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John Hutchinson
Senior Vice President, Client Experience
As senior vice president of client experience, John Hutchinson is responsible for defining, developing, and executing strategic plans to achieve a superior client experience. With more than 15 years of health care experience, John has a proven track record of leading teams with a focus on delighting clients and optimizing their success. Prior to WellSky, John served as vice president of the clinical and technology strategic business unit at Cerner where he was responsible for developing an organization mindset and operating rhythm that balanced solution expertise with a client-centric relationship model. John's experience also includes various financial and operational roles at Sprint. John earned his MBA and bachelor's from the University of Kansas.
Amy Shellhart
Senior Vice President, Operations
As senior vice president of operations, Amy Shellhart enforces a clear mission and framework to WellSky's innovation efforts. Drawing on 25 years of healthcare industry experience, Amy is responsible for optimizing the effectiveness of the engineering and innovation teams in our ongoing efforts to improve client experience. Prior to WellSky, Amy served as vice president of product management at Change Healthcare. Amy's experience also includes leading the charge in establishing the MassineBoecker, Inc. population health management footprint in the U.S. and 15 years at Healthways providing strategic direction and operational insight before transitioning to vice president of product development and management. Amy earned her MBA and bachelor's degree from Southwest Baptist University.
Steve Morgan
Chief Operating Officer
Steve Morgan serves as chief operating officer for Mediware and is responsible for setting direction and executing against the company's strategic objectives and priorities. With 16 years of industry experience, a passion for company culture, and an emphasis on the client experience, Steve leads Mediware's diverse teams focused on optimizing client workflows, efficiencies, and outcomes. Prior to joining Mediware in June 2018, Steve served as COO for OptumInsight, a division of Optum, which is the health services platform of UnitedHealth Group. Steve was broadly responsible for the company's annual operating plan with a focus on employee engagement, client management, growth, and innovation. He was fundamental to the growth and strategic scalability of OptumInsight on an organic basis and through the completion of several critical acquisitions that were integrated into the company. Steve holds a bachelor's degree in accounting and business administration from the University of Kansas.
Bill Miller
Chief Executive Officer
Bill Miller is the CEO of Mediware and a recognized leader in the healthcare industry. He has a rich background that includes a more than 20 year history of bringing groundbreaking growth strategies and technological innovation to the healthcare marketplace and a proven track record of launching and leading highly successful healthcare IT companies. Prior to joining Mediware in July 2017, Bill was the CEO of OptumInsight, a division of Optum, which is the health services platform of UnitedHealth Group. Under Bill's leadership, OptumInsight experienced unprecedented revenue growth, expanded margins, and claimed a transformative position in the health services market. He led the evolution of Optum into the leader in health care analytics and launched several tech-enabled business platforms. Prior to OptumInsight, Bill served as senior vice president of technologies at Cerner Corporation, where he had global responsibility for the company's managed services, outsourcing, and technology services business units. A graduate of the University of Kansas, Bill holds a bachelor's degree in economics and a master's degree in urban planning and public policy.
Chris Hester
President, Home Care
Chris Hester founded Kinnser Software in 2003, when he developed an innovative web-based application for home health agencies. He served as the company's president for 14 years of rapid growth, which saw Kinnser become the most widely used EMR in home health and expand into new markets, including hospice and private duty home care. Kinnser Software was acquired by Mediware in June 2017. Today, Chris serves as president of Mediware's home care division, which includes applications for home care, home health, and rehabilitation.
Rob Weber
President, Community Care
Rob Weber serves as president of Mediware's diverse community care division, overseeing applications for behavioral health, homeless management, long-term services and supports, medication management, and blood management. Rob has held this position since 2017, and he previously also managed many of Mediware's other clinical applications, including blood services and medication management. Rob joined Mediware in January 2004, originally serving as executive vice president and general counsel, and he continues to serve as the company's general counsel for legal and regulatory matters.
Robert Watkins
Chief Financial Officer
Robert "Bob" Watkins started at Mediware as corporate controller in 2008. In 2011, he was promoted to vice president and corporate controller and to CFO in 2012. Prior to joining Mediware, Bob held a number of financial management positions, including serving as corporate controller for Titan Machinery (TITN), a $1 billion provider of agricultural and construction equipment. His prior experience also includes a corporate controller position at AFS Financial, where he also served as chief financial officer. Bob is a current member of the AICPA and Financial Executives International.
Joel Dolisy
Chief Technology Officer
In his role as chief technology officer, Joel Dolisy manages both product development and information technology for Mediware. Before joining Mediware as CTO, Joel was CTO of Kinnser Software, where he led the company's engineering and product organizations. Before Kinnser, Joel was SVP, CTO, and CIO for SolarWinds, a leading provider of IT management software. With more than 20 years of experience in product strategy and software engineering, Joel is a leader in developing and delivering commercial software products to market.
Chris Stansbury
Executive Vice President, Growth
As executive vice president of growth, Chris Stansbury works with all sales teams within Mediware to create and standardize best practices for selling, interacting, contracting, and negotiating with clients. With over 25 years of health care IT services sales leadership, Chris has experience in all aspects of health care, including the provider side when he was at Cerner, the payer side when he was at TriZetto, and the Wellness side as he most recently was a vice president at Welltok.
Shoma Sarkar Thomas
Chief Marketing Officer
As chief marketing officer, Shoma Sarkar Thomas oversees the marketing strategy for all WellSky products and is responsible for building the WellSky brand, which includes public relations, communications, and all strategic marketing activities. Previously, Shoma served as vice president of marketing for Kinnser Software, where she led marketing and strategic growth initiatives. She holds a bachelor's degree in economics and international relations from the University of Virginia.
Stephen Greenberg
SVP of Human and Social Services
Stephen (Steve) Greenberg is responsible for Mediware's Homeless & Community, Behavioral Health and LTSS businesses. Prior to joining Mediware, Steve was President of DecisionHealth, LLC for six years, after which time he successfully helped execute the sale of this revenue cycle management decision-support company. Before that, he worked at OptumInsight for 12 years as a senior leader of many of its provider software and service solutions and, in his last role as SVP, Government Solutions, built a prospective and retrospective fraud, waste and abuse detection capability for UnitedHealthcare's Medicare and Medicaid businesses.
Dana Streck
Senior Vice President, Human Capital
Dana Streck leads Mediware's human capital organization. Before joining Mediware, Dana was senior director of workforce transitions for Cerner Corporation, where she welcomed and transitioned new team members into Cerner through client partnerships and acquisitions. With more than 15 years of experience in human resources, Dana has successfully partnered with business leaders to drive workforce initiatives that benefit both companies and clients, while simultaneously creating environments that support growth and innovation.
Jason Baker
VP, Corporate Development
As vice president of corporate development for Mediware, Jason Baker is responsible for acquisitions, partnerships, and new market strategies. Prior to joining Mediware, he was a managing director for Alpine Healthcare Advisors and Healthcare Growth Partners, both of which provide investment banking services in healthcare technology and services. Jason also served as head corporate development executive for Cerner Corporation. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Missouri.
Wes Little
Vice President, Applied Insights
As vice president of analytics, Wes Little leads Mediware's unified analytics strategy to deliver data-driven insights and innovative solutions. He previously served as director of product management for Kinnser Software, where he oversaw rapid product innovation for the company's home health electronic medical record software. Wes holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business and a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington and Lee University.


