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Here we are again, ready to liveblog the fall general meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, just as we did last year. (If you've opened this page mid-session, make sure you refresh your browser often to get the latest updates.)
Our thanks to Telecare, the television ministry of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, N.Y., for livestreaming the meeting from Baltimore.
* * *
4:50 p.m.: Wrapping up for the day with Our Father and Hail Mary, then adjournment.
4:46 p.m.: "A principled position, not a political one," he says. Also criticizes NYTimes editorial decrying bishops' efforts.
4:44 p.m.: Bishop Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., chair of the committee most responsible for formulating USCCB position on health care reform, now addressing bishops. Thanks staff for hard work.
4:43 p.m.: And it is endorsed by the bishops.
4:39 p.m.: Presenting his statement issued last week after House vote for backing by the entire body of bishops. (Full text here.)
4:37 p.m.: Not on agenda, but Cardinal George is thanking members of the House of Representatives who voted to maintain restrictions on abortion funding in health care bill.
4:35 p.m.: Archbishop Dolan concludes by thanking bishops for listening to him "brag" about CRS.
4:21 p.m.: Another annual report, this time on Catholic Relief Services, presented by the chairman of the board, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York.
4:10 p.m.: Cardinal Rigali of Philadelphia now giving presentation on proposed document, "Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology." Here's our preview story.
4:02 p.m.: Preliminary discussion on the bishops' proposed pastoral letter on marriage.
3:53 p.m.: Here again we have a preview on what the bishops are trying to revise in their health care directives.
3:49 p.m.: Now on to preliminary discussion on a proposed revision to "Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care."
3:41 p.m.: Here's our story on Cardinal George's address this afternoon opening the meeting.
3:37 p.m.: If you're having a hard time following the liturgy issues being discussed right now, here's a backgrounder on these five action items.
3:24 p.m.: Back in session. First up, preliminary presentations on five liturgy-related action items. The bishops will not vote today — this is just preliminary discussion.
3:01 p.m.: Related to the meeting, we've just posted our story on the bishops' commemoration of the assassination 20 years ago today of six Salvadoran Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter.
2:57 p.m.: Coffee break. Cardinal George wants everyone back at 3:20 to resume.
2:53 p.m.: Father O'Connell gets a standing ovation as he says good-bye and thanks the bishops for the privilege of serving them as president of "your university."
2:43 p.m.: President of The Catholic University of America, Father David O'Connell, giving his annual update to the bishops. Notes that this is his last address to the bishops before stepping down next August.
2:42 p.m.: Archbishop Sambi concluding his talk. Hope to get the full text later.
2:27 p.m.: If you're looking for background on the meeting agenda, here's our preview story. And the bishops' media office last Friday published this backgrounder called "What's What at the Bishops' Meeting."
2:18 p.m.: Cardinal George concludes his address. Now up is the annual address by the pope's representative to the U.S., Archbishop Pietro Sambi.
2:15 p.m.: Quotes his predecessor, Cardinal Bernardin, on the importance of health care protecting all people, including the unborn.
2:10 p.m.: Cardinal George is emphasizing the importance of the priesthood in this Year for Priests.
2:07 p.m.: VP of bishops' conference, Bishop Kicanas of Tucson, is introducing Cardinal George for the latter's presidential address, a sort of a "state of the church" speech that always opens the bishops' fall meeting.
2:02 p.m.: You can also follow the meeting on the Twitter page of the USCCB media relations office.
1:58 p.m.: National Advisory Council report being given now. Council is a body of laity, religious, priests and bishops that give advice to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on issues facing the bishops. Here's some background on the council.
1:45 p.m.: Routine opening business, intro of new members, intro of retired bishops who are attending. There'll be a prayer for deceased bishops, approval of agenda, approval of minutes from previous meeting, before any other action takes place.
1:40 p.m.: That's Bishop Edward J. Burns, of Juneau, Alaska, leading the opening prayer.


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subset: commoncrawl


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Sean Paul has been busy promoting his latest album Tomahawk Technique overseas and has been a little behind on new music. During an interview with 101.5 JAMZ/Phoenix he admitted he didn't know who Psy was.
"That dude is funny as heck. I didn't know about this dude and my cousin was like, 'What do you think about this dude?'" Sean Paul recalled. "I'm like, 'What are you talking about?' She's like, 'Yeah he was on the MTV Awards.'"
Once he watched Psy's "Gangnam Style" he was speechless.
"Then I checked him out and was like, 'No way. This dude is nuts!' It sounds like he's saying 'Open Condom Star," he said. "I don't know if that's the reason everybody likes it. It's crazy. It's a banging beat. It almost sounds Jamaican."
With his own single going to No. 1 in Switzerland, Sean Paul had nothing but praise for his new album Tomahawk Technique.
"I think it's the cutting edge. If you're listening close you might bleed it's that sharp," he joked. "It's good stuff."
Having traveled to France, Germany, Spain and Japan to promote his release Sean revealed he also has his hand in producing music.
"I'm producing now. I produced one track on this album it's called 'Roll wid di Don,'" he said. "That's what I'm concentrating on. This album I was working on all last summer and I finished late November last year and then I was ready to go. It's taken a whole year. [It's all] music for me."
-Annie Reuter, CBS Local
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Camp of good hope
Drug cartels have a stranglehold on Honduras and San Pedro Sula is one of the world's most dangerous cities. Thanks to a Lufthansa help alliance project, street kids now have a chance of a better future there.
He repaired the old iron himself. Yester is now using it to press the final creases out of his school shirt. It looks good, his new life. The ceiling fan vainly attempts to banish the sultry, 37-degree air. Latino hip-hop, Bad Bunny and Nicky Jam pound from computer speakers. Due to a sick teacher, today's exam was postponed. Yester is a student at one of the best schools for electrotechnology in Honduras. That's quite unusual for a street kid like him, a half-orphan whose worldly belongings fit into a small locker.
José Yester Orellana Gomez, 21, is a slight, but muscular young man with intelligent eyes. He grew up fatherless in Barrio Armenta, one of the poorest slums in San Pedro Sula, the second-largest city in Honduras and one of the most dangerous in the world. San Pedro Sula is the stronghold of the mara, Central America's most brutal gang. Yester was three when his brother was born, but his mother, poor and desperate, gave the baby to another family. As soon as he could walk, little Yester helped his mother in the fields, where she worked as a day laborer. But she beat him anyway. Once, after beating his head bloody, she even poured kerosene into the wound and tried to set him alight. The scar still shimmers through his short black hair. Yester's inner wounds are invisible. He fled to his impoverished grandparents, lived on the streets in the center of San Pedro Sula for a few months, sold CDs, repaired shoes. He learned to be alone. Later, he often wondered why his mother didn't love him.
Yester learned how it felt to be hugged at the children's village
Death and violence are a routine part of life in Honduras. Armenta is controlled by the MS-13, one of the mara gangs that have the country in a stranglehold. Their name derives from marabunta, "army ant" in Spanish. Army ants suddenly fall upon and invade new areas, destroying everything around them. Weapons, drug and human trafficking, contract killings, kidnapping, prostitution, extortion (in the form of a "war tax") all pour millions of dollars into the gang leaders' coffers. The battle for money and power is bitter, and rival gangs terrorize the neighborhoods. Maras generally die before reaching the age of 30 – with a bullet to the head. "Eres. O no eres" – in Armenta you are mara, or you are not, but then it's better to go and live elsewhere. Everyone knows someone who was murdered. Yester, too.
One night, they hanged his friend Manuelito from a tree. Manuelito was just 15 and a banderín, not a fully fledged member of the mara, just a minder and dealer. He hadn't yet undergone the initiation rites – a 13-second beating from every member of the gang and stabbing a random outsider to death. Manuelito wanted out. "They had been watching us for days," Yester recalls. He was scared he would be next. A street vendor told him about a children's home, and it gave him shelter and sent him to the Acción Humana de la Luz Eterna (AHLE) organization in San Francisco de Yojoa, an hour's drive away.
AHLE was set up in 1994 by the Hamburg lawyer Alexander Valentin as a private foundation to help street kids in Honduras. In 2000, it began to build a children's village for boys, where they could be safe. In 2012, after meeting Valentin, Lufthansa Captain Michael Langer began to champion the project. In 2015, he applied to the Lufthansa charity help alliance for funding. Langer is also the coordinator between help alliance and the project. The village was where Yester met his new family and learned how it felt to be hugged. "AHLE was the best thing that ever happened to me. Without it, I might not be dead, but I would be very poor and I would have no future."
"What hope is there for children who have no parents? For those whose mothers were shot dead before their very eyes, who fight in the streets? We want them to learn to trust again, we want them to be able to be children again," says AHLE director Marvin Javier López, 42. The social worker, teacher, manager, leader, and father is the person who keeps everything going. He's fearless where his children are concerned, and respected by everyone. He is the person a neighbor will call in the middle of the night because her husband is drunk again and brawling: He will drive over and settle things. If a grandmother on her deathbed in the hospital in San Pedro Sula wants to go home, he will take her to her family. López once confronted a member of the mara who had just given an AHLE youngster an expensive smartphone so that he could warn him if the police turned up. That's the first step to becoming a banderín. López pushed the phone right back into the gangster's hand in a gesture that said: Stay away from these children.
Marvin López was once a street kid himself. When he talks to his 70 boys, they believe what he says because he is one of them. They trust him, too. "Still, I can never be sure. Some kids live here for years and I think I know them. Then one morning, I find they have vanished, have returned to the mara, are gone." His eyes betray how much that hurts. For him, the job is about prevention. If a boy is already a full member of the mara, López won't take him in. Around one third of the boys living in the village are former banderíns. López sees organized crime and corruption as the country's biggest challenge. Without him, life in San Francisco de Yojoa would be worse in very many ways.
The children's home is like a peaceful island in an ocean of despair. Palms line the path. On the right, an American flag is flying, a Honduran flag droops with heat beside it and the children are raising a German flag after having turned it right side up. The sound of cheering carries across from the sports ground along with music from the gym. There's a pool and a small auto repair garage. On a plot of earth, the older boys are growing bananas, yucca and oranges. The rabbits have given birth, their young are tiny bundles of fur in the children's hands. The dogs Maggie and Max are being given a bubble bath. Pool? Gym? What sounds like luxury is also an attempt to become less dependent on donations. The village gates are open during the day and local farmers dry their chicory crop on the hot concrete of the sports ground. The pool is rented out for weddings, and people from the neighborhood use gym. Yucca roots are sold and surplus food is distributed. Close ties exist between the foundation and the village community. Each helps the other.
Sitting on the bottom bunk in his room, Yester is studying. When new children move in, they often sleep on the ground at first. Like all the older kids, Yester has a "little brother" he's
responsible for. The AHLE residents are ages six to 21. Along with a team of 20 supervisors, they take care of the chores. The day in the mini-village begins at five a.m. Yester will soon
be a qualified electrician. Next year, he would like to work on a cruise ship, see the world, save up some money and come back to Honduras to buy some land, build a house and install his own electricity. He would like to keep chickens and pigs, grow coffee and fruit, work as an electrician, marry and have two children. It's years now since he had any contact with the brother that his mother gave away; he is a banderín. "It's safer for me this way," he says. But Yester has two younger brothers, 9 and 13, and he wants to help them later on. "Most of all, I want them to learn a trade," he says, so that they can follow his example. Yester, the former street kid, isn't scared anymore. And he's no longer alone.
help alliance is the aid organization of the Lufthansa Group and its employees, and the mainstay of the airline's social commitment. A limited liability non-profit company formed in 1999 by 13 Lufthansa employees, help alliance runs some 30 projects across the world, most of them designed to provide young people with job training and a chance for a better life. Every cent donated goes straight to the projects.


