have been the best areas to fish. There is a lot of undersized Chinook in the area so if using anchovy sporty�s can go through a lot of bait. Hootchies in white, blue and green are working. A green lime glow coyote spoon in three and a half and four inch has been excellent. The Alberni Inlet has the best sport fishing from mid June to mid September. We should see this trend in 2016. The Somass River Sockeye begin to migrate into the river in May and usually begin to school in good numbers around the 10th of June. When the Sockeye build up in big numbers the sport fishing action for the number one commercial salmon really heats up and is a lot of fun for all fisher persons young and old.
Sockeye fishing often can continue into the first ten days of August. It is then that the first few Chinook salmon appear in the Inlet. Chinook fishing is followed by Coho with the peak of the Chinook season often occurring around the Labor Day Weekend when the Port Alberni three day Labor Day Weekend fishing derby occurs. The Port Alberni Inlet is a wonderful and very easy area to fish. Many people worry about rough water but the Inlet waters for the most part are very calm. The best fishing time for Sockeye is in the morning hours and the last two hours before dark. Sockeye salmon do seem to be active at any time of the day which makes this sport fishery a very popular opportunity for everyone.
Barkley Sound waters are very much like the Port Alberni Inlet. The Sound is protected on both the east and west coastlines. Fishing in the Sound could occur every month of the year without fear of experiencing the big waters often found offshore in the winter and even during the summer months. Winter Chinook fishing has been off and on. Recently the Bamfield Wall and Samatao Bay has had some very good Winter Chinook fishing. The mid-winter months do have some good weather patterns and fairly productive fishing days. The best fishing areas as mentioned to date have been the Bamfield Harbor mouth, the Bamfield Wall, Samatao Bay as well as Swale Rock, Vernon Bay, and the Canoe Pass outside entry points. Pill Point, Sarita Bay and the Poett Nook area are also other spots worthwhile to fish in February and March. The last few weeks has had some anglers fishing the Bamfield Wall. Anglers have had opportunity to land a few Winter Chinook in the eight to nine pound range. There have been many undersize salmon in the mix. The feeders have been hitting cop car coyote spoons in the three and a half and four inch size. Other coyote spoons that have worked are nasty boy the cop car glow and blue and green nickel. Green Spatter back hootchies have been working as well. Anchovy in Chartreuse Rhys Davis Teaser Heads are good but with lots of undersize feeders in the mix one can go through a lot of bait.
Winter Springs are in deep water. It is not uncommon to find them in most areas of Barkley Sound from 100 to 145 feet. The Winter Chinook will always be found where one finds good sized bait balls. Coyote Spoons in the three and a half to four inch have been working. Other great spoons to have on board are glow cop car, nasty boy, Green glow, and green and blue nickel. Hootchies are popular but use a shorter leader length than in the summer. Leader lengths from 34 to 38 inches behind a glow green or glow red hotspot flasher are a good choice. The Purple Haze hootchie as well as various whites and greens are also excellent choices. Anchovy is also something all sport fisher persons should have on board. There are days when the salmon will touch nothing else but anchovy. Anchovy in chartreuse or a green glow Rhys Davis Teaser Head is a good choice. Most of the current feeder Chinook landed has been in the 100 to 130 foot level.
The first salmon fishing derby on Vancouver Island�s West Coast will once again occur in Barkley Sound and is based out of Poett Nook. The Sproat Loggers Derby will take place the first Saturday and Sunday of March. The Derby is very popular and offers some great prizes and often some great weather and fishing. The derby surprisingly has some good sized feeders landed. It is not uncommon to have fish over twenty pounds entered.
Summer fishing in Barkley Sound especially on the surf line most years occurs from late May to early September and is expected in 2016 to be relatively good due to the migratory movement of salmon along the west coast. Good numbers of Chinook and Coho salmon will be moving to watersheds to the South. The migratory flow of Chinook should predominately be 4 year olds. The vast amounts of rich resources of bait fish in the Barkley Sound area during the summer months often bring the salmon into feed and rest before they continue their journey. Some world class fishing usually occurs at Meares, Cree, Edward King, Beale and as far in as Kirby Point and Swale Rock. We are really excited about the great sport salmon fishing opportunity we should have this summer in both the Sound and the Port Alberni Inlet.
It is already mid September and fantastic Salmon Sport Fishing continues especially in Barkley Sound along the Bamfield Wall and outside the Ucluelet Harbor close to the beach in Florencia Bay and Wya Point. The Somass-Stamp River system has also picked up dramatically with plenty of Coho and Chinook salmon in the river system as the fish are migrating to their spawning grounds. The Alberni Inlet sport fishing has been slower as the salmon are not holding and making their way to the mouth of the Somass River. Some sport fisher persons are spending time close to the Franklin Wall and have had a little success landing a few good sized Coho.
The forty-forth annual Port Alberni Salmon Fest Derby was a huge success over the three day Labor Day Weekend. People worldwide enjoyed themselves either fishing in the derby or just spending time on the grounds at Clutesi Haven Marina. The winning fish was landed by Langley B.C. resident Bob Moulton. His fish was landed on Sunday morning September 6th just outside the Bamfield Harbor using a pink fluorescent hootchie. The fish won Moulton $5,000 for the biggest salmon of the day and another $10,000 for landing the largest fish of the derby. Local Port Alberni sport fisher persons winning daily prizes were Trevor Cootes, Joe VeenKamp, and Brad Jasken.
