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Gardener: A different approach to starting seeds indoors
With frigid temperatures outdoors, I'm sure many of you can relate to the growing desire to do something garden-related, well before Mother Nature says it's OK to safely plant outside. For me, it's all about starting seeds indoors. By mid-February, seeds are sown and I'm checking daily for the first signs of germination.
Over the many years that I've been starting seeds under lights, I still look forward to the process and love tending to my many seedlings for the eight weeks or so I'm able to nurture them until transplanting outdoors.
For the most part, the steps in the seed starting process don't change much from year to year. But to mix things up, I'm always trying new and different variables. One of the new discoveries for me occurred a few years ago when looking for alternatives to the ubiquitous plastic seed trays. I've used just about everything, from recycled and reused pots, yogurt containers, butter tubs, milk cartons, food containers, even pizza boxes. Almost anything goes as long as it's able to contain the soil and allows water to drain.
My ah-ha moment came when I learned about a method of starting seeds without containers. The term most often associated with this method is soil blocks. Hardcore gardeners and farmers have been using them for years and they're catching on across the country with adventurous home gardeners, too.
Also known as "potting blocks," they're made from lightly compressed cubes of soil. The blocks not only serve as the growing medium for seedlings, but also as the container. The blocks are pressed by a form and molded into a cube.
While you might think that a block of soil sounds fragile, it isn't. With the proper moisture, combined with a fibrous growing medium, the soil block will easily hold together. The bigger the roots get, the sturdier the block.
Another nice advantage of using soil blocks is that the roots do not encircle the block as they grow. Instead, they stay within the growing medium because of the air spaces between the blocks. If you've ever head the term "air pruning," this is an example of that. The beauty of roots growing in this fashion is that when the blocks are transplanted into the garden, the seedlings establish quickly into the surrounding soil, with little risk of transplant shock. Even plants such as cabbage, sweet corn, beets and cucumbers that don't like their roots disturbed can be grown successfully with soil blocks. Normally these types of plants are not recommended for transplanting since their roots are particularly susceptible to transplant shock.
The tool for making these seeded cubes is known as a soil block maker or "blocker." They come in a variety of sizes. A popular option for the home gardener has four 2-inch square compartments. The process to create soil blocks is simple, and fun.
First, you need to wet the soilless seed starting mix in a big tray and mix it together with your hands into a thick slurry, about the consistency of oatmeal. Then fill each compartment of the blocker with the growing medium. You use it like a cookie cutter to make the blocks of soil to plant your seeds into. Just push the block maker down, turn, squeeze and lift. Then, set the filled blocker into a tray and release. You can then plant the seeds directly in the depressions created.
The key to success is starting out with the proper soil mix and moisture content. An industry standard is Eliot Coleman's mix that he describes in detail in his book, "The New Organic Grower." Bagged, ready-to-use seed-starting mix works well, too. Just add water.
If you're tired of washing out plastic pots each year, or bothered by the thought of throwing out plastic containers, or just looking for a new venture to break the old routine, then soil blocks could be just the ticket for you. You can find more information at www.pottingblocks.com, www.johnnyseeds.com and other websites. You can even watch me in action making soil blocks in our episode on seed starting at www.GrowingAGreenerWorld.com/episode-402-seed-starting-101 for an excellent demonstration.
Joe Lamp'l, host of "Growing a Greener World" on PBS, is a master gardener and author. For more information visit www.GrowingAGreenerWorld.com.


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Mayoral races set financial records across Massachusetts
TAUNTON — Statewide spending in mayoral elections hit record levels in 2013, with candidates spending an average of $20.96 per vote they received.
That finding and others were highlighted in a recent report by the Office of Campaign and Political Finance. The 63 Massachusetts mayoral candidates in 2013 spent a record total of $8.8 million while raising $8.5 million. More than $6 million of those expenditures came from Boston mayoral finalists Martin Walsh and John Connolly.
"Money played a huge role in the Boston mayoral race," said Pam Wilmot, executive director of nonprofit Common Cause Massachusetts. "The amounts that were required to be the top candidates were incredible."
Outside of Boston, the numbers were more reasonable, Wilmot said.
"Boston really skewed the results in a lot of the state," she said. "There are a lot of reasonably priced mayoral election races out there, candidates raising $15,000 or $20,000. But when you get up to the million range, that's not something that can be done with concerned citizens. You have to have interest groups in there."
Taunton Mayor Thomas C. Hoye Jr. spent an average of $4.03 for every vote he received in last year's election.
Running unopposed, Hoye spent $19,548.29, while taking in $48,035 leading up to the 2013 election, according to the report.
Hoye garnered 4,846 votes, solidly maintaining his seat for another two years.
"In this particular case, some of the money goes to charitable organizations, which I'm proud to be able to help out," Hoye said. "It is what it is."
Hoye said the most difficult "part of being a mayor or a public official is fundraising."
The expenditures cited in the report include fundraising expenses, as well as election materials. Fundraising political candidates often pay out sums of money for venues and food, in order to raise money for their campaign war chests. They've got to spend money, to make money.
"Unfortunately it's a necessary evil, and I'm just glad I can spend some of that to help others," Hoye said. "We pay to maintain our website, and we've given donations to Taunton wrestling, softball and youth soccer, The Boys & Girls Club, and the Star Players."
In the previous election, Hoye's first for mayor, when he was opposed by former superintendent Gerald Croteau, both candidates spent more than $60,000, Hoye recalled.
A competitive mayoral race means far more election-spending pours into the local economy (more than $120,000 spent by Croteau and Hoye in 2011, as opposed to less than $20,000 in 2013).
"If you want to stay in the job and see your vision through it's dependent that you stay in office," Hoye said. "It's the part of the job nobody really likes, but to maintain your seat you have to be an effective fundraiser."
Hoye said he plans to run again in 2015.
In 2013, mayoral candidates who outspent their rivals won 80 percent of the time in Massachusetts.
In smaller communities, such as Amesbury and Newburyport, candidates spent more modestly. Mayoral candidates in those two towns, for example, spent $24,347 and $42,590, respectively.
In Amesbury, incumbent Thatcher Kezer lost to Ken Gray despite a significant monetary advantage. Kezer spent $16,495 to Gray's $7,851.
Candidates in Brockton spent a total of $119,562, with incumbent Linda Balzotti, who spent $59,015, losing to William Carpenter, who spent $60,547.
Incumbents also lost in Chicopee, Lawrence and West Springfield.
Fall River mayoral candidates combined for $150,232 in expenditures. Mayor Will Flanagan had $140,124 in expenditures, outspending his opponent, Joseph Carvalho, nearly 14:1 en route to winning re-election.
Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria, who had $247,672 in expenditures, spent $54.33 on his campaign for every vote he got, a new Massachusetts record.
Contested races weren't the only ones to feature campaign fundraising and expenses. Unopposed candidates frequently continue to raise and spend money, often to "augment their political futures," Wilmot said.
For the most part, the amount of money involved in campaigns outside Boston show the mayor's office isn't necessarily reserved for the wealthy, UMass Boston political science professor Maurice Cunningham said.
"It's the great hope of democracy," Cunningham said. "In light of Citizens United, the (April 2) decision by the Supreme Court and dark money, it's nice to see in smaller towns that you can still get elected to the executive position with that kind of money."
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled April 2 that aggregate limits on political donations are unconstitutional.
Haverhill's election was devoid of big money expenditures. Mayor James Fiorentini spent just $1.72 on his campaign per vote he received, the lowest in the state among winning candidates.
"These local offices, where people can run, not on money, but by getting out and individually meet citizens and have other citizens work for them, that's real democracy," Cunningham said. "We have little of it. We should cherish it."
The OCPF's report does not include candidates who failed to make the final ballot. In Boston, 12 candidates spent a total of $10.9 million, but the report only includes the combined $6 million Walsh and Connolly spent. The report also doesn't include the $3.8 million in independent expenditures outside groups made to support the two candidates.
— Gerry Tuoti is the Regional Newsbank Editor for GateHouse Media New England. Email him at email@example.com or call him at 508-967-3137. Taunton Gazette staff writer Rory Schuler contributed to this report.
Receipts: $48,035.00
Expenditures: $19,548.29
Votes: 4,846
Spent per vote: $4.03