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Hilton Garden Inn New York/Times Square Central136 West 42nd Street, New York, New York, 10036, USA TEL: +1-212-840-9600 FAX: +1-212-840-9602
Hotel Information
Non-Smoking A fee of up to $250 will be assessed for smoking in a non-smoking room. Please ask the front desk for locations of designated outdoor smoking areas.
Where we are
Find where we are located
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Double Points with a Taste of New York City
Double Points with a Taste of New York City
The cuisine of New York City is very diverse, with many ethnic cuisines well represented throughout Manhattan. Here's your chance to earn Double Hilton Honors points and experience some of the Big Apple's finest foods with this unique "Double Points with a Taste of New York City!" package.
This package includes overnight stay plus:
- Double Hilton Honors Points.
- One coupon valid for 20% off Urban Oyster's Tenements, Tales & Tastes Tour. New York is an immigrant city and the story of immigrants is the story of NYC. Experience those stories and the food and culture of the many immigrants that have made New York their home on this Lower East Side walking food tour. Visit www.urbanoyster.com for more information.
- 15% off Perfect Picnic NYC. Perfect Picnic delivers delicious artisanal picnics to Central Park or your favorite picnic location. It's more than just lunch – it's an experience.
- One coupon valid for 10% off a TAKE ME OUT Tour. Discount is valid for the Mixology Tour, Prohibition Tour or Girls Night Out Tour. Visit www.takemeoutnyc.com for more information.
- One coupon valid for 20% off admission ticket to Spirit Cruises or Bateaux New York. For more information, visit Entertainment Cruises online at www.EntertainmentCruises.com.
- One coupon valid for 50% off a bottle of wine at Sons of Essex (Tuesday – Thursday) plus one complimentary dessert for the table. "Expect a vintage vibe – starting with a cool delicatessen entrance" states Zagats and rated by New York Magazine as one of the top restaurants for celebrity sightings, this Lower East Side hot spot is offering this value exclusive to our hotel guests, with over 100 bottles of wine to choose from. Located at 133 Essex Street (between Essex and Rivington Streets). Visit www.sonsofessexNYC.com for more information or call 212-674-7100.
- One coupon valid for 50% off a bottle of wine plus one complimentary antipasta at Petaluma (with purchase of one entrée). Rated one of "The 8 hottest New Italian Restaurants in NYC" by Zagat and "A New York Staple" by the New York Times, this Upper East Side friendly neighborhood restaurant and bar has been service NYC since 1985. Located at 1356 First Avenue (at 73rd Street & 1st Avenue). Visit www.petalumarestaurant.com for more information or call 212-772-8800.
- One coupon valid for $10 off A Slice of Brooklyn Pizza Tour. The only guided bus tours of Brooklyn's favorite foods, neighborhoods, landmarks and famous movie locations by authentic Brooklynites! Best of all, OUR TOURS DEPART FROM MANHATTAN!! Visit www.asliceofbrooklyn.com or call 212-913-9917 for more information.
- 10% off "The Original New York City Brew Tour" from City Brew Tours. Enter promotional code Highgate_10 at checkout, when visiting www.citybrewtours.com.
- One coupon valid for 10% off Taste of Harlem Historical Food Tour. Discover the very best of Harlem with an expert Harlem guide. Harlem is home to a variety of diverse cultures…and tastes. On this walking tour, you'll taste renowned soul food as well as Caribbean and African cuisines at a variety of restaurants. Between tastings, you'll learn about Harlem's rich history and culture. Check availability and buy tickets at www.TasteHarlem.com or call the Ticket Center at 212.209.3370. Advance purchase required.
- One coupon valid for a $45, 4-course dinner for two at Pizzetteria Brunetti. Huge savings – this is a $67 value! Located in the West Village at 626 Hudson Street. Visit www.pizzetteriabrunetti.com.
- One coupon valid for 15% off at Duet, new American Brasserie located in the heart of Greenwich Village, at 37 Barrow Street. Visit www.duetny.com for more information.
- One Michelin New York City map (renowned for over 100 years, Michelin's map of New York City is clear and accurate – and will help travelers to the Big Apple navigate the city quickly).
Discover the food and stories of immigrants with Urban Oyster's Tenements, Tales & Tastes Tour of NYC's Lower East Side. The tour will start off at a location where many new citizens are made official, City Hall. Here at the northern edge of the colonial city guests will start their journey with a delicious Dutch breakfast treat, just one of many foods that has made its way over thanks to the immigrant population in NYC. From there the tour will make its way in a loop around the NYC LES, visiting 100-year old bakeries, churches, markets, and historic sites. You'll stroll the streets of Little Italy just as Lucky Luciano might have a century ago. Marvel at former and still operating synagogues and Jewish clothing stores and take in cultural sites like the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, and the African Burial Ground. Finally the tour will end up in the crowded and teaming streets of Chinatown, where you'll feel like you're in Shanghai! Along the way on our New York food tour, we'll sink our teeth into amazing stories and amazing food. Knishes, tacos, dumplings, and more. You'll taste why New York City is the center of the world and the culinary legacy left here by those that have passed by Lady Liberty on their way to the American Dream. Book your ticket online at wwww.urbanoyster.com/tenements-tales-and-tastes-tour.html and enter code HILTONNYC.
Take Me Out is a leader in Manhattan nightlife tours. Step into one of their luxury limousines and travel in style, as your well-connected host takes you past the bouncers, velvet ropes and lines to the most exclusive locations in the city. Visit www.takemeoutnyc.com for more information on tours, rates and schedule.
Entertainment Cruises is the nation's largest dining and entertainment cruise company, with luxury fleets throughout America's most exciting cities. From our fun and festive Spirit Cruises to the luxurious, European-inspired Bateaux New York, our cruises offer lunch, dinner, sightseeing and a variety of holiday and specialty-themed cruises. Once aboard, our guests can dine and dance underneath the Brooklyn Bridge and get up close and personal to the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, One World Trade Center & more! Transform your next date night or Sunday brunch into a memorable moment with the city skyline as your backdrop. For more information, visit Entertainment Cruises online at www.EntertainmentCruises.com. Entertainment Cruises is located at Pier 62, #200, Chelsea Piers, New York, NY 10011.
***Guests must book plan code H0 in order to receive the above amenities.
All rates are subject to availability at participating hotels. Certain length of stay requirements may apply. 'Double Hilton Honors Points' means you will receive a bonus equal to the number of Base Points earned during a stay. Bonus Points earned on Base Points do not count toward elite tier qualification. Please allow up to eight weeks from completion of your say for points to appear in your Hilton Honors account. You must be a member of Hilton Honors to take advantage of this exclusive opportunity. For reservations, call the Hilton Reservations and Customer Care center nearest to you and book Plan Code H0. Hilton Honors™ membership, including the earning and redemption of Points, is subject to Hilton Honors Terms and Conditions.
Urban Oyster Tour information and retail rates are subject to change; one coupon will be provided upon check-in. Valid only for tour that is outlined on coupon. For more information or to book your ticket online at www.urbanoyster.com/tenementstales-and-tastes-tour.html using Discount Code HILTONNYC. Other restrictions may apply.
One Take Me Out coupon will be provided upon check-in. Tour information and retail rates are subject to change. Visit www.takemeoutnyc.com for more information.
One Michelin New York City map will be distributed per stay.
One gift bag will be distributed upon check-in. Hotels are under no obligation to replace lost or stolen gift bags. Gift bag, map and partner coupons have no cash value. All gift bags contain one coupon packet and Michelin New York City map. Hilton is not responsible for any errors, refunds, or cancellations with respect to partner coupons, events or hours of operation.

subset: commoncrawl


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For the people of Punjab, the festival of Lohri holds a great significance, as it marks the harvesting season and the end of the winter season. The main event is the making of a huge bonfire which is symbolic of the homage to the Sun God for bringing in warmth. Celebrated on January 13th every year. Lohri festivities are associated with the harvesting of the Rabi crops. There is a special significance attached to the celebration of Lohri as this day the sun enters the rashi (zodiac) of Makara (Capricorn), this is considered auspicious as it signifies a fresh start.Lohri has special significance for the agriculturists because, it marks the beginning of a new financial year, on this day they settle the division of the products of the land between themselves and the tillers. Lohri assumes greater significance, if there has been a happy evet in the family, such as the birth of a child or a marriage in the past year. The family then plays host to relatives and friends and "making merry" is the order of the day. Most people participate in dancing the bhangra ( a folk dance) to the accompaniment of the dholak.
The festival of Lohri is linked to the atmospheric physical changes. Lohri celebrations generate a lot of bonhomie as people sit around the bonfire, talking, laughing, exchanging pleasantries, praying for prosperity, even as they make offerings of til (gingelly), moongphali (peanuts) and chirwa (beaten rice) to the burning embers. All these accounts and references point to the significance of saluting the Sun. The Sun is a symbol of plenty it gives us all we need. Fire sanctifies their endeavors for a good life on the one hand and destroys evil spirits on the other.
The First Lohri
On the first Lohri of the recently wedded bride or a new born child, people give offerings of dry fruits, revri (a kind of candy made of sugar and sesame seeds), roasted peanuts, Sesame Ladoo and other foods to the fire, as well as sharing them with their family and friends gathered around the fire. They perform the "Bhangra" dance, in groups around the fire. The dancing and singing continues well into the night. The Bhangra dance has rhythmic movements of the feet, shoulder and body, with outstretched hands and a lot of clapping by women partners. Food eaten, is generally of vegetarian and traditionally, no alcohol is supposed to be consumed.
The First Lohri of a Bride
The first Lohri of a bride is considered very important. It is celebrated with increased fervor and on a larger scale. The family of the newly wedded wife and husband gather around the fire wearing their best, often new clothes, decorated with beautiful Punjabi embroidery in gold and silk threads with mirror work. The newly married woman wears new bangles, applies henna or "mehndi" on their hands and puts a colorful bindi, a decorative spot on their foreheads. The husband also wears new clothes and colorful turbans. The new clothes and jewelery is given to her by her new in-laws. She wears bangles almost up to her elbows. The mother-in-law presents heavy garments and jewelry to he new bride. The bride remains in her in-law's house where a grand feast is arranged and all the sons and daughters, with their spouses and children and all of their close friends and neighbors are invited. In the early evening, when all have arrived, the new bride is dressed in her best salwar suit or phaphra and is made to sit, along with her husband, in a central place where the father and mother in law perform the presentation of clothes and jewelry. The close relatives and friends also join in and present clothes or cash to the new bride.
The First Lohri for a Newborn
The first Lohri of a new born is also a special occasion, in which all friends and family join to celebrate. it is preformed in the later part of the evening. Invitations can be sent for this function, depending on how the family wants to celebrate this occasion. The event is observed at the home of the child's parents, in the presence of close relatives, friends and well wishers. All the guests usually bring gifts for the baby and the new mother. The child's grandparent's give gifts to the child's paternal relatives also.
On the first Lohri of a new born baby, the mother is attired in heavy clothes and is wearing a lot of jewelery with mehndi on her hands and feet and sits with the baby in her lap. The family does the presentations. The mother and father-in-law usually gives a large quantity of presents in the form of clothes and cash and others in the immediate family do so also. The maternal grandparents also send gifts of clothes, sweets, rayveri, peanuts, popcorn's and fruits.


