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What are the Best Months for a Beach or Destination Wedding

 In BeachWeddingPodcast

The best time to plan a beach or destination wedding is when YOU want it. Here is info to help you decide.

Set the Stage

  • In Florida we have a 12 month wedding season
  • The best time is when you REALLY want it – fits your plans
  • Special dates like 11/11/17 (7 bookings) , 4/20 hehe – Holidays like new years eve, new years day, July 4th, etc
  • Sometimes couples want the same date as when they were engaged, or their parents anniversary or other special dates.
  • We find that Destination weddings often occur when people take vacation time in the summer, kids out of school and college, classic summer vacation time
  • Visualize what your wedding theme and vibe will be. This will help you pick a season. If it is fully decked with formal wedding dresses and bridesmaids dresses, and tuxedos or suits, this may guide you to a cooler month. It may. Although we have done those in July with heat index of 110.
    • If you will be super casual with shorter summer dresses, bare feet, men wearing linen outfts or shorts then the summer months will be fine.
  • If you are having a reception, making sure the venue that you want is available, at any month or time is vital. Plan well in advance for this to increase your odds of booking the right venue.
  • Make sure you understand seasonality and events occurring where you are planning your destination or beach wedding
  • Read our blog post – Magic Months for Florida Beach Weddings – http://www.paradisebeachweddings.net/wedding-info/magic-months-for-florida-beach-weddings/

The Seasons – If you are trying to pick a time

  • Spring – Late February, March, April, Mid-May
  • The Endless Summer 2nd Half May, June, July, August, September
  • Fall – October, November
  • Winter – December, January, February

Spring – Great for Sunrise Ceremonies. Great for On Beach Receptions.

    • For east coast of central Florida, late February kicks off the busy season and Spring – average temp daytime high is 71 and nighttime low is 51
      • Daytona 500 occurs and all hotels in a large radius are booked, restaurants full, beaches start to get day trippers and vacationers. It is on Feb 17th in 2017
      • First two weeks of Feb great for cooler beach or destination weddings. Still off season and winter.
      • Last week is also great and we would consider it to be early spring
    • March is full spring with average temp daytime high is 75 and nighttime low is 57
      • It has become a busy month for our area
      • Bike Week is March 8-17, 2019 with 500,000 people (most with motorcycles) coming into our area. Hotels and all restaurants booked. Beach is OK, not that busy during this event.
      • Spring break is all month for colleges around the USA (Ohio State and Florida State go March 9-17)
      • March is a great beach wedding month but if April is a better bet here, but it fills up quickly so plan ahead.
      • Eastern time or Spring forward starts March 10th. with sunsetting about 7:30pm
    • April is one of the “magic” months along with November – average temp daytime high is 79 and nighttime low is 60
      • This month kicks off the “busiest” wedding season
      • Perfect weather
      • Longer daylight days. Evening weddings
      • Easter is semi – busy and occurs on April 21st 2019.
      • Schools and colleges are still in session
      • Daytripper traffic starts to increase on weekends as weather is getting warmer
    • We consider the first half May as early spring – average temp daytime high is 82 and nighttime low is 69
      • School is still in session until May 20th or so.
      • Beaches getting busier
      • Warmer days
      • Still off season, the last of it.
      • May 1st is Turtle Nesting season for us. In other locations, find out their specific regulations and other seasonal topics.
  • In Volusia County Florida, we have turtle nesting season. It starts May 1st an ends October 31st. This means that no equipment or lights can be on the beach before sunrise or after sunset. People can, but nothing else. Spring weddings have full flexibility for sunrise setups and parties with lights on the beach, Can you do it for this amount? Yes but you set the budget based on working with the wedding planner.
  • Venues have good general availability in the spring
  • Excellent Choice for Weddings

Endless Summer – Consider during week if Destination Wedding

    • 2nd Half of May – average high 85 average – nighttime low is 71
      • Colleges and southern schools out
      • Summer season officially begins with very busy beach weekends
      • Venues start to book heavily
      • Northern primary and secondary schools still in session
      • Classic summer vacations for most employed people have not yet started
      • In season pricing well into affect
      • Memorial day is a super busy time at the beach
    • June average high 88 average – nighttime low is 72
      • First half of June Northern primary and secondary schools still in session
      • Weekends are packed with Daytrippers and out of towners
      • Fully summer heat in play
      • June is the wedding month of the June bride!
      • June is our busiest month with events.
      • Longest daylight days of the year, weddings can start as late as 7:30 for cooler temps and less busy beaches
      • Hurricane Season Begins
    • July average high 90 average – nighttime low is 73
      • Our second busiest month of the year
      • 4th of July Weekend is busy, lots of fireworks and events
      • Coke Zero 400 Nascar Race – 7/6/19 – Hotels and restaurants booked
      • Hot, morning weddings before 11am are great. Later in evening.
    • August average high 90 average – nighttime low is 74
      • Better summer month for venues and availability of vendors than June – July
      • Hot, morning weddings before 11am are great. Later in evening.
      • Beaches still very busy on weekends
      • Schools and colleges start getting back into session in late August
    • September average high 88 average – nighttime low is 74
      • While many areas of the country start cooling down, we are still in dead of summer! Still hot and your body is ready for fall!
      • All schools back in session
      • Off season begins, pricing for hotels goes down, availability goes way up. restaurants less busy.
      • Venues busy as September is a traditionally strong wedding month
      • We have a significant drop in beach weddings as “destination season” has ended. Explain:
      • Still turtle nesting season

Fall Season – Off Season & Magical Weather

    • October average high 83 average – nighttime low is 67
      • The first real relief from summer temperatures
      • Beaches are quieter
      • Off season, pricing for hotels goes down, availability goes way up. restaurants less busy.
      • Biketober Fest is another Motorcycle event like Bike Week but much smaller (only 150,000 motorcycles) and shorter in length. In 2019 it is 10/18-10/21.
      • Usually good availability for venues and planners
      • Still turtle nesting season, but ends 10/31
    • November average high 77 average – nighttime low is 59
      • One of the other “magic” months like April
      • Turtle nesting season is over so sunrise weddings with setups and evening receptions/parties on the beach are OK!
      • We and busy with local weddings
      • Off season, except Thanksgiving weekend
      • Last month with “warmer temps” before Winter Season
      • Hurricane Season is over
      • Time change November 4th 2018, Fall back – lose an hour of daylight

Winter Season – Pricing Deals, Cooler Temps, Empty Beaches

    • December average high 71 average – nighttime low is 52
      • Off season, Super quiet except Christmas-New Years
      • Shorter days of sunlight, dark by 5:30pm
      • High availability
      • Special pricing and deals available across vendors
    • January average high 68 average – nighttime low is 50
      • Off season, Super quiet except Christmas-New Years
      • Coolest Winter Month
      • High availability
      • Special pricing and deals available across vendors
      • Last slow month before busy peak season begins in 2nd half of February

    • 12 months wedding season
    • The busier the season, the longer planning time you will need to assure availability of venues and vendors
    • Busy in-season on east coast of Central Florida starts in 2nd half of February and ends by Labor Day.
    • April and November are Magic Months
    • If you want more formal with warmer clothing, look into early spring or Fall-Winter
    • Ask about discounts in Dec – Feb
    • Start by picking the date that YOU want, unless you have total flexibility, and then the planner will provide you with great options.

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Burwood Park is a pleasantly surprising oasis right near Westfields and Burwood train station. The large park has a lot to offer with a...
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“I can’t do this. I’m not good enough, and I can’t make people care.” Those are the things that run through my mind with an alarming frequency these days. It doesn’t seem to matter what the context is. Writing, relationships, job prospects– more often than not, my reactions are the same.  It’s not unsupported doubt.

