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The prescribed burning program at Texas Tech University began the day Dr. Henry A. Wright was hired in 1967, and this manuscript is dedicated to his memory. I would like to emphasize what you already know; rangeland burning would still be an infant art without Henry’s drive, determination, and foresight. He broke a multitude of seemingly impervious barriers, allowing the rest of us to rush into this massive void in range management.
Prescribed burning of juniper communities started with a phone call from Mr. Bob Beckham of Abilene, Texas. Bob had heard of Henry’s fire research and wanted to know if burning would work on his ranch south of Baird, Texas. Henry’s answer was, “Of course, it will work. I will send Carlton down to look it over.” Thus began one of the great adventures as we plunged unknowingly into a spring of constant work, frustration, and learning from a multitude of mistakes. The road to success would have been extremely difficult without the unflinching support of Bob Beckham.
Bob Beckham had a typical juniper problem seen throughout central Texas and the Edwards Plateau. Ashe juniper was so thick that a cow could not walk through it, and there was no grass in the understory. He had bought a dozer and was in the process of pushing individual trees into huge piles. The volume of material was unbelievable and Bob was interested in using fire to rid his pastures of this juniper debris.
I made the first, and a critical, mistake when I first visited the Beckham Ranch. However, this mistake was to cause a pivotal change in the direction of the fire program at Texas Tech. I was overwhelmed by the volume of juniper debris. Knowing the excessive flame lengths this would produce, I advised Bob to push the debris back 100 feet, which would give a wide and clean fire line. This process proved very expensive and created a windrow of debris capable of producing millions of firebrands and lifting them to heights that could be carried well over a 1,000 feet down wind igniting spot fires in the next pasture. Solving this mistake resulted in many hours of hard work and forever changed the way firelines were prepared. These windrows could only be ignited at night when the temperatures were cold, humidities were high, and winds very calm.
Early one morning, as we were leaving the Beckham Ranch, Henry asked me if I had noticed how differently the fires burned when the humidity rose to over 40%. Of course, I said, “No,” since I was generally scared stiff looking for and putting out spot fires. Henry persisted in his theory that 40% was an important breaking point in fire behavior, and we all began to notice these differences and rely on this threshold point. Later under Henry’s guidance, Steve Bunting clearly defined a similar threshold value for temperature.
After finally burning Bob Beckham’s pasture, we knew that firebrands were the main source of our problems. As the grass greened, Henry located several west Texas ranches with piled brush, and we started a study to determine how far firebrands traveled. The hypothesis was that the size of the pile was the primary factor in determining how far a firebrand would travel. Thin plastic was placed at several distances down wind of each juniper pile and the pile ignited. When the pile was consumed, the plastic was inspected, and the distance to the furthest piece of plastic with holes was measured. It was obvious that the pile size was correlated with distance traveled by firebrands. However, it was also obvious that other factors were important.
Steve Bunting’s arrival marked the next series of important fire research. Steve’s thesis research concerned a more critical evaluation of firebrands. Henry and Steve solved the problem of firebrand ignition potential. Their research established that below 70F firebrands had a greatly diminished potential to ignite spot fires. This finalized what has become known at the “40 – 60 rule.” Simply stated, firebrands have a minimal potential to ignite spot fires when the relative humidity is above 40%, air temperature is below 60F and wind is less than 8 mph. This rule has been tested over 25 years and in most rangeland fuels across the nation, and it is just as valid today as when it was first stated.
The fire program picked up momentum and diversity during the 1970’s with the help of one of Henry’s Ph.D. students, Dr. Leon Neuenschwander. Leon directed to Henry two exceptional students, Dr. Al Steuter, now with the Nature Conservancy in Nebraska, and Dr. Guy McPherson, now at the University of Arizona.
Al Steuter was the graduate student fire boss during the mid to late 1970’s and contributed greatly to the transition from burning Ashe juniper to the more difficult use of fire in redberry juniper. The primary difference in the two communities is the lack of fine fuel found in the redberry juniper type of the Rolling Red Plains of Texas. The roughness of the terrain in the redberry juniper type appreciably confounded this lack of fine fuel. The 500 foot blackline was firmly established as the standard fireline during this period. This fireline was burned using the 40 – 60 rule, and, with the prevailing southwest winds of the region, was always placed on the north and east side of the unit to be burned. This black line provides the necessary fuelless barrier to stop the head fire used to burn the main portion of the pasture.
As the fire program moved into the 1980’s, two additional innovative practices were adopted. The first was the use of strip headfiring of blacklines and the intense organization of fire crews. This innovation was perfected by an unusual group of graduate student which were both intelligent and highly motivated. This group consisted of Guy McPherson, Bob Masters, Al Rasmussen, and Jeff Weigel. This group was assisted by the constant and energetic work of Gretchen Scott. This era saw the first preparation of fire plans for each burn. These plans included a detailed description of the burn unit, conditions for blackline and headfire ignition, and maps of the terrain with potential trouble spots. These plans made the dissemination of information to all crew participants very easy and complete.
This period in the fire program saw another extremely valuable development. A high level of organization was developed for conducting prescribed burns. The basic prescriptions had been developed and tested; thus, this phase was near completion. Training students now became the focal point of the fire program, and this required a high level of instruction. With each year’s burn acreage escalating to near 30,000 acres, there was little room for wasted time or effort. Dr. Wright started a new class to facilitate this process, and it was simply called Prescribed Burning. One evening each week the class would meet for 3 hours, with Henry lecturing for an hour and the graduate student fire bosses conducting the rest of the class. The graduate students would review and critique the previous weeks field experiences with the class. This class raised to an all time high the level of instruction in the practical application of fire. The students that came out of this intense effort were excellent practitioners of prescribed burning.
Along with the increased training of students, another practical innovation was initiated. The first helitorch burn was conducted in 1982. The start of helitorch burning was not conceived within the program but came with a call from Renny Propst of Blackrock, Arkansas. I visited with Mr. Propst and he asked if we were interested in using a helitorch to ignite our juniper burns. I told him I felt we would be interested, but I would have to visit with Henry to finalize any agreement. When I approached Henry, he said absolutely no, that our fires were complicated enough without having to contend with a helicopter. Over the next few weeks, Henry relented and agreed to a demonstration ignition. Plans were made to have the helitorch come to west Texas and ignite a planned juniper burn near Guthrie, Texas.
The helicopter with helitorch arrived at the ranch headquarters right on time with Dr. Wright and all the fire crew anxiously waiting. The helicopter was towed on a trailer pulled by a pickup. As soon as the pickup stopped, two people got out and waved hello to us all. I was expecting to meet Renny Propst, but there was only a very large man and a very young teenager. I was very concerned as I was certain the helicopter could not carry the large fellow, much less the helitorch, and the teenager could only be someone’s son playing hooky from an Arkansas junior high. The two immediately began releasing the helicopter from its binding straps and then began attaching the main rotor blades to the machine. I was concerned; actually, I was becoming very frightened. I had talked Dr. Wright into this demonstration, and it was beginning to look as if I had made a terrible mistake in my dealings with the folks from Arkansas. My only salvation was that Mr. Propst would soon drive up to save the day. I began to offer fervent prayers for the arrival of Mr. Propst. This did not happen, and much to my dismay the teenager climbed into the cockpit and started the helicopter. My last glimmer of hope remained that he was only warming up the engine and Mr. Propst would soon come driving up the road to the ranch headquarters. All the while, Dr. Wright looked sternly at me with an expression that said, “Your next check from Texas Tech will be your last.” All hope was lost as the teenager pulled back the stick and, in a cloud of dust, flew the helicopter off the trailer. I was dead meat.
Jimmy Propst landed the helicopter, walked over and introduced himself to us all and, with a broad grin, asked Dr. Wright if he would show him the burn unit while we prepared the alumigel-gas mixture for the helitorch. As Henry climbed into the helicopter, I received another one of those looks. They returned in about 30 minutes, and we could not get Henry out of the helicopter for the next 10 years.
The helicopter ignition that day was less than spectacular. The helitorch was built to exude large blobs of jellied gas which gave a very spotty ignition in the sparse west Texas fuels. This resulted in a burn not superior to hand ignition with drip torches. Over the next few months, Henry, Guy, Al, and Bob discussed this problem among themselves and with Jimmy Propst. That summer they traveled to Blackrock, Arkansas and designed and built a system of small and large emitters which put out a continuous rain of small flaming droplets. This device proved to be a superior ignition system for west Texas juniper fuels.
Keith Blair was the next graduate student fire boss to make a contribution to the Texas Tech fire program. Keith had learned his skills from the previous graduate students and Henry. While burning blacklines during a wet spring, Henry and Keith were perplexed by the lack of juniper canopy ignition. Where the canopies were dense, it is desirable to have them ‘torch’ thus removing that fuel bridge which could carry the fire across the blackline when the unit was headfired. They started sampling the juniper foliage and determining fuel moisture content. After a couple of years, they determined that below about 70% foliage moisture the canopy was easily ignited. This became yet another of Henry’s thresholds and is an extremely important factor in ensuring a safe burn.
Burning juniper infested rangeland is nothing short of hard work. It requires a great deal of organization and preparation. Preparation should begin by writing a fire plan. This plan should include at least the objectives you hope to achieve, maps of the burn area, and prescriptions for the ignition of the blacklines and headfire. Writing this plan will help you think through every aspect of the prescribed burn.
The first step is to critically analyze the pasture in question. If the mature juniper canopy cover is not over 10%, there will be very little increase in forage production as a result of juniper control. However, if the pasture has numerous young juniper scattered throughout, then it is definitely the time to burn. Another situation that is critical occurs when a pasture has over 25% canopy cover of juniper. At this point the pasture is rapidly approaching a situation when the grass production is severely reduced. It is mandatory to have the grass fuel sufficient to carry a fire across a pasture. When the juniper canopy cover approaches 40%, the grass fuel is so reduced that a prescribed burn is generally not possible. To reclaim a pasture in this condition, some mechanical treatment is generally required to increase the grass fuel necessary to carry the fire.
One year prior to burning a pasture, the grazing management must be altered. The pasture must be allowed to accumulate as much grass as possible. Therefore, no grazing should be done at least during the fall growth period, and, if a good burn is to be made, the pasture should be rested during both the spring and fall growth period. Remember, the more fine fuel (grass) in the pasture, the greater the damage to the juniper and the easier the pasture will be to burn. With abundant fine fuel, the fire can be conducted under safer conditions with lower temperatures and higher humidities. With minimal fine fuel, such as found when a rancher removes the livestock the day before the burn, there is an unreasonable temptation to burn with higher winds, lower humidities, and higher temperatures.
Firelines should be marked during the fall prior to the winter burn. It is generally easiest to locate these firelines adjacent to the pasture fences. However, firelines should be moved away from fence lines to avoid extremely rough terrain or unusual jogs in a fence that make burning difficult. Assuming the prevailing wind in winter and early spring is from the southwest, black lines should be installed on the north and east edge of the pasture. Width of the blackline should be at least 500 feet. Thus, an additional mineral line should be placed 500 feet inside the perimeter mineral lines on the north and east pasture edges in preparation for burning in the blacklines. All the mineral lines should be checked for two features. First, the mineral lines should not have any grass or brush left in them. If any fuel is left in the lines, this provides an excellent fuel bridge to the outside of the burn unit. This will almost guarantee a fire escape. Second, the mineral lines should be reasonably smooth. The mineral lines provide vehicle access to the entire perimeter of the pasture and will be used repeatedly during all phases of the burn. Bull dozers will generally leave a very rough line. A little extra time to back drag the mineral line is generally worth a lot in the long run.
Blacklines should be burned out during January when temperatures are cool and humidities are frequently high. The 40 – 60 rule should be followed for this process. Remember, this is the most dangerous part of the prescribed burn as you only have the mineral line on the leeward side to protect against fire escape. Ignition should proceed at a slow and steady pace, with adequate numbers of spotters to look for and extinguish any accidental spot fires outside the burn area. Usually you should have at least six spotters plus a pumper truck with driver and pumper operator. At least half of the suppression crew should have radios to ensure rapid communication in case of trouble. The ignition crew should have at least four people. Three people should carry drip torches and one person keeping full drip torches available to all torch carriers. One experienced fire boss should direct all activities and coordinate the activities of the ignition and suppression crews. The one cardinal rule of ignition is always light moving into the wind. If you light moving with the wind the fire will overtake you and cause serious injury.
Two ignition techniques are especially useful when burning blacklines; the backfire and the strip headfire. With the backfire you can maintain a high level of control over the burning rate as the fire is backing into the wind. With this fire type, the flame lengths will be very short and the rate the fire spreads into the wind will be very slow. The only disadvantage to backfires is they can take a very long time to move across the 500 foot distance which must be burned out. This time period can be shortened by use of the strip headfire technique. This technique incorporates the advantages of a backfire with the increased speed of a headfire. The strip headfire ignition requires at least three torch carriers. The first torch begins ignition at the leeward edge of the blackline. This torch will light into the wind for at least 50 feet and allow the fire to back into the wind 10 to 15 feet. As the first torch carrier proceeds beyond 50 feet, the second torch starts lighting about 20 feet upwind of the backing fire from the first torch. The second torch is in essence starting two fires, one is a small headfire which burns out the strip downwind to the first torches backfire and the second is a simultaneous backfire which moves into the wind. As the first torch moves out to past 100 feet and the second torch approaches 50 feet from the starting point, the third torch starts ignition about 50 to 75 feet upwind of the backfire ignited by the second torch. This torch is also igniting both a headfire and a backfire. Therefore, there are three torches lighting simultaneously and each burning out strips of fuel and light head and backfires. The fireboss coordinates the spacing of the torches and the speed at which they move. This ensures that the second and third torches do not pass the first torch and run a head fire over the first torches position. With practice and experience, this process can become a thing of beauty to behold on a cool evening.
Burning blacklines will invariably run into the night. This is an excellent time to put in blacklines as the temperatures are becoming increasingly cooler and the humidity is rising. If you plan to burn, especially at night, you must visit with your regional office of the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission and inform them of your plans. This will save you a lot of grief and help ensure that prescribed burning remains a viable and legal rangeland management tool.
The final phase of a prescribed burn is the ignition of the main headfire which will burn the entire pasture. This is usually the safest part of the whole process. The south and west edges of the pasture are ignited. Again, the torches move into the wind and eventually meet at the southwest corner of the pasture. Obviously, this assumes that the prevailing wind is from the southwest. Spotters and fire suppression equipment are located on the north and east sides of the pasture to deal with any unlikely spot fires. Ignition should only take place when the air temperature is between 70 and 80F, relative humidity is between 25 and 40%, and the wind is between 8 and 15 mph. It is strictly ill-advised to start ignition if these conditions are expected to change, especially higher winds, higher temperatures, or lower humidities.
More detailed instructions are available in the form of three Management Notes published by the Department of Range, Wildlife, and Fisheries Management at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409-2125. Our phone number is (806) 742-2841.
The key to successful burning of juniper infested rangeland in Texas is having adequate fine fuel. Ensuring the fine fuel load is adequate may be as simple as deferring the pasture from grazing in the fall growth period or possibly for one year. In other cases it may require a pretreatment to reduce the juniper density, thus allowing the grasses to respond and produce the fine fuel necessary for a successful burn. Therefore, a thorough plan must be initiated well before the actual burn is conducted.
Wildlife habitat must also be a critical focus in the planning process. How much juniper should be unburned in the pasture to ensure adequate hiding and thermal cover for deer and other wildlife species? It is suggested that areas of either steep slopes and/or shallow soils be excluded from the area that is burned. This will require extra firelines and care in ignition.
It is strongly suggested that pastures on the north and east edge of the planned burn be grazed closely in the months prior to the planned burn. By reducing the fine fuel (grass) in these areas, the potential for spot fires and fire escape will be greatly reduced. This will require a long-term grazing plan and in some cases a good working relationship with neighbors.
Finally, develop a good fire plan with realistic objectives and clearly stated procedures for the prescribed burn. This plan will be valuable in reminding you when different aspects of the process need to be accomplished. The plan also be a good checklist of equipment, personnel, and safety considerations necessary for a successful prescribed burn.
This paper is contribution No. T-9-772 from the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Texas Tech University.


