School district turned on by solar power

A proposed contract between Las Virgenes Unified School District and a solar energy company based in San Diego will allow LVUSD to begin using solar power on district property with no initial cost. It’s a move that will also promote environmental stewardship among students,External Hemroids are those that occur below the dentate line. the district says.

The school district recently hosted town hall meetings at Agoura and Calabasas high schools to discuss the future of solar energy on LVUSD property and to give residents an opportunity to share ideas and provide input about the planned solar panel installations on local high school campuses.

If a contract is approved by the school board later this month, Borrego Solar Systems Inc. would install solar carports and panels at no charge in exchange for a 20-year agreement that would obligate the school district to pay the company a fixed rate of 19 cents per kilowatt.

Construction would take place over the summer.

At Agoura High, the solar systems would be in the faculty parking lot near Driver Avenue and Easterly Road and on the slope along Easterly. The solar systems at Calabasas High would be installed on a portion of the student parking lot near Old Topanga Canyon Road and Mulholland Highway.

The district pays 16 cents per kilowatt to purchase power from Southern California Edison. Officials anticipate the solar systems could save about $33,000 per year, equaling more than $600,000 in electricity-related costs over the next two decades.

The savings are calculated based on Edison increasing its rates over time, said Karen Kimmel, chief business official for the school district, adding that energy prices are expected to rise by 3 percent annually.

The district’s energy costs are about $1.2 million a year, she said.

The solar systems installed by Borrego Solar would provide about 20 percent of the energy needed at each school. The solar company would provide maintenance.

“The district has to look at any way it can to save money,” said district Superintendent Donald Zimring,A key component of the system is Ekahau crystal mosaic Controller location engine server.Promat solid RUBBER MATS are the softest mats on the market! who added, “It’s part of our overall mission in the district to become greener.”

As part of the agreement with the district,My advice on what to consider before you buy oil painting supplies so your money is well spent. Borrego Solar will offer internships and opportunities for students to learn about solar power and how much electricity they generate.

“One requirement (for a contract) was the educational component to provide materials for science teachers and give a pathway for students to learn about this technology,” school district board member Dave Moorman said.Distributes and manufactures RUBBER SHEET.

The non-glare panels will be installed on steel poles and measure between 10 and 14 feet in height.The carport panels will provide lighted and covered parking.

Rhonda Bacot, director of maintenance and operations for LVUSD, said existing roofs are unable to support the panels.

Steve Gittleman, who lives in the Annandale townhome community south of AHS, feels the panels are a visual blight and should be installed elsewhere on campus.

“Everybody that’s in here who says ‘let’s all put panels’ doesn’t stare at this particular thing, which could very well be an eyesore,” Gittleman said.

Others supported the solar venture.

“It’s a great concept,” said Herb Eckerling, who lives in Morrison Ranch.

“I feel that solar has to be part of any energy savings plan for the future. Having solar panels on roofs or over parking lots and hillsides would be the way to go.”

Moorman said all companies that visited AHS found no other viable location for the solar panels. The systems must be near the school’s utility system to minimize transmission costs.

At Calabasas High, the solar project will help solve an existing problem in the student parking area, Moorman said.

Are We Running Out Of Space For All Of Our Data?

One of the most famous quotes in the history of the computing industry is the assertion that “640KB ought to be enough for anybody“, allegedly made by Bill Gates at a computer trade show in 1981 just after the launch of the IBM PC. The context was that the Intel 8088 processor that powered the original PC could only handle 640 kilobytes of Random Access Memory (RAM) and people were questioning whether that limit wasn’t a mite restrictive.

Gates has always denied making the statement and I believe him; he’s much too smart to make a mistake like that. He would have known that just as you can never be too rich or too thin, you can also never have too much RAM. The computer on which I’m writing this has four gigabytes (GB) of it, which is roughly 6,000 times the working memory of the original PC, but even then it sometimes struggles with the software it has to run.

But even Gates could not have foreseen the amount of data computers would be called upon to handle within three decades. We’ve had to coin a whole new set of multiples to describe the explosion – from megabytes to gigabytes to terabytes to petabytes, exabytes, zettabytes and yottabytes (which is two to the power of 80, or 10 followed by 23 noughts).

This escalating numerology has been necessitated by an explosion in the volume of data surging round our digital ecosystem from developments in science, technology, networking, government and business. From science, we have sources such as astronomy, particle physics and genonomics. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey, for example,The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services, began amassing data in 2000 and collected more in its first few weeks than all the data collected before that in the history of astronomy. It’s now up to 140 terabytes and counting, and when its successor comes online in 2016 it will collect that amount of data every five days. Then there’s the Large Hadron Collider, (LHC) which in 2010 alone spewed out 13 petabytes – that’s 13m gigabytes – of data .VulcanMold is a plastic molds and Injection Mold manufacturer in china.

The story is the same wherever you look. Retailers such as Walmart, Tesco and Amazon do millions of transactions every hour and store all the data relating to each in colossal databases they then “mine” for information about market trends, consumer behaviour and other things. The same goes for Google, Facebook and Twitter et al. For these outfits,Welcome to the online guide for do-it-yourself Ceramic tile. data is the new gold.

Meanwhile, out in the non-virtual world, technology has produced sensors of all descriptions that are cheap and small enough to be placed anywhere.Online fine art gallery of quality original landscape oil paintings, And IPv6, the new internet addressing protocol, provides an address space that is big enough to give every one of them a unique address, so they can feed back daily, hourly or even minute-by-minute data to a mother ship somewhere on the net.Wireless Indoor Positioning System have become very popular in the system.

To call what’s happening a torrent or an avalanche of data is to use entirely inadequate metaphors. This is a development on an astronomical scale. And it’s presenting us with a predictable but very hard problem: our capacity to collect digital data has outrun our capacity to archive, curate and – most importantly – analyse it. Data in itself doesn’t tell us much. In order to convert it into useful or meaningful information, we have to be able to analyse it. It turns out that our tools for doing so are currently pretty inadequate, in most cases limited to programs such as Matlab and Microsoft Excel, which are excellent for small datasets but cannot handle the data volumes that science, technology and government are now producing.

Thai Gov't Woos Rubber Farmers

A populist gesture by Thailand’s government to prop up rubber prices could backfire by scaring off buyers and causing a buildup of stocks as rubber output rises this year.We offer offshore merchant account,

Not content with a multi-billion dollar rice intervention scheme, the government of the world’s largest rubber producer told farmers it would also buy nearly 7 percent of the country’s annual output this quarter.

If it gets the timing right,Our team of consultants are skilled in project management and delivery of large scale rtls projects. the 200,000 tons of rubber it plans to buy will prove a hit with the country’s powerful farm sector and should not depress prices when it is eventually released back to the market.

But failure could result in a costly nightmare for the government and its successors, leaving Thailand, which supplies more than 30 percent of global natural rubber output, with thousands of tons of unsold inventory.

The 15-billion-baht ($490-million) scheme to buy unsmoked rubber sheet was announced in January, and has since lifted Tokyo rubber futures more than 20 percent, even though Bangkok delayed the intervention by a few weeks to March.

“The idea sounds good, but don’t forget that Thailand’s rubber producers are quite fragmented, and there are a lot of smallholders as well, so we would need to see how quickly they can all work together in a disciplined fashion,” said Kona Haque, soft commodities analyst with Macquarie Bank in London.

“If there’s a notion in the market that the government will start selling the stocks, then clearly that’s going to weigh on prices.”

Unlike the 400-billion-baht rice-buying scheme, which fell short of its target of shoring up Thai white rice prices to $800 a ton, the rubber intervention plan has set the market on fire even before it starts.

The problem is Thai rubber output is also forecast to rise this year as trees planted at least five years ago begin producing latex,Online fine art gallery of quality original landscape oil paintings, while tire makers in top consumer China are happy to buy cheaper rubber from domestic inventories, which are near their highest since September.

Rubber, mainly used to make tires, is a politically sensitive commodity in Thailand, where it provides a livelihood for around 1.3 million smallholders, mostly poor farmers who form a significant vote-bank for the government.

Since the government said it would intervene, the USS3 grade, or the rubber sheet farmers sell to rubber factories, has risen more than 20 percent to 110 baht, close to the price Bangkok wants its farmers to receive at 120 baht ($3.92) a kg.

