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Decorating & Design
August 21, 2012
New At EQ3
I'm really digging the new EQ3 catalogue. It hit my inbox a while back along with an invitation to check out the new EQ3 store in Toronto's Liberty Village neighbourhood next week. I'm looking forward to seeing the pages of the catalogue come to life and seeing the Marimekko shop-in-shop.
The catalogue feels like a beautiful coffee table book. The photography and styling are lovely. I have it on good authority that it is the work of EQ3 creative director and Winnipegger Thom Fougere in collaboration with Zurich and London-based photographers Véronique Hoegger and Nicole Bachmann. Well done, I say. Here are some of my favourite photos and products.
A deep blue sofa — why not? It looks so inviting thanks to the haphazard arrangement of cushions and the casually draped throw. I wonder how many times they fussed with the throw before they got it just like this? I like to think it just happened this way. Love that grey chair, too — the Valentin. It's a perfect small space choice that can move from dining table to desk to living room.
EQ3's merch includes the company's own designs, like the Tobi Modbox storage system, which I think is genius. I dream about doing a wall of these in my house to sort out my massive magazine collection and my personal prop department (so many vases!). Also on offer at EQ3 are wares from world-renowned modern makers like Vitra, Magis, Stelton and Ton — the original Thonet factory in the Czech Republic, which makes this classic café chair that I have an ongoing crush on.
I'm seeing the cobalt blue colour of this chair pop up on my radar lately. I'm embracing it as an antidote to the overdoses of too-sweet turquoise I have been subjected to in recent years. This is the Vitra Tip Ton chair. With it is the Frame desk. The $149 price tag means you can afford to add a custom cut glass top so you can tuck photos and other ephemera underneath to make a pretty display. That's what I'd do. Again, love the styling here: Interesting bits, just enough, not too much.
I sure wish I were invited to this brunch. It looks so delicious and fun. If I had to make a critique I'd say I wish I could see a couple of napkins for a little softness here, but I can easily look past that to drool over the cheese. Plain white dishware has never looked so luscious! And I need one of those wooden boards, stat.
Here are a few more EQ3 faves:
I'm always a sucker for stripes, but I appreciate the looser design of the lines on the Nautical rug, 100% wool, 8′ x 10′, $600.
The Reverie loveseat looks plucked from the lobby of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (or will it be Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Harris?), but I'm picturing it as a breath of fresh air for the TV room in the basement of my Toronto bungalow. From $1,249.
The combo of big white shade, blond wood and red cord is a can't-lose design formula in my books. Finn table lamp, $130.
The Simone dinette table is a 36″ diameter pedestal table with a marble top for $400. This is the kind of piece you could splurge on for your first place but keep forever and find a new spot for it in every home. It's a modern design that can blend in with traditional surroundings to give a room a little style kick.
For more timeless designs, see our Iconic Furniture In Hot Hues photo gallery.
Photo credits:
1. Margot Austin

subset: commoncrawl


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Editorial: Make sure to ring in the New Year safely
One would think that needing to warn people not to drive drunk on New Year's Eve would be unnecessary.
For a generation now, we've been inundated with anti-drinking and driving messages. There has been no shortage of horrific alcohol-related crashes that have made headlines about people left dead and maimed. And in an evermore safety-conscious society, common sense about not getting behind the wheel while loaded should prevail.
Yet we know there are going to be too many jolly good folks who are going to leave a bar or party sometime after midnight tonight with a blood-alcohol content above the legal limit. And we know they are going to pose a risk to themselves and others, with only the grace of God left to protect them.
You don't want to be that guy or gal. In the spirit of safety, here are three important things to remember when you're celebrating tonight:
The legal limit. If you have three or more alcoholic drinks in your system, there is a very good chance you run the risk of driving either while your ability is impaired or while you are intoxicated.
Your body processes alcohol at the rate of about one drink per hour, so if you're drinking more than one drink per hour for several hours, you should not be driving.
The law. Driving while intoxicated is a misdemeanor offense punishable by up to one year in jail. A repeat offense can be considered a felony punishable by prison time. A conviction can mean loss of your license and a hefty fine as well.
It is utterly illogical to be a law-abiding citizen by day and then a potential jailbird at night because you made the wrong choice after drinking.
The loved ones. It's been nearly a decade since four students died in an alcohol-related crash on the Colgate University campus in Hamilton, N.Y. The images of those young faces continues to haunt, and for many years, families of the victims conducted publicity campaigns and public appearances to drive home the impact of their loss.
Those students would be in their late 20s today, probably holding down good careers, perhaps planning marriages and families, keeping in touch with their parents and siblings.
Imagine the hole that remains in the hearts of those family members, and then make sure you never do anything to contribute to anyone's similar loss.
When the clock strikes 12 tonight, we enter a new decade, one that holds all sorts of promise and potential. Be sure you're there to experience it — do not drink and drive.
Observer-Dispatch of Utica, N.Y.


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This post was supposed to be be about a really great song I'm listening to on youtube. But it won't be, because I can't embed it – youtube says "Embedding disabled by request". If starting to be fed up with this all copyright management. Youtube recognizes my location in UK by IP and it removes or disables most of music videos (they play without a problem from other countries I visit).
I'm using a free Spotify version currently. I thought that it might be a good idea to buy premium account, but they have only about half of tunes I like. Other record labels haven't agreed to join, so I gave up.
Hej, fat cats in music industry: wake up! We have a XXI century!


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Antarctica & Chile's Patagonia
About Chile
Discover the magic and wonder of the Fjords of Chile, Cape Horn, and the "White Continent" aboard the stylish and comfortable MS Midnatsol. Jump off from Punta Arenas, Chile and explore vistas of blue white glaciers and busy penguin rookeries. See breaching whales crashing and scenes of pure ice walls. Cruise through the Errera Channel where steep, sheer cliffs rise above the narrow iceberg-filled passage. Zip by PolarCirkel boat into small bays and harbors for personal and in-depth exploration. Make your way to Wilhelmina Bay, with the dramatic high claciers, and view the wreck of a Norwegian ship. Spend 2 nights in Puerto Natales, with a full day excursion to the ruggedly beautiful Torres del Paine National Park. Spend 3 nights in Santiago, Chile, with a farewell dinner including Chilean wine and a folklore show you'll never forget.


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St. Gildas
Surnamed the Wise; born about 516; died at Houat, Brittany, 570. Sometimes he is called "Badonicus" because, as he tells us, his birth took place the year the Britons gained a famous victory over the Saxons at Mount Badon, near Bath, Somersetshire (493 or 516). The biographies of Gildas exist — one written by an unknown Breton monk of the Abbey of Rhuys in the eleventh century, the other by Caradoc, a Welshman in the twelfth century. Both biographies contain unchronological and misleading statements, which have led some critics to reject the lives as altogether valueless. Ussher, Ware, Bale, Pits, and Colgan endeavour to adjust the discrepancies by contending that there were at least two saints named Gildas, hence their invention of such distinctive surnames as "Albanicus", "Badonicus", "Hibernicus", "Historicus", etc. The more general opinion, however, adopted by Lanigan, Leland, Healy, Stingfleet, Mabilon, Bollandus, and O'Hanlon, is that there was but one St. Gildas. The discrepancies may be accounted for by the fact that the lives were drawn up in separate countries, and several centuries after the saint existed. As to Caradoc's statement that Gildas died at Glastonbury, O'Hanlon remarks that Glastonbury appropriated more saints than Gildas (Lives of Irish Saints, I, 493).
Both narratives agree in several striking details, and may thus be harmonized: Gildas was born in Scotland on the banks of the Clyde (possibly at Dumbarton), of a noble British family. His father's name was Cau or Nau; his brother's, Huel or Cuil. He was educated in Wales under St. Iltut, and was a companion of St. Samson and St. Peter of Léon. Having embraced the monastic state, he passed over to Ireland, where he was advanced to the priesthood. He is said to have lived some time in Armagh, and then to have crossed to North Britain, his teaching there being confirmed by miracles. On his return to Ireland, at the invitation of King Ainmire, he strengthened the faith of many, and built monasteries and churches. The Irish annalists associate him with David and Cadoc in giving a special liturgy or Mass to the second order of Irish saints. He is said to have made a pilgrimage to Rome. On the homeward journey his love of solitude caused him to retire to the Isle of Houat, off Brittany, where he lived a life of prayer, study and austerity. His place of retreat having become known, the Bretons induced him to establish a monastery at Rhuys on the mainland whither multitudes flocked (Marius Sepet, "St. Gildas de Rhuys", Paris, s.d.). It was at Rhuys he wrote his famous epistle to the British kings. His relics were venerated there till the tenth century, when they were carried for safety into Berry. In the eighteenth century they were said to be preserved in the cathedral of Vannes. He is the patron of several churches and monasteries in Brittany and elsewhere. His feast is locally observed on 29 January; another feast, 11 May, commemorates the translation of his relics.
The authentic work of St. Gildas, "De excidio Britannae liber querulus", is now usually divided into three parts: (1) The preface; (2) A sketch of British history from the Roman invasion to his own time; (3) An epistle of severe invective addressed to five petty British kings — Constantine, Vortipor, Cyneglas, Cynan, and Maelgwn. In the same epistle he addresses and rebukes the clergy whom he accuses of sloth and simony. His writings are clearly the work of a man of no ordinary culture and sanctity, and indicate that the author was thoroughly acquainted with the Sacred Scriptures.
Gildas is regarded as the earliest British historian and is quoted by Bede and Alcuin. Two MSS. copies of his writings are preserved in Cambridge University library.
COLUMBA EDMONDS (Catholic Encyclopedia)