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The teaching performance of the substitute teacher will be observed and evaluated by the building principal. If the principal does not judge this performance to be satisfactory, he/she will recommend to the Personnel Office that the substitute teacher’s name be removed from the approved list of substitute teachers. When this occurs, the principal will schedule a conference with the substitute teacher to discuss the situation.
High School:	8:20 a.m. – 3:50 p.m.
Middle School: 8:20 a.m. – 3:54 p.m.
DAEP and Credit Recovery:	8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Joe K. Bryant Elementary:	7:45 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Sue E. Rattan Elementary:	7:45 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Early Childhood Center:	7:45 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
2.	Follow closely the program schedule of the regular classroom teacher. The class time schedule should not vary unless the administration designates.
3.	Locate the classroom teacher’s mailbox, remove the roll sheet. Check the office bulletin board for announcements.
4.	Locate master schedule and other information in the Substitute Folder.
1.	Teacher will have available on his/her desk a Substitute Folder with pertinent information for the substitute. It is necessary to locate this folder immediately.
3.	Review the classroom teacher’s daily schedule, plan book, seating charts, and textbooks/materials.
4.	Do not deviate from the regular teacher’s lesson plan and schedule. If a problem arises, please alert the principal.
5.	For any questions left unanswered, contact other teachers or the building administrators. Do not rely exclusively on students for your information.
6.	Acquaint yourself with fire and safety drill regulations, assigned exits and refuge area procedures. These should be in the folder and displayed on the classroom wall.
1.	Dress in a professional manner. Spirit day is Thursday for middle school and Friday for high school – you are allowed to wear blue jeans and preferably a purple shirt. Flip flops are not allowed. All tattoos must be covered. No facial piercings.
2.	All campuses are a tobacco-free zone. Electronic cigarettes are not allowed.
3.	No cell phones or PDAs allowed to be used while you are tending to students. Do not wear ear pieces while on campus.
4.	No personal laptops or iPads allowed on campus.
5.	Circulate and supervise. Paper work should be dealt with during your conference period.
6.	Under no circumstances should students be placed in an unsupervised situation. The substitute is to remain with the class during all designated class times, during group travel in the hallway, and at all assemblies, etc.
7.	Substitutes are responsible for directing their classes to lunch, library, electives, PE, recess, etc. This travel in the hallways is expected to occur in a quiet and orderly manner.
8.	Supervision of halls and corridors is a responsibility of all teachers, especially when students are coming into the building or leaving the building as well as class passing periods.
9.	Avoid changing the seating arrangement or any part of the room organization except for temporary grouping of students for instruction.
10.	Report any accidents to the principal and/or nurse immediately.
11.	Leave a brief summary of the work completed, or not completed, as well as any other information that would be helpful to the classroom teacher (bulletins, parental notes, assignments, and problems).
12.	Return materials and/or equipment to its proper place.
13.	Organize and grade all assigned work as you are instructed to do by the regular teacher.
14.	It is expected that the substitute will maintain good order whenever assigned, and create such conditions that are conducive to a good learning situation. The regular classroom teacher is legally and professionally charged with the school property as well as the welfare of children, and no less is expected of the substitute teacher.
15.	Substitute teachers are expected to keep confidential any information about the school (students, parents, staff and administrators) which might be gained while substituting. Concerns growing out of the substitute teaching experience should be addressed through the proper administrative channels.
1.	Official state attendance for students is recorded in accordance with the directions in the substitute folder.
2.	Please follow the attendance procedures with great attention to detail. All paper attendance for classes must have your full signature on each page for each period which is mandatory for TEA compliance. Elementary attendance is only taken once a day so there will be only one attendance sheet a day whereas secondary will have a sheet for each period. The attendance clerk or teacher will supply you with the attendance sheets.
1.	Any outsider who comes to the classroom for information about a child or comes to the classroom asking that a child be released from school must be directed to the principal’s office.
2.	NO student should be released from the classroom without official notice from the school office.
1.	Leave the teacher a report of the work covered and other necessary information.
2.	Report to the school office regarding your assignment for the next day, and/or problems that occurred during the day.
3.	Sign proper documents verifying employment and leave them with the school secretary.