Under the buy-back scheme, Bangkok will offer cooperatives a soft loan to buy rubber from farmers.

Farmers can make a profit with prices above 80 baht per kg, but many are holding on to their produce in hopes that prices will return to the vicinity of a February 2011 record near 200 baht, said Somdet Khemasuk, chairman of the Rubber Growers Cooperatives Federation of Thailand.Excel Mould is a Custom Injection Moulding Manufacturer Maker,Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings?

Marching Through Chemo

Just five years ago, I had cradle cap. At 55. Medically speaking, those itchy sores on my scalp were known as folliculitis—yet another new vocabulary word for my growing lexicon of cancer-related words. Nurses recommended an over-the-counter salve to treat this infection of the hair follicles. A woman doctor I never saw again wrote me two prescriptions, one of them for a medicated shampoo, which another woman in the chemo room said had worked well for her.

The perhaps-cause for the folliculitis was that the scalp could not breathe normally after hair loss. I kept my head covered most of the time because I was cold, though the woman in the recliner next to me claimed she wore her hat only outside.

I’d decided against the take-home shots to boost red blood cell production. The alternative was a shot of Aranesp at the end of chemo, administered every third week. Linda called the drug “liquid fire.” It hurt, because the molecules were so large, and I could feel the drug traveling up my arm. Those large molecules meant that Linda could not give me the dosage quickly. Still, I considered it better than three separate shots over the next three days.

The next day was Saturday. Thinking ahead,Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings? I obsessed over church attendance, writing, Church is a problem, or I’m a problem at church. People are very kind,Our team of consultants are skilled in project management and delivery of large scale rtls projects. but it’s emotionally wearying to put on a Nice Sick Person face and tone. And one doesn’t wish to lie indefinitely, but how much reality can people take? . . . How to handle the emotional overload of church? It’s the only group thing I need to face. I’d like to do this with kindness and integrity both, but it’s wearing. . . To not go just isolates me from the spiritual nurture I need. . . But the truth is, I don’t feel very well, and my gut still hurts,What is a third party payment gateway ? and this is just round 2A. If this is cumulative, I don’t see how I will survive. . . . I’m not good company, but should I be left alone? I’m also not good company for me, with gloomy thoughts and fears.

I was also thinking about the biblical text for that Sunday, the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. “If you are God,” the tempter says as Jesus ends his forty-day fast in the wilderness, “command these stones to become bread.” Later in the Gospel, Jesus asks a crowd of people, “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” I wrote, I’m pondering about being given stones instead of bread, or the temptation of Jesus to make the stones become bread. Seems the other option is to get stronger teeth. Here’s a hard thing to chew—better to be tough.

Having no answer for my spiritual problems, I turned to practical ones. Water had begun to taste bad, somehow both metallic and like warm spit. I’d been advised to use plastic utensils when my food began tasting like metal, but what was I to do about water?

At breakfast the next Friday morning, I dawdled over my egg sandwich and got teary, not wanting to go to chemo. With a week off, I’d just started feeling human again, a process that would be repeated each session. I felt as if I were one of those inflatable plastic, round-bottomed figures that kids punch over and watch bounce back up. I didn’t want to spend most of the day, which promised a cloudless blue sky and sunshine, cooped up in a small room with no windows.

“What’s the hardest part?” Ben, my driver that day, asked.

But I couldn’t isolate one worst part. I kept moving slowly,I have just spent two weeks shopping for tile and have discovered Chinese porcelain tile.China Porcelain tile and arrived about fifteen minutes late.

The good news was that my numbers had rebounded with the Aranesp, and I did not need another injection of “liquid fire.” My numbers never got low enough to make me miss a treatment. Rebekah, my priest, had promised specific prayers; it never occurred to me to pray for specifics, such as “Lord, let my cradle cap go away enough so that I can wear my wig.” I was praying for three qualities: grace,Overview description of rapid Tooling processes. strength, and courage, having determined that if I had those three, I could move forward, with or without my wig. Once, when a friend and I were speaking of prayer, she told me that she thought of prayer as making a space for grace—which always surrounds us—to enter. So prayer, I wrote later, reflecting on her ideas, is like the first spring opening of all the closed-up windows and doors of winter, letting in light and fresh air, blowing out the stale air of winter.

Even when people tried to be helpful, they sometimes were not. I received one card expressing the hope that I could see the hidden blessings in this experience. I wrote in response, I want to yell and scream and throw fits, say over-the-top stuff such as, Can you even imagine a hurt so deep, a loss so profound, that cards only exacerbate it? I want to throw the idea of hidden blessings in her teeth. I recognize that there’s still anguish and bitterness of spirit over what I’ve lost. And then I wondered, thinking of a generous gift of help I’d refused, What flow of grace might I be damming up with my stubborn insistence on independence?

Borealis launches random copolymer PP for rigid packaging applications

Borealis has introduced its high-flow random copolymer polypropylene RJ901MO to the rigid packaging market.

The company said the material can be used for thin-wall packaging and houseware applications, such as storage boxes, CD and DVD cases. The grade is manufactured using Borealis' proprietary Borstar technology.

The material has a melt flow rate of 110, which enables lower processing temperatures.Omega Plastics are leading plastic injection moulding and injection mould tooling specialists. For packaging converters, this creates the potential for increased productivity through optimized cycle times and energy savings. Compared to MFR 70 materials, it is possible to obtain a 20C reduction in melt temperatures resulting in a 20% cycle time reduction.

When compared to MFR 70 materials, the material has a 10%-15% reduction in maximum injection molding pressure.

Borealis states the RJ901MO offers a good balance of stiffness and impact performance comparable to that of MFR 70 random copolymers at ambient temperatures,TBC help you confidently purchase China ceramic tile from factories in China.The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services, which allows stable stacking of finished articles. The flow and stiffness combination also makes the material qualified for the production of complex shapes or long, narrow lengths.

Borealis touts the material's high transparency,Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality, gloss, and a non-yellowing effect. Transparency is achievable also at low processing temperatures.Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mould,

"The launch of RJ901MO reinforces our commitment to provide the rigid packaging market with value-added, sustainable solutions for the value chain," Rainer Hofling, Borealis, VP business unit molding, said in a statement. "The potential for lower temperature processing created by the grade's superior flow results in clear productivity advantages for converters and more environmentally-considerate processing, with converters able to offer the market finished articles displaying highly-appealing transparency."

BorPure MB6561, which was developed to meet specific cap and closure needs for still and sparkling water and carbonated soft drinks. The company claims it offers benefits in terms of processing for the converter, and enhanced aesthetics for the brand owner. It is based on multimodal technology that gives improved organoleptic behavior with very low taste and odor.

Designed for the healthcare market, Bormed RG835MO is a specially modified polypropylene random copolymer with a high melt flow rate, characterized by good processability, high transparency, controlled low friction, and high stiffness-impact balance at ambient temperatures, the company stated. This grade can be sterilized with ethylene oxide or steam and has a high chemical resistance and solid printability.

Everyone 50 or older should be screened for colorectal cancer

You've been meaning to do it. It's on your list, but it keeps getting pushed to the bottom. It's just so inconvenient and a little embarrassing. It's a colonoscopy.

But before you put it off yet again, consider this: With the exception of skin cancers, colorectol cancer — a cancer that starts in the colon or rectum — is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the country. According to the American Cancer Society, it is expected to cause nearly 51,590 deaths this year alone. So far, in 2012 there are an estimated 103,170 new cases of colon cancer and 40,290 of rectal cancer.

The good news is that the death rate from colorectal cancer has been dropping over the past 20 years for two primary reasons: an increase in early detection due to more screenings and an improvement in treatment. As a result, today there are more than 1 million colorectal cancer survivors in the U.S.

“Take ownership of your own health and get screened,” said Dr. Kevin Hill, MD of Sierra Nevada Gastroenterology and the Sierra Endoscopy Center in Grass Valley. “Catch it before it becomes a big problem. The deaths we see are the people who wait too long. There is a significant chance of finding precancerous polyps — a growth or mass — in someone 50 or older who has had no symptoms at all. Others mistakenly assume symptoms are attributed to hemorrhoids or other common issues.”