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Houdon, Jean-Antoine
Houdon, Jean-Antoine zhäN-äNtwän´ o͞odôN´ [key], 1741–1828, French neoclassical sculptor. He studied with Michel Ange Slodtz, Lemoyne, and Pigalle, took the Prix de Rome at the age of 20, and spent four years in Italy. Many of his later works reveal his study of classical form, e.g., the marble Diana (St. Petersburg) and The Bather (Metropolitan Mus. of Art, N.Y.C.). He quickly became famous in Paris for his extraordinarily accurate portrait sculptures and received commissions from all over the world. In 1785 he visited the United States briefly and stayed at Mt. Vernon while making studies for his statue of Washington (capitol, Richmond, Va.). Among his portrait busts are those of Jefferson, Franklin, Diderot, Rousseau, John Paul Jones, Napoleon, Josephine, Lafayette, Molière, Mirabeau, Buffon, and Prince Henry of Prussia, and he also sculpted a full-length statue of Voltaire (Comédie Française). He succeeded not only in creating sculptural documents of his time, but in developing a type of portraiture remarkable for its elegance, measured realism, and depiction of individuality. Houdon exerted a strong influence over European and American sculptors for several generations.
See A. L. Poulet, Jean-Antoine Houdon: Sculptor of the Enlightenment (2004)
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: European Art, 1600 to the Present: Biographies


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The scale reads 158.2. Up a pound from yesterday. And after a run, no less. Son of a bitch. I step into the shower and scrub the dirt off my calves and ankles, the sweat from my face, from behind my ears. I know it's irrational, but a germ of a thought percolates in my brain: Maybe, just maybe, collectively erasing these micrograms from my skin will bring me into 157-pound territory. I towel off and step back on the scale. I'm running my first marathon next month, and at five-foot-eight, I want to toe the line at 155 pounds, preferably 153. I'm hellbent on breaking four hours. I look down. Dammit. Same unfeeling numbers. Okay, scratch tomorrow's rest day. Later, as I pack my lunch–debating between one or two mini wheat bagels to go with a wedge of light cream cheese and an apple–I pray it's nobody's birthday at the office today. Cake is the devil.
Little did I know that nutritionists had a name for this swirl of thinking: disordered eating. At the time, I'd never heard the term. Eating disorders I knew about, but I was hardly a skeletal anorexic, nor did I purge my meals. I was simply a dedicated runner with what I considered serious willpower. Besides, didn't a marathon demand Spartan discipline?
When I'd mailed in my registration, I was 39 years old with a daddy belly and a double chin. I'd been running for six years, mostly five-mile stretches. I hovered just below 175 pounds, was prone to shinsplints and knee pain, and ran on dirt wherever I could find it. Obviously, 26.2 miles of asphalt could be a problem. The thought of being branded a DNF was my ultimate nightmare. But somewhere along the way, I'd heard that I'd run about two seconds faster per mile for every pound I lost. This bit of information–accurate or not–radically changed my diet.
For the first time in my life, I scrutinized nutrition labels. I parted company with meat and learned to love tofu and soy milk. For breakfast, it was fruits and fat-free yogurt. I'd begin my small dinners with an appetizer of boiled broccoli. No desserts. As my weekly miles piled up, my waistline started shrinking. I announced each lost pound to my wife like a sniper taking out another enemy soldier. The flattened landscape of my belly made me swoon. Food became one of my mind's favorite topics. I got off on the sensation of my stomach grumbling and learned to fall asleep hungry. But god forbid the scale go up. If it did, I seethed.
"The more competitive people are, even if they're just competitive with themselves, the more likely they are to have the kind of extremist thinking that can lead to disordered eating patterns," says Patricia Kaminski, associate professor of psychology at the University of North Texas, who's helped many people with eating disorders. "'If running five miles is going to help me train well, then running 10 is better. If a 1,200-calorie diet is good to help me lose weight, then a 500-calorie diet must be great.'"
Disordered eating differs from an eating disorder in that food intake isn't manipulated to deal with underlying issues of depression, anxiety, self-esteem, and control. The most common forms of eating disorders–anorexia (self-starvation) and bulimia (binging and purging)–are serious psychiatric illnesses, with significant physical consequences, and can be fatal. Disordered eating, on the other hand, refers to less-severe abnormal behaviors: eliminating food groups from your diet; regularly replacing meals with energy bars or coffee drinks; excessive weighing and calorie-counting; and tacking on extra miles as punishment for, say a cheeseburger the night before. Often, the regimen includes compulsive exercising like hitting the bike after an 18-miler.
The condition is far more common among female runners, mirroring the trend seen in the general public. It's estimated that three out of four American women between ages 25 and 45 practice disordered eating, according to a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study. A 2009 report in the Journal of American College Health showed more than a quarter of female college athletes exhibit disordered eating patterns. And in surveys of collegiate athletes, some 55 percent of women tell researchers they experience pressure (both external and self-imposed) to achieve a certain weight, and 43 percent say they're "terrified" of becoming too heavy. Between two and three percent of female college athletes have a diagnosed eating disorder, which is about the same for the general population. Men who compete in sports where body shape and size are important also are at higher risk for disordered eating.
The costs can be profound: Prolonged disordered eating can lead to anemia; loss of muscle strength, endurance, and coordination; more frequent injuries, including stress fractures; longer recovery time after intense workouts and races; anxiety; and fertility issues in women. The most worrisome consequence, however, is the onset of a full-blown eating disorder.
Leslie Bonci, R.D., director of sports nutrition at Pittsburgh's UPMC Center for Sports Medicine, says the most common sign of disordered eating is when food choices become about what not to eat.
"A lot of people have their good-food list and their bad-food list," Bonci says. "Nothing high in fat, nothing fried. They'll eat only organic, only local, won't touch anything processed. They might start to avoid social situations because they don't know what the food will be."
Obviously, runners, and especially marathoners, demand greater nutrition than sofa spuds. An endurance athlete's ideal fuel is glycogen, carbohydrates stored in the muscles and liver. A low-carb lifestyle is clearly counterproductive. When glycogen stores are low, protein, which is essential for muscle growth and repair, may be robbed for energy. Zinc and vitamins A, B6, and E are important for the immune system and bone health, but are found in red meat, nuts, and dairy–often seen as kryptonite by fat-phobes.
"When you look at a lot of media, the message is everybody's on a diet, everybody needs to lose weight or restrict," says Colorado-based psychotherapist and former U.S. marathon champion Jane Welzel. "Instead of how do you support your lifestyle through nutrition, the message is reduce carbs and fats, or this has a high glycemic index, or don't eat too many bananas. It's the sound bites, the headlines, that grab attention. Then people add it to their list of rules. It's totally out of context for what they need to do to support their level of training."
While not all disordered eating leads to an eating disorder, almost all eating disorders start as disordered eating, so it can be scary territory for a runner, particularly an emotionally vulnerable one or for someone dealing with significant stress. Manipulating one's food and body offers a sense of control and perfection, a substitute for happiness that may be absent when they're not laced in running shoes.
"People lose weight and run faster," says Bonci. "But for some it becomes like this addictive drug. It's a really a fine line between healthy and unhealthy weight loss, and there are a lot of people who straddle that line day in and day out."As part of my marathon training, I wanted to run with the cross-country team at Boston University, where I work. I was a nine-minute miler on a good day and was hoping to pick up some speed tips. I e-mailed David Proctor, the BU captain. The previous year, Proctor had broken the four-minute mile, the first Terrier to do so. He knew fast.
A week later, I was hauling ass along the banks of the Charles River with six tall, lean dudes almost 20 years my junior. They took pity on me and ran a 7:30-per-mile pace instead of their usual sub-6:00.
I admired the way Proctor moved, limbs etched with muscle, loose yet under control. I felt the swell of a runner crush.
But at the time, I'd no idea the amiable Briton was just two months past his second bout with anorexia, one of an estimated 1 million men in America with an eating disorder. All in the name of speed.
A junior U.K. champion in the 800 meters, Proctor was recruited to BU on scholarship. Tall and naturally slim, after touching down in Boston in fall 2004, he embodied the "freshman 15," and then some. By mid-November, his weight had gone from 145 to more than 160 pounds. One day, Proctor's coach ribbed him about his affection for American cuisine.
"It was totally innocent, the way guys joke with each other," Proctor later told me. "But then I thought about it. My clothes don't fit the way they used to. And once I weighed myself and processed it, I felt like a failure. If putting on weight makes you slower, then I'm letting the team down. I'm failing at my job."
So just like that, Proctor all but cut out breakfast and lunch–disordered eating. "Any food that had very low to zero fat got a check mark," he says. "Anything that had more than one or two grams of fat per serving was out. Fruit was on the list until I found it had really high sugar."
He worked himself down to 500 calories a day, and within a couple of weeks, he'd shed almost 20 pounds. Not for a second did he see this as abnormal. "Track is so focused on numbers; you run your repetitions at this time, your recovery at this time," he says. "This just seemed like an extension of that."
Proctor was determined to break a school record, and every hunger pang confirmed his dedication to that goal. Soon, he was seeing the shaved-down numbers on his stopwatch. Like a greyhound chasing a mechanical rabbit, he kept pursuing that next ounce, that next half pound. By mid-December, the six-foot freshman stood a gaunt 133 pounds. Still, he scrutinized his reflection pinching a quarter inch of skin, convinced it was fat.
"I was on the scale every hour to see if something changed," he says. "If I went to pee, I'd weigh myself before and after."
After passing out during a run, not a morsel touching his lips for three days (punishment for gorging at Christmas), he met with a nutritionist. Not to add the fats and proteins his body craved, but for tips on how to lose weight without fainting again. He was a full-blown anorexic.
Paradoxically, he clocked his best 800, 1:50:54, that winter. And it was just before Easter when he dipped to 129 pounds–after a long morning run, with no food or drink in his system. It was a moment of glory, almost ecstasy. Still, the runner had rules. No dinner until six, not a moment before. He was famished and had hours to go. He lay on his bed to pass the time.
"I felt nauseous because I was so dehydrated," he says. "It was disgusting. I lay there and it got to be 5:50, and I was praying for the clock to hurry up and tick over to six so I could go down for dinner."
Then he had a moment of clarity. "I don't know where it came from or why I suddenly realized it, but I just thought, This is stupid, the difference between ten-of-six and six. You're waiting, eyes fixed on the clock, almost passing out you're so tired."
While the doors to some of Proctor's darker rooms would remain closed–he admits to trust issues and a "desperate desire" to achieve greatness–that spring, a BU sports nutritionist and sports psychology professor helped the middle-distance star grasp the concept of the body as a machine that needed proper fueling to run efficiently. Slowly, he began to eat more and eased up on his food rules.
Two seasons later, Proctor broke a school record as part of a medley team. Then came his crowning achievement–breaking the four-minute mile his junior year (3:59.14), capturing the second-fastest college time in the country that year. During his balls-out final sprint, he weighed 154 pounds, just eight pounds less than the all-time high that started it all. But like many anorexics, he would relapse several times before moving into a period of sustained recovery.
"I still define myself by my successes and failures," says Proctor, who is back in England working at a hospital and training for the 1500 meters in the U.K.'s Olympic Trials in June. "But I look for them elsewhere, not just on the track." While I wouldn't claim any records, I finished the marathon without walking, not even at the fluid stations, my shirt a bib of spilled Gatorade. I broke the tape at 4:20, a bit of a disappointment considering the rigors of my training. As I'd slogged up the hilly course, my feet feeling laced in concrete blocks, more than once I wondered whether there had been too much oil in my prerace pasta.
But curiously, after staggering through the crowd of finishers, a medal bouncing against my salt-squiggled shirt, all I wanted was a burger. Just like that, I stopped counting fat grams and calories and watched the pounds start checking back in. I ran a second marathon five weeks later, coasting on my earlier training, and shaved almost 16 minutes off my time. I was elated, but also confused. Weren't weight and speed inextricably linked?
"Sometimes a runner will have a breakthrough, and they'll credit it to losing weight when it might be the past six months of training or a certain maturity they've had with their running," says Welzel, the marathon champ and psychotherapist. "The thing that's identifiable is that they lost five or 10 pounds, but that may have just been a small piece."
There could be something else at play beneath the surface of cutting calories and shaving seconds, says Kara Bazzi, the clinical director of Opal, a Seattle eating-disorders clinic. "Many athletes with disordered eating wouldn't want to admit this, but there's this sense of self-righteousness–they can accomplish a six-minute-mile pace or 20-mile run while others can't. There's part of them that's threatened to be average. That's a strong force to reckon with, that mentality."
Bazzi speaks from experience, as a runner whose personal struggle with disordered eating began her freshman year at the University of Washington. By midseason, she was one of the fastest on her team, thanks to drastic cuts in her diet. "I was getting lighter, then faster," says Bazzi. "I saw big results. You can run pretty well for about a year under a highly restrictive state, but then your body breaks down." In fact, a stress fracture ended Bazzi's competitive career, her bones stripped of essential nutrients.
Bazzi and other experts interviewed agree that the volume on education and awareness of disordered eating needs to be cranked up in all sectors, from the locker room to the running club to the media. Welzel also says she realizes the sway she holds as an elite runner. Once, while she was eating fries and hoisting a beer, a recreational runner was taken aback and said to her, "I thought you guys just ate lettuce."
"If we're out there putting food in categories and restricting, then they're going to hear that's what you have to do to be a better runner," she says. "Hard workouts need to be replenished. Healthy eating isn't eating less."
Even though I was back on steak and fries, my marathon training had left some sticky residue. I still felt flashes of anger when my Garmin displayed anything above a 9:15 pace. I'd instantly analyze everything I ate the day before and maybe hurl a few curse words at myself. Why had I convinced myself that stopping to walk during a race, even for fluids, was for pansies? Why would not breaking four hours translate to failure?
I began to wonder whether there were unresolved personal issues that I'd allowed the digits, the food rules, and the rigid routine, to tamp down. I was always hard on myself, perhaps threatened to be average as Bazzi said. I loved running, so why did I strike out with one arm whipping my own back? Who was I doing this for anyway?
As I found myself registering for more marathons, I vowed to look in the mirror with a renewed consciousness and to leave the Garmin at home every once in a while. Sure, it was strange at first. I felt a bit unmoored, a bit aimless. But I became more aware of the feel of the run and started looking around like I used to before I began pinning on bib numbers. With the taste of sweat on my lips, I understood the obsessive-ness, and the yielding David Proctor was talking about. More and more, I run for the joy rather than the PR, to hear not the numbers in my ears, but the wind.
Find out if your relationship with food is healthy or hazardous by taking our true-false quiz at runnersworld.com/yourfoodandyou.
Caleb Daniloff has received multiple awards for his writing, including the Ralph Nading Hill Jr. Literary Prize, several National CASE awards, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Caleb's first book, Running Ransom Road: Confronting the Past One Marathon at a Time, a memoir about running as a sobriety tool, will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in Fall, 2012.
Caleb Daniloff is a Boston-area writer and author of Running Ransom Road: Confronting The Past One Marathon at a Time and co-author of November Project: The Book: Inside the Free Grassroots Fitness Movement That's Taking Over The World.


