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Hamish and Meg with their awesome sponsors for confirmation this week.
Monthly Archives: May 2013
Blanket makingPosted on
Missing my friendPosted on
Bells for a BellePosted on
Was thinking about a way to keep Julie in my memory and in my heart and came up with this plant called Canberra Bells. It was picked to be the Commemorative plant for the Canberra Centenary, so perfect for the climate and perfect to commemorate Julie too. I'm going to watch it grow and flower, and each time I see it I will think of her and her tinkling bell-like laugh.
RIP Jules xx
GriefPosted on
On 26th March I had a phone call telling that my best buddy Julie had suffered a Brain Aneurysm and was not expected to live. That moment turned my safe little world upsidedown. I raced to the hospital to see her in ICU. She was not my Julie. She was so black and blue from surgury, puffed up from swelling and so still and quiet that it barely seemed real. I wanted her to open her eyes and smile and tell me that she was OK. " Just Jokes Fran, I'm really fine". Her husband was there, her 4 children her extended fmaily each one going through their own personal sadness and worry. Those little kids, so innocent and beautiful, not knowing if their mum was going to be OK.
While we waited for test results and any changes, I drew pictures with the kids to stick up around Julies bed. We went for walks, took rides in the lift and gathered stickers from my office, which Jesse stuck up and down Julies arms. Still she didn't move or respond or open her eyes.
I held her hand, I willed her to be OK. I swore at her, begged her, sobbed on her chest. Oh Julie.
Finally after 2 days of this, the doctors performed their last tests, they prepared for her organ donation and they announced the time of death.
The emptiness that I felt is hard to describe. The complete sadness for those beautiful children without their mum. My own desperate sadness for the loss of my best friend. My running partner, my confidant, my secret keeper, my laugh a minute mate. How could this even happen, how can it be true?
It is 6 weeks later now, and I am still shocked and full of grief. I cry every day, wish for her texts or fully facebook comments. I want to see her emails pop up in my inbox, hear her laugh, tell her something that happened. I want to hear her stories, tidbits about work, the kids, her week, her feelings and thoughts and emotions. I need to talk to her so badly to help me sort out my stuff! She was good at that. I miss her so much.
God Bless you Jules. Thank you for being my crazy, refreshing, honest friend. For taking the time to be with me and nurture me. For loving my kids and sharing yours with me. I will miss you for the rest of my life. It's so damn unfair that you were taken away.


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Re: Karma. Don't you love when this happens to you:
Six years ago, Spouse met a Guy on a plane. The Guy was like any of us- fumbling through life, drinking cheap wine and waiting for a sign. Well, he was like any English major I've ever known, anyway.
Lacking either a plan or money, The Guy moves to Paris, marries a model, has two kids, moves to Australia then returns to the US whereupon his wife opens an Ayurveda smoothie/pet spa and becomes "the" darling of the Los Angeles Ayurveda-celebrity-pet-smoothie-spa set while I'm still trying to complete a bathroom renovation and get my now six years older car to pass inspection.
And it's not that we don't appreciate Ayurveda pet smoothie bars in upstate NY, it's just that we prefer whole milk all the time.
Fast forward to Sunday night when, while channel-surfing, Spouse spots The Guy at The Golden Globe Awards. The Golden Globes which, I suspect, have little to do with either geography or transition metals but seem to attract a tanned, relaxed, champagne-sipping crowd.
"There's The Guy!" he yelled.
"That isn't fair!" I cried.
And by "that," I meant "life."
And by "isn't," I meant "is not."
And it's true: life is not fair.
Never was, never will be- it's just that being reminded stinks.
But, like good luck, justice and sweatpants, karma also has an ebb and flow. (Well, maybe not the sweatpants. There's no excuse for sweatpants.)
So, occasionally, when all my pontificating and prognosticating, all the contemplations and reflections on living that I have blathered at my kid (ad nauseam- just ask him and hold for the eye roll), the advice, the pep-talks, the verbiage in/verbiage out, the blow-hardness of my very existence, all of it, comes back at me with the force of a statuette to the face and the kid asks: "What? He looks like a nice guy."
I remember that karma works.
And I love when good karma happens to me.

subset: commoncrawl


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Scripting Support
Full scripting support with all our packages
All our cloud web hosting plans offer scripting support. You will be able to use just about any PHP or Python–powered web app and take full advantage of more than three thousand and four hundred Perl modules supported by each of our Linux–powered servers. Moreover, you can work with MySQL and even PostgreSQL databases and make use of the InnoDB database engine included with every web hosting package. Zend Optimizer, GD Library, ImageMagick and SSI are supported too.
Web Accelerators
A bunch of software tools to speed up your websites
Within the Web Site Control Panel you can find a variety of Site Accelerator Instruments meant to speed up your dynamic, database–powered sites. By caching web content, these software tools significantly decrease the number of times a database is requested and thus minimize the server load. This helps your web sites load faster and it will lower the bounce rates. You will be able to choose between 3 web accelerators – Varnish, Memcached and Node.js.
Multiple Data Centers
Cloud web hosting packs in the United States, in Europe and in Australia
Today we have datacenters in the U.S.A. (Steadfast in Chicago, IL), in Europe (Pulsant close to London, Ficolo in Pori, Finland and Telepoint in Sofia, Bulgaria) and in Australia (Amaze in Sydney). We have carefully picked out every single data center facility to ensure premium–quality cloud web hosting services for all your web sites and web applications. There won't be any additional fees – the price will remain the same no matter which data center you pick out.
A secure web app firewall program
All our cloud web hosting packages have ModSecurity by default. ModSecurity is a tiny Apache module that does a great job – it acts as a web app firewall program, successfully securing your site against hack assaults. What is even more everything happens momentarily, without you needing to configure or tweak anything. Your websites will be defended the very moment you host them with us.
- Get Started
Service guarantees
- Sites2Web - Website Hosting's plans come with absolutely no set up fees together with a 30–day reimbursement warranty. Sites2Web - Website Hosting's common reply–back time is 20 mins.
Compare our prices
- Find out more about our rates and select the perfect website hosting solution for your personal or company web sites. You're able to move up to a more advanced bundle with only a mouse click.
- Compare our hosting plans
Contact Us
- You'll be able to get in contact with us while in working hours on the phone for just about any pre–sale information and facts.


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The web has evolved into a billion soap boxes where people can gather and discuss, rant, plot or chat about their passions and problems. Naturally, some of the chit-chat is about companies and their products and services - positive or otherwise. The question is how do companies best react to this mass online critique? In many ways, there's nothing new here. Marketing folk have always kept an ear to the ground and taken the views of their customers seriously. Focus groups are now so prevalent that almost nothing escapes the confines of MegaCorp without going through a few rounds of such scrutiny. So what's the big fuss? People used to chat away to each other and are now they are doing the same thing on blogs and online communities. The difference, of course, is that today we also have Google. And a million other aggregation tools and review sites, such as Trip Advisor. It's not that we can talk to each other, it's that we can find out what everyone else thinks. The social web has created a share-and-compare economy - where traded opinion affects purchase decisions. And unlike the wider economy this one is growing. In fact, a McKinsey report this summer noted that : "25 per cent of Western Europe's Internet users now post comments and reviews about consumer products of all kinds. User generated media sites are growing in numbers of visitors and participants by 100 per cent a year, traditional sites by perhaps 20 to 30 per cent." One area that has become more popular as a result of this new environment is Co-Creation – the idea that innovation and ideas can be discovered by...
...engaging with these new networks of advocates, critics and bright sparks. Sometimes this approach, evangelised by esteemed groups such as MIT and Harvard Business School, suggests the world has been turned on its head. Sometimes it just all seems like common sense. However, some powerful case studies have driven the concept onto the marketing agenda.
In my experience companies and organisations find co-creation and the idea that innovative thoughts about their product, category or sector are spinning around the web, very exciting. The whole area can seem so energised, particularly when compared to tired, sterile research processes or groups. But it's not as straightforward as it seems.
A few years ago a car company asked me to look into this burgeoning online world and to summarise what people were saying about its vehicles and brands. Almost as an afterthought, they asked if I could pay particular attention to a specific demographic and what their opinions were about the design aspects of one car in particular. And this, as I discovered, is where things can get tricky.
My immersion into the relevant areas of the social web showed that almost no one was 'on brief'. There were plenty of people talking about why they loved the car in question, what they did with it and why. But (literally) none of them were from the specified demographic. There was no shortage of material and there were plenty of insights. They were just the wrong ones. Many of the stories were about how the car gave their owners access to a powerful social circle which defined their lives. So far so good. The 'surprise' was that the defining characteristic of this group was a shared enjoyment of late night 'donutting' around supermarket car parks. Not exactly what the brand team had in mind for their mood boards.
So what do you do when the web doesn't reveal wonderful notions and immediately executable ideas leading to valuable brand extensions? What happens when a company holds up its valuable brand asset to the mirror of the public web only to see an unfamiliar image staring back?
I certainly don't have all the answers but one observation is that the nature of the engagement with the blogosphere and other networked media is different. So you may not already have the briefing template. Eric Schmidt, Google's Grand-Fromage, puts it well: "The old saying is no one knows you're a dog on the Internet, that you can't tell the size of the organization, and so suddenly the Internet levels playing fields in many ways—distribution, branding, money, and access. But it has a lot of other implications for the way corporations operate. They can't be as controlling. They have to let information out. They have to listen to customers, because customers are talking to them. And if they don't, their competitor will. So there's a long list of reasons why a more transparent company is a better organization."
My personal starting point is that you either think the share-and-compare economy is significant and here for the long-term - or you don't. If it's the former, the answer is quite straightforward. Address the issues. Commit to understanding what's going on and bring an open mind to the opportunities as well as the challenges. Crucially, find someone in your company who cares. However, if you think that it's all going to disappear or is largely irrelevant, just carry on as though nothing has changed.


