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Carson CityHome Menu
Service With Pride, Commitment, and Compassion
As stewards of the equipment provided by the generosity of the citizens of Carson City, we take great pride in the appearance and condition of our apparatus and associated equipment. We go to great lengths to ensure our apparatus is always in a ready-to-roll condition to meet the emergency service needs of our community. This page and its associated pages are designed to acquaint you with the apparatus we have available to fulfill our mission. Click on the icons below to check out our apparatus.
Structure Engines
Carson City Fire Department has six Type I structure fire engines in its fleet. Each fire station has one first-out active engine and one reserve engine. These are designed and equipped to respond to fires in buildings and vehicles. These engines also respond to vehicle accidents and a wide variety of rescue situations.
Brush Engines
Carson City Fire Department has three Type III wildland fire engines in its fleet. Each fire station has one brush engine designed for brush fires in the wildland urban interface area of Carson City. These four wheel drive vehicles are equipped to travel across open land and over mountain ranges.
Carson City Fire Department has six ambulances in its fleet. Three ambulances are location at Fire Station 51; two ambulances are located at Fire Station 52; and one ambulance is located at Fire Station 53.
Heavy Rescue Squad
Carson City Fire Department has one of these vehicles. It is designed and equipped to perform a wide variety of rescues. The Squad allows us to rescue victims from high rise buildings, trench collapse, confined spaces, and trapped in vehicles; and it assists in lifting, moving, or stablizing objects or vehicles.
Hazmat Research and Response
Carson City Fire Department responds this vehicle to all hazardous material spills or toxic researches. It is equipped to perform research on chemicals and provide weather information. It contains absorbent materials, entry suits, tools, and monitoring equipment.
Air and Lighting
This vehicle responds to all large fires and special rescues. It is equipped with scene lighting, a compressor to fill breathing apparatus air cylinders, a wide variety of tools for secene clean up, and food and drinks for long duration incidents.
This vehicle is used in the search and rescue of victims in difficult terrain, canyons, and mountains. It is equipped with a rescue gurney and basic rescue equipment. It also has a small water tank and pump for small fires.


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shade wrote:I agree with everyone else : I also don't think it would bother someone to start over, especially if we consider this mode will provide a brand new experience. It'd be bad/sad to start with an imported high lvl char.
And to break save compatibility with the vanilla game may render things easier for you, and maybe let you implement other changes.
It would move a number of things from "impossible" to "possible" (extra NPCs, removing the PA cap, possibly common storage) and a few things from "obnoxious" to "less obnoxious" (if there are no pre-new-grinding weapons, I don't need to worry about fixing their stats; if I don't have to worry about characters from that "allow advanced types" .exe, I can use that data for other things). No promises, of course, I'll have to do some research on this.
(On the silly side, it'd also mean that rare missions can be part of mission packs. If you can't bring your character in, I don't care if you powerlevel to 200 before you start...)
shade wrote:I don't have a proper list of music file (for exemple, I can't say for sure which file corresponds to "xa_bgm008.adx"), but I do know there are some duplicates (for example, 5ca355ff67a177563c0be89256f82a9d & 84165eab3e9f115722b1f4881d5cd9f5 ; and the game uses the 1st one), some extracts (like you mentionned, the 10 seconds loop of "Comedy", 8607b4c0e0078d329fb38280caea8da2, is taken from 3df90dc2a25de0e6085839c3d2bc6cab), the two empty slots, etc...
I have an almost full list. It's here. The unidentified ADX files are almost certainly v1 boss intros/death sounds, but tracking down their actual names is... somewhat obnoxious.
shade wrote:If you want to keep the 10 seconds loop of Comedy, instead of using 8607b... Would it be possible to use 3df90... And to tell to the game to start at 1:13, to end at 1:27 and to restart at 1:14 ?
And then to use the 8607b... for something else ?
Do you know how many slots could be "emptied" ?
No. As far as I'm aware, the only real control I have once the game gets to that point is "play music" or "ruin everything"; loop data is baked into the adx files themselves. Accordingly, the answer to the next question is "also no", and the next one's "probably none of them". The problem's generally more However...
shade wrote:And do you think it'd be a good idea to save one slot or two for Clementine, as temporary music slots for event ?
If they're using 2.0014.30, they have dozens of empty music slots, as I do. You see, Sega added entries for all of the PSP2i music (including missions, bosses, cutscenes...) but only added a few actual tracks (generally just the bosses and areas); by a quick count, it looks like about 26 of them are unused (out of 57 total added tracks).
shade wrote:Oh ! And for an upcoming mission pack, I don't have a request. In fact, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think we will have to wait too long to see your mod - or at least the part that contains missions - available ; and I don't want to get to much content released before the final version is available (that would remains me how SEGA spoiled us by revealing 4 of the 5/6 new environments in PSP2 before the game was released...). I understand it may be frustrating for people who have never played to PSU JP online (or PSP2/2i), but I think it'd be better to preserve some surprises. Maybe, you can only release missions available in the PSP2/2i trial version (but that would exclude Othori Castle).
TBH, till you don't release The Eternal Cycle, I'd be ok with any choice (and if you release it, I'll just have to don't download it, but it'll be hard for me to resist...).
Eternal Cycle, like other GAMs, may be... a bit delayed. Kind of a shame, the "World of Illusion" missions were easily my favorite event missions.
For that matter, Ohtori Encampment may misbehave badly on US clients, fair warning.
KanameChidori wrote:Macman wrote:Starting over won't bother me much, I've done everything in the vanilla game and all I'd really be missing is a Holy Ray I had to cheat into my inventory because it dropped on the wrong character. :v
Yeah I don't think anyone really cares about having to start over. I mean leveling PAs, Bullets, and Techs should be easier anyway (that's the only reason I can see for not wanting to start over, and even then only the Techs on vanilla take forever to level)
Hoping to get a good balance between "not tedious" and "fulfilling" for leveling PAs; if they level too fast, it feels pointless, while if it takes too long, it's frustrating. Of course, there's also a difference between "PAs/techs/bullets you learn at the start of the game" and "PAs/techs/bullets you learn once you're a ways in"...


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Some health facilities are abuzz with health workers attending to patients at every corner. But, the Kyaango dispensary in rural Kitui County, Kenya, has only one health worker. Lenah Gatwiri is the village's only registered community health nurse, serving more than 6,000 people. Since her first day at work in 2011, Gatwiri has committed to ensuring the community has access to much-needed health care.
"I'm the records officer, the pharmacist, the nurse, and more. Thankfully, the community supports me by cleaning the facility, which provides me reassurance. When I see people get better and have hope, it keeps me going," she says.
The Kyaango dispensary is in a remote village that lacks an adequate water supply and electricity. The closest health center is 16 kilometers from the village, and Lenah refers patients there for laboratory tests. She says most people do not follow through when they are referred for blood tests because of the cost and the distance they must travel. This makes it difficult to provide high-quality health care.
In June 2013, the Government of Kenya introduced free maternity services in all public health facilities. There was an increase in the number of women seeking these services, but government funds were slow to trickle down to the facility level.
"The changes in maternity and outpatient charges sometimes forced me to dig into my own pocket and procure essential treatment medications. I did this because I am part of the community," says Gatwiri, who delivers about four babies every month.
The Government of Kenya has since resolved these issues and is now reimbursing health facilities for these services. Gatwiri keeps the dispensary open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., but she remains on call at all times in case of emergency. She has sacrificed her allotted leave of absence because she did not want to leave the health facility unattended. "I have to consider the challenges the community will face with the dispensary being closed," she says.
Kyaango is not the only place that needs more health workers. There is a critical shortage throughout Kenya, which means that accessing quality health services is difficult, especially for those living in hard to reach and rural areas.
Gatwiri was recruited and deployed by the U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) Capacity Kenya Project. In total, more than 1,000 health workers were deployed to fill critical workforce gaps in underserved areas.
Devolution, which was set in motion after the 2013 general elections, shifts certain government powers and responsibilities from the national government to newly formed county governments. As health services devolve, the management and deployment of health workers will be taken over by counties. The Capacity Kenya Project, which runs from April 2009 to April 2014, is working with county governments to prepare for this transition. A strong, well-functioning and sustainable health system is vital to improving the health status of Kenyans.
USAID works closely with the Government of Kenya to train, manage and retain skilled health workers, and deploy them to areas of the country that need them the most. The project is part of a broader effort to strengthen and improve the Kenyan health system through human resources in public, private and faith-based facilities; leadership and management; health financing; commodities and information management systems.


text: Hey @ all admins, is there a way to add Tapatalk support to the Forum ? Would be cool to read and write better in the Forum via mobile a mobile device. Tapatalk for the Forum itself is for free --> http://www.tapatalk.com/index.php Of course the App for the Mobile device is not free and you need to pay for it. But for those users who already use tapatalk with other forums...would be great. Thanks! Greez BeNeDeLuX


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Jeremy Jones' is taking backcountry snowboarding to the next level and beyond in the final chapter of the DEEPER, FURTHER, HIGHER trilogy from Teton Gravity Research. Dropping in Fall 2014, HIGHER traces Jones' snowboarding journey from hiking Cape Cod's Jailhouse Hill as a child to accumulating several generations' worth of wisdom and expertise about thriving and surviving in the winter wilderness.
His crew for HIGHER includes Bryan Iguchi, Luca Pandolfi, Lucas Merli, Ryland Bell, and others. With these friends, Jeremy leaves tracks on signature lines in the close-to-home playgrounds he's made his own around Jackson Hole and Lake Tahoe. He also makes history with far-flung first descents in the Eastern Alaska Range and the Himalaya of Nepal, where the stakes are as high as the peaks themselves.
Check out the trailer and get stoked for the full feature to drop Fall 2014!