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I love the conclusion - with a little frugality, you can live your dreams. (That's the conclusion I came to, anyway.)
Nice article.
I wanted to be a digital nomad before anybody--before the term existed; before the technology existed; before most people even imagined that it would someday be possible to earn a living without ever being in the same place as your coworkers, bosses, customers, or clients. Other people may have become digital nomads before I did, but nobody wanted to be one before I did.
Three obstacles define the three paths to being a digital nomad.
First, there was the technological barrier--one that has been largely overcome by the earliest digital nomads.
People whose regular job required constant travel--salesmen, executives, managers and technical folks with far-flung teams--were nomads before they were digital nomads. It was on their behalf that the technology was gradually beaten into submission. I knew a lot of these folks--people who paid top-dollar for a computer (just) small enough that it would fit into a suitcase and (barely) light enough to be carried by one person. An excellent article in a recent Economist, quotes Paul Saffo as saying that "nomads" is the wrong term for those early strivers:
Since these machines, large and small, were portable, people assumed that they also made their owners mobile. Not so. The proper metaphor for somebody who carries portable but unwieldy and cumbersome infrastructure is that of an astronaut rather than a nomad.
Exactly so.
The technological barrier is down, now. The equipment is small, cheap, and highly functional. (Although there are still challenges even with modern high-tech gear. For some nitty-gritty details on actually getting things done while on the road, see High-Tech and Homeless.) I never wanted to be a road-warrior, though. Having to show up every day at one specific workspace was bad enough--I most definitely didn't want to put myself in the position of having to show up at dozens of different specific workspaces. It was one of the paths that has eventually led to a kind of digital nomad, but not the path for me.
Long before the technology really supported the road-warrier, it became good enough (and cheap enough) that it was practical to create a fully functional workspace that wasn't at the office. The technological barrier, although not yet down, had become low enough that it could be easily stepped over. But close behind was a series of management and personal barriers.
People whose regular job can be done on a computer were digital before they were nomads. For almost twenty years now, the technology has been good enough that pretty much any digital job could be done at home, or really, anywhere--as long as "anywhere" was one specific place where the equipment could be set up and a data connection established.
Bosses never liked telecommuting--if they couldn't walk over and see you working, they were pretty sure that you probably weren't. And, since the sort of jobs that could be done entirely on a computer over a data link tended to also be the sort where managers--even managers with a good bit of technical savvy--had no idea how much work was actually involved in any particular task, there wasn't really any other way to tell if someone was working hard or hardly working.
The result of all that was that most managers would only let certain employees telecommute--the ones they trusted to work hard without supervision, and certain other key technical people who might leave the company if their whim to telecommute wasn't indulged.
Once the equipment got cheap--especially after it got cheap enough that employees could afford to buy their own--employers were quite prepared for employees to have workspaces at home. But that was just so that the employees could work more, not so they could quit coming into the office.
Still, telecommuting has grown. Lots of people do it now. Especially since fuel got so expensive, there has been a surge in people working at home one or two days a week. Obviously that saves time and fuel, while still giving the boss the chance to observe them working on the other days.
With the technical barriers down, though, the mere telecommuter can now be a digital nomad. The boss may imagine you sitting in a home office, working on desktop machine not much different from the one in your cubicle, but there's nothing to keep you from taking your laptop to the library or the coffee shop or the public park--anywhere you can get a network connection. In fact, if there's no danger of being urgently called into the office, there's nothing to keep you from taking your laptop literally anywhere--even halfway around the world.
Telecommuting is a second path to being a digital nomad. I did a little telecommuting, but it wasn't for me. To thrive as a telecommuter you need to be both self-motivating and self-limiting. Too little of the former, and you're not productive. Too little of the latter and your home office turns into a home sweatshop. (It's very easy to find yourself working from 6 AM until 10 PM, checking email at all hours, feeling pressure to be always-accessible since people can't just catch you in the hallway at the office.) With just a little experience at it, I found that I suffered from both those deficiencies, so I avoided telecommuting after that.
The hard work of crossing the managerial barrier is largely done--telecommuting is a fact and most companies have policies allowing limited forms already. You can't really look to others to cross the personal barriers for you--you have to do that yourself. If you find your way past those, there's really only one remaining barrier--money--that keeps people off the ultimate path for the digital nomad.
The technology is cheap and easy. If you don't have a regular job, you don't need to get anyone's permission to telecommute. As a freelancer, you can work wherever, whenever, and however you want. The limiting factor is earning enough money to support yourself.
You can freelance at just about anything. Software is big, as is writing (fiction, non-fiction, screenplays, poetry, blogs...), and the arts (graphic design, photography, music, sculpture, painting, drawing, architecture...). Especially big are the specific tasks that came of age at the same time as the technology of the digital nomad--freelance web design, for example. There are freelance researchers, freelance editors, freelance accountants, freelance technical support. Of course, you're really only a digital nomad if a large fraction of your freelance work can be done digitally--there's not much call for digital massage therapy or digital hairstyling--but the range of things that can be done on-line keeps growing.
If you're of an entrepreneurial bent (or know someone who is), you can go the route of the "virtual corporation"--put together (or join) a small team of people who come together to create a new product, outsource anything that they don't have the expertise to do themselves, and once they're done, go their separate ways. (This sort of thing is very scalable. See Tim Ferriss's The 4-Hour Workweek for some examples of what amounts to one-person versions of this sort of business. There's also some info in my review of the book from last year.)
You can make money at any of these things. Some people can make a lot of money doing freelance work. But for most people, freelance work is going to pay less than they can get working a regular job. To make it pay even a large fraction as much will likely require working a whole second parallel job (marketing your freelance service) plus a third parallel job (managing the business--invoicing, collecting, accounting, etc).
This is why I talk so much about frugality. Maybe you can earn a lot of money and maybe you can't--but anybody can get by on less money. And, if you can get by on what you can earn freelancing as a digital nomad, you can be as free as anyone has been since hunter-gatherers took up agriculture.
It's what I've always wanted to do.
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I love the conclusion - with a little frugality, you can live your dreams. (That's the conclusion I came to, anyway.)
Nice article.
I'm currently in cyber-nomad land myself. It brings its conveniences and struggles, but sure beats having to solve some of the issues we are now solving while showing up at an office every day.
I loved your article! I became a freelancer and I also live the dream with much less money. After getting my MA degree and working full-time for just 2 years, I discovered that working at an office and doing the 9 to 5 thing wasn't for me. I slowly started getting clients and working during my spare time. In the beginning I was making enough extra cash to perhaps pay my Internet connection -- even so, it was a great feeling to know that with a little hard work I could enjoy more of my time the way I wanted to. It took me about five years to be able to live off my freelancing. Like you said, you have to learn to live with less money, and being frugal is the key to this. But working in my PJs if I want to, from my deck, or just being able to tell my client that I'm taking days off, instead of asking for that time, is priceless.
There's nothing better than living the life you want.
By the way, the Economist article that I link to above is part of a whole special section on digital nomads--eight or nine articles, all worth reading. Look in the side bar under "In this special report."
I'm looking forward to be a freelancer too. Just like you, I found 9-6 schedule too restricting and limits my freedom. As of now, I have that sched while on the sideline doing freelance too. If ever my freelance work get more clients and hopefully if it even equals my working salary, ill go full-time.
I submit to the author's view that anybody can survive on less money. Maybe we need to shut ourselves to the world's materialistic point of view to free ourselves to have more money to buy more stuffs.
Fix My Personal Finance
Many more people in the U.S. would likely follow this path if we had a health care system that guaranteed coverage at a reasonable price. My husband and I both freelanced as journalists at the national level for many years, and even embraced frugality happily. But the hit from health insurance was too great. One of us needed a job that provided benefits.
Wow! So, Gina, you can live the life you want, but you want someone else to pay for the health care?
You probably want dental care, day care, housing assistance, perhaps a gasoline or transportation credit.
I live the life I want without public assistance.
It sounded to me like Gina wanted affordable health insurance.
I really don't see that as wanting "other people" to pay for your health care. People don't usually talk about car insurance as wanting "other people" to pay for your car accidents or homeowners insurance as wanting "other people" to pay for damage to your house.
I understand Gina wishes for affordable health care - hey, so do I. But - as my daughter's kindergarten teacher told her - 'you get what you get and don't make a fuss.
It is what it is. I have pretty good ideas how the system could be reformed and work better, but no one's listening to lil' ol' me.
I pay a heavy premium for health insurance for me and my wife. I'm self-employed and, trust me, writing that ck quarterly is a killer. But I'm not going without and I guess I have to deprive myself of some other things, things I'd rather have. But, that's life.
When people talk about affordable health care, most of the time that means 'subsidized' health care. Someone else will carry part of the burden. I'm burdened enough thank you.
People talk of the uninsured in this country, and I agree it's a problem. But... of the 40 or so million uninsured, 22 million voluntarily opt out. They can, but choose not to pay the premium. They include many of the 30 and under crowd, but others who are willing to risk it and use the money for other things. Last time I checked, it was still a semi-free country and you can do this.
Another chunk of the uninsured are the underpaid, illiterate, destined to remain slaves, illegal workers. Since they put the number of illegals at anywhere from 10 to 20 million this is no small effect.
Then there is always the hope, the change of socialism! Whoops, meant to say Obamacare!
I think there it's useful to look at subsized care in two different categories.
First, there's subsidizing care for poor people. This, we already do, we just do it badly--poor people show up in the emergency room and get urgent care, paid for by the hospital, which then over-charges its regular patients to try to make up the difference.
Second, there's subsidizing care for sick people. This we also already do, if you think of insurance as the people who don't make claims as "subsidizing" the people who do. (I'm not sure that's a useful way of looking at it, but insurance is what we're talking about.)
Whether we ought to subsidize care for poor and sick people isn't really an issue--we already do. What the debate over affordable health insurance is about (as far as I'm concerned) is making health insurance follow the "insurance" model--provide coverage that protects people from bankruptcy simply because they become seriously ill. Insurance like that is available, it just isn't available to anyone who's ever been seriously ill (unless they have a good job with a large employer).
That can be fixed pretty easily in several different ways. And, I think, it can be done without driving up health care costs (through programs of the sort that you've advocated, such as high-deductable plans). But I think the status quo is unacceptable. My wife and I have affordable health insurance. (It costs about two-thirds of what we pay for rent, or about the same as what we pay for groceries.) But we're both healthy. If we had ever been sick--or if we were to become sick in the future--we'd be screwed. Our care would be paid for, but our insurance would become unaffordable or unavailable altogether.
Sometimes "take what you get and don't make a fuss" is a perfectly good strategy. Other times, though, making a fuss is what's called for. I think it's called for when people are being treated unfairly. And, when people are being financially ruined simply because they get sick, I think that's unfair.
My next door neighbor is a freelance fruit and vegetable picker from Mexico. He has no health insurance and simply goes to the
ER for all his medical needs. They even fixed his teeth and delivered his girlfriends baby. He has never paid for any of this. Unfortunately the hospital is closing down because it went bankrupt. No problem, he has just moved into another town and the hospital is only a few blocks away. Freelancing is the way to go.
Great post and a lot for nomads to think about. As you've probably learned over the years, while everyone thinks romantically of the idea of being a digital nomad, sometimes its just a pain in the butt.
Cesar Torres just posted a story on some of the challenges of working remotely and the growing trend of coworking, working alone...together. Cesar is co-founder of Austin-based Conjunctured. Take a look at it if you get a chance.
Bruce Eric
These are all good approaches, and I have done them all at one time or another. I would add another catch-all category of webpreneur, or something like that related to actually owning website properties that create income.
This can be selling your own products or services, affiliate products, or using advertising schemes to monetize the sites.
The idea once again is to be location independent using technology to build one or multiple virtual businesses.
Great post! Great blog!
I'd like to suggest yet another path to become a digital nomad, and that's to find a business that 1) already has products, 2) an online presence, and 3)a proven business model. These kinds of businesses are out there. And I'm not talking about the penny-ante multi-level stuff. Real businesses. My husband and I found one and just plug and play anywhere in the world. The key is simply doing your due diligence to determine if the business is right for you.
My husband and I are devoted LUXURY digital nomads. Being frugal was simply something that we weren't interested in. We are currently on an open-ended world life tour and are focused on living our lives NOW, not later.
Thanks for your inspiration!
Don and Karla