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As in persistence metadata, mapping metadata uses the
element and its
name attribute to
identify persistent classes. Mapping metadata, however, expands the
class element with the
table attribute specifies the name of the table
whose rows represent instances of this class. If the table is in a
non-default schema, you can specify this attribute as
<schema-name>.<table-name>. This
attribute is optional, because not all classes must be mapped to unique
tables. We explore the mapping of classes to tables in more depth in
Section 15.8, "Inheritance".
Sometimes, some of the fields in a class are mapped to secondary
tables. In that case, use the class'
attribute to name what you consider the class' primary table. Later,
we will see how to map certain fields to other tables.
The example below maps classes to tables according to the following
diagram. Note that the abstract
Contract class
is left unmapped. The
TRIAL_SUB, and
LINE_ITEM tables are in the
CNTRCT schema; all other tables are in the default
Note that the example does not include our model's
Address class in the mapping metadata document.
In Chapter 5, Metadata, we defined
Address as an embedded only class.
That means that
Address instances are only
stored as part of other records; therefore
Address does not have its own mapping.
Example 15.2. Mapping Classes
<?xml version="1.0"?> <orm> <package name="org.mag"> <sequence name="ArticleSeq" datastore-sequence="ART_SEQ"/> <class name="Magazine" table="MAG"> ... </class> <class name="Article" table="ART"> ... </class> </package> <package name="org.mag.pub"> <sequence name="AuthorSeq" factory-class="Author$SequenceFactory"/> <class name="Company" table="COMP"> ... </class> <class name="Author" table="AUTH"> ... </class> </package> <package name="org.mag.subscribe"> <sequence name="ContractSeq" strategy="transactional"/> <class name="Contract"> ... </class> <class name="Subscription" table="CNTRCT.SUB"> ... </class> <class name="LifetimeSubscription"> ... </class> <class name="TrialSubscription" table="CNTRCT.TRIAL_SUB"> ... </class> <class name="Subscription$LineItem" table="CNTRCT.LINE_ITEM"> ... </class> </package> </orm>


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The Day We Lost Atlanta
How 2 lousy inches of snow paralyzed a metro area of 6 million.
On Tuesday, snowfall of just over 2 inches shut down metropolitan Atlanta's roads, schools, churches, government offices and businesses. Thousands of flights were cancelled at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. More than 2,000 school children were separated from their parents, and spent the night in buses, police stations, or classrooms. It seemed that the only places open were Waffle House and Home Depot, the former serving hash browns and coffee and the latter opening up its stores as makeshift shelters. People who didn't camp out in supermarket aisles and hotel lobbies were trapped in cars for 10, 16, 20 hours as they tried to make commutes that normally take just 30 minutes.
Surely to everyone else in the world, the staggering sight of one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States brought to a standstill by a few flurries seemed comical at first. Oh, those Southerners, they don't know how to drive in the snow! Indeed, as I tried to get home from work Tuesday evening, my tires spinning uselessly in an icy patch just yards from Peachtree Street, a trio of tourists snapped camera-phone pictures and laughed. I'm sure my Honda's enshrined on someone's Facebook page with a witty caption. Inevitably, people began to compare the gridlocked cars heading out of downtown Atlanta to the Walking Dead poster, Southerners trapped by a "snowpocalypse" instead of the zombie variety.
Story Continued Below
But before nightfall, the situation in Atlanta had grown more tragic than comic. A baby was delivered by her father in a car on I-285, the "Perimeter" highway that circles the city. Parents en route to pick up kids dismissed from school early were stranded on highways. The Facebook group #SnowedOutAtlanta contained desperate pleas from moms trapped in frigid minivans with toddlers and adults worried about their elderly parents—stuck without medications.
What happened in Atlanta this week is not a matter of Southerners blindsided by unpredictable weather. More than any event I've witnessed in two decades of living in and writing about this city, this snowstorm underscores the horrible history of suburban sprawl in the United States and the bad political decisions that drive it. It tells us something not just about what's wrong with one city in America today but what can happen when disaster strikes many places across the country. As with famines in foreign lands, it's important to understand: It's not an act of nature or God—this fiasco is manmade from start to finish. But to truly get what's wrong with Atlanta today, you have to look at these four factors, decades in the making.
1. Atlanta, the city, should not be confused with Atlanta, the region.
Distinguishing between the city proper and the metro region is no semantic quibble. The city itself, population just over a half million, represents only a fraction of the metro's 6 million residents. Kasim Reed, mayor of Atlanta, is the face you see on CNN and the guy called out by Al Roker, but he's only one of more than 60 mayors of the towns and cities that make up the Atlanta region, which, depending on whose metric you use consists of 10, 15, or 28 counties (each with their own executive officers).
Metro Atlanta's patchwork of local governments is rooted in early Georgia history; the state has more counties—159—than any other in the country, save Texas. But while other metro areas strove to consolidate city and county operations in the mid-to late twentieth century, Atlanta grew more balkanized. In the 1970s, while then-mayor Richard Lugar helped to consolidate Indianapolis with Marion County, creating Unigov and making Indianapolis one of the largest cities in the country, the city of Atlanta witnessed an exodus of 160,000 people. The white flight of the 1960s and 1970s, triggered by integration of schools and housing, was followed by reverse migration as blacks from the Northeast and Midwest returned to the Atlanta region but opted to move into the suburbs of DeKalb, Fulton and Clayton counties. Atlanta the city, became—and despite a slow uptick in population, remains—the commercial district to which people commute from Atlanta, the suburbs.
So on Tuesday, as schools, businesses and governments, announced plans to close early, everyone who works in Atlanta headed for the freeways to get home or collect their children. In a press conference Wednesday morning, Mayor Reed reported that one million vehicles were part of the mass exodus from downtown. We're not morons, Northerners: The problem was not one of Southerners' inability to drive on icy roads, but of too many cars headed for congested highways. And that brings us to the next history lesson.


