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A Date with Grief
While I keep the anniversary of my father's death on my calendar — as if I could ever forget February 19, 1992 — there's something about keeping a date with grief that feels peculiar. I'm often moved at times I don't expect and in ways I least suspect. Perhaps I glimpse someone at a ballgame who shares a physical feature with my dad – his smile or the tenor of his voice. Or I encounter an object in the far recesses of my closest that serves as a talisman to a particularly vivid memory. Maybe it's a smell that evokes time spent together in a way that is forever lost.
I was surprised at the degree to which the anniversary of my father's death affected me today. Twenty-two years isn't a particularly memorable number. Yet I woke up very aware that I've now lived more of my life without his physical presence than with it. This day is always tinged with regret as the seminal events in my life — the ones he missed — dance through my head. He never met my wife Bryna or sons Ben and Zack. He never knew of my calling to the priesthood or how my life has unfolded as an adult. And yet he continues to have a major impact on me every single day — in my faith, my parenting, my approach to married life, my vocational passion, my personality, my values.
Sure, his musical talent (he was a symphony orchestra conductor) wasn't as hereditary as I might have hoped, but none of us are exact replicas of our parents. [Here's the obituary from the Baltimore Sun if you're interested -- I just reread it for the first time in years and it still breaks my heart].
Of course "keeping a date with grief" is precisely what we do when we commemorate saints in the Church. We remember these men and women who have come before us in the faith on the anniversaries of their deaths rather than their birthdays. Why? Because we celebrate their lives in the context of Jesus' resurrection and we see their deaths as glorious moments of reunion with the risen Christ.
The Good News of the Christian faith is that death is not the end — it is merely a temporary farewell. That's the glory of the Easter message and it's why, while the pain of loss endures, hope always transcends grief.
If you're part of a faith community, I encourage you to share these special anniversaries with one another. There's no reason we must bear them in isolation. To be human is to know grief and we are called to share one another's burdens. Make an appointment to speak with a member of the clergy on an upcoming anniversary in your own life or call a friend for a coffee date. Shared experience and empathy are two of the great spiritual gifts we can offer our fellow pilgrims on this journey of life and faith.


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Valentjin Overeem vs. Mike Kyle, Fallon Fox vs. Allana Jones Confirmed For CFA 11
Card to be Broadcast on AXS TV
By Championship Fighting Alliance (via press release)
Miami Fla. – Jorge de la Noval, Owner of Championship Fighting Alliance (CFA) today officially announced that his Miami-based MMA organization has closed a deal with AXS TV and that his May 24th event "CFA 11" will be presented live on AXS TV as part of its Friday Night Fights series. He also announced that heavyweights Valentjin Overeem vs. Mike Kyle will headline the card at Miami's BankUnited Center and that the co-main event will feature Fallon Fox vs. Allanna Jones as the co-main event in the women's 145-pound championship semi-finals.
Said de la Noval, "We are honored to be in business with AXS TV and look forward to working with them to present "CFA 11" live to MMA fans across America on national television. The main event is a blockbuster heavyweight matchup between Dutch fighting legend Valentjin Overeem and veteran of the UFC and Strikeforce Mike Kyle.
"CFA 11" tickets are on sale now through Ticketmaster.com starting at $25.00 for general admission. Reserved seating is $35.00 (additional taxes and fees apply).
Valentjin Overeem (30-27) is considered one of the most talented heavyweight fighters in the world. Throughout his stellar career, he's competed in major fighting organizations including PRIDE, K-1, Strikeforce, World Extreme Cagefighting, M-1 Global and is also a former Pancrase Champion. The brother of UFC heavyweight Alistair Overeem, Valentjin trains out of JACO Hybrid Training Center with the Blackzilians in Boca Raton, Fla.
"I'm training to knock my opponent out; this fight is not going to be decided by the judges," said Overeem. "I have among the best strikers in the world, and the best wresters in the world here at JACO Hybrid Training Center. Together, we are going to beat Kyle and bring another win home to the Blackzllians."
Mike Kyle (19-9) is also a veteran of Strikeforce and is the former King of the Cage Champion at light heavyweight. He fought at the highest level of MMA with the Ultimate Fighting Championship from 2004-2005, and during that period defeated James Irvin at UFC 51 with a first round knockout.
"I feel reborn and ready to fight, and I want to thank all of my fans that have supported me through my career," said Kyle. "I think Valentjin Overeem is the perfect opponent to showcase my skills and give the fans a great main event. On May 24, I'm going to show everyone what kind of fighter I can be."
In the co-main event, Fallon Fox will take on Allanna Jones in the CFA 145-pound women's tournament semi-finals.
"I am pleased to have Fallon Fox back in the CFA cage for this pivotal fight against Allanna Jones," said de la Noval. "The winner of Fox vs. Jones will advance to the featherweight finals and the chance to become the new CFA 145-pound champion. This is going to be an exciting fight between two incredible fighters and that is what this sport, and this night is all about."
"I am extremely excited about my next fight with Allanna Jones," said Fox. "It will feel really good to step into the cage again on May 24th. I look forward to dealing with whatever Allanna will throw my way. It should be an fun, action-packed night for fans of MMA, Championship Fighting Alliance and everyone watching on AXS TV."
"I'm thrilled to have this fight and this opportunity," said Jones. "This is just another fight, and just another opponent for me. I am looking for the knockout and to make a statement on AXS TV and to advance to the finals to win that 145-pound CFA title."
The 5'7" undefeated Fox (2-0) fights out of Midwest Training Center in Chicago. Both of her professional wins have come by first round knockout. She is also undefeated as an amateur (3-0) with all victories coming via submission. Fox's last appearance was at CFA 10 when she finished Ericka Newsome in CFA's first elimination bout for the 145-pound tournament championship.
The 5'4" Jones (2-1), fights out of Ionia, Michigan's American Muscle MMA training center. The 26-year old Jones also competed at CFA 10, defeating her opponent in a three-round split decision. She has been competing since 2010 and has an amateur record of 6-2.
Also on the televised card on AXS TV, Friday May 24 is a lightweight matchup between Luis Palmino (20-8) and Robert Washington (15-7). Sean Soriano (7-0) and Elvin Brito (6-1) will fight for the CFA Interim Featherweight title. Alexis Vila (11-3) will take on Czar Sklavos (7-2) in a flyweight division matchup, and in the show opener will be a middleweight matchup between Mike King (5-0) and Oscar Delgado (6-2).
The Florida State Boxing Commission has approved all bouts on CFA 11 and has licensed all athletes on the CFA 11 card including Fallon Fox who is the first known transgender fighter to compete in professional mixed martial arts. All bouts are live and subject to change.

subset: commoncrawl


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Welcome to the biggest sandy beach on the southwestern tip of the island. This isolated beach doesn't have any restaurants or umbrellas, so go well prepared.
One of the most gorgeous pebbly beaches on the island, this beach is surrounded by rocky hills and shrubs. Mostly deserted, great if you have a boat to explore. Access also by dirt road.
Translating as 'Garden of Michael', this beach near the airport offers wild beauty and unique caves by the beach paint a surreal picture in this Mediterranean island.
One of the nicest sandy beaches on the island lying between two mountains with crystal waters about 14 km from Pigadia before the beach of Apella. Some accommodation not far from the beach.
Finicky travelers will love Finiki beach on the western side of the island with its crystalline waters, accommodation options, seafood 'tavernas' and more. Umbrellas and beach beds normally available.
Roughly means 'Long Beach', Makris Gialos on the southern tip of the island (near the airport) about 15 km from Pigadia is very popular for windsurfing. Sandy and with lovely clean waters.
Relatively large pebbly beach and a peninsula just 6 km from Pigadia with shallow water, great for families with kids. Several 'tavernas' and eateries to rest and feast in.
Megali Ammoopi is perfect for families with children thanks to its shallow waters. Nearby is Votsalakia, a pebbly beach with fantastic water. These are popular beaches with restaurants, cafés, hotels, etc.
Here's a well-organized beach near the big village of Arkasa on the western side of the island, 15 km north of Pigadia. White sand, shallow waters and delicious little restaurants (tavernas) serving seafood and local cuisine.
A quiet and pretty beach some 13 km from the capital. Sandy and pebbly with gorgeous waters, surrounded by mountains and greenery. There's a small 'taverna' for food.
These three sandy beaches near Pigadia, the capital of Karpathos, offer clean waters, different watersports, good food and sea-side restaurants. They are most popular and happening, so not ideal for those seeking privacy.
There is a little beach off the small fishing village of Diafani that you could swim in, but for a more secluded experience head to nearby Vananta (pronounced Vananda). Better done by boat than road from Pigadia.
This attractively secluded and isolated beach lies against a backdrop of sharp mountains. Explore by boat or make sure you have everything with you if you go hiking there.
The beach of Agios Nikolaos near the village of Spoa has won accolades for its clean waters. There are umbrellas, beach chairs, and a little restaurant, all in a serene environment.
In the bay of Lefkos on the central western side of the island there are 3 beaches that can delight curious travelers. Gialou Horafi has umbrellas, while Panagias which is smaller and quieter does not.
A bit south of the capital in a bay with three small sandy beaches and unique beauty. Not far from the larger Ammoopi (pronounced like 'o' in door) but more secluded.
The name translates as River of Birds, but it's more a beach with large pebbles just 10 km south of Pigadia. Can be reached by a dirt from Ammoopi.
Here's a decent organized beach with some umbrellas that's not crowded, lying serenely a few minutes away from the airport on the way to Pigadia. The name means "Well of Christ".
If you arrange a boat trip from Diafani to Saria, you can swim but also explore this isolated island with its medieval ruins and recent churches. It was once a pirate's hideaway too.
Not far from the airport, this sandy shallow beach is perfect for families and not too busy. However you need to get your own umbrellas.
The gorgeous beach of Kastelia lies after Ammoopi, representing a hidden paradise among the rocks. You can reach it through a dirt road from Ammoopi.
Considered one of the nicest beaches on the island with stunning waters. Easier to access by boat than by road. Not much else apart from the gorgeous beach though.
Pebble beaches with deep waters on the southeast side of the island. Strong winds make them just perfect for windsurfing. In summer Valias offers umbrellas and beach beds. Restaurants available.