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Connecticut necesitaba un nuevo diseño de impreso o envases y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 147 diseños de 17 diseñadores freelance.
Company Name
Each year, we provide a number of exclusive calendars to our clients. Our clients are big companies in banking sector, investment bank, insurance, electricity, real estate and construction, information technology and telecom. We need calendar, which can be beautiful, creative, elegant, funny, modern, or anything you can imagine.
People from 25 to 55 years old
There are two kind of calendar:
Calendar hanging on wall: We often use 5 pages or 7 pages calendar. A calendar has a cover page and from 4 to 6 pages. Each page has picture and 2 or 3 months. Regular size is 15.7 x 23.6 inches (equal 40 x 60 cm).
Calendar on desktop: 13 pages of calendar. The size is never over 8.7 x 11.8 inches (equal 22 x 30 cm).
Please provide 5 or 7 pages of calendar if you design any kind of calendar. You can use picture, graphics, image, typography in the calendar. It is better if the calendar has an idea or topic or message(s). Feel free to use your imagination and creation. If the calendar need to buy images, the total price should not over $ 300. The image for printing wall calendar should be 300 dpi.
From now to December, we send the calendars to many clients. Maybe more than one calendar will be chosen, and the contest has more than one winner. Please leave your contact information for us to contact you when client selecting your calendar. We also propose client print your name as designer in the calendar.
The attach file is the day/month of 2011. You can use it freely. You can change it structure, color in your design.


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Cherokee tribal elders say they'll sue bear zoo
Members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians say they're planning to sue a North Carolina roadside zoo that houses bears in concrete pits on reservation land.
An attorney for two tribal elders filed a notice of intent to sue the operators of the Cherokee Bear Park for violating the federal Endangered Species Act.
One of the elders, Amy Walker, says grizzlies are being abused at park.
The owners of the bear park could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday.
This is the latest development in the long-running fight to close bear zoos on the reservation. Despite repeated calls by tribal elders and animal rights activists, the tribal council has declined to take action.
But protests by those groups helped close one of the bear zoos earlier this year.


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Brenner Children's pediatric emergency department has moved back to its original location. Learn more
In order to help protect patients, family members and health care workers from the spread of COVID-19, no visitors are allowed at any of Wake Forest Baptist Health's outpatient or inpatient facilities, except in certain situations.Learn moreMore COVID-19 Updates
Sometimes called a "bionic ear," the cochlear implant offers the hope of regaining or restoring the ability to sense sound for some people who have experienced significant hearing loss.
Although they're not miracle devices, cochlear implants help some children and adults, whether they're born deaf or whether hearing loss occurs later in life, experience talking on the phone, listening to music, and hearing the voices of their friends and loved ones.
A cochlear implant is a surgically implanted device that helps overcome problems in the inner ear, or cochlea. The cochlea is a snail-shaped, curled tube located in the area of the ear where nerves are contained. Its function is to gather electrical signals from sound vibrations and transmit them to your auditory nerve (or hearing nerve). The hearing nerve then sends these signals to the brain, where they're translated into recognizable sounds.
If important parts of the cochlea aren't working properly and the hearing nerve isn't being stimulated, there's no way for the electrical signals to get to the brain. Therefore, hearing doesn't occur. (Sometimes referred to as nerve deafness, this is called sensorineural hearing loss.) By completely bypassing the damaged part of the cochlea, the cochlear implant uses its own electrical signals to stimulate the auditory nerve, allowing the person to hear.
The ear is made up of three parts, and sound for a person who has normal hearing passes through all three on the way to the brain. The outer ear is made up of the outer, visible part of the ear and the ear canal.
When a person is exposed to a sound, the outer ear captures the sound vibration and sends it through the ear canal to the middle ear, which consists of the eardrum and three tiny bones. The sound vibration then causes motion in the three tiny bones, which makes the fluid in the cochlea move. The motion of the fluid stimulates the hair cells, which are thousands of tiny hearing receptors inside the cochlea. The hair cells bend back and forth and send electrical signals to the hearing nerve, and the hearing nerve then carries these signals to the brain, where they're interpreted.
Through aging, heredity, disease, infection, or repeated or severe exposure to loud noise, hair cells can be damaged or destroyed. If the hair cells don't work, the hearing nerve can't be stimulated and therefore can't send information to the brain. Thus, the person is unable to hear.
Hearing loss can be mild, moderate, or severe, depending on the number of hair cells that are defective, damaged, or destroyed. People with mild or moderate hearing loss may find that hearing aids, which simply make sounds louder, help. Those with profound or severe hearing loss might even have trouble understanding loud sounds. A hearing aid won't help in these cases, and a doctor might recommend a cochlear implant.
The cochlear implant artificially stimulates the inner ear area with electrical signals, sends those signals to the hearing nerve, and allows the user to hear. Although sound quality from a cochlear implant is different than that experienced by a person with normal hearing, the cochlear implant provides users with the ability to sense sound that they couldn't hear otherwise. Improvements in the way the implant processes sound information are continuously being made to make the sound seem more natural.
The actual cochlear implant consists of an implant package, which is secured inside the skull, and a sound and speech processor, which is worn externally (outside the body). Several components of the cochlear implant work together to receive sound, transfer it to the hearing nerve, and send it to the brain.
The implant package is made up of:
The sound and speech processor is a minicomputer that processes sound into digital information, and then sends that information to the implant package in the form of electrical signals. The sound and speech processor is worn externally and looks a lot like a normal hearing aid. Depending on the type of sound and speech processor used, it can either be worn as a headset behind the ear or in a belt, harness, or pocket.
The components of the sound and speech processor include:
For the cochlear implant to work, the implant package and the sound and speech processor must be aligned — that's what the magnets are for. By lining up the magnets, both the implant package and sound and speech processor are secured and work as one device.
When the implant package and the sound and speech processor aren't completely aligned, the device doesn't work and the person can't hear. Because both components need to be aligned for the user to hear, some people take the sound and speech processor off at night to sleep soundly. Others leave it on all the time.
Knowing what, exactly, the cochlear implant does may help kids better understand their new bionic ear and the cool technology behind it that allows them to hear better.
Here's how the implant works:
The actual surgical procedure, which takes 2-4 hours and uses general anesthesia, involves securing the implant package under the skin and inside the skull, and then threading the wires containing the electrodes into the spirals of the cochlea.
To secure the implant, the surgeon first drills a 3- to 4-millimeter bed in the temporal bone (the skull bone that contains part of the ear canal, the middle ear, and the inner ear). Next the surgeon opens up the mastoid bone behind the ear to allow access to the middle ear. Then, a small hole is drilled in the cochlea and the wires containing the electrodes are inserted. The implant package is then secured and the incision is closed.
After having cochlear implant surgery, a child:
Two to four weeks after surgery, the sound and speech processor is matched with the implant package and is programmed and fine-tuned to meet the child's individual hearing needs.
Because the extent and type of hair cell damage, electrical signal patterns, and sensitivity of the hearing nerve are different for each person, a specialist must fine-tune the sound and speech processor for every patient.
By measuring the lowest and highest current for each electrode, the clinician finds the softest and loudest sounds that will be heard (each electrode produces a different sound with different pitch). The sound and speech processor matches sounds on different electrodes with different volumes and attempts to create an accurate version of the original sound. However, because a limited number of electrodes are taking over the function of the thousands of hair cells in a normal ear, sounds won't be totally "natural."
After the first few programming sessions, the user begins to pick up sounds with the implant, but giving the implant full power is a gradual process that takes several months. In children who are born deaf, the stimulation from the implant will allow them to develop the brain pathways necessary to hear sounds. This is an extended process with programming and intensive therapy that often lasts for several years.
During the programming process, the user attends speech and language therapy sessions to help identify and interpret the new sounds he or she is hearing. In addition, an important part of the therapy includes parent education and training.
Therapy will help a child develop and understand spoken language through detecting, imitating, and associating meanings of sounds. These sessions last at least a year, along with parent education and training programs. In many cases, therapy has helped kids with cochlear implants develop speech and language on par with their peers and attend mainstream schools.
Some families choose to have implants in both ears. This can help with speech detection when there is background noise and in localizing the source of sounds.
Cochlear implants are very successful for some people, but not everyone is a candidate to receive one. Ideally, children 12 months of age or older with profound hearing loss in both ears are excellent candidates, but not every child is eligible.
Some common reasons that a child might not be eligible for a cochlear implant:
Each potential candidate must be evaluated by a cochlear implant team to determine whether a cochlear implant is the best option.
For those who do receive a cochlear implant, benefits can vary. The length of rehabilitation varies from person to person, and many factors (such as the condition of the hearing nerve or the presence of scar tissue in the cochlea) can hinder the success of the implant.
Expectations should be realistic, and the doctor or surgeon will help you understand the level of success the implant can reasonably achieve for your child.
Reviewed by: Robert C. O'Reilly, MD
Date reviewed: September 2012
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Has there ever been a cinematic mind as restless and voracious as that of the great French auteur, provocateur, and aesthetically/politically radical Jean-Luc Godard? His best-known and most widely liked, New Wave-defining films of the '60s are themselves a succession of increasingly complex, fragmented, politically and culturally engaged narratives whose far-ranging, omnivorous frames of reference (sampling liberally from all aspects of cinematic, literary, artistic, and political history) make sparks fly with their astute, bracing juxtapositions and aphorisms (the most famous likely being the "children of Marx and Coca-Cola" intertitle in Masculin-Féminin). His subsequent career has been one of increasing formal and structural radicalization that testifies in every frame to his unwillingness to rest on his stylish '60s laurels and his concurrent total disregard for how many former fans he alienates. His unceasing, pioneering adventurousness--his need to challenge himself, and us--has led to such late-career masterpieces as 2001's Éloge de l'amour (In Praise of Love) and 2004's Notre Musique, but surely the most fabled project of his post-New Wave career--the one with the broadest scope and most ambitious aims--is the one that Olive Films has now, at long last, released on Region 1 DVD: his decade-in-the-making (1988-1998), exhausting and exhaustive eight-part summation of the cinematic medium itself, Histoire(s) du cinéma.
That is not to imply that Histoire(s) du cinéma works in any way as a mere dutiful documentary accounting of the different episodes of cinema's evolution over the 20th century. Godard's goals here have nothing to do with introducing anyone to the history of the cinema, with all its periods, phases, and genres that have been well charted and described many times before. (In fact, coming to this film without some preexisting familiarity with the basic historical timeline of film virtually guarantees that you'll be lost, confused, and probably angry; call him a perverse, pretentious elitist (you wouldn't be the first), but Godard's feverish, urgent meditation is quite forthrightly for the already-initiated only.) What he is doing is grappling before our very eyes with a profound ambivalence arising from the irreconcilable (or is it?) clash between his instinctive love of the medium and its countless compromises and impurities; its constant complicity with the injustice and violence of the century it belonged to and defined (the horrors of Nazi Germany, occupied France, and Sarajevo come up more than once in the context of their sometimes socio-economically direct and troubling relationships to various film industries that kept on through the atrocities, with newsreels, documentary footage, and Germany Year Zero cut in alongside everything else to explore in what contorted ways these sobering images, the gorgeous artifice of classical Hollywood film, and pornography, among other things, all exist rather uncomfortably together as "cinema"); and his nagging, unsettling doubts about the medium to which he has, despite everything, devoted a long and fruitful artistic career. In one unforgettable episode, Godard uses montage and voice-over to tell a most disconcerting story that involves Giant director George Stevens' work as a WWII documentarian in Germany and his subsequent Hollywood career; Godard concludes (it's up to you to decide whether outrageously, truthfully, or both) that "Elizabeth Taylor could not have found her Place in the Sun without Auschwitz."
The form this reckoning takes is pointedly, jarringly televisual: Histoire(s) du cinéma was conceived and produced as a series for French television, and its framing scenario is that of Godard sitting in his office, contemplatively puffing on a cigar, alone and reflective, surrounded by vast numbers of books and armed with a typewriter, a film editing bay, and the video camera with which he captures the proceedings as he runs clip after clip from widely disparate times and places in cinematic history, creating many a suggestive juxtaposition and overlap, both between films as part of cinematic history and between Film and History, throwing in a smoky sit-down interview with famed French critic Serge Daney and his own mini fictional/allegorical interludes (featuring Julie Delpy and Juliette Binoche, among others) for good measure. In the process, Godard casts his allusive net ever wider; his visual conflations of literature, painting, and music come fast and furious, with flashing, shifting, and punning intertitles; voiced-over quotes, ponderings, and opining; and literally hundreds of film clips used (and often manipulated--slowed down, sped up, repeated, as if being replayed in one's memory) as accompanying citations, along with copious glimpses of paintings famous (Vermeer's Girl with the Pearl Earring, for example) and relatively obscure, propelling us along Godard's tortuous path. The digressive, stop-and-start, hurry-up-and-wait rhythm (familiar from virtually any of his films, actually) of our journey is the result of the agonized, conscience-stricken, relentlessly probing, and rigorously skeptical attributes of Godard's quest to locate, through a process of trial and error that is Histoire(s) du cinéma's "action," the place that cinema fits, what it could possibly mean, in the farthest-ranging contexts of art, culture, history, and politics.
This odyssey is a circuitous and extraordinarily long one (clocking in at a total of four and a half hours), and only someone utterly unfamiliar with any of Godard's work will be surprised to discover that it does not go from A to B to C, but instead from A to Q to D, then a detour to Z, which connects back to A once again, and so on. That doesn't mean that Histoire(s) du cinéma is some shapeless, formless mass; it's just that its structure is not immediately, directly discernible, reflecting as it does the highly idiosyncratic, incomparably dynamic, ultimately insatiable thoughts and thought processes of Jean-Luc Godard. If the most poetic language is that which defamiliarizes the words and phrases we already know too well, rearranging and concentrating them so as to render them strange, "difficult," and freshly visible and present rather than taken for granted, then what Godard has created by isolating, slowing down, speeding up, and recontextualizing all of Histoire(s) du cinéma's more or less familiar fragments of cinematic history is a poetic project, with all the multifaceted complexity and paradoxically simultaneous intellectualism and sensuousness thus entailed for the galvanized, exhilarated reader/spectator. It is somehow fitting that, whereas most of Godard's purportedly fictional-narrative films work more like essays/criticism, his big critical-essay film works more like poetry; it is dense with the kind of riches that make the effort required to discover them so very well worth it.
The visual quality here is, very intentionally and precisely, VHS-style, with all of the accompanying blur, squiggle, random aspect ratios, and tracking difficulties, each of which clearly seems to possess its own useful and even beautiful aesthetic properties in Godard's eyes. Don't expect a pristine image (why a pristine image for a medium so far from pristine? Godard would surely ask), but Olive Films has transferred Histoire(s) du cinéma to DVD, at its original aspect ration of 1.33:1, with the utmost respect for its visual integrity.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack (in French with optional English subtitles) delivers one of Histoire(s) du cinéma's most important elements--its carefully designed, deliberately layered sound, including music, voice-over narration, and the soundtrack of the film clips it encompasses--with perfect clarity and fullness.
Far more than a documentary about the history of cinema, Godard's massive, sprawling, yet incredibly dynamic and fleet meditation represents nothing less than one of the medium's greatest masters confronting (and attempting the near-impossible feat of making some kind of sense of) the endless contradictions, flaws, compromises, and possibly even crimes with which its story is riddled. Histoire(s) du cinéma is the furthest thing imaginable from a jaunt down a milepost-demarcated memory lane; it's difficult, unabashedly literate on multiple levels, elusive, and exasperating. It is also--not despite, but because of all those qualities--an indispensably mind-blowing, inspiring experience for anyone who still thinks the cinema is worth taking seriously. Highly Recommended.