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Home, sweet home
They left Merano to seek their fortune in the big, wide world, but many creatives have now come home to South Tyrol.
In his kitchen on the third floor of a rectangular tower silo in an industrial park, Harry Thaler opens the plywood flap above the brass sink to reveal a gaping hole. "Scared of heights?," the industrial designer throws over his shoulder as he climbs onto the flimsy fire escape leading to the roof. Thaler has turned the lower stories into office space complete with panoramic windows, concrete walls and a cast-iron spiral staircase. Above his head there's nothing but the sky, a picture-perfect blue.
Such a scene would be easily imaginable in London, Amsterdam or Berlin, but instead of gazing across a sea of buildings, Thaler looks out at trees, Alpine meadows and in the distance, the city of his birth: Meran (aka Merano). Over 1000 years old, once a South Tyrolean stronghold, then a popular spa retreat, Merano is now a place to which former residents return.
After ten years in the British capital, Harry Thaler returned to Merano in the summer of 2017. Back then, he couldn't wait to escape the geranium-lined balconies of his hometown, so he left to study product design at London's Royal College of Art. As a student, he designed the Pressed Chair – "my pension fund," as he jokingly calls it, a chair made of thin aluminum that now comes in eleven colors and sells worldwide. After graduating, he moved into a studio in Hackney because he thought needed a prestigious address. Today, despite living in an industrial zone on the outskirts of Merano, he has customers in Copenhagen, London and Munich. Why did he come back? The 43-year-old strokes his four-day beard before laconically responding: "Quality of life," adding that you could leave the big city and still enjoy the amenities it offered, just not at the same level: "good restaurants, a functioning infrastructure, interesting shops." Innsbruck is only 155 kilometers away, Milan, 300. And tradespeople are easy to get a hold of. Thaler holds up his thumb and pinkie as if talking on the phone: "If I need a carpenter or a blacksmith, I know exactly whom to call." Many small manufacturers have opened shop near Merano, many of them family enterprises whose work ethic and craftsmanship he can depend on. In London, Thaler says, he couldn't even find a decent plumber.
Fashion designer Dimitri Panagiotopoulos, 42, had a similar experience. After living abroad for many years, working for Vivienne Westwood in England, and in Germany for Jil Sander in Hamburg and Hugo Boss in Metzingen, where he missed his previous employer's unconventional style, he went into business for himself "back home" in Merano, starting his own label, Dimitri, not far from the Passer River, on Sandplatz square, where he used to walk as a child, his Greek father holding one hand, his Italian mother the other. Back then, he already knew that this was where he wanted to live some day. Now No. 2, a pastel-colored building with ornamented bay windows, houses his showroom. Most of his main producers are regional; he buys in fabrics from Como and shoes from -Florence. His dressmaker's studio is right next to the showroom with his form-fitting evening gowns made of, say, flowing pink silk organza.
At first, everyone thought he was a Russian exile creating extravagant gowns far from the motherland – even the millionaires from Moscow, who spend ungodly sums detoxing at the cosmopolitan Hotel Palace before buying a new dress – were convinced this was so, and so Dimitri became a local hero. Panagiotopoulos also shows his creations in Berlin and Vienna, and supplies loyal customers online. In Merano, he is now earning the money to go traveling for a year: Cape Town, Dubai and Mykonos are top of his list, he says.
Like Thaler, Panagiotopoulos left South Tyrol in search of big-city nightlife, anonymity and inspiration. Like Thaler, he returned when the promises dried up. Some people require a bustling environment to be creative. Thaler and Panagiotopoulos prefer clearly arranged order. Merano isn't too loud, it isn't too stressful, and it provides space for thought and creativity. In our globalized world, where Skype is used for meetings and people exchange ideas on Instagram, creativity is no longer connected to any particular place.
What makes Merano so attractive are also the different temperaments. Here, Austro-German efficiency and punctuality meet Italian sensuality and flair for style and design. Street names are bilingual too: Feldweg and Via dei Campi, Sandplatz and Piazza della Rena. This lively mix of cultures also appeals to media tycoon Tyler Brûlé. The London-
based, Canadian founder of Wallpaper and Monocle has become a tastemaker for frequent travelers. His preferences have always run toward smaller cities – especially near the Alps. The 50-year-old opened an office in Zürich several months ago and vacations in Bad Gastein. In Merano, he opened a Monocle shop, one of six in small cities. Brûlé even bought an apartment in Merano and had it furnished by Harry Thaler. The city was nonplussed. What drew him to Merano? Evidently the same things that drew Thaler: He loves being close to the mountains and having good restaurants five minutes away, no traffic congestion, uncrowded subways – room to breathe. Like on the terrace of the Meteo restaurant on the banks of the Passer, where guests enjoy succulent venison goulash overlooking the rushing river. Or at Luis Haller's Schlosswirt Forst that boasts a rustic atmosphere on the outside and modern cuisine, kohlrabi tortelli, truffle risotto and the like within. Haller is a returnee too, of course. After stints in Milan, Tuscany and at the Michelin-starred Vendôme in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany, he has been back cooking in Merano for a couple of years.
Linda Egger left Merano in the early 1980s to study art in Florence. Ten years later she returned to work at a contemporary art gallery. Today, sporting short gray hair, a white shirt and rolled-up pant cuffs, she manages the Monocle shop, which sells Japanese bags, French socks and South Tyrolean glassware. To get to the shop from Atelier Dimitri in the lower part of the city, the medieval center with its famous arcades, you walk up to the Obermais district and on up Via Cavour, which looks a little bit like Beverly Hills in miniature with its winding lanes, discreet driveways and ocher-colored mansions. It's a lovely 20-minute walk past a monument to Sissi (Empress Elizabeth of Austria), who made Merano her summer retreat in the late 1800s and so awakened the city from a century of hibernation.
As the aristocrats followed the empress, so design aficionados make the trip to Linda Egger's shop. "I often wonder what it's like to live by the sea," she jokes, referencing the city's most obvious flaw. "But then I think about the good life I'm living in Merano." Every evening, she drives 20 minutes to "her mountain," telling nobody which one she means. She enjoys
the mild, sunny climate to which Merano owes the exotic flora in the Botanical Gardens of Trauttmansdorff Castle. "It's not bad at all," she says, giving me a wink and a hug. What word would best describe how she's feeling right now? "Happy!"
Happy in Merano
Spend the night at Landhaus Ottmannsgut and doze beneath lemon trees during the day.
Farm-fresh cooking: Family Obertegger makes delicious food using their own products.
Pop singer Tracy Merano loves performing in her hometown clubs best of all.
Merano has many canals, and a good way to see the city is to walk one of its 11 canal trails.
In March, Lufthansa flies to Milan (MXP) up to six times daily from Frankfurt (FRA) and up to five times daily from Munich (MUC). Austrian Airlines flies up to five times daily from Frankfurt (FRA) to Innsbruck (INN). Use the app to calculate your miles: miles-and-more.com/app


text:
Hi there,
Just started this new thread, because I'm simply wondering: does it ever stop?
I have been twitching now for almost a year (it started the 23th of May 2013). Since that day, I have been twitching 24 hours a day, almost every 2 or 3 seconds. It's driving me crazy. When I'm busy, I don't feel it that much, but as soon as I'm relaxing in the sun, or in the evening when I lie in my bed, I feel the twitching everywhere and every time. Today my whole toe was moving because of it.
I really hate it. Is this how the rest of my life will be? I'm 37, the thought that this twitching will stay here forever is getting me depressed.
What are the experiences here? Does it ever stop? And if not, how do you all cope with that?


text:
We don't understand people who don't like surprises. Especially when that surprise is an appearance in the pre-show from the kids of "Stranger Things."
Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin all stopped by to crash the 2016 Emmys. While only those enjoying the pre-show inside could see the dance party, some tweeted the performance for the world to enjoy. It's actually the sweetest way ever to start the Emmys. They all hugged at the end, and the crowd, of course, applauded and cheered.
Emmys 2016: Instagrams &Twitpics
The three of them performed "Uptown Funk" by Bruno Mars, and their performance was both adorable and amazing.
Copyright E! Online


