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Fairways to Heaven
Close your eyes and try to imagine golf heaven. You do not need a tee time. There are no green fees. There is never a group in front of you when you are ready to hit. If you do not like your shot, just drop another ball. There is no hurry, because nobody is behind you.
This fantasy is becoming a reality for more and more individuals who own their own golf courses. From a bent grass putting green to a full-blown 18-hole layout, you can build a little bit of golf heaven right here on earth, in your own backyard. Across the country, traditional home recreation facilities like tennis courts and swimming pools are giving way to tee boxes and greens ringed with bunkers. Gardeners who once tended flower beds are now trimming Bermuda grass, all so we can play more golf.
Reclusive real estate magnate Edward S. Gordon made headlines when he built his own nine-hole course on New York's Long Island. Casino owner Steve Wynn's Shadow Creek is not only a full-scale 18-hole layout, but the course, designed by the legendary Tom Fazio, is considered one of the best in the country. (See sidebar, page 367.) Montana's Dennis Washington, who made his millions in the mining industry, used the firm of Robert Trent Jones Jr. when he added a nine-hole course to his fishing lodge in British Columbia.
Once you've made the investment and had the work done, your biggest problem, as one New York businessman who owns his own course pointed out, is deciding whether to play at home or join the boys at the club.
While only a handful of individuals can afford the cost of a full-sized golf course, which the American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA) estimates runs between $1.6 million and $4.5 million, almost every golf fanatic who has enough land can put a little bit of paradise on his property. Many individuals choose to put in one full-sized hole, usually a par 3 or 4, that they can play at their leisure. Others invest in just a green, along with some sand traps, so they can practice their short game by pitching to the green from different spots on their lawn. For those who want to play an entire round, but have limited space and resources, multiple tee boxes can be used with each green. This way, three greens can be played from different directions to create nine distinct golfing experiences.
Most home golf course owners keep a low profile regarding their backyard investments--presumably because they don't want to broadcast what might seem like wretched excess or they simply don't want the rest of the world showing up to play on their private links--but the architects who delight in these projects are not as shy.
"It's a novelty, and a hell of a conversation piece," says Peter J. Fazio, Tom Fazio's cousin and owner of Fazio Golf Green Design in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. "I started looking at the home market about two years ago. I did a green with two bunkers, with a tee at 135 yards and another at 160, for a friend of mine who had about five acres. He was a scratch golfer who had gone up to about a seven and was trying to get back down."
Carter Morrish, a golf course designer who works with his father, the renowned Jay Morrish, recalls a project he did in 1992 in Malibu for a man named Bill O'Connor. "He had about 17 acres, but only seven were useable," says Morrish. "He was building a house, and he had me put in four par-3 holes, each with two sets of tees, all on about two acres. It was a neat project."
Another designer, Edmund Hollander, has also left his imprint on backyard golf. "We have done everything from an individual hole, a green with sand traps around it and a tee, to another job where we put in four good-sized greens, with a pond, and eight tees, so there's a lot of back-and-forth play," says Hollander, a landscape architect who has designed several personal golf layouts of varying size in the New York metropolitan area.
Costs can range from tens of thousands of dollars for one hole, to millions for 18 holes, according to the owner's ambition. Creating fairways can mean moving earth, building contours, planning for irrigation and planting golf course grass, or you can simply cut the grass on your lawn short between tee and green. On par 3s, you can forgo the fairways altogether. Each green can have its own tee, or can be played from several directions. The one element where there isn't much room for skimping is the construction of the green.
"For a [United States Golf Association] spec green, you're looking at $35,000 for 5,000 square feet," says Peter Fazio. "Most people don't need it. I can put in a green where you can hone your game and it would look aesthetically good for anywhere from $9,000 to $39,000. The bunkers and tees are not a big deal." USGA specifications are extremely detailed. They require substantial earth moving and layers of crushed stone that constitute a drainage system to move water away from the greens. Following these rigorous design and construction rules, which have been developed from decades of research and experience, will result in a true tour-style green, just like the pros play on. As golf architect Geoffrey S. Cornish wrote in his article "How To Build and Maintain A Putting Green," "When it has been properly designed and planted a golf green represents the final word in man's present knowledge of grass growing."
Because one of the design objectives behind the USGA procedures is the ability of a green to hold up under the traffic of hundreds of rounds per day, strict adherence to these construction rules may represent overkill. Regardless of how much you plan to practice your putting, few home greens will be subjected to that kind of abuse. Many home owners will be satisfied with a quality surface that falls short of USGA specifications.
"Most people are doing just greens, with a couple of bunkers and sand traps," says Hollander. "Fifteen thousand gets you a 1,500-square-foot green with a couple of sand traps. You can usually use the fill from the green for the bunkers. You can go with the real thing, or you can go with an imitation. You can never get synthetic to look like bent grass. On the other hand, you don't have to mow and maintain it."
Two main types of grass are used in putting green construction--bent grass and Bermuda--each of which comes in several varieties. Bent grass, which is usually considered the finest grass, is widely used throughout the northern half of the United States. In warmer climates, where the greens are used all through the year, hardy Bermuda grass is almost always used.
If building a golf course sounds expensive, it is nothing compared to the maintenance. The American Society of Golf Course Architects estimates that a full-sized course requires between $300,000 and $500,000 in maintenance costs annually, not including up-front equipment purchases of several hundred thousand dollars. Even the most modest backyard putting greens are costly to maintain, as they must be cut at least every other day, and sometimes every day, when in use. Regular lawn mowers will not do the trick, and specially designed models intended to cut grass as short as an eighth of an inch can cost $15,000 to $30,000.
"The maintenance is an enormous commitment," says Hollander, who estimates the upkeep for a green, traps and bunkers at $5,000 a year. "You'll probably spend more in three years maintaining it than you will pay to build it."
Peter Fazio concurs: "There are variations from A to Z. Most owners have yard people, and you can just mow down your native grass short for fairways. You can go to whatever extent you want, but what you don't want to do is get caught up in the maintenance. Any home owner who is going to put this in is not going to want to maintain it. Anyone who builds this probably belongs to a club, so go to your superintendent and arrange to have him help you out. The big investment is the mower, and you'll need fertilizer and irrigation as well."
Many putting green owners avoid the expense of buying a mower by hiring either a golf course superintendent or, in some communities, a landscaping firm that owns the special mower. However, bringing in a mower from the outside exposes your greens to diseases, which are a common scourge of golf courses. Getting rid of the problem and restoring the grass can be more costly than buying the mower in the first place.
A low-maintenance alternative to real grass is a synthetic green. While synthetics do not have the cachet of a real green, they offer many of the benefits with fewer headaches, and the technology has evolved to the point where few golfers can tell the difference in terms of performance. "Since we introduced this technology, there's been a shift in focus," says Irving Bookspan, founder of San Francisco-based Tour True Turf Technologies, a manufacturer of synthetic greens. "For a long time, people thought anything artificial was Astroturf. Now people are seeing that we have a surface that rolls true like bent grass."
In the past 11 years, Bookspan's company has installed hundreds of greens across the United States. One advantage of the synthetic is that you can install much smaller greens--as little as two hundred square feet--because they don't require the same extensive drainage systems as natural greens; you can even put them indoors. With synthetics, as with real grass, you can adjust the speed of the green to suit your needs by adding or removing the top dressing that fills in around the blades of synthetic grass. While synthetic greens are low maintenance, and for many applications more flexible than real grass, they still come with a hefty price tag, running $18 to $35 per square foot.
"It's not a cheap process," says Bookspan. "Think about what you're getting. It's a putting green, like the one they have at your country club. Say you build a USGA-spec green that would cost you $30,000. It's going to cost you 10 to 15 [thousand dollars] a year to maintain, so you pay for it again every two or three years. A Tour True green might cost 35 [thousand dollars] to install, but the maintenance is only going to run two to three hundred dollars a month."
But how does it putt? "When you consider the people who are buying these greens, who could afford real grass, and know what real grass rolls like, there are no drawbacks," claims Bookspan, who counts among his clients professional golfers Paul Azinger, John Huston and Larry Mize, as well as famed teaching pro Jim McLean. Golf club manufacturers such as Titleist, Callaway and Karsten use True Turf greens in their test facilities, as do several golf schools. Even golf fanatic and basketball superstar Michael Jordan has one at his house.
Paul Shok, an orthodontist from Meadville, Pennsylvania, swears by his synthetic green, which he installed five years ago and still uses three or four times a week. "I belong to a country club in my hometown, but I also belong to Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. There's a tremendous discrepancy between the speed of the greens, so if I know I'm going to Firestone, I can make my green faster, and if I'm going to play here, I can make it slower. If I get on my green and give it half an hour or 45 minutes, it makes a significant difference when I'm out on the course."
Once you decide which green you want, the next step is figuring how big to make it. Your options depend on the size of your lot and the lay of the available land. Peter Fazio estimates that you need at least two and a half acres per hole, if you have a fairly square lot. An irregular piece of land may require substantially more. Hollander recommends three to four acres for a full-sized hole, and a minimum of 50 acres for a traditional nine-hole spread.
Riley Stottern, owner of Golf Greens of America, knows quite a bit about private golf courses. As superintendent for Wynn's Shadow Creek, he oversaw construction of the nation's premier personal golf project. Sensing a trend, he went out on his own. "We tried to do it on a mass-produced basis, installing USGA greens. There's a lot of golfers out there, and we thought that people could have a green, just like they have a tennis court, but you've got to have the land and the money." Stottern estimates that one par-3 hole will run about $40,000 to construct.
To cut back on expense and space, you can use a green for more than one hole and build fewer holes than on a regular course. Recall-ing work he did in Wyoming, Stottern says, "People in the Jackson area who had 20 to 30 acres would put in a par 3, usually one green and a fairway. We would try to put in two auxiliary tees so you could play it three different ways. Go around three times and you've played nine holes."
These types of compromises are far more popular, and often more realistic, than installing a regulation course. While only a handful of individuals maintain true courses on their property, there are a surprising number of "mini-courses," many designed by prominent architects. Robert Trent Jones II, one of the world's best-known golf course design firms, has done several projects for home owners, including the nine-hole course for Dennis Washington in Canada. Another project was done for Thomas Proulx, co-founder of computer software manufacturer Intuit. According to Steve Schroeder, vice president of operations at Jones, "The Proulxs have an extended practice hole with some greens that allow you to play all the different kinds of shots you would normally play."
Schroeder notes that one of the firm's most famous clients does not even own his own home. This was the case when Robert Trent Jones Jr. designed and installed a presidential putting green. "Bobby knows President Clinton, and Clinton's a big golf nut, and they were playing golf one day and Clinton was saying he couldn't ever get to practice his short game. That was the part of his game that was weak, and Bobby said, 'Well, you know there used to be a putting green at the White House.' It wasn't a big one, but it was there, and Clinton thought about it, and that's where the idea came from." Jones put in a new green on the site of the former one, and now the president can practice his putting in between meetings with heads of state.
Will the new green improve the president's short game? According to Shok, practicing at home makes a real difference, especially for someone with as hectic a schedule as Clinton's. "The most significant thing for me is those five-, six- and seven-footers," Shok says. "It's very convenient, and for those putts I have to make, it gives me a lot of confidence. You don't have to get in the car and go anywhere, and it's great when you get home from work and have 15 or 20 minutes before you have to take the kids here or there."
Using a famed architect like Jones, Morrish or Fazio will add both prestige and expense to your project. In normal circumstances, according to Schroeder, the firm's fee will be 10 percent of the roughly $250,000 it cost to design and build each hole. A nice nine-holer of your own will run $2 million to $2.5 million, before fees or main-tenance.
Designing and building a golf course requires much more than a bit of landscaping experience. According to the ASGCA, whose membership reads like a who's who of golf, including Jack Nicklaus, Tom Fazio, Robert Trent Jones and Jones Jr., Pete Dye, Rees Jones, Arthur Hills and Jay Morrish, there are only 128 men and two women in North America who are, "by virtue of their knowledge of the game, training, experience and vision and inherent ability, qualified to design and prepare specifications for a course." Golf course design requires a working knowledge of several different disciplines, including landscape architecture, civil engineering, hydraulic engineering, agrostology (the science of turf culture and care) and construction using heavy equipment.
Of course, you do not need a member of the golf course architects society to design most backyard courses, and certainly not for just putting in a putting green. Hollander, who gets almost all of his golf work through word of mouth and referrals, is a landscape architect who frequently works on projects unrelated to golf. "If you are going to put in a residential golf course, it is part of your residence, and has to be approached like any other piece of landscaping. You don't want to put the green next to your kitchen window, so you look for a remote corner of the property, somewhere where it gets full sun and good drainage. Just like building a house, you have to select a good designer, contractor and someone to maintain it. Any one of them can screw it up. We are responsible not only for design, but for getting it built."
If golf's popularity continues to soar, firms like Hollander's should be in luck. The ASGCA estimates that the number of golfers and rounds played could increase by 35 percent by the end of the decade. As more avid golfers are faced with more crowded courses, residential golf becomes an attractive option. Serious players know that the short game is by far the most important part of golf, so even just having a putting green to practice on can result in a substantial improvement in your play. According to David Bishop Sr., manager of information services for the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, "we get five to 10 requests a week" from people interested in installing backyard putting greens of some size and scope.
While one green or hole will suffice for many, some golfers crave a little more. One such enthusiast is Stephen Hannah, a journalist, who along with his friend, Bill Wernecke Jr., is writing a book on golf course architecture called Six Who Changed the Course of Golf.
"I bought a little farmstead in a place called Mequon, around 20 miles northwest of Milwaukee, with about 10 acres of land, and I decided that I'm going to put some golf holes in here," says Hannah. "So Bill, who has been studying golf course architecture since he was about 10, comes over, and we scope out the land, and at one point I figured I could put in six holes, using three greens, so I'd be coming back and forth. The longest hole was going to be 190 yards.
"Then I read this article about pitch-and-putt courses of Ireland, and the longest hole they have on those courses is about 65 yards. They hit these terrific wedge shots that back up 25 feet on the green. So I started shifting my thinking and decided what I really ought to have is a nine-hole pitch-and-putt course. You can really do one or the other. You can have a regular hole where you are going to be hitting three and four irons, or you can really practice. I'd probably get a lot more practice and have more fun with the pitch-and-putt."
Hannah broke ground on his course this summer and plans to be playing in the spring. "I think I should have a golf course in my backyard as long as I have this nice little farm. I'm looking to do this to have fun, and because I'm 48 years old and I think I ought to be doing this kind of thing. I see myself out there with friends, with the sun going down, lofting up wedge shots while we drink some beers." Sounds like golf heaven. *
Larry Olmsted is a freelance writer who lives in Vermont. MATTERS OF COURSE
For more information on building your own golf course, contact:
The American Society of Golf Course Architects
221 North LaSalle Street
Chicago, Illinois 60601 (312) 372-7090
For information on selecting an architect, construction methods, maintenance, costs and a membership list:
Golf Course Superintendents Association of America
1421 Research Park Drive
Lawrence, Kansas 66049-3859 (913) 841-2240
For information on construction, maintenance and environmental concerns:
United States Golf Association (USGA)
Golf House
P.O. Box 708
Far Hills, New Jersey 07931-0708
A Web site--www.USGA.org/green/coned--details the USGA green construction process and requirements.
Sources for design and construction of personal golf greens and courses:
Fazio Golf Green Design (Peter J. Fazio)
102 East Fairview Avenue
Langhorne, Pennsylvania 19047
Golf Greens of America (Riley Stottern)
463 Heritage Drive
St. George, Utah 84770 (801) 634-0757
Edmund Hollander Design, P.C.
21 East Fourth Street
New York, New York 10003 (212) 473-0620
Robert Trent Jones II
705 Forest Avenue
Palo Alto, California 94301 (415) 326-3833
Jay Morrish & Associates (Carter Morrish)
3700 Forums Drive - Suite 207
Flower Mound, Texas 75028 (972) 539-3465
Tour True Turf Technologies (Irving Bookspan)
U.S. Indoor Golf
384 Oyster Point Boulevard - Suite 14
South San Francisco, California 94080 (415) 244-0690 --LO SHADOW CREEK COURSE: Now Open For Business
It has been called the most exclusive golf course in the world. Augusta National? Cypress Point? Pine Valley?
No, Shadow Creek.
You couldn't get more private. Since it opened in 1989, the only way to play the golf course, a tropical wonderland hidden amid otherwise desolate North Las Vegas scrubland, was to be invited. No problem, right? Just find a member to take you--like you might at Augusta.
Shadow Creek, however, has only one "member": Steve Wynn, the chairman of Mirage Resorts. If you wanted to snare a coveted invitation, you had to be a management employee at one of the company's Las Vegas casino properties, a fully "comped" high roller, or household-name famous. Period. The usual golf course interlopers--journalists, corporate heavy hitters, persistent relatives--simply had to learn to take "No" for an answer.
Shadow Creek, consistently ranked as one of the top 10 courses in America, was a private playground, reserved for an elite, anointed few. (See Cigar Aficionado, Autumn 1994.)
Until now.
To the delight of golf fanatics everywhere, Shadow Creek is now open to limited--very limited--public play. Here's the deal: For $1,000, a guest may purchase one of six to 12 tee times available each day. (Availability is contingent on the number of invited guests, and the season and day of the week. High-season weekends are the most difficult time to get a reservation.) The fee includes a caddie to escort you around the 6,701-yard game preserve masquerading as a golf course, round-trip limousine transportation to and from the club, and a suite at The Mirage, Treasure Island or Golden Nugget. One other player, staying in the same suite, may participate for an additional $500.
Whether this hefty tariff is a good value depends on your priorities. To those who want to play an immaculate, startlingly beautiful course-- which very few have ever played--and do so in the company of the rich and famous--the price may seem like a bargain.
A night at Pebble Beach and a round of golf the next morning costs around $750--and there you get the privilege of paying an additional fee for range balls and waiting 30 minutes at the eighth tee for the bottleneck to clear. After a six-hour round filled with a lot of standing around, you start to wonder, is it worth it?
At Shadow Creek, the experience is in almost every way perfect. The course, designed by Tom Fazio (in collaboration with Wynn) is laid out as a series of concave arenas, blanketed by mature trees and immense earth berms; you never see any hole except the one you are playing. With wide fairways, big greens and reasonable rough, Shadow Creek is enormously playable. Though water runs through about half the holes, there are few forced carries, none of them particularly long.
Playing here is about golf as pleasure, not punishment. From the moment you enter the luxurious changing room--where luminaries ranging from Bill Gates to Bruce Willis to Phil Mickelson keep lockers--to your time on a practice range more elegant than the back nine at most country clubs, you are immersed in privacy, comfort and sensual delights. (Just try not to hit one of the omnipresent pheasants with a wayward drive.) And even though anyone with a credit card can now attempt to play this most exclusive of golf courses, don't worry about Shadow Creek losing any of its mystique. The day I was there, Michael Jordan was in the foursome ahead of me. * --Michael Konik
Contributing editor Michael Konik is Cigar Aficionado's gambling columnist.
For reservations at Shadow Creek, call (888) 778-3387.


