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ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece has extended its offer to buy back debt until Tuesday, seeking more bids from bondholders after falling just short of a target to retire bonds worth 30 billion euros at a cost of just 10 billion euros.
The buyback is designed to provide for about half of a 40-billion euro debt relief package for Athens agreed last month by the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
Its success is crucial to ensuring Greece's debt is put back on sustainable footing and — more immediately — to unlocking badly-needed aid for the country.
The offer had been due to end on Friday. The debt agency extended the offer to 1200 GMT on Tuesday.
"The aim is to reach the 30 billion euro target on the face value of debt to be bought back," said a government official, who declined to be named.
Greece was given 10 billion euros to conduct the buyback. They source said the aim was to use all of it.
A senior Greek banker who spoke on condition of anonymity said Athens aimed to use the delay to get another 3 to 4 billion euros worth of bonds offered for exchange.
"This will be easily covered by Greek banks, if foreign bondholders do not offer more," the banker told Reuters.
Greek banks and insurers had tendered about 10 billion euros of bonds out of their total holdings of about 17 billion euros, the banker said. Nearly 63 billion euros of Greek debt held by private investors was eligible for the buyback.
Shortly before the previous Friday deadline expired, Greek banks got board approvals to offer as much as 100 percent of their bondholdings to make the buyback work.
Athens had offered better-than-expected terms for the buyback to entice investors, with price ranges at a premium over market prices.
But Greek lenders had been reluctant to sell back to the government all of their bondholdings, trying to limit the future profits and interest income on their bonds they will forego.
However, they are expected to assist to ensure a successful buyback since they depend on the bailout funds that Athens stands to receive once it is completed. A big chunk of the 34.4 billion euros of aid due will be used to recapitalize them.
Athens badly needs the aid to revive its ailing economy, which is on track for a sixth year of recession due to austerity measures including spending cuts and tax hikes.
The EU and the IMF have been withholding rescue payments to Greece for six months because it had failed on pledges to shore up its finances, privatize and make its economy more competitive.
Greece and its international lenders had shied away from setting a binding target for the buyback, apart from saying that Athens would spend a maximum of 10 billion euros on it.
Under the scheme, Greece was expected to spend that amount to repurchase 30 billion euros of debt, shaving it by a net 20 billion euros. That would help slash Greece's debt to 124 percent of GDP by 2020, ensuring that the IMF stays on board in the country's rescue.
Greece set December 18 as the settlement date for offers on the 20 series of outstanding bonds it is buying back.
Writing by George Georgiopoulos,; Editing by Deepa Babington/Jeremy Gaunt


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Pavement | DOMDVD1 | Released: 19/10/02
Incredible but true, the long rumoured definitive Pavement DVD is now but a couple of clicks from your collection; put together with the help of Scott Kannberg (Spiral Stairs), this is a bumper double-set with so much content that we've detailed it here for you. Here comes the big one! A double DVD set including: # a 60 minute documentary incorporating footage from '89-'99 # all 13 Pavement music videos with commentary from the band members and the director on each # two FULL live concerts, Seattle '99 and Manchester '99 # selectable camera angles # hidden extras!

subset: commoncrawl


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New Design Sketch Teases Next-Generation Honda Ridgeline
A new design sketch teases the next-generation Ridgeline pickup, which Honda says will debut within two years' time. The automaker also confirmed that production of the current Ridgeline pickup will end in mid-2014.
Honda has long defended the Ridgeline's merits and was previously insistent that the truck would live on. With the recent announcement, the unorthodox pickup will make it to generation-two, though it appears it will adopt a more conventional truck outline with a clearly defined bed, as the sketch shows. Just like the outgoing model, the next-gen Ridgeline will be designed by Honda R&D Americas, at the company's Los Angeles and Ohio facilities.
Debuting in the fall of 2005, the uni-body 2006 Honda Ridgeline earned Motor Trend's 2006 Truck of the Year award because it "offers an intriguing third idea as a people and cargo hauler that's as responsive as a car, but for once doesn't beat you up. " While sales might suggest the world wasn't ready for a uni-body pickup, the Ridgeline remained popular among the Honda faithful. With 16,106 units sold by the end of November, Honda claims Ridgeline sales are up 29 percent over last year.
Not much has changed since the Ridgeline first arrived, and while we had mostly good things to say about it in our 2012 Honda Ridgeline Sport First Test, we did take note of its age: "For those who like the Honda version of an SUT, this vehicle is still great. It does offer the same versatility that it's always had and a smaller package than something like the Tundra. But the Ridgeline hasn't changed all that much, and half-ton pickup trucks have passed it by. Trucks like the F-150 and Ram have both been significantly updated since the Ridgeline came out. Ride quality is not nearly as nice in the Honda as it is in the F-150, and the Honda's power, while certainly adequate, is less than that of even the F-150's base V-6 (302 horsepower, 278 lb-ft) and the 3.5-liter V-6 is backed by a five-speed automatic, not a six. "
While 2014 may be the last model year for the Ridgeline, the automaker has introduced a new range-topping model: the 2014 Honda Ridgeline Special Edition.
The new design sketch is above, while images of the current model are in the gallery below.
Source: Honda


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From the producers of the critically acclaimed Soundstage comes the second season of FRONT AND CENTER (previously titled Front Row Center) . Utilizing state-of-the-art production techniques, the nine-part concert series caters to the live music fan, with each episode delivering powerful performances from some of the top names in music. Season two's diverse musical lineup spanning genres and generations includes Jack Johnson, Train, Buddy Guy, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, The Rides (featuring Barry Goldberg, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Stephen Stills), Rock Candy Funk Party (featuring Tal Bergman, Ron DeJesus, Mike Merritt, Renato Neto, and Joe Bonamassa), Zakk Wylde & the Les Paul Trio, Jake Bugg, and JJ Grey & Mofro.
There are no upcoming episodes of this series scheduled on Alabama Public Television.
Visit Front and Center website
Funding for Front and Center is provided in part by:


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by Ashley Flynn
This summer, Kiley Butcher, Wabash, will spend six weeks ministering to college students and doing community service work in South Asia with Campus Crusade for Christ (CRU). Kiley is currently a junior at Ball State University, Muncie.
CRU is an international ministry community that works to fulfill the Great Commission, a Scripture in the book of Matthew in which Jesus instructs his disciples to go to all nations and teach them His commands. CRU was founded in 1951 on the UCLA campus, and they have a presence in 191 countries.
"I'm really excited to experience an Asian country and especially one that is so different from America. One day a week, we will get to do service work. Half the population of the city we will be in lives in severe poverty and thousands are enslaved to sex trafficking. I am excited to be able to help some of those people," Kiley told The Paper of Wabash in an email.
While Kiley looks forward to her upcoming trip, she admits that traveling abroad can be a little scary, but mostly just exciting.
"It's a little scary to go places you've never been. It's also uncomfortable at times to share your faith with people," she said. "Some people are very against God or religion and have very strong opposing feelings. I think that's what makes it scary, but it's so rewarding. That outweighs the fear by far."
To anyone considering a similar trip, Kiley encourages everyone to go for it.
"Matthew 28:16-20 instructs all God's people to 'go and make disciples.' It's an instruction, not a suggestion," Kiley said. "We're called to tell people about God. Certainly we're not all called to go overseas, but we can answer that calling by ministering to people in our own towns and by supporting those who are going."
This will be Kiley's second mission trip with CRU and her third mission trip altogether.
Kiley's first trip was to France in 2009 with Free Will Baptist International Missions. Before the trip, the group spent a week in Nashville, Tenn., learning about French culture, language, how to interact with people, and how to communicate their faith.
"The France trip was much shorter. It was more about encouraging the missionaries who are already doing ministry in France and to give us a taste of what religion looked like in other cultures," Kiley said.
Last summer, Kiley traveled with CRU to Gatlinburg, Tenn., for nine weeks.
"I lived in the city with a group of 30 CRU students from all over the county," she said. "I was actually able to do ministry on my own. I worked in a Mexican Restaurant and we built relationships with our co-workers and were able to share our faith with them."
Kiley said about 1,000 international students come to Gatlinburg every summer to work, and they held an international party every week to help build relationships and make them feel welcomed.
"The Lord really showed me His heart for the nations/world through these trips. When talking to them (international students), I found out that a lot of the Chinese students knew nothing about God at all and had never even heard his name," Kiley said. "I can't comprehend that. I feel like most people in America, even if they haven't grown up in church or aren't Christian, could tell you about God and maybe even rattle off a few Bible stories, but these students hadn't even heard His name. That's the biggest thing I took from that missions trip, a heart for the nations."
To make this trip possible, Kiley asks for support through prayer and finances.
"It is so necessary to have people partnering with me and supporting me in prayer and financially. I wouldn't be able to go and take God's good news to the nations if there was no financial support and especially if there was no one praying for me and my team," Kiley said. "I can't even express how thankful I am for the people who have been faithful to support me for all my mission trips as well as the people who are continuing to join my team of supporters. Thank you for being obedient to God's call by helping me go," she says to all her supporters.
Financial supporters can give to Kiley by check made out to "CRU" and then mailed to Kiley Butcher, 330 Southwood Drive, Wabash, IN 46992, or online by going to give.cru.org and searching for Kiley Butcher.


