December 6, 2019
Cyclone Graphics turns comics into animation with real-time rendering
Juzo teams up with Mary, a sympathetic teenager, and takes on the role of both detective and vigilante. Together they fight against various enemies including the evil megacorporation behind his forced transformation.
No Guns Life is full of rich visuals, social commentary, and plenty of dry humor. Recently, Tokyo-based Cyclone Graphics was asked to turn the manga into an animated series, which is currently showing on broadcast networks in both Japan and the USA.
With just a few months to produce the series, the team decided to create the backgrounds with Unreal Engine. This enabled them to stay true to the detailed cyberpunk world of the comic while saving time in production.
We caught up with Michiya Kato, Visual Effects Supervisor at Cyclone Graphics, to ask about this intriguing use of UE4.
Tell us about turning “No Guns Life” into an anime.We were given this project by Madhouse, Inc. They’ve been around for nearly 50 years, and science fiction and hard-boiled detective stories are what they do best. No Guns Life has such a cool design and is so interesting that we thought it would make a great animated series.
Madhouse asked me how I would make this anime. I noticed that the comics’ cyberpunk world view makes these comics really game-like, and I also saw that there were only a few kinds of objects in scenes throughout the story. Since we had very little time for pre-production and production, I considered that it would take detailed backgrounds to make it work.
For this anime, we fused hand-drawn anime characters with CG backgrounds rendered out of Unreal Engine. Of course, we could have created everything in CG if we wanted to, but we aimed to keep the hand-drawn anime style unique to Japan.
Why did you choose Unreal Engine for the backgrounds?For backgrounds made with precise modeling, rendering time was going to be the bottleneck. So we decided to use Unreal Engine for its high-quality rendering and quick turnaround.
Unreal Engine has a useful collection of functionalities. It’s easy to use, and it’s easy to set up CG elements. UE4 gave us flexibility in the production process.
Our purpose was to express the sophisticated world view of the original comics in a short period of time. So Unreal Engine, which allowed for flexible customization and a high quality of expression, was the ideal tool. We also love that it’s so intuitive, we could all learn it quickly.
Tell us about the process of producing anime backgrounds with Unreal Engine.In the comics, the world view had already been expressed in great detail, so we used the comics themselves as storyboards to save time. This also meant we could immediately list the objects that we needed to model while still at the script stage.
As there was limited time for production, we started on the modeling tasks and scene setups with Unreal Engine right away, while our storyboarding staff worked out the production plan according to the modeling specifications.
During the first stage of all our projects, we render original materials and do the color grading on composite software as image boards to show to the production staff. We had already finished the design of buildings and props based on the original comics before the image board stage, so all that was needed was to tweak the lighting and grading.
Once we had scenes finalized and fixed, we set up dummy characters and a camera in Unreal Engine, and made cuts according to the storyboards. The production staff and the CG designers worked out the layouts and camera angles together. We found that with Unreal Engine, a single CG designer can set up the layouts and backgrounds for 300 cuts in a day.
With all the camera angles set, we were ready for the animators to start drawing. In our pipeline, the animators draw on celluloid sheets laid over background images. The full intricacy of the No Guns Life backgrounds would have been too much for the animators to draw over, so instead we used shaders in Blueprints to output the backgrounds as line drawings just for them. To render the cuts, we developed an Excel-based batch rendering program.
Once the hand drawings were done, we needed to composite the celluloid sheets over the CG backgrounds, which we did using compositing software. To adjust the feel and appearance of the CG backgrounds, we could output fog, occlusion, and color masks all at once from Unreal Engine, and adjust each of these elements in real time.
Just as with the traditional animation workflow with 2D backgrounds, animators can start to draw right after the layouts are determined. So this new workflow has made it possible for us to maintain the same quality level, where details are fully expressed, while saving an astonishing amount of time during production.
For us, the main advantages of the Unreal Engine pipeline are streamlined organization and extremely high-quality graphics. Our CG designers created fully detailed backgrounds for 4,000 finished cuts in less than six months, which is really amazing.
How do you see Unreal Engine affecting future projects?We feel like we haven’t yet learned all the ways we can use Unreal Engine. For future projects, we challenge ourselves to use even more real-time techniques.
Years ago, animes had impacts on games. Now, technologies that sprung from game development, such as Unreal Engine, are influencing animes. As we watch the unique Japanese anime/game culture mature, it'll be exciting to witness the new fusions of expression that come from combining the best of both worlds.
Want to speed up your production process with innovative real-time techniques? Download Unreal Engine and start exploring the possibilities.


- This event has passed.
Speed Mentoring and Portfolio Review
29 Oct 2014 @ 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm UTC-5Free
In this first-ever event type for our chapter, we hand over the expertise to you, the professional technical communicator or student of the profession. That’s right, we will not have a dedicated speaker for this event. A moderator will keep the format flowing.
Bring work samples and get feedback from your peers present at this event. This is great preparation for entering our annual Technical Communication Competition!
If you have a portfolio you can share either online (bring a laptop or a tablet) or in print, please bring it for review as well.
While we will not rush you through these conversations, the goal is to receive as much feedback as possible from as many people as possible. We will limit conversations to 10 minutes (this is twice as long as the common speed networking format).
A light meal will be provided.
6:30-7:00 p.m. Check-in and dinner
7:00-8:30 p.m. Speed networking and portfolio review, with transitions every 10 minutes to new partners


Charlotte Rhodes will be guest speaker at the meeting of Amarillo Women's Network from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday at the Amarillo Club on the 31st floor of Chase Tower, 600 S. Tyler St.
Rhodes will offer ideas on ways to contribute to the community and share fundraising strategies that work.
Cost is $12 per person. RSVP to Loretta.email@example.com.
Amarillo Montessori Academy's A Night of Discovery will be Saturday at Don Harrington Discovery Center.
Amarillo Montessori Academy has educated children using the Montessori approach for more than 45 years. As part of its mission, the school encourage students to develop potential as self-directed learners and as active and contributing members of society.
The annual A Night of Discovery is open to all in the community. In addition to the Discovery Center exhibits, a dinner, silent auction and raffle will be available. The key event of the evening will be a reading by children's author Rosemary Wells, followed by a question-and-answer session. Books will be available for purchase and autograph by Ms. Wells. For more information or ticket purchase, visit nightofdiscovery.com.
As a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, Amarillo Montessori Academy depends on fundraising events like our A Night of Discovery to help provide the highest quality services and learning environment for children. All profits from our A Night of Discovery will fund educational programming, teacher certifications and training, building improvements and additional educational experiences, such as LaDeeDa music classes and Spanish classes.
Catholic Charities of the Texas Panhandle will host the 15th annual Salt and Pepper Luncheon to benefit the InterFaith Hunger Project from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 17 at St. Mary's Cathedral, 1200 S. Washington St. Guest speaker will be Father Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA. Tickets are $25 each.
For more information, call 806-376-4571.
The first of a new 12-week series of family-to-family classes for family members and loved ones of individuals living with mental illness will be from 6 to 8:30 p.m. March 20 at 1743 S. Avondale St. Family-to-family classes are structured to help caregivers understand and support individuals with serious mental illness while maintaining their well-being. The free class is sponsored by the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Texas Panhandle. For more information, call 806- 678-7385.
Walk MS: Amarillo, presented by Sam's Club, will begin at 10 a.m. March 29 at Caprock High School, 3001 S.E. 34th Ave.
Walk MS, a signature fundraising event for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, raises funds to support MS research and provide services to individuals impacted by multiple sclerosis, an unpredictable and often disabling disease of the central nervous system. To walk, volunteer or make a donation, visit walkmstexas.org. Online registration is open.
On-site registration and check-in begins at 9 a.m. Registration is free, but all participants are encouraged to raise funds - the average participant raises $225 and fundraising prizes are awarded beginning at the $100 level.
For more information, contact April Brownlee, senior development manager, for the National MS Society, at 806-468-3126 or firstname.lastname@example.org.
Hospice Care of the Southwest has scheduled its fifth annual professional training day for 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 24 in the business and industry center auditorium of Amarillo College's downtown campus, 1314 S. Polk St.
Speakers will be Claudia Reed, Melody Loya, Danny Mize, JoAnn Cruz-Perez, Jennifer Oliver and Merrell Gilbert. Topics will include dealing with anticipatory grief, bereavement and boundaries, dealing with traumatic events, behaviors and feelings of mourning, taking care of yourself, and a panel dealing with preparing families and teens for grief and mourning.
Cost is $35 for those wanting six hours of continuing professional education/continuing education units/continuing nursing education, $25 without. Registration fee will include continuing education credits, lunch, refreshment breaks and a notebook. Social workers wanting three hours of ethics continuing education units can attend only the morning sessions. Hosting organizations are Hospice Care of the Southwest, Childers Place, Valmed Home Health and Pharmacy Solutions, Crown of Texas Hospice Foundation, Panhandle Area Health Education Center, Sir Speedy and Amarillo College (providing continuing education credits).