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The 30th anniversary of the Falklands War between Britain and Argentina continues to cause rumbles. As I've mentioned here before, Sean Penn has weighed in and Prince William has recently been deployed there with the RAF causing Argentine hackles to be raised.
Now comes this very interesting poll by ICM for The Guardian. The headline? 61 per cent of Britons say, "Britain should protect the Falklands so long as the islanders want protecting, no matter what the cost".
Given the war weariness here over Afghanistan it is remarkable that Brits say they would be willing to wage yet another war to defend the Falklands.
This post originally appeared in Global Post.
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This document provides basic instructions for quickly deploying Java EE applications and modules, and JSP and HTML files. It also provides pointers to tools for system administrators. The deployment procedures on this page are recommended for use in development environments only; the procedures are not recommended for use in production environments. For additional information on developing and deploying applications on WebLogic Server, see Developing Applications for Oracle WebLogic Server and Deploying Applications to Oracle WebLogic Server.
Complete the Oracle WebLogic Server Installation Guide before using these Fast Track procedures.
To deploy a Java EE application or module:
Make sure that the Java EE application or module does not require additional resources such as named JDBC data sources or JMS queues. If the application requires external resources, you must configure them in the target WebLogic Server domain before deploying the application.
Copy the archive file or exploded archive directory for the Java EE application or module into the
/autodeploy directory of the examples server domain directory,
Start the Examples WebLogic Server instance. In Windows, you can use the Start Menu shortcut: Start Examples Server.
Access the application using either a Java client or the configured URI for the application.
When running in development mode, WebLogic Server automatically deploys applications copied into the /autodeploy subdirectory of the domain directory. Auto-deployment is a simple and quick method of deploying an application for testing or evaluation. See Auto-Deployment.
System Administrators can use the following tools to get started:
Administration Console
The Administration Console is a browser-based Web application that allows you to configure and monitor your WebLogic Server domain, server instances, and running applications and their associated resources. You can also use the Administration Console to create new server instances and clusters and tune application descriptors. More information.
After you log into the Console using the credentials you provided during installation, click the Help button or How do I ...? links for additional information.
Configuration Wizard
Use the WebLogic Server Configuration Wizard to create new domains, and to create templates for automating domain configuration. More information.
To deploy a simple JSP or HTML file:
Make sure your JSP file does not reference a tag library or other external resources—such resources require additional deployment steps that are beyond the scope of these Fast Track procedures. HTML files do not have this restriction.
Copy your JSP or HTML file into the
/samples/server/examples/build/mainWebApp directory.
Start the Examples WebLogic Server instance. In Windows, you can use the Start Menu shortcut: Start Examples Server.
In a Web browser, request the JSP or HTML file using the following URL:
localhost is the host name of the machine running WebLogic Server.
port is the port number where WebLogic Server is listening for requests (7001 by default).
myFile is the full name, including the .jsp or .html extension, of the JSP or HTML file you copied in step 2.
The JSP or HTML file has been automatically deployed from a directory preconfigured to target the Examples Server.
mainWebApp is deployed by default and you can place your own JSP and HTML files into the
mainWebApp exploded directory in order to quickly view or test them.


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If you can't afford a Ferrari Maranello or even the new Maserati Spyder convertible, why not go for a Ducati motorcycle? The Duc to have at the moment is the S4 Carl Fogarty, a limited-edition, kicked-up version of the S4 Monster. Briton Fogarty held four world titles in the World Superbike Competition riding for Ducati, and the Italian manufacturer, based in Bologna, decided now was a good time to honor the retired wonder.
The S4 Carl Fogarty is basically the same as the recently released "bad boy" S4. Both have 916 engines with a lighter, more rigid frame as well as an upgraded rear suspension with an aluminum swing arm that standard Monsters don't have. This, according to Ducati, gives the machines a slightly larger wheelbase, which makes the S4 a little bit taller than the other Monsters and gives the rider leaner angles for sweeping curves. The gearing in the transmission is set up for quicker acceleration and an upgraded braking system has been added to improve overall performance.
The main differences between the S4 normale and the Carl Fogarty are cosmetic. While the former looks dark and high tech, the latter is bright and very Italiano, with most of the fittings, other than frame and mechanics, painted in bright red and white. There's also a Fogarty logo on the nose fairing and gas tank as well as a Ducati Corse shield. Performance-wise, the Fogarty gives a little more punch at the throttle due to a set of twin carbon-fiber Termignoni mufflers that deliver nine more horsepower than the 101 already attained in the S4.
Only 300 of the bikes were made and all are already spoken for. The secondary market is expected to be strong and the price significantly higher than the suggested U.S. retail of $14,861. The Ducati S4 Carl Fogarty is already a collector's item, which may be why Ducati also includes a shop stand and cover with every bike.
For more information visit www.ducati.com.


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but if you look more closely...
Saturday, July 16, 2011
one can feel lost in a sea of sunflowers.
but if you look more closely...
29 comments:
- Sarah said...
Your blog is so beautiful! I live in Indiana and there is a place not far from me that plants fields and fields of sunflowers for the deer to eat. I've never been there while they were in bloom, but you've inspired me to go check it out!
- July 16, 2011 at 2:48 PM
- It's me said...
Love ....xxx...
- July 16, 2011 at 2:51 PM
There is nothing more uplifting than a field of sunflowers, beautiful!
- July 16, 2011 at 4:19 PM
- Unknown said...
What a totally wonderful sight !
- July 16, 2011 at 4:36 PM
- Glenda/MidSouth said...
That must be a beautiful sight! You did a great job of photographing them.
Hope you are enjoying your weekend.
- July 16, 2011 at 6:52 PM
- Laura @ 52 FLEA said...
Magnificent! Your photos of this beautiful field of sunflowers...wow! They are so uplifting and joyful! Thank you for the smiles...
- July 16, 2011 at 7:00 PM
- Donna said...
I love the sunflowers!!! Amber's favorite flower and everytime I see one it is like Amber is sending me a message!
- July 16, 2011 at 9:08 PM
- Debra@CommonGround said...
Great post, Erin, love seeing all those sweet happy faces! xoxo
- July 16, 2011 at 10:23 PM
- Georgianna said...
oh, my goodness! What a lovely place to get lost in! A sea of sunshine and happiness that you've captured in all its joyfulness. And I cannot wait to see the (paintings). xo – g
- July 17, 2011 at 12:03 AM
- Tammy@T's Daily Treasures said...
Absolutely gorgeous! I can remember coming across a field like this during my road trips last summer around the States and it was such a glorious sight! How wonderful to be surrounded by such beauty each and every day. I would be inspired too. Even sunflowers don't last in the heat we have here in this desert country. :/
I just love, love, love your header -- the colors, shades of blue my favorite. Have a beautiful day! Tammy
- July 17, 2011 at 1:30 AM
- Castles Crowns and Cottages said...
THIS is what I love. Moments of surprise, of spontaneous INSPIRATION....your photos are a tool, a SKILLFUL TOOL through which you create the essence for us to enjoy my dear. Franklin and its environs captivate me, for I know several of you that live in the same area....what a delightful place my dear....thank you so much! Anita
- July 17, 2011 at 4:40 AM
- The Boston Lady said...
Erin, your pictures are beautiful as is the act of planting a field of sunflowers. I saw one such field once in my life near Charleston, SC and thought it was the most stunning, happy sight I'd seen in a long time. Ann
- July 17, 2011 at 6:50 AM
- Scott Law said...
Love all these and I love the brightness level and how you processed them. Nice work.
- July 17, 2011 at 7:54 AM
- KarenB said...
Looks so beautiful. Even better on my computer than my iPhone. ;-) And to think I was so excited to see a row of sunflowers yesterday. A field trumps a row anytime. Beautiful!
- July 17, 2011 at 2:07 PM
- Tricia said...
Oh my goodness, how beautiful! It looks like a field of sunshine :)
- July 17, 2011 at 2:18 PM
- Jane said...
What an amazing sight!!! I just may have to get up there to see...if all the homes along the lane plant sunflowers...
- July 17, 2011 at 3:00 PM
- Unknown said...
sunflowers were my father's favorites. made me think of him today. miss him so. i wanted to pop in and say merci for visiting my studio and for saying such lovely things about ti. made my day...made my day! :)
- July 17, 2011 at 3:49 PM
- maria cecilia said...
I would have run quickly as you did too!!! Soooo lovely Erin!! thanks for this joyful moment.
hugs dear
- July 17, 2011 at 9:25 PM
- oldgreymare said...
The field and your beautiful art
- July 18, 2011 at 11:02 AM
Oh, Erin! These are spectacular! Wise photographer that you are to capture these in all that glorious morning light! What a site to behold I'm sure. This would almost be worth the four hour drive it would take for me to see these!!! Thank you for sharing such a smile-inducing post! Xo, Sue
- July 18, 2011 at 12:02 PM
- Heaven's Walk said...
AMAZING, Erin! Simply amazing! Bright, happy, inspiring, and what a wonderful idea! :)
xoxo laurie
- July 18, 2011 at 3:47 PM
- Don said...
Now I'm feeling all sunshiney!
- July 19, 2011 at 2:59 PM
- Unknown said...
Hi Erin....WOW...your blog and style of photography. I can't wait to go through your photos. Count me in as a fan!
- July 20, 2011 at 1:32 PM
- Castles Crowns and Cottages said...
You have meet your horizon dearest and never disappoint with the beauty you are so capable of capturing! THANK YOU FOR COMING ON OVER and WHEW did we get a storm this morning! What weird weather!
STAY COOL! Anita
- July 23, 2011 at 7:53 AM
- Cobalt Violet said...
Yes Erin - such joy! These are spectacular!
Gosh I love their faces!
Hope you are doing great!
- July 23, 2011 at 3:44 PM
- YONKS said...
What a lovely thought, a whole row of sunflower fields. You would need to wear sunglasses to pass through on a really bright day.
So glad I found you, I am your newest follower from the rainy UK.
Wishing summer wold start.
- July 24, 2011 at 4:22 AM
- Carla said...
Hi Erin, your parents visited my mom and she told me about your blog, where I just spent a bit of time reading your lovely posts. Carla (Dillmann) Kremer
- July 26, 2011 at 12:05 PM
- Landbohaven said...
Hvor er det smuk.
Tak for kigget.
- July 26, 2011 at 11:28 PM
- Unknown said...
Please tell me where this is. I've heard about it and live in Nashville and a huge lover of Sunflowers!! ;-)
- June 5, 2013 at 9:52 AM


