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Stampede Memories

July 22, 2010

I had a good time again at the Stampede, mainly due to sticking with the parts of it that I really like.  Horses, skating shows, mini-donuts, sheep, more horses, knitting expos, and acrobatic skating shows.  Items I really liked repeated for emphasis.  I ended up going twice, the first time to see Glass Tiger and Loverboy, which was tons of fun.  At this age we are able to sing along, act like idiots in public, and not really care what the kids think, as we make more money, and they look rather silly if you ask me with their crazy fashion trends.  I was happy to see 80’s rock hair coming back strongly.  The knitting display is so much fun as each year I know more and more people who have submitted items and won huge prizes!  The level of knitting was elevated this year over the last, and the giant fun fur jacket did not win anything!  Amazing!  The skating show combined 3 excellent skaters plus Elvis Stoiko and his new wife, 3 acrobatic acts, and a live rock and roll band.  The excellent skaters were Vaughn Chipeur from Calgary, and the wonderful Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir who were outstanding as always.  It was a very good show, and a quick half hour to a packed audience, and free with admission no less!  I’ll leave you with my favorite photo of the whole experience, our view for most of the concert:

 Strike a pose!

Fernie Weekend

July 20, 2010

The mountains around Fernie are very green this time of year, and just bursting with life.  It was so good to get out of the city and wander around in the woods, cleansing my lungs with some nice fresh air.  We had beautiful days and rainy evenings with a fair amount of mosquitos which inclined us to skip the campfire and instead play cribbage inside the tent before falling asleep.  We got our wedding business out of the way by noon on Saturday, which is the benefit of only having two places to visit.  We have decided on one venue, and are now deciding on which weekend next June will be the lucky one.  One venue was better for guest accommodation, but the other (Elk Valley Lodge) had such beautiful locationsto  have the actual ceremony and reception.  We can either get married outside on the lawn surrounded by trees and mountains, or inside the loft with the mountain view.  Can’t lose there.  The lodge will do all the decoration with candles and wild flowers on the tables, and what will hopefully be excellent food.  I’m already looking forward to it. The rooftop hot tub doesn’t hurt either.   After the tough decisions were made we took ourselves into the mountains!

Ahhh, the babbling brook, the wild flowers, the breeze, the sunshine, the constant calls of “yo bear” as I worried about stumbling onto a black or grizzly bear.  There have also been cougars sighted in the area.

On Sunday I took myself up to the incredible Island Lake Lodge.  If we have about  a million dollars budget we would get married here by the lake, but alas we don’t.  I started around the lake loop, which is well used by tourists, and close into the lodge.  I suddenly glanced up and noticed a giant bull moose about ten feet down the trail, silent gazing at me, already stopped.

He had the huge antlers, the beard, and rather a calm demeanor which didn’t fool me.  As a wise Canadian I didn’t stop to take photos, but instead gave up the trail to him, as he was obviously going my way.  I went about 10 feet off the trail and hunkered down behind some rather sturdy looking trees that I figured were close enough together that he couldn’t get through them with his huge antlers.  I was hoping he would keep going down the trail so that I could get a better photo, but after around 10 minutes he did  a sharp right turn and went off into the woods.  He seemed very peaceful and not too worried by me, but better safe than sorry!  And here I was worried about the cougar sightings!

The heat has finally found us here in Alberta, and its glorious.  It cools off just the right amount at night in order to sleep.  This weekend Mr. J and I are heading down to Fernie for a weekend of camping among the cedars and a bit of wedding planning.  The good thing is that in a small town there are only two possible venues to look at.  I don’t think I have the patience to look at any more!  The first one is called Elk Valley Lodge, and may also be a Raw Food retreat venue.  However those among my family who just jumped to the conclusion that at the wedding we will be serving all raw food and have declared your intention to not attend the wedding, don’t worry.  They serve all kinds of food!  So far we’ve justed perused the website, and have been very impressed by the lodge itself, and the views down the valley.  We could get married in their loft, or outside on the balcony if the weather is nice.  Then everyone goes inside, has tapas, and then dinner.  So easy!  Around 2/3 of the guests can probably stay right at the lodge, and Fernie with all its numerous hotels is 4 km down the road.

The other location is at the Fernie ski resort, the Lizard Creek Lodge.  Again its a beautiful place, with indoor locations and outdoor wedding locations.  I couldn’t plan an outdoor wedding without an indoor back-up plan.  We’re going to have breakfast there on Saturday, and look around.

We’re staying at the provincial campground, which doesn’t have many facilities.  By Saturday morning we shouldn’t be too stinky.  After that we’ll jump in the local creek a few times.

I just made rice crispy squares as our camping treat.  And not just any rice crispy squares, I put fruit loops in them.  Another reason why Mr. J wants to marry me!

Slowly but surely I’ve been whitting away on the 10 pieces of Flower Child.  The back is done now, doesn’t it look good in the photo?  Yeah, kind of a dog’s breakfast.  Here is hoping that once it is blocked and sewn together and finished it will look a bit better.  I’m doing the fronts now, with a highly exciting pattern!!  There are bobbles and everything.

Other WIP’s include baby cardigans, socks, and an Icarus shawl, but I’ll save those for next week (when there is more progress).

July 6, 2010

I had a fit of swatching on the weekend, due to my Tall Flower Cardi being finished, except for one sleeve.  The extra yarn in on order!  The top small swatches are Alpaca Drops for a Buttercup sweater.  I can’t wait to start this one!  The green is my fabulous Peace Fleece which may become a Drops cardigan.  I had been looking around for a short sleeve sweater with cables, since I only have 5 skeins, and this one looked almost perfect.  I got excellent gauge as well, and knitted up, washed and dried the Peace Fleece is even better.  I kinda want to start the green cardigan first, but I think I’ll make myself start Buttercup, as its more of a cold summer, early fall sweater.  I have itchy fingers!!

Olds Fibre Fair

July 5, 2010

The Olds Fibre Fair was a great day out, made more special by not only seeing old friends, but their new babies as well!  We had a car full this year, which made for some lively conversation on the hour long drive to Olds through the green verdant countryside.  Its officially verdant this year due to all the rain, which is good for us, but bad for farmers.  And by good for us I mean I haven’t had to water the lawn at all, and its actually still green and alive.  I don’t have any photos of the fair itself, due to the unscenic nature of the location, in the mechanical shop at the College.  Its in stark contrast to how lovely the grounds are, but it was filled with beautiful goods.  I did one good circuit of all the booths, and then went back for items that caught my eye.  I couldn’t resist the Fleece Artist Peter Rabbit again (on the right), and the middle skein of purply/blue was too close to a smashed blueberry to resist.  I found the colours incredibly beautiful, but on this day I really seemed to be in a blue/purple mood n’est pas?  On the left is some hand dyed Twist of Fate lace weight 100% virgin wool.  I was wondering (agonizing) what to do with the two left skeins, when I remembered Miriam’s Lune design.  Viola!

With the warmer weather, Mr. J went through a package of popsicles in a few days, therefore I got my families old Tupperware popsicle makers out.  I’m not sure how old these are, but older than I am.  I distinctly remember eating multiple popsicles made out of pink lemonade in the Ontario heatwaves.  We made limeade popsicles, and went through the lot in a few days.  These are definitely the best heatbusters around.  Too bad its gotten cold again, but the weekends have been lovely!


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She said she was jaded.

(That is almost all of the song by King Missile that I can quote here 🙂

So I went to Stitches West on Saturday. I was so excited to go and see all the pretty yarn, and hopefully run into a few locals/Ravelry friends. Well, the first person I ran into was my former coworker (and a few others from the company) from the Job from Hell (TM) which was very nice, and actually I expect to see her at Stitches these days since she lives all the way across the Bay from us (shudder – so far 😉 . She had already bought lots of yarn and was going to rest her feet before doing more shopping, so I was even more excited. Want to see what I bought at Stitches?

Yes, that’s right, nothing. I walked around, got a glimpse of Jess from Ravelry and Vicki Howell, and bought nothing. Honestly, Stitches seems more like a place to get all your LYS in the same place, and we have so many LYS that I didn’t really need to drive past them all to get them all in one place. I even visited the Blue Moon Fiber Arts booth (and we know how much I hate Socks that Rock) but all they had was Socks that Rock. Some of the colors they’ve developed since I bought mine that fateful day in Portland (before they were so popular that the LYS there couldn’t stock them anymore) I actually like, but I hate STR and would have bought some in worsted or something else, but alas I couldn’t give my money away at Stitches.

Lest you think my stash is faltering, fear not. Last week was my yearly pilgrimage to Oakland and I stopped by Article Pract. $100 later I bought this gorgeous yarn:

Tulle by Prism. It was “on sale” which I didn’t know meant 15% off $17 a skein, but it is so gorgeous I couldn’t resist! I also bought my first Claudia’s Handpainted Yarn:

Buckeye, just the color for me! If I had known, maybe I should have gone to Ohio State too just for their colors! (A couple of friends of mine from Maryland went there because they had great grad school packages.)

I also recently recieved this gorgeous yarn from a Swap-Bot swap:

I really made out on this one – it came with chocolate too!

5 Responses to “She said she was jaded.”

  1. February 25, 2008 at 5:36 pm

    Gosh, you may be the only one who didn’t buy anything at Stitches! Your other purchases (and swap booty) are VERY you. 🙂

  2. 2 Lu
    February 26, 2008 at 8:30 am

    I almost buy nothing at Stitches too – then I got some Karabella Aurora 8 (just because around here is either online or overpriced) and STR heavyweight because my dad loves the socks I make for him.