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Boston (Matthew Johnson) and Roosevelt (Jared Grimes), center, in a scene from TWIST – An American Musical at The Pasadena Playhouse. Photo: Craig Schwartz.
Mr. Prudhomme (Cliff Bemis) and Della (Tamyra Gray) in a scene from TWIST – An American Musical at The Pasadena Playhouse. Photo: Craig Schwartz.
Twist's nightmare scene from TWIST – An American Musical at The Pasadena Playhouse. Photo: Craig Schwartz
Boston (Matthew Johnson, center) and his gang in a scene from TWIST – An American Musical at The Pasadena Playhouse. Photo: Craig Schwartz.
Twist: An American Musical
A must see! Crowd pleaser production!
Twist- An American Musical is a must see for all, Based on the original Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist" (first published in 1838) but with its own spin; presents a heartwarming story of a young innocent orphan boy in search of his identity, family and finding a place he can call home.
Along his journey, Twist finds out that family is not always blood related but of those who love you. The play is set in the Depression era of 1920's in New Orleans and deals with racism to the highest extent. Twist who was birthed from a white woman and a black father, finds out the hard way as he is teased because of the color of his skin. In the play, Twist sings a really compelling song that relates to how he feels about being teased, asking God, why did he make him a color no one likes, which becomes one of the most touching scenes in the play as he innocently questions his existence.
Twist features…William F. Brown and Tina Tippet who wrote the book for the all black cast adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz," "The Wiz" they were brought in to rewrite the book for Twist. The Musical score is by Tena Clark and Gary Prim, along with multi award winning Debbie Allen who directed and choreographed. Also starring American Idols season one, Tamyra Gray and Alaman Diadhiou along with 31 other excellent cast members.
Although the play touches upon racism it is still very kid friendly. "Yes you are taken aback by it, Its apart of our American history and we need not to forget it because we can repeat it…the little snippet of what we have is good enough for little kids, just so they can be like who are they and what are they doing. It gets them thinking and it makes people have to talk about history," said Tamyra Gray on how people would react to the racism in the play.
The Musical score for twist features the musical pulse of New Orleans in the 1920's and is highlighted by a tapestry of soaring ballads, hot jazz, blues, gospel and tap infused dance numbers. "This is my legacy piece-my dream come true" said composer/lyricist Tena Clark, who wrote all of the songs for the production along with Gary Prim. "The Music is the best gumbo I have ever tasted," said Debbie Allen.
As the story unfolds one might find themselves wrapped in Twist character as he depicts an innocent little boy just trying to find his place in the world. Twist goes through life changing events but at the end finds what he has been searching for. "It's a universal story about love, we are all seeking love in some sort of fashion" said Gray on who can relate to the production.
"I think really good theater touches people, makes them think and look at themselves. Hopefully the play will give them great joy and make them feel. That's the best that I can hope for," said Allen on what she wants people to walk away with after seeing the production.
Twist is a must see production, as Debbie Allen and the crew entertain your soul while at the same time making it an educational experience. It's an audience pleaser and a definitely a must see.
Genre: Musical, Comedy and Educational.
Ratings -Two Thumbs Up