subset: commoncrawl


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We're doing a season-long NFL roundtable with our friends at Slate. Check back here each week as a rotating cast of football watchers discusses the weekend's key plays, coaching decisions, and traumatic brain injuries.
« Previous entry | Next entry »
From: Tom Scocca
To: Brian Burke, Jeremy Stahl
Is it possible that Hank Williams Jr. was more valuable to the NFL than everyone had thought? Till this week, I had always assumed that "Are you ready for some football?" was a rhetorical question. But during the Williams-free Monday night game between the Bears and the Lions, the answer seemed genuinely in doubt.
Let's pick up the play-by-play in the first quarter, Chicago ball, 7:05 to go:
1-10-CHI 12 (7:05) 22-M.Forte right tackle to CHI 13 for 1 yard.
2-9-CHI 13 (6:28) 6-J.Cutler pass short right to 81-S.Hurd to CHI 21 for 8 yards.
Timeout #1 by CHI at 05:40.
3-1-CHI 21 (5:40) 6-J.Cutler sacked at CHI 17 for -4 yards (92-C.Avril). PENALTY on DET-92-C.Avril, Face Mask (15 Yards), 15 yards, enforced at CHI 17.
1-10-CHI 32 (5:22) 22-M.Forte up the middle to CHI 34 for 2 yards.
2-8-CHI 34 (4:44) PENALTY on CHI-87-K.Davis, False Start, 5 yards, enforced at CHI 34 - No Play.
2-13-CHI 29 (4:17) 6-J.Cutler pass incomplete short right to 18-D.Sanzenbacher. PENALTY on DET-23-C.Houston, Defensive Pass Interference, 10 yards, enforced at CHI 29 - No Play. Detroit challenged the tipped pass ruling, and the play was REVERSED. 6-J.Cutler pass incomplete short right to 18-D.Sanzenbacher.
3-13-CHI 29 (4:13) 6-J.Cutler pass incomplete short right to 22-M.Forte. PENALTY on DET-79-W.Young, Illegal Use of Hands, 5 yards, enforced at CHI 29 - No Play.
1-10-CHI 34 (4:12) PENALTY on DET-90-N.Suh, Neutral Zone Infraction, 5 yards, enforced at CHI 34 - No Play.
1-5-CHI 39 (4:12) 6-J.Cutler pass incomplete short right to 22-M.Forte. PENALTY on DET-79-W.Young, Roughing the Passer, 15 yards, enforced at CHI 39 - No Play.
1-10-DET 46 (4:08) 22-M.Forte left tackle to DET 42 for 4 yards.
2-6-DET 42 (3:33) 22-M.Forte up the middle to DET 35 for 7 yards.
1-10-DET 35 (2:55) 6-J.Cutler scrambles up the middle to DET 31 for 4 yards.
2-6-DET 31 (2:13) 22-M.Forte left tackle to DET 30 for 1 yard.
3-5-DET 30 (1:31) PENALTY on DET-92-C.Avril, Neutral Zone Infraction, 4 yards, enforced at DET 30 - No Play.
3-1-DET 26 (1:10) 22-M.Forte left tackle to DET 26 for no gain.
Timeout #2 by CHI at 00:15.
4-1-DET 26 (:15) 22-M.Forte left tackle to DET 26 for no gain. Chicago challenged the first down ruling, and the play was Upheld. (Timeout #3 at 00:06.)
Sorry. That's unendurable even in text form. All told, the series involved seven penalty calls (one of which was overturned), five would-be plays blown dead before they started, two gratuitous timeouts, and two replay challenges. The actual football action consisted mostly of Matt Forte plunging into the line seven times, for an average of 2.1 yards. This might have been the worst seven minutes of football ever played—and by "seven minutes," I mean something more like half an hour. (Subjectively, it felt like four hours. I'd check the elapsed time on NFL Rewind, but the league blacks out the Monday night replay for 24 hours.)
So, really, literally: Was anyone ready for some football? This was a matchup between a defending division champion and an undefeated up-and-comer. At least one of Monday's contestants ought to be a playoff team this year. Especially since a whole batch of this year's expected contenders—the Eagles, the Falcons, the Cowboys—have failed to rise to the opportunity. Somebody has to be good, right?
But it's hard to believe you're watching the NFL's elite when the teams can't even line up for a snap. The Associated Press, eager to dispense some sunshine, wrote after the game that the Lions' "67,861 fans created enough noise to rattle the Bears into nine false starts." If so, the fans need to be more judicious, because they rattled their own team into four neutral-zone infractions. In the end, Detroit and Chicago combined for 15 assorted penalties for premature action.
Early in the second quarter, though, with the Lions on offense, my glazed eyes noticed a pair of long blue socks lining up at the top of the screen. Hey, there's Calvin Johnson—and then Matthew Stafford heaved it down the field, and the towering receiver shed his initial defender, gathered in the ball, and stiff-armed the safety with disdain, like a mailman shutting the gate on a yappy Pomeranian. Seventy-three yards. For a brief moment, football seemed glorious.
Those moments were widely dispersed, though. There was a really fabulous gritty catch by the Bears' Devin Hester—one series after the speed specialist let a possible touchdown slip through his fingers—which set Chicago up for a touchdown and a 10-7 halftime lead. And there was the third-quarter handoff to the Lions' Jahvid Best, who darted through a nice big hole at his own 12-yard line, made a single cutback, and found the whole field open. The 88-yard run was the second-longest rushing touchdown in Detroit's history, the TV broadcast said.
I assumed the longest had belonged to the astonishing Barry Sanders, the only person who'd made Detroit Lions football interesting or relevant in my lifetime up till now. When I checked—the game did provide plenty of downtime for looking things up on the Internet—it turned out that Sanders's longest career run was only 85 yards. Nor was it a touchdown. The actual record-holder is Bob Hoernschemeyer, who broke off a 96-yard scoring run against the New York Yanks (né New York Bulldogs) on Thanksgiving Day in 1950.
Where was I? Oh, the Lions-Bears game. Right. The Lions are good, probably? Their offense was like an 11-man tribute to Sanders: no gain, no gain, no gain, long touchdown, no gain, no gain. And Detroit certainly did have the best player on the field, regardless of which team had the ball: Johnson when they were on offense, and Ndamukong Suh on defense. Detroit's rampaging defensive line could have been the story of the game, if they hadn't kept undoing their own efforts with roughing or facemasking or illegal use of the hands.
But they did keep getting flagged, and so Bears quarterback Jay Cutler kept picking himself up off the ground to confront yet another set of downs, whether he wanted it or not. The announcers, groping for something uplifting to say about the game (actual quote: "The Bears respond! Forte! Lost a yard"), seized on Cutler as their protagonist: "This is a great performance by Jay Cutler. ... He is just slinging strikes right now. ... He might be the toughest guy I've ever seen tonight. ... He's doing it all right now."
And it was remarkable, in its way. The play-by-play, with cruel indifference to degree of difficulty, merely says "pass short left ... pass short left ... pass incomplete short left ... pass short right." But Cutler—last seen being criticized for his failure to stick out a playoff game on a wrecked knee—was constantly on the run, throwing off the wrong foot, delivering the ball to the nearest Bear he could find. Not many quarterbacks would have been able to match that desperate precision, under the circumstances.
By game's end, the Bears had become detached from the traditional narrative logic of game calling, let alone the deeper percentage calculations. The clock was dying and the percentages were dying even faster. The only thing for the Bears to do was to strike for a touchdown—to have already struck for a touchdown—for them to have any imaginable chance of winning the game.
But Cutler had crossed over into the same waking nightmare state that Donovan McNabb was in during Super Bowl XXXIX, as the Eagles offense dawdled away any hopes of a comeback. Cutler's intentions no longer had anything to do with winning, or even scoring—his world had shrunk down to the space between finding the next dumpoff receiver and getting clobbered by the Lions again. Checkdown, crawl to his feet, checkdown once more. That was the only thing he could do, so he did it.