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Saturday, October 27, 2012

San Pedro Calungsod, Second Filipino Saint

San Pedro visits Antipolo City six days after his canonization.

San Pedro suffered persecution and martyrdom in Guam. He is the Patron Saint of
Filipino youth, Catechumens, altar boys, the Philippines, Overseas Filipino Workers, Guam, Cebuanos, Visayans, Archdiocese of Cebu, Philippines.

Original statue of San Pedro Calungsod.

A week after his canonization, His image was brought to Immaculate Concepcion Parish in Antipolo City. There was a welcome mass for him and 'pahalik' right after.

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Archive for the ‘Rhode Island Installment Loans No Credit Check’ Category

Exactly just How government student education loans work

三月 7, 2020 - 11:52 上午 No Comments

Exactly just How government student education loans work

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1. Tuition cost loan: it is possible to borrow as much as ??9,000 per 12 months, that is the most a college is permitted to charge in charges. （更多…）


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Playing Robbed Eggs Challenge

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Not just words

We all probably have different things written on our hearts, don't we? I have been loved, committed to love, and then have had that love broken. The words written then maybe went something like, "You didn't really matter to me", "Your trust wasn't important to me", or perhaps "You weren't what I really wanted." I have been guilty of writing some words there over the years, as well. Words like "You aren't good enough at that", "You won't ever measure up", or "Your best will never make you as popular as that one." Words get 'written' on our hearts as we live life, don't they? Some of them are 'written' there by others and others are recorded there because we write them ourselves. Either way, most of those words aren't really the truth God believes about us. In fact, he goes to great lengths to reveal to us what he has written upon our hearts - the truths he places there are what we might just call "grace writings".

Doing something for you, bringing something to you—that’s not what you’re after. Being religious, acting pious—that’s not what you’re asking for. You’ve opened my ears so I can listen. So I answered, “I’m coming. I read in your letter what you wrote about me, and I’m coming to the party
you’re throwing for me.” That’s when God’s Word entered my life, became part of my very being. (Psalm 40:6-8)

Grace words can very much 'undo' the other things written there by others and ourselves, but does it surprise anyone to know we sometimes take a long, long time believing what God says about us? It is like we find it impossible to believe we are loved in spite of all our wrong actions, selfish motivations, and prideful missteps. We couldn't love another as God loves us, so we measure his love for us against how we'd love others behaving the same as we have. We forget how much work God has gone to in order to erase those words we have allowed to be recorded that aren't really true words about who and what we are! His grace isn't easily embraced sometimes - especially when it comes to 'undoing' whatever it is we have formed or allowed others to form within us as 'opinion' about ourselves.

God's words are kind - they uplift. His words are beyond 'adequate' - they are all-powerful. They are grace words - truth-filled, liberating, and compassionate. They 'counter' the untruths we believe about ourselves - that we aren't worthy, we have gone 'too far', there is no one who will love us. They do more than erase the content of those words - they fill those spaces with words we can rely on, allowing us to stand firm upon them when untruth attempts to come again to fill us with words of doubt, discouragement, or distress. Mom used to tell sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. She was wrong! Words hurt. The stories we tell ourselves 'nurse' those hurts for a long, long time. Words are powerful. They carry life, or destroy it as quickly as they are said, believed, and 'recorded' in the recesses of our memories.

Back in the day, we had chalkboards in the classrooms. I remember loving to be the one to clean those boards at then end of the school day. We had those special erasers that would remove every hint of chalk dust and latent words upon those green surfaces. The boards would be fresh, readied to receive the next day's work and assignments. I would pass over those boards several times, taking those erasers outside and clapping them together to remove the dust from them until they were clean again. I think God has a 'special eraser', too. One he uses upon our lives to erase harmful and hurtful words written upon our hearts. His special eraser is grace. His purpose in 'erasing' is not to leave us 'sparkling clean', but to 'rewrite' the story on the freshly prepared slate! He doesn't just leave the 'board' of our hearts prepared to receive the next words, but he writes upon that clean slate the truth only he knows about us: We are deeply loved, dynamically redeemed, cleaned through and through, and exalted to a special place of honor in his presence. Now those are words worth placing upon any of our hearts! Just sayin!

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The bobby pin in the electrical socket does what???

Avoidance is the act of staying away from something - usually because it brings some kind of negative effect into your life.  For example, if you are a diabetic, you avoid the intake of high quantities of simple sugars because they bring the negative effect of elevating your blood glucose to unhealthy levels.  If you were like me as a kid, listening to mom and dad tell you the electrical outlets were actually dangerous didn't matter all that much until you put the bobby pin into the tiny slots and felt that jolt of electric current course through your body! At that point, you recognized electricity as having a "dangerous" side to it - it produces negative effects when embraced in a wrong manner.  Both of these are good things, when used correctly.  Sugar has a benefit of producing energy within our cells, but an over-abundance of it will have a bad effect.  Electricity lights our path and keeps us warm on cold nights, but not contained as it should be and it can produce …

When someone tells you that you need to wrap your mind around some concept, they are telling you that the subject at hand will take some effort on our part to actually get enough of a hint of it in order to even remotely understand it. The subject is complex, even a little overwhelming, and we will have to apply ourselves to really grasp it very well. We cannot wrap our minds around God's wisdom and knowledge - because it is infinite and our brains are sadly finite. We can only 'think' so far and then we have to 'trust'. Some of us think there is nothing we can trust if we cannot 'think' it through, but this will never work when it comes to our faith. Faith requires trust in what is unseen and not fully comprehended. The truth we believe is really building our trust, but until we approach God with more trust than 'thought', we will never fully grasp some of the things he has prepared for us.

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What or Who is it that causes division among you right now? Maybe it is more of a 'what' than a 'who' that is creating the division between you and something you need in your life. Perhaps you are struggling with an addiction to something that keeps coming between you and true liberty from the hold that thing has on you. Yes, addiction is really the worst kind of enslavement one can imagine - being so emotionally or psychologically attached to the 'thing' that any attempt to break free causes so much trauma in your life that you just cannot imagine being free. But...God is above that addiction - he is stronger than the emotional or psychological pull that thing has in your life. Maybe the dividing force in your life right now is a 'who' - a tough relationship challenge between you and a coworker, a spouse that seems to no longer share your interests or values, or even a relative that doesn't understand some of your choices and now chooses to withdra…


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A Little More on the End of Dune

I’ve been running a Dune book club over at dunecember.com since December, in case you didn’t know. We (and I) just finished the book this week, and I wrote a looooong recap of the last 50 pages and discussed it a bit. I had some more that I wanted to share with regards to my perception of the book’s conclusion and the official Dunecember blog didn’t feel like the right place for it, so here we are.

Over in my post, I said:

This book seems to make the case for looking toward the unexpected, the uncontrollable, the “chaotic” over the planned and the foreseen. It’s an interesting way to look at things.

And I have found myself looking at things this way since I first read this book a few years ago. It’s not an easy way to look at things without a sufficiently-large view of God. The “chaotic” mentioned above is, to me, only literally chaotic to those (including myself) who are incapable of understanding God completely. I believe that God has ultimate authority in every situation and that nothing happens beyond His control. This is a tough way to look at things because, well, shit happens. Daily. From tiny things that suck all the way up to enormous, ghastly tragedies.

Either these things are out of God’s control, or they are part of his plan in a way that will eventually glorify Him. For God to be the supreme being He says He is (“the Beginning and the End”), He must be capable of thinking and planning beyond anything humans are capable of perceiving. Thus even horrible atrocities must have a place in His plan, since they occur and everything that occurs is part of His orchestration.

(This does not square with the concept of Buddy Christ–the God who’s totally your best friend and is going to make you rich. It also makes people uncomfortable to think that every terrible thing they have experienced has been for a reason–understandably, I might add, since people go through terrible things and have a tendency to blame God for making their life hard.)

