A dishwasher is an essential appliance in any modern kitchen. It saves time, water, and energy, making cleaning up after meals much easier. However, a new dishwasher can be expensive, and only some have the money to pay for one upfront. This article will explore some options for paying for a new dishwasher.
Assess Your Finances
Before you start shopping for a new dishwasher, it’s important to assess your finances. Determine how much you can afford to spend and create a budget. Look for areas where you can cut costs to save money. For example, consider cutting back on dining out or entertainment expenses. Use the money you save to put towards your new dishwasher.
Consider Financing Options
Financing is a popular option for purchasing a new dishwasher. Many appliance retailers offer financing plans with low monthly payments and no interest for a set period of time. However, comparing financing options and reading the fine print is important. Ensure you understand the interest rates and fees associated with the financing plan.
One other form of financing that you may consider if you live in Canada is a payday loan. Payday loans in Canada are short-term loans that are typically due on your next payday. They are a quick and easy way to get cash and do not require collateral. They are unsecured personal loans that you can use for your short-term needs.
Whatever option you choose, carefully review the terms and conditions of any financing plan.
Look into Rebates and Discounts
Many appliance manufacturers and retailers offer rebates and discounts for dishwashers. Look for promotions on the manufacturer’s website or in-store. These promotions can include cash-back offers, discounts, or free installation. Some utility companies also offer rebates for energy-efficient appliances. Take advantage of these offers to save money on your new dishwasher.
Consider DIY Installation
Installation fees for a new dishwasher can add up quickly. If you are handy with tools and have experience with plumbing and electrical work, consider installing the dishwasher yourself. DIY installation can save you hundreds of dollars. However, ensure you have the necessary tools, knowledge, and experience to complete the job safely and correctly. If you need more clarification, hiring a professional to install the dishwasher is best.
Sell or Trade In Your Old Dishwasher
If you currently have a working dishwasher, consider selling it or trading it in for a discount on your new appliance. Selling a used dishwasher can offset the cost of a new one. Consider listing it for sale on local classifieds websites, such as Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. Make sure to clean and repair any damages before selling it. If your appliance retailer offers a trade-in program, take advantage of it. You can receive a discount on your new dishwasher by trading in your old one.
Purchasing a new dishwasher can be a significant expense, but there are several options for paying for it. Assess your finances and create a budget to determine how much you can afford to spend. Consider financing options, but make sure to read the fine print and understand the interest rates and fees. Look for rebates and discounts to save money on your new dishwasher. Finally, sell or trade in your old dishwasher to offset the cost of your new one. By using these tips, you can make a smart and informed decision when purchasing a new dishwasher.
Have you ever dreamed of owning a piece of fine art but felt that it was out of reach financially? An art auction may be the answer to your dreams! Art auctions are an excellent way to purchase original artworks without breaking the bank. With the right approach, art auctions can be a great way to build a collection of art and save money.
The benefits of an art auction
For those who are looking to add to their art collection or simply just want to try something new, art auctions can be an excellent way to obtain art. Art auctions offer a unique opportunity to purchase artwork from all over the world at competitive prices. With a broad selection of works to choose from, they provide an exciting and engaging experience.
One of the main advantages of attending an art auction is that buyers have the chance to buy authentic artwork without the risk of buying a counterfeit piece. This can save buyers both money and time since they don’t need to worry about being scammed by an online seller.
Auctions also provide an opportunity for the buyer to get to know the artist and their work, as well as to discuss any questions with auctioneers or knowledgeable collectors.
How to participate in an art auction
Attending an art auction is a great way to find unique and valuable pieces of art. But it can be intimidating if you’ve never attended one before. Here are some tips to help make sure your first experience at an art auction is a successful one. Before you attend the auction, take some time to research the artwork that is being offered. Learn about the artist and the piece you are interested in. Knowing what you are bidding on can help you make informed decisions during the auction.
The difference between an art auction and an online sale
Auctions and online sales both offer a great way for art collectors to purchase artwork, but there are some key differences between the two. An art auction is a live event where bidders compete in a competitive environment to purchase pieces of art. Bidding is fast-paced and participants must be willing to pay the highest price in order to secure the artwork they desire.
Online sales are much different in that they are usually conducted over a longer period of time. Instead of a competitive environment, buyers have the opportunity to browse through the artwork and make their selections at their own pace. This allows buyers to take their time, research the piece, and evaluate whether it’s worth purchasing or not.
Furthermore, buyers may be able to negotiate a lower price as they may not have to compete with other bidders. Another difference between an art auction and an online sale is that auctions are typically reserved for more expensive pieces of art, while online sales tend to feature more affordable artwork. As a result, those who want to purchase high-end artworks may find it more beneficial to attend an art auction than to purchase from an online store.
Some years ago, in 2015, I spoke with Paul Hellyer the former Canadian minister of defense, who stated he believes UFOs are from another planet and that the U.S. Government has kept it covered up.
As Canadian Minister of National Defense in 1963, Hellyer was responsible for integrating and unifying the Royal Canadian army, navy and air force into a single organization, the Canadian Armed Forces.
He is outspoken about UFOs visiting Earth and the US Banking System that he feels is greatly responsible for the present economic hard times. He feels we are naive and fail to understand we are being visited by alien life forms.
He told me he had spoken with key US government officials who confirmed aliens are visiting us and providing advanced technology.
His book, “Light at the End of the Tunnel: A Survival Plan for the Human Species” reveals that humans are hell bent for extinction unless we change our attitudes and actions with an urgency appropriate to an impending disaster. Paul Hellyer suggests that we have about ten years to wean ourselves from the oil economy and profoundly regrets that the Copenhagen Conference reflected little progress in that direction.
The whole atmosphere was one that reminded him of Emperor Nero fiddling while Rome burned. World leaders simply have to do better! The book outlines the three monumental changes required to accommodate the miracle. First, the book claims that exotic energy sources already exist. They have been developed by the U.S. “shadow government” at the massive underground “black operation” installations in Nevada and Arizona using technology borrowed from visitors from other planets. Yet they remain secret for the alleged benefit of the privileged few. Second, the money has to be found to subsidize poor nations and facilitate major changes. This can be accomplished by a fundamental re-working of the monetary and banking system. Bank leverages must be dramatically reduced and the percentage of virtual money they create as debt strictly limited so that governments can gain the financial flexibility to finance the transition to sustainability. Finally, it will be necessary for all countries, races, faiths and colors to drop their antagonisms and work together in common purpose to save the heritage they have in common.
When Hellyer was Canada’s Minister of National Defense he stated, “I got periodic reports on sightings and I looked at them very casually, and it was decided that about 80 percent of them were natural phenomena of one sort or another, and the other 20 percent roughly were unexplained, and therefore unidentified. While spending one Thanksgiving holiday north of Toronto, Hellyer and his wife spotted an UFO. “The two of us stood there transfixed for 20 minutes, looking up at this thing moving first in one direction, and then another. By process of elimination, we determined it wasn’t a star or satellite and it wasn’t the space station, so there was really no explanation for it other than it was, in fact, a UFO.”
“It looked like a star, but it maneuvered in a way that stars do not. I must admit that when I saw this one, I wondered whether it was extraterrestrial or American. And I guess the thought that occurred to me was that if it is American, then they have learned some pretty big secrets about acceleration, because it accelerated at a pace that nothing I’ve ever known about that was built here is capable of.” For the Silo, George Filer. Join MUFON.
FINAL ISSUE! The attempted assassination of President Quinn during peace talks with the Red Queen pushes Earth towards a galactic war with an alien enemy. But when the assassin’s identity is revealed as Stormy Daniels, Agent Aela Grant and the crew of the Helix II must choose sides. Will they join Space Force in their hunt for one of their own, or will they become criminals? The first season of Space Force ends in this explosive and game-changing issue!
Polka Spot: The World According to Llama #3
Writer: Michael Frizell
Artist: Yehia Mohran
In this fun, all-ages, action-adventure comedy, Polka Spot, everyone’s favorite drama llama, is on location filming her next movie, “The Princess and the Beast.” What she doesn’t know is that the film’s location is famous for sightings of the Hairy Man, a monster that haunts the woods. Meanwhile, someone plots behind the scenes to steal her necklace and crown! Can Polka Spot and her companion, the plucky cat, Jolene, solve the mystery of the hairy man, prevent the theft, and save the movie?
Black History Leaders: Volume 4: Mariah Carey, Donna Summer, Whitney Houston and Lil Nas X
Writers: Darren G. Davis, Michael Frizell, Raphael Moran
Artists: Victor Moura, Kirk Feretzanis, Pablo Martinena
From the hit “Fame” and “Female Force” imprints by TidalWave comics, this volume explores the musicians who have made an indelible mark on our culture, including: LaDonna Adrian Gaines, better known as Donna Summer, the Queen of Disco. Lil Nas X, the multi-award-winning rapper who breaks glass ceilings as a gay man in hip-hop. Whitney Houston, an idol to millions with the voice of an angel whose meteoric career defined a generation, couldn’t keep her demons at bay. Often called the Queen of Christmas and the Songbird Supreme, Mariah Carey’s rise to stardom was not without pitfalls – something she isn’t shy to explore with her five-octave range.
Bold and the Brave #15
Writer: Darren G. Davis
Artist: Breed
There is a new minotaur in town and what are his ties to the villainess Medusa. Will the 10th Muse has to join forces with her in order to save a family that is in chaos. Also the relationship between Emma and Zak heats up. Homage cover by Marvel Comics artist Yonami
Wrath of the Titans: Argos #1
Writer: Chad Jones
Artist: Marcelo Henrique Santana
Perseus is back to face off once again with the titans of myth. Set immediately after the defeat of the mighty Kraken, Perseus plans to rebuild the city of Argos. But his wife-to-be Andromeda is kidnapped by one of Medusa’s gorgon sisters out for her ultimate revenge.
TidalWave Comics Presents Volume 2
Writers: Andrew Shayde, Scott Davis, Adam David Gragg, Chad Rebman
Artists: Carlos Furuzono, Diego Garavano, Addullah, Esdras Cristobel
A new unique team-up ongoing series! The TidalVerse is here! The members of the series, teams up with the TidalWave Universe’s vast array of colorful, costumed adventurers for a series that hearkens back to the Bronze Age of comics when team-ups were something special! This homage series together for the first time features Camelot, Zeus, Orion the Hunter, Venus, Sigma, The Muse, Monsters Among Us and Dorian Gray.
10th Muse: New Beginnings #1
Writer: Darren G Davis and Michael Frizell
Artist: Igor Cicarini
The world met Emma Sonnet, the 10th Muse, 22 years ago when she debuted in the 6th highest-selling comic book of all time. After a personal tragedy, Emma relocates to NYC, hoping for a new start. But Hades, the king of hell, has other plans. TidalWave’s latest ongoing series starts here! Greek mythology has documented the nine Muses, the inspirational daughters of the almighty god Zeus. But history forgot one-the 10th Muse. Emma Sonnet mysteriously disappeared five years ago during a summer trip to Greece celebrating her graduation from law school. Yesterday, she resurfaced just as mysteriously as the newly appointed District Attorney, with a unique take on the law. Battling evil in the courtroom by day, and in the shadows at night, Emma Sonnet is tipping the scales of justice her way, as The 10th Muse.
TidalWave Comics Presents #9: Camelot and Zeus
Writer: Scott Davis
Artist: Abdullah
Resistance! Not all heroes are blessed with understanding or even control of their powers. And not all heroes, given powers to rival the Greek gods, are given Olympus’ blessing. So it’s no wonder that former legal assistant and current hero-in-training Camelot is having a bad day, only it’s about to get worse! His rent is late, the gods are gunning for him, and to top it all off, the nefarious Captain Steel is creating havoc of epic proportions. What’s a hero to do? The Odyssey returns with a story that shows it takes more than a cape and a cool name to be a hero. Guest starring Zeus, God of Thunder.
Where to Find TidalWave Comics
TidalWave Comics’ vast catalog of titles can also be downloaded digitally from Kindle, iTunes, EPIC!, Madefire, Izneo, ComiXology, Global Comics, DriveThru Comics, Google Play, Overdrive, Library Pass, Biblioboard, Nook, Kobo and wherever eBooks are sold.
New York – Through an innovative, children-led campaign delivered by the UN’s global fund for education in emergencies, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), crisis-impacted girls and boys worldwide are sharing “Postcards from the Edge” to call on world leaders and public and private sector donors to make good on promises to ensure education for all by 2030 as outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals.
These first-person accounts and drawings offer inspiring and thought-provoking portraits of the challenges facing girls and boys caught in conflict and protracted crises around the world.
“They are inspiring and compelling stories of hope and an incredible resilience in the face of adversity and testaments to the amazing power of education to transform lives. We must listen to the world’s children. They deserve their human right to an education. Their voice must speak to our decency, they deserve to be heard,” said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait.
