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Ruth Gelgand, 86, learned how to paint many years ago from a close friend who studied art in Mexico City. But she didn’t really put her training to work until she moved into Cypress Court from Valley Center four years ago. |
On this day, Gelgand was starting on a still life of fruits, including a plum, pear, eggplant and mango. After drawing the outline of the fruits on her canvas with a pencil, she mixed her colors with a bit of help from Eakin and began painting. Because her right hand shakes a bit, she stabilizes her brush with her left... |
Eakin first discovered painting in high school and has studied art under professional painters in San Diego. She has worked for Kisco Senior Living, which owns Cypress Court, for 25 years and started teaching art there in 2008. She teaches two 90-minute classes every Thursday and draws five to eight residents to each c... |
When she first started the classes, Eakin said her instructions were more formal, with step-by-step instructions and every participant painting the same picture. Now, she encourages residents to paint whatever they like. Some residents bring in their own family or vacation photos for inspiration, other ideas are drawn ... |
Fairbanks said she likes Eakin’s style of instruction. Eakin can provide expert advice when it’s requested, but she isn’t overbearing. |
Cathie Martin, 76, is Eakin’s newest student. A one-year resident of Cypress Court, she joined the class two weeks ago and on Thursday morning was putting the final touches on her first painting, a vase of large daisylike cut flowers. Martin has a tremor in her hands, so she can’t do detail work with a paintbrush. Eaki... |
“I love the color, lots of color and I love mixing the colors. It’s fun,” she said. |
Eakin’s oldest student is Zola Brink, 102, who likes painting landscapes in addition to playing bridge two to three days a week and volunteering in the community’s store. Brink’s favorite subjects to paint are landscapes, particularly bucolic and farm scenes that remind her of her childhood in Kansas. |
One of Eakin’s most enthusiastic students is Rita Courtney, 90, who moved to Cypress Court from Ramona 15 years ago. She’s been painting with Eakin for the past four years. On Thursday, she was working on a wintry painting of a cardinal perched on a snow-covered branch studded with red berries. She said she appreciates... |
A recent workplace survey gives the same kind of garbled message as the country's economic indicators. People are temporarily fatalistic about job hunting, and far more of them are emphasizing family instead of work. But morale is improving, and workers generally like performance appraisals - and their bosses. |
-- A shrug and a sigh. When asked whether it's a myth or reality that people are staying in jobs they hate just to have a job, 84 percent of respondents said reality, only 15 percent myth. |
That describes the worst cases, of course, but the survey also shows that people are less inclined to job hop. Thirty percent of workers described themselves as always looking for a better job opportunity, a big drop from the 39 percent who said so two years ago. |
Still, talented workers can thrive in even the worst of economies. When asked whether skilled and talented employees can always find new jobs, 60 percent of employees called it a reality. Employers were even more emphatic, with 72 percent describing it as a reality. |
Why the discrepancy? I'm guessing it's because workers overrate their own talents. If I think I'm talented and I can't land a job in this economy, it must be really brutal, right? |
I think even the 72 percent figure is low - if you've proven to be a top worker at an industry leader and can demonstrate that your skills and attitude haven't declined. But not many people fit into that category. Watch your step. |
One finding that scares me is that although more than two-thirds of Baby Boomers consider their work a career instead of just a job, barely half of younger workers do. My guess is that a lot of workers in generations X and Y were hit particularly hard by the dot-com collapse and layoffs in traditional industries. |
There's certainly nothing wrong with going through phases when work is just a job - that may even be healthier than obsessing about your career - but it usually takes us a few more years before we turn into bitter little trolls. If it's already happening to younger workers and if this is more than a blip, a lot of work... |
And a lot of noncareers could be in purgatory. |
-- Far different perceptions. If you're looking for big discrepancies in perspective between employers and employees, look no further than morale and loyalty. |
Bosses and workers generally agree that morale is as good as or better than it was last year. But only three out of five employees say morale is good or excellent, compared with four out of five employers - pretty much a 20 percent gap, regardless of the size of the company. |
As the economy turns, that sort of cluelessness will backfire for many employers, who will be stunned at how many workers head for the exits. |
But certainly the loyalty that the employer has shown during these tough times will keep people from leaving, right? After all, 70 percent of employers say they have been loyal to their employees. |