industry_corpus2: Subject Education


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to challenge time and decay. With its grandeur almost nonexistent and forgotten, we only have our imaginations to picture the great city as it once was. Located in Lower Egypt in the eastern delta, southwest of Tanis, throughout history, Syrian and Persian invaders with dreams of conquest made their way through the delta area, and Bubastis, to enter the heart of Egypt.
Bubastis, Tell Basta (house of Bastet) or Per-Bastet (the domain of Bastet), located in the ancient Egyptian nome of Am-Khent (Petrie, 1906), was known as a thriving city dedicated to the cat goddess Bast from at least the 4th dynasty(2613BC), if not earlier, until the Roman period (395AD). In fact, Manetho (305-285BC), a priest and the earliest Egyptian historian to document the pharaohs of Egypt, noted that there had been civil unrest in Bubastis during the 2nd Dynasty rule of King Boethos, but no artifacts dating to that time have been found. However, the names of the 4th dynasty pharaohs Cheops and Chefren, who built the great pyramids at Giza, are clearly written on several of the blocks proving that the city at least dates back to that time.
“According to Aristotle, Strabo and Pliny, Sesostris was the first to conceive and carry out the idea of a water connection between the two seas, by means of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile from Avaris to Bubastis, and by rendering navigable the irrigation canal which already existed between Bubastis and Herolopolis.”(Maspero et al., 1903, p.250) Thus the temple to Bast stood on high ground surrounded on all sides with canals filled with water.
Want to know about the cat in history, art and literature? Then this is the book for you. Now available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle formats.

industry_corpus2: Literature & Emotions


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Good northerly winds were forecasted for Wednesday and Thursday so we made the decision to take the southern route back home (and not go through the Göta canal). We decided to leave Gothenburg on Wednesday evening and sail through the night towards south. After two hours of motoring we hoisted the gennaker and sailed first four hours very comfortably downwind at almost flat sea. After midnight the wind started picking up and our speed went up from about 4,5 kn to 6-7 kn. Our windvane did not steer very well under just gennaker so hand-steering was required. Thus we decided to take the gennaker down and sail under genoa instead to make the night passage more comfortable.
a small town set in spectacular isolation on the dramatic headland of the Kulla Peninsula. Unfortunately, we could not make the walk up to the historic Kullen Lighthouse, which is said to be the brightest one in Sweden. Instead, we did laundry, cooked and took naps to be ready to keep on sailing again.

industry_corpus2: Travel & Geography


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BOSTON (AP) — House and Senate negotiators are scheduled to meet again as they try to hammer out a compromise over proposed changes to the state’s voter-approved marijuana law.
The six-member conference committee is scheduled to gather behind closed doors Monday amid indications that it may be moving closer to an agreement.
The panel has been struggling for weeks to settle differences between a House bill that calls for higher taxes on recreational pot and more control for local officials over retail marijuana stores, and a Senate bill that proposes more modest changes in the current law.
The House chairman of the conference committee, Democratic Rep. Mark Cusack, said Friday he was optimistic that consensus could be reached soon.
Legislative leaders originally set a June 30 deadline for resolving differences over the marijuana bills.

industry_corpus2: Politics & Administration


text: There is nothing more romantic than red roses and at Blossom Basket Florist, we have all types of romantic bouquets to choose from. Roses aren’t just for Valentine’s Day, select roses in white, pink or yellow to make someone smile! Blossom Basket Florist offers flower delivery nationwide or locally.

industry_corpus2: Others


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Does anyone watch this? I must admit I am hooked. Love that "Lost" feeling mixed with fairytales..
This show, and Grimm are two of my favorite shows right now. I am SO glad they are gonna have a 2nd season, I can hardly wait to see what happens!!
This series is only two episodes into its run here. I watched both eps and found it surprisingly interesting (so far).
Elizabeth and I try to catch this show each week.

industry_corpus2: Film & Entertainment


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Yiwu Shining Crystal Import & Export Co.,Ltd is a best China crystal tower trophy manufacturer and supplier with professional factory. Welcome to wholesale crystal tower trophy, crystal tower award products from us.
Yiwu Shining Crystal Import & Export Co.,Ltd is a best China Crystal Trophy Award manufacturer and supplier with professional factory. Welcome to wholesale crystal tower trophy products from us.

industry_corpus2: Manufacturing


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Sophie Turner Talks About The Final Moment Of Game Of Thrones & "Everyone Burst[ing] Into Tears"
Game Of Thrones season 8 still feels like it's years away, and in case you weren't already jealous, the cast and crew have read the final script. There are a handful of very important people who know exactly how this almost decade-long story (not including the books) will end, and Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa on the HBO series, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about what it was like to read those last few pages.
"It was very, very bittersweet," she said in the interview. "The first day of the actors coming in and that kind of production starting, the day where we had the final read through for the final script... it was really bittersweet. It was hard."
As you can imagine, it was also extremely emotional.
"At the end of the very last script, they read aloud, 'End of Game of Thrones.' As soon as they read that out, pretty much everyone burst into tears," she continued. "There was a standing ovation for [showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss]. We were all clapping and cheering. It was amazing. It was the first time every single cast member had been there and sat through all of the scripts for season eight — obviously not cast members who had died in the earlier seasons, but..."
Speaking of dying, that's definitely something that's been on the minds of the actors playing characters who have somehow made it this far without kicking the bucket. Now that they know their final fates, the guessing is over.
"We've imagined it for so long," Turner said of learning the ending. "There's also an ambiguity every season when we would get the scripts: 'Is this the season where we die?' To have made it this far is pretty unbelievable, considering the amount of deaths there have been. All of us have always had discussions about theories, about what we think is going to happen — who's going to die, who's going to end up ruling. Now, we know. It almost feels like another one of our theories. It doesn't even feel like it's what's actually happening. It's very satisfying."


text: Growing up, I often found myself walking past the ruins of Beirut’s Holiday Inn hotel. In a country with little, if anything, dedicated to remembering that period, the building serves as an unofficial reminder of Lebanon’s devastating civil war. On reflection, however, the ruins also remind us that, at one point, Beirut had been a different city – one whose inhabitants had been optimistic enough to build a multistory hotel. This may be cause for future hope, if the lessons of the past are confronted. But this summer, a stroll in the neighbourhood reminded me just how much Beirut remains a tale of two cities.

industry_corpus2: Hospitality & Catering


text:
Skype for Business (SFB) is a comprehensive communication platform where you can gather mail, chat and video conferencing in one single solution. With SFB you can get an overview of who is available / vacant in your company.
It can also be integrated with our PBXCLOUD, which opens up the possibility of welcome messages, opening hours and more.
With Skype for Business, you can connect with colleagues or business partners in your business or worldwide.
– Start conversations via chat, voice or video call.
– Screen sharing during meetings.
You can also advantageously use Skype for Business in Office programs to chat, call or attend meetings with one single click.
The telephone system in Office 365 provides you with features like: call forwarding, hold, drag calls, built-in answering machine with Exchange integration and built-in encryption, to keep the security at the highest class.
With a PBX CLOUD solution you get a virtual switchgear, which is always updated with the latest features. We make sure to collect all your business phones and mobile phones in one complete solution.
Click here to read more about our PBXCLOUD and its features as well as options.