To date, more than 50 letters, drawings and videos have been received from crisis-affected girls and boys supported through ECW-funded programmes across more than 20 of the world’s toughest country-contexts.
ECW’s strategic partners – including Educo, Plan International, Save the Children, Street Child, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNICEF, World Vision and many others – continue to collect these first-person accounts to highlight the singular power of education to end violence, hunger and poverty, and build a more peaceful world for generations to come.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lucas*, a 14-year-old refugee from the Central African Republic recounts the story of seeing his mother murdered and his village burnt to the ground.
Through a multi-year resilience programme delivered by UNHCR with funding from ECW, the boy is now back in school and dreams one day of becoming a doctor.
In his postcard, Lucas makes an impassioned plea for world leaders “to think of us refugee children and provide funding to let us finish our studies.”
Worldwide 222 million girls and boys like Lucas are having their futures ripped from them by the converging impacts of conflict, climate change, forced displacement and other protracted crises. Girls and children with disabilities are especially at risk.
Several letters were submitted from girls and boys in Afghanistan. With new rules banning girls from education and denying women their human rights, it is not clear if Zehab* from the Uruzgan Province will be able to continue her education. But for now, with the support of ECW and Street Child, she is still able to attend a non-formal community-based learning programme.
“I want to get education and become a well-known doctor. But I am wondering that I might not achieve my dreams, as girls are not allowed to attend schools in Afghanistan,” she says in her postcard. “I call on the world leaders to help us and give us the opportunity to learn and lead our future.”
Leaders across the globe will come together at the Education Cannot Wait High-Level Financing Conference on February 16 and 17 in Geneva, Switzerland, to make good on commitments to ensure every child, everywhere, is offered a quality education.
Throughout the event, youth advocates and global champions will read the Postcards from the Edge to ensure the voice of the world’s most vulnerable children are heard.
Education Cannot Wait is calling on donors, foundations and high-net-worth individuals to mobilize US$1.5 billion over the next four years. With this funding, ECW and its strategic partners will reach 20 million children and adolescents with the safety, hope and opportunity that only quality education can provide.
*Names have been changed for privacy purposes.
#PostcardsFromTheEdge – Letters from Children
POSTCARDS
“For me, #education is the only hope I have left to achieve my dream of becoming a doctor.”~Lucas, 14, 🇨🇫 refugee in #DRCongo. Read how @EduCannotWait+@UNHCR_DRC help children like Lucas achieve their dreams!👉bit.ly/3XTpzEf#PostcardsFromTheEdge
Darline, 14, from #Haiti🇭🇹 demands change & an #education! @EduCannotWait’s #PostcardsFromTheEdge Campaign amplifies the voices of girls & boys like Darline ahead of #HLFC2023.Read Darline’s powerful letter📨http://bit.ly/3ixhKoX @UNICEFHaiti#222MillionDreams✨📚
“I want to be an architect in the future to help build & reconstruct my country #Syria🇸🇾 & all the countries that are affected by war & destruction.” ~Kamil, 12, refugee in #Iraq. Read @EduCannotWait’s #PostcardsFromTheEdge delivered w/@SavetheChildren.📨 http://bit.ly/3kui6Nt
“I aspire to be a #teacher because I feel I have a heart to care, ears to listen, time to give & ideas to share” ~Huma, #Pakistan🇵🇰. Read her #PostcardsFromTheEdge to hear how @EduCannotWait+@UNICEF_Pakistan is making #222MillionDreams✨📚 come true.📨bit.ly/3R7l4UE
11-year-old Zawad, a refugee in #Bangladesh🇧🇩, wants his community and family to prioritize education. With support from @UNICEFBD+@EduCannotWait his dreams are coming true. Learn more in his inspiring #PostcardsFromTheEdge 👉bit.ly/3DcFl5s
“I call on the world leaders to help us and give us the opportunity to learn and lead our future.” ~Zehab, #Afghanistan🇦🇫. Read Zehab’s @EduCannotWait’s #PostcardsFromTheEdge 📨https://bit.ly/3CTEpmh Like & retweet if you agree #EducationCannotWait for #Afghan girls!
Life sometimes can seem off kilter as responsibilities mount and people plow all their physical and mental resources into what seems to be the most pressing crisis of the moment.
But Lumbie Mlambo says that’s a good time to take a step back. Everyone has the potential to shine in life’s darkest moments, but the key to achieving goals and an overall better existence is to maintain a balance so that one aspect of your life isn’t consumed by another.
While some people might say balance in life is an impossible goal, she disagrees and says when each of us find our equilibrium, we become more productive and a greater asset to our communities.
“There’s balance in everything we do, be it walking, talking, eating, sleeping, working or spending time with family,” says Mlambo, editor of Equanimity Magazine, an online publication that features inspiring stories of life and success.
“For example, look at how we try to deal with our work-life situation. We balance our workload so that we can still make room for other activities, to spend more time with our spouses or our children. We do that because we understand how important it is.”
She offers these reasons for why living a balanced life is essential.
• The health factor. Staying balanced is a key to a healthier and successful life. Both mental health and physical health benefit, and as a result, so do our overall lives. “When we’re healthy, we’re able to care for ourselves and others in our community,” Mlambo says.
• The empathy factor. When we find balance in life, we can better understand the importance of helping the underprivileged, says Mlambo, who grew up in a rural area in Zimbabwe. You begin to realize that someday you could be in their situation, which makes you a more empathetic person. “Your economic situation is like your health,” she says. “Nothing is guaranteed.”
• The role-model factor. Sharing our stories – whether it’s a tale of success or even a tale of failure – is important because others can learn from us or be inspired by us as they too strive for a balanced life. “When you tell your story, it empowers, motivates and encourages people to not give up on their dreams and goals,” Mlambo says. “Maybe you think your story is just not that interesting or important. But for someone out there, it may be the spark that ignites them to great things.”
Mlambo always strove to find balance in her life. But she became even more passionate about it after she suffered a stroke in 2001 that left her partially paralyzed. She since has recovered, but says the event had a profound impact on her and she will always consider herself a stroke patient.
“Before the stroke, I thought my life was balanced in a way,” she says. “I mean, I ate healthy foods. I exercised seven days a week. But it was not balanced in the way I wanted. I had been too focused on myself. I realized that life was not just about me, but about others.”
Finding balance in life isn’t just a feel-good concept, Mlambo says. As people achieve balance, they realize they have the potential to rise above their circumstances. They can become more productive in their communities and that is good for everyone.
“Staying proactive and shifting the way we think can even help the economy to grow and can help create more jobs,” she says.
Certainly, maintaining a balanced life may be tougher than ever because technology allows work – emails, text messages, telephone calls – to intrude on people’s “off” hours. But that’s just all the more reason to make a concerted effort to strive for balance, Mlambo says.
She says it’s become popular in some circles to argue that a balanced life is a myth and can’t be achieved. But regardless of their views, she says, most people seem to be trying to bring balance to their lives, even if they don’t think of it that way.
“We eat healthy to stay balanced, we get enough sleep or rest to avoid stress, we juggle our daily activities to stay balanced,” Mlambo says. “To be successful in anything we do, we must have some sort of balance.” For the Silo, Lumbie Mlambo.
Screenshot from waaaay back in 2010 and from an Ontario Lottery Gaming commercial. The premise? You’re stuck in a desert in a stalled car with a giant robot attacking. But then you remember what’s in the glove compartment…watch the video below and realize that counting on a lottery win is not the best way to financial security.
Maybe you’ve seen the ad, or one like it? For example-an Ontario Lottery Gaming commercial that depicts an attractive woman climbing out of bed, enjoying a leisurely cup of coffee before climbing into the cockpit of a sailboat, the implication being that if one wins a multi-million dollar jackpot, one can have the “yachty” lifestyle.
As I write this, I am sitting in the cockpit of my sailboat sipping a cup of coffee while enjoying the morning sun, and I have never won the lottery. In fact, I will be going to work at my average-guy, average-wage job shortly. Then, at the end of the workday, I will be returning to my sailboat, to enjoy the sunset.
For several years my wife, and I, and our dog, have spent the spring, summer and fall aboard our small sailboat. We return to our “dirt-home” only occasionally, to do laundry, mow the lawn so the neighbours don’t complain, collect mail and make sure the place hasn’t burned down.
This is the view that Bryan enjoys along with his ‘dock coffee’ at the Port Dover Harbour Marina. photo: B. Jones
After all, we need some place to live when the water is too hard and too cold to float a sailboat.
When new acquaintances find out that we are sailors and dock-rats, we often hear, “Oh, I have always wanted to sail!” or “I have always wanted to live on a boat!” What follows is often an enjoyable conversation about how to make it happen, how to “live the dream.”
I will confess, though, when hearing “Oh, I have always wanted to…” that the curmudgeonly little voice in the back of my head wants to retort, “No, you haven’t. If you really did, you would be doing it.”
Because it ain’t that hard to do.
We’re not rich. As I mentioned, my wife and I are pretty average people. Average age, average income, average credit scores, average sized mortgage, kids in college… look up “average” in the dictionary, and you don’t see our picture, because there are millions of folks just like us, and somebody way up the line got the honour.
We made a choice. We chose to buy a good, old boat for a mid-four- figure sum, invest a few hundred bucks a year on maintenance and a few hundred more on a slip to dock it in.
Our boat cost less than the annual membership at many golf clubs, and our slip fee for 6 months is less than a two week cottage rental in Turkey Point.
Bryan’s solution to beating the heat is to leave the dock and sail into the wind.
(Okay, before you start pelting me with hate mail, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with golf or vacationing in Turkey Point. Really. Except the clothes. KIDDING!)
It isn’t all fun and games and Jimmy Buffett tunes though.
Before you dash out and buy an old boat, here’s ten things my wife and I have learned over the past few seasons:
1. The stuff that bothers each of you about each other in 2000 sq ft on land does not magically go away in less than 200 sq ft on water. Learn to communicate, consider and compromise.
2. If you take it out, put it away. Now.
3. Each new item onboard means an old item has to leave.
4. Its okay to not talk.
5. One cooks, one does dishes. Helping doesn’t help.
6. When the dog needs shore patrol, the dog. Needs. Shore. Patrol. Now.
7. Find your own quiet spot, whether it is the v-berth, quarter berth, foredeck or cockpit.
8. You don’t have to get there today. You don’t even have to get there tomorrow.
9. When docking, mooring, anchoring, tacking or damn near anything goes awry, talk it out, and then hug it out.
10. There is a difference between being heard, and yelling.
We live in a slip on a dock with no services. No electricity and no water (aside from that which the boat floats in, smart-alecks,) means we have to refill our onboard water tank from 6 gallon water jugs hauled up the dock a couple of times a week, heat water on our alcohol stove to wash dishes, use solar panels to keep our batteries topped up and we don’t have air conditioning, or a microwave, or a big flat screen TV. A shower is a 10 minute dinghy ride or 15 minute walk away.
And we’re cool with that. We have become better, more creative cooks, we read more, we talk more, and the sunsets here and the characters we share them with more than compensate. We have talked more, laughed more and shared more with our dock-side neighbors than we ever have with our neighbors “on the dirt.” Our house is a house, but this is our home. For the Silo, Brian Jones.
Paris, January, 2023 – The World Heritage Committee meeting in an extraordinary session on Thursday inscribed the Landmarks of the Ancient Kingdom of Saba, Marib (Yemen) on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
The Landmarks of the Ancient Kingdom of Saba, Marib, is a serial property comprising seven archaeological sites that bear witness to the rich Kingdom of Saba and its architectural, aesthetic and technological achievements from the 1st millennium BCE to the arrival of Islam around 630 CE.
Yemen’s recorded history started when it was known as Saba/Sheba three thousand years ago, on the main spice route from the east to Europe, and was rich and powerful. The Queen of Sheba’s visit to King Solomon appears in both the Bible and the Koran.
They bear witness to the complex centralized administration of the Kingdom when it controlled much of the incense route across the Arabian Peninsula, playing a key role in the wider network of cultural exchange fostered by trade with the Mediterranean and East Africa.
Located in a semi-arid landscape of valleys, mountains and deserts, the property encompasses the remains of large urban settlements with monumental temples, ramparts and other buildings.
The irrigation system of ancient Ma’rib reflects technological prowess in hydrological engineering and agriculture on a scale unparalleled in ancient South Arabia, resulting in the creation of the largest ancient man-made oasis.
Marib Dam photos before and after the destruction. photo: German Archaeological Institute/Burkhard Vogt
The World Heritage Committee used an emergency procedure to inscribe this site on the List of World Heritage in Danger, due to threats of destruction from the ongoing conflict.
The List of World Heritage in Danger provides access to enhanced international assistance, both technical and financial, and helps mobilize the entire international community for the protection of sites.