The Alberni Valley did experience some ample rainfall early in the month which provided enough water for Sockeye Salmon to migrate into Sproat and Great Central Lakes. The Return of Sockeye Salmon to the Somass River system in 2015 was the largest return �ever� recorded. Final number in the DFO forecast is just over Two Million. Over five Hundred Thousand have escaped into one of the two lakes mentioned. Sockeye are still in good numbers in the system as they continue their migration. Fresh Chinook and Coho are moving into the Somass system. The salmon in Barkley Sound that are creating a very good sport fishery are headed towards the Somass, the Sarita River, Nitnat, and also to larger watersheds to the south. Rain is in the forecast for the end of this week which means fish will move to their natal creeks, streams and rivers. The salmon that are still offshore will make their way into the system as they continue their long journey.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has announced that there is a dramatic increase in the Chinook run size returning to the Somass. The original forecast of only twenty-five thousand Chinook returning to the Somass River System has been increased to Sixty Thousand Chinook. In early September the rule of retaining salmon under 77 cm was changed. Sport Fisher persons fishing the Alberni Inlet and Barkley Sound can now land one salmon over 77 cm per day and have in possession two Chinook salmon with one over 77 cm and one under 77cm each day. A two day possession level of two and two (two under and two over) is now in effect. This was great news for those many individuals fishing in the Port Alberni Salmon Festival Derby and those many sport fishermen taking advantage of fishing during the month of September.
The best salmon fishing currently is in Barkley Sound. The many salmon that are migrating into the Alberni Inlet are rapidly swimming into the River system. The Inlet is filling daily with fresh Chinook and Coho. This is also very true in Barkley Sound as Coho and Chinook salmon are still feeding heavily but are getting close to their spawning grounds. The salmon generally end their feeding cycle when they enter fresh water systems or get close to fresh water influences. The Bamfield Wall has been absolutely on �FIRE� since the last week of August. Pill Point and Assets have both been very consistent but have not experienced the same �SPORT Fishing� that �THE WALL� has experienced. The salmon in the sound have been feeding very hard around tide changes but have also been very active between tides. The salmon are in fairly shallow water in Barkley Sound and also the Alberni Inlet. Fishing between thirty and fifty feet has not been uncommon in Barkley Sound. The best fishing has been just outside The Bamfield Harbor mouth down to Kelp Bay. Yankee Bay and Wittlestone have also had excellent sport fishing. There is a huge amount of bait fish in the area that has brought in local and transient salmon. The best lures depending on where one fishes are the 0-15, 0-16 (Alberni Inlet), spatterback and AORL 12 hootchies. Using anchovy in both the Inlet and the Sound seems ideal and for many is working the best. Leader lengths from five and a half to six feet behind green, red, or burgundy flashers with a gold face are working very well. The glow army truck, purple haze, and green haze Rhys Davis Teaser Heads are working by far the best. The AORL 12, purple haze and spatter back hootchie with 38 to 42 inches of leader behind a green, red, and purple gold flasher are also ideal for Chinook and Coho in Barkley Sound and the Alberni Inlet.
Salmon fishing for Coho and Chinook are now under way in the Somass-Stamp River system. There will also be some fantastic Fall Steelhead fishing as we get into October.
The Port Alberni Salmon festival and Derby takes place during the three days of the Labour Day weekend.
Labor Day weekend is upon us and that means it is Salmon Festival weekend in Port Alberni. The Derby takes place on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday with fishing beginning each day at 6 am. The derby will close on Labor Day Monday at 3 pm with final weigh-in occurring at or before that time. Derby Headquarters and the official weigh-in center will be Clutesi Haven Marina located on River Road. There is $55,000 in prizes for those people participating in the Salmon Derby. With this is mind there are plenty of prizes to go around for everyone.
The Alberni Valley has experienced ample rainfall over the past few days meaning salmon are migrating to their natal streams, creeks and rivers. Fresh Chinook and Coho will move from the vast Pacific Ocean into Barkley Sound. Those fish in the Sound will migrate fairly rapidly up into the inlet. The water is no longer stagnant and has cooled down dramatically meaning the fish will be moving and will be a little more eager to bite the variety of lures put out by the many sport fisher people. There are plenty of Chinook and Coho Salmon in the system.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has announced that there is a dramatic increase in the Chinook run size returning to the Somass. The original forecast of only twenty-five thousand Chinook returning to the River system has been increased by a much higher number of returning Chinook. With this in mind, the rule of retaining salmon under 77 cm has also been changed. Sport Fisher persons fishing the Alberni Inlet and Barkley Sound can now land one salmon over 77 cm per day and have in possession two Chinook salmon with one over 77 cm and one under 77cm each day. A two day possession level of two and two (two under and two over) is now in effect. This is great news for those many individuals fishing in the Salmon Festival Derby.
The best salmon fishing currently is in Barkley Sound. The many salmon that were in the Alberni Inlet have moved into the River system. However the Inlet will fill with fresh salmon in the coming days. Weather conditions are drying and warmer air is in the immediate forecast which will slow the migration. This will also be very true of the salmon down in Barkley Sound locations. The ample Chinook and Coho at Pill Point, Assets Island, and the Bamfield Wall should hold for a few days. The Wall has been very good for the last ten days. Pill Point and Assets have both been very consistent. The salmon in the sound have been biting and feeding very hard around tide changes but have also been very active between tides. The same scenario has been true for those fishing in the inlet. The salmon are in fairly shallow water in Barkley Sound and also the Alberni Inlet. Fishing between thirty and fifty feet has not been uncommon. Some fisher people fishing everyday in the Inlet are saying that the salmon they are landing for some reason are in seventy-five to ninety feet of water. The best lures depending on where one fishes are the 0-15, 0-16, spatterback and AORL 12 hootchies. Using anchovy in both the Inlet and the Sound seems ideal and for many is working the best. Leader lengths from five and a half to six feet behind green, red, or burgundy flashers with a gold face are working very well. The AORL 12 hootchie with 38 to 42 inches of leader behind a burgundy and gold flasher is ideal for Coho in Barkley Sound and the Alberni Inlet.