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Soon after our first meeting in her Spartan office in Jerusalem, Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, called me. Something was on her mind. A lawyer by training, she does not like to leave loose ends. I had asked her if the four years she spent in Mossad, the intelligence service, made her a disciplined person. Livni had seemed taken aback by the question, which interrupted the cascade of her pronouncements on Israel and its Palestinian nemesis. After a long hesitation, she said: "I don't like this phrase, a disciplined person. I don't know. I don't know."
Now, an hour later, she wanted to set the record straight. "I was thinking about this idea of me as a disciplined person," she began. I perched myself on a stone wall near the King David Hotel and listened through a blustery desert wind. "There are other parts of me that are different. I prefer jeans to a suit, sneakers to high heels, markets to malls. You've just returned from Paris: I prefer the Quartier Latin to the Champs Elysées. In general, I don't like formality at all. It is just part of what I do. You know, when I was young, I went to the Sinai and worked as a waitress."
I had not known this detail about a woman who entered Israeli politics only 11 years ago, the first to serve as foreign minister since Golda Meir and a potential prime minister. Nor was it easy to imagine the tall, well-groomed 48-year-old I had just met, in her gold-belted black pants, her crocodile-skin shoes and her snug black jacket, donning denims and sneakers and hitting a flea market.
But Livni's phone call was telling. Israelis these days fret about how they are seen. They like to convey the spirit of the underdog — that of Israel's heroic beginnings — as if discomfited by the adornments of an increasingly moneyed, Americanized and postheroic society. More powerful than ever, Israelis are also more anxious than ever, a paradox with U.S. parallels that they find maddening. Israel's strength and wealth grow, but the country's long-term security does not grow with them. The shekel rises; so does the billowing smoke just over the border in Gaza. Two Israeli withdrawals, from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005, have ended up bolstering two groups that the West and Israel brand as terrorists — Hezbollah and Hamas. Some Israelis, watching the black-masked militia of Hamas take over Gaza, have taken to calling the benighted sliver of territory "Hamastan."
The mother of all conflicts — the 59-year-old battle for the same land of Zionist and Palestinian national movements — has become even more tangled. It has been dragged into the wider crisis of Islamic civilization that daily spawns fervid death-to-the-West jihadists. To a Palestinian national struggle for a homeland, there is an answer, at least in theory. To a religious and annihilationist campaign against Israel, there is none. One of Livni's catchphrases is, "There is a process of delegitimization of Israel as a Jewish state." She sees herself in a race against time.
To manage that race, she wants to lead. Her diplomatic energy, not least in helping put together the multinational United Nations force now in Lebanon, has impressed in capitals from Washington to Europe. Her restiveness is clear. After the spring publication of the Winograd Commission's interim report on the 2006 Lebanon war, which lambasted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for lacking "judgment, responsibility and prudence," Livni told him he should quit but did not resign herself. She also said she would one day stand for leadership of their centrist Kadima Party. This unusual act of defiance toward her boss, widely criticized as only half an insurrection, was a measure of Livni's ambition, impatience and lingering uncertainties.
"Stagnation works against those who believe in a two-state solution," Livni said in our first conversation. The West, she suggested, needs to tell Hamas, the Islamist movement battling Fatah for control of a Palestinian movement now split between Gaza and the West Bank, that it must not only recognize Israel's right to exist but also "the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, which is not that obvious anymore."
The Jewish state has been tied to the Livni family with a special bond since zero hour. For Livni, personal history is national history. Her parents were among the first couples to marry in the newborn state, the day after its foundation, on May 15, 1948. Her father, Eitan, served as operations chief for the Irgun, the Zionist guerrillas who used what would today be called terrorist methods to blast the British out of Mandate Palestine. Her mother, Sarah, was also an Irgun fighter; she suckled her daughter on visions of Eretz Israel, the biblical "Land of Israel," including Judea and Samaria on the West Bank. Territorial compromise for peace had no place in the family lexicon. It was the weak talk of the peaceniks.
Yet here is Livni wanting to follow Meir and become the second woman to serve as Israeli prime minister, precisely in the name of a peace that would involve the surrender of West Bank land. On the face of it, she has moved a long way from her political starting point. "I want things to happen," she said, "especially when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israel's values, the way I believe is the right way." And to achieve that, you want the top job? "Only for this," she replied. "I don't like the exposure, the respect and so on."
Her voice trailed away. Livni's ambition is matched by only her bouts of self-effacement. You feel her presence in a room. She is striking, in a raw rather than a refined way, broad-faced, pale-eyed and slender. She is also strikingly confident in her lucid expositions of what she believes the Middle East needs. Stretched tight, like the membrane of the drums she recently took up playing, she exudes a tense energy. But when the conversation turns to her personal feelings, she shrinks, the "eehhhs" and "ummms" drawn out as she gathers her thoughts.
What she has, at a time of disorientation and seeping corruption in Israeli politics, is an image of absolute integrity, the distinction of being a woman on a male-dominated political scene and a wholesome quality that stands in contrast to the slick, wheeler-dealer style of Olmert, whose approval ratings have plunged into the single-digit zone.
Genuineness is her thing. At Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial museum, Livni, who is married with two sons, had this to say two years ago: "Being a Jewish mother is to understand with the birth of the second son how impossible and inhumane is the choice between the two." And this: "Being an Israeli is to know that you have risen from the ashes of those who were killed and knowing you have a responsibility for the coming generations."
Gil Samsonov, an advertising executive who has known her for many years, put it this way: "Her brand is clean. She's not looking left and right to see whom to please." But Israelis are looking desperately for someone who can please them. The report on the Lebanon war crystallized the country's disorientation. How could Hezbollah have repulsed the Israeli Defense Forces? How could the country's defense minister at the time, Amir Peretz, have had, as the report put it, no "knowledge or experience in military, political or governmental matters?" How can Olmert and his finance minister be facing investigations for corruption? How is it that the former justice minister got himself in trouble over sexual-harassment charges, the same issue that just brought down the president, Moshe Katsav? Is Israel — far from David Ben-Gurion's model state of "working people, at home on the soil" — becoming just another tawdry commercial country with an oversize army?
To all these interrogations, Livni, competent and decent, seems to provide a possible answer. "She comes from a different place with a special, strong love of Israel," says Dita Kohl-Roman, a friend. Shlomo Avineri, a political scientist, agrees: "There is an Israeli authenticity about her."
Authenticity was a core quality of Ariel Sharon, Livni's political mentor, the last of the heroic breed of warrior-politicians. He liked her industry and loyalty. His imprimatur bolsters her because at a time of national self-questioning, his loss is keenly felt. It was with Sharon that Livni made her fundamental ideological break: from a defender in the right-wing Likud Party of an Israeli state on all its biblical land to the idea of land for peace, embodied in the evacuation of Gaza in 2005 and the promise of a further withdrawal from the West Bank.
This shift — the reason for Sharon's, Livni's and Olmert's centrist Kadima Party, created in late 2005 — was rooted in a simple calculation: an Israel that wants to remain Jewish and democratic cannot also be despotic on occupied territories where Palestinian demography is against it. "There were three ideological goals for families like Livni's and mine: Greater Israel, a Jewish state and democracy," says Arye Naor, a political scientist whose father also fought in the Irgun. "Well, it became clear you could have any two of them, but adding a third condemned the enterprise."
That is logical. A Greater Israeli democracy will end up not being Jewish because there will be more Arabs in it than Jews. Livni likes logic. As her adviser Tal Becker put it to me, "She believes constructive ambiguity can become destructive ambiguity." So it was she who, working for Sharon, wrote the program of the now-governing Kadima. And it is she who pushes hardest to spell out to Palestinians the concessions they must make.
"Just as Israel was established for the Jewish people and gave refuge to them from European and Arab states, so a Palestinian state is the homeland of the Palestinian people, those who live in the territories and those who left in 1948 and are being kept as political cards in refugee camps," she told me. "This is the national answer. The solution for Palestinians is the Palestinian state. Israel is not part of the solution."
Or, put another way, there can be no "right of return," a central canon for Palestinians since the war of Israel's foundation in 1948. That year, the United Nations declared in Resolution 194: "Refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date."
History moves on, of course. About 1 in 10 Palestinians alive today and registered as refugees with the United Nations was born in Mandate Palestine. A Palestinian return en masse would condemn the Jewish state. In that sense, Livni is only stating the obvious. Whether such bluntness is helpful is another question. Palestinians are not about to trade one of their biggest chips up front. "What Livni wants us to do is give up before we start negotiations," says Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. "I feel sorry for her. She wants to remove all risk, all fears, before engaging in discussion."
But Livni can be relentless— a "nudnik," or nagger, in the words of Igal Galai, a friend of Sharon's. When Livni called me back after our first meeting, something else was eating at her: "I was minister of immigrant absorption in 2004, and I convinced Sharon that it was important that I go see Condoleezza Rice in Washington. So I went, and I saw how she was interested in the depth of the conflict, in finding a real process and doing what was right and just. I had the opportunity to convince Rice, then national security adviser, and so make a contribution to the statement President Bush made soon after."
In that groundbreaking statement of April 14, 2004, George W. Bush declared: "It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel." No American leader had ever so explicitly trashed the "right of return" of the Palestinians. "That was my contribution," Livni revealed to me. "I did the right thing — and so did Bush."
Livni seems to share many things with Rice, who calls the foreign minister a "friend" and a woman of peace. They have the same intensity and work ethic, the same difficulty in thinking beyond a doctrine once it has been formed, the same disciplined intelligence that sometimes appears to lack the subtlety of wisdom and the same penchant for talking about "values" and what is "right."
But I found myself thinking, What good was the "right thing" or plans for Palestinian refugees festering in camps or Bush's two-state road map or Rice's principles or Livni's good intentions, when the whole area — spiraling downward with a devilish energy, developing ever-more-divergent Israeli and Palestinian narratives, splintering and radicalizing in the image of Iraq, threatened by a resurgent Iran, permeated by jihadists without borders — was going up in recrimination-clogged smoke? I believed in Livni's good faith, her energy, her honesty, her determination. What I was not sure about after our first meeting was her grasp on reality. The fact is, Israelis and Palestinians have parted company. I could see little evidence that Livni, for all her lucidity, was any exception to this.
When you drive from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv on Route 443, which cuts through Israeli-occupied West Bank territory, walls accompany you. Not merely the "security barrier," as Israel calls the 430-mile-plus high-tech fence it is building to keep out Palestinians (who call it "the racist, separating wall"), but a variety of other bulwarks, of wire and concrete and brick. The barriers exist in the name of security, security, security — no escaping the Israeli mantra. To some degree, they have delivered. Palestinian suicide bombings have all but ceased. But of course they betray insecurity, a gnawing condition Israelis once thought they might overcome but now tend to view as inescapable.
Also accompanying you along the route is a procession of concrete pillars holding aloft the high-speed-train track that will one day connect the two cities in a half-hour or so and perhaps relieve the clogged traffic and swearing drivers inching across the country. Israel, as this megaproject and national bottleneck suggest, is booming. Its stock market keeps climbing. Areas north and south of Tel Aviv amount to the Middle East's Palo Alto. An emblematic act of the new Israel was the decision of Dan Halutz, then the armed-forces chief, to offload his stock on the eve of the Lebanon war. Materialism now does battle with Zionism for the Israeli soul — Moshe Dayan requiescat in pace.
I suppose this is natural enough. After double-whammy intifadas, Oslo's aborted peace process, Camp David's near thing in 2000 and repeated illustration of the prodigious Palestinian penchant for self-destruction, the temptation to imagine you are in California-with-fences is understandable. Israelis once conducted a daily argument of Talmudic intensity about how to settle with the Palestinians. Now many just say, To heck with them and their festering stew of a failed and now bifurcated Hamas-Fatah prestate!
"The left saw that its outstretched hand had failed, and the right saw that its iron fist has failed, and they have both veered toward a center that now says: 'Go away. Let's build a bunker and wait and see,' " Shlomo Avineri told me. "The fact is, Yasir Arafat did not set up a state; he set up a means to continue the struggle. And Israel did not prepare for Palestinian statehood; it went on building settlements. Each believes only the language of force works in the end."
This ultimately futile belief is part of what makes Israel such a jangled place these days, its "fantastic economic bubble," in the words of the former diplomat Itamar Rabinovich, hovering over unease. "The country is in good shape, and the mood is in bad shape," Shimon Peres told me. Peres, who joined Kadima from the left rather than Livni's right, says he believes the mood is sour "because we have failed to bring Israel and the Middle East into a new age." No kidding. Islamist fanatics rave about restoring the Caliphate, and Hamas talks of seeing off Israel the way Crusaders were once seen off: you can hardly get more "Old World" than that. But a "new age" Israel is equally vigorous, if less often in the news.