In Dune, the best-laid plans of a powerful order are diverted by one woman’s decision, due to her love for her husband, to have a boy instead of a girl. (Within this order, women are capable of such minute control of their bodies that they can determine the gender of their child.) Centuries of careful breeding are thwarted by this one decision, and the son becomes the One that they have sought all this time.

While I know that fiction is not evidence of the manifestation of God in our lives, I believe that the act of creativity and creation can be a form of worship–that even non- and anti-Christians can reflect God in art. I think God is reflected in Dune.

Accepting the idea that “chaos” in our lives can be God’s path for us is weird and kind of difficult. In Dune, Paul (the aforementioned One) has limited precognition–he sees things that could happen based on his actions. Sometimes, though, his perception of his various paths dips out of his view. These are the times he knows that he must act–he fears and anticipates them because he knows that it is in these moments that change will come into his life. Our lives have similar instants where small decisions make a big difference later on. Sometimes, we can even see these decisions coming and decide whether to embrace or avoid them.

My encouragement for you is: embrace these decisions. Trust God. Know that things won’t always been perfect or even good, but that He has a place for you in a plan so complex that we aren’t even capable of comprehending.

(Before anyone brings it up–I’m not arguing for predestination 100%. I think that predestination/free will is not an either/or situation. The best way I can put it is especially for nerds: think of light. It is a particle, a photon. Also, it is a wave. Sometimes it acts like one, sometimes it acts like the other. But as far as we can tell, it’s both at the same time. That’s my answer to the predestination/free will argument–as far as we can tell, it’s both at the same time.)

Dunecember: End of the Story Discussion

J. Scott Campbell's Frank Herbert

Have you finished Dune(cember)?

I have. Let’s talk. Continue reading

Dunecember: Week 8 Roundup

Japanese Dune Cover

Here we are: halfway through book three, most of the way through Dune. Crazy things are still happening: our main character(s) are still finding their place in their world. The protagonist and the antagonist haven’t even met yet, and we’ve only got about 50 pages left (plus the appendices)!

Thus far in Book Three, the focus has partially been on bringing the Atreides crew from Book One out of hiding. We find that, two (or is it three?) years later, Thufir Hawat, the mentat, is still in service of the Harkonnens. He has been busy, however. We find that he is playing multiple sides against each other, making it look as if each is the sole beneficiary of his schemes. Taking his sketched-out plans on the whole, it looks like he is going for revenge against the Baron, his chosen successor, and the emperor. His plans are also working to drive Arrakis into the hands of Paul, though he may not know it.

A word on the Baron real quick: I think Herbert’s emphasis on his huge fatness belies the power, intelligence, and scheming that the Baron seems capable of. He has plans layers and layers deep, keeping everyone who could be of any use to him beholden to him in some way. Every person who works with him or deals with him has an exploitable weak spot that the Baron is not afraid to take hold of and squeeze. This guy is a pretty great foil compared with the young, quick Paul. And they haven’t even met!

At the end of our section, Gurney Halleck (how awesome of a name for a fighting man is Gurney by the way?) rejoins Paul and Jessica. He has spent the time as a spice smuggler, and is still motivated by thoughts of revenging his Duke. He’s not the schemer that Hawat is, but it seems he was, in a way, the soul of Duke Leto’s former crew. He provides some of the more emotional moments in the book, I think.

Paul’s story is really coming to a head as a bildungsroman. He’s fathered a child. He goes through the Fremen rite of manhood in catching and riding a maker. He’s gone from reacting to things that are happening or are about to happen to planning for the future. Paul seems to have a lot of schemes laid out as well. I really really like his philosophy of compromise. He sees two distinct futures ahead of him and constantly tries to have it another way. It’s, in a certain sense, youthful rebellion; it’s also the sign of someone who refuses to just accept his fate and give up fighting. I am thoroughly convinced by his speech explaining the compromise of being leader while keeping Stilgar alive and in charge of the seitch (it makes Stilgar…governor while Paul is…president?). And I think he is up to some craziness with the ending of the chapter. What he has decided to do makes sense with his take-charge-instead-of-waiting method of leadership, even though it’s nuts.

This is our last week! Read to THE END OF THE BOOK! I’ll try to get a roundup in by Thursday or Friday, and then write another one for some Appendix discussion. Also this week I am looking to have some guests discuss their favorite characters or scenes or locations or technology or whathaveyou in Dune. Let me know in the comments if you’re interested in sending me ~500 words on stillsuits (or whatever).

The picture up top is stolen from Brandon Graham’s livejournal. He’s one of my favorite comic book guys–his book King City comes out roughly monthly from Image. And, because I haven’t made a Star Wars connection in a while: Fremen with stillsuits = Tusken Raiders???

Dunecember: Weeks 6 + 7 Roundup (Book 2)

What a crazy couple of weeks for Paul and for Arrakis. Actually, I don’t know how much time passed during Book Two, but I get the feeling that it was not a long period of time. It may have been shorter than two weeks. But we read the section in two weeks, so I’m just going to go with that.

This was the setting-things-up section of the book. The first part gave us the facts about the planet and the characters. We learned of the political situation and were given some insights into what was going to happen (and some things that only might happen). This part placed all the pieces in motion. Betrayals were handed out, as were executions. Partnerships were formed, and titles were distributed. It seems that everything was laid out for the commencement of the action–the forward movement–of our last section.

I’m going to stick to my format from last time and bullet out some of the important plot points from the last ~160 pages:

  • The Atreides have lost Arrakis to the Harkonnens–everyone’s believed dead except Hawat.
  • Paul and Jessica survived in the open desert and were initiated into Stilgar’s Fremen tribe
  • Paul > Lisan al-Gaib/Usul/Paul Muad’Dib
  • Jessica > Reverend Mother
  • Baron Harkonnen > Still a bastard

There is an insane amount of detail and complexity I am leaving out here, but, well there you go. The ending scene of Book Two was pretty dense with information. Jessica becoming a Reverend Mother seems to have awakened her generational insight while also awakening the child growing inside her. The spice that Jessica consumed and transformed is enjoyed by a drug in the seitch “orgy” which may be as much or more metaphysical than it is physical (though it seems that Paul and Chani–Liet-Kynes’ daughter–do get physical). The whole thing reminded me of that scene in Matrix Reloaded, except without Keanu Reeves’ naked butt.

We’re caught up to this post in DHarbin’s Dune book club. Read his stuff for more insight–and his comments for actual discussion!

Next week, we’re reading to around page 437–the chapter that begins “How often it is that the angry man…” and ends with “His body had slowly acquired…” Enjoy (I’ll round it up, I promise!)

Dunecember: Week 5 (Book 1) Roundup

How about that post last week, huh? Drew’s comparison of Paul’s upbringing with the molding of details into poured concrete was a very evocative and, I think, apt one.

This week we wrapped up the first part of Dune. There was quite a bit of action, and it was certainly thrilling. In classic unfolding drama fashion, get had a lot of questions answered and a lot of new questions come up.

We finally saw:

  • Yueh’s betrayal
  • The Duke’s death
  • Paul and Jessica’s escape
  • The Harkonnen plan
  • Jessica’s parentage

But we were presented all kinds of questions:

  • Who of the Duke’s men made it out?
  • Where will Jessica and Paul go?
  • Who will win the battle?
  • What is the true nature of Paul’s new found powers?
  • Jihad?

The question about Paul’s powers is definitely, for me, the biggest one. It seems like he is looking into the future, but not just one, predetermined future, but all possible futures, based on his choices. He can also sense the past, and read more into people than we’ve previously been informed was possible. (He determines his grandfather is Baron Harkonnen just by looking at her face–and analyzing all the facts at hand!)