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Happy Saturday! Today is my sister Erin's birthday. 26 years old. Happy birthday Enna!
Yesterday we did more clear-coating of the wood (boo, I hate polyurethane. but it works.) Shane got some baseboard / trim installed (which I forgot to get pictures of! dangit) We installed our incinerating toilet! So exciting.


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Beginners Slow Flow Yoga
June 17, 2021 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
This is a fun class working on strength, flexibility and balance. It's a great introduction to yoga.
Harjean's classes are designed to focus on the synchronicity of breath and movement, this is when we can heal the body and bring calmness to the mind.
Harjean's classes allow you to develop both strength and flexibility while being mindful and present at the same time. And also having some fun at the same time! There is an element of both challenging the body and remaining calm and present that Harjean tries to instil in her classes. Prepare to feel relaxed, sleep better, feel calmer, reduce stress, and become flexible and strong. While yoga translates as 'yoke' or coming together, let's bring the elements of breath and movement together bringing freshness into the mind and body. See you on the mat!
Zoom meeting details
Meeting ID: 876 2609 7931
Passcode: 486376


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DIAMOND BAR >> Police arrested a new mother on suspicion of manslaughter and drunken driving Sunday morning after a horrific wrong-way collision on the 60 Freeway left six people dead.
Five women and one man died in the 5 a.m. head-on accident between a red Chevy Camaro and a Ford Explorer, California Highway Patrol officials said. The incident occurred in the westbound lanes of the 60 Freeway, just west of Phillips Ranch Road. At least one "tall boy" style beer can was discovered at the scene.
Olivia Carolee Culbreath, 21, of Fontana was arrested. The dead, who were not identified, included a 24-year-old Chino woman a 24-year-old Rialto woman, officials said.
"There was alcoholic beverage evidence," CHP officer Rodrigo Jimenez said. "We're treating this as a crime scene."
At least two people were thrown onto the freeway in the collision, he added. The driver and lone occupant in a third vehicle — described as a Ford Freestyle — also suffered minor injuries, officials said.
It was uncertain how many passengers were in either car.
"It's a horrific accident. Our hearts go out the family members and friends of the victims," Jimenez said as he gestured toward an unrecognizable tangle of metal about 100 yards away.
Culbreath was taken to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center where she was treated for injuries she suffered in the crash. She was wheeled from a recovery room to a lock-up in the hospital and appeared to be on a respirator and under sedation Sunday afternoon. CHP officials planned to interview Culbreath when she regained consciousness.
No family visited the woman. A CHP officer was posted at Culbreath's bedside.
Wendell Johnson of Rancho Cucamonga, a friend, said the group in Culbreath's car had been on a "girls' night out" in "Downtown Fullerton." He found out about the "horrible" accident reading his Twitter feed Sunday morning.
"It's the worst way to learn something like this," he said. "This is just horrible."
Johnson posted several heartfelt updates to Twitter throughout the afternoon.
"RIP to my big sis … I known you for like 10 years…" read one.
Another said, "RIP to my sis … man I can't believe this."
Although not related, Johnson said he was very close to two of the dead women.
"It was like we were blood," he said. "I've known them for like a long time."
He said he saw the women last week and planned to visit Culbreath at home Sunday.
"She just had a baby. I was supposed to go see her."
Social media accounts linked to Culbreath indicated she gave birth to a child in late-January.
One witness at the scene described seeing a 24-oz. beer can in the front seat area of the Camaro, as well as a tassel similar to those worn during school graduations.
Minutes before the crash, officials began receiving reports that a car was heading north in the southbound lanes of the 57 Freeway, then east in the westbound lanes of the 60 Freeway, according to CHP officials and logs. Witnesses reported the car was travelling at high speed, with estimates ranging from 70 mph to more than 100 mph.
"About 4:40 a.m. we received numerous phone calls of a wrong-way driver," Jimenez said. "Eventually that Camaro ended up crashing."
Four people were pronounced dead at the scene when paramedics arrived, Los Angeles County Fire Department Dispatch Supervisor Melanie Flores said. Three people were rushed to the hospital in critical condition. A rescue helicopter was landed on the freeway.
Two of the badly injured succumbed to their injuries at the UC Irvine Medical Center, Los Angeles County Department of Coroner's officials said.
Investigators examined the scene for hours and set at least 45 numbered evidence marker cards amid the wreckage.
All westbound lanes of the 60 Freeway at Phillips Ranch Road between the 71 Freeway and Diamond Bar Boulevard, as well as the westbound Phillips Ranch Road onramp, were shut down for eight hours following the crash.
The crash is being investigated by officers from the Baldwin Park office of the CHP.
— Staff Writers Frank C. Girardot and Greg Cappis contributed to this report.


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Promotions for pitchers Sowers, Laffey?
If the Indians find themselves in need of an alternative for their starting pitching rotation, they may actually have a couple.
Left-hander Jeremy Sowers, demoted to Triple-A Buffalo on June 10, appears to be finding himself. Left-hander Aaron Laffey has been impressive enough that the Bisons' starting rotation was juggled this week to allow Laffey to be on the same turn as struggling Cleveland lefty Cliff Lee.
While Lee prepared to start against Boston at Jacobs Field, Laffey worked the opener of Buffalo's doubleheader against Charlotte, allowing two runs over six innings of a 5-4 loss. He is 7-0 with a 1.75 ERA in June and July and 11-4, 2.94 in 13 combined appearances at Buffalo and Double-A Akron.
Laffey told the Buffalo News he was able to concentrate despite rumors of an impending promotion and having been pulled from his start Sunday after 48 pitches to allow him to work Thursday on three days of rest.
"I came in and tried to treat it like any other start," said Laffey, who threw 97 pitches against Charlotte.. "I didn't have time to let a lot of outside thoughts enter my mind. I treated it as if I was going to be here and, if I did get the call, I'd be happy and excited."
The 22-year-old Laffey, drafted in the 16th round in 2003, has been one of the fastest-rising pitching prospects in the organization.
Sowers was no longer considered a prospect in 2006, not after he fared well in 14 starts for Cleveland (7-4, 3.57). He could not duplicate that success this summer, however, and was sent to Buffalo after 12 mostly forgettable starts for the Indians (1-6, 6.93).
The 24-year-old first-round draft pick from 2004 fared nearly as poorly during his first six starts at Buffalo (0-4, 5.82 ERA), but may be on the way back. In his two most recent starts, Sowers has allowed one run over 14 innings, striking out 13.
"I think he's starting to figure it out, feeling things he's felt before in a positive sense with his delivery," Indians Manager Eric Wedge said. "There were a bunch of little things that needed to come together to make a difference for him."
Wedge was asked if Sowers would be a candidate, should the Indians find themselves with a potential opening in their rotation.
"He would obviously be involved in conversations," Wedge said.
TRADE TIME? Indians Manager Eric Wedge said he has "a sense" any trade the Indians might make won't take place until shortly before Tuesday's deadline. "If we don't do something, it wasn't for a lack of effort, not being aggressive and not kicking every tire and turning over every stone," Wedge said.
THE FULTZ WATCH LHP Aaron Fultz (rib cage) will throw a simulated game today. If all goes well, he will begin a minor-league rehabilitation assignment next week. Wedge said Fultz would probably pitch in at least two minor-league games before being activated.
PLAY NICE Victor Martinez and Cliff Lee were battery mates again Thursday, five days after being involved in a dugout scrap that led to a postgame team meeting. "In all honesty, I did not give it a thought until five or six seconds ago, when you mentioned it," Wedge told reporters.
CELEBRITY GUEST Former Indians Manager Frank Robinson threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Robinson was in town to appear at a corporate function.
ON THE FARM Single-A Lake County left-hander Ryan Morris allowed only a solo home run over four innings Wednesday, but the Captains fell 4-3 to the Hickory Crawdads. Morris had made his first five starts of the season for the Gulf Coast League Indians (3-0, 1.80) before being promoted. He was drafted in the fourth round last year from South Mecklenburg (N.C.) High School.
Reach Canton Repository sports writer Andy Call at (330) 580-8346 or e-mail firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Hi Space Visitor:
For more action, space sound, rotating ojects & satelites visit :
Houston, we got a problem!
This pano and "360 Moonwalk SE" contents borrowed images from NASA. They won't be selling for infringement of copy rights
The planet Earth has proven to be too limiting for our awesome community of panorama photographers. We're getting an increasing number of submissions that depict locations either not on Earth (like Mars, the Moon, and Outer Space in general) or do not realistically represent a geographic location on Earth (either because they have too many special effects or are computer generated) and hence don't strictly qualify for our Panoramic World project.But many of these panoramas are extremely beautiful or popular of both.So, in order to accommodate our esteemed photographers and the huge audience that they attract to 360Cities with their panoramas, we've created a new section (we call it an "area") called "Out of this World" for panoramas like these.Don't let the fact that these panoramas are being placed at the Earth's South Pole fool you - we had to put them somewhere in order not to interfere with our Panoramic World.Welcome aboard on a journey "Out of this World".