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The public switched telephone network (PSTN) is the aggregate of the world's telephone networks that are operated by national, regional, or local telephony operators. It provides infrastructure and services for public telecommunication. The network consist of telephone lines, fiber optic cables, microwave transmission links, cellular networks, communications satellites, and undersea telephone cables, interconnected by switching centers, such as central offices, network tandems, and international gateways, which allow telephone users to communicate with each other.
Originally a network of fixed-line analog telephone systems, the PSTN is now almost entirely digital in its core network and includes mobile and other networks,[1]
The technical operation of the PSTN adheres to the standards internationally promulgated by the ITU-T. These standards have their origin in the development of local telephone networks, primarily in the Bell System in the United States and in the networks of European ITU members. The E.163 and E.164 standards provide a single global address space in the form of telephone numbers. The combination of the interconnected networks and a global telephone numbering plan allow telephones around the world to connect with each other.[2]
Commercialization of the telephone began in 1876, with instruments operated in pairs for private use between two locations. Users who wanted to communicate with persons at multiple locations had as many telephones as necessary for the purpose. Alerting another user of the desire to establish a telephone call was accomplished by whistling loudly into the transmitter until the other party heard the alert. Bells were soon added to stations for signaling, so an attendant no longer needed to wait for the whistle.
Later telephones took advantage of the exchange principle already employed in telegraph networks. Each telephone was wired to a telephone exchange established for a town or area. For communications outside this exchange area, trunks were installed between exchanges. Networks were designed in a hierarchical manner until they spanned cities, countries, continents, and oceans.
Automation introduced pulse dialing between the telephone and the exchange so that each subscriber could directly dial another subscriber connected to the same exchange, but long-distance calling across multiple exchanges required manual switching by operators. Later, more sophisticated address signaling, including multi-frequency signaling methods, enabled direct-dialed long-distance calls by subscribers, culminating in the Signalling System 7 (SS7) network that controlled calls between most exchanges by the end of the 20th century.
The growth of the PSTN meant that teletraffic engineering techniques needed to be deployed to deliver quality of service (QoS) guarantees for the users. The work of A. K. Erlang established the mathematical foundations of methods required to determine the capacity requirements and configuration of equipment and the number of personnel required to deliver a specific level of service.
In the 1970s, the telecommunications industry began implementing packet-switched network data services using the X.25 protocol transported over much of the end-to-end equipment as was already in use in the PSTN.
In the 1980s, the industry began planning for digital services assuming they would follow much the same pattern as voice services and conceived end-to-end circuit-switched services, known as the Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network (B-ISDN). The B-ISDN vision was overtaken by the disruptive technology of the Internet.
At the turn of the 21st century, the oldest parts of the telephone network still use analog technology for the last mile to the end-user. However, digital technologies such as DSL, ISDN, FTTx, and cable modems have become more common in this portion of the network.
Several large private telephone networks are not linked to the PSTN, usually for military purposes. There are also private networks run by large companies which are linked to the PSTN only through limited gateways, such as a large private branch exchange (PBX).
The task of building the networks and selling services to customers fell to the network operators. The first company to be incorporated to provide PSTN services was the Bell Telephone Company in the United States.
In some countries, however, the job of providing telephone networks fell to government as the investment required was very large and the provision of telephone service was increasingly becoming an essential public utility. For example, the General Post Office in the United Kingdom brought together a number of private companies to form a single nationalized company. In more recent decades, these state monopolies were broken up or sold off through privatization.[3][4][5]
In most countries, the central government has a regulator dedicated to monitoring the provision of PSTN services in that country. Their tasks may be for example to ensure that end customers are not over-charged for services where monopolies may exist. These regulatory agencies may also regulate the prices charged between the operators to carry each other's traffic.
See also: Routing in cellular networks
Main article: PSTN network topology
The PSTN network architecture had to evolve over the years to support increasing numbers of subscribers, calls, connections to other countries, direct dialing and so on. The model developed by the United States and Canada was adopted by other nations, with adaptations for local markets.
The original concept was that the telephone exchanges are arranged into hierarchies, so that if a call cannot be handled in a local cluster, it is passed to one higher up for onward routing. This reduced the number of connecting trunks required between operators over long distances and also kept local traffic separate.
However, in modern networks the cost of transmission and equipment is lower and, although hierarchies still exist, they are much flatter, with perhaps only two layers.
Most automated telephone exchanges use digital switching rather than mechanical or analog switching. The trunks connecting the exchanges are also digital, called circuits or channels. However analog two-wire circuits are still used to connect the last mile from the exchange to the telephone in the home (also called the local loop). To carry a typical phone call from a calling party to a called party, the analog audio signal is digitized at an 8 kHz sample rate with 8-bit resolution using a special type of nonlinear pulse-code modulation known as G.711. The call is then transmitted from one end to another via telephone exchanges. The call is switched using a call set up protocol (usually ISUP) between the telephone exchanges under an overall routing strategy.
The call is carried over the PSTN using a 64 kbit/s channel, originally designed by Bell Labs. The name given to this channel is Digital Signal 0 (DS0). The DS0 circuit is the basic granularity of circuit switching in a telephone exchange. A DS0 is also known as a timeslot because DS0s are aggregated in time-division multiplexing (TDM) equipment to form higher capacity communication links.
A Digital Signal 1 (DS1) circuit carries 24 DS0s on a North American or Japanese T-carrier (T1) line, or 32 DS0s (30 for calls plus two for framing and signaling) on an E-carrier (E1) line used in most other countries. In modern networks, the multiplexing function is moved as close to the end user as possible, usually into cabinets at the roadside in residential areas, or into large business premises.
These aggregated circuits are conveyed from the initial multiplexer to the exchange over a set of equipment collectively known as the access network. The access network and inter-exchange transport use synchronous optical transmission, for example, SONET and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) technologies, although some parts still use the older PDH technology.
Within the access network, there are a number of reference points defined. Most of these are of interest mainly to ISDN but one – the V reference point – is of more general interest. This is the reference point between a primary multiplexer and an exchange. The protocols at this reference point were standardized in ETSI areas as the V5 interface.
Voice quality over PSTN networks was used as the benchmark for the development of the Telecommunications Industry Association's TIA-TSB-116 standard on voice-quality recommendations for IP telephony, to determine acceptable levels of audio delay and echo.[6]


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Food for Thought: Our furry friend, the kiwi
Kiwifruit has a history as unusual as its appearance. Discovered in ancient China, the berry, which grows on vines like grapes, was known as Chinese gooseberry by the mid-1800s.
It arrived in California in the early 1960s and was nicknamed "kiwifruit" because it was imported from New Zealand. Today, fewer than 300 family farms produce more than 98 percent of all the kiwifruit grown in the U.S. You can view a video about kiwifruit, how it's grown and how to select, ripen and eat it at www.kiwifruit.org.
Nutritionally, kiwifruit packs a powerful wallop. Low in calories and naturally fat free, kiwifruit offers:
- Two and a half times the recommended daily amount of vitamin C
- More fiber in two kiwis than a bowl of bran cereal
- More potassium than a banana
- Nearly 10 percent of the recommended daily amount of folate
- Vitamin E
The California Kiwifruit Commission offers a few helpful hints for enjoying kiwi:
- Kiwifruit should be smooth-skinned but slightly prickly, without wrinkles, bruises or blemishes.
- If you'll be eating your kiwifruit after three or more days, choose fruit that are firm to the touch. If you plan to eat them in just a day or two, select softer fruit. To eat them right away, choose fruit that give easily when gently pressed.
- To eat your kiwifruit, practice "slooping." First, slice the kiwi in half lengthwise, and then scoop out the sweet flesh with a spoon, which is slooping.
- Use kiwifruit in smoothies, salads, desserts, puddings and even cocktails.
You can receive a free slooper from the California Kiwifruit Commission by visiting their website. You can view a video about kiwifruit, how it's grown and how to select, ripen and eat it at www.kiwifruit.org.
Easy recipe: Coffee Cup Scramble
Cook time: 45 to 60 seconds
- 2 eggs
- 2 talespoons milk
- 2 tablespoons shredded cheddar cheese
- Salt and pepper
1. Coat a 12-ounce microwave-safe coffee mug with cooking spray. Add eggs and milk; beat until blended.
2. Microwave on high 45 seconds; stir. Microwave until eggs are almost set, 30 to 45 seconds longer.
3. Top with cheese; season with salt and pepper.
Makes 1 serving.
For more information on nutritional benefits of eggs and egg recipes, visit www.IncredibleEgg.org.
Did You Know?
When you check the ingredient list on a nutrition information label, the products are listed in descending order by weight, with the largest amounts listed first.
-- EatRight.org
Food Quiz
What separates the English muffin from the American muffin?
A. American muffins are for breakfast and English muffins are generally a lunch product.
B. English muffins are flat like a disc and American muffins are tall and rounded.
C. American muffins are really cupcakes without icing.
D. English muffins are really biscuits.
-- funtrivia.com
Answer is at bottom of column
Wise to the Word: Leyden cheese
Flavored with caraway or cumin seeds, this Dutch cheese is made from a combination of partially skimmed cow's milk and buttermilk. It's spicy and semi-soft, and it is delicious as a snack, especially when served with dark bread and dark beer.
-- Epicurious.com
Number to Know
102: A tablespoon of unsalted butter is 102 calories.
-– calorielab.com
The Dish On …
"Devil's Food Cake Murder: Hannah Swensen Series #14" by Joanne Fluke
Things are going well in the romance department for Hannah Swensen, and her bakery's delectable confections are selling almost as fast as she can bake them. Even her good friend, Claire, is head over heels with her new husband, Rev. Bob Knudson.
Then Bob's childhood friend, Matthew Walters, comes to town. Matthew, like Bob, is a Lutheran minister with a stubborn sweet tooth. All is fine until Hannah finds Matthew dead, face down in a plate of Devil's Food Cake with a single bullet in his head. To find out who killed Matthew, Hannah starts asking questions.
-- Kensington Publishing Corp.
From the Beer Nut's Blog: Les Trois Mousquetaires from Canada
Canada is an underrated beer country, so for this week's import review, I looked north of the border for inspiration. Les Trois Mousquetaires, or The Three Muskateers, is a brewery I've been seeing lately. They have three different lager style beers in 750 milliliters, caged and corked bottle. The brewery is based in Brossard, Quebec.
I decided to try the Serie Signature Kellerbier. This unfiltered lager is to drink. It smells like bread and has some fruitiness in the aroma. Taste-wise, there's a lot of sweet maltiness and flavors of green apples and a kind of musty taste. It is 5.5 percent alcohol by volume. It's unusual to see a corked lager, but the beer is phenomenal.
To read more from the Beer Nut, visit http://blogs.townonline.com/beernut/.
Food Quiz Answer
B. English muffins are flat like a disc and American muffins are tall and rounded.
GateHouse News Service