  3. February 26, 2008 at 9:15 am

    You showed some amazing restraint. I love that you quoted King Missile. I was just thinking the other day that I hadn’t heard them lately. Such great songs!

  4. February 27, 2008 at 1:09 pm

    Now I don’t feel as bad for not going. It’s too far this time of year and my stash is enhanced enough.

    And uh no,you are not the LAST one to do a Clapotis. I still have to knit mine.

  5. July 4, 2013 at 12:35 am

    A wine rack cannot be complete without wine accessories.
    You could put pretty much anything you wanted on the winery where the
    wine goblets make sure you will learn something new. There
    are wines that auger well with food as well as absolutely special!

    A wine carrier defeats both of these issues with one fell swoop.

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is a knitter, librarian and pop culture enthusiast in the San Francisco Peninsula. Email me at emmckee@rocketmail

Tweets, if I bother

February 2008
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News 88.9 KNPR
Classical 89.7 KCNV
NV89 Discover Music

an member station

Praying For Rain: Ranchers And Farmers Face Another Dry Summer

Last summer was one of the worst on record for Nevada ranchers. High heat and dry conditions forced them to sell their stock and buy feed, cutting profit margins and convincing some that they'd be better off in some other line of work. The ranchers who made it through last summer could be facing another scorcher this year. How will they cope? And what will it mean for the ranchers who stay?

Ron Cerri, rancher

Ken Conley, rancher

Sam Mori, rancher

Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President, Nevada Farm Bureau Federation

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Saturday, July 16, 2011

August Peonies

Lallygagging on bent stems, late
this year because of the snow
in May, their rag-tag magenta
cluster-heads freshen the still heat
like a rush of wind in the leaves
or the cool brush of deep sea
crinolines as the ripple kiss
of a breeze opens their bunched petals
just enough to let them breathe
before they ease back
into light repose, poised
at the edge of time-lapse
attention, like us, who lose
momentum in the heavy air
rich with the scent of ripening
wheat that drifts in from the fields
over the slow-moving river
as the afternoon nods and lengthens
into shade, into thoughtfulness,
and the sky deploys an argosy
of softly tinted clouds, fresh
blooms without stems
that sail where we cannot
go, all the way to the edge
of everything where daylight looks
back, once, then disappears.

George Amabile, 2010.


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The Multinational VIBE of J. Creole

J. Creole

J. Creole

J. Creole is an internationally minded Hip Hop artist who is currently based in Toronto, Canada. Born in Petionville, Haiti, J. Creole is well known for incorporating the sounds of the islands into his musical platform to include styles such as Reggae, Compas, and Rap Kreyol.

Soulful and sultry, J.Creole gives Hip Hop a Caribbean makeover that affords it just the right softening it needs to be accessible to international music lovers and attract a wide range of listeners. As the artist builds his following and hones his signature style, fans may see him put Toronto even more firmly on the Hip Hop map.

Petionville Connection

As a more generally affluent suburb of Port-au-Prince, Petionville is known for its palatial mansions and has been known as an area where diplomats and international business professionals prefer to stay. J. Creole was born here and would certainly have passed by the swanky clubs and may even have been influenced by the music they played before he left the country. He has spent time living in the United States and now, of course, resides in Canada. Many of J.Creole’s fans are curious about the extent that his homeland and the entire Caribbean for that matter have influenced his music and his brand. According to various sources J. Creole first began to write in his native language and many of its words and sounds still pervade his English songs today.

Life Abroad

J.Creole started to write music while still a child and dreamed of playing music on an international stage someday, he actually left to follow the same dream his father also had—to play soccer. A marvellous athlete with an ambition to compete in soccer games worldwide, J.Creole’s athletic dreams were dashed after a serious ankle injury. Yet instead of lamenting a lost sports career, J.Creole remembered his early love of music and tho seold dreams of performing for throngs of music-loving fans. Consequently, he traded his soccer uniform for the stylish garb of a Hip Hop performer poised to reveal his talent and ambition to entertain and to express his artistic nature. J.Creole lived and performed in the U.S. before moving to Canada where he continues to perform for large-scale audiences and work toward fulfilling his musical aspirations.

Caribbean Influence as music influenced the artist at a young age, he was steeped in the music of Haiti and, indeed, the music of the islands. His Hip Hop style, therefore, is quite unique. While there are certainly other talented Hip Hop artists from the islands, J.Creole has blended these influences in his own particular way to produce songs that boast that Hip Hop edge but also feature the lilting grooves of the islands. This blend of influences makes J.Creole globally relevant and internationally inspired.

Toronto Hip Hop Scene

While Hip Hop hit Canada back in the 1980s, it has today become a hub for Hip Hop artists like J.Creole. In fact, some have compared it to Seattle during the Grunge years. As the nation’s Hip Hop artists continue to achieve fame and recognition, Canada is moving into a new phase as landscape that nurtures Hip Hop. Of course, Toronto is the main hub for this music scene, but Montreal and its French Hip Hop is also influential and a music centre that J.Creole is certainly familiar with.

The Artist: A Man for Community

While writing, recording, and performing, J.Creole also takes time for making positive changes for the community. He has founded a group known as Talented Haitian United Representers and encourages other transplant artists like himself to inspire the community and promote Haitian artists. With his independent label (Label Set-A-Card Entertainment), he also works with other local talent to help them achieve their musical dreams. He is one of the reasons that Hip Hop thrives in Toronto and its brand of success is likely to travel with him when he performs abroad.

The Music

J.Creole has pending music coming on his label. He also works closely with his son Keyshawn who performs on the label. While J.Creole released his first mix in 2005, he followed it with titles like “Ballerz Squad” and released the well-received “Hustla Girl” in 2010. As the artist is cementing his reputation in Canada and the United States, he is also gaining ground in the West Indies where his brand of Hip Hop is garnering new fans.

The Music to Come

With his own label, a portfolio of music, and videos, J.Creole is not missing a beat on the road to his stardom. Behind the image, of course, is the simple reverence for music, for making and performing that music that comes from his home, from the places he’s grooved, from his soul. Easy to groove to, melodic, and at times even hypnotic, if his past tunes are any indication of what the future has in store, J.Creole is likely to hit his musical stride. Mainstream Hip Hop can’t be too far off for this artist who has been on his way ever since he left Haiti bringing the music of the islands with him.

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VisualSP in SharePoint

Well, I was part of governance team who decides the process on smooth operations of SharePoint post its migration to the new system. One of the pain points was to educate the end user on SP 2013.

Switching MOSS to SP 2013 was a drastic change for the user and they were desperately looking for training materials.One of the common approaches is to create KB articles , but again question arises : how often to update , what topics to add/update and how best one can draft the document which may need the expertise of content writers.

Of course, we came up with this approach for L2 support engineers that was effective in the troubleshooting, however there was a separate tooling system that was integrated with SP and known as VisualSP . VisualSP provides loads of materials in the form of videos ,documentations , tips on the ribbon in specific to a SharePoint page.Furthermore, it also offers In-context help content for the end user.

For instance, If a user is on the SiteSettings page, the tool loads all the help topics/videos on ribbon section in relation to the page, i.e : the possible actions/operations that can be performed on the page.

Installation is quite simple that involves installing a package on a WFE server, followed by an option to expose this feature either to all site collections or specific site collections.The feature enabled will furnish loads of contents and I bet users would find this very handy for their daily operations that further can reduce the support tickets for assitance.In addition, the contents can be hidden from few users by managing their permissions at the site collection level.

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Audiot Savant: Poetic Non-Poetry

Audiot Savant

W.—round, filmy and loosely kept—spat blood profusely for pure pleasure. On the sidewalk, in the halls of settling brick buildings, over green spears of academic grass, W. bit his inner lip, right side, square in the middle, and spew forth the new flow of his oft seen blood and saliva just to hear it hit.

Like bird shit on car metal sometimes. Others, it was a slow soggy swimming pool of a sound like a kid pissing down the shallow end. Those were the good ones. Their gospel spurred him on.

Wait though. On more occasions than he could bare recall some of these spitting crusades punctuated only with an old fashioned SPLAT struck him as the most disappointing, the most redundant. They caused W. to flip his gray matter in its bone pan. And reconsider. Faith?

His reactive thoughts backfired: You should quite, my man. You should just stop trying. I mean, what’s the point? Spit like life, even when infused with blood like the body, is only hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms—only stardust. Isn’t that what they say, the humans, stardust? It’s stardust. That’s good, stardust and energy. My spit is of the stars, and I shall not contain it within this one vessel of the body.

Milling its hot cherry into the wet London concrete with the ball of his booted foot, W. crushed his American Spirit to the sidewalk. What a sensation sound gave him, the torque of soul leather on cement rubble. He could even hear that last hiss of fire and water.

Turn he back then to chipping the blue polish from his nails, while thinking that black might have been more cheerful. Such a drab day deserved more black polish.

No visible humans were walking about, and W.’s head was too heavy but only on one side, only because of the titanium plate that held his brains in. So, tilting to the left from his late Spring car crash, he saw a continuous imbalance in the visual weight of the world.

On one side of the picture, onerous squares of blank gray sidewalk framed street gutters with their yellowing Fall leaves floating in chemical-sick rainwater, prone and emaciated, weakened by disintegration, through a sewer compost and on out to a flat untrustworthy river. A river that hid its victims well.

The other side of this picture, lightened by diagonal lines and clouded by visual noise, was a localized haunting of slugs and condensation. W.’s internal fulcrum could find no equilibrium in this two-sided rendering of the actual. All was jitterbugs and tossed salad for W.