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PARIS, October 23, 2013 (AFP) - The Tour de France will pass through the scene of some of the worst fighting of World War I next year, organizers revealed on Wednesday, as they unveiled a route likely to challenge 2013 champion Chris Froome.
One hundred years after the start of the Great War, cycling's most famous race will pay tribute to the millions killed in one of history's bloodiest conflicts, visiting towns and countryside devastated by four years of fighting. The cycling tribute comes amid commemorations across France, Europe and the rest of the world to the conflict that helped shape the history of the 20th century.
Three winners in the early years of the Tour, Francois Faber, Octave Lapize and Lucien Petit-Breton, died during the war, which forced the race to be suspended from 1914 to 1919.
"We of course cannot forget them. The Tour is also a moment of collective remembrance," said Tour director Christian Prudhomme.
Stage 5 starts in Ypres, in the Flanders region of western Belgium, which was the scene of sustained and intensive fighting between German and Allied forces. Stages 6 and 7 visit Arras, the Chemin des Dames, Verdun and Douaumont—all sites of key battles and home to memorials to the fallen—and a finish in Reims, in Champagne country, where French kings were once crowned.
The 101st edition of the Tour de France includes six mountain stages with five summit finishes and a stage tackling the cobblestones that are the hallmark of the Paris-Roubaix classic. There is also just one time trial for the first time since the 1950s, all of which will provide defending champion Chris Froome with a tough test in a race likely to favor climbers.
Kenya-born Briton Froome, who rides for Team Sky, said he was undeterred, declaring that he relished the prospect and racing on cobbles would be an "exciting challenge."
"I haven't done much on cobblestones…that's something we'll have to look at specifically and prepare for specifically," Froome said. "I don't think I'm any worse than Nairo Quintana or Alberto Contador on the cobbles. I probably won't be able to follow the likes of Fabian Cancellara or Tom Boonen, but as long as I'm within the group of the GC riders, or it could even be somewhere we take time.
Spain's two-time Tour winner Alberto Contador said the cobbled section could prove decisive.
"This stage will be difficult, very nervy, with fear of falls or mechanical problems that could lose you the Tour," he said.
Froome retained the title for Britain in the Tour's 100th edition last year after compatriot Bradley Wiggins became the country's first-ever winner in 2012. Wiggins has already stated his intention to return to track cycling in 2015 but has yet to commit either way for next year's Tour.
If he does decide to take part, Froome is confident he will have no issues with working for the current champion.
"At the end of the day, the team's always going to select the nine strongest guys to go to the Tour with the best possible chance of winning it," he said. "If Bradley's in that nine or not would be for the performance team to decide, but I don't see any reason why he wouldn't be there."
British cycling fans will be hoping for a third straight win for the nation, particularly as the race starts on July 5 in the northern English city of Leeds and includes two stages in the county of Yorkshire.
The opening flat stage provides British sprint ace Mark Cavendish with an opportunity to try to snatch the yellow jersey in his home country.
"It's super important, it's the second time in my career the Tour de France is coming to the UK. It's a massive honor to be a part of it," said the Manxman. "The first stage finishes in my mother's hometown (Harrogate). A lot of my family still live there, I spent much time as a child there so to be able to try and win the stage and get the yellow jersey there, it's big."
The peloton will head to mainland Europe on July 8 after a third stage from the historic university city of Cambridge in eastern England with a finish outside Queen Elizabeth II's London residence, Buckingham Palace.
(James Startt)
Froome's potential challengers next year are likely to be 2013 King of the Mountains Nairo Quintana, Giro d'Italia winner Vincenzo Nibali and two-time Tour champion Alberto Contador.
The penultimate stage, a 54-kilometer (33.5-mile) test against the clock between Bergerac and Perigueux in the southwestern Dordogne region, could provide Froome with his last chance to overhaul the climbers before they arrive in Paris.
"Time-trials provide greater time gaps than the mountains, sometimes insurmountable ones," explained Tour director Christian Prudhomme. "Having the time trial at the end is so the climbers don't have to chase but can ride in front and not become demoralized."
Froome and the rest of the peloton will get an early indication of the hard work ahead in the final 30km of the second stage from York to Sheffield, which organizers described as a "British version of Liege-Bastogne-Liege."
Across the Channel, there will be little time to relax before the 156km fifth stage from Ypres to Arenberg Porte du Hainaut, which includes more than 15km of cobblestones spread over nine different sections. Stage 7, from Epernay to Nancy, is the longest, covering a grueling 233km.
The first summit finishes come in the Vosges region with the 161km Stage 8 from Tomblaine to Gerardmer and then the return of La Planche des Belles Filles at the end of Stage 10.
It was there on the final 20km ramp that Froome earned his first Tour de France stage victory in 2012. The 161km stage, with a final 5.9km climb that averages a punishing 8.5-percent gradient, could shake up the race and suit the likes of punchy finisher Joaquim Rodriguez.
The first Alpine summit finish arrives on Stage 13 at Chamrousse at the end of 200km with an 18.2km climb averaging 7.3 percent. The high Alps beckon the following day with a 177km stage that crests the Cols du Lautaret and D'Izoard before finishing on the Risoul.
Pyrenean stages 17 and 18 are relatively short at 125km and 145km but have summit finishes at Saint-Lary-Soulan and Hautacam.
The time trial comes a day before the survivors roll onto the Champs-Elysees in Paris on July 26.
Courtesy ASO
2014 Tour de France Stages
Stage 1: Saturday, July 5 - Leeds, England, to Harrogate, England, 191 kilometers
Stage 2: Sunday, July 6 - York, England, to Sheffield, England, 198km
Stage 3: Monday, July 7 - Cambridge, England, to London, 159km
Stage 4: Tuesday, July 8 - Le Touquet-Paris-Plage to Lille, 164km
Stage 5: Wednesday, July 9 - Ypres, Belgium - Arenberg Porte du Hainault, 156km
Stage 6: Thursday, July 10 - Arras to Reims, 194km
Stage 7: Friday, July 11 - Epernay to Nancy, 233km
Stage 8: Saturday, July 12 - Tomblaine to Gerardmer, 161km
Stage 9: Sunday, July 13 - Gerardmer to Mulhouse, 166km
Stage 10: Monday, July 14 - Mulhouse to La Planche des Belles Filles, 161km
Rest day: Tuesday, July 15
Stage 11: Wednesday, July 16 - Besancon to Oyonnax, 186km
Stage 12: Thursday, July 17 - Bourg-en-Bresse to Saint-Etienne, 183km
Stage 13: Friday, July 18 - Saint-Etienne to Chamrousse, 200km
Stage 14: Saturday, July 19 - Grenoble to Risoul, 177km
Stage 15: Sunday, July 20 - Tallard to Nimes, 222km
Rest day: Monday, July 21
Stage 16: Tuesday, July 22 - Carcassonne to Bagneres-de-Luchon, 237km
Stage 17: Wednesday, July 23 - Saint-Gaudens to Saint-Lary-Soulan, 125km
Stage 18: Thursday, July 24 - Pau to Hautacam, 145km
Stage 19: Friday, July 25 - Mauborguet Pays du Val d'Adour to Bergerac, 208km
Stage 20: Saturday, July 26 - Bergerac to Perigueux, 54km individual time trial, 54km
Stage 21: Sunday, July 27 - Evry to Paris Champs-Elysees, 136km