After meeting Peres, I found myself at a dinner party with Yossi Vardi, a dot-com millionaire who made a bundle from one of the first Internetwide instant-messaging services. "Israel became very fertile ground for young people with ideas," Vardi told me. "More than $1.4 billion in venture capital came in recently. The place is crazy — a technology boom alongside a very unacceptable political situation and chaos in Gaza, where most of the population is living on under $2 a day. It's not right or sustainable." He took a sip of a respectable cabernet sauvignon — Israeli winemaking is on the rise (from a low base) — before adding: "You know, power corrupts, and occupation is the ultimate manifestation of power. There are no checks, no balances. Occupation, after 40 years, corrupts absolutely."
Livni has a different view. "I don't think the way Israel behaves is against Israeli values," she insists. In a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March, she said, "I believe that we are defined — as individuals, as leaders and as nations — by our values and by the choices we make to defend them." She sees Israel side by side with the United States in "a struggle for the future of the free world."
As this language suggests, a lot of her intellectual energy goes into placing Israel within the Bush administration's post-9/11, us-and-them Weltanschauung, as an integral actor in the war on terror, battling on the side of liberty against a Palestinian threat that gets agglomerated with Al Qaeda and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran — regardless of the differences between seeking Palestine and seeking the annihilation of the West. Livni sometimes seems to pursue the development of a Pavlovian response to the Middle Eastern conundrum. Say "Israel." Ping! American values. Say "Palestine." Ping! Terror. "I would like to remind the world that they entered our restaurants, our discotheques; they killed children in their beds," Livni told me. "I can understand, and I can feel, the grief of a Palestinian mother. The loss of a child or a family member is awful. It is the same pain. But in any legal system, there is a difference between premeditated murder and somebody who kills by mistake."
She continued: "These terrorists are looking for children to kill while we are trying to avoid it. It is unfair to pitch together in the same package, to say there are victims on both sides, circles of violence and so on. That does not contribute to a solution. When the Palestinians think that the world's judgment is 'O.K., this can happen,' they will never stop. They need to know that the world cannot accept it, that terror is terror is terror."
It is precisely to stop terror, Livni emphasized, that the wall has been built against the wishes of the Israeli far right, who saw in it a division of Zion: "Yet when I am in Europe, I hear Palestinians saying this is ghettoization, this is the Berlin Wall. And I say, at the end of the day, when you are talking about a two-state solution, what do you think? There is going to be a border, a fence, something."
But where? Livni brought out a map to make her point that a return to the precise 1967 lines — as U.N. resolutions and the Arab peace plan reiterated this year in Riyadh demand — was impractical. Given certain Israeli settlements, what Bush in 2004 called "already existing major Israeli population centers," and the eventual need to somehow link Gaza and the West Bank (Livni favors a tunnel), the border would have to shift some. So, she said, perhaps the barrier, which often zigzags inside the West Bank to separate Jewish settlers and Palestinians, could even be helpful.
"Palestinians oppose this even before they know where the line would be," she mused. "There sometimes seems to be a contradiction between what Palestinians demand, what they claim and the way they act." Palestinians, however, have no monopoly on self-contradiction. Israelis — Americanized but still in an existential struggle, terrified of annihilation but now the region's overwhelming superpower, often blinded by the wall to what is perpetrated behind it — can sometimes resemble studies in unreason garbed in the practiced language of Western reasonableness. At times I wondered to what degree Livni had really moved from her hard-line, Likudnik beginnings.
At the Nahalat Yitzhak Cemetery in Tel Aviv, lilac petals lie scattered on the dusty earth, and old cypresses form a solemn cortege. It is a beautiful oasis in an unlovely city. At one corner is a gravestone with an unusual engraving — that of the whole biblical Land of Israel with a gun and bayonet cutting through the center and the words "Only Thus!" This is where Livni's father, Eitan, who died in 1991, is buried. He insisted in his will on this Irgun symbol.
He was a tough purist, and his only son, Eli Livni, the foreign minister's brother, appears to have inherited some of his no-nonsense directness. "In the Livni family," Eli says breezily, "your father and mother never hug you. What they give you is a good, formal education." This upbringing involved occasional beatings with a belt (for him) and rigorous instruction in honoring principles. The Livnis were outsiders, a test of their moral fiber. Throughout the children's education, the Labor Party was dominant. The left-wing Palmach, whose commanders included Yitzhak Rabin and Dayan, held places of honor in accounts of the state's creation. The rightist Irgun, by contrast, was marginalized. Its political successor, the right-wing Herut Party, founded by Menachem Begin and others in 1948 and destined to evolve into Likud, was also sidelined. As an Irgun hero, Herut militant and close friend of Begin, Eitan Livni long stood on Israel's political margins.
"Tzipi got into trouble at school at the age of 12 when a teacher was talking about the glorious role of the Haganah and Palmach, and she stood up and said, 'What about the Irgun and the Stern Group?' " Eli says. "Her teacher contacted my mother and said Tzipi should not argue about facts."
Most Saturdays, the Livnis would go to Begin's tiny Tel Aviv apartment. Tzipi (short for the biblical name Tziporah) recalls conversations centering on "stories from the past, frustration from the present and hopes for the future." The frustration was about exclusion: the way promotions in the army depended on being in the Labor Party and getting ahead meant praising the Labor prime minister, Ben-Gurion, rather than Vladimir Jabotinsky, the spiritual father of Likud and a Livni family hero.
"In the history books, they were not there; they were the enemy in a way, being rightists," she told me. "On May 1, which is Labor Day, everyone was out with their red flags, and I was the one walking with the Israeli flag."
From an early age, in other words, Tzipi Livni lived with the sense of being distinct, the need to be willful if she was to be heard and the example of a hero-father not about to hug her. Mirla Gal, who would reach the top of the Mossad during a 20-year career, met Livni in first grade. She recalls the curiosity of other kids at Livni's membership in the Betar scouts, a group founded by Jabotinsky. Gal, like most Israeli children, was in the mainstream scouts movement, called Tzofim, where the songs and heroes were different.
"We were curious because her world wasn't ours," Gal said over lunch at a beachfront Tel Aviv restaurant. "Even then she was principled. When I was 12, she turned vegetarian and has been ever since." Gal gazed out across the broad beach to a glittering Mediterranean — hard to believe it was the same tranquil sea a few miles away in seething Gaza — before adding, "You know, she drives herself very hard and always demands a lot of herself."
"Too much?" I asked.
Gal paused. Prudence gets ingrained during two decades in Israeli intelligence. "What Tzipi asks of herself, she asks of others," she said finally. "She has a very high threshold for trust, but once it's there, you're O.K. I understand because I am the same way. You have to be straight. She was raised in a house where these things were fundamental. She grew up in a very Zionist home. She loves this country so much. That is what drives her."
The driven quality was quickly apparent. Livni was a very good soccer player, a very good basketball player, a tomboy who would go nuts when her brother hung her beloved cat out the window. Her father was rarely around, working nonstop in a glucose business, trying to raise money after work for the widows and war-injured of the Irgun. He was a dreamer — a quality Eli also sees in his sister, who has hung a photograph of their father, in pensive profile, as the only adornment of her foreign minister's office.
"My father expressed a combination of values," she told me, sitting in that office. "There was the understanding that the whole land of Israel was our heritage, but the other part was the need to respect others, not to control others' lives. And because of the need to make a combination of these values, not to bring them into contradiction, I got to my own conclusion, that there is a need to divide the land." That step was a long time coming. After the 1973 war, as a teenager, she took part in demonstrations against Henry Kissinger's peace plans. Giving up land, any land from Sinai to the Golan Heights, was unacceptable.
In the army, Livni excelled, and at training school she was twice elected most-outstanding officer. Gal took part in the same training; she observed a toughness that impressed everyone. This, combined with impeccable nationalist credentials, made Livni an ideal candidate for the Mossad, which she joined in 1980 at the age of 22. "I brought her to Mossad," Gal says. "She was very good at everything she did and only left by her own choice. She could have had a 20-year career there too. The smartness, the coolness, the speed of analysis, the straightness — these are prized qualities in Mossad."
Livni will acknowledge only that she served in Paris. Did the Mossad experience influence her? "No, no, no," she said, laughing uneasily. Nothing? Nothing, she insisted.
Her brother once visited her in the French capital and found her enrolled as a student in the Sorbonne, behaving in the strangest ways. "I came all the way from Lagos, where I was working in construction, and stayed for two days, and I think I saw her for one hour," he recalls. "She would get these phone calls and say, I have to go, I have to go, and she'd rush off, and so in the end I said, O.K, I'm out of here."
Livni wanted a more normal life. She left Mossad in 1984 and settled down in Israel. She completed a law degree and married Naftali Shpitzer, who now owns an advertising agency. They took up residence in a small apartment in Tel Aviv, not far from where she grew up. A first son, Omri, now in the army, was born soon after; a second, Yuval, followed. When I saw Livni a second time, in Tel Aviv, she said the seashore was where she felt at home. "But," she added, "my existence here comes out of the connection between me and Temple Mount. This is the umbilical cord. It comes from Jerusalem."
The biblical Jewish heritage again: you cannot take it out of Livni; it is part of her Likud inheritance. As she says, "Likud was my home, almost literally." Her father had an office in the Likud building; her own law office was also there. Just before Begin's rise to power in 1977, ending three decades of Labor hegemony, her father was elected to the Knesset, but politics did not grab Livni until the Oslo peace accords of 1993 cast her into inner turmoil. Once again, as in childhood, she felt alienated.
"Society was split and full of hatred, and I found myself in between two camps," she told me. "One was the historical right of the Jews on the whole land of Israel and keeping the entire land." Livni touched her heart. "This was my history, my heritage. On the other, I saw the left wing thinking we could live in a new Middle East, happily ever after. But I thought they were unrealistic, even if I saw we would have to give up some land to preserve the dream of Israel."
On balance, she could not support Rabin's push for peace. Oslo, even before Rabin's assassination in 1995, was an illusion to her because it involved signing a memorandum while leaving the tough issues — Jerusalem, land and refugees — to last. The lawyer in her bridled. "The advice can never be just to sign and leave the most difficult parts to the end," she said.
Livni's first campaign for the Knesset, in 1996, failed narrowly, but she caught the eye of the Likud prime minister, Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, and served as the head of a privatization program that helped stir Israel's current economic boom. Netanyahu ceded to Sharon as mentor after Livni was elected to the Knesset in 1999. At various ministries — Regional Cooperation, Agriculture, Housing and Construction, Justice and Immigrant Absorption — she acquired a broad political education. Her efficiency and energy paid dividends. A vicious clash as justice minister over Supreme Court appointments — she delayed the naming of anyone after her own choice was resisted and so drove some judges crazy — amounted to one of few ripples.
"She was a Likud princess, coming from the family she did, and Bibi pushed her, and then Sharon pushed her, and here we are," says Zalman Shoval, a prominent Likud member and former ambassador to the United States. "I don't know whether Sharon ever thought of her as a future prime minister. I doubt it, because he only thought about succeeding himself. But she was good for him."
As the collapse of Oslo and Camp David ended the left's dreams of a warm peace and the second intifada hardened views across the country and 9/11 cemented Israel's antiterror alliance with the United States, Livni came to represent a realist, rightward-shifting center. Disengagement from Gaza became the new face of firmness, a "test case" on the road to possible statehood for the Palestinians. She glided upward, spared most of the rough and tumble of politics.
As a result, doubts have lingered about whether she has what it takes to prevail. "There's nothing Clintonian about her, no familiarity or touch with crowds," says Majalli Whbee, a Druze Knesset member who served as her director-general at the Ministry of Regional Cooperation. "I've talked to her about this, told her not to put herself behind glass, and she agrees." Shuval also wonders if she has the needed "fire in her belly." Still, looking ahead to an election that is most likely to come within a year, given the government's weakness, he acknowledged, "A Kadima Party led by Livni is much more formidable opposition for Likud than one led by Olmert."
That Livni will realize her ambition is possible. She could be chosen to lead Kadima into the next election and triumph. Israeli politics are unpredictable. But her motivational dream of a two-state peace — one at odds with the Greater Israel map on her father's grave — still seems far-fetched. Putative Palestine is remote and riven and receding. Whether Palestinians, even the moderates now gathered in an emergency West Bank government, will prove susceptible to her ideas is far from clear.
You don't so much drive into the Palestinian territories these days as sink into them. Everything, except the Jewish settlers' cars on fenced settlers-only highways, slows down. Donkeys, carts and idle people replace Israel's first-world hustle-bustle. The buzz of business gives way to the clunking of hammers. The whole desolate West Bank scene, described recently by the World Bank as "a shattered economic space," is punctuated with shining garrisonlike settlements on hilltops and checkpoints where Palestinians see themselves reflected in the stylish shades of Russian-immigrant Israeli soldiers. If you are looking for a primer on colonialism, this is not a bad place to start.
In Jericho, where thousands of foreign tourists would arrive daily when the "peace of the brave" of Rabin and Yasir Arafat still held, a luxury hotel is almost empty; Palestine-in-embryo is a hard sell for tour operators. On a windblown street stands a rundown building with the Orwellian name of Negotiations Affairs Department. In it sits Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator.