Whenever he moved along a sidewalk, and two or more humans were coming toward W., he would unwillingly migrate toward them—pulled in by their gravity. With surprise and obvious disgust the humans would archly pull away and rush past him, or flee to the opposite side of the street.

But this time, alone on the sidewalk, W. noted the unique slime trail of each slug that worked itself up to light speed at his feet. Yes. That noise they made! The succulent hiss of a trillion self empowered pores lubricating the jolly fellows’ paths across their universe of two square meters, each little dirt clod or piece of stone a star, each small rubbish pile a new planet for the jolly traveling fellows to explore in their way with antennae slowly caressing, probing, tracing the contours of every tidbit internally.

The sounds of which came to W. as a concert of saxophones blowing. He’d known that music before. Those long curved horns of the Swiss reverberated out to him from some snowy mountain memory, the only truly ripe and fitting comparison—the image of blind, cartoon-colored martins moving over the metallic soil of some forgotten planet.

Were these slugs merely space travelers of the overlooked galaxies at his feet? Aliens incognito from another dimension? Time Lords!? They could be doing anything at that speed, and who would know?

If only W. could explain to the humans about the boisterous slime-conducted astro-pilots. Share their subtle language.

Slime Drive, he would intone. Martins are all around us cruising at full slug speed to unknown sectors of the sidewalk. Look, you, a wormhole in the street; it leads to the third planet in the Dogtrot system on the other side. Think of the possibilities.

But humans would not understand, never sensing more than their input filters allowed. The unseen mesh of some intricately laced membrane keeping too many things from them; their eyes, ears, noses, tips of their fingers, pads of their feet, the bumpy skin over their nipples, all selecting only the must sanitary, mundane, or sanity friendly stimuli…!

So, W. only spat his consternation. Spat he blood! For saliva alone was not enough, too light, too watery. While W. heard the pulsing of molasses from a thousand trees, over a thousand kilometers away, the humans could not even hear their own hearts, which bestirred his soul to flight, or the murmur of their skin as it warmed and began to darken in the sun, which ignited his blood to flame.

Blood to flame.

The heady phrase evaporated as W. lit a fresh cigar, stepped off the sidewalk, and wandered into the street.

K. Shawn Edgar | Frost Demon | Slug Whisperer | Prose Poet

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Geotechnical Engineering 101 and more…

Building firm foundations

Archive for August, 2006

IGS – Indian Geotechnical Society

Posted by Kshitija Nadgouda on August 3, 2006

I attended a seminar today, by Prof. Gandhi on “Failures and Remedial Measures in Geotechnical Engineering” organised by the Indian Geotechnical Society (Mumbai Chapter). It was a great learning experience! There are many more seminars/workshops on interesting topics coming up. I will encourage all students of Civil Engineering to find out about such societies as IGS (Indian Geotechnical Society), Indian wing of the ASCE, Insitute of Bridge Engineers, etc and become members. Most seminars/talks are free to members and workshops are at discounted rates.

It is not only a good way to learn about the topic under discussion, but we come into contact with lots of people, big and small, in the industry and the academics. Talking to them is in itself a learning experience. Everybody gets to contribute in the seminar, lot of discussions come up and we end up learning a lot more from them. In my opinion this is the best way for students to interact with the industry gurus and keep abreast of the latest in the best practices, research and ideas.

One drawback I have noticed in India, is that there is no access to such information for students. We have such good societies and associations that get together regularly, discuss academic and industry issues but usually students are excluded from them. This may be because they are not mature enough in terms of exposure to the industry. But the only way to change this, is to make them aware, involve them, and encourage them to participate by asking even the most basic questions. How else will they learn?

So all you students out there, whether young or old, get fired up, ask others about such societies, join them and other numerous organisations that exist out there and PARTICIPATE to get the industry knowledge first-hand!

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Copyright Kshitija Nadgouda.

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Randomness- schedules, kiddos, workouts, scrapbooking…blah, blah, blah…

How is it possible that I can be so busy when we hardly leave the house? I think I’m still trying to adjust and settle into life and an actual routine. (I really like routines, and consistency) When I first started to say home I was pregnant and preparing for the new baby and adjusting Parker to the whole staying home thing. Then Charlotte came and it has been a whirlwind of change and adjustment for everyone, and now it feels like we are settling in seeing how our new family dynamic is going to work. The sleepless nights with an infant and long days of a non-napping toddler has been a little rough on all of us but now that Charlotte is kinda sorta starting to find a routine it is getting much better.

I think I can safely say that she has a night time schedule of 10-11pm until 5:30am when she wakes for a new diaper and a snack then sleeps until about 10-11am. Parker is an awesome sleeper of 8pm-9am. He doesn’t nap though. We fought him on naps for about 6 months and then just decided that it wasn’t doing anyone any good, so now we have an afternoon “quiet time” where we have a snack and watch a movie. He has fallen asleep on a few occasions which is great, but for the most part he just needs a little break in the day.

Nap time used to be the time when I would blog or scrapbook but those things haven’t been happening. I know that I have missed a couple of template Tuesdays, which will be back but I seriously broke my keyboard. I have never broken a keyboard in my life and somehow I broke several keys including my control key (PC). And if you are a Photoshop user you know that it is basically impossible to use any hot keys without your ctrl button (command on mac). I had my pictures and the kit I wanted to use all picked out and then ya… I know that everything can be done by finding it through the menus but I have no idea what I do is even called most of the time. My fingers just know. It felt like my hand had been cut off. SO. I have a new keyboard now and should have a new template up for ya’ll on Tuesday.

The little lady is going to be 4 months old tomorrow and is rolling over now. Both front to back and back to front. I have decided that she needs to stop growing immediately because I’m not ready for my last baby to not be a baby. She is getting big way too fast. She is such a “girl” though that it is funny. She will be crying and you just have to start talking or singing to her and she will start to smile and giggle. It is the craziest thing. She is going to be my little chatter box I’m sure!

I’m really struggling with fitting in exercise this week. (I should be working out instead of blogging but I needed to kind of do a brain dump today) In my ideal world I would get up in the morning and workout, have breakfast, coffee and a shower all before the kiddos woke up. Then I would be done for the day and not have it nagging at me all day. This is my ultimate goal. But for now, I’m still fighting to get Charlotte down before 11pm and then I’m not getting to sleep until about 12am and the call of my warm bed is just too strong at this point to stay up after Charlotte wakes at 5:30am. I’m hoping once I get her on a little better sleep schedule that I’ll be able to.

That being said, I’ll be back on Friday for my Fluffy Friday check-in with some hopefully good news but I just wanted to check in with ya’ll and chat. Oh, and btw, I cut about 10 inches off my hair last week. I’ll try and post pictures soon!

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Ladyrebecca's Musings and Ramblings

The Increasingly Political Thoughts of Rebecca (Becky) Walker

Some amazing recipes July 31, 2007

Filed under: Anecdotal — Addicted to Yarn @ 1:48 pm

I’ve started a new preschool “program” with our daughter. It’s called “Letter of the Week Preparatory Curriculum” or something like that. The basic premise is this: I introduce a new letter every week and all of our activities are based on that letter. We add animal crackers. We make apple juice and read about apple pies. We study antelope and astronauts. It’s a lot of fun.

So last week was “I”. I had a hard time finding snacks that started with “I” so I made food from different countries. We had Italian on Monday, Israeli food on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, we had Indian food. Wednesday’s dinner may have been the best food I’ve ever made—certainly the best in a long time.

I made Chicken Curry, rice, and Naan, plain and garlic. It was so amazingly good. I don’t know if we were just craving Indian or what but it was nearly…well, let’s just say that we are glad we don’t share a wall with our neighbors or they may have been confused.

I don’t know if it’s eating bread with the meal or what but Indian food fills me up better than anything else. I had a single serving of the curry and rice and about one garlic naan and I was full. Almost over full, much to my taste buds’ disappointment. I can’t find any of the ingredients I need to expand my Indian cooking reproitre locally (except for curry powder and fennel seed) so I am going to have to make an order online. Probably going to have to spend about fifty dollars on spices and shipping. Black peppercorns and garlic are about the only conventional spices they use.

Well, I will post more as I experiement but in the meantime, here’s the recipes I used. They are amazing.

Chicken Curry

1 T olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 2-inch chunks

2 T butter

2 T curry powder

1 clove garlic, minced

1 C canned coconut milk

½ C golden raisins (if desired)

  1. Heat oil in a large frying pan over high heat. Add the chopped onions and chicken and cook for 5 minutes or until the chicken is browned on all sides.

  2. Place chicken and onions in a bowl. Wipe out leftover oil with a paper towel.

  3. Melt butter in the frying pan over low heat. Add the curry powder and garlic and cook for 3 minutes.

  4. Stir in the coconut milk and raisins (if desired). Return the chicken and onions to the pan, cover and simmer for 25 minutes. Serve over rice.

Serves: 4 curry lovers

If you like, add ½ C frozen peas just before it’s done simmering.

If you don’t have canned coconut milk, you can substitute chicken broth or milk, plain yogurt or applesauce.

4 C all-purpose flour

1 t baking powder

½ t baking soda

salt to taste

1 egg, beaten

6 T plain yogurt

3 T butter or ghee, melted (ghee is clarified butter. I used butter and it was a little runny and looked greasy. Tasted great but it didn’t look like the picture)

About 1 C milk

Garlic–if desired

1 T poppy seeds, parsley, chives, or some other “decorative” herb type thing

  1. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium mixing bowl.