I am sure that many of you will agree that the streetcars that rumbled through Toronto from 1800s until… let’s say 1990’s helped shape many neighborhood. They were the most effective way to connect Toronto’s core with its suburbs and greatly encouraged development of the communities as new grocery stores, restaurants, galleries, shops and banks as amenities have been built near the streetcar lines.
Standing in the middle of road, going nuts being stuck behind a streetcar, it is sometimes difficult to appreciate how important role they have played in the city’s history.
First Streetcars in Toronto
Inspired by the success of horse-drawn streetcars in the U.S., Alexander Easton’s Toronto Street Railway company started operating in 1861. New rail lines played a vital important role in connecting the city centre with its sleepy suburbs. What started as an enterprise with 6 miles of track and 11 cars, turned slowly into 68 miles of track with 361 street cars. The company expired in 1891 and the management was turned over to the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).
The next company to take control over the system was the Toronto Railway Company, under which first electric streetcars were introduced. All services were later taken over by the Toronto Transportation Commission, which was later renamed to the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).
Building street car tracks on Bay St. Toronto circa 1918
However, even streetcars had their bad times. In the 1960s they were almost abandoned when people thought of it as an outdated mode of transportation. Thirty years later it fell upon hard times once again because of budget cuts, the recession and its inability to service the rapidly-growing parts of the city.
It took months for the TTC to pull itself out of its bad times, but streetcars somehow managed to return back to their previous fame. Since then, the company’s services have been improving every year, but there are still some issues. Let’s take a look at the current state of the streetcar rail services in Toronto, its advantages and the most annoying faults.
The Ashbridges Bay street car line 1917.
Present
Although the number of streetcars crossing the city declined in the latter half of the 20th century, they never disappeared completely. In fact, streetcars have become a vital part of Toronto’s history and nearly every citizen’s life. Nowadays, the city owns 247 streetcars, of which 52 are higher-capacity articulated streetcars. These operate over 11 routes, serving a total of 617 stops over a system length of 75 kilometers. These numbers make it by far the largest surface rail system in North America.
Public transportation in Toronto relies heavily on streetcars in the downtown core which is the thin red lines you see on the TTC map above. Technically, they’re light rail trains, but locals refer to them as streetcars. Each line usually follows a street e.g. 501 Queen St., so it shouldn’t be too hard to get on the right vehicle.
Done right, streetcars can really encourage the overall development of the city, they are able to define whole neighborhoods, reduce traffic congestion, reinforce retail, bring life to streets and fit easily into the surroundings without disruption to existing businesses, residents or traffic.
Pros
One of the main advantages of streetcars is its high passenger capacity. Streetcars carry between 75 and 100 people per vehicle.
Regarding energy efficiency, streetcars are believed to do a little bit more for the environment that other public transport systems. Because every streetcar user means one less car on the road, words such as clean air quality, for environmental sustainability, for climate protection are often associated with streetcars. In fact, nothing drops greenhouse gas emissions faster than effective rapid transit, so if we truly want green for Toronto, streetcars might be the answer.
Another argument made in favor of streetcars is their long lifespan. The vehicles are designed to be very durable and can keep running for over 30 years. In contrast, buses wear out after just 8 – 12 years.
One of the “last” Toronto street cars. image: blogto.com
Since they are longer-lasting than other means of transport, the cost of repair and replacement is typically also much lower.
One ride costs $3.25, making it a very cheap transit option across the city. At the same time they are relatively fast to build, without impacting the city for a long period of time and resulting in minimal disruption to the neighborhood.
Streetcars can be so charming. Well, this is a subjective opinion, but have you seen vintage trolleys in San Francisco or New Orleans? They’re so awesome.
Cons
There are two sides to every coin so we have to mention disadvantages of streetcars, too. Once again, let’s talk about their passenger capacity. Even though they carry a relatively high number of passengers, the difference between a streetcar, LRT and subway is noticeable. Just for comparison, a subway train can hold up to 1500 passengers and an LRV can hold up to 255 people in a single vehicle (depending on speeds, frequency and actual vehicle length and capacity).
Next, streetcars require “loops” to turn around, which slows them down. This is not the case with cars, LRVs or subways.
Streetcars are noticeably slower than cars as they are travelling at speed of about 17km/h. LRVs run at an average of 27km/h and subways at 32km/h.
Streetcars are said to contribute to traffic congestion greatly. Imagine a situation when a streetcar stops to let passengers load on or get off. In such situation, both lanes at of traffic are blocked. This causes delays and angst among riders. If you’ve ever driven behind a streetcar, you know how much of a problem this is. You have nowhere to go, unless you stand far back enough to turn your car around.
At certain times they may pose danger to both passengers and pedestrians. For example, when cars try to pass them before they stop.
When it comes to costs, it is important to distinguish between the cost of laying down streetcar tracks, maintaining the streetcars themselves and maintaining roads. Streetcars require a whole lot of special mechanics and thus the cost of maintenance is much higher.
And let’s not forget about pollution. You might disagree with a statement that streetcars are a reason behind increased pollution in our city, but if you think about it for a second, you will realize there is some truth in it. Since it creates traffic congestions, it also adds to pollution.
Future of Streetcars
Even though many people are getting more and more angry at streetcars, they are not going anywhere. When (then Mayor) Rob Ford tried to cancel the Transit City light-rail-plan and build tunnels underground in some parts of the city, city council decided to keep new transit lines above ground. The main reason behind this decision was the cost of tunneling and powering subways.
And for those unhappy citizens who are queuing up behind streetcars every morning, the least Toronto could do is indicate that they are keeping an open mind about new subway lines. And let’s not forget that the city intends to build and operate new light rail transit lines, which means that people will be able to travel in new dedicated lines, separated from motor vehicle traffic. For the Silo, Jamie Sarner.
When I think about whether working from home is right for any person, I remember a story that Richard Kiosaki told in his book “Poor Dad- Rich Dad”. He talks about his two dads who had two very different mentalities about money. One had the mentality of an employee and the other of a business owner. Both dads believed they were giving correct advice although they were advising exactly the opposite.
His “poor” dad told him to choose employment because it offered job security and corporate ladder, where he could become somebody after years of being promoted. The “rich” dad asked him to choose the path of an independent business owner because that way he could work for something that he owns.
Of course when you talk to most people about starting your own business and having a passion about some new idea, you will get two main reactions.
There will be … The Naysayers – These are the people who will tell you, “you will never make it” and that you are “stupid to attempt the impossible”.
But then you will find people who are…
The supporters – These are the people who will say go for it. They say “don’t worry” and “we will be there for you when you need us”.
While you may have your questions and even your doubts, listening to the naysayers will never get you where you want to go. Listen to those who will ask good questions, who will give you good advice and support you if your desire is to do something unique and be your own boss.
The fact is, working from home has some fantastic advantages. 1. Flexibility When you are juggling a family and other obligations, having a work from home business is a huge bonus. Firstly, you can more easily accommodate your customers in all the different time zones. Rather than being tied down to a regular office hour routine, having the ability to work part time or full time, takes on a whole new meaning.
2. Your overhead costs are reduced You will save money on gas, the wear and tear your vehicle (not to mention the wear and tear on your nerves), office space and utilities. The reality is that with those savings you can be a lot more flexible in how you are pricing your product.
3. Testing,Testing When you realize that more than 50% of all new businesses fail, then testing out your new business without a lot of overhead is common sense. When you test and tweak your home business, you can determine its viability before you start investing a lot of money!
4. Tax Benefits Many people don’t realize the major tax incentives there are for having a home business and while the tax laws are different from country to country, some of the perks are:
– A percentage for rent or mortgage costs (for the space you use to operate your business)
– A percentage for utility bills such as gas, electricity, water
– Business operating software and management tools, which also includes webpages etc.
– Phone and communications, including internet expenses
and of course the biggest tax saving
The initial investment you paid to start your business
5. Experience A home based business will allow you to gain invaluable business experience and business skills such as internet marketing, identifying markets, learning how to market yourself and all the other traits needed to run a successful home business. This experience can be transferred to other projects that you wish to pursue.
6. Turning Creativity into a profit Creating a home business is the ideal way to turn your hobbies or passions into a business that will be unique to your talents and what you really love to do.
You also have to be realistic in understanding what owning a home business is all about! “Working from home”, it has a wonderful sound to it doesn’t it? I bet many of you have visions in your head of sleeping in, lazing around and working when the mood strikes you right?
Like anything else there are also challenges that you should take into consideration and create a plan on tackling them. Any problem can be solved as long as you are prepared for what is coming your way.
1. Motivation It’s great to be your own boss, but with no code of conduct to follow or formal routines to keep you on track, it’s easy to fall into the trap of putting off doing your business and procrastination. If you have an ineffective time management schedule, it makes it hard to reach your goals.
Solution Make sure that you follow your passion and this will help you with getting motivated and working extra time when needed. 2. Lack of privacy Unless you have a separate office set up, privacy can be a big concern. For example if you have created your office near the family room, and your house guests drop by, they will be near your work area. Your documents, work and even files can be fair game to everyone! Take that thought one step further and if you have kids, they will come in and distract you while you work
. Solution
Create your own workspace and set your own hours. Make everyone aware that when you are working you can’t be disturbed and if anyone needs your help they need to respect your schedule like everyone else.
Finding a workplace that offers privacy can be a challenge at first. We don’t recommend setting up a home office in your bathroom. CP image: guardian.co.uk
3.Learning When starting a home based business, you are going to have to develop a lot of new skills, which will take time. You will be wearing many hats and in the beginning you won’t be able to afford to hire specialists who can quickly and efficiently do new tasks to you. You will have to learn things which you never thought you would need to learn.
Solution This generally is a positive thing. You would never embark on new challenges if it wasn’t for your business. As the oldsaying goes, “knowledge is power” and along with building your business you are becoming an expert in new domains.
4.While its nice to be the boss, you will find that you will be facing unexpected situations you will have to deal with on your own. When you make a mistake you will be dealing with the consequences on your own.
Solution Being the Boss is rewarding but paying unnecessary bills for unqualified decisions is not fun.
“One of the most important leadership lessons is realizing, you are not the most important person or the most intelligent person in the room at all times.”
~ Mario Btali
5.Loneliness is a huge downside to running your own business at home. In the beginning you love the fact that you can get your work done, but after a few days or weeks, you may find that you are tired of hearing your own voice.
It’s a sort of dread that happens and you might turn to such things as web surfing or chatting with friends to relieve the nervousness you may experience.
Solution
In business you need to talk to people about your ideas and brainstorm to see if they are workable. Set up a “support system” early in your business, and you will find yourself not only running into less problems, but you will have someone to exchange your ideas with and have good conversation when you need to step away from daily tasks.
6. Legalities. Most people do not realize that whether you are “telecommuting” or creating a home based business, you need to be sure that you are covered by insurance, that you have checked zoning laws, and that you have the proper paperwork for taxes. Completing paperwork like NDA forms is important to safeguard your business.
Solution First don’t worry about not knowing all the legalities. The Government and your suppliers will quickly communicate to you what your obligations are. They will scream loudest, and you will comply with their demands. 7. Dependency. Most people do not realize that even as a business owner, you need to create team of people who you work with. In case of a car accident, you still want to come back to functional business and want to have someone who can handle daily tasks where you are not around.
Solution Have family, business partners or a team of supporters be involved early in your business, at the very least have part time bookkeeper or a person who will answer phones for you when you are away. 7. Balancing your life. Working at home can cause a lot of stress in your life, juggling the needs of your family with the needs of your work and for some people it can cause a lot of strain in their relationships. You will want to take vacations which will require someone to look after your business while you rest and recharge. You will need to plan for things like this, so you are not surprised by life, because life has a tendency to surprise us when we least expect it.
Solution Although business is important at all times, you will not be able to benefit from it if you are stressed, tired and sick. Implement periodic holidays and time away from your work. Leave your home far enough so you can’t do anything business related while you are away. This will provide you with time to recharge.
As you can see having a home business can be a very workable solution to creating a good income. However, like anything, you need to look at all sides of the equation. Ask yourself the question, will you take the advice of the “poor” dad and be the employee or the “rich” dad and choose the path of becoming an independent business owner.
For me, I chose to be an independent owner and I have never had any regrets!
I was doing a bit of ‘specific purpose’ shopping at a local grocery store to pick up some of their No Name Yogurt. I buy this all the time and use it mixed with fruit, or when making a smoothie with yogurt, milk and berries.
It is worth noting, that some consumers remain staunchly brand-loyal and even brand-dependent.
They believe that no-name products are ‘not as good’ as the brand name products that they favor. In reality many no-name brands are manufactured using the same ingredients and at the same factory as the brand product, the only difference being the price and the look of the label. That being said, I’m not ready to trade in my Heinz ketchup for the no-name brand….but Aylmer is a close second. Can you taste the difference?