I’m interested to see what you, dear readers, think about his decision with the two paths laid out for him: He mentions one involves greeting the Baron by calling him “grandfather” and the other he sees a shrine of his father’s skull and “jihad.” I have an idea of what these mean (I’ve read this before, relatively recently) but I’d really love to hear what you think.

This week, the reading schedule doubles! We’re reading about 75 pages this week–half of book 2. Reading ends with the chapter beginning “This Fremen religious adaptation…” and ending with “Even the hawks could appreciate these facts.”

Dunecember: Week 4 Roundup

This was written by my good friend Drew Morgan.

Well, this week we spent most of our time watching complicated personal interactions among the Atreides household and company. We seem to finally be starting to fade from inside to outside, to transition from control to chaos, to feather from exercise into execution. If you will permit me one of my odd metaphors, the household that has formed Paul into the (presumably) future ruler of Arrakis is like a womb–he has been protected and formed by Caladan, the Duke Leto, the Lady Jessica, and their chosen assistants–and the tenuous Atreides household on Arrakis is the birth canal to his destiny.

I made a sculpture last week, as a present for my brother. It is a ~250 lb, 3 ft concrete cross, with faceted sides; at risk of sounding proud, I think it is a beautiful design. I precisely cut 23 irregular quadrilaterals from plywood and attached them together with duct tape and spray foam, creating a form to hold the oatmeal-like wet concrete. When I poured it in the top, across the rebar built into the interior, I was nervous that the untested form would split open and waste my efforts all over my garage floor, but it held. I let it be for 24 hours while it hardened until it could support itself.

You may be wondering why I tell this story; maybe you see that I am about to compare Paul to my sculpture. But the point of my story is the part where I destroyed the wooden form on Christmas Eve. I used a utility knife to slice quickly through the tape and foam down the length of the mold, and piece-by-piece I pried off the wooden facets and tossed them into a pile on the floor. After I was done, I found my hands resting on something more than I had bargained for. Not only did I see the angles and proportions of my design, but I was presented with a wonderfully accurate, though pocketed and sandy, reproduction of wood grains and ribbed strips of tape.

This is why I think Mr. Herbert has written the first portion of Dune for us: so that as we begin to enjoy the main body of his epic storyline, we are not watching only the explicitly blocked-out, major facets of Paul’s character unfold upon Arrakis, exciting and enjoyable though they are. We are instead poised to watch the life of a fully textured and detailed man, formed with detailed imprints of his good and courageous father, his deep and sensitive mother, his quirky and wise teachers, the succulent household of his upbringing–all of which we know well and have now enjoyed with him.

I have not read this book before, so I could be entirely mistaken about the meaning of this first part, but I am (as you can see by my writing this) betting that I’m right. I don’t know exactly where the story is going, but I am morbidly excited to see how the good Duke follows his path to his end. I can’t wait to find out how well the desparate Dr. Yueh’s is able to execute his madly-outlined plans, and what possibly-unhappy destiny the Lady Jessica has in store for her. I am anxious to see what strange (tragic?) role the blue-eyed Piter has to play, and what will become of the disgustingly evil Barron Harkonnen. Even further, I can’t wait to find out about our mysterious almost-narrator and foreshadower Princess Irulan; how is she connected to the story?

We’ll be finishing book one this week (at page 200 or so), so I’m sure some of our questions will be answered. But many will not, and new loose ends and tensions will certainly appear. But that’s what it is to be human, right? We don’t get to see the world at once; we must watch it slowly ravel together. Enjoy your reading, and may you welcome the new year with Joy as it begins to take its course.

Dunecember: Week 3 Roundup

Moebius' Kynes

The focus this week was entirely the Duke Leto Atreides. We saw him deal with his son, his staff, and the unknown. I can’t help but feel that every moment we’re given with him is, in a sense, pointless. I know he’s going to die, so I feel myself writing him off. He’s pivotal to the book, though, in how he has shaped those around him. And the knowledge of his greatness develops what would otherwise be empty tragedy.

There is a a split, but not a dichotomy between how he deals with the issues facing himself and his son versus leading his staff. In the former, he’s compassionate and almost conspiratorial. He sees the man his son is becoming and is impressed but saddened by his (heavily foreshadowed) future. At the same time, he is reserved–he loves his son and withholds knowledge from him in hopes that Paul will be comforted by not having to bear the full doom of their situation.

With his staff, he takes command and doesn’t stand for any nonsense while demonstrating that he is a fair leader. He cares less for ceremony and titles than doing what’s right when it needs to be done. This is demonstrated first with the Freman Stilgar and the second crysknife to pop up thus far in the story. I love scene’s like Stilgar’s (and later Kynes’) introduction to the Duke. The Freman clearly doesn’t care for ceremonial titles, and Leto is not the least bit insulted by their neglect. But everyone else is quickly enraged. It’s a classic moment showing the humanness of a leader, and it plays really well here.

Kynes’ introduction is similar in tone, but it feels more serious to me. He’s an important character, both in the situation at hand and in the book itself. He seems to balance himself between a cold matter-of-fact manner and a more mystically-minded, questioning thought process. There is certainly a lot going on with him (hints!!!).

The whole spice harvest set piece is pretty exhilarating. We finally get a hint of where the spice comes from and we get our first “glimpse” of a sandworm and the destruction and danger it represents. I love the concept, put forth thus far only lightly, of the sand as an ocean. That is, rather than hard, packed ground, it is a shifting medium containing both wealth and danger. The spice crawlers have the feel of whaling or fishing ships, especially in that scene, with the sandworm standing in for some mighty whale or kraken. Plus, Leto exhibits his fairness and concern for people over profits which is a great thing to see even if it feels a little cliché.

Oh! And stillsuits. What a fascinating, disgusting, brilliant concept. I realize that modern space suits aren’t entirely unlike this, but the idea of the stillsuit makes me think of the line, from a Venture Brothers episode, about Doc Venture “basting in [his] own juices.”

Herbert continues his heavy foreshadowing, with the Duke and even with Paul. I have some thoughts about his use of heavy near-spoiler levels of foreshadowing, but I’m going to address it in a later post where it can be tied better into the story.

[If you’re supplementing my commentary with Dustin Harbin’s we’re up to his week 2/2.5. We’ve read most of what he talks about in week 3, but not all of it (one of the major things he talks about is in this coming week). His week 3 commentary is also peppered with little spoilers, so maybe read half of next week’s reading before jumping over there.]

We’re reading to page 162ish this Christmas week. The final chapter starts with “Do you wrestle with dreams?”

Don’t worry too much if you’re behind or ahead. If you’re behind, curl up in a comfy chair some afternoon this week and catch up. If you’re ahead, try not to blaze too far ahead. I know the schedule is slow for this month, but weekly page count doubles starting January 1.

Dunecember: Week 2 Roundup

(by Paul Pope, for DHarbin’s Dune Book Club, which wrapped up this week)

This week was full of mostly quiet character moments and bookended by Paul’s father, the Duke Atreides. We saw him in a moment as a father with Paul,  in a hushed moment with Paul’s mother–who we learned is not his wife, though he is also unmarried–and in a moment of leadership with his lieutenants. Paul’s father is interesting, as he is doomed from the start but upholds his nobility and values while focusing on laying the groundwork for his son to ascend.

Through Jessica we learned more about the Bene Gesserit in the form of the Missionaria Protectiva. This is a really brilliant concept, this panoplia propheticus. The idea that there’s a group subtly spreading “prophecies” that will protect its people belies a number of Herbert’s themes pretty early on. The MP is incredibly cynical for something approaching the religious nature of the Bene Gesserit order, though not that different from the legends that pervade the universe in Asimov’s Foundation series concerning the Foundation itself. However, the Foundation is simply a society preserving useful knowledge, while the Bene Gesserit seems to have (at this point) some sort of mystical connections. Herbert tries to make them science-based, with his talk to body language and “hearing the truth,” but there is an almost Jedi-like ability in ladies like Jessica with regards to their bodies and the casually-dropped hints at mind control.