  2. Stir in egg, yogurt, and 2 T melted butter. Gradually stir in enough milk to make a soft dough.

  3. Cover bowl with a damp cloth and put in a warm place 2 hours.

  4. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface for 2 to 3 minutes until smooth, then divide dough into 8 pieces.

  5. If desired, knead a diced/minced clove of garlic into each piece. Roll each piece into a ball, then roll out to make ovals about 6 inches long, pulling ends to stretch dough into shape.

  6. Brush ovals with water and place wet side down on greased baking sheets.

  7. Brush dry side with melted butter and sprinkle with chosen decorative thingy. Bake 8 to 10 minutes, until puffy and golden brown.

    Alternatively: bake for 8 to 10 min
    utes and then brush with butter and sprinkle with pretties.

Makes: 8

One Response to “Some amazing recipes”

  1. CC Says:

    You can usually find garam masala, cumin, and coriander in any supermarket spice aisle and these are really the staples of Indian cuisine. I myself have a couple of yummy Indian dishes I’ll have to swap with you.

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” BODY “

Good morning… i just woke up,1hour ago. gonna go eat my breakfast then i have to get ready for church. So iam in a hurry. i looked through my closet and found this body. It’s a gift from 3 years back i think. Guess if i am happy right now? Love it, have never used it before because it was to little. I love the beautiful back, but since i have a big chest i gotta be careful with how im going to use it.

And NO WAY!!!! i’m not going to church like this. Catch you later, gotta sip on my coffé now

xoxo / Vicki

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Lake life

A fish story as big as the bass!

Screen Shot 2017-04-26 at 6.41.37 PM

Beverly Rogers Brister has a fish story that’s even bigger than the bass she caught on Lake D’Arbonne Tuesday. And that makes it a good one. Her fish, shown above, was a 24-inch long 11.78 pound largemouth bass. Her story, shown below, is even bigger.

Beverly and her husband, Dwain, bought kayaks about a year ago, but she had never fished out of hers. Tuesday she was having a bad day because of some things that happened. She was feeling pretty low, so she just  said a modified version of the “Serenity Prayer”:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and . . .  I’m just going fishing.”

The prayer and the fishing trip were both good choices.

She grabbed only two lures to take with her and got in the kayak. At the last minute, she decided to take the net, too, just in case. She paddled around in a big weed bed casting in some likely looking spots and had a couple of hits, but didn’t catch one. She was getting disheartened again and feeling bored when she noticed her husband, Dwain, out in the back yard planting tomato plants.

“I was about to quit and go help him, but I decided to make just a couple more casts,” she said.  “On the last one, I was fishing the bait across the weeds and all of a sudden the water exploded. He pulled me around for a minute and I yelled for Dwain to come watch me catch this big fish. By that time, he had a big wad of grass on the end of the line and my husband thought I was hung up or I was pranking him. I was just laughing because I had seen the fish. I don’t know why I was laughing so hard. About that time the big fish jumped and he saw it. I finally wrestled it into the dip net and got it up on the bank. I tell you, that fish took me for quite a ride in that kayak.

“When I finally got out on the bank with the fish, I still couldn’t stop laughing because I just couldn’t believe that fish was so huge. Dwain ran and got the scales and we weighed it. By that time I was shaking I was so excited. The biggest bass I had ever caught before that was five or six pounds and I thought it was a whopper.  God just smiled on me Tuesday. He showed me not to quit, no matter the circumstances.”

The Bristers kept the fish in a live net overnight deciding what to do with her. Wednesday morning, Beverly returned her blessing to the lake. You can see a video of it on her Facebook page.

Beverly has been having quite a time since landing the big fish. She was still laughing telling the story. She took a photo of it up to Taterbugs and told Waylon Wheelis she caught it on “that” bait she bought at his store. She walked in the back and came back and told him, “Yep, you’ve still got plenty of them.”

In case you are wondering, “that” bait was a plastic frog.  It’s a weedless bait that can be fished up in thick places where most lures can’t. It was also the first time she had ever fished with a frog. And in case you are wondering, that’s all the info on the bait you’ll get. Fishermen and fisherwomen are like that, you know. We’re lucky we got that much!

For those that may not know this couple, Beverly is from West Monroe and Dwain is from Bastrop.  Bastrop folks will remember Dwain’s dad, Homer Dean, who cut just about everybody’s hair in Morehouse Parish (including mine) at one time or another. Homer Dean would still be bent over double laughing and slapping himself on the knee over this fish catch!  Beverly and Dwain went on a fishing trip on Lake D’Arbonne for their first date years ago. After living and working in Missouri, they returned “home” recently to live on the lake.

I would tell you more, but Beverly had to leave.  She was headed back to her kayak to go fishing.

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Union Parish Sheriff’s Office

Eagle Point Boat & RV storage

Eagle Point Boat & RV storage. Call (318) 368-8400 or (318) 245-4170 for your Boat or RV spot today. Electricity available at each site; water and RV sewer dump and 24-hour video surveillance.

Marion State Bank

Wood Marine of Ruston

600 East Georgia Ave * Ruston (318) 202-3802

BnM Fishing

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Friday, October 20, 2017
Visualizations Salutes Oakland’s Fire Chief Reed
By Cora Jackson-Fossett (Religion Editor)
Published March 24, 2012

Juanita Smith
Juanita Smith, Visualization Founder/CEO

Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed
Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed
(photo courtesy of Oakland Fire Department)

By Cora Jackson-Fossett
Sentinel Religion Editor

In honor of Women’s History Month, Visualizations Founder/CEO Juanita Smith recently saluted Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed, the first African American female to be appointed to this position in a major U.S. city.

“Chief Reed is definitely a trailblazer who deserves the highest accolades for her achievement. She serves as an inspiration to all women that we can fulfill our dreams,” said Smith.

Reed was previously assistant fire chief in San Jose before being selected to lead the Oakland’s 590- person department. She achieved many ‘firsts’ during her 22-year career in San Jose including promotions as the first woman fire engineer, captain, battalion chief and assistant chief.

Smith’s pride in Reed’s accomplishments likely stems from her long affiliation with the International Association of Black Professional Firefighters (IABPFF).

“I have been fortunate to establish and maintain 501c3 Nonprofit Exemptions for several IABPFF branches throughout the country,” said Smith who is known locally for her expertise in setting up nonprofit organizations.

In fact, Smith is about to launch a new nonprofit of her own called the Visualizations Foundation to assist at-risk youth and families in need in identifying supportive services.

“Our Vision is to contribute to the global prosperity of local communities and improve the quality of life by training, mentoring, and preparing youth to become functioning, contributing members of society.

“We also plan to support and collaborate with local churches and clergy in nonprofit development, marketing, strategic planning and how to develop and sustain an effective Pastor’s Support Ministry,” she said.

“Visualizations Foundation is now accepting applications for new Board members. If you would like to be a part of this Vision, please send a Letter of Interest to or log on to,” added Smith.

Categories: Religion

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Tag Archives: stop premature ejaculation

The 7 Best Ways To Last Longer In Bed

8 Sep

Having some trouble lasting in bed? Well the truth is, that with the right advice and just a little dedication, all men can learn how to last longer in bed. Today’s post will show you seven great ways to help you achieve this

1. Tune in… but tune into everything

During sex you may have tried to distract yourself by thinking about baseball or reciting your 27 times tables. Yet what you really should be doing is the exact opposite. Yep… tuning in, not out. You may or may not have heard this advice in the past, but the real reason why tuning in can work so well to help you last longer is very rarely explained properly. Here’s the trick, what is really meant by “tuning in” is “tune into everything”, not just those sensations occurring down south. You should make sure to tune into every single sensation you are sensing. Tune into every place your partner is touching you and the feeling of her skin, tune into every sound she is making, tune into the feel of her body. I mean absolutely everything men. You may be surprised to see how this will actually have the effect of stopping you from solely focusing on the sensation in your genital region and with a little practice will go a long way towards helping you learn how to last longer in bed. You also get the added benefit of being able to focus on the beautiful woman you are with rather than some sweaty baseball slugger!

2. Get your breathing right men!

Gotta get you breathing right men! This is really important. It’s natural to breathe deeply during sex, but guess what? This is something that a large majority of men who have trouble lasting fail to do. They will start taking short, fast and shallow breaths the moment sex begins, or for some, as soon as they even think about intercourse with their girl. By learning to breathe in a more relaxed and controlled way both prior to and during intercourse you will be able to make a significant improvement to your lasting time.

3. Make sure to pace yourself

For the majority of men who have a hard time lasting in bed, the real danger time is during those first one or two minutes. If you can make it through this time, the probability of being able to last longer will actually increase. That’s exactly why it’s so important to go slow and take it easy at the beginning. Here’s what to do… extend foreplay, then make sure that you are in a relaxed and comfortable state prior to intercourse, then once you begin, take it easy at first to give yourself a fighting chance to get used to the sensation and make in past the danger time.

4. Get An Expert’s Advice

It’s a fact is that with the correct treatment, premature can be cured in the overwhelming majority of cases. So why not seek the advice of an expert. Talk to a doctor, or better yet, see a trained sexual health expert. Ok… I know what you’re thinking, it may seem embarrassing to talk to someone about this highly personal problem. but the truth is that they really can help. Let me put it this way. What’s worse, a little embarrassment, experienced when seeing an expert, or a lifetime of premature ejaculation and not being able to last longer enough lasting to satisfy not only your partner but yourself as well?

Having said that, I understand that some men will not be willing to see an expert face to face no matter how many reasons they are given. If this is the case then why not go for the next best thing and get your hands on a guide written by expert. James Robinson, a sexual health counselor practicing out of Chicago has written this popular guide to help men last longer in bed. It contains all the areas covered in this blog and of course a lot more. It’s also a lot cheaper than the price of consultations.