From the urban dictionary. www.urbandictionary.com
As I was about to take several tubs (5) off the shelf, I noticed a pad of tear-off coupons right above the yogurt. They were for $1.00 (Cdn) off each tub of No Name Yogurt that you purchased. Since I had 5 tubs in my tote basket, I peeled off 5 coupons. When I got to the check-out, I put the coupons on each tub and the cashier deducted $5.00 off my bill. The regular cost was $1.97 a tub, which would have made the total cost $9.85. I paid $4.85. I was very, very happy. I got the yogurt that I intended to buy, and I got a bargain. Also the empty tubs can be put in recycling bins, or used as food-savers for leftovers.
The ‘no-name’ brand Loblaws Canada use bright black on yellow packaging.
A friend of mine, Ken, who worked in the food industry, once told me, “Coupons are an easy way for customers to save money. The store does not loose any money, the coupons go right back to the company.”
A few years back, I decided to see if coupons did save me money. Each week I went through the newspapers, magazines, online site and store coupons I had collected as well as free coupon bins in their stores. These bins are there for customers who don’t want to use their coupons, but throw them in a bin so that other customers strolling by can scoop up whatever they want to use. I used an old duo tang notebook to record my savings, a ruler, line paper, and a pen. I drew lines across the page. I also drew lines vertically down the page for categories.
The first category was NUMBER, and then ITEM PURCHASED, then COUPON PRICE, and lastly PRICE TOTAL. I found an old, very large mayonnaise jar with a lid (the kind they used in restaurants that buy in large quantities). I put a slot in the top of the lid so that it was more convenient to drop coins into the jar rather than unscrewing the cap each time.
I labeled the jar, “Coupon Money.” Every time I went to the store and used a coupon, I put the actual money I saved into the jar. It may have been only 35 cents, or 50 cents. Then I recorded the information in my duo-tang.
I decided to do this project for one year. I started in February. I never told anyone what I was doing. If my wife used a coupon, she also added the money to the jar, and recorded the information. Never did I use the proceeds from the jar during the year, but I was tempted many times. Over the months of the year, I took the change that was accumulating and transferred it into bills, starting with $5.00, then $10.00, then $20.00 bills. The idea was to use coupons on products that I normally purchased, not to get 50 cents off a product I wouldn’t normally buy.
I was very diligent with my project that year. It was kind of a game made especially fun when I would get the jar out and look with envy at all the bills stuffed in there.
As the year anniversary was approaching, my wife started telling people about the “Coupon Project.” I heard comments like, “How silly.” “Why would you want to waste your time doing that?” “When I get coupons I throw them out.” “You won’t make any savings on them.” But at the end of the year, the jar contained $520.00. As it turned out, we needed a new couch. We purchased a brand new bed-chesterfield, including delivery, for $500.00
A week later, two friends who had thought that my “Coupon Project” was nonsense, remarked on how beautiful and expensive our couch looked. They asked, “How did you afford to buy such a beautiful couch?” I replied proudly, “coupons.” For the Silo, Blair R. Yager.
The Montecito mansion, where Prince Harry and Meghan Markle filmed much of their Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, is on the market at $33.5 million. Fit for royalty, the Mediterranean-style, six-bedroom home with 13,599 square feet includes ocean and mountain views, multiple terraces, and a regal great room chandelier and arched windows – where Meghan was extensively filmed for the show’s interviews. The home was built in 2006.
The home’s exterior includes two acres of lush grounds with romantic walkways and year-round flowers, soaring palm trees and accent vines, a vegetable garden, citrus orchards, and even a chicken coop for fresh eggs. Amenities include a pool, hot tub, bar, gym, game room and a theater. A picturesque guest house is perfect for any king or royal relative who might drop by for the beautiful Southern California weather.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex moved to Montecito in 2020 where they lived for a few months at Tyler Perry’s home before buying their own $14.7 million mansion. The six-part Harry & Meghan docuseries follows the couple from the early days of their courtship up to their well-publicized resignation from the royal family and move from England, and is setting television viewership records.
Montecito has long been a favorite escape for the wealthy, including John and Jacqueline Kennedy’s honeymoon in 1953, and increasingly drawing Hollywood types such as Oprah Winfrey, Kim Kardashian, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ariana Grande.
The home is listed with Ryan Malmsten of Santa Barbara Brokers. Photos by Jim Bartsh.
Until quite recently, the field of early modern history largely focused on Europe.
The overarching narrative of the early modern world began with the European “discoveries,” proceeded to European expansion overseas, and ended with an exploration of the fac-tors that led to the “triumph of Europe.” When the Journal of Early Modern History was established in 1997, the centrality of Europe in the emergence of early modern forms of capitalism continued to be a widely held assumption. Much has changed in the last twenty years, including the recognition of the significance of consumption in different parts of the early modern world, the spatial turn, the emergence of global history, and the shift from the study of trade to the commodities themselves.
Sometimes conferences disappear from view as soon as the delegates disperse.
Other times, when the papers are published in an edited volume, conferences come to be seen as important milestones in the historiography. The two volumes edited by James Tracy, entitled The Rise of Merchant Empires and The Political Economy of Merchant Empires published in 1990 and 1991, respectively, move through their various stages of production, ownership, transmission and transformation .
Moreover, those stages are overlapping, circulatory and contradictory; objects move in and out of collections, as they move in and out of fashion, and meanings are never stable. When a feathered crown is produced in Spanish America, for example, it has a very different meaning from when it enters into a cabinet of curiosity, and when it is taken out of the cabinet to appear in a spectacular performance in the street or in the theatre, it once again takes on a different meaning.
Objects gain biographies; earlier meanings of objects are never erased but reshaped and translated to new circumstances, as Leah Clark showed in her study of the circulations of gems and jewels through the hands of a variety of owners in quattrocento Italy. Have we lost this meaning connection with mass produced items from China?
Such insights have benefitted not only from the global turn but also from developments in the fields of anthropology and art history, making the field more interdisciplinary than it was when the study of the trade in goods focused more on their trade than on the goods themselves.
The Founding of a New Journal
Despite Tracy’s efforts, European actors continued to hold central stage in the field. When the Journal of Early Modern History (JEMH) was established in 1997, a decade after the Minnesota conference, the centrality of Europe in the emergence of early modern forms of capitalism, for example, continued (and still continues) to be a widely held assumption. In part, this can be explained by the powerful legacy of giants in the field like Fernand Braudel and Immanuel Wallerstein.
1 James Tracy, ed.,The Rise of Merchant Empires: Long-Distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350-1750, Studies in Comparative Early Modern History (Cambridge, 1990); James Tracy, ed., The Political Economy of Merchant Empires, Studies in Comparative Early Modern History (Cambridge, 1991).
2 Herman Van der Wee, “Structural Changes in European Long-Distance Trade, and Particularly in the Reexport Trade from South to North, 1350-1750,” in The Rise of Merchant Empires, 14-33; Niels Steensgaard, “The Growth and Composition of the Long-Distance Trade of England and the Dutch Republic before 1750,” in The Rise of Merchant Empires, 102-52; The importance of comparative methodologies is also spelled out in the short editorial that accompanies the first part of the first volume of the JEMH. See James D. Tracy, “From the Editors,” Journal of Early Modern History 1 (1 January 1997):3
Braudel’s concern was entirely with European history over the longue durée; Wallerstein’s 1976 study identified Europe as one of the core regions in the modern capitalist economy as it emerged in the sixteenth century. Regions like Central Africa, India and China were designated as peripheries, meaning that their natural resources and low-skill, labor-intensive production sustained the economic growth of the core region. Wallerstein’s framing of the relationship between the early modern European core and its peripheries formed the base for much of the scholarship of the past decades, including numerous studies of the long-distance or intercontinental trade between core and periphery.
Much that was written also continued to identify long-distance trade as the preserve of either the various East India Companies associated with individual nations, or of the specifically named merchant communities such as the Armenians, the Jews, Wang Gungwu’s Hokkien merchants, or the Bajaras and Banyas merchant communities.
Such groups appear in the literature as having a clear identity that separates them from other groups and an often marginal status that makes them especially suited to the life of the itinerant merchant who covers vast distances.
And for much of the 1990s and beyond, the emphasis continued to be on commodities traded over long distances, from Asia to Europe via land or sea routes, including luxury items that justified the high cost associated with their transport. Precious metals were sent from the Americas to Asia, silks and spices arrived in the Levant via overland trade routes, and once the Europeans had rounded the Cape of Good Hope, luxury goods like porcelains, precious stones, and exotic hardwoods were shipped across the oceans along with silks and spices. Long-distance trade as it appears in Tracy’s two volumes on merchant empires was undoubtedly seen as important, but as essentially different from the bulk trade in grains, timber and salt that, for example, underpinned the growth of the early modern Dutch economy.
3 Fernand Braudel,Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, trans. Siân Reynolds, 3 vols. (Berkeley, 1992); Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein, The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York, 1976). At least 23 research articles published between 1997 and the present in JEMHquote Braudel’s work, and a further five quote Wallerstein.
4 Gungwu Wang, “Merchants without Empire: The Hokkien Sojourning Communities,” in The Rise of Merchant Empires, 400-422; Irfan Habib, “Merchant Communities in Precolonial India,” in The Rise of Merchant Empires, 371-99.
In other words, when the JEMH was founded, the centrality of Europe in shaping global trade relations, the separation of agents into distinct nation-based groups, and the classification of goods over long distances as luxuries of less importance all still had a very strong presence.
One major change did occur, however, more or less between the appearance of The Rise of Merchant Empires in 1990, and the establishment of the JEMH in 1997.
John Brewer and Roy Porter’s 1993 Consumption and the World of Goods was one of those transformative collections of articles that inaugurated a whole new way of doing history.6 Brewer and Porter were not the first to use the title; Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood had already published a book with a very similar title in 1979. But Brewer and Porter, and many others who went on to publish in the field of what we might call consumption studies, took the study of the consumer in a new direction, away from the eighteenth-century European debates over whether the consumption of luxury goods was morally justifiable, and towards sophisticated studies of the complex contexts in which people desired goods and in which that desire and demand for goods went on to transform society, culture and the ………… to continue reading click here for full document in PDF format.
For the Silo by Anne Gerritsen, University of Warwick. Paper courtesy of academia.edu
Personal power is a core leadership competency that everyone needs to develop before they can lead others. It has to do with being able to
lead yourself.
“Personal power is the ability to achieve what you want,” according to Frederick Mann, a successful entrepreneur and author of The Economic Rape of America.
“More than anything else, it is personal power that brings you success and happiness. The biggest barrier to success in almost
any endeavor is powerlessness, negativity, helplessness, and inertia. They belong together. The problem is not only our own powerlessness, but also the powerlessness of those around us.”
We can help harness and learn to use our personal power by understanding and working on our Emotional Intelligence (EI) skills.
Not long ago, when I worked in a corporate environment, there was a strong push to incorporate EI into the organization’s leadership
training curriculum as an array of skills and characteristics that drive leadership performance.
EI is “the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide
one’s thinking and actions,” according to psychologists John D. Mayer and Peter Salovey, who co-developed the concept and were two of the three authors of the Emotional Intelligence Test.
a. Pay attention to the feedback of friends and co-workers, good and bad. Train yourself to repeat the behaviors that get positive feedback and work on eliminating those that make people react negatively.
b. View constructive criticism as just that. When we become defensive, we don’t hear what can be very helpful feedback.
c. Learn to handle conflict and confrontation from a perspective of compassion and caring.
Personal coaching can be very helpful in learning to be more diplomatic in your interactions with others.
Dr. Salovey (left) and Dr. Mayer (right)
My EI training and its practical applications to my work team environment still resonate in my personal life. They became skills that I now methodically apply to current situations in both personal and entrepreneurial pursuits.
There are several EI models, but the one to which I ascribe is the mixed model introduced by Daniel Goldman, a combination of ability and traits. Here are Goldman’s five main EI constructs, and my views on how each of us can develop them:
1. Self-awareness: the ability to know one’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, drives, values and goals and recognize their impact on others while using gut feelings to guide decisions.
In order to become self-aware, you need to conduct an honest self-assessment to determine your strengths and weaknesses, such as powerlessness and inertia, and determine the root causes. You then need to create a plan that will help you overcome your fears, which are barriers to courage and stand between you and your successes.
While I am a big proponent of using my intuition to guide my decisions, whenever it is appropriate, I need to caution that unless your gut
feelings are often more right than wrong, you cannot make decisions solely based upon intuition. You need to use a balanced combination of intuition and logic.
2. Self-regulation: involves controlling or redirecting one’s disruptive emotions and impulses and adapting to changing circumstances.