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Hey y'all!
If my greeting wouldn't already indicate as being the case, I've been feelin' a little bit country recently. Now, I know you guys know that I'm all about my country music and southern pride, but this past week my sentiments for both have been magnified greatly as I attended CMA Fest and the CMT Music Awards. It was so amazing! After many years of begging my mom, I finally convinced her that we could go! If there is one thing college has taught me, it's how to effectively win an argument with the parentals... hehehe ;) The week was absolutely exhausting, since I only got averaged about 4 hours of sleep each night, but it was entirely worth it.
It was really cool to witness an awards show in person. There were so many amazing collaborations among artists from different genres. Jason Aldean closed the show with the help of rapper Ludacris, and Justin Bieber even made an appearance at the show! While the CMT Awards were definitely memorable, I'd say that the highlight of the week by far was getting to meet some of my favorite country stars. I camped out on a lonely street in Nashville one night, so I could get passes to meet Martina McBride, Kellie Pickler, and Lady Antebellum! My plan worked amazingly well, and they were all so sweet when I got to meet them! A lot of people thought I was nuts for choosing to camp out, but I've come to learn that life only lends itself to so many once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, and you must take advantage of them.
The remainder of my time in Nashville was spent attending nightly concerts where mega-stars like Taylor Swift (AHHH!), Miranda Lambert, and Keith Urban performed. There were even guest appearances by Season 10 American Idol winner, Scotty McCreery, and runner-up, Lauren Alaina. I got several opportunities to see Scotty throughout the week, and boy lemme tell ya, he's so stinkin' presh, I'd sop him up with a biscuit if I could!
More From Seventeen
I must admit, I was pretty sad to see this wonderful week come to an end, but hey, I'll be back soon enough when I land my dream job with CMT as a broadcast journalist one day. ;) I'm so pumped to see what the remainder of my first summer as a college student has in store for me!
"I may be crazy, but it keeps me from going insane."
-Waylon Jennings
No worry beef curry, XOs, and all that other jazz,
Katie :)


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|Device Drivers Manual (i386)
NAME¶perfmon — CPU performance-monitoring interface
SYNOPSIS¶cpu I586_CPU
cpu I686_CPU
options PERFMON
DESCRIPTION¶The perfmon driver provides access to the internal performance-monitoring capabilities of the Intel Pentium and Pentium Pro CPUs. These processors implement two internal counters which can be configured to measure a variety of events for either count or duration (in CPU cycles), as well as a cycle counter which counts clock cycles. The perfmon driver provides a device-style interface to these capabilities. All access to the performance-monitoring counters is performed through the special device file "/dev/perfmon". This device supports a number of ioctl(2) requests, defined in <machine/perfmon.h> along with the definitions of the various counters for both Pentium and Pentium Pro processors. NOTA BENE: The set of available events differs from processor to processor. It is the responsibility of the programmer to ensure that the event numbers used are the correct ones for the CPU type being measured. The following ioctl(2) requests are defined:
- (
struct pmc) Set up a counter with parameters and flags defined in the structure. The following fields are defined in
struct pmc:
int pmc_num
- the number of the counter in question; must be less
NPMC(currently 2).
u_char pmc_event
- the particular event number to be monitored, as defined in <machine/perfmon.h>.
u_char pmc_unit
- the unit mask value, specific to the event type (see the Intel documentation).
u_char pmc_flags
- flags modifying the operation of the counter (see below).
u_char pmc_mask
- the counter mask value; essentially, this is a threshold used to restrict the count to events lasting more (or less) than the specified number of clocks.
pmc_flagsvalues are defined:
- count events in user mode
- count events in kernel mode
- count number of events rather than their duration
- invert the sense of the counter mask comparison
- (
struct pmc) returns the current configuration of the specified counter.
- (
int) starts (stops) the specified counter. Due to hardware deficiencies, counters must be started and stopped in numerical order. (That is to say, counter 0 can never be stopped without first stopping counter 1.) The driver will not enforce this restriction (since it may not be present in future CPUs).
- (
int) reset the specified counter to zero. The counter should be stopped with
PMIOSTOPbefore it is reset. All counters are automatically reset by
- (
struct pmc_data) get the current value of the counter. The
pmc_datastructure defines two fields:
int pmcd_num
- the number of the counter to read
quad_t pmcd_value
- the resulting value as a 64-bit signed integer
RDPMCinstruction on Pentium Pro processors to read the counters directly.
- (
struct pmc_tstamp) read the time stamp counter. The
pmc_tstampstructure defines two fields:
int pmct_rate
- the approximate rate of the counter, in MHz
quad_t pmct_value
- the current value of the counter as a 64-bit integer
pmct_ratefield, is often incorrect because of calibration difficulties and non-integral clock rates. This field should be considered more of a hint or sanity-check than an actual representation of the rate of clock ticks.
- /dev/perfmon
- character device interface to counters
- /usr/include/machine/perfmon.h
- include file with definitions of structures and event types
- /usr/share/examples/perfmon
- sample source code demonstrating use of all the ioctl() commands
SEE ALSO¶ioctl(2), hwpmc(4) Intel Corporation, Pentium Pro Family Developer's Manual, vol. 3, January 1996, Operating System Writer's Manual.
HISTORY¶The perfmon device first appeared in FreeBSD 2.2.
AUTHORS¶The perfmon driver was written by Garrett A. Wollman, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science.
|March 26, 1996