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It is a virtual society where actions and comments still have consequences.
Social media is a dangerous weapon.
I use that comparison often. In the hands of a hunter, a gun can bring home a trophy or yield a batch of venison jerky for the office. You put that same weapon in the hands of a criminal and the outcome isn't as tasty.
Social media is the same on a different scale.
Some people use social media to share life with their friends and family. They add humor to life and it can enrich relationships.
Other people use social media to put their emotional issues on display or spew hatred and discontent. Those people try to use this platform to suck friends and followers into their excremental vortex.
Some in the latter group use social media to an extreme degree. How many children have been bullied and emotionally abused over social media.
I have often called Twitter the most caustic environment in which humans can exist. There is even a new offshoot of Twitter that allows people to anonymously ask the Twitter user questions. You don't have to look very far to see high school girls being asked horrible things of a sexual nature or being accused of unspeakable acts. They are often belittled and berated.
It usually takes about five seconds for some sexually deviant high school boy to ask perverted and self-esteem deflating questions. I don't know why kids feel the need for attention so strongly that they subject themselves to this type of harassment.
But they do.
Also, how many marriages and other relationships have dissolved because of secret illicit relationships that formed or blossomed over Facebook, Twitter or other similar sites?
For one man in Oklahoma City recently, a comment on Facebook may have cost him his life.
A young woman took a photo of herself in a swimsuit and posted it on her Facebook page. She included the comment, "Me on my way swimin."
A 48-year old man named Edmond James Tyree felt compelled to comment on that post.
According to The Daily Oklahoman, Tyree "wrote "damm" on Facebook, misspelling his compliment about the woman's photo."
Five days later, the woman's boyfriend – who also defended her honor with a profanity-laced comment below the one Tyree left – is believed to have entered Tyree's apartment and shot the man and a friend.
Antwion Courtez Martin, 20, is charged with first degree murder and shooting with intent to kill.
He admitted to having words with the victim but denies shooting him.
So what can we learn from this incident and the other negative uses of social media?
It is a virtual society where actions and comments still have consequences. Real people still feel real emotions despite the fact that you merely post a status or make a comment.
Sometimes, those emotions spiral out of control and virtual comments lead to real crimes.
Also, selfies can kill. So stop posting 10 photos of yourself every day.
And remember that your time on social media is like virtually playing with an emotional weapon – or in the case of one Oklahoma City man, a real weapon.
Kent Bush is the publisher of the Augusta Gazette, the El Dorado Times, and the Andover American newspapers. He can be contacted at: firstname.lastname@example.com


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Last week, many of us saw umpire Jim Quirk drag Barnett away from a potential scuffle last week. Many of us probably wondered why the guy was being so aggressive. Barnett even indicated in an interview afterward that he was not able to breathe at one moment. Weird incident and as McCarthy said, unprofessional behavior.
To me, one of the more remarkable things about this whole situation is that the umpire Jim Quirk was fined one game check for the incident – which amounted to $8150. For some reason, I was under the impression that NFL refs didn't make much money. I'd guess (conservatively) that Jim Quirk works 14 games a season, (not including playoffs where he likely would make much more) – that would come to some $114,100 a year. Keep in mind that is for about 4-5 months of work. Now, being an umpire is one of the more vulnerable ref positions on the field (they are the ones who often get knocked over when players run across the middle). Still, I'd get knocked down a couple times a year to make $114,100 working less than half the year.
Tags: Jim Quirk, Nick Barnett, Packers, Umpires


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Let me just chime in and say that I highly recommend you continue with Python. From my experience as well as what I've heard from others, it's an excellent language. It's powerful, clean, simple, easy to learn, and object oriented. Although I haven't done enough Python coding to be able to assure you of this myself, I've had several very knowledgeable coders tell me that Python is a very "natural" language to write in.
"Sensitive" wouldn't be the right word. Python uses whitespace instead of curly braces to separate blocks of code. For instance, take the following C snippet:I don't know, Python is a little sensitive when it comes to whitespace, isn't it?
In Python, it would be written:Code:if (1) { printf("Hi"); }
And the interpreter knows the block ends as soon as the lines of code cease to be indented. The same holds true for functions, loop, etc.Code:if 1: print "Hi"
As far as learning Perl and Python, I think if you can get Python down Perl isn't necessary. From the perspective of languages to help you learn more about security as well as coding in general, a good language to go for after Python would probably be C. Python will teach you enough to be able to get through C fairly easily, but there are a lot of reasons you might want to know C in addition to Python, not the least of which is that it's very useful in the security field.
Finally, don't forget to check out the official Python documentation for great tutorials and the likes.


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Roxberg Takes Down Another School Record at Drake Relays
DES MOINES, IA - Record performances continue to fall on day two of the Drake Relays with Laura Roxberg smashing through her own School Record in the 1500m to round out the weekend in a huge way for the Tigers. She is joined by freshmen Markesh Woodson and Tony Carodine, and junior Chris Spudic on the PR board after today's events.
Roxberg took the lead from the gun and maintained the position until the bell lap, finishing a close second behind Georgia's Carly Hamilton. Both athletes ran under the previous Drake Relays record, and posted the two top times in the NCAA and SEC as of the most current TFRRS (Track & Field Results Reporting System) rankings. Roxberg's 4:13.53 finish surpasses her previous school record of 4:16.71 by three seconds, made last year when she won the Big 12 Championships. This is the second time this year that Roxberg has broken her own school record in an event. The first came in February when she took the win in the mile at the UW Husky Classic, crossing in 3:34.59.
Starting the day off, though, for the Tigers was junior Chris Spudic in the 3k Steeplechase. Spudic powered through a hit barrier to finish in 9:12.56, bettering his previous PR and Missouri Relays meet record of 9:13.46, made earlier this season.
Next on the track was Woodson, who matched up well in a heat featuring Olympian and fellow-SEC competitor Isiah Young, to finish 3rd with a new top mark of 10.28. Woodson, who had hit the track earlier in the day as a member of the 12th place sprint medley squad, battled it out in the pack to move himself up into the top fifteen in the nation according to current rankings. This also puts him at No. 6 in the SEC and moves him up into the No. 6 spot on the All-Time Top Ten list.
Rounding out the day's PR performances was freshman Tony Carodine, who lined up in a star-studded field in the triple jump finals, including London Gold Medalist Christian Taylor. Carodine came out strong, hitting his PR mark of 15.53m (50-11.50) to finish 4th in the university division, 7th overall. Today also marks the entrance of Carodine into the Missouri All-Time Top Ten lists, where he lands at No. 7.
Up next for the Tigers is the SEC Championships at home in the Audrey J. Walton Stadium from May 9 - May 12.