Sunday, January 29, 2006
More classic science fiction: Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination
Few authors are able to handle cultural and sociological complexity well, and fewer still can manage to create a simple story in the midst of such complex material. Perhaps this is why Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination is a well-known classic of science fiction, since Bester is able to do exactly these things.
Bester's story is three things at once. First, it is the story of a sprawling society spread throughout the solar system, slowly giving in to a major military conflict between the outer and inner planets. The future as we might imagine it has gone through a massive upheaval by a single event: mankind has learned how to jaunte. That is, to spontaneously transport oneself across up to 500 or so miles instantly. Jaunting is accomplished through willpower alone, and thus is not the usual product of science fiction technology. The ability to jaunte has radical impact on the way society orders itself, and these details provide part of the backdrop to the novel.
Other authors might have found jaunting to be an interesting enough idea to center around, but apparently this was not enough for Mr. Bester. He writes a character driven story against this backdrop, centering around the very interesting and very strange Gulliver Foyle. He is one of the best known of classic sci-fi characters, a defining pillar of the rags-to-riches archetype. Gulliver "Gully" Foyle begins the story as a clueless, uneducated, unmotivated ship's mechanic barely smart enough to carry a wrench. Catastrophe befalls him and he is forced, little by little to rise to the occasion of survival. After managing to survive more than six months in a coffin-sized locker in an otherwise gutted spaceship, Gully looks like he's about to be rescued. When the ship scans him but then leaves him stranded, Gully undergoes a terrible transformation. The searing need for revenge against the soulless villains who leave him in deep space to die re-creates Gully into a driven, powerful, resourceful man. By the end of the book, Gully is the most wanted man in the universe (and richest, and most desirable, under others of his public guises).
The story of transformation is the center of The Stars My Destination, and is thoroughly explored through Gully's slow search for revenge and what that does to him and those around him. From sloth to driven, from lax unrealized potential to motivated venomous purpose, Gully becomes the perfect revenge creature. At the resolution of the novel, Gully is offered the opportunity to pursue his course of revenge to its natural climax--not only the destruction of his enemy, but the full animal transformation of his predator personality. But as he takes up the spoils of victory, including both material and political power, he catches a glimpse of what he is becoming. It shakes him. He asks the question, why must the "driven" men have all the power, simply because others are unwilling or unmotivated to take it from them? Gully then takes his accumulated power and jauntes all over the world, scattering it among the common people in a thousand places.
The Stars My Destination succeeds on many levels. It is an entertaining and fast paced story, filled with ingenious and well thought out technological and sociological texture. The characters are memorable and interesting, some of the best in all of science fiction. At its core, it is a story of multiple transformations, ending with a suitably science fiction image--that of an embryonic messiah readying himself to lead mankind through another upheaval and into their next stage of destiny. It is a powerful image, and one suited for the culture of Bester's times. It is a story of faith in democracy taken to its most logical and frightening extreme--unlimited power in the hands of the unwashed and clueless masses.


Written by Devon Boen
Staff Sergeant Nufry Boysun was a Husky driver in Afghanistan and received three coins honoring his work. A Husky is an army vehicle that is used to detect and locate improvised explosive devices underground. Before he left Afghanistan, he was told he was the best Husky operator in the country at the time of his service.
Boysun grew up near Vida and attended high school in both Wolf Point and Circle. Since graduating, he has split his time between working for the McCone and Roosevelt counties’ road departments and serving in the Army National Guard.
He decided to join the military when he was 31 in 1985, but he was not deployed with his 260th Engineer Company until 2005 when he was stationed in Fort Richardson, Alaska. Boysun was a military police officer.
Boysun said the work was difficult. He and others in the company had to settle domestic disputes and other issues on the base, but he said it was a good deployment overall.
After he returned in 2006, he continued working in the National Guard and for the road department simultaneously. In 2010, he found out he would once again be deployed, but his journey would take him much farther the second time around.
He and the 260th found out they would be deployed to Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan. To prepare, they travelled to Fort Bliss, Texas.
“We did training for our route clearance mission. We got to use some of the equipment that we would be using over there (in Afghanistan),” Boysun said.
Working in the Texas heat helped the 260th prepare for the boiling temperatures they would face in Afghanistan. Boysun said summer temperatures topped 130 degrees Fahrenheit.
Boysun said he had never done route clearance before and admitted it was slightly intimidating. But he immediately stepped up when he was chosen as the lead vehicle.
“Whenever I went on a mission, I was the lead vehicle. I was the first vehicle down the road, so if I didn’t find it, I either got blown up or somebody behind me would,” Boysun said.
With such an immense responsibility on his shoulders, Boysun quickly learned how to detect an IED.
“I would notice big changes in the color of the dirt or disturbances. Maybe they would pile rocks up,” Boysun said.
Boysun said an alarm would go off in the Husky vehicle alerting him that an explosive was underground nearby. In that situation, they would have a Buffalo vehicle come and dig it out of the ground.
Boysun personally located 14 IEDs and received an honorary coin for his first, fifth and 10th find. The company found 30 total and ran over eight.
During his time in Afghanistan, he kept in touch with his wife, Sherry, and the rest of his family via Skype and his morale was kept up with care packages.
But none of that could compare to actually being with his family in person when he finally returned home in March. He said his family including his wife, children, mother, brothers and nieces and nephews were there to welcome him home.
“Everybody was happy,” Boysun said. “Everyone was excited. It was really good.”


As part of an ongoing expansion, J. R. Clancy has promoted one staff member to the position of engineer and added an estimator and accounting manager at its corporate headquarters in upstate New York. The additions help Clancy meet the increasing demand created by business growth, as the company provides rigging systems for a wide range of construction projects. Craig Eagleson has been promoted to the position of engineer from his project manager job at Clancy. Eagleson joined the staff ...
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According to the Internet source given below, Catherine Rollin is a pianist, composer, clinician and teacher of prize-winning students. Her more than 200 published pedagogical compositions are recognized worldwide for their combination of musicality and teachability. In demand as a clinician, Catherine has given over 150 workshops including a seven city tour of Japan in 2006. Many of Catherine#s workshops feature her insights into technique that demystify the skills necessary to play artistically and with physical confidence. These insights were initially presented in her well known series, Pathways to Artistry. Catherine has also presented masterclasses in Japan, Canada and throughout the U.S.
Of ragtime interest are her rags given in the list below.
||Catherine Rollin Music
||Composer's home page.


With the rise of Walking on Cars showing no sign of slowing, Getintothis’ Siobhan Matos writes in anticipation of their return.
Irish chart-toppers Walking on Cars have announced a date at Liverpool’s O2 Academy on November 25 as part of their biggest UK tour to date.
Having formed in Dingle, Ireland back in 2010, the five school-mates released their debut single Catch Me If You Can a little over two years later, with the track reaching number twenty-seven in Ireland and remaining there for an impressive, twenty weeks.
Following this, they celebrated their achievement with the release of EPs As We Fly South and Hand In Hand before finally releasing their debut album Everything This Way earlier this year. It was no surprise that it too was warmly received, reaching the dizzying heights of number one in the Irish chart.
With all of this success, we can’t wait to see them play to their biggest scouse crowd yet at the O2 Academy, with what we anticipate to be an enthusiastic crowd, having played to a packed Arts Club earlier in the year.


Ascend Communications has reported fourth-quarter earnings of $US69.8 million, or 31 cents per share, on revenue of $475.9 million, citing strong sales to service providers of next-generation frame relay and ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) backbone products.
The earnings for the quarter, ended December 31, 1998, were 47 per cent higher than the $47.6 million, or 24 cents per share, reported in the same quarter a year ago. Revenues for the recent quarter also were up 63 per cent over the $292.5 million earned a year ago, the company officials said on Tuesday.
The earnings per share of 31 cents for the fourth quarter were exactly what analysts polled by First Call predicted for the networking and communications vendor, which last week announced plans to merge with Lucent Technologies in a transaction valued at about $20 billion. The merger awaits shareholder and regulatory approval.
The figures for the fourth quarter of 1998 exclude a one-time charge of $267 million, representing a write-off of purchased research and development as part of the $822 million acquisition of high-end computer maker Stratus Computer, which was completed during the quarter.
The Carrier Signaling Group of Stratus, meanwhile, provided a boost to revenues for the most recent quarter by posting better than expected sales, Mory Ejabat, president and chief executive officer of Ascend, said.
For the year as a whole, earnings excluding the one-time charge were $247.3 million, or $1.18 per share, on revenue of $1.48 billion. In the previous fiscal year of 1997, the company reported earnings of $211.2 million, or $1.06 per share, on revenue of $1.17 billion.
The day after Ascend and Lucent announced their plans to merge, Ascend shareholders filed at least four lawsuits seeking to challenge the move.
A few days before the proposed merger was divulged publicly, Ascend announced that it would sell its Stratus Enterprise Computer Division to a global investment group called Investcorp for between $100 million and $150 million. Ascend will maintain Stratus' telecommunications-oriented business.


Michael Moore: Departures 5 Feb - 21 Mar 2009
At Millennium Court Arts Centre, we have a strong commitment to contemporary craft and support the creation and promotion of new work by innovative designer-makers. So it is with great pleasure that we present over twenty new ceramic works by Belfast-based Irish ceramicist Michael Moore.
As a sculptor, Moore is interested in the construction of objects by hand and draws inspiration from visual forms within nature, such as coastlines and geological markings in landscape, exploring the changes marked by time and creating a resonance within his earth-like, abstract sculptural pieces. Known for his visceral forms of abstracted landscapes, a central theme in the new work is the concept of interaction or what essayist Audrey Whitty calls an, ‘interplay between the man-made and natural environment’. In this new work, Moore creates an inherent visual tension on several different levels.
The first tension is one of the artwork as a static object versus one that evokes movement. Moore has successfully created sublime, sensual and sculptural ceramic pieces, while utilising form, function, line and colour, drawing in our responses to the innate movement found in the work. Secondly, Moore’s work is both intimate and sizeable in scale. An artist-in-residency in the Canadian Rockies has inspired new, larger pieces, in size, scale and ambition, creating both a tangible presence in the gallery and an elicit response in the viewer. A third tension is one of seduction. Moore’s work has always been incredibly striking—physically in its sensual forms and surface, and conceptually in its sophisticated Modernist influence. It is these nuances found within the multiple visceral tensions that convey the power in Moore’s ceramic pieces.
Through this exhibition MCAC hopes to initiate craft catalysts, by supporting individual artist-makers within the craft/ design sector and develop a synergy for the promotion of an arts/ crafts milieu on a local, national, and international level. To this end, the ‘Departures’ exhibition will go on tour to Wexford Arts Centre in late Spring 2009.


| | AT&T 9000 "world phone" will not accept 5.0.x ?
Please Login to Remove!
I have got a used BB9000. It looks the same as mine (vodafone), and it is not simlocked. However it boots up with an AT&T "world phone" logo.
Using the same procedure as with my own, I tried to upgrade the firmware to v5.0.xxx.
does not work. It comes up with the message that no suitable software was found for this device. The device was used in Germany using a SIM from vodafone.
To check if I made something wrong, I used my own BB 9000. Immediately the device was reconized as ready for an upgrade.
Is this a special Edition which is locked to AT&T firmware, or, is there trick I can do to circumvent this limitation ?