Entries for this year�s Salmon Festival Derby have been remarkably encouraging. There will be many boaters on the water. Safety precautions are always of importance. Good Luck to all those fishing.
The salmon fishing in Barkley Sound for Chinook under 77cm�s and Coho has been quite consistent. Many of these salmon will make their way into Alberni Inlet waters which will thrive on some continued good fishing opportunities into September. The hotspots in Barkley Sound have been the Bamfield Wall, Wittlestone, Swale Rock, and Pill Point. Most of the salmon in these areas are returning to Pacific Rim Rivers and streams and are not in deep water. A variety of hootchies and spoons have been working but anchovy again seems to create the best success for sport fisher persons. The green haze, bloody nose, and army truck Rhys Davis Teaser heads are working very well. The salmon also seem to be holding in those areas that have bait fish in good numbers. The Coho are still putting on a pound a week and will actively feed throughout the day. Finding bait in the sound is often essential. With the many creeks, streams and rivers found in Barkley Sound and with the lack of water in these vital waterways the salmon will sit in Barkley sound actively feeding until the waterways fill with water.
The Salmon Fishing in many of the Pacific Rim areas on West Coast Vancouver Island has been very good. The Alberni Inlet has been fabulous for Sockeye Salmon, which are the number 1 commercial salmon, for sport fishermen. The return of Sockeye to the Alberni Inlet is forecast to be at 1.8 million. Escapement for conservation measurements however has been low due to the lack of water in streams and rivers. Chinook and Coho are just beginning to migrate into Alberni Inlet waters and it is apparent that much needed water in the form of rain is of necessity.
The sport fishing in Barkley Sound has been on and off as salmon come into the area to feed on the rich resources of bait fish as they migrate to the big watersheds to the south. The best salmon fishing for Chinook and Coho has been the Bamfield Wall, Swale Rock and Gilbraltor Island. Offshore salmon fishing out of Ucluelet and Bamfield has been fantastic as South Bank areas and the Big Bank have been recently very good for Chinook in the high teens to mid twenty pound area in terms of weight. Coho salmon at times are in good numbers and are averaging seven to ten pounds. The Sport fishing up to this time has been consistently very good. August and September should continue to have some GREAT sport fishing opportunities especially for those many anglers visiting West Coast Vancouver Island and fishing with Guided trips or in their own sport fishing boats.
The sport fishing in Port Alberni for Sockeye Salmon began in very late May and continues relatively strong right into the first half of August. Numbers of returning sockeye have been absolutely phenomenal. Sockeye are a fun fishery for all fishermen of all ages. The fishing is currently best in the China Creek area. Dunsmuir Point out to McTush has plenty of sockeye that are sitting in deper and cooler water from ninety to one hundred and thirty feet. Anglers are continuing to use mp15 hootchies and also the blue and pink and black and pink hootchies with eighteen to twenty-four inches of leader length. Chinook Salmon are beginning to show in the Inlet. The numbers of returning Chinook is unclear but the strength will be in the three year old class. There have been some early Chinook landed out on the Franklin Wall and also in the narrows and Underwood. The current Rule published by DFO beginning August 1st 2015 is that all Chinook salmon retained in the Alberni Inlet and Barkley Sound must be under 77cm in length. Those anglers that are beginning to target Chinook in the Alberni Inlet will often have the best success using bait in either a green haze or army truck Rhys Davis Teaser Head with a six foot leader behind green or chartreuse hotspot flashers.
Fishing in Barkley Sound has been on and off. There are some West Coast Vancouver Island Chinook and Coho migrating into the area on a daily basis. There are still plenty of migrating fish headed to the big watersheds to the south. The Bamfield Wall up to Whittlestone has had some great Chinook fishing. Swale Rock, Harbor Entrance and Gilbraltor Island at times have all been fantastic. Bait, and hootchies in a variety of green colors have been working very well. Some anglers that like using coyote spoons have done well on silver glow and green and blue nickel. August and the first half of September should see some fantastic fishing opportunities for many sport anglers.
As usual the banks outside the Ucluelet Harbor and for that matter the Bamfield Harbor have been consistently very good all summer. The Big Bank, the Chair, Turtle head, Adipose and the inside and outside light located on South Bank have been fantastic fishing destinations. The salmon throughout the summer months have been in water from eighty feet right to the bottom. Over the past week South Bank locations have been extremely good with Chinook salmon sitting in water from ninety to one hundred and thirty feet. Anglers using anchovy, hootchies, and five and six inch spoons have all had great success. South Bank areas are all very close to the Ucluelet Harbor and the protected water of Barkley Sound and are fairly easy for those to fish in smaller sport fishing boats.
We are looking forward to some great sport fishing in all areas of West Coast Vancouver Island right through until mid September.
The salmon fishing in Barkley Sound has been relatively inconsistent. The best fishing has been out on surf line areas. The islands close to the Ucluelet Harbor Mouth, Meares, Austin, Cree Island, Kirby Point, Edward King and the Bamfield Wall have all had times during the past few weeks with some hot Chinook and Coho sport fishing. Areas close to the Ucluelet Harbor that have had a few fantastic fishing days are Great Bear and Sail Rock. The inner and outer South bank and Long Beach have had some of the transient salmon linger creating some good sport salmon fishing opportunity. The Rats Nose however has had the best offshore sport fishing. The Bank is full of large herring which have moved good numbers of migrating Chinook and Coho onto the Bank to feed as they migrate to the big watersheds to the south. Spoons and plugs in the six inch and some five inch have been working the best. Spoons with no flasher have been fantastic. TheThe salmon in the Sound and inside waters have been hitting anchovy in green glow, army truck, and green haze Rhys Davis Teaser Heads. Needle fish hootchies and hootchies in green (spatterback), blue and white have worked well. A few guides have done very well with the army truck glow hootchie and the cuttlefish J-79. The Sonora cuttlefish, Jack Smith, and Blue Meaney Hootchies have been very good out on the banks. Anchovy and a variety of four and five inch coyote spoons have also been working very well. We are looking forward to some great sport fishing opportunities during the second half of July and August in Barkley Sound offshore. The numbers of transient Chinook and Coho headed to the big watersheds to the south are forecast to be very strong which will provide some very excellent sport salmon fishing.