5. The Secret Of Pelvic Muscle Control

You will find that many men who struggle to last in bed, will be either consciously or unconsciously tensing their pelvic and ejaculatory muscles during sex. To truly learn how to last longer in bed this is something that you will have to put an end to. This leads us to one of the true secrets of being able to lasting longer in bed. A secret that, in all honesty many experts regularly fail comprehend. It’s an undeniable fact that it is physically impossible for a man to ejaculate while his ejaculatory and pelvic muscles are in a relaxed and controlled state. So the real key is to become aware of the state that these muscles are in, and start learning some techniques and exercise methods that will give you the ability to control the physical state of these muscles.

6. Consider Natural Supplements

Why not try a natural supplement to help you last longer in bed. To tell you the truth, they do not work for all men, while other men find that taking a supplement is a great way to help them prolong ejaculation. If you do chose to take a supplement to help you last longer, you should know that they can be expensive, so it may be a good idea to buy a small quantity first, and decide if they are right for you.

The best supplements work by increasing the man’s Serotonin levels which has been proven to increase the lasting time for some men. The better products that are available will offer a full refund on unused portions if you should decide that they are not right for you. Probably the most popular premature ejaculation supplement available is climinax, which has a number of active ingredients shown to help some men last longer in bed.

7. Don’t pressure on yourself.

I have left this till last as it is really important for you to remember. Don’t put unnecessary pressure on yourself during sex. The worst thing a man can do during intercourse is to start going over in his mind, what will happen if he fails to last in bed and ejaculates early. Just relax, put the other tips I have showed you into action and most importantly, enjoy the moment. If you do happen to ejaculate before you would like, just remember, it’s not the end of the world. There are so many ways to help you last longer, and be 100% sure that with and the right information and a small amount of dedication and practice, you will be lasting longer in bed in no time at all.

Breathing to last longer

23 Jul

Gotta get you breathing right men! I can’t stress this enough, and I’ll repeat it as many times as I have to. You should know that Breathing  deeply is natural during sex, yet despite this, just about all men who suffer premature ejaculation will start taking short, fast and shallow breaths as soon as they begin sex, or for some, as soon as they even think about intercourse with their girl.

If you want to last longer in bed, begin by taking deep and relaxed breaths well before intercourse has even begun. I can promise that if you do this the next time you have sex you will last longer in bed. It may be 20 seconds longer, it may be 40 minutes. Either way it will get you lasting longer in bed, and the more you work on it, the more benefit you will get out of it…. This is even more so true when combined with other methods and techniques such as those discussed at www.how-to-last-longer in this how to last longer in bed guide.

Get your breathing right to help you relax

Get your breathing right to help you relax

Last longer in bed

22 Jul

How to last longer in bed? that’s the big question. You may have a severe case of premature ejaculation, or just searching for a few extra mins of quality sex with you woman. There’s a larger number of things you can do to start lasting longer in bed. We will cover just one of these each week.

for now I will show a great way to last longer in bed by correcting your breathing during sex.The great thing about fixing this up, is that it makes an sizable and instant impact and will let you last a fair bit longer tonight.

It’s so natural to breathe deeply and in a relaxed way during sex yet it’s no surprise to learn that 99% of men who have trouble lasting in bed don’t do. You’re about to learn just how to last longer in bed by breathing correctly.

For guys looking to last longer in bed here is a great  (and free) site.


text:
Dhamma investigation, Kandy, Sri Lanka

Dhamma Kuta

When I start a journey I usually start with a meditation retreat to collect myself, to be clear about the purpose of the trip. Similarly, when the journey comes to an end, as it must, I conclude my travel period with a meditation retreat to gather mind and body and to reflect on the many experiences I made throughout the trip.

Therefore, I choose to sit down and digest the myriad impressions at Dhamma Kuta Vipassana Center on top of a hill near Kandy. Especially after tending for the dogs and cats at Tikiri Trust I find this is a great way to understand raw existence and the suffering and compassion and love I have encountered there. Remaining silent for 8 days after so much barking at the animal shelter to come to terms with the lot of all beings, including my own.

View from the Dhamma Hall

Uphill, the light reflects on the stupa and meets the lens

Perfect spot to watch the sunset

Dhamma investigation, Malaysia

Penang Hill East

On my way to Georgetown the ferry takes about 20 minutes to take me across. The grey skyline is sacred. The funky boat is sacred. The salty waters are sacred.

Top! of the hill. Can you see the buildings on the left? That’s where Joy and i helped in the kitchen at a Vipassana Course. The experience was … baffling, for several reasons. My stance on Goenka’s methods and entourage of assistant teachers has changed. In the end, we did our best to make the best of it and take care of a wounded animal.

Penang at night. Beautiful. The Kek Lok Si Temple with the huge Kuanyin statue highlighted colourfully in the dark

Dhamma investigation, Malaysia

After the ecstasy, the laundry

Well, folx, this is the third and last part of the Vipassana Diaries. Please enjoy 🙂

Sitting in the morning feels like having arrived. Like homecoming. This presence of mind! No more ‘kneedles’. It’s ‘bumfire’ now. Effortlessly aware for about 90 minutes: already it is a memory. Anicca. The continuation of the practice shows that the pain is manageable. After a while it’s the pleasant states that become a prob as I get easily attached to them.

Deep anāpānā – pain doesn’t concern me. Every action becomes so efficient, so precise. Eating out of a small bowl instead of a plate. Not hungry anymore. Peacefully abiding with the momentary change of different tastes while chewing. No thoughts. Quiet mind. The inner monologue/commentary has subsided into the background. Every now and then, a whisper, an insight, an idea, an image, a memory. But 9 out of 10 minutes: silence.

With some distance I get a clearer picture now. It’s not that ‘my mind is defiled’ or that ‘I am defiled’. Rather, there are defilements which everyone shares. Every woman and every man has a share in these defilements (kleshas) which are craving (lobha), aversion (dosa) and delusion (moha). And sankhārā, as I understand it, is not used in plural but in singular. In plural, it would imply that you have some stock of them somewhere which you need to clean out like Augias had to clean that mythological barn. Sankhāra (sing.), however, means nothing but the habit pattern of the mind to identify with the five aggregates (skandhas) and the resulting defilements. Once you watch them, they become weaker because the habit pattern gets weakened by depersonalizing, i.e. objectifying the experience of this present moment.

I feel a bit awkward today. As if nothing really matters. A bit mad. Crazy thoughts of fantastic skills, superman. At the same time: pulsating headache across left temple and eye. Anicca. Anicca. Anicca. Anicca.

The denial of how temporary life is and how ephemeral the things, places and persons are which we tend to get attached to is ridiculous. Well, it would be ridiculous if the level of our clinging wouldn’t have reached epidemic proportions. We have become addicted to craving. Addicted to craving. It’s not about the worldly objects anymore. It’s a sign of our endless search for pleasure. We are pleasure seekers who deny the fact of decay and death with cosmetics, operations, tricks and mindgames.

Taking good care of myself: Drinking enough water to keep the vessel going. Mettā-bhavana at the start and ending of a sitting to keep the attitude bright. Taking a shower when I need one, especially after sittings of strong determination. Walking in nature appreciating its lush beauty.

At least three things have become clear today:

1. Guard the sense doors

2. Transform craving into mettā

3. Observe pain only when you’re ready for it

1. Whenever I attend a meditation retreat again, I will guard my sense doors. Utmost priority will be: Not to look at the female group. There is always one who will look extremely skilled in practice, have a supermodel shape, and be equipped with mysterious tattoos w/ superb style. Dangerous! It ruins practice. So difficult to watch that objectively: blood, urine, pus, body hair, nails, teeth etc. of someone who I find extra hot 😉 Once you’re hoked you’re hooked and it’s all about the future: “How do I get in contact with her?”, “Where is she from?” etc etc. playing movies of how it would be. There is no end to it. Therefore, from beginning to end: Guard the sense doors!

2. To get a glimpse of dhamma is what ten day retreats are for. Practitioners get desperate and exchange gestures, glances, whispers. They don’t keep to themselves. It becomes obvious on day 9. People stuff themselves at lunch. That’s usually a sign of how their meditation is going. Also, on day 8 or 9 you might get really deep into the practice. You might be i spired to stay but alas, the course is over when you just start to see the results. And there you go: You want results. Being swept away by virtual romance, imagination, mindgames, and all of a sudden it dawns on me: I wanted results! As soon as I transformed craving into mettā by applying the technique, I was free from suffering. All this hoping and manoeuvering because of this lady. To find back to dhamma is so wonderful, so wonderful. So liberating. Like coming out of a hut in which the air is so thick it’s hard to breathe you walk out of it onto a field where there is a meadow, there are trees and you breathe in the fresh air and your lungs are frolicking!

3. You are not observing pain to lessen it or to make it go away or to extend the threshold of pain you can bear. You are here to observe it and learn a lesson.

DAY 10

This is somehow a very difficult day for me. At 10 a.m. the Noble Chattering starts. The mind jumps back into the same old habit of chitchat like a child runs back into the room in which its toys have been stowed away.

Oh how beneficial is silence. Silence is really golden!

What can we do? Something can be done: Love and compassion and equanimity regarding my situation in the midst of it all. Not deeming myself any better because I prefer to be still, silent.