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If you don't want to get salty tears in your morning coffee, you might want to put down the mug while you watch this video. Young Cole gets two amazing surprises for his birthday: First, Captain America shows up at his front door. Then Captain America turns out to be Cole's dad, home from Afghanistan. Go ahead, grab a tissue.
[Welcome Home Blog via Geeks Are Sexy]


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aaronrg necesitaba un nuevo diseño de botón o icono y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 41 diseños de 11 diseñadores freelance.
We're a fun web based service that helps homeowners enjoy cozy and energy efficient homes. Our mascot is a cute little dinosaur :) Check us out at energysavvy.com. This is actually our fourth contest on 99Designs, but we're using a couple of different accounts.
We're building an innovative web based experience for homeowners to learn about energy related topics. So we're shooting for United States based homeowners, likely in their 30's, 40's, 50's and maybe even 60's.
The homeowners visiting our site care about energy and money saving, making their homes more comfortable, figuring out remodeling projects and generally just being smart about home energy use.
For the experience we want to create, we need about 80 illustrations of household energy related items like windows, insulation, ducts, refrigerators and the like.
For this contest, we'd like to get a few illustrations done to identify someone to work with for the full job. To win, you must also be available to work in December/January on the rest of the job which will be much more valuable then this contest.
Specifically the task is:
* Produce illustrations of the 6 items listed below (grouped into 2 sets)
* The images should each look really nice at 140x90 pixels
* They should all have the same overall look/feel
* Within each set, pay attention to the key differences. Each image in the set should use consistent ideas, but the distinctions between them should be really, really clear. Ask for clarification if something doesn't make sense.
* Use simple, but fun and creative imagery. Remember these are small images, so simplicity is key!
The list of items to illustrate:
First Set:
1. Old refrigerator with 'side by side' doors (e.g. freezer on left, frige on right)
2. Old refrigerator with the freezer on top
3. Shiny, wonderful and new freezer with freezer on top
Second Set:
4. Windows that are highly shaded (think curtains, trees blocking sun, etc)
5. Windows that are somewhat shaded (think simple blinds)
6. Windows that are bare and have no shade


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The first week of the 2011 Major League Soccer season wasn't short on dramatic storylines: Portland and Vancouver played their first games (with drastically different outcomes), Charlie Davies made a successful return and Dwayne De Rosario scored the league's 8,000th goal, just to name a few.
Now, here's a look at some of the less obvious stats and milestones from the opening games – ones that didn't get the headlines.
1) Brown goes nearly seven years between MLS matches. Long time, but not quite the record.
[inline_node:331765]Due to the injury to Troy Perkins, the Portland Timbers began their MLS existence with Adin Brown as their starting goalkeeper. Brown is no stranger to MLS, but it had been quite a while since his last appearance with the New England Revolution.
It was June 26, 2004, when Brown suffered a concussion and was replaced by Matt Reis at halftime (Reis hasn't lost the job since). From that date to this past Saturday, a total of 6.73 years passed before Adin finally played in a league game. That's a long time, but it's not quite the record.
The recently retired Eddie Lewis left San Jose after the 1999 season (when they were still known as the Clash) and wouldn't return to MLS until mid-2008 with the LA Galaxy. When the "American Beckham" joined forces with the actual Beckham, it had been 8.9 years since his last league game. Behind him are Birahim Diop (7.81) and Greg Sutton (7.03).
Two players recently almost took over the top spot. If Jamar Beasley had gotten into a match late last season with Kansas City, he would've set a new mark (he's no longer with the team). Also, Stern John was in preseason camp with Chivas USA, but failed to earn a roster spot, so he'll just have to settle for keeping his record scoring rate intact: 44 goals in 55 games with Columbus.
But back to Brown: A Brad Friedel or Marcus Hahnemann return would smash his record. Hahnemann's last MLS game was in 1999, while Friedel last played in the league in 1997, earning Best XI and Goalkeeper of the Year honors with the Crew.
2) Two MLS players with new nationalities
[inline_node:331768]When Vancouver's Nizar Khalfan and New York's Jan Gunnar Solli stepped onto the field Saturday, they were part of a group of 55 players to make their league debuts in Week 1, which is one more than the entire 2002 season. While others like Omar Bravo and Eric Hassli have grabbed the lion's share of the attention, Khalfan and Solli made some history of their own: They became the first players of their nationalities to play in MLS. Khalfan became the first Tanzanian, and Solli the first Norwegian.
The 2010 season saw five new nationalities: Australia (Danny Allsopp), Estonia (Joel Lindpere), India (Sunil Chhetri – he played in one Open Cup qualifier), Latvia (Raivis Hscanovics) and Montenegro (Branko Boskovic).
Some of the most notable countries still missing from the list include Egypt, Greece and Turkey. Greece was close to being knocked off, but Kansas City defender Nikos Kounenakis was waived after 2010 without making an appearance. The next new nationality is likely to happen soon, as Vancouver's Long Tan was in the 18-man squad against Toronto. When he debuts in MLS, he'll be the first Chinese player to do so.
3) Mondragón – the oldest player to debut in MLS
[inline_node:327347]Another newcomer was Philadelphia Union goalkeeper Faryd Mondragón, whose age was mentioned in nearly every article during the offseason. That wasn't the case after the opener, as his role in the Union's 1-0 shutout of the Houston Dynamo was the story. For a team that leaked goals in 2010, that's a big improvement. It was also notable to see him taking over the captain's armband. However, it turns out that his age was notable on Saturday as well.
At 39.74 years of age, Mondragón became the oldest player ever to make his MLS debut. He bests Kasey Keller (39.30), who set a new mark in 2009 in the Seattle Sounders' first-ever match. Before Keller, the record was held for nine years by Lothar Matthäus, and by Thomas Ravelli and Hugo Sánchez before him.
Meanwhile, D.C. United's Pat Onstad extended his record as the league's oldest player of all time by another half-year.
4) Moreno joins the six-team club
[inline_node:331769]Alejandro Moreno became only the fifth player to play for six different MLS teams. Before suiting up for Chivas USA, he'd previously played for LA, San Jose, Houston, Columbus and Philadelphia. The other four players who have done the same are Andy Williams (CLB-MIA-NE-NY-CHI-RSL), Brian Dunseth (NE-MIA-CLB-DAL-RSL-LA), Ezra Hendrickson (NY-LA-DAL-DC-CHV-CLB) and Carey Talley (DC-KC-DAL-RSL-CHV-NY).
Two notes: First, Dunseth's only appearance for the Galaxy came in a CONCACAF Champions' Cup game, so only four players have done it in league play. Second, Moreno was helped by the league's decision to consider the Houston Dynamo as a new franchise with different records when they moved from San Jose, as he didn't actually change teams during that offseason.
Active players who could join the list in the future include Jeff Cunningham, Kevin Goldthwaite, Daniel Hernandez and Tyrone Marshall, as all are currently with their fifth team.
5) Cummings scored in his fourth straight opener
Finally, as noted in this column two weeks ago, Omar Cummings did indeed become the first player to score in four straight openers for his team. He scored the second goal for the Colorado Rapids in the 3-1 win over Portland.