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Your Visit
Where to Go & What to Expect
Our general office Hours
Monday - Friday: 10am - 7:30pm
Saturday: 10am - 4pm
Sunday: Closed
what to expect
From the moment you walk in the door, you'll feel at ease. Check in for your appointment at the Front Desk, then have a glass of water or a hot cup of tea, and start feeling delightful!
If it's your first time, turn in the paperwork you filled out in advance from our forms available below. Or grab your packet from the front desk to get started. If you are here for acupuncture, make sure you've inquired about possible insurance coverage.
If you've been here before, feel free to peruse the shelves of our somewhat limited but very considered products that we have researched and chosen carefully.
Enjoy your beverage and the ambiance, take in the music, and sit back and relax before your appointment.
We strive to set a peaceful and neutral tone in our lobby, for you, while you're waiting. We truly believe in our saying:
Our lobby is your sanctuary.
This may sound a little silly, but we can't count the times someone has said:
I'm tellin' ya, as soon as I walk in here, I feel better.
It's just so peaceful.
Now we can't guarantee quiet, undisturbed time, every time, all the time, but it is our mission, that we provide a delightful atmosphere, and you feel lighter at heart and mind as soon as you walk through our door
what to expect with acupuncture
Initial appointments/evaluations are 90 minutes for adults, and 60 minutes for children.
During the initial session your acupuncturist will observe your pulse and tongue (traditional diagnostic techniques), as well as take a thorough and comprehensive health history, and review primary complaints and concerns.
Follow up sessions are 60 minutes for adults, and 30 minutes for children.
You should wear loose clothing, no perfume or make-up preferable, and have a light snack prior to treatment. (In other words, we don't want you to be hungry during your treatment.)
The treatment- The needles
Acupuncture needles are nothing like hypodermic needles. Hypodermic needles are stiff, thick and hollow because they are designed to pull blood out or force liquid into the body. Acupuncture needles, however, are fine, thin and flexible, often no thicker than a human hair.
Most acupuncture patients who are nervous at first, are surprised when the needles cause little or no sensation and that treatments are quite relaxing. Patients often even fall asleep during treatment.
After your treatment
Your acupuncturists will recommend a treatment plan, and let you know when to reschedule, and how often.
what to expect with Massage
For initial appointments, we recommend at least a 60 minute session.
During the initial session, your massage therapist will review your health history and any primary complaints and concerns you have.
This is the time to talk about:
- where does it hurt
- what areas are bothering you
- past massage experiences, and preferences you may have
- any injuries
- any other questions or concerns
With this information, your practitioner will determine the best modality ( "type of massage") for your session, based on the desired outcome and collective information form your pre-treatment evaluation.
The Treatment - the massage
Now you can lay back and relax. Let all your thoughts drift away, and enjoy. Feel free, during the massage to speak up. If an area is more sensitive than you realized, let the practitioner know. If you like even deeper work, let the practitioner know. This is the time for the therapist to become familiar with not only your preferences, but your tolerances too. At HHA we practice, what we call, outcome based massage.
This means, it's not your "typical day at the spa". We hope it's just as relaxing! But the goal here is to make a difference in your condition, whether it's decreased pain or discomfort, increased range of motion, or to ease stress and anxiety.
After your treatment
Your massage therapist will recommend a treatment plan, and let you know when to reschedule, and how often.
our office
Enter through the back building, closest to where you park.


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This post first appeared in Business Insider.
Facebook faces a government investigation in Europe over its study of whether manipulating people's news feeds could change their emotions.
As noted recently, Facebook's experiment tweaked the algorithms of nearly 700,000 unwitting users, causing people to see an abnormally low number of either positive or negative posts. People who saw more negative posts wrote more negative posts, and vice versa, showing that their mood was being affected by the kinds of things they were reading on Facebook.
Now, governments in the U.K. and Ireland look set to investigate, according to the Financial Times:
The Information Commissioner's Office said it was probing the experiment and planned to ask Facebook questions after widespread outrage when it was revealed at the weekend. The regulator said it would also be in contact with the Irish data protection body, because Facebook has its European headquarters in Dublin.
A spokesperson for the ICO said it was too early to tell exactly what part of the law Facebook may have infringed. The regulator looks at how much personal data are used and whether users have given their consent.
Facebook won't be helped by the fact that the company didn't alter its terms of service to disclose to users that their posts would be used for research until four months after the experiment took place, according to Forbes:
Four months after this study happened, in May 2012, Facebook made changes to its data use policy, and that's when it introduced this line about how it might use your information: "For internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research and service improvement." Facebook helpfully posted a "red-line" version of the new policy, contrasting it with the prior version from September 2011—which did not mention anything about user information being used in "research."
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg need not lie awake stressing over the outcome of any probe, however. The ICO only has the power to levy a fine of up to £500,000 ($857,000), the FT says — which is pocket change in terms of the.$3 billion that the social network holds on its balance sheet
See Also: Don't Worry, Robots Won't Take Your Job


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Edgy Violin/Percussion Instrumentals from Ravish Momin's Tarana
Ravish Momin's Tarana have a very bracing, sometimes haunting, hypnotic new ep out, titled After the Disquiet. On a lot of it, the disquiet is still very much present. It's a duo project with eclectic violinist Trina Basu (also of diverse south Asian influenced violin/cello duo Karavika). Momin's signature sound comes from his syndrums: recorded live in the studio, it's electronically processed beats that swing much of the time – much as the sounds are chilly, the feel is organic rather than canned. Basu shifts allusively between terse pizzicato, plaintive chromatic lead lines and the occasionally aggressive staccato passage, alternately ambient and intensely melodic.
The first track, Disposable, works off a north Indian folk theme, edgily terse variations on what sounds like an Italian tarantella. It sets the tone for the rest of the album with striking warm/cold contrasts between violin and drums, Basu working her way up from minimalist pizzicato to stark melody and back down, and then finally a speedy crescendo where she goes high and eerily airy before both strings and drums meet in the middle. That one's just short of nine minutes of fun.
The second track, Night Song, a homage to the late jazz bassist Wilber Morris shifts from tabla and electronic efx with a somewhat anxious, repetitive violin hook, to a hypnotic blitz of electronic percussion, to a wary chromatic violin theme, to faster trip-hop with pizzicato that fades out gracefully and sepulchrally. An almost nine-minute jam, Black Teeth of Trees sets stately, chromatic pizzicato against a thicket of straight-up 4/4 efx. The final, rhythmically tricky cut, Hava, was inspired by the intricately air-cooled Hava Mahal palace in Jaipur, India. It's mostly echoey,minimalist drums with ghostly electronic embellishments til the violin comes in hinting at a major key or some kind of resolution, but not going there until almost three minutes in. After alternating passages of solo drums and violin again, it ends unresolved. Fans of adventurous, tuneful, eclectic string bands from Luminescent Orchestrii to Copal will enjoy this.
2 Comments »
Sorrry,should have phrased that differently I guess. I think that the lack of resolution enhances the track's suspense. I really like this album a lot.
Comment by the boss here | October 20, 2011 |


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Our ultimate vision is a world in which each and every child gets access to a high-quality education – regardless of the circumstances of his or her birth.
The Learning Yogi Foundation is an 80G certified non-profit organisation in India whose mission is to distribute low-cost tablets containing the Atlas Mission game to low-income communities in India and other countries.
This will help children in these communities to get access to educational opportunities that will enable them to escape the vicious cycle of poverty that their families have been trapped in for generations.
The foundation currently runs an experimental learning center in a village called Piali, located 2 hours from Kolkata.
It is also running programs in different low-income communities, orphanages and government schools in Bangalore.
Proven Impact
The Atlas Mission has already been proven to produce significant improvements in learning outcomes amongst underprivileged children.
For instance, in a study conducted in Bangalore (India), underprivileged children who played with the Atlas Mission for a month increased their vocabulary by 50% and their reading scores by 75%.
More importantly, they were able to use the skills they had learned by playing the game to read out novel words which they had not been exposed to in the game, demonstrating learning at a much deeper and conceptual level.
Review the results of the study.
Please follow us on LinkedIn to get updates on our progress, or help us buy more tablets that we can distribute to disadvantaged kids.


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Gas Furnace Installation and Repairs
Benefits of a Forced-Air Gas Furnace
- Cheaper than electricity.
- Quickly warms up your whole home.
- It works as a humidifier and filters the air inside your home.
- Can provide both heat ventilation as well as central air conditioning.
What We Do:
We perform quality repairs, installations (disconnect, relocate and reinstall lines and the appliances) and after-sale service of gas furnaces.
Our priorities are skilled workmanship, reliability, quality of customer service, and doing it on time.
What You Can Expect from Us During Installation:
1. Our licensed HVAC professionals come in for a consultation and check your space to identify your heating and efficiency needs and budget, and then suggest the best gas furnace for your requirements. (We deal with most of the major brands in the industry.)
2. We determine what, if anything, needs to be installed before we install the furnace ie. ductwork, floor drain to remove water which is a by-product of the heating process, chimney to release the by-products of combustion, etc.
3. The next important concern is the gasline installation. Gas piping installations have to meet specific criteria to ensure there are no leaks and you must have a carbon monoxide detector running in your building. There are many installation risks when it comes to installing gas piping, which is why it is ESSENTIAL to opt for a trained, licensed professional who can do the job with minimum disruptions.
4. Having a professional from Summit Contractors install your gas piping ensures the job is done correctly, safely and up to code.
5. Each and every furnace job we have done since 2005 is proof of the skilled workmanship, reliability, quality and on-time work we do.
Repairs and Maintenance after Installation
Once installed, maintenance and servicing of your existing furnace are important. We offer regular checkups as well as repairs to ensure that your unit is functioning optimally, thus helping you curb your energy expenses.
With Summit Contractors' trustworthy services, you can be assured you'll get a great quality furnace and equally great post-sales services for maintenance and repairs because customer satisfaction and superior customer service are our primary goal.
We provide gas furnace installation, repairs and maintenance services for residential and commercial spaces across Richmond Hill, Toronto, Scarborough, North York, Markham, Vaughan, Woodbridge, Maple, Concord, King City, Stouffville, Newmarket, Mississauga, Etobicoke, Keswick, Pickering, and surrounding areas.
Contact us for a free quote for your new gas furnace!
Read below if you want to know more about the different models we sell and service.
What is an AFUE Rating?
The AFUE rating is the percentage of the overall fuel amount that is utilized in generating heat. A higher rating means a more efficient furnace, and more savings on heating costs for you.
The majority of new model forced-air furnaces have AFUE ratings from 90% to 97%. Hence, only 3% to 10% of heat is lost out through the chimney.
Choosing Armstrong is a good idea for better models, efficiency ratings, features, prices, warranty, and more.
A Variety of Natural Gas Furnace Operations Are Available From Armstrong Air:
Single Stage Performance
Armstrong Air's single stage furnace focuses on an affordable operation to conserve energy and also keep your home comfortable. Popular models are A951S, A951A, A931A, A801A and A951E.
Constant Torque Blower & Two- or Single-Stage Performance
An Armstrong Air Two Stage Performance furnace has two different speed operations with full speed and a half (or reduced) and constant torque motors. It is the perfect balance between performance and efficiency. Popular models are A962E, A951E, and A801E
- 96% AFUE Efficiency
- Constant Torque Motor
- ENERGY STAR® Certified
- Stainless Steel Heat Exchanger
Variable Speed Blower & Multi-Stage Performance
Armstrong Multi-Stage Performance Air furnaces modulate the heat output and air velocity nearly continuously, depending on the demanded heat and outside temperature thus saving you a lot of energy. Popular models are A97MV, A962V, and A802V
Customer satisfaction and superior customer service are our primary objectives.
With Summit Contractors' trustworthy services, you can be assured you'll get a great quality furnace and equally great post-sales services for maintenance and repairs. Contact us for a free quote for your new gas furnace.