A lot of rain is falling today. Rain rain rain rain, beautiful rain 😀 It reminds me of the acronym:

  • Recognize
  • Accept
  • Investigate
  • Non-Identification

The last sitting from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Incredibley smooth. Flow from top to bottom, bottom to top. Pain starts, anāpānā comes almost automatically for help, cutting and piercing the stings away like swords of wisdom. Then, concluding mettā. I cry because… when will I be so intimate with my breath again, and because it’s Day 10 and all the misery in the world, and we’re all sitting here, and the whole scene is just so moving I am exhilarated to be a part of it, and so indescribably happy for the new students that they pulled through with it and stayed despite the difficulties, despite the ups and downs! I am so grateful to experience this! Je suis très joyeux, très heureux, très content!

Bowker, John: “Problems of Suffering in Religions of the World”

How to play the game of sensations

Five misconceptions about pain

Dhamma investigation, Malaysia, Sharing

Let nature play its own role

Here you can read about my impressions during my stay at Dhamma Malaya during a Vipassana Meditation retreat. If you’re interested in the previous three days, please click here.

Between two palm trees of the compound I notice the intricate structure of a spider’s web. I follow the threads in order to know where I am able to pass without destroying it. I walk over to my room in block T. Inside, I spot an ant crawling across the room and inspect it. I watch it and take note of the fact that the shadow of an ant is tiny, indeed. Entering the bathroom I see so many of them. They are all checkin de surf in the water basin every time I turn on the tap. Some are coming way too close to the waves I produce and after one or two are swept away into the abyss I refrain from using the basin, taking compassionate action by using water instead from a tap I find next to the shower.

The incessant chatterbox has calmed down. Quiet mind. Images arise from childhood memories to past relationships to future plans. Jumping from past events to future plans becomes so obvious. The workings of the monkey mind, so obvious. No reactivity. Samādhi is stable for about 5-15 minutes. Almost no pain when I sit for an hour. The body adjusts. It seems so, at least. In the morning I eat something even though I am not hungry.

After the Ecstasy, the Laundry

In the afternoon, Vipassana instructions are given. A humbling experience! All I feel is ‘kneedles’… thousands of them. After the stable experience of calmness due to mindfulness of breathing for four days, the judging mind emerges: “I am unable to sit still. Impossible to focus. Mind goes haywire. Is everywhere but here. Like iz my first time at such a retreat. I feel like a beginner again.”  Making the mind crammed and narrow. Then again making it wide and spacious “Beginner’s mind, yes, but different: I know very well that it will pass. Remember: Anicca. Impermanence.”

Later on I remember that whenever I try to focus… and try and try… and exhaust myself in vain. It simply does not work. It is like trying to empty or control the mind. A big misunderstanding of how the mind works. Any attempt to control it only creates more misery.

The task at hand is to observe.

I remember yesterday when I was in pain, sweating profusely, and held still until the chanting, using the breath as a bridge between periods of intense pain. When I opened my eyes, I could see the back of my frontman. His T-shirt was soaked in sweat, too. Well, and today after that challenging group sitting in the afternoon I wonder, yes I wonder: “Am I feeling this body or am I also the impact of something I’d name ‘collective pain’?”  If nothing else, it is an interesting concept: collective pain. Maybe you, dear reader, have experienced something similar: You go somewhere and people are tense and in pain or they are stressed out (and try not to show – even though these days it seems to be prestigious to be stressed and to be “sorry, don’t have time”) and you somehow get your share of stress as well, and you tend to get irritated easily. Of course, this is not to say that you’re not responsible for how you perceive the world each and every moment. Nor should this be taken as a way to evade your response-ability to a particular situation by blaming it on external circumstances. Rather, it is a chance to practice compassion in daily life. Wherever the pain might originate, and whatever the reasons might be of its arising: mindfulness acts like a shield.

How I love how the air smells after heavy rainfalls!! You know what I am talking about. Especially these monsun downpours at five pee emm after it has been building up humidity and heat for the last two hours or so. After the heat the world smells and feels so incredibly fresh, so alive and awake!!

As I have come to notice in the previous Goenka retreats, this is usually the day when breakfast and lunch become like a dance, a spontaneous choreography. We move in unison after having spent time in the same boat named ‘dukkha‘. This is the time when many a greenhorn comes across the term ‘equanimity’ for the first time in her/his life and learns its meaning in regards to physical sensations and their respective feeling tones (vedanā).

To sit still in the midst of pain and pleasure alike doesn’t make sense per se. And yet, as you might recall, it does, as soon as it changes what you think and who you are. The choreography during lunch time is made possible by that human ability to note, to know, and to let go. By feeling my own body so intimately I come to know how others are feeling, too. Mirror neurons? Could be. But as long as one keeps talking about theories one is unable to touch the inner well of peace.

“Even though your view may be right, if you cling to it you’re wrong.”

(Ajahn Fuang Jotiko)

Entanglement with thickets of views and words and thoughts comes so quickly. ‘Know thyself’, the sages of all eras have said. Equanimity is most important – at the beginning, and the middle, and the end of each and every endeavor.

Pain is a concept which can be used as an overly to hide actual feeling tones. The untamed untrained mind has been conditioned to avoid pain. During these ten days one is trained to observe instead what is actually happening. Instead of reacting to it one simply watches it.

By now, compassion and sympathy have come about. I see the faces of my fellow practitioners. There is pain, misery, sometimes desperation, and a flicker of hope. The question seems to be written in the long faces of new students: “What have I gotten myself into here?”

Insights arise. Many things become so clear once the sensibility is heightened, the awareness of sensations on and in the body. Eating, for example. I skip teatime every second day. At breakfast I sit and watch the spoon being lifted to that hole in my face. Then I go to the toilet and feel poo coming out of that hole in my lower back. Just facting. Not: Oh the first activity is so deli and the second is so disgusting. Having written this down, it sounds weird. But I can’t tell it any other way. (Or maybe I can…) One has to experience it. In society two extremes are followed: indulgence and binging on the one hand; fasting and abstaining on the other. It seems as if it’s hard to find a middle way in a society which is so accustomed to live im Überfluss which can lead to Überdruss.

It seems to me that it’s really quite simple: Don’t eat too little. Don’t eat too much. Listen to your body. Leave ¼ of the stomach empty, better even ⅓. Then there is no drowsiness. Instead, one is able to be awake and alert, laugh heartily, do sports, concentrate effortlessly, meditate, dream calm dreams. Of course, there are more factors than just eating habits and it is therefore important not to become obsessed about when and what and how to eat. Otherwise, worrying might have more detrimental effects on the overall health than the best quality superfood might have beneficial effects.

Another thing. When one smokes, the taste buds get desensitized, so one is led to eat more spicy food because of the craving for more intense sensations. The stomach will adjust after a while. The habit is formed. Hard to let go of wanting artificially flavored food as long as smoking continues. Of course, everyone knows that. Wir wissen alle Bescheid. But unfortschnittly, one lacks the experience to sensitize one’s taste buds by chewing long enough to notice what is actually going on inside that hole in one’s face.

The more resistance I develop to pain in the body, the more doubt comes up in the mind. Doubts about the practice, the teacher, doubts about my aptitude. Thoughts about why Goenkaji emphasizes hard work. What about Mooji? What about Tolle? They all state that their teaching provides a shortcut to nibbāna. The assistance teacher raises his eyebrows and asked incredulously: “You don’t believe in defilements?”

All that brainwashing about purifying the mind. When you state that the true nature of the mind is pure, and therefore, there is no need for all that hard hard work, then it is only a sign that you are deluded, ignorant, and that you are not observing yourself properly, that the fact you don’t see defilements is a defilement, namely ignorance (moha). For me at least it seems easier to grasp the term ‘conditioning of the mind’ and to call the process of vipassana ‘deconditioning’. In my humble opinion, that sounds more appropriate than the doctor-speak of impurities, operation etc. Yet again, Sayadaw U Tejaniya helps me out:

“Try to recognize that defilements are simply defilements; that they are not ‘your’ defilements. Every time you identify with them or reject them, you are only increasing the strength of the defilements.”

Dhamma investigation, Malaysia, Sharing

Nothing has meaning…

until it changes what we think and who we are.

On the way to Dhamma Malaya Vipassana Centre we take rest for an hour at a nearby lake

I read this statement in a book titled Running from Safety by Richard Bach. It conveys very well what I experience at meditation retreats time and again. Since my first vipassana retreat (as taught by S.N. Goenka) I have refrained from unveiling what’s actually going on there. There are already enough testimonials on YouTube, I thought.

Another reason I hesitated was that up til now I was not at all sure what to write and what to omit. Trying to jot down an insight or rather its verbalized form does not necessarily contribute to a deeper understanding. Instead, it might create expectations and thus, disappointments which in turn are prone to create confusion. The motivation to write arises partly out of an anxiety, namely to forget, when in fact insights are by their very nature only accessible to memory in a limited sense. Insight changes my ideas, views, habits, priorities, behavior. If it is truly experiential insight, i.e. bhavana-maya paññā, it has the power to change the way I perceive myself and the world, it changes my reality altogether, in one word, it has an impact on how I live my life.

As Sayadaw U Tejaniya puts it:

“The account of someone describing certain experiences leading up to an insight and the actual insight itself are two fundamentally different things… You can express the effect an insight has on you or the experiences’around’ it but not the depth of understanding you gain through the insight.”

That pretty much sums it up and may serve as a brief rationale for why it took a while to write about it.

Regarding the ‘setting’, the timetable is clear. You get up early and you go to bed early. No food after noon. Every participant has to observe the precepts. This includes keeping Noble silence at all times. So far as the framework is concerned, it seems quite clear.