industry_corpus2: Computing & Telecommunications


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When I see a fellow member that is logged-in is there a way to find and talk to them in real time? thanks, Rick.
The car runs a '72 911 flat six/901 transaxle. May 2005 Update.......I sold the car, and I feel like i lost a child.

industry_corpus2: Automobiles


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South Windsor is a town in Hartford County with a population of 25,709.
In 1659, Thomas Burnham (1617-1688) purchased the tract of land now covered by the towns of South Windsor and East Hartford from Tantinomo, chief Sachem of the Podunk Indians. Burnham lived on the land and later willed it to his nine children.
By 1700, a number of families had made their homes in this area, now known as South Windsor. In 1768, the residents of the area were allowed to incorporate as the separate town of East Windsor, though the area was informally referred to as East Windsor before this time, which then included all of East Windsor, South Windsor and Ellington.
Known for its agriculture and ship building, the town supplied more than 200 volunteers during the American Revolution. South Windsor itself was incorporated as a town in 1845. Tobacco was a major crop grown in South Windsor since its founding. However, the town has industrialized and commercialized more over time.
Aiello Home Services has been offering service to South Windsor since 1931 when we first started delivering fuel oil. Aiello offers heating and air conditioning repair and replacement, plumbing, electrical as well as indoor air and water quality systems. In 2012 Aiello added whole home generators from Kohler.
The winter months can be long and cold in South Windsor, so you can count on Aiello to make sure your heating system is working. Or, if your heating system needs replacement we can do the job – usually in just one day.
Whether it is a plumbing or electrical emergency or just scheduled maintenance, Aiello services South Windsor to make sure all your heating, air conditioning, electrical and plumbing issues are resolved successfully in a timely manner.


text: Carly Lintner has over three years of experience working on remediation and monitoring projects. At Barr, her work involves remedial investigations, remedial actions, and annual monitoring and permitting. Carly has assisted in field investigations for multiple projects, performing sediment, groundwater, soil-vapor, and soil investigations; directing monitoring well installation; and overseeing environmental and geotechnical investigations. She also has experience preparing annual monitoring reports, cost estimates, and engineering calculations for vapor monitoring sites, mining sites, and contaminated soil sites.

industry_corpus2: Mining


text:
Creative Edge has over 10 years experience in building brands through graphic design and web design, we specialise in the provision of high quality graphic design for both print and web. We have plenty of experience in providing our customers with graphic design ideas on how to improve their business outlook; we then take these ideas and develop them to deliver a final concept ready for print.
We understand that everyone has different requirements when it comes to website design whether it be budget or skill related . This is why we offer a full range of packages to cater for everyone.
We understand that your website is the online window to your business which means you need to be sure that it's working and accessible 24/7. Can you imagine the impact and cost of your site being offline?
Online Marketing is considered to be quite broad in scope so we have narrowed our services to what we believe are import to the success of your business . Our Online Marketing service are focused on what really matters... driving new business and increasing profits.
But there are few who truly focus on making your businesses a success and helping you grow both off and on-line.
It’s not all about pushing pixels and playing with crayons, business success comes from researching a clear and measurable strategy.
We offer a 15% discount to non-profits and charities.
CreativEdge has helped many businesses setup their web sites.
We would be delighted to help you to deliver a quality, well structured and business focussed website design online.
CreativEdge are always a pleasure to work with and I'm more than happy to recommend them to anyone. We use them for a multitude of graphic design requirements in conjunction with our National and Local Marketing departments.
They effortlessly interpret our specification requirements into a creative and well branded design. We are always impressed with the speed and attention to detail of the CreativEdge team and they are always ready to respond to any support requirements of the Vision Express design studio - keep up the good work.
CreativEdge basically came up with a rescue plan that was to involve the building of a new website, SEO, linking, PPC etc. - This started to bring in valuable sales over night without which I dare say we would have been sunk.
In the meantime the SEO has seen us rise steadily in an ethical and organic fashion that will see us in good stead for the future. This too now brings us in valuable sales which are steadily increasing. Currently we our conversion rate stands at an amazing 70-80%. Previously we had had a lot more visits but the vast majority of enquiries were a waste of time. Conversion rate at that time was well below 5%!!!
We look forward to an ongoing and productive relationship.


text:
An off-site follow-up survey conducted on May 5, 2017, found that Divine Breath Home Care Center had corrected the deficiencies cited under the requirements of 28 Pa. Code, Health Facilities, Part IV, Chapter 611, Subpart H. Home Care Agencies and Home Care Registries. The deficiencies were cited as a result of a state re-licensure survey completed on February 17, 2017.
An off-site follow-up survey conducted on May 5, 2017, found that Divine Breath Home Care Center had corrected the deficiency cited under 35 P.S. 448.809 (b). The deficiency was cited as a result of a re-licensure survey completed on February 17, 2017.

industry_corpus2: Health & Medicine


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4.2 is released, so the 4.2 beta thread is closed. This is a new one for 4.3 beta discussions.
I spent the last couple days going back and exposing myself again to all the SIP, SDP, RTP, RTCP, etc... protocol stuff. It's making more sense now, and I see what some of the testing and debugging tools are. I'm going to start doing some experiments on this front.
It would seem to me that the initial step is to provide a two way audio SIP/RTP client. That could be both embedded in the viewer, which would allow any viewer to make and receive calls. And it could be used in various ways on the back end to allow CQC to make SIP based calls to deliver information. The client side part of SIP isn't overly complex per se.
That would mean you'd initially at least have to have some sort of SIP enabled proxy/registration type server running to handle anything that's not just client agent to client agent type calls, to handle registration and presence, forwarding off domain calls, and so forth. Eventually I'd like to provide a pretty nice proxy/registration server as well, but a good first step would be the client agent functionality.
This will also require getting the stuff in place to capture content from an audio input, and how to inject received audio content into the DirectShow system for reproduction. At some point this would also open the door to calling into CQC and sending voice commands, since the above would put everything required into place other than feeding the audio into the speech recognition engine.
I've started on getting the old Emerald theme reinstated. I'm going to do this and get a 4.3.1 version. Theme stufff is very peripheral in terms of anything that could affect stability, so if folks are happy with it, I'll make it the official version. No need to wait until the next formal release to get this out, and we can have more than one theme again.
Can you please document the SockPinger class added in 4.2 in the CML runtime?
Oops, I thought I did. Or maybe I did but forgot to link it in. I'll check.
Lets hope the new iTunes (which may be released as early as tomorrow) doesn't change everything you just did with the new iTunes driver.
I wouldn't doubt it, but hopefully not. I'm not using too much of the functionality, and nothing fancy.
Dean, I posted this in another thread already but I though I would add it here too. I would really like to see you add a multi-touch Interface Viewer to the 4.3 beta cycle. Thanks.
This might not be high on the list, but I consider myself the target audience for the auto-gen functionality , and I would love to see a 1024x768 template size.
bryanb Wrote: Dean, I posted this in another thread already but I though I would add it here too. I would really like to see you add a multi-touch Interface Viewer to the 4.3 beta cycle. Thanks.
It's something that's on 'the list', and I've put some thought into how it might happen. As we've discussed before, things like real multi-touch wouldn't really have much application, since you don't get to size/rotate things in the IV. But ballistic scrolling and perhaps some gestures (which don't actually require that any application level code understand more than one touch point, only that they are understood down at some low level where they can be translated into some sort of call to do something) would be useful.
Of course I don't have any multi-touch capable device, and it would be a joke to try to support it even if I had one if that device was some separate tablet type thing and I had to copy changes to it and try to test them without any debugging capability. The ballistic scrolling wouldn't require that since it requires only a single touch point anyway, but actual multi-point gestures would.


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Scrap your car in Ampthill for cash, free collection and scrapping in Ampthill.
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The first settlement was called ‘Aemethyll’, which literally means either ‘ant-heap’ or ‘ant infested hill’. The name ‘Ampthill’ is of Anglo-Saxon origin. In the Domesday Book, Ampthill is referred to as ‘Ammetelle’, with the landholder in 1086 being Nigel de la Vast.
In 1242, King Henry III confirmed the right to hold a market on Thursdays. And still more then 750 years later they still continue.
Henry VIII was a frequent visitor to Ampthill Castle, and it was there that Catherine of Aragon lived from 1531 until 1533 the year she devorced, when she was moved to Kimbolton. The castle was built in the 15C by Sir John Cornwall, later Lord Fanhope, from ransoms after the Battle of Agincourt. Although the Castle is now gone, some intriguing indications of castle life remain- such as the local ponds allegedly built to supply the castle with regular supplies of fish.
Ampthill has several lively pubs, a wide variety of restaurants, a Waitrose supermarket and a selection of small independent specialist shops below flats. A number of small businesses such as solicitors, estate agents, financial services, hairdressers, music schools and a bookshop are also located in town, with larger businesses to be found on the commercial and industrial, it still trades on its “historic market town” reputation, serving as a commercial centre for surrounding villages. The town developments on the outskirts, along the town’s bypass. Ampthill also has a high concentration of public amenities, including schools, doctors surgeries, fire and ambulance stations, and a police station.
Ampthill’s historic centre, coupled with well-respected schools and the facilities mentioned above has made it one of the most expensive places to buy a house in Bedfordshire, even in comparison to other mid-Bedfordshire towns such as neighbouring Flitwick, and Cranfield. In a survey, it was found that the majority of Ampthill’s workers are employed locally, with around 20% working in Ampthill itself, and most of the remainder travelling to nearby centres of employment such as Luton ,Bedford and Milton Keynes. It is possible to commute from Ampthill to London, and around 13% of workers make this journey daily. The survey also found that the turnover of residents was low, most having been in Ampthill for well over a decade.
Ampthill is twinned with Nissan-Lez-Enserune in France.
We will collect the scrap car from Ampthill or the surrounding area and dispose of it through our nationwide network of 23 fully licensed Authorised Treatment Facility (ATF) Sites who will scrap your car in line with End of Life (ELV) Legislation, and provide you with a Certificate of Destruction which we file online with the DVLA. So you can rest assured your car has been scrapped legally.
For a hassle free fast way to scrap your car in Ampthill please complete the fields in the form to the right and we will provide an instant online scrap car price with the choice to accept and arrange scrapping or decline our scrap car offer.