According to the American Cancer Society, more than 90 percent of all colorectal cancers are diagnosed in those age 50 or older, which is why Hill urges people to begin getting screened at 50. Those who have been identified as being at a higher risk, such as having rectal or colon cancer in the family, may need to be screened earlier. If everyone who is 50 years old or older were screened regularly, roughly 60 percent of deaths from this type of cancer could be avoided, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The biggest barrier to getting a colonoscopy is psychological, said Hill, as most health insurance policies cover screenings and the Grass Valley gastroenterology and endoscopy centers — staffed by the same five doctors — offer payment plans for the uninsured. The most uncomfortable part of the procedure is the “bowel prep,” which involves a case of diarrhea leading up to the screening.

“But once you get here you'll be sedated and we'll put on any kind of music you like,I have just spent two weeks shopping for tile and have discovered Chinese porcelain tile.China Porcelain tile” he said.Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality, “Most people say, ‘That wasn't as bad as I thought!' We're the only center in Grass Valley. People travel here for screenings from out of town because of our reputation. I love working here because of the camaraderie — we're like a family here.”

In addition to Hill, the doctors include Andrew Chang, M.D., Aslam Godil, M.D.An Air purifier is a device which removes contaminants from the air., Roy Foliente, M.D.Specializes in rapid Injection mold and molding of parts for prototypes and production. and Dale Wadatz, M.D.Your source for re-usable Plastic moulds of strong latex rubber.

Becky Baldoni, a licensed vocational nurse who has worked at the Sierra Endoscopy Center for the past five years, says she's never worked in a more positive environment.

“All the doctors are amazing — that's why I'm here,” she said. “It's all about the patient here. What I see day in and day out here is that early detection is key. Don't get to a point where we can't help you. You'll feel good knowing you're being pro-active when it comes to your own health.”

Real Madrid piles pressure on Barca with easy La Liga win

Spanish leader Real Madrid piled the pressure on Barcelona by taking a provisional 13-point lead over its rival with a 4-0 victory over Racing Santander on Saturday.

Cristiano Ronaldo headed home his league-leading 28th goal after six minutes and the hosts played against 10 men from the 39th when Domingo Cisma was red-carded for handling for a second time.

Karim Benzema scored a goal either side of the break while Angel di Maria marked his first appearance of 2012 with an impressive 73rd-minute strike as Madrid prepared for Tuesday's Champions League last-16 match at CSKA Moscow with its 18th win in 19 league games, which includes eight straight victories. Just Choose PTMS plastic injection mold Is Your Best Choice!

“We won easily, we won without much shine or too much effort, but we won well,” Madrid coach Jose Mourinho said. “We won without having to suffer, which is the most positive aspect.”

Three-time defending champion Barcelona will need to beat Valencia later on Sunday at the Camp Nou to remain within 10 points of its biggest rival.

As encouraging as Di Maria's and Sami Khedira's returns from injuries ahead of the CSKA match were,An Air purifier is a device which removes contaminants from the air. Di Maria and Ronaldo both limped off after the final whistle. Di Maria appeared to hurt the same right thigh muscle that had sidelined him since December at the close,We offer offshore merchant account, while Ronaldo's ankle bothered him.

Madrid was keen to end a recent run of conceding the opener at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium as it charged out of the start buoyed by the return of Kaka and Marcelo to the starting lineup, while Raphael Varane made a rare start at centerback to shift Sergio Ramos wide.Bathroom Floor tiles at Great Prices from Topps Tiles. Di Maria and Khedira both got minutes as second-half substitutes while Gonzalo Higuain watched from the bench as Mourinho looked to save the Argentina striker for Moscow.

“It's important to have as many players as possible available now that we're entering a period when we'll play games every three days,” Mourinho said.

Ronaldo watched a header come off the post before scoring after Kaka's initial cross rebounded back to the Brazilian to head to the wide-open Ronaldo inside the box. Madrid has won all 30 games in which Kaka has scored or assisted on a goal and the Brazilian playmaker was active throughout.

Antonio Rodriguez continued to be Santander's standout player as the Spanish goalkeeper saved from Benzema and Marcelo before Cisma's hands got in the way of Ronaldo's cross to leave Santander with little hope as Madrid was already dominating.

Benzema patiently ran on to Alonso's threaded free kick before looping over Rodriguez, with either Ramos or Bernardo Espinosa likely helping the ball over the line for a 2-0 lead before the break. Madrid's defense was sturdy and allowed few chances to its 18th-place opponents.

Di Maria scored within 10 minutes of going on as the Argentina international carried across the face of the area before curling a tricky shot that touched Rodriguez's fingertips on its course into goal.

Benzema capped the rout with his 13th league goal in the 89th as the France striker's rising shot touched a Santander defender before finishing in the top corner.

“Every game we want to play like this and prepare like this for the Champions League,” said Benzema, who gave Madrid 79 goals through 23 games as it chases the record of 109 in a season.

Also, Getafe striker Nicolas “Miku” Fedor won and scored a late penalty to salvage a 1-1 draw against Espanyol, and Sevilla ended an eight-game winless slide with a 2-0 win over Osasuna.

Fedor stepped up to slot home the spot kick in the 70th minute after he was fouled by Espanyol's Thievy Boufama inside the area.

Espanyol had gone ahead only four minutes earlier through Alvaro Vazquez, who was returning from injury.Your source for re-usable Plastic moulds of strong latex rubber. The visitors played with 10 men from the 81st when Ernesto Galan was sent off for a second yellow card.

Espanyol moved into provisional fourth place with the point, one point above Levante. Valencia was eight points back of Barcelona in third.

Sevilla moved within four points of Espanyol with a much-needed victory that also provided new coach Michel with his first win in his second game in charge.

Gary Medel's 16th-minute goal proved enough in a match dominated by the hosts, who were saved by Andres Palop in the 78th as the Sevilla goalkeeper stretched to his left to keep substitute Roland Lamah's shot from inside the area out. Sevilla sealed the victory in stoppage time as Jesus Navas fed substitute Piotr Trochowski to score on the counter with Osasuna pressing for an equalizer.
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Sherry Hearn creates marvelous mosaics

Sherry Hearn started earning money with hand-crafts when she was a student at Bandera High School. We won't say how many years ago, but here's a clue- her craft was macramé! Just Choose PTMS Plastic Mould Is Your Best Choice!

"Joy Vawter [the home ec teacher] taught me how to do it and I was just fascinated. I made all these pot hangers and my dad took them to work with him at the highway department and sold them," she said.

"I thought, wow, I'm having fun and making money, too!"

Hearn has been creating beautiful things ever since in a variety of media. Her forte is mosaics, but she also does stained glass and polymer clay figurines.The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free, Her stained glass projects, however, are generally limited to "breaking the glass into pieces and turning them into mosaics.Overview description of rapid Tooling processes."

Hearn says she may have inherited her artistic bent from her father, Clinton Oehler. "He worked for years as a cartoonist for the old San Antonio Light newspaper and then worked for the state for years as a professional photographer for the highway department," she explained.

When you are a self-employed artist, you have to be willing to do a lot of trial and error, said Hearn. "You can go with the trends, but you have to keep re-inventing yourself," she said.We offer offshore merchant account, "It takes time to figure out your market."

Hearn's motivation lies in her sheer enjoyment of creating beautiful things. She is also motivated by color and texture. "I'm a color junky," she admitted. The response of her customers also encourages her to keep doing better. "I love seeing how happy one of my pieces makes a customer."

She also loves a challenge. Hearn's projects range in size from a few inches to wall sized murals. She created a fun beach scene at the entrance of Avalon Get-Away, a Lakehills event venue owned by James and Nancy MacMillan. "It's got palm trees, a bouy bobbing in the water, it turned out so good,This page contains information about molds," she said. "Nancy had this antique perfume bottle and we put some sand in it, some bits and pieces and a little scroll of paper, the traditional message in a bottle, and inserted that into the mural."

Sometimes a project just comes together and exceeds Hearn's own expectations.Bathroom Floor tiles at Great Prices from Topps Tiles. "I amaze myself," she said, laughing.

Hearn sells her items in Bandera at 11th Street Mercantile, and in San Antonio at Homestead Crafts on Blanco Road and the Alamo Craft Company in Ingram Park Mall. Occasionally she holds sales shows in her home in Lakehills. Hearn also posts her items on the online crafter's site Etsy, where you can find her by searching for Sherry L Hearn.

Her best sellers are crosses made of a variety of materials, including her trademark mosaic stylings. She also takes custom orders. She has produced welcome signs for local businesses, bird baths and bird houses, fountains and other yard art for special gifts.

