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Photoshop Selections
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[♪music♪] [ADOBE TV Presents Colin Smith in...] [No Stupid Questions] All right. Half of what you do in Photoshop is make selections. It doesn't matter what version--all the way back to version 2. You make a selection, you do something to it, and Selections is what we're going to look at today: loading, saving, protecting, and working with them. So let's go have a look. In this example here, I've got a marquee--this is just an elliptical marquee-- and I'm going to drag it around and make a selection. That is a selection. But if you wanted to save this selection and reuse it, in the Select menu, down at the bottom, choose Save Selection. This is the area where you save it and you should name it something. I'll call this one Circle. Click OK. And then you still have the selection on the screen, so really you've done two things: you still have a selection, but you've saved it somewhere. Where the heck do selections go? Let's go over to the Channels panel and look. I've got one already here called Model Selection, but I've got the new one down here called Circle. If I select that, you'll see there's my selection, and you'll also see what we commonly call marching ants and that is the little display that's going on inside here. One thing that really screws people up is the fact that you still have a selection on the screen, so most of the time when you save a selection, you don't need that selection anymore--you deselect. You can do that in the Select menu--Deselect. It's Command-D on the Mac, Control-D on Windows. All right. If we go back to our image and click on that, you'll see we have no selection. How do we load the selection? Well, I'm going to show you the fast way. We can go up to Select and choose Load, but it's so much easier to go to the Channels panel, hold down the Command key on Mac/Control on Windows, and click, and you'll see that my tool is changing. Click on it and I've got a selection. That's really a very important part about working with Photoshop-- saving and loading selections. Now if we look at this selection a little bit closer, you can see that the selection itself is an anti-aliased circle-- that's it--or an ellipse. What if you wanted a soft edge on this? Well, no problem. A selection and an Alpha Channel--which is really what these channels are-- it's just a grayscale image, so anything in the Filter menu--including Blur, Gaussian Blur. So when I choose that, and have a number in here--let's make this not as blurry--click OK. We now have a selection with a soft edge. Okay. Very simple, easy to reproduce, easy to save. All of these channels are saved inside the Photoshop file, and really, that is the format you should be using-- working and saving in Photoshop files because they're the richest format that we have. All right. There are times we need to change these selections slightly and I'm going to work with the new tool here for making a selection-- the Quick Selection tool we've had for a little bit. What I want to show you is what happens when we need to effect one small area of a mask. The Quick Select tool works by dragging around--it's basically a paintbrush, and we make a selection around an area and you can see Photoshop does a really good job of understanding the outside edges. And this would be a very hard edge selection, so this is like amateur work, big-time. You do not use this selection--you need to refine that selection. How do you refine a selection? Up at the top, you'll see this button, Refine Edge, and when I click on it, it brings up the Refined Edge dialogue box. And from here, we can look at this on black and on white, and on layers, on marching ants--all the different ways that we want to see this. But one of the problems that we'll have with this particular selection is around his head, you're going to see this little divet show up right around here, so I'm going to make this into a Layer Mask. Click OK, and let's look at what we have. You'll notice the transparent background is gone, and we have this little black and white image right beside it. So I'm going to hold the Option key on Mac/Alt on Windows, and click. That's the selection that we just made and saved as a Layer Mask. There's no difference between a Layer Mask and an Alpha Channel. Well, the only difference is an Alpha Channel's sitting there doing nothing, and a Layer Mask is actually masking something up. And you can see it's a black and white image--you could blur this, you can change this in multiple ways. It's pretty powerful. If we go to the Masks panel, you can see that we've got choices in here like Feathering. So instead of using a Gaussian Blur, you can actually Feather and Unfeather this selection. But we've got a bigger issue here, and the issue is if I zoom in around his head, you can see it comes in a little bit around this area here. The Selection tool interpreted this incorrectly. I need to make a choice on how to select this and paint this back. It's not that hard. It's a combination of selections and inverting a selection. So let's look at this. If I load this selection right now, again, holding down Command or Control, and clicking on the actual Layer Mask loads the selection, and the selection is selecting the guy. If you want to select the Inverse of that, in the Select menu, you can just choose Inverse. It's also Shift-Command-I or Shift-Control-I on Windows. Now I'm selecting everything but him-- the opposite side of things. So what I want to do is I want to paint the edge very, very carefully. But to do that freehand--if you just grab the brush or the mouse and try to paint it-- you're not going to do a very good job. So we can use a selection to help us paint that area, and that's what we've got here. When we loaded the selection, it's in the exact same place, so it's not going to help us. We need to modify where that selection is. We need to either grow it out or grow it in, and in this particular option, I'm going to actually invert that again, select him, and because I want to select more of his head, then I'm going to make this a larger selection. So in Modify, I can expand this or contract the selection, so I'm expanding it. I'll expand it out, let's say 5, and this really is a guess--there really is no way to know. It depends on the resolution of the file. Click OK, and you can see maybe that is a little bit too much, so I'll go back to 3. Modify, Expand, let's do 3 pixels, click OK. So what we have is a selection that's going on the outside of his head. Remember--what I'm trying to do is paint a little piece of his head back out, not the whole thing. So if we go and look at our Mask you can see that the Mask area is white and the marching ants are a little bit further on. So if I get my regular paintbrush-- and make sure that you're using your regular paintbrush-- and I've got a great keyboard shortcut here. There's a series of keyboard shortcuts that will help in Masking, and here it is--B D X 0--not O. B--get the brush, D--Default the colors, X--flip black and white, and 0 to make it 100% opacity. If you get used to doing that every time you paint or mask--BDX0-- you're always going to be painting with a perfect mask. All right. Now, you'll see the marching ants on the screen, but quite frankly, I hate looking at them on the screen, so you can temporarily turn them off. You can hit Command-H or Control-H on Windows and turn it off. Now, what I'll do with my left hand is i'll keep it close to the X key. Watch what happens over here on the bottom left--XXX-- I'm flipping the foreground and background colors. This allows me to paint with white or with black. So let's go back a little bit. I wanted to grow the selection around his hair. I've got an area selected--now watch what happens when I paint. Oh! Make sure I paint with white. See how it's growing that area? And I don't have to be exact because I have a selection there. Let me undo that and show you the result of the image when I do this. So what I just did was I clicked on the image, and then I clicked back on the Layer Mask because that's when I'm going to paint--watch what happens. You'll see the outside of his head start to show up. So probably 3 pixels was a little bit too much. It might have been 2 pixels. So what do I do? Oh no! Well, I could try to go back a few more, or you can inverse the selection, because now I want to paint the other side. Remember, we're painting on the inside of where his head is. Sometimes you might want to repaint the other side. Select, inverse that selection, and from here I'm going to expand that selection as before, Let's do 1 pixel. I'll hide my edges, paint again on the Mask, and make sure I'm painting black this time, and I'm painting that edge away. That's how you have unbelievable control when it comes to working with Masks. Now remember, I hid my edges--Command-H or Control-H on Windows. You've got to make sure that you deselect, and that's something that every Photoshop user forgets to do at least once a day. They have a selection they paint somewhere else and they don't know that they can't paint there, so make sure you deselect. The last thing I want to show you is about protecting transparency, and this one is a really easy one. It was actually introduced a long, long time ago, but it is something that people don't really understand and I'll show you what I'm talking about. I'm going to create a new layer in the background. I'll create something with a little bit of color and I'm just going to draw a selection as before and fill that selection, deselect. So this is nothing but a free-flowing layer, sitting on the background with certain colors. And I will Blur this, so just like before, Blur it out and have a soft edge, click OK. So let's say you've got this selection, you love the transparency, but you don't like the color. How do you fill the color in when it goes out to transparent edges? You would not believe how easy this is. Way down here in the Layers panel, this little button--Lock transparent pixels. That means that I can fill this now with any color. Let me jump to a completely different color and I'll fill this and you'll see the transparency stays completely intact. Or, I could paint in that area, too, and it's going to paint with that color, so no matter what I paint, it's going to go right to that edge whenever you have transparent pixels turned on. One last thing--instead of doing it that way, you know, the best way to do that would be to use a Shape layer. Just click over here on my Shape layer, draw this out, and we can fill this with, again, any color we want. Let's fill this with blue, and look what we have in our panel. So when I select this and Feather this, this is a better way to work. So if you were creating shapes, you can do it this way instead of doing it with pixels, because look at how easy it is to change the color. Down here, we've added this Shape layer--there it is. I'll double-click on that, and any change I make in here instantly updates, including all the transparent edges, and I can change the Feathering value at any time. So that's a look at some of the cool things that you can do in Photoshop, again, many, many versions back. These are the new Selection tools and some old Selection techniques. You gotta learn Selections if you want to learn Photoshop. [♪music♪] [ADOBE TV Productions]
Video Details
Duration: 12 minutes and 51 seconds
Country: Andorra
Language: English
License: All rights reserved
Genre: None
Views: 171
Posted by: adobetv on Oct 6, 2010
Masking tools in Photoshop are very powerful, but there are times when you need to make manual adjustments. This tutorial gives you the tools you need to understand how to tweak and mask and paint in isolated areas.
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The City of Seattle is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and a Drug Free Workplace

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Alnus crispa
Green Alder is a cold hardy, native shrub. It is often planted on infertile sites so it can fix nitrogen from the air and improve the soil quality.
Green Alder is known for its smooth grey bark and attractive shiny green leaves; it is commonly used in reclamation.