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Inmates of the Pitchess Detention Center, watch your step. If you get out of line, you may get blasted with an invisible heat ray.
The jail's energy weapon is a small-scale version of the Active Denial System, the experimental crowd control device that the U.S. military brought to Afghanistan -- and then quickly shipped back home, after questions mounted about the wisdom of blasting locals with a beam that momentarily puts them in agony. The pain weapon seemed at odds with the military's efforts to appear more humane and measured in the eyes of the Afghan populace.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department not only found those concerns overblown; they used the military's long-standing reluctance to zap Afghans as fodder for the plan to zap Pitchess' prisoners. "I already had contacts at [Active Denial maker] Raytheon who were reeling from the short-sided, self-serving cowardice of people who were more interested in saving face than saving lives, and leveraged it right into getting it into our jails," former LASD Cmdr. Charles "Sid" Heal tells Danger Room.
The LASD has long been a hotbed of advocates for exotic weaponry -- everything from sonic blasters to spy drones. But the Active Denial System has long been of particular interest. Heal calls it the "Holy Grail of crowd control." He's been trying for years to get the technology deployed in Los Angeles.
The LASD unveiled the 7½-foot-tall millimeter wave weapon late last week, partially as answer to the 257 inmate-on-inmate assaults at Pitchess so far this year, and the 19 additional assaults on deputies. Sheriff Lee Baca believes the modified pain ray can break up these incidents before they get out of hand. With a range of 80 to 100 feet, the heat beam can blast prisoners that a Taser couldn't hit. "This device will allow us to quickly intervene without having to enter the area and without incapacitating or injuring either combatant," Baca says in a statement.
The National Institute of Justice -- the research arm of the U.S. Justice Department -- is paying for the six-month trial at Pitchess, part of a larger effort to test technologies that might cut down on inmate violence. "If we try and fail we've sent a message that we care, because even the effort becomes noble!" Heal e-mails. "If we try and succeed we've become heroes in that we accepted a risk the Department of Defense refused — even after they spent $40 million of the taxpayers money and even while they're killing people, because [they] are unwilling to use it."
Photo: LASD
See Also:


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Today's the Day: Patch 4.1 is Available!
Well, today's it folks – if you've been waiting for Patch 4.1 and all of the goodness inside, the realms are slowly coming back online and you're about to get what you've been waiting for. Whether it's a newly redesigned and revamped Zul'Gurub or Zul'Aman, or you're just looking forward to the Guild Finder, it's all landing today.
Above is the beautiful trailer that sets the stage for the events in 4.1 – including a little insight into what we've been waiting for for a long time: the trolls are antsy and eager to regain their place at the top of the food chain, instead of be forced to be scattered and disorganized as a people.
That said though, you can find the patch notes – and trust me, there are a LOT of changes, over at the Official Blog.