"One customer brought me three plates that belonged to her grandmother and I made her three birdhouses covered with the broken pieces for her children," said Hearn.

One of Hearn's most Bandera appropriate works are old guitars covered with mosaic tiles. They no longer make music, but the designs make the heart sing.

Her polymer clay figures also make popular gifts. Each brightly colored piece is unique. "My best seller is the Soldier in Fatigues ornament," said Hearn.

Hearn regularly teaches mosaic and polymer clay classes, both in her home and at Alamo Craft Company.
Hearn works in her home. "As the kids have moved out, my projects expand and move into their room," she admitted. "I've been told it's getting out of hand!"

Jambbas cited for Animal Wel fare Act violations unrelated

Jambbas Ranch Tours was cited last month for violations of the Animal Welfare Act, but a U.S. Department of Agriculture inspections backlog means a report on earlier violations found last year could still be months away.

The USDA found two violations at the ranch on Tabor Church Road during an inspection Jan. 4,Tru-Form Plastics is a one-stop shop for plastic Injection Molding, prompted by a complaint filed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold,

A one-eyed llama was found with thick,I have just spent two weeks shopping for tile and have discovered China Porcelain tile. creamy discharge coming from its eye socket and dried diarrhea on its back legs, according to the inspection report. A raccoon had lost all the hair on its tail and part of its hindquarters, the report stated. Neither had been seen by a veterinarian.

Jambbas owner James Bass was ordered to have the animals examined by a veterinarian and appropriate treatment provided within a week. Bass could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The inspection was not part of an ongoing investigation, launched last summer, into multiple violations of the Animal Welfare Act at Jambbas,Alfa plast mould is Plastic moulds Manufacturer and plastics Mould Exporters in India since 1992, said Dave Sacks, a USDA spokesman.

That investigation remains open, Sacks said. It involves repeated violations found during inspections,Online fine art gallery of quality original landscape oil paintings, including some with direct impact on animal welfare. Specific details have not been released.

Sacks said Thursday he did not know when the report would be complete.

"Each investigation has its own set of variables and such, so it is not possible to gauge how long a case will last," Sacks said via email.

Gregory Parham, administrator of the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said in an open letter last month that the average investigation takes almost two years to complete because of a massive backlog. The agency can handle about 1,000 complaints a year but had about 2,050 open at the end of 2011, Parham wrote. The agency plans to send warning letters for some of the less serious violations on its books to close them out.

The new violations did not involve the most famous resident at Jambbas, Ben the Bear. Activists at the local and national level have campaigned for a larger enclosure for the bear or to have him moved to a bear sanctuary.

The Jambbas website offers the opportunity to donate toward a $40,000 enclosure for the bear. So far, $2,259.61 has been raised, according to the site.

Delcianna Winders, a PETA spokeswoman, said the latest complaint was reported by a local PETA supporter.

Other concerns the complaint raised that did not result in violations were dirty and empty dog water bowls and a camel that was foaming at the mouth, Winders said.

Give the Bathroom Some Style by Installing Tiles

People spend way more time in the bathroom than they think, so it only makes good sense to have an eye appealing room.

“The bathroom is likely the second most frequented place in the home, right after the kitchen.Alfa plast mould is Plastic moulds Manufacturer and plastics Mould Exporters in India since 1992, Why not make it look marvelous? After all, if you spend a lot of time in there, it might as well be appealing. If you’re thinking about upgrading it, take some time to sit down and sketch out some bathroom designs. For this, you will want to take a look at what is on the market in terms of bathroom tile,Can't afford a third party merchant account right now? and visit a Clearwater flooring contractor to see what is popular,” suggested Dean Dupre, who owns Champion Tile, a Clearwater flooring, Tampa flooring, and tile installation company.

There are so many different types of bathroom tiles on the market today that it should not be hard to find something to make the powder room come alive. The sky is the limit, and when considering what would work in the bathroom, go with what is appealing, colorful, unique and creates a relaxing atmosphere. “After all, it’s your bathroom and you can do what you want in it,” added Dupre.

For those that would rather let a Clearwater flooring contractor do the work,Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, they might want to spend some time finding out what types of tile would work in their living space and what kind of tile would add value to the home and improve its overall appearance and presentation.

Selecting tile for the bathroom is more about determining the mood that makes everyone feel like they want to spend time in there. It is about themes, textures, patterns and eye appeal. “Based on what you want, like and feel comfortable with, you can pick anything that appeals to you, and even have it suit your budget as well,Tru-Form Plastics is a one-stop shop for plastic Injection Molding,” Dupre indicated.

Remember that when choosing bathroom tile, making the right selection for the moisture levels is a main consideration. There are a wide range of tiles to consider, including natural stone tiles, glass mosaic tiles, ceramic and porcelain tiles. “If you want a very distinctive look and feel to the bathroom,I have just spent two weeks shopping for tile and have discovered China Porcelain tile. you might want to consider natural stone tiles. They are in big demand, plus they are virtually ageless and will appeal to just about everyone,” he added.

For those that like the appeal of bright and bold colors, the world of tiles is full of choices. Consider different graphics, appealing and unique patterns, natural stones, vibrant tiles or something subtle and elegant. Ideally, staying away from darker colors is a smart move, as that can make an area look smaller. “If your bathroom is a postage stamp, try neutral colors or lighter shades. It will liven the whole room up,” Dupre suggested.

Power outage shocks businesses

A large power outage sent holiday-makers heading for home in the popular Whangaruru Harbour area, as water and petrol pumps failed, toilets could not be flushed and fridges and freezers fell silent during the weekend.

Some campervan and caravan tourists found themselves marooned on the coast because they did not have enough fuel to get to the nearest petrol station.China yiri mould is a professional manufacturer which integrates Plastic Mould design and manufacture and plastic product development.

Lines company Northpower said it believes the outage may have been caused by an insulator and conductor being hit by a bullet. A helicopter brought in to assist with locating the fault spotted a damaged pole near the road on the boundary of a forest block near Mokau.

Power was restored to all customers by mid-day yesterday, but not before Travis O'Malley and Nena Rogers, owners of Oakura Bay Stores and The Tin Tui Cafe, had lost thousands of dollars in income and ruined stock.

The business runs 23 chillers and stock levels were extremely high at this time of the year, said Mr O'Malley.

"Deliveries are on the way as we speak and what do we do?" he asked.

The couple frantically moved product out of their biggest freezer to smaller ones in case sudden restoration of power blew out its compressor, involving huge repair costs.

"We've been through outages before and we know all about blown-out compressors. We've had eight in 16 years. The longest outage was 24 hours when a forestry company dropped a tree on the line.Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile, Outages have massive impact on a business like this.

"We are still recovering from the big storm of 2007 when the road was blocked for weeks and the expense of having to put in petrol pumps when Shell withdrew from the area the same year. This setback comes on top of a poor-performance summer. It's incredibly disappointing," Mr O'Malley said.

A generator big enough to keep all their chillers going through summer was beyond their financial resources. Stock losses were covered by insurance but the business had to pay the first $2000; meanwhile loss of trade over the last long weekend of summer was not covered. He said he feels sorriest for the people who earn a living looking after holiday homes.

"The owners couldn't clean up when they left. I know someone who has to go in and do the dishes and wash and clean everything in about 12 baches," he said.

Power began to fail intermittently just before the weekend in an area stretching from Whakapara 23km north-west of Whangarei,The magic cube is an ultra-portable, north to the area of Whangaruru harbour, including the Oakura settlement and Bland Bay, culminating in a complete outage from 4.Offering high risk and offshore merchant account with credit card processing services.30am on Monday.

General manager of Northpower's network division,Information on useful yeasts and moulds, Graham Dawson, said the fault would have been extremely difficult to spot quickly from the ground.

"We were almost at the point of having to climb every pole along that section of the line which would have been very time-consuming," he said. The company had done a huge amount of recent maintenance on the Helena Bay/Bland Bay line and there was more to come, he said, but in this case "there appeared to be possible third party damage to the insulator. The pole and cross-arm were in very good condition".

He said the company spent around $20 million annually on maintenance and asset replacement.

Stylish & Sporty: 2012 Infiniti FX50 AWD

Two weeks ago, we drove the newest Range Rover. The Evoque evokes considerable attention, because of its looks. That's rare in its segment, but this week we drive another crossover with an eye for style — the Infiniti FX50.