He looks brisk in his yellow tie. When the phone rings, it is the Jordanian foreign minister; they discuss Rice's postponing another trip. Erekat, a senior Fatah member, has an acerbic wit. "I try my best to understand the Israelis' fears and aspirations, but they can get too complicated for me," he said. "Every day there's something going on, like the cats outside my window at night, and I never know if they're making love or fighting or both!"
Erekat laughed. There was desperation in his hilarity, a trace of the hysterical. "But the Palestinians are worse!" he continued. "All you hear is shouting; all you see is chaos and lawlessness, the mess in Gaza." He paused, eyes flitting to the Yahoo e-mail account on his computer screen. "But amidst all this, something else is developing. There are 70-percent-plus of Palestinians who go with the two-state solution, even if nearly 50 percent of Palestinians voted for Hamas. Those same people condemn suicide bombing. Look, negotiations are over. It's time for decisions!"
He has a point. One odd thing about the Middle Eastern impasse is that a clear majority of people on both sides agree more or less on the outcome: two states, Israel and Palestine, divided along the 1967 borders adjusted to conform with agreed territorial swaps; an inventive deal on Jerusalem allowing both sides their measure of the sacred; massive compensation for Palestinian refugees not wishing to return to nascent Palestine; and perhaps a stabilizing role for a third-party force.
Unlike in Ireland, where peace has broken out without agreement on whether Ulster should ultimately be Irish or remain British, the bedrock lineaments of an accord exist. In that sense, Israel-Palestine is easier than Ireland. But the loud, absolutist, ruthless minority always prevails, and Bush's with-us-or-against-us school in Washington does not believe in probing absolutism, as currently embodied by democratically elected Hamas, to find where it might cede to compromise.
Erekat calls himself the "most disadvantaged negotiator since Adam negotiated Eve." He has no army, navy or economy. His society is split. "I don't stand a chance with a U.S. senator," he noted. The impact of Israel-loving evangelicals, the Jewish lobbyists of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the post-9/11 conflation of global and Palestinian terror has made selling Palestine in Washington about as easy as selling the North Korean economic model. That has simplified life for Olmert and Livni.
Any real U.S. pressure on Israelis to reach out to Palestinians has been intermittent at best. This, along with finding viable Palestinian representatives, is a core problem that Tony Blair will confront in his new post as special Middle East envoy for the U.S., Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. The cause of peace has paled. After "Gaza first," at the time of Israel's disengagement in 2005, has come the new cry of "West Bank first." It has the ring of desperation.
"Palestinians are tired of the no-partner-for-talks symphony," Erekat said. "Livni has an interlocutor in me and Abbas. We don't ask why Israelis choose Labor or Kadima; she doesn't need to ask about Hamas. With a decent peace accord, we can go to a referendum. Moderates would win. That would be Hamas's fig leaf. But Livni has to learn that peace and settlements don't go together, walls and peace don't go together and nothing is solved until everything is solved."
Livni says it is the Palestinians, especially those in Hamas, who must do the learning. They need to learn to side with moderates against jihadists. They need to accept the West's basic demands: renunciation of terror, recognition of Israel and respect of previous Palestinian-Israeli accords. They need to learn that pushing for refugees to return to Israel amounts to questioning Israel's existence: a 1948 rather than a 1967 issue.
Arab states, unlike at Camp David in 2000, can help the Palestinians to make these compromises "by saying publicly what they say behind closed doors." They can contribute to a "political horizon" — a favorite Livni-Rice phrase — by "opening bureaus of interest in Israel." If they fear a nuclear Iran, as Sunni states from Jordan to the gulf do, they should support Israel as a bulwark of moderation.
Since the collapse of the Palestinian national unity government, Livni says she is more hopeful. She welcomes Blair's arrival. The new emergency government in the West Bank, headed by a Palestinian she admires, Salam Fayyad, "offers a clear distinction between moderates and the extremists of Hamas in Gaza." As a result, she says, "we can negotiate, starting with short-term issues, like freeing up money and easing life for Palestinians in ways that do not affect our security."
At the same time, she continues, "we can start looking at long-term issues, the nature of a future Palestinian state, our common denominators." But can Abbas and Fayyad deliver when Hamas controls Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinians live? "As usual, we are choosing between bad options," she says. "But we must grab this chance if we don't want to lose the West Bank to Hamas. The Arab League, the world, must work with the moderates and strengthen them right now."
Livni's ideas are clear. But, I asked her in our first meeting, are you good at persuading people? "Eehhh, ummmm, yes, I am good at persuading people," she managed in that quieter voice, before declaring that she does not like to speak about herself and finally mustering, "In convincing the other, I try to start from their point of view, so it's easier for me to find a common denominator."
Their point of view: this is the key. I tried to imagine Livni donning her jeans and sneakers and, instead of hitting a market, taking a look at the scene outside Erekat's place: the dry riverbed with its pile of plastic bottles and discarded tires, and beyond that a brick factory going to seed, and beyond that the sleepy sprawl of Jericho, and beyond that the checkpoints with their daily humiliations, and still farther the snaking path of the wall-cum-fence cutting the beauty of the ancient hills like a blade. What, I wondered, would she feel and how might all this impact her formulas?
Palestinians have failed themselves. Their hand in their misery is decisive. They could have had about half of the land back in 1948. At various points since then, they could have had more than the roughly 22 percent now up for negotiation. But Israelis, justifiably proud of their open society, need to scrutinize the closed autocracy just over the wall. If they will not look at the devastating physical evidence of 40 years of occupation, it is unclear how they can grasp, and so perhaps begin to turn back, the rise of Hamas and Islamic extremism.
"Hamas is ready for a two-state solution," says Barghouti, who served as information minister in the Hamas-Fatah unity government. "They will say so when Israel recognizes Palestinians' rights as equal human beings. But the Palestinian government that Israel wants is a government of collaborators working as subagents for Israeli security. And I can promise you they will never get that."
Sitting in his Bethlehem office, he continued, "No walls are ever permanent, and this one destroys the idea of a two-state solution because it kills the option of a viable Palestinian state. In fact it leads to only one alternative: a binational state in which we are a majority because our population grows at 4.2 percent a year and theirs at 1.7 percent." It won't happen, of course, but the insidious one-state talk is a measure of the conflict's dangerous drift.
In May, the month before the violent Hamas takeover of Gaza from Fatah, Livni gathered international ambassadors to Israel for a briefing at a Tel Aviv hotel. Hamas rockets launched from Gaza were raining down on the Israeli town of Sderot; Livni's message was that the situation had become unbearable. "Enough is enough," she declared, appealing for determined pressure on terrorists "so that the Palestinian people will understand that this is something which is not tolerable."
She also gave expression to a particular Israeli disquiet: "Israelis must know that the international community does understand we are under attack. It is so important to Israel to know that our right to defend ourselves is supported and that you understand that there is suffering here, and not just among Palestinians."
Israel — built on the Zionist dream of gathering in the Jews and so normalizing their status through the attainment of sovereignty — was supposed, as Avineri has written, not only to take the Jewish people out of exile but also ensure that exile was "taken out of the Jewish people." After the millennia of marginalization and Auschwitz, it was supposed to create what Ben-Gurion called "a self-sufficient people, master of its own fate," rather than one "hung up in midair." In some measure, it has.
But as Livni's appeal for sympathy suggested, all the great achievements of Israel have not yet ended Jewish precariousness, Jewish annihilation angst — the inner "exile" of the Jew. Israel remains, in Livni's words, "a nation struggling to realize our basic right to a peaceful coexistence." She told me that "in a Europe without borders, people are questioning what the meaning is of a Jewish state."
Its moral authority compromised by a 40-year occupation, its kibbutznik uniqueness compromised by a globalized consumer culture, its future compromised by the gathering appeal of jihadist dogma, Israel stands at a crossroads. "Something deep has to change," says Dahlia Scheindlin, a pollster. "We can't any longer be the victims rushing to proclaim we're being obliterated and ending up obliterating others." The Diaspora Jew did not go to Zion to build the Jew among nations.
Livni, with her umbilical attachment to the Zionist idea, gets this. She gets the need to hurry to some resolution with the Palestinians in order to stop the erosion of the Israeli raison d'etre. Watching her in that hotel conference room, beneath the attentive gaze of dozens of ambassadors, I had to admire her. Each point was made with punch, not least that Hamas was rearming in Gaza with Hezbollah in Lebanon as a model. "She is very professional, in good standing and taken very seriously," Jakken Biorn Lian, the Norwegian ambassador, told me.
My admiration was redoubled because May had been a bad month for her. Her high-wire act after the Winograd Commission report, telling Olmert he should go without going herself, had brought a wave of media criticism, much of it sexist. She was described as being fit only to run a women's volunteer group. The onslaught was a fair reflection of the sexism she also encountered within the heavily male cabinet as she tried to resist another bombing raid on Lebanon.
A few days after her not-quite-oust-Olmert push, Yariv Reicher, a consultant, told me: "I'll take her as my lawyer or friend, but to lead here you have to have something hard to describe, something Sharon and Begin and Rabin had, something from the innermost person that gives you hope, an answer to your pain. She needs to speak from her guts."
But it did take guts for Livni to tell her boss he should quit. Rows between Israeli prime ministers and foreign ministers are nothing new: each vies to control the Washington relationship, the one that counts. But Olmert-Livni represents a new level of poison. When Sharon had his crippling stroke last year, both she and Olmert were in position to take over the Kadima leadership. Livni stepped aside — and was rewarded, she feels, with contempt. Livni's testimony to the Winograd Commission amounts to a portrait of humiliation. Requests for meetings with Olmert at critical moments in the war are refused; she is told to "calm down" when she does see him; she is forced to watch the prime minister chat to the chief of staff as she is talking; and she is long frustrated in her quest for a diplomatic outcome.
"The situation is very sensitive," she told me when I asked about Olmert during our first meeting, adding that in the end "it is not about me and the prime minister but the crisis in our society." What she had said "was exactly what I wanted to say, no regrets. I chose the words. I know that people want blood. That's nice, but. . . ."
Resilience tends to pay in Israeli politics. Netanyahu has bounced back at the head of Likud, and even Ehud Barak, the former prime minister who fell from grace after his peace efforts collapsed, has returned as Labor leader and defense minister. Many saw a rite of passage in Livni's grilling by the media. Her rise had been too smooth; this painful episode would toughen her. "Of course she will come back," says Igal Galai, the friend of Sharon's who watched her emergence. "Right now in Israel, I don't see anyone better."
Doubts persist over the future of Kadima, bereft of its creator, Sharon, and beset by corruption. But Livni says that she still believes in the neophyte party. She did not leave Likud to follow Sharon, she insists. She left "because there is a need to promote a peace process" and Likud is a party "whose ideology starts with the word 'no.' " Israelis are questing for new hope. Whether Netanyahu's Likud or Barak's Labor can provide that is open to question: both speak of yesterday.
Dita Kohl-Roman has watched her friend's evolution closely. Livni used to shut off any conversation about becoming prime minister, but the Lebanon war was a turning point. Such crises pose the question, Can you take this — do you want the job enough? "And a few months later we sat in a Tel Aviv coffee shop," Kohl-Roman told me, "and she said she was ready to run for prime minister and that she had gone through an inner process and was prepared." She says she believes that to win Livni "must get over her uptightness, go through a process of loosening. And then I hope our society can encompass someone who represents something so good and decent as our leader."
Livni can rise above her inner constraints. In a speech in 2005 that riveted the nation on the 10th anniversary of Rabin's death, she declared: "I did not elect or choose Rabin, but he was elected to be the Israeli prime minister, the prime minister of my country. . . . Law, ladies and gentlemen, is not a technical issue. It is the full expression of a precious system. Specifically, in a time when Israel is fighting for its existence, we cannot allow ourselves to forget the aim, the common denominator and the shared values that are all the meaning of the existence of Israel: a national homeland for the Jewish people, a Jewish and democratic state. These two values are connected to each other. This is the thing that connects us with each other."
Those words in my head, I strolled through Rabin Square, which has all the beauty of Warsaw at the height of Communism. In one corner is a small shrine to Rabin at the spot where he was murdered on Nov. 4, 1995. An inscription says that here Yitzhak Rabin was murdered "in the struggle for peace." Another says, "Peace shall be his legacy."
Alongside these words is a photograph, seemingly from a faraway era, of Rabin shaking Arafat's hand beneath the sunny gaze of President Bill Clinton. I found myself fighting back tears: how much had been lost since then and how close Israelis and Palestinians had come. A peace of the brave it was; it is brave to see beyond grievance, hurt and history to the innocence in every child's eye.
Might Livni and Israel rise to bravery again and might Palestine find a leader to accompany such courage? There are few encouraging signs, but Livni has not given up hope. "Each of us can live with our narrative, so long as we are pragmatic when it comes to the land," she says. "I still believe in our right to the whole land, but felt it was more important to make a compromise. We cannot solve who was right or wrong in 1948 or decide who is more just. The Palestinians can feel justice is on their side, and I can feel it is on my side. What we have to decide about is not history but the future."