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1. The Game Changers
Back in the year 2000, the iPhone might as well have been a cardboard prop off Star Trek. But today, the iPhone is not only dully common, it's the prototype on which most modern smartphones have been built. Its big touchscreen interface and downloadable applications set the benchmarks by which Palm, HTC and Motorola phones are designed today, even though they are running unique operating systems that have nothing at all to do with Apple.
But no matter your corporate loyalties, the smartphone, and specifically the touchscreen smartphone, have proven to be the most influential gadget of the last decade. It took the Internet from PCs to pockets with surprising elegance and comfort. But what about the next decade? What's the one key gadget we'll be using that we've never used before?
Video contacts. (Try not to laugh.)
More From Popular Mechanics
The prediction is almost a sci-fi cliché at this point, but by the end of the next decade, it's easy to imagine a contact lens, like any other contact, that could fit on your eye to provide a heads-up display (HUD) over much of your life experience.
Researchers at Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft can make such technologies in glasses now, but there's an inherent social stigma behind wearing glasses to see video. If there weren't, every iPod would be accompanied by a pair of Myvu video glasses providing a 50-inch screen.
But a contact, one with a primitive, even monochromatic, display to start out with, could complement one's perception of the world with massive amounts of information, augmenting city and pastoral landscapes alike with various layers of data.
The video contact could one day evolve to contain a display nearly as sharp and colorful as the world itself. It could morph your eye into a camera, beaming images wirelessly to a device in your pocket, or even directly into the cloud itself. And, hey, maybe it could even double as your real contact.
Is such an idea too much for our next decade to conquer? Possibly, but the technology is in early stages of development at the University of Washington.
2. Computers/OS
Ten years ago, the personal computer had become ubiquitous, and the software world found itself in a hangover from useless Y2K doomsday scenarios. Microsoft's notorious Windows ME appeared before being trumped by the much more stable Windows XP less than a year later—a bit after Apple upgraded from OS 9 to OS X.
Apple refined the OS X brand while Microsoft launched Windows Vista and Windows 7—operating systems whose receptions mirrored those bestowed upon Windows ME and Windows XP, respectively.
But while operating systems became increasingly media-capable and networked to the world, an even more important trend emerged in the tail end of the decade.
Today's smartphone OS runs hardware that is often more powerful than last decade's desktop PC, and now offers an experience that, when it comes to communication and research capabilities, rivals a bulky personal computer.
In the next decade, the mobile OS will be indistinguishable from the desktop OS. Portable computers will be but aesthetic shells for your omnipresent connection to information and processing power in the cloud. And while some power users such as scientists, media producers and gamers may benefit from powerful chipsets in-house, even those users will find benefits to off-loading some of their burden to a larger network.
But more importantly, the OS itself will further fuse with day-to-day life. Augmented reality, seen in iPhone apps like those by Layar, will mature to become, simply, reality. The world as you see it will be overlayed with a HUD of information. No longer will you need to go to Wikipedia to research the history of a bridge or a building; you'll simply look at the building.
Much of the software and infrastructure needed for this experience exists today—albeit in a rudimentary form. As the technology progresses, it will likely incorporate devices such as augmented-reality glasses and contacts, before eventually bypassing display hardware altogether by interacting with optic nerves.
3. Cellphones
A decade ago, most phone calls came through wires. But as of 2007, U.S. households were more likely to be use a cell than a land line. Today, well in excess of 60 percent of the world's population have active cellphones.
In coming years, cellphones will likely morph into a vastly different device. Namely, the cellphone won't be one device, but many. And just as data has become more important to households than voice, we'll see the same trend go wireless.
You won't buy a number of minutes, text messages and gigabytes of Web browsing from a company like AT&T or Verizon. Voice will finally be seen for what it is in the digital age—data. And accordingly, we'll buy an unlimited data pathway that all wireless devices will use. A cellphone will be a cellphone, sure, but there's no limit to the personal effects one can carry, stored in the cloud.
As for the cellphone itself, it's hard to imagine a future—even a future in which processor and battery size become no object —in which humans won't like interacting with a device that fits right in their hand, at least some of the time.
Of course, as we mentioned when discussing the future of the OS, cellphones will no longer be limited to 3-inch displays as their images can beam directly to wireless contacts or to glasses and fill our complete field of view. Coupled with increased processing power from both the cloud and Moore's law, this "cellphone" will be a constant companion to your very existence, mapping faces to names in your address book for starters and, if you're willing, recording (or broadcasting) every single moment of your life.
4. The Web
It almost goes without saying, Google has been the single biggest game changer in the Web since 2000 (and really, before that). Not only does it dominate the world of search with over 70 percent of the market share as of the latest count, but the company has digitized the world in Street View, networked offices through Google Docs and even begun actualizing the long-recognized potential of cloud computing through Chrome OS.
Then Twitter succeeded where Google could not. While Google was getting faster at indexing the Web, one page at a time, bumping the frequency of crawling certain pages from once every few weeks to once every few minutes, Twitter, a simple collection of 140-character text messages, tracked the world's conversation in real time.
Many might name Facebook as the champion of connecting the masses in Web 2.0 warmth. And while it's reached an unbelievable level of popularity this decade, Facebook will need to continue to evolve, lest it become the AOL of 2010.
Right now, the Web is little more than a networked encyclopedia. Searching a topic, say through Google, brings you a list of pages that you may or may not be interested in. Some of these pages have videos, some of these pages have places to write (such as by commenting on this article, for instance), and if you don't find the page you're looking for, you can add your own.
In the coming years, when computing truly enters the cloud, interfaces can become more passive. And search will be automatic, laid over the world in which we live. Rather than flip through a digital book, the book will become our analog world annotated in digital notes.
The idea of "social networking" will become simply networking. Do you want to find your friend Dan at a club? Look at the club's façade and you'll see Dan's icon—GPS verifies he's arrived before you. Click the icon with your finger or use a verbal command or the trained focus of your eye. Dan's sharing his video feed. He's standing, waiting for a drink from the bartender. You say you'll be right there. Based upon Dan's settings, he doesn't hear this; instead it's a message on his HUD.
Your other friend Sally, following cloud-based turn-by-turn directions to the club, may be running late but that's only because she's decided to take the long way. An accident, reported by someone she doesn't even know, has marked the street she was turning down with an unmistakable red glow.
As fantastical as all this sounds, none of the above-described Web technology is that far advanced beyond the capabilities of current Google, Twitter or various smartphone apps. It's simply integrated at a more user-passive, organic level.
5. Cameras
In the 100-plus years of the camera's history, the last 10 years mark the era when film died. Digital cameras, a technology that reached electronics retailers in the late 1990s, finally challenged film in terms of quality (many circles consider 3.2 megapixels the breaking point of 35 mm resolution) at a level of price and convenience that made us never look back.
Even iconic Polaroid film was officially discontinued in 2008.
Still, cameras went digital right alongside camcorders, which worked their way from digital videotape that recorded standard definition to hard drives that record high definition. The very hardware makeup of cameras and camcorders has blurred to the point where dSLRs—still cameras—offer some of the best, most affordable motion footage you can capture today. (And of course, all this tech fits into our cellphones, to the point that we're already questioning the need for cameras at all.)
We owe this advancement primarily to improved image-acquisition chips, known as CMOS and CCD, that convert photons of light into pretty pictures. Just as we fit more transistors on silicon to make processors faster, we've jammed more transistors onto CMOS chips to convert more light into electrons.
Logic tells us that these technologies will only improve over the next decade, meaning that we'll be able to fit staggering resolutions, like 4K (the step beyond 1080P) and beyond into small chips. But the chips themselves are only half the battle. The larger challenge is one of physics—how will the sheer amount of photons that can fit through a large SLR lens and create such pretty pictures ever shrink to a pocket-size device?
Though liquid lenses developed by companies like Varioptic, allowing electrically charged liquid to take any lens shape may hint toward the versatility of mobile cameras to come. And is it so far-fetched to imagine the imaging chips in our cameras woven into flexible circuits embedded in our clothing? We'll see.
6. Home Entertainment
If in 2000 you had told a collector that his fast-growing DVD collection—the first widely accepted consumer digital media format—would be obsolete in a few years' time, it's doubtful he would have believed you. After all, these shiny discs were the size of CDs and sharper than VHS or laser discs had ever been. And even the government was mandating that broadcast go "digital." Wasn't digital the best we could do?
In short, no. Images could be sharper than that formerly perfect-looking DVD, if you had the new TV capable of actually displaying high-definition.
While the government supported broadcast delays going digital, companies in consumer electronics wanted to take digital into the era of high definition.
Spurred by the success of the DVD, manufacturers looked to create, what else, high-resolution DVDs. HD DVDs and Blu-ray, technically quite different but with the same aim, would battle it out to be the new home movie format of choice.
But while Blu-ray "won" this war, other opportunists stepped forward. With the Internet, consumers have begun to question the need for a metallic disc at all. YouTube pulled the Internet into a new era of communication: easily shared video. And it wasn't long until the broadcasters took note, streaming shows through their own Web pages, such as Hulu, and Netflix realized that streaming movies might be easier than mailing them out.
Today we stand at a clash of technologies. Blu-ray is still around, as are DVDs. But streaming to computers and TVs is clearly the more elegant solution.
In 10 years, physical media will have little place in the world, a pile of rotting nostalgia decaying in bargain bins and secondhand stores. In 2008, iTunes became the No. 1 music retailer in the U.S. This trend of digital distribution across media will only grow.
What of 3D and resolutions higher than hi-def? With 3D already upon us, Hollywood starts a multiyear push of the new technology, supported by the home theater sector. But history tells us that consumers will not wear stereoscopic glasses to watch television (similar technology has been around, affordably, for over a decade), and the buzz will falter until displays without glasses—which we've seen in tech demos—are demanded by the mainstream consumer. Besides, a paint-based OLED display, like those being researched by chemists at Case Western Reserve University, could make TVs as we know them disappear altogether.
At this point you're surely asking, what use would a world with video-capable contact lenses have for TVs? Perhaps none, although until personal HUD displays reach high resolutions, we'll want to watch The Dark Knight IV on something decent.
7. Music
10 years ago, the iPod didn't even exist. Sure, you could buy an MP3 player, but it rarely stored more music than a CD or two anyway. So we carried around bulky optical disc drives hooked into headphones—miniature, laser-read buzz saws in our backpacks. By 2001, the 5- to 10-gigabyte iPod came into existence, complete with click-wheel and sleek design. From that point on through the aughts, the MP3 player caught on like wildfire as part music device, part portable hard-drive, (eventually) part video player and part status symbol.
Yet over the next decade the iPod, the musical icon of the decade, will fade away.
Is it so surprising? The iPod Touch is barely an iPod in terms of function. The iPod nano is also a camcorder. Maybe the name will live on through branding, but the idea of a dedicated music player has little presence in the future, an ideal as rare as a watch that fits in your pocket is today.
Before MTV, few had imagined music as a miniature movie. What if music itself could evolve alongside technology? What if, instead of offering listeners less, as it has for years, being compressed from analog into digital formats, it offered the senses more?
Synesthesia is the neurological phenomenon in which one sensory or cognitive pathway crosses with another. It can literally make people taste colors or see music. And as scientists refine synesthesia inducement, it could very well be our next music video.
Imagine an iPod that, instead of just playing music into your ears, made you see without the use of displays and feel without touching anything. Synesthesia is a means for media to reach its audience in a way unknown to most.
Music has long pleased the public in terms of fidelity through both low- and high-quality speakers alike. Music could go the direction of the timepiece, and merely fit into another gadget as an extraneous clock would. But, at least for some, it will go the way of the pocket watch and offer an experience that can convey worth more than the media itself.
8. Movies
The popularity of CGI belonged to the '90s, with digital effects and companies like Pixar rising to dominance. But the perfection of the technology goes to this decade.
No audience would call today's visual effects flawless, but it was in 2008, with the release of Benjamin Button, that artists crossed the uncanny valley for the first time when they created a digital Brad Pitt that looked completely real.
Now, such refined image-creation technology will, like all other technologies, become easier to implement and cheaper to wield—which is incredibly important as the other trend in cinema plays out: 3D.
For theaters to remain competitive with home theaters, and for Hollywood to keep dazzling audiences, both outlets have agreed on taking films 3D. Critical reception aside, the next several years will see a torrent of 3D movies (films shot with dual lens cameras, played back at theaters and in homes with the help of shutter glasses) that have already been greenlighted. Avatar, Tron and countless other films will be part of a new Hollywood spectacle painting realities that will work hard to compete with a new era of public perception that experiences a day-to-day life that's as digital as it is corporeal.
But will we see something unexpected in the next ten years? By 2020, we could very well see a dead actor come back to life as a main character in a feature film—a spectacle that goes beyond even 3D. After all, the late Fred Astaire has danced with a vacuum in his hand and Christopher Reeves, before passing, physically stood out of a chair to walk in a 2000 SuperBowl commercial.
Actors such as Brad Pitt have been digitized, their flesh copied and waiting on a hard drive. It's only a matter of time before the manpower and budget come around to reanimate them posthumously.
9. Video Games
We've discussed a plethora of media and home theater tech in this article. But video games are of particular interest, as gamers are among the fastest adopters of home theater equipment and thereby tend to drive the marketplace.
In this past decade, the release of the PS2 (year 2000) was of particular note, not just for its 64-bit Emotion Engine processor, but because it provided an inexpensive means for Japan to adopt DVD, propelling the format's success.
The next generation of consoles arrived starting in 2005. Again, adopters of the new HD systems, the Xbox 360 and PS3, were among the first and most likely to invest in HDTVs. Also importantly, these systems were not just more graphically powerful. They cemented online gaming—already ubiquitous in PCs for a decade—as a force in the living room.
One big, unexpected thing happened, however, and it defined the decade more than any of these other technologies: The Wii. Its motion controller, though imperfect, rekindled interest in gaming to the masses.
Nintendo's DS also proved to be a defining gaming experience of the decade in the portable sector, surpassing 110 million units sold, or almost as many as the Wii, the 360 and PS3 combined.
Yet, in this new mobile era, even Nintendo has acknowledged fears that Apple's iPhone and iPod touch and the App Store are grave competition for the public's attention and cash.
How could this sector play out?
Mobile gaming won't be diminishing any time soon. Given that we're already betting so much on augmented reality in this piece, it makes sense to back the same technology for gaming.
We've already seen the world around us transform into a video game. Specifically, the popular iPhone app Foursquare rewards players for just exploring the world around them, while others have experienced the world becoming a giant game of Pac-Man. Given that the Internet will be all around us, it only makes sense for gaming to be all around us, too.
But that experience won't replace the at-home arms race that's been going on for decades. Namely, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony should have the next generation of console released by 2020 while they plan consoles two generations out from today.
If casual gaming and motion controls alone don't become so profitable that companies give up on graphical simulation, we'll see full 3D gaming, without glasses, that approaches photorealism without breaching it. Motion controls will reach a new stage of development hinted at by Microsoft's Project Natal—gamers will still flail around the room on occasion, but a system that reads one's facial expression could provide just as much immersion.
If we can reach appropriate network speeds with deep enough penetration, all this gaming could beam through the cloud (which we see now in some iPhone MMOs like Watchmen), meaning that simple hardware such as the Wii could be a portal incredible video game rendered somewhere else. And consumers will find themselves spending more on subscriptions and content than on hardware, by a longshot.
10. Print
Over Man's brief history, writing has gone from chiseling in stone to inking on paper to typing on a screen. And reading adapted accordingly.
In the last 10 years, much of print news went online as paper outlets either folded or morphed into Web pages to be read on computer screens. And it's a trend that doesn't have an obvious end in sight. Meanwhile, books didn't change all that much, until display technology developed into e-books, power-efficient displays that could reflect light like paper instead of glowing like a screen.
Sony released the Reader in 2006, and Amazon eventually followed with the Kindle. In the last month, even Barnes & Noble has become involved in this electronic trend for books with a device of its own known as the Nook.
Despite all of these efforts, a decade from now, the Kindle, Nook and Reader will not exist—at least not in their present form. In fact, they'll have a tough time making it to 2015.
Just as newspaper and CD sales have slumped, so too will the digital era continue to impact print. But the device on which we read tomes of text will also be one that does many other things.
The mystery device may be a low-power tablet. It may even be a cellphone beaming content to our awesome video-capable contacts. But it won't just be an electronic book replacement. Even the iPod, the great consumer device of the last decade, has been forced to multitask. In an era when every single device is a clock radio on `roids, how could a simple piece of paper hope to exist?
As soon as LCDs reach a critical level of power efficiency (which is happening now through companies like Pixel Q), multifunctional tablets will quickly engulf dedicated readers. Prices will drop and the economics of silicone will outweigh the economics of paper.
Now, whether multifunctional devices like tablets prove practical enough to become a day-to-day must-have is up to software designers and media distribution deals as much as anything or anyone else.
Just as a railroad conductor from 1850 could barely imagine serving drinks on a cross-continental flight in 1950, so too is our perspective less dimmed by the fog of uncertainty than blinded by the fires of ingenuity.
So while we'll take our best guesses as to what the next decade holds in store for us all, never before has it become so apparent that looking into tomorrow is about as clear as staring directly into the sun.