Simply put, you need to exercise self-discipline and know how to control your emotions and be flexible in order to adapt to changing
situations. You cannot continue on the same trajectory or keep the same plans when the circumstances or facts have changed. Your plans need to be modified accordingly.
3. Social skills: managing relationships to move people in the desired direction.
Your social skills refer to your interpersonal skills or your ability to relate and connect with people, which can motivate them to deploy discretionary efforts to help you achieve goals that are best accomplished via partnership and collaboration.
Here are some tips for improving your social skills:
a. Pay attention to the feedback of friends and co-workers, good and bad. Train yourself to repeat the behaviors that get positive feedback and work on eliminating those that make people react negatively.
b. View constructive criticism as just that. When we become defensive, we don’t hear what can be very helpful feedback.
c. Learn to handle conflict and confrontation from a perspective of compassion and caring.
Personal coaching can be very helpful in learning to be more diplomatic in your interactions with others.
4. Empathy – considering other people’s feelings, especially when making decisions.
Some people believe empathy cannot be learned, but I believe just the opposite. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes and try to see
situations from their perspective. Might they be feeling fear? Shame? Guilt? How do those emotions make you feel? Understanding and addressing the concerns of others is essential to EI.
Always consider intent versus impact, and how your actions or decisions may affect the individuals or groups involved.
5. Motivation – being driven to achieve for the sake of achievement.
Simply put, what motivates you? What are your benchmarks for success? Once you achieve certain levels of success, you need to consistently
set new benchmarks to keep chasing personal excellence!
Practice your EI skills on yourself first, and you’ll develop greater personal power. That can lead to achievements you may never have dreamed possible. For the Silo, Lynda Chervil.
Lynda Chervil is the author of “Fool’s Return,” http://lyndachervil.com/, a new novel that incorporates valuable life lessons in a page-turning tale that touches on technology, the green movement, and other aspects of contemporary society.
Life insurance is commonly regarded as an investment that should be considered much later in life, when you are older. Young investors frequently favor high-risk, high-reward investments such as equities and commodities. Even the most conservative millennials prefer investments such as fixed deposits or debt mutual funds. Insurance is being replaced by investment options that promise greater monetary returns sooner.
However, the fact remains that investing in life insurance early has numerous benefits.
You’ll understand why investing in life insurance plans early in your career should be an important part of your retirement planning once you’ve learned the benefits. So, here are 3 of the many benefits of purchasing a life insurance policy at a young age.
You will pay lower premiums
Purchasing life insurance at a young age can save you money in the long run. The insurer frequently considers factors such as the applicant’s age and general health condition when determining the premium payable. People in their twenties and thirties are generally in better health.
As a result, premium charges are less expensive than those charged to older investors. Another reason why buying life insurance at a young age is less expensive is that your risk of dying is much lower. To take advantage of this provision, it is best to purchase life insurance early in life.
Your money has enough time to grow
When you purchase a life insurance policy at a young age, your money has more time to grow. As a result, investing in your twenties increases the death or maturity benefits payable at the end of the policy’s term.
For example, if you purchase a life insurance policy at the age of 25 and continue to pay premiums until you are 60, your money will have 35 years to accumulate into a retirement corpus. If you buy the same life insurance at 40, you only have 20 years to make your money grow. Investing early can thus increase your investment’s cash value in the long run.
The future of your family is secure
Most people, by the time they reach retirement age, will have amassed a sizable corpus to help keep their family financially secure. Most people’s children would have graduated from high school or have a job by the age of 50 or 60. When you’re younger and just starting out in your career, your family may be in a more vulnerable position.
In the unfortunate event that you die, your spouse and young children will struggle to cope without a financial safety net. Investing in a life insurance policy at a young age can provide your dependents with this benefit.
As you can see, investing in life insurance at a young age can be a really big deal if you want to save money in the long run. It will also protect you and your dependents no matter what if you had to die unexpectedly. If you need any advice, you should contact a professional that will help you choose the right life insurance according to your needs.
Domestic and foreign cinema has long been interested in the issue of gambling. The topic is as interesting as the very life of such a gaming establishment as a casino is impressive.
Life, shrouded in many secrets and intrigues, attracts the attention of the most famous screenwriters and directors. In this review we will show the diversity and originality of the approach to the description of the casino theme.
FAMOUS MOVIES OF THE LAST DECADES
Let’s list a few movies of recent years that deserve special attention:
Joueurs, premiered 2018 (France).
This is a film about the underground casinos of France and the life of adventurers-lovers. Adventures turning into a whole drama. The audience will be interested in the intriguing denouement of the plot.
Molly’s Game, premiered 2018 (USA).
The film is autobiographical. The plot was the life of the athlete Molly Bloom.
The House, premiered 2017 (USA).
This comedy will help to get away from the gray everyday life. Enterprising residents of one of the houses in the United States decided to make good money by opening a casino in the basement of their house. If this is the basement of the house, then we know that it is not very convenient compared to today’s opportunity to have fun and relax, say, in the same online slots in Canada. Comfortable, safe and no hassle.
Runner, Runner, premiered 2013 (USA).
In this crime thriller, Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake perfectly played their roles. The intrigue itself will be promised to you.
Killing Them Softly, premiered 2012 (USA).
This criminal detective is quite interesting due to great play of the popular American actor Brad Pitt.
MOST POPULAR MOVIES
These movies have been heard for a long time and do not cease to amaze with their grandeur and scope of the topic. The following ones have the largest rollout:
The Hangover, premiered 2009 (USA).
This wonderful comedy has become the best in this genre. Watch and enjoy the game of famous American actors and the unpredictability of the plot.
Ocean’s Thirteen, premiered 2007 (USA).
This film is the conclusion of the famous American crime comedy trilogy (“Ocean’s Eleven” and “Ocean’s Twelve”).
Casino Royale, premiered 2006 (USA).
The well-known agent 007 James Bond appears before us in all his male attractiveness. Handsome, strong, smart, enterprising and mysterious – why not a hero to follow. Again – a great game of actors catches the eye.
The Cooler, premiered 2004 (USA).
The film, shot in the genre of romantic drama, tells about the life of an outstanding personality – a casino employee. The presence of this employee at the gaming table predicts a clear failure and loss to all players. And this, unfortunately, happens in films.
Pistol Whipped, premiered 2008 (USA).
The plot of this American action movie was based on the story of a police officer who was addicted to gambling and alcohol.
21, premiered 2008 (USA).
The very name of the show speaks for itself. It’s about the popular game of blackjack. The plot of the film is based on real events noted in the casinos of Las Vegas.
There may not be enough time today to even list films with a “casino” theme. All of them are interesting in their own way and, somewhere, even instructive. There is no “easy money” in gambling. To earn “big”, you need hard work and practice a lot. Gambling is loved by those strong in spirit and constant in their aspirations. Carpe diem!
Do you get tired of eating the same or similar food every day? No matter how creative you might be in the kitchen, you cannot avoid repeating some recipes over and over again.
Healthy eating is usually linked with habits, as only in that manner you can keep your health in balance and keep diseases away.
Still, what to do when you get bored eating great all the time? Should you go after that burger? Should you indulge in high-sugar food?
Or you should do something completely unexpected? The answer is very simple as all you should do is vary your meals.
If you eat broccoli on Monday and don’t place it on your plate before Friday again, you are spinning your meals and your body will love it.
Here is how to vary your meals, so you can still eat healthily.
Do Not Ignore Sweets
Healthy eating doesn’t mean that you should completely forget about eating sweets, ever again.
No, eating well is more about balance and finding ingredients packed with high-quality products and no sugar or with a more natural sugary option. This is why vegan frozen desserts are always a great idea when you want to continue eating great, but enjoying that taste that homemade treats offer.
Frozen desserts are always easy to store and great to have around when you have unplanned guests.
Add Greek Yogurt To Your Diet
Ok, this is a life hack. Greek yogurt is not only great to store, and easy to carry with you, but it is also very beneficial when it comes to your health.
Greek yogurt is famous for its creamy and thick texture, making it great for salads or a nice addition to fruit salad.
Greek yogurt can be used alone, as a snack on the go, and you can choose between plain and flavored options.
Increase Your Protein Intake
When you include protein-based food into your diet, you will immediately start eating healthier and more diverse.
Nuts are packed with protein and snacking them throughout the day sounds great, right?
Food that is naturally rich in protein is usually great to eat as a snack, to mix with other ingredients, and serves perfectly for weight loss.
Here are some sources of protein that should make your diet more diverse instantly:
dairy products
nuts
peanut butter
eggs
beans
lean meat
Last But Not Least… Drink Water
Did you know that people are often just thirsty when they need food? This is because when a dehydrated body sends signs that it needs to be filled, the brain doesn’t dissolve immediately if you need water or food.
This is why people tend to overeat and later on realize that they just need more glasses of water.
Plus, drinking water regularly is important for your overall health so stick to it.
Almost every woman has experienced the debilitating pain of menstrual cramps (dysmenorrhea) at some time. More than 40 percent of all North American women today suffer monthly with debilitating menstrual cramps. More than 10 percent of these women are incapacitated for one to three days each month because of excruciating pain.”
~Dr. Howard H. Smith (via sharecare.com)
Reiki can change your life in so many ways.
I’m Jeff Donovan, I’ve been a Reiki Master since 2003, but this isn’t about me. It’s about women with menstrual cramps and how they can become empowered to help themselves. It’s about Reiki. Reiki is an ancient Japanese art of energy healing. Reiki, loosely translated means, Universal Life Force Energy (or Source energy…whatever you think that source is). A Reiki practitioner can channel healing energy into himself/herself or others. For whatever reason, my clients and student base has a ratio of approximately 90% women to only 10% men. In my experience, women are more spiritually inclined, more open-minded and more willing to try ‘alternative’ methods.
In my early days of practicing Reiki, almost by accident, I saw vast improvement in women who suffer from menstrual cramps and other symptoms associated with their monthly cycles, so I put a small study together…I found 10 volunteers, age 17-50+ who suffered each and every month. Each agreed to try my home study course, practice daily for approximately 20 minutes and report back to me in 30-40 days. Of the 10 volunteers, 9 completed the program and 8 of them showed up to give their reports. 8 out of 8 reported vast improvement in their condition. Three of them stood out in the crowd because of the severity of their condition. Those three also had the most significant results and therefore, told the best stories. Here is my interview with Kristen, a 22 year-old woman who suffered from Polycystic Ovary Syndrome…her story will amaze you
Jeff: Before you knew about Reiki how was your cycle?
Kristen: Well, I’ve always had irregular cycles. About 8 month ago I was diagnosed with polycystic ovaries, which means I’m infertile and I bleed on my menstrual period for 45-60 days straight. And that’s enough in itself to make someone go insane. But on top of it, I have full menstrual symptoms…cramps, bloating, nausea, everything (for) the entire 45-60 days I’m bleeding. So basically, my life was pretty much horrible before finding Reiki. I’ve been to so many different doctors, been on so many medications, which all cause symptoms in themselves…bloating, nausea, everything else going on. It was just beyond me. I’d spend weeks at home, curled up in a ball, crying because I was so frustrated, feeling so helpless. When I came across Reiki, I said “what the heck, it can’t hurt, and it’s something to do.”
Within the first week, I felt my cramps diminish. I didn’t throw up the entire first week of trying Reiki. By the end of the month, when I was finished with the entire Reiki cycle, I still had irregular bleeding, but the bleeding had diminished significantly, so it wasn’t actually like a full period, and my bloating was gone, my headaches were gone, my cramps were gone…I didn’t miss any work, any school anything. It was absolutely amazing!
Jeff: Wow!
Kristen: Yeah, I hated being a girl. Right now I’m still on it (my period), and I’m going on day 72. But at least, I can function normally from not having the cramps. That was the biggest thing. I’m so used to being on my period, that I just wanted to get rid of some sort of symptom. If I could just get rid of the headaches, if I could just get rid of the cramps, if I could just get rid of the nausea…but all those things are gone now. I just have to deal with the bleeding, but I’m happy about having to do that because it’s manageable.
Jeff: Wow…that is awesome. So typically, how much school or work did you miss?
Kristen: Depending on…I’ve been switched to so many different medications. Every time I’m switched to a new medication, all the hormonal stuff going on…I’ve missed, just in the last 8 months of being “treated” I’ve missed probably 2 months of work/school together, just having to take sick leave and…having to take a week off here and there. But the main thing, it was just such a hamper on my social life too, because, you know, I’m young…so telling my friends I can’t go out because I just don’t feel well and being locked up for a month basically, because I’m on my period the entire time was just depressing in itself.
Jeff: And you didn’t miss any school or work this month?
Kristen: No, nothing at all this month.
Jeff: So, the results were basically immediate?