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(Editors note: Due to a flurry of astronomical events, Februarys events of the week will be released on an accelerated schedule; hang on!)
Amid the opposition of Mars, two launches out of the KSC and the Cape next week, and an exceptionally fine elongation of Mercury in the early morning skies, this weekend brings us a special treat; the closest Full Moon of the year. This Moon, known also as the Full Wolf Moon, is technically full at precisely 06:00 Universal time on Saturday morning, the 30th of January. This comes only 3 hours prior to perigee, when the Moon is closest to Earth in its orbit. At this time, the Moon will be only 217,862 miles distant, and appear 34.1 arc minutes in size, as opposed to 29.3 arc minutes at apogee. An added plus is that this Full Moon occurs at a very northerly declination in the constellation Cancer, and hence will be riding high for northern hemisphere viewers all night. And dont forget ruddy Mars, just 7° degrees north of the Moon!
The astro word for this week is albedo. Think that bright silvery Full Moon is bright? Science says otherwise. Albedo is the measure of the percentage of light reflected back by an astronomical object; 100% is a full mirror, optimal reflection, and 0% is pitch black. On Earth, fresh snow reflects about 85% of the light that falls on it, and the average albedo of Earth is about 30%, depending on the amount of cloud cover and the percentage of land versus ocean presented to the Sun. In fact, this phenomenon of reflectivity may play a key role in a lesser known effect impacting global climate; that of global dimming. Now for the real shocker; the average albedo for the Moon is about 10%, slightly less than worn asphalt! Ask the Apollo astronauts; the Moon is in fact, a very grey-to-black place! The reason that this weekends Full Moon looks bright is that you are seeing the sum of 5% of the Suns reflected light crammed into an area tinier than a fingernail at arms length. In fact, anyone who has stood under a 99% percent eclipsed Sun, as occurred earlier this month, will tell you that even 1% of the suns output is still pretty bright!


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PRESIDENT OBAMA started his general election campaign by taking aim at Mitt Romney's job creation record at Bain, setting off a lively debate over the fairness of the attacks.
I am among those who have been drawn into the argument — there was even a snippet of me defending private equity in a Romney campaign ad.
As a former Obama administration official, I was uncomfortable about being used in a Romney ad in support of his position.
However, I was also concerned that the Obama ads, while narrowly accurate, might be seen to portray Bain Capital (and implicitly, private equity) in an ugly light because a few of the companies the firm invested in went bankrupt while Bain Capital still made money
On Monday, Mr. Obama struck the right balance, emphasizing that he wasn't attacking private equity but was questioning Mitt Romney's Bain Capital credentials to be the job creator in chief.
That's fair, particularly because Mr. Romney himself has been foolishly reweaving history to claim, as recently as last week, that he helped create 100,000 jobs during his time at Bain.
In fact, Bain Capital — like other private equity firms — was founded and managed for profit: ideally, huge amounts of gain earned legally and legitimately. Any job creation was a welcome but secondary byproduct.
The language in one prospectus seeking Bain Capital investors was clear: "The objective of the Fund is to achieve an annual rate of return on invested capital in excess of the returns generated" by other investments. Any job creation was accidental.
In Mr. Romney's case, his jobs assertion rests heavily on just a few early investments.
Originally hatched to provide venture capital to young enterprises, Bain Capital notched a few such successes, notably Staples and Sports Authority. These were small stakes in companies — about $2.5 million in Staples — over which Bain had little influence.
While I defend the role financiers play in making our economy work, I also concede that Mark Zuckerberg was far more central to the success of Facebook and its 3,200 jobs than the venture capitalists who invested early.
Although Bain Capital sold off those early investments years ago, Mr. Romney takes credit for every job ever created at every company Bain Capital invested in during his tenure — while ignoring jobs eliminated after his departure.
"The steel factory closed down two years after I left Bain Capital," he said last week about GST Steel, the Kansas City, Mo., company that went bankrupt in 2001. "I was no longer there, so that's hardly something which is on my watch."
Meanwhile, when Staples went public in 1989, it had 1,100 employees; at the end of 1998, right before Mr. Romney exited Bain, it had 42,000 workers. Yet Mr. Romney takes credit for the 89,000 employed at the close of 2010.
As the years clicked by, Bain Capital and Mr. Romney smelled the chance to make more money by raising larger amounts. That, in turn, led them toward classic leveraged buyouts — the purchase, often heavily financed by debt, of more established companies.
These enterprises were often what Wall Street describes as "undermanaged," which means the Bain Capital team could take "aggressive action" that often included cutting costs — read: jobs — to increase profitability.
That's not wrong; it's part of capitalism. Whatever its flaws, private equity has made a material contribution to sharpening management. But don't confuse a leveraged buyout with job creation.
Under Mr. Romney's leadership, Bain Capital engaged in the less attractive practice of putting more debt on seemingly successful investments in order to take dividends out. In at least four instances of Bain Capital investments during Romney's tenure, these "recapped" companies, of which two were featured in the Obama ads, subsequently went bankrupt, costing thousands their jobs.
To be sure, some of Bain's large leveraged buyouts — notably, Domino's Pizza — added jobs. But Mr. Romney left Bain Capital two months after the Domino's investment (7,900 new jobs claimed) was finalized.
Aware of private equity's reputation, Mr. Romney still trots around the country erroneously calling himself a "venture capitalist."
And in a further effort to deflect attention from the Bain Capital debate, Mr. Romney last week argued that President Obama was responsible for the loss of 100,000 jobs in the auto industry over the past three years.
That's both ridiculously false (auto industry and dealership jobs have increased by about 50,000 since January 2009) and a remarkable comment from a man who said that the companies should have been allowed to go bankrupt and that the industry would have been better off without President Obama's involvement.
Adding jobs was never Mitt Romney's private sector agenda, and it's appropriate to question his ability to do so.