Now, what about the inner turmoils, the questions that arise, the internal storms within the external quietude? Of course, one wants to know what one is getting oneself into. My intention is to make it a little bit easier for anyone to be prepared for such a workshop and also to encourage you, dear reader, to go ahead and apply for a course. It’s well worth your time and energy. What’s more, you will find this investment is going to leave you with all the time in the world, and an entirely new form of NRG which gives you a fresh perspective on what really matters.

Natural habitat of Vipassana yogis

The first thing I notice is how agitated my mind is. Usually that fact goes unnoticed. I only react to the agitation. Come to think of it, I do not become aware of it right away during the first day. Rather, it happens on the second and third day. Why? Because the mind is so beleaguered by thoughts there is not enough room to realise: “Wow! I can’t even do such a simple practice as observing respiration for one hot minute. I get distracted so easily.” There is no room for that recognition, let alone the ability to be relaxed about the fact. Over time, the mind has become so entangled in its own magick that there is no way of noting the in-breath as in-breath and the out-breath as out-breath. It can be quite a humbling experience to notice how unstable and capricious the mind is. Hitherto, I thought it is my mind. I ought to have control over it. Now I am embarrassed to see I am not at all in charge.

Also, questions arise: “Why am I doing this? What is that supposed to do? What is it good for?” It is only later that the results present themselves in a most extraordinary way.

After a while it becomes clearer and clearer that this simple (but not easy) practice is a preliminary for vipassana. In order to calm the mind down, it is essential to find an object that is sufficiently stable, like the breath, and stay with it. On the second day I notice that I am trying too hard. In the evening, I am quite hungry.

Also due to the Goenkaji’s evening dhamma talks critical thoughts come up:

This being my fifth or sixth retreat in the Goenka tradition, it becomes obvious how strong the emphasis is on ‘washing out defilements’ and on ‘eradicating impurities’. It is presented in an apodictic manner. It seems to me that the man who emphasized  the teachings to be ‘non-sectarian’ and ‘non-dogmatic’ is actually followed by a sect-like entourage propagating strict adherence to his so-called ‘non-sectarian’ teaching.

Then again, I reflect and ponder:

Am I critical about the teachers while in fact it is rather the followers who are worthy of critique because they interpret Buddha-Dhamma in a certain way? Can I really hold a teacher responsible for the structural setting his followers established?

Currently I am reading Bowker’s recommendable anthology (see below “Sources”). He investigates the history of Marx’s ideas, too, and finds that they were corrupted by tyrants to become an ideology but that there were passages in his writings that could foster ruthless aggression towards reactionaries and the belief that the ends justify the means. Same goes for Christianity which started with the message of love and freedom and was instrumentalized to instill guilt into the hearts of the people. First the Christians suffered from prosecution and then they prosecuted and burnt those who were later titled martyrs. So from that perspective innaway I dig Goenkaji’s worries about the Dhamma being diluted or misrepresented but in his sayings these interpretations were already implicated.

Thus, it is clear that Day 2 is kind of a dhamma-vicaya day.

Such cute lil’ puppies at Dhamma Malaya 😛

Goenkaji repeats again and again: “Continue to work. Patiently and persistently. Patiently and persistently.”

As with every other skill you just have to practice, man, for hours and hours just practice. After a group sitting suddenly a thought I’d had long ago once again resurfaces: Now at least I know enlightenment doesn’t exist, so I can relax. Endowing this thought with some credibility, the next few sittings go pretty smooth. A relaxed breath is an easy breath. Later, I feel energy arising naturally and sit extended periods. Even so, there is still a lot of pain when I try to sit for one hour without moving a muscle. Also, a slight headache visits me. In my mind, I crack a joke to myself: “Better headache than heartache. Take it easy, Kimo.” My smile turns the headache into something else not quite so disturbing.

Theoretical questions don’t bother me so much anymore. Even though, I have an interview with the assistance teacher to ask him if Goenka was a Buddha. No, he says, a bodhisattva with a lot of ‘mettā power’. It becomes clear that awakening is a gradual process, so I also ask a question about sudden awakening, “what about Mooji and Tolle?”, but alas, he only explains method and lineage of Goenkaji.

During Goenkaji’s dharma talk this evening I heard him sing ‘Happy Birthday to yuuu’ with more than 100 people around not knowing that it is actually my continuation day. I am aware that I am another year closer to the cemetery 😉 It was only after the course that I realized it was the day before that: Day 2 of the retreat. Funny dat.

Bowker, John: Problems of Suffering in Religions of the World

Richard Bach: Running from Safety

Sayadaw U Tejaniya: Don’t look down on the defilements. They will laugh at you

Dhamma investigation, Malaysia, Sharing

In the middle of a Vipassana retreat, I think it was Day 5, I asked myself how Goenkaji could know that this particular technique as he taught it and as he so vehemently urged everyone to follow scrupulously without changing anything, that this very technique would lead to full liberation? I mean, he was not a Buddha, he said so himself – the assistance teacher from India pointed out this fact to me, adding that he is basically a Bodhisattva, filling up huge pots of paramis (i.e. faculties supporting one’s awakening/liberation) and building a big ship for many to sail across the ocean of samsara.

And now, in the middle of the retreat, an answer to that question emerges from the depths of stillness within. With certain sensations certain thoughts arise, certain emotions come with certain thoughts, and these in turn influence how the body feels. One of the memories that came up was this: when hiking in the mountains or on the Camino thru Austria and Switzerland I got landmarks and some instructions by people I met on the way which were reaffirmed. That way, I knew I was on the right track. Yes, it is just as I was told it would be. Confidence arose. There is a difference when it comes to insights arising from meditation, though. Yet the purpose was served: the question and with it, the doubts concerning the practice, dissolved.

Another thing I remember: at times when I was playing table tennis as a child… I trained twice a week, I won tournaments, went to training camps for weeks on end, then lost sometimes and learned to lose better, sometimes with the help of a close friend or a family member who reminded me where i am and what I’m here for! And what I was here for was to win or at least make it as hard as possible for the other to win against me. Me. ME. Ambition arose. Or as my liefie calls it: my kaprikorrrn turns loose. My Capricorn spirit manifested in my wanting to win something, be it a medal or a trophy or, extended to the personal realm, and always closely connected to it, to win a friend, to win over a girl, gain sympathy.

It became very clear. ‘My world’ as a child revolved around getting what I want. This is changing now.  As I travel I keep on exploring both the inner and the outer world, and I see how they correlate. The tendency to give from a place of abundance becomes more and more predominant as clarity increases of what is essential in life & death. What stands out is what I already have got instead of what I think I need to get. This also applies to my attitude towards meditation. Instead of striving too hard and tiring myself in the process I start where I am at the moment and try to stay relaxed about any tension that arises. In order to do that, I have to be aware of it, of course.
Thus every day and every night I grow in gratitude for my family, friends, ancestors, community, for this body, voice, for this pliable mind, for the loving and compassionate heart, for all hospitality wherever I come, it is so incredibly easy to come around! Thank you thank you thank you!!

Like this I prepare for the final hour so that when it finally comes, and it is bound to come — every ‘birth’day is a reminder — I go in peace. And if rebirth turns out to be just another story to keep me in check and to teach me I-better-be-a-Goodman, then at least, if nothing else, I have led one happy life!


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Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Proximity is the P in C.R.A.P.

C.R.A.P. stands for contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. It’s a design principle created by writer Robin Williams.

Proximity is used to create relative meaning in your designs. Williams says, “Related elements should be grouped together; while separate design elements should have enough spacing between them to communicate they are different. You should use your document’s white space to separate key points.”

You should try to keep it looking professional and clean. Repetition helps keep your work organized and reduced visual clutter. This is meant to help your reader find information easily and not have to work to find the message your trying to send.

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Repetition is the R in the design principle C.R.A.P.

C.R.A.P stands for contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity.

Robin Williams, the creater of C.R.A.P. as a design principle, says, “Repetition means keeping design for similar themes consistent….It reinforces communication and ultimately helps the reader understand.”

Repetition is most effective when it is not over done. You can try repeating visual elements through out your work. Repetition of colors, textures, fonts, thickness of lines, and white space unify your piece. Try to keep your theme consistent by using simliar elements to stregthen your work.

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 *Mackenzie Whalen*

Public Relations CoordinatorMackenzie Whalen

I intereviewed a friend of mine who is currently working in the PR field. Her name is Mackenzie Whalen and she has been someone I’ve admired and respected since I came to GSU in 2007 as a freshman. Presently she works in the PR department of the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta as a PR coordinator.

1) What is a typical work week like for you?
            “Well no two days are ever the same. But most of my days are spent coordinating logisitics of media shoots and interviews at the Aquarium. We’ve been very fortunate that journalists are still very interested in coming to the Aquarium. So, most of time is spent answering requests that come into my inbox.”

2) How important is writing in your career?
             “Writing is very important in the PR industry. It is your job to communicate your company’s message to a wide range of audiences. So, I believe that it is a crucial aspect of being a PR professional.”

3) What do you do to stay current in your indutry?
            “I am a member of all professional organizations (IAAPA, AZA, AMA, PRSA) and subscribe to all newsletters. It is important to watch the trends and issues to see how news originates. Also, being up-to-date on everything allows your to better pitch your news items because you are current.”

4) Did your education prepare you for your job?
            “I think that my education gave a good foundation but my internship experience prepared me the most. But I do know that I could have never made it to where I am now had I not had a great foundation from the classes I took at GSU.”

5) What do you wish you would have known before you graduated?
              “Hmm, good question 🙂 I wish I had been prepared to be a better PR writer. GSU requires a lot of journalism classes, but this is NOT PR writing. If I could say what my biggest weakness is now, it would be writing. So I wish (even though I would have hated it haha) I had been required to take more PR writing clasess.”