The Sport Sockeye Fishery in the Alberni Inlet CONTINUES to be absolutely incredible. To date this has been one of the best, if not the best Sockeye Sport season in many years. Due to very low and warm water in the Somass River, the Alberni Inlet, and the warm air temperatures the Sockeye salmon which are returning in an abundant number are schooling in very large numbers out in the Inlet water. We have had some rain and cooler temperatures in the area which has led to some migration through the salmon ladders. Almost one hundred thousand Sockeye have migrated through the system. The Sockeye are schooling from Cous Creek out to the Nahmint Franklin area. The projected outlook for Sockeye returns to the Somass River has been upgraded to 1.3 million. The Sockeye migrate into the Somass River and then into Sproat and Great Central Lakes. Projected migration into the lakes with a 1.3 million return should be close to four hundred thousand with the updated forecast return. With much of Vancouver Island in drought like conditions it is hoped that some more moisture will arrive to help the migration of all west coast Vancouver Island Salmon returning to the Somass River System.
The Sockeye in the Alberni Inlet are currently sitting in eighty to one hundred and twenty feet of water. They are hitting short leader lengths from eighteen to twenty-five inches in length behind a variety of hotspot flashers. The mp2, mp15, pink and blue, pink and black, and the pink with either the green or white head hootchies all seem to be working very well for most of the sport anglers. Sockeye are attracted to the boat by color. Many sport fishermen will often have eight flashers behind their boat. Four are often dummy flashers and the other four with hootchies of choice. The Sockeye are averaging four to eight pounds. Sockeye are the number one commercial salmon. They are wonderful for summer barbeques and when vacuum packed properly last the winter for those special occasions. With good numbers of fresh Sockeye coming into the system on a daily basis we are hoping the Sockeye Sport fishery will continue into the August Long Weekend.
The Sport Sockeye Fishery in the Alberni Inlet is currently described as fabulous. To date this has been one of the best Sockeye Sport Seasons in many years. Due to very low and warm water in the Somass River, the Alberni Inlet, and the warm air temperatures the Sockeye salmon which are returning in an abundant number are schooling in very large numbers out in the Inlet water. The Sockeye are schooling from Cous Creek out to the Nahmint Franklin area. The projected outlook for Sockeye returns to the Somass River has been upgraded to 1.2 million. The test fishery boat with testing analysis has projected that over two hundred and forty thousand sockeye salmon schooling in the Inlet area as of the 26th of June. The Sockeye migrate into the Somass River and then into Sproat and Great Central Lakes. Projected migration into the lakes should be close to three hundred and fifty thousand with the updated forecast return. To Date only sixty thousand Sockeye have gone through the fish ways. With much of Vancouver Island in drought like conditions it is hoped that some moisture will come in due time to help the migration of all west coast Vancouver Island Salmon and of course the Sockeye returning to the Somass River System.
The Sockeye in the Alberni Inlet are currently sitting in fifty to ninety feet of water. They are hitting short leader lengths from twenty to twenty-four inches in length behind a variety of hotspot flashers. The mp2, mp15, pink and blue, pink and black, and the pink with either the green or white head hootchies all seem to be working very well for most of the sport anglers. Sockeye are attracted to the boat by color. Many sport fishermen will often have eight flashers behind their boat. Four are often dummy flashers and the other four with hootchies of choice. The Sockeye are averaging four to eight pounds. Sockeye are the number one commercial salmon. They are wonderful for summer barbeques and when vacuum packed properly last the winter for those special occasions.
Sockeye fishing is a wonderful fishing opportunity for the whole family. It is a fun fishery for young and older. Don�t miss out on this opportunity in the Alberni Inlet this July. The sport fishery will likely last through the end of July and perhaps into early August.
The salmon fishing in Barkley Sound has been off and on. The Best fishing has been out on surf line areas or offshore Ucluelet and inshore Ucluelet around some of the islands outside the Ucluelet Harbor. Meares, Austin, Cree Island, Kirby Point, Edward King and the Bamfield Wall have all had time during June when each area has had some hot Chinook sport fishing. Areas close to the Ucluelet Harbor that have had fantastic fishing days are Great Bear and Sail Rock. The inner and outer South bank and Long Beach have had some of the transient salmon linger creating some good sport salmon fishing opportunity. The Big Bank and the Rats Nose however have had the best offshore sport fishing. The fishing out in this area has been fabulous but due to the very high pressure system sitting over the south coast high outflow winds have played detrimental to the number of days in June that sport anglers and guides have been able to get out to the banks. The salmon in the Sound and inside waters have been hitting anchovy in green glow, army truck, and green haze Rhys Davis Teaser Heads. Needle fish hootchies and hootchies in green (spatterback), blue and white have been working. A few guides have done very well with the army truck glow hootchie and the cuttlefish J-79. The Sonora cuttlefish, Jack Smith, and Blue Meaney Hootchies have been very good out on the banks. Anchovy and a variety of four and five inch coyote spoons have also been working very well. We are looking forward to some great sport fishing opportunities during July in Barkley Sound and the outside waters offshore. The numbers of transient Chinook and Coho headed to the big watersheds to the south are forecast to be very strong which will provide some very excellent sport salmon fishing.