Zone: 1aHeight: 7 m (23 ft)Spread: 3 m (10 ft)Moisture: anyLight: anyFuzz/fluff: yesCatkins: yesGrowth rate: fastLife span: 50 yearsMaintenance: lowSuckering: highPollution tolerance: mediumIn row spacing: 0.9 m (3 ft)Between row spacing: 5 m (16 ft)
Other names: mountain alder, sitka alder
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FavaBeans wrote:I have a copied version... not original.
Really bad movie... like seriously bad. Jim was good though.
What do you men by "really bad movie"?
You are here: Home ‹ Board index ‹ Movie Discussion ‹ All Other/Older Movies ‹ Older Movies
Do you have every Carrey?
Discuss older Jim Carrey movies.
What do you men by "really bad movie"?
Well.....i've acutally never heard of it....I would check on youtube or netflix...they may have or old movie renters, they always sell old movies or retired movies...
Schmoyoho-oh-oh-oh accent on the YO!
I am going to TRY to get The Sex and Violence family hr on the Youtube channel but I am not sure how I am going to do it cause there one tiny scene with Jim and a topless girl. I am afraid Youtube will flag it and take it down. Maybe I will make it a contest for the 18 and over people and send it to them privately. I will let you people know more about it when I decide what I am going to do.
Last edited by cotton on Mon Apr 19, 2010 2:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
well, Once Bitten was on Youtube but then got removed. I've seen a lot of old movies on there but I saw them before Youtube suspended the accounts for having them.
Damn thing for suspending movies that are rare to find in the first place.
Best of luck to you.
Schmoyoho-oh-oh-oh accent on the YO!
I think that the duck factory is on youtube or on hulu.com. Check it out see if its still there.
Schmoyoho-oh-oh-oh accent on the YO!
she wants all 13 Duck Factories I think lol I don't think I will even dare to try to upload those cause I tried to upload a clip that showed snippets fo Jims movies once and Youtube told me one of them MIGHT have belonged to NBC so they took my video away. I have a funny feeling they will do the same thing with The Duck Factory. Not sure if MGM has anything to do with NBC but I am sure they will try to claim it anyway. The Sex and Violence Family hour is owned by Elite Entertainment. Which seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.lol So maybe it will be ok.
Yeah i agree. It think it's boiling down to that everyone wants a piece of money that comes from using clips from an old movie. First it was Metallica with Napster (which is understandable to a point) and now it's movies off of Youtube.
Here's a thought: Try looking at rareflix.com (rareflixs.com) or deepdiscountdvd.com; that's where I found all 7 Nightmare on Elm Street (Robert Englund/Freddy Krueger fan) in a collection; you may try there for The Duck Factory.
Other than that, I don't think there's anywhere else except for Amazon or Ebay.
Schmoyoho-oh-oh-oh accent on the YO!
I have all on DVD. This is from JCO's Filmography (the ones I have):
Yes Man (2008) (MTVA:BCP) ... Carl Allen
Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! (2008) ... Horton
Number 23, The (2007) ... Walter Sparrow/Fingerling
Fun With Dick and Jane (2005) ... Dick Harper
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) (MTVN:BV) ... Count Olaf
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) (GGA:BCP&C) ... Joel Barish
Pecan Pie (2003) Short ... The driver
Bruce Almighty (2003) (MTVN:BCP&BK) ... Bruce Nolan
Majestic, The (2001) ... Peter Appleton/Luke Trimble
Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) (GGN:C / MTVA:BV) ... The Grinch
Me, Myself & Irene (2000) (MTVN:BCP) ... Charlie Baileygates/Hank Evans
Man On The Moon (1999) (GGA:C) ... Andy Kaufman
Simon Birch (1998) (cameo) ... Joe Wenteworth
Truman Show, The (1998) (GGA:D / MTVA:BMP) ... Truman Burbank
Liar Liar (1997) (GGN:C) ... Fletcher Reede
Cable Guy, The (1996) (MTVA:BV&BCP) ... Chip Douglas
Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995) (MTVA:BCP&BMP) ... Ace Ventura
Batman Forever (1995) (MTVN:BV) ... Edward Nygma/The Riddler
Dumb And Dumber (1994) (MTVA:BCP&BK) ... Lloyd Christmas
Mask, The (1994) (GGN:C / MTVN:BCP) ... Stanley Ipkiss/The Mask
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) ... Ace Ventura
Doing Time On Maple Drive (1992) TV Movie ... Tim Carter
Itsy Bitsy Spider, The (1992) Cartoon ... The Exterminator
High Strung (1991) (uncredited cameo) Video Release ... Death
In Living Color (1990-1993) TV Series ... Skit Characters
Earth Girls Are Easy (1989) ... Wiploc
Mike Hammer: Murder Takes All (1989) TV Movie ... Brad Peters
Pink Cadillac (1989) ... Lounge Entertainer
Dead Pool, The (1988) ... Johnny Squares
Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) ... Walter Getz
Once Bitten (1985) ... Mark Kendall
Finders Keepers (1984) ... Lane Bidlekoff
Duck Factory, The (1984) TV Series ... Skip Tarkenton
Sex & Violence Family Hour, The (1983) Video Release ... Various
All In Good Taste (1982) ... Ralph Parker
Copper Mountain (1982) TV Movie ... Bobby Todd
Introducing Janet (1981) TV Movie
... a.k.a. Rubberface (video release title)
Re: Do you have every Carrey?
All the Jim Carrey films i have are on DVD.
These are the one's i have...
Once Bitten (1985)
Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)
Earth Girls Are Easy (1989)
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)
The Mask (1994)
Dumb & Dumber (1994)
Batman Forever (1995)
Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995)
The Cable Guy (1996)
Liar Liar (1997)
The Truman Show (1998)
Man on the Moon (1999)
Me, Myself & Irene (2000)
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
The Majestic (2001)
Bruce Almighty (2003)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
Fun with Dick and Jane (2005)
The Number 23 (2007)
Yes Man (2008)
I Love You Phillip Morris (2010)
Excuse me sir, but do you have a mint? Perhaps some Binaca?
Re: Do you have every Carrey?
1. Bruce Almighty
2. Man on the moon
3. The cable guy
4. The number 23
5. Ace Ventura Pet detective
6. Ace Ventura When nature calls
7. Liar Liar
8.The Truman show
9. Fun with Dick and Jane
Gonna get
1. The Mask
2. Yes Man
3. Dumb and Dumber
4. The majestic
5. Dumb and dumber(unrated version)
I <3 Jim Carrey
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I love all animals but it's no secret that I have a soft spot for cats. Here is a brief love letter to cats, the under-appreciated stars of social media and homes around the world. Don't forget to take the polls!
Why do we love cats so much? Maybe it's the fact that they are not easily won over. You really have to earn a cat's love and trust. Maybe it's the subtle ways they show their appreciation. It's like figuring out a mystery. I find myself fine-tuning my observation skills just trying to observe our cats. Maybe it's simply because they're just so cute. Just look at this kitten below, just begging to be rubbed and/or played with!
If you really can't stand the "cat propaganda" (I'm looking at YOU Kevin.. LOL), scroll down for the poll.. but, really, hear me out. I have a case to make here! *wink*
Cats are independent and self-sufficient. They're arguably moody and choosy. Some consider this a bonus, others feel it simply makes them jerks. I say they just have more personality than your average dog because, let's face it: most dogs will be your best friend once you feed them. For those that think cats have no loyalties or are indifferent, maybe you have trouble forging bonds. I've had cats wait at the door when they accidentally got left outside. Bloo often knocks on my door just to hang out with me in the man cave, too.
I have a theory about people that don't like cats: they are usually people with serious trust issues and/or a huge need to be the center of attention. Cats have a way of seeing into your soul so, if you have something to hide, chances are you won't like cats. So far, it checks out with everyone I know. One friend whom I love dearly comes to mind: they don't add people to Facebook unless they vet them first.. And they use alter egos and pseudonyms when they're online. They're the kind of people that freak out when you tag them or mention them in a social share. That level of paranoia and anti-social behavior surely does not mesh with feline co-habitation!
Here are some links related to weird people who hate cats. It seems I'm not the only one suspcious of animal haters and cat agnostics!
- You Can't Trust People Who Don't Like Animals (Beyond Trauma) – http://www.highexistence.com/topic/dont-trust-people-who-dislike-animals/
- About: 7 Reasons People Do Not Like Cats – http://cats.about.com/od/youandyourcat/tp/7-Reasons-People-Do-Not-Like-Cats.htm
- The Cate Site: Cats Vs. Dogs – http://www.thecatsite.com/t/240417/people-who-dont-like-cats
In my experience, hardcore anti-cat people are abrasive, insecure, paranoid, or just plain annoying. Coincidence? Perhaps. Correlation does not equate causation.. Of course, my cats have had a good track record of picking out the really turds in my circles of friends and family. I feel cats are more connected with the spirit world, emotions, and impending threats.. Most dogs we've had just bark at just about anything because, well, they're lovable dumb creatures like that.
The following is our latest poll on the @GeekyAntics Twitter.. Hopefully it doesn't break anything! You should vote for cats on Twitter, too – before it's too late!