The Fremen were introduced in the form of the Shadout Mapes (future band name, to be sure). The Missionaria Protectiva’s panoplia propheticus definitely holds sway in her, and Jessica is able to feign her way through that interaction (which seems heavy in subtext but is mostly impenetrable) and comes out with a crysknife. How hardcore is it, by the way, that the knife must not be sheathed unbloodied. Eeeesh. (Also, for our D&D metaphor, Jessica HAS ACQUIRED crysknife [properties unknown])

Paul also used some of his Jedi sorry, Bene Gesserit training to dispatch a crazy flying knife, and Jessica discovered an extravagant luxury and grave warning (partially illustrated above by the great Paul Pope, drawn for DHarbin’s Dune Book Club).

This reading has still been pretty heavily forshadowing doom to come. Any thoughts?

This week, read to page 126-ish, to the chapter concerning Kynes, which ends with “Against his own will and all previous judgements…”

December 2009 Roundup

Hey Ryan, what have you been up to lately?

A bunch of stuff, actually:

I started a Dune Book Club for the months of December and January. There’s a blog, a twitter account and some other links. We’re only about 80 ages in at this point, so it is still very easy for you to join.

I did another combo mixtape with my good friend Fred. It’s called the Elephant Gambit. Go here to download it and read our commentary.

Top Ten 2009 albums to play for your parents

The first part of my year-end music roundup is up at Super Secret Space Base here. The second part will be a Favorite Albums of 2009 post here and maybe somethin’ crazy on Twitter.

As always, I’m a twitter addict, though I do keep mini.prestigeformat.com pretty well-supplied with links.

Dunecember: Week 1 Roundup: First 40 Pages

Lots of information in these first forty-odd pages. We meet our main character: Paul Atreides, the son of a Duke in some kind of future/past (”A long time ago in a galaxy far far away…”–this won’t be the last Star Wars reference). We meet his mother, a mysterious witch-woman, and some of his friends who also happen to be adults in the employ of his father. We also meet his and his father’s rival, and some political machinations are introduced. Phrases pop up like crazy, so I assume there has been lots of flipping to the glossary.

There’s a fair amount of exposition in these opening chapters. We’re introduced to a number of systems, which are the real rulers in Dune. There’s the environmental systems on Arrakis, the fiefdoms of the Imperium, the Spacer Guild, the Bene Gesserit and all kinds of other certifications and classifications and bureaucratic powers. Even the members of the “main cast” that we’ve been introduced to are like members of a D&D (or WoW) raiding party, each with their own powers and allegiances. While there’s certainly some action (the gom jabbar is a great scene, and the carefully controlled shielded sword fighting [swords!–there’s your second Star Wars reference], plus there is already so much intrigue with Yueh’s CONSTANTLY MENTIONED betrayal), these opening chapters are clearly setting the stage for excitement to arrive in full force when the Atreides family arrives on THE DUNE PLANET.

There’s a lot to take in, in the beginning. The characters are not only the people, but the whole of the world that Frank Herbert’s built for this story.

So, for the discussion. Feel free to talk about the first part we’ve read in the comments. I’ve got threading turned on, so you can reply directly to someone’s comment and start your own mini-thread if you feel the need. Here’s the rules, in ALL CAPS because I am shouting them:

KEEP YOUR SWEARS TO YOURSELF (at least humorously self-censor, like we’re watching the TV edit of your comments)
NO SPOILERS (that means discuss nothing after the first week reading line)

that’s it! For supplemental reading, check out the first post over at DHarbin’s Book Club.
If you are reading this and have not caught up–be aware that spoilers await. Also, don’t stress. The first month is easy reading because I figured some of you bums would take a while to jump in. Feel free to revisit these posts+comments once you get to this point.


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Sunday, October 17, 2010

Why do men prefer long hair in a woman?

Translated from Spanish, Chiara Roggero’s blog published in El Comercio. 16.10.10
What is a fact is that my hair keeps falling and I'm really desperate. A woman without hair (bald-headed) is a nightmare. “I thought about cutting my hair short hoping I could hide my three stringy clumps, but my man insists I'm crazy, that there is nothing like a woman with long hair. But have you seen these threads? I say as I grab my poor little hair. They are ridiculous. But he insists that I leave it as long as possible. And then this insistence raises the question: Why men prefer long hair on women? I have a theory.

That a "hair" long produces much sensuality seems an invention. The sensuality, after all is half half true, and cultural (there I let out another theory in 2 x 1, my friend). But in reality I believe that men prefer long hair on women because it is the only hair that we can have long. In fact it is the only hair we show. Because for the underarms, arms, knees, legs and bikini line and a little more than the thin red line (or black or gold) there’s no authorization for the development or growth of any hair. In contrast, men have hair where they shouldn’t even have it (be that in their back, abdomen, neck, fingers) and since they are naturally hairy beings, they are at a crossroads when they love shorn beings—that is us women. That clash of identification rings an alarm in the man who demands that hair strands be long, anything you can do to compensate for  the lack of hair (in the woman) in other parts of her body.

You may be asking what has this writer has been smoking? This smells like burnt hair, a maudlin woman loose. Gentlemen, this is my theory, like it or not. If you have yours, you are welcome to share; yes I pray creativity and good humor.
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Sunday, August 30, 2015

Sunday Humor

After a thorough investigation, a rich gangster finds out that his bookkeeper has cheated him out of $10 million. His bookkeeper is deaf. That was the reason he got the job in the first place. It was assumed that a deaf bookkeeper would not hear anything that he might have to testify about in court.
When the mobster goes to confront the bookkeeper about his missing $10 million, he brings along his attorney, who knows sign language. The Godfather tells the lawyer, "Ask him where the $10 million bucks he embezzled from me is?" The attorney, using sign language, asks the bookkeeper: "Where's the money?"
The bookkeeper signs back, "I don't know what you're talking about". The attorney tells the gangster: "He says he doesn't know what you're talking about."
The gangster pulls out a pistol, puts it to the bookkeeper's head and says, "Ask him again!" The attorney signs to the bookkeeper, "He'll kill you if you don't tell him!"
The bookkeeper signs back, "OK! OK! You win! The money is in a brown briefcase, buried behind the shed in my cousin Enzo's backyard in Queens!"
The Godfather asks the attorney, "Well, what did he say?"
The attorney replies, "He says you don't have the guts to pull the trigger."


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Pay it Forward

Reading for Today: Proverb Chapter 19

Gold Nugget
Verse 20: “Listen to counsel and receive instruction, that you may be wise in your latter days.”

Many people want to teach and instruct others in areas that they themselves have not learned. We all know someone that seems to have expertise on every subject. If you mention something about hunting, they will begin to tell you all there is to know about hunting. If you mention skiing, they will tell you all about the details of skiing. Hanging around this person long enough will allow you to see them fumble the ball as they speak on something you have actual knowledge of. You find that they are really just experts at pretending. We think of this person and probably get a little embarrassed for them. Now that we have isolated this person, imagine that you are the one who seems to be the expert in all matters. It isn’t difficult if you really try. One of the ways to imagine yourself as the subject matter expert in all things is to imagine your inability to listen and receive instructions from others. Well, surely we aren’t that way in all things, but we may be in some. It may be some of the most important things. How good are we at receiving counsel and instructions in matters like how we behave and live our lives? Not all of the characters we described above are simply revealed through how much they talk, but also how little they listen. We may not boast of our knowledge, but being too prideful to receive counsel and instructions will put us in the same place. If we listen now and learn, we will one day have the wisdom in our inventory to be able to pay it forward. That is to say, if we receive life preserving counsel and instruction today, one day we will be able to help give life preserving counsel to others. We can pay it forward as mentioned in today’s “gold nugget”, “Listen to counsel and receive instruction, that you may be wise in your latter days.”