It is now the beginning of June and the weather is terrific on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. In fact the weather has been so fantastic one would say that it is incredible. But there is one problem which is concerning and that is that much of the West Coast is very DRY and many rivers are low in water. The Weather scenario might sound great but for conservation reasons it is not GOOD. Low river conditions can play havoc with returns of West Coast Vancouver Island. Currently Sockeye Salmon are returning to the Somass River in good numbers. The Somass however is at low historic levels.
Along with the current fantastic weather conditions the salmon fishing has been consistent close to Ucluelet Harbour and offshore Ucluelet. Ucluelet is a very small community located on the extreme west coast of Vancouver Island British Columbia. The salmon fishing was very good through the May Long Weekend but has slowed down in the last ten days. We are awaiting the next flow of transient salmon headed to the BIG Watersheds to the south. Salmon fishing in various surf line areas of Barkley Sound has also been quite good but has slowed down considerably. The early sockeye salmon has already started their long return from somewhere in the North Pacific to the Somass River in fairly good numbers. There has been great catches by many sport fishermen camping at the China Creek site and local sport fishermen from the Alberni area. With the good weather and high afternoon temperatures the Sockeye Migration is already slowing down as the water temperature in the river and the Alberni Inlet are currently very warm. This scenario will develop a very good Sport Sockeye season in the inlet a little earlier than normal.
Salmon and halibut fishing on the west coast as mentioned has slowed down over the past ten days. Local sport and guide fishermen are awaiting the next push of salmon. The increasing sport fishing opportunities as we now move into June is very evident by the large number of vehicles on local roads and highways towing a variety of sport fishing boats. Many fisher persons are either fishing the scenic and pristine waters of the Alberni Inlet and Barkley Sound or are travelling out to the west coast to fish close to Vancouver Island�s rugged coastline or in offshore locations.
The 2015 sport salmon fishing season in Ucluelet, Barkley Sound, and the Port Alberni Inlet is forecast once again to be terrific. In fact this year is predicted to be once again one of the best seasons for sport fishing for those targeting Chinook, Coho and Sockeye salmon. On the west coast the early summer run of Chinook which are currently migrating down the Vancouver Island coastline and stay fairly close to the beach will soon peak and will be followed by what is forecast to be a very large mid summer Chinook return to southern watersheds. Chinook and Coho numbers returning to the Columbia River and Bonneville dam where numbers of returning salmon have been recorded since 1938 are predicted to be quite high once again. The Sockeye fishing in the Alberni Inlet should be extremely good. The return to the Somass River is currently assessed at seven hundred thousand to one million. The early run has already been migrating into the Somass River. Don�t miss out on a fabulous 2015 sport salmon fishing year in the Alberni Inlet, Barkley Sound, or inshore offshore Ucluelet-Tofino.
The Sockeye sport fishery in the Alberni Inlet has been open since the first of May. Limits are four per person per day. That number should remain the same throughout the season. Sockeye usually school in the Inlet when the water of the Somass River and the Inlet warms to 18 degrees Celsius. When there are big numbers of Sockeye entering the system the schools will hold in the inlet for the salmon ahead to push into the river. The river water and the water of the Inlet is warming considerably. With very little snow in the nearby hills the water has already warmed to over eighteen degrees celsius. The Sockeye that are currently in the system have migrated from Barkley Sound and into the Inlet and are swimming in fairly deep water. Those sport fishermen out fishing for Sockeye have had good success in the China Creek area. The slide and up to Ardens have been relatively good. The warm weather conditions have developed a fairly decent Sockeye salmon sport fishery over the past week. It is often safe to say that June 15th is the time to start fishing Sockeye but that rule of thumb is different this year. Some individual sport fisher persons have already had opportunity to land limits of Sockeye. Sport guides and individual fishermen will find good numbers of Sockeye Salmon at hotspots such as Cous Creek, Dusmuir Point, the China Creek Wall, the slide, and the narrows. Sockeye are attracted to color and having six or even eight flashers hooked to the deep line is not unusual. The most popular lures for Sockeye are the mp 2 and 16 also the bubblegum colored mp 15 hootchies. Leader lengths are best at 22 to 27 inches behind a green or red glow hotspot flasher.
The Salmon fishing in Barkley Sound especially out at surf line locations has been also relatively consistent over the past few weeks. Many areas have had big bait balls which will bring those migratory Chinook swimming close to the beach into the Sound to feed on the very rich resources of bait fish. Over the past week Austin Island has had some decent sport fishing as has Vernon Bay. The key to land a few nice Chinook is perseverance. Bamfield areas such as Kirby in the morning and Edward King later in the day and also the Wall have reported some nice fish being landed by guides and sport anglers. The best results have been fishing from 80 to 130 feet depending on location but it is important that you are fishing where there is bait. It seems that choice of lure really does not seem to matter as many sport fishermen have been using a variety of spoons, plastic, and bait. The best spoons have been the four inch green and blue nickel coyote spoon behind a green glow hotspot flasher. The four inch Irish Cream spoon, cookies and cream and silver glow have been working behind a chartreuse hot spot flasher. The 155 needlefish hootchie has also been very good. Anchovy in a green UV teaser head, army truck and also in chartreuse have been hot at various times. Many of the salmon have been in the low to mid teens with a few at twenty pounds. We are expecting the fish to get bigger with the arrival of the mid-summer run which will get underway in the latter half of June. This run of migrating salmon should have a good number of four and five year olds. Barkly Sound should be a hotbed for fishing this summer especially in surf line locations.