The FX was one of the first of the head-turning crossovers. With its reeeally tall tires and swoopy sheet metal, the first gen FX (introduced in 2003) looked like a Hot Wheels model come to life.

Nine years later, the latest generation FX is still style conscious. And if it doesn't generate quite the same level of rubber-necking that it used to, that's only because some of its crossover competitors have cleaned up their act.

This is a face-lift year for the FX; with all models getting a new front fascia and a revamped grille. Infiniti offers the FX in four models.Accept all major credit cards using the top rated third party payment gateway.Online fine art gallery of quality original landscape oil paintings, FX 50s like our test driver are all wheel drive, and pack a 5.0 liter V-8. The FX35 runs a 3.5 liter V-6, and is available in AWD or rear wheel drive. The final version is a new-for-2012 FX35 Limited Edition, with AWD. Starting prices run from $43,700-$59,800.

Infiniti bills the FX50 as a performance crossover. For many/most crossovers, that label would be a contradiction in terms, but the FX50 is convincing in this role. The show-car sized, 21-inch alloys are shod with speed-rated, all-season tires, and linked to a four-wheel independent suspension. Despite its height, the FX50 has a supple handling feel. A chassis upgrade offered as part of the Sport Package ($3,100) includes a Continuously Damping Control (CDC) suspension system. This system provides constant adjustments to shock absorber damping as you drive, with a choice of two settings: sport or auto.Information on useful yeasts and moulds, Ride quality ranges from firm (auto) to firmer (sport).Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile, The full-time AWD system automatically apportions engine torque from 100 percent RWD to a 50/50 front/rear split, depending on road conditions.

Certainly, the 5.0 liter V-8 qualifies as a performance motor. The 390 hp/369 lb. ft. of torque power output feels responsive under foot, and the engine growls when prodded. Working with a seven-speed automatic transmission, the V-8 is strong enough to move the 4,557 lb. FX50 from 0-60 mph in the low five second range. With this muscle car speed comes a muscle car's appetite. The EPA estimates mileage at 14 mpg's city and 20 highway. Interestingly, this is only marginally less than the 3.5 liter V-6 AWD (16/21). My week behind the wheel netted 16.5 mpg's. Infiniti specifies Premium fuel for the FX. Towing capacity is rated at a maximum of 3,500 lb.

The FX's exotic shape extracts some payback in practical matters. Narrow openings for the back doors slow entry and exit. With six-footers up front, a pair of like size passengers in back will find legroom tight. Straight rear visibility is hampered by a small, slanted backlight, and thick, roof c-pillars make for 3/4 rear blind spots. Cargo capacity runs a modest range from 25-62 cubic feet, depending on how you configure the seats. Liftover height in back is moderate. If you're taller than six feet, you'll need to duck under the rear hatch door when loading.

Up front, the interior is luxurious looking and bristling with technology features. The electroluminescent dash display is a bright, easy read. Most controls are found on a large array of buttons that populate a busy but manageable center stack. An 11-speaker Bose sound system is standard equipment, and includes an AM/FM/Satellite/ CD head unit, and USB port for iPod or other input devices. The navigation system standard on FX50 models includes real-time traffic and weather information, Bluetooth streaming audio and Zagat restaurant surveys. Voice activation is available for both nav and sound system controls.

The roster of standard or available features includes plenty of luxury/entertainment/convenience items, like cooled front seats (heat is standard) and a DVD entertainment system. And, there's an arm's-length list of safety aids as well: Intelligent Brake Assist, Distance Control Assist,China yiri mould is a professional manufacturer which integrates Plastic Mould design and manufacture and plastic product development. Intelligent Cruise Control, Lane Departure Warning, Lane Departure Prevention, adaptive cruise control and an Around View Monitor (provides a virtual, 360 degree view of objects around the vehicle).

Some or all of the warning systems may activate at any time, depending on the conditions at hand, to alert you to various, possible dangers. Individually, these can be quite useful, as when a drowsy driver is roused from sleep, when he drifts from his designated lane. However, there are times when the amount of safety-related sound-offs can become a bit much. During a recent, rainy, rush hour romp down 787, I felt like my copilot was R2D2 on Red Bull . The good news is that the amount of auditory input is at your command. You can silence the alert warnings any time, by simply switching them off. Ah, if only people were so equipped...

By design, the FX is a specialty player within the crossover segment. Particularly in the V-8 powered flagship, it targets buyers who will trade some utility for a level of curb appeal and drivability not often found in high end crossovers. Stylish and sporty, the FX50 is an high profile choice in a low volume segment.

Cultivating a Love of ‘Full-service custom manufacturer

Cultivating a Love of ‘Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold,Lover’s Eyes’

Dr. David Skier and his wife, Nan, keep a safe full of disembodied eyes painted on ivory, known to connoisseurs as “lover’s eyes.” The couple, in Birmingham, Ala., have acquired about 100 in the past two decades, mostly made in Europe around 1800 and depicting unknown sitters.

The fragile watercolors cannot withstand moisture, strong sun or any hard knocks. The Skiers gingerly study them in storage.

“We do look at them all the time,” Dr. Skier , an eye surgeon, said in a phone interview. They were drawn to the objects at first because of his professional interest in vision, he explained, but as the collection grew, they have kept it private. “None of my patients has ever seen any of the lover’s eyes,” he said.

The Skiers are unveiling the holdings for “The Look of Love: Eye Miniatures from the Skier Collection,” an exhibition that opens on Tuesday at the Birmingham Museum of Art. The catalog (from D Giles Limited) explains how briefly the art form flourished.

About 1,000 lover’s eyes were painted between the 1780s and 1830s, largely in England. The Prince of Wales, the future King George IV, started the trend; he and his mistress Maria Fitzherbert exchanged gifts of one painted eye. The ivory plaques became fashionable for pendants, rings, brooches, stickpins and watch winding keys, among other pocket-size trinkets.

A few eyes in the Skier collection can be identified. Mourners for Margaret Wardlaw, a schoolgirl who died in 1795, had her name engraved on a gold ring with a painting of an angel floating over a brown right eye. William Worters, a farmer in Northamptonshire, commissioned an image of the brown left eye of his young wife, Sarah, for a gold pin; she died in childbirth in 1836.

The collectors have paid thousands of dollars per piece. At a single 2008 jewelry sale at Skinner auction house in Boston, they spent about $21,000 for four eyes, including $2,000 for a brooch with a blue left eye attributed to Richard Cosway, George IV’s favorite miniatures painter.

Damaged works do not interest the couple. “We want the ones that are pristine, that have the glow of the eye of the sitter,” Dr. Skier said.

The couple increasingly rely on experts’ analysis before buying.Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality, Unscrupulous jewelry makers now routinely cut up old ivory miniatures for eyes to frame in gold and gemstones. Eyes for the fakes are also sliced out of prints and photos.

“This is the diciest area of collecting now,” said Elle Shushan, a miniatures dealer who helped write the Skier catalog.

Marty Gitlin eats sweet cereals like Froot Loops and Lucky Charms. His friend Topher Ellis prefers Grape-Nuts and Total. They agree that the history of breakfast foods is more interesting and publishable than their friends and families ever expected.

They spent years finding a publisher for “The Great American Cereal Book: How Breakfast Got Its Crunch” (Abrams Image).Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious Floor tiles from The Tile Shop. “Deep down I knew there was a market for this,” Mr. Gitlin said in a phone interview from his home in Cleveland.

The book traces the evolution of an 1890s sanitarium wheat dish called Granose Flakes into pop culture fare promoted by Tony the Tiger, Sugar Bear and Lou Gehrig. The advertising geniuses behind the cartoon characters and celebrity endorsers “all deserve a huge yay and hurray,” Mr. Ellis said in a phone interview from his home near Charlotte, N.C.

The authors did research at corporate archives and the homes of obsessed memorabilia collectors. Mr. Gitlin toured rooms packed with thousands of vintage boxes, ads and giveaway trinkets. “I almost fainted when I walked into these places,” he said.Information on useful yeasts and moulds,VulcanMold is a Injection mold and injection molding manufacturer in china.

Rarities in the field fetch hundreds of dollars apiece through specialty dealers and online auctions. Among the sought-after are 1970s boxes of Alpha-Bits with “Jackson 5 groovie buttons” and Cheerios with discount coupons for “Star Wars” tumblers.