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Operating system, screen size, how good the camera is and so on. When choosing a phone, there are many factors to consider. And lately, another thing has come up, that you need to consider; namely, fast charging. A technology that is, slowly but steadily, emerging from manufacturers, because who doesn't want to be able to charge their phone in no time?
Imagine in the scenario that you wake up in the morning, have an important day ahead of you, and realize that you only have 4% battery! Then it is worth gold to be able to charge the phone in fifteen minutes. Into the stage comes a fast charge (applause from the audience).
But how does fast charging work? And how come not ALL phones have this?
Charging the battery – the basics
Let's start with the basics. All smartphones have a battery (no shit Sherlock) and these batteries supply power in basically the same way. Cells catalyze chemical reactions that drive electrons to the negative terminal of the battery. In disposable batteries, this chemical reaction occurs once. In the batteries that mobiles have, this reaction is reversible. Therefore, the battery can be recharged again and again.
Quick charge/ Fast charge
Fast Charging, or quick charing as it is also called, is exactly what it sounds like. It is a way to charge the phone in a much shorter time than it usually takes. This is a feature supported by some smartphones and tablets.
The reason why it takes so long to charge a mobile phone the usual way is because of the limited amount of power that a regular charger can transfer to your device at one and the same time. This is usually 5W or less.
The limited amount of power is a design decision that allows manufacturers to keep costs down while ensuring that the fairly small batteries in your devices are not destroyed due to overheating.
However, many phones can handle more than 5W, thanks to internal circuits that set a wattage limit that can reach your battery at one and the same time. Quick chargers take advantage of this by adjusting the voltage or current and in some cases both. This way, the charger can deliver up to 20W, or sometimes even higher if your device supports the technology.
Many manufacturers that make fast-charging products have created a way for the device and the charger to conduct a dialogue about how many watts the device is ready to receive.
This means that even if a charger says that it can supply a certain amounts of watts, it does not have to mean that the cellphone is charged much faster than usual since the cellphone cannot receive the current.
Works better with low battery
Fast charging works much better when you have a low battery level and you need a quick way to recharge a part of the battery. Charging speed tends to decrease significantly as the battery begins to get fully charged. So don't expect to be able to go from completely empty to fully charged battery in no time.
Is fast charging harmful to the phone?
With higher voltage strength comes more heat, which causes the battery to swell a little. Therefore, devices without enough internal room for the battery can be damaged if the battery is charged too fast.
It is important to remember that the higher heat can also be more abrasive to your battery, which can degrade its service life. Due to these factors, fast charging is not a standard delivery.
What are the types of quick chargers?
There are many suppliers of fast chargers. With an Apple product, you can fast charge with USB PD. This is an industry standard used by quite a few devices and requires no special cables or wall adapters. Samsung has Fast Charge and Oneplus has Dash Charge, both of which are popular fast chargers. Motorola offers TurboPower as its fast charging option. But the one most likely to be used is Qualcomm's Quick Charge, which is compatible with a large number of Android devices.
The future of fast charging
Fast charging is something that is highly demanded by consumers, which means that technology is on the rise. Progress is constantly being made in adapters, integrated circuits and cables. This means that a future where you can charge your phone in minutes, rather than in an hour, is closer than you think. An increase in suppliers for fast chargers has enabled us to find more chargers that are smaller in size and more powerful than ever.
For those of us who work with telephony for companies, we think the trend looks promising and we like the idea that we can charge the phone super fast and then be able to talk more on the phone.
Want to know more about how to save on your mobile battery?
Then you might want to check out some of our other blogs about mobile battery:


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About Matthew G. Rees
'In turns elusive, eerie, delicately unsettling and quietly devastating . . . his story arcs cast their strange net over the reader.'
Prize-winning writer CARLY HOLMES on Keyhole
'Rees is fully in control of that particular gift of authors of fantastic stories, which consists of placing banal objects, or characters, in situations where they are at the same time innocent and threatening.'
GUIDO EEKHAUT, award-winning author of the novel Absinthe
'is an absolute master! His collections are GOLD'
MRREMORANMAN, co-host horrorprompt
Matthew G. Rees (right) grew up in a Welsh family in the border country between England and Wales known as the Marches. His early career was in journalism. Later he entered teaching, living and working for a period in Moscow (which has been a setting for some of his fiction). In a varied life, other employment has included time as a night-shift cab driver.
His writing has appeared in anthologies, chapbooks and magazines (digital and print). He has acquired a reputation for vivid and striking literary fiction that leans to the supernatural (see reviews). Keyhole, his first collection of short stories, was published to acclaim by Three Impostors press in 2019 (also featuring photographs by him) and has been read internationally, with copies going to readers in Austria, Australia, Finland, France, Spain, Norway, Poland, Japan, Puerto Rico and other parts of the United States, to name just some of the countries.
Additionally, Rees is a writer of theatre drama. Two plays by him have been performed professionally. (See 'Theatre' tab for more about his writing for the stage.) He has a PhD from the University of Swansea, and currently lives in Wales.
He suspects that the Marches - that distinctive and beautiful (but pressured) borderland between England and Wales, associated with such figures as Walter Map, William Langland, Thomas Traherne (memorialised in stained glass at Hereford Cathedral, right), Francis Kilvert, A.E. Housman, John Masefield, Bruce Chatwin and so many others - has, in particular, left its mark on him. He has come to think of it as a gateway not to the nations either side of it but to a hinterland that is hidden deeper and is more mysterious. He sees parallels with the partitions that Arthur Machen, who grew up in the southern Marches, spoke of as being the veils between the known and unknown worlds.
'It's a place where you constantly find yourself stumbling across strange stories, that aren't always myths,' says Rees. 'Arthur Conan Doyle, for example, who was very much "into" spiritualism, has a number of connections with the Marches. He attended a seance in a house in the rural village where I once lived.'
Rees's family goes back centuries in Wales. His surname has roots in the still largely rural county of Carmarthenshire on the Welsh coast, once the seat of Lord Rhys, powerful Welsh prince (though Rees doesn't claim any direct lineage!). Capel Pen-rhiw, a Carmarthenshire chapel where his great-grandfather was a congregant, today stands preserved at the National Museum of History at St Fagans, Cardiff (right), having been moved there stone by stone, beam by beam.
In a migration typical of many Welsh people and others seeking work from across the British Isles, Rees's forebears moved to the populous and industrial valleys of South Wales in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
In an era of great social deprivation in which coal was king, a number of Rees's ancestors became involved in unionism and radical politics. His great-uncle Sydney James, a miner blacklisted by colliery bosses for his political convictions, volunteered for the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, being fatally wounded at the Battle of the Ebro. Another great-uncle, Trevor Jones, a young South Wales schoolmaster, was killed in action serving as a junior infantry officer with the Welsh Regiment in France, shortly before the Armistice of 1918.
Meanwhile, Trevor's mother Margaret Jones, Rees's great-grandmother, ran for and held public office at a time when such things were rare among women.
Another branch of Rees's family kept the Coach and Horses inn, in the canal-side village of Llangynidr, in the Brecon Beacons, for more than a century (pictured right in 1954; copyright, the author's father).
In addition to his associations with Wales and the Marches, Rees believes that travel has influenced him significantly. Either as a journalist, teacher, 'traveller', or holiday-maker on his own or as a child with his parents, Rees has spent time in more than twenty countries.
He has also journeyed to some of the more remote islands of the British Isles, including the Scottish holy island of Iona, ancient Sark and beautiful Herm in the Channel Islands, Lundy - famous for its population of puffins - in the Bristol Channel (travelling there on the world's last sea-going paddle-steamer), the Isles of Scilly (off Cornwall in the English South-West) and the lonely islet of Bishop Rock, known for its lighthouse and seals.
Although his writing is not exclusively concerned with the supernatural, he describes himself as being interested in fiction that explores 'the liminal' - what he thinks of as that intriguing borderland of possibility between what is and what might be. Some of his stories are notable for their dark humour.
Arthur Machen, M.R. James, Roald Dahl, Patrick McGrath and Thomas Ligotti are writers who've been referenced in discussions of his work. Rees has expressed interest in diverse writers including Glyn Jones, Walter de la Mare, Daphne Du Maurier and Flannery O'Connor.
Machen (right), Welsh writer of the supernatural (1863-1947), spoke of his certainty of our co-existence with another world – one that we are close to in our daily lives and from which we are separated by the finest partition: ". . . the unknown world is , in truth, about us everywhere, everywhere near to our feet; the thinnest veil separates us from it, the door in the wall of the next street communicates with it" (from The London Adventure).
One of the hallmarks of Matthew G. Rees's story collection, Keyhole, is its occupation of that territory where the known and the unknown meet and interact. His eighteen tales, set in Wales and its borderlands with England, manage to take us through Machen's veil, while at the same time retaining roots in our own recognisable contemporary world.
A quality of his writing in this collection is the way in which it concerns itself with lesser-known, overlooked communities - the 'submerged' populations that the critic and writer Frank O'Connor felt the short story was best disposed to give voice to. Rees's exploration of the strange and supernatural is also consistent with the history of the short story, going back to the likes of 'The Widow of Ephesus' by Petronius and the 12th century fragments of Walter Map and William of Newburgh (right) about folklore, mysteries and vampires.
And so Rees leads us to the likes of a hospital for war wounded soldiers high in the Welsh hills. . . a harbour town marooned by the strange retreat of the sea . . . a country hotel whose river has been exhausted of fish . . . an extraordinary flying pub locked in its own time-capsule world . . . a barren farm cloaked by woods where an old flower press seems the only distraction of its isolated bachelor owner . . . a deserted slate town and the mysterious house that stands there with a flaking front door . . . and, truly submerged, a submarine of German sailors buried beneath a Welsh beach, and a man bizarrely trapped at the bottom of his town's swimming pool.
These and other settings witness supernatural events: the rising from the sea of a family made from shells . . . a girl brought up in the company of birds closeted in a darkened manor . . . an old man who takes to a town's storm-lashed streets on a toy horse . . . a cave with a secret spring that mysteriously reaches out to a young brother and sister on a farm besieged by drought.
We also ride underground on a horse with a young boy after the collapse of a coal mine, visit a sinister 'fort' that shows itself on the flats of a beach at low tide, follow extraordinary midnight races run in a remote rest home for the elderly, witness the transformation of a lock on a lonely canal into a terrifying dungeon, hear of the strange decline of a London antiques dealer after his visit to a farm in the Welsh mountains, and, finally, enter the weird inner world of a village that hosts a little-known book festival and worships a mystical, all-powerful cheese.
Fellow writers have hailed Keyhole 'a tour de force' (Sally Spedding), 'a great collection' (Jane Fraser), 'shot through with the shudder of the unexpected and magical transformations' (Jon Gower), 'mysterious and ambiguous' (Catherine Fisher), with, at times, stories that manage to be 'wonderfully weird and funny at the same time' (Guido Eekhaut, right, author of Absinthe).
Writer and blogger Peter Kenny has summarised the book as ''Lushly imaginative, lyrical, full of intriguingly funny interludes . . . Keyhole is a wonderful collection I'm busy recommending to friends.'
While Keyhole represents his first collection, Matthew G. Rees has been described as an unusually talented and inventive writer. The word 'masterpiece' has been applied to one of his previous tales, The Tip. Another story, The Snow Leopard of Moscow, has been called 'an instant classic'.
As well as writing short stories, Rees has explored the form, holding a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Swansea. Although having his own 'voice' and employing modern settings, readers of Keyhole might detect a lineage with such writers as Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Glyn Jones and Roald Dahl (though Rees stresses that the book is not necessarily representative of the whole of his writing). Some may feel that the British literary and cinematic tradition of 'folk horror' can also be seen in his work.
Rees agrees that his creative pre-occupations thus far have been 'with matters outside the mainstream'. He says it's unlikely that he'll ever consciously enter 'kitchen sink' or 'Aga saga' territory, albeit, as his fiction to date perhaps suggests, he is interested in the secret lives of the outwardly ordinary and he thinks this may be a theme of future work.
A factor that he feels drives some of his fiction - particularly some of his short stories - into the realms of the extraordinary is his interest in imagery.
Mentally-held images have triggered the writing of many of his stories, the narrative coalescing around a picture in his mind's eye - rather than those stories arising as the result of, say, conscious plotting, or research, or the wish to promote or punish some cause.
This is something that perhaps places Rees with writers such as Stephen King, Graham Greene and Flannery O'Connor (right), Vladimir Nabokov, Mavis Gallant and others, who've stressed the importance of imagery, dreams and the unconscious in their writing process.
Something Rees always hopes to achieve with his fiction is an image that will live on in the mind of the reader long after the story has been finished or the actors have left the stage. For Rees, this is one of the hallmarks of a truly successful story or play.
In recent times, he has come to connect this interest in imagery with the regular Saturday morning visits he made in his boyhood to his local cinema. As schoolkids, he and his sister were regulars at their local Odeon for the 'Saturday Morning Pictures'. There they would watch ancient Abbott and Costello comedies and productions by the Children's Film Foundation. Rees has come to think that this exposure to the big screen, at a formative age, was highly influential.
He says, 'A picture I remember from that time was Whistle Down The Wind starring Hayley Mills and Alan Bates (who later appeared in The Go-Between, from L.P Hartley's book - both the novel and film resonate with me for some reason). I love good cinema. We were fortunate - at a time when so many of them were being turned into bingo halls or wrestling venues - that our town had two. We were mainly loyal to our Odeon, a lovely old Art Deco building, with a grand staircase and a fabulous high 'circle'. Tragically, the place was demolished. Later, as a student, I loved the old Globe cinema in Cardiff.
'Back then, directors didn't have today's incredible technological tricks at their disposal. I wonder if that caused stories to be more engaging and cinematography stronger (think of John Ford's footage of Monument Valley) . . .
Possibly - though there was plenty of ham and wooden acting about, and some seriously clunky writing.
'Either way, like fine fiction, there has always been something spellbinding for me about great cinema, and I shall always be thankful for the way my parents packed me off to the pictures on Saturday mornings with some pocket money and my big sister.'
More on Matthew G. Rees -
Writers who he thinks (for a variety of reasons and in different ways and to differing degrees), have influenced him include Ray Bradbury (stories), Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange), James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice), Italo Calvino (If On A Winter's Night A Traveller), Truman Capote (In Cold Blood), Raymond Carver, Bruce Chatwin (On the Black Hill, In Patagonia), John Cheever, Anton Chekhov, Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness, 'The Secret Sharer'), Walter de la Mare (stories), Daphne du Maurier (stories), Lawrence Durrell (Prospero's Cell), F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), John Fowles (The Collector), Robert Frost, Nikolai Gogol ('The Overcoat'), William Golding (Lord of the Flies), Graham Greene (Brighton Rock and 'The Destructors' particularly), L.P. Hartley (The Go-Between).
And some more: Ernest Hemingway (stories), Ted Hughes (poetry and stories such as 'The Rain Horse'), Henry James (stories), Ken Kesey (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest), Rudyard Kipling (stories, including 'They'), Francis Kilvert (Kilvert's Diary), Laurie Lee, Mario Vargas Llosa (Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter), Ross Macdonald, Ian McEwan (The Cement Garden), Guy de Maupassant (The Horla'), Alice Munro (stories), Vladimir Nabokov, Flannery O'Connor (stories), George Orwell (Animal Farm and essays), W.G. Sebald (Austerlitz), John Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men, Cannery Row), L.A.G. Strong ('The Rook'), Dylan Thomas, William Trevor (stories), Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray), Henry Williamson (Tarka the Otter), Mikhail Zoshchenko, right (stories).
Some writers and specific work he has found rewarding but perhaps not influential in terms of his own life and writing: Martin Amis (Money, London Fields), Jane Austen (Mansfield Park), John Berendt (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), Ron Berry (So Long, Hector Bebb), Alan Brownjohn (poem 'To See the Rabbit'), Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights), Mikhail Bulgakov (Heart of a Dog), Geoffrey Chaucer (Canterbury Tales), Roald Dahl (Boy and some stories) Rhys Davies (stories), Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Crime and Punishment), Geoff Dyer (But Beautiful), Mavis Gallant (stories), Edmund Gosse (Father and Son), Thomas Hardy (Mayor of Casterbridge and Wessex Tales), P. D. James (short stories), Andrey Kurkov (Death and the Penguin), Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird), Katherine Mansfield (stories), Edith Nesbit, right (stories), Annie Proulx (stories), J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye), Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), Tolstoy (Anna Karenina).
Influential cinema (the year is that of first release) : The Fallen Idol (Carol Reed, 1948), Whistle Down The Wind (Bryan Forbes, 1951), Shane (George Stevens, 1953) The Night of The Hunter, starring Robert Mitchum, right (Charles Laughton, 1955), Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Henry Levin, 1959), The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961), Seance on a Wet Afternoon (Forbes, 1964), In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison, 1967), if .... (Lindsay Anderson, 1968), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Ken Hughes, 1968), Ring of Bright Water (Jack Couffer, 1969), Scrooge (Ronald Neame, 1970), The Go-Between (Joseph Losey, 1971), Walkabout (Nicholas Roeg, 1971), Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971), Deliverance (John Boorman, 1972), Don't Look Now (Nicholas Roeg, 1973), High Plains Drifter (Clint Eastwood, 1973), Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975), Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975), Rollerball (Norman Jewison, 1975), The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978), The Fog (John Carpenter, 1980), The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980), The Long Good Friday (John Mackenzie, 1981), Man of Flowers (Paul Cox, 1983), Rumble Fish (Francis Ford Coppola, 1983), Blood Simple (Coen brothers, 1985), The Field (Jim Sheridan, 1990), The Others (Alejandro Amenadar, 2001), About Schmidt (Alexander Payne, 2003).
Influential theatre: The Winslow Boy (Terence Rattigan), Kes (Barry Hines), Equus (Peter Shaffer), Macbeth, Othello.
Influential television (the year is that of first broadcast): Dr Who (BBC, Jon Pertwee era), Survivors (BBC, 1975), Nuts in May (Mike Leigh, BBC, 1975), Dracula (BBC, 1977), Salem's Lot (BBC, 1979), Edge of Darkness (BBC, 1985)
Musical likes: Thomas Tallis (Miserere), Elin Manahan Thomas singing Handel's Eternal Source of Light Divine, Edward Elgar (Nimrod), Ralph Vaughan Williams (Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, The Lark Ascending), Gustav Holst (The Planets - Mars, the Bringer of War), Erik Satie (Gymnopides), Samuel Barber (Adagio for Strings), Aaron Copland (Fanfare for the Common Man), Karl Jenkins (Palladio), Ennio Morricone, Mary Hopkin, Welsh choral, Russian choral (various), harp (Catrin Finch, performing live), The Rolling Stones (Sympathy For The Devil, Paint it Black), Spencer Davis Group (I'm a Man), Jimi Hendrix (All Along the Watchtower), Cream (I Feel Free), The Who (I Can See For Miles), The Kinks (Waterloo Sunset), The Zombies / Santana (She's Not There) Nick Drake, U2 (Where The Streets Have No Name), R.E.M. (Night Swimming), David Gray, The Cardigans, Blondie (Dreaming), Kate Bush and - requiring a category of its own, but here, anyway - Richard Burton, right (speaking).
Other influences: shorelines, woodland, parks, cemeteries, life - conversations overheard, encounters with people / places, travel . . . and a mother, Joan, a teacher of English and drama, who in many respects was ahead of her time.
About his writing
Stained glass at Hereford Cathedral. Photo by Pam Fray (Stained glass in the cathedral / CC BY-SA 2.0)