industry_corpus2: Real Estate & Construction


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New research suggests that the reason dogs take so long to figure out where to poop is that they have an internal compass that they use to search for the optimum location along a north-south axis, thus lining up their intestinal offering with the Earth’s magnetic field.
Sometimes the field gets muddied, so it takes your dog longer to find The Spot.
What difference do you suppose it makes which alignment along which animals poop? Does the magnetic pull facilitate elimination, or is the choice purely aesthetic?
Although the pooping news is new, the phenomenon is not. Other animals are known to work with magnetic north. Migratory birds come immediately to mind, and even city birds have that capacity. Li-Qing Wu and David Dickman’s work published in Science demonstrates that pigeons’ brains contain special single cells and a substrate that “encode magnetic field direction, intensity, and polarity”, thus, it seems, conferring their famous “homing” ability.
Not only birds use magnetic guidance: fish, turtles and mammals can do it too. According to European research reported in National Geographic, deer and cattle often graze in a north-south direction that aligns with magnetic north. African mole rats have also been shown to possess a magnetic compass, as does one species of bat.
Inspired by others’ prolific output via this method, I’ve decided to re-blog the following well-written article from NPR (my first reblog) rather than researching further and writing about it myself. -erm, except for this preface, which I suppose amounts to exactly that. Oh well. –What do you think of the practice of reblogging? Is it okay?
At any rate, hope you enjoy thinking about this as I did.
Dog owners have all been there when walking their canine companions.
Then, finally, he gets into position to … well, let’s just say leave that deposit that you’ll have to pick up.
According to researchers from the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, the pooch might be aiming to poop along a north-south axis that lines up with the Earth’s magnetic field.
And when the magnetic field is in flux, “this directional behavior was abolished” — which might sometimes explain why your dog just can’t seem to settle on a place to go.
One might ask why this discovery might be important.
One also might ask who had to do most of the observations. Our hats are tipped to him or her.
We should also give a nod to Taro Gomi, author of Everyone Poops, for giving us a start to our headline.
Read the full Frontiers in Zoology article here. Dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth’s magnetic field. Vlastimil Hart, et. al. Frontiers in Zoology 2013,10:80 doi:10.1186/1742-9994-10-80.
These days, most people take it for granted that the seat of consciousness is of course in the brain. “Brain dead” means the person as a whole is dead. The rest of the body is either servant to the brain, as in delivering enough oxygen for optimal functioning, or sort of an addendum.
Witness the many “B” science-fiction movies featuring future societies in which the most wealthy and powerful have done away with the body and just live in an intellectually pure state as a brain in a jar.
In addition, you might notice how the brain is now discussed in computer terms: hardware (its physical structures such as the hippocampus) and software (the info, processing, data and other functioning, provided by the workings of the hardware). This is not new. You can see examples across recent history where a metaphor of the most current technology gets used to describe the workings of ourselves and/or the universe. In earlier days it was clocks; now it’s computers. Watch for this: it’s fascinating.
So we’re now considered to be made up of hardware and software, with the most important workings all centered in the brain. The rest of the fleshy self is just supportive frosting. Breathe deep to keep your brain oxygenated. We care for the body because we want optimal brain functioning.
But in earlier days, people thought quite differently about the seat of consciousness.
Folks in Shakespeare’s Britain thought the soul, or at least its most passionate part, mainly resides in the liver.
Many other cultures also find the seat of our selves to be not in the brain but in the heart. For example, the ancient Egyptians thought so little of the brain that when mummifying a body to preserve it for the deceased’s use in the afterlife, they tossed the brain away along with all of the other internal organs – with the notable exception of the heart.
And when C.J. Jung worked with people of the Pueblo nations, Hopi elder Ochwiay Biano (Mountain Lake, also a.k.a. Antonio Mirabal) informed him that in his view, white people were not only uneasy and restless, they were crazy mad. Why? Because “they say that they think with their heads. ‘We think here,’ he said, indicating his heart” (Jung 1973, p.247-8). Jung noted ways in which modern culture, construing the gift of knowledge as cognition alone, has deleterious side effects. He interpreted the ‘uneasy restlessness’ spoken of by Biano to mean Euro-Americans’ “insatiable lust to lord it in every land” (1933, p.213). After his encounters opened his mind to other worldviews, Jung observed how, sadly, “Knowledge does not enrich us; it removes us more and more from the mythic world in which we were once at home by right of birth” (p.252).
By seating consciousness solely in the brain, we have become spectators instead of participants in an animate universe, and our people have thereby been robbed of many dimensions of relationship. This is a wholly unnecessary diminishment, caused only by our thinking.
Fortunately, it is now being overturned.
We show that worms exhibit environmental familiarization, and that this memory persists for at least 14 days – long enough for the brain to regenerate. We further show that trained, decapitated planaria exhibit evidence of memory retrieval in a savings paradigm after regenerating a new head.
After the team verified that the worms had memorized where to find food, they chopped off the worms’ heads and let them regrow, which took two weeks.
Then the team showed the worms with the regrown heads where to find food, essentially a refresher course of their light training before decapitation.
Subsequent experiments showed that the worms remembered where the light spot was, that it was safe, and that food could be found there. The worms’ memories were just as accurate as those worms who had never lost their heads.
The obvious question remains: How can a worm remember things after losing its head?
Researchers have long confined their investigations of memory and learning to the brain, Levin said, but these results may encourage them to look elsewhere.
Hey, I just got a wild idea. You know how we’re told we use only a small percent of our brains? Perhaps the reason is that much of our thinking is actually not located there!!! I’ve gotta go now: gonna go dust out the other rooms of my inner house.
Harwood, A.C. (1964) Shakespeare’s Prophetic Mind. Rudolf Steiner Press.
Jung, Carl Gustav. (1933). Modern man in search of a soul. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Jung, C.G. (1973) Memories, Dreams, Reflections.
Shomrat, Tal, & Levin, Michael (2013, August). An automated training paradigm reveals long-term memory in planaria and its persistence through head regeneration. Journal for Experimental Biology 216 (16).
What did you blow your tax refund on?
This year, I spent mine on some really cool things, including a mad jaunt to attend an old friend’s birthday dinner over a thousand miles away, and participation in National Geographic’s ancestral genome tracking project.
Regarding #1, hanging around people in their late 90s of age has paradoxically made me aware of how very short life is. And what is more important than friends? Someone I’ve known since my teenage years wrote to say that what he really wanted for his big birthday coming up this year was to simply share a fine meal with his beloved friends. So I’m blowing a big part of my yearly ecological footprint budget to just go back to my hometown to be with that crowd for a long weekend – wonderfully creative, eccentric, smart and kind people I’ve known most of my life and love dearly, but now rarely get to see. This choice feels good to my heart. I’ve had to miss a lot of events recently because of the demands of caring for my aging folks. When I too am old, I don’t want to feel like I blew my chance to celebrate my people, but now it’s too late.
The rest of this post is devoted to #2, National Geographic’s genome project.
I’m adopted, so taking part in Geno 2.0 is a really big deal to me.
I only know what minimal information about my immediate ancestry was kindly written down for me at birth. I have never seen an echo of my own face in another. When someone asks something like, “where did you get your musical ability?” I can only point to nurture, not nature. That works in part for music, sure, but not for the curly hair.
For the individual, participation means you get to find out what percentage of your deep ancestry comes from various parts of the world. Is that wild hair Eastern European, Welsh, or perhaps African?
The test even includes markers for Neanderthal and Denisovan genes!
According to their materials, because Neanderthals “were still alive and well in Eurasia” when modern humans were first migrating out of Africa more than 60,000 years ago, it’s likely that if you have European ancestry, you also have some percentage of Neanderthal. That big Indo-European migration carried more than just stories about snakes.
For males, they will also examine markers on the Y chromosome, to reveal direct paternal deep ancestry.
This provides the organization with a lot of data about the entire sweeping human story. Geno 2.0 doesn’t tell you about health, neither genetic health history nor predictions about your personal health based on same; that’s a different kind of test. This one is larger in scope, and I suppose safer in terms of potentially being used in a political or financial sense against participants.
I think one of the greatest things about this study is the potential it holds for eliminating the silly and dangerous idea of race once and for all. At the time of this writing, nearly 600,000 people from all over the world are participating. When we see that every one of us has, say, some mixed percentage of ancestors from Asia, North America, Africa, Europe, Melanesia, Polynesia, Aboriginal Australia, South America, the Middle East, Siberia, and so on and so on… well, who’s then left as the ‘other’? Who can anyone point to to categorically hate?
A final thing that’s neat about the Geno 2.0 project is that part of the proceeds from the sales of participation kits like the one I bought goes to support community-led indigenous conservation and revitalization projects.
Check out the Genographic Project here.
How much Neanderthal is in me? Stay tuned!