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12oz. Stemless Wine Tumblers feature stainless steel double-wall construction, vacuum insulated for 2X cold and heat retention compared to glass or plastic containers, removable clear lid and textured sweat-free powdercoat.
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text: Mr. Robert Thorington, age 76, of Cedar Springs, went home to be with his Lord and Savior on Monday, November 21, 2011. His parents were farmers, and Bob was the youngest of their ten children. Bob rode the bus to school and needed to come home right away so he would work on the farm. While in high school, Bob met his sweetheart, Betty. He graduated in 1954; and after Betty graduated and turned 18 years of age, they eloped and were married on December 24, 1955. They moved to Grand Rapids where Bob began working at Guardsman Chemical. Bob would mix the chemicals and tint, package the products, and fill the tanker trucks and the drums. He worked there for 34 plus years. In 1958, Bob's brother and brother-in-law died in an automobile accident and that was the turning point when Bob asked Christ to be in his life. He accepted Christ at Wealthy Street Baptist Church. In 1985 he and Betty moved to Cedar Springs and joined First Baptist Church. He was a very faithful and spiritual person. If you opened Bob's Bible, you would find a lot of verses underlined and notations made. He was a very welcoming guy who would share what the family had. Many times during his working years he would hold two or three jobs so his wife could be a mother, wife, grandmother and great-grandmother and be at home. His children have been led by their father and have continued the same work ethics. When Guardsman Chemical went out of business, Bob went to the Family Fare in Cedar Springs and worked there as a part-time worker for 16 years. Most vacations times were spent with visiting family. Bob was a gentleman who loved the Lord and his family. He is survived by his loving wife of nearly 56 years, Betty; children, Cynthia and Robert Beals of Grand Blanc, Debra and Robert VanDyke of Rockford, Linda and Timothy Rysdyk of Rockford, Julie and Jesse Mata of Holland, James and Jilayne Thorington of Rockford; grandchildren, Daniel Beals, Shawn Beals, Ryan VanDyke, Bradlee VanDyke, Samuel Rysdyk, Joseph Rysdyk, Jennifer (Phil) Millard, Katherine Mata, Stacy Mata, Paige Mata, Seth Thorington, Alycia (Matt) Burmeister, Brooke Thorington, Wyatt Thorington, Niklas Thorington, Alexa Haadsma, Joseph Dochod; great-grandchildren, Ian, Matthew, Emma, Elizabeth, and Jack; sister, Mrs. Bernice Helsel; brother, John and Darlene Thorington; and nieces and nephews. The Service of Praise and Thanksgiving for the gift of everlasting life through Jesus Christ for Mr. Thorington will be Wednesday at 1:00 p.m. at First Baptist Church of Cedar Springs, 233 S. Main Street, Cedar Springs, with Pastor Jim Howard officiating. Interment in Nelson Township Cemetery. Those planning an expression of sympathy are asked to consider First Baptist Church of Cedar Springs. Relatives and friends met with the family at the Pederson Funeral Home on Tuesday from 7 to 9 p.m. Arrangements by Pederson Funeral Home, Rockford www.pedersonfuneralhome.com


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Can you imagine the guys ofOne Direction
serenading you with a song of your choice? If you hit up one of their upcoming concerts, this 1D fantasy just might become a reality. It looks like the boys are taking requests—or at least that's what they did at their recent show in Sweden.
During a mid-concert Twitter Q&A, a fan asked the guys to sing "I Want It That Way," a tune by an older famous boy band, The Backstreet Boys. They agreed, and led by Niall, our fave U.K. cuties sang it to the screaming crowd.
We think it's totally awesome that they're showing love for a fellow boy band.
More From Seventeen
And we're not the only ones that appreciate the cool cover! The Backstreet Boys themselves tweeted, "Heard @OneDirection did an impromptu performance of "I Want It That Way" in Sweden last night. Well done bros!"
Check out the video below. What song do you want to hear One Direction cover next? Tell us in the comments below!