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Whether you are a freelance writer or photographer, rejection is a nasty word with all its implications of 'failure'. But, it is a word that we as freelances have to get used to and accept it for what it really is, an indication of one editor's opinion which could stem from a number of factors. He or she may not like our article or picture (which is their right), they may have another (in their mind) better article/picture to fill their space, they may have covered the subject recently, the article/picture doesn't fit in with the magazine's mission, and so on and so on. I am assuming, of course, that the article is grammatically correct with no spelling mistakes and the pictures are correctly exposed, clean, well composed and sharp.
Do remember that most judgments are subjective with opinions being formed taking into account the past history of the individual. I know of one photography judge who cannot abide pictures of pelicans. Why, I do not know. Maybe he was frightened by a pelican as a child, maybe he doesn't like the long beak or the way they waddle when they walk but, more likely, he has seen too many pictures of these birds in the competitions he judges. Whatever the reason, a picture of a pelican will get short shrift from him. And, editors are only human and we have to accept that their judgment may have nothing to do with our writing or photography being poor.
So what do we do when our words and images are rejected or should I say, 'not accepted on this occasion'?
What I do is to look carefully at the article to make sure that there are no mistakes that I should have picked up and, assuming all is in order and it doesn't need re-writing to suit the style of the next publication on my list, I send it back out into the wide world. I do the same with my pictures. I check for blemishes and, when satisfied, they go off to the next editor on my list. That way, I have no time to sit and fret about my 'failure'.
With reference to my previous Post, Monochrome from Digital Colour, you may be interested in the picture I posted to my Facebook photography page yesterday.
To go to my Facebook Photography page Click here


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Take a game-day spin around the AHL ice with latest news and notes from the 2018 Calder Cup Playoffs in today's AHL Morning Skate.
Playoff Brackets | Today's Scoreboard | League Stats | Series Infographics
Game 2 – Today, 4:00 ET, AHL Live
TV: TSN2, Leafs Nation Network, Service Electric TV2
(TOR leads series, 1-0)
Follow @TorontoMarlies Follow @LVPhantoms Tweet #TORvsLV
Toronto hosts Lehigh Valley in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals, just 24 hours after opening the series with a 4-3 win yesterday… Adam Brooks (2-1-3) scored the decisive goal at 3:18 of the third period to send the Marlies to their sixth win in as many games at Ricoh Coliseum this postseason… Miro Aaltonen (3-4-7) scored twice in the first 12:03 to stake Toronto to an early 2-0 lead before the Phantoms stormed back with three straight goals of their own… Philippe Myers (3-4-7), Tyrell Goulbourne (2-0-2) and Chris Conner (5-4-9) gave Lehigh Valley a 3-2 lead before Marlies captain Ben Smith (2-6-8) knotted it back up before the second intermission… Garret Sparks (7-2, 2.31, .917) finished with 26 saves to extend his personal winning streak to five games… Alex Lyon (6-2, 1.76, .951), who had allowed four goals on 188 shots during the second round vs. Charlotte, was beaten four times on 32 shots in Game 1… Andreas Johnsson (3-7-10) recorded two assists yesterday, his third multiple-point effort in six playoff games… Travis Sanheim (0-2-2) returned to the Lehigh Valley lineup after missing the previous four contests due to injury and tallied an assist in Game 1… Regular-season AHL MVP Phil Varone (0-2-2) was also back for the Phantoms after missing six games… Lehigh Valley has not lost back-to-back games since a three-game slide from Apr. 3-7… Toronto is now 26-0-0-1 this season when scoring the first two goals of a game.
Eastern Conference Finals – Series "M" (best-of-7)
N1-Toronto Marlies vs. A1-Lehigh Valley Phantoms
Game 1 – Sat., May 19 – TORONTO 4, Lehigh Valley 3 | Recap/Highlights
Game 2 – Sun., May 20 – Lehigh Valley at Toronto, 4:00
Game 3 – Wed., May 23 – Toronto at Lehigh Valley, 7:05
Game 4 – Fri., May 25 – Toronto at Lehigh Valley, 7:05
*Game 5 – Sat., May 26 – Toronto at Lehigh Valley, 7:05
*Game 6 – Mon., May 28 – Lehigh Valley at Toronto, 7:00
*Game 7 – Wed., May 30 – Lehigh Valley at Toronto, 7:00
*if necessary… All times Eastern
Game 2 – Today, 6:00 ET, AHL Live
(TEX leads series, 1-0)
Follow @TexasStars Follow @goicehogs Tweet #TEXvsRFD
Texas hosts Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals this evening in Cedar Park, site of Friday's 4-2 Stars win in the series opener… Roope Hintz (2-5-7) and Remi Elie (2-4-6) notched a goal and an assist each in Game 1 as Texas handed Rockford its first loss of the postseason… Curtis McKenzie (3-5-8) and Sheldon Dries (4-0-4) also scored for the Stars, who never trailed in the game… Mike McKenna (8-2, 1.69, .951) stopped 31 of 33 shots for his fifth consecutive win… McKenna made his 55th career Calder Cup Playoff appearance in Game 1, tying Johnny Bower for ninth all-time among AHL goaltenders… Chris DiDomenico (5-8-13) had a goal and an assist for the IceHogs on Friday, giving him a league-best 13 points for the postseason… Carl Dahlstrom (3-4-7) also scored for Rockford, his third in eight playoff games after scoring three times in 64 contests during the regular season… Collin Delia (7-1, 1.91, .938) stopped 20 of 24 shots as his seven-game winning streak came to an end… IceHogs defensemen Adam Clendening (1-9-10) and Cody Franson (4-4-8) have both collected all of their points on the power play this postseason… Rockford was 1-for-4 with the man advantage in Game 1, their 10th consecutive game scoring at least one power-play goal (19-for-54, 35.2 percent over that span)… Texas was also 1-for-4 in Game 1… The IceHogs allowed the game's first goal for the sixth time in their eight playoff outings… Shots on goal in Game 1 were 33-24 in favor of Rockford; Texas has now been outshot in nine of its first 10 playoff games.
Western Conference Finals – Series "N" (best-of-7)
P2-Texas Stars vs. C4-Rockford IceHogs
Game 1 – Fri., May 18 – TEXAS 4, Rockford 2 | Recap/Highlights
Game 2 – Sun., May 20 – Rockford at Texas, 6:00
Game 3 – Tue., May 22 – Texas at Rockford, 8:00
Game 4 – Thu., May 24 – Texas at Rockford, 8:00
*Game 5 – Fri., May 25 – Texas at Rockford, 8:00
*Game 6 – Mon., May 28 – Rockford at Texas, 8:00
*Game 7 – Tue., May 29 – Rockford at Texas, 8:00
*if necessary… All times Eastern
Home Sweet Home
The Toronto Marlies now own the fifth-longest home winning streak in Calder Cup Playoffs history:
16 – Providence Bruins, 1997-2000
14 – Philadelphia Phantoms, 2004-08
13 – Cleveland Barons, 1939-43
12 – Nova Scotia Voyageurs, 1972-73
11 – Toronto Marlies, 2017-18
11 – Cleveland Barons, 1964-66
Alumni Watch
In the Stanley Cup Playoffs last night, Tampa Bay got goals from 2013 Calder Cup finalist Cedric Paquette, 2012 Calder Cup champion Ondrej Palat and 2007 AHL All-Star Ryan Callahan in a 3-2 win over Washington in Game 5 of the NHL's Eastern Conference Final… Andrei Vasilevskiy made 28 saves for the Lightning.
In the semifinals of the 2018 IIHF World Championship in Denmark yesterday, 2015 AHL All-Rookie forward Viktor Arvidsson scored twice in Sweden's 6-0 win over the United States… Magnus Paajarvi, Patric Hornqvist, Mattias Janmark and 2015 Calder Cup champion Adrian Kempe also scored for the Swedes, and Anders Nilsson made 20 saves for his third shutout of the tournament… Sven Andrighetto recorded a pair of assists as Switzerland upset Canada, 3-2… Dean Kukan, a 2016 Calder Cup champion who played 32 AHL games with Cleveland this season, also picked up an assist in the win.
Working Overtime
There have been 11 overtime games played in the 2018 Calder Cup Playoffs so far:
|May 11
|TEXAS 3, Tucson 2
|Joel L'Esperance
|May 9
|Lehigh Valley 2, CHARLOTTE 1
|Alex Krushelnyski
|May 7
|TEXAS 5, Tucson 4
|Sheldon Dries
|May 5
|TORONTO 2, Syracuse 1
|Frederik Gauthier
|May 2
|TUCSON 2, Texas 1
|Michael Bunting
|Apr. 28
|LEHIGH VALLEY 4, Providence 3
|Maxim Lamarche
|Apr. 26
|Rockford 4, CHICAGO 3
|Victor Ejdsell
|Apr. 22
|Texas 5, ONTARIO 4
|Samuel Laberge
|Apr. 21
|TORONTO 3, Utica 2
|Chris Mueller
|Apr. 20
|CHARLOTTE 3, W-B/Scranton 2
|Lucas Wallmark
|Apr. 19
|TEXAS 4, Ontario 3
|Brian Flynn
On This Date
May 20, 2015 – Jacob Markstrom (35 saves) joins Johnny Bower as the only goalies in AHL history to record a 1-0 Game 7 shutout, helping Utica advance to the Western Conference Finals over Oklahoma City.
May 20, 2013 – The Penguins are outshot 47-18 but Brad Thiessen makes 46 saves and Trevor Smith scores 3:26 into overtime to give Wilkes-Barre/Scranton its third straight win over Providence, forcing a Game 7 in their Eastern Conference semifinal series.
May 20, 2002 – Louie DeBrusk scores 9:10 into overtime as Hamilton staves off elimination with a 3-2 win at Bridgeport in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals.
May 20, 1981 – Rick Vasko scores twice, including the game-winner early in the third period, as the Adirondack Red Wings win their first Calder Cup with a 5-2 victory over the Maine Mariners.
AHL Live
Don't miss a second on the road to the 2018 Calder Cup championship. AHL Live brings AHL action to your desktop, laptop, smartphone or tablet all season long with live video webcasts and free highlights of every AHL game… Visit ahllive.com for details.