#Cats o #dogs? #pets #correctansweriscats #meow @KiNgDeeMNoF @SchoneTreuWolf @RenayeBones @KwL_RabidPanda #TeamKitty
— Geeky Antics (@GeekyAntics) November 20, 2015


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Burlingham Sports
Take a look at our selection of Burlingham Sports barn equipment, stable accessories, equestrian jumps and more! With 25 years' experience in the equestrian industry, Burlingham Sports' is an expert in producing long-lasting, weather-proof accessories for jumping and dressage. Check out the selection from quality birch jump sets to dressage arena letters and more. You'll have the best-looking ring in town.


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I think I can safely say that most people know their drugs by the most common brand or generic names (i.e., Tylenol, Motrin, Sudafed, Vicodin, levothyroxine, etc). But did you know that medications actually have not two, but three names? Yes. That's right. THREE.
If it isn't already hard enough to remember the names of the brand and generic names, let alone pronouncing the generic names (i.e., acridinyl anisidide… try saying that 5 times). But there is actually a third name just to confuse you even more. Each drug has a brand name (or proprietary name), generic name (or non-proprietary name), and lastly, the chemical name.
The chemical names are derived from rules established by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). The rules allow chemists and scientists to name it so that any other chemists/scientists can identify the structure based on the chemical name. To simplify the chemical name is where the generic name comes into the picture. So when a drug manufacturer develops a new drug, they start with the chemical name, give it a generic name, and then a brand name.
Check this:
Chemical name: 1-[4-ethoxy-3-(6,7-dihydro-1-methyl-
Generic name: Sildenafil citrate
Brand name: Viagra
Such a long and hard chemical name, right? No pun intended. Okay, maybe just a little bit. Heehee 🙂
This is an interesting lesson, right? Or maybe not? I can geek out on this stuff all day, which is probably a good thing being a pharmacist and all.
Alright, enough of the boring stuff. Let's get to the good stuff!…
Barbacoa Beef Tacos with Cabbage and Jalapeno-Cilantro Aioli (adapted from Food.People.Want)
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
3 tablespoons lime juice
4 canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
8 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
3 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
3 teaspoons dried Mexican oregano
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon sea salt or 2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons olive oil oil
4 pounds boneless chuck roast, excess fat removed
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
4 bay leaves
Jalapeno-Cilantro Aioli
Warm tortillas
Preheat the oven to 275°.
Combine the apple cider vinegar, lime juice, chipotle chiles WITH adobo sauce, garlic cloves, cumin, oregano, clove, black pepper and salt in the bowl of a food processor or blender and puree until completely smooth. Set aside.
Dry the roast all over with paper towels, cut away any excess fat and slice the meat into 4 evenly sized pieces. Heat the 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a very large, oven-proof pot set over high heat. Working in batches, sear the beef on all sides until deeply browned, about 10 minutes. [You don't want to sear all the meat at one time or else it will steam rather than sear. You want the sear.]
Add the chicken stock first to "deglaze" the caramelized bits at the bottom of the pot, and stir for one minute. Then add the chile puree and bay leaves to the pot and stir until the beef is well-coated, and bring to a boil. Taste and adjust seasonings to your liking. Reduce the heat to a simmer, about 5 minutes, and then cover the lid with tin foil and add the lid to create a very tight seal. [This is to ensure that the moisture doesn't escape too quickly during the long braising process.] Place the pot in the oven and braise the meat for 5-6 hours, removing the lid during the last hour or so to allow the simmering liquid to reduce slightly.
Allow the beef to cool slightly, spoon off any easily removable fat from the braising liquid and then use two forks to pull/shred the beef into bite size pieces.
Serve spooned onto warm corn tortillas with cabbage and drizzled with some jalapeno-cilantro aioli, or your favorite taco toppings.
Makes about 20 tacos.


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Age: 25
Save Date: June 16, 2009
Activity: playing softball
When Ryan Arnold woke up in a strange room with no idea how he got there, the first thing that crossed his mind also happened to be the first thing he saw just a few moments later.
"It was her," he said, looking at his fiancée, Jamie Sawyer. "She was right there by my side."
Arnold, 25, spent nearly four days in the hospital - including almost two in a medically induced coma - when his heart stopped after he was struck in the chest Tuesday night with a softball during a game at Stewart Park.
He was cleared for release from Billings Clinic and a little more than an hour later was surrounded by nearly 100 friends and family at a barbecue fundraiser in his honor. As Arnold slowly walked up to the barbecue at Rose Park, heads turned and a round of applause rippled through the crowd.
"It makes you feel good," he said of the support. "I guess you don't know how many friends you've really got until something happens. That means a lot."
Wednesday night, more than 150 people attended a candlelight vigil to pray for Arnold.
When Arnold's heart stopped after the softball, thrown from the outfield, accidentally hit him in the chest, two Billings Clinic nurses who were at the park, Megan McLeod and Becky Parnell, performed cardio-pulmonary resuscitation until firefighters and paramedics arrived. They intubated him and used a portable defibrillator to shock his heart back into beat.
Arnold said McLeod and Parnell saved his life and that he owes them "a million thanks."
"I call them 'angel one' and 'angel two,' " said Laurie Dukart, Arnold's mother, of McLeod and Parnell.
The accident almost threw a wrench into what Arnold said is the most important thing on his mind now, his upcoming marriage to Sawyer. The two have been dating for about four years and are scheduled to be married on Saturday. She was by his side for much of the time he was hospitalized and was there when he was brought out of the coma almost two days after the accident.
Family members said they are optimistic the two will be able to walk down the aisle as scheduled.
"They predict he's going to make a full recovery," said Arnold's father, Gary Arnold. "Every day he gets a little bit better, and they plan on going through with it."
While Sawyer declined to be interviewed, the look of relief on her face was evident as a small smile spread across her face when people lined up to hug her fiancé.
After word spread that Arnold had been released and as friends and family waited for him to make an appearance at the fundraiser, they expressed their relief that he is recovering and their thanks to everyone who had a hand in helping him out. Dukart and her husband, Scott Dukart, said the support was overwhelming, with 95 people visiting Arnold during the first two days he was in the hospital.
"What do you say to everybody?" Laurie Dukart asked. "It doesn't seem like 'thank you' is enough."
Eric Keller has known Arnold for 20 years, since they started playing tee-ball together as kids, and expressed similar feelings.
"It's thank you enough to see him up and walking around," he said. "It restores your faith in the community."
Arnold said he doesn't remember the day the accident happened and that he is feeling "a lot better." He is already chomping at the bit to get back on the field and jokingly argued back-and-forth with a teammate about playing in their next softball game on Tuesday.
When asked if he had anything else to say, Arnold plugged his favorite sports team.
"Go Yankees," he said.
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text: The insane comedy series Hokuro Kayodai — Full Throttle! (Mole Brothers) came out a few years ago, and watching it is basically like putting your brain in the blender. The show, created by Katsuhito Ishii, is insanely funny and weird, from the constant punching and close-up sweat faces, to the anime parodies which include at one point a flying space anus. Luckily there are subtitles, but unless you are fluent in Japanese and (more importantly) all the pop culture references they're hurling around, you are probably missing at least half the jokes. It's testimony to the show's bizarro charm that you can still enjoy it despite what's lost in translation.


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(Reuters) - Sandy Weill has a lot of convincing to do.
The former Citigroup Inc CEO, who was in many ways the architect of the "too big to fail" giant bank system, dropped a bombshell on Wall Street on Wednesday by proposing that universal banks should be broken up because they are too big and complex to manage.
But the idea is hardly resonating with top bankers and dealmakers of the past 20 years.
"I don't buy it," said William Harrison, who was succeeded by Jamie Dimon as chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. "It gets back to management and risk-taking, and you can screw that up at a small bank or a large bank."
Harrison, a Weill contemporary who was instrumental in building JPMorgan into the largest U.S. bank, said in an interview on Thursday that he would hate to see the anger toward bankers lead to a breakup of big banks and the efficiencies they bring to the U.S. financial system.
Other Wall Street sources said the idea is also not new.
During the financial crisis, for example, U.S. regulators asked Citigroup to do an analysis about whether it would make sense to separate its commercial and investment banking operations, a source familiar with the situation said.
But consulting firm Bain & Co, which was hired by Citigroup to do a study, concluded that tax considerations made a breakup inefficient, the source said.
The report, which was kept hush-hush due to the sensitivity of the matter, was not widely circulated even internally at the bank. It couldn't be learned what exactly the tax implications would have been.
Citigroup declined to comment. A Bain spokeswoman and Weill did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.
Since the crisis many other major U.S. banks have also studied whether breaking up would be a good idea, Wall Street sources said, but have decided to remain in one piece.
Nevertheless, the about-face by Weill has sparked fresh debate about whether big banks should indeed be broken up. A breakup of any of the top Wall Street banks could have far-reaching consequences for investors, corporations, capital markets and consumers.
"Most big bank executives are not in favor of breaking up, and in fact are in violent opposition to it," said Robert Bostrom, a partner at the law firm SNR Denton who was general counsel of housing finance giant Freddie Mac from 2006 until last year.
"I'm not personally convinced that size equals trouble or that size plus activities equals trouble," Bostrom added. "The financial crisis was a 200-year event in the making that would have happened regardless of how big the banks were."
Several Wall Street executives said being big brings many advantages, and pointed to the benefit of having the kind of diverse revenue streams that allowed JPMorgan to absorb major losses from bad bets in its trading business last quarter while still earning money overall.