subset: commoncrawl


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|Gould and Blake play a pair of slightly off-the-wall L.A. cops. The pair are forced "to bust" local addicts and prostitutes instead of the real crime bosses because much of the police department is on the take. Plenty of comedy and action as well as highly realistic drama.
|Directed by:
|Peter Hyams
|Elliott Gould, Robert (Bobby) Blake, Allen (Goorwitz) Garfield, Antonio Fargas, Michael Lerner, Sid Haig, Cornelia Sharpe


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Following our theme of awarding our own Texans' players with our official unoffical Fanblog awards, next up is our Fanblog Rookie of the Year award. Hands down, this award goes to Texans rookie defensive end Justin James Watt.
Watt was selected 11th overall in the 2011 NFL draft after playing only two full years at Wisconsin at defensive end. In 2010 Watt recorded 59 tackles, 7 sacks, a fumble recovery and an interception. Watt was awarded the Ronnie Lott IMPACT award, an award also won by the Texans' DeMeco Ryans several years prior.
Right off the bat Watt made his presence known on the field. In his first NFL game, Watt recorded 5 tackles and recovered a fumble. Starting all 16 games, Watt finished the season with 56 tackles, 5.5 sacks, 2 fumble recoveries and a blocked field goal.
The Broncos Von Miller won the official AP DROY award, after recording 64 tackles and 11.5 sacks. I thought Watt would've had a shot at that award if he hadn't been robbed of several sacks on petty roughing the passer calls. I can think of a few right off the top of my head that were taken away from him because he fell into the QB's legs. I understand all the focus put on protecting the quarterback, but I personally think this is a ticky-tack rule. If a player takes a blatant shot at a QB's legs when he could've made the same tackle otherwise then throw the flag. But don't fault a guy for trying to make a tackle as he's falling (or being pushed) to the ground.
Also deserving of consideration are rookies TJ Yates and Brooks Reed. Both were forced into starting duties due to injuries. Reed collected 45 tackles, 6 sacks and 2 recovered fumbles playing opposite Connor Barwin. In consideration of Reed over Watt, I had to factor that it's my belief that Reed benefited more from the play of Barwin and Watt and the rest of the defense than Watt did.
Yates took the Texans to their first playoff game, scoring on a very impressive last minute scoring drive to clinch the division title, then took it a step further and carried the Texans to their first playoff win. It's a tough call between JJ and TJ, but in the end, JJ did it for 16 games as the starter, so I have to give him the overall nod.
Watt made franchise history after scoring the first defensive touchdown in a playoff game in the January 7th game against Cincinnati. Showing a keen knack for getting his hands up and knocking down passes, Watt surprised himself when an Andy Dalton pass seemingly stuck to his hands and he came up with the interception. Watt ran untouched into the endzone for his first professional touchdown and gave the Texans a 17-10 lead in their first ever playoff win.
So I salute you JJ Watt, you're my Fanblog Rookie of the Year!
~ Crimedog


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Appeals court hearing BP challenge on spill claims
A federal appeals court is hearing BP's bid to challenge what could be billions of dollars in settlement payouts to businesses claiming they lost money after the company's 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Lawyers for BP and Gulf Coast businesses and residents began arguments Monday before a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
BP wants the panel to overturn a federal judge's ruling that upheld a court-appointed claims administrator's interpretation of the settlement.
BP claims the administrator has allowed thousands of businesses to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in payments for inflated and fictitious losses.
Plaintiffs' lawyers counter that BP underestimated how many claimants would qualify for payments.


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Mayan Archaeology > Chiapas > Chiapas
Capture it
Colorful murals that take us back to the daily life of the Mayans 1,200 years ago.
The name Bonampak in the Mayan language means "Painted Walls" and undoubtedly, the great appeal of this archaeological area are the paintings located in the Temple of the Murals where the history of a battle, its aftermath, and the celebration of victory is displayed with astonishing realism.
It is located in the middle of the Lacandon jungle and was one of the most important cities in the late Classic period, between the years 600 and 800. Numerous buildings still remain of the great city, although only the Great Plaza and the Acropolis are open to the public.
The murals of Bonampak were discovered in 1946 and are considered as one of the greatest treasures of ancient Mexico.
The frescoes can be found in three rooms and were painted around 790 A.D. A complex technique was used to apply pigments in a water medium with lime mixed with an organic binder. The walls are covered by approximately 112 m2 of mural paintings. The murals have been interpreted in different ways; however, the most widely accepted theory is that they tell only one story, which includes the battle, its aftermath, and the celebration of victory.
The building's dedication ceremony is described in room 1. Members of the hierarchy, who are preparing for the event, appear along the scene. In room 2 the fierce battle, which took place on 2nd august, 792 A.D., and the following presentation and torture of prisoners, are narrated. In room 3 the celebration of the battle triumph is depicted, it is dominated by the figure of Chaan Muan II, the last sovereign of Bonampak, who performs the ritual of self-sacrifice by offering his blood to the gods.
The site is surrounded by thick jungle, which provides shelter to abundant fauna, including spider and howling monkeys, anteaters, tapirs, brocket deer, jaguarondi, and, in the depths of the jungle, the sacred jaguar still abounds.
|Monday through Sunday from 8:00 to 17:00
|46 pesos per person. Visitors must also pay another fee charged by the Lacandona people, at the site's entrance.
From Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the State Capital of Chiapas, go to Palenque via San Cristóbal de las Casas and Ocosingo. From Palenque, take Federal Highway 307 towards Frontera Corozal to San Javier (135 kilometers) and turn right towards Lacanjá-Chansayab. The site is located 13 kilometers down this road. It is important to know that the last nine kilometers are traveled on a covered walkway coated with a sub-surface material with a 10 centimeters thick hydraulic-based layer. Please note that it is not necessary to travel to Tuxtla Gutiérrez to reach the archaeological site, as it is the longest route.


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Account types
There are a variety of ways to integrate Connect. Depending on who's getting paid out, we have three flexible account options to support them.
For platforms supporting independent businesses who benefit from having a full Stripe account, such as an e-commerce platform.
For platforms looking to onboard recipients quickly and at scale, such as an on-demand marketplace.
For platforms who want to completely customize the user experience, including the onboarding, dashboard, and reporting UIs.
Empower your sellers with complete access to Stripe's dashboard
Empower your sellers with complete access to Stripe's dashboard
Standard lets you connect your platform to new or existing Stripe accounts, using Stripe's dashboard and onboarding flows.
It's the best option if your sellers need the power and flexibility provided by the full Stripe Dashboard. Such sellers are typically individuals or businesses who are savvy with online commerce.
It's easy to get going with Connect Standard—all you have to do is implement an OAuth integration with Stripe and then you and your sellers can begin processing payments.
Reduce time to market and customize the user experience
Express includes a set of prebuilt, co-branded flows for user onboarding, verification, reporting, and payouts management.
Express drastically reduces your time to market and ongoing maintenance burden, while still giving you the ability to exercise a high degree of control over the user experience.
Fully customize the user experience to your exact specifications
Custom lets your platform build a complete experience for your users to your exact specifications. Custom offers all of Connect's functionality in a flexible API, and enables you to build custom onboarding, verification and reporting UIs for your users.
All Accounts Include
- Funds routing and payout engine
- Incremental recipient verification
- Platform management dashboard
- International support in 25+ countries


