Tonight at 8pm: The McIntire Department of music presents Digitalis Under the Stars, on the Lawn in front of Cabell Hall.
The concert will feature music by Louis Andriessen, Boom Box Amoeba, Timothy Dalby, Sofia Gubaidulina, Peter Klatzow, Loren Ludwig, MICE (Mobile Interactive Computer Ensemble), Pauline Oliveros, Troy Rogers, and Michael Slon. The event is free and open to everyone. It looks like the weather will be very nice, so come on out and enjoy an evening of new and interesting music.
Elizabeth Superfantastisch on
April 30, 2007 at 10:10 pm
…and i don’t give a shit. because when i saw this headline, i was hoping that the mother to be was barbara walters. and it’s not. it’s someone of safe childbearing age. i will keep hating this show.
Source: Tulane University
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070426123102.htm
“Use of depot medication for patients in the identified subgroup may help reduce relapses among these patients, the study suggests. This unique group of patients is more likely to include African-Americans and persons who are less likely to be veterans, have had previous psychiatric hospitalizations, were more likely to have been arrested, use alcohol [...]
Just got done reading a couple of odd stories at Reuters.com, and they both involved the populous Asian nation of India. The first one was rather alarming. A farmer in eastern India found out that one of his employees had failed to milk his cows, so he went and found the employee.....and beheaded him. Simply AWFUL. The next story was again set in eastern India. A wedding was about to occur in a small village, but the groom showed up drunk. Villagers at the wedding did the 'logical' thing - they decided he was too drunk to get married. So, with the approval of the bride's family, it was decided to put the younger brother of the drunkard at the alter with the bride-to-be. Well, I knew about the pre-arranged marraige deals in India, but allowing other family members to step in really takes it way too far...WOW. (If you were curious, the bride's say in all this? ZIP, ZERO, ZILCH.) The intoxicated ex-groom did apologize for his behavior later, but lamented the fact that word would get around about his debauchery and that he would never be able to find another bride!
Ah, just got home after having a simply superb evening. Hubby and I went out to dinner with our dear friends the Thompsons. It was long overdue, so we made the most of it. We had a very nice dinner, actually better than expected as it was at a restaurant my husband and I had tried in the past and had been rather disappointed. But since we had heard that there had been some menu changes and improvements, we decided to give it another go, this time with company; a great time was had by all! We then sat a spell at the Thompson's house, whereupon my hubby basically held a clinic. See, he has a Motorola RAZR phone, and recently the Thompsons each got one too. So naturally my tech whiz had to show them various functions of the phone and teach them how to use it. So I sat there, witnessing a Motorola how-to session, and let me tell you, it was rather amusing! Camera, photos, ringtones, how to save and/or send, the works. If the Thompsons can actually remember all the new info, they are more capable folks than yours truly!
so i've picked the two exams i'm going to take first and i've been studying for the one i need to study for and not even thinking about the short one in the only class i've read for all semester. i decided this evening not to take it tomorrow morning, b/c i was doing so well on the fed courts work, so i figured i would just keep plowing thru it and employment law could wait.
no problem.
only a few minutes ago i decided that my head would explode if i looked at another page of fed courts notes, but it didn't seem worth opening employment law, since i'm not taking it tomorrow. i could just go to bed, but for the fact that i took approximately 5 hours off this evening for the gym and dinner and wine on my balcony. oh, after i didn't start studying til about 1pm.
anyways, point being i figured i would start looking at stuff for one of my remaining two classes. so i began by printing out the syllabus. which is probably your first sign that i'm in trouble. then, rather than even making an effort to begin doing the reading from the syllabus, i figured i would just highlight the names of the cases and passages we were supposed to read. in the casebook's table of contents. yes, highlighting the table of contents is what i am now calling "reading." that's how bad it has gotten.
only then it got worse. b/c my name falls early in the alphabet, and he did an alphabetical on-call system. and i NEVER again listened to a word that came out of his mouth, once i had been on call. so for the first half a page of the syllabus, i'm all with it. "oh this isn't going to be so bad! these case names are familiar and i think i even remember some facts!" and then i turn to the second page of the three-page syllabus.
seriously, i have heard maybe a third of these cases even mentioned by name. i have no idea what a single one of them is about. looks like some of them involved railroads. go figure.
the worst part? this isn't even the one of the two remaining classes that terrifies me. this is the one i'm not worried about!
they say no one fails, right? please tell me that's true!
This is where we were on Saturday. Eddie used the lumber to make sure the tiles would be starting out level. He removed those on Sunday and finished installing the bottom row. He needs to do the grout still.