Too bad only 41 percent of employees agree. |
The largest and smallest companies have the biggest discrepancies regarding employer loyalty. Nearly three-quarters of small companies believe they have been loyal, but barely half the employees agree. Nearly half of companies with more than 500 employees believe they have been loyal to workers, but only 28 percent of ... |
Overall, when asked whether the company takes care of employees in both good times and bad, 79 percent of employers say they do - but only 44 percent of workers agree. |
-- How communication helps. Employees who have regular performance reviews tend to have far better attitudes than those who don't, according to the study. |
-- Among those who get regular reviews, 71 percent describe themselves as loyal to the employer. Only 49 percent of those who don't get reviews call themselves loyal. |
-- Forty-seven percent of those who get reviews feel the employer is loyal to them. Only 25 percent of those who don't get reviews feel that way. |
-- Eighty-five percent of those getting reviewed are pleased with the rewards they receive for doing a good job. Only 58 percent of those who aren't reviewed share that satisfaction. |
-- When considering opportunities for advancement, 77 percent of those getting reviews are satisfied, but only 51 percent of those who don't get reviews are. |
-- When asked to rank their satisfaction with their manager, 92 percent of those getting reviews are very or somewhat satisfied. Among those not getting reviews, 72 percent are at least somewhat satisfied with the manager. |
Bosses in general fared well, with only 13 percent of workers overall saying they are not at least somewhat satisfied with their manager. And yes, that does come as a bit of a shock. |
I can think of a few explanations, though. Disgruntled workers make the most noise, so one unhappy employee may be more vocal than seven satisfied ones. And even unhappy workers may be displeased with upper management, not their immediate supervisors. |
Maybe the most crucial point could involve the economy. Even if managers and employees don't get along, they might need each other now. Employees need every ally they can get to avoid layoffs, and managers don't want to lose even mediocre workers because they might not be replaced - making it harder on the remaining wo... |
-- Family becomes a greater priority. Sixty-eight percent of workers say family is their top priority, compared with 54 percent two years ago. Twenty- five percent say work is their top priority, down from 27 percent in 2000. |
That seems natural, especially in the months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But again there is a large discrepancy in how employers are handling the shift in attitude. |
In response to the statement, "Employers today are much more understanding than they were in the past about workers needing to take care of their families or private lives," 76 percent of employers call that a reality. But only 61 percent of employees do. |
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -John Stevens had to wait a little longer to savor his first NHL win. With perhaps the most tumultuous week in Flyers history behind them, it was certainly worth it. |
Peter Forsberg and Simon Gagne each scored in a shootout, lifting Philadelphia to a 3-2 win over the Atlanta Thrashers on Thursday night, making Stevens a winner in his Flyers' coaching debut. |
"It's great to get the first win," Stevens said. "The team needed something to build on, something to build confidence in my team. I think it was terrific the way it ended." |
After Johan Hedberg had 29 saves in regulation and overtime for the Thrashers, he was pulled for Kari Lehtonen. The Flyers jumped all over the goalie change, with Gagne and Forsberg scoring on the Flyers' first two shots. |
Vyacheslav Kozlov had the only shootout goal for Atlanta on its first shot. No one else could slip one past steady Antero Niittymaki, who had 28 saves. |
"When you make a change like this, this is what should happen when you get a new coach, a new energy to the team," Forsberg said. "We came out the way we should come out." |
This was the boost the Flyers desperately needed five days after Stevens was promoted from first-year assistant to coach, hoping to nudge them out of last place. |
The Flyers entered with the worst record and fewest points in the NHL, a shaky start that resulted in one of the most drastic shakeups in team history. Longtime general manager Bob Clarke resigned and coach Ken Hitchcock was fired Sunday with the Flyers on their first five-game losing streak since 2002 and off to their... |
"It was a great experience," Stevens said. "It was something that was much needed." |
Forsberg, Gagne and Niittymaki ensured the losing streak wouldn't stretch to six. And while 2-6-1 hardly sounds promising, the win was a strong start to a five-game homestand. |
Even the Thrashers could tell this was more than a meaningless early-season game for the Flyers. |
"Obviously they were very happy, from what I heard," center Bobby Holik said. "They weren't too thrilled playing for Hitchcock of late. They were excited that he's out of here, but we were aware of that. But, hey, for us it's just another game." |