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In 1791, Mozart premiered "The Magic Flute" to enthusiastic audiences in Vienna. Musically and theatrically, the opera was unlike anything they had ever witnessed.
Houstonians are in for a similar experience as the classic opera receives a three-dimensional update at the University of Houston.
UH's Moores Opera Center has long been known for putting a unique spin on classics. With assistance from UH's Texas Learning & Computation Center (TLC²), it will deliver the university's very first opera with 3D effects. "The Magic Flute" will be performed Jan. 27 and 29 - 31 at the university's Moores Opera Center.
"It's the perfect production in which to explore this technology," said Buck Ross, director of the Moores Opera Center. "Our version of this opera is performed in English and will transport Mozart's magical tale into an interstellar environment complete with colorful costumes and cosmic sets. The three-dimensional effects are an excellent complement to this classic."
Michael Brims, a program director at TLC², is overseeing the development of the 3D effects in TLC²'s Visualization Laboratory. He has designed a variety of images that will be projected onto the stage as three-dimensional backgrounds. Audiences can see these images emerge from the stage area using 3D glasses that will be distributed before each performance. Cues projected alongside the opera's English surtitles (above the stage) will alert audience members when to put on their glasses.
Three-dimensional images include a flying dagger, a floating pyramid, the face of heroine Pamina and three doors suspended in the cosmos
"Audiences will feel as if they are a part of this opera," Brims said. "The effects bring a sense of immediacy to this production. It's an excellent example of how contemporary technology can enhance an existing classic and perhaps attract new and different patrons to the opera."
"The Magic Flute" is a first for UH's popular opera program and represents the talent and technologies within TLC². It also is an example of cross-disciplinary collaborations at UH.
"This project shows what can happen when people from different areas of the university put their heads together," Brims said. "When technical and creative minds come together, the outcome can be fantastic."
Performances for "The Magic Flute" are at 7:30 p.m., Jan. 27, 29, 31 and 2 p.m., Jan. 30.
The Moores Opera Center also will present "Albert Herring" (not in 3D) that same weekend at 7:30 p.m., Jan. 28, 30.
Tickets for both operas are $15 and $10 for students and seniors. For additional details on tickets, call the Moores box office at 713-743-3313 or visit http://www.music.uh.edu/opera/boxoffice.asp.
About the Moores Opera Center
The Moores Opera Center is part of UH's Moores School of Music. It was founded in 1986 by director Buck Ross and provides Houstonians with four quality productions each season. The center has presented a number of Houston premieres including Robert Aldridge's "Elmer Gantry," Ricky Ian Gordon's" The Grapes of Wrath," Sergei Prokofiev's "The Love for Three Oranges," Carl Maria von Weber's "Der Freischütz," Samuel Barber's "Vanessa," Jules Massenet's "Chérubin," Gioachino Rossini's "Il viaggio a Reims" and Kurt Weill's "The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny." This spring, it will present the Houston premiere Daniel Catán's "Il Postino." Professional recordings include the center's productions of Dominick Argento's "Casanova's Homecoming" and a DVD release of Robert Nelson's "A Room With a View."
About the Texas Learning & Computational Center
The Texas Learning & Computation Center (TLC2) is a broadly scoped unit within the Division of Research at the University of Houston. The center's mission is to foster collaborative interdisciplinary research, education and training to help establish the University of Houston as the next nationally ranked, Tier 1 research institution in Texas. TLC2 provides state-of-the-art computation, visualization and educational facilities to affiliated centers, laboratories and faculty from a range of disciplines, including electrical and computer engineering, computer science, anthropology, psychology, biology, physics and visual studies.