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Four-wheel drive. Everyone seems to have it these days and, frankly, it's getting a bit boring. Mercedes realizes that too. But unlike everyone else, they're here to make a difference. That's where the brand new G63 6x6 comes in.
The G63 6x6 is six-wheel drive. That means it will be able to scale Mount Everest in total comfort, drive a group of four from China to Latvia with nary a worry, as well as terrify small indigenous tribes that have never seen a moving vehicle, let alone one that looks like it's out to murder you.
However, you'll likely see it in its natural habitat, scaling the parking garage at the local galleria during a sale at Neiman Marcus.
The G63 6x6 is powered by the G63's twin turbo V8. That equals 536 horsepower and 560 pound feet of torque. The torque split betwixt all six wheels is a nice 30:40:30. That adds up to 0 to 60 in under six seconds and a top speed of 100 MPH. That might sound slow, but it has 37 inch tires and weighs, weight (!) for it, 8,322 pounds.
There are also five locking differentials, I guess so you can drive over everyone else waiting to valet park for the opera.
It sounds like an absolutely manic offroader. It can ford depths of 39.3 inches, which should be enough to drive through the deepest puddles you'll find on a rainy day in Los Angeles. You can also inflate and deflate the tires from the inside, which means you won't scuff your shoes filling up the tires at the local Valero.
The cargo bed is finished in polished bamboo, which sounds rather lovely. It'll also be a great way to transport your new Prada merchandise.
To be serious for a moment, this thing looks incredible. It has off-road capabilities that you only dream of these days and can probably tackle anything you throw at it. It looks like it'll be perfectly at home on sand dunes and mountains. In fact, it looks like it would actively try and destroy you if you drove on a paved road. I love this thing.
Mercedes will build about 20 to 30 of the trucks each year at a price of somewhere around $450,000. If you want one, you better get in line behind members of the Dubai royal family as well as Paris Hilton. Probably.


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- Inventory
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- 2017 Yamaha WR250F
2017 Yamaha WR250F
Team Yamaha Blue
Manufacturer: Yamaha
Condition: New
- Competition Ready
Revolutionary rearward slanted, liquid-cooled, DOHC 4-stroke power plant with 4 titanium valves based on the YZ250F™, with an added sixth gear and wide ratio transmission, among other modifications, make it perfect for Enduro competition.
- Nimble Chassis
Nearly the same bilateral beam frame that is found on the championship winning YZ250F is used on the WR250F™. It places the engine and fuel tank close to the center mass of the bike for extremely light and nimble handling character.
- Fuel Injection
A Keihin® 44mm throttle body fuel injection system is tuned for Enduro riding ensures smooth throttle response and easy starting in nearly all conditions. Plus the electric start button reduces rider fatigue.
- Advanced Suspension
Industry leading fully-adjustable KYB® spring-type forks with speed sensitive damping and a KYB® rear shock, each tuned with Enduro-specific settings.
- Enduro-Specific Features
With a 2 gallon fuel tank, multi-function Enduro computer, 18-inch rear wheel, O-ring chain, skid plate and Enduro spec tires, the WR250F is ready to win right out of the box.
All inventory listed is subject to availability and prior sale. Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) if shown for a vehicle excludes set-up, freight, taxes, title, licensing or other dealer charges, and is subject to change. Individual prices may vary. Please request a quote for specific pricing.


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An era is coming to a close for the Pittsburgh Steelers, as the team slowly moves away from the tenured veterans who helped return the team to championship glory. With starting safeties Ryan Clark and Troy Polamlu reaching the ends of their respective careers, the team will very soon be in need of some suitable replacements.
The first expected to be gone is Clark, who is playing out the final year of his contract in 2013. Polamalu has one more year remaining than Clark. Both require the team to start searching now.
While Captain Obvious would declare how easily the organization would find one in the upcoming draft, reality states nothing is ever so simple. Just being drafted does not make one a legitimate NFL starter.
Recent years have taught us the Steelers expect young players to need at least two seasons to become acclimated with the defensive system. If this is true, Clark's replacement would have to be on the roster already. An exceptional player may be able to start after one season, but there is no guarantee Pittsburgh will find such an exceptional player in the draft.
Maybe, they don't need to.
The Steelers have two former undrafted rookies currently on the roster who have the potential to be NFL starters, however they have a lot yet to prove before the team will be confident enough to not make the position a draft priority.
Robert Golden made, and remained, on the 53-man roster all year in 2012. He contributed on special teams, and as an extra cornerback late last season when Ike Taylor broke his ankle, followed by Keenan Lewis and Cortez Allen dealing with minor injuries of their own. While Golden did not surpass entrenched veterans Ryan Mundy and Will Allen on the depth chart, he was impressive enough to maintain his job. The coaches have spoken highly of his potential.
Da'Mon Cromartie-Smith has been with the Steelers for three years now, spending most of his time on the practice squad. He has made the active roster a few times, but usually as special teams help during injury-riddled times. He had an opportunity to prove himself prior to 2012 during the pre-season, but his own injuries limited his ability and eventually led to corrective surgery. He did play during regular season action in 2012. While few feel confident in Cromartie-Smith as a long-term solution, he has earned enough favor in the coaching staff to keep him around all this time. It is unlikely the team would invest this much time and effort in a guy they expected nothing from.
It is very unlikely both players will earn their place as starters, but they do have the inside track on both starting spots when they become available. Even should the team draft one or more safeties in the next draft or two, Golden and Cromartie-Smith will have a leg up on the competition due to their familiarity with the defensive system.
Golden has two seasons, plus a third season as a RFA, remaining on his contract. Even if he can't earn a starting spot, he could develop into a consistent reserve, especially regarding his flexibility to play corner when needed. Cromartie-Smith has a slightly tougher road ahead of him. With only a one-year contract, he will be auditioning for a future with the team. This makes him the most expendable should the team draft a safety.
However, should the team not find any good options available in the draft, both Golden and Cromartie-Smith will need to seize their opportunity to make names for themselves, and find their own places in the NFL - hopefully, a home in Pittsburgh.


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St. Louis' Brian Spear Gives Back to his Community
ST. LOUIS, MO - Brian Spear, the President of Innovative Construction, Inc., has made a career out of providing spectacular service for his clients in the multi-family industry. By doing so, he has contributed greatly to the restoration of St. Louis and its outlying areas of Missouri.
But this holiday season, Brian sought to do something more. Realizing that not everyone in the St. Louis area has the means to enjoy these holidays, Spear has reported that he will donate to various charitable organizations that help families in need so they also can enjoy these precious times.
This isn't the first time that Brian Spear bestowed money to the community. An avid baseball fan, Brian Spear has sponsored many local teams in the area. His contributions went towards helping the teams buy new uniforms and equipment. In addition, he has contributed to Angel Arms, A St. Louis foundation that provides temporary housing to foster children. Angel Arms has helped saved the lives of many children going through difficult changes. Spear has also provided money to local community schools helping kids with their tuition expense.
His company, Innovative Construction, Inc., is celebrating another successful year in which its staff used their collective expertise to build relationships and provide great service to all his customers. Aptly equipped to handle any construction project, employees of Spear Construction have gone on record stating that, "There really isn't anything we can't do," and "Under the leadership of Brian we've been able to grow over the past 12 months."
But beautifying his community has never been enough for Spear. As he recently stated, "What good are the Holidays if you can't enjoy them? At Innovative Construction, we want everyone in the area to have a season to remember."
About Innovative Construction:
Innovative Construction, Inc. is a general contractor working mainly in the multi-family sectors of St. Louis, Mo but its range of services includes custom residential homes to light commercial projects. Brian Spear acts as the company's President.