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There are a lot of reasons why we need to start exploring new models of ministry in the life of the Episcopal Church. Most of these reasons, for me, have to do with a genuine and gospel-based desire to be more collegial and collaborative and mission-minded – to get over ourselves, get outside of ourselves, and better form disciples of Jesus Christ. That argument goes over pretty well with the lay leaders I have the pleasure of working with at St. George's, Valley Lee. I'm also blessed that several neighbor Episcopal congregations – their clergy and lay leaders – are also on board with this desire to do more and be more, together.
Pitching 'collaboration' and 'mission' to top-level leadership in the Episcopal Church comes with conceptual approval, but also hesitancy and critical distance from suggestions from the field, coupled with good, if not uselessly airy and idealistic wonderings about whether and how we can "tweak the existing system(s)" and who has the power and authority to do so anyway. The further you get from day-to-day life on the ground in the Episcopal Church, the further you get from life as a parish priest or congregational lay leader, the more you see only the meta-data and larger trends.
Here's yet one more reason why we need to start exploring new models of ministry: we can't afford the current one much longer.
In 2012, the missions and congregations of The Episcopal Church brought in $1,303,458,185 in pledge and plate contributions. That's based on the 6,667 congregations and missions – both domestic and non-domestic. Simple division gives us $195,508 as, let's say, Average Pledge & Plate Giving. I know that pledge and plate giving is one part of determining the Parochial Report's Normal Operating Income (NOI), and I know the NOI is more than pledge and plate. But let's use this $195,508 number for three reasons: first, Kirk Hadaway and the Episcopal Church statistics gurus don't report the average NOI (and I really don't care that much to search further); second, the latter – namely, pledge and plate – is the singularly most reliable, albeit lagging indicator of actual ministry-based participation and giving in a given community; and third, I've already written about how utterly useless and stupid the NOI is.
Take our average Episcopal congregation, then: St. So-and-So's, with their annual pledge and plate offering of $195,508.
Let's say they tithe to the diocese (give $19,551), leaving $175,957. Now let's do the math.
Based on the clergy compensation scale in the Diocese of Washington, a priest with, let's say, three years of ministry-related experience should earn at least $49,057 in cash stipend, but when you follow the diocesan personnel guidelines you'll also factor in pension contribution (18% of the stipend is $8,830.26) and health insurance (two-person medical and dental in 2014 is $18,336) and a modest car and cell phone reimbursement (say, $5,000) and a continuing education line item (go with $1,000) and you'll get the total amount budgeted to having a full-time clergyperson is $82,223, leaving a remaining $93,734.
In this day and age, as well, a congregation poised for growth needs a support staff. Factor in a competent parish administrator who, let's say, only works twenty hours each week. That employee would earn at least $19,508 according to the Diocese of Washington lay compensation guidelines. Also, given the church's well-intended desire to achieve parity between lay and clergy ministers, there'd be an additional cost to health insurance (one person medical / dental is $10,224) and a matching contribution to a retirement savings account, say, $2,000. Added up, such a vital minister would cost $31,732. (If the parish administrator were full-time, that position would cost $51,241 – leaving $42,493 for everything else we haven't paid for yet. Such a package would never fly, however, so let's keep maintaining the delusion that there's a plethora of people on the job market with sufficient skills and gifts who are waiting, just waiting for part-time parish administrator gigs. Two further pieces are also important to maintaining this delusion: for one, you've got to pretend that this 20-hour/week parish administrator is able to move mountains and accomplish everything everyone wants him/her to do in that span of time; and, for another, you'll need to pretend that the former delusion also means that absolutely no administrative work will ever keep the rector at her/his desk and away from the ministry field.)
A part-time organist with a bachelor's degree and a mere five years' experience, one who's contracted to work only ten hours each week, would earn $12,524. Let's also be exceedingly kind to this fictional congregation and suggest that the music director, in question, doesn't need health insurance and opts out of the church providing some measure of retirement savings. Looking at the numbers, though, a local colleague of mine just hired a new organist / music director and the going rate, she reported, that most of the applicants quoted was $300 per service. With 52 Sundays in the year and three extra services (certainly Christmas Eve and maybe one or two others) that'd be a total compensation of $16,500. Splitting the difference, then, between the diocesan scale ($12,524) and the actual going rate ($16,500) let's say that a gifted and competent music director would cost $14,512.
Between the rector ($82,223), part-time parish administrator ($31,732) and very part-time music director ($14,512) this sample congregation would've spent $128,467 — and that's not including someone to clean and, maybe, a bookkeeper and/or a nursery caregiver or, perhaps, a formation director or youth minister. Let's pretend that the floors magically clean themselves and that there's a sufficient network of volunteers. Even among that limited personnel pool – rector, parish administrator and musician – that's 65% of St. So-and-So's pledge and plate collection. That startling number puts an even finer point on the financial struggle of most congregations; Kirk Hadaway from The Episcopal Church, in fact, softens this reality by focusing on Normal Operating Income (NOI), not pledge and plate. Based on a 2008 survey, Hadaway reports that congregations with an Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) between 51 and 100 spent 52% of their total NOI on staff, and those with an ASA of 151 – 350 spent 51%. Those percentages go down as the ASA gets smaller than 50 or larger than 350 (those with ASA between 1-25 spend 31% of the NOI on staff, 26-50 spend 45%; conversely, those with 351+ spend 49%), but that's because in smaller congregations there is hardly any staff support and a congregation has to have a lot of people in order for it to sustain the idea that there can be a full complement of staff. I know that ministry is more than paying staff positions, but it is hard to imagine that these reductions won't have a negative impact on how the Episcopal Church is able to deliver meaningful, transformative encounters with the living God in the various contexts and communities across this country. The unquestioned dominance of the one-parish/one-priest system is financially unsustainable, and we are quickly heading to a church in which there will be plenty of buildings but decreasing ministries.
If you're running the numbers in your head, St. So-and-So's would, at this point, have $67,041 remaining. They would need to budget that money on heating gas and/or oil ($10,000?), electricity and other utilities ($7,000?), household supplies and modest kitchen expenses ($4,000?), office expenses and staples and copier leases and paper and information technology support and needs ($7,000?). They would need to find some money for communion bread and wine, and they'd barely squeak out enough to really support the ministry of the altar guild and provide for meaningful and dynamic worship experiences ($6,000?). They'd most certainly continue to defer maintenance on their buildings and grounds and I'd suspect that they would only have a little bit to invest in modest clean-up or capital improvement efforts ($5,000?).
This isn't even mentioning Christian education programs ($10,000?) or social justice outreach work ($10,000?), ministry and mission that is the bread and butter of the Body of Christ. Apparently there won't be much, if any money left-over for supply clergy or guest organists, so those key ministers, the clergyperson and music director and parish administrator, will be limited in their ability to go away on vacation or retreat. So much money is spent on presence and personnel and property, I'll bet, that there's not a lot of room for dreaming about mission and ministry and what we can be doing in the wider community to make disciples of Jesus. At this point, we're down to about $8,000 remaining in wiggle room.
Add to this that even if the clergyperson has a truly missional calling and is ready to serve in this ministry context, the rector will, if s/he tries to follow the clergy compensation scale, price her/himself out of that congregation in less than five, probably fewer years of service there. That is to say, when that rector gets to eight years of ministry – this is, again, based on the Diocese of Washington's 2014 clergy compensation scale – s/he will be eligible for such a cash stipend and comparative increase in pension, not including the obvious increases to health insurance and other costs, such that the clergyperson's entire compensation package will consume any remaining surplus in the parish's checking account and start to drive down spending in other areas. In short, the clergyperson has less than a five year ministry in that place, lest s/he be the very reason why the congregation has to raid their savings account or investment income in order to manage cash flow, pay the heat bill, buy sufficient crayons for the Sunday School, or provide substantial help to someone who is truly in need.
And it is sure to follow that a congregation with a nearly guaranteed turnover of clergy leadership every five years, on average, is a sure bet for a congregation that will only continue on a downward spiral in energy — sure it'll spike with the new arrival but fall just as quickly thereafter — and a subsequent decline in time and giving and potential.
Not only can we much longer afford the currently dominant model of ministry in the Episcopal Church, but this is a time in which the moment is hot and, frankly, will quickly pass us by. Like it or not, we've arrived pretty late to the evangelism / mission game, but not so late that our numbers – our people and money, our total resources – are insufficient to the task at hand. We've actually got a healthier level of resources than many churches in our present situation.
But this is not a time to commission further studies or wonder who has the power to do what or ask fairly inane questions about how to transition the dominant system or shift the blame between diocese and congregation. No, this is a moment in which we know where we need to go and we have a pretty good stock of resources by which to do it.
So let's do it.