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Virginia Credit Union
You may choose to become a member of the Virginia Credit Union. Automatic deposit and payroll deductions are available to you, along with money-saving financial services, low-rate loans, and member discounts on computers and more.
Enjoy convenient account access with online banking, mobile banking and no-surcharge ATMs and shared Credit Union Service Centers nationwide—including locations in the Williamsburg area.


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my Name is Nico from Berlin and today I try to start a Thread with my Black Watch Items I collected during my collecting Years.
I also collect Related Items to the Allied Forces in Berlin from 1945 to 1994 where the Black Watch had 3 Tours.
As a first Pic I try an old Showcase in a, now closed, Museum in Berlin.
Later I show the Items in single Posts.
The Tunic is from Brigadier McMicking, Berlin Infantry Brigade Commanding Officer 1978-80
the Swords are from Sir Allan Gomme-Duncan
the Glengarry from his Son Malcolm
the Sam Browne from Maj. Proctor


text: An accident changes her life forever. Liu Xin Tong (Zhou Dong Yu) is an optimistic girl who comes from an impoverished family. But when an accident occurs, Xin Tong and her mother are forced to move into the home of the wealthy businessman Ji Bai Jun. There, Xin Tong lives with the two Ji kids, the spoiled Zhi Zhen (Ye Qing) and the sweet Zhen Yu (Jia Jing Hui), and also meets their friend, Li Yao Nan (Chen Xiao). When both Xin Tong and Zhi Zhen fall in love with Yao Nan, can Xin Tong overcome all of the obstacles to be with her one true love? "Love & Life & Lie" is a 2017 Chinese drama series. It is adapted from the novel "Glass Slippers" by Zheng Yuan.


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Repositioning and cemeting fractured vertebrae to restore them
Fractured vertebrae are a common condition, especially in older patients, and they can be painful and debilitating. Specialists have long sought a less-invasive way to address fractures in vertebrae than the conventional open surgery required for spinal fusion or fixation - and a more effective approach than the traditional bed rest, pain medications,and bracing used for most patients with vertebral fractures.
Patients who have osteoporosis are at greatest risk for these fractures. Broken vertebrae are compromised in such a way that they can shift or compact, in turn squeezing or damaging the spine or vital nerves emanating from the spine. Patients may become bedridden from these fractures, as a result of severe pain - due to nerve impingement or bone rubbing on bone - that is felt especially during movement. Hundreds of thousands of Americans suffer compression fractures each year.
Kyphoplasty restores spacing in the vertebra to relieve pressure on spinal nerves and create a long-term repair –– all without surgery.
In the last several years, interventional radiologists have made available a new procedure to correct this condition, and it is benefiting many patients. Earlier referred to as vertebroplasty, and now refined into a procedure called kyphoplasty, this treatment can relieve pain and return mobility without the need for a hospital stay or long postsurgical recovery.
Shifting and Refortifying the Vertebra
Under imaging guidance, interventionalists can inject orthopedic cement into a fractured vertebra, to correct, reinforce, and stabilize this bone. The team will typically use x-rays and MR imaging scans to confirm and study the fracture first.
Interventionalists make a small incision in the skin near the fractured vertebra and insert a small tube, through which they advance a tiny balloon (tamp) at the end of a catheter, which they then inflate to reposition vertebra. This permits them to at least partially restore the height of the vertebra and decrease the deformity in it. The team then passes a needle-like instrument into the space in the vertebral bone, through which it injects an extremely strong, specially formulated bone cement, which is easily visible on x-ray image.
During the procedure, the specialists introduce the cement slowly, as they monitor the process under a type of operating room x-ray monitoring capability called fluoroscopy. Seeing the progress of the cement as it fills the fracture decreases the chance that the cement will impinge upon the spinal canal, the nerve roots, or the vertebral disk. The medical cement solidifies to a state even harder than bone.
With the more recent addition of the balloon-tamp step, the procedure corrects more of the collapse in the vertebra prior to cementing and can therefore help to remove curvature of the spine that results. In addition, the cement –– injected gradually under low pressure in putty form –– finds an easier path into the space where it is needed after the balloon tamp opens this space. (This may also reduce the risk of the cement leaking out of the space.)
Patients rest in the recovery area and can return home that same day or after a brief overnight in the hospital.
Often this is in the first 24 hours after the procedure. It is not unusual that patients who undergo the procedure are already back on their feet and returning to normal daily activities within a day.
Prompt Pain Relief, Repeatable Procedure
Interventionalists can perform the procedure for patients with vertebral fractures due to a number of conditions in addition to osteoporotic compression fracture, including cancer or trauma. And, they can repeat the procedure for patients who experience additional fractures. (Fracture of adjacent vertebrae is a potential complication of kyphoplasty.) Patients are better candidates for kyphoplasty if their fracture has occurred within a few weeks or months prior to evaluation.
The procedure is dramatically quicker and easier to undergo than conventional, open spinal surgery, and much faster and more dependable in its results than conventional bed rest treatment.


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In order to avoid such errant motion on the part of babies or pets, portrait photographs were sometimes taken while they were dozing. In this nicely balanced portrait, however, Derby photographer James Brennen has successfully managed to capture a dashing young man in a smart outfit with his very well behaved dog, the latter alert and facing directly into the camera lens. This was pretty unusual for the day – I think it was taken in the mid- to late 1870s – as gelatin dry plates with their greater speeds had yet to become commonly available. The slightly washed out appearance of the print and the paucity of well defined shadows suggest to me that Brennen may have used reflective lighting panels, or more likely took the portrait outdoors. The additional light would have permitted a shorter exposure time, making such a portrait possible, but would not have been easy, and it demonstrates some considerable skill on the part of the photographer.
By the time this unidentified young lad visited some unknown studio for his postcard portrait half a century later, perhaps in the 1920s or 1930s, artificial lighting was being used for visual effect, rather than to freeze motion. However, the photographer still found it convenient to have stuffed dog on wheels to grab the attention of his young subjects. The promise of a play with the toy afterwards no doubt encouraged the boy to stand where and how he was told, and give a most rewarding smile when prompted.