industry_corpus2: Technology & Research


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Chest wall deformities in children can affect both the health of a child and a child’s self image, especially as the child moves into adolescence. Children's Hospital has a clinic to treat chest wall deformities, specifically pectus carinatum (pigeon chest) and pectus excavatum (funnel chest). Heath problems from chest wall deformities can include difficulty breathing, problems tolerating exercise and other physical limitations, chest pain, frequent respiratory infections and heart palpitations.
Under the direction of the Pediatric Surgery Group at Children’s Hospital, the clinic is a multidisciplinary clinic where a patient’s health care team will come together to formulate the best plan for the patient. This includes the surgeons, nurse practitioners, psychologists, subspecialists such as pulmonologists and orthopedists as needed, pain and palliative care clinicians, social workers, care coordinators and other clinicians involved in the patient’s care.
Pectus carinatum (pigeon chest) is a disorder of the chest wall because of an unusual growth of the rib and breastbone and gives the chest a birdlike appearance. This condition will be treated with an innovative bracing system developed in South America by Argentinean physicians Marcelo Martinez-Ferro, M.D. and Carlos Fraire, M.D. Children’s Hospital will be the first hospital in Tennessee and the second in the southeast to use this technology. Each patient will receive a custom fitted brace that measures and adjusts pressure on the thoracic wall to gradually push the breastbone back into normal position. Data shows that this therapy leads to fewer difficulties in use, fewer surgeries and better compliance in use by patients. This technology helps to avoid surgery in almost 90 percent of the cases. Duration of treatment varies by severity. The monthly clinic will track a patient’s progress and the average treatment.
Pectus excavatum (funnel chest or sunken chest) is a congenital deformity of the chest wall that causes several ribs and the breastbone/sternum to grow in an inward direction. Using a special vacuum bell, the treatment looks like a large suction cup attached to a child’s or teen’s chest creating a vacuum seal and gradually lifting the sternum over time. This device allows patients to use it without interfering with school, sports and other daily activities. Until now, treatment of pectus excavatum often required surgery, where a surgeon would insert a curved metal bar to a patient’s chest to push out the sternum and ribs. Just like the bracing system, this too will be an alternative to surgery for many patients.


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White Mountain Shoes Women - Video Review.


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I have a longer post that I'm just having a little trouble finishing, I will aim to publish it tomorrow. So for today, I have some midweek Montessori reading! Here are a few articles and things I'm loving.
1. Kuhn Rikon kinderkitchen knife review at Frida Be Mighty. Because we don't all have the same needs or shop in the same stores, this is a lovely review on a cute (puppy looking) knife.
2. This matching activity at Midwest Montessori because I remember Otis doing the exact same thing!
3. 12 Handmade Gifts for Montessori Babies at Uno Zwei Tutu - I love every one of these ideas!
4. The Evolution of Pablo's Room at Mama the Explorer. I have previously shown this room, you can see what it looks like now. I love to see not only how Montessori rooms progress as the child gets older but how they look when they are 'lived in'.
5. This is awesome! 5 Paint Invitations to Embrace the Explore Stage at Fairy Dust Teaching. I love the colour mixing on the mirrors, this is for the explore stage but I know Otis (at six yrs) would love it.
6. Looking for some book recommendations? I mentioned that I've been listening to Baby Knows Best: Raising a Confident and Resourceful Child the RIE Way. This week I have enjoyed Magda Gerber's Your Self-Confident Baby: How to Encourage Your Child's Natural Abilities from the Very Start. Now I am absolutely loving (but haven't yet finished) There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather: A Scandinavian Mom's Secrets for Raising Healthy, Resilient, and Confident Kids (from Friluftsliv to Hygge).
Also if you are thinking about using a floor bed, this is a really good and honest article, Baby and Toddler Floor Bed, What Works for Us at Minted Maiden. I hope you enjoy!
The importance of the Montessori Wall Mirror - and why you need one.
Have you ever questioned why we put a mirror in our baby's room? It's common to see a low mirror in Montessori nurseries, in Nidos and infant classes. My number one reason is to promote movement. The mirror is placed next to our playmat and allows my child to focus, track movement all while he on the floor, free to move. And move he does! My second reason is because he is my third child, I love for him to be entertained so I can put the washing on, prepare dinner, and just put him down for a while. On his playmat he is happy and content to have free, independent and uninterrupted play.
At this age (two months) I'm not convinced that he makes the connection that he is looking at himself, but it encourages his movement and concentration and he loves it! Personally, I believe many infants today are not getting enough free movement and uninterrupted play. A mirror promotes this and can be achieved relatively cheaply and easily.
Promotes concentration - along with the mobiles you can see long periods of concentration in a very young child.
Brings joy - often when you see a mirror in a store or even in the bathroom this will please the young infant, they may smile or may even laugh. Babies often love to look at faces, including their own.
Promotes independent play - the child is not reliant on an adult to entertain them.
Promotes free movement - encourages parents to spend more time with the child in the movement area, gives the child more time to move and get to know their body. Can also encourage the child during tummy time.
Promotes coordinated movement - Otto observes himself in the mirror and then reacts, he may at this age not know it is himself in the mirror but he is beginning to make connections. He sees his leg go up in the mirror, then he puts it down and then up again.
Allows the child to view the rest of their/the room and over time allows them to visually map the room, this is especially beneficial for infants that are not able to move or crawl.
The mirror doesn't have to be in the infant's room. Place it where it is convenient and where it will be used, a small space in the living area may work well. Put a playmat or soft folded blanket next to the mirror, I recommend not making it too soft (like a mattress) if you are going to use the area for tummy time. I also recommend making the mirror full length, so the infant can see the full length of their body. At this age I also recommend having some grasping materials nearby, some materials to act as a stimulus for movement.
"The mirror that we attach to the baby's wall next to the child-bed further enhances her sight by showing a different or "mirror" image of the room. The baby also sees her own image reflected and begins to connect her movements with the reflected movements of the child in the mirror. Thus she discovers that there are more faces to examine than just her mother's at feeding time. Eventually, she sees other reflected in the mirror as they enter the room to play or talk with her. Encouraging the newborn to spend waking time on her stomach so that she can practice lifting her head makes these first visual experiences with wall mirror possible." - Polk Lillard and Lillard Jessen in Montessori from the Start.
As you may know, this is my second child that I have used the wall mirror with and I recommend keeping the sleeping and play (work) areas separate. I suggest creating a movement area with a playmat, mobiles (if you are using them) and a mirror somewhere other than the bed, perhaps nearby in the bedroom or as previously mentioned in a living area. It needs to be convenient, if you have an upstairs bedroom but spend most of your time downstairs, find a space downstairs for the mirror and playmat.
The Nienhuis mirror with bar can be seen here.
The Montessori Infant Mirror at This Merry Montessori.
Observing Movement at How we Montessori.
My Infant. Birth to 5 Months at Montessori Australia.
Infant Community at Building Futures Montessori (nice images to see how they use the mirror/s).
Montessori Nursery Tour at Feeding the Soil.
Finnian's Montessori Room at Sew Liberated.
Are you looking for some weekend Montessori reading and inspiration? Here are a few things I'm loving this week.
Simple embroidery piece at Midwest Montessori, this is by Charlotte who is four years old.
Preparing our Montessori Infant Space at Fishies in a Row.
This Montessori nursery in France at The Blog of Sylvie d'Esclaibes.
These photos from Corner of Hope an AMI Educateurs sans Frontières initiative.
We have our flights booked (but still no school for the boys) to the UK, so I've been searching for some inspiring stores, have a look at Grasp + Gather, it's gorgeous! It's not specifically Montessori but they have lots of lovely natural play materials and treasure basket ideas. Please let me know of any UK stores you think I'd like.
Luci, a Montessori teacher, her little one is around five months old. She has so many idea and posts regularly.
Our Montessori Way, also with lots and lots of infant ideas, currently with a daughter at seven months.
Montessori in Motion, with a little one at around three months old.
Montessori in Real Life, with a four-month-old!
Our Montessori Story features Milo now at around four months old.
Rebecca at I am Montessori has a son who is currently six months old.
Jakob at Eltern vom Mars is also six months old.
You can also follow us at How we Montessori, Otto is currently two months old. I hope you have a lovely weekend!
Instagram is a fantastic place to find examples of Montessori bedrooms and floor beds. I love seeing these rooms, most are from everyday families and they all look so comfortable and cozy.
I love this room above. This family decided to use a floor bed after finding the crib wasn't working for them!
I don't know if it's the night light but this room looks super cozy. I like the nice low bed, low shelves, floor rug and low bookshelves. 10/10!
This lovely room from Moje Montessori!
Low artwork, mirror, floor bed.
It's always good to see a Montessori room that is also super modern!
And... just because I adore this handmade bed! I love the little bookshelf on the end.
If you cannot see the above images and are reading via email please click here to see the entire post. I hope you enjoyed these! Please feel free to tag me @howwemontessori or #howwemontessori to share your Montessori rooms.
Travelling with a Montessori Baby at The Montessori Way.
Independent Play: Five Hints to Get the Ball Rolling at Janet Lansbury. The Montessori and RIE approach are not always compatible but I really like this article.
These suggestions are fantastic! My Top Items for an Elementary Montessori Home at The Prepared Environment.
Who doesn't love those little carts? Grocery Shopping with Young Children at Our Montesstory.
I am currently listening to the audiobook Baby Knows Best, I'm only a couple of chapters in, if you've read it let me know.
Have you started introducing solids to your little one? If so, you might enjoy this article. Behold, the Weaning Table at It's Emily. In Real Life.
This isn't a Montessori article, however, the ideas are good and many are suited to a Montessori home. Toys (+ Toy Storage) for Tiny Homes at The Tiny Canal Cottage.
Some gift ideas. A Montessori Gift Guide for Babies, Toddlers and Pre-Schoolers at The Montessori Notebook.
I'm always trying to stay one step ahead of my children, if you have a newborn like me you might enjoy reading On Jacob's Shelf at Six Months at Eltern vom Mars.
If you are interested to see how a Montessori classroom works and are local to the Brisbane area, Caboolture Montessori School is having an open day on Wednesday 15th November. I love touring Montessori schools!
Pictured above is Otto at eight weeks. Our moveable mirror has been fantastic and in this cooler weather, he is enjoying lying on the lambswool. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Otis has been making lots of little gifts for his new brother. He makes lots of paintings for Otto's bedroom walls. Recently he made a cute little heart pillow and scented it with a 'Love' essential oil blend!
Otis loves this heart cake tin and decided to use it to make a heart shape. He traces the cake tin and cuts out his fabric.
Yes, the fabric needs an iron then pin the two pieces together.
And then sew. Our fabulous children's sewing maching is c/o Parent Direct.
If you are not sure about the point of a children's sewing machine you can see the size comparison above. The children's sewing machine is basically the same to thread and to use. The best part is that we can sew side by side. The children's machine also has a protector around the needle (as above) so the child can't hurt themselves - so good!
Sewing teaches so many skills. Just talking about making the cushions with Otis taught him a few things about fabric and cushion construction. All the pinning and cutting and even the sewing part is great for their coordination and fine motor skills. It's also nice to give a gift that you've made yourself.
Otis put a few drops of essential oil onto the stuffing to make it smell nice! Then it was time to stuff and sew up the opening.
Wow! I think they look great. Otis made two cushions, one for himself and one for Otto! This is a really sweet sibling gift idea.
Thank you again to Parent Direct for our children's sewing machine. You can see lots of other creative ideas at the Parent Direct Make and Create Category. We've used Michael Miller (small coloured hearts) and Umbrella Prints (large hearts) fabric on the reverse side. For those in the US I don't have a link for the same children's sewing machine but there are machines with good reviews here.
Do your children enjoy using the sewing machine? You can see Caspar's first sewing project (with the sewing machine) here when he made cute animal cushions.