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Most of us couldn't do without the ease of online shopping. Whether it means having the best price on purchasing the perfect pair of shoes or the latest video game, it offers us access to special deals, services, and products that might be unavailable to us otherwise. Any way, online shopping has its risks. The profitability—popularity of online retail has ensued in unprincipled people appearing to capitalize of unwary shoppers.
Through the internet to buy goods or services preserves considerable effort and time – and also gives you with the broadest option. There are, however, risks associated with online shopping and everyone needs to take care with what they are buying, from whom, and also how to pay for your purchases.
Shopping Tip List:
Here's a list of tips that everyone should consult when shopping online.
(1) Optimize your PC's security settings:
In addition to maintaining as well as updating your antivirus and anti spyware protection, make sure about your security settings are optimized. Most of the malicious programs are clearly designed to take benefit of security vulnerabilities in web browsers and operating systems. There are two simple methods to protect yourself are: Keep your operating system and browser up-to-date: take the time to installsecurity patches and free updates when they're released. Here too, everyone may need to enable your settings. So, automatically these updates are installed.
Start the Run System Mechanic's Security Optimizer that automatically discovers and repairs vulnerabilities and also loop holes that may exist in your operating system and web browser.
(2) Watch your WiFi:
Online Shopping from mobile devices means raised possibility will be on an unfamiliar WiFi network.
Please avoid entering your debit and credit card numbers or any other private information when you're on an unsecured and public WiFi connection that people could snoop. Please wait until back to your home or work network.
(3) Beware of phishing:
Right now most people understand to keep an eye out for phishing scams — e-mails cloaked as legitimate organizations or companies that ask for password or payment info. But every now and then, one comes along that appears incredibly convincing.
(4) Use a credit card:
Credit cards are a more secure online payment choice than your debit card. The most of credit cards provides purchase protection in case your card number is missing, or if you're making a payment at an online store that delivers a good or bad product.


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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey will not get an endorsement from the National Rifle Association, and his rating dropped by two grades after he went against gun rights groups and his party leadership to vote for an expansion of background checks.
The Pennsylvania senator"s new C rating is a downgrade from the A rating and hearty endorsement the NRA gave him when he last ran in 2010 in the Democratic-leaning state, whose residents are passionate about hunting and guns.
Toomey is running in a hotly contested race that could determine control of the Senate. His Democratic challenger, Katie McGinty, favors a much broader range of gun control measures than he does.
Finding compromise on gun control became something of a signature issue in Toomey"s first term. And despite the fact that Toomey voted in line with the NRA and gun rights groups on various other gun control measures, he is now the rare conservative Republican to run with the endorsement of two prominent gun control activists, billionaire independent former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Democratic congresswoman Gabby Giffords.
An NRA spokeswoman said Thursday that Toomey"s latest rating is based on his voting record, including the legislation to require background checks for online gun sales and purchases at gun shows. Even though the organization is not renewing its endorsement of Toomey, spokeswoman Jennifer Baker attacked McGinty.
McGinty would be a "rubber stamp for an anti-gun Supreme Court justice" who would vote to overturn the Heller decision, Baker said, referring to the high court"s 2008 decision that determined Americans have the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.
McGinty"s campaign spokesman, Sean Coit, replied that McGinty "wants to pass common-sense gun safety laws. Pat Toomey and the NRA don"t. … The NRA attacking Katie tells you all you need to know about which candidate is on the side of gun safety in this race."
McGinty drew an F rating from the NRA, unsurprising given her support for gun control measures including banning the sale of military-style weapons and imposing a federal limit on magazine capacity. McGinty is endorsed by the gun control group CeaseFire Pennsylvania.
The background checks bill failed most recently 50-48 in December, with just four Republicans, including Toomey, backing it and all but one Democrat supporting it.
The NRA is the latest in a growing line of gun rights groups that have declined to endorse Toomey. For Toomey, it may help him with a Republican"s perennially thorny task of appealing to moderates in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 4-3 ratio. But it could hurt him with the Republican base.
Toomey has defended his voting record, saying he sees no conflict between the right to own a gun and "a three-minute background check."
"As with many issues, we will only achieve progress on commonsense gun safety measures if we work to build bipartisan consensus, rather than talk past each other with more partisanship," the Toomey campaign said.
Currently, the checks are only required for transactions from licensed gun dealers.


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Felica Natural Leather Antler Dog Toy (Wool-Felt)
Product Description
Whether your pup wants to play a rousing game of fetch and snuggle this Natural Leather Antler Dog Toy (Wool-Felt) is made with you and your pup in mind. No toxic chemicals, artificial colouring, or simulated flavouring are used in the production process. The size of this toy makes it ideal for medium & large dogs, who love to retrieve and tug. Made with sturdy materials, stitched together, to be your pup's new favourite toy to retrieve and tug Why Playtime is Important: Dog's love to spend time with their parents and the best way to spend time is to play together. Playtime is a core pillar of your dog's overall health and wellness. We recommend making time every day for interactive play between you and your dog. Playing together reinforces a special and positive bond you share with your furry friend and provides your dog with the vital stimulation and exercise they need. Our Leather Toy line is designed with interactive play in mind.
Felica Tip: Please supervise during playtime and remove if toy becomes a choking hazard
About Brand
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Switching of energy suppliers has surged to a six-year high as householders increasingly shop around for better deals on gas and electricity.
Customers swapped their energy providers 7.7 million times last year, according to the regulator Ofgem, a rise of 1.7 million, almost 30%, on 2015.
It comes as consumers face a spate of price rises in recent months, hitting the pockets of many who are already struggling.
Npower, EDF and Scottish Power are among those to have ramped up bills, with many blaming rising wholesale costs.
On Thursday Co-operative Energy announced it would increase the cost of its standard variable tariff by an average of 5%, a change that will affect around 96,000 customers when it comes in from April 1.
Earlier this month Ofgem set a temporary pre-payment price cap to protect more than four million households least able to benefit from competition following a two-year investigation of the energy market by the Competition and Markets Authority.
Ofgem advised consumers they can make substantial savings by shopping around for energy deals, warning that standard variable tariffs are typically more expensive than fixed deals.
Despite rising switching rates, around two thirds of customers still remain on standard variable tariffs.
Of those who did switch last year, 47% were to small or medium suppliers as they continued to attract growing numbers of customers.
Ofgem's chief executive Dermot Nolan said: "This welcome increase in switching should serve as a warning to supply companies.
"If they fail to keep prices under control or do not provide a good service, they risk being punished as customers vote with their feet.
"While today's figures show good progress, the market is not as competitive as we would like.
"That is why we have put a temporary price cap in place to protect people on pre-payment meters who have the least access to competitive deals and why we are pursuing a raft of reforms which will make this market fairer, smarter and more competitive for consumers."
"Big savings of around £230 are available and switching has never been easier, so we would urge everyone to shop around for a better deal, especially if their supplier announces a price rise."
Lawrence Slade, chief executive of the industry's trade association, Energy UK, welcomed the high numbers of people swapping their power providers.
He said: "With ever increasing numbers of consumers switching, it's clear competition is working for more and more households.
"The industry is committed to ensuring the market works for everyone and is taking action to engage with loyal customers."


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The search found 1 result in 0.02 seconds.
Thai National AGRIS Centre was established in March 13, 1980 by General National FAO Committee, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives cooperated with Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Its duties, include the following:
e-ROSA - e-infrastructure Roadmap for Open Science in Agriculture has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 730988.
Disclaimer: The sole responsibility of the material published in this website lies with the authors. The European Union is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
Copyrights by eROSA 2018


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At the beginning of this year I told you all that Dave and I were planning to have the 'year of the holiday' this year (for those of you who missed the post you can read it here).
Okay so it's March and really we should have done a lot more travelling by now, but today we are going to Kenmare in Kerry for one of my best friend's weddings, and we are super excited. Eeeek!
The wedding is in the stunning Sheen Falls Lodge which neither Dave or I have ever been to, so we can't wait to get there and spend a few days with the lovely Bride and Groom.
I'm lucky enough to be one of the bridesmaids for the wedding so I literally cannot contain my excitement! There is nothing more special, or emotional, than watching one of your closest friends walk down the aisle, especially when you get to be there for all the special moments and behind the scenes preparations.
It's going to be an incredibly special weekend and I'm so, so proud and honoured to be part of it all.
Next week I'll share a full post on the hotel itself and let you know how we get on. But for now, I'm roadtrippin'!
Sorcha x


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Martin Shkreli's Really Gotta Catch 'Em All
You'd think that hedge fund bro turned pharma bro turned federal fraud defendant Martin Shkreli would have a lot on his mind these days... and you'd be right!
Notorious price gouger Martin Shkreli walked out of Brooklyn Federal Court on Thursday with a date for his fraud trial and posed a weighty question for his criminal defense lawyer: "Can I go play Pokémon now?"
Sure that sounds cavalier at first blush, but Martin Shkreli is actually just playing the game right. If he's going to catch 'em all, he's going to have to put in the work. And he's also going to have neutralize the competition, like his former lawyer and current co-defendant Evan Greebel...
The game break came minutes after Shkreli had thrown his co-defendant under the bus by announcing he will seek a separate trial, claiming the former lawyer gave him bad legal advice that got him indicted.
As far as we know, federal prisons aren't great Poké Stops so Shkreli's plan is pretty airtight. And he didn't come this far by going after just one enemy at a time. Martin made it abundantly clear that he was hell-bent on keeping all the Pokémon in Brooklyn's Cadman Plaza all to himself.
As Shkreli crossed Tillary St., a car beeped its horn at the throng of photographers shadowing him. Shkreli motioned to the photographers to move in the path of the car.
He is one naughty Pikachu.
'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli asks lawyer if he can 'go play Pokémon now' after court hearing where he asked for separate fraud trial from co-defendant [NYDN]


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"We got our numbers from the World Trade Organization [...] The WTO tracks the total value of physical goods each country sends across its borders. Remember, these numbers exclude services -- we are only focused on physical items. To create our map, we changed the size of the country depending on the value of exports, and we likewise added a shade of blue for easy reference. This approach highlights the outliers and identifies several key trends."
The Cost of Big Government in France
30 minutes ago