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NEW YORK (AP) Notre Dame ends the regular season as the No. 1 team in The Associated Press college football for the first time since 1988, the last championship season for the Fighting Irish.
The Irish (12-0) completed their regular season last week and will play No. 2 Alabama in the BCS championship game in Miami on Jan. 7. Notre Dame is a unanimous No. 1 for the second straight week.
The Tide holds its spot in the rankings after beating Georgia 32-28 in the Southeastern Conference title game.
Ohio State (12-0), which is banned from the postseason because of NCAA sanctions, moves up a spot to No. 3. Florida is No. 4, Oregon is fifth and Georgia fell to sixth.
Northern Illinois jumped to No. 16 after beating Kent State for the Mid-American Conference title. Kent State dropped seven spots to No. 25.
Louisville, the Big East champion, moved back into the rankings at No. 22.
No. 24 San Jose State is ranked for the first time since Nov. 24, 1975.
Texas and Oklahoma State dropped out of the rankings.


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Around 3000 individual whales and dolphins, collectively known as Cetaceans are thought to be in captivity around the world today. They held across 63 countries, with the highest number of marine parks in Japan - 57, China - 44, USA - 34, while Russia and Mexico, both have 24. These 'marine parks' are particularly common in popular tourist destinations, such as Florida (USA), the Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico), Dominican Republic and Cuba (Caribbean), the Canary Islands (Spain) and in coastal resorts of Turkey.
Dolphins in captivity are trained to perform through 'operant conditioning'. In simple terms, this system uses food as a reward for reinforcement behaviours, that the trainer wishes to increase and restricts or withdraws food as a punishment for behaviour that the trainer wants to reduce. For many animals trained this way it means that satisfaction of hunger is dependent on the performance of tricks; for others, hunger is deliberately induced so the training will be effective.
Let's dispel the myth that all 'captive' dolphins and whales in theme parks were bred in captivity. The truth is many captive dolphins were once wild and free. While some water parks obtain dolphins legally, others find that doing so takes more time and money than they are willing to invest. As a result, a thriving illegal trade in wild-caught dolphins has emerged to meet the demand.
The capture of wild Dolphins is extremely violent, inherently cruel and detrimental to the overall population.
While quotas are going down for the drive fishery, and fewer dolphins are being slaughtered, there has been a gradual increase in the numbers of dolphins captured for the dolphinarium industry. Dolphinariums are openly doing business with the dolphin hunters so are helping to maintain the dolphin drive hunts.
Taiji is a small village in Japan, notorious for its annual Dolphin drive as featured in the 2010 academy award winning movie The Cove by Louie Psihoyos. From the start of September until the end of February every year a large-scale hunt of dolphins takes place. During this period, fisherman, or more appropriately, dolphin hunters, utilise drive hunt techniques to herd large numbers of dolphins to shore, resulting in their capture or death. Save Me Trust works with the Dolphin Project, the only organisation to have been on the ground in Taiji since 2003.
We know the feeling, when you see Dolphins interacting with each other there is an immediate empathy with these highly sentient incredible animals. So what's wrong with Sea World and the many other Dolphinariums around the world?
If you haven't already, take a look at the film Blackish. Link here This film exposed the plight of orcas at SeaWorld, it is a distressing and gritty look behind the scenes at the reality of keeping animals captive purely for human entertainment.
Dolphins and Whales are sentient, highly intelligent mammals - just like us. We know they have feelings, the ability to learn and live in family groups within communities known as pods. They have nursery groups to teach their young, utilising play as a learning tool - again, just like us. But that's where the similarity ends. You see, some people believe it is good to take dolphins and whales from their family groups, keep them in tiny tanks and 'train' them to do 'tricks' for people who pay a lot of money to watch these shows. They call it entertainment - we call it abuse! You see Dolphins, Orcas and Whales don't live in tanks - they live in the ocean - right?


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You Can't Be Serious? Girl On Facebook Dedicates "Crank Dat" By Soulja Boy Tell 'Em To Dead Father!
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David Yurman
David Yurman is a New York City-based designer jewelry company founded by sculptor David Yurman and his wife, Sybil. The duo has since become acclaimed for designing jewelry that blends high-end fashion with intricate craftsmanship. From the signature Cable bracelet launched in 1983, which was inspired by the structure of cable knots, David Yurman jewelry has gone on to launch collections known for their use of exquisite Pave diamonds, silver, and precious gemstones such as blue topaz and black onyx. Neiman Marcus offers a great selection of the David Yurman collection, including bracelets, necklaces, earrings, rings, and more in attractive and bold designs.


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Republican U.S. Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois says he no longer supports President Donald Trump after his "terrible and despicable" decision to pull American troops from Syria.
The mother of a 9-year-old Illinois boy who is charged with murder in connection with a mobile home fire that killed five people says the child is "not a monster." The 28-year-old mother says her son suffers from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and ADHD, and takes medication daily.
A group of 30 states and cities are taking legal action to defend the federal government's authority to regulate emissions from coal-fired power plants.
Besieged Illinois Sen. Martin Sandoval resigned his post chairing the chamber's transportation committee Friday, the same day the Senate released an uncensored version of a search warrant for Sandoval's office in Springfield.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra was at its rip-roaring best Friday as award-winning pianist Sunwook Kim made a simply smashing debut with the orchestra.
As vaping-related illnesses continue to rise, Illinois health officials are urging people to stop vaping, pointing out the potentially dangerous consequences in a new social media campaign.
After another day of bargaining, negotiators for Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union appear no closer to averting a planned Oct. 17 teachers strike.
A teachers strike could be just days away. Illinois Republicans break from President Trump over Syria. New details on federal raids of the suburbs. And the Bears lick their wounds after a loss in London.


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All events for Baby Cafe
Events List Navigation
September 2018
Baby Cafe
Breastfeeding support. Come and meet other breastfeeding mums/mums-to-be with specialist breastfeeding counsellor available. Breastfeeding supporters, such as Dads/family welcome. Tea/coffee and cakes available. Please note: to see the counsellor please arrive by 11.30am. The sessions are held at Dovers Green Children's Centre, Rushetts Road, Reigate RH2 7RF. Please see venue details below.Find out more »


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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signed a law Monday to require out-of-state law enforcement agencies to notify officials here before conducting surveillance, a bill that was prompted by the New York Police Department spying on Muslims in the state.
The NYPD work in New Jersey was exposed when a New Brunswick apartment building superintendent told police about an apartment containing NYPD radios. It turned out to be a safe house for undercover officers coordinating the surveillance.
That revelation was among others in a series of stories by The Associated Press starting in 2011 about the NYPD's surveillance unit.
New Jersey's new law, which takes effect immediately, passed by wide margins in both chambers of the state Legislature.
It applies to out-of-state law enforcement agencies but not federal ones. Before starting surveillance in New Jersey, they are required to tell the pertinent county prosecutor who they are following and why, and which officers will be involved. Prosecutors are to pass that information on to state officials.
New Jersey officials can go to a judge to seek surveillance activities that are not reported be halted.
Christie, a Republican who served as U.S. attorney for New Jersey from 2002 through 2008, said the law protects citizens.
"As a former U.S. attorney appointed in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, I strongly believe we need to do everything in our power to prevent terrorist attacks on our country and keep our people safe," Christie said in a statement. "I also believe we must protect and maintain civil liberties, especially those of the citizens in New Jersey's Muslim community. This bipartisan legislation will help us reach that balance, and I am pleased to sign it into law today."
As the top federal prosecutor in the state, Christie oversaw several high-profile terrorism cases and also tried to strengthen ties between Muslims and law enforcement.


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John Daido Loori
About the Author
John Daido Loori is one of the most well-known and respected Zen teachers in the United States. He is a successor of the late Taizan Maezumi Roshi and has received transmission in both Soto and Rinzai lineages of Zen. He is the author of numerous books, including Mountain Record of Zen Talks, Making Love with Light, and Riding the Ox Home: Stages on the Path of Enlightenment.