I was recently sent a clipping from the Fargo, North Dakota newspaper (The Forum) about a gay couple attending the Fargo South High School’s prom (that may be where my cousins go, actually…). Anyway, the couple - Jakob Paper and Steven Goering - got front page, headline coverage about the event, and while I applaud Fargo for being so open and accepting about this (at least in the media), I was kind of saddened by the whole story. It saddened me how posed the front page picture of the two holding hands was. It saddened me how the only gay couple open enough to go to prom together was exploited by the media, turning their senior prom into more of a public interest piece than a private one. It saddened me that this had to be front page news in the first place.
As a semi-active member of the independent media here in Charlottesville, I have mixed feelings about the entire issue. We see it in legal case after legal case: someone has to be exploited for progress to be made and change to happen. Why can’t we just let gay couples go to prom without making a big deal out of it? Within a decade or two, I honestly don’t think most [public] schools won’t have seen a gay couple at their prom. I also think this will happen whether or not we make such a big deal out of individual events such as this.
I will, however, applaud Jakob and Steven for taking this initiative in a mostly conservatives state. Plus, I really shouldn’t be criticizing The Forum for devoting half their front page to this story, when The Daily Progress just recently devoted and equal amount of headline space to a father and son jumping in a puddle…
We've got a rather eclectic range of books and DVD's here. Mostly we borrow from the library or rent from Netflix. Some we buy. Here's what we are currently reading/watching, or have just finished with. And we like to listen to some of these on CD instead of actually reading them. :)
Thomas:
Boas & pythons, and other friendly snakes / by John Coborn.
Snakes : giant snakes and non-venomous
In my slashing phase, I have forgotten to post the next chapter. I’ve remedied this tonight. Moving along, at least in posting chapters.
I am still stuck with where I am currently writing, or, more aptly, where I should be writing. That’s chapter 35, and I am relatively happy with the chapters before it. Those should get posted as soon as I can read them again.
The doctor in the house is leaving on Thursday, which means that I will either have plenty of evening time to myself after I get the three wee ones to bed or I will be exhausted. I’ll be exhausted either way, but if I’m just mildly exhausted with no desire to throttle the husband when he returns, I will write and post and slash and burn and feel powerful until he returns on Sunday when I will fall into a heap on the floor at his feet. I get lots of sympathy that way. It isn’t devious, really. He doesn’t need to know that many times life proceeds normally without him, although with fewer showers for me.
I bookmarked this recipe the first time I flipped through Quick-Fix Vegetarian. We love South Indian food, especially crispy potato-filled dosas, but it's hard to make authentic dosas at home. We've tried with packaged mixes and from scratch but you really need to have the right equipment and a practiced technique. We havedone potato quesadillas in the past and those are quite easy. Robin Robertson's meshing of these two finger foods (there's also a very similar recipe in the latest VegNews) isn't exactly authentic but it is easy to make. I didn't end up following the recipe exactly but it was close enough. (Mainly I used more onions and also added black mustard seeds.) Basically you fry some onions, add some curry spices, mash in some potatoes and add peas. Then you fill half a tortilla with this mixture fold it over and fry it until it's brown on both sides. They're good plain or with your favorite chutney. A couple of these babies and a big salad and we were stuffed.
A brand is an identifiable entity that makes some specific promise of value.
Branding is used to create emotional attachment to products and companies. Branding efforts create a feeling of involvement, a sense of higher quality, and an aura of intangible qualities that surround the brand name, mark, or symbol.
Successful branding efforts build strategic awareness where people not only recognize your brand, but they also understand the distinctive qualities that make it better than the competition. Branding is more important today than ever due to ever-increasing advertising clutter, media fragmentation, the commoditization of products, and the seemingly limitless choices we are offered in just about every product category.
As marketers, we need to work hard to ensure that we are offering our customers strong brands that are clearly differentiated and that offer clear, real value and unique benefits. The need for branding has never been greater.
Here are just a few benefits you will enjoy when you create a strong brand:
A strong brand influences the buying decision and shapes the ownership experience.
Branding creates trust and an emotional attachment to your product or company. This attachment then causes your market to make decisions based, at least in part, upon emotion-- not necessarily just for logical or intellectual reasons.
A strong brand can command a premium price and maximize the number of units that can be sold at that premium.
Branding helps make purchasing decisions easier. In this way, branding delivers a very important benefit. In a commodity market where features and benefits are virtually indistinguishable, a strong brand will help your customers trust you and create a set of expectations about your products without even knowing the specifics of product features.