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Before she became the first female Labor secretary in 1933, Frances Perkins had seen firsthand the tragedy of Manhattan's 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Locked in by their employer, 146 mostly young girls died when they couldn't escape the burning building where they toiled in sweatshop labor. Later, as the New York industrial commissioner, Perkins held employers accountable for workplace safety and health, expanding factory investigations and championing other pro-worker laws, like unemployment insurance.
Now, imagine if Elaine Chao had been there instead.


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Thierry Legault / Astrophoto.fr
A three-image composite tracks the International Space Station and the shuttle Atlantis as they move across the sun's disk on July 15.
They look like alien bugs hopping across the sun, but these specks may represent the very last pictures of a space shuttle in orbit as seen from Earth.
French astrophotographer Thierry Legault, an expert in the technique of tracking spacecraft silhouettes, captured these views of the International Space Station and the shuttle Atlantis during their final rendezvous. Atlantis landed today, bringing the 30-year space shuttle program to an end.
The picture above is a composite, showing three views of the station-shuttle complex as it passed over the sun's disk on July 15. Legault had to travel to just the right location to get the shot. This one was taken from Caen in France. The entire transit took just seven-tenths of a second. Legault has labeled the shuttle and elements of the space station in this higher-resolution view:
Thierry Legault / Astrophoto.fr
The labels on this image point out the position of Atlantis and components of the International Space Station during a July 15 transit.
In an email, Legault told me that he traveled through the Czech Republic, Germany and the Netherlands to capture the silhouettes. One picture, snapped north of Prague and posted to Legault's website, shows the space station and the shuttle side by side, 50 minutes after Atlantis' undocking earlier this week.
Legault produced the piece de resistance today during a stopover near Emden, in northern Germany. It may not look quite as impressive as the others, but it could well be more historic. Legault wrote that the picture was taken "just 21 minutes before the deorbit burn, therefore there are chances that it is the very last image of a space shuttle in orbit."
Here's a composite of four images, taken during the 0.9-second-long transit. The silhouettes of Atlantis are highlighted within white circles:
Thierry Legault / Astrophoto.fr
A four-image composite tracks Atlantis' transit across the sun's disk, just 21 minutes before today's deorbit burn. The white circles highlight Atlantis.
For the telescope and camera buffs out there, Legault says the images were produced using a Takahashi TOA-150 6-inch apochromatic refractor (focal length 3600mm) on an EM-400 mount, with a Baader Herschel wedge. The camera is a Canon 5D Mark II, set for an exposure of 1/8000s, 100 ISO, working in continuous shooting at four frames per second. Transit forecasts were calculated by www.calsky.com.
Merci beaucoup to Thierry for sharing his pictures with us through the years.
More great views of Atlantis:
- Space station crew watches Atlantis descend
- Photographers capture Atlantis' last landing
- Southern lights are sweeter in space
- Aircraft captures unique view of launch
- Shuttle Atlantis' last trek to liftoff
- Atlantis' flight on PhotoBlog
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," Alan's book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.