Lord, help us to gather all of the wisdom we can today through receiving counsel and instruction, so  we may be able to posses and share wisdom in our latter days. Amen

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Features: May 3rd, 2013

With the Public Sector going under a period of extensive change, Bryan McCrae, leading organisational psychologist, explains how a change in mind-set can help employees stay positive, even during these tough times.

A  recent CIPD survey ‘Employee attitudes to pay’ revealed that 36% of Public Sector employees now feel their pay should be linked to individual performance. To improve performance what many employees want, but rarely get, is effective coaching from their managers.  Why?  There is ample evidence that a combination of goal setting supported by coaching is the best way to achieve success, which in the current climate could be the difference between success or failure.

Attitude to achieve

In order to achieve, you need to have the right attitude. Not achieving success is often blamed on failing at something, but generally it’s because the goal was not defined clearly  in the first place, you had no plan about how you were going to do it  or that you weren’t really motivated enough.

We need to look at the big picture, take time to set clear goals and write down the top three.  By choosing our three key goals we can really focus rather than having a long list on which we make little or no progress.  Take some thinking time over the next day or two to really consider what things you would like to achieve, then write down your top three.

Once you’ve set your goals, you need a plan to achieve them.  Wanting to achieve isn’t enough, you need to develop a step by step plan to achieve your goals.

Next, the goal is often too vague. If your goal is to ‘lose weight’ or ‘sell more’, then you are going to struggle. How much weight? One gram, or twenty kilogrammes? Sell £1 more or £1 million more?

You need to set yourself a very specific goal so that you can track your progress against it and know when it has been achieved.

We often describe goals such as weight loss, in terms of giving up something rather than obtaining something that we want.  Saying that I’m going to ‘give up eating chocolate’ or give up ‘long lunch breaks’ doesn’t work, because we’re not giving ourselves any incentive to give up something that we like.  You need to change your mind-set, translate these into things that you want, such as ‘I’m going to reduce my waist by 5cm and fit into those jeans I love’ and ‘I’m going to leave my work at the office every evening so I can spend more time doing things I enjoy, such as painting’. Describe your goals using positive language.

We sometimes just give up too easily. If these goals were easy, we would have done them years ago. Adopt the mind-set that says ‘I’m not going to give up at the first hurdle, this is going to be the year that I do things differently and succeed’.

Effective coaching

Once you’ve set your goals, you need to get the support or coaching to help you achieve them.   Coaching in the workplace can sometimes be difficult to justify, particularly in the current climate.  The reasons are often a combination of lack of time, skills or resources within management, or sometime even a lack of desire to coach.

So is it possible to provide coaching to boost motivation and performance whilst also reducing costs? It may seem like these are conflicting requirements, but there is now an approach that can address all three simultaneously, based on the most sophisticated technology available discovered so far in the universe, which you already have, but you are probably using just a fraction of its capabilities!

Psychology Matters

That technology is the grey stuff between your ears, the human brain.  Organisational psychologists are rapidly gaining an understanding of what can be done with it through use of some advanced proven psychological techniques to help people perform better.

These techniques are focused on the connections between what we think, how we feel and how that influences how we behave. In fact, these factors all work with each other, in complicated ways, all of the time, and often without us having any awareness that it is happening.

Positive performance

These proven techniques can be used to take positive steps to make changes in what we think and how we think, to bring about more helpful feelings and behaviour, which leads to greater motivation, less stress and improved performance. A recent published study has shown that these techniques, when applied in a large sales force, achieved a 20% increase in sales people on or above target, a reduction in resignations of a factor of three and significant reductions in stress levels. When you consider how long it takes and how much it costs to recruit a high performance sales person then the reduction in resignations alone can make this worthwhile.

Previously, these techniques have only been used successfully in business through traditional training and face to face coaching. Although very effective, delivered like this it can be expensive, difficult to organise and disruptive to normal selling activities.

Success through seamless delivery

However, psychologists have managed to translate these techniques to be delivered successfully through technology based platforms such as e-learning to achieve at least the same levels of success as the traditional methods. This approach can be implemented to integrate seamlessly with the sales persons normal selling activities over a period of a few weeks, leading to long lasting, more effective habits and strategies for  dealing with stressful situations that are common in sales roles.

Perhaps it is time to investigate how to get the best from that lump of grey stuff between our ears!

Bryan McCrae is a Sales Psychologist and is MD of Sales-Motivations.


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Tuesday, December 20, 2011

World's Coolest Dude 1911-2011, (1921-1930)

We continue with the second installment of the World's Coolest Dude 1911-2011 list, covering the winners from 1921-1930.

In case you missed it, you can see yesterday's post, which listed the winners from 1911-1920, by clicking this link. Here are the winners from 1921 to 1930.

1921 – Albert Einstein

In November of 1921, Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for his work involving the photoelectric effect, which explained the existence of photoelectrons or electrons emitted from matter due to their absorbtion of light. Basically, this study explained light and the phenomena related to it at a much more microscopic level and may have had something to do with Cezanne’s theories on painting and how he saw objects. However, what Einstein’s Nobel Prize was really for was for his shaping the 20th century with his ideas, especially his theory of special relativity, which shaped much more than the sciences of the 20th century, but also humankinds general conception of reality. Modernism and Post-Modernism in their different incarnations have as much to do with the after-effects of war as they do with Einstein’s special theory of relativity, which basically said that how we experience time depends on how fast we are doing something—time lapse is not invariant. This furthers the element of parallax evident in 20th century culture, that an object seen or experienced from a different point or different speed, makes the experience of that object alien, sometimes extraordinarily alien from any other perspective. What the theory of special relativity specifically did on a scientific level was allow us to realistically fathom the idea of space travel. Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 for his work regarding the makeup of light, but he had already done far more than that. Plus, he was maybe the last globally famous scientist (fine, I’ll take arguments for Stephen Hawking). And he significantly influenced the next year’s winner.

1922 – James Joyce

Though the first episodes of Ulysses began appearing the the Little Review in 1918, the novel was not published in its entirety until 1922. Literature was changed immediately upon its publication. This is not an exaggeration as authors such as Ernest Hemingway have been on record as saying that Ulysses allowed  them to see what they could do with literature and what words they could use. Ulysses went a long way to espousing the idea that culture was significantly fractured, but that perhaps it had always been that way, that our experience of the everyday is kaleidoscopic, simultaneously a part of history and outside of history depending on how we choose to embrace our surroundings. The novel gives us Leopold Bloom, a man who enjoys the mundane aspects of life while experiencing great personal pains, and Stephen Dedalus, a young man who ponders the poetic and philosophic nature of life with a cruel, hurt mind at odds with the needs of others and his own good. Through each of these characters we meet a vast array of human life and everyday experiences that are sometimes relayed in a straightforward manner, but other times filtered through the array of perspectives that history and literature have given us. There is a chapter that uses each style of the English language as it as evolved over the centuries, all while imitating the gestation period of a fetus. Oh, and all of that concept is used to narrate a group of men getting drunk in a maternity ward while a woman gives birth to yet another child. Joyce fits both concepts high and low into a story that also effectively tells the story of Ireland and what had ailed the country up to the year Ulysses takes place (1904) and even on through to the time period Joyce was writing the novel (1914-1922). Joyce also elaborates on the dangers of social institutions and even the institution of the imagination if it is not balanced correctly. The novel contains some of the most beautiful passages in the history of English literature and is the most life-affirming book that has ever existed. Joyce changed the course of literature in 1922 and influenced not only the writers of his generation but generations of writers and will continue to do so until the world explodes. He took the throne in 1922 and he consistently shares it with only Tolstoy and Shakespeare.