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I'm already thinking of dishes to take to 4th of July festivities. So many salads have mayo (gag) in them and have a short potluck shelf life. This one can stay at room temp indefinitely.
I could eat this every single day of the summer, mixing and matching veggie add-ins. It's really THAT good.
Adapted from the NY Times.
Try it for yourself.
For the salad:
- 1 cup uncooked red quinoa
- 1 (14oz) can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 red pepper, chopped
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
- 2 green onions, chopped
- 1 cup fresh corn (optional) *see note
- 1 small avocado, chopped into 1 inch pieces
For the dressing:
- 4-5 tbsp of fresh lime juice (juice from 2 small limes)
- 1/2 tsp Kosher salt, or to taste
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin, or more to taste (I used 1 tsp, I love cumin)
1. Cook 1 cup Red Quinoa according to package directions.
2. While quinoa is cooking, prepare the chopped vegetables and whisk together the dressing.
3. Allow quinoa to cool after cooking for about 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork. Add the beans and vegetables and toss well.
4. Drizzle dressing over salad and toss well with salt and pepper to taste. Bring salad to room temperature before serving. Keep fresh in a sealed container for 1-2 days. Makes about 5 cups.
Note: I defrosted and drained frozen corn before adding it to the salad, but the result was rubbery corn. I painstakingly picked out every, single, kernel after that eff up. I would suggest using fresh corn only, if the season applies, otherwise I wouldn't bother with the frozen stuff.


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What does that mean for a typical child? It means the stars were aligned. They hit the home run, they caught the touchdown pass, they made straight As, they got the big part in the play or they made the honor roll.
It would be the icing on the cake. The topping of a day that already held promise.
For an A-typical child, the day starts out kicking and grabbing at the parent trying to gently pursuade them out of bed at o-dark-hundred. Protests ring out as he is lead into the bedroom to get dressed -
where he promptly bites my breast.
Breaking the skin. Through my clothes.
After that it's a struggle to get clothes on him and then we go downstairs where he proceeds to scream and cry and carry on ridiculously about every single thing that occurs until the bus arrives.
He grabs my arms and pinches, he tries to bite his brother, he screams when the Wiggles go off the air.
And when he comes home, his notebook says "He was so happy all day. He had a great day. He followed two part instructions perfectly."
We jokingly call him a shark because he eats everything. I now have a bite radius for the marine biologists to measure, should they arrive.
He followed two part instructions perfectly.
If only one of those had been "Don't bite other people."
Having a special child is unbelievably hard.
Having two, is some days, unbelievable.


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As cliche as a sunset photo is there is a lot that goes into creating an interesting image from foreground to background. Without all the pieces of the puzzle you can't properly tell the viewer the entire story. This image in particular, although seemingly easy was a challenge for me! When you are shooting panoramic images you have to watch for parallax error(The difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight), moving objects, and a wide exposure latitude. Location also plays a huge part in making an interesting image, although I was lucky enough to be sitting on a beach in Hawaii you can create interesting panoramic images of just about everything! This image in particular was a ballet of many factors coming together to create one of my favorite images I have ever created. Timing is crucial when it comes to panoramic images, if you are shooting mid day getting full detail in highlights and shadows will be difficult without the use of filters but don't get worry you don't need to anything but a watch! This image in particular was taken just after the sun had gone down, bringing the highlights in the sky and clouds to a reasonable amount for my digital camera. Once you have the timing down you have to work fast as the light is changing by the second. In this image I used the movement of the waves to reflect the sky giving the water a glassy, colorful look. Watch for people moving throughout the frame and reoccurring objects from the first frame of your panorama to the last. Don't be discouraged if your first few attempts to don't come out as expected, slow down and remember the devil is in the details.
Tag Archives: panorama
Sunset over the West Maui's
Sunset over the West Maui's


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Catherine (Hebenstreit) Bausman was my gg-grandmother. She was born December 23, 1863, in Shullsburg, Wisconsin to Vitus and Bertha (Schafer) Hebenstreit. She had four siblings, two identified: Andrew and Anna Caroline. I assume her other siblings died in infancy. Until reading Vitus Hebenstreit's obituary, I was unaware of these children.
Catherine married Nicholas Bausman Jr on January 26, 1886, at St. Matthew's Parsonage in Shullsburg, Wisconsin.
She spent her married life in Scales Mound, Illinois, and they raised five children: Gertrude, Clement, Pearl, Viola, and Hazel. Clement died in infancy. In Nicholas' biography Clement is referred to as Clarence. Since the inscription on his tombstone is "Clement", the biography is either mistaken or it's his middle name.
I've been looking for Catherine's obituary for quite some time. So it was a happy discovery to find this at Grandma Davis'. Catherine died on July 21, 1943, in Scales Mound, Illinois. She's buried in Scales Mound Township Cemetery.
The citation for her obituary is unknown.
Transcription of obituary:
Mrs. Catherine Bausman passed away last Wednesday evening, July 21, 1943, at her home after a short illness. The funeral was held Saturday a.m., July 24, at Holy Trinity church, Rev. Father Voet officiated. Her daughter and husband Mr. and Mrs. Lester Schoenhard of Presho, S. Dakota, arrived shortly after she had pased [sic] away. She is survived by two other daughters, Mrs. J.H. Hesselbacher (Pearl) and Mrs. Viola Davis, both of Scales Mound, Ill., twelve grand-children and seventeen great grand children.
The following relatives and friends were her to attend the funeral of Mrs. Catherine Bausman on Saturday: Mr. and Mrs. Lester Schoenhard, Presho, S. Dakota; Mr. Andrew Hebenstreit of Wampun, Wis., Mr. Anton Stephan, Chicago, Ill., Mr. and Mrs. Henry Parks, Byron, Minn., Mrs. Jas. Williams, Minneapolis, Minn., Mr. and Mrs. Otto Alexander, Davenport, Iowa, Mrs. Henry Bausman, Mr. John Bausman, Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Pansing, and Mrs. Rachel Bausman of Warren, Ill., Mrs. and Mrs. Dillion, Cuba City, Wis., Colleta Hesselbacher R.N., Lena, Ill., Mr. and Mrs. Frank Krizanic, Hanover, Ill., Mr. and Mrs. Ed. Roth, Loretta Davis, Mrs. Eva Hebenstreit and Mrs. Julia Beckwith, Shullsburg, Wis., Mrs. Bray and Mrs. Estella Brew of Galena, Ill.


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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fifty years since their first London jam sessions, the Rolling Stones kicked off the U.S. leg of a brief anniversary tour with a vibrant show in New York on Saturday that belied their years - wrinkles and nostalgia aside.
Drummers wearing gorilla masks warmed up the crowd packed into Brooklyn's Barclays Center as black-clad women swung their long tresses in rhythm.
Mick Jagger pranced, shimmied and howled his way through the 2-1/2 hour show, pausing to reminisce about the band's history and its first New York concert at Carnegie Hall in 1964.
For a group whose early years were punctuated by quarrels and occasional brushes with the law, the biggest controversy ahead of Saturday's show was the price of seats - up to $800, and as much as 10 times that amount on websites offering last-minute tickets.
In those days, milk was cheaper and "tickets to the Rolling Stones was - well, I'm not going to go there," Jagger acknowledged.
The band's last major tour was in 2007 and the latest reunion almost didn't happen, owing in part to a spat between Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards over comments Richards made about the singer in a 2010 autobiography.
Richards joked in a recent interview: "We can't get divorced - we're doing it for the kids."
A tribute video opened Saturday's proceedings featuring celebrities heaping praise on the band.
"They're great songs to do bad things to," said actor Johnny Depp. "Just how skinny they all are... It really, really pisses me off," said actress Cate Blanchett.
The Stones - average age 68 - ripped through 20 hits that began with "Get Off of My Cloud" and closed with "Sympathy for the Devil" and an encore of "You Can't Always Get What You Want", "Jumping Jack Flash" and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction".
Women in the crowd opened their arms wide as Jagger, wearing a silver sequined jacket, strutted along the horseshoe-shaped stage for "I Wanna Be Your Man", a Beatles tune. The band was then joined by R&B singer Mary J. Blige for "Gimme Shelter".
"People say 'why do you keep doing this?'" Jagger told the crowd. He thanked fans for buying records and "generally being amazing for the last 50 years."
The Stones started their brief diamond jubilee tour in London and are due to play twice in Newark, New Jersey.
Fans said it could be the last chance for New Yorkers to see the band live.
"It's the only concert I wanted to see before I die," said Lucy Webley, 33.
(Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)