Ucluelet is often referred to as Vancouver Island�s premier salmon and halibut sport fishing destination. Like Barkley Sound the waters inshore and offshore from the Ucluelet Harbor offer some world class fishing. The water is very rich in bait fish (sardines and needlefish) which the salmon feed on throughout the spring and summer months. The summer salmon fishing seems to be changing. August and early September were often considered peak times for Chinook and Coho sport fishing. With the high numbers of transient Chinook salmon passing along the west coast of Vancouver Island from April to August it often seems that the peak of the season is in the month of July. This is not to say that Chinook sport fishing does not continue in August and September. Coho which were often referred to as the number one sport salmon along coastal fishing locations in B.C. are a major highlight in late August through September. This thought is something to consider when thinking about and organizing sport salmon fishing this summer. The Ucluelet fishing has been very consistent over the past few weeks with some good fishing out at the inner and outer South Bank. Mara Rock, Great Bear, Sail Rock, Lighthouse Bank, and Long Beach have been excellent choices for sport fishing. The largest salmon have been averaging twelve to eighteen pounds. The largest landed to date by guides and guests hit twenty-six pounds landed at Sail Rock. This Chinook which like many of the other salmon was a hatchery fish and hit a needlefish hootchie. There was a report of a thirty-one pound Chinook at Great Bear. The fish out at the inner and outer South Bank have been close to the bottom between 130 and 160 feet. The best lures to date have been a T-Rex hootchie and an iridescent Turd and also a few different spoons in brass/copper or four and five inch blue and green nickel. Other guides and sport anglers have had great success using needle fish hootchies behind a flasher. The needle fish will hide in the sand and on tide changes will come up to higher levels which creates a very good salmon and halibut bite. If trolling and using anchovy it seems that a green or red glow hotspot flasher with a green or army truck Rhys Davis teaser anchovy head with six feet of leader work well. One important thing to remember is that during the season the food sources often get bigger and when using spoons and plugs the sizes should increase as the bait does.
The Stamp River is one of B.C.�s healthiest river systems. The salmon fishing this year will open on or about August 26th with what is forecast to be a better than normal season. This however will be depending on the river and the amount of water in the system. The season begins with river anglers using wool, spinners, and plugs. The bait ban should be lifted on the 15th of September. For those that enjoy Steelhead fishing there are three runs of Steelhead in the Stamp. Summer and Fall Steelhead and then later in late November the Winter Steelhead begin to show. October and November are perfect months for summer and fall fish. The Steelhead actively feed during the natural spawn of the salmon in the river which is during October and well into November. There is plenty of opportunity to fish the Stamp but all arrangements for trips that are guided should be organized very early in the summer or late spring. Fishing for Sockeye along the banks will begin very quickly�.
The West Coast of Vancouver Island is a wonderful area to visit and spend valued time for many people worldwide when on vacation. Known for its unique settings and rugged coastlines, Vancouver Islands west coast also better known as the Pacific Rim, not only offers world class salmon fishing but also offers other adventures and unique cultural activities. The whole of Vancouver Island is located only twenty miles off of British Columbia�s mainland. On this vast island there exists a majestic geographical area of tall coniferous forests and breath-taking scenic views of rugged terrain and coastlines that have been battered by winter storms. There is also a display of wonderful exquisite and secluded white sandy beaches located in areas of pristine and calm water. Those visiting Vancouver Island during the late spring and summer months must take in not only a �fishing adventure� but also explore the great rainforests, beaches, and lakes. When fishing out in scenic Barkley Sound or offshore one can view wildlife and also whale watch. When on land and visiting the many local communities, visitors can seek out west coast culture, spa retreats, and of course take in some great west coast cuisine.
Vancouver Islands West Coast has had superb salmon fishing over the years. Salmon fishing in many of the so called �hot spots� has been nothing better than world class. The West Coast is also one of the only spots on Canada�s West Coast where one has opportunity of hooking into a twenty pound salmon twelve months of the year. Of course every year is not entirely the same because predicted run sizes returning to many of the natal rivers, creeks and streams to West Vancouver Island are not as good as other years. When fishing the Pacific Rim and many parts of Vancouver Island�s West Coast the opportunities for landing a Chinook or Coho salmon during the late spring or the summer months are very probable. In the Pacific Rim area we have the opportunity during these fair weather sport fishing months to target the vast quantities of migratory or transient salmon headed for the big watersheds to the south. The 2015 sport salmon fishing season is expected to be �Very� good on the west coast surf line and offshore. Scenic Barkley Sound during the months of June and July and the early part of August should be fabulous. The expectation of high numbers of transient salmon headed to distant southern watersheds is already looking fantastic. Salmon fishing around Ucluelet and a few areas of Barkley Sound has been successful for a few avid fishermen. A few Chinook salmon in the high teens and low twenties have been landed by guides and their guests and also sport anglers fishing in their private boats. Salmon fishing in Barkley Sound, along the surf line, and also offshore waters will continue from now through mid September or longer. There will be great opportunities to fish for Chinook and Coho in the waters of Barkley Sound during the months of May, June, and July. Coho salmon will become predominant in Barkley Sound in August and September with opportunity for Chinook in offshore waters. Look for another banner sport salmon fishing year on British Columbia�s West Coast ---Vancouver Island.