Kristen: Immediately. Like I said…within the first week. And I of course was skeptical too. I’ve been to every single specialist out there and have read every single book on my condition and what can be done, and nothing seemed to work. I was extremely hopeless…extremely, feeling helpless. And it was amazing actually, after the first week…I suffer from insomnia too because of my cramps and everything else going on. Within the first week of using Reiki, I didn’t have to use any of my sleeping medication and I haven’t used it at all this month, and I’ve felt rested.
The thing I am so happy about too, my family and friends have told me that my mood is so much better and I’m not suffering from these severe mood swings or, really depression from having to deal with all these horrible symptoms that go on. I can actually have a somewhat normal life.
Jeff: So in effect, Reiki has helped you with your depression as well?
Kristen: Oh Definitely. Yeah, Reiki has helped me with my depression, feeling like I’m actually taking control and actually seeing something work. And I think, if anything, that’s the best thing…to feel like you have some control over your body when you feel so out of control with all the symptoms going on.
Jeff: Sure. So what kinds of things have you tried in the past to try to help your symptoms?
Kristen: Oh, I’ve tried everything! I’ve been on every single medication out there I’m sure…yoga, pilates, fitness, meditation, aromatherapy. If it was out there, I tried it and nothing seemed to work and the more I looked into trying to find stuff, I actually became feeling more helpless. I actually entered into Reiki thinking that this wasn’t going to work for me at all, because nothing else had. So I was really, really shocked, really, really pleased at the same time too that this worked.
Jeff: So then, you would obviously recommend it?
Kristen: I would definitely recommend it! Without sounding comical, it has completely changed my life because I can actually function and live normally rather than being a hermit and hating being a woman.
Jeff: Wow, that’s awesome…so typically, your pain would be at 8-9 (out of 10, based on pre-study questionnaire she filled out), is that right?
Kristen: Yes, definitely…the physical pain would be 8-9 and all the emotional pain that went with it would be off the wall.
Jeff: So, you’re better in all areas?
Kristen: Oh yes, definitely!
Kristen and I stayed in touch for awhile. A few months after this interview, she emailed me she was shocked to find out her doctor was a proponent of Reiki, and after just a few months of practicing daily, he had taken her off 13 of the 14 medications she was prescribed.
Reiki can change your life in so many ways…this is only one woman’s story. Anybody and everybody can learn Reiki. We only need to be attuned by a qualified Reiki Master, learn some basic hand positions and some practical application. From the very first day of training, we can begin healing ourselves, our loved ones, our pets and so much more! The possibilities are endless. For the Silo, Jeff Donovan.
The Art of Clairtone: The Making of a Design Icon, 1958-1971 is a fully illustrated stylish look back at the stereo story behind a Canadian design icon. This handsome hardcover is by Nina Munk and Rachel Gotlieb and is available on Amazon.
“At its peak in the 1960s, Clairtone Sound Corporation was one of the most admired companies in the field of electronics. Founded by Peter Munk and David Gilmour in Toronto, Canada, Clairtone made the wildly modern Project G hi-fi system and, later, the G-TV. The commercial, shot in July 1967 by famous Canadian cinematographer Frank Spiess, was produced by Young & Rubicam. It features Munk and Gilmour, then in their 30s, at a studio in Toronto and includes footage from Clairtone’s infamous factory in Stellarton, Nova Scotia.” east19thstreet via YouTube
For a decade, in the 1960s, Clairtone Sound Corporation captured the spirit of the times: sophisticated, cosmopolitan, liberated. From its modern oiled-walnut and teak stereos to its minimalist logos and promotional materials, Clairtone produced a powerful and enduring body of design work. Founded in 1958 by two young Canadians, Peter Munk and David Gilmour, Clairtone quickly became known for its iconic designs and masterful advertising campaigns.
Its acclaimed Project G stereo, with its space-age styling, epitomized the Swinging Sixties. Famously, Hugh Hefner owned a Project G. So did Frank Sinatra.
Oscar Peterson affirmed that his music sounded as good on a G as it did live.In 1967, suggesting how deeply Clairtone’s G series had come to be identified with popular culture, the G2 appeared in The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft.
With 250 illustrations, including previously unpublished drawings, rare film stills, confidential memorandums, and original photography, The Art of Clairtone is a candid and in-depth look at the company’s skyrocketing success — and sensational collapse. Through the recollections of those who knew Clairtone best, from its founders to its designers, engineers, and salesmen, and with comments from Karim Rashid, Douglas Coupland, Tyler Brûlé, and Bruce Mau, among others, this elegant book, published on the 50th anniversary of Clairtone’s launch, celebrates an iconoclastic company that once seemed to represent the promise of Canada.
Drinking with friends until late at night is fun, which is why lots of people do it especially on weekends. You get to talk with friends about your romantic problems and work issues, or you may enjoy watching live games in sports bar with other fervent fans. But what can you do after the bars close? Many take things easy and wind down with one of the excellent erotic massages in Montreal. That seems like the perfect way to end a fun night.
However, there are other ways to continue having fun even when the bars all seem closed late at night. Discuss matters with your friends, and see if any of these suggestions suit their fancy:
Drink Coffee
Haven’t you noticed how many of these specialty coffee shops are open 24 hours? That’s because they know that when people are done drinking but they don’t want to go home yet, they get coffee to continue their story-swapping activities.
Coffee is perfect for those who have been drinking, since it can keep people from just sleeping. Your friends will hate you if they have to drag your sleeping body home. So drink some coffee, and afterwards hire a cab back to your place. Just don’t drive! You may be awake, but you’re still drunk!
Eat Something
Lots of people experience the “munchies” when they’ve been drinking. So once the drinking is done, it may be time to continue the night with some fast food treat like a nice juicy burger or some hot pizza. You may also want to try shawarma.
Scientific studies have confirmed that alcohol can really make you feel hungry. It’s been found that alcohol fires up a type of brain cell that’s also active when you’re starving. So when you drink, your brain thinks you haven’t eaten for a long while.
Play Video Games
In some cities like Montreal, you may find arcade places where you can play various video games even at 3:00 AM. You can play Tekken and other fighting games if you’re one of those inclined to violence after a bit of drinking—at least this time, no one gets really hurt!
You can also try any of the racing games, and you may find out why it’s a bad idea to drink and drive. Of course, even if you do well in these games it doesn’t mean you’re ready to drive home for real.
Sing Some Karaoke
You may be a shy wallflower type when you’re sober, but you may be a performer yearning to break free once you’ve imbibed enough alcohol. You’re not alone, so why not join other would-be singers and have some fun belting out your favorite tunes?
The nice thing about being drunk is that it makes you brave enough to try this, and you’re also drunk enough to think you’ve done justice to that Bon Jovi song you’ve always liked. Most people in these places are non-judgmental, so even if you’re off-key they won’t mind. Not that you’d know you were off-key…
Go Bowling
Bowling is another activity that somehow seems a lot more fun when you’ve been drinking. It also shows you exactly how drunk you are—if your bowling ball can’t hit any of the pins every time, then it may be time to call it a night. Bowling is something you can do if the bar you went to closed early at 1AM or so, as some bowling places may close at 3AM.
Try Your Luck at a Casino
You better believe that if you’re a well-behaved drunk, the casino will love you. You get to enjoy yourself playing blackjack, while the casino plies you with drinks as they happily take your money! For the Silo, Dimitry Karloff.
Emerging soon- the Cecropia caterpillar takes two months to develop before forming their cocoon which has to last an entire winter.
The Cecropia Moth is North America’s largest native moth and is a member of the giant silk moth family. It can be found in all Canadian provinces except BC and Newfoundland. The wings are reddish brown, and crossed in the middle with a white band. In the middle of each wing there is a crescent-shaped white spot bordered with red. The moths can have a wingspan up to 160 mm (6 inches!)
Females have a large abdomen for egg production, and males have hugely feathered antennae to detect the pheromones that the female emits. The male is capable of smelling the female from over a kilometer away.
Once mated, the female will lay her eggs near host trees. Typically they choose maple trees for their host, but they can also be found on other trees like Birch, Alder, Apples and Willow. The eggs will hatch in about 2 weeks and the newly born caterpillar will eat its eggshell.
Young Cecropia larva are shedding their ‘skin’. image: courtesy www.wormspit.com
The Cecropia larva (caterpillar) has two rows of blue tubercles along each side, two rows of yellow tubercles down its back, and two pairs of large red tubercles on the thorax. It takes the caterpillar approximately 2 months to reach full size at which time they will find a dark secluded place to attach themselves to a branch or stick and form their cocoon. This cocoon will overwinter and the adults will emerge the following spring.
Adult Cecropia moths do not have mouth parts and thus are unable to eat. As a result, the lifespan for an adult is generally only about 7-10 days. For the Silo,Dixie Greenwood.
“YOUNG WOMAN SCAMS LOVE STRUCK ELDERLY MAN OUT OF $200,000” Headlines like this would be comical if they weren’t so sad – and numerous.
“Just Google and you’ll find all kinds of news stories about men who willingly give up their cash, their luxury cars, even an ex-wife’s diamond ring,” as in the Elk Grove case, says Charles D. Martin, author of “Provocateur,” (www.provocateurbook.com), a novel about smart, beautiful women and the power they wield over men.
Approximate net worth at time of marrying? $500,000,000usd
“As men, we never like to admit that we may be outsmarted by a woman – but the truth is, it is happening all the time!” And it’s getting worse, for men.
“Women are far outpacing men in numbers of college degrees. They now outnumber men, earning almost 60 percent of college degrees,” Martin says. “And while that doesn’t necessarily make them ‘smarter’ than men, it sure does add to their advantage.” In addition women have other (obvious) advantages.
Taking the power back! Author Charles D. Martin
“In the presence of a sexy woman, men lose their ability to think or act rationally,” Martin says. “
That’s an enormous advantage for women! Men do not realize that it is women that are in charge of the mating process.” How can men level the playing field? Martin has some suggestions:
• Recognize the predator –and the prey. If you are an older gentlemen, particularly one with some status or affluence and a young, attractive woman comes on to you be on guard. She probably has nefarious, not amorous, motives. Keep your pants zipped and your wallet stowed until you are totally persuaded that her affection for you is genuine.
• Remember, they don’t have to be young to be dangerous. The woman arrested in the Elk Grove, Calif., case was 30 years old. There are also recent news stories about a 54-year-old woman stealing more than $85,000 from a 93-year-old man, promising him a “big payoff.” In another case, a 45-year-old woman had a 60-year-old man paying for her elective surgeries, limousines, even a $1,000 dog. She was arrested in December. “They may be moms or grandmoms, but they’re still women,” Martin says.
• Even if you are happily married, you are still vulnerable. Beware the “perfect storm,” which occurs as a man ages and tries to hang on to his virility, just as his high school sweetheart is also showing signs of wear. That makes him vulnerable to a younger female with ulterior motives. If a sexy woman comes on to you, get away fast. These “Provocateurs” can get the best of you in a nanosecond.
About Charles D. Martin
Charles Martin runs a hedge fund, Mont Pelerin Capital, LLC, and serves on the investment committees of prominent universities. An established business writer, his first novel focuses on the intrigue that often exists between alpha females that take on – and conquer – dominant males. Martin lives with his wife in a coastal town south of Los Angeles. For the Silo, Ginny Grimsley.
Nice, France textile artist Stéphanie Lobry frantically fashions her art with an unexpected yet satisfyingly fitting leitmotiv: feminism.
A Teacher when she’s not at the loft, where she created and exhibited her works, Stéphanie Lobry is busy hanging a crochet. Entitled 1.8 cubic meter, “parce c’est la taille qu’il fait”, lies in the piece, in the middle of a crowd of scattered bodies which share this small space with balls of yarn and needles.
If we pay attention to all red wires that surround and hang throughout her living room, we realize that they are, in fact, a gun.
“I wanted to divert the everyday objects. And to do so with needles and wool. No, no to knitting scarves for her daughters in some kind of ‘good housewife’ role, but rather to rediscover the woman inside, and then to discover humans in general.”
Why crochet? Rolled cigarette in mouth, she passes a nonchalant hand into blond spiky hair. She thinks… “This practice is also ancestral, but has potential for feminist messages and aesthetics when it is diverted from its original use and put towards the service of art. I’ve always been very creative and a little hyper active yet the only compliment I could expect from that was to be commended for being a good mother…”. I got fed up.” Reduced once too often to the status of “the good historical female”, Stéphanie Lobry “lost it”and held her first exhibition.
Our compulsive crocheter remembers having hesitated….stalled somewhere between a choice of direction. Between science and art: “When I started my studies in molecular biology, my mother asked me if I was sure didn’t want to make fine art instead.” Would an academic focus on science bind her passions? In her artistic process, she discovered that there was in fact a synthesis manifested through the act of the creation, which after all, begins with the cells inside the brain. Fittingly, her art work began with a small croqueted skull which “immediately went to Gallery’. The creative process then dissected and took over other parts of the body.