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When I looked at the photos when you first posted them, I did not find the second woman to be the most attractive. I preferred the first or the third, I forget which.
I think part of the reason is the first amazing confound in the study: #2 has tan lines. I find tan lines very unattractive, and they are also distracting. I probably just instantly dismissed the picture as less attractive than #1.
When I first looked at the photos originally and even now, my tendency was to mainly take into account the last photo in the set, with the zoom on the frontal view, because it contained more information than the others (the face was harder to see in the full body frontal). That last photo in the set is relatively more flattering for #1. From behind, #2 is the clear winner. However, when taking a quick glance, the last set of photos tends to dominate, because they are most detailed and include the best view of the face.
Also, I think there are dimensions other than femininity on which I found #2 to be less attractive. I prefer straight hair to waving hair. And I found her breasts to look a bit maternal (an effect that the tan lines made even worse), unlike the other two's, even though theirs were a bit small for my taste. #1's face just seems prettier to me. I think her lips look slightly fuller, and the eyelashes on top of her eyes are darker and make her eyes look more attractive. Her nose is closer to her lips, which I find more attractive. #1's face is a bit masculine for my taste, and #3's is much too masculine, though #2's face just looks very plain.
Furthermore, when I looked at all the photos in quick succession, there was a contrast effect which made each of the three photos in this post standout from the others (which were substantially less attractive), but made them stand out less from each other.
I think what this shows is that within the range of moderately attractive women (perhaps 0.25 SD above the mean to 1.25 SD), it's possible for a woman to get over a slight lack of femininity due to other factors in beauty other than femininity. However, in the range of very attractive women (perhaps 1.5+ SD), a substantial amount of femininity is necessary, since femininity is such as large factor in female attractiveness.
If this hypothesis is correct, then I think it may clarify a confusion that many people have with this site: they think you are saying that non-feminine women are ugly or automatically unattractive. In reality, there are plenty of women without high levels of femininity that are attractive and dateable to the average male (who would be thrilled to have a girlfriend of 0.25 SD above the mean in attractiveness), and attractive men will even be down with women 0.25-0.5 SD below them in attractiveness.
Although I suspect that men's attraction to women increases linearly or perhaps exponentially with femininity up to a certain point, I would speculate that the actually mate choice they show in their behavior follows a threshold model or a step model. He just needs to feel that she is "hot," "cute," or at least "doable," and within women who exceed that threshold, other factors become more important in mate choices, such as her personality traits and availability.
What you seem to argue on this blog instead is that a high level of femininity is necessary for women to break into the elite levels of attractiveness, such as the level that beauty pageants and fashion models should be at.
Consequently, my intuition is to summarize the importance of femininity in beauty like this:
1. A certain low cutoff point of femininity must be exceeded for a woman to be considered attractive at all by most heterosexual men. This is the cutoff to avoid looking like a transgendered person or a butch lesbian. Without meeting that cutoff, there is no way for a woman to be considered a sexual prospect by most (heterosexual and sober) men, no matter what level of she has of factors in attractiveness other than femininity.
2. A certain high cutoff point of femininity must be exceeded for a woman to be considered extremely attractive by most heterosexual men. Without meeting that cutoff, there is no way for a woman to be considered a goddess by most heterosexual men, no matter what level of the other factors in attractiveness she has.
3. Yet in between those cutoff points, femininity is still important, but other factors in beauty can also be relatively important (makeup and clothes can also have a larger effect on attractiveness). This region is where most heterosexual men are operating, and these are most of the women they are choosing in their actual behavior as dates and girlfriends. They might prefer women who exceed the high cutoff of femininity and attractiveness, but most men will not have access to these women.
To what degree does this summary match your intuitions?


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land art
land art or earthworks, art form developed in the late 1960s and early 70s by Robert Smithson, Robert Morris, Michael Heizer, and others, in which the artist employs the elements of nature in situ or rearranges the landscape with earthmoving equipment. The resulting work, often vast in scale, is subject to all natural changes, such as temperature variations, light and darkness, wind, and erosion. The technique was in part an attempt to counter the perception of art as an acquirable commodity, although as the movement developed such items as site photographs, cartographic studies, and artists' notebooks were made available to collectors. Smithson's Spiral Jetty (1970), a huge spiral of rock and salt crystal in the Great Salt Lake, Utah, is a characteristic example of the land art form. Because of the fluctuating water level of the lake, Spiral Jetty is not always visible. Heizer's vast City (1971–) in the Nevada desert is probably the largest land art project yet attempted. Another monumental work is James Turrell's Roden Crater, an extinct volcano near Flagstaff, Ariz., the interior of which he has transformed since the 1970s into an enormous work of art with rooms, tunnels, and openings to the sky. Robert Morris constructed outdoor earthworks in the 1960s and 70s, but land art is just one of the movements with which he has been associated. Among other artists who have worked in the land art genre are Dennis Oppenheim, Alice Aycock, Nancy Holt, Richard Long, Walter De Maria, Newton and Helen Harrison, and Andy Goldsworthy.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: American and Canadian Art


text:
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Richie Ads comes with native components for iOS, Android, Windows and HTML5 web apps, and is fully integrated with Richie's other app components. Richie Ads is also an ad server and a full-fledged supply side platform, enabling you to sell your inventory directly, keep 100% of your ad revenue, and maintain full control of your data.
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text:
I've wanted to update my jellyfish from 2000 for quite a while now but for some reason never got around to it. Believe it or not Googled "jelly fish" before I started this update to do a little research and my old render showed up on the first page of results!
I was aiming for a bit more color this time around and to create
a better sense of depth. People are (rightly) fascinated by alien life from other worlds, but mind-boggling creatures do exist on our very own planet...
Let me know what you think of the update!


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Hiring by Age: More Evidence of a Skills Gap?
I know its a tough labor market for young people and recent college grads, but they still represented a larger portion of new hires in NH in 2011 than would be expected based on the percentage of employment by age in the state. The chart below shows the age distribution of employment in NH in 2011 along with the percentage of new hires in the state by age group. Although job growth has been slow this recovery, the chart still shows that among those who have been hired for a new job (that is the hiring that is not a "call back" of a previously laid-off worker), younger workers make up a disproportionate number of the new hires.
This could be more evidence of, as well as a subset of, the "skills gap" debate. Many employers complain that the skills that young workers and recent grads posses don't match their needs, and this is true for many occupations, but what this data also seems to suggest is that the mismatch between the demands of employers and those seeking work among the existing workforce is even greater than that for younger workers and new entrants to the labor force. It suggests a bigger problem than just getting kids into the right majors and training programs (although that is a big part of it). It points to a larger problem of a fundamental change in the types of occupations in demand (or the skills required of the same occupations) as well as a "twist" in the labor market that results in differences in the occupational make-up of industries. It is a much more difficult , slower, and likely painful process to have the existing workforce adapt to these changes in order to increase their employment prospects than it is to begin with the next generation of workers, although both will challenge future employment and economic growth for some time.
Of course it is possible that employers just prefer younger and perhaps less expensive workers and that is what accounts for their outsized share of recent new hires. Or it could be a function of the type of industries that were hiring in 2011 (I will be examining this hypothesis). It may be more comforting to view labor market trends from those perspectives but it won't get us any closer to taking the personal and policy actions necessary to create greater alignment between the skills of our workforce and the skills needed for a more prosperous economy.Explore posts in the same categories: employment, job growth, Labor, NH Economy, Skills Gap
Tags: age, employment, job growth, NH, Skills gapYou can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
One Comment on "Hiring by Age: More Evidence of a Skills Gap?"
December 12, 2012 at 6:30 pm
Skills gaps do exist and are getting worse in the economy today, and it's prudent for communities to invest in solutions. One of them is career and technical education (CTE), which has proven to produce a return in areas like improved student achievement, career prospects, more trained workers for the jobs of today and improved community vitality.
The Industry Workforce Needs Council is a new group of businesses working together to spotlight skills gaps and advocate for CTE as a means of bridging them. For stats and other information, or to join the effort, visit http://www.iwnc.org.
Jason Sprenger, for the IWNC


text: Check out Eiko Ishibashi's cool new video for "shadow." A lot of interesting things come up in in a Eiko Ishibashi search, such as her involvement in punk bands Panicsmile and Mong Hang (Keitamo's band before he joined BEAT CRUSADERS!). But judging by this peaceful track her solo career is chill as can be. Her new album carapace, produced by Jim O'Rourke of Sonic Youth, came out last week in Japan.