In the previous post I showed you how easy it is to start using SlingContext. If you start to use this approach in your own project and just copy the code, your Maven build is likely to fail with messages like this:
[ERROR] testActivate_unconfiguredParams(de.joerghoh.cqdump.samples.unittest.ReplicationServletTest) Time elapsed: 0.01 s <<< ERROR!
org.apache.sling.testing.mock.osgi.NoScrMetadataException: No OSGi SCR metadata found for class de.joerghoh.cqdump.samples.unittest.ReplicationServlet at org.apache.sling.testing.mock.osgi.OsgiServiceUtil.injectServices(OsgiServiceUtil.java:381)
The problem here is not the use of the SlingMock library itself, but rather the fact that we use SlingMocks to test code which uses OSGI annotations. The fix itself is quite straight-forward: We need to create OSGI metadata also for the unittests and not only for the bundling (SlingMock is reading these metadata for the test execution).
That’s the reason why there’s the need to have a dedicated execution definition for the maven-bundle-plugin:
Also you need to instruct the maven-bundle-plugin to actually export the generated metadata to the filesystem using the “<exportScr> statements; this should be the default in my opinion, but you need to specify it explicitly. Also don’t forget to add the “_dsannotation” and “_metatypeannotations” statements to its instruction section:
And even then it will fail, if you don’t upgrade the maven-bundle-plugin to a version later than 4.0:
Ok, if you adapted your POMs in this way, your SlingMock based unittests for OSGI r6-based services should run fine. Now you can start exploring more features of SlingMocks.


Guitar legend Steve Vai, who started his career with Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention in the early eighties, will give a concert in Tel Aviv on March 26.
Vai, a three-time Grammy Award winner, last appeared in Israel in 2010. He will be accompanied by his full band for the 2014 concert in Tel Aviv’s Bronfman Auditorium. Tickets for the concert are on sale here from NIS 399.
Vai is only one of a feast of musicians scheduled to appear in Israel this year. The other rich pickings include American singer Son Lux, recently rated the best new artist of 2013 (Tel Aviv February 2), The Stars from the Commitments, a band made up of musician from the hit 1991 film "The Commitments" (Tel Aviv and Herzliya in March) and rock-and-roll legend Neil Young (Tel Aviv's Hayarkon Park in July.)
Also expected are pop star Katy Perry and legendary British band the Rolling Stones, though dates have yet to be finalized. Australian super-group the Dead Daisies, made up of former members of Guns N’ Roses, the Rolling Stones and INXS, performed to a packed crowd in Tel Aviv in December.
Vai, 56, has released eight solo albums since going solo in 1983. He has also performed over 40 guest appearances on albums for the likes of Ozzy Osbourne and Joe Jackson. Always on the forefront of musical creativity, Vai recently released “Vai360°”, an innovative new iOS app that includes a 360° interactive live concert experience and the capability to transport fans virtually to Vai’s personal studio.
The app is available on the iOS AppStore here.
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JS 92 WA 91+ - According to James Suckling - Aromas of fresh fruit, minerals and mint. Black licorice. Chocolate. Full-bodied but balanced with a pretty center palate. Dense and gorgeous. Better in 2016 but so delicious already. Traditional style.
According to Wine Advocate - Martini’s 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon is very tight today, but it nevertheless dazzles with expressive dark red fruit, grilled herbs, licorice and dried flowers. An exotic, utterly beguiling Cabernet, the 2010 is long on personality and character. Tar, licorice and iron are some of the dark, brooding notes that add muscle and an element of darkness that is undeniably appealing. Readers will need to give the 2010 at least a few years in bottle. The future sure looks bright here. Best of all, within the context of California Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2010 is a steal. Anticipated maturity: 2015-2025.
According to Wine Spectator - Trim and restrained, with a narrow beam of currant, tobacco, cigar box and cedar. Well-made, focused and persistent. Drink now through 2020. 70,200 cases made.
According to Wine Enthusiast - This shows rich blackberry, black currant, chocolate and cedar flavors that are wrapped into smooth, fine tannins, with a long, distinguished finish. It’s a little warm in alcohol, but altogether this is a fine Cabernet for drinking now.
Tasting Notes - This wine presents inviting aromas of cassis, sweet herbs and hints of pipe tobacco. On the palate, it exhibits a firm structure and intriguing flavors of ripe black cherries, deep, briary red fruits and old-world complexities that linger through a memorable finish. Rated 90+
- Additional Information
Sku 15790 Hide Default Stock Status N/A gtin 81587119897 Free Shipping N/A Size N/A Brand Louis M. Martini Winery Region California Napa Style Red Fruity Tannin Food & Wine Pairing Beef, Hard Cheese Rating No
Review and collect 250 points.


shampoo for color-treated and damaged hair
Floral nectar restores, nourishes and hydrates dry hair. Peony is proven to sooth hair and improve its damaged structure.
Aqua, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Sodium Chloride, Propylene Glycol, Cocamine Oxide, Glycerin, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Paeonia Lactiflora (Peony) Root Extract, Combretum Farinosum Flower Nectar, Algae (Seaweed) Extract, Citric Acid, Tetrasodium EDTA, Polyquaternium-7, Xanthan Gum, Betaine, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone, Magnesium Chloride, Magnesium Nitrate, Citral, Citronellol, Geraniol, Linalool, Sodium Benzoate, Potassium Sorbate, Parfum, CI 15985, CI 77891, CI 77491, CI 14720.
floral nectar and peony extract
How to use: wet your hair, apply this heavenly scented shampoo, lather well and think about something nice. Rinse with water and repeat if necessary.


If you want to create your own report (i.e. instead of using the Create PDF feature within Simulation Wizard) you can do this in one of two ways.
- You can save the graph or chart as images and use the direct download toolbar feature to download the image(s) to your device (e.g. PC)
- You can save the images to the audit folder of SCADAR.NET and use Publish Wizard to produce your own report
Furthermore, you can 'append' a Simulation Report PDF to any Publish Wizard document...
Use the attachment feature to append one or multiple files to the end of a Publish Wizard PDF.
Publish Wizard will create a single continuous PDF containing first the Publish Wizard report followed by each attachement.
Between the Publish Wizard report and each attachment Publish Wizard inserts a page divider. The page divider carries the file name of the attachment and the date it was created.


Happy Friday babes! Hope you all have had a good week! I know I’m ready for the weekend! Well…sort of. We are going to try to get Liv potty-trained this weekend. She is already three (her birthday was on Tuesday), so it’s kind of late in the game. I was so afraid I missed the opportunity months ago, but she seems to actually be interested in it now (finally, we’ve only been trying to get her to use the “big girl potty” for like 8 months). Anyway, fingers crossed! This is my first child to potty train so I pretty much have no idea what I’m doing! Haha!
Now, about this dress. Because I know y’all don’t read my blog to hear about my attempts at parenting milestones. How gorgeous is this little yellow lace number?! I had been searching for the “perfect” Easter dress for a couple of weeks. I actually saw a dress like this in a really pretty light blue color, but it was sold out at the time, so when I saw the yellow version I snatched it up as fast as I could. And I am so glad I did! I love the color, the lace, the cut of this dress…everything about it. I don’t usually dress in clothes that are quite this girly, but I love how I feel in this dress. I feel so pretty and feminine, and it feels GOOD!
This dress just screams “spring” to me, so I really wanted that to show in how I styled it. I wanted to make sure my accessories were pastel as well, so they weren’t too harsh against the pastel yellow. I couldn’t resist pairing my favorite earrings these days, these pale pink tassel stunners, with this pretty yellow for a fresh spring look. I have been wearing these earrings SO much lately…I just can’t get enough of them! I should probably order another color just to change it up a little, but the pink seems to go with a lot!
As far as shoes, I opted for these sort of grayish, nude sandals. You guys, I can’t say enough good things about this shoe. I know it’s an expensive one, but it’s the best shoe I’ve ever owned. I LOVE heels. I really do. Of course, my feet don’t. Add that to the fact that my life consists of chasing around a three year old and a one year old, and, well, a lot of my heels never see the light of day. I can wear this pair ALL DAY LONG y’all…and my feet don’t hurt. I can walk super easily in them too, so that’s a nice plus haha! Seriously though, if you ever splurge on a pair of shoes, these are worth it!
Because of how dainty and feminine this dress is, I didn’t want my handbag to overwhelm the look. I don’t own a clutch that I felt like would look quite right with this dress, so I went with this mini bag I bought a few years ago from Rebecca Minkoff. They no longer carry this exact color, but they still carry the bag in quite a few color options. I love this bag because I can dress it up or down. It also makes for the perfect crossbody because of it’s roomy, but not too large, size.
Hope you all have a great weekend!