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Placed an order on line and was very pleased with the pricing that included free shipping. Better yet they communicated with me via email every step of the way. My shipment went out in less than 24 hours and arrived a day earlier than projected. Will use Countrywide for future orders of this type and see what else they carry that we order regularly. Big fan!
I’ve not used them yet, but the shipping was very fast!!


text:
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text: Acquired from Texas in the Cole Hamels trade, Thompson is a stocky right-handed pitcher with four average or better pitches. The fastball sits above-average to plus and can touch 95, but he'll get into trouble when he elevates. Change flashed plus with fade and drop, and is a consistent strike pitch that can generate swing-misses. The curve is an average offering with depth but inconsistent command, while the slider features sharper break than CB and works as his out pitch. Control and command profiles are average, with inconsistencies in the off-speed offerings. Thompson is young for his present level, with the stuff and workhorse build to become a quality mid-rotation option. Low risk bottom-of-rotation contributor.

industry_corpus2: Sports


text:
This article presents new algorithms for inferring users' activities in a class of flexible and open-ended educational software called exploratory learning environments (ELEs). Such settings provide a rich educational environment for students, but challenge teachers to keep track of students' progress and to assess their performance. This article presents techniques for recognizing students' activities in ELEs and visualizing these activities to students. It describes a new plan-recognition algorithm that takes into account repetition and interleaving of activities. This algorithm was evaluated empirically using two ELEs for teaching chemistry and statistics used by thousands of students in several countries.
In exploratory domains, agents' actions map onto logs of behavior that include switching between activities, extraneous actions, and mistakes. These aspects create a challenging plan recognition problem. This paper presents a new algorithm for inferring students' activities in exploratory domains that is evaluated empirically using a new type of flexible and open-ended educational software for science education. Such software has been shown to provide a rich educational environment for students, but challenge teachers to keep track of students' progress and to assess their performance. The algorithm decomposes students’ complete interaction histories to create hierarchies of interdependent tasks that describe their activities using the software. It matches students' actions to a predefined grammar in a way that reflects that students solve problems in a modular fashion but may still interleave between their activities. The algorithm was empirically evaluated on people’s interaction with two separate software systems for simulating a chemistry laboratory and for statistics education. It was separately compared to the state-of-the-art recognition algorithms for each of the software. The results show that the algorithm was able to correctly infer students' activities significantly more often than the state-of-the-art, and was able to generalize to both of the software systems with no intervention.
Plan recognition is one of the fundamental problems of AI, applicable to many domains, from user interfaces to cyber security. We focus on a class of algorithms that use plan libraries as input to the recognition process. Despite the prevalence of these approaches, they lack a standard representation, and have not been compared to each other on common testbed. This paper directly addresses this gap by providing a standard plan library representation and evaluation criteria to consider. Our representation is comprehensive enough to describe a variety of known plan recognition problems, yet it can be easily applied to existing algorithms, which can be evaluated using our defined criteria. We demonstrate this technique on two known algorithms, SBR and PHATT. We provide meaningful insights both about the differences and abilities of the algorithms. We show that SBR is superior to PHATT both in terms of computation time and space, but at the expense of functionality and compact representation. We also show that depth is the single feature of a plan library that increases the complexity of the recognition, regardless of the algorithm used.
The field of intelligent tutoring systems has successfully delivered techniques and applications to provide personalized coaching and feedback for problem solving in a variety of domains. The core of this personalized instruction is a student model; the ITS component in charge of assessing student traits and states relevant to tailor the tutorial interaction to specific student needs during problem solving. There are however, other educational activities that can help learners acquire the target skills and abilities at different stages of learning including, among others, exploring interactive simulations and playing educational games. This article describes research on creating student models that support personalization for these novel types of interactions, their unique challenges, and how AI and machine learning can help.


text:
The villa Bingin Luna is a guest house combines traditional craftsmanship and modernity, bringing you the luxury of a cosy residence in a tropical garden beside a huge swimming pool.
3 upstairs bedrooms enjoy views of the surrounding countryside and the softness of sunrises and sunsets, while the master bedroom you will dive directly into the pool. For your convenience the villa also has a cot.
Enjoy the benefits of a private villa just 3 minutes from the Bingin beach one of the most beautiful surf spots, a small staff in your care, satellite TV with Netflix, free WIFI and Bose sound for your music .
You will have dinner around a friendly family table in a warm and woody atmosphere. The furniture in noble materials is a guarantee of quality of life in Indonesia .
The large rooms consist of king size four-poster beds and all have their own bathroom and air conditioning of course.
The large pool is the heart of the house, plunge inside it without restriction.
Villa Bingin Luna is located on the hill of Bukit in proximity to the beaches of Bingin and Padang Padang, 15 minutes scooter to Ungasan city center and the Uluwatu Temple.
The expressway you will arrive at the international airport in twenty minutes , Seminyak and Kuta in half an hour or an hour to Ubud .


text:
A bubble slime is a monster who appears in the Dragon Quest game series.
Bubble slimes are, as their name would suggest, relatives of Slimes but are more fluid and green by comparison. They also appear to be perpetually bubbling, though the bubbles appear to hang in place instead of being constantly produced.
Bubble slimes are one of the weakest monsters found in the Waterfall cave. Deal with them however you want.
- Treat with Low Priority.
-"This is a great place to live."
-"What? No, I am not the vomitous remains of some other, stronger monster!"
-"You got a little something in your nose. Heh."
-"Slurp! This place is the best! Life is goo!"
'Description: These sticky masses of muck are poisonous to the touch. Once a traveller comes into contact with a bubble slime's body in battle, the effects of the poison will persist until the individual is cured.
Description: Everything these sithering slimes touch is poisoned, so take heed and have some antidotal herbs or a Squelch spell on hand.
After a day off spent relaxing in a poisonous pool to invigorate their venomousness, they bubble much more brightly.
Description: Bubble slimes driven to dangerous extremes by the dark power of the Lord of Shadows.
EerieLite (Lv.15) Note: Can transform its body into any shape.
Please help Dragon Quest Wiki by expanding it.