Branding will help you "fence off" your customers from the competition and protect your market share while building mind share. Once you have mind share, you customers will automatically think of you first when they think of your product category.
A strong brand can make actual product features virtually insignificant. A solid branding strategy communicates a strong, consistent message about the value of your company. A strong brand helps you sell value and the intangibles that surround your products.
A strong brand signals that you want to build customer loyalty, not just sell product. A strong branding campaign will also signal that you are serious about marketing and that you intend to be around for a while. A brand impresses your firm's identity upon potential customers, not necessarily to capture an immediate sale but rather to build a lasting impression of you and your products.
Branding builds name recognition for your company or product.
A brand will help you articulate your company's values and explain why you are competing in your market.
Last Thursday, April 26, I was pleased to join a group from Leadership Charlottesville for the unveiling of a new website called "Voices of Poverty." The site features a series of podcast interviews about life in poverty in Charlottesville. Kudos to the team that put this together -- what a terrific project! Click here to see & hear it for yourself. And do spend the 8 minutes listening to the first interview, in which one of our PACEM guests from this past winter (Art) talks very eloquently about life as a homeless person on the streets of our community. You can skip the second interview -- some politician blathering on about affordable housing blah blah blah. :-)
UPDATE: Luke Church of WVTF public radio covered the unveiling of Voices of Poverty; click here to hear Luke's piece.
2006-2007 was a tremendous season for the Wizards. Gilbert Arenas took over the NBA, becoming the hottest "it" player in the league. Caron Butler emerged as an All Star. The team was on top of the world when its Big 3 were healthy in the first 3/5 of the season. Unfortunately, the team was done in by injuries. As such, the East will be won by Chicago or Detroit, and the Wiz will be done before May, just like old times.
Still, I foresee bright times ahead. Caron and Gilbert are just going to get better, and both are young stars. Tawn showed this series just how good he still is, and he still has another year or 2 left in his prime. Haywood is headed elsewhere, but Blatche and Taylor will hopefully get bigger roles next year. In particular, I'd recommend that Donnell Taylor spend 12 hours a day this summer shooting jump shots. He's already athletic, savvy, and possesses superb basketball instincts - if he develops a solid J, he will be the 2nd coming of Larry Hughes at the 2. And what if Blatche suddenly realizes that he's 6'11 and jacked, and that he could be another Amare Stoudamire at the 5, displacing the Poet? Moreover, what if the Wiz can find a way to pick up Kirilenko, Jermaine O'Neal, or Ben Wallace and shore up that interior D? Either way, we will contend again next year. No one among the contenders is going to get vastly better except the Bulls, and the Wiz showed this year that when the Big 3 are healthy, we can hang with anyone. We are Wizards nation, and the world has not heard the last of us, at least assuming that we can keep Wes Unseld away from the personnel department.
I just want to make 1 last note. I remember in the Jordan/Collins years, Doug Collins at one point said something like: "No one in the league is trying to do what we are. We're both trying to win now and trying to develop our young big guys for the future." Well, Jordan, Stackhouse, Hughes, and Oakley couldn't win then. And you know who those young big guys were that Collins was talking about? Kwame Brown, Brendan Haywood, and Etan Thomas. The first is playing sub-mediocre ball for the Lakers, the 2nd is about to bring his sub-mediocre game to his 3rd team, and we would move the Poet except that no one wants his oversized contract. If just 1 of those 3 bigs had developed into even an average NBA center, the Wizards would be an entirely different team. Here are the top 15 centers in the NBA: Yao, Duncan, Gasol, Stoudamire, Shaq, Howard, Okafor, Jefferson, Camby, J. O'Neal, Okur, Z, Aldridge, Curry, Chandler, Kristic. If any one of Kwame, Brendan, or the Poet had turned out to be as good as the bottom of that list, the Wizards would be in excellent shape. Instead the only center we have is undersized, can't really jump, and has a limited post game.
To channel Darth Vader: Mr. Jordan, not only did you fail to make the playoffs with us, but you failed to develop any of your prized big men. Your failure is complete.
Thankfully Jordan is now running Southeast division rival Bobcats into the ground, taking bust Adam Morrison last year over solid rookie contributors like Brandon Roy and Rudy Gay. At least we got something out of the Jordan years, besides Jordan playing just well enough so that we don't make the playoffs, but we also had no shot at Yao or Bron Bron.
We had a lot of fun on Sunday at the Jefferson Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society's native plants sale. These are the plants we ended up buying, but we could have walked away with so much more!