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No Depression -- Just waiting for whatever happens next
or hear some idiot Liberal democrat say how things are improving jobs are getting better why we created 200,000 jobs last month that's almost enouyght to keep up with the number of people entering the job market for the first time each month and the unemployment rate has plunged to a mere 8.3% (adjusted) why that's just fantastic news
and find yourself inclined to believe or agree with either one
think about Zach and the thousands like him
2,600 in his county alone
how many more across this great nation of ours
and make sure you speak out about it
set the record straight
one wonders, sometimes, if the sight of a guillotine being erected on Wall Street or a gallows rising in Washington while peasants with pitch forks tar and feathers march toward them might not scare some sense into our self serving public servants
every last one of them
remember that when you finally hit the ballot box
remember Zach and his family
and remember that Midnight Rider has warned you about this again and again and again over the last few years
ask Christine
she'll tell you
you are witnessing the death of our Republic as it strangles and chokes on it's children eating Beefaroni heated over a Boy Scout fuel stove in the back of the minivan before they roll out the mattresses to sleep there for the night
Rise in homeless students stifles Fla. town
By CHRISTINE ARMARIO
AP Education Writer
CLERMONT, Fla. (AP) -- Zach Montgomery's dad plugs in the electric skillet and opens the cardboard box containing tonight's dinner.
The liquid from the canned chicken sizzles as it hits the skillet.
Zach, a 17-year-old high school student in Clermont, Florida, a bucolic town of rolling hills and palm trees outside Orlando, is used to dinners like this now. It's been six months since his family moved into The Palace motel. Six months since he had a freezer large enough to hold ice cream or a quiet place to do homework.
Zach says he worries, about everything. Getting to school is tough. When his dad's paycheck dries up a few days early, there isn't money for gas. Sometimes, his mom says, he just doesn't want to go. Zach worries about their safety. Police arrested four people running a mobile meth lab near the motel the week before. There are sights and smells Zach had never come across before he lived here. At night, when the television is off, they hear things that scare them.
His father, Ronald Montgomery, tall and spirited, sneaks in a chuckle, in spite or disbelief, as he talks about the last year. The lost house. His wife's job. The illnesses. He pours in the rice and sprinkles the cheese powder on the chicken in the skillet as Zach looks on.
"It does make you feel like less of a person, or you're a failure, because you're not providing everything that you've been providing in the past," he says.
"You've only got that door," Zach says, looking at the chain lock and deadbolt separating their room and two beds from the outside world. "I'm thinking someone's going to come in, just come in and do whatever they think they can do."
Homeless. Zach isn't sure that's the word he'd used to describe their situation.
"I do but don't," the stocky, soft-spoken boy says. "If we were in a car I'd say we were more homeless.
"I'd like to have a house," he continues. "But at least I have a roof."
Here in Lake County the number of homeless students has skyrocketed, from 122 in 2005 to more than 2,600 this school year. It's the largest increase in hard hit Florida and echoes the rising numbers seen nationwide as well. Some of those children are living with their parents in a friend's or relative's house. Others are in shelters or motels like Zach. Some with nowhere else to turn take refuge in the woods.
While the nation's unemployment rate has declined to 8.3 percent, in rural Lake County it's still a bruising 9.9 percent. Clermont, the county's largest town, was once predominantly an agricultural community, but in recent years, farms were sold and land cleared for new developments. Then came the recession.
Roads paved in anticipation of new homes and families lead to empty lots. Restaurants that dotted the sparse suburban landscape like Perkins and Dairy Queen have shuttered their doors. Jobs here are scarce.
"We had a lot of people in the construction field, and that has pretty much come to a standstill," says Kristin McCall, the Lake County School District's homeless liaison. "I'm not sure if they've all been able to get back to work. And if they are, I don't think financially it's what they were at before."
Teachers like Sheri Hevener started seeing signs of the distress, and in some cases, homelessness, in her students. They seemed lethargic. More started falling behind on their homework.
"There are some students where it is easily identifiable," she says. "They wear the same thing. It's visibly easy to tell.
"And then there are others that you can't tell because they hide it, for fear."
Zach wasn't one of Hevener's students. When he showed up at her classroom with a friend one day, she wasn't sure why the teenage boy in a T-shirt and shorts that hovered below his knees had come to see her. He carried himself with a sort of confidence that didn't indicate he needed help.
"There were no visual signs," Hevener says. "But I knew he was there for one of two reasons. Nobody comes here unless they're there for one of two reasons."
Hevener, a business teacher, runs a pantry at the school for homeless students and others in need.
"I just wanted to know about it," Zack said when he met her.
She told him about how he could participate in what functions like a secret backpack society. Hevener is the only one who knows the names of the kids involved. Each student is assigned a backpack, which students pack each week with canned vegetables and boxed meals. The pantry also has toiletries, notebooks, baby clothes and prom dresses.
Hevener didn't ask Zack why he needed the help or what his story was.
"I was just waiting for it to come out," she says. "And it did."
It was a July afternoon. Ronald Montgomery, a Disney bus driver, got home from work and found a foreclosure notice on the front door of their three-bedroom home. All of their belongings had to be out within 24 hours.
They'd been paying $950 in rent every month, but the landlord had not kept up with the mortgage. The rental management company told him it was the first they'd heard of any problems with the bank. She promised to look into it and get back to him.
He got the call at work the next morning. The sheriff was coming to collect the keys. Two movers were going over to help. In the matter of an hour and a half all of their furniture was on the front lawn.
And then it started to rain.
"Needless to say we didn't make it in time," Montgomery says.
Zach's bedroom furniture and two living room sets were ruined. In between trips in a U-Haul to the storage locker Montgomery had rented, neighbors came and plucked items from the yard. When they went through the house one last time, the Montgomerys found the movers had hidden some of their items under sinks and in closets.
"They went through all my drawers," Zach says.
That night the Montgomerys stayed at a Days Inn. The little savings they had was gone. A friend's family took in Zach and brought him along on a vacation to St. Augustine.
"He had a wonderful time," Zach's mom, Dawn Montgomery says sadly, as though she were recalling a last good memory.
Situated on top of a hill on Interstate 27, The Palace is made of brick and has about a hundred rooms on two floors. The lobby reeks of cigarettes. An unfinished puzzle lies scattered on a table.
The motel offers a weekly rate of $155. For the Montgomery family it was just about the only option.
Their room has two full size beds, a table with a television, and a wall stacked with all of their belongings. There's one bathroom and one sink, which they use to brush their teeth, shave - and wash the dishes. A plastic bag holds all their utensils. The beds double as a dining room table.
For a while, things seemed to be getting better. But then, in October, Dawn Montgomery lost her job as a bus driver at Disney, where she had worked for 13 years. Two months later, her husband got sick. An untreated cavity turned into a painful abscess that caused his entire jaw to swell. Fortunately, they still had health insurance from his job.
The services they thought would help pull them out have come up short. They were denied food stamps because Ronald Montgomery made $160 a month too much. Food banks weren't much of a help.
"You go to the food bank and its like, `You can go here once a month,'" Dawn Montgomery says. "That bag is not going to last me once a month."
The Montgomerys also are now caring for their 5-year-old granddaughter. Their daughter lives in California.
They don't have debt but just can't get back ahead.
"You just worry," Ronald Montgomery says. "What's going to happen today?"
Under the federal McKinney-Vento Act, districts are required to let homeless students attend their original school, even if they move outside the boundaries, and help provide transportation.
"Home life is not that great," McCall says. "But if we can keep them at the same school they've been attending, same friends, same teacher, and at least keep that consistent and stable, that's our goal."
There's another benefit.
"And if we get them there, we can feed them," McCall says.
At about $600 a month, the cost of living in a motel is about the same as many apartment rentals. Yet living in a motel quickly becomes its own kind of trap: While families can afford the monthly payment, they can't save up enough to put down a deposit for a more permanent place.
"We're going to stay here a few weeks and then somewhere else," McCall says families tell her. "And then in two weeks you don't hear from them. They're still there."
Some of the kids at East Ridge High School know about Zach's situation. But he doesn't volunteer much and he doesn't bring friends home after school.
"I'm not really embarrassed," Zach says. "It's just such a small room. You can't really do anything except sit."
To escape, Zach immerses himself in video games he was able to save from the house.
Zach's favorite subject is math and he's thinking about becoming an auto mechanic. But what he really likes is architecture.
"I want to make buildings," he says. "Probably houses."
But Zach hasn't made it to class lately. He says he often wakes up feeling sick. Some days there just isn't money for gas. His dad says he tried to arrange transportation to the school, about 10 miles away, but his messages were not returned.
"That seemed to fall on deaf ears," he says.
The backpack from the school's food pantry is empty.
The next day at school, Zach is not there.
"What can I do?" Hevener says after hearing the news. "There's something more. There's got to be more."
If gas is the issue, maybe there's someone in the community who can help, she wonders aloud.
"He has dreams and hopes of doing something and when you're in a situation like this that looks very bleak," she says.
Others at the school district also struggle for an explanation of Zach's absences. There is a bus less than a quarter mile away from the motel. Did he know about it?
"If we have a bus that's going there and he's not getting to school it's not because we don't have a bus," McCall says.
Hevener said she hadn't seen Zach come to pick up a bag of food since Christmas. She'd inquired with his teachers and they hadn't seen him either.
The district can't say whether anyone tried to contact Zach's family to make arrangements after he didn't show up repeatedly for class. After being asked, calls are made and transportation arranged.
Hevener worries about him dropping out.
"I think it's created a type of anger because of the system, because of what he had to experience," Hevener says. "And a lot of confusion. Like, `Why?' Why did you treat me like that? Why did you treat me like I was less than human?'"
Zach was home, still feeling ill after running a fever the night before, when his father walked in. The elder Montgomery had just been fired by Disney.
The teenager seemed nonchalant when he heard his father had losthis job. It was as though the news hadn't set in. Or as if one more blow was no longer capable of hurting him.
"I'm just waiting for whatever happens next," he says.
Labels: MR


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|Hepatitis C - Cricetulus griseus (Chinese hamster)
|Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of chronic liver disease. The HCV employ several strategies to perturb host cell immunity. After invasion, HCV RNA genome functions directly as an mRNA in the cytoplasm of the host cell and forms membrane-associated replication complexes along with non-structural proteins. Viral RNA can trigger the RIG-I pathway and interferon production during this process. Translated HCV protein products regulate immune response to inhibit the action of interferon. HCV core and NS5A proteins appear to be the most important molecules with regulatory functions that modulate transcription, cellular proliferation, and apoptosis.