Still bothered by a sprained left wrist that kept him out of one game, Forsberg delivered when needed in an already-big early-season game. Not only that, he scored on a power play. |
The Flyers were a measly 4-for-55 on the power play this season, 0-for-15 the last three games, and squandered their only other opportunity against Atlanta. With Andy Sutton still in the box from a second period holding penalty, Forsberg knocked the puck off Hedberg's pads from close range only 56 seconds into the thir... |
Forsberg raised his stick in celebration 56 seconds into the third and finally got a rise of a surprisingly smaller crowd than the traditionally packed arena the Flyers are used to. |
Holik, though, tied it 2-all midway through the period with a shot that stunned Niittymaki. |
Thrashers coach Bob Hartley said he made the shootout goalie switch because Lehtonen was his stopper. |
"The Moose (Hedberg) gave us a great game, but we feel the guy who could make a difference in a shootout was Kari," Hartley said. |
Playing at home may have been a spark for the Flyers. The Flyers played six of their first eight games on the road, including a 9-1 loss at Buffalo that convinced chairman Ed Snider he needed to fire Hitchcock after three-plus seasons without a Stanley Cup finals appearance. |
Though Stevens said he expected some pregame jitters, he appeared relaxed behind the bench, his hands behind his back, watching many of the same players he coached to a minor-league title two seasons ago. |
"Obviously there were butterflies. It's a different league," Stevens said. |
The Flyers got an early lift about 2 minutes into the game when Mike Knuble snagged the loose puck down the right side just past the blue line and made a nice feed to Randy Robitaille who scored for a 1-0 lead. |
Atlanta came back about 5 minutes later when Kovalchuk was left all alone and streaked down center ice for an easy breakaway goal, tying the score at 1. |
Notes: Kovalchuk has scored a point in six straight games. ... The Thrashers finished their second set of back-to-backs this season and play the fourth game of a five-game, eight-day road trip Saturday at Buffalo. ... The Flyers completed their organizational coaching shuffling, naming Joe Mullen assistant coach of the... |
Networking giant Lucent Technologies announced Wednesday an alternative system for high-speed Net access. Based on light beams, the system will carry Internet traffic through the air. |
Dubbed WaveStar OpticAir, the system uses lasers, amplifiers and receivers placed on rooftops or window ledges and is designed for cities and campuses where cable laying is impractical. |
Based on DWDM (Dense Wave Division Multiplexing) technology, the system will transmit up to 10GB per second -- that's 15 CD ROMs worth through the air in less than a second. It will be 65 times faster than via radio frequencies. |
Like other wireless solutions though, Lucent's solution has little stamina. Three miles is the farthest the light beams will reach and a clear line-of-sight is required between transmitter and receiver. |
Fibre-optic firm Global Crossing will be the first to test the system in December and Lucent reckons it will be commercially available by March 2000. |
This post was updated at 11:55 a.m. Jan. 6. |
The honeymoon seems to be ending between retired Gen. James N. Mattis and Donald Trump’s transition team amid an increasingly acrimonious dispute over who will get top jobs in the Defense Department — and who gets to make those decisions. |
With only two weeks left before Inauguration Day and days before Mattis’s Senate confirmation hearing, most major Pentagon civilian positions remain unfilled. Behind the scenes, Mattis has been rejecting large numbers of candidates offered by the transition team for several top posts, two sources close to the transitio... |
The Trump transition team was already considering candidates for a host of Defense Department top jobs when Trump announced Dec. 1 that he intended to nominate “Mad Dog” Mattis to lead the military. The Mattis pick was seen by Republicans around Washington as an indication that Trump would rely on senior and experience... |
Initially, both Mattis and the Trump team intended to engage in a collaborative process whereby Mattis would be given significant influence and participation in selecting top Pentagon appointees. |
But the arrangement started going south only two weeks later when Mattis had to learn from the news media that Trump had selected Vincent Viola, a billionaire Army veteran, to be secretary of the Army, one source close to the transition said. |
Service secretaries represent potential alternate power centers inside the Defense Department, and Mattis as defense secretary has an interest in having secretaries who are loyal to him and don’t have independent relationships with the White House. |
Mattis is also pushing for the Trump transition team to allow “Never Trump” Republicans to serve in the Pentagon, but so far the Trump team is refusing. |
One position that is a source of tension is undersecretary of defense for intelligence, a powerful post that oversees all Defense Department intelligence agencies, which include the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency. |
Retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, President-elect Trump’s national security adviser-designate, was DIA director until he was sacked by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. following a dispute with then-Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael G. Vickers. |
Mattis has rejected all of the names the Trump team has offered to be the top intelligence official in the department, another transition source said. Mattis is also unlikely to accept Trump’s top Pentagon transition landing team official, Mira Ricardel, as a top official. She was rumored to be in line to be undersecre... |
“Let’s put it this way, he’s being very picky about the options presented to him,” said the source, who was not authorized to talk about internal deliberations. |
Transition sources also said that David McCormick, a hedge fund manager and former Army officer, is still Trump’s likely pick to be deputy defense secretary, the No. 2 job under Mattis. |
The personnel dispute could be the first sign of tension between Mattis and Flynn. As a four-star general and head of Central Command, Mattis outranked Flynn when Flynn was DIA director, a three-star position. If confirmed, Mattis would be a Cabinet member and a member of the president’s National Security Council, but ... |
Meanwhile, Flynn is busily filling up the National Security Council staff with military and intelligence officers he knows personally. For example, as the Nelson Report first reported, Flynn intends to make Matthew Pottinger the senior director for Asia on the NSC staff. |
Pottinger, a former Wall Street Journal reporter in China, joined the Marines in 2005. While deployed in Afghanistan as an intelligence officer, he worked closely with Flynn and co-authored a memo on how to fix intelligence operations in Afghanistan that was later released by a Washington think tank in 2010. |
Flynn has also been meeting foreign officials, especially from Europe, with Sebastian Gorka, a professor and vice president of the Institute of World Politics, who was born in Britain to parents who fled Hungary. What position Gorka will have in Flynn’s NSC staff is unclear. Both Pottinger and Gorka are well-respected ... |
K.T. McFarland, who is set to be Flynn’s top deputy, is pushing for more civilian and policy-focused NSC staff appointments, transition sources said. |
Several Washington foreign policy experts who are in touch with the Trump transition team said that overall, there’s no uniformity in the way each department is being handled and no real understanding of how much autonomy each Cabinet member will have in running his or her agency. |
Many expect the agencies to have more power than usual because the Trump team is planning to slash the NSC staff from more than 400 people to about 150 personnel. Then again, national security officials outside the White House may find it difficult to exert influence with a president who often alters major policies by ... |
Some chaos and turf battles are to be expected in any presidential transition but the Trump team is off to a bad start. Trump often touts his talent in selecting good people. If he wants to keep those people happy, he should work to settle their disputes and address their grievances before they get out of hand. |
Digital Transformation (DX) is a major focus with the introduction of DXWorldEXPO within the program. |
DXWorldEXPO LLC, the producer of the world’s most influential technology conferences and trade shows has announced the conference tracks for CloudEXPO | DXWorldEXPO 2018 New York. |
Successful transformation requires a laser focus on being data-driven and on using all the tools available that enable transformation if they plan to survive over the long term. |
Click here for more information and to register. |
As a baby battles for his life, his family posts a call to prayer. Watch how his tumor vanishes over night. |
What If... Kids Acted Like Adults? |
We say things to our kids all the time. "Clean your room!" "Get in the bath!" "For the love of everything holy, go to sleep!" What if... our kids acted like us? Take a look. |
Read more about What If... Kids Acted Like Adults? |
Little Emma was diagnosed with leukemia and immediately began treatment. Her parents Shayne and Carrie knew they faced a tough battle ahead. |
This president extolled Muhammad Ali upon his death and now passes policies that detain his son. |
They didn’t believe his answer to the first question, and could not abide the answer to the second. |
Perhaps the most harrowing part of the story is hearing about 67-year-old Khalilah Camacho Ali, Muhammad’s second wife and the mother of four of his children, running around Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport in a state of panic, trying to enlist people to help find her son. |
In 1967, when Muhammad Ali was convicted to a five-year prison sentence for opposing the war in Vietnam, and was somehow able to persevere, this was a tribute to Khalilah Ali’s strength. When Muhammad Ali was banned from boxing, and toured campuses around the country in 1968, the one person who physically stood by his ... |
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