Mr. Gitlin and Mr. Ellis also deeply researched market flops, with sugar-loaded recipes that now sound a bit repellent and taglines that did not age well. In the 1960s Kellogg’s used dollops of freeze-dried fruit ice cream to formulate Kream Krunch. In the 1970s, the new book reports, Nabisco promoted blueberry-flavored Ooobopperoos with a blue kangaroo “who wore sunglasses and played an upright bass.”

DOE Report Shows Energy-Saving Lighting Making an Impact

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Solid-State Lighting Program, which operates under the auspices of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy,Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, or EERE, released its second report on the country’s logistical fixed lighting architecture this January,Information on useful yeasts and moulds, updating the industry from its previous report in 2002.

A dense, analytical breakdown by installed stock, energy consumption and lumen output of the entire nation’s footprint, the 2010 US Lighting Market Characterization (LMC) provides a comprehensive estimate framework for assisting market transition to more energy-efficient white-light source technologies.

The LMC shows a strong trend over the examined interval which clearly indicates that investment in energy-efficient technologies, federal and state lighting regulations, as well as public awareness campaigns, have collectively enabled a considerable momentum shift towards energy-efficient hardware selections that span all lighting segments.

Primary efficiency trends are the shift from incandescent to compact fluorescent (CFLs) in residential applications, and the shift in commercial/industrial applications from T12 to the more efficient T8 and T5 linear fluorescent lamps, as well as CFLs and metal halide lamps.

The 5.6-percent increase in the number of American households from 2001 to 2010 (now 113M), is the other, major driving factor in the whole equation, and the LMC offers a tantalizing glimpse into efficiency upgrades that are yet possible.The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services,

Looking at the four primary categories of light sources – ranging from incandescent and halogen, to fluorescent and solid-state/other (including HIDs, or high-intensity discharge lamps) – the LMC digested an array of commonly available lighting products in subgroups of each category, drawing on a total of 28 different lamp types for extracting performance characteristics like average wattage, operating hours and number of sockets per household (up 18.6 percent, to 51 sockets/household since 2001).

The LMC constitutes one of the most robust sources available for this kind of high-fidelity study, representing both national level and sector-specific (Residential, Commercial, Industrial and Outdoor) inputs from a variety of light sources, which are then mapped via extant, primarily public information .The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free,

This particular 7.5 quads represents approximately 7.67 percent of total U.S. energy consumption (97.8 quads) and some 18.75 percent of total U.S. electrical energy consumed in all of 2010 (40 quads).

The total installed base of domestic lamps rose 17 percent, from 2001 to roughly 8.2 billion, with Residential lamp inventories leading growth at an increase of 26 percent – largely due to an increased number of homes, floor space in those homes, and sockets per household – with Commercial following close behind at 13 percent.

Fluorescents across all sectors account for some 55 percent of total lumen production each year and make up the majority of the deployed lighting infrastructure in Commercial and Industrial applications. In the Residential sector, where the largest energy-consuming lamps (incandescent) make up a massive 78 percent of total energy consumption, a major shift is evident, with CFLs now coming in second at 23 percent of average lamp distribution by room type.

The scales have essentially tipped towards fluorescent lamps (driven by long operational hours in Commercial applications) due to the impact of energy-saving lighting technology efforts, a major change from 2001 when incandescents were the largest consumers of electricity and fluorescent lamps were second.

The substantial changes in the nation’s lighting inventory since 2001 are also evident in solid-state LED lighting adoption, which has grown 30-fold to some 50 million lamps – a figure which still represents only one percent of the total lighting infrastructure footprint, and reflects an emerging cultural consciousness of energy efficiency.

Overall average efficiency for the entire lighting stock is up 28.8 percent, to 58 lumens per watt (lm/W) from a mere 45 lm/W in 2001, with a migration from mercury vapor to metal halide lamps in Outdoor/Industrial sectors also playing an important role.

The subject of lighting controls was also covered, as such systems represent the forerunners of energy-saving lighting technologies that allow end users to automatically achieve greater efficiency, according to configured settings. While Residential applications are generally less efficient manual dimmers and represent roughly 14 percent of the sector, automated lighting in Commercial applications occurs with a prevalence of around 30 percent, among systems labeled highly-efficient emergency lighting, motion detection-related, or timer-based.The magic cube is an ultra-portable,

Longtime Telegraph Avenue remodeler takes Berkeley Architectural Heritage award

Customs Kitchens, a firm that has occupied its Telegraph Avenue home for more than 60 years, has been getting a lot of attention lately for restoring -- not just renovating -- old spaces.

For the company's work on the historic Williams House in Berkeley, Custom Kitchens won a historic preservation award last summer from the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, just one of a slew of nods the firm earned in 2011.Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious Floor tiles from The Tile Shop. The San Francisco Bay Chapter of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry honored the company with several awards at its annual dinner in San Francisco.

Custom Kitchens tied for the grand prize for its complete renovation of a Bay Street home on Alameda's Gold Coast,Omega Plastics are leading plastic injection moulding and injection mould tooling specialists. a project that also won a first-place award for historical preservation of a residence. The company also won a merit award in the category of residential interior renovation costing more than $100,000 for a Piedmont home.

The late John Wilkins started the company in 1950 near the Oakland-Berkeley line, where the office and showroom remains today at 6624 Telegraph Ave. The firm didn't start out as a specialist in historic preservation but fell into it as time went on.

"We would go in, and whether it was a fireplace or old piece of furniture, it just needed to be rehabilitated," said Jerry Wilkins, John's son, president and chief executive officer. "It is a specialty. Not a lot of contractors are set up to do those things. We like to restore something rather than tear it down if it can be done economically." Wilkins and wife Joy, a designer for the firm, took over the company after his father retired in 1990. For them, bringing older homes back to their previous glory is not just a job but also a passion.

"We really like doing historic renovation," Jerry Wilkins said. "It's like restoring an old Ferrari. It gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling." Wilkins especially enjoyed working on the Williams House in Berkeley because the owners, Don and Carol Anne Brown, were so engaged in the process.

"(They) went through a lot of effort to research things and bought boxes of books and made sure that everybody in the city and everybody involved was going to approve," Wilkins recalled.

The Browns bought the stunning 1928 home near the Claremont Hotel seven years ago. It was one of three homes designed by famed Bay Area architect Julia Morgan for the children of Elizabeth Glide Williams.

The property, which Don Brown said Morgan described as Mediterranean and Moorish Renaissance, was owned for 20 years by the University of California, which had turned the kitchen into a large catering space. The Browns wanted to return the kitchen to its original, more intimate setting, but one that would still fit their modern-day needs.Online fine art gallery of quality original landscape oil paintings,

"The only things original to the kitchen were two cupboards,Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold," Brown said. "We kept those and went about putting in a kitchen that was going to be adequate for the 21st century.Accept all major credit cards using the top rated third party payment gateway." Custom Kitchens took the kitchen down to the studs, putting in new hardwood floors, cabinetry that hides the refrigerator and other appliances, and a Viking professional stove that features a hood appropriate to the house's era. To further reflect the house's heyday, Custom Kitchens incorporated antique-looking light fixtures and tiles recreated from molds dating from Morgan's time.

Golden Globes 2012: The Real Winners

Before we begin, it should be stipulated that awards shows are boring. They have always been boring, and they will continue to be boring until the Earth hurtles into the sun, which will almost certainly occur during the 18th hour of 10,464th Annual Academy Awards Psychocast, finally freeing us of the curious need to complain about why we aren't more entertained by famous people trading gold statues and listing their business obligations.

The Golden Globes, however, occasionally surprise us by being marginally less boring than other awards shows. This usually is the result of the fact that no attendee is more than an arm's length from a full bottle of champagne at any time during the ceremony,Can't afford a third party merchant account right now? or the fully stocked, backstage cocaine buffet the Hollywood Foreign Press Association supplies for all presenters. Sometimes it's because the host, say, a multimultimillionaire British comedian with nothing to lose but 30 seconds of pleasant chitchat with Angelina Jolie at the HBO afterparty, decides to treat the party as a roast. But then everyone loses their shit about how "mean" he is, he replaces the rubber bullets in his clip with tiny hot cocoa marshmallows in his exhaustively hyped return engagement, and vanilla equilibrium is restored to the awards show universe. Congratulations, we're all snoring before Meryl Streep gets to feign surprise at even the possibility she might win her eighth Globe out of 26 total nominations.