"Having lived through the 80s and 90s, the reason there was this consolidation in the industry was really because the bigger your balance sheet, the more business you could do," said Peter Vinella, a director at consulting firm Berkeley Research Group.
Vinella, who has helped develop business strategy plans for giant banks since the financial crisis, worked for Dimon and sat in on meetings with Weill when they were all at Citigroup.
Wall Street executives and advisers argued that U.S. banks have to be big and diverse to compete with large European, Asian and Latin American competitors.
Clients also like the wide range of talent and services that they can bring to the table.
"People around the world, like me, for example, need the services of these big integrated investment banks," said the founder of a major private equity firm. "If you try to go backwards, commercial customers will have less access to less good service, with less good prices."
Not everyone agrees. Some experts say a breakup makes sense, especially when considering the values investors are assigning to financial supermarkets compared with rivals that have largely stuck to their knitting.
Shares of Citigroup, Bank of America Corp and JPMorgan trade at less than 8 times 12-month earnings, whereas Wells Fargo & Co and US Bancorp trade at 11 and 12 times earnings, respectively.
Mike Mayo, a bank analyst with CLSA, says he believes Morgan Stanley shares would be worth $32 apiece if the bank were split up into three standalone businesses in securities, wealth management and asset management. Morgan Stanley shares have been trading only around $13, less than half of its tangible book value per share at June 30.
Executives and bankers are stumped by certain questions in such a breakup analysis. For instance, how would a standalone investment bank or its clients be in a better position without access to funding that comes from being part of a diversified company? And what about the costs of untangling integrated systems, some of which were only melded together at a great expense in the past few years?
One former top banking executive, who declined to be named, said "unscrambling the egg" is one of the main difficulties in a breakup scenario - especially when functions like lending to large companies, treasury management and underwriting debt are all interlinked.
Richard Kovacevich, who retired as CEO of Wells Fargo at the end of 2009, told Reuters that he also did not agree with Weill's recommendation, made on Wednesday in a CNBC interview.
"There is this conventional wisdom that big is bad or risky," he said. "I don't think there is any evidence that that is the case. Banks fail mainly because of concentration of risk."
The idea advocated by Weill and other "too big to fail" critics would imply a return to a Depression-era rules known as Glass-Steagall, which separated investment banks from banks that took deposits and made traditional loans.
Peter Hagan, a director of Allied Irish Banks and former chairman of Merrill Lynch's U.S. banks, said the ability to trade securities helps a bank manage its own risk and provide risk management services to clients.
Instead of returning to Glass-Steagall, regulators could build in incentives for the industry to deconsolidate on its own and reduce risk. One idea could be to create incentives such as more attractive capital rules for smaller institutions, which could make them more profitable and encourage managements of large banks to break into smaller pieces, he said.
"The point is if you get them down to a reasonable size, where they are not too big to fail, you then have the ability to manage the situation if one of them gets somewhat out of line," Hagan said.
Some banks have been getting smaller. Citigroup, for example, has sold more than 60 businesses and $600 billion in assets since determining in 2009 that about 40 percent of its balance sheet was no longer necessary for its banking operation.
Many bankers say what is most likely to happen is that big banks will continue to shed some parts of their businesses and strengthen their balance sheets — but that there is no 'big bang' series of break ups.
"We need a good discussion about how these institutions might be simplified and much better regulated," said Bill Isaac, former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, who is now global head of financial institutions at FTI Consulting and sits on the board of Fifth Third Bancorp. Isaac does not advocate a return to Glass-Steagall.
With clamor growing for a solution in the United States, some believe regulators may find a way to enforce even stricter rules.
"It's possible that the government would impose a Glass-Steagall type structure, especially if there's another blowup," said one Wall Street source.
But, he added, "I doubt any bank would voluntarily do it."
(This story corrected spelling of Robert Bostrom's name beginning in the thirteenth paragraph)
Additional reporting by Dan Wilchins; Writing by Paritosh Bansal; Editing by Martin Howell and Muralikumar Anantharaman


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Phesheya-Racing hove to
Throughout Sunday, thoughts of competitive racing were temporarily suspended for one of the Class40s in the Southern Ocean as the South African team on Phesheya-Racing was forced to heave-to in strong headwinds and confused seas. Furthest south at 48° leading the trio, Conrad Colman and Adrian Kuttel missed the worst of the gale with Cessna Citation while Marco Nannini and Hugo Ramon were barrelling southeast away from the storm on Financial Crisis as Phesheya-Racing rode out ferocious conditions and successfully preserved their boat.
By 22:00 GMT on Sunday, Nick Leggatt and Phillippa Hutton-Squire were in the teeth of the gale with Phesheya-Racing at 44°S: "The wind is not too bad but the risk of hull or rig damage is significant if we attempt to keep to any reasonable course in these seas," reported Leggatt as the team's track on the GOR Race Viewer became sporadic and tripped alarm bells at GOR HQ. "So we figured it is simply more prudent to stop right here and ride it out." On Sunday evening, Phesheya-Racing was experienced 30 knot winds combined with short, very step seas churning and boiling due to the rapid wind shift from southeasterly to northeasterly and the future prospects looked increasingly grim. "The wind is currently near gale force, but the forecast from New Zealand is for gale force soon and the GRIB files are showing even more wind," continued Leggatt.
Coincidentally, Nick Leggatt had been forced to heave-to in precisely the same area during his second circumnavigation on Tony Bullimore's 105ft catamaran, Daedalus, in the 2005 Oryx Quest round the world ace and he and Hutton-Squire pulled-off a text book manoeuvre under triple-reefed mainsail and staysail, lying at 35-40° to the wind with the helm lashed to leeward, before dispensing with staysail entirely.
By mid-morning on Monday the gale had passed: "We're finally underway again," reported Phillippa Hutton-Squire in a brief email to the GOR Race Organisation. "Still directly upwind, but the wind suddenly dropped to 15 knots, as forecast, and the sea has moderated very quickly," she adds. By 15:00 GMT on Monday, Phesheya-Racing was making just over six knots. "We're well rested and ready to go again," confirmed Hutton-Squire. "It is pitch dark and drizzling still, so we have started off a bit conservatively but at least we are sailing."
For Marco Nannini and Hugo Ramon, conditions were fractionally better, but remained extremely uncomfortable: "After a little break of lighter conditions when the wind switched from south-easterly to north-easterly, we are again beating our brains to mash in 30-35 knots of wind under triple reefed main and staysail," reported Nannini as Financial Crisis hammered southeast through the Roaring Forties. "We're doing well on board and have adopted a six-hours-on and six-hours-off watch system," explains the Italian skipper. "This allows us to eat, trim, email, check the weather and perhaps watch a movie during your watch, followed by a long rest in the bunk."
However, the word 'rest' at 47°S on a 40-foot yacht in Force 7 is relative: "You don't really get to sleep the entire time as the slamming and banging is so loud and uncomfortable that you just drift in an out a weird state of daydreaming," Nannini confirms. "Outside it's so wet that I've even given up on going out for a piss, and when nature calls I piss in a bucket then chuck it into the cockpit through the companion way," he adds. While personal hygiene standards have clearly suffered on Financial Crisis, Nannini and Ramon were making a little under eight-knot averages on Monday afternoon, trailing Cessna Citation by 75 miles.
Meanwhile, on the leading Class40 Cessna Citation, Conrad Colman's South African co-skipper, Adrian Kuttel, summed-up the disappointment of two of the fleet heading for New Zealand: "When we heard that the Fields on Buckley Systems and Campagne de France were bailing out and heading for Auckland, it threw us," admitted Kuttel on Monday morning. "The weather down the track is not great, but we have managed to fix all of our problems on the boat," he confirms. With two highly competitive Class40s removed from Leg 3, motivation to continue was under threat, but Colman and Kuttel opted to keep racing and fulfil the objective of rounding Cape Horn and finishing Leg 3: "So, after a satellite call to the remaining two boats in the race, we decided to stick with what we set out to do and continue the race to Uruguay," he adds.
The recent communication silence from Cessna Citation was forced by constant work on board since the start: "We blew the tack on the staysail halyard; developed a diesel leak down below; discovered serious issues with slack rigging in the mast and our hydro-generator that charges the batteries stopped working," reports Kuttel. "Conrad had to go up the rig three times while below the diesel turned the boat into an ice rink," he explains.
In the 15:00 GMT position poll on Monday, Cessna Citation was averaging 8.2 knots and had just dropped below 49°S. "We are back into 25 knots of wind again with lots of bang, bang going into each wave which we suspect will be the case until we reach the first mid-ocean scoring gate," says the South African skipper. "Sitting anywhere requires three limbs to stabilise ourselves and we move around the boat like monkeys from hand hold to hand hold." With the southern limit of the bluQube Scoring Gate 800 miles ENE of Cessna Citation, Colman and Kuttel should be able to reach up to the virtual waypoint as the wind clocks round to the south-west in around 24-36 hours. Until then, there are two options facing Cessna Citation and Financial Crisis: a costly tack northeast, or head further south into an area where ice is a known risk.
Meanwhile, 1,300 miles to the north-west, the Fields on Buckley Systems and Halvard Mabire and Miranda Merron on Campagne de France are just 200 miles from New Zealand. Halvard Mabire has immense respect for the three Class40s heading east: "We are, of course, following with admiration our brave fellow sailors who are continuing their route towards the east, come what may," says the 55 year-old round-the-world veteran. Withdrawing from Leg 3 was a very tough call for Mabire and Merron: "Campagne de France has already carried us to the far side of the world and we intend to get home with the boat in one piece and in good condition," Mabire confirms. "We will have to get over our huge disappointment to tackle the various problems that have arisen with this unforeseen scenario," he explains. "But real life is like that - if everything always went perfectly to plan, the world would be a boring place."