industry_corpus2: Gaming


text:
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I’m so pissed off. One of my friends moved into a new apartment building a couple of months ago. “You’ll never guess who lives in the building with me!” he started telling me. He was way too excited, way too happy. I could just tell by the look on his face that I’d wind up resenting whatever words came out of his mouth. “Keanu Reeves!” Yup.
I tried to at least not look pissed off, but I probably didn’t do too good of a job. At least I didn’t go right ahead and tell him exactly what I was thinking, which was, so what? You live in the same building as Keanu Reeves? Big deal. Seriously, how is that at all news, at all something to be even remotely happy about let alone gushing with excitement? I live with tons of other people. I don’t even know anybody’s name.
What, do you think all of the sudden because you happen to live in close proximity to a celebrity that you two are going to somehow hit it off? Be friends? “Maybe he’ll knock on my door someday to borrow a cup of sugar!” my friend offered. Please, nobody borrows sugar. That’s ridiculous. If ever found myself in the position where I was in the middle of cooking or baking something, and I realized that not only did I not have any sugar, but I needed a whole cup, like a whole package of sugar, I’d either run to a store and buy some, or more likely, I’d just give up the whole project right there and throw everything away. Because obviously I hadn’t thought this through. Obviously I got way too impulsive about baking, about just throwing a bunch of ingredients in a bowl without even bothering to stop and think to myself, wait a second, do I have any sugar? Do I know how to bake? I tell you what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to start knocking on a bunch of random neighbor’s doors asking them for free groceries. If somebody ever came to my house with an empty measuring cup in hand, I’d take the measuring cup, tell them to wait there one second, and then I’d go inside the house and lock the door. I wouldn’t answer for the rest of the day.
But that’s not what I’m pissed off about. I mean, yeah, I guess I got a little pissed off there, but what I’m really pissed off about is the fact that he did it, my friend, he’s actually like friends with Keanu now. I don’t know how it happened. Well, I know the details of the how, but I just can’t figure out why. They were in the elevator or something and my friend couldn’t help himself. “Oh my God! I loved you in The Replacements!” or something like that. If I were a celebrity, I’d be so annoyed. But not Keanu. They hit it off.
They did like a karaoke night thing at his place the other night. And guess who wasn’t invited? “Oh, you know how it is,” my friend tried to tell me, “I don’t want to impose.” Yeah, he didn’t want to impose at the party, but he had no problem imposing on Keanu’s elevator ride. Isn’t that like an invasion of personal space or something? And it didn’t work for me. I spent like an entire afternoon riding up and down in that same elevator, hoping I’d get my own celebrity run-in.
And I did, I got it, Keanu finally showed up. But it wasn’t just Keanu and me, there was also some old lady in the elevator with us. She had already been up and down like five times that day. I know because I was there every time. On her fourth trip, she must have assumed that I was like an elevator boy, because she just walked in and said, “Twelve, please,” and I was like, “Excuse me, I’m not an elevator boy, you can’t tell me what to do,” and she said, “Elevator boy? Could please just push the twelve button for me? So I did, but only after I pushed two through eleven first.
Anyway, she gives me this dirty look when she walks in, but completely forgets about me once she realizes that she’s sharing my elevator ride with Keanu. “Oh my God!” she starts gushing, “I just loved that movie that you were in with Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson! You know, the one where Diane Keaton flashes the camera? What a great movie!” and Keanu was like, “Hey, thanks a lot. See you around.” And the next thing I knew it was Keanu’s floor, and he was getting ready to get off, and I hadn’t even gotten to say anything to him, like anything at all, and I really wanted to go to that karaoke party.
So as he stepped out of the elevator I kind of shouted, “Wait! Keanu! I loved Bill and Ted! Wait, I mean The Matrix! I loved The Matrix!” and as the elevator door closed, he said something to me like, “Man, those movies came out a long time ago buddy.” And that was it. I banged on the door really hard and screamed, “I love karaoke!” hoping that he heard me through the metal. I think he did, but still, he had no idea who I was or how we might get in contact with one another.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged celebrities, elevators, karaoke, Keanu Reeves, neighbors, sugar on December 6, 2012 by Rob G..
Last week I got stuck in an elevator with five other people. Luckily, one of them happened to be a pizza delivery guy and, you guessed it, he still had his pizza that he was supposed to be delivering after he got off the elevator. I immediately told the group that this pizza represented our only chance at survival if this elevator remained trapped for an extended period of time. The pizza delivery guy tried to brush me off, “Let’s just hold on for a second,” while somebody else tried pressing some of those emergency buttons on the wall.
The buttons didn’t do anything. I’ve always had the suspicion that most elevators just have a bunch of fake buttons to keep people from freaking out. It’s the same thing with those rounded mirrors in the top corners. You think there are any cameras behind there? There aren’t. The only reasonable explanation for those mirrors is so you can check everyone else riding in the elevator at the same time as you. And for real, that’s not a serious explanation. It’s just a trick, just like the fake buttons.
One of the buttons worked, the one that rang that alarm bell. But it was a real bell, and it was definitely attached to the elevator that we were stuck in, so I told the guy to stop pressing it, because it was super annoying. He protested, arguing that somebody outside would hear the ringing and call for help.
I saw the pizza guy pull in his box a little tighter. What kind of a pizza place sends out its pies without one of those thermal bags? It must be that place right down the corner. Which led me to another question. Who the hell would order delivery from one block away? That’s just really lazy. Come on, take a five minute break, stretch your legs. You’ll save money on the tip. No, whoever took the time to make an actual phone call to a pizza place right downstairs, asking them if they’d send up an employee to deliver their pizza, they probably wouldn’t be worrying about a tip anyway.
But that was beside the point. It’s actually a good thing that someone was lazy enough to call, because otherwise I wouldn’t be in here with this pizza. But then again, if that person had just gone downstairs, maybe I’d have had to wait for an additional elevator, because I’m a gentleman and I always insist on holding the doors open for everyone else, and then I wouldn’t be stuck, someone else would. I’d be stuck upstairs for a few minutes, waiting for an elevator that wouldn’t be coming, but I wouldn’t be literally trapped, like I was right then, I would have given up eventually and taken the stairs.
But no thermal bag? That’s a shame. We could have all waited half an hour, forty five minutes, tops, before we had to address the food situation. “Just back off, all right buddy?” the pizza guy warned me. Please, don’t warn me. What’s a warning going to do in a situation with six people stuck in a tiny elevator?
Because who likes to eat cold pizza? I do. I actually like cold pizza. I don’t prefer it over hot pizza, but it’s still good. I don’t like my pizza to be piping hot, but just you know, five, five to seven minutes out of the oven. But room temperature pizza is great too. I’ll even eat it cold out of the fridge. I’ll even eat a frozen pizza out of the freezer. I’ve never done it, but I could. I could just let it thaw until it was room temperature. Or I could just chomp on it still frozen, just biting and swallowing.
That wouldn’t be ideal, but I could make it happen in an emergency. And that’s what this was, an emergency. I was pressing the pizza issue under the guise of its temperature, but I was really just trying to force everyone’s hand, make a move, right now, for the first round of pizza. I’d make it out to be like we’d divide it, evenly, and that everybody would get to either eat their slice right away, or save it for later. I was counting on the fact that most people weren’t currently dying for a slice of pizza. Hell, I wasn’t even that hungry. I just ate like five tacos.
But I’d eat my slice right away, thereby starting at an advantage of an even fuller stomach than everyone else. If we were really stuck in there for a while, everyone else would probably wisely save their slice for when they got really hungry. And in that situation, I’d think about the two extra slices in that box. Because there are only six of us, but eight slices of pizza, seven if you discount the slice that I was planning on having eaten immediately.
And people would tell me stuff like, “Well, you shouldn’t have eaten your slice right away. In fact, you were the one who told us we should eat our slices when we wanted to.” And that would just drive me into a rage. I’d start the craziest confined quarter temper tantrum until somebody said something like, “Fine, just give it to him. Jesus.” And that way I’d get two slices.
But eventually there’d be the issue of that last slice of pizza. I thought, I’ll probably have to wait to make a move, but I could press it a little faster if I could insist that we didn’t have too much time before it spoiled. In which case I’d insist on a lottery for the last slice. It would be silly to try and divide the last piece. First of all, nobody had a knife. It would be a mess. Secondly, there’s no way one sixth of a slice of pizza is going to satisfy anybody’s hunger. Better to give it away to one person.
Of course I’d rig the results. But everyone would be so famished, delusional with hunger, that they wouldn’t be paying attention to me fixing the contest. Only I would have my wits about me, because I’d have two slices of pizza digesting in my stomach, buying me just enough time to outwit everyone else. I’d win, I’d grab the slice, and then I’d have eaten three slices. That’s how you do it. That’s called making the best of a bad situation.
The guy protested, but I was way more aggressive. I shoved a twenty in his face and grabbed the box. As I got into my third slice, I thought, this is awesome. I’m like a king here. I’ll out-survive everybody else in this elevator. But then the doors cracked open. It was two guys with some crowbars.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged elevators, emergency, pizza, stuck in the elevator, survival, Work on November 6, 2012 by Rob G..