(pic: steeplebush)
Shrubs or bushes:
arrowwood virburnum, v. dentatum --Thomas's pick
black chokeberry--ditto
pink azalea
(pic: pink azalea)
Wildflowers:
steeplebush or hardhack,
Oh, Alienware. For those of us who have fun customizing computers on Dell.com or other PC sites with no intention of actually buying that 8-Grand behemoth, we all know about Alienware. We visit their site (complete with $5,000 base models) and gawk at the 3Ghz systems with quad-SLI graphics cards and optional LED systems for your case (only $200 extra). And now we can add another gawkable item to that list: 1 TB hard drives. Yup, you can now buy 1 terabyte hard drives from Alienware, or if you’re really crazy, hook them up RAID-style and get a whopping 4TB of storage space on one system. Fuuun.
Because you really need enough storage space to hold 7.61 years of continuous music…
Today’s podcast, featuring myself and Kenton Ngo (sadly, only 2/3 of the VAYD Teen Caucus), is accessible via the sidebar. We agreed that it was a success for being the first show. I thought it went very well with the exception of a few instances of me pausing to arrange sentences.
The outro was very awkward also, as I was under the impression that we were no longer live for the last 25 seconds. It was rookie move, but, nonetheless, I promised Kenton that I would work on my departure skills before the next podcast.
Despite all of that, though, it turned out just fine, and I hope you enjoy listening to it!
Edit: Listening to the podcast, It sounds as though I referred to John McCain’s campaign bus as “The Great Talk Express.” I recall saying “Straight Talk Express,” and feel that I have been victimized by unclear audio. It’s a conspiracy!
Sharpies are permanent markers. If they somehow mysteriously end up ALL OVER the skin of a six-year-old, including four colors on her face alone, there's really not a lot you can do to remove the marker, short of using an electric sander. It is now 36 hours until the first grade play, with any luck, the marker will have faded to the color of old bruises by then.
My sister-in-law came over with my one month old nephew today. My god he's just the cutest thing ever. It's a good thing the baby fussed and cried while he was here (in between some really adorable smiles), as well as produced a couple of nasty-ish diapers, or else I'd be getting Pete drunk tonight and trying to seduce him into another round of parenthood.
With only five weeks of school left, I have to say that I'm not feeling motivated to check over the children's homework or quiz them on their spelling words. Again, I'm just so thankful that they're near-geniuses and don't need a lot of maintenance.
We just hired a paving company to completely redo our driveway, including regrading the Everest section that almost requires a Hummer to ascend. It's going to be so nice to no longer be the white trash neighbors with the massive potholes and crumbling parts with crabgrass growing through the cracks. Of course, since our driveway is 115 feet from bottom to top, it's not going to be cheap to replace. I'm so pathetic that I was looking at the driveway yesterday and getting excited about fresh edges and straight lines.
I was at Dollar Tree today and found Fritos Scoops! How handy that the junk food people made it so convenient for me to scoop chili and/or cheese RIGHT ONTO my Fritos, with virtually no mess. It's a divine sign that I'm meant to eat more Fritos.
One of the weblogs I subscribe to on Google Reader is Iraq the Model. It makes for sad reading these days - among the Iraqi blogs it is rather exceptional. The brothers who post on it are unabashedly pro-American; the blog's entire raison d'etre was to discuss the ways that a post-Saddam Iraq could be a constructive model for the Middle East.
A recent post by Omar was particularly heartrending
Yeah, not me, IronMo! However, I wasn't exactly slacking off. As a proud alumna of the Scream Tunnel, I had a repuation to uphold. IronMo did an awesome job, and totally inspired me to work on speed so that someday I might run Boston (though hopefully not in a nor'easter).
Uh-oh. I have a new favorite native plant. Not surprisingly, it is blue. I am starting to feel like a one-trick pony. But, as many of you might have picked up, this obsession has been going on for about fifteen years. Alas, it's not going anywhere.
Latin:Phlox divaricata
Annual or perennial: Perennial
Description: 1-1/2" blue flowers with fragrant notched petals.
Growing Conditions: Filtered sun to full shade. Well drained, humus rich, slightly acid soil. Think woodlands.
Anne Kornblut had a good piece of reporting in today's WaPo about a guy called Mark Penn, described as the "chief strategist" for Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. If you...
It’s sad that a bunch of “historical preservationists” are gonna keep Steve Jobs from having a house that he actually wants to live in. As usual the California Supreme Court is no help.
I was at the city market Saturday, and left noon-ish, right after my first (and definitely not my last) visit to the Flat.