VOC Energy Trust (NYSE: VOC) announced a Trust distribution, which relates to net profits generated during the payment period ended September 30, 2011.
Unitholders of record on October 31, 2011 will receive a distribution amounting to $9,520,000 or $0.56 per unit payable November 15, 2011.
Volumes, price and net profits for the payment period were:
|Proceeds (per BOE)||$||80.97|
|Percentage applicable to Trust’s 80%|
|Net Profits Interest||$||9,721,138|
|Cash reserve held by VOC Brazos Energy Partners, L.P.||$||-|
|Total cash proceeds available for the Trust||$||9,721,138|
|Provision for estimated Trust expenses||$||(201,138||)|
|Net cash proceeds available for distribution||$||9,520,000|
VOC Energy Trust is a Delaware statutory trust formed by VOC Brazos Energy Partners, L.P. to own a term net profits interest representing the right to receive 80% of the net proceeds from the sale of production from substantially all of the interests in oil and natural gas properties in the states of Kansas and Texas held by VOC Brazos Energy Partners, L.P. as of the date of the conveyance of net profits interest to the Trust.
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The last few days have been hell legally, -but it's over for a couple of months,until the next court day,(in Jan.) At least it's after the holidays, and I don't have to think about it for awhile. I have been selling stuff slow but sure on eBay, and having fun with it. Munky has been my little savior for happiness. She is my joy,....my husband and I have so much fun with her every night. (We barely need a TV!!!) Sugar is still his little mean self, but when he lets me, and when he finally does decide to show up here, we feed him, and give him as much attention as he will let us. I try to spend time with him outside, but even outside, he wants nothing to do with me and hisses and growls. So we keep trying, and trying. We don't have to decide anything with him until we finally move, so that may be a little while yet. I won't stop trying with him tho, -even if he ends up attacking me one day, I still love him far too much. Work has been gruelling and with the holidays coming up, there is no end in sight. More hours, more work, more everything. It will help tho, I'm not complaining, (I'm counting myself lucky.) The lady who I once told ya'll about with the Guiness Book of Records Great Dane,....well, she just got two new G.D. puppies, and OMG, are they the most beautiful little teddy bears,...she brought them in for me to see last Sunday at work, and I swear I almost cried. I held one, and she was the sweetest thing. She got a harlequin with one blue eye, and one green eye, and a pure black one, and that one is so loving and affectionate it's unbelievable. They really are like infant babies,....I am so in love with them. They are totally amazing to me. SOOO,...nothing else new here with me,.....still have boxes up to the ceilings here, and hopefully in the next few weeks, my sister-in-law will help me sort thru everything and figure out what to do with all this "stuff". Wow,...it's really overwhelming. I've been coming home from work, and I just start to cry when I see it all. It's just too much. I can't wait to get rid of some of it. I've been lurking around the web when I'm up late and can't sleep, and, I've been getting on Facebook, and ended up finding one of best friends from Coconut Grove on there and we got in touch and met at a resturante halfway between the two of us, and we have been emailing and calling each other ever since. I never had a friend like her, and I've missed her so much. It's been great getting back in touch with her, and catching-up. SO,....that's about it for me,...I will be watching the Country Music Awards this Weds. night to see if my faves (Toby Keith, and Jamey Johnson) win anything,....I gotta have short plans,....one day at a time, that's all I can do.
K is 21
2 months ago


In wireless networking, dual band equipment is capable of transmitting in either of two different standard frequency ranges. Modern Wi-Fi home networks feature dual band broadband routers that support both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz channels.
The History of Dual Band Wireless Routers
First generation home network routers produced during the late 1990s and early 2000s contained a single 802.11b Wi-Fi radio operating on the 2.4 GHz band.
At the same time, a significant number of business networks supported 802.11a (5 GHz) devices. The first dual band Wi-Fi routers were built to support mixed networks having both 802.11a and 802.11b clients.
Starting with 802.11n, Wi-Fi standards began including simultaneous dual band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz support as a standard feature.
Two Examples of Dual Band Wireless Routers
The TP-LINK Archer C7 AC1750 Dual Band Wireless AC Gigabit Router (buy on Amazon.com) has 450Mbps at 2.4GHz and 1300Mbps at 5GHz, as well as IP-based bandwidth control so you can monitor the bandwidth of all the devices connected to your router.
The NETGEAR N750 Dual Band Wi-Fi Gigabit Router (buy on Amazon.com) is for medium to large-sized homes and also comes with a genie app, so you can keep tabs on your network and get help troubleshooting if any repairs are needed.
Dual Band Wi-Fi Adapters
Dual-band Wi-Fi network adapters contain both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz wireless radios similar to dual-band routers.
In the early days of Wi-Fi, some laptop Wi-Fi adapters supported both 802.11a and 802.11b/g radios so that a person could connect their computer to business networks during the workday and home networks on nights and weekends. Newer 802.11n and 802.11ac adapters can also be configured to use either band (but not both at the same time).
Dual Band Phones
Similar to dual band wireless network equipment, some cell phones also use two (or more) bands for cellular communications separate from Wi-Fi. Dual band phones were originally created to support 3G GPRS or EDGE data services on 0.85 GHz, 0.9 GHz or 1.9 GHz radio frequencies. Phones sometimes support tri band (three) or quad band (four) different cellular transmission frequency ranges in order to maximize compatibility with different kinds of phone network, helpful while roaming or traveling. Cell modems switch between different bands but do not support simultaneous dual band connections.
Benefits of Dual Band Wireless Networking
By supplying separate wireless interfaces for each band, dual band 802.11n and 802.11ac routers provide maximum flexibility in setting up a home network. Some home devices require the legacy compatibility and greater signal reach that 2.4 GHz offers while others may require the additional network bandwidth that 5 GHz offers: Dual-band routers provide connections designed for the needs of each.
Many Wi-Fi home networks suffer from wireless interference due to the prevalence of 2.4 GHz consumer gadgets. The ability to utilize 5 GHz on a dual band router helps avoid these issues.
Dual band routers also incorporate Multiple-In Multiple-Out (MIMO) radio configurations. The combination of multiple radios on one band together with dual-band support together provide much higher performance home networking than what single band routers can offer.


It is estimated that almost three-quarters of all adult women have spider veins. Although it is less common, men can develop Spider Veins as well. They are similar to Varicose Veins, but are smaller. Spider Veins appear on the surface of the skin. They can appear as short, fine lines, starburst type clusters and can be found on the thighs and calves as well as ankles and feet. Occasionally, they are found on the face. They may, however, be a symptom of venous insufficiency, a more serious health problem. Spider Veins are often a cosmetic concern and usually do not pose a significant health threat.
We offer the very best method to eliminate Spider Veins. Sclerotherapy is very effective and there is no downtime. A saline solution that is injected into the vein, irritating the lining and causing the vein to collapse and disappear. In some cases, Endovenous Laser Treatment (EVLT) may be used either alone or in combination with Sclerotherapy.
Spider veins are caused by abnormal blood flow and weakening of the blood vessel wall in the affected veins. Any condition or activity that puts pressure on the veins can contribute to their development. Causes of Spider Veins include genetics, pregnancy, prolonged standing and sitting, venous insufficiency, injury and high pressure from Varicose Veins.
Tests & diagnosis
The diagnosis is mainly based on the appearance of the leg veins when you are standing or seated with the legs dangling.
During a physical exam, the doctor will check your legs and may request that you have a Venous Sonogram as well as a Doppler scan to check the blood flow in the veins near the skin's surface (called superficial) and deep veins.
When to contact a doctor
While unsightliness is the most common reason for removal, Spider Veins may also be removed to alleviate problems with restless legs, aching, burning, and/or cramps. Contact your doctor if you experience any of these problems or if you simply wish to improve the appearance of your legs.
To schedule a consultation or to receive more information, please contact us.


These water purification systems allow churches, orphanages and schools to provide pure clean water to their communities for generations to come, while sharing the gift of eternal life which is only available through Jesus Christ, who said "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. (John 7:37)
Click on picture to left/above for more about the purification process.
It is also imperative that education on the importance of personal hygiene, the proper use of clean water and the dangers that germs introduce, be taught to the children, parents, leaders, along with other interested participants. This is all done while integrating the message of the gospel through playful, memorable teaching techniques.
This little cup of water may be the first drink of safe clean water a child or adult has ever consumed. With these water purification systems, vulnerable individuals can acquire one of the most important resources needed to sustain daily existence. Clean water and sanitation are among the most powerful preventative medicines for reducing child mortality.
2017 and forward, brings a change to us here at Just like God Missions (JLG). Through an amazing opportunity that the Lord has laid before us, and a partnership with Living Water World Missions (LWWM), we will be taking theses life saving water systems to orphanages, education/learning centers, safe houses, churches, and wherever else the door is opened for us to install these systems as well as sharing the story about, "the river of water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb." (Rev. 22:1)
In the Fall of 2016 we were involved with a water purification system which was installed at Casa Shalom Orphanage in Guatemala, which is one of the orphanages we have been working with for several years. In April of this year we part of an installation at a Compassion International site (school & church) in the mountains of Guatemala, and will be part of another installation in September of this year in Guatemala.
Just Like God Missions (JLG) will continue to work with other ministries when asked for assistance, just as we have for over a decade, but we feel that helping those that do not have safe clean water to drink, is the direction the Lord is Leading.
Our goal is to grow this partnership and to be able to install theses water purification systems at our existing ministry locations in Uganda, Colombia, Brazil, and Ecuador, in addition to any new ministry opportunities that the Lord presents to us.
We want to empower our ministry partners through a physical, social and spiritual transformation, by providing a sustainable, safe water solution to the indigenous people and poor communities while sharing the good news of Jesus Christ!
Your charitable donation to this non profit organization can help so many lives be changed, by something as simple as clean water. thank you for visiting our about us page, and please check out the remainder of our site.