1923 – Calvin Coolidge

Now I know some of you may be thinking that Calvin Coolidge only won the World’s Coolest Dude Award in 1923 because he has the word “cool” in his last name, well that is just not true. To be fair, much of Coolidge’s victory did come from the fact that Warren G. Harding had died in office as President of the United States and was such a terrible and corrupt president that anyone who followed would look great by comparison. Coolidge was a soft-spoken, conservative man from Vermont who brought small-time government appeal to the office. His wholesomeness helped restore America’s faith in its government after Harding’s corrupt tenure. Under Coolidge, the “Roaring Twenties” really took off. 1923 was just the beginning for Coolidge and we all know that beginnings usually seem the best, especially when you leave office with the country headed for a financial disaster that it can’t afford. But, hey, the Great Depression didn’t happen under Silent Cal’s time in office.

1924 – Edwin Hubble

It’s 2011 and we all take for granted that the Earth is in a galaxy known as the Milky Way and that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies in the Universe. However, back in 1924, we didn’t know that. We couldn’t make meta and self-referential jokes about the vastness of the universe to entertain adults and kids at the movies (see Men in Black). On December 30, 1924 (just sneaking in for eligibility), Edwin Hubble announced that Andromeda, which was a group of stars believed to be a nebula, was actually another galaxy and that the Milky Way was in fact a separate galaxy in a space that was filled with perhaps an infinite amount of galaxies. This was mind-blowing to the public at the time and only became even more mind-blowing as marijuana made its way further and further into popular culture. So, to recap, this guy changed our own perception about how we saw the dimensions and measurements of the Universe—seems like he deserves to win World’s Coolest Dude in any year, let alone a weak year like 1924.

1925 – F. Scott Fitzgerald

This was a no-brainer. By 1925, Scotty Fitzgerald had strung together two novels which had arguably set the tone and aesthetic for America in the 1920’s in This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and the Damned. Joyce may have been towering over literature with his sheer detail and linguistic genius, but there was no one writing more beautiful, musical and heart-breaking prose than F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925 when he published his masterwork, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald was only 29 when The Great Gatsby was published and it was his third novel to be reckoned with. His earlier work had looked at class and America at the beginning of one of this country’s greatest decades, but in Gatsby, he attacked America as myth, America as mythmaking, America as beauty and heartbreaking glory, all in economical, yet beautiful prose. H.L. Mencken called The Great Gatsby a “glorified anecdote.” The World’s Coolest Dude voters did not agree, as they found Fitzgerald’s work moving, beautiful and the story much deeper than it's shade less than 200 pages suggest. Jay Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Nick Caraway and all the awful guests at Gatsby’s parties continue to live on in our minds, taking on new shapes and identities as the years pass by. And no one will ever forget that green light or the fact that we are like boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past.

1926 – Fritz Lang

When James Franco and Anne Hathaway (Sidenote: I know that Anne Hathaway recently got engaged, but the other weekend, I was in Chelsea and I saw her crying over some coffee, so mark my words: that engagement is a sham and she should/will be with me! Plus I’m still not sold she’s actually engaged.) hosted the Oscars this past year we all made fun of them and the movies they were “honoring” without really giving a thought to how far movies have come over the past eighty to ninety years. In 1926, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis first premiered in Germany and it still remains a cutting edge film nearly ninety years on. The film premiered in December of 1926 so it just snuck in under eligibility for 1926. Metropolis used cutting edge visual effects such as using miniatures and a swing camera. Basically, it was the first huge leap of visual imagination that film had truly seen and it directly influenced such directors as Albert Hitchcock. On a philosophical note, the film embodied German expressionism in its symbolic representation of a dystopian future (how about THAT sentence?). Basically, Fritz Lang created a film in 1926 that James Franco would still approve of today. And perhaps set the bar for “foreign films” and how weird they should be. Lang was a visionary, the film was cutting edge and the committee knew all too well where the award should go in 1927.

1927 – Lou Gehrig

In the 1926 Major League Baseball season, Lou Gehrig was twenty-three years old and had his breakout season. He put up the following numbers:

Yr   Age  G  AB  R   H   2B 3B HR  RBI  BB  SO AVG OBP SLG

1926 23  155 572 135179 47  20  16   112   105  73  .313   .420  .549

So, by the 1927 season, he was known as an essential part of the New York Yankees team. However, no one was prepared for the season he was about to unleash:

Yr    Age   G    AB    R     H    2B   3B   HR    RBI   BB    SO  AVG   OBP    SLG

1927  24   155  584   149  218  52    18    47      175    109    84   .373    .474     .765

Many people overlooked Gehrig’s insane season in favor of marvelling at Babe Ruth’s 60 home runs, which were impressive, but unwittingly started the American public on a terrible addiction to home runs that eventually culminated in the 1998 MLB season and Barry Bonds’ head circa 2002. However, the World’s Coolest Dude committee did not miss the monumental season that Gehrig put together. Just dwell on those all around numbers for a moment and then slowly begin to piece your brain back together. People may dock him points for being on the 1927 “Murderers’ Row” Yankees, perhaps the greatest baseball team ever assembled, but not the WCD committee. When you play on one of the greatest teams of all time and put up the best all around numbers on said team, there has to be an air of coolness around you, an ability to understand the moment, a poise to remain unflappable under the greatest amounts of pressure, scrutiny and peer competition. And that’s what the 1927 Lou Gehrig had, which is why he won the award.

1928 – Charles Lindbergh

Like 1924, 1928 did not hold a strong field of World’s Coolest Dude contenders and thus Charles Lindbergh’s selection is a bit of a minor controversy in the annals of the World’s Coolest Dude award. In May of 1927, Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis, alone, from Roosevelt Field in Garden City, Long Island to Paris, France. The flight took 33 hours and there were points where the Spirit dodged storm clouds at 10,000 feet and then others where it just avoided the white caps of ocean waves at 10 feet. Lindburgh flew alone through icing, fog, and “blindness” until he miraculously landed at Le Bourget airport where he was greeted and carried by a crowd of 150,000 people. Linbergh was rumored to have been carried on the crowd’s shoulders for a solid hour. After the flight and for the rest of 1927, Linbergh embarked on the “Lindbergh U.S. Tour: Wings over the Atlantic” (which Paul McCartney later made reference to with with album Wings Over America), where he gave speeches about aviation in 48 states and 92 cities. The influence that Lindbergh’s flight had on air travel was so great that its stretch into 1928 could not be ignored. The public had been very skeptical and fearful of aviation, but after seeing Lindbergh’s solo heroics, air travel did not seem so impossible. The rate of U.S. Airplane passengers increased 3,000% from 1926-1929, with a bulk of that growth coming in 1928, the year following Lindbergh’s historic flight. Though Lindbergh would later become famous due to the horrible abduction and murder of his son, in 1928 he was the world’s hero, and the World’s Coolest Dude.

1929 – Al Capone

Though many of you can watch Al Capone’s rise to prominence as part of a larger story arc on Boardwalk Empire, it’s important that you understand why he was the World’s Coolest Dude in 1929. Capone had left Brooklyn for Chicago in the early 20’s and was recruited into Johnny Torrio’s Five Points Gang. By 1925, after Torrio had retired due to a life-threatening attack, Capone had taken charge of the Chicago Outift and was engaged in a war with the North Side Irish gang led by Bugs Moran. This war was ongoing until 1929 when, in an effort to settle the score once and for all, Capone ordered the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Capone’s soldiers, dressed as policemen, raided a warehouse where Moran’s men were gathered. The reason Moran’s men were there is still debated, but Capone’s men opened fired with sub-machine guns killing Moran’s seven men. After the shooting, two more of Capone’s men emerged wearing street clothes and were walked out by the men wearing police uniforms in order to give the appearance of an actual arrest. The Massacre ended up drawing too much attention in Capone’s direction and though he was never convicted of ordering the murders, the heat around him eventually led to his conviction for tax evasion by the IRS. In 1929, Capone was arguably the most powerful mobster in America (Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano were also in the mix) and he gave us one of the most horrific, yet iconic moments in American organized crime. You may not like it, but sometimes the bad guy is the World’s Coolest Dude.