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Several House Republicans on Wednesday proposed legislation on Native American courts that could lay the groundwork for a compromise on the stalled Violence Against Women Act.
The legislation gives tribal courts the authority to prosecute non-Indians accused of abusing partners on tribal lands.
The bill, introduced by Reps. Darrell Issa of California, Tom Cole of Oklahoma, and six other Republicans, would also allow defendants to request that their case be moved to a federal court if they felt their constitutional rights were being violated.
The House and Senate have been trying for the past year to renew and expand the 1994 act, credited with reducing domestic violence in the country, but tribal authority over domestic violence cases has been a major point of contention.
The Senate last week passed a Violence Against Women Act bill that gives Indian courts more authority to try non-Indians, overcoming objections that non-Indians should not be subject to tribal law by pointing to figures showing Indian women 2 1/2 times more susceptible to violence than others in the country. But this provision has met continued resistance in the House.
Half the domestic violence cases occurring on Indian lands go unprosecuted, often because federal authorities lack the resources to pursue cases on isolated reservations.
"The current law enforcement system for Native American women is broken," Issa said. "Too many victims of domestic violence cannot get access to law enforcement during times of emergency and more will continue to suffer unless Congress acts."
The Violence Against Women Act, which provides federal grants for legal assistance, transitional housing, law enforcement training and domestic violence hotlines, expired in 2011. Both the House and Senate passed renewal bills last year, but were unable to resolve differences over the Indian courts, and to a lesser extent, to Senate language saying that lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people should have equal access to the act's programs.
Issa and Cole put forth their compromise last year, but the session ended before it could be considered. Cole is one of only three House members of Native American heritage.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., has said he will bring up a House Violence Against Women Act bill soon, and one possibility is that the Issa-Cole provision on Indian courts would be incorporated in the House bill.


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Because no one reads the newspaper, and SportsCenter's anchors are too perky for this early in the morning, Deadspin combs the best of the broadsheets and the blogosphere to bring you everything you need to know to start your day.
* The morning after, Butler and Pierce shared an awkward exchange and promised to give each other a call later in the week, even though they both knew the chances of a repeat encounter were highly unlikely. Pierce still can't figure out why his ankle is so sore today. That's probably some freaky shit he wouldn't want to remember anyway.
* The infinite wisdom of Tiki Barber continues to amaze. On Adrian Peterson's fumbling problem: "You know what, he's becoming a liability for that team." Totally. [SRI]
* It's Super Bowl Media Day! It's Super Bowl Media Day! But the only people who seem to enjoy attending it are those who've never been to one before. Oh, and female Spaniards. Plus, it's raining in Fort Lauderdale so the "circus-like atmosphere" will become even more circus-like because it will be indoors.
* Oscar nominations are being revealed, like, now. I'm pulling for the talking fox in "Antichrist" to get a best supporting actor nom.
Good morning. It's Tuesday. Let's sculpt something massive.


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Suppose we have k embeddings of one single smooth manifold into one other, such that the intersections are manifolds,too. What are sufficient conditions, such that the union of those embeddings is a smooth submanifold in the image manifold?
To be more precise: Suppose we have a manifold M and a manifold N (both smooth). Moreover we have k-many embeddings $f_1: M \rightarrow N$ , $\ldots$, $f_k: M \rightarrow N$ such that the intersections of $f_j(M) \cap f_i(M) \neq \emptyset$ are in general not empty but it is required that $f_j(M) \cap f_i(M)$ is itself a submanifold of $N$. Is it possible at all that the union $\cup f_j(M)$ for all $1 \leq j \leq k$ is a submanifold of N?
Of course it is if all $f_j$'s are equal, but suppose some of them are not. Then in general the union is not a submanifold as we can see for example if we embedded $\mathbb{R}^2$ into $\mathbb{R}^3$ by $f_1(x_1,x_2):=(0,x_1,x_2)$ and $f_2(x_1,x_2):=(x_1,x_2,0)$ and $f_3(x_1,x_2):=(x_1,0,x_3)$. Then the intersections are lines and hence are manifolds by themself, but the union of the images of the $f_j$'s is not a manifold.
The question is: Are there conditions under which the union is a submanifold or not?
Of course one sufficient condition is that there is a $i$ such that $f_i(M)=\cup f_j(M)$ $i \neq j$. So the more interesting situation is, when we have $f_i(M)\neq \cup f_j(M)$ for all $i \neq j$.


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Lakers To Retire Shaq's Number
Lakers to retire Shaq's number.
HoopsVibe's Very Quick Call: Well, we knew Orlando wasn't going to do it.
It's official, the Los Angeles Lakers will retire Shaq's #34. The dedication ceremony will be on April 2. One day earlier and we would have really had some news. I can think of nothing more fitting than a dedication ceremony on April Fools Day.
Most view this as a given. The Lakers needed to retire his number seeing has he will go down in history as one of the best big men ever. His numbers speak for themselves and yet, I can't help but thinking Shaq's a little relieved. It's obviously common knowledge that Shaq left LA feuding with Kobe. Shaq bounced around the league with a number of teams, won a championship in Miami, and grew to accept his role, as a backup center.
His career stats are impressive though. Shaq's a 15-time All-Star, won 4 NBA titles (3 in LA and 1 in Miami), he finished with 28,596 points, (23.7 ppg), 13,099 rebounds (10.9 rpg), and 2,732 blocks (2.3 bpg). These are monster numbers and his per game averages were somewhat deflated by his lengthy exit strategy from the league where he played significantly past his prime and lowered those numbers.
He will be remembered for his on the court dominance, his larger than life personality, and even his off the court antics. His ex-wife has left us with the dubious pop reality of "Basketball Wives" on VH1 and Shaq's transitioned into an NBA analyst.
For more info, updates, and gossip follow @HoopsVibe.
Photo Credit: WENN


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India has one of the worlds worst annual rate of rape cases and very few of the men are ever brought before the courts. The one's that are usually get of on technicalities.
Campaigners in India are calling for tougher penalties for sex offenders after a massive rise in the number of rapes.
According to the latest government figures, a woman is now raped in India every 20 minutes.
But despite the increase in sex attacks the number of convictions is falling.
In the last 12 months, there have been a number of high profile cases which have caused outrage across the nation.


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1 Hour Changes Phils Fortunes
In the period of about one hour late on Saturday afternoon, the Phillies postseason fortunes took a turn for the worst.
Fresh from their eighth straight home win on Friday night, Doc was taking the mound on Saturday. Out in Chicago, the Cardinals were losing going into the top of the ninth. Another StL loss and Phillies win would cut the wildcard margin to 2 games.
During that hour, the Cardinals tied the game in the ninth and won it in the 10th. The Braves drove Doc from the game with seven runs in the first two innings. Atlanta pitching handed the Phillies back-to-back losses by limiting Phillies bats to five hits and three runs, one of which was unearned.
Cliff was outstanding again on Sunday and once again received no run support. He has pitched six or more innings and has not issued more than one walk in 15 consecutive startss, a modern major league record. But, he wound up with an L.
Nine games remain, including the final three home games that start on Tuesday night against the Nationals, the team with league's best record. Meanwhile, the Cardinals visit Houston for three games. There's still hope but it is slim.
While there is no game today, the wheels of motion for offseason player moves are starting to turn. Ruben, his staff and the pro scouts are meeting to review reports and options for third base, the outfield and bullpen for 2013. It will be an interesting offseason for the Phillies.
LA Scouting Report
Bill Harper, an 86-year-old scout who has been in the game for over 50 years, received the Dallas Green Scouting Award pre-game on Sunday. Scouts are unsung heroes the game.
Harper began scouting the northwest part of the country in 1970. Larry Andersen lived in that part of the country. Did Harper remember scouting LA?
"I remember him but don't quite know how high I rated him. That was a long time ago. I do remember going to a game to see him pitch and he's playing first base. After the game, I asked him when he was pitching again and he said, 'tomorrow night." I showed up and this time he was playing third base. I did see him later that spring but don't remember too many specifics."
LA was drafted by the Indians in the seventh round in 1971. In checking the Phillies first seven selections that June, only one really made it. The second rounder, a shortstop out of Ohio University, Michael Jack Schmidt.
Aren't you glad the Phillies didn't draft LA in the second round instead of Schmidt?
New Alumni Feature
60 years ago Robin Roberts did something that will never be matched in today's game….he pitched a complete game, all 17 innings.
Check out the story at www.phillies.com/alumni.
September 24, 1911: St. Louis scores in the sixth inning to break rookie RHP Grover Cleveland Alexander's 41 consecutive scoreless innings streak, a Phillies record that hasn't been broken.
Cliff has come the closest, 34 innings last season. Next on the list is 32.2 consecutive scoreless innings. That belongs to LA in 1984, the longest streak for a reliever.