There was a long line to leave the parking lot, and I saw it was extremely difficult for another driver to back out of their parking spot. After they backed out and left the lot immediately before me, the parking lot attendant informed me that they had paid for our parking. Completely unnecessary, but very appreciated (especially after paying $15 to park to see Jon Stewart that evening). Thanks!
The Winograd Commission, established by Israeli PM Ehud Olmert to investigate Israel's notably unsuccessful performance in last summer's war against Lebanon, today issued a first "Partial Report" in Jerusalem. The...
As before mentioned, Sweet Briar College's President Elizabeth Muhlenfeld has just made the commitment along with 201 other colleges and universities in America to reach for the goal of climate neutrality on campus by 2009, two years after the signing of the commitment agreement. This is incredibly hopeful news, both for the future of SBC as a college and community, and also for the healthful future of our world's inhabitants.
Other members of the faculty and staff at SBC are practicing their own forms of sustainable living and working. Tim Kasper is one of these individuals. Since arriving at Sweet Briar, Kasper has headed up the Community Garden on campus. The Community Garden is a one-acre plot of land where students and faculty alike are invited to actively grow and harvest organic vegetables and fruit for the shared consumption of its farmers.
But that's not all...Kasper also runs the newest enviro-awareness educational program at the College: the Institute for Sustainability and Environmental Education. Through this program, Kasper and grounds superintendant Donna Meeks, have been active in inspiring students and faculty to plant 25 new trees on campus as part of the President's Climate Commitment pledge. Also, Kasper and fellow community members, including the Virginia Master Naturalist program, have helped in the construction and design of new nature trails which weave throughout SBC's 3,300 acre campus. The trails were recently inaugurated on Friday, April 20th, 2007.
These steps are just some of many taking place at Sweet Briar. Even I would love a hand in helping SBC's evolution into a sustainable, healthy environment focused on climate neutrality! Perfect Flavor's hope is to get involved in programs like this in schools all over Virginia. We plan on beginning educational programs for elementary students, teaching them about healthful consumption and respectful care of the environment. Our wish is to bring inspiration to our youth through gardening classes and school gardens, milk-share programs through our company's CSD (Community Supported Dairy) as well as other approaches, which even include ice cream seminars! (Everyone can have their ice cream AND eat it, too!)
If you or your organization would like to become involved with our initiative, or even if you just know of a school or program who needs our help, please contact me at lynsie@perfectflavor.com.
Next week, check in for the beginning of my veggie garden journal, which I will update weekly and (hopefully) offer some input and advice so that you, too, can grow your own vegetables for you and your family's consumption!
bgibson@dailyprogress.com on
April 30, 2007 at 12:28 pm
My fellow Fringies,
There are times in life when you sit down and think hard about what you got, what you not got and what you really, really need. There are times when you meet people, good people, people like you trying to make enough money to get a living and mortgage and picket fence with a few expensive, flowering plants with which to feed the deer. Then you see these people hurting and hurting bad.
The Fraziers are folks like that. Their 2-year-old daughter Kelli, is dying of an inherited disease. They’ve had the courage to turn down experiemental medical treatments that would have been painful at best and fatal at worst, allowing Kelli to pass quietly in her own time, in the arms and hearts of her family.
But medical treatments, including the tiny pharmacy that keeps Kelli as comfortable as possible, are costly and could easily overwhelm a middle-class income in a community where living costs are battering the middle-class.
So what, you’re wondering, am I getting at. I’m getting at what we can do. We can ride.
Here’s the deal. The Stony Point Volunteer Fired Department is putting out a benefit motorcycle poker run for the Fraziers on Saturday. May 5, 2007 with a May 12 rain date. Don’t worry. The weather forecasters call for sun. The ride will start at the department, 3827 Stony Point Road (RT 20 N) and costs $20 a bike plus another $5 for someone on the um, back seat.
Registration is at 8 a.m. and includes breakfast. Eat to ride and ride to eat!
The first bike is out at 9 a.m. and the last is out at 10 a.m and there are the usual prizes and door prizes, raffles and drawings, and lunch.
Call Firefighter Santana at (434) 760-1303 for more information, fill up with some dinosaur bones, get on your bikes and ride.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Stacy Snyder, a 27-year-old student at Millersville University of Pennsylvania, was denied her education degree (and the accompanying teaching certificate) after student-teacher advisors and university officials discovered an “unprofessional” picture of the degree candidate on her MySpace page.
Ok, so finally... OFFICIALLY.. I can announce that I have accepted another position in another department where I work. Still in my same field, not much more money, but a much healthier situation if/when the kids come to live with me. I just *really* hope it's the right decision.