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Your search did not match any results.
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On December 20, 2013, Oracle announced that it had entered into an agreement to acquire Responsys, the leading provider of enterprise-scale cloud-based business to consumer (B2C) marketing software.
The transaction has closed.
Responsys is used by the most respected B2C brands across the globe to manage and orchestrate marketing interactions with their customers across email, mobile, social, display and the web. More than 450 companies across a wide range of industries rely on Responsys to drive more revenue and improve the customer experience at every interaction.
The addition of Responsys will extend Oracle's Customer Experience Cloud, which includes the Oracle Sales Cloud, Oracle Commerce Cloud, Oracle Service Cloud, Oracle Social Cloud and the Oracle Marketing Cloud. By bringing together Responsys and Oracle, for the first time CMOs across industries will be equipped to drive exceptional customer experiences across marketing interactions and throughout the customer lifecycle from a single platform.
Responsys customers and partners: Please use your existing contacts for professional services and sales.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This website contains certain forward-looking statements about Oracle and Responsys, including statements that involve risks and uncertainties concerning Oracle's acquisition of Responsys, anticipated customer benefits and general business outlook. When used in this website, the words "anticipates", "can", "will", "look forward to", "expected" and similar expressions and any other statements that are not historical facts are intended to identify those assertions as forward-looking statements. Any such statement may be influenced by a variety of factors, many of which are beyond the control of Oracle or Responsys, that could cause actual outcomes and results to be materially different from those projected, described, expressed or implied in this website due to a number of risks and uncertainties. Potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, the possibility that the anticipated synergies of the combined companies may not be achieved, the combined operations may not be successfully integrated in a timely manner, if at all, general economic conditions in regions in which either company does business, and the possibility that Oracle or Responsys may be adversely affected by other economic, business, and/or competitive factors. Accordingly, no assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what impact they will have on the results of operations or financial condition of Oracle or Responsys.
In addition, please refer to the documents that Oracle and Responsys, respectively, file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K. These filings identify and address other important factors that could cause Oracle's and Responsys' respective operational and other results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements set forth in this document. You are cautioned to not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this document. Neither Oracle nor Responsys is under any duty to update any of the information in this document.
Oracle is currently reviewing the existing Responsys product roadmap and will be providing guidance to customers in accordance with Oracle's standard product communication policies. Any resulting features and timing of release of such features as determined by Oracle's review of Responsys' product roadmap are at the sole discretion of Oracle. All product roadmap information, whether communicated by Responsys or by Oracle, does not represent a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decision. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract.


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Page Content
+++ Due to the Covid-19 pandemic the TU Berlin Summer University will not take place on campus this year. Registrations [1] for our Summer University Online program [2] are now open! +++
The course addresses the following topics:
- What is Virtual Reality and Exergaming (exercise gaming)?
- How can Virtual Reality be connected with sports?
- Understanding benefits and limitations of VR environments
- Introduction to programing for Virtual Reality with Unity
- Workshop in designing, prototyping, and developing for one small Exergame in VR
- Perform a usability test and use the gathered result during the development
Learning Goals and Syllabus
The course aims at:
- Explaining what Virtual Reality is, history of how and why it was developed, and the potential future use of it
- Defining exercise gaming, and showing benefits of the connection with Virtual Reality
- Teaching how to develop first Virtual Reality game with Unity
- Providing a practical workshop by creating a use case design, a game scenario and by prototyping and developing the first game itself
- Performing a usability test and teaching how to analyze/incorporate the results into a next app version
Kindly find the syllabus for Summer University 2020 here [4].
Course components
The course is structured as follows:
Week 1: Lectures, discussions, and field work
The first week is focused on building foundations. Students will learn about virtual reality and exercise gaming in general. In the end of the first week student will be able to present a first concept for the own app.
Week 2: Developing own Exergame for Virtual Reality
In the second week students will develop their own first Virtual Reality app (used software is mainly Unity and Unreal Engine). This step will include the software setup and possible connection to hardware components.
Week 3: Evaluation of first app version
In the third week students will invite potential users of the app to the lab and perform usability evaluations. After the week students will be able to analyze and utilize the collected user feedback.
Week 4: Development and presentation of final Virtual Reality Exergame
In the fourth week students will incorporate the collected feedback from the users and develop the final version of their Exergame. The final results will be presented.
The general prerequisites of the TU Berlin Summer University are the following: at least one year of university experience + English level B2 or equivalent.
Dr.-Ing. Jan-Niklas Voigt-Antons joined the Quality and Usability Lab of the Technical University of Berlin as a research scientist in January 2009 and is working there since 2014 as a senior research scientist.
He received his diploma in psychology in 2008 from the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany, a Doctor-of-Engineering degree in 2014 from the Technische Universität Berlin, Germany and has been doing research at the Quality and Usability Lab at the Technische Universität (TU) Berlin, since.
His research interests are in Quality-of-Experience evaluation and its physiological correlates with an emphasis on media transmissions and human-machine-interaction, including neural processing of multimodal interaction.
During summer 2012 he was visiting researcher at MuSAE Lab (INRS-EMT), Canada where he examined neural correlates of quality perception for complex speech signals.
In spring 2014 he was visiting researcher at the department of psychology of NTNU, Norway where he examined neural correlates of audiovisual asynchrony.
Tanja Kojić, M.Sc., received her M.Sc. degree in Information and Communication Technology from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing at the University of Zagreb.
Additionally, she has done supplement studies for Graphic Product Design at the Faculty of Graphic Arts, University of Zagreb and focused on topic of User Experience design.
Since November 2017 she is employed as a research assistant at the Quality and Usability Lab where she is working towards a PhD in the field of Virtual Reality.
Please direct questions about the course to the TU Berlin Summer University Team at: summeruniversity(at)tubs.de [5]. We will answer your questions and direct specific queries regarding course content to the course lecturers where necessary.


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What's on your reading list next — and what did you just cross off? Make a reading recommendation (or request one) now!
Tell us about the books you're reading, the ones you just finished or the ones you want to start. Or perhaps you need a recommendation? If so, tell us a couple recent or old favorites and we'll see if we can find your next favorite book.


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Peer-Reviewed Publications
Found 13 results[ Title]
Filters: Author is Grady, Matthew F [Clear All Filters]
Vision Diagnoses Are Common After Concussion in Adolescents." Clin Pediatr (Phila). 2015."
Vision and Vestibular System Dysfunction Predicts Prolonged Concussion Recovery in Children." Clin J Sport Med. 2018;28(2):139-145."
Vestibular Deficits following Youth Concussion." J. Pediatr.. 2015."
Vestibular and Oculomotor Findings in Neurologically-Normal, Non-Concussed children." Brain Inj. 2018;32(6):794-799."
Pediatric providers' self-reported knowledge, practices, and attitudes about concussion." Pediatrics. 2012;130(6):1120-5."
Oculomotor and neurocognitive assessment of youth ice hockey players: baseline associations and observations after concussion." Dev Neuropsychol. 2015;40(1):7-11."
Factors Affecting Recovery Trajectories in Pediatric Female Concussion." Clin J Sport Med. 2019;29(5):361-367."
Eye Tracking as a Biomarker for Concussion in Children." Clin J Sport Med. 2018."
Cognitive Rest and School-Based Recommendations Following Pediatric Concussion: The Need for Primary Care Support Tools." Clin Pediatr (Phila). 2013."
Clinical and Device-based Metrics of Gait and Balance in Diagnosing Youth Concussion." Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2019."
Characteristics of prolonged concussion recovery in a pediatric subspecialty referral population." J. Pediatr.. 2014;165(6):1207-15."


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Brian Cox's Wonders of Life is a brand new app that's out right now on iPad and iPhone. We've put together a gallery with some of our favourite bits.
Just click on a photo to enlarge it!
The app is a follow up to Brian Cox's Wonders of the Universe which was one of Apple's Best Apps of 2012, so it's set to be pretty huge.
You get to go on an adventure with Brian Cox from the BBC 'Wonders' TV shows to see some of Earth's most amazing climates, continents and find out the secrets of life in these places.
Brian Cox's Wonders of Life is out right now on iPad and iPhone in the App Store and costs £3.99. Click here to find out more and download the app!
Remember, you can listen to Fun Kids on DAB Digital Radio in London and online across the UK! Click here to listen!Add a comment