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The best outfits to wear to a pool party
Whether you're hosting a pool party or attending one, finding the right outfit is a priority. From practical cover-ups to comfortable shorts, there are several options worth considering.
Pool party attire usually includes casual, laid-back styles that are comfortable. Some people wear comfortable, lightweight outfits, whereas others are partial to pieces that let them transition easily between the pool and patio. Those seeking sun protection at the party often wear hats, sunglasses or UPF clothing.
What to know about pool party attire
Dress code
Most pool parties have casual dress codes and invite guests to wear laid-back, comfortable clothing. This often includes cover-ups, shorts, summer dresses and T-shirts. If the party carries over into the night, it's a good idea to bring either a summer hoodie or light sweater to wear once the temperature drops.
Sun protection
Hanging out at a pool party means spending several hours in direct sunlight. Hats and glasses often come to mind first, and it's a smart idea to stock up on other sun protection essentials like face, body and lip sunscreen.
Some types of clothing offer sun protection, such as the Columbia Men's Tamiami II Short Sleeve Shirt. It's designed with OMNI-SHADE material, a tight weave that is effective at blocking UVA and UVB rays.
As far as footwear is concerned for pool parties, sandals, boat shoes and wedges remain popular choices. Guests that expect to play lawn games, like volleyball or frisbee, may wish to wear or bring casual sneakers that are safer and more stable on grass or dirt during gameplay.
Besides hats and sunglasses, many guests wonder which accessories look best with pool party attire. Jewelry is generally considered the finishing touch for most party outfits, but that's not always the case with pool parties.
Unfortunately, chlorine in pools may damage or discolor jewelry, especially silver, gold and platinum. As a result, many pool party guests either forgo jewelry or stick to costume jewelry that can be easily and affordably replaced if it sustains damage.
Best outfits to wear to pool parties
A pair of aviator shades
Privé Revaux Unisex The Panther Polarized Aviator Sunglasses
Sunglasses are pool party staples because they're both practical and fashionable. This pair is praised for its comfortable, lightweight design. The lenses are polarized and offer 100% UVA/UVB protection.
Sold by: Kohl's
A beach cover-up
La Blanca Island Fare Cotton Crochet-Trim Tunic
Beach cover-ups are ideal transition pieces with lightweight fabrics that dry quickly. La Blanca's cotton crochet cover-up has a relaxed tunic silhouette. Its crisp, fresh look emerges as a statement piece in its own right.
Sold by: Macy's
A lightweight polo
Tommy Hilfiger Men's Classic-Fit Ivy Polo
Lightweight polo shirts are preppy options that pair well with most bottoms, from cargo shorts to khakis. This classic Tommy Hilfiger style is made with soft, breathable cotton. It's available in dozens of summer-ready colors, such as coral and pink heather.
Sold by: Macy's
A lightweight midi dress
Croft & Barrow Plus Size Smocked Challis Dress
Midi dresses are universally flattering, and they look great with most types of footwear. This rayon style is a favorite choice for pool party attire because it's cool to the touch, wrinkle-resistant and dries quickly.
Sold by: Kohl's
A pair of palazzo pants
Apt. 9 Women's Double Border Print Palazzo Pants
Palazzo pants are appreciated for their relaxed, pull-on styles that slip right over swimsuits. This style by Apt. 9 is made with a stretch material blend and has a flexible elastic waistband. These types of pants are often worn with solid tank tops and sheer cover-ups.
Sold by: Kohl's
A wide-brim hat
Wide-brim hats aren't just stylish — they protect your face and neck from the sun. If you'd like a neutral style that can be worn all summer long, this Lanzom style fits the bill. It has a 5.5-inch brim and rolls up to fit inside beach bags.
Sold by: Amazon
A maxi dress
Style & Co Tie-Dyed Sleeveless Maxi Dress
Maxi dresses are considered easy to wear since they're essentially self-contained outfits, such as this fun tie-dye design. It features a relaxed fit that lets wearers move freely and lounge comfortably at pool parties. The maxi is often worn as a cover-up, too.
Sold by: Macy's
A comfortable jumpsuit
Nine West Women's Surplice-Front Jumpsuit
Jumpsuits are here to stay, and they often make a splash at pool parties. Nine West's unique style has a smocked waistline that gives wearers an hourglass silhouette. The style features cropped wide-leg pants that offer a comfortable, breezy fit.
Sold by: Kohl's
A Hawaiian shirt
Club Room Men's Winslow Tropical Print Shirt
Hawaiian shirts often make appearances at pool parties, given their bright colors and lively designs. Club Room's easy-care style is made with stretchy, wick-away material that keeps you cool and comfortable.
Sold by: Macy's
A pair of board shorts
O'Neill Hyperfreak S Seam Board Shorts
Board shorts are considered practical pool party attire because they can be worn casually or as swimwear. This newer O'Neill board short features an ombre color scheme and has a long inseam.
Sold by: Dick's Sporting Goods
An off-the-shoulder top
LC Lauren Conrad Smocked Ruffle Off-the-Shoulder Top
Off-the-shoulder tops pair well with most summer bottoms, from denim shorts to capris. Sweet and simple, this smocked ruffle style has a relaxed fit. It's available in a handful of colorful prints, including florals and stripes.
Sold by: Kohl's
A pair of cargo shorts
Lee Big & Tall Extreme Motion Crossroads Cargo Shorts
Cargo shorts typically have spacious cuts that can be worn on their own or over swim trunks. Lee's popular style is equipped with six pockets, including one for smartphones. The shorts are made with a soft, flexible blend of cotton, nylon and Spandex.
Sold by: Kohl's
A band tee
American Classics Def Leppard 1980s Hysteria T-Shirt
Band tees are timeless, and the crowd goes wild when they show up at pool parties. This throwback Def Leppard tour tee coordinates with most bottoms, and it works well as a retro-inspired cover-up.
Sold by: Amazon
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Feed expenses eat heifer-raising budgets
by Tina Kohlman, Scott Gunderson, Pat Hoffman, and Annette Zwald
The authors are Sheboygan and Manitowoc County UW-Extension dairy and livestock agents, UW-Extension dairy herd management specialist, and a James Crowley dairy management intern, respectively.
Where money goes to raise a dairy replacement certainly changes from calf to heifer. In calves, labor is the main expense, but as they mature, growing appetites cause feed bills to escalate. In our second article in this six-part series, we will look at the 44 of the 49 Wisconsin operations that managed a heifer enterprise. The operations include 14 tie stall herds, 20 free stall operations, and 10 custom growers. In the previous January 10 article, 40 of the 49 operations surveyed were involved in calf raising.
Based on information obtained from these 44 operations, the average cost to raise a heifer was determined to be $1,323 or $2.04 per day. Some operations did quite well controlling costs, while others did not do as well. Total heifer enterprise costs ranged from a low of $851 to a high of $1,900. When we break these values down to a per-head-per-day basis, the range was $1.31 to $2.93 per head.
In this survey, a heifer was considered to be an animal raised in a group setting until she freshened or, in the case of the custom heifer grower, when she is returned to the dairy producer. The average number of days a heifer was in group housing was 648.3 days for all operations. These animals also spent 67 days being raised as calves for a combined total of 710 days from birth to calving. Please note, in the case of the custom heifer grower, the heifer is returned to the dairy producer approximately two to three months prior to calving.
Heifers raised by custom growers were on feed an average 576.7 days as compared to 667.0 and 671.1 days by tie stall and free stall operations, respectively. Because custom growers fed heifers approximately 100 days less than the other operations, their total cost per head is much lower.
Due to variation from farm to farm, several assumptions were made to standardize certain inputs including: calf value, feed costs, labor and management pay, and building replacement values (Table 1).All other values associated with the calf and heifer enterprises were farm specific.
Please note that our team placed a $500 value on each calf, compared to $100 in the 1998 study. Labor and management values rose from $7 and $12 per hour, respectively, in 1998 to $12 and $20, respectively, in 2007.
Unlike the calf enterprise, feed costs were the number one area contributing to the cost of raising a heifer (Figure 2). Feed made up over half of the expense to raise a heifer, compared to approximately one-third the cost to raise a calf. It cost the operator approximately $684 per heifer, ranging from $399 to $1,251 from farm to farm for feed. On a daily expense ledger, this translated to an average feed cost of $1.06, ranging from $0.62 to $1.93. Comparing the three types of operations, custom heifer growers fared the best, feeding heifers for an average of $0.92 per heifer per day. That is $0.15 to $0.18 less than tie stall and free stall operators, respectively (Figure 3).
In regards to the heifer raising costs, the other three main categories contributed nearly equally to the remaining costs to raise a heifer. Labor and management (paid and unpaid) contributed over 18 percent of the total costs to raise a heifer or $244 per heifer ($0.38 per day). Tie stall operators and custom heifer growers had similar labor and management costs ($0.46 and $0.45, respectively). Free stall operators were more efficient when it came to labor costs associated with raising heifers with an average cost of $0.29 per heifer per day, approximately 35 percent less than the other two types of operations.
Variable costs (excluding feed costs) included bedding, veterinary, breeding, electrical and fuel, interest (assumption of 8 percent interest), and death loss. They accounted for 17.5 percent of the total heifer expenses. This averaged $233 per heifer or $0.36 per day.
Fixed costs were quite similar among all operations. All three types of operations paid approximately $162 per heifer, or $0.25 per day, in fixed costs. Fixed costs ranged from $0.23 per heifer per day with tie stall operators to $0.27 per heifer per day with free stall operators.
When we look at the full dairy replacement enterprise, it cost all operations an average of $1,649 to raise a heifer from birth to freshening or, in the case of the custom grower, when the heifer was returned to the dairy producer (710 days on average). The range was from a low of $1,095 to a high of $2,435. When broken down to a per- head-per-day basis, it costs $2.32 on average to raise a heifer, ranging from a low of $1.54 to a high of $3.42 per head per day. This daily cost to raise a heifer compares to an of average $1.69 per head per day in the 1998 study, a 21 percent jump over the past nine years - the equivalent of a 2.3 percent rise per year.
These first two articles are designed to highlight the 2007 costs of raising dairy replacements. Future articles will showcase in-depth comparisons found among the three types of dairy operations: tie stall, free stall, and custom calf/heifer grower. Another article will compare 1998 to 2007 costs, and the final feature will give benchmarks for your operation.


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Bumbershoot 2018: lineup and tickets
The 2018 edition of Seattle's Bumbershoot Festival happens Labor Day Weekend (August 31 - September 2) at the Seattle Center. The lineup has just been announced and includes Fleet Foxes, SZA, J. Cole, Portugal. The Man, Phoenix T-Pain, Rhye, Kelela, Lil Wayne, Young Thug, Dr. Octagon, Moses Sumney, The Revolution, Cherry Glazerr, Nothing, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Maxo Kream, Let's Eat Grandma and more.