text:
I recently posted photos of an unknown aggressive-looking INSECT that I found in the coppice on Abaco. I could only get a partial shot of it, and I wondered whether to try to reach it and get a more complete shot. Perhaps I could have stroked its dear little back… or tickled its cute feelers… I received various ID suggestions, ranging from the entomologically broad hedge-bet "big black beetle" to a more precise "black praying mantis". I contacted the BNT to see what they thought. I'm glad I did. It turns out that this creature would be the hardest bastard insect on Planet Bastard. It is a SPIDER WASP of the Pompilidae family, almost certainly a TARANTULA HAWK aka PEPSIS WASP. It's fortunate that I didn't try to pet it or keep it in a matchbox. Note, for start, the scary eating apparatus… and it's not nibbling leaves as I had thought, but chopping up a small insect. The leg claws and barbs are for pinning down its prey. You would not believe how unpleasant these little buddies are – and that's before we even mention the sting…
These wasps (family name Pompilidae) are known in some countries as "horse-killers". There are many species around the world, with 6 subspecies, one of which being the Tarantula Hawk or Pepsis Wasp – so-called because it hunts tarantulas and uses them in a most ingenious and cruel way… NB The BNT have rightly pointed out that these insects are unaggressive to humans. If you leave them alone, they will spare you. I've also read "The tarantula hawk is relatively docile and rarely stings without provocation" Now read on to see if it's worth provoking one
SPIDER WASPS are 'Solitary' insects that feed on ground spiders/ tarantulas by stinging them to paralyse them, then eating them. The females also make use of spiders for breeding purposes. They build a nest in a burrow, find a spider, paralyse it with their sting, drag it to the nest and lay a single egg on its abdomen. Then they seal up the burrow.
When the egg hatches the larva chews a hole on the spider's abdomen and enters a living larder. It gradually eat its host as it grows. The spider's vital organs are left till last, so that the spider stays alive as long as possible until the larva has reached full-size. After several weeks, the larva spins a cocoon and pupates (often over winter). Finally, the wasp becomes an adult, bursts Alien-like from the spider's abdomen, and tunnels out of the burrow…
Credit: Paul Nylander http://bugman123.com
- Their hunting improves with experience – the more spiders they eat, the quicker they find, attack & kill them
- Males use 'perch territories' to scan for receptive females from a tall plant or other vantage point, a behaviour known as HILL-TOPPING
- Adult wasps also feed on a variety of plants for nectar & pollen. They may become intoxicated on fermented fruit, which affects their ability to get around (I think we've all been there at some time…)
- The female Pepsis gets her spider in two main ways: approaching a tarantula causing it to rear up defensively on its legs, thus exposing its abdomen to the sting or
- She locates a tarantula's burrow, using her sense of smell. She tricks the spider into emerging by tweaking the web at the burrow's entrance or 'intruding' (see video below)
- The wasp uses her long stinger to stab her prey. The poison rapidly paralyses the spider. She then drags it to her burrow, lays her egg onto the tarantula's abdomen, seals the burrow and leaves. Job done
- The hooked claws and barbs on the wasps' long legs are weapons for grappling with victims
- The stinger of a female tarantula hawk can be up to 7 mm (1/3 inch) long – and the sting is among the most painful insect stings in the world (see below)
- Only the females sting (males may pretend to) because the stinger is linked to the ovipositor (egg-laying organ)
- You can distinguish females from males by the curled antennae of the female. Mine was therefore female
- The Pepsis wasp has (unsurprisingly) very few predators, though roadrunners and bullfrogs may tackle them
Here is a hypnotically fascinating 3-minute video of the life-or-death struggle
SPIDER WASP –v- TARANTULA
The sting of these wasps is among the most painful of any insect, though the most intense pain lasts on a few minutes. Entomologist Justin Schmidt bravely submitted himself to the stings of various insects and described this pain as "…immediate, excruciating pain that simply shuts down one's ability to do anything, except, perhaps, scream. Mental discipline simply does not work in these situations."
Schmidt produced his SCHMIDT STING PAIN INDEX The pain scale, based on 78 species, runs from 0 to 4, with 4 given for the most intense pain. Spider Wasps of the species Pepsis – i.e. Tarantula Hawks – have a sting rating of 4.0, described as "blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath" Only the bite of the Bullet Ant (not found on Abaco!) is ranked higher, with a 4.0+ rating, vividly described as "pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel"
(Thanks to Erik Carey (BNT), Shelley Cant (BNT) and Dr Paul Deluca for their ID help and interest)
1. In 1989, New Mexico chose the Tarantula hawk wasp as the official state insect. The choice seems to have been left to schoolchildren and I'm guessing here (or gender-stereotyping) but I suspect it was the boys' choice that won…
2. Tarantula Hawk is a "psychedelic progressive metal band" from San Diego, Ca. Their short discography includes their debut Tarantula Hawk (CD/LP, 1998); Burrow (Live CD, 2000, self-released); and Untitled. I'll just check if… OMG!! you can even get these on iTunes… and (OMG!!!) Am@z@n. The cover of their debut provides the perfect ending for this post, vividly depicting the colour and texture of the swirling fiery pain you could experience (and I don't really mean from listening to the music…)
Mr Gordon Sumner
STOP PRESS 2 or 3 weeks on, I find that this entire post has been translated into Portugese! It can be seen HERE. It's quite weird to read it, and I am tempted when I have a moment to re-use Google to translate it back into English. The two-way online translation game often leads to amusing results…


text:
Bản tiếng Anh của tản văn Trang Hạ "Vì sao tình yêu chưa tới?" đăng trên Tạp chí Nữ Doanh Nhân bản tiếng Anh, tháng 6/2012
Vô cùng cảm ơn các anh chị đã giúp Trang Hạ hiệu đính bản tiếng Anh này:
Anh Hà Nguyễn
Chị Linh Phan
Anh Ralph Hurtado
Author: Trang Ha
Where can your ideal love be found? Where can you find Mr. Perfect, who is ready to love you and possesses all the desired qualities a man should have?
Some female friends of mine, who are about 40, have never been in love with anyone. To be exact, they have never heard flirting words from men.
You took interest in a male classmate at high school, but you just kept it a secret. During your university days, you would always join in a group of female best friends whenever there was a meeting with students from other schools. Going to work, you got infatuated with your boss who was, however, married. You found all other colleagues, apart from your boss, childish and tasteless. Your friends got married, one by one, when they were about or over thirty years of age. At such an age, you got packed and left for your overseas studies. You then met another group who studied abroad because of having never been married. So you were able to feel how wise it was to pick up a life of singleness and freedom.
With no intention of marrying foreign guys, you took your overseas studies as a chance to experience a collection of cafés and bookstores in another country. You wouldn't return until your feet started to get tired. On returning to Vietnam, you became an adopted mother of your fellows' children. Whenever the New Year holidays approached, you got busy preparing lucky money for children not your own.
An idea suddenly sprung up to your mind, i.e., the ambition to explore Tibet. You then rushed off, following a group of online acquaintances. The journey gave you some enlightenment, both physical and mental. You soon became a reader of horoscope books. The more you read, the more interest you took. You wondered why you had not taken interest in traveling and the science of mysteries sooner. You get your working day at your office started with some reading of online newspapers. You also drop by blogs or the Facebook pages of your friends. There is a posting that keeps you longer than usual:
A construction firm has just won a bid. Its Director was the guy who once slept next to your shoes during the camping trip in your university days. It was quite a long time ago. Time flies! Such a period of time is long enough for an immature and childish adolescent to grow into a serious and successful man, yet he was not a part of your life.
The Sales Manager of a company answered in an interview about complaints from customers. The manager used to be nothing more than a dumpy girl. It is so unexpected that her father was former Deputy Manager of the mother company. Power just passes on throughout the familial relationships.
You find a few more good reasons to stay at this table with this computer and to browse through online news every morning.
A language school is recruiting students and offering attractive discounts on school fees. The guy running the school was once keen on online forums and got involved in several harsh quarrels with you. While he has already started his own business, you are still recollecting your distant memories.
Leaving the computer screen for some phone calls, you then get back to your seat where you again drop by your favourite websites.
~ ~ ~
At the age of 15, you could be easily touched by flirting words from a boy no matter who he was. You didn't care about either his personality traits or his family background. His academic excellence would mean everything.
At the age of 20, it was the time of romantic love. You were ready to kick your follower just because he didn't know what your favourite flowers were. Those who said sweet words could absolutely win your heart.
At the age of 30, an ideal image had to be a man both romantic and independent financially, also well-behaved and in favour of your relatives and friends.
At the age of 40, things started getting complicated. A desired man was supposed to be romantic, independent financially, well-behaved, also well-informed about current affairs, tasteful, known via the Internet, and not a home dictator. Above all, he had to be unmarried.
What would the ideal image of a lover be like at the age of 50?
You may never recognize that the ideal man at forty years of age is the childish guy in his twenties, the guy in his thirties struggling with life and career that you have left behind. You have never fallen in love with anyone as you have never given the childish guy a chance.
Not all the best things in life are wrapped in the best package. Understandably, you did let a good man go beyond your reach only because he did not look chic and said sweet words. He did not know how to win your heart either. He did not even have glowing success at the time he met you.
An honest and considerate man might look pretty clumsy. He has no idea of what kind of flowers you like, what kind of promise you prefer and what kind of compliments you love to hear. That's why you leave him behind at the age of 20.
A successful man may originally be an arrogant man with big self-illusions on the way to establishing himself. He is hectic with every single opportunity that comes to him. You find it hard to fall in love with such a weird guy.
A good husband who loves his wife and children, and knows how to shoulder the burden with you, might be a heavy smoker who is absent-minded and scruffy-looking, comes from a poor family background, rides a run-down motorbike, and has no idea of the 'in' movies and singers. Again, you have missed a potential husband right at the first round.
Amidst the despair at your current life, you keep sobbing with romance movies which feature handsome guys who are faithful and passionate in love, successful in life, and always ready to please their girlfriends. 'Where can good men be found?' you think unhappily, 'From whom can I hear three words – I love you? Why are good men already married? Where are unmarried good men? Where and where?'
They are not beyond your reach. In fact, they have always been beside you since your early adolescence up until your middle age.
The problem is you have never been aware of who they are.