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Home Energy Minute #01: Alaska's Griffin Hagle
Home Energy Magazine
Welcome to the first in a series of quarterly interviews conducted by Corbett Lunsford of Home Diagnosis TV, that will focus on the topic of home performance! Hear from a home performance pro dealing with issues in one of the coldest climates in North America - Alaska! Check it out! [continue reading]
Avoid These Pitfalls When Installing HVAC Sensors
Megan Nichols
Modern HVAC systems are getting smarter, which means they need sensors to tell them when to keep the house cool and when to let the temperature climb a little bit to save power when no one is home. These sensors serve a specific purpose, but they can be tricky to install. Here is a list of some of the most common HVAC sensors and some pitfalls you should always try to avoid when installing them. [continue reading]
Is Geothermal a Realistic Way to Achieve True Energy Independence?
Sallie McBrien
Energy independence is a goal for many households and communities for a variety of reasons from simply wanting to save money each month, to the broader goal of saving the planet for future generations. To accomplish this lofty goal, there must be a way to generate energy independently of any centralized source (e.g. solar, wind, etc). For example, a successful home solar system can meet most of a home's energy needs if the system ... [continue reading]
Getting the Lead Out: Earth Day, 2019
Leslie Jackson
We all need somebody to lean on. —Bill Withers. Singer-songwriter, 1938-1985 [continue reading]
A Recap of the Largest National Conference in our History - HPC19 is in the Books!
Home Performance Coalition
We wrapped up the 2019 National Conference & Trade Show on April 4, 2019, after four full days of workshops, sessions, events, and networking! As many of you have heard, we broke the record for the number of attendees at this year's event – 1,942 industry professionals from all 50 states plus Washington D.C., Puerto Rico and three Canadian provinces. All joined under one roof to learn, grow, be inspired and meet new people. After 33 years of producing ... [continue reading]
How HPXML Transformed NYSERDAs Home Performance Program
Bill Keating
Since the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority's (NYSERDA) Home Performance with ENERGY STAR® (HPwES) program initiated its HPXML – supported Express Contract workflow in 2015, nearly 8,500 projects have been completed. The approval time for the majority of home performance projects, which before the implementation of Express Contract may have taken up to eight business days, is now completed within one business day. [continue reading]
Building Performance AssociationLive from Chicago, Thursday Edition
Jim Gunshinan
Wednesday was another rich day of inspiration and connection. My brain is nearly full. When you read this, I will likely be on the plane flying from Chicago back to Oakland; where I will have some time to digest it all. There are more sessions this morning though if you are staying on at the conference. And still lots to see and do in Chicago if you are sticking around for the afternoon. The Chicago ... [continue reading]
Building Performance AssociationLive from Chicago
Jim Gunshinan
Check out that title! Monday, we were HPC, Tuesday we are a new association made up of three organizations, HPC, Home Energy, and Efficiency First, called the Building Performance Association. It's been a change a long time coming, but seems like it's happening all at once. All of these organizations share a commitment to the same goals and values, and becoming the Building Performance Association will allow us to combine our ... [continue reading]
HPC NationalLive from Chicago
Jim Gunshinan
It's always a challenge at the HPC national to take in as much as possible until my brain tells me "I'm full". All these great topics, presenters and attendees is an embarrassment of riches. [continue reading]
Welcome to the HPC NationalLive from Chicago
Jim Gunshinan
For those of you here in Chicago for a Monday workshop, for those who will be registering today or tomorrow, and all of you members of the home performance community, welcome to a rich source of building science news and training—all provided by the experts—and a great chance to network. [continue reading]


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Does 'Hawaii Life' Reflect Hawaii Life?
HGTV real estate show profiles paradise.
"You don't have to be rich to live in Hawaii, you just have to want it badly enough."
This is the opening line of a popular real estate television show focused on Hawaii that has grated on many people in my Facebook feed, including Joscelyne Cutchens, who recently moved to Alabama.
"This way, non-rich people, let me show you this $450,000, 1,000-square-foot house," Cutchens says with an eye roll. "And Waipahu, 30 minutes from downtown Honolulu? Not in traffic."
Each episode of Hawaii Life focuses on a family or couple and goes through the decision-making process for their budget, living needs, and location preferences. You get a quick look at the properties in their price range and the listing they ultimately choose.
While the show is great for showing the variety of available properties throughout the state, like "Hawaii Five-0," residents feel it doesn't realistically reflect places you'd want to live on a budget, or places you'd truly be able to afford. For example, in one episode, the couple's budget was $150,000 on Hawaii Island, so the realtor took them to an active lava field. That sounds pretty exotic … until the next eruption.
For me — although I know people choose their homes for different reasons — quite a few of the final choices surprised me more than anything. I probably don't know enough about the homes based on the brief overviews, but it did seem odd to pick an older fixer-upper over a newer place closer to town.
What do you think? Is "Hawaii Life" really Hawaii life?