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The Dragon has been brought to life for the third time this year, being fired up this time around for an international gathering of clay artists in Singapore for the International Chawan Exposition. The 16th edition of the exposition is being held in Singapore from 6 to 14 September 2014 and includes a wood firing event from 8 to 10 September at the Thow Kwang Dragon Kiln.
The firing event, the opening of which coincided with the Mid-Autumn Festival last evening, is open to the public on 9 and 10 September. More information on the International Chawan Exposition can be found at http://www.chawanexpo.com/singapore.html. More information on the kiln and its history can be found in some of my previous posts on Thow Kwang.
More photographs from last evening's opening:


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Welcome to "Rosie's Good read Collections", I've put together the books I've read into subject headings that I think the books belong to, for you to browse.
As part of my year of Good Deeds Challenge I'm encouraging readers to take part during the season of Goodwill. Today I'd like you to bake a cake to share with others.
With a tight budget and two months, Eva Delacroix has to turn six dilapidated cottages on Lake Huron into a shabby chic tourist destination. Fulfilling her father's renovation dreams and her own needs for family, Blue Heaven is Eva's last resort. Daniel Bryman will do anything in his power to stop city girl Eva from destroying the integrity of the historic structures his ancestor built. But as they work together to rebuild the main cabin, Eva's determination makes him question his own life choices.
Despite their opposing views, they do agree on what to do with the attraction between them. When everything they've built threatens to crash down around them, will love be enough to save Blue Heaven? Goodreads, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, My Review: http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-2Zt
Strange things are happening in Port Grace, Florida. Doug Monroe and Rebecca Carlyle are young and in love. He met her when he saved her life, but now he may need to save her again. Someone, or something, wants her and there is no place to hide, and no safe haven from the memories of her troubled past.
Before the summer ends, the past and present will meet. Will Doug be able to save the woman he loves one last time? Or will an evil from long ago take her from him forever? Goodreads, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, My Review: http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-2SQ
In the harsh Scottish highlands of 1565, superstition and treachery threaten a truce between rival clans. It's a weak truce at first, bound only by an arranged engagement between Anne MacGregor and Niall Campbell-the heirs of the feuding families. While Niall wrestles with his suspicions about a traitor in his clan, Anne's actions do not go unnoticed. And as accusations of witchcraft abound, the strong and sometimes callous Campbell heir must fight for Anne's safety among disconcerted clan members. Meanwhile his own safety in threatened with the ever-present threat of someone who wants him dead. Will Niall discover the traitor's identity in time? Can Anne find a way to fit into her new surroundings? Will the two learn to love each other despite the conflict? With a perfect mix of a burgeoning romance and thrilling suspense, this book is historical fiction at its best. Goodreads, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Free for Kindle at the time of publication. My Review: http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-jd
Reginald Aiken, Duke of Warwick is dead and his young widow is not grieving…until the will is read. Isobel Kennilworth Aiken, Duchess of Warwick spent 6 years of her young life in a loveless marriage. Now, at the age of 24, Isobel is a widow. As Isobel awaits the reading of her late husband's last will and testament, she feels no grief, but in fact is quite hopeful. She is eager to start her life anew. But, as the droning of the solicitor's voice washes over her detailing the bequests to various servants and family members, a shock awaits her. The "other woman" was not his mistress, but his lawfully wedded wife and together they had a son. Six year old Reggie was now the Duke of Warwick, displacing Reginald's brother Charles. There is a collective gasp as the revelation is made that instantly displaces Isobel and Charles and dashes their hopes for the future. Isobel must indeed start anew, but not as a titled, influential and wealthy widow, but as plain Miss Kennilworth, tainted by scandal. Can she get past the disgrace and humiliation she has endured and fight her way back into society? Will she find love again with her childhood sweetheart, Andrew Stafford, former vicar, now Lord Saybrooke? Or perhaps she will rekindle the flame with Jeremy Ingles, Lord Westcott, who had caught her fancy at her come out six years earlier, but had not been ready to be leg shackled. But before Isobel can find true love, she must come to grips with her past mistakes and the people she has hurt along the way. She must discover who she is without the title of duchess to her name. Goodreads, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, My Review: http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-2Nf
Scientist Maryse Robicheaux thought that a lot of her problems had gone away with her mother-in-law's death. The woman was rude, pushy, manipulative and used her considerable wealth to run herd over the entire town of Mudbug, Louisiana. Unfortunately, death doesn't slow down Helena one bit.
DEA Agent Luc LeJeune is wondering what his undercover assignment investigating the sexy scientist has gotten him into – especially as it seems someone wants her dead. Keeping his secrets while protecting Maryse proves to be easier than fighting his attraction for the brainy beauty. Goodreads, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, My Review: http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-4Q
Love, betrayal, and hope for happiness may turn this marriage of convenience into something more. Daisy Banks weaves a wonderful tale of bargains made and promises broken in A Gentleman's Folly. Katherine Bescell, courtesan and member of a secret order, thinks the offer of a marriage in name only to Charles Leverret, heir to a large fortune, will solve all her woes. Charles Leverret believes his hired wife will ensure his inheritance. He might even enjoy her company if she'll let him anywhere near her. Charmed by his bride, Charles breaks their original bargain and falls in love. Betrayed by a trusted lawyer who withholds Katherine's promised fee, Charles struggles against evil chance to persuade Katherine his love is real. Lust and love, truth and trust, each makes demands on them both, but though Charles has captured her heart, Katherine can't bring herself to admit they belong together. Masked and robed in the rites in the West Wycombe Caves where only truth is told, Charles makes his stand to claim the woman he adores. Goodreads, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, My review: http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-2LQ
To her surprise, Stacy Cauthen, an accountant from Atlanta wins a contest, she didn't even enter, to spend a romantic weekend in the Colorado mountains with Slade Collins, the movie star. What happens when they get to the chalet is both funny and romantic. What will they do when a blizzard hits and the power goes out forcing them to sleep in front of the fire together? Will love find its way in or will they say goodbye on Monday? Goodreads, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, My Review: http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-2QW Stephanie has written many books all with a romantic theme often with Cowboys thrown in.
Ellie has a traumatic and terrifying experience whilst living in England so moves to American t live with her Uncle and Cousin. Whilst working in a hotel Ellie meets Trey Thomas who is a hot movie star. Trey is attracted to Ellie and this is the story of Ellie's insecurities and Trey's emotional story of angst, romance, and mystery. The sequel Desire to Love out 1st June 2013.***Rated 18+ due to sexual content and explicit language used*** Goodreads, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, My Review: http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-2hn
Newenham, Alaska, is a long way from the big-city comforts of Anchorage, where Sergeant Liam Campbell was an up-and-coming state trooper with everything going his way. But that was before his life unraveled. Transferred in disgrace to this rough-and-tumble fishing town on the shores of Bristol Bay, Liam knows Newenham is the end of the line. It's also his last shot at getting his life back.. He's about to come in for a very rough landing. Stepping onto the airstrip at Newenham, Liam walks into a crime scene: a body torn apart by the propeller of a Piper Super Cub. As if that isn't enough of a welcome, the woman bending over the corpse is Wyanet Chouinard, the only woman Liam ever truly loved – and soon to be his prime suspect. Next, a man is held hostage in the town's only decent burger joint–held for shooting out a jukebox that was playing Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. And Liam still doesn't have his uniform on. Goodreads, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Free at the time of publication. My Review: http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-4Y
Catherine enjoys her life as a successful single woman and, if her career sometimes fails to fulfil her, her social life more than makes up for it. Life for Catherine is about having fun and she is not looking for anything more meaningful or permanent than that. Everything changes, however, when she is forced to face the consequences of a decision she made eighteen years earlier. Events conspire to bring her first love, Bill Myers, back into her life and they struggle to establish a new adult relationship. As everything familiar seems to be imploding around her, it leads Catherine to question every aspect of her life. Can she find the courage to embrace a new life or is she doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. Goodreads, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, My Review: http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-2mJ
After several decades of looking for true love and never finding it, aging model and lingerie designer, Alexa Ranger, has finally given up the search. A couple years ago, she got tired of the game completely and just stopped dating. Now friends and family keep her mostly content, so it's shocking at 50 yrs old to find herself suddenly wanting a sex life again. It's even more shocking to be attracted to a much younger man this time. She definitely thinks Casey Carter is sexy, but not handling her own age well, Alexa just can't get passed their twelve year age difference to even consider a fling. Goodreads, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, My Review: http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-6s
Was it his gaze from across the blackjack table? The little nick on his chin that she wanted to kiss and make better? The way his bright blue eyes seemed to see to the heart of her? Whatever it was, Laura Todd was pulled in by Fox Thornton. A whirlwind Las Vegas romance followed, but things heat up again in Miami, in all the wrong ways. Embezzlement, ambition, and erotic romance aren't the perfect match, but that's all they have. Will it be enough? Goodreads, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, My review: http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-3j0