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362 International Way, Alpine
Renowned panoramic mountain, valley, and lake views from the esteemed Box Elder subdivision are majestic, and offer the perfect location for a luxurious retreat. Join this highly desired community, and enjoy the many perks Alpine has to offer. Alpine is home to many large neighborhood parks, sports complexes, trail systems, green ways and natural resource areas. Activities to enjoy include Fairs, Festivals, Races, Parades, and Concerts. Take in the mountain views and surroundings, while still within minutes to spectacular golf courses, family entertainment, dining, and shopping. Within minutes you can access hundreds of miles of trails. Minutes away from American Fork Canyon, Thanksgiving Point, and Traverse Outlets. Easy accessibility to both Utah and Salt Lake valleys. Box Elder Subdivision is home to two award-winning Utah Valley Parade of Homes locations. Whether you select your own builder, or choose from one of our premier custom builders, these lots are ready to boast a spectacular home worthy of such a spectacular location, and view.
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Elite (Am Fork)
Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed accurate. Buyer to verify all information.
The multiple listing information is provided by Wasatch Front Regional Multiple Listing Service, Inc. from a copyrighted compilation of listings. The compilation of listings and each individual listing are © 2020 Wasatch Front Regional Multiple Listing Service, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
The information provided is for consumers' personal, non-commercial use and may not be used for any purpose other than to identify prospective properties consumers may be interested in purchasing.


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(CMT Offstage keeps a 24/7 watch on everything that's happening with country music artists behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.)
It's one thing to get the chance to watch Hunter Hayes play piano and sing his hit song "Wanted" about 30 feet from you. But to have him get up from the piano and walk right up to you? Amazing. So I was so thrilled for the front-row audience when he did just that on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Monday (Oct. 22).
After the bridge in the song, Hayes took his microphone and walked right up to the young women sitting in the first row and sang the chorus. He literally made them feel wanted. I, of course, couldn't take my eyes off his lyric-covered grand piano. Does anyone know if they painted it with chalkboard paint before writing the song's words all over it? Looks like a Pinterest project to me.
By the way, Hayes recently admitted that he never really wanted much Halloween candy because didn't have much of a sweet tooth as a kid. "I did dress up quite a bit when I was a kid for Halloween," he said. "I wasn't really a candy kid. I'm just weird like that."


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Lou Piniella didn't approve of the low attendance at the Sox game against the Dodgers. Take it away Ozzie:
White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen was asked why attendance was so low at the Sox-Dodgers series, and said: "Because our fans are not stupid like Cubs fans. They know we're (expletive)."
Guillen said Cubs fans will go watch any game at Wrigley Field because "Wrigley Field is just a bar."