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Dike Blair is having a good year: in April he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in the visual arts, and this month a major exhibition of his work, "Now and Again," opens at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, in Greensboro, N.C. The show, Blair's first museum solo, is organized by Weatherspoon curator Xandra Eden and is accompanied by a catalogue with essays by Eden and writer Gary Indiana.Born in 1952, Blair grew up in western Pennsylvania. He earned an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1977, and also attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. Since landing in New York in the mid-'70s, Blair has charted a singular path, making work that ranges from early paintings on glass to installations inspired by Disney World's Epcot Center. In the mid-'80s, Blair began to make modestly scaled gouaches, and has continued the practice ever since. Over the years these paintings have focused on a succession of thematic pairings: travel scenes and still lifes, windows and flowers, and more recently, eyes and nocturnes with parking lots or footsteps in snow.
About 15 years ago, Blair's sculptural inclination led to a series of assemblages made out of carpeting, light fixtures, photographs and benchlike elements. Then, about three years ago, the sculptures changed, and the carpet and light pieces gave way to an ongoing series that incorporates painted wooden crates as one of several recurring motifs. The exhibition at the Weatherspoon will gather 51 gouaches and 14 large sculptures dating from 2001 to the present, and will be installed by the artist to highlight his tendency to make work in pairs.
In addition to making art, Blair teaches painting at the Rhode Island School of Design. A collection of his writings, Again: Selected Interviews and Essays, was published by WhiteWalls in 2007. He lives and works in New York City, where he has been represented by Feature Inc., and in Hortonville, N.Y., where he has a large studio. We met upstate in July and, following lunch with his wife, Marie Abma, a costume designer, began our conversation.
STEEL STILLMAN Were you interested in art as a child?
DIKE BLAIR I was. My mother is a painter, and I developed some ability to render at an early age, and that became part of my identity. I remember having the hope that I'd get more interested in something else, but it never quite happened. And I remember feeling uneasy about calling myself an artist, not just because it was an unstable profession, but because it seemed pretentious.
SS When did becoming an artist start to seem more possible?
DB I dropped out of college in 1971 after my freshman year, moved to New York, and while living and working there, took a course at the New School. It was a contemporary art history class with Jeanne Siegel that included visits to artists' studios. I remember looking at non-objective painting and feeling the scales fall from my eyes: suddenly I understood the language. Then, in 1974, during a student residency at Skowhegan, I realized that artists were the people with whom I was most comfortable, that the art world was the place in which I was most happy.
SS After some time in Chicago, you returned to New York.
DB In 1976, while I was still a student at the Art Institute, I spent a semester in New York, followed by another semester in the Whitney Program. Very quickly I met a lot of artists and musicians and beat a regular path between Magoo's [the art bar] and CBGB's and my apartment in the East Village. It was an absolutely great time to be in New York. I loved all the music, and was writing songs and sometimes performing on audition nights, which were on Mondays, at CBGB's. They never put me on a bill, but said I was always welcome to play Mondays because as a solo act, I set up quickly. And my friends drank a lot.
SS In the mid-'70s the art schools were addressing language and media culture.
DB Well, in the studio I was making black paintings on paper that were abstract and partially burned. I remember having long arguments with myself that involved whether to juxtapose album covers of bands I liked with those paintings. With the album covers up, the pieces seemed saturated with one kind of meaning; with the album covers down, an entirely different vocabulary kicked in. I went back and forth for a year or so, until finally I decided I wanted the paintings to be on their own. As stupid as it may sound, I think it was then that I declared myself to be something of a formalist; I wasn't going to trade so much in the readymade or in things that were more language-based. Who knows—if the album covers had stayed, maybe I'd have become part of the Pictures generation.
SS You've not been afraid to try new things over the course of your career.
DB From the beginning, I've allowed pieces to follow and react to the ones that preceded them, and along the way there have been occasional full stops, reevaluations and shifts. But since the early '80s, painting gouaches has been an ongoing practice. They began with very small watercolors of sailboats done somewhat ironically, something like Sunday painting. I remember having been startled by Dan Flavin's sailboat drawings, which just had a horizontal line and a couple of dashes; perhaps those planted a seed. The gouaches got me thinking about the possibility of reinventing landscape painting by injecting it with televisual and cinematic effects.
From the '80s to the present, the gouaches have served various functions, especially in relation to my sculptural and installation work. For me, there has always been a "drawing" quality about them; the fact that they take time to make allows me to ponder whatever else I'm working on. At a certain point I realized they could be the equal of that other work, and I began to enjoy colliding what might have seemed disparate practices in one exhibition space.SS Much of the imagery in your early gouaches seems to come from being on the road.
DB Initially I painted the gouaches either from direct observation or from memory. But as I got more serious about them, I started painting from my photographs. Like most everyone, I find myself visually stimulated when I leave my usual environment, so many of the earlier gouaches are based on images I'd take at vacation destinations, like Las Vegas or Disneyland, or on the roads in between.
SS Did the materials you began to use in the mid-'90s for the carpet and light sculptures also come from those kinds of places and experiences?
DB There is a paradoxical overlap between the paintings and the sculptures: they get at the same information in different ways. I might have a painting of a casino interior and a light sculpture that includes casino carpet. The painting uses deadpan illusionistic rendering, whereas the sculpture is an abstraction, conceived in a constructivist form. One is a near-photorealist representation of a subject that may contain a certain ambience; the other is a concrete manifestation that, among other things, tries to get at a similar ambience.
I tend to work in binaries, and they show up not just between one practice and another, but within each of my practices. It always seems to me that if you make a decision to do one thing that the opposite decision makes just as much sense. There's always a flip side. I often work on sculptures in tandem—a tendency that the installation at the Weatherspoon will highlight. As I'm developing a piece, I'll make a decision to go one way, fully aware that I could have gone the other; the second sculpture is about what happens on that other road.
SS How will viewers encounter these pairs at the Weatherspoon?
DB I've divided the main exhibition hall, which is long and narrow, into thirds, with two large, nearly square sculpture courts at either end. In the middle third, separating the sculptures, will be a series of three painting galleries. My idea is that viewers will travel from one sculpture court, go through the paintings rooms and into the second sculpture court, where they will discover that a number of the sculptures are siblings of works in the other court, and that the layouts of the two spaces are, to some degree, reflections of one another.
SS When you were working on the carpet and light sculptures, all of which include photographs, were your snapshots sources for the sculptures?
DB Some were prompted by an image, some were prompted by a particular material, and others were based on a formal composition. For instance, not one leaf remains the way it was (1998) started with a photograph of cherry blossoms. But for another work, spring snow melts easily (1999), I began with a marbleized linoleum mat that reminded me of a childhood friend's kitchen in western Pennsylvania, and the way it felt and looked when we'd come in from dirty snow and track a slushy mess across that floor. The sculpture was built from that memory, and the abstract photographic image it includes is one that I found in my files.
SS The carpet and light sculptures can feel like fragments of rooms; or like fragments of non-places, those transitional spaces of contemporary life. Strangely they feel already inhabited. The person who rolled up the carpet has just stepped out, leaving the lights on.
DB I think that's a good read. They certainly have aspects of interior design, but one might also enter them as a landscape or as a 3-D painting. They were always intended to be very open despite how specific I was in their making. My interest was in seducing, not controlling. My aim was to create sensoriums and possibly to encourage contemplation of formal flip-flops while I indulged my decorative tendencies.
SS The photographs you include in the carpet and light pieces seem enigmatic, like clues to be interpreted.
DB The photos are a possible key, and people look at them right away because we're all so well trained to search for meaning in photographs. Often they're very abstract in order for the key not to be too obvious.
SS By contrast, for all their photographlike illusionism, your gouaches are so evidently not photographs. Looking at them, one becomes absorbed in the grain of their making.
DB The invested labor in the paintings slows down how the image gets read. Obviously a great deal of the pleasure in looking at paintings comes from decoding the sequencing of their making. Much of my pleasure in painting them is simply figuring out how to do it, how to get gouache to look like something. Perhaps there is some pathos embedded in the paintings, some residue of my repeated efforts to approach a photograph without ever getting there.
SS The windows in some of your most beautiful gouaches are impossible to see through. Frosting, or textures, or raindrops thwart our gaze. The subject of these is the surface itself, its impenetrability, along with the radiance of glowing light beyond.
DB I'm something of a luminist and have always been fascinated by glass. I think there's a certain romanticism about the glow, a transcendental thing. Perhaps there's some sweet sadness about looking at light through semiopaque glass. SS Starting around 2001 it seems you pared down the subjects of your sculpture and painting, and you mostly worked with images of windows and flowers. What led to these nested pairs of juxtapositions?
DB Well, the experiment got more specific. I was always interested in an interchange or scrambling of formal qualities between painting, photography and sculpture; the paintings are photographic and the sculptures are painterly but include photographs. The juxtaposition of subjects relates back to that notion of flip sides. The binary between the flower and the window gouaches is between fullness and emptiness, nature and architecture, outside and inside; one is centered, the other is edge-related, and so on.
These binaries operate like questions: you might wonder, in an exhibition, why is this flower painting hanging next to that window painting; and both the question and the answer occupy the space in between. And the same kind of question occurs between the paintings and the sculptures: Why does the guy who makes this kind of painting make that kind of sculpture? It may sound evasive, and maybe it is evasive, but for me there is some mystery and meaning in the reconciliation of these approaches and images; and it happens in that funny in-between space.
SS What led you to the packing crate sculptures?
DB I'd reached a point with the carpet and light pieces where they just felt finished, complete. And there were practical issues as well; the carpet and light sculptures were relatively pristine and required careful storage and handling to protect them from damage. So the crate pieces began to form in my mind as a solution to storage and damage.
The crate sculptures are more unitary than the carpet and light works—they are less dispersed or environmental. In terms of scale, they relate more closely to the body, and tend to be more suggestive of particular entities or things. One big difference is that after years of segregating painting and sculpture, I've now brought them together by including framed gouaches in the crate pieces. And because many of the gouaches are of women's eyes, the sculptures have become somewhat anthropomorphic.
SS The crate sculptures seem nomadic, suggestive of bodies or domestic arrangements that can be relocated on a moment's notice.
DB Certainly the packing crate aspect is one's first impression. But just as in the carpet and light sculptures, where specific materials and objects became subsumed in a more comprehensive ambience, I'd like you to get over that first impression fairly quickly and begin to see them more abstractly.
SS What inspired you to include the Noguchi lamps?
DB I used them for (IN) in and (IN) out (both 2008). Originally I planned to design lights of my own, but my studies and models weren't very good. I'm a huge Noguchi fan and was happy to pay homage to him; I also love the way they pack so easily into thin boxes, which can be stored in the crates. My designs weren't nearly so elegant.
SS Why do you pair the crate sculptures with the nocturnal gouaches of parking lots and footsteps in the snow?
DB For me, the binary that mirrored the windows and flowers was parking lots and women's eyes. I'm still feeling a little inarticulate about why that relationship seems to work, except to say that it feels completely right. The pairing of sculpture and painting almost always works best when juxtaposing work made over the same time span. Of course now, the sculpture physically includes the painting.
SS It's curious that you've paired these newer, more domestic-seeming sculptures with images of being out on the dark, lonely road. Somehow I think of Godard.
DB Or David Lynch's Lost Highway. The painted line on pavement must be the most ubiquitous landscape painting in the world. I wasn't thinking of Ruscha, but now his parking lots come to mind.
SS One difference between your work and his is telling: your images depict the camera's flash or the sweep of headlights, two very particular kinds of illumination that make the viewer instantly aware of the person behind the light.
DB I've always been aware of point of view. I think a lot about where I'm looking from, especially in the paintings. When asked why I paint the things I do, especially the still lifes, invariably the answer is that these are the things within the reach of my arm: a drink, a cigarette pack, a paperback. And I've painted them from my own tabletop perspective.
SS Do you think of these images—or of your work more broadly—as diaristic?
DB I do. There is something of a self-portrait that emerges in linking together a series of subjects and themes. It's fictionalized, of course, and some of the earlier work indicates I'm some sort of noirish guy, and that's a little embarrassing. Probably more interesting is the stuff that isn't premeditated but gets revealed to me after the fact. For example, I used to wear extremely thick glasses—some portion of my childhood was taken up with eye exercises—so I'm sure there is a connection between those eyeglasses and the paintings of eyes and my fascination with windows. It's not impossible to think that I'm a visual artist simply because of all the time I spent just trying to make my eyes perform, to see correctly.
SS Do you think of your artwork as bringing order to the random profusion of everyday life?
DB I'm not so sure I want to order the everyday as much as I want to glorify it on the one hand and escape it on the other. Paying close attention to anything—and painting is one way of doing that—makes it attractive and interesting. One of the reasons I sometimes paint cocktails is because I love them; they take me away, and I'm not above cheap transcendence. I have a desire for a kind of perfect emptiness even though that's unattainable, at least until I croak.


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Langley leads by 1 at Waialae
Honolulu, HI – Scott Langley fired a bogey-free, 8-under 62 on Thursday to grab a 1-stroke lead with the opening round of the Sony Open in Hawaii suspended due to darkness.
Langley, who got his card through Q School, was pushed throughout the round by his playing partner, Russell Henley.
Henley, a 3-time winner on the Web.com Tour, carded a 7-under 63 and is alone in second place at Waialae Country Club.
Tim Clark and Scott Piercy posted matching rounds of 64. Stephen Ames and Jeff Overton were one stroke back at minus-5.
Matt Kuchar, U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson and Tim Herron are among 10 players tied for seventh at 4-under 66.
Just one group did not finish their first round. Scott Gardiner was closest to the leaders as he was at 2-under and was looking at a 23-foot birdie putt on the ninth green.
Langley's putter was hot throughout his round as he made several long putts to keep his round going. He started with a 14-footer for birdie at No. 2.
The 23-year-old came right back with birdie putts of 23 and 25 feet at the third and fourth to quickly move to 3-under. After four pars in a row, Langley poured in a 56-foot eagle effort to make the turn at minus-5.
Langley followed with a 4-foot birdie putt at 10. That gave him a share of the lead and he remained there with five consecutive pars from the 11th.
At the par-4 16th, Langley rolled in a 29-foot birdie try to move into the lead. After Henley joined him at minus-7, Langley got up and down for birdie at the last to finish one clear of the field.
"To go bogey free the first event as a full member of the tour, you know, I was pretty nervous starting out, and kind of settled down after three or four holes, made some nice birdies early, and kind of got me in a nice rhythm for the day," Langley stated. "Yeah, just looking back at all my rounds professionally thus far, this might be the best one."
Henley matched Langley's birdie on the second to start his round. Henley drained a 24-foot birdie chance at four. He got to 3-under with a birdie effort from just inside 11 feet on No. 8.
Around the turn, Henley birdied the 10th from 13th feet out, but gave that shot right back when he failed to save par from a bunker on the 11th.
Henley, who won twice on the Web.com Tour last year, atoned for that mistake with a birdie on the 12th. He converted back-to-back birdie chances at 14 and 15 to gain a piece of the lead.
Langley moved one ahead with a birdie on 16 and Henley responded with a 9-foot birdie putt at 17. Henley could not get up and down for birdie at the last as he ended one back.
"I was just trying to keep up. He got off to a hot start, we both did. It was just fun to compete out there. I was very comfortable playing with Scott," Henley said in a televised interview.
NOTES: Last week's winner Dustin Johnson bogeyed his final two holes for a round of even-par 70 ... Reigning champion Johnson Wagner mixed four bogeys and three birdies in a round of 71 ... Charles Howell III, who is in the group at 4-under, has been the runner-up twice in the last six years and has five top-5 finishes in the last eight years at this event.