To experience in a band consists of your more loyal company try generating songs of relationship and faithfulness.
Loyal companions would be the wish up against the advancing darkness, the antidote up against the poisons of despair, plus the savior against insanity.
Support is certainly not a straightforward virtue to call home by as support needs respect to they.
Without respect, there will be no relationship, so there can be no really love or group. Without devotion, there won’t be any neighborhood, community, nor country. Respect is essential to any or all basics in daily life.
Stupidity are sticking to a person that won’t appreciate your.
Commitment is actually although, fragile, will be the noblest of virtues.
Friendship, faithfulness, and respect are just what keep this world a significantly better room.
Authority features two edges: With commitment or without one.
The real test of loyalty are standing up powerful amid chaos and distress.
Ia€™m really loyal with all of my personal connections. We dona€™t search for other sisters or another mother as I see i’ve my own.
Do not be family with whoever cannot provide you with the equivalent amount of loyalty and rely on.
Faithfulness and good faith tend to be gifts worth significantly more than any gold or valuable jewels.
There isn’t any use for weapons should there be devotion and faithfulness.
If a man asks myself for loyalty and trustworthiness, he shall have my personal commitment and honesty.
We are all taking a trip an intense path. Then we owe each other commitment.
A team with commitment for every single more will achieve their own goals with each other.
Famous doesn’t equivalent faithfulness.
Support is an activity you shouldn’t hesitate to bring, for it has additional big qualities.
From support comes believe. From confidence will come faithfulness, then faithfulness appear appreciation.
Low prices never twist commitment.
A mana€™s faithfulness was tried as he have all the money in this world, while the girl happens when she’s nothing at all.
Become faithful to the people who aren’t present, and you may obtain their unique respect.
People who have no idea the value of commitment cannot understand the price of treachery.
Loyalty do not have an amount tag. Ita€™s a characteristic quality.
Im blessed for three dishes each day. However, loyalty was an abundance I never ever believe Ia€™d ever endured inside lives. It can make me personally become richer in almost every feel.
Whenever struggle for the wars rages, the loyalty of a soldier try examined.
To-be dedicated to your nation is your obligation as the citizen. Is devoted to yourself is a duty of your personal. Become dedicated to God is a vital responsibility you will ever have.
You simply cannot call support one that’s ordered with money.
Commitment on the completely wrong influence try tarnishing honor.
Respect gained are independence achieved.
A primary reason the reason why people like pets are mostly with regards to their respect.
Respect are a virtue that really needs some efforts.
35 Extraordinary parents commitment quotes pertaining to respect
Being dedicated to your parents is the best virtue one could have actually.
Success is inspired by a lot of loyalty towards art, faithfulness towards routine, and dedication to your objective.
If two people could be loyal and sincere together, they may be able pull through whatever comes their unique means. That will be labeled as household.
If a pet comes with the advantage of commitment and admiration, it is perhaps not not even close to obtaining heart of an individual.
I am not saying selecting something as well grand in a commitment. I dona€™t need a wealthy or handsome guy. All I wanted was life respect and enjoy from my personal partner to make an excellent and healthier household.
When anyone is loyal to you, there is the responsibility of taking care of all of them. This is exactly a thing that can be found in a family group.
A faithless pal cannot continue to be very long within group. Trust me.
a character are someone who always possesses the grade of support, self-sacrifice, dedication, and a few stubbornness within.
We dona€™t wanted so many company, over 50 dating just a few dedicated people.
Privacy is a virtue of devotion, as devotion try a virtue of loyalty.
One filled with fury and hatred bleeds from the quality of respect and faithfulness from himself.
Employee loyalty comes from the respect of their personnel first.
Family members will not only entail bloodstream. It includes commitment, like, and regard for each other.
We hate cheating, folk. Personally, they are the least expensive kinds.
The largest error you can ever before make would be to break the center associated with lady that is loyal to you.
We start thinking about support a crown made from angel feathers therefore the tail of a shooting star.
Like kindness, respect returns two retracts. While dedicated to people, these include also.


Construction on U.S. Highway 412 Bypass Requires Lane Closure in Benton County
Construction associated with the new U.S. Highway 412 Northern Bypass in Springdale requires partial lane closures on South Goad Springs Road in Lowell and Springdale, according to Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department (AHTD) officials.
Beginning Monday, December 12, partial lane closures are needed to widen South Goad Springs Road, which will allow the Razorback Trail to be shifted onto the widened roadway when bridge construction begins near the existing trail. The road will remain open with flaggers directing one lane of traffic between West Apple Blossom Avenue and the relocated Burrell Place during construction.
The partial lane closures will begin Monday, December 12 and end Saturday, December 17, from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., weather permitting. Once the roadway widening is complete, the trail will temporarily be relocated onto the newly widened road, and a barrier wall will be placed along both sides of the trail to protect users.
This project (Job CA0907) is part of AHTD's Connecting Arkansas Program and constructs approximately 4 miles of the new four-lane U.S. Highway 412 Northern Bypass, which extends from Interstate 49 to State Highway 112. The project is expected to be completed mid-2018.


Milo Yiannopoulos has been called many things, but I think he can be summed up in a couple of words: absolute enigma. He calls himself a provocateur, then his fans wonder why so much of the world detests him. He has made offensive comments about people of colour and the LGBT community; however, he is currently married to a black man. He has made comments that could be considered death threats to journalists, despite he himself having been a journalist. There’s much more controversy, the most topical at the moment probably being his comments regarding paedophilia and sexual assault – that’s sure to go down well given the events of the last few weeks. But despite all of this, the question has been raised – should Yiannopoulos, and others like him, be allowed to tour and speak in Australia?
Short answer: yes. Long answer: I have two arguments to justify why he should be allowed to enter Australia, which (with a backflip from our government and everything) he is now allowed to do. I should preface this by stating that I find the man absolutely abhorrent, and, so far, have not found a single thing he has peddled that I have agreed with or considered fair. Jordan Peterson rightly receives criticism for some of his views and ideas, but even he makes some worthwhile points that can’t be discredited so easily. Yiannopoulos has no such partial backing and is purely in the public sphere to stir tensions – as showed by the numerous protests that take place during his talks, including in Australia in 2017.
That being said, why then would I advocate for his right to return here?
Freedom of Speech and Thought
My go to quote here, that I have posted on this site before, is one by Noam Chomsky.
“Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.”
We cannot, and most certainly our governments cannot, be allowed to dictate what people say, with, in my view, the exception of inciting violence. This also applies to what people choose to listen to and what they think. The moment we start picking and choosing what is and is not permissible debate is the moment we open ourselves to having our own right to such freedoms torn away from us. That is not to defend or legitimise the disgusting things said by people like Yiannopoulos, but to defend one of our most basic human rights that, whether you like it or not, apply to everyone or no one.
There are some things, however, that I think are worth noting because certain commentators, like Isaac Butterfield, with a sizeable audience that are very much oversimplifying and hyping up concerns where there are none exactly. In his video, released after it was announced Yiannopoulos’ visa was cancelled, Butterfield called our government tyrannical for dictating what Australians could and could not listen to or think. This kind of rhetoric is false and misleading, because even if Yiannopoulos was not allowed to enter the country, there is nothing preventing people from listening to him or adhering to his views via other means. That also does not prevent people from within Australia voicing those views publicly, proven by having people like Pauline Hanson and Fraser Anning in the Senate spouting similar nonsense.
Another point is where he and others say things like “he is only silenced because he goes against the mainstream view”. Sorry, but saying Hillary was a shitty candidate or that there are legitimate reasons to be sceptical about the EU that Jeremy Corbyn cites is going against the mainstream view. Blatant and intentionally provocative offense is not ‘against the mainstream view’, it is against all forms of human decency and should be called out as such.
So, while Yiannopoulos should have the right to speak, it is the right, and I would say duty, of all decent minded people to call him out and challenge his stances as they are clearly misguided and belligerent.
Education and Debate
The second reason I believe Yiannopoulos should be allowed to come here and talk, which Butterfield briefly mentions in his video, is that these kinds of negative views can only be challenged through education and debate. Now, there are certain comments by Yiannopoulos, like when he suggested paedophilia was fine because some youth are ‘mature enough’ to consent at 13, or his incitement to violence against journalists, that are just so baffling that education and debate are just not reasonable, because there is no potential for two sides – it’s objectively wrong. But other things, like his views on people of colour, his views on Islam, on feminism, on Trump, etc. etc. etc. can be debated.
Are the things he and his followers say abhorrent? Yes, but shouting over them and attempting to silence them only moves to strengthen their convictions and isolates them further. This leads to polarising events like Trump’s election, like Brexit. Saying “it’s 2019” doesn’t work, just like saying “it’s 2015” in 2015 obviously didn’t work. We need to have these uncomfortable debates about race, about gender, about sexuality, about all the other manufactured divisions. We need to have them so that we can educate people, truthfully and calmly, towards an outcome that is beneficial for everyone.
It is only once people are engaged civilly and begin to understand the faults in their views that they will change. If you cannot do this – and this applies to all sides – then immediately your opinion on the matter is null and void. If you cannot take part in proper discourse, no matter how much you might detest the garbage the other side spits out, then they have already won in their mind and in the minds of likeminded people. I have seen too many debates where one side turns to insults and patronising language, and whether it is justified or not it is disheartening to know that communication can break down so easily. And this is just online. Move it to the real world in a face to face confrontation and such a breakdown in relations can quickly turn violent.
It is not an easy thing to accept. I certainly would not miss Yiannopoulos at all if he were barred from the country permanently, but I can understand that it is important to allow this kind of stuff to take place. Give him the limelight he so desperately chases, and then with precise and fact-based arguments blow him and his supporters out of the water. Reveal the fallacies they spread so blindly, shine a light on the more wretched aspects of our humanity. To not do so is to let it fester and grow quietly as we pretend it doesn’t exist.
Now more than ever we need clarity and diplomacy – in some cases, it literally means the difference between progress or the destruction of human civilisation as we know it. Progress is needed, and progress needs you to keep it alive.
Liked this? Read “Liberals vs Conservatives”
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Re: ZENITH - Ultralight Explosion
- I have an 18.8 and 16 m2 zenith and are a monsters the 18.8 is a
really light wind machine with 8 knts you can jump really
and the 18.8 have just 9 struts
--- In firstname.lastname@example.org, "Meyer, Chris (MOZ)"
> Well, A close friend of mine Joao has received his Zenith 11 andboy what a
> kite!!!!a good
> If anyone wants a small kite with all the power in the world, take
> look at this baby.and he
> E.g. On a good day, 12 - 16 Knots I fly my Airush 2003 Lift 15.5
> flies his small 11 meter.rate this
> Other conditions are the same, board and our weight.
> Really, take my word on it and test drive this kite!
> You will be amazed.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Meyer, Chris (MOZ)
> Sent: 24 May 2003 17:37
> To: 'email@example.com'
> Subject: ZENITH - Ultralight Explosion
> Hi people,
> Anyone test driven this kite yet? Would love to know how you would
> kite to say the Airush Lift, or any other high Aspect ratio kitefor that
> mater.pumping up,
> The only downside I can see offhand are the 13 struts that need
> but with all that extra form might be worth it.Normally
> Winter in Mozambique sucks never more than 15 knots on a good day.
> about 8 knots and you just have to work to hard to keep going.Can't wait
> for summer!!!
> Hope you're having fun.