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A "Eureka!!!" Moment!!
Not sure how to explain this in the best way so you know just how much this particular thing is a "Eureka!!!" moment and why I am so very thrilled with it. And it is very possible that I might go off at other tangents, while trying to explain it, so please be patient with me.
Well here goes! In 2001 I received from an archive in America, a copy of a document concerning people and land in the UK, dated April 1753 which was just sort of entitled "Memorandum" and it is really about my 6 x great grandfather Cozens Read taking over some extra land for the next ten years. These extra acres were being leased from the Duke of Buckingham (or Earl Temple as he was then) by another gentleman who they referred to in this Memorandum as Dg (or Dy) Read.
It was very difficult to actually get what the shortened name was no matter how many times I looked at it or anyone else looked at it. Because of that difficulty, I nicknamed this gentleman "Digby" Read, so I would know who I was talking about if this particular document came up in conversation at any time.
The Memorandum makes it clear that "Digby" Read had been ploughing up mounds, which it seems he shouldn't have done, as this made his Agreement void. So, in effect, Cozens Read was taking over the 49 acres that "Digby" Read had, to add to his own acres that he was already renting for more than £300 a year. I think it is fairly safe to assume that "Digby" Read and Cozens Read were related to each other because the land was at a place that I now know was in my family's occupation for at least 150 years, possibly longer. (And I have been there, been in the farm house and wandered around there, but that is another story to tell later in this blog)!
(Photo of the READ family home/farm for at least 150 years. Cozens Read there from 1735. House built before 1650 and still extant)
"Digby" Read does not sign this Memorandum at all but it is signed by Cozens Read and other representatives of the Earl Temple. It's almost as if the whole deal is done without involving "Digby" Read in any way. They agree that Cozens Read will pay a total sum each year for the land he already holds together with what was "Digby" Read's land. The Earl Temple will provide 'ruff timber' and Cozens Read will make sure that everything is kept in good repair. "Digby" Read will be allowed to plough certain hedge mounds that the Earl or his agents think is ok for him to do, and for this Cozens Read will be allowed ten pounds (sterling) per annum.
So, to me it is almost as if "Digby" Read is an older but very much respected gentleman, who has been ploughing things he shouldn't have, but they will allow him to plough a certain part of the land which Cozens Read was now taking over from him, and for this Cozens Read was being given an allowance (possibly a reduction in the rent for all the land he paid for each year). As "Digby" Read does not appear to be involved in any way with this Memorandum I feel that Cozens Read and the others involved in this are just dealing with the situation without "Digby" Read's knowledge, but letting him continue as he has been doing for a while.
Since I received this copy of the Memorandum in 2001, I haven't been able to find out who "Digby" Read was or how he was related to Cozens Read. I have been stumped by the shortening of the first name, which was either Dg or Dy. I did wonder at some stage if it was Dr. which would maybe mean he was a Doctor of medicine or a Doctor of Divinity or maybe another kind of Doctor. I have hunted everywhere since discovering "Digby" Read to see if I can find anything that would show who he was.
I know all of Cozens Read's children (well 20, maybe 21 of them) and I know who his siblings are, but maybe not all of them. I know who his parents are and his grandparents. I know who the siblings are of his father. "Digby" Read just does not fit in anywhere as any of these people. So, I am thinking maybe he is an Uncle, Great Uncle or cousin.
I have always wondered why Cozens Read went to Buckinghamshire when all his family were in Oxfordshire. I always had at the back of my mind that maybe he went to join another relative in Buckinghamshire or went to work for another relative there. So, if I am a little correct in that maybe "Digby" Read is an older gentleman, maybe the younger Cozens Read went to help him on his farm, which he gradually ended up taking over?
The Parish Registers for their village show that the only Reads in the register are the children and grandchildren (and their spouses) of Cozens Read along with him and his wife Elizabeth. There is no other Read that I can't account for and certainly no-one that could be "Digby" Read. So, when he died, he must have been buried elsewhere. Having also checked the Oxfordshire and Berkshire Registers for all the family of Cozens Read, I haven't come across anyone who could be "Digby" Read.
Now for the Eureka moment!!
Well, thanks to modern technology and advances in the internet and the things we can now do sitting at our PCs or laptops, I started entering all the documents, certificates, parish register entries, land tax assessments, census information, and many other things I have collected over more than twenty years of serious research into the family, into a filing system on the internet.
Then I came across my scanned copy of the April 1753 Memorandum on the computer (which I had looked at quite a number of times over the years since 2001, but just with my own eyesight as it wasn't on the computer then) and started to copy the details of it into my new filing system in cyberspace. Because I now have this on my computer, for the first time, I zoomed in to make the writing clear to be able to copy it and also for the first time I properly noticed that the word Michaelmas was shortened to Michl. I had never really payed it any attention before, because I knew it was the word Michaelmas so didn't need to really look at it hard to make it out. However, now that I had zoomed in on the document, I noticed with mounting excitement that the end letter of l (el) was exactly like the letter that was after the D which was given for "Digby" Read's first name.
"Digby" was Dl Read and Dl is short for Daniel!! Eurekaaaaaaa!!!!!!!
I am so thrilled, because that now narrows down the field somewhat because through my experience of poring through hundreds of parish registers and noting all Reads I come across, there are really not that many called Daniel.
Now I am searching for a burial of a Daniel Read after 1753 and it is going to be so good to be able to find out exactly how he is related to Cozens Read and to maybe discover why he isn't buried (nor seems to have any of his children, wife, grandchildren buried) in the village he was living in for maybe many years. Certainly Cozens Read was there from 1734 until he died in 1783 and if he went there to help "Digby" Read on the farm, I just wonder why "Digby" Read or his immediate family aren't shown in the village parish registers at all? So the search goes on!!
I will update this when I make more discoveries of "Digby" Daniel Read!!!


text:
Locking horns over oil field deer season
LIVE OAK COUNTY — The last light of day slips from the gray sky as Terry Retzloff spots a deer he's been searching for all season.
The 11-point buck is about seven years old. He's tough, having survived a nasty fight last year in which he got hooked and lost an eye. And he's smart. The one-eyed buck rarely shows himself, but today emerges from the brush at a favorite spot of Retzloff's, one with a bit of roll to the terrain and a view of live oaks.
In the background, accompanying Retzloff's reverent regard for the animal, is the mechanical hum of a hydraulic fracturing crew that's working 24 hours a day on a neighboring property, breaking open the Eagle Ford Shale to release trapped hydrocarbons. Drilling rigs and natural gas flares are visible on the horizon.
Retzloff lifts binoculars to his eyes.
"A one-eyed buck with hydraulic fracturing going on in the background," he murmurs. "Oh, man."
Across the Eagle Ford Shale region, oil and gas operations sometimes are taking a back seat to deer season. Some of the region's largest landowners have worked provisions into their mineral leases that don't allow drilling or hydraulic fracturing — at all — during white-tail deer season, which started Nov. 3 for a 30-county region of South Texas and ends Jan. 20.
But at smaller ranches like Retzloff's 650 acres, both deer hunting and Eagle Ford production are in high season, existing side by side.
"We've lost privacy," Retzloff said.
The downside of the oil business is the traffic, noise and occasional plastic bags or discarded soda bottles that crews leave behind. But Retzloff also has four wells producing oil and gas, improved roads in, out and across his ranch, and he thinks the oil company has limited its surface impact.
David H.O. Roth, an attorney who heads the energy team at Cox Smith Matthews, said deer hunting is an issue that crops up commonly in lease negotiations. Landowners want to use their property during fall and winter, the most pleasant times of year in South Texas.
"It is generally your larger landowners who are able to negotiate those terms," Roth said.
Deer hunting even occasionally is a topic of discussion when publicly traded companies talk about quarterly results with industry analysts.
In 2011, when someone asked Chesapeake Energy Corp. about the Eagle Ford, executives said the company was limited in the amount of oil it could produce. Part of that was due to trucking bottlenecks at the time, and "part of it was also completion prohibitions during the deer hunting season over the winter," CEO Steven Dixon told analysts.
In "special cases," the company provides white-tail deer hunting provisions for landowners, Chesapeake spokeswoman Haley Curry said by email. "We appreciate the heritage and culture of the outdoors and hunting sports in South Texas."
Judon Fambrough, an attorney at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, said deer hunting isn't only culturally important, but practical, too.
Offering deer leases or guided hunts has been a way that ranch owners have been able to pay the bills and keep their properties intact over the years.
"A lot of times, your deer hunting has been a source of income for landowners. They really did it because they had to," Fambrough said. "I've heard a lot of them say with the income they're getting from oil and gas, they don't need to have hunting. They've probably been shutting some gates because they don't need the money."
In some other cases, the mineral ownership and the surface ownership have been split, which can leave someone with a hunting property with all of the hassle and none of the benefit of oil and gas production. Deer stands and feed may be set up for months before a drilling rig pops up nearby.
"An oil company is a dominant estate," Fambrough said. "They can use as much as they need without permission. You could have a hunter who is out time and money."
Noise complaints
In general, hunters are not happy about the oil and gas activity.
"The deer hunting guys want the quiet and the stars and coyotes howling," attorney James Barrow said.
And not all landowners thought to include deer season restrictions in their leases.
"I don't think anybody at all could have expected the scope of activity that's taking place now," Barrow said.
The Eagle Ford has become one of the most productive shale fields in the United States. And because companies typically drill as close as possible to the edge of their lease line — giving them the ability to drill horizontally across the biggest percentage of their acreage — rigs often abut neighboring properties.
Charles Covert of the Covert Ranch in Cotulla, part of the Golden Triangle area famous for its trophy deer, doesn't have oil and gas production on his property but must contend with gas flaring, noise and dust from his neighbor's ranch.
"It's devastating to your hunting business," Covert said. "They often drill and frack on the lease line. The impact to neighboring ranches can be devastating."
Wildlife patterns change and animals move to other areas of the ranch, which Covert said causes an unequal distribution and density.
Covert Cattle Co. Inc. this month sent a letter to the Texas Railroad Commission complaining of constant noise, including loud diesel compressors, and gas flaring near the ranch's residential compound, which has been there for 25 years.
Oil company trucks kick up white caliche dust that makes it hard to breathe.
"The noise is a nuisance, and is interfering with our business and the enjoyment of our remote ranch headquarters," the letter says.
Covert said regulations should be adopted to minimize the impact on neighboring properties.
"They need to make sure there's the least destruction in ecology and way of life," he said. "The development preceded the plans to control it."
Frank Matthews, wildlife biologist at the Killam Laredo Ranch in Webb County, said that unless there's an emergency, no oilfield activity is allowed on the 45,000-acre ranch before 9 a.m. or after 4 p.m., when deer are most active.
"We try to get all of our drilling done before deer season," Matthews said. "The hunters do not like the oilfield activity."
But after drilling and hydraulic fracturing are completed, crews need to access wells regularly. "It's not just a short-term thing with the rigs there," Matthews said. "The activity goes on for decades afterward."
Even on a ranch with restricted activity, oilfield work sometimes happens anyway at inopportune times. Recently, a Killam family member was hunting in a pasture when a tanker drove up a few hundred yards away, scaring off the deer.
"That was when it was time to make it formal," Matthews said. The ranch now has posted signs about seasonal restrictions.
Long term
David McKown, ranch manager at A&M's La Copita Demonstration Ranch and Research Area in Jim Wells County, which doesn't have oil and gas production, said hunters are not enjoying the typical, quiet South Texas winter.
"Hunters are very disappointed," he said. "They were looking for a decent deer lease. Now there are roads and trucks everywhere."
McKown says owners will have to figure out how they will manage their property. He tells people not to rely on any one type of business, even if that business is lucrative oil and gas royalties, and encourages ranchers to have a mix of cattle or goats, hunting and activities such as birding.
"What's the long-term picture? I would imagine that some of these people are just crippling their deer herd with all of that activity," McKown said. "One of the things we preach to people is longevity. How are you going to pay all of your bills?"
Retzloff, who also owns a business that monitors well tests for mineral owners, said that the oil boom could bust if prices drop too far.
"These people who say this is going to last 10 years or 20 years shouldn't be saying that," he said. "They can't predict what commodity prices are going to do."
So Retzloff will continue balancing the oilfield work with hunting on his land.
On a recent afternoon, the one-eyed buck doesn't seem spooked by the noise of hydraulic fracturing.
But when the wind shifts, the buck picks up the scent of people and looks up in alarm.
"He knows we're here. He smells us," Retzloff says, and the buck bounds into the brush. "There he goes, trotting off in his majesty."
Twitter: @Jennifer_Hiller