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LocationBerlin NJ
127 North Route 73
Berlin, NJ 08009
New 2019 Coachmen RV Freedom Express Liberty Edition 321FEDSLE
Freedom Express Liberty Edition 321FEDSLE travel trailer highlights:
- Dual Entry
- Rear Private Bedroom
- Triple Slide Outs
- Bar Stools
- Front Entertainment
- Fireplace
- Camp Kitchen
Imagine having the travel trailer that accommodates your family's sleeping needs plus allows you to entertain guests with plenty of seating. This Freedom Express Liberty Edition 321FEDSLE is perfect for your family to enjoy visiting in the living and kitchen area thanks to the dual slide outs providing plenty of space for everyone. There are multiple seating choices including bar stools and theater seating. Everyone can watch the big game on the LED TV with fireplace below. If you feel like cooking outside the camp kitchen might become one of your favorite locations. You can even take the removable dinette's resin outdoor table outside with you for more space to serve the food. This unit is also satellite ready and includes multiple USB locations to keep everyone's electronics charged the whole vacation.
With any Freedom Express Liberty Edition travel trailer by Coachmen you will appreciate the ease of towing behind your family vehicle. All the tanks are located under the floor to lower the center of gravity for increased storage capacity and improved handling down the road. There is a heated and enclosed underbelly, an exterior shower station, magnetic catches for compartment doors, and a solar port to mention a few standard features on each model. Come see how you have the freedom to explore in a Freedom Express Liberty Edition travel trailer today!
Perfect size for our needs.Like most: The camper is very well built. We like the color and the style. The lighting is a big plus. The light weight makes is easy to pull with a half ton truck. Really like the steps. Love the camp kitchen. - George from Greenwood, SC
Stock# 19348
Exterior Color: WHITE
Interior Color: SHADOW
|36 ft 11 in
|Ext Width
|8 ft
|Ext Height
|11 ft 2 in
|Int Height
|6 ft 9 in
|Interior Color
|Exterior Color
|Hitch Weight
|1071 lbs
|Gross Weight
|10500 lbs
|Dry Weight
|7906 lbs
|Cargo Weight
|2594 lbs
|Fresh Water Capacity
|49 gals
|Grey Water Capacity
|66 gals
|Black Water Capacity
|33 gals
|Tire Size
|Available Beds
|Refrigerator Type
|Two Door
|Refrigerator Size
|8 cu ft
|Cooktop Burners
|Number of Awnings
|TV Info
|Awning Info
|17' Power with LED Rope Light
|Axle Count
|Shower Type
|Shower w/Seat
Coachmen RV is built upon a simple principle … "Dedicated to the enrichment of your life." By providing you with long term value through all that we do, our focus is on providing a product with superior value and backing it through superior service and support. Once you become a Coachmen owner, we are committed to enhancing your Coachmen RV ownership and lifestyle experience… creating friends for life and memories that will last a lifetime.
At Coachmen you will find a rich history of commitment from our Team Members. This commitment extends to our owners and in the pride we have for our brand. The close relationship that we share with our owners and our dealers is a quality that others have been trying to mimic over our 50 year history. Our goals and principles remain well in focus.
We do create customers for life


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VANCOUVER — A batch of ecstasy believed to be behind a spate of recent deaths in Calgary may have been tainted with a lethal chemical never before found in the street drug, according Alberta's chief medical examiner.
Police in B.C. are wondering whether the same chemical is popping up here and if it is to blame for several ecstasy-related deaths in recent weeks.
Const. Ian MacDonald of the Abbotsford police department said there is no way to know until toxicology reports are released.
"We are keeping an eye on what is transpiring in Alberta and specifically in the Calgary region, but we can't make as definitive statements as Calgary has because we just don't have the benefit of the toxicology results yet," MacDonald said.
"I know that the coroner's office and other provincial officials [in B.C.] were certainly looking to expedite [the lab tests] in light of the rash of the apparent ecstasy overdoses."
On Wednesday, Alberta's chief medical examiner confirmed "paramethoxymethamphetamine (PMMA) and methamphetamine — not previously associated with street drugs sold in Calgary as 'ecstasy' — was present in toxicology results for each of five recent Calgary-area street-drug deaths," according to a news release issued by Alberta Health Services.
"It was reported that each of the recent overdose victims thought they were ingesting ecstasy (MDMA), not PMMA or methamphetamine," the news release stated.
MDMA was also found in the victims' systems.
The new compound is believed to be five times more toxic than traditional ecstasy, health officials said.
What we're finding in this case is that people were getting something very different than what they thought they were," said Dr. Mark Yarema, medical director for the Poison and Drug Information Service and Calgary emergency room physician.
Three people in B.C.'s Lower Mainland have died from reactions to ecstasy in recent weeks: a 17-year-old girl from Abbotsford; a 22-year-old Vancouver woman who took the drug at a house party; and another 22-year-old Vancouver woman who was hospitalized after taking ecstasy on New Year's Eve and died on Friday.
As well, a 24-year-old Abbotsford woman who took the drug Jan. 2 remains in critical condition.
The majority of ecstasy found in Calgary originates from B.C.'s Lower Mainland, according to Calgary police.
Toxicology results typically take between two and three weeks in B.C., where there is only one toxicology lab used by the coroners service.
Owen Court, regional coroner for the Vancouver-Metro region, said he expects results from the two Vancouver deaths by Friday.
Court said the local lab learned of Calgary's PMMA-tainted ecstasy late Wednesday and noted he would be looking into the matter on Thursday.
It is not something that immediately comes to mind as having been linked to past drug-related deaths, he said.
"PMMA is not something that I am immediately familiar with," Court said. "I hope to have some discussion with our laboratory about that and get a more informed opinion from a toxicologist."
The B.C. Coroners Service has reported 10 to 24 ecstasy-related deaths per year from 2007 to 2010, according to Dr. Perry Kendall, B.C.'s chief medical health officer.
Canada has been a hotbed for producing ecstasy in past years because it was easier here than in the U.S. to access the precursor chemicals, ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, said Sgt. Duncan Pound of the RCMP's drug enforcement division.
However, a recent amendment to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act now makes it a crime to possess the tools of synthetic drug production.
With files from the Calgary Herald


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I'm so new at teaching this age group (9 turning 10). I started teaching the sunbeams fresh out of high school (upon my request and the bishop was nice enough to listen). I spent most of my adult life in Jr. Primary with 3 or 4 year olds until I moved from Utah to Virginia. I had a turn in Relief Society and Sunday School and a little more Jr. Primary. Now it is time for Sr. Primary. My son is in my class and they called me to teach the Valiant 9's since I am the Bear Den leader. I was called to be the Bear Den leader in Sept/Oct when our ward split. I currently have 5 boys both in my den and in my primary class and one lovely young lady joins us on Sundays. I'm still trying to figure out the cub stuff and now how to teach/entertain/involve the kids on Sundays. Cub scouts meets every Wednesday from 7:30-8:30 ~ the same time the youth meet. The activity day girls also meet during this time twice a month. My goal is to share what I'm doing with my kids - both in scouts and in primary. I also hope to add projects I do (if I ever have time for any) and things I do with my family.
I feel like I need to add to the above paragraph for my nonLDS audience. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or LDS for short. Many people know us by our nickname, Mormons. As our name states we are Christians, we do believe in Jesus Christ. I am fortunate to be born into a family that was LDS and I was raised in the church. At eight years old I made the decision to be baptized ~ we believe that children are not held accountable until eight years of age. Until this time they are pure and are still learning right from wrong. At eight we are able to make that distinction and are given the opportunity to be baptized and make covenants with our Heavenly Father. Even though my memory of most of my childhood isn't the best, I still remember parts of my baptism and my confirmation. I love that our church is family based. We believe that families are eternal. My family is the highlight of my life and I'm blessed to KNOW that I will be with them forever, even after death. Jesus Christ has prepared the way to return to Heavenly Father. If I repent of my sins, follow the commandments and live my life as close as I can to the way Jesus Christ lived his then not only can I be reunited with my earthly family, but I can be reunited with my Heavenly Family ~ God and Jesus Christ. I'm also thankful for the guidance the Word of Wisdom and the youth program gave me. They have instilled many values that still keep me safe and healthy. I'm thankful to be a member of this church, for a living prophet, and for all the joys and comforts I have received through being a member.
To learn more about our beliefs you may visit: mormon.org, read The Book of Mormon, visit one of our churches, or listen to some missionaries.
I love to do crafts and have cute handouts and activities for church (and school, and friends, and - well you get the idea). I don't consider myself creative, but often use the help of others' talents. I decided to share what I'm doing for others just like me. It may be a link to where I found something or it might even be something *I* created. Right now I work as a paraprofessional at my kids' elementary - in special ed (autism). I started creating items for my 3rd graders this year and can't wait to share them with you. I am the 1st counselor in YW (first time in YW is this past year). I also have ideas for cub scouts and sunbeams posted, my previous callings.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
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After the introduction and 101 questions that I had it was time for my workout.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
After the introduction and 101 questions that I had it was time for my workout.
5 comments:
- Damon said...
Julie, I've been doing CrossFit for about 18 months now and I love it. But, at the same time, I haven't run an ultra since I started CrossFit. I don't know if I'm done with ultras or not, but right now, CrossFit fits in well with the amount of free time I have. In the winter, I do CF about 3x per week and I teach alpine skiing on the weekends. In the summer, I do CF 3-4 times per week and then run or bike the other days of the week.
- Willie said...
I do not belong to a CrossFit gym but I do incorporate their circuit style workouts into my program 2-3 times a week. It's time efficient, you think it's simple and then you get up the next morning. Wow! that worked! Since changing from workouts geared toward bodybuilding to crossfit/circuits I feel more limber and have less muscle tighness and cramping during my runs. Hope it works for you!
- Olga said...
Would love to follow your journey. I can't afford it neither in time (driving to - doing an hour - driving back) nor in money, but I am curious. If I say I incorporate the idea, I'd be half-lying, because unless you're yelled at, you never push hard enough - proven even by my weight training coaches, running coaches, and simply track intervals with others.
- Lisa said...
Where is this cross fit instructor located? My husband and I have been wanting to do this and we live in Northern MN East Bethel area. I wanted to add it to my running. I have done a few WOD's with my husband from the website and they kick my booty! It is fun in a weird way lol.
- Julie B said...
Damon, I am beginning with 2x a week; Tuesday and Thursday. When summer comes and I am off work for 10 weeks I'll increase to 3x a week. I am really enjoying it, however, I've only had 4 WODs!
Willie, I enjoy this more than the BB workouts. It just makes more sense to me to complete all body strengthening, fast cardio, etc. I'm loving it!
Olga, I hear you on the driving. I was pretty bummed out when I looked for CF a few months ago and all of the boxes were at least 50 miles away. Too far. Yesterday I drove 4 hours combined trip to run 4 hours. That's my run rule. I have to run AT LEAST as long as the drive!
Lisa, this is Avery CrossFit-Princeton.