Winters in Maine are famous for being long and brutal. When I was growing up, we lived a few blocks away from my junior high and high schools, so I never took the bus; I was always a ‘Walker’. Fine in warm weather, pure hell during the frozen tundra months.
One early morning, I started out on my trek across thirty acres of school athletic fields to reach my classes. The fields were covered in thick sheets of ice so I didn’t walk so much as slid across like a drunk Bambi on a frozen pond. I fell dozens of times, but it didn’t phase me as I was resigned to face the day suffering through another Chemistry class with a soggy, frostbitten ass. Several times I tried to put my trusty L.L. Bean backpack to good use, being careful to land on top of it and not my ass, instead sacrificing my mom’s greasy tunafish sandwich bomb. But in one particular spectacular fall, I missed and landed hard on my side. The ache in my hip already pulsing, I laid there on the ice for a moment, breathing hard in the minus 10 degree temps. Just long enough for my still damp hair to freeze right to the ground. (Back then we didn’t bother with such frivolous things like a blow dryer. Hell, we didn’t even have a shower. I had to wash my hair in the kitchen sink.) When I heaved myself off the ice, a huge chunk of hair was ripped right out of my head. I remember looking down at the tuft of hair still stuck to the ice, fluttering in the wind, and I did what Mainers do best: I laughed. Then I dragged my frozen ass and patchy ice-crusted freakshow of a hairdo to Chemistry.
Yeah, growing up in Maine in the ’70s certainly built a kid’s character. I had character coming out my frosty eyeballs. I would venture to say this is what shaped my sense of humor all my life: Life sucks sometimes. Okay…actually, it sucks most of the time. So what. Deal with it. Might as well make fun of it. Between the eternal soul-killing winters and the fact that most days I would find myself underneath a pig pile of five brothers all trying to fart on my head in unison–I developed my sense of funny real friggin quick. It was a survival mechanism. What other choice did I have? It’s almost like God is saying to you, “Uh…yeah…sorry about your shitty life. But now you can find just about ANYthing funny! Isn’t it great? You’re welcome!” I think most humor is the ability to find the comedic silver lining in the shitcloud of your life.
Most stand-up comedians I admire have made it their mission to bring to audiences their special take on life’s crap and the general absurdities of things. And they’re not afraid. They’re in your face. They take chances. Some of my favorites are: George Carlin (still sad about his passing), Chris Rock, Wanda Sykes, Denis Leary and recently, I’ve discovered Louis C.K. (brilliant, somewhat depressing, but always truthful)
When I first saw Eddie Murphy’s Raw back in the early ’80s, I was sitting on the floor with my brothers and we were dying laughing about his childhood stories–like growing up with a mom who made him these nasty hamburgers with peppers hanging out the sides and trying to pass them off as McDonald’s. I remember watching Eddie in that skin-tight leather suit and thinking: This is freakin amazing! He’s telling it like it is! He’s telling us the truth! He doesn’t care! He’s just coming right out and saying these crazy things that are true! How in the hell is he able to walk around stage in that leather suit?! Isn’t he chafing?
George Carlin was a genius at cutting through all the extraneous bullshit in life and giving it to you straight. Hey, I see the same bullshit you do! He’d point out the ridiculousness in human behavior, always with masterful timing and brilliant words.
To me, that’s what comedy is in a nutshell–serving up the bleak truth and still making you laugh at it. I love a stand-up who can not only push the envelope, but can rip it to shreds and swallow it. I could listen to Wanda Sykes read her grocery list, because she comes off as so real; she cuts through the BS. And she makes me laugh so hard I hyperventilate and weep.
Sometimes this sense of humor isn’t appreciated. Sometimes people find it offensive. We all have our own personal line we don’t like to cross. But in general, I’ve always found it to be simply exposing the truth. Growing up, I was a quiet, shy child; always observing, taking in the finer details of human behavior. Then I’d inevitably blurt something out at the dinner table, sometimes just to see the reaction. I called these gems, ‘Fork-Droppers’ because one or both of my parents would always drop their fork to their plate in shock. Normally, my brothers would laugh, but my mom? My mom would narrow her eyes and give me the ‘I’m Disappointed in You’ look and say, “Darla Jo!” using my middle name to let me know that I had really crossed some line.
Who could blame me? I was living with five brothers who teased me relentlessly in a frozen landscape of hell. Stepping over the line was all I had.
And besides, I think most things are funny. (Sorry, Mom) It’s gotten me pretty far in life. Like most people, I’ve had my share of tragedies, but laughter has this magical ability to heal wounds. Humor has saved me during some of the darkest times. I will always be grateful for my (sometimes warped) sense of humor.
Who are some of your favorite comedians? What is your sense of humor like? Do you find me funny? Funny like a f****ing clown? What…am I here to amuse you? Is that what I am to you?!


THE KITCHN: Banh mi: The sandwich that marries the flavors of French and Vietnamese cuisine
If you have ever visited Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City, or happen to live in a part of the United States with a large Vietnamese population, I hope you have experienced the wonders of banh mi -- baguettes filled with pickled carrots and daikon, fresh cilantro, and meat or tofu. The sandwiches are crisp, salty, tangy and sweet, the perfect marriage of French and Vietnamese influences. However, if you don't have a local banh mi shop, or if you just want to make a vegetarian version at home, what follows is a recipe for a flavor-packed lunch or dinner.
Banh mi literally means "bread," and the baguette traditionally used for the sandwich is a Vietnamese spin on the French classic. A combination of rice and wheat flour makes it light and fluffy with a thin, crackly crust. For a home version of the sandwich, it's fine to use any fresh, soft baguette; I usually get mine at a Filipino or Italian bakery. Of course, you can bake your own, too, but avoid using artisan-style breads, which tend to be too thick and chewy.
Traditional banh mi fillings include pork, pate, tofu or eggs. Our favorite vegetarian version has savory slices of lemongrass and garlic-marinated tofu. Fresh fillings and garnishes such as do chua (pickled daikon and carrot), cucumber, cilantro and hot peppers may be adjusted to your liking. And be generous with the mayo! We like to spike it with cilantro and Maggi, but you may also use plain mayo (try homemade) or mix in crushed garlic, chilies, pepper and so forth.
Banh Mi with Lemongrass Tofu
Makes 2 sandwiches.
2 (8-inch) baguettes
Do chua (pickles):
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white vinegar


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Puly Cleaner Baby Descaler 30g Sachets Espresso coffee machines need to be maintained to allow them to work better for longer - descaling is an important part of this maintenance.
Descaling improves a machine’s performance, temperature regulation and functionality, hence good espresso coffee preparation and resulting taste.
Puly Caff Baby Descaler Powder is the best choice for quickly and efficiently descaling both home-use and professional espresso machines.
Puly Caff is imported from Italy and Puly is recognised as producing the industry's most advanced coffee machine cleaning products.
Suitable for brass, copper, stainless steel boilers and parts. Not suitable for aluminium thermoblocks or boilers.


Bio not provided
"Once again you've put your keen analytical mind to the task and come up to the wrong conclusion" to paraphrase a movie. You can not look at that single goal against in the Phoenix game. You miss the 5-6 unbelievable saves down low both before and after that late 1st period goal. It could (some would argue should) have been 4 or 5-2 before the end of the 2nd had Jaro not stood on his head. Was the goal late in the 1st a softie? or just a really nice shot by a top echelon forward left to walk in alone on Jaro? we could argue that for days. I would say Jaro managed to save his rather porous defense some big dents to their collection +- ratings for the rest of the game, and that's all you can expect from any goalie. I say Nicely done Jaro, keep up the outstanding work and don't listen to reporters with too much time on their hands and not enough subject matter to fill their columns.
3 years, 2 months ago on Halak Enjoying Success, Strength of Opponents Questioned


Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi is pregnant, her rep confirms to Usmagazine.com exclusively.
"Model, author, and Emmy-nominated Padma Lakshmi confirms that she is carrying her first child after years of struggling with endometriosis, a cause for which she has co-founded the Endometriosis Foundation of America," the rep tells Us of Lakshmi, 39.
"As a result of her condition, this pregnancy has been referred to by her physician as nothing short of a medical miracle, and due to its delicate nature, we ask/implore the press to respect Ms. Lakshmi's privacy at this time," the rep continues.
Endometriosis is a medical condition in which the uterus' lining grows in other areas of the body, causing pain, irregular bleeding and possible infertility.
The baby's father has not been revealed. Online reports have speculated Manu Nathan is the dad, but her rep denies that, telling Us he's Lakshmi's cousin.
Lakshmi split from novelist Salman Rushdie in 2007 after three years of marriage.
She won the Best First Book award for her first cookbook, Easy Exotic, at the 1999 World Cookbook Awards in Versailles, France. Her second cook book, Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet, was released in October 2007.
She hosted the Food Network series, Padma's Passport, in 2001. She's also guest hosted on British show Planet Food.