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Illustration: Rocco FazzariONE of the things to remember as we consider what to do about the chronic under-representation of women in senior management in this country is that there are real forces massed against women in the workforce. It will take structural changes as well as cultural ones to overcome them.
Women's careers are harder to construct, and more difficult to manage, in a nutshell. Women and only women can bear a child, for example. They take time off work if they do, and are more likely to assume early childcare responsibilities. That means they are more likely to interrupt their careers – and because families are waiting longer to have kids, the interruptions occur at a more telling time in their career path.
The median age for all mothers for births in Australia in 1971 was 25.4 years. By 1990 it had risen to 28.3 years, by 2000 it was 29.8 years, and in 2006 it hit 30.8 years. It was 30.7 years in 2011, with the average age of first-time mothers sitting at 28.9 years.
There's some complicated cause and effect loops at work and some very interesting ideas about breaking down barriers now being deployed, but first let's recap the results of the census of women in leadership that was released by the Equal Opportunity in the Workplace agency on Tuesday.
Greater focus on the low representation of women on major company boards in the past couple of years has seen the percentage of female directors of ASX 200-listed companies rise from 8.4 per cent in 2010 to 15.1 per cent, but the percentage of women in senior executive positions is significantly lower. On one measure, it has fallen from 12 per cent in 2006 to 10.1 per cent this year. On another, it has crawled up from just 8 per cent in 2010 to 9.7 per cent.
The low and possibly stagnating participation of women in company leadership is unfair on a fundamental level and it's also dumb. A valuable human resource is being inefficiently accessed and the slight progress being made in boardrooms is in danger of being undermined: director numbers can't keep increasing in a sustainable way if the number of women in executive positions is not also expanding.
Things might improve a bit in coming years in the biggest companies, because in 2010 the Australian Securities Exchange's principles of corporate governance were amended to launch a "comply or explain" diversity regime. Listed companies were asked to establish a diversity policy, disclose it, measure the number of women in leadership positions and set "measurable objectives" for increasing diversity. If they did not, they were to explain why.
The regime applied to December-balance companies last year and affects all companies this year, and looks to be working. Of 211 December-balance companies in 2011, 61 per cent established diversity policies, and 59 per cent of those that did created measurable targets.
From next April new federal law will also force companies with more than 100 employees to report how many women they employ and how much they earn compared to their male colleagues.
The real task begins now, however, as the dimensions of the shortfall are finally outlined. Companies have to redesign themselves to remove the roadblocks placed in the way of career advancement for women.
BoardLinks, a network overseen by Finance Minister Penny Wong and the Minister for the Status of Women, Julie Collins, gives rising women executives initial boardroom experience on government boards, and is one such hands-on initiative.
A fairly anodyne release on Tuesday about the need for companies to set targets for advancing women and to report regularly on progress from the Male Champions of Change also underplayed very interesting work under way within that floridly named but undoubtedly influential group, and the organisations its members lead.
The Male Champions are a 22-member group created under the umbrella of the Australian Human Rights Commission that includes some of the highest-rated male corporate talent in Australia. Members include Qantas' Alan Joyce, CBA boss Ian Narev, ASX's Elmer Funke-Kupper, Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson, Woolworths CEO Grant O'Brien, ANZ CEO Mike Smith, IBM Australia CEO Andrew Stevens, Telstra CEO David Thodey, and PM&C secretary Ian Watt.
The group wants to lead by example and it is focusing on nuts and bolts solutions – not just firm targets and regular reports, which are a given, but structural changes that remove barriers.
The idea is always to reform existing corporate processes, not add a new, costly management layer that saps productivity. Diversity targets are being added to remuneration calculations, for example, and more flexible work conditions are being created.
In one company led by a champion of change, less than 10 per cent of the top 80 executive positions have flexible working arrangements, but in-house work reveals that 80 per cent of them are capable of being structured that way, with all or some arrangements including part-time work, job-sharing, work from home regimes and flexible start and finish times.
The company is now testing the demand, by replacing a rule that executives must make the case for flexible conditions with one that states that they are entitled to them unless the company makes the case for the status quo. I expect it will be knocked over in the rush.
In this company there are also de facto quotas. Divisional managers have hard targets for female numbers and all shortlists for jobs must include a woman.
The champions group is also networking employee surveys that all the big companies undertake these days, to see what questions about diversity are being asked, and which ones are resonating. The result may be a template that works for all companies and creates common data. It's many small steps like these that will create the next wave of reform.
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Summer weekends are precious, and it can be hard to fit everything you want to do into a busy schedule. That's why bike routes that pair prime cycling with unique destinations are so appealing - you can have your cake and eat it too. Read on if matching a day's ride with birding, spelunking, or a visit to a living museum sounds intriguing.
2020 Ontario By Bike Rides
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Industry Workshops 2020
Interested in cycle tourism development?
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2020 Ontario By Bike Photo Contest
Ontario By Bike's 2020 photo contest is now open for submission. Whether it's in a winter wonderland, the season of bloom, the heat of summer or the cooler temperatures and colourful fall foliage, take a break and snap a few great photos featuring you and your bikes as well as places you stop.
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Change Is Brewing
This story appears in the November 2005 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »
Editor's note: Looking for our online exclusives? Thom Filicia's additional design tips are at the end of this article. To read about last year's makeover and to view a slideshow, read "To the Rescue."
"Please excuse our outdated office," Randy Sprecher would begin, standing in a drab space that pretended to be a lobby. And if people looked down the narrow room filled with cubicles and doorways, they would see décor that smacked of the 1970s--even though the business had come into being in 1985. Sprecher would explain to visitors that his brewery put all its resources into its beer, root beer and other sodas. And if the office appeared to be having a particularly bad day, Sprecher might go further in his act of contrition, saying: "We put all the emphasis on quality control, training our people, making payroll, providing a good health plan ..." Then he would try to change the subject.
Sprecher never held important meetings in the Milwaukee offices of Sprecher Brewing Co. Inc. He did his best to take people anywhere else. Or if they dropped by unexpectedly, he would take guests on a tour of the brewing facilities, which he was understandably proud of. Above all, he avoided leading anyone into the nucleus of his operations.
Sprecher, now 58, would have liked to do something about the offices, where about a dozen of his 54 employees work, but the reasons he gave his guests for not doing anything were accurate: If there were available funds to spend, he put them into the rest of the business.
His wife, Anne, 44, married him in 2001 and joined the company a year ago. She was in love with Randy, but wanted to divorce his office. The low ceilings weighed on everyone, and the threadbare carpet and dark paneled walls were depressing. Meanwhile, the computers seemed to be something from the Stonehenge era, and the furnishings from a rummage sale. In fact, the countertop in the center of the offices resembled something found in a hospital nurses' station--it was big, bulky and a catchall for clutter. Clutter, in fact, ruled in the office. Paperwork was everywhere, despite the fact that no one wanted to do paperwork--it could take the printer up to six minutes to spit out a single color page.
Randy was sympathetic, but he always had an excuse as to why any extra funds had to go somewhere else. And so when Anne learned about Xerox and Entrepreneur's "Most Deserving Small Business" makeover contest, it seemed like her last chance to bring redemption to their motley collection of desks and offices.
The Sprechers' situation isn't unusual, according to Dave Burdakin, president of The HON Company, one of the nation's leading office-furniture manufacturers and the furniture provider for the makeover contest: "Entrepreneurs are very busy people, and sometimes office décor is not their top priority--until they wake up one day, look around their office and realize it's a hodgepodge of material that looks like they acquired everything at a rummage sale." As an example, Burdakin notes that Sprecher Brewing Co. was using a wrought-iron plant holder for their document storage: "It reminded me of something I used to see in my grandmother's backyard."
The judges who chose the winner from this year's batch of contestants consisted of Burdakin; Dan Holtshouse, director of corporate business strategy for Xerox; Stephen Jordan, vice president and executive director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Corporate Citizenship; Rieva Lesonsky, senior vice president and editorial director of Entrepreneur magazine; and Thom Filicia, interior-design specialist on NBC/Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. The criteria for winning included considerations on how sorry an office looked, of course, but there was another twist. The business had to be practicing social entrepreneurship--that is, giving something back to its community.
Pay It Forward
The 2000 book and movie Pay It Forward put that expression into the popular lexicon and re-inforced an idea that has been around presumably as long as humankind: Do something good "just because," and almost inevitably, good things will also happen to you.
The corporate world has been onto this for some time now. But you already knew that. Just think about Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, Ronald McDonald Houses, or Ben & Jerry's and their environmental causes. But being involved isn't just a matter of being nice--it's sound business practice, points out Jordan.
"Being a good neighbor in the community is part of the DNA makeup of small companies," says Jordan. "What companies [sponsor] the local Little League team? It's the local bicycle shop, the dry cleaner, or the local bar or restaurant. And why do they do that? In part, it's because of community relations and marketing. If they don't have good relations with the people they're close to, their sales are affected."
The judges were particularly impressed with Sprecher Brewing Co. and its owners' commitment to both their business and their community. "We chose them because, like so many entrepreneurs, they were so focused 0n growing the business, they neglected their own needs. And to top it off, they were so active in their community, they just rose to the top," says Lesonsky.
Adds Holtshouse, "[Sprecher Brewing Co. has] done a superb job integrating with the community and community events, from grass-roots efforts to the board level."
The evidence: Sprecher Brewing Co. has donated tens of thousands of dollars worth of beverages for fundraising events to numerous groups, including the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Milwaukee Children's Hospital and Sam's Hope, a reading program. The company has also operated an annual charity festival for the past 16 years. "Sprecherfest," a one-and-a-half-day, family-friendly event, is often able to raise $20,000 a year for the local PBS station. Considering all this charity work, and the effort involved in maintaining a brewery that contains everything from massive fermenting tanks to a lab that analyzes yeast cultures, it's no surprise that whenever conversation turned to fixing up the office, or at least streamlining its infrastructure with better technology, Randy resisted.
"We don't expect much," says Tim Wright, Sprecher's IT manager and an employee for the past 10 years. "I think we've always had this attitude that we make do with what we've got."
The Grand Tour
Thom Filicia tries to be kind when Randy and Anne first accompany him through the offices. "It looks like there are a lot of ideas going on here," Filicia says diplomatically when analyzing exactly what he and his interior design firm are up against.
"I'm going to correct you. There were no ideas here," admits Randy, who explains that as the years went by, the office-space situation was fluid. As employees moved, desks, phones and filing cabinets were moved around. How the office looked--and ultimately how it made employees feel--was never really considered.
"You have the fraternity basement look going on," says Filicia, clearly amused by the level of tackiness that has permeated the offices. He picks up a sickly looking plant. "If it could see itself, it would probably be dead."
Filicia enters a bathroom. "Oh, my goodness," he exclaims breezily, turning to the Sprechers: "So you poop at home?" By now, Filicia is completely relaxed, putting on the head of a giant crow costume, the Sprecher mascot. From the darkness of the giant crow's head, Filicia quips, "It's more attractive in here than in your office." He finally concludes, "This is a great place, but it's not being utilized to its best ability."
The Big Reveal