Have you heard about this thing? Odds are you haven't yet seen Shame, easily the most-discussed showcase of male full-frontal nudity since Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but when George Clooney uses a sizable chunk of his acceptance speech to daydream about the leisurely rounds of cock-golf the two of you might soon enjoy at Pebble Beach, your genitalia has arrived. Soon, Fassbender's in-demand python will find itself cast as card-counting blackjack ace in Ocean's Fourteen ,Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile, and the victim of a Clooney prank wherein "INS agents" pretend to seize and deport it back to the UK after an anonymous tip about an expired work visa.

In any case, congratulations, Michael Fassbender's penis, on your meteoric rise to the top of the call sheet!

During a montage of Morgan Freeman's considerable cinematic accomplishments played during the presentation of the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award, one moment really stood out from all the Shawshanks, Dark Knights, and Bucket Lists. This is easily the finest singing-Dracula-bathing-in-a-coffin performance you'll ever see, and we're counting the one True Blood is planning next season with guest star Nathan Lane in a casket-Jacuzzi bubbling over with Ryan Kwanten's liquefied entrails.

Strange side-note: If you go to Freeman's IMDb page, his first "Known For" entry is now The Electric Company.Online fine art gallery of quality original landscape oil paintings, No idea if it was that way before last night, but we'd like to think they're responding to the hundreds of thousands of "Morgan Freeman casket bath" searches they're receiving.

The go-to gag of the evening was referencing Bridesmaids star Melissa McCarthy's explosive, now-iconic bout of sink-directed diarrhea, always a crowd pleaser at Hollywood cocktail parties. Unfortunately, the awards show zero-sum game dictates that someone deserving goes home disappointed, so: Sorry, Maya Rudolph.Husky Injection Mold Systems designs and manufactures a broad range of Information on useful yeasts and moulds, Almost no one talks about how heroically you crouched in the middle of the street, billowing wedding dress hiding your bowel-induced shame, and did your naughty business like a lady. Don't be so demure about it next time. Find a water fountain or something.

Raiders fight tooth and nail but can't beat Hewitt

Perhaps not surprisingly, there was a scrap a little over six minutes into the matchup.

As a result, Raiders’ blue liner Harrison Ruopp was given two for instigating, five for fighting and the automatic 10 minute misconduct that accompanies the instigating call, for his tussle with Pats’ D-man, Luke Fenske.

Throughout the first third of the game the fans enjoyed some graceful and hard-fought back-and-forth hockey.

The Raiders moved the puck smoothly in all three zones and offered the crowd reason to get to their feet on a few occasions.

At the end of the first, the shots were six to five for the home team and the scoreboard read 0-0.

In the second period the pace of the game picked up a bit and the Raiders generated some great scoring chances,Daneplast Limited UK are plastic injection mould & toolmaking specialists. while throwing their weight around, legally for the most part.

A late hit expressed some of the frustration Prince Albert was feeling after Regina’s Jordan Weal put one behind Cole Holowenko at the 13:13 minute mark in period one. Thankfully for the Raiders the hit went uncalled.

At 11:25 in the second, Regina forward Jack Rodewald made it 2-0 for the Queen City.

However, the Raiders were not about to take the two goal deficit lying down, as they drove to the net continuing to create scoring opportunities.

If it weren’t for the stellar goaltending of Regina’s Matt Hewitt, Prince Albert would have had a couple of their own in the second period. For his part, Raiders netminder Holowenko was clearly on his game, getting beaten only on the second chances Regina made of a couple rebounds.

As the second period came to a close, the Raiders continued to lead on the shot clock at 19 to 15, however, the scoreboard told another story at 2-0, for the Pats.

The hits kept on coming in the third as both teams maintained the animosity one expects from a matchup between the two teams.

At the halfway point in the third, the Raiders had a few shots on the power play but Hewitt stood tall.A mold or molds is a hollowed-out block that is filled with a liquid like plastic,

The Raiders continued getting shots in period three but Hewitt often had a clean look at the puck and, when he didn’t,The magic cube is an ultra-portable, the rubber bounced wide.

With about a minute and a half to go in the third, Holowenko left the net and, with the extra man, the Raiders continued to get shots.

With 26 seconds to go in the games, Raiders head coach, Steve Young, was able to call a timeout and devise a final plan of attack.

But, as the buzzer went, the score remained 2-0 for Regina and the Pats had edged forward on the shot clock 26 to 25.

Holowenko held steady between the pipes and the Raiders moved the puck well but it was not to be for the “Beautiful Gateway City.”

Apart from the two goals Regina netGet information on Air purifier from the unbiased,ted, it was an even matchup, but the Pats made the most of a couple opportunities and the Raiders couldn’t beat Hewitt.

After the game, Young told the Herald, “I thought we played a good hockey game. Some nights you don’t get puck lucky and tonight we didn’t and Hewitt comes up with a shutout.

"But, I thought it was a big improvement from our third period against Brandon and that was one of the steps we wanted to take.”

“Our guys are disappointed that we lost…but we played the type of game we needed to play and it was better than our last game. But, as I said, we didn’t get the puck luck tonight,” added Young.

“Rebounds was something that I’ve been working on after the Brandon game…working on shots that are a few feet off the ice,” Holowenko told the Herald.

“Obviously there were a few breakdowns, all teams have them, Regina had them tonight too,Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality, but we weren’t getting the bounces we would have liked tonight. …Maybe next time we do,” Holowenko offered.

What’s a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic good for?

Earlier this week I called this $100 OLPC tablet the most exciting gadget at the CES show in Vegas . Some disagree, and suggest that I should have singled out this MakerBot Thing-O-Matic,Accept all major credit cards using the top rated third party payment gateway. an affordable 3D printer that spits out bigger objects than the last 3D printer you all bought (right?)–and in two colors to boot.

I’m unconvinced. 3D printing makes certain geeks quiver with glee, but so far it’s left me kind of cold. The cheap little plastic choking hazards that result from the process look like they come from CrackerJack boxes, and rarely seem worth the time it takes to print them or the money that goes into the building plastic. Math-fractal jewellery made from 3D printed molds looks god-awful ugly to me, and the trippy dream of printing a 3D printer WITH A 3D PRINTER always struck me as the combined mental wankery of stoners + nerds.

But of course, I’m missing the point. 3D printing is still in its infancy. The hobbyists who are pushing it forward, and pushing the price of 3D printers down, dream of a not-too-distant future in which the digital revolution bursts forth from the world of bits and conquers the pesky and inefficient world of atoms. Stuff itself will never be the same. Manufacturing and shipping could become largely unnecessary. It would be almost like those replicators on Star Trek (or so I’m told). Put an object in a box in Toronto, and it will be scanned and printed out in Australia, as many times as you need, in whatever color, at whatever size, with whatever changes you require. We will be liberated from the cookie-cutter sameness of mass-production. Consumer goods will be downloaded and printed, not bought at the mall, and each individual will shape the stuff they want to their own needs.

Sounds awesome,The magic cube is an ultra-portable, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Yes, the price of home 3D printers will continue to drop as their speed and scale increase. But even a cheap, big, and fast 3D printer is only capable of spitting out plastic stuff, one part at a time. Assembly will be required,Daneplast Limited UK are plastic injection mould & toolmaking specialists. unless we also somehow have cheap and versatile home robotics in this bold 3D future. I can see the benefit for printing simple tools, machine parts and minimalist hipster toys. But most of the stuff we buy is made from multiple materials and many parts, and lots of it includes electronics. Even if it’s possible to design, say, the chassis for a tablet computer to your own personal specs, you’ll still have to pick up metal and glass parts and a motherboard, and then meticulously assemble the whole thing in your living room. Will something like that ever go mainstream?

I’m not holding my breath for a 3D printer in every home. To assume that these machines will do to manufacturing what 2D printers did to publishing is to make the same mistake we always make about technology, insisting that the future will be like the present, only more so.A mold or molds is a hollowed-out block that is filled with a liquid like plastic, As with most technology, 3D printers will completely fail to do what we expect them to do, and will instead change the world in ways that no one is anticipating.Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile,

Home sick? The causes and cures for mold in your home

Every week, home inspector Lars Knobloch gets at least one phone call from someone with a potential mold problem in their home.