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Adult Swim
For the second week in a row this month, Adult Swim ranked as the #1 television network in Primetime among adults 18-34. Adult Swim's Total Day performance across the third week of June 2014 also ranked #1 on basic cable for the week across all targeted demos - adults 18-24, 18-34 & 18-49 and men 18-24, 18-34 & 18-49.
Thursday night's new episode premiere of the Adult Swim original series Loiter Squad (12 a.m.) ranked #1 in its time period among adults 18-24 & 18-34, posting delivery gains among adults 18-24 (12%) and men 18-24 (30%) vs. the same time period last year. Similarly, Sunday night's new episode premiere of the Emmy-winning original series Robot Chicken (11:30 p.m.) and Superjail (11:45 p.m.) each ranked #1 in their respective time periods among all adults 18-24 & 18-34.
On Monday night, a new episode of the Peabody Award-winning The Boondocks (10:30 p.m.) ranked #1 in its time period on all cable among adults 18-24.
Saturday night's TOONAMI presentations of Bleach (12 a.m.) and One Piece (1:30 a.m.) each ranked #1 in their respective timeslots among adults 18-24 & 18-34 and all targeted men. Likewise, Naruto (1 a.m.) ranked #1 in its time period among adults 18-24 & 18-34 and men 18-24 & 18-34. Attack on Titans (11:30 p.m.) ranked #1 in its time period among adult 18-34 and men 18-24 & 18-34. And Blue Exorcist (2 a.m.), Black Lagoon (2:30 a.m.) and Beware the Batman (3 a.m.) each ranked #1 in their respective timeslots among all targeted men 18-24, 18-34 & 18-49.
Adult Swim programming - including Family Guy, American Dad, The Boondocks and Robot Chicken - accounted for 24 of the top 50 telecasts on basic cable for the week among adults 18-34, and 30 of the top 50 telecasts among men 18-34, both more than any other network.
Last week, TNT's summer slate got off to a roaring start with the hit series Major Crimes scoring basic cable's #1 scripted season premiere for the year-to-date and Murder in the First ranking as the #1 new series launch on basic cable so far this year. Major Crimes also ranked as basic cable's top program for the week among total viewers and top drama with adults 25-54, while Murder in the First scored a Top 10 finish for the week among total viewers.
Through the first wave of time-shifted viewing, the season 3 premiere of Major Crimes has climbed to 6.8 million viewers in Live + 3 delivery, a +4% increase over last summer's season premiere. The premiere has also garnered 2.1 million adults 25-54 in Live + 3 (+2% vs. season 2 premiere). TNT's new crime drama Murder in the First has grown to 5.2 million viewers in Live + 3 delivery for its premiere episode, including 1.5 million adults 25-54.
Cartoon Network
Across the 3rd week of June 2014, Cartoon Network once again ranked as television's #1 network for Early Prime (6 -8 p.m.) Delivery among all targeted boys 2-11, 6-11 & 9-14, earning significant double-digit delivery gains vs. the previous four weeks, ranging between 18% and 20%. The network also claimed the #1 television network for Total Day Delivery of boys 6-11 & 9-14. Total Day Delivery also grew across all key kid demos - kids 2-11 by 3%, kids 6-11 by 8% and kids 9-14 by 2%.
Fueled by all-new episodes of original animated programming, Thursday night propelled Cartoon Network as the #1 television network in Early Prime (6-8 p.m.) among all targeted kids/boys 2-11, 6-11 & 9-14, earning dramatic double-digit delivery gains vs. the same time period last year across all demos - kids 2-11 grew by 56%, kids 6-11 by 67%, kids 9-14 by 63%, boys 2-11 by 43%, boys 6-11 by 63% and boys 9-14 by 50%. Highlights include The Amazing World of Gumball (6:30 p.m.) charting as the #1 telecast of the week among boys 2-11 & 6-11 and #1 for the day among kids 9-14 and all targeted boys. Average delivery gains increased between 66% and 120%. Similarly, Teen Titans Go! (6 p.m.), Clarence (6:45 p.m.), Adventure Time (7 p.m.) and Regular Show (7:30 p.m.) each ranked #1 in their respective time periods among all targeted kids/boys 2-11, 6-11 & 9-14, growing delivery by powerful double and triple-digits (18% to 108%) across the board vs. the same time period last year.
Among other weeknights last week, Cartoon Network scored as the #1 television network vs. all TV among kids 9-14 and all targeted boys on Monday Night, the #1 television network among kids 6-11 and all targeted boys on Wednesday Night, and #1 among all targeted boys on Tuesday and Friday Night. Growth highlights include Tuesday night increasing average delivery among kids and boys 2-11 & 6-11, and Friday night increasing average delivery among kids 2-11 & 9-14.
On the weekend, Cartoon Network's Saturday morning line-up (7 - 11 a.m.) earned year-over-year delivery gains across all targeted kids/boys 6-11 & 9-14, ranging between 4% and 28%. Pokémon the Series XY (8 a.m.) ranked #1 in its time period among boys 9-14, and grew delivery across all kids/boys 2-11, 6-11 & 9-14, ranging between 2% and 38% vs. the same time period last year.
The Big Bang Theory on TBS had another winning week as the show claimed basic cable's Top 20 sitcom telecasts for the week among adults 18-49, along with the Top 19 sitcom telecasts with total viewers and adults 18-34.
truTV continues to get younger, thanks to hit series like Impractical Jokers and the new series The Carbonaro Effect. Last week, the network's primetime median age was six years younger than the same week a year ago. The network's audience is also four years younger for the quarter-to-date than it was in Q2 2013.
truTV's Impractical Jokers grabbed 1.3 million viewers in Live + Same Day delivery last Thursday night, including 758,000 adults 18-49. The episode ranked as one of basic cable's Top 5 programs in the Thursday 9:30 p.m. timeslot with adults 18-34 and adults 18-49.
The Carbonaro Effect scored significant growth last Thursday, with a total audience of 1.2 million viewers in Live + Same Day (+44% vs. the prior week). The show also drew 594,000 adults 18-49 (+31%) and ranked among basic cable's Top 5 programs in the Thursday 10 p.m. timeslot with young male demos. In its first season, The Carbonaro Effect has garnered a median age of only 35, seven years younger than truTV's primetime median age.
NBA TV delivered significant audience increases throughout the NBA Playoffs with primetime delivery up 63% among total viewers and total day viewership increasing 30% over last year. Additionally, the network's post-game coverage generated a 14% improvement vs. 2013. NBA TV also posted double-digit growth across key demos with adults 18-49 up 77% in primetime, 28% in total day viewing and 14% for the network's post-game coverage.
NBA TV's post-game coverage following the series-clinching NBA Finals Game 5 averaged 515,000 total viewers - the most-viewed post-game show in the network's history - up 57% over the comparable coverage for Game 7 of The Finals last year. Sunday's postgame coverage for Game 5 was up 96% among men 18-34 vs. 2013. Overall, NBA TV's post-game coverage throughout The Finals was up 9% among total viewers.
NBA TV netted its most-viewed game coverage of all time and its two most-viewed telecasts ever during the 2014 NBA Playoffs. The network's seven originally produced live game telecasts averaged 720,000 total viewers to rank as the network's most-viewed NBA Playoff coverage of all time and a 137% increase over the comparable first round coverage last year.
NBA TV's presentation of Game 6 featuring the Indiana Pacers and Atlanta Hawks on Thursday, May 1, produced NBA TV's most-viewed telecast ever with an average of 1,071,000 total viewers. The Pacers/Hawks game peaked with 1,978,000 total viewers from 9:30-9:45 p.m. ET, the most-watched quarter hour in the network's history. NBA TV's Pacers/Hawks telecast surpassed the mark set two days earlier (Tuesday, April 27) - Memphis vs. Oklahoma City, Game 5 - with an average of 939,000 total viewers.


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Latest Women's Health News
Large Percentage of Young Adults in New Sexual Relationships Infected With HPV
Bill Hendrick
WebMD Health News
Reviewed By Louise Chang, MD
Jan. 14, 2010 -- Cancer-causing human papillomavirus (HPV) spreads readily and quickly among partners in new sexual relationships, new research indicates.
Scientists at McGill University, reporting in the journal Epidemiology, say they detected the virus in 64% of couples who reported engaging in vaginal sex for a median of 3.9 months.
In 41% of 263 college couples studied, both partners had the same type of HPV, a surprising finding "far more frequent than [the 11%] expected by chance" even though the virus is the most common sexually transmitted infection, the authors write.
"[D]etection of the same type in persons initiating a sex relationship would be rare given type-specific prevalence rates," says the study, whose lead author is Ann N. Burchell, PhD, of the division of cancer epidemiology, departments of oncology and epidemiology and biostatistics at McGill University in Montreal.
Along with colleagues from the University of Montreal, Burchell and Eduardo Franco, DrPH, MPH, director of McGill's Cancer Epidemiology Unit, analyzed self-reported data from partners of 263 couples.
The women, college students between 18 and 24, enrolled in the study with their male partners. Women were sexually active with their male partners for no more than six months. Most used condoms, but 9% never used condoms. Self-collected vaginal swabs and clinician-collected swabs from the penis and scrotum were tested for 36 strains of HPV.
Among 169 couples for whom at least one partner was infected, the scientists identified 583 type-specific HPV infections. Twenty-five percent of monogamous partners had the same virus type after engaging in vaginal sex for less than two months, the authors write.
That rose to 68% among those who'd been having sex for five to six months.
"Due to its sexually transmitted nature, the study of HPV at the level of sexual partnership is fundamental to our understanding of the epidemiology of these infections," the researchers write. "The observation that HPV occurs more commonly in sexual partners than expected by chance provides evidence for the sexual transmission of HPV."
Transmission is likely early in sexual relationships, and having a new sex partner is an important risk factor for infection in both women and men, the researchers write.
HPV causes cervical cancer, as well as cancers of the vulva, vagina, anus, penis, and head and neck. HPV also causes genital warts. Although HPV infections are extremely common, with at least 50% of sexually active women and men contracting this type of infection at some point, most have no symptoms and clear the infection on their own, according to the CDC.
Another article from the researchers using data from the same group of participants was published in the January 2010 issue of the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
The second analysis found that the greatest risk factor for genital HPV infection was infection in a person's current sexual partner. Condoms were tied to a more protective effect for men than for women.
"These results build on our knowledge that HPV infection is very common among young adults, and underline the importance of prevention programs for HPV-associated diseases," Burchell says in the McGill news release. "Our results also suggest that HPV is an easy virus to get and to transmit."
Francois Coutlee, MD, a professor at the University of Montreal's department of microbiology and immunology and co-author on both articles, says the results suggest that many HPV transmissions occur at the start of new relationships, "which reinforces the need for prevention."
QUESTIONSee Answer
Health Solutions From Our Sponsors
News release, McGill University.
Burchell, A. Epidemiology, January 2010; vol 21.
CDC web site: "Genital HPV Infection - CDC Fact Sheet."
© 2010 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved.