Two weeks later, Randy, Anne and about a dozen office employees gather in the parking lot, prepared to go in and see what Filicia and his team have done. About half an hour before, Filicia paces anxiously inside the offices, which now have new red carpeting, bright yellow paint, raised ceilings in one meeting room and numerous other improvements, like fluorescent lighting. Previously, the doorway from the parking lot had a small window; the same door now has a large window, allowing natural light to stream in. There is new furniture from HON, including four laminate conference tables, Valido desks and 25 chairs (both Nuance Chairs and 6500 Series Chairs), but there are also bookcases that were holdovers from the last office. They're just placed more strategically now, so they look attractive and functional rather than haphazard and useless. Much of the décor in the office is the same, in fact, though considerable thought has gone into what stayed and what didn't. Later, an employee studies an old ceramic pot, remarking to another: "I moved this pot from one office to another. It was junk, but now it looks cool."
Which is the point of the entire contest, says Ed Gala, vice president of worldwide strategic public relations for Xerox. "It doesn't have to cost a lot of money or even take a lot of time to remake your office," insists Gala. "You don't have to do an extreme makeover. We're trying to show that with a minimal investment, you can make very significant improvements in your environment and reap a lot of benefits."
But 30 minutes before the unveiling, Filicia doesn't yet know how his guinea pigs are going to react or if they'll see the benefits, even though it seems obvious to anyone else that he's about to be on the receiving end of a lot of praise and gratitude. Filicia may be a successful TV personality, but he is also an entrepreneur with just as many jitters as anyone else. His business, Thom Filicia Inc., is a New York City company that deals in high-end residential and corporate work, including projects for the U.S. Pavilion of the World Expo in Japan and luminaries such as Jennifer Lopez. Given the two-week timeline, says Filicia, "This was a really big undertaking."
Once Filicia ushers the Sprechers and staff in, the shouts of joy may be ramped up due to the presence of the Today show cameras, but the emotions are stark and real.
Anne looks as if she has just scaled Mt. Everest and is taking in the view. Randy, with an unshakable grin on his face, marvels, "I feel like a caterpillar coming out of a cocoon."
Several employees seem on the verge of tears. Tom Strelka, an administrative manager whom everyone calls Crusher, whoops as though he were at a pep rally. One woman blurts out to the cameras, "I'm never going to want to leave my job, and I never thought I'd say that." Then she appears embarrassed, as if she shouldn't have said that. But everyone knows what she meant. The office had been a place designed to make people want to flee at the first available moment. Now it feels warm and inviting.
"Obviously, it's going to improve morale," Strelka says later. "It's going to be so much more efficient."
He feels that way partly because everyone will have new technology at their disposal--from the basic and beautiful, like thin Xerox monitors, to the indispensable, such as the Xerox Phaser, which prints up to 35 pages per minute in color (a boon to the graphic design department), and the Xerox WorkCentre M20i, which prints, copies, scans and faxes (a blessing for the payables/receivables and administrative staff).
It may sound like a potential problem for any staff members who are technologically clueless, but Digital Office Solutions, based in Milwaukee, will be providing training and support for an entire year. Additional items for the office makeover were provided by InterfaceFLOR, Omtool Ltd. and Room & Board, which gave the office a lot of the personal touches. The furniture is a major morale booster, too.
"We had such clunky, clunky furniture," says Anne an hour later, a couple of offices away from Randy, who is calling his mother in Oregon to share the details of their new digs. "It was hard to work in here. And our technology--remedial is the wrong word. It was substandard. It's like going through a three-decade time warp. The other office was very nondescript, but now it has a sense of flow--it's more open. And professionally, it feels very, very comfortable."
Anne adds, "I was hired in part because we expected large growth in our business, especially in the soda line, and adapting from a small company to a medium company is the goal. Now that we've got the technology, if business booms, we can handle it. I don't think we could have prior to this redo."
Randy hasn't thought that far ahead yet. He's still wandering through the hallway, feeling good about the year--noting that they've recently had some national recognition in their industry, including a Brewmaster of the Year award. "And now this," he says, his voice full of awe. "This still doesn't look like our office. It's like it's someplace else."
What are you waiting for?
Don't just envy the Sprechers' new office--fix up your own work space. Filicia says there are many ways entrepreneurs can improve their offices without extreme makeovers:
1. Improve the lighting. You shouldn't have one light to one office. There needs to be balance, says Filicia. Incandescnet lamps are a nice touch, especially in the evening, offering a "warm, soothing feeling." But there should be a balance of light, with both fluorescent and incandescent lighting. Filicia also recommends bringing as much natural light into an office as possible. And hey, it's free, too.
2. Paint the walls. "Paint can really change an office and be a dramatic yet inexpensive solution," says Filicia. "And if you end up not liking what you've done, it isn't a problem. You can always repaint it."
3. Be kind to your, um, assets. It may not be as drastic a change as painting a room, but the right chair can truly alter your perspective in your office and keep you in your seat longer. Says Filicia, "You're spending a lot of time in your chair. Put your money where your butt is."
4. Try to have living things in the office. We're not talking employees, though those are great, too. Plants and fish, says Filicia, "are wonderful and easy and can transform the space. I bring my dog to the office, but obviously, to each office its own."
5. Remember the personal touch. That means family photos, your favorite baseball cap nailed to a bulletin board or other mementos. "Your office is part of what you do, for better or for worse," says Filicia. "We live our careers, and they're part of our lives. And so in a positive way, you need some space that's a refuge from your work and an extension of your home personality."
1st Runners-Up
Ryan Millman, 27, was skeptical when his director of marketing, Harvis Kramer, revealed his intentions to try to win an office makeover for Millman Multimedia in Owings Mills, Maryland. Millman thought, "I guess you must not be that busy if you have time to enter contests." Later, when Millman saw Kramer taking photos of the office and devoting precious time to the application, Millman believed Kramer had his priorities out of whack.
Millman believes that no longer. Thanks to Kramer's efforts, the company is the first runner-up in our makeover contest. Millman's office won a Xerox WorkCentre C2424 color solid ink multifunction system, a HON Alaris Work Chair and a three-year subscription to Entrepreneur. Millman Multimedia's main source of revenue is GreekYearBook.com, which provides portrait services for fraternities and sororities at approximately 300 universities across the country. They also do corporate work and have an unofficial nonprofit wing of their company--they frequently take photographs for charities that use the pictures for their own marketing and fundraising. But despite bringing in $1 million in annual sales, Millman's business--which has 10 employees and 84 contract photographers--was still making do with a 7-year-old printer.
Between order forms and letters sent to the college students' parents, "We [make] over 100,000 copies a year," says Millman, who is enthusiastic about being able to do printing in-house. And he says he plans to remake his office himself at some point, seeing a nice office as a pick-me-up for his employees. "I think morale is vital to the success of the overall business."
2nd Runners-Up
Colleen Mahoney, 49, owner of Mahoney Architects, a $1 million firm with offices in Tiburon and Petaluma, California, is pleased to have a new Xerox Phaser 8550 color solid ink printer, a HON Alaris Work Chair and a three-year subscription to Entrepreneur: "I'm always looking for ways to improve our company and to make people's time efficient."
Mahoney, whose company's work has been profiled in This Old House magazine and on HGTV shows, also tries to use her business as a platform for helping social causes. Since she started her firm in 1986, she and her company have donated time and money to everything from hospice care to cancer research and athletic programs for inner-city kids.
Mahoney says she was inspired by her parents, who volunteered generously. "The world is full of a need for help," says Mahoney, "and I think in the last several years, it's become even more challenging for all the nonprofits because things have tightened up a lot." But that's just when volunteerism becomes even more important, says Mahoney, whose generosity is also evident within her company. Mahoney is giving the cushy chair she won to her office manager and administrator, sticking with the "cheap" chair she bought for herself at Costco.
Mahoney sounds surprised when it's suggested that nobody would have thought less of her if she had kept the chair herself. She says, "I think Pat needs it more than anyone else."
In the Spirit
The winners of last year's Xerox makeover weren't the only ones fired up by the contest. Rooster Hill Vineyards founders Amy and Dave Hoffman, 45 and 65, respectively, drew inspiration from the colorful spread that appeared in the November 2004 issue of Entrepreneur--and got to work improving their own office setting.
Starting in late April 2005, they integrated a few ideas from the feature--the L-shaped countertop and file cabinets on wheels--to improve Rooster Hill's office space. "The countertop allows for individual workstations, but if someone has a large project, they can really spread out," says Amy. Extra space in the office became a conference area.
While the couple did their own painting and electrical work, a builder was hired for the rest. Amy suggests doing some of the work yourself to keep costs down. The total cost for Rooster Hill's makeover: $10,000 and two weeks of work. "It was hard to just say it's $10,000 for a place where I can work; I could have bought two new wine tanks," says Amy, who projects $420,000 in sales for 2005. "But you have to make a nice environment for your employees to work in; it's your sanity, too."
Citing efficiency and professionalism as benefits, Amy is especially pleased that salespeople and wine writers who now enter the Penn Yan, New York, office feel both relaxed and comfortable. No one has to stand for lack of space, and that's an accomplishment worth toasting.
Hardware Highlights
A great business makeover is more than just good looks; it's good technology, too. Upgrading your hardware and software is what will really boost your efficiency and jump-start your employees' productivity. Don't worry, you don't have to spend a bundle; and the rewards you'll reap are well worth the investment. Let's take a closer look at some of the new Xerox technology Sprecher Brewing Co. received for its makeover. You might just find something that can work for you.
- WorkCentre PE120i: Sprecher received four of these machines for a reason. The highly versatile PE120i combines printing, copying, scanning and faxing capabilities in a small, networkable package. The black-and-white device is capable of printing up to 22 pages per minute and costs $649 (all prices street). The PE120i is best suited for personal or small workgroup use.
- Phaser 7750DN: Slow inkjet no more. Sprecher moved up to the $6,300 Phaser 7750DN color laser printer for in-house signage and high-quality graphics output. High-end features include two-sided printing, up to 35 ppm in color, 384MB memory and a 20GB internal hard drive. That's a lot of muscle for versatile color printing.
- Phaser 8550: The solid ink Phaser 8550 printer offers more color options and will handle the needs of Sprecher's retail department. Speeds top out at 30 ppm both in color and black and white. The 8550 has a hefty duty cycle of 85,000 pages per month and can get the first full- color page out in as fast as five seconds. Pricing starts around $1,300.
- DP 820 DLP Digital Projector: It's not all about printers. The DP 820 projector is a very portable 4.5 pounds with an 800 x 600 XGA resolution. Its 1,600 lumens of brightness will handle most room lighting situations, and it all comes in at just under $1,000.
- DocuShare: DocuShare is a $4,500 secure, web-based document and content management system that will help Sprecher get organized, archive files, track different versions of files and boost collaboration among employees. It integrates with a variety of desktop applications and is easily scalable as a business grows.
- WorkCentre Pro 128: The $8,500 Pro 128 is a major piece of equipment. It's a black-and-white workhorse that can hold a maximum of 3,100 sheets of paper and features full duplexing with a 50-sheet duplex automatic document feeder. It can copy and print and has optional scan, fax, internet fax and e-mail capabilities. The Pro 128 will handle a lot of Sprecher's everyday business needs.
More Design Tips From Thom Filicia
He plays an interior designer on TV's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, but Thom Filicia is one in real life, too, having been in business long before the show. Filicia, who has done a lot of corporate offices, says there are numerous ways entrepreneurs can improve their offices--without resorting to extreme makeovers:
1. Tread lightly, or at least in style. Carpeting, like paint, will transform an office. It's more expensive, of course, but keeping expenses down and making life easier is why Filicia's team chose carpet tiles for the Sprecher Brewery offices. "They're easy to install, and if there's any damage, they're easy to repair."
2. Define your space. If every room has a function, it helps give an order to the office. "Think of [your business space] as a house, where you have your living room, and [another room] is the kitchen," says Filicia.
3. Look for areas of clutter and try to learn why the clutter exists. Case in point: Filicia's team put coat hooks at the front entrance where everyone comes in. Suddenly, especially in the tough Milwaukee winter, cumbersome coats, boots and scarves have a home.
4. Shrink sizes where you can. Filicia was greatly aided by simply bringing in technology that required fewer wires and figuring out how to hide massive piles of tangled telephone lines that gave the office an industrial, who-cares feel. He also loved being able to replace the giant computer monitors with thin "sexy" ones.
5. Clean. Whether it's hiring a maid service, assigning people to bathroom duty or what have you, a little cleaning will help the office look better and improve morale. The Sprecher offices had a lot of dust, and the bathrooms appeared remodeled, but only had a couple of knick-knacks added. Mostly, they were simply well-scrubbed.
Geoff Williams is a writer in Loveland, Ohio.