The GOR's Race Ambassador, Dee Caffari, has been watching events unfold in the Southern Ocean: "I felt terrible to hear the news of two boats retiring from this leg of the race, but relieved that both crews had made a seamanship decision," comments Caffari. "Injury or illness is every shorthanded sailor's nightmare and dealing with that in uncomfortable upwind conditions is not ideal, combined with the fact that there is a huge expanse of ocean to cross before another safe haven is available makes seamanship decisions crucial," she continues. "At all times when racing you are responsible for both the vessel and the people on board and I am pleased both parties are safe.
"Each day, weather information is downloaded, routing is planned, a sail plan is decided upon and food and drink provided," she explains. "The teams have no let up and on top of these things, the teams also look after the boats, repair the broken parts, charge the batteries and look after each other and try and find time to sleep and rest," says Caffari. "All the time this is going on the teams are also making crucial decisions on seamanship and safety, so we must remember this as we follow the leg across the Pacific Ocean and congratulate the remaining three boats racing and keep our fingers crossed that the fleet can return to six boats in Punta del Este for the final legs."
GOR leaderboard 15:00 GMT 06/02/12:
1. Cessna Citation DTF 4401 8.2kts
2. Financial Crisis DTL 75 7.8kts
3. Phesheya-Racing DTL 377 6.8kts


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Ron Markezich talks about the merits of cloud computing in the government
Trying to fit cloud computing into the strategic future of government information technology plans has become a significant issue for federal chief information officers.
That subject resonates with Ron Markezich, who was Microsoft's CIO, responsible for the company's global network, data centers, information security and IT services, before taking his current role as corporate vice president at Microsoft Online.
Markezich spoke with GCN recently about what federal CIOs should keep in mind as they weigh the merits of a future in the cloud.
GCN: How do you see the evolution of cloud computing unfolding in the government landscape?
Markezich: Well, first, I don't think government is going to be any different than [the] commercial [world]. I think you'll have some early adopters, playing with cloud computing to see where value can be added and where benefits can be had. But I think that the organizations that will be most successful with cloud computing are those that will look at it in context of their overall IT strategy and architecture. You want to make sure you do not treat it as an experiment, but as something that's core to your strategy.
Second, I think cloud computing will happen regardless of what the IT organization does, meaning that users will start using more and more services over the Internet, as "shadow apps."
GCN: How should federal IT managers think about cloud computing from an architectural point of view?
You need to look at a couple of things. One is the workload, or applications. What applications are so core and unique to your business that you would never move them to the cloud? And what applications are common across many companies that can move to the cloud?
Second, the big, big piece of cloud computing — and computing in general — is identity management. If you don't have a centralized identity management system, your controls will be lacking because you don't know who has access to what systems. Cloud computing exposes any gaps in your identity management system.
And third, you have to understand where your competencies are for your organization. And how does that competency tie to the overall mission of your organization?
GCN: What would you say to government CIOs and chief technology officers about common concerns related to security and whether creating private clouds is a partial solution?
Let me start with some taxonomy. Think of the public cloud as a place where you have your data shared with Acme Inc. and John Smith all in one database; a corporate cloud where you share data with other organizations; and a private cloud, dedicated to your organization.
Security concerns exist in all three of those. The biggest thing is whether that service provider is going to commit to you what they can and cannot do with your data and how they handle your data.
For instance, a lot of the public cloud services were built with the consumer in mind. Consumers don't typically care where their data resides. So the architecture is optimized for the system, not for the user. For the government, the customer needs to know where the data resides, not only from a security standpoint but from a policy standpoint.
You also have to understand what attestations [or certifications] that service provider gives you about your data and what protections you have in your contract. The security risks of cloud computing are actually no different than a customer running that service himself.
GCN: Some believe large-scale cloud providers are actually more secure because they have the talent, resources and focus that smaller organizations might lack. How do you see it?
We hear that a lot from our customers. There are quite a few smaller or less established companies out there offering cloud services that I don't know are making the investments in security that they should. But I do think with an established company, you are tapping into security investments and thought leadership. So I agree with that statement.
GCN: What are Microsoft's intentions as a player in the cloud computing realm?
From our perspective, this is really the future of our company. The software business is a good business, although it presents us some challenges, like getting the latest software out to our customers, making sure we can get real-time feedback from our customers and that it is very easy to use our software. Cloud computing actually solves a lot of those challenges for us. So as a company, this is something that we're really trying to drive the industry to as fast as possible. Every software product that we sell is also offered as a cloud option today or will be offered as a cloud option in the future.
Part of the cloud computing business model is its low-cost, utility approach. How does a company like Microsoft, selling high-margin software, successfully get into a low-margin infrastructure business?
The thing that gets lost in that is, if you look at total IT spending worldwide — it's actually a very small percentage that's spent on software and a much larger percentage spent on hardware and labor. We think we can take down the amount of money that it costs to get software to operate, save the industry money so that can be reinvested, and at the same time, continue to grow Microsoft's profits. Typically, for every dollar of software spent, it costs $6 to get that software to run. If we can take that $6 and make it $2 and Microsoft keeps a dollar and $3 go to the customer, our profits grow and the customers save money as well.
GCN: How does Microsoft's launch last year of Azure fit into your plans?
What Azure will provide is a platform that customers — government or even other third parties that serve the government — can develop applications on top of that reside in the cloud, rather than having a platform that's only there for your particular application. So you get the economies of scale of cloud computing by having that platform.
What's also unique: we open that platform up to other companies that are selling to the government, so they can develop applications on top of that platform that then they can go sell to the government. Microsoft will also run our cloud services on top of Azure.
GCN: What would you say are the biggest advantages to moving to the cloud sooner than later? And what would you look out for?
Everyone's looking at cost savings. Until recently, most customers were actually looking [at cloud computing] for other reasons than cost savings. One was to increase the level of capabilities that they have. The second would be redeploying some IT people in their companies. Take e-mail: Some of the best IT people in the world run e-mail systems…because if e-mail goes down, you know that CIO is in big trouble because everyone relies on e-mail. Why not move [e-mail] to the cloud and have that best person create an app that lets them do something much different and unique for their company?
The third one is predictable costs. Right now, you have these spikes whenever you upgrade applications and have to refresh your hardware. Cloud computing allows you to have very predictable costs based on usage or the number of users provisioned on that system.
The reservations? One is it really does change some internal policies and practices. Customers are very used to traditional outsourcing, where you have an outsourcer do anything you want. Whereas to get the benefits out of the cloud, you really want to rely on the cloud service as it exists, because if you get unique in the cloud, all of a sudden it's not the cloud — it's your own little outsource bank.
The other would be the migration cost. A lot of times you'll see an application in the cloud costs X dollars per year per user. But if you look at the cost of actually getting to that point, it often has a very large timeline for a payback.
GCN: What applications are you finding organizations are most likely to migrate to the cloud first?
For us, it's our e-mail/calendaring solution, our collaboration solution and our communications solution would be the three fastest. E-mail is the first app to really move to the cloud, although even e-mail is not an overnight type of move.
GCN: Can you talk a little about the cloud facilities Microsoft is building?
We are investing heavily, especially in the U.S., for facilities for cloud computing. We have a number of data centers that are world-class, top-of-the-line, very large data centers that have lots of economies of scale and things like low-cost power near them that we do have available to run our online services in. We've also talked to the government about is there a way to have something special for U.S. government — it could be a Microsoft-owned data center, a U.S. government-owned data center or third party-owned data center that is only housing the cloud services that we run for the U.S. government.
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Connecticut Junk Car Removal Specialists
45 city listings were found
Welcome to Junk Car Removal 411 an online directory featuring Junk Car Removal Specialists from all across the United States. We have organized our directory by state, city, zipcode and areacode to make it quick an easy to find a Junk Car Removal Specialist near you. Junk Car Removal 411 is the premiere resource in Connecticut for finding information on salvage yards, buying junk cars, junk car sales, donating your car to charity, old cars, auto auction, tow away junk cars, buy wrecked cars and junk car parts.
Scrap Car Removal Services - Are They Right For You?
by: Eric Mitz
Your scrap car may be stuck in a rut in your front lawn or taking up space in your garage, but that old clunker has got to go. It doesn't run, it's gathering rust; maybe you're even still paying ...read more


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While you're at it, it's a good idea to make sure that the type and level of coverage is what you want. If you're driving a new car, you'll likely want comprehensive and collision coverage as well as liability (the latter is required by law.) If you're driving a $1,000 car, on the other hand, maybe liability coverage is enough. These are good things to discuss with your agent or company, particularly if you have changes in your life (new car, change in household members, moving, etc.)
Monday, November 4, 2013
"Where do I get a detailed review of my auto and homeowners premiums?"
We recommend that you get a policy-specific premium breakdown directly from your agent (or insurer, if you buy direct). Specifically, you might want to ask for a rate worksheet comparison between your last year's premium and your current annual premium. That's a good way to get an apples-to-apples comparison of what your rates are doing.