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Pets Best Insurance, one of the nation's leading animal insurance agencies, names six 2nd quarter finalists in My Vet's the Best—a contest developed to help with costs of veterinary treatment for stray animals or for those whose pet owners can't afford veterinary care.
The following veterinarians have been named as the six finalists in the My Vet's the Best Contest after being nominated by their respective clients for providing exceptional veterinary care and for going above and beyond for pets and their owners:
Dr. Holly Brophy, Bel Aire Pet Clinic, Mt. Zion, Illinois
Dr. Irvin Ingram, All Creatures Animal Hospital, Phoenix, Arizona
Dr. Richard Chu, Pets Unlimited, San Francisco, California
Dr. Kathy Joseph, Vandalia Animal Clinic, Vandalia, Ohio
Dr. Tony Poutous, Pet Care Veterinary Hospital, Virginia Beach, Virginia
Dr. Luminita Sarbu, Veterinary Oncology Center, Renton, Washington
In the contest, pet owners nominate their veterinarians and explain why they think they are the best through a form on the Pets Best Insurance Facebook page. Each quarter, an internal panel at the pet insurance agency selects six finalists from all received nominations. The six veterinarians and their client-submitted stories are then posted to Facebook for one month of public voting. Stories are currently available on the Pets Best Insurance Facebook page and online voting is now open.
Each quarter, the pet owner with the story receiving the most votes will receive a $200 cash prize and the winning veterinarian will receive $1,000 for the treatment of animals in need, or for those pet owners who cannot afford the care their pet needs. A single grand prize winner will also be selected by Pets Best Insurance at the end of the year. The annual grand prize winner receives airfare, hotel accommodations and registration for two to the 2013 Western Veterinary Conference—a leading continuing education conference for veterinarians. The 2012 My Vet's the Best contest will recognize a total of four winning pet owners and their veterinarians throughout the year.
The 2012 My Vet's the Best contest first quarter winner, Dr. Tom Greek, of Greek and Associates Veterinary Hospital in Yorba Linda, CA, was able to provide care to a female tortoise named Roxy with the $1,000 he was awarded. Dr. Greek was nominated by client Liddy Kammer and won the online vote.
Roxy was diagnosed with a three-inch urinary bladder stone which required surgery involving cutting a window through the bottom of her shell to access the bladder. Unfortunately, Roxy's owner wasn't able to provide the surgery to Roxy and ended up relinquishing the tortoise to Greek and Associates Veterinary Hospital.
"Through the prize money from Pets Best Insurance, GAVH performed the life-saving cystotomy to remove the bladder stone," Dr. Greek, said. "[Roxy] shows that even a tortoise can go through tough times and with a little help from others, can persevere."
More information about the contest, nomination process and rules can be found at: www.petsbest.com/vetpromo.
About Pets Best Insurance
With the goal of reducing economic euthanasia and his commitment to the health and well-being of all pets, Pets Best Insurance president Dr. Jack Stephens founded pet insurance in the United States in 1981. A true industry visionary, Dr. Stephens presented the first pet insurance policy to famous television dog Lassie. Dr. Stephens leads the Pets Best Insurance team with his passion for quality pet health care and his expert veterinary knowledge. The Pets Best Insurance team is comprised of pet lovers who strive to deliver quality customer service and value.
Pet insurance plans offered and administered by Pets Best Insurance Services, LLC are underwritten by Independence American Insurance Company, a Delaware Insurance company. Independence American Insurance Company is a member of The IHC Group, an insurance organization composed of Independence Holding Company, a public company traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and its operating subsidiaries. The IHC Group has been providing life, health and stop loss insurance solutions for nearly 30 years. For information on The IHC Group, visit www.ihcgroup.com. In states in which Independence American Insurance Company's new policy form has not yet received regulatory approval, Aetna Insurance Company of Connecticut will underwrite policies. Each insurer has sole responsibility for its own products. To determine the applicable underwriter in your state visit www.petsbest.com/underwriter or please call Pets Best at 1-877-738-7237.
For more information, visit Pets Best Insurance or call 877-PetsBest (738-7237). You may also follow them on Facebook.
Dr. Jack Stephens is available for interviews.


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Zak Pelaccio's Hanger Steak Salad Recipe
This Hanger Steak Salad from Zak Pelaccio's Eat with Your Hands isn't much of a salad at all. It's really slices of beefy hanger steak dressed roaring hot with a Southeast Asian dressing and a handful of basil and cilantro. But there's no need to argue semantics when a steak or salad or whatever you want to call it, is this good. The real takeaway here is steak plus fish sauce and chiles equals awesome.
And as far as Pelaccio's pairings go, spot on. The salad is hot in a way that necessitates the cooling effects of icy lager and a mellowed out playlist.
Recommended playlist and drinks pairing:
Listen: How about some chill-wave—that is the new psychdelia of Tame Impala, Innerspeaker?
Drink: Beer, whatever you've got, icy cold.
What Worked: If you're a fan of the beef salad from your local Thai joint, this one will make you real happy. Just imagine the one that you order for take-out, intensify the sweet-salty-hot and add a really good cut of beef.
What Didn't: If you're shy about heat, you might want to tone the chiles. This salad is hot, very, very hot.
Suggested Tweaks: This is the sort recipe that can act as a template for any sort of protein you've got on hand. We're thinking that next time seared duck breast might need to be involved.
Reprinted with permission from Eat with Your Hands by Zakary Pelaccio. Copyright © 2012. Published by Ecco. Available wherever books are sold. All rights reserved.
- Yield:serves 2
- Active time: 20 minutes
- Total time:20 minutes
- Rated:
- 3 tablespoons palm or brown sugar, or more to taste
- 3 to 4 tablespoons fish sauce, or more to taste
- 2 to 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice, or more to taste
- Two 1-inch thick hanger steaks (about 7 ounces each)
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- About 1 tablespoon neutral oil, such as grapeseed or canola
- 2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine or dry sherry, or more to taste
- 4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 1 1/2 inches fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
- 6 fresh Thai bird chiles, thinly sliced
- 2 fresh long red or green chiles, such as Anaheim or Hungarian Wax, thinly sliced
- 1 medium red onion, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup fresh Thai basil leaves
- 1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves
In a small bowl, stir together the palm sugar, fish sauce, and lime juice. Taste the mixture. Do you want it sweeter, saltier, or more acidic? It's up to you.
Generously season the steaks with salt and pepper. Heat a cast-iron skillet or sauté pan over medium-high heat until it's smoking. Add just enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan and add the steaks. Cook until beautifully brown on one side, about 6 minutes, then flip and cook for 4 more minutes for medium-rare. Transfer the steaks to a cutting board and let them rest for 5 minutes.
Reduce the heat to medium and add the Shaoxing wine, scrape up any brown bits with a wooden spoon. Add the garlic, ginger, and chiles, and cook for 30 seconds, remove the skillet from the heat.
Slice the steaks against the grain. Add them to the bowl and top with the pan liquid. Then add the fish-sauce-lime dressing, the onion, and the herbs. Toss and serve.
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


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Last week I was reviewing Harvard Business Review articles for an upcoming award event, and one of them contained a surprising insight on success rates behind Mergers, and Acquisitions.
The papers I read was called Strategy in the Age of Superabundant Capital by Michael Mankins et al. (Harvard Business Review March-April edition). In this article the authors state that:
"Companies that expand via frequent, smaller deals over many years generate between 8.2% and 9.3% total annual shareholder returns. […as opposed to 4.4% annual total shareholder returns for "big bet" deals…]. And the more deals you do, the better you get at finding and closing the best ones."
This statistic made me think:
If M&A deals with a smaller scope, and higher frequency already deliver a higher capital return, then what could de-risking an M&A deal by testing them out in a partnership experiment actually deliver?
Partnerships are quicker to set up than M&A deals, because they don't require the formalisation of a new organisational entity, and they are less costly to execute because there's no financial transaction involved between the partners.
On top of that the Business Model Canvas, and the Partnership Canvas combined, can increase the speed of execution, because the visual tooling creates alignment between partners more quickly, and clearly, and also accelerates iteration speed, and overall agility of the partnership experiments.
Can a partnership experiment thus be a good way to test the thesis behind M&A deals by making it easier to find out how they will play out, and lowering the risk associated with failure of the thesis? What are your thoughts here?
Check out the upcoming Partnership Design Masterclass!
If you want to learn more about using the partnership canvas, and applying it to Partnership Design, then check out our Masterclass ticketing page for information & booking.
You can also join the Partnership Design Linkedin group!
Direct contact? Send an email: email@example.com