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Supercomputer maker Cray has trotted out its financial results for 2012, and used the occasion to talk about its plans for its current year after closing out one of the best four quarters it has put together in many seasons.
On a conference call with Wall Street analysts, Cray CEO Peter Ungaro talked generally about Cray's plans to beef up its next-generation and DARPA-funded "Cascade" XC30 system, which was announced last November and which marries Intel's Xeon E5-2600 processors with the Cray-developed (and now Intel-owned) "Aries" interconnect to create a behemoth that can scale to over 100 petaflops.
Cray said last June, when Intel was touting the Xeon Phi x86 coprocessors, that it would eventually weave these into the Cascade system. It then said last August that it would do the same with the "Kepler" Tesla K20 GPU coprocessors from Nvidia.
The latter coprocessors are already part of the Cray XK7 supercomputer, on which the "Blue Waters" petaflopper at the University of Illinois is based, so Cray knows how to integrate these with processors to make a big old hybrid box. But the blade servers at the heart of the XC30 system need to be adapted to house the Xeon Phi and Tesla K20 coprocessors, and work is being done now on this for delivery later this year.
The Aries interconnect links to the Xeon E5 chips directly through its on-chip PCI-Express 3.0 ports, and it is not entirely clear how Cray will link the coprocessors in. Architecturally, you want to have one accelerator for every socket, as Cray has done with the XK7 machine. Or maybe even multiple accelerators per socket if the core count is high enough on the CPUs.
The company is also working on the software for its Cray Linux Environment to let it speak Xeon Phi in addition to speaking Tesla, Ungaro said.
For those jonesing for more x86 performance in their XC30 systems, Ungaro said on the call that the future "Ivy Bridge" Xeon E5 v2 processors, due later this year from Intel, will slip right into the existing machines because they are socket-compatible with the current Xeon E5s and will not require any re-engineering. If the Ivy Bridge chips come with ten cores instead of eight like their "Sandy Bridge" predecessors, this could represent about a 25 per cent increase in raw oomph, all clocks being equal.
Cray has said previously that it is working on a midrange variant of the XC30, which will scale from tens to thousands of processors and use a less-expensive cooling system than the one used in the full-on XC30 system, and that we can expect to see this machine in the second quarter.
What Cray cannot announce, of course, is a variant of the XC30 that uses the Opteron processors from AMD. The latest Opteron 6300s only sport PCI-Express 2.0 links, and the Aries interconnect requires PCI-Express 3.0.
High hopes for clusters
The XK7 and XC30 machines are not the only thing that Cray is fired up about as it enters 2013.
Last November, Cray dealt with cluster upstart Appro International by acquiring it for $25m in cash. The deal closed in November and Appro accounted for $600,000 in sales and a writedown of $1.3m in the fourth quarter ended in December as Cray wrote off some of its intangible assets.
Not great numbers for the first six weeks, to be sure, but not unexpected, either, given the transitions that come with an acquisition.
Ungaro said that the sales and marketing teams for the two companies have been integrated, and that Cray is working on integrating back-office functions – and, more importantly, that Cray is gearing up to push lots and lots of clusters.
"All of our current customers have clusters," Ungaro said, and none of them have the Cray brand on them. This is a greenfield opportunity for Cray to get "capacity systems" – which is HPCspeak for Linux clusters using InfiniBand or Ethernet interconnects – into places where it has already sold high-performance "capability systems" with proprietary SeaStar, Gemini, and Aries interconnects. Ungaro said the pipeline for Appro clusters was "building up nicely," and that the company expected to sell more than $60m in Appro gear in 2013. The first quarter is not going to be a huge quarter, but the business will build over the year.
Cray's fledgling storage and data management businesses (Sonexion arrays running the Lustre file system) brought in $50m in revenues in 2012, but at 29 per cent, gross margins were lower than the target levels Cray has for all of its units.
However, CFO Brian Henry said that he believes there is "room for margin expansion as this business grows," and Ungaro piped up that he believes Cray could grow the storage business anywhere from two to four times as fast as the HPC storage business at large. Part of that is just by getting Cray Sonexion storage attached to Cray XC30 systems, but the company is also planning to launch variants of the Sonexion products in the first half of this year that can attach to other systems. (It's not clear why you can't already hook Sonexion machines to non-Cray gear.)
The "Titan" system upgrade at Oak Ridge National Labs did not make it into Cray's 2012 numbers because the lab had not yet accepted the machine. But researchers were running apps on it starting last month, and the current plan is for it to be accepted – and hence the revenue booked – in the second quarter of this year, which will help the numbers a bit. And Cray has a number of other large-scale machines in the pipeline.
Add it all up, and Cray is now telling Wall Street to expect revenues of around $500m for 2013. That assumes around $70m comes in during the first quarter and about $225m comes in during the fourth quarter – again a big bunch of system upgrades seem to be expected quite close to the end of the year, and some of these could slip as has happened for two years now. The remaining $205m will be split in the middle two quarters in some way that Cray did not specify, likely because of the timing of the acceptance of the Titan machine at Oak Ridge.
Cray also said it expects to be profitable in 2013 – and that's without a killer intellectual property deal, which helped bolster the company's numbers for 2012.
Those numbers assume a pretty high core HPC system growth rate, when you consider that the Blue Waters deal at the University of Illinois was something of a fluke and gave Cray $188m it was not expecting in 2012 after the university and IBM decided to flush the original Power7-based Blue Waters system because it could not be manufactured at a price that made any sense for Big Blue. Cray can't count on such flukes going forward, and that's one of the reasons it made a lateral move into plain-vanilla x86 clusters with the Appro deal.
The numbers Cray turned in on Thursday were more or less in line with its preliminary results announced in early January. In the quarter, Cray's revenues were $188.8m, more than double from the prior period, but net income was cut by more than half to $14m.
However, for the full year – and you almost have to look at Cray's bumpy business on an annual basis given the nature of lumpy sales of large supercomputers – the company had $421.1m in sales and brought $161.2m of that to the bottom line.
In addition, the company started out 2013 with $323m in cash and equivalents, which is plenty of fuel to start the dance once again. ®
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