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Chapter 8: Peace Treaty of Imam Hasan
After Imam Ali, Imam Hasan attained to the caliphate. At this time the Muslim society had assumed a peculiar form. Their strength had been divided almost evenly, and if Imam Hasan had continued fighting against Mu'awiya neither of the two parties could expect victory without severe bloodshed. The result of such a fighting would have been disastrous for the Muslims. Hence, Imam Hasan was faced with a situation in which he had no alternative but to come to terms with Mu'awiya and prevent senseless bloodshed. If he had persisted in fighting it would have resulted in gain to the Eastern Roman Empire on the external front and to the Khawarij within the Islamic territories.
If those 400,000 or 500,000 Muslims had attacked one another on that day and fighting with Mu'awiya had been continued only Allah knows what calamity would have fallen on the Muslims from the side of the Eastern Roman Empire and what dimensions the danger from Khawarij would have assumed, and what the history of Islam would have been!
Hence, Imam Hasan retired from the caliphate and thus safeguarded the blood of the Muslims and the strength of Islam, and prevented the external and internal enemies from taking undue advantage of the situation. This does not, however, mean that he surrendered to Mu'awiya and recognized him as the caliph and the Commander of the Faithful.
One of the conditions of the Peace Treaty between Imam Hasan and Mu'awiya reads thus: "Hasan bin Ali makes Peace on the condition that he will not be under an obligation to call Mu'awiya, the Commander of the Faithful". It meant that he did not recognize Mu'awiya to be the caliph and the Commander of the Faithful. Those, who think that by retiring, Imam Hasan bin Ali surrendered to Mu'awiya and Mu'awiya became the caliph of the Muslims and Hasan bin Ali also became one of his obedient subjects, should keep in mind this valuable narration by Ibn Athir which refutes this false belief:
"After Hasan bin Ali retired and Mu'awiya became the caliph, Farwa bin Nawfal Ashjaie Kharij, who had deserted the Khawarij earlier along with five hundred men and gone to the city of Zur said: "Now there is no doubt about the fact that we should fight against Mu'awiya's administration. As Mu'awiya has come at the helm of affairs and become the caliph we must wage war against him".
They, therefore, marched towards Iraq and reached the palm-grove of Kufa. In the meantime Imam Hasan had left Kufa and was on his way to Madina. When Mu'awiya came to know that the said Khariji had revolted along with his five hundred men, he wrote a letter to Imam Hasan, possibly with a view to strengthening the Peace Treaty with the Imam.
He wrote thus: "I understand that Farwa bin Nawfal Khariji is proceeding to Kufa along with five hundred men. I, therefore, direct you to go and fight against him and ward him off, and after you have vanquished him there will be no objection to your proceeding to Madina".
Imam Hasan received Mu'awiya's letter when he had arrived at Qadisiya. He sent him the following reply: "O Mu'awiya! You have appointed Hasan bin Ali to go like one of your officers and to ward off a rebellious Khariji. I, Hasan bin Ali, have retired, in the interest of the Muslims, from the caliphate, which is my right. If I had wished to fight against one of the people of the Qibla i.e. with a Muslim, whoever he might be, and to which ever sect he might belong, I would have fought against you in the first instance".
The Imam meant to say that he desisted from fighting against Mu'awiya in spite of the latter's being deviated from Islam as compared with all others. It will be observed that the Imam did not say: "I have recognized you as the caliph".
On the other hand he wrote: "I let you go and did not fight against you". And possibly a better interpretation of the words "I let you go" may be this: 'I have set you at liberty in the field of politics and have myself retired only in the interest of Islam and to avoid the bloodshed of the Muslim i.e. I considered it futile that these two forces of Islam which are evenly balanced should fight and kill and weaken each other and be annihilated, and the external and internal enemies should take undue advantage of this situation '.
After the martyrdom of Imam Hasan, Imam Husayn did not also rise up in arms against Mu'awiya during the last ten years of his rule (49 -60 AH) and did not undertake that campaign against him -the campaign, which he considered necessary during the regime of Yazid. However, he continuously criticized and reprimanded Mu'awiya and denied his rightfulness to the caliphate in the same manner in which his brother Imam Hasan had done.
After the martyrdom of his brother Imam Hasan, Imam Husayn wrote the following letter to Mu'awiya that has been reproduced by Ibn Qutayba Denuri:
"O Mu'awiya! Are you not the same person who killed Hujr bin Ady and his pious friends unlawfully? They were the persons, who condemned heresy and ordered the people to do good and restrained them from evil. You killed them cruelly after granting them security and making firm promises and covenants with them. By doing so you defied Allah and considered the Divine covenants to be frivolous. Did you not kill Amr bin Humuq Khuzaie, who was one of the distinguished companions of the Holy Prophet? He was the man whose face had worn out and whose body had grown thin on account of excessive worship. You killed him after granting him security and holding out promises of safety to him. If such promises had been held out to the desert deer, they would have come down to you from the hills with perfect confidence."
Are you not the man who associated Ziyad, the son of an unknown father, with your father Abu Sufyan and called him your brother, as Ziyad bin Abu Sufyan, and supposed that he is the son of Abu Sufyan although the Holy Prophet has said: "The child belongs to the man on whose bed (i.e. in whose house) he is born and the woman giving birth to the child is married to him and the adulterer is to be stoned to death as commanded by Allah. And then you have appointed Ziyad to rule over the Muslims so that he may kill them and amputate their hands and feet and hang them on date-palm trees. Allah be praised!
"O Mu'awiya! It appears that you are not a member of the Muslim community and the Muslims have no connections with you. Fear Allah and beware of the Day of Judgment, because Allah has a document from which nothing, whether small or big or good or bad, is omitted and everything is taken into account. You must remember that Allah does not forget these acts of yours, that is, you kill people on mere suspicions and false accusations and have made a boy, the ruler of the Muslims, who drinks wine and plays with dogs.
"O Mu'awiya! I see that you have destroyed yourself, spoiled your faith and made the Muslim ummah helpless".
This was the manner in which Imam Hasan and Imam Husayn, the two sons of the Holy Prophet addressed and wrote letters to Mu'awiya bin Abu Sufyan and called him to account.


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Functional characterization of cerebral aneurysms. Influence of data acquisition by means of different imaging modalities
Search Medline for
|May 20, 2009
Objective: Functional characterization of cerebral aneurysm by analysing biofluidmechanical parameters may help to perform patient-specific aneurysm rupture risk analysis and facilitate treatment decisions. Combined computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with non-invasive 3D imaging methods provide a means for quantitative analysis of biofluidmechanical parameters (wall shear stress (WSS), aneurysm size, surface curvature radius) in vivo. However, this analysis depends on the imaging method used which thereby may alter the assessment of the geometrical and hemodynamic parameters.
Methods: This study compares geometry and calculated WSS values based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT) and 3D-rotational angiography (3DRA). All imaging methods were applied to a threefold upscaled silicon model of a basilar tip aneurysm. This model served as the geometrical gold standard. The use of the upscaled model made it possible to generate a high resolution raw data set from CT with a voxel size of 0.13x0.13x0.3 mm3, from MRI with a voxel size of 0.16x0.16x0.16 mm3, and from 3DRA with a voxel size of 0.408x0.408x0.408 mm3.
Results: Comparing surface (Hausdorff) distances to the original geometry, MRI reconstruction with 0.097±0.07 mm (mean ± sd) is 2.5 times better than the CT based reconstruction with 0.242±0.131 mm and similar to 3DRA reconstruction with 0.10±0.086 mm. Analysis of curvature radius on the aneurysm surface yielded values (mean ± sd) of 5.08±2.44, 4.84±1.75. 4.93±1.65, and 4.82±2.39 for the original geometry, MRI reconstruction, CT reconstruction, and 3DRA reconstruction respectively. Calculated values for mean WSS revealed relatively large differences between the gold standard and both non-invasive imaging modalities. The mean WSS was 24% lower than the gold standard for the CT-based geometry and 10% lower for the MR-based geometry. The 3DRA based geometry resulted in a mean error of 3% for mean WSS. Nevertheless, the distribution of WSS showed similar patterns for all three imaging modalities.
Conclusions: All imaging modalities can be used to generate very similar distribution patterns of functional parameters in aneurysms. 3DRA is the best modality. Being readily available and non-invasive, CT-angiography is still the modality of choice in functional characterization of cerebral aneurysms.


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01 Jul 2000 Bill Clinton Makes Blacks Pay More at the Pump, by Stuart Pigler
With gasoline prices rising to well over two dollars a gallon in the Midwestern United States, America's love affair with the automobile may be headed toward a break-up. But before we ditch our wheels, we should first demand the government get rid of policies helping to drive up fuel prices.
Our biggest roadblock to reforming gas prices is Bill Clinton. Although he says he understands the needs of poor and minority citizens, his energy and regulatory policies hurt us more than any other segment of the population. And he has fought hard to protect these hurtful programs from attempts to repeal them.
We can't just blame the Arabs or the oil companies for gouging us. Much of the problem is the fault of overburdening taxes and government regulations that are driving the price of gas through the roof. Poor and minority consumers are being forced to spend a larger portion of their budgets to handle it than anyone else.
Unlike income taxes that take your money according to how much you earn, sales taxes make everyone pay the same rate. Billionaire Bill Gates pays the same taxes on a gallon of gas as a black single mother in South Central Los Angeles, but the single mom will be spending a substantially larger portion of her budget at the pump than Gates. The fact that so many independent truckers have been forced off the road because they cannot afford to drive proves how bad the problem is getting.
Federal and state gas taxes on a gallon of gasoline now average 43 cents a gallon. In the 1990s alone, gas taxes rose 16 cents a gallon. In addition, a federal mandate that gasoline contain the additive MTBE raises the cost by an additional ten cents. Not to scare anybody, but the Clinton Administration also signed the United Nation's Kyoto Protocol – to fight the unproven theory of global warming – that could potentially double the future price of gasoline! Congress has so far refused to ratify the Protocol, but the White House is still trying to force government compliance through executive action.
To combat current high gasoline prices, Indiana Governor Frank L. O'Bannon suspended his state's 5% sales tax for the summer. In Washington, however, Clinton and his supporters have fought attempts in Congress to repeal the 4.3-cent tax he imposed at the beginning of his presidency. Trying to spin the issue, the White House is blaming the oil companies for high prices. The Federal Trade Commission is conducting a formal investigation of high prices, but there's no denying that taxes and regulations are still an enormous chunk of the cost of every gallon we buy.
In addition to gas tax cuts, another way the government could ease high gas prices is to increase the oil supply by allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska. Only 2,000 acres of the 19 million-acre refuge – just over 0.01% – would be used and it could replace Saudi oil imports for 30 years. But the federal government won't allow it.
In 1995, Clinton Administration Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt justified barring drilling in the ANWR, saying, "it doesn't appear that [oil] prices will [be] topping $30 [a barrel] in the foreseeable future. In fact, the U.S. Energy Department's Energy Information Agency predicts oil prices will be only $19.13 by the year 2000." Last March, however, oil prices went over $34 a barrel. Still, the Clinton Administration is not willing to cut people a break by allowing drilling in the ANWR.
By the way, don't think we're just talking about gas prices rising. The trucks bringing goods to market are costing more to run, and this cost will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices for clothes, food and other necessities. Once again, it will be the people least able to deal with these price hikes who will be reaching deeper into their budgets just to get by.
Unless the government changes its tune, we can expect to pay a lot more for a lot of things. The Clinton Administration's disregard for the more disenfranchised segments of the population shows that the President favors his policies over real people. So much for feeling our pain.