Comment of the Day
Today Amber Ambrose wrote about fava beans for her Ingredient of the Week, and commenter A Fool Once More wrote in with some additional information:
You're describing a dish called fool (or foul) medamas, which is sold canned at HEB, Fiesta, as well as the Middle Eastern grocery stores around town. I get the most plain variety, rinse the beans quickly, and heat them up with some cumin and mash them a bit. I'll serve this with olive oil, garlic, chili on top, as well as some fresh parsley and chopped tomatoes and a good piece of bread to scoop with. A small drizzle of tahini sauce is not a bad idea either. I believe you can also buy the fava beans shelled and dried instead of buying cooked canned beans.
Yum. Is it dinnertime yet, Fool?


In order to function and survive, plants produce a wide array of chemical compounds not found in other organisms. Photosynthesis requires a large array of pigments, enzymes, and other compounds to function, and these chemicals have multiple practical uses in the human world as well, with applications to agriculture, forestry, and horticulture. This book presents an important collection of research and studies on the physiology of photosynthesis.
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Dr. Philip Stewart has a PhD in horticulture with a focus on the genetics of flowering in strawberries. He has worked in association with Cornell University's Grapevine Breeding Program, the Department of Horticulture at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, and the Horticultural Sciences Program at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He has contributed to multiple publications, including the International Journal of Fruit Science, Horticultural Science, Plant Science, and BMC Plant Biology. He has served as a member on the U.S. Rosaceae Genetics and Breeding Executive Committee, the North American Strawberry Growers' Association, and the Small Fruit Crop Germplasm Committee. Dr. Stewart is one of the inventors of the patented strawberry plant named DrisStrawSeven, and he currently works with the NCRA, State Agricultural Experiment Station Directors.
Professor Sabine Globig received her BA in 1972 at the American University School of International Service and her MS in horticulture and plant physiology in 1988 at Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey. Presently, she is Professor of Biology at Hazard Community & Technical College in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky, where she specializes in human anatomy and physiology and plant sciences. She has also worked as an Adjunct Instructor of Biology at Union County College in New Jersey and at Rutgers University, as well as a certified high school biology teacher. While at Rutgers, she worked as a plant physiology researcher at their AgBiotech Center and held the same position for DNA Plant Technologies Corporation. She has given presentations at XXII International Conference on Horticultural Science, UC Davis, California, 1987; and 1997 International Society for Horticultural Science's International Symposium on Artificial Lighting in Horticulture, Noordwijkerhout, Netherlands. She has also been included in several Who's Who entries.


SEOUL, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Three bodies were found early Saturday within passenger cabins of a South Korean passenger ferry that capsized three days ago, as the captain was arrested and charged with negligence.
The bodies were sighted at around 5:50 a.m. (2050 GMT Friday) on the fourth floor of the five-story vessel by private divers, the first discovery within the hull since the 6,825-ton "Sewol" sank off Jindo Island near the southwestern tip of South Korea with 476 people on board.
The divers tried to break open the doors, but failed due to limited diving time and floating obstacles.
Two coast guard divers tried to pry their way into passenger compartments on the third floor at 11:08 p.m. (1408 GMT) Friday, but were also prevented by various obstacles.
The coast guard said they had not received any messages from within the cabins.
The third and fourth floors are composed of passenger cabins, and there are freight compartments on the second floor and a dining room on the first. Divers succeeded in reaching the first and second floors on Friday.
Around 87 passengers stayed in the cabins on the third floor, with 353 put up on the fourth floor and seven on the fifth. 29 people have been confirmed dead in the disaster, with 273 still missing, including four Chinese citizens.
Also on Saturday, investigators arrested the 69-year-old captain and two of his crew, charging them with negligence and failing to secure the safety of passengers in violation of maritime law.
Questioned why passengers had been ordered not to move for more than 40 minutes after the ship first floundered, captain Lee Joon-Seok said it was a safety measure to prevent passengers being "swept" away.
"At the time a rescue ship had not arrived. There were also no fishing boats around for rescues, or other ships to help," Lee said.
"The currents were very strong and the water was cold at that time in the area ... I thought that passengers would be swept far away and fall into trouble if they evacuated thoughtlessly."
Lee also confirmed he was not at the helm when the ship ran into trouble, and was returning to the bridge from his cabin.
He said, "I am sorry to the people of South Korea for causing a disturbance and I bow my head in apology to the families of the victims."
Angry relatives of the missing, mostly high school students on a four-day field trip, demanded authorities act now to raise the vessel and criticized officials after learning about the discovery of bodies.
Gathering in a gymnasium at the port of Jindo, the rescue center for the operation, they were shown underwater video footage of the hull on Saturday for the first time.
On Saturday, 652 coast guard, military and private divers were expected to try to enter into the hull 40 times, while 176 rescue ships and 28 airplanes were deployed to search waters near the submerged ferry.
Three giant, floating cranes are now at the rescue site, but coast guard officials stressed they would not begin lifting the multi-deck ferry until they were sure there were no survivors inside.
More than 20 ships have been cleaning up waters near as oil leaked out of the capsized ship, the coast guard said.
The ship departed from South Korea's western port city of Incheon Tuesday night for the southern resort island of Jeju. Among the 174 rescued, 75 were students from the Danwon High School in Ansan, a Seoul suburb.
Video>> 4 Chinese nationals on board of S. Korean ferry missing
One more body found near sunken S.Korean ferry, 29 confirmed dead
SEOUL, April 19 (Xinhua) -- One more body was found Saturday in waters near a South Korean ferry, which sank off the country's southwestern coast on Wednesday, local broadcaster YTN reported citing the South Korean Coast Guard.
The body, identified as female, was spotted 150m away from the submerged vessel when divers were conducing nighttime search operations.Full story
Arrest warrants sought for captain, two sailors of sunken S.Korean ferry
SEOUL, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Arrest warrants were sought Friday for a captain and two sailors of the sunken South Korean ferry, which capsized and sank in waters off the country's southwestern coast Wednesday.
South Korean prosecutors filed for arrest warrants for the 69- year-old captain surnamed Lee, the third mate and the helmsman of the submerged vessel, which carried 475 passengers, mostly high school students, local media reported.Full story


Authors/Editor: Howard, Ian P.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
The three-volume work Perceiving in Depth is a sequel to Binocular Vision and Stereopsis and to Seeing in Depth, both by Ian P. Howard and Brian J. Rogers. This work is much broader in scope than the previous books and includes mechanisms of depth perception by all senses, including aural, electrosensory organs, and the somatosensory system.
Volume 3 reviews all mechanisms of depth perception other than stereoscopic vision. The three volumes are extensively illustrated and referenced and provide the most detailed review of all aspects of perceiving the three-dimensional world.


The road to the Final Four was supposed to be a nicely paved thoroughfare to Glendale. Instead, it’s Bolivia’s famous La Carretera de los Yungas, nicknamed Death Road for its altitude, sharp turns and dangerous drop-offs.
Simply, the college basketball season has revealed fun twists that could include some surprise participants at University of Phoenix Stadium April 1-3. The start of the conference season feels like the right time to check the sport’s pulse and make some bold predictions.
Baylor will make it to the Final Four.
Raise your hand if you had the Bears advancing to Glendale.
Liars. All of you.
Baylor wasn’t even in the preseason Top 25 and now it’s close to securing its first ever No. 1 ranking.
USA TODAY COLUMN: Fasten your seat belts — the Big 12 madness is just beginning
The Bears are one of only two undefeated teams left, joining Gonzaga, and a big reason is Jo Lual-Acuil Jr., the 7-foot center from South Sudan who has made Baylor a defensive threat. He’s a fascinating story, a community-college transfer who had to sit out last season because of a heart issue.
The Bears feature a collection of players who simply do their jobs well – like small forward Ish Wainright – but the big man is the reason they are a factor on both ends of the court.
Get ready. A large caravan from Waco, Texas, will be making the 1,000-mile trek in less than three months.
Gonzaga, Villanova and UCLA will be the other three.
I’m ducking for cover as the “you idiot” comments are hurled my way.
Where’s Kentucky? Where’s Kansas? Where’s Duke? This will be the Final Four that doesn’t involve some of the early season superpowers.
The Final Four hasn’t been in the West since it was in Seattle in 1995. This could be the year with two teams from the West Coast and three from west of the Mississippi.
One could very well be Mark Few’s Bulldogs, who are playing like a team intent on finishing the season at University of Phoenix Stadium.
ESPN’s Seth Greenberg nailed it Thursday when he said, “They have eight starters, essentially. They are a Final Four team.”
Gonzaga has a key tool to advancing deep in the tournament: a relentless defense that forces opponents to change the way they play. A variety of players step up offensively, too. Thursday night it was Nigel Williams-Goss, who had 36 points, 11 rebounds and six assists during a victory over San Francisco.
BOIVIN IN NOVEMBER: Countdown to Phoenix Final Four underway
This feels like the Bulldogs’ year, which is a good thing for a program whose success has never truly been appreciated, probably because it has never made it to a Final Four.
And it should be appreciated because it hasn’t missed a tournament since 1998. (And yes, it has made it to the Elite Eight only twice: 1999 and 2015.)
In a sports world filled with ridiculously high standards, Gonzaga needs that badge of honor.
The Bulldogs should be joined in the Valley by UCLA, which has its skeptics after losing to Oregon, 89-87, on Dec. 28, and lacking the schedule pedigree of some other teams.
But man oh man do they have talent, beginning with two freshmen who are potential NBA lottery picks. Hello, Lonzo Ball and T.J. Leaf. And of course a senior who is shooting 43.4 from 3-point range. Hello, Bryce Alford.
And Aaron Holiday. Who wouldn’t want him to be their sixth man?
You don’t think coach Steve Alford is driven? Wasn’t it just 10 months ago when fans paid to have a banner fly over campus demanding he be fired?
An amazing renaissance has occurred in Westwood and even though fans were slow to warm up – empty seats in Pauley Pavilion? – this team presents tricky matchup problems.
Look for the Bruins to find their way to Arizona at the end of March.
Villanova will be there, too.
Yes, the Wildcats are coming off a loss to Butler Thursday, their only defeat of the season.
Here’s a secret. Most Final Four teams trip a few times on the way.
First of all, it’s tough to win at Hinkle Fieldhouse. You did see "Hoosiers," right? Don’t forget, too, that this is a team that was on a 20-game winning streak. It has our respect.
It’s impressive to see how players improve under Jay Wright, case in point sophomore Jalen Brunson. Josh Hart is terrific and while there probably will be a few more stumbles, this program is dialed in.
The path to last season’s title will prepare them well for this road.
You go ahead and count out Villanova. I plan on seeing them in Arizona in the very near future.
Other teams make strong cases, from Kansas to Creighton to Kentucky to Duke, but these four?
They have my attention.
Reach Paola Boivin at email@example.com and on Twitter at Twitter.com/PaolaBoivin. Listen to her streaming live on “The Brad Cesmat Show” on sports360az.com every Monday at 10:30 a.m.