Sometimes they can see what they think is mold and want to be sure. Other times, they just don’t feel well and want to rule out mold as the culprit.

“It is real,” said Knobloch, who owns Nordic Home Inspection in Fargo and does real estate inspections as well as testing for mold,The magic cube is an ultra-portable, asbestos,Get information on Air purifier from the unbiased, lead, radon and allergens. “It’s a serious matter.”

Casey Bartz of Moorhead recently dealt with mold in a home he was purchasing and said while there are a lot of home recipes for mold removal online, he would rather deal with professionals.

“There’s a lot on the internet that can be out there to scare you,” he said. “Having an actual person I could speak to about it helped me out a lot.”

Knobloch was inspecting the home when he discovered mold along the baseboards. The air in the home also did not smell fresh, Bartz said.

So Knobloch did an air quality test, not only in the basement where he saw mold, but also on the home’s main level. The results revealed toxic black mold.

Bartz was then able to factor in the cost of mold removal when he negotiated the house’s price.

As he worked in the home before the mold was removed, Bartz noticed that he didn’t feel well. But once the basement carpet and moldy sheetrock were removed, his home smelled a lot cleaner and he felt a lot better.

Having experienced the effects of mold, he knows what to watch out for and he knows how important it is to take care of problems that could lead to mold before that happens, he said.

Indoor air quality expert, Ken Hellevang, a North Dakota State University professor and NDSU Extension engineer, said mold will grow on wet materials in 24 to 48 hours.

“In our climate,Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious Floor tiles from The Tile Shop. we find a lot of potential for moisture problems in homes,” he said.

In the summer, homeowners may deal with damp basements as the ground water level rises. In the winter, condensation increases the moisture level in homes, he said.

Knobloch usually finds mold where water might drain such as around a utility room, water heater, sinks, washing machines, and bathtubs, he said.

Common causes are if the soil around your home slopes toward it or if the downspouts are not angled away from your home. In those cases, rainwater drains toward the foundation, creating a moist environment where mold will thrive. Mold might then grow on the back of sheetrock or behind baseboards.

“Mold really grows well in dark areas,” he said.

Mold can be caused by the following: flooding, sump pump failure, condensation on windows, soap scum in showers, firewood stored indoors, humidifier use, venting clothes dryer exhaust indoors, line drying clothes indoors, and a leaky or poorly ventilated attic.

“No one goes up in the attic,” Knobloch said. “I usually recommend people go up there once a year to check for minor roof leaks.”

Closets, especially those on exterior walls, can also be conducive to mold.

In “Keep Your Home Healthy,” Hellevang’s guide to improving indoor air quality, he explains that closets are higher in humidity than the rest of the house in the winter because the temperature inside the closet is often cooler than the rest of the house.

Mold is found more frequently in newer homes because older homes are draftier, don’t often have finished basements, and often have plaster walls, Knobloch said.

Mold usually has a musty smell, but people might not realize they have a mold problem if it’s growing where they can’t see it.

Sometimes illness alerts them to a problem.

“Many people contact me because they’re sick,” Knobloch said. “They have one of these health symptoms and they wonder if they have mold.”

People’s bodies respond differently to mold exposure. Some might have a severe reaction while others could experience no symptoms at all.

Health risks are greater in infants and children, the elderly, people with respiratory conditions or sensitivities, and those with severely weakened immune systems, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.

Hellevang said research is finding people are more sensitive to mold growth than they used to be.

According to Mayo Clinic, mold allergies cause the same signs and symptoms as other upper respiratory allergies. Symptoms can include: sneezing, runny or stuffy nose, cough and postnasal drip,The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services, itchy eyes, nose and throat, and watery eyes.Information on useful yeasts and moulds,

With a mold allergy, symptoms generally worsen with each exposure.

Asthma symptoms can be triggered by exposure to mold spores and in some people exposure to certain molds can cause a severe asthma attack.

Mold can also cause infections, with problems ranging from flu-like symptoms to skin infections or pneumonia.

Dolls putting out less straw for bedding for bulls in nice weather

A bright sun was peeking out last week on a cool morning with temps in the 20s but no snow on the ground as the Dolls put out bedding for their bulls.

Charles, David and Harlan Doll,Information on useful yeasts and moulds, who operate Doll Charolais and Simmental Ranch, lay out bedding for the bulls every three days, but it is nothing like last year at this time.

David said they’ve only used 10-15 percent of the bedding they had used at this time a year ago when 20-30 inches of snow had already fallen in the region, making cattle chores difficult.

There’s been only a dusting of snow so far this year, and producers are looking forward to a clear forecast for the next 10 days.

Bedding is a project that used to take two men and last an hour and a half.

“Now I can do it myself in 10 minutes,” said Harlan.

Harlan drove the bale processor which the Dolls purchased last year, and picked up a bale of straw and then distributed it evenly across the feed yard.

The bulls came running to the fresh bedding, laying soft, thick and even. They enjoyed nuzzling in it – and so did the farm dogs.As a professional manufacturer of China ceramic tile in China,

David said they bale both straw for bedding and hay for feed in the summer and store it for future use.

The North Dakota Simmental Association’s state sale, which the Dolls had bred heifers in, was a success last weekend at Farmer’s Livestock Exchange in Bismarck.

Charles said producers from states as far away as Nebraska and Wisconsin consigned bred heifers in the sale.

David added it was a “really good sale” with the average sales price being $3,400 on the bred heifers, and $2,900 on the open heifers.

During the sale, some of the Doll kids, Hailie, Krysten, Katie and Jacie, stood in the ring with the heifer donated by Joseph and Helen Doll, longtime members of the North Dakota Simmental Association.

“They were really proud of being able to donate a heifer to an association that they have been members of for many years,” David said.Dimensional Mailing magic cube for Promotional Advertising,

The week before, the Dolls trailed the last of their cows home, then sorted and worked the cows the same day with a Scour Guard injection, and another dose of Ivomec.

The cows were out grazing stalks and grass in two groups across the road from farm headquarters. They have a nice open creek running through the fields bringing them fresh water daily.

“The creek hasn’t iced up at all,” David said.

A few shiny-coated cows were in a separate pen and eating a higher ration. Harlan said these were the cows they flushed for embryos, and they are fed extra mineral. They had 20 embryos flushed out of two cows and 10 out of another.

He added they decide which cows should be flushed based on if they are consistently having a nice calf year and have good mothering EPDs such as milking, good birth, weaning and yearling weights and they also check the carcass data, too.

The Dolls also went through their bulls a final time, making cuts, and castrating the cuts as steers.

They finished weighing the bulls in their sale and the heifers they are retaining. Charles likes to wait until he has the final 365 day weight to add to the other information, before he registers the animals. That way the data is complete.

“The bulls are averaging 3.8 pounds a day. They are gaining really well,” Charles said.

Meanwhile, their trainee from Brazil, Durval Neto, left to return home after nine months with the Dolls. It is an exchange program through the government that the Dolls have participated in before.

They had a cattle buyer from Minnesota come out looking for quality calves, and the Dolls took him around to some of their customers. Some weren’t ready to sell until after the first of the year, so he may come back then.

The brothers have been holding on to their grain and hoping the wheat market has a sustained rally soon. Harlan said it has been up some for six days in a row, but David said it seems to go up in a lot slower increments than it comes down.

Harlan added he is starting to look at rotations for next spring, and seed. He sent a sample of wheat in to get the germination level and see if it is high quality enough to use next spring. They will probably plant the same crops next year: wheat, barley, flax, corn and sunflowers.

The Dolls are also doing some end-of-the-year paperwork, and went over some numbers with their tax accountant.

David added, “After the first of the year, we will also start marketing our feeder calves.”

Harlan said they have had some people come out to the ranch and look at the bulls that will be in their March production sale.

“It is nice for us, too, because we like to visit with them one-on-one, and can spend more time that way,Buy oil paintings for sale online.” he said.

David agreed. “We enjoy visiting with them and spending the time with them. On sale day,An Air purifier is a device which removes contaminants from the air. it get pretty hectic, and you don’t always get to visit as long as you’d like,” he said.

Charles added they will have about 80 Charolais and 50 Simmental bulls in their March sale.

They are beginning to send out some photos and advertisements to different magazines for the upcoming sale.