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Rule #1 - Be Patient - Rule #2 - Don't ask when, if you don't contribute - Rule #3 - You have coding skills - LinuxMCE's small brother is available: http://www.agocontrol.com
I have an external sound card and LMCE defaults to the wrong mixer channel. How do I change it? P.S. If I goto kubuntu and change it in kmix, it doesn't affect the already running LMCE and a reboot will set it back to the wrong channelPlease help me! I'm so close to getting a fully working system, but there seems to be no one who can/is willing to help me on these forums!


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Handarbeit für Beinarbeit
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The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi have been a bit, shall we say, expensive. The equivalent of $51,000,000,000 in public funds was spent to make sure that everything went off without a hitch. This includes the most expensive road in the world. But if you want to get from the opening ceremony to the ski slope, it'll cost you. A lot.
Let's start with the basics, if you're a Russian taxpayer. As many know by now, Sochi is pretty much Russia's only sub-tropical resort. If you think that everywhere in Russia is bloody awful and and a sub-arctic tundra everywhere throughout the year, you couldn't be more wrong. Sochi's got palm trees. Legit:
That means that you somehow have to get a metric crapton of people from the relatively warm shores of the Black Sea up into the mountains, where all the snow actually is. That doesn't sound like a huge problem, if you were in a city like Los Angeles or whatever. Sure, there'd be the worst traffic of your life, but you'd get there, eventually, maybe. There are highways and whatnot.
But Sochi didn't really have that. Just to make sure people could get from the city to the Snowboard Slopestyle event, Russia spent $9.4 billion to build more than 40 bridges and 12 tunnels.
As David Olive at the Toronto Star pointed out, the ridiculous price tag, nominaly the result of corruption, makes it the most expensive 50-kilometer road in history.
But nevermind all that, because you are (most likely) not a Russian taxpayer and all this schadenfreude is too fun.
Let's say you have braved the toilets and made it out of your hotel with the scary face-water, and you want to hop in your car to get to the venues. You didn't bring your own car, because that would be silly, so you decide to rent one. Traffic especially won't be a problem, as rental cars are the fastest cars in the world (fact).
Clearly, a rental car is the best choice.
Rental Car Price: At Least A Grand
This is a screenshot of Expedia's reservation page for car rentals at Sochi Airport. Technically you can get an "economy" car from Hertz right now for only $600, but remember, this is Russia, so you'll probably be getting some sort of Lada. And you won't have enough power to make it up the mountain to begin with. You'll just sit there, sadly rolling down the hill. The guy in last place in Super G will also be going down that hill faster than you. No dice.
On the other hand, you will look like Vlad Putin himself, in your old economy car.
Doesn't he look happy?
If you want what appears to be a delightful Fiat 500, which I'm almost certain you wouldn't actually be getting because no rental car is exactly how it looks in pictures, you'll spend $1,241. But hey, with gas around $3.72/gallon in Sochi right now, at least you won't be killed too bad at the pump. So, there's that.
But then again, Russia's roads can be pretty scary. Not only is there everything we've seen with Russian dash cams, but deaths on Russian roads due to alcohol-related incidents is actually increasing by a massive 12% annually, according to Forbes. And even though Sochi's got brand-new everything, Russia still ranks 136th among developed countries for road infrastructure. Ouch.
Factor in all the violence of southern Russia, and there's clearly only one option.
Armored Car Rental Price: $30,000
In 2012, friends of Jalopnik Texas Armoring offered two brand-new Mercedes S550 4MATICswith B6+ ultra-lightweight protection. They were offered for $250,000, each. Add in taxes, fees, and anything else (such as the even-higher grade B7 armoring, which can stop an AK-47 firing a hard core round), and you'll be looking to spend even more than that.
Lucky for you, though,Diplomat Armored is offering their highly protected rentals in Sochi just for the Olympics. Price? Well, they don't say, but their normal Moscow price is $30,000 a week.
Plus, in your armored Mercedes, you can look just like Vlad Putin himself when you inspect the tunnels.
Doesn't he look happy?
Then again, even in an armored car, you'll still be stuck in traffic and maybe you'll miss the whole shebang. Clearly what you're going to need is a helicopter.
Mil Mi-8 Price: At least $5,000,000
The Mil Mi-8 is a total workhorse. And since we're doing this on some sort of budget, between the rental cars and the rented armored cars, it's okay if you get one used. Right now you can pick up a 1989 model for only $5.7 million, which I'm sure has got to be some sort of steal, somewhere.
Oh, you wanted to rent a helicopter? Well, there's the old cliche. If you have to ask, no one will tell you.
And in a helicopter of your very own, you can just be like Vlad Putin himself.
Vladimir Putin never looks happy.
All this is incredibly expensive, so why don't we look at a cheaper option?
Olympic Bus Ticket Price: $1,440
Amazingly, the one thing about the Sochi Olympics is that bus trips are free with a ticket to the games.
Granted, tickets for the opening ceremonies were going for $1,440.
That could just be the world's most expensive bus ticket.
And no, there are no pictures of Vladimir Putin on an Olympic bus. Obviously.
Photo credits: Shutterstock, AP, Vsevolod Aladyshkin, Matt Hardigree


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Lazy Beautiful has moved to its very own domain! From now on, please visit www.lazybeautiful.com for all your beauty addict needs. If you subscribe via email or rss feed, please re-subscribe on the new website to keep getting updates!
All old posts have been moved over to the new site. The pictures in previous posts will still be watermarked with the old WordPress address even though lazybeautiful.com is my official new home.
I am working on getting this site to redirect to you to the new one. Please spread the news! Email, tweet, Facebook it to everyone who loves beauty.
Thank you all so much making this blog a great place to be. Now let's move this party over to its new home at www.lazybeautiful.com!