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If you follow my reading list on Pinterest, you know I recently posted a great book from Brene Brown entitled Daring Greatly.
You can tell when I enjoy a book by two things: (a) I finish it all the way from beginning to end, and (b) many corners are dog-eared or I have enough highlights (if it's an ebook) to fill pages of notes. This book fit the bill.
Daring Greatly is a quest into the field of vulnerability, and how it affects us on many levels, including the way we live, love, parent and lead.
On one of my dog-eared pages, I noted:
"It's not what you do; it's why you do it that makes the difference."
Are my choices comforting and nourishing my spirit, or are they temporary reprieves from vulnerability and difficult emotions ultimately diminishing my spirit? Are my choices leading to my Wholeheartedness, or do they leave me feeling empty and searching?
These thoughts come from her chapter on Vulnerability Armory, and why we find ways to protect ourselves from a small child on up from being hurt, diminished and disappointed.
I see that time and again from people that stop short of their goals, stop short of bringing their ideas to fruition simply because they are vulnerable to the way they will be treated if they embark down this road of the great unknown.
Imagine if you acted on your idea and everyone around you told you what a bad idea it was. Could you really handle the criticism from the people you thought were closest to you?
Or maybe the reverse is true. Maybe you're afraid of reaching worldwide success. What if everyone suddenly turns to you as the expert and you have more attention than you ever wanted? Do you really want to be in the limelight?
Isn't it much easier to not do it at all?
Which is why I liked the statement, "It's not what you do; it's why you do it that makes the difference."
And ultimately that's why some people succeed … and why some people fail. They let their emotions get in the way of what they are capable of doing each day. They overthink the negatives that are possible, and in an attempt to avoid the negatives, convince themselves to do things for all the wrong reasons.
Let me give you an example.
A couple of years ago, I created a training program on developing a high-end newsletter to market a business. A prospect called to discuss whether this was the right program for her. Immediately she started in with negative language and confrontation when it came to marketing.
"I've tried newsletters and they don't work," she stated. "The marketplace is just too bad right now, nobody is buying no matter what you do. Business just isn't the same as it was a few years ago and I don't think there's any way to succeed. Will this program show me a surefire way to get past this awful marketplace and gain clients I need so I don't have to shut down my business?"
Yes, she could have purchased this program and she could have spent the time creating a newsletter and sending it out. But would it have worked?
Nope. Because she would have been doing it for all the wrong reasons.
Instead of building her business, her entire motivation was to prove everyone else was wrong.
If you believe something will work, you'll put all of your effort into it. You'll spend every moment working on it in a positive way. That energy will come through in a positive way, giving you positive results.
The same holds true for the negative side of things.
If your idea hasn't moved from your mind yet, and you haven't found a way to begin releasing it and making it into something more, why not?
It's not your fear of what others think that is holding you back as much as the fear you have over yourself. Your armor is up. You've built a wall to protect you from you. Your fears within you have much more power than anything anyone else could say or do. You beat yourself up much more than anyone else could ever do.
Which means the only thing you really need to change to start moving into a new direction … is you.
Is today your day?


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The content industry insiders.
Strategy. Research. Rights negotiation. Business development. If you're a business with ambition in the content world, 3Vision's consultancy services can help.
Plotting a course for success.
Where is your business heading? We're here to map things out. Our strategic advice is drawn from first-hand experience. And real-world success.
The right content. On your terms.
From negotiating new content deals to renegotiating existing ones, we're here to fight your corner.
Strategy. Research. Rights negotiation. Business development.
Accelerate your growth to brand new levels. And plot crystal clear routes to future success.
With decades of combined experience, we know the ins and outs of the industry like nobody else. In short, we save our clients time, money and hassle.
We launched in 2003 as one of the first consultancies of our kind. This pioneering spirit has since helped us negotiate countless successful deals for our clients. Accelerate their growth to new levels. And plot crystal clear routes to future success.
Our customers are varied. New TV services looking to license channels and VOD content. Fast-growing digital studios eager to expand their reach. Tech suppliers aiming to corner new markets.
And organisations that need to boost their knowledge in content sales – or simply get their product in front of industry decision makers. Whatever your business, trust 3Vision to take it to the next level.
News & Insights
Virgin Media O2 on content aggregation and the launch of 'Stream' | Inside Content
How has Virgin Media transformed as a content aggregator?Read more
International Services Continue To Struggle With Acquiring Emmy-Winning Content
Vertical integration, volume deals and digital originals are dominating the Emmy content marketRead more
Amazon Challenging Netflix's Pessimistic Renewal Strategy with 'Rings of Power'
Amazon and HBO renew series early unlike Netflix canceling more of originals than any other SVODRead more


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LPC-2 is a free event, but registration is required.
Registration closes at 3pm on Friday, March 2nd.
Registration closes at 3pm on Friday, March 2nd.
All artwork should be somehow related to Comic-Con and it's many topics, which could mean anything from your own personal zombie interpretation to a comic-book superhero, to a portrait of your favorite Manga character, or anything in-between!
You can bring your artwork on the day of the Comic-Con or give it to your art teacher. You will receive an Artsy certificate and prizes will be awarded. All art should be school-appropriate.
Best of luck!
Contact Us
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to email Mrs. Sutton at LPHS East OR talk to your school librarian!


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I finally got a new Mary Oliver book from the library. She is a very long time love of mine, I am pretty sure she has gone directly into my soul and plucked out the poems I would write myself, if I had the words.
Her poems are prayers, balm. I have been doling out a few of them to myself every morning, to live my day by. Here is one of my first favorites, one of her more famous poems, for every reason.
Wild Geese
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.


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Google's self-driving cars have taken the world by storm, but the project's lead software engineer has now revealed that the vehicles have been programmed with the ability to exceed road speed limits by up to 10mph.
Dmitri Dolgov told Reuters that if vehicles surrounding Google's self-driving car were breaking the speed limit, going more slowly could actually be more dangerous than going fast. As such, if it detects such speeds the Google car will accelerate to keep up with those around it.
While the UK has pencilled in 2015 as the year driverless cars will be allowed on public roads, across the pond in the US driverless prototypes are already being tested,
Google's automated car division was first announced in 2010, and since then driverless vehicles have rolled out across more than 300,000 miles of open road – mostly in California.
Until recently, Google's technology has been implemented in cars designed by other manufacturers. However, in May the tech behemoth announced that it would begin building its own self-driving cars in the form of bubble-shaped vehicles.
These cars can seat two people and will ferry them to their destination via electric propulsion. The idea was that they would initially be limited to a 25mph speed limit, though clearly this is more flexible than previously thought.
The news comes in the same week that the UK government announced self-driving "convoys" of lorries could be tested out on British roads as soon as next year. Connected by Wi-Fi, the idea is that large chains of lorries will be driven by a single driver at the front of the pack that controls each vehicle's acceleration, breaking and steering.


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A postcard from Crypto-world
When Jon Boone arrived in finance's parallel universe, he didn't even know how to speak the language. But soon he was surfing the Bitcoin wave
By Jon Boone
It is 2am and my laptop is howling. It is about to expire under the weight of web pages.
The first browser of the day sprouted so many tabs that another had to be launched. Then another and another. I am logged into seven exchanges where I can buy and sell Bitcoin for more than 1,000 copycat digital monies. I am following a fast-moving stream of 139 crypto accounts on Twitter. I have lost track of all the tech blogs, Medium articles and YouTube channels I have clicked on. My brain is as frazzled as my CPU, but I'm not done for the night. I need to find the next Bitcoin, buy a bit of it and watch it soar in value.
My curiosity about cryptocurrencies was piqued in early 2017 when a City-trader friend told me he had inadvertently made a fortune on Bitcoin. He acquired them to buy drugs on the dark web and, having forgotten about them for a while, discovered that they had soared in value. Intrigued, I bought some, and for months I experienced the daily thrill of waking up meaningfully wealthier than when I went to bed.
If greed gets you across the threshold of Cryptoworld, fascination and the sheer entertainment value of it keeps you there.
I soon wanted to know everything about the "blockchain" technology that underpins Bitcoin and its imitators. If the web digitised information, this digitises value. It could all come to nothing. Or it might be the next big thing.
This exotic parallel financial universe has lured in millions. Overwhelmed coin exchanges have repeatedly suspended new account openings. Coinbase, one of the main portals from fiat money to crypto, became the most popular app in America. South Korea is said to have a problem with "Bitcoin zombies" – sleep-deprived people who check their portfolios at every hour of the day. Money has poured into "initial coin offerings", the process which creates new coins and alarms regulators.
In 2017 the value of all cryptos increased by 1,200%. Inevitably, comparisons to the dotcom bubble of the 1990s have been made. But that episode was largely restricted to American traders with enough capital and nous to have a trading account. In Cryptoworld the barriers to entry barely exist. You don't even need a bank account. You can get your crypto casino chips simply by shovelling a few bank notes into a "Bitcoin ATM", which can be found in convenience stores across London.
Sceptics are horrified, warning that these financial novices will get hurt. Enthusiasts say this is what the democratisation of finance looks like: an army of traders who don't have Bloomberg terminals but do have Twitter, encrypted Telegram channels and something called Discord, a messaging service for gamers. Like me, most of them plunged in without the faintest idea what they were doing.
The crypto seers I follow are young, self-taught amateurs. They have flourished in an ecosystem lacking the big predators of conventional financial markets. They have had time to hone their skills. All day they divine future price moves by assessing Fibonacci retracements, exponential moving averages and the mystical sounding "Ichimoku clouds". It sounds like sorcery but often works.
Many of them are on a mission to win converts to crypto. Through their YouTube and Reddit forums they are happy to help "noobs" like me. Some are fully paid up libertarians who dream of ending the monopoly power of governments to print money. Others are gamers swept away by the challenge of winning in a highly speculative market. Some are scammers looking for naïve noobs on which to offload worthless coins.
Crypto has spawned its own memes and specialist jargon. Riding those parabolic curves is called going "to the moon". Picking duff coins and losing everything is called getting "rekt". People who cling to their Bitcoin during terrifying price falls are "hodlers", that is, someone who "holds on for dear life". Crypto sceptics are embittered "nocoiners" annoyed that their Bitcoin-owning friends have become so much richer than they are. Bitcoin alternatives like Monaco, ZCash and Nexium are affectionately known as "shitcoins". Many of them more than deserve the name. Dogecoin, for example, was set up in 2013 as a spoof crypto. It still made fortunes though, as it raced towards a $1bn market cap.
Skilled traders don't just look to buy when prices fall, they BTFD (buy the fucking dip). Coin pumps are illustrated by elaborate GIFs involving rockets tearing into the stratosphere. Crashes are marked with jokes about looking for minimum-wage jobs at McDonalds. "Lambo" is the longed-for end state: you have amassed enough wealth to afford a Lamborghini.
I have not. In fact, the real-world value of my modest trading gains were wiped out in mid-January when people stampeded to the safety of fiat currencies, sending the price of Bitcoin from $17,000 to below $10,000. But I'm keeping a foot in Cryptoworld. I take comfort from the website Bitcoin Obituaries that records the 236 times the media has declared Bitcoin dead since 2010. So far Bitcoin has always recovered from its periodic price batterings.
I've been converted. I'm a hodler.
More from 1843 magazine
The inside story of the siege of Azovstal
Ukraine's iron resistance at the steelworks
For a last moment the Queen is everywhere
Her image is fixed over the streets. The rest of us are merely passing
As mourning comes: each generation forges its own relationship with the monarchy
Some rituals carry deep meaning, others are absurd