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The Modula Compact Bar has been designed and manufactured in Italy. Supplied with specific mounting brackets to fit the Audi A1 (5 Door) 2012 - 2018 ensure a seamless and secure fit. Installation of these Aerodynamic Aluminium Bars is simple and quick, whilst lockable covers provide added security.
Vehicle Details:
Technical Details:
|Part Number
|Maximum Load
|75 Kg
|Roof Bar Length
|110 cm
|Roof Bar Size
|59 x 31 mm
|Security Lock
|TÜV-GS / City-Crash Approval
|1 Year
|Manufactured In
Key Benefits:
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Designed to help retailers provide a more customized in-store shopping experience for smart phone shoppers, the IBM Mobile Shopper application incorporates Honeywell (NYSE: HON) mobile scanning technology capable of scanning virtually any bar code, no matter what background it is printed on, the direction it faces, or the packaging covering it. The solution currently runs on the Google Android and Apple iOS operating systems.
According to a recent IBM Institute of Business Value study, self checkout is the preferred way to shop for most consumers today, and they are very specific about the way they want to use mobile technology while shopping. More than 50 percent say they want to use a mobile device to scan while shopping, and to do final checkout at a self-checkout station. More than 40 percent want to scan samples and retrieve shopping items for pickup, or have the items delivered directly to their homes.
"Retailers can now deliver a more personalized shopping experience that is less of a chore and more of a convenience for consumers," says John Gaydac, vice president, IBM Retail Store Solutions. "By enabling consumers to scan and check-out a wide variety of products at their own pace, retailers can not only create a more customized shopping environment, but also increase in-store traffic."
The new mobile phone application is powered by IBM ACE Store Integrator software and the newest release of IBM Self-Checkout software, which provides shoppers the same access to digital coupons, loyalty programs and special promotions at self-checkout stations that is traditionally available at fully-staffed point-of-sale checkout lanes.
The IBM Mobile Shopper, or "digital shopping assistant," incorporates Honeywell's high-performance SwiftDecoder Mobile bar code decoding software, one of many patented technologies that have helped secure the company's leadership in camera-based bar code decoding. Among them is the practice of decoding bar code-related information from a real-time video image, such as the display of a smart phone or other mobile device (U.S. patent 6,015,088).
"Honeywell has a long heritage of providing bar code scanning for mission-critical applications where inaccuracy is not an option," said John Waldron, president of Honeywell Scanning & Mobility. "Today, with IBM, we're bringing those capabilities to consumers to help make their shopping trips more efficient and productive."
The IBM Mobile Shopper solution with Honeywell mobile scanning is available immediately. For more information on Honeywell's SwiftDecoder Mobile software, please visit www.honeywellaidc.com.
# # #
About IBM
For more information about IBM's Mobile Shopper application, please visit: http://www.ibm.com/products/retail/products/self/sco6/index.html.
IBM Mobile Shopper, 4690 OS, ACE Store Integrator and IBM Smarter Checkout are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other company products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies in the U.S. and/or other countries.
IBM Mobile Shopper, 4690 OS, ACE Store Integrator and IBM Smarter Checkout are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other company products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies in the U.S. and/or other countries.
Apple is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Android is a trademark of Google Inc. IOS is a trademark or registered trademark of Cisco in the U.S. and other countries and is used under license.
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Hany + Scott
Hany & Scott were married in Janesville, WI with a reception to follow at the Janesville Country Club. Photos in this gallery are the favorites from their wedding day. More will be added in the first few days following the wedding. The couple will get the rest on disc in a few weeks. If you have any questions about this gallery please click on the contact form button above. Zak Smith & Jake Schnake were the photographers at this wedding.Read More


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Raymond Roth remains jailed after arraignment
The man who faked his own drowning last summer was jailed and ordered held without bail -- this time facing charges that he posed as a police officer and tried to order a woman to get into his van.
Raymond Roth -- who is suicidal, according to his lawyer -- pleaded not guilty Thursday to attempted kidnapping, attempted burglary and criminal impersonation. If convicted of the new felony charges, he faces up to 15 years in prison.
"Nassau County is safer with this man behind bars," prosecutor Everett Witherell said after the arraignment.
A week ago, Roth, 48, pleaded guilty to faking his death at Jones Beach in July, telling a Nassau judge that he had suffered a mental breakdown, but was "feeling much better." He had enrolled in culinary school and hoped to become a chef after serving a 90-day sentence, his lawyer said.
But that very night, police say, the Long Beach man drove his white, paneled van through the streets of Freeport pretending to be a police officer and tried to abduct a female pedestrian.
In First District Court in Hempstead Thursday, Roth was still wearing his smock and checkered pants from cooking school. After accepting the pleas, Judge Colin O'Donnell denied the defendant bail.
Roth's lawyer, Brian Davis of Garden City, said his client is on 11 different prescription drugs, most of them psychotropic. He said Roth has already attempted suicide since his Wednesday arrest. Police did not confirm that claim.
"I'm disappointed, because a lot of work went into that first case," Davis said, referring to Roth getting arrested again after the plea deal in the prior case.
Det. Lt. Robert Galgano said that on March 21, Roth drove up to a 38-year-old woman as she walked down Main Street in Freeport, identified himself as a police officer and demanded that she get in. Roth did not display a uniform or a badge, Galgano said, but gestured toward his waistband as though there was a gun there.
The woman fled into a check-cashing store, where she asked employees to let her inside their secure area, which they did, Galgano said.
Roth followed her into the store and tried to get into the secure area, Galgano said.
Employees called 911, but Roth fled before police arrived, Galgano said.
Galgano said Roth also is also being investigated in connection with two similar incidents involving female pedestrians: one in late February; the other on March 16.
Roth's original case drew national attention. Authorities said he drafted a will and then staged his own drowning in hopes that his wife, Evana and son, Jonathan, would collect $410,000 in insurance benefits. As rescue workers searched for him over four days, Roth fled to his timeshare condo near Orlando, Fla., prosecutors said.
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text: Purple Plum Blossoms #2 William Neill, Nature's Design Tags: Abstract, Botanical, Color, Corporate Office, Floral About the artist William Neill, a resident of the Yosemite National Park area since 1977, is a landscape photographer concerned with conveying the deep, spiritual beauty he sees and feels in Nature. Neill's award-winning photography has been widely published in books, magazines, calendars, posters, and his limited-edition prints have been collected and exhibited in museums and galleries nationally, … continue reading More in Nature's Design Next Image > Details Medium: Archival pigment print Date: 2018 Size: Edition: We Offer Archival matting and framing Worldwide shipping Curating and installation Share f t e Inquire Your name*Your email* Your friend's name*Your friend's email* CAPTCHA This iframe contains the logic required to handle Ajax powered Gravity Forms. Name*Email* PhoneArtist nameNotes*Notes Add me to the mailing list CAPTCHA This iframe contains the logic required to handle Ajax powered Gravity Forms.


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About Disability Insurance
"This site is designed to be educational in nature, if there is a question you came here to get answered, and you did not get it, please contact me."
Policy Provisions
Individual disability insurance is truly a basic concept. It is an insurance product designed to replace anywhere from 45-60% of your gross income on a tax-free basis should a sickness or illness prevent you from earning an income in your occupation. Your most important asset is your ability to bring home a paycheck, DI makes sure that regardless of any adverse changes to your health, you are able to provide for yourself and your family. Every disability insurance policy from every insurance company is very different, this is not a product to simply shop for the most competitive rate. To buy the cheapest disability insurance policy on the market is to throw money away. The odds of getting paid a monthly benefit under a cheap contract may be significantly lower than receiving benefits from a quality contract. The goal of this site is to provide you with a resource to make an educated decision on your own. My company does sell DI through our website Disability Insurance Quotes, but this website is strictly for informational purposes only.
I will provide you with information regarding the major features of a disability insurance policy so that you may better understand how to read a disability insurance policy. I will also provide you with links to some articles, and links to the best disability insurance websites I have found on the internet to obtain quotes.
All of the information on this web site is truly geared towards white collar occupations. Individual disability insurance for blue collar occupations is attainable through some carriers, however most of the carriers and contracts discussed on this web site do not specialize in providing coverage to blue collar occupations. If you have a blue // gray collar occupation I would recommend trying here instead.


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President Obama hasn't thrown his full support behind legalizing same-sex marriage, but he did send a card congratulating Matt Katz on his marriage in Brooklyn over the summer. It's pretty cool of the President — and also a little creepy since Katz and his husband have no idea why they received a belated thumbs up from the White House. Katz told Buzzfeed:
I'm not sure why the letter got sent to us. Aaron and I were married on July 24th at Borough Hall. However, we had our wedding ceremony on July 23rd at my dad's house the day before. Maybe word got out that we were outlaws for a day?
It's possible that a relative secretly sent a wedding invitation to the White House, but if President Obama is just sending out unsolicited greetings, he owes us quite a few birthday cards.