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WATCH ABOVE: European leaders are meeting in Brussels hoping to punish Russia economically. As Jennifer Johnson reports, on the one hand Vladimir Putin denies he has soldiers in Ukraine but also tells the west to mind its own business.
BRUSSELS, Belgium – Despite tough rhetoric decrying Russia's increasing military involvement in Ukraine, European Union leaders on Sunday stopped short of imposing new sanctions against Moscow right away.
Ukraine accuses Russia of sending tanks, armoured vehicles onto its territory
The Russian 'invasion' of Ukraine in maps and numbers
Ukraine crisis: Government-held town in east Ukraine hit by shelling
Instead, the 28-nation bloc's heads of state and government tasked their executive body to "urgently undertake preparatory work" for tougher economic sanctions, according to summit chairman Herman Van Rompuy.
The sanctions will depend on the evolution of the situation on the ground but "everybody is fully aware that we have to act quickly," he added. The preparatory work will start Monday, he added.
READ MORE: Pro-Russia separatists in control of strategic Ukrainian coastal town
The fighting between the military and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine has so far claimed 2,600 lives, according to U.N. figures. NATO said this week that at least 1,000 Russian soldiers are in Ukraine, which Russia denies. Another 20,000 Russian troops are amassed just across Ukraine's eastern border, NATO says.
The U.S. and the EU have so far imposed sanctions against dozens of Russian officials, several companies as well as the country's financial and arms industry. Moscow has retaliated by banning food imports.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the new sanctions would target the same sectors as previous punitive measures, which also included an export ban for some high technology and oil exploration equipment.
Several European leaders had called for additional sanctions at the outset of the meeting in Brussels, but the fear of an economic backlash apparently prevailed and led the bloc to grant Russia another chance at avoiding tougher action. New sanctions would have required unanimity among the leaders.
Russia is the EU's No. 3 trading partner and one of its biggest oil and gas suppliers. The EU, in turn, is Russia's biggest commercial partner, making any sanctions more biting than similar measures adopted by the U.S.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who briefed the leaders at the beginning of their talks, said a strong response was needed to the "military aggression and terror" facing his country.
"Thousands of the foreign troops and hundreds of the foreign tanks are now on the territory of Ukraine," Poroshenko told reporters in English. "There is a very high risk not only for peace and stability for Ukraine, but for the whole … of Europe."
Conceding ground in the face of a reinvigorated rebel offensive, Ukraine said Saturday that it was abandoning a city where its forces have been surrounded by rebels for days. Government forces were also pulling back from another it had claimed to have taken control of two weeks earlier.
The statements by Col. Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the national security council, indicate that Ukrainian forces face increasingly strong resistance from Russian-backed separatist rebels just weeks after racking up significant gains and forcing rebels out of much of the territory they had held.
WATCH: Ukraine's president — Petro Poroshenko — warned on Saturday of the high risk to the "whole peace and stability of Europe" as the conflict with Russia continues
READ MORE: The Russian 'invasion' of Ukraine in maps and numbers
The office of the Donetsk mayor reported in a statement that at least two people died in an artillery attack on one of Donetsk's neighbourhoods. Shelling was reported elsewhere in the city, but there was no immediate word on casualties.
Poroshenko told reporters he believed efforts to halt the violence in eastern Ukraine were "very close to a point of no return," warning that failure could lead to a "full-scale war."
European leaders also issued dire warnings, reflecting their concern over the most recent military escalation with the opening of a new front by the Russian-backed rebels in southeastern Ukraine.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said Russia's meddling in Ukraine, which seeks closer ties with the EU, amounts to a direct confrontation that requires stronger sanctions.
"Russia is practically in the war against Europe," she said in English.
Lithuania wants arms embargo against Russia
Grybauskaite said the EU should impose a full arms embargo, including the cancelling of already agreed contracts, but France has so far staunchly opposed that proposal because it has a $1.6 billion contract to build Mistral helicopter carriers for Russia.
British Prime Minister David Cameron also warned that Europe shouldn't be complacent about Russian troops on Ukrainian soil.
"Countries in Europe shouldn't have to think long before realizing just how unacceptable that is," he said. "We know that from our history. So consequences must follow."
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said "sanctions are not an end in themselves," but a means to dissuade Russia from further destabilizing Ukraine.
Moscow, meanwhile, is preparing to send a second convoy of humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine.
WATCH: European Leaders comment ahead of summit on Ukraine crisis
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday that Moscow has already received Kyiv's preliminary approval and insisted that it would send aid in co-ordination with the Red Cross. Lavrov wouldn't say when the aid is likely to be sent, but said it could happen next week.
Russia trucks on the move again
Russian state Rossiya 24 on Saturday showed trucks from the previous convoy at the border being loaded with humanitarian aid that was brought to the area by train. It was unclear when the new convoy could start moving.
Barroso said that the EU – a bloc encompassing 500 million people and stretching from Lisbon to the border with Ukraine – stands ready to grant Kyiv further humanitarian aid and financial assistance if needed. The bloc will also organize a donors' conference to help rebuild the country's east at the end of the year, he added.
Ukrainian forces had been surrounded by rebels in the town of Ilovaysk, about 20 kilometres (15 miles) east of the largest rebel-held city of Donetsk for days.
"We are surrendering this city," Ukraine's Lysenko told reporters. "Our task now is to evacuate our military with the least possible losses in order to regroup."
Lysenko said that regular units of the military had been ordered to retreat from Novosvitlivka and Khryashchuvate, two towns on the main road between the Russian border and Luhansk, the second-largest rebel-held city. Ukraine had claimed control of Novosvitlivka earlier in August.
Separately, Ukrainian forces said one of their Su-25 fighter jets was shot down Friday over eastern Ukraine by a missile from a Russian missile launcher. The pilot ejected and was uninjured, the military said in a brief statement.
Heintz reported from Kyiv; Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed reporting.


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In the U.S. military, servicemembers ask each other this question to make sure that they're ready and able to accomplish the mission at hand. If someone is "good to go," then they are alert, accountable, and prepared to do their job. Someone who is "good to go" will avoid mistakes and make better decisions.
One thing is for sure: you can't be "good to go" when you're taking drugs.
For you, the workplace might be school or your summer job. If you're not "good to go," it could mean a bad grade on your chemistry test or getting benched on your football team. But for our men and women in uniform, drug use threatens their ability to protect one another and defend our Nation. A lack of concentration or a wrong decision could put everyone in danger. It could even cost someone their life.
That's why the Department of Defense is taking steps to create the largest drug-free workplace in the world. Its zero-tolerance policy (PDF, 51.27KB) on drugs means that servicemembers will have the best mental and physical health necessary to do their jobs.
At the same time, many of our servicemen and women are young and need as much support as they can get. Just like when you had to move to a new school or find a new group of friends, life in the military can be stressful. The day-to-day grind of combat, the effects of injury, or being apart from family can cause people to be depressed. And depression can lead to drug use. Just like you, service men and women sometimes need help getting through those tough periods - using healthy ways to cope without turning to drugs.
The Real Warriors Program is aimed at wiping out the stigma associated with getting mental health care in the military. The campaign uses the stories of servicemembers who admitted they needed help and now are pursuing successful military careers. From October 23-31, the Defense Department will honor these real warriors during Red Ribbon Week, an event to raise public awareness about the negative effects of drugs on military personnel, civilians, and their families.
Now, more than ever, we need good role models. Whether you are serving in the military, working at a desk job, or going to school, don't hesitate to offer help to someone in need. When's the last time you asked someone, "Are you good to go?"
Do you have a personal story about the importance of role models and encouraging one another to overcome life's challenges? If so, please comment on this blog post - we'd love to hear your story! This is a guest post from Dr. John Ohab, host of the Defense Department's weekly science radio show, "Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military."
The "good to go" slogan is good one. In follow up articles, why not have pictures of vets or families of vets that have good thru this drug battle and gone on to succeed in military or civilian lives?
Are the National Guard and Reserves members getting the same support when they return to their civilian lives?
WELL DONE! It's difficult to find just the right tone and context when speaking to Teens so that you will actually be heard. I think you nailed both with this very timely message. I look forward to hearing more from you in the future!
I agree with your story. However when you come back from combat and the Gov. does not provide the proper help you need then yes depression sets in. Then some use cocaine. I did it once and pissed hot, my 18 years meant nothing to the board and i was kicked out with nothing to show...period. Its a shame to be treated like that after all those good years. I believe a soldier should be subject to the exceptions to policies. Not zero tolerance.
Excellent post. I'm going through some of these issues as well..
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FBI arrests ex-TSA worker after LA airport threats
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A security screener at Los Angeles International Airport has been taken into custody after quitting his job and making threats that led officials to clear and search terminals at the airport, the FBI said in a statement Wednesday.
Nna Alpha Onuoha, 29, was arrested shortly before midnight Tuesday in Riverside, and he remained in custody on suspicion of making threats pending additional investigation.
A search of his otherwise empty apartment in suburban Inglewood turned up a note containing unspecified threats that cited Wednesday's Sept. 11 anniversary. Additional details of the contents of the letter were not immediately provided.
No harmful materials were found at the airport or the man's apartment, the FBI said.
The Los Angeles Police Department Bomb Squad also inspected a package allegedly left at TSA's headquarters in the airport after he resigned from his job, and the package was addressed to another agency employee, officials said.
The officers found no harmful contents in the package but turned up an eight-page letter in which Onuoha expressed disdain for the United States and referenced an event that led to a recent suspension from the job he had held since 2006, the FBI said. It was not clear early Wednesday what the incident had been.