6) What three tips would you offer to someone new starting out in PR?
             “Keep current with the news — of all industries.
Find a mentor and learn everything you can from that person.
Build relationships with members of the media early on.”

7) How does technology affect your daily work?
            “Technology is constantly changing how we work as PR professionals. With the emergence of social media, we are having to rethink how we reach our audiences. The traditional ways have been thrown out the window and we now must learn all the new aspects of social media to keep up with the trends of our public.”

Mackenzie’s various social media and career sites:

Linkedin– http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/mackenzie/whalen

Georgia Aquarium website- http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/newsroom/printern.aspx

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Chelseas Go Fund Me

Thursday, October 20, 2016

NATIONWIDE~Tobacco Workers~$100

UserWorks, Inc., a user experience design and usability research firm, is looking for people who work with tobacco products, to help evaluate a government website that presents information related to tobacco products and regulations. This includes e-cigarettes and hookah tobacco.

You may qualify to participate if you:

Make or modify tobacco devices
Label or pack tobacco products
Mix loose tobacco or e-liquids
Sell tobacco products or devices

We invite you to participate in a one-on-one interview, which would involve you speaking with a researcher over the phone while navigating a website and providing your feedback on the related webpages. Your comments and opinions will help improve the website for future users like you. You will not be asked to buy anything as a result of your participation.

Interviews can be scheduled from October 20 - 25, 2016. The interview will take about 45-60 minutes, and you would be paid $100 for your participation.

Please feel free to forward this email to anyone you know who may be interested in participating in this study.

Business people (age 18+) whose work deals with tobacco products
A one-on-one in-person session lasting about 45 to 60 minutes
Sessions are available from October 20 - 25, 2016
Remotely, from the comfort of your home or office. You must have a desktop or laptop computer with Internet access and a reliable telephone that can be used simultaneously

If you are interested in participating, please click on the link below to answer a few brief questions.


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News Posted on February 27, 2013

Associate Dean Amar Comments on Obama and Same-sex Marriage Cases for SF Chronicle

Vikram Amar, Associate Dean and Professor of Law at UC Davis School of Law, commented for the San Francisco Chronicle on the prospects of the solicitor general filing a friend-of-the-court brief in the same-sex marriage cases pending before the U.S. Supreme Court as a demonstration of President Obama's support for same-sex marriage.  Though gay rights advocates have called for Obama to weigh in on the cases, Amar said that a Justice Department brief probably would have little impact on the Justices' thinking.

"In a case like this, where politics have clearly overtaken legal analytics, I really don't think anything the solicitor general files at the direction of a recently re-elected president, who campaigned on the issue, would have any effect ... on any justice," he said.

Vikram Amar, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Law with the UC Davis School of Law, is a national authority in the fields of constitutional law, civil procedure, criminal procedure, and remedies. His biweekly column for, a leading provider of online legal information, centers on his expertise in constitutional law.

San Francisco Chronicle


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Sherlock Series Four Could Be The Last

One of the biggest quality every Sherlock fan needs to have is patience. It will not be easy and many times they need to occupy their time with other shows until the new series is released, but it is anything but easy. With the fourth series expected to be dropped next year, which it is currently filming, fans now have to deal with the fact that this fourth series could be their final.

It is not surprising given two points: (one) UK series never seem to go very long unless it is one of those series that reboots the entire cast after two or three series, and (two) Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are in the highest demand possible right now. Executive Producer Steven Moffat admitted to The Telegraph that this could be the end.

We do have two film stars in the programme. They haven’t needed to do these jobs for a very long time. They’re coming back because they want to,” Moffat said.

“I’m amazed that we’ve got this far. I thought that once they had become extremely successful, we would only get to do one more series.”

Given the actor’s hectic schedules, it was a surprise to Moffat that they were able to work in another season of the series.

“I don’t know how long we can keep it going. I’m personally willing but I’m hardly the main draw. I would be moderately surprised if this was the last time we ever made this show. But it absolutely could be.”

Moffat did offer a glimmer of hope: “That’s why I think it’s unlikely that we’ve completely finished it. There would be nothing strange in stopping for a while. It could go on forever, coming back now and again.”

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deming, improvement, leadership, lean, management, transformation

Making Problems Visible Is More Difficult Than It Sounds

One of the many elements of lean that is conceptually very simple but difficult to put into practice is the need to make problems visible.  Although highlighting problems so they can be addressed makes sense, there is often a reluctance resulting from fear that doing so can damage one’s career.  In organizations with highly competitive cultures, for example, openly discussing problems can make a person appear incompetent and ineffective. Even without open competition, organizations that tend to promote those who hide problems by putting a positive spin on poor performance are unconsciously cementing a behavior that it is not okay to openly discuss problems.

It is perfectly normal for people to want to show that processes are running smoothly and things are under control.  Because of this, it is up to the company’s leaders to instill the idea that highlighting problems is not only acceptable but expected within the organization.  This means that there should never be negative consequences for making a problem visible.  On the contrary, it should be made clear to everyone that hiding problems or failing to take action to address them is an unacceptable behavior.

Two areas where it is important to make problems visible are dashboards and meetings.

The objective of a dashboard for an area or process is to clearly and objectively show the gaps between expected performance and actual results.  Hiding the gaps or continually putting a positive spin on how things are going misses the opportunity to align team members on what’s important so the problems can be addressed.

Posting charts that track what’s critical for an area keep people focused on how a process is expected to perform and, the more sensitive the chart, the more quickly action can be taken when a gap occurs.

It is important to note that dashboards become ineffective when too much data is displayed. Think how difficult driving would be if your dashboard contained 10 or 12 gages.  The same applies to a dashboard for a work area.  Make it simple and clearly connected to company or system targets.

It is also critical to keep dashboards simple and easy to maintain. Fight the urge to multi-color, three-dimensional graphs that show too much data.  To purpose of a chart is to highlight performance, not prove how adept someone is at creating graphs.

Many companies waste a lot of time in meetings talking about what is going well.  Performance is reviewed and discussed – sometimes in excruciating depth – even when processes are on-target.  People learn to dread meetings and use the time to catch up on email or the latest headlines on their smart phones.

The more the daily and weekly meetings are focused on the gaps – existing and potential – the more engaged people will be.  The dashboards should drive the meetings and, the better the dashboards, the quicker people can zero in on the gaps and talk about the actions to address them.

When we do this well, we begin to take advantage of the collective knowledge of the team by focusing on improving performance.  If we dance around the real issues by ignoring the gaps and attempting to put a positive spin on how things are going, we miss an opportunity to build teamwork and fail to address the real problems.

The Problems Are There – Why Not Look At Them

Every organization has problems, and a key determinant of success is how well the problems are addressed.  Openly showing the problems is the first step at resolving them.  Getting to this point, however, often requires shifting behavior to make it okay – even expected – to look for the gaps.

About Gregg Stocker

Gregg Stocker is a lean advisor for Hess Corporation. He possesses over 20 years experience in a variety of disciplines including operations, manufacturing, human resources, quality, and strategic planning, and has worked in manufacturing, service, and oil & gas industries. He has extensive international experience, including successfully leading an $65 million business in The Netherlands. He authored the book, “Avoiding the Corporate Death Spiral: Recognizing & Eliminating the Signs of Decline,” (Quality Press, 2006) and was a contributing author to "The Lean Handbook," (Quality Press, 2012). Gregg is a frequent speaker and recognized expert in business and performance improvement having been interviewed on television, radio, and in a number of newspaper and magazine articles including The New York Times, Washington Post, BusinessWeek, and InformationWeek. Gregg has implemented change in organizations ranging in size from $10 million to more than $100 billion. He is a team-oriented leader who achieves results by improving teamwork, focus, and communication throughout the organization.

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European Maker Week – Art Gallery Take Over

With Europe Code Week around the corner we are revisiting Maker Week and building on this experience to celebrate making and coding in our curriculum.

Embracing the ‘POP UP’ space to cultivate curiosity was the goal of the art gallery take over. This year we want to continue this growth and extend opportunities both formally and informally in a recognised learning space whilst extending and making the maker movement in school visible

The maker movement is not about the *stuff* we can make, it’s about the *meaning* we can make…”

Jay Silver, Founder/CEO of JoyLabz

Throughout this exciting week we celebrated the maker movement

Two 5th Grade students creativity advocates chose this event as their
action from their recent PYP Exhibition.

European Maker Week was over 500 events in 36 countries: many people attended the workshops, labs and talks, organised over the seven full days of exciting networking and growth opportunities.  The energy and excitement of the European Maker Week  will generate fresh ways of thinking about inclusive solutions for makers, start-ups and policy makers.

Explore the European Maker Week website for a gallery of the event.

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We held workshops, demos and hands on tinkering experiences in our art gallery take over. Featuring tech takedowns, interactive Scratch projects on Raspberry Pi with Makey Makey loosely themed around spinning things.
The drawing spinning machines featured recycled laptop fans, providing constant amazement.
Mini workshops such as the LED mini flashlights were a hit.
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Check out the awesome light painting they made with them.

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For Europe Code Week 2016 we’ll be officially opening our Library MakerSpace!
Workshops will include:
#Sonic Pi on Raspberry Pi DJ#DIY Gamer programming in Arduino#Art & Code- creating with Scratch, Processing, ScratchX with Leap Motion & Beetle Blocks#Play Swift Playgrounds#My Scratch Autobiography#Library Bots#Little Bits Genius Hour#Wear your X Ray Goggles- Mozilla Web Literacy#

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