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Your baby's progress - Week 26
At long last your little baby could be opening her fused eyelids and taking a look around the womb.
She can see! (Well, whatever it is that a developing baby gets to see while she sloshes around in all that amniotic fluid.) Baby is now developing the blinking reflex, which she will use all her life to protect those precious eyes. Studies have shown that when a torch or strong light is shone against a mother's belly, the baby will move towards – or even away from – the light.
In fact, your baby has developed plenty of reflexes, just by virtue of hanging around in your belly. Babies develop most of the reflexes they will have at birth while they grow inside you. These include the startle reflex - baby will fling her arms and legs out at the sound of a sudden noise – and a sucking reflex where she will suck her thumb or fingers. Your precious baby will also be born knowing how to automatically do things like dive (her lungs have a reflex to automatically seal off if baby is under water, though this reflex is lost as baby grows older), suck, grasp, and turn her cheek to suckle.
Your baby's eyes might be adapting to the watery and dim world she is growing up in, but the actual colour of her eyes won't develop until she is born – eyes need light to develop the colour. Caucasian babies are likely to born with deep blue eyes, which gradually change colour as she gets older. Asian babies are often born with brown or dark grey eyes which mature and deepen to a rich brown as she gets older.
New research shows several genes determine baby's eye colour and it's impossible to predict eye colour just from the parents – so you can guess all you like, but you won't know baby's final eye colour until she is at least a few months old!
Just like adults, all babies are different and develop at varying rates in the womb. This information gives a general idea of your baby's development and progress.
This article was written by Alex Brooks for Kidspot, Australia's best pregnancy resource.


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Nigh-Invincible Dinnerware
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Joined: 20 Nov 2006
Posts: 37
Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 11:18 am
Post subject: Nigh-Invincible Dinnerware
Okay, we're now suffering from loss in our ranks, the Village Phaltzgraff dishes that I got from my Grandmother's estate are dying. The earthenware was awsome in the day, you could sit in the oven all day etc, sturdy heavy and well made. But it just hasn't done so well around the microwave, and a super hot sanitary setting on the dishwasher........it still works, but all the pieces are crazed. They've fought bravely but we lose one here, one there.....it's a shame, because I think my Grandmother collected every thing that was ever made for that pattern, some of the dishes i still am unsure of what they are for.
So I am in the market for dishes again, and I can't simply be one of those who goes out and shops by pattern. I want to shop by construction and durability.....so who can edumacate me on the best brands in dinnerware.
It must be able to take microwaves endlessly, and temps in a dishwasher just short of a blow torch. Without any crazing.
I prefer the weight of earthenware, and wonder if any stoneware will fit the bill.
Brands names? Who makes incredibly durable dinnerware.
Oh and if it's affordable, and comes in white and blue that'd be nice too.
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Joined: 26 Oct 2005
Posts: 535
Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 2:01 pm
Post subject:
I know how you feel about old family china.
In addition to looking for patterns and durability, look for the architectural shape of the plate. There are plates with wide rims like top hats, that keep your food in a small center section of the plate and the rim is flat, allowing gravies to spill over the side. I like a plate whose shape is more bowl-like. Not that it has to be deep at all, but the rim should be NARROW along the circumference and well raised along the edge of the plate. This gives you a large area to place food and the rim prevents gravy from spilling over the edge. One more thing, the plates and bowls should nest very well. I have seen patterns where four stacked soup or cereal bowls take up ten inches of height--ridiculous. Who has room to actually store are large setting when that happens?
The prime examples of well formed plates and bowls are those designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for some Japanese emperor or hotel or something, I forget, but you can see it at the Museum at Taliesin West. They look just like the shape of the (cough) Corelle settings. While the patterns are mundane, Corelle, is pretty indestructible.
For blue and white, you may want to consider the Wedgwood china. Denby has some well shaped plates and bowls also.
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Joined: 20 Nov 2006
Posts: 37
Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:25 pm
Post subject:
Wedgewood is more then a little outside my budget.
I don't need fancy, just durable, no crazing hold up to microwave and dishwasher on any settings, and preferably with some weight.....
Utilitarian, and withing a reasonable price point for everyday use......
What do you think about Corelle? Esp. Corelle "Ultra".
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Joined: 26 Oct 2005
Posts: 535
Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 5:01 am
Post subject:
Corning no longer owns Corelle. After the Borden company purchased it, they had to give up the use of the Corning name.
I grew up eating on Corelle--the pure white "pattern," which went with my mother's kitchen decor. I think their patterns in recent years have improved tremendously and many on these websites are pretty. I noticed they have a link for store locators on the shopping site.
In my experience, it is strong, relatively light weight and the new patterns I saw on the internet are pretty, and they will stand up to just about everything except being thrown onto a granite countertop or stone floor. They seemed to have survived many moderate tumbles onto the counter, though. I like the architectural shape of the vessels-plates and bowls. Everything except the tea cups nest very well and stack efficiently. It can go in the freezer, oven, microwave (except for a few specific articles--check your pattern for which ones) dishwasher, and you can wrap left-overs on the plate with saran wrap/glad/polyethylene wrap and it will adhere because it is glazed, unlike my Denby, which has a eggshell surface around the rim and plastic wrap does not adhere, which is a real pain in the butt. Check it out and let me know what you think.
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Michael Chu
Joined: 10 May 2005
Posts: 1654
Location: Austin, TX (USA)
Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 10:09 am
Post subject:
I too like Corelle for most of my dishware needs. Tina has a tendency to break things made of glass or ceramic, so she loves the Corelle. It stacks well, is strong, and looks okay. It is pretty boring especially since I gravitate toward white and simple plate shapes (mainly so I can buy more if needed without wondering if the pattern will be available in the future). Like Gary says, they stack really well as well saving a lot of space in my cupboard.
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Joined: 12 May 2005
Posts: 356
Location: Richmond, CA
Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 3:56 pm
Post subject: Re: Nigh-Invincible Dinnerware
I have your answer. This set of dinnerware is exceptionally durable, just as you specified. The construction/design is elegant, simple and will surely last more than a lifetime. I bought 6 plates, 6 soup bowls 5 years ago and they look new. A family of 4, 3 of which were home 24/7 used them these last 5 years with dishwashings every 2 days. I have large meat-hook hands and these suckers have weight and mass, loverly.
All that for 64 bux? You'd be insane not to buy it immediately.
xo, Biggles
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Joined: 26 Oct 2005
Posts: 535
Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 5:03 pm
Post subject:
WOW amazing find!
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Joined: 20 Nov 2006
Posts: 37
Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 8:01 am
Post subject:
Hmmm Now I really am torn....those look like what i was looking for originally perhaps.....
But I found these....
These are the Corelle Ultra line...which is made like traditional Corelle except instead of two layers it's like 5 they're 70% thicker then regular corelle that most people are used to, and corelle has a 3 yr warrenty but corelle ultra has a 5 year chip or break free warrenty......the thing is they're also about 65 bucks.........I kinda like the square pattern, and it has like seashell ridges in corners.....
I haven't made up my mind yet, the link you posted though has really nice extra large chili bowls........and if nothing else I think I'm gonna get those. Good weighted, large bowls that retain some heat are hard to come by.
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Joined: 26 Oct 2005
Posts: 535
Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 1:48 pm
Post subject:
the Corelle Ultra is also seen on this
I had no idea they had hefty weight Corelle these days.
If you get them, please give us a full report.
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Joined: 18 Nov 2007
Posts: 14
Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 8:06 pm
Post subject:
Another approach to consider is buying dishes from a restaurant supply company.
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Joined: 20 Nov 2006
Posts: 37
Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 11:14 pm
Post subject:
Yeah I think I'm going to try out the Corelle Ultra Scandia abuse it and see how it goes. Get more if it does well. I like the square design it both gives more space, and makes more sense in stacking for cabinet, it looks modern enough and dressy enough for a more formal meal....
Today, Corelle, while still the original break-, crack-, chip-, scratch-, and stain-resistant glass dinnerware, is also about style and flair, from its sprightly and lighter-weight Livingware and Lifestyles lines to its Corelle Ultra, which is some 70 percent thicker and weightier than the former. And in a separate category is the newest member of the tabletop family, Corelle Hearthstone, a durable stoneware collection that features bold, dramatic solids in striking square and round shapes.
Made of Vitrelle, an advanced glass material, Corelle dinnerware is formed from a ribbon of molten glass that emerges from a giant melting tank in a continuous ribbon "sandwich" consisting of a layer of white core glass with a top and bottom layer of clear glaze. The process creates a lightweight yet durable dinnerware whose resistance to breakage far exceeds that of any single glass composition.
Corelle Ultra, the recipient of a 2005 Consumers Digest Best Buy award, is a next-generation tabletop collection. Made of Vitrelle2, the tableware is 70 percent heavier than Vitrelle1. Ultra, designed to appeal to style-conscious consumers who are seeking distinctive dinnerware for everyday use and entertaining, combines Corelle's trademark design and durability with a new weight and a larger plate size.
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Joined: 26 Oct 2005
Posts: 535
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 2:00 am
Post subject:
Those corelle's look really good in that photo. I like that they are square. 22% more room for food than the same diameter round plate!! I also love the deep "well design" of the plates.
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Jack LaLanne used to always say that he couldn't die—it would ruin his image. Sadly, LaLanne passed away in January at the age of 96. LaLanne, Club Industry's Lifetime Achievement Award recipient in 2009, is credited with several firsts in the industry, including opening the first health club in the United States in 1936. Fitness celebrities Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, Richard Simmons and Denise Austin eulogized LaLanne at his memorial service.
It was a tough year for the industry, which mourned the loss of other club operators and leaders. Dale Dibble, founder of Cedardale Health & Fitness, Haverhill, MA, and one of the co-founders of IHRSA, died in December 2010 at the age of 90. Tim Richards, owner of Orchard Hills Athletic Club, Lancaster, MA, and one of the founding directors of IHRSA, died in January at the age of 69. And Steve Williams, a sales executive with Cybex and Technogym, died in April at the age of 62.