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Book your Train ticket to Windsor
#1 distributor of train tickets and rail passes
The simplicity of one-stop-shopping
European experts
Windsor, a unique and historic destination
Windsor, a unique and historic destination
Windsor is a town located about 40 km away from London, England. The town is one of the most visited in the UK. Windsor is after all home to the Queen of England. The town has numerous landmarks including the famous Windsor castle and Legoland.
If you are planning to visit Windsor, you must not miss some places. The Windor Castle and Legoland are among the places to discover. But Windsor is more than those two places. Don't miss the Royal Ascot if you are visiting during the month of June, or the Windsor Brewery. You can also take a boat trip on the Thames river to relax.
Train Station(s)
Trains are a convenient way of reaching many towns and cities throughout Europe. The majority of cities in Europe have a minimum of one train station, while larger, more populated cities have two or more stations. Train stations, in general, are located in the heart of the city. Review the map below to get an idea of where the train station(s) in Windsor can be found.
While you're there
Travel forum
From our travel community
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Fuchs Plush Good Verbrations
|Download Audio Sample
Good Verbrations, from Fuchs' Plush line of pedals, is a nice addition to your effects collection. It features the same reverb circuit as Fuchs' Verbrator pedal, but with a slightly different algorithm. Unlike a lot of other reverb pedals, Good Verbrations allows you to adjust both the level and the decay of the reverb signal. You can have a short tight decay, or a longer lush decay, which is a welcome addition for any guitarist who would like a little more control over their reverb. The pedal is simple: one reverb and two parameters, mix and decay. The reverb circuit is an audiophile grade 16kHz bandwidth digital circuit.
The reverb in Good Verbrations has characteristics between a spring and hall reverb, and being able to control the decay allows you to be more expressive and musical in your playing. You're not just stuck with a standard reverb sound found on other pedals or amps. With a clean sound, I turned up the decay and found it was great for slow, melodic and mysterious sounding phrases, while a little gain gave it a bit more smoothness and depth, especially for the leads. It also sounded great in the effects loop in my amp. Overall, Good Verbrations has a nice sounding reverb with simple, yet very useful controls. If you liked the reverb in Fuchs' Plus Verbrator, you'll like having a dedicated pedal of that same reverb. – GG
Buy if...
you'd like to control the decay of your reverb
Skip if...
you prefer more detailed control of reverb with more parameters
Street $249 - Fuchs Audio Technology - fuchsaudiotechnology.com
Whirlwind Orange Box Phaser
|Download Example 1
Single Notes
|Download Example 2
Original MXR Direct Comparison - Speed (Whirlwind, then MXR)
|Download Example 3
Original MXR Direct Comparison - Sweep (Whirlwind, then MXR)
The new Orange Box Phaser is one of the new ones, and is fitted with a 9V power jack and an LED On/Off indicator, and bears a resemblance to the original MXR pedal in size, metal box construction and knobs. The single knob on the Whirlwind unit shows the same "waveform" design as on the old phase 100 model, and lets loose a deep, wide sweep that is almost reminiscent of a Uni-Vibe. I got some very cool Robin Trower-type tones with a Strat, and compared to similar phasers of this type, it was clean and had a relatively low noise floor. Also, having more depth makes it great when using it before a distortion pedal, allowing it to cut through with more authority. It was, of course, great for the famous Eddie Van Halen tone associated with the original MXR phaser.
The comparison to the original also showed that the range of the speed controls was a bit different. The original went both slower and faster, where the Whirlwind opened the envelope a bit more by achieving a higher frequency at the top of the sweep. I think Whirlwind set out to capture the original vibe of the old pedal, but with a few upgrades. This one does just that.
The new Whirlwind Orange Box Phaser certainly provides a new alternative to the phase units presently on the market, and is both solidly built and offers a lower noise floor. I got the feeling that I was playing through a pro piece of gear rather than something that would break or fail. It's not exactly dead-on to the original version, but it does have some upgrades I think are valid in today's market. We've learned a lot since the '70s … amps, guitars and pickups have changed and so have the requirements for good pedals. – KR
Buy if...
you're looking for a great phaser with lots of presence that won't get buried in your distortion
Skip if...
you're looking for a totally vintage unit and your mind is made up
Street $129 - Whirlwind - whirlwindusa.com
Maxon VJR9 Vintage Jet Riser Flanger
With a 2009 G&L ASAT Classic plugged into a Fender Deluxe Reverb reissue, my favorite flange tone was preserved in the Jet Riser, and with clearer presence than before. With the FL-9 set to moderate settings, it almost seemed at times that the flange wasn't even on … just something in the mix that was causing the guitar to exhibit slight traits of modulation. The Jet Riser can demonstrate the same effect, but there's a more apparent flange affecting the tone. You can hear it moving its way through the frequency spectrum in the background. The Jet knob, which controls the intensity of the effect, works hand in hand with the Width control, and was capable of reproducing some great classic flanging effects from the grunge era, à la the Smashing Pumpkins classic, "Love." For the players who like to push their effects into newer, stranger sonic territories, the Jet Riser features a Sensitivity control. I recorded myself playing chunky fifths into my Boss RC-2 and ran the loop into the Jet Riser, playing with the Sensitivity control as the playback commenced. As the knob goes up, the effect starts to exhibit a strange "wash out" effect, as if the flanger circuit is distorting. It's a really neat sound, but one that should be used in moderation, as the highest settings can result in a garbled mess of white noise. From subtle to downright strange, the Maxon Vintage Jet Riser should satisfy any player's flange cravings. – JW
Buy if...
your quest is for one of the most versatile, compact flangers out there.
Skip if...
you're in need of a simpler flange effect.
Street $412 - Maxon - maxonfx.com


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Going Back to April 19, 1775
Publisher Greg Williams recently contacted me with more good news:
I've updated the Kindle edition to include "The British Skull Controversy" as an appendix. If you've already purchased the Kindle edition, Amazon customer service should be able to update your copy at no charge (eventually, these updates are supposed to happen automatically, but I don't think Amazon has implemented that feature yet). Simply contact Amazon at 1-866-216-1072 (you may also be able to email them through their online contact form).This is a fine example of how digital technology is changing the way books can be published, and publishers can operate. What would printer Benjamin Franklin and bookseller Henry Knox think?
If you're not a Kindle owner, the updated ebook is also available on Apple's iBookstore and Barnes and Noble's Nook store.
In addition, a print version is now available at CreateSpace.com, and at Amazon.com. Please note "The British Skull Controversy" is not included in the print version.


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SAN FRANCISCO – For more than a decade now the technologies associated with the regenerative medicine and cell therapy sectors have been hailed as the "future of medicine."
While that lofty projection still holds true, investors have started to become impatient with companies developing therapies and their slow rate of progress, a fact acknowledged by Geoff MacKay, president and CEO of Organogenesis Inc., and the incoming chairman of the Washington-based Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM).
He was participating in an industry panel for the Alliance's third annual State of the Industry briefing during the Biotech Showcase 2013 event, which is running at the same time as the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.
Speaking to a packed audience of pharma and biotech company delegates as well as industry analysts and media, he noted that the sector is starting to finally mature and already products are now reaching the market.
"The maturity is reflected in the fact that there are now seasoned management teams heading successful companies and new constituents are entering in the space such as translational medicine centers. These include the new London-based Cell Therapy Catapult center and the Toronto-based Center for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine. Both of which have a CEO and a mandate to help support the development of foundational technologies that accelerate the commercialization of stem cell therapies and related technologies."
With multiple products already on the market targeting a range of diseases and a critical mass of compounds in clinical trials the "debate on the future of this industry is now moot, as it is already arrived," he added.
MacKay cited ARM analysis showing that product sales have almost doubled in the last two years, from $460 million in 2010 to an estimated $900 million in 2012.
Another panelist, Susan Soloman, CEO of the New York Stem Cell Foundation, noted that she has seen a significant change in the industry over the past year and reiterated the notion that the future is here.
The next phase is to industrialize the production of stem cells to enable their advancement into human trials and to effectively deliver the quantities needed for drug discovery purposes. Her own foundation is funding research in that area in order to be able to produce identical stem cell lines in large quantities.
This "industrialization" theme was echoed by Robert Shaw, commercial director at the Stem Cell Initiative, EMD Millipore. Manufacturing scale-up and standardization along with scientific validation remain major barriers to the success of the sector. He said he believed the market continues to be in development and will be coming to fruition in the years 2015 to 2020.
The stigma that the industry is just "Cells 'R' Us" with a history of money-losing projects needs to be removed, said Jeffrey Jonas, president of Shire Regenerative Medicine. In order to do that, it will require companies to have "reproducible clinical data with a meaningful effect size." That needs to be combined with a clearly defined regulatory and reimbursement pathway.
Reflecting the upbeat mood of the panelists, Chris Calhoun, CEO of Cytori Therapeutics Inc., said the sector has reached a tipping point for regenerative medicine.
After a decade in development, the industry is seeing late-stage clinical trials being undertaken with the promise of significant data reads from those trials emerging as early as next year. Another encouraging sign for the sector is that the safety of products is being established and there is starting to be a continual stratification of peer group companies working to develop cell therapies.
Well-defined business models are being identified by companies so that investors can now establish qualified metrics to track the progress that is being made.
Gil Van Bokkelen, CEO of Athersys Inc., of Cleveland, and the outgoing chairman of ARM, agreed. "We have reached that inflection point; aggregate revenues have doubled, and there is the potential for enormous growth going forward."


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- 925 sterling silver crown ring
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Ring Width: 6mm
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Indicative Rate * AU$80.00 to AU$420.00
**COVID-19 Update: For the safety and wellbeing of guests and team members, Paradise Country Farmstay is temporarily closed. Please visit their website for more information.**
Why just spend a day at the farm when you can spend the weekend? Enjoy some time away from the hustle and bustle with the choice of their farm style camp, caravan or motor home sites. Or truly retreat in their Farmstay Eco Tents.
During your stay you will enjoy full guest use of Paradise Country Farm and Wildlife Park along with access to the Paradise Country Farmhouse Restaurant and bar facilities for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Plus, your stay includes exclusive Farmstay additions such as sunrise and sunset farm activities with farm animal feed up, nursery bottle feeding, egg collecting and cow milking, Farmstay happy hour from 5pm to 6pm with animal meet and greet (Friday and Saturday only) and nightly campfire.
Turn a family day on the farm into a home away from home just 20 minutes from Surfers Paradise.
Note: Information on listed products and services are provided by the operator and were correct at the time of publishing. Rates are indicative based on the minimum and maximum available prices of products and services. Please visit the operator's website for further information. All prices quoted are in Australian dollars (AUD).