An Ariane of modern times
Sweeping my gaze around her workshop, it stops suddenly on the croqueted heart, “it was a participatory project I created shortly after Charlie.” Surely a way to re – unite people, to reconnect, “everyone needed it.” The artist put out a call using social media, letting all participants know that their name would be displayed at the bottom of the finished work. In a few weeks, she received 763 balls of wool, from more than 120 donors, scattered to the four corners of the world, from Paris to Noumea, the Chile, the Belgium and the Greece.
A Runaway success requires a lot of hard work.
It takes almost a month to sort the fabrics and create a ball that weighs more than 40 kg. As for the hook… 45 days are necessary for the realization of a typical piece of finished work: “the ball weighed a ton! I couldn’t do more than five knots without being exhausted.” It is a technique so grueling and time-consuming, but I feel like I’m really at the beginning, I still have a lot to say.” She seems to have found her way alright and is brimming with ideas to express her commitment.
Worried perhaps about her peers who see their emancipation sometimes as endangered, this knitter doesn’t fail to hang onto a hint of conviction to her works. I remember especially this sort of determined representation that she had given at the Théâtre National de Nice, last May, dressed in a full suit. Knitted of course. Delivering metaphors spun into all of her creations. For the Silo, Marine de Rocquigny originally for Art and Factswww.artandfacts.fr
*photos by Florian Lévy
Stéphanie Lobry accroche l’œil au crochet avec son cœur. Ledit, intitulé 1,8 mètre cube, « parce c’est la taille qu’il fait », gît dans la pièce, au milieu d’une foule d’organes éparpillés, partageant ce petit espace avec les pelotes de laine et les aiguilles.
Pourquoi le crochet ? Cigarette roulée au bec, elle passe une main nonchalante dans ses blonds cheveux en bataille. Elle songe… « Cette pratique aussi ancestrale soit-elle, prend des allures féministes quand elle est détournée de son utilisation pour se mettre au service de l’art. » Car c’est bien avec une volonté libératrice et féministe qu’elle s’est lancée il y a maintenant sept ans : « J’ai toujours été très créative et un peu hyper active pourtant le seul compliment que je pouvais espérer c’était d’être une bonne mère de famille… J’en ai eu marre. » Réduite une fois de trop au statut de BMF, Stéphanie Lobry « pète les plombs » et organise une première exposition.
Alors que les curieux s’aventurent dans ses appartements, elle les reçoit en nuisette, repassant chemise après chemise, la main collée à son fer. Et si l’on prête attention à l’ensemble de fils rouges qui l’entourent et parcourent son salon, on s’aperçoit qu’ils forment, en fait, un pistolet. « J’ai voulu détourner les objets du quotidien. » Elle se munie dès lors d’aiguilles et de laines. Non, pas pour tricoter des écharpes à ses filles en bonne femme d’intérieur, mais plutôt pour redécouvrir l’intérieur de la femme, puis de l’humain en général.
Rencontre logique. La crocheteuse compulsive se souvient avoir longtemps hésité entre la science et l’art : « Quand j’ai commencé mes études en biologie moléculaire, ma mère m’a demandé si j’étais sûre de ne pas vouloir plutôt faire les Beaux-Arts. » Alors autant entreprendre une reconversion qui pourrait lier ses passions et ses connaissances. Dans sa démarche artistique, elle revient donc à la genèse de la création, qui commence avec des cellules. Elle commence avec un petit crâne « tout de suite parti en galerie », puis dissèque et reprend toutes les parties du corps. Du neurone au pied. Du sexe aux poumons.
Une Ariane des temps modernes
En balayant du regard son atelier, elle s’arrête sur le cœur, « c’était un projet participatif que j’ai crée peu après Charlie. » Surement une façon de re-fédérer les gens, de renouer les liens, « tout le monde en avait besoin. » L’artiste lance alors un appel sur les réseaux sociaux, tous les participants verront leur nom affiché au bas de l’oeuvre. En quelques semaines, elle reçoit 763 pelotes de laines, provenant de plus de 120 donneurs, dispersés au quatre coins du monde, de Paris à Nouméa, en passant par le Chili, la Belgique ou la Grèce. Succès fulgurant. Travail titanesque en perspective. Il lui faut près d’un mois pour trier les tissus et constituer une pelote de plus de 40 kilos. Quant au crochet… 45 jours nécessaires à la réalisation de l’organe démesuré. « Les aiguilles étaient énormes et la pelote pesait une tonne ! Je ne pouvais pas faire plus de cinq nœuds sans être épuisée.
Une technique épuisante donc et laborieuse que la « quinqua » ne compte pas abandonner de si tôt: « J’ai l’impression que je ne suis vraiment qu’au tout début, j’ai encore beaucoup de choses à dire. » Sorte d’Ariane des temps modernes. Elle semble avoir trouvé sa voie grâce au fil et regorge d’idées pour exprimer son engagement. Inquiète au sujet de ses consœurs qui voient leur émancipation parfois en péril, cette tricoteuse ne manque pas d’accrocher un soupçon de conviction à ses œuvres. On se souvient notamment de cette représentation qu’elle avait donnée au Théâtre National de Nice, en mai dernier, enfermée dans une combinaison intégrale tricotée comme dans sa condition féminine, attendant qu’on tire sur les fils pendants pour la délivrer. Une cause qui lui tient à cœur, une métaphore filée sur l’ensemble de ses créations. Marine de Rocquigny pour Art and Factswww.artandfacts.fr
As people go about their daily lives, there’s a common but hidden scourge: excessive sweating. In fact, a national survey conducted by the International Hyperhidrosis Society (IHhS)—the scholars of sweat—shows multiple millions suffer from extreme, uncomfortable, embarrassing, debilitating, and emotionally-devastating sweating. This type of sweating is a serious medical condition known as hyperhidrosis and nearly 367 million people of all ages struggle with it on their hands, feet, face, underarms, or body.
Hyperhidrosis can be particularly devastating. While many attempt to hide their sweating problems and suffer in silence, the impacts are often hard to cover up. Dramatic sweating in the presence of peers at work, or in extracurricular or social environments, can cause severe embarrassment, stress, anxiety, and other emotional issues. Even when people are alone, away from potential judgements, hyperhidrosis often takes a heavy toll—adversely impacting one’s productivity in a myriad of ways.
Those with hyperhidrosis struggle with disproportionate and random sweating that may drench clothing, ruin papers, damage technology tools, make playing sports and musical instruments impossible, promote hiding and isolation behaviors, degrade self-esteem, and prompt bullying at any age—among kids and adults. The holistic effect on life—workplace, marital, social and otherwise—is thus profound. In fact, research published in Archives of Dermatological Research indicates that the majority of those with excessive sweating confirm the condition has negative impacts on their social life, well-being, and emotional as well as mental health.
Lisa J Pieretti, Executive Director of IHhS, notes, “Excessive sweating is a dermatological disorder that can cause an otherwise healthy person to produce up to five times more sweat than is normal or necessary. The pressures of dealing with a ‘sweating problem’ around peers can be catastrophic to self-esteem and more. Too often, people become anxious about attending work or school, socializing with friends, or being out in public in general. But when those with hyperhidrosis receive support, understanding, and appropriate treatment, their lives can be dramatically changed.”
To that point, IHhS co-founder Dr. David Pariser urges that, while hyperhidrosis is the number one dermatological disease in terms of negatively affecting a person’s quality-of-life, it’s also number one in having the most positive impact when treated. “When hyperhidrosis is caught early, a person’s life can be transformed for the better in a multitude of ways,” he says.
With that in mind, the first step toward providing solutions for those who sweat excessively is to bust some common myths and misconceptions with facts from the experts at the IHhS, including these:
Myth: Sweaty people are out-of-shape, nervous or have hygiene issues.
Truth: The average person has 2 to 4 million sweat glands. Sweat is essential to human survival and serves as the body’s coolant, protecting it from overheating. Many athletes actually sweat more than other people because their bodies have become very efficient at keeping cool. Meanwhile, people with hyperhidrosis (which causes overactive sweat glands) sweat excessively regardless of mood, weather, or activity level—often producing 4 or 5 times more sweat than is considered “normal”.
Myth: Those with hyperhidrosis don’t suffer with workplace-specific activities.
Truth: In a recent 2017 study, 63% of those with hyperhidrosis reported interference in the performance of tasks at work or school due to their condition.
Myth: To have hyperhidrosis, one must be dripping and saturated with sweat.
Truth: Excess sweating can range from severe dripping to moderate moisture. Symptoms of hyperhidrosis can manifest differently and personally. But, what is consistent is the impact on life depending on areas affected. This can include damaged clothing, paperwork and shoes; obvious, embarrassing sweat marks on clothing; unappealing cold wet hands; discomfort due to dripping sweat or constant dampness; and skin slipperiness that gets in the way of sports, music, and day-to-day tasks. Excess sweating of the armpits, hands, feet, face, chest, back, or groin can result in substantial impairment, including limitations at work, in social and physical activities, and during hobbies. Emotional and psychological distress is also common.
Myth: People will grow out of hyperhidrosis.
Truth: Contrary to popular belief, research shows that hyperhidrosis does not go away or decrease with age. In fact, in one recent IHhS study, 88% of respondents said their excessive sweating had gotten worse or stayed the same over time. This was consistent across all the different age groups, from youngsters to older adults.
image: wyldraven-deviantart.com
Myth: Hyperhidrosis is “just” a summer thing, or it’s at least worse during the hot summer months.
Truth: Research from the IHhS also shows that profuse sweating is not simply dictated by the time of year. The majority of patients in one survey indicated that their sweating bothers them equally, no matter the season.
Myth: Kids and young adults are “resilient” and can deal with sweating a lot.
Truth: Medical journal citations substantiate that young people are known to be significantly impacted by emotional sequelae accompanying dermatologic disease and that psychiatric issues inherently accompany dermatologic disease in children and adolescents. Studies further show that most patients with hyperhidrosis—characterized by excessive, spontaneous sweating beyond physiologic, thermal, or stress-reaction body requirements—describe their lives as “bad” or “very bad” due to the disorder.
Myth: Antiperspirants are for underarms only. Truth: Think outside the pits! You can glide, stick, spray, and roll-on nearly anywhere that sweating is a problem (think hands, feet, face, back, chest, and even groin.) Be smart and talk to your dermatologist first before applying an antiperspirant to sensitive areas and test new products on small areas of skin first.
Myth: Like caffeine, antiperspirants are best used in the morning. Truth: Pick a p.m. perk! Skip the bedtime espresso but do use your antiperspirant in the evening as well as in the morning. Sweat production is at its lowest at night, giving the active ingredients in antiperspirants a better chance to get into your pores and block perspiration when the sun comes up and you really get moving.
Myth: Excessive sweating is less debilitating than other skin conditions people have to deal with.
Truth: According to Dr. Pariser, hyperhidrosis has the greatest impact of any dermatological disease. In fact, various investigations show the impact of hyperhidrosis on quality-of-life is equal or greater than that of in-patient psoriasis, severe acne, Darier disease, Hailey-Hailey disease, vitiligo, and chronic pruritus.
The extreme level of sweat production experienced with hyperhidrosis can disrupt all aspects of a person’s life, from academic performance, recreational activities and relationships, to self-image and overall emotional well-being. But it doesn’t have to be this way. There are helpful resources available to help people with hyperhidrosis to not just “know sweat,” but to also achieve a more comfortable and happier life. For the Silo, Merilee Kern.
Branding and consumer product trends pundit Merilee Kern, MBA is a wellness industry veteran, health advocate and influential media voice. Her ground-breaking, award-winning “Kids Making Healthy Choices” Smartphone APP for children, parents/caregivers and educators (iTunes) is based on her award-winning, illustrated fictional children’s book, “Making Healthy Choices – A Story to Inspire Fit, Weight-Wise Kids” (Amazon). She may be reached online at www.TheLuxeList.com. Follow her on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/LuxeListEditor and Facebook here: www.Facebook.com/TheLuxeList.
If you notice anything on your drywall that doesn’t seem right, then it may be time to contact a professional who can help you identify the problem and ensure everything is repaired properly.
Here are signs that you need a drywall repair
Cracks and indentations in walls and ceilings
If you notice cracks and indentations in your home’s walls, ceilings, and floors, it could be a sign of bigger problems. Cracks are often caused by settling or shifting. When this happens over time (and it can happen very quickly), there’s usually nothing you can do but patch up the crack as best as possible before continuing with other repairs on your home.
The same goes for indentations—if they’re too deep or wide-spread to fix easily with paint or filler material like spackle (which is designed to fill holes), then they may indicate that something more serious has happened, like water damage from pipes breaking under pressure inside them; this would require professional help from professionals such as an inspector who inspects homes after major storms pass through an area, so he knows what kind of work needs doing before further progress takes place on any given project!