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August 1st Monday– Nagara Chathurthi
August 2nd Tuesday – Nagara Panchami
Nagara Chauthi is the fourth day of the Shravana masa. On this day married women take head bath and wearing wet clothes (or washed clothes separately) which makes it very pure, either do the pooje to the snake hootha or place a silver idol of Nagappa and continue. Unboiled milk or raw milk, haldi, soaked kadale, gejjevastra and flowers are offered to the idol of Nagappa. Women who do the pooje on this day fast as well. This is how we do the pooje in Madhwa houses. No fried items are prepared during this day. Women also prepare thambittu and do aarathi to Nagappa using the same. All this needs to be done in madi.
P.S: No Kumkum is applied to Nagappa on Chauthi. The gejjevastra is prepared by applying Haldi. No deep fired items as well.
Next day being the Nagara Panchami, everyone in the house performs the pooje; including children. If you are offering milk to the idol of Nagappa; it is customary to do the pooje to Nagappa as soon as you wake up, take a shower and even before drinking your coffee in the morning. As done in the previous day, place a silver plate, keep the idol of Nagappa. Pour 3 times milk, water, haldi, kumkum, gejjevastra, flowers and kadale. Prepare the thambittu and do the aarathi.
P.S:Kumkum is applied to Nagappa on Panchami. The gejjevastra is prepared by applying Kumkum. No deep fired items as well.
It is also customary to draw images of Nagappa on the front door, hosthilu and also near the place you worship using rice paste. Haldi, kumkum, gejje vastra and flowers are applied to these as well.
Lord Krishna was playing ball with his friends, when suddenly the ball got entangled in the high branch of a tree. Krishna volunteered to climb the tree and fetch the ball. But below the tree the river Yamuna was flowing in full glory, in which the snake Kalinga was living. Nobody dared to go near that place. Lord Krishna ignoring the warnings of his friends jumps into the water. The dangerous 'Kalinga" serpent comes up. But Krishna was ready and jumping on the snake's head, starts dancing on its head. Kalinga realizes the strength of Lord Krishna and pleads with Krishna: "Please, do not kill me." Krishna takes sympathy on Kalinga and after taking a promise that henceforth he would not harm anybody, he let the snake go free into the river again. Hence, Nag Panchami is also commemorated as a day of victory of Lord Krishna over Kalinga the legendary snake.
What to eat during Nagara Chauthi?
So, here are the items you can prepare during this day, when you are not supposed to fry anything.
- Mosaru Avalakki
- Cucumber Kosambari
- Gojju Avalakki
- Rava Idli
What to eat during Nagara Panchami? No frying on this day as well. And no dish made out of Vermicelli or Shavige.
To prepare Thambittu follow this procedure:
P.S: Nagara Panchami Haadu/Song is posted here


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Drivers catch a break as gasoline prices fall
NEW YORK – A summer road trip may not be such a bad idea after all.
Gasoline prices are falling fast. In the past 7 weeks, the average U.S. retail prices has dropped 38 cents to $3.60 per gallon. Another 25-cent drop is expected by mid-July.
When prices approached $4 in early May, drivers were worried that $5 gasoline was a possibility this summer. But since then, oil prices have collapsed, the result of slowing economic growth in developed countries, weaker demand for oil and gas and this week's decision by the U.S. and other countries to release 60 million barrels of oil from strategic reserves. Economists say falling prices will benefit consumers by leaving money in their wallets, and making them feel freer to spend on travel, shopping and dining.
Ron Meyers, 51, a handyman from Little Rock, Ark., was doubtful that he could afford the drive to visit family in Pennsylvania. Now, thanks to cheaper gas, the trip is on. And he plans on seeing a few more summer movies, too.
"You can go out and have a good time, and have a little money left in your pocket," he said.
Economists say that while, for instance, a 25-cent-per-gallon drop only saves the typical driver $12.50 per month, it has a huge effect both on the economy as a whole and on the psychology of consumers.
Naveen Agarwal, who helps small businesses and car companies manage fuel costs as CEO of Pricelock, in Redwood City, Calif, said he expects drivers will travel farther distances this summer than originally planned. And they'll spend as they go.
"They'll be a little bit more liberal about their consumption instead of just having a barbeque in their back yard," Agarwal said.
Instead of thinking of ways to cut back, the Dykstra family of Orange City, Iowa, will now be able to spend a little more on meals and souvenirs when it visits Chicago.
"We actually budgeted for $5 a gallon," Mark Dykstra, 46, a supermarket assistant manager who will be travelling with his three teenage children, said earlier this week.
For the first five months of the year, gasoline prices went in one direction: up. Growing economies, especially in Asia, burned more gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa prevented oil from reaching the market and scared oil traders into bidding prices higher.
Oil peaked at $114 per barrel in April. It's now at $91 per barrel after a 2 percent drop this week.
Energy economists and Wall Street investment bankers caution that oil is likely to rise above $100 again next year, particularly if oil producers struggle to meet rising global demand. Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico or further unrest in the Middle East could also boost prices.
Agarwal expects gasoline prices will return to a range of $3.50 to $3.75 per gallon by the end of the year. Goldman Sachs and other investment banks predict oil will rebound next year to levels that would push gasoline above $4 for the first time since 2008.
"If you're asking whether gasoline could be $3.50 or higher forever, the answer is yes," said oil analyst Andrew Lipow. "People will have to make some adjustments."
Adzi Vokhiwa, 22, of Acworth, Ga., is relieved by the price drop, but skeptical. "It almost doesn't matter because I know (prices) are going to go back up again," she said.
She commutes 60 miles a day from her home in Acworth, Ga. to her job in downtown Atlanta. Twice a week she puts $40 worth of gasoline into her Kia Soul, and has asked her boss to change her schedule so she can carpool a couple of days a week.
High gasoline prices have made it tougher for Vokhiwa to save for graduate school. But for now, at least, she says she'll have a little more money to put towards that goal.
Randy Herring, 46, of Montpelier, Vt. had been borrowing his wife's Subaru Legacy instead of driving his Chevy Tahoe SUV and he had even contemplated pulling out his bicycle. Now he's employing a strategy to capitalize on the falling prices. He's started to give the Tahoe the equivalent of a sip of gasoline every so often so he doesn't miss out on the coming savings.
"Whatever I need for the week, and that's it," Herring said.
Associated Press Writers Michael Rubinkam in Allentown, Penn. and Barbara Rodriguez in Chicago contributed to this story.
Chris Kahn can be reached at twitter.com/ChrisKahnAP. Jonathan Fahey can be reached at twitter.com/JonathanFahey