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I hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving! This year we drove to my Great Aunt Faye's home and had lunch with my dad's side of the family. My dad's cousin LeAnn did most of the cooking, it was such good food and fun to see people that we do not get to see nearly enough. The kids had such a great time with some of the older cousins getting to play outside in the large leaf piles. I am so thankful this year for all of our family and the time that we get to spend together.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted by Lindsey at 10:47 PM 0 comments
Friday, November 18, 2011
Good Night
Posted by Lindsey at 4:53 PM 0 comments
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Our Little Indian
Posted by Lindsey at 5:21 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Couch Time
This seems to be happening a lot around our house. We sit down to watch a little TV and the next thing you now they are a sleep!
Posted by Lindsey at 7:18 PM 0 comments
Monday, November 14, 2011
The Princess'
Stella loves the Barbie cartoon about the 3 musketeers but when she watches it she must get dressed up to watch it. Well now she is nice enough to include her brother in the dress up. Of course we only have princess dress up clothing so he does not even bat an eye at the fact that he is wearing a dress and using spoons as his sword.
Posted by Lindsey at 7:11 PM 0 comments
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Best Youth in Best Video FormatNow you can watch full Youth in high definition format with duration 118 Min and has been aired on 2015-05-21 with MPAA rating is 103.
- Original Title : La giovinezza
- Movie title in your country : Youth
- Year of movie : 2015
- Genres of movie : Drama,
- Status of movie : Released
- Release date of movie : 2015-05-21
- Companies of movie : France 2 Cinéma, Indigo Film, Pathé, Number 9 Films,
- Countries of movie : United Kingdom, Italy, France, Switzerland,
- Language of movie : Deutsch, Español, English,
- Durationof movie : 118 Min
- Average vote of movie : 6.2
- Youtube ID of movie : _FlVUYvEqcc
- Translation of movie : EN,IT,FR,RU,HU,CS,PT,ES,EL,ZH,SV,KO,DE,NL,PL,TR,
- Actors of movie :Michael Caine (Fred Ballinger), Rachel Weisz (Leda Ballinger), Harvey Keitel (Mick Boyle), Paul Dano (Jimmy Tree), Jane Fonda (Brenda Morel), Mădălina Diana Ghenea (Miss Universe), Poppy Corby-Tuech (Spy Woman), Roly Serrano (Diego Maradona), Tom Lipinski (Screenwriter in Love), Ed Stoppard (Julian), Mark Kozelek (Himself), Robert Seethaler (Luca Moroder), Alex MacQueen (Queen's Emissary), Luna Zimić Mijović (Young Masseuse), Chloe Pirrie (Girl Screenwriter), Alex Beckett (Intellectual Screenwriter), Nate Dern (Funny Screenwriter), Mark Gessner (Shy Screenwriter), Paloma Faith (Herself), Sonia Gessner (Melanie), Rebecca Calder (The Countess), Loredana Cannata (Maradona's wife)
Movie summary of Youth :
Full Youth in HD Quality with movie summary "YOUTH explores the lifelong bond between two friends vacationing in a luxury Swiss Alps lodge as they ponder retirement. While Fred has no plans to resume his musical career despite the urging of his loving daughter Lena, Mick is intent on finishing the screenplay for what may be his last important film for his muse Brenda. And where will inspiration lead their younger friend Jimmy, an actor grasping to make sense of his next performance?" in best look. Free Streaming Youth in Best Video Format by push of the download link.
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Director : Paolo Sorrentino, Writer : Paolo Sorrentino, Director of Photography : Luca Bigazzi, Editor : Cristiano Travaglioli, Production Design : Ludovica Ferrario, Original Music Composer : David Lang
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Watch CBSN Live
Paramilitary policemen take a break at the site of a coal mine explosion in Yichuan county, Henan province, April 2, 2010. Click on for more images of people resting in unlikely situations from Reuters' China photographers.
Credit: Carlf Zhang/Reuters
Parents of freshmen students sleep on mats laid out on the floor of a gymnasium at Huazhong Normal University in Wuhan, Hubei province Sept. 3, 2011. The university set out mats for some 600 parents accompanying freshmen students on their first day of school, local media reported.
Credit: China Daily/Reuters
A salesman, manning an exhibit of x-ray equipment, sleeps next to an image of a man with weapons attached to his body at the China International Exhibition on Police Equipment in Beijing, April 21, 2010.
Credit: David Gray/Reuters
A vendor selling pork sleeps while still holding onto her knife at a market in Beijing, Sept. 7, 2012.
A child sleeps on a couch on a flooded street in Chongqing municipality, July 20, 2010.
Credit: Shi Tou/Reuters
A man sleeps on a life buoy next to his belongings collected from a flooded street as he waits for the flood water to withdraw near the Yangtze River in Chongqing municipality, July 25, 2012.
Credit: Reuters
A worker takes a nap surrounded by ducklings at a duck farm on the outskirts of Jiaxing, Zhejiang, China, April 5, 2011.
Laborers who work nearby nap on a road as cars drive past in Chongqing Municipality, China, July 23, 2013.
Credit: A vendor sleeps on packs of grapefruit at a market in Wuhan, Hubei province, Oct. 15, 2012.
A vendor sleeps on packs of grapefruit at a market in Wuhan, Hubei province, Oct. 15, 2012.
A young man sleeps on chairs at the backyard of his father's restaurant in Aksu, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, Aug. 12, 2012.
A delegate of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) sleeps in the gallery during explanations of the draft amendment to the Criminal Procedural Law at the second plenary meeting of the National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, March 8, 2012.
Credit: Jason Lee/Reuters
An ethnic Uighur man takes a nap on a board as his goat, which is tied to the board, stands next to him at a demolition site in Aksu, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, Aug. 13, 2012.
A man takes a nap in the back of his cycle cart at the gate of the Tayuan Diplomatic Office Building in Beijing, Oct. 27, 2012.
Credit: Petar Kujundzic/Reuters
A security guard sleeps next to stock trading machines at a brokerage house in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, China, May 15, 2012.
A boy takes a nap on luggage as passengers are stranded at Shenyang Railway Station in Shenyang, Liaoning province, China, Aug. 4, 2012.
A vendor selling watermelons naps as he waits for customers at a market in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, China, July 17, 2013.
Credit: Jon Woo/Reuters
Children sleep on the floor of the Qiaosi subway station in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China, July 25, 2013.
A vendor naps beside packages of cabbage at a food market in Suining, Sichuan province, China, Dec. 11, 2009.
A garbage collector sleeps on a couch on the edge of a hilly road in Lijiang, Yunnan province, China, Aug. 2, 2013.
A worker naps on the railway at the construction site of Wuhan North Railway Marshalling Station in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, April 1, 2009.
A vendor sleeps inside her store next to walls lined with mink fur at a fur market in Chongfu township, Zhejiang province, China, Sept. 13, 2013.
A worker sleeps in the backstage area of a makeshift theater during the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival in Hong Kong, Aug. 20, 2013.
Credit: Tyrone Siu/Reuters


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Performace mods for power gain
Discussion in 'Performance and Tuning' started by zeppelin987, Oct 21, 2009.


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First established in 1992 as a credible alternative to the BRIT Awards, the Mercury Prize has evolved in lustre and scale to become an annual pissing contest between critics and music geeks alike. Which of the nominees really deserved their moment in the spotlight? Who managed to guess 90% of the shortlist with the exception of that odd jazz quintet? Did anyone actually listen to that Speech Debelle record?
At the heart of all this debate is a collection of 12 albums. When this awkward bunch are announced on Wednesday there'll be a lot of talk around a potential 1,000% Amazon.co.uk sales boom and the £20,000 prize money. Speaking to the hotly-tipped Jessie Ware last week, we got the impression that for bands and artists the Mercury Prize is much more about recognition for a job well done.
"I'd love to be nominated, people have been so lovely about the album,' commented the 'Wildest Moments' hitmaker. "I don't think you can expect it but it would be absolutely amazing if I was nominated and I'd feel ridiculously lucky."
In this spirit of giving albums a timely thumbs-up, Drowned In Sound's Mercury predictions column is a little bit different. Most of these LPs won't feature in the nominations, some of them might, whatever the case they're all records our writers and board members love dearly and would be thrilled to see celebrated amongst this year's best of British. So do the sensible thing and give them a listen...
Severant by Kuedo
"A worthy flag-bearer for British electronic music"
Kyle Ellison: In a decade where Britain has played a major part in the transformation of clubs around the world, electronic music has been curiously sidelined by the Mercury Prize nominations. You'd have to look back to 2003's Boy in da Corner to find a winner that reflected the country's evolving dancefloors, and Kuedo's Jamie Teasdale is somebody who understands that better than most. As one half of Vex'd, Teasdale already comes with a strong pedigree, but Severant finds the producer flexing his creative muscles once more. This visionary, cohesive set of jittery drums and sci-fi swirls would be an outsider choice, but a deserved nod to one of Britain's more forward-thinking exports.
An Awesome Wave by Alt-J
"'Breezeblocks' is freaking awesome"
James Skinner: First, an admission: I'm probably not as "up" on new music - especially new British music - as I'd like to or should be. In fact, I don't even write much about it anymore; of the last few really substantial things I've done for DiS, three of them are about reissues. But well: I recently went on a three-week road trip around Europe, and among the songs on my friend's iPod that formed the soundtrack to our holiday was Alt-J's 'Breezeblocks', and man, I love it. I love that it references Where the Wild Things Are; I love its sharp, intertwining bass, guitar and keys; I love its tricksy, twisting vocal; I love how it breaks down; I love its dark-as-fuck video; I love the fact that since getting home and having a friend stay we've been playing and singing it pretty much incessantly... Maybe I love it because it sounds a little bit like the music my friends and I used to make over half a decade ago - or at least, it sounds like what we wanted to sound like. I love the fact that it's made me interested in new music again, and I love the fact that in the two interviews I've read with the band they seem like a really decent, slightly bemused bunch of friends. I love it so much I have trouble really listening to the rest of the record. But it should definitely be nominated, because 'Breezeblocks', if I hadn't made it clear already, is just freaking awesome.
Plumb by Field Music
"A distillation of everything that makes Field Music great"
Aaron Lavery: The album that I would like to win, but I'm not sure if they'll be nominated or even put their album forward, is Field Music with Plumb. A concise distillation of everything that makes Field Music great, Plumb piles a massive bundle of ideas into just over 35 minutes. Combining clever, ridiculously catchy riffs with politically conscious lyrics has been the Brewis brothers' stock in trade throughout their career, but on Plumb they just seem to be at the top of their game. And to think that it originated from a load of off-cuts from their previous record.
Devotion by Jessie Ware
"An unique concern in the Top 40 landscape"
Robert Leedham: The only reason I can muster for Jessie Ware not bagging a Mercury nomination is that she has been too widely touted for the prize already. Despite having been handed odds of 20/1 to win scoop the honour before it was even released, Devotion deserves a nod because it's the work of an unique concern in the Top 40 landscape. A singer-songwriter who isn't just 2012's answer to Adele, who hasn't rested on the laurels of her post-dubstep pals and who stuck her frankly stunning voice at the centre of an intricately crafted delight. From arms aloft anthems to innovative floorfillers, Devotion is confident enough to reveal its elegant charms in slow motion which gives you just enough time to head down to Ladbrokes and stick a fiver on it to win.
Lido by Darren Hayman
"One of the greatest songwriters of his generation"
J.R Moores: Every now and again some critic will declare to deaf ears that Darren Hayman is one of the greatest songwriters of his generation. As Stewart Lee asked in The Times a couple of years ago,"Shouldn't Hayman have won some sort of award by now?" If the Mercury's mission is to acknowledge British musical achievement, I can't think of a better candidate. The ex-Hefner singer has always wrestled with the messiness of British identity (and the numerous wider and narrower identities contained therein), whether tackling Great British Holidays and greasy spoon cafes, constructing a trilogy of 'Essex' albums, or using the year of London's Olympic Games to unleash a melancholic instrumental concept album about Britain's open air swimming pools (Lido). He continues to explore such themes in a considerably more thoughtful and stimulating manner than was ever achieved by, say, the cartoonish knees-upping of Blur or the dubious outbursts of ex-pat Steven Morrissey.
In The Belly Of The Brazen Bull by The Cribs
"Big, bold and boisterous"
Richard Wink: Without a doubt I think The Cribs' In the Belly Of The Brazen Bull deserves to be nominated for the Mercury Prize. The band's fifth album is ambitious, and this sounds an odd thing to say about a band that seems to have always carried a disdain for 'career progression'. Utilizing the production skills of heavyweight's Dave Fridmann and Steve Albini, ITBOTBB sounds big, bold and boisterous, whilst still retaining The Cribs' rough and ready Wakefield-bred rabble rousing sound. I fear this album will likely be ignored because (un)Glamourous Indie Rock & Roll seems to have died a death in recent years.
No One Can Ever Know by The Twilight Sad
"They're light years ahead of most of the competition"
Dom Gourlay: Since releasing their flawless debut Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters in 2007, The Twilight Sad have arguably been one of the most consistent UK bands both in terms of recorded output and live performance. Never afraid to take risks, they could quite easily have become just A.N.other shoegaze/post-rock band with better lyrics. Instead, they're constantly challenging themselves and striving to go that one step further no one has ever been before. After 2009's Forget The Night Ahead, the band took some time out to return to the drawing board and construct something entirely unexpected. Having gotten esteemed DJ-cum-producer Andrew Weatherall on board, the noise element of their sound toned down in favour of a more electronic, industrial approach. From the brooding intensity of 'Sick' to the pounding death disco of 'Dead City' and seance in sound 'Kill It In The Morning', they've conjured up a record that evidently demonstrates why they're light years ahead of most of the competition, both at home and abroad, and fully deserve all the plaudits and recognition which comes their way, starting with a nomination at this year's Mercury Music Prize...
50 Words For Snow by Kate Bush
"If nominated, would she play live?"
Andrzej Lukowski: I suppose anything could happen given the non-nomination of Kate Bush's transcendently brilliant 2005 album Aerial, but I think that record – and to a lesser extent last year's re-recordings project Director's Cut – served to re-establish her in people's minds as a fairly major contemporary artist. The sheer volume of critical acclaim 50 Words for Snow was subjected to seems pretty much guaranteed to earn it a nomination, and it hopefully goes without saying that its glacial, Talk Talk-alike snowscapes, weird eroticism and slight ludicrousness (it is a concept album about snow with a guest appearance by Stephen Fry) make it an eminently deserving candidate, my favourite British album of the last Mercury period by an almost depressing margin. Will it win if it gets nominated? Dunno, really: the Mercury has no history of rewarding 'oldies', but hard to exactly see her in that category. I'd say she has a fair chance, though the wider question is probably 'if nominated, would she play live?'
More from the message boards
The Mercury nominations debate has been going strong on Drowned In Sound's message boards since early last month and you can expect it to continue when the real action kicks off this Wednesday. In the meantime, here's a selection of our users' shortlist predictions. If you've got an album you're desperate to see make the cut, let us know about it in the comments section below.
"Stick a fiver on Emeli Sandé. Her turn at the Olympics opening ceremony won't have done her chances any harm." - Luke_Away
"Surely Rustie is worth a punt at 25/1? What with the After Light single blowing up in the mainstream and that? Then again they never nominate any of my picks, so I wouldn't go putting the ol' farm on it." - Littlebirds
"Tindersticks should already have been nominated at least for their first 2 albums and Simple Pleasure - if The Something Rain doesn't make the list it'll be a travesty. Though with M People as previous winners, maybe it's a travesty already." - ThirstyDog
"The Invisible got a nomination for their debut and this year's follow-up (Rispah) is very good, if not strikingly original. Deserves a nod." - Wonton