The month of April and May is often quiet in the Alberni Inlet except for those individuals fishing for prawns if and when the opportunity for this sport fishing is available. The Prawn fishing in the Alberni Inlet during the year when open has been very slow. Barkley Sound on the other hand has had some good areas for prawn fishing. Guide boats in the early spring often include in their salmon fishing trips to Barkley Sound, prawn fishing. Usually the prawn traps are dropped before fishing and then after fishing the traps are picked up to find the great prize coming up from the ocean floor. Barkley Sound fishing has been fairly consistent over the last few months although one would have to sum up the fishing as being very mediocre. When fishing for feeder or winter Chinook the rule is often where one finds bait there will be Chinook salmon. Swale Rock, Vernon Bay, and Alan Point have all produced some nice salmon in the eleven to fifteen pound range. Austin and Cree Island have also had the odd salmon up to twenty pounds. The Bamfield Wall and the Harbor Mouth have also produced some good salmon fishing. Some of the Chinook as of late have been clipped and the thought is that many of these Chinook are the early run of salmon migrating to rivers to the south. The salmon have been relatively deep from 85 to 150 feet. A variety of coyote spoons have been working. Green glow has been a favorite in the three and a half and four inch size as has the green and blue nickel. White spoons and white hootchies have also been on and off. Green glow, chartreuse, and purple glow hotspot flashers seem to be ideal when using spoons. Needle fish hootchies in army truck and mint tulip have also been working very well. Fishermen trolling with anchovy have had their best success using a chartreuse Rhys Davis teaser head with a six foot tail behind either a Chartreuse or green glow hotspot flasher. There are a good number of undersize salmon so at times it is best to fish with spoons, needlefish and hootchies.
We are expecting the fishing during June and July to be terrific. The mid- summer run of Chinook and Coho which are migrating to the big southerly watersheds historically begins in mid June and runs into mid July followed by the fall or �late run� with expected large numbers of these transient salmon headed to the Columbia, Sacremento, and Willamette systems to the south. Many of the salmon migrating down the Vancouver Island West Coast are forecasted to be four and five year olds which often means some good sized Chinook over thirty pounds. The surf line areas of Barkley Sound and out to offshore area at three to seven miles should have some great fishing as the rich resources of bait fish come into these areas which bring in the bigger Chinook.
Ucluelet is one of those spots where it is possible to land a twenty pound salmon every month of the year. Of course weather plays an important role in terms of getting out onto the water. During the winter months it seems there are breaks in the weather patterns which make it possible for keen anglers to get out on the water. Some nice quality fish up to twenty pounds have been landed during the latter part of March and the month of April. The Chinook have been feeding on sand lance and needle fish. Great Bear has been relatively good. The Alley, Forbes, Sail Rock and Beg Island have all produced some nice feeder Chinook. Most of the feeders are averaging seven to twelve pounds. With the weather pattern changing and becoming more favorable over the last few weeks guided trips and sports anglers have been periodically able to get further offshore. April 17th to 20th were wonderful days on the Pacific with no wind and little swell. The Inner South Bank as example was perfect with some feeder Chinook and halibut sitting on the bottom feeding on sand lance and needle fish. Sport Fishermen and a few guided trips have at times had some great fishing with a few Chinook weighing up to seventeen and eighteen pounds. As mentioned the Inner South has been most favorable for those fishing close to the bottom at 135 to 150 feet. Some fisher people have had success using purple haze and army truck glow hootchies. However the white Turd and the T-Rex hootchie have been very good for some sport fishermen with both of these lures producing the best catches. The past few weeks has also produced some of the first halibut of the season. The five mile (inside south) and the seven mile (outside south) for those offshore have produced relatively well. Halibut fishing has been best on the ebb tides and using a spreader bar with six inch white grubs. The Halis have been migrating back to the deep after their spawn and by the third week of May will have migrated back to the shallows. The white turd for three sport anglers was good for two perfect sized halibut while fishing the Inner South. May, June, and July should prove to be three very good fishing months with some nice Coho coming into the mix in late June when the big migratory flow of the mid-summer run begins. Look for some salmon in the mid to high thirties this summer.
The winter Steelhead season is all but over. Many of the spawned out fish are heading back down the river and making their way out to the waters of the vast Pacific. The Fall of 2015 is once expected to be very good with plenty of early Coho and summer Steelhead in the mix. Those keen on fly fishing should look at booking trips from the 10th of October into the first ten days of November.
Joe and three of his grandchildren show off some of their salmon and halibut landed offshore from Bamfield B.C.
The West Coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia has much to offer. The West Coast is a beautiful area of the world with its rugged but scenic coastline outlined by snowcapped mountains in the background. Ucluelet and Tofino both found on Vancouver Islands coast are located south of Clayoquot Sound, which is full of beaches, islands and rainforests. The Pacific Rim National Park (Long Beach) is located in the area and has grown into a very popular tourist destination with oceanfront resorts, hotels, motels, lodges, campgrounds, quaint cafes and restaurants and even art galleries. The Pacific Rim National Park is a paradise for surfers and beachcombers. There are large rolling waves and miles of pristine beaches.
Ucluelet is nestled in a small harbor, which is dominated by surf and sandy beaches on the west and rainforests on the east. The area has fantastic walking and hiking trails. The Rainforest Trail, Lighthouse Trail and the sands of Big Beach are areas people can roam for hours. Hi-Tin-Kis Park has spectacular views that people worldwide come to admire.
During the winter Ucluelet and Tofino offer spectacular Storm Watch opportunities. Many of the luxurious resorts, which are scattered along the coastline, offer this as part of their packages from November until early March. March and April often finds visitors watching the migration of Gray Whales, which are passing along the coastline making their way to the Beaufort Sea. The Whale Festival begins this year on the 17th of March is featured by the �Chowder Chow Down.� The festival continues into mid April.
Ucluelet and Tofino provide some of the best salmon and halibut fishing in the world. The coastline between Ucluelet and Tofino is a feeding and spawning destination of some of the West Coast of British Columbia�s largest runs of chinook and coho. The months of May, June July August and September are considered prime time for sport fishing inshore and offshore. The sport fishing industry is provided with vast amounts of coho, chinook, pink salmon and halibut that are migrating outside the doorstep of Ucluelet.. All of the fish follow the thick balls of bait which most often are herring, sardines, needlefish, squid and krill.