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The Free Jr. Dodgers kids club is open to kids 14 & under.
The FREE Membership Includes:
· Monthly updates on dodgers.com/jrdodgers
· First access to special events designed just for kids
· Special kid-friendly offers from the Dodgers and our Sponsors
· The opportunity to become a Jr. Dodgers Broadcaster
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Arsene Wenger advises Arsenal scout to take Shamrock Rovers chance
Arsenal scout Stephen Bradley says he was given Arsene Wenger's blessing to take over as caretaker manager of Irish club Shamrock Rovers.
Bradley, 31, a former Arsenal academy player, is now the club's main scout for Ireland and Northern Ireland.
And so when he was asked to take temporary charge of Rovers after Pat Fenlon was sacked he felt he needed to ask the Arsenal manager first.
"'I spoke to the boss and he's given me permission to do it until the end of the season," Bradley told the Irish...


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Yes, that's a tank firing while jumping through the air.
Think you have a more badass military testing video? Post it in Kinja below.
Just to be clear, no active combat videos will be taken. I'm not going to post videos of people killing each other.
(QOTD is your chance to address the day's most pressing automotive questions and to experience the opinions of the insightful insiders, practicing pundits, and gleeful gearheads that make up the Jalopnik commentariat. If you've got a suggestion for a good Question of the Day, send an email to tips at jalopnik dot com.)


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Hello Everyone! I am a 36 year old male from Upstate New York near Syracuse. I have owned animals my whole life. I currently have 4 cats and one dog which is a staffordshire terrier. My dog Kallie is 14 years old and I have had her since she was 5 weeks old. I taught her how to sit, lay down, off, shake, speak, give kisses when asked but she likes to take that into her own hands all the time and just give lickings . I also have rescued a couple dogs in my life time from being euthanized. One dog I rescued was a black lab that was a drop off at my parents house. I knew that he was going to be put down if I didnt go and rescue him from the dog warden. I took him in and vetted him and took care of him until I found a great home for him. Another dog I took in was a abuse case. These teenagers was abusing this dog and the animal control was comming to take him away. I knew that if I didnt take the dog and he didnt get adopted out that he would be euthanized. I took the dog in had him full vetted and then found him a great home.
I grew up owning various different breeds of dogs from doxins to rottweillers to staffordshires and the list gos on. I have also owned my share of lizzards, amphibians, fish, turtles, cats, small furry animals etc. After owning my first staffordshire terrier I fell in love with the breed. I do love all muscle dogs like the american bull dogs, mastiffs, bull mastiffs, rotweillers, english bull dogs etc.
I just found this site PitBull Talk and from what I have seen so far and read I think its a great site. I am sure I will beneft fromt reading the posts and hopefully shine some light where it is needed. Thank you!


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Joe Kennedy…..We Were Lucky to Have Known You…..Truly Lucky
I had just gotten home from work and decided to pop on Yahoo sports to see what was going on Today. It being a day after the stuffed mushroom and pecan pie debauchery, I was looking for the lighter side of sports for some comfort.
Was hoping to find out that A-rod was crying poverty over the Yanks' latest contract offer to Mario Riviera.
What I found sunk me in my chair and put a huge knot in my stomach. It also made me rethink my personal life for the ump-teenth time this year since a similar tragedy in Oct 2006 took another of my favorite players in Devilrays history to an untimely death.
I hate it when a young ball player dies when he is about to hit the prime, or reinvent himself in their career. Some hit that invisible wall of physical and mental parts not able to endure the rigors and challenges of Professional sports. Sometimes their body just can't take anymore, even at a young age.
Some have had past abuses either with steroids or muscle enhancements rob them of their current and post career lives. Some just hit a mental roadblock that can not be corrected by human means.
The ones that really hit home and destroy me inside is the way that life ended the life of ex-Ray Joe Darley Kennedy. Media thoughts are running that Joe might have suffered an aneurysm or heart attack during the night. We will have to wait for the final results.
Joe had announced his free agency after this years' World Series, and all indications were that the Toronto Blue Jays' and their team president Paul Godfrey wanted Joe Kennedy for their 2008 staff.
Kennedy was in town for the holidays at his wife's parents home, and was to be the best man at a wedding sometime during his stay here in the Tampa area. He had gotten up in the middle of the night and had collapsed to the floor. An ambulance rushed to Brandon Medical Center, but Kennedy was pronounced dead at the ER..
This is the second Oakland Athletic to suffer a tragic and unexpected death since October 2006. Ex-Rays and A's teammate Cory Lidle, had tragically perished in a plane accident after the Yankees exit from the playoffs in 2006
One of my first blogs on here was a tribute to Cory Lidle. He was another player who befriended me during his tenure with the Rays, and I looked for him every year when his team would make a visit to the Trop. I did the same for Joe Kennedy every time he came here for a series.
Joe was only 28 years old, but had already been a front end starting pitcher with our Rays. He had thrown for over 908 innings in the Majors, and had 558 career K's.
He was selected in the 1998 Amateur player draft in the 8th round, out of Grossmont (Calif.) J C and went immediately to the minor leagues for the Devilrays. He quickly rose through the Rays' minor league organization. Joe was a combined 6-0, with a .099 ERA with Orlando and Durham before getting called up to the big club ( Devilrays ) on June 2, 2001.
He made his Major League debut on June 6th against the Blue Jays in Toronto and won 6-2 . He appeared in 20 games that season. During that Rookie season, Joe had 12 quality starts, only CC Sabathia of the Indians had a better stats( 13). Joe was also 3rd in Rookies with a 4.44 ERA.
He was also the first Major League player since Kip Wells of the Pirates to win both his first two career starts. Joe was also the first Devilrays in franchise history to perform this feat.
In 2001, Joe pitched in 196 innings and struck out 109 opponents. These numbers would be his Devilrays best, but only his second best career totals of his brief Major League career.
In 2003, Joe progressed to the point of being announced as the Opening Day starter. I found Kennedy to be the kind of pitcher who would not be afraid to go inside on a batter or " buzz the tower" if needed. Every good pro has a mean streak in them.
I can attest to personally knowing that the guy was a true professional and enjoyed his time here with the Rays. I spoke to Joe on occasions during BP and always found him to be funny and very intelligent.
I guess I was one of those people who knew that Joe would be traded at some point in his career, but had hope it was after he had garnished that 10-win plateau with the Devilrays.
Joe might have seemed soft spoken and reserved to the crowds at the Trop., but he was a fierce competitor and was always going to the mound with the belief he could to win every game. That was a quality that I greatly admired in him. Going out with the idea you are going to win every time you take the rubber.
I know you are going to say that every pitcher does that, but in truth, they might in their words, but in their minds there might not be that total commitment. Joe always felt he could win, that that is the basic mindset of a great pitcher.
After Joe left the Rays and pitched for the Colorado Rockies, he got close to that 10-win plateau. Joe only got 9 wins in 2004, but produced 117 strikeouts for the year. He was traded to the Oakland A's during the All Star break where he was again considered a valuable member of the pitching rotation. He garnered a 2.31 ERA in 2006, a career best for Joe. In 2006, he was rewarded with the number five slot in the starting rotation.
In 2007, Joe found himself as number 5 man in the rotation, and fell upon bad times and was put in the A's bullpen and working only late inning and situational opportunities. He got another opportunity with the Arizona Diamondbacks (3 games), and the Toronto Blue Jays (9 games) during the past 2007 season.
Joe produced 43 victories in his short career, but his last one was fitting. He received his 43rd win versus his old Rays team on September 29, 2007. Joe had the fantastic pleasure of becoming a Dad this past year and was looking forward to time with Kaige and his wife before the Feb. mandatory reporting date for pitchers' and catchers.
I will miss seeing Joe Kennedy pitch. More for the fact that he was a true professional and was always in the game both mentally and physically. I know he was just hitting the stride in his career and could have produced some great numbers as a member of that Blue Jays staff in 2008.
Joe is survived by his wife and new son Kaige and currently lived in the Denver area.
I hope that there is an afterlife. I can then again see people like Cory and
Joe pitch and have that pure vision of seeing their ear to ear smile or grin knowing they were doing something they truly loved to do in life.
God Bless you Joe Kennedy, ………………I will be in Right Field watching you play in that league someday myself….. And I will always cheer for you as a truly great person and pitcher
Play Ball!


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This technology allows it to see through wood, cement, brick, glass, etc. When an intruder enters the guarded area, it automatically begins barking like an angry dog. From outside, it sounds like you have a very unfriendly dog inside. It also can announce visitors with a chime or alarm. The radar sensitivity is adjustable from 10-20 feet. Volume is also adjustable.
Dimensions 6 x 7 x 4 3/4. Powered by AC power supply. Also takes 8 AA back-up batteries (not included) in case of power loss. Unit needs to face in the direction you want to detect motion. Detection is limited from the sides and rear.
The included remote control lets you Arm and Disarm the system, as well as set off a Panic alarm. You can also connect up to 16 additional sensors (HA-MOTION or HA-SENSOR) to monitor larger areas.