Later, a man authorities believed to be Onuoha made two phone calls to TSA saying certain airport terminals should be evacuated. During one call, the man told an employee he would be monitoring to see if authorities would evacuate the terminals as instructed.
No threats were found in authorities' search of the terminals. The airport is the nation's third busiest airport, according to its website.
A request for comment from the airport was not immediately returned early Wednesday.


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Quick Links:
Cognitive Symptoms
Behavioral Changes
REM Sleep Behavior Disorder and Insomnia
Autonomic Dysfunction
Nonpharmacological Therapies
Cognitive Symptoms
Symptomatic approach using acetylcholine-esterase inhibitors (AChEIs).
The therapeutic benefits of different pharmacologic approaches on the cholinergic system have been evaluated in both AD and LBD. While acetylcholine precursors and postsynaptic receptor agonists had poor results in clinical trials in AD, inhibition of acetylcholineesterase has demonstrated to provide symptomatic benefits. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEIs) approved by the FDA for the treatment of AD include tacrine (Cognex), donepezil (Aricept), rivastigmine (Exelon), and galantamine (Razadyne). To date, there is no compelling evidence that any one AChEI is better than the others. Three independent clinical studies of AChEI treatment using donepezil, galantamine or rivastigmine in patients with LBD suggest that all AChEIs improve cognitive and neuropsychiatric measures. Usually there is no significant increase in Parkinsonism with AChEI use.
a. Rivastigmine: Rivastigmine is a noncompetitive and reversible inhibitor of both acetylcholinesterase and butylcholinesterase available as a tablet, oral solution and transdermal patch. In the treatment of AD, it has been associated with improvement in cognition, behavioral symptoms, and functional abilities including activities of daily living (ADLs). In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-center trial of DLB patients, treatment with rivastigmine 12 mg/day for 20 weeks was completed. On discontinuation of the drug, the differences between rivastigmine and placebo tended to disappear. The rivastigmine group had better performance on tests of attention, working memory and episodic memory compared to placebo. Patients given placebo showed a significant deterioration in attentional functions from baseline scores at 12 and 20 weeks, whereas patients on rivastigmine performed significantly above their baseline levels. Three weeks after discontinuation of rivastigmine, most parameters of cognitive performance returned to pretrial levels. Rivastigmine received FDA indications for the treatment of dementia associated with Parkinson's disease in 2007.
b. Donepezil: Donepezil is a reversible noncompetitive AChEI. It has a favorable pharmacokinetic profile available as once per day oral dosing either as tablet or oral-disintegrating forms with high specificity to acetylcholinesterase in brain tissue. Most of the side effects reported with donepezil are mild, dose-related and involve the gastrointestinal system and the central nervous system. An open label trial of donepezil compared treatment in 12 AD patients and 4 DLB patients. There was an improvement by 4.8 in MMSE scores in LBD, compared to 0.6 in AD. A randomized clinical trial of 5 mg/day of donepezil in patients with mild to moderate LBD reported marked improvements in behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia but was not associated with cognitive improvement. The NPI-11 (behavioral) scores were significantly improved at weeks 8 and 12 compared with baseline. This dose was tolerated with no motor deterioration in the treatment group.
c. Galantamine: Galantamine is a reversible and competitive inhibitor of acetylcholinestase and can amplify the actions of other receptors such as glutamate, serotonin, dopamine and GABA. The efficacy and safety of galantamine in LBD has been demonstrated in a 24 week open label study in 50 patients. There were beneficial effects in the NPI and the Clinician's Global assessment of change with mild side effects. In particular, there was improvement in visual hallucinations, nighttime behavior, and fluctuating cognitive deficits. There was also a benefit in sleep abnormalities and REM sleep behavior disorder.
NMDA antagonists (memantine): The excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate plays important roles in memory and learning. Glutaminergic dysfunction is well documented in AD and possibly contributes to the cognitive dysfunction. Overstimulation of NMDA receptors by glutamate results in calcium mediated excitotoxicity and cell death. Memantine (Namenda) is a noncompetitive voltage dependent antagonist with moderate affinity for the NMDA receptor. The efficacy and safety of memantine in moderate to severe AD have been reported in clinical trials and use of memantine in combination with donepezil has been reported to be more effective than the use of donepezil alone. It was approved by the FDA for the treatment of moderate to severe AD in 2003 but has not been adequately studied in LBD.
Do all Alzheimer's medications have a role to play in treatment of the cognitive decline in LBD?
AChEI's have been considered by LBD experts to be the gold standard in treating cognitive and psychiatric symptoms of LBD. A recent comparative analysis of independent clinical studies of AChEI's in LBD demonstrated all AChEI's significantly improved cognitive and neuropsychiatric measures and that there was no significant increase in United Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS-III) scores. However, the study revealed no compelling evidence that supports any one AChEI as better than any other in treating DLB.
There is little published data on the use of memantine in LBD patients. Given that both AChEIs and memantine are often considered by various prescribers, until more research demonstrates clear benefits, a cholinesterase inhibitor would be preferable to memantine.
There are no clinical trials on the best treatment of motor features in LBD. However, levodopa is generally the first-line treatment of PD and some improvement is seen in motor function with levodopa therapy in most cases of LBD. There is a risk, however of provoking behavioral or psychotic symptoms.
Dopamine agonists are associated with more side effects especially drug induced psychosis even at low doses. In head to head trials comparing levodopa to dopamine agonists in early PD, dopamine agonists have been found to be less effective and less well tolerated with a higher incidence of drug induced psychosis than levodopa. However, there is some suggestion that early treatment of PD with dopamine agonists, versus levodopa, may lower the risk of drug-induced dyskinesias. There are no direct head to head trials comparing dopamine agonists with levodopa in LBD. However, in the LBD patient the best risk-benefit ratio (motor improvement versus psychosis and dyskinesias) for treatment of motor features likely is achieved with levodopa. Therefore, a trial of levodopa is recommended in LBD with slow titration of the dose to produce symptomatic benefit.
Other PD medications such as amantadine, COMT inhibitors, MAO inhibitors and anticholinergics have the risk of exacerbating cognitive impairment and should be avoided if possible. Furthermore, the cognitive impairment in LBD makes those patients poor candidates for deep brain stimulation. AChEIs can potentially worsen parkinsonism. In a study of rivastigmine in PDD, approximately 10% of patients experienced worsening of tremor but it was not usually associated with significant medical concern.
How early should treatment of parkinsonism in LBD begin?
Some LBD patients may not demonstrate overt or disabling parkinsonism for years. Given the potential negative side effects, physicians should be conservative when treating parkinsonism in LBD, and start with a slow titration of levodopa only if pharmacological intervention is necessary.
Behavioral changes
The first line intervention in treating problematic behaviors in LBD patients should be non-pharmacologic measures including evaluating for physical ailments that may be provoking behavioral disturbances (e.g. fecal impaction, pain, decubitus ulcers, urinary tract infection). Avoidance of, or reduction of doses of other medications that can potentially cause agitation should also be attempted. Affective disorders (anxiety and depression) are common in LBD and anecdotally, LBD patients respond to antidepressants and anxiolytics, although they have not been rigorously studied. A general rule is that when medications are needed to modify behaviors, they should be used for the shortest duration possible. Benzodiazepines should not be first-line agents given their risk of sedation and paradoxical agitation.
a. Antipsychotics. Visual hallucinations occur in up to 80% of patients with LBD and are considered one of the core features. Cholinergic deficits appear to be related to psychosis in LBD correlating with low CHAT activity and increased muscarinic receptor binding. Visual hallucinations have been suggested as predictors of a good response to the AChEI rivastigmine.
The management of psychosis in LBD has been mostly based on results of trials in AD and follows the general guidelines of pharmacotherapy in geriatric populations. In addition, some recommendations for the use of antipsychotics in LBD are based on studies in PD patients without dementia. Treatment can be very challenging given the sensitivity of these patients to even low doses of antipsychotics.
Typical neuroleptics (such as haloperidol) and atypical neuroleptics with D2 receptor antagonism (such as olanzapine and risperidone) should be avoided due to the risk of severe neuroleptic sensitivity reactions, neuroleptic malignant syndrome, parkinsonism, somnolence and orthostatic hypotension. Experience with atypical antipsychotics in LBD has been mixed. Risperidone and olanzapine have been shown to control psychosis and agitation in AD in randomized trials. Although low doses of risperidone (0.5 mg) and olanzapine (2.5 mg) are usually well tolerated and do not usually result in motor deterioration, in advanced LBD patients motor deterioration can still be seen.
Quetiapine and clozapine may be preferred when psychosis warrants treatment. Clozapine has been demonstrated to be effective for PD psychosis in a randomized clinical trial. However, due to the potentially fatal adverse event of agranulocytosis and need for blood monitoring, it is not first-line. Aripiprazole has not been studied in LBD. Quetiapine has become a popular treatment of psychosis in LBD given the low incidence of motor deterioration and its ability to control visual hallucinations with low doses. Tolerability has been documented in both PD and DLB. However, measures of efficacy have had mixed results and most data is from either unblinded, open-label studies or small placebo-controlled studies
b. AChEI for behavioral symptoms. A meta-analysis of six large trials in AD showed a small but significant benefit for AChEI in treating neuropyschiatric symptoms. There also appears to be a differential effect of AChEI on different psychiatric symptoms, with psychosis, agitation, wandering, and anxiety being the most consistently responsive while negative symptoms of depression, apathy and eating behaviors are less responsive. Similarly, a few reports are available for behavioral improvement with the use of the AChEI rivastigmine in LBD. In a large multicenter trial, rivastigmine resulted in improvement by 30% from baseline in psychiatric symptoms. In a recent case control study of rivastigmine, treatment was associated with reduction in total behavioral scores, hallucinations and sleep disturbance compared to AD. There were lower rates of apathy, anxiety, delusions and hallucinations in the treatment group compared to controls. It is not clear whether this preferential effect on behavior is due to drug effect or more severe behavioral pathology already present in LBD.