Sticking doors or windows
Check for loose hinges or screws: If your door is sticking, you might notice that the door has been sticking for a while. This could be because of loose hinges or screws on either side of the door.
Look for cracks in the frame: If there are cracks in your frame, they could cause your doors to stick. Look at them close up with a magnifying glass (if necessary). If they look damaged, consider having them fixed by a wall repair professional so that they don’t cause any more trouble later down the road!
Water stains on ceilings or walls
If you notice water stains on your ceiling or walls, it’s a sign of a leak in your home. Leaks can be caused by many different sources, including plumbing and roofing. If you have leaks on both sides of the wall, two leaks are likely happening at once—and both need to be fixed!
If you find that one side of an area has been affected by rainwater and condensation (from heating or cooling), contact an expert to help determine what needs fixing before further damage occurs.
Paint chips easily off drywall
Chipping paint is a sign of drywall damage. If you notice that your paint chip easily, it’s time to call a professional. You don’t want to spend money on repairs when there are signs that could have been caught before the problem occurred.
If you have chipped walls or ceilings and wonder what caused them (and how long ago), pay attention! If the damage was caused by water seeping through cracks in the foundation or other parts of your house, then this is most likely the cause of your chipping paint problems—especially since ceiling panels tend to crack more than wall surfaces do due to their thicker construction material and weight distribution issues with hanging objects like lights fixtures and fans above them.”
Mold growth
Mold growth is a sign of water damage. Water can seep in through the smallest crack and cause mold to grow. If you notice that your walls are covered in black or white spots, it could indicate that your drywall has been affected by mold.
Mold can spread easily because:
It grows very fast; within 24 hours, it may be two feet thick!
It’s resistant to many cleaning products and chemicals (soaps, detergents) that are designed for other purposes, such as cleaning up spills on kitchen countertops or floors where kids have been playing soccer all day long without any protection whatsoever; these products don’t work well against molds because they leave behind residues which support continued growth once again.
Drywall repairs are more complex than you may be tempted to think, and that’s why you need an experienced repair company to do the work. For the Silo, Anna Kendrick.
My head hits the pillow with little regard for the color of the sheets and the stains on the walls. Outside I can hear the bustling streets of Kolkata come to a standstill and in the far off distance I can make out the explosion of more fireworks, another festival. The mind turns to the weeks passed and again I can feel the slow process of realization and change occurring. Guilt is an awful feeling and more so when you are unable to identify that which you have done wrong.
The voices of those in the streets plague me as much as the faces and bare feet of their owners. “Please sir, no money, just milk for my baby.” I ignored the advances of another pleading mother. Why? Do I fear the scam of it? Not believe the legitimacy of such a plea? Not care that in her arms there lay a starving child screaming out from the pains of hunger? Or is it I am too overwhelmed to believe I am capable of doing anything in a country this size with a people this poor?
I lay for a long while as the moonlight casts its shadows upon my wall, not quite awake not quite asleep.
I see their waste high faces peering up at me, with no formal education, selling to me, begging me, joking with me. Those who I do speak with paint only the beginning of a picture; a life which I cannot ever fully understand, a life of struggle and hardship which exists to me only in the media and one they only know.
I see them playing cricket in the streets and asking me to join, happy to have a street to play in and a foreigner to practice English with. The simplicity in this humbles me. As a child I remember hearing bed time stories of men on their travels. Now I am a man on his travels imagining the stories of these children. For the Silo, Joshua Winter.
“I would like to see the sky machine on every corner instead of the Coke machine. We need more skies than Coke.” – Yoko Ono, 1966.
Growing up the daughter of proud, British baby-boomer parents, the name Yoko Ono was not exactly revered in my household. In fact, she was considered a weird, controlling creature that somehow brainwashed John Lennon and systematically broke up the Beatles—the greatest rock and roll band of all time (according to my father). It wasn’t until art school that I began to learn who Ono really was and why she is considered one of the most iconic and mythological people in contemporary society.
Yoko Ono has been in the public eye for over 50 years, and she has been viewed as a muse, destroyer, widow, mother and artist. Granted, the fact that she is a household name is due largely to her late husband’s fame and legacy. However many are not aware of the her own accomplishments, innovations and her impact on the contemporary art world, beginning before her much publicized marriage and continuing until today.
Yoko Ono was born in Japan in 1933 to wealthy parents. Her family experienced much hardship during the Second World War, surviving the great fire bombings of Tokyo in 1945. They lost everything and were forced to beg and barter for food, which Ono credits as being the inspiration behind her imaginary/instructional art works or, as she refers to them, “paintings for the mind.”
After the war her family settled outside New York City, where Ono studied at the prestigious Sarah Lawrence College. In New York she began visiting galleries and art “happenings” (a form of performance-art involving the participation of both artist and audience), and these experiences inspired her own emerging work. In the early 1960s Ono was closely associated with the Fluxis movement, which was more a state of mind than a style of art. Members valued social goals over aesthetic goals and their main aim was to upset bourgeois (ie: middle-class or materialistic) routines of art and life.
The Fluxus incorporated influences from Dadaist theory, a school that originated in Europe after the First World War when founding artists Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Jean Arp felt they could no longer trust reason and the established order of things. The intent of Dada artists was to denounce all previous attitudes and perceptions and to shock the audience. Similar to Dada and often described as anti-art, the Fluxis used mixed-media, mail art, actions and happenings to promote a new culture of performance-based, audience-interactive, and non-commodifiable art.
One of the most iconic pieces of performance art, and the one for which she is most renowned, is Yoko Ono’s “Cut Piece” (c. 1964). Performed on several occasions and in a variety of venues, “Cut Piece” featured Ono alone on a stage, dressed in a black garment. Volunteering audience members were given scissors and invited to cut pieces from her dress. Like most performance-based artists, Ono could not have had a set purpose when she performed this work—or if she did it would be pointless—because it depended on the audience/viewer response and action.
For the most part, people were at first hesitant to come on stage, but as they lost their inhibitions participants began to cut bigger and bigger pieces of cloth until the dress was left in shreds (in one performance a young male actually cut off her undergarments).
Depending on where she performed “Cut Piece,” Ono received a different reaction. In Japan the audience was shy and hesitant. In London they became so violent security had to intervene. But even if no one had come forth to snip the dress, the performance would still have made a statement.
This is the strongest, most encompassing element of Ono’s catalogue as a whole: its participatory aspect. Everything she has done has been dependent on her audience or viewer. Her book Grapefruit is an excellent example of this. It contains instructions on how to perform her various imaginary pieces, such as “Painting to be constructed in your head,” and “Conversation piece.” In one of my personal favourites, “Painting for the wind,” the reader is instructed to “cut a hole in a bag filled with seeds and place the bag wherever there is wind” (1961, summer).
It is impossible to discuss Yoko Ono’s work without mentioning her late-husband and collaborator, John Lennon. After their extremely public romance and marriage, Ono found she was somewhat shunned or distanced by the contemporary arts community. But the couple decided to exploit their massive profile to forward their social agenda for peace. On their honeymoon, the two staged a “Bed-in for Peace” in Montreal, knowing the media would eagerly cover something so curious and provocative. John articulated his understanding of the potential of modern media very well; he knew that whatever he and Yoko did would end up in the papers.
“We decided,” he said, “to use the space we would occupy…with a commercial for peace and also for a theatrical event.” Life as art with social goals: very Fluxis.
After Lennon’s devastating assassination in 1980, Ono continued to manage his estate and advocate for world peace, eventually getting back to conceptual art in large galleries. Most recently she has exhibited and performed commemorative shows in honour of the 40th anniversary of “Cut Piece.”
In the movie “Imagine: John Lennon,” Lennon describes how he met his wife: “Yoko was having an art show at the Indica Gallery…I went down the night before the opening. The first thing that was in the gallery was a white step ladder and a painting on the ceiling and a spy glass hanging down. I walked up this ladder and I picked up the spy glass and in tiny little writing it just said, ‘Yes’…” Lennon also once referred to his wife as the world’s “most famous unknown artist. Everybody knows her name but nobody knows what she does.” For the Silo,Eve Yantha.
For further contemplation:
Imagine: John Lennon- A startling film derived from over 200 hours of John’s own film and video footage, as well as stills & heretofore unpublished music from John and Yoko’s personal collection. (1988)
Grapefruit: A Book of Instruction and Drawing by Yoko Ono (c. 1964; 1970)
Once again I find myself Down in the Southern U.S checking out beautiful un-restored classic cars in their usual (usual here) worn out aged condition. With very little rust. It never ceases to amaze me the sheer quantity of classics down here. I look at such a wide array of any make or model. (people actually think that they have all been picked already!). One short cruise down one back-road down here and I guarantee that you will spot at least an old Chevy truck parked out back behind a house, in a barn, or just barely sticking out of an old garage that is coming down around it.
As an extreme car enthusiast, all I can say is that it is unreal.
This, not planned, but longer than expected trip to Georgia, brought me to see a sweet 1968 el Camino SS, with a 383 stroker engine and nice black interior. I almost got to look at an original, untouched 1963 split window Corvette, parked in a carport for like 20 years. Apparently under a couple inch thick layer of dust. Go figure it was gone before I even got there.
A teaser sneak-peek at the back end and side of the 1968 ElCamino. Complete with black interior and a 383 Stroker engine.
A couple of the more odd-ball cars I looked at were a 1985 Corvette on 20inch 140spoke knock-off rims ( I don’t understand this one!), and a metallic orange 85 Monte Carlo SS jacked up about 14 inches sitting on 24’s, and featuring real bullet holes that it received in a police shootout (the guy who had it, bought it from a police auction). Neat looking car.
I also met a man down here who had to have had about 6 or 7, 58-60 Corvettes in different stages of repair. With one I believe, 1959 Corvette completely restored, in a high-gloss black, with a mint convertible top, and factory 4speed standard (manual to our UK and European friends) transmission. He also had one 1958, close to finished. They were both sweet cars. I must also add that the other 4 or 5 were scattered around his property among scrap, building supplies, and bushes. It was quite a sight.
These very rare cars in abundance on this property.
I walked out behind his shop and he had a 1957 Chevy 210 Station Wagon with no engine, but complete interior down to the factory radio! This car just parked, with bushes and weeds growing around it. (I think I am going to buy this one to build with my son and daughter and keep as the Sunday cruiser). I’m thinking a nice, loud, built small block, flat-black paint, and white wall tires on gloss-red rallys. I love these cars!
You probably noticed the first photo in this post right? Well, on a previous trip down here about two years ago I caught wind of a guy in Tennessee who apparently had 19, (that’s right!!! 19!) 1957 Chevy cars.
I couldn’t believe it when I got there and I don’t think too many people can say that they’ve seen nineteen 1957 Chevys all in one spot. It was incredible.
This guy had acres and acres of farm with cars tucked away everywhere you looked. 1951 Fords, A 59 Chrysler, 38 Chevy coupe, 59 International pickup, a 1929 Chevy Hot-rod, an I think 1930 Nash, all kinds of cars and trucks that you never see. In nearly original condition. My actual favorite here though, was his personal “parts getter” 1929 Chevy Truck Rat-rod, it was clever right down to the piston rad cap that stuck out of the hood. I really liked this one. The cool thing about finding all these cars is meeting their owners and hearing all of their stories. Car people are usually fun to hang out with, especially in the south.
1929 Chevy Truck “Rat Rod”.
I’m coming back with a friend who bought a 1966 Big back window, Chevy custom-10 short-box. Its not a half bad truck. He’s gonna fix it up. Maybe add a small block V-8. We’ll see. I’m heading back to Canada tomorrow. Goodbye t-shirt days in January, goodbye five dollar all-you- can eat buffets, goodbye three dollar smokes and goodbye constant, rare car sightings. Oh well, I always know that there will be future adventures in the deep south. Checking out sweet old cars for people, and telling them where they’re at. It’s always cool to have someone ask if I know of an old car they have been looking for and can’t find, and I can tell them “I can give you the phone number of a guy who’s got one of those”. It’s always very cool to have someone bring you a new project. So many possibilities with every car that rolls in…
The thing I am so happy about too, my family and friends have told me that my mood is so much better and I’m not suffering from these severe mood swings or, really depression from having to deal with all these horrible symptoms that go on. I can actually have a somewhat normal life.
Why crochet? Rolled cigarette in mouth, she passes a nonchalant hand into blond spiky hair. She thinks… “This practice is also ancestral, but has potential for feminist messages and aesthetics when it is diverted from its original use and put towards the service of art. I’ve always been very creative and a little hyper active yet the only compliment I could expect from that was to be commended for being a good mother…”. I got fed up.” Reduced once too often to the status of “the good historical female”, Stéphanie Lobry “lost it”and held her first exhibition.
Myth: Excessive sweating is less debilitating than other skin conditions people have to deal with.