Bem-vindo.net is a hosting provider that was founded in 1999. The hosting company markets itself as being committed to excellence in hosting services backed by maximum resources for entrepreneurs in Brazil and beyond. It offers shared web hosting, SSL certificates, web design, and domain name registration services. The Bem-vindo.net is only available in Portuguese.
Features and Ease of Use
Bem-vindo.net website hosting solutions come with the following standard features:
- PHP 7.1 support
- Free domain name
- Free SSL certificates
- MySQL databases
- Softaculous script installer
- Website builder
- Custom DNS servers
- cPanel control panel
- Regular backups
Bem-vindo.net uses robust infrastructure with the latest technological advances to provide a stable and secure hosting environment for its client’s websites. Its servers are housed in a high-end data center located in Houston, Texas, in the United States. The data centers are equipped with thousands of servers connected directly by 14-gigabit links powered by network backbones of six different internet providers in the world.
The Bem-vindo.net web hosting infrastructure also includes powerful hosting tools, including the latest versions of PHP, Perl, Python, Java, Ruby, MySQL databases version 5.6, and PostgreSQL. This offers the security and time tested internet systems for high reliability.
With Bem-vindo.net hosting solutions, your website is guaranteed protection and safety from viruses and online hackers. The hosting vendor has deployed intelligent security measures, including a proactive firewall for malware detection and any suspicious activities on its client’s websites. In addition, the hosting provider offers regular data backups that are taken daily with an exact copy always available in case of a disaster.
Pricing and Support
Bem-vindo.net hosting solutions are quite expensive, yet come with considerably high discounts starting from 20%. The hosting plans come with flexible monthly billing cycles, including monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual subscriptions. Prices are listed in Brazilian real.
Bem-vindo.net advises potential customers to choose a vendor that offers high uptime guarantee stating “the closer to 100%, the better” but does not seem to commit itself to an uptime guarantee. The vendor offers a 10-day free trial period after which if dissatisfied with its hosting services, you can get your money back.
Customers can contact the vendor’s technical support staff via ticketing system, contact form, or live chat. Unfortunately, the company does not seem to offer telephone support. I found a support email on its Facebook page, but could not locate any mention of a support email on its website.
I sent a support query to the support team via this email and received an automated response. However, the vendor never responded to the issues that I had raised in my email query.
Thankfully, Bem-vindo.net has a fairly detailed help center with a good number of tutorials to mitigate the lack of customer support response.


nStein, a Montreal based TSX Venture listed company, that provides content management platform for web sites to monetize their content, was acquired by the big daddy of content management, Open Text. The transaction is valued at approximately $35 million ($0.65 per share). This is an all cash offer and certain shareholders have the option to receive the proceeds in Open Text shares. Although nStein has been around for a while, it came on my radar screen when JLA Ventures invested in the company in June 2006 at $0.85 per share. Subsequently, JLA Ventures brought in a seasoned CEO, Luc Filiatreault, who refined the business model and rounded up the management team with seasoned executives. The company did subsequent financings starting with an insider round of $1.9 million with Luc and some directors investing at $0.65 per share in May 2007. This was followed by a $3 million special unit private placement (priced at $0.85) in September 2007 and a $8 million special warrant financing (priced at $1.00) in November of 2007. The deal will require approval by shareholders at a meeting that nStein plans to host in April, 2010.


Rookie cornerback Morris Claiborne has given himself a passing grade for his first two games.
He is proud that he has yet to give up a touchdown but he is down on himself for not getting any interceptions.
“I feel like it’s been good,” Claiborne said. “It hasn’t been great. I haven’t given up any touchdowns. I feel like I need to get my hands on some balls. That’s a big part of the game. If you can go take it out of the air that changes the game.”
The ability to make game changing plays is why the Cowboys took Claiborne with the sixth overall pick in the 2012 draft. He is still mad at himself for knocking the ball down rather than picking it off against the Seahawks.
“I had a great opportunity to do it. I just knocked it down,” Claiborne said. “It was like a nine route, a deep ball. He kind of floated it up a little bit. I was like ‘Damn, I shoulda went up and got that’. ”
Claiborne said wants to get his hands on the ball kickoff returns as well as intercepions.
He was the primary kickoff returner in college at LSU and would like some opportunities to return kicks here if the Cowboys decide to relive Felix Jones of his duties.
“I wouldn’t mind doing it at all,” Claiborne said. We’ve got a guy back there right now that to my understanding is doing a great job in Felix. If they need somebody else, I’m here.”
How Jones is doing on kickoff returns is up for debate. He is averaging a career-low 21.3 yards per return and a crucial fumble against the Seahawks. While Jones remains the primary kick returner, coach Jason Garrett said he was going to get some other guys ready as well.
Claiborne said he has started to get more work on kickoff returns in practice this week and is trying to get in all the catches he can so he can be ready if called upon.
He said he doesn’t worry about the injury risk of playing on special teams a starter. His focus is trying to get his hands on the ball.


Things come in one category or another: the good and the bad. But when it comes to borrowing money, no debt is good debt. You probably hear it every day, the reasons why people generally believe that borrowing can ofttimes lead to adverse results in the long run. Bad credit can keep your head underwater. There are times when you find yourself drowning in debt and there’s just no way out of its fuzz. That’s the bad part.
On the flip side, taking out a loan can be a great idea, too. However, debtors must learn to focus on smart debt. The only time you’ll know it’s a smart debt is when it increases your net worth; otherwise, it’s bad. Also, remember that a loan, in order to become a ‘good’ loan, requires the right control and proper management.
Considering the positive and negative reasons for borrowing, you need to be careful about making your decisions and know whether it is the right course of action to do. In this article, we will help you weigh the pros and cons of applying for a loan.
Best Reasons to Take Out a Loan
You meet your short-term needs
Loans are most considered by people whose short-term needs and goals are quite urgent while their budget seems to run out. By either approaching financial institutions for personal loans or sending SOS from family members and friends can help you pay off other consolidated debts including more personal accounts such as the following bullet reasons below
- Home Rentals and Repairs
- Student Loans
- Wedding and Moving Expenses
- Personal Goods
- Travel Fund
- Buying a Car
- Medical Bills
It helps grow your business
Not only you can use these loans to satisfy your short-term needs but you can also consider loans from several financial aids if you have reasons to pursue some long-term goals like paying off your mortgage when putting up a small business.
If you want to pursue entrepreneurship, you won’t dare to risk all your personal accounts so either secured or unsecured business loans can act as a metaphorical support system when planning to put up your own business or fund for its expansion and growth in the long run. Consequently, unlike a stereotypical point of view on considering loans, entrepreneurs see debt in a different and a little ‘positive’ way.
Fluctuate Interest Rates
Financial institutions may differ in interest rates, might as well, look for a bank that attaches a lower value of interest to the borrowed amount. If you haven’t heard yet, the interest fluctuation that runs from your debt in the bank or in any other financial firm may reflect on how your credit score looks like.
This may seem self-explanatory but there are chances of getting a lower interest rate if you have a favourable credit history. Otherwise, expect higher interest rates for bad credit scores. Garnering higher interest can eventually make your loan more expensive and you surely won’t like it so you have to watch interest fluctuations to schedule loan applications when rates are still low.
Business taxes are lowered
Other reasons that encourage most entrepreneurs to consider loans is the surprising benefit they get from paying interest on their debt. Loans can actually reduce your business taxable profit which helps you pay less cost of tax expenses. Thus, almost all companies create common reasons for seeking loans rather than giving up on the entire equity in order to survive and expand the business.
Loans encourage discipline
Your loans can serve you two things: satisfy your short-term or long-term needs and teach you to become more disciplined at the same as well. Since you already know what comes your way when you don’t pay your loans ahead of your due date, you surely won’t like facing its troubles and consequences so you have no other luck but to manage your debts correctly.
In this light, debtors are strictly encouraged to apply discipline when it comes to borrowing, using the amount borrowed in a lucrative way, and return the amount owed ahead of time.
Worst Reasons to Take Out a Loan
You finance a lifestyle you can’t afford
Having the convenience of borrowing money, you also get to live beyond your means by funding an unaffordable lifestyle. Some people forget to live on what they earn, which is why they likely end up going deeper into debt. Remember, loans can’t always solve your problems.
It’s a trap
Lenders are marketing personal loans for all kinds of purposes and debtors are taking advantage of this rare opportunity. However, taking out a loan to pay for unnecessary yet unaffordable purchases such as luxury vacations or grand weddings is bad news.
By doing so, you are making your future self miserable as you commit the money you haven’t earned yet to pay for something you can’t afford, not to mention the interest it might incur.