How does the 'black box warning' on atypical antipsychotic medications relate to LBD? According to the FDA, "in analyses of seventeen placebo-controlled studies of four drugs in this class (atypical antipsychotics), the rate of death for those elderly patients with dementia was about 1.6 to 1.7 times that of placebo. Although the causes of death were varied, most seemed to be either heart-related (such as heart failure or sudden death) or from infections (pneumonia)."
The FDA's 'black box warning' indicates these drugs are not approved for the treatment of behavioral symptoms in elderly patients with dementia. Physicians should discuss the risks and benefits of these types of medications, so that LBD patients and caregivers can consider issues of quality of life against the risks associated with these medications.
REM sleep behavior disorder and insomnia
Clonazepam has been the mainstay of medical therapy for REM behavior sleep disorder (RBD), usually effective at 0.25-0.5 mg/night, but doses above 1 mg are necessary in some patients. Melatonin may also offer some benefit either as monotherapy or in conjunction with clonazepam, particularly considering the lower risk of side-effects with melatonin compared to clonazepam. Melatonin may reduce the percentage of REM sleep without muscle atonia and decrease the number of stage shifts in REM sleep, suggesting it has a more direct mode of action on RBD pathophysiology. Other drugs reported to improve RBD include pramipexole, donepezil, levodopa, carbamazepine, triazolam, clozapine and quetiapine. For insomnia, treatment can be attempted with low doses of benzodiazepines or with agents such as zolpidem, trazodone, or chloral hydrate. These medications have not been extensively studied in LBD and daytime sedation is a potential side effect.
Autonomic dysfunction
Initial management of orthostatic hypotension consists of simple measures such as leg elevation, elastic stockings, increasing salt and fluid intake, and if possible avoiding medications that can exacerbate orthostasis. If simple measures fail, medications such as midodrine and fludrocortisone can be used. Midodrine is a vasoconstrictor and side effects include urine retention and supine hypertension. Fludrocortisone has mineralocorticoid activity and causes fluid retention.
Medications with anticholinergic activity such as oxybutynin, tolterodine tartrate, bethanechol chloride, propantheline can be used to treat urinary urgency, frequency and urge incontinence. They should be used cautiously however, given their risk of exacerbating cognitive problems. As LBD is more common in males, the risk of producing urine retention in the setting of prostatic hypertrophy should be considered.
Constipation can usually be treated by exercise and dietary modifications. Laxatives, stool softeners and mechanical disimpaction may be needed. The prokinetic effect of cholinergic stimulation by AChEIs might improve the symptoms in some patients.
Impotence in LBD is likely multifactorial. While autonomic dysfunction plays a major role, often there is contribution from other factors such as depression and motor impairment with nocturnal akinesia. Treatment is complex and often requires specialized care and a urologic consultation should be considered. Options include sildenafil, tadalfil, vardenafil, yohimbine, or a small bedtime dose of levodopa. If mood disturbances are associated with the sexual dysfunction, therapy with antidepressants can be considered.
Is there a role for neutraceuticals (herbal supplements) in the treatment of LBD symptoms?
To date, there is very little information in the scientific literature on the use of neutraceuticals in LBD and none are recommended by LBD experts as part of standard treatment.
Caution should always be taken when considering herbal supplements. Neutraceuticals do not go through the same rigorous testing for FDA approval as prescription medications and some can interact with other medications, lessening the effects of important medications or even creating a toxic reaction. Patients and caregivers should inform their physicians of every medication (including prescriptions, over-the-counter medications and herbal supplements) they are taking.
Non-pharmacological therapies
Optimum management of LBD includes both pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for the patient, as well as education and support for the primary caregiver.
Physical therapy options include gait training, and cardiovascular, strengthening, and flexibility exercises. Physicians may also recommend exercise programs such as aerobic exercise, strengthening program, or water exercise.
LBD patients may be responsive to speech therapy for low voice volume and poor enunciation. Speech therapy may also improve inspiratory muscular strength and swallowing difficulties.
Occupational therapy may help maintain skills and promote function and independence.
Education of and support for the primary caregiver is essential to maintain optimum quality of life for both the patient and caregiver. Caregivers need to be educated about the symptoms of LBD, standard treatment options, and how to find the supportive services they will likely need during the course of LBD.
Source: "Current Issues in LBD Diagnosis, Treatment and Research" by James E. Galvin, MD, Bradley F. Boeve, MD, John E. Duda, MD, Douglas R. Galasko, MD, Daniel Kaufer, MD, James B. Leverenz, MD, Carol F. Lippa, MD, Oscar L. Lopez, MD, representing the Scientific Advisory Council of the Lewy Body Dementia Association. May, 2008


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Ludlowe's Evans runner-up to friend Martin, of Darien, for State Open girls tennis singles title
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The championship matches in the all-FCIAC girls tennis State Open at Yale's indoor Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center on Wednesday afternoon were different, but both as close as could be for straight-sets victories by the state champion winners. The theme of the singles final was familiarity, for both are doubles partners in out-of-school tournaments and are best friends. The common thread of the doubles final was lack of familiarity because the Wilton and Staples teams did not meet in the regular-season match on May 12.
The singles final was the third meeting of the spring for the friendly opponents. Darien sophomore Kateri Martin, seeded fifth, defeated pal Lindsey Evans, a Fairfield Ludlowe junior, 7-5, 7-5, despite trailing in each set. Martin beat Evans 6-4, 6-3 on May 19 in Fairfield when the Blue Wave handed the Falcons their only loss of the season to earn the No. 1 seed, and not Ludlowe, for the FCIAC Championships. Last Friday, in the Class L final, Evans gained a 6-4, 6-4 victory that helped Ludlowe to a 4-3 win and the state title over Darien.
Three courts over, Wilton's Kaitlyn Zheng, a junior, and Taylor Ingerman, a sophomore, beat the Staples pair of senior Kelsey Shockey and freshman Vanessa Mauricio 6-3, 7-6(8-6) by winning the last two points of the tiebreaker. The Warriors' team was seeded fourth and the Wreckers' duo was the No. 7 seed. Both pairs won grueling three-set victories in the semifinals on Tuesday at Yale.
Both Martin and Evans agreed with the notion that they each knew the day would end in happiness, either for winning the state crown herself or knowing that their friend emerged with the title instead. On the court, the friendship was an afterthought.
"I don't like her any more," Evans said, mere minutes after posing for photographers capturing them giving each other double high-fives while smiling.
Ludlowe's John Reisert said in 16 years of coaching he's never seen state singles finalists who were doubles partners and close friends.
"It's really unusual to see," he said. "When the match began, both players treated it as a match. They both focused on the match and let the tennis decide it and not the friendship."
Evans said her regular-season loss to Martin came in part from her treating Martin as a friend. That was overcome in the Class L final.
"I think she played a lot better today (than last Friday)," said Evans, who completed the season with a 25-2 record.
"I was making more balls today than Friday," said Martin, who finished 2014 at 26-2, "Definitely, I was more mentally there than Friday."
Martin said the turning points for her victory came from her rallies when she trailed 5-4 in the first set and 3-0 in the second.
Evans had broken Martin's serve for a 5-3 lead but Martin closed out the first set with wins in the last four games, taking advantage of three double faults by Evans. The Falcons' junior opened the second set with a 3-0 lead but Martin rallied for three straight to tie it at 3-3. Evans won the next two games, then Martin fought back again to claim the trophy by winning four games in a row.
Staples led the first set of the doubles match 2-1 before Zheng/Ingerman broke serve and won five of the last six games. Shockey/Mauricio clung to a 5-4 lead in the second set before the Warriors won two in a row for a 6-5 advantage. Staples got it to 6-6, forcing the back-and-forth tiebreaker.
Warriors coach Mike Racanelli said nervousness dominated him while watching the tiebreaker. "We would get a lead and they (Wreckers) would come back as they always did, then we made a few shots at the end," he said.
"This is the best day of my life," said Zheng, who played No. 3 doubles in 2013. "When we were down 3-0 in the second set, we got back and pulled it out." Zheng, Ingerman and Racanelli all said their mental toughness was the key to victory." Zheng/Ingerman finished the season at 21-1.
"They were two great teams," Staples coach Paco Fabian said. "If it had gotten to the third set, it could have gone either way." Shockey/Mauricio wound up 20-9.
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State Open girls tennis at Yale
Singles: No. 5 Kateri Martin (Darien) def. No. 3 Lindsey Evans (Ludlowe) 7-5, 7-5. Doubles: No. 4 Kaitlyn Zheng/Taylor Ingerman (Wilton) def. No. 7 Kelsey Shockey/Vanessa Mauricio (Staples) 6-3, 7-6(8-6).