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Y2K 250 Motocross Shootout
The Main Event!
LOS ANGELES, February 4, 2000 -- We're not your girlfriend, so we'll stop teasing you. By now you've read our 250 Motocross Teazer, got yourself a Wu-Name and decided that the dirtier side of life is a side you'd like to explore further. And why not?
The MX 250s are among the best-selling bikes that each manufacturer offers and, while bred for moto-domination, they also make good play bikes and race-bikes in dirt events other than motocross. Ever heard of Enduros, GNCCs or Hare-Scrambles? At these events 250s are right at home with nothing more than a few aftermarket bolt-ons from your favorite supplier. Very few bikes offer this range of fun.
Here it is, then: Motorcycle Online's 250 Motocross Shootout. We gathered the Honda CR250, Yamaha YZ250, Kawasaki KX250 and Suzuki RM250 together with five test riders ranging in skill from local pros right down to a 125-class intermediate rider who had never spent any significant time on a 250 before this test. We visited a number of tracks in Southern California and even managed to race a few times; results notwithstanding, everything came up roses.
As one tester put it, "picking a winner is easy, the rest is @*!# hard!"
It's rare that a multi-bike comparison comes out with a unanimous winner. The rest of the bikes are all so close they could tie for second-place honors, but that wouldn't be any fun, so we assigned points for each category of handling and motor qualities and, in the end, came up with a place for every bike.
We averaged each evaluator's score for each bike in each category. All categories were weighted evenly with the winner receiving a bonus point.
Thus, the winner in each category received five points, with three points to second place, two for third and one for fourth place.
The overall winner is the bike with the most points. Simple? You bet, so let's get on with it.
Fit and Finish
Honda came out on top due to what was generally regarded as the best designed bike. The CR looked great and the fit and finish of every piece worked without flaw. There were very few complaints about a protrusion or nuisance anywhere. The engineers spent a lot of time on this bike and it shows.
Yamaha and Suzuki delivered packages that aren't far behind the Honda, though not quite as polished overall. On the Kawasaki, some riders complained about the side-panels and shrouds that grabbed boots, and that hurt its overall ratings in this category.
Finishing Order: Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki
|The Riders
Tim Telford: Height: 6' 5" Weight: 185 lbs Ability: Vet Pro
The Honda barely edged out the Yamaha in this category. In addition to winning every impromptu drag race, the scorecards regarded the CR's motor as completely usable throughout the powerband, always able to put its abundant power to the ground. While some testers picked other motors as tops, the CR never finished outside of second-place. From novices to experts, everyone was delighted with the Honda's motor. The Yamaha offered up a usable powerband as well, receiving good marks for its power, though most evaluators wished for more midrange hit. The Kawasaki had monster motor in the basement but it hit hard and could be tricky to manage in slick situations. It revved through a decent midrange but then signed off abruptly, forcing the rider to shortshift. The Suzuki received one vote for best motor, but everyone except one intermediate
class tester asked for more power. They were never completely
satisfied by the yellow machine's output.
Finishing Order: Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki
The Yamaha scored high points for a slick-shifting tranny and its adjustable perch. Only the Suzuki drew complaints, and even in the RM's case it was only to missed shifts and what felt like a clutch that didn't always operate as smoothly as it could. There were also a few mentions of missed shifts on the Kawasaki,but everything worked well and the shifting was never a significant point of concern. Neither the Honda nor the Yamaha drew anything but praise for their slick shifting. The edge here goes to the Yamaha, though, for it's adjustable lever and a smooth and easy pull.
Finishing Order: Yamaha, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki
Again, the Honda was the bike of choice. The CR was roomy and everyone from our smallest five-foot-seven-inch tester to our tallest six-foot-five-inch tester had room to move. Still, nobody thought the bike felt too stretched out or large, either. Ergos that allowed testers to get weight over the front wheel helped the RM rail tight corners. Yamaha also came up with an excellent ergonomic package that was only held back by a few comments from the short riders about the handlebars being too tall. The Suzuki and Kawasaki fell closely behind with the most complaints being centered around the Kawi's "cluttered" feeling. Most riders felt the pegs were too high and, even with the bar-clamp in the forward-most position, our riders felt too cramped.
Finishing Order: Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki
Front Suspension
Comments in this category ranged from "the best stock fork I've ever ridden on," to "unstable and harsh." The evaluators worked hard at trying to set up the forks to match their ability and the changing track conditions. Some bikes responded better than others, and the Honda came out of the crate set up almost perfectly for every rider. Hardly any clicks or fork-height adjustments needed to be made for the CR to put a smile on every face. In second place was the Yamaha which after a couple of tweaks to suit each rider's preference, worked almost as well as the Honda.
We liked the Kawasaki's plush overall feel but, when we opened the throttle, the front end had a tendency to ride high and push in the corners. The Suzuki, while not equipped with a bad fork, seemed excessively harsh and prone to bottoming. We couldn't seem to click this problem away as we did on the Honda and the Yamaha.
Finishing Order: Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki
Rear Suspension
Again, comments about the Honda were few since most everyone regarded it as very "smooth and consistent," although our lightest (sub 150-pound) testers made comments about a stiff spring. The Yamaha was once again on the Honda's heels with two riders preferring it because it felt "a little bit more stable. Very little kicking or deflection." Still, the blue bike fell short by a few points since it drew a few more criticisms than the Honda for its inability to soak up choppy, pothole-infested straights.
The Honda's rear shock was never a target for complaints. The Suzuki never felt secure or planted and drew criticism for its desire to dance over braking bumps. The consensus was that it bottomed too frequently and, after we fiddled with compression and rebound adjustments, became even more prone to hopping with only a slight decrease in bottoming-resistance. The same was said of the Kawasaki. No tester ever felt they were able to dial it in to the point where it worked acceptably.
Finishing Order: Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki


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Mr. Moeketsi Maesela a.k.a "Clumsy" is a star on the rise, who is collaborating with the already established hip hop artist MarazA on a new single titled Haiyo, which just dropped the music
In case you don't know him yet, Clumsy is a recording artist and songwriter, taking from his influences Travis Scott, Tory Lanes, KO & Jay-Z and using them to shape a new style. Growing up in Klipfontein View in Midrand, it was in his teens when he started making beats and at a later stage started recording his own music.
Even though he's still young, he has an unusually strong command of his music and has a fully-formed musical identity. He has collaborated with Costa Titch & Phantom_steeze on a trendy hit single "Dablikeme" which created a buzz on social media. Currently, he has busy with an EP & a few music videos which will be dropping soon, one of them being of
Haiyo where he features MarazA. Listen to his sound here.
Soundcloud – https://soundcloud.com/1clumsykat/clumsy-ft-maraza-haiyo-20
Audiomack – https://www.audiomack.com/song/clumsy-1/clumsy-ft-maraza-haiyo-20
Zippyshare – http://www67.zippyshare.com/v/PwRqlDx0/file.html
Full Names: Mr. Moeketsi Maesela a.k.a "Clumsy"
Location: Midrand (Originally from Limpopo)
Country: SOUTH AFRICA
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Clumsy_SA
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clumsy_sa/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClumsySA/
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUkQK7O9JDIPsS8xPeDSljA
MANAGER and RECORDING LABEL:
Recording Label: Red Music Entertainment (Pty) Ltd
Country: SOUTH AFRICA
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RedMusicEnt/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RedMusic_Ent
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/redmusic_entertainment/
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUkQK7O9JDIPsS8xPeDSljA


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Thanks for visiting Don Detrick photography! I love being outdoors in God's creation and finding vibrant and scenic images to share with you. It puts a smile on my face when people find joy and meaning in the images I've shared. I'd love to hear from you so feel free to share your comments. God bless!
Debra Levisonon December 20, 2020
Hi Don, Thank you for sending me your website link. I've admired your beautiful photos of the Snoqualmie Valley on Facebook since moving to Fall City about 18 months ago. I was raised in SW King County but we often came to this area with my Dad to hike. Unfortunately I have new problem; trying to pick out just one photo to send my brother, they are all so breathtaking. Thank you so much for sharing your gift. Debra Levison
P.S. Have you ever thought about a box of greeting cards blank inside? I would buy that in a heartbeat!
John Bobkoon August 6, 2019
I really don't know when you find the time but we are glad you do! Great gifts from God are ment to be shared and so glad you do.
Steve Lauren Stantonon September 20, 2018
We are looking for the perfect picture for a large canvas for our Living Room wall. I am sure we will find one here!
Juan Stouton April 2, 2018
Enjoyed my visit to your page. You do wonderful work.
Steve Raimoon January 14, 2018
It has been a priveege watching your photography evolve over the past years . . . excellent work!
Terry Callis Photographyon December 4, 2017
I just discovered your website Don! I had no idea you were a photographer as well. You have some absolutely phenomenal work! I am currently developing my own website on SmugMug as well and just this past month put out my first calendar. I find it a very deep spiritual experience being able to capture God's wondrous creation and sharing His resplendent beauty with others.
David Clarkon November 27, 2017
It's always a joy to see your work and inspire myself and others to reach that quality. Thank you for sharing your vision with us, Brother Don.
Milan Novickon November 21, 2017
Fantastic site. Nicely done and easy to navigate. And the photography is exceptional as always and inspiring without a doubt. Please add some photos of the Yakima River landscapes.
Larry Dillon November 21, 2017
You do such a nice job! I would love to go on a photography trip with you. I just got back from photographing Vermont fall colors. I've decided that for a photographer, the Northwest holds marvelous scenery. People need to be aware of what's around them. Most are not taking advantage of what God's creation affords.