The Ucluelet Sport Fishing season gets underway when the wather changes into early spring. The winter often displays battering storms and huge surf, which makes it most difficult and of course dangerous for guides and sport anglers to get out to the fishing grounds. However, during the winter there are some days that one can fish for winter or feeder springs close the Ucluelet Harbor and Barkley sound. The winter season is also a time when individuals have opportunity to fish for Dungeness Crabs, prawns, oysters, clams, and some rock fish. Late February, all of March, and the early part of April often have feeder chinook close to the Ucluelet Harbor and inner surfline of Barkley Sound. Slivers Charters Salmon sport Fishing and other guide services will normally fish Begg Island, Mara Rock, Great Bear, the Red Can, Sail Rock and even South Bank during this time of year. Most of the salmon are feeder springs and can range from 8 to 25 pounds. Most guides and local anglers use a variety of lures. Anchovy is often he best bait choice all year and is rolled behind a Rhys Davis Teaser Head in white, green, purple haze, or pearl. Hootchie choices are often glow whites, purple haze, or various blue green white colors and army truck. Various Coyote and Titan Spoons work well also. This year watermelon has been very good along the whole coast as have silver spoons. During the year there is some bottom or rock fishing. The lingcod season opens April 15th. Halibut fishing most years become more fishable in May and can be combined when fishing for the various salmon species migrating down the coast. During the summer months some guides will troll for Halibut and Salmon at the same time. The Halibut are found at the bottom hiding in the sand and the salmon are found in mid water.
During the summer months Ucluelet provides some of the best salmon and halibut fishing in the world. The area has continuous and very consistent fishing due to the migration of salmon which are headed to their spawning grounds. Whatever summer month one decides to fish there will not be disappointment as there is always fish inshore or offshore.
People often ask �what should I bring if I am coming to Canada�s West Coast to fish and explore. Of course bring a camera to take all kinds of pictures. Binoculars are also a great idea. Bring Rain Gear and rubber boots. Most of the guide boats have extra rain gear on board but this is not provided when hiking in a rainforest or walking the beach on an early drizzly foggy morning. Be prepared for sunshine and warm days especially later in the morning and the afternoons. The West Coast is a place to be totally prepared for all weather. Dress in layers. There is a saying �Its easy to dress down but not up�. If you do not have the correct warm clothing ones day can be miserable to start. It is important to have coolers to take catches home. If flying most airlines now want people to have a correct airline container, which are available on the coast. People can also be prepared to have their catch sent directly to their home as St. Jeans located in Ucluelet will ship directly after our guides have prepared your catch for shipping.
Canada�s West Coast of Vancouver Island is a fantastic area to visit. Those who live in the area take it for granted. This area of the world has a lot to offer and is still undiscovered by many. It is part of super natural B.C. Take some time and come to visit and yes come fishing as this is the place to be in the summer of 2007.
Port Alberni is fortunate enough to have a very healthy river system and hatchery (Roberson Creek Hatchery). Chinook and Coho return to the Hatchery and Sockeye return naturally to the river and then to Sproat and Great Central Lake. From the lakes the sockeye move out to tributary streams and then spawn.
Chinook 43,000 return as of October 15th. Numbers may have reached 55 to 60,000 by now as many late fish have arrived.
Jack chinook 1,000 This number is low and will probably see a low return in three year olds in 2007. Four, Five and Six year olds should be strong in numbers.
Adult Coho 11,000 Low in return but enough for hatchery program.
Jack Coho 6,142 Great numbers which should give us a very healthy return of adult coho in 2007. These Adult returns should be back to normal in 2007.
Adult Sockeye 137,000 return through the counters. Not a strong return as the early prediction was almost 800,000.
Winter Spring The Alberni Inlet and the Barkley Sound offer year round fishing at its best. Springs, often referred to as Black Mouths, start showing up in the Barkley Sound in the middle of March. These feisty fish stay and feed in the Sound on the bountiful herring and anchovy that are spawning in the area. These fish range from 5 to 25 pounds and as active feeders provide action filled days for the fishermen.
SPRING AND SUMMER This season offers a great opportunity for fishing for many different species of salmon. In May, the Springs are still in the Barkley Sound and the early running Tyees are beginning to appear as they begin their migration up the Alberni Inlet. This season provides excellent fishing for Springs, Tyee and also the famous Sockeye. The Sockeye are the best eating salmon and run in our area is huge. In late June and July, the Sockeye start running up the Alberni Inlet in huge quantities. In 1987, there were an estimated 750,000 Sockeye that came up the Alberni Inlet. You can imagine the success rate for anglers! The Sockeye run continues through August.
SUMMER AND FALL The months of July, August and September yield the largest fish of them all - the magnificent Tyee or Chinook Salmon. These fish range from 15 to 70 pounds on average size. At this time of year, the salmon are within 15 minutes of the inner harbour and the Coho are running as well.
FRESH WATER FISHING January, February and March is the winter run of Steelhead in the Ash, Stamp and Nahmint Rivers and of the Cutthroat in China Creek. April and May are good months for Steelhead and Cutthroat in Nahmint and Sproat Lake and for Rainbow Trout in Great Central and Loon Lake. June is the start of the best months for the middle of resident runs of coastal Cutthroat in most lakes including Sproat and Great Central Lake. October, November, and December, Rainbow and Cutthroat season ends. The Steelhead season begins in china Creek. All year Trout can be caught in McBride and View Lakes, Brown Trout in Cameron Lake and Rainbow and Cutthroat in Cameron Lake. | 2019-04-25T11:53:56Z | http://surfingvancouverisland.com/fish/alberni_archive.htm |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.