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Job Snapshot
Employee Type:
New York, NY
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Job ID:
Job Description
Who we want to work with:
You're a sales professional at heart. You love engaging with customers and colleagues – wherever that might take you. Being responsible for other's perception of a company's brand and reputation excites you, as does the challenge of initiating and creatively prospecting new customer relationships – especially in healthcare environments. You enjoy building relationships and understand that collaboration is key to growing any business, especially in a complex and competitive industry. You're an influencer that is driven to succeed and accountability is important to you. You seek out the hard projects and work to find just the right solutions. You're resilient and persistent and will stop at nothing to live out Stryker's mission to make healthcare better.
At Stryker's Craniomaxillofacial (CMF) division:
- You'll work closely with experienced Sales Representatives and Managers to build your knowledge, skill and comfort with clinical and product knowledge as well as selling styles and techniques. They will serve as your coaches and mentors to share lessons learned for how to build and grow a successful business.
- You'll receive training and be expected to study and prepare independently to perform at the highest levels in the operating room, working amongst surgeons and healthcare professionals. The expectations are challenging, yet rewarding.
- You'll represent Stryker as a leader in our industry and the marketplace.
- You'll have the opportunity to identify and promote solutions and sell products that change our patient's lives.
- You'll collaborate with our team to build your own business one customer and account at a time. You'll identify and prospect new customers as well as continually take care of existing customers.
- You'll assist Sales Representatives in determining the necessary resources needed for our customers to achieve sales objectives and then execute the plan. These resources may include educational programs, product development initiatives, and sales strategies.
- You'll foster a culture and environment that makes CMF destination for top performers and a place where people's careers thrive.
What you need
- 1+ years of B2B sales experience preferred.
- Bachelor's degree required.
- Comfortability with adapting to new technology and business advancements.
- Must be comfortable in emergency and operating room environments.
- Knowledge of principles and methods for showing, promoting, and selling products or services
- This would include marketing strategy and tactics, product demonstration, sales techniques and sales control systems
- Capacity to deal with competing priorities and potential to be adaptable as days change quickly.
- Demonstrated ability in building and maintaining relationships in the sales capacity.
- Prepared to spend up to 90% of time in the field with customers and sales professionals (including some weekends, and some overnight travel).
- Highly organized and demonstrate ability to organize a busy schedule.
- Would need personal car to transport product inventory and travel to support customers.
- Learns from set-backs and develops tactics and strategies to minimize recurrence.
- "Smart, hardworking, and gets along well with others." John Brown
Our Values
We do what's right
We do what we say
We grow talent
We deliver
Core themes and phrases about our workplace
- Our Culture - Win together as a team
We are a team. We constantly challenge ourselves. We challenge each other. We want to achieve more. We win the right way. We care about each other.
- Growth - Own your career
Our company is growing. You can grow with us. We help you discover your strengths. You can discover and follow your passion here. We are a career destination.
- The Work - Customers and patients are at the heart of everything we do
We strive for the best. We improve lives. We go above and beyond. We are proud of our quality products. We are accountable for our work. e
- Our People - Passionately driven, remarkable results
We are passionate. We are driven. We are focused. We deliver remarkable results. We expect to win. We act with purpose. We act with integrity. We do what we say.
Who we are
Stryker is one of the world's leading medical technology companies and together with our customers, we are driven to make healthcare better. The Company offers a diverse array of innovative medical technologies, including orthopaedics, medical and surgical, and neurotechnology & spine products to help people lead more active and more satisfying lives. Stryker products and services are available in over 100 countries around the world. For more information, please visit our website at www.stryker.com.
In 2018, Stryker Corporation (NYSE:SYK) announced that for the eighth consecutive year it has been named as one of the 2017 FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For, ranking 16 out of 100.
Our mission
Together with our customers, we are driven to make healthcare better.Work From Home: Field-basedTravel Percentage: 20%Stryker Corporation is an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status. Stryker is an EO employer – M/F/Veteran/Disability.Stryker Corporation will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor's legal duty to furnish information.


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Technology Disappoints in Tsunami ReliefBy David F. Carr Print
It's nearly half a year since a tsunami reduced the coasts of 11 countries abutting the Indian Ocean to rubble. Roads, bridges and houses still need to be rebuilt. Some relief workers think military and humanitarian organizations could use cheap, portable
Human remains lay scattered amid rubble and the stench of decay in Banda Aceh, the region hardest hit by the Dec. 26 tsunami. Three Pentagon observers had come to study how well the U.S. military was communicating with humanitarian groups trying to feed and house millions of displaced Indonesians.
But the military's training, computer networks and procedures were tightly controlled. They were geared for sending helicopters, ships and soldiers to war—not for helping civilians in a disaster zone put a roof back over their heads.
More than two weeks had passed since tidal waves swept 300,000 people to their deaths in Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and eight other countries surrounding the Indian Ocean. About two-thirds of the dead and missing were in Indonesia's Aceh province, where homes on a 150-square-mile strip of coastline had been crushed, and many of those inside were drowned or washed out to sea. More than 500,000 survivors were homeless.
The expedition's leader was Cmdr. Eric Rasmussen, a Navy doctor who had participated in humanitarian operations following a 1999 earthquake in Izmit, Turkey, as well as in wars in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Even before he left Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, for Banda Aceh, Rasmussen had assembled a long list of logistical problems linked to communications breakdowns. On Jan. 9, in an e-mail to the United Nations, various humanitarian agencies and the acting Assistant Secretary of Defense, Linton Wells II, at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., among others, he wrote:
Much of the work here is being done by cell phone, VHF radios and personal conversations. There is no Instant Message system, there is no collaborative space, and there is no consistent update of the information flowing around the theater. It's almost as if Third Fleet's Joint Operations Center had never existed.
Why was a doctor putting lack of a "collaborative space" so high on his list?
Because in its absence, aid workers were wasting time up in helicopters, surveying areas of the disaster zone that others had already assessed. With more sharing of information, they would already have been packing those helicopters full of food for the hungry and tents for the homeless.
Perhaps no one would die as a result—most fatalities occurred within minutes of the disaster—but that lack of "collaborative space" would cause needless misery for survivors, not to mention more wear and tear on relief workers.
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Laydown Pipes P1ST SK 150 - 4.5mm
Suits exact project specifications
Laydown Systems from Putzmeister Pipe Technology ® are ideal for use in high-rise, laydown, mining, chemical and petro-chemical industries. Their 7-, 9-, and 11-guage and ¼-inch in wall thickness offerings allow the pipe to withstand harsh conditions over the long lifetime. Available with internal diameters ranging from 3 to 8 inches, at predetermined and custom lengths means there is a system to suit exact project specifications.
AVAILABLE IN COUNTRIES : Across AMERICAS
Single wall
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Outside diameter
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Maximum working pressure
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