1930 – Ernest Hemingway

In 1930. Ernest Hemingway was thirty-one years old. His bibliography up until that point looked like this:

In Our Time (i.e Nick Adams stories like “The Battler” and “Big Two-Hearted River”)
The Torrents of Spring
The Sun Also Rises
Men Without Women (Contains “The Killers” and “Hills Like White Elephants”
A Farewell to Arms

So, by 1930, Hemingway had forcefully and thoroughly established the “Hemingway style” as well as the “Hemingway mystique.” Even if Joyce’s genius still towered over literature like some obtuse, profane spector,  Hemingway was widely considered the best and most influential writer of the time. One has to look no further than the allure of novels like The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms which was published just a year earlier. His first short stories were just refreshing blasts of declarative prose that reminded you what it was like to just walk or sit (see “Big Two-Hearted River”) while A Farewell to Arms took that simplicity and added doom, romance and the small spiritual (read: microscopic) occurances that happen among the meaninglessness of life. Reading Hemingway in 1930 was like teaching yourself how to read and approach language and story for the first time. In 1930, Hemingway could make putting on a sweater seem important and meaningful. Everyone read his books and everyone thought they were genius, and if not, they understood why he was important, even if perhaps they didn’t think there was much prose actually present. He was a literary celebrity and living legend of literature. In 1930, Ernest Hemingway was undeniable. That’s all you need to know.

Check back tomorow for the next installment of the World's Coolest Dude 1911-2011.

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text:
Quandary Resolution 6890
ana, massasauga, yawp, alveolate

And as she watched him move confidently about the room, Theresa Maybe-Maybenot, compared him with her husband Peterkin – and she gave an involuntary yawp, a snort, and blushed, suddenly anxious that Sir Porcupine should not think it was directed at him, but rather at her (truth to tell) pathetic article of a husband, running through the less-impolite epithets in the ana which now filled her mind: dainty, petite, short, small, tiny, dwarf, midget, minuscule. and she laughed out loud, remembering that old movie: The Incredible Shrinking Man! maybe he would fall down a gap in the floorboards and wander out of the basement through an air-vent and never be seen again, Haha! – and she noticed Sir Porcupine glancing towards her, what would Tangerine say if she saw this pair dancing around each other but never coming in to the clinch? oh, she knows all about clinches now, Tangerine has taught her more positions that she thought possible, but with a man? a real Man? a virile and commanding and very very Manly Man? and she remembered the first chapter of Apple-Tree Yard which was filmed just as explicitly for television but she did not connect the 'apple-tree' with her Cabinet Secretary, who now stood close to her chair, too close, just that tiniest bit too close, so that she could inhale his fragrance, heavy with pheromones and she almost gave a little moan herself, which would be yielding; she must remember that She is His Boss, His Boss, The Boss of all Bosses, and He is subservient to Her; but it did not occur to her, even as she thought of Apple Trees and Sin, that Sir Porcupine MacFarlane is the ultimate massasauga, and as he runs the tips of his well-manicured fingers down the line of her jaw, an action which sends her synapses fizzing and crackling and popping, and her body is flooded with hormones and she is suddenly aware of her new orange knickers which she will have to change before the meeting starts in just half an hour, and her eyes and her head being overwhelmed by lust she really doesn’t perceive the reality, that MacFarlane's morals are as alveolate as a bar of Aero and there can be only one outcome from the dereliction of duty which she is about to plunge headlong into like a teenage groupie – yes, it could destroy the close bond which she has forged over the weeks since that fateful General Election kerfuffle with her Soul Mate, passionate and domineering Lover, Tangerine Foster of the DUP; yes, it could end her dream of being the woman, the Woman. Nay, The Woman who freed The United Kingdom of Northern Ireland and Great Britain from the greasy grip of "Frogs, Krauts, Wops and Dagoes"; oh! she turned pale as she realised she had actually spoken those insulting epithets aloud, and she looked up into the icy blue eyes of the most Senior Member of the Civil Service's First Division, had he heard her? well, of course he had; but Sir Porcupine brushed some stray hairs from her eyes with a long forefinger, let it touch her lips, as if to warn her against any other such utterances, and slipped it between them and into her mouth, and she closed her eyes and imagined she was sucking something else as she felt his other hand, strong and masterful, move down her body, reach under her skirt, slide up her thighs, which she reflexively spread for that hand to reach her moist knick-knacks . . . . . which was when the knock on the (fortunately, locked) door, caused him to move away from her, but as he crossed the room to unlock it and admit the Cabinet, her Cabinet, he looked back and mouthed the only word she wanted: "later!"

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University Registrar

University Registrar

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SOLUS Central: Managing Admissions

Those applying for studies to Queen's may be required to use either SOLUS (Undergraduate Studies) or another web-based application (Graduate Studies) to complete the process, as well as monitor their status.

Whether you are an undergraduate or a graduate applicant, please visit the links below for more information on how to submit and monitor your application.

PLEASE NOTE: The following is a navigation guide to using SOLUS.

To log into the SOLUS Student Centre, please go to:

Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic - Current Services and 2020-21 Dates and Deadline Adjustments

The Office of the University Registrar (OUR) is here to provide service to you.
We continue to offer online and remote service delivery to help reduce the global spread of the COVID-19 virus.
Our commitment to provide support to you remains our priority during this time and our core operations will continue.  As many staff within the OUR are working remotely, we would ask that your inquiries be directed as follows:
If you need a completed form (e.g. Verification of Enrolment required by an RESP provider to access funds) or letter (e.g.  degree certificate) from us, go to our Document Request page for easy instructions.
We are regularly updating our website and will be adding “how-to” videos to help you get what you need as quickly as possible.
Please continue to monitor the Queen’s University’s COVID-19 webpage ( for the most up to date information.

Fall 2020 Process Changes and Deadline Adjustments

In response to operational changes at the university due to the ongoing global pandemic, the university has implemented initiatives and process changes to help smooth out tuition and fee payments, awards disbursement and registration processes for students. These changes include:
  • Extending the Fall 2020 tuition payment date to September 30 from Sept 1, as course registration is happening in August instead of July. This also consolidates due dates for fall term payments  - On September 30, all tuition and fees will be due, including fall residence fees.
  • Extending fall course drop dates, without financial penalty, to week 8 in the fall term, recognizing the need to provide students more time and flexibility to settle into the term and adjust to the impacts of remote course delivery on their academics.
  • Maintaining all entrance bursaries and in-program awards that take into account living expenses, even if they were awarded with an assumption that students would not be living at home.  See:
  • Distributing all financial awards per term, instead of annually. This aligns with tuition deadlines and OSAP allocations, and will help maximize clarity regarding student accounts on a per-term basis.
  • Raising the maximum ‘outstanding balance’ allowed on a student account from $50 to allow students to register for courses with debt, recognizing that financial circumstances for students are more uncertain.
  • Currently withholding monthly interest fees on unpaid balances.
  • Currently waiving the $150 late fee on overdue accounts
  • Temporarily revising withdrawal and readmission processes to assist graduate students who could not work on degree requirements for Summer 2020 term.
  • Instituting more flexible deadlines for disbursement of all internal funding related to graduate student research.