text:
Tag Archives: Blogging

Is Blogging “Dead” and Is That A Bad Thing?

John Scalzi over on his blog Whatever just posted his yearly summary of readership statistics for his blog for this half of 2017, and it brought up some very interesting questions and insights for me.

He mentions how his site views seem to have halved since 2012.  But then he points out how the way social media sites address linking to content obscures many views and distorts the picture from the viewpoint of his built-in WordPress analytics package.

Whereas in the early 2000s, blogging was a rather distributed and free-wheeling hobby, nowadays it has been corporatized and hedged in by so-called “walled garden” platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr.  A walled garden is a platform that creates inward pressure on users and makes interfacing with outside platforms and media difficult.  Usually to preserve it’s userbase by requiring you to be a member/user of the platform in order to access or interact with its content.  This means that even though there may be links pointing outside, most of the discussion happens within the garden, and if the content creator wants to respond to comments on their content, they must have an account on the walled-garden platform.  And when a garden gets sufficiently large enough, like Facebook, the dilemma then arises: why go to all the extra work of maintaining an external platform such as a blog or website, when the audience all have say a Facebook and the content creator does, too–why not just post straight to Facebook?

And Mr. Scalzi is not the only blogger noting or struggling with the issue of how monetized platforms and walled gardens have altered blogging and the web in general.  In fact, many blogs, including many I used to follow closely, have closed their doors or switched formats to keep up with these changes.

And beyond the walled garden issue, part of this has to do with how we access the internet today.  Mobile devices make up a much larger share of web viewing now than they did when blogging and the internet first became popular.  And because these are mobile devices, they have many limitations: screen size, processing power, input methods.  A site or blog that looks great on a PC is going to look mighty odd on many mobile devices.  It would be almost impossible for me to type out this post on my phone’s touchscreen keypad.  Complex sites with lots of doodads load much slower on phones, though the gap has closed a bit these days.  Certainly, it’s nicer for me to read a long blog post on my laptop than my phone.  These things, too, have contributed to the decline of the blogosphere compared to its earlier days.

And I don’t like that.  For the things I use the blogosphere for, from my own posts to reading essays and such by people such as John Scalzi or Cory Doctorow, or others in various fields, I much prefer a good blog post to a Tweet, or a Facebook status.  I like long-form prose writing, and I don’t feel like I can get the same things out of a tweet or even a tumblr post in many cases.  That’s not to say those things don’t have they’re uses; they’re just different uses in my case.

I often wonder whether things might change back a little once we develop technology like laser keyboards and augmented reality or just mini-projectors that could let phones break out of the limitations of their size.  Is it merely that the medium is so different that forces these changes in media?  Does Twitter rely entirely on the artificial restrictions of mobile technology for its popularity?  If I could set my phone on a table or my lap, and have it mimic a keyboard and a computer screen, would I find that I wanted to use it like a more convenient laptop more often?  Or are the changes social changes.  Is it really that people don’t like reading 200-word blog posts anymore?  Or is it just that a 140 character Tweet is a lot less stressful when I’m on my tiny phone screen in the airport?

To get a bit more spec ficcy, do people just love Facebook and Twitter that much, or would we break out of the garden if we took down the walls a bit?  If there was an open-source freeware social media network that could access and display your Facebook data and your myspace data, and your Google posts and your tweets all in one platform/app–if it could convert a post/status so that your Google+ post would be accessible on your friend’s Facebook feed would people be more willing to step outside the single platform?  It takes a great deal of energy to manage even one active social media account.  I know I wouldn’t want to have to triple-post to Facebook, Google+, Ello, and then push a link to Twitter, just to reach all my possible audiences.  But what if there was a bridge between these castles that would do the work for me?  Because controlling every aspect of the garden is great for the companies behind Google+, Twitter, Facebook, etc.  But it’s not quite so great for the regular user, and it’s definitely not great for the community as a whole.  The democratization of the web is one of my favorite features, and Facebook and Co. work hard every day to kill that democracy and carve a monopoly from its bloody corpse.

Posted by on July 5, 2017 in atsiko, Blogging, Rants, Sigh, Social Media

Tags: , , , , , ,

I’m a Lazy Shit

Some of you may have gathered that I’m a lazy shit.  From the number of post series even with their own index page that never finished or even came to fruition.  I do in fact intend to get all of those up eventually, but I’m a lazy shit.  And some of them require serious research and planning and maybe even citation of sources, all of which I hate but the last of which I really hate.  Just ask my former Academic Advisor.  I’m more an off the cuff sort of person.  If you imagined this presents some major challenges to the goal of me ever having a story/book published, congrats.  You’re pretty sharp.

Anyway, for that reason, I will be trying to post on here more frequently, but in smaller bites to work my way up to having a stronger habit of consistency, which I hope will be beneficial to my fiction and also to those more ambitious series of posts sitting around the Chimney unfinished.

First up–today in fact!:

A world-building post on the challenges and answering techniques for creating a new and unique world not based on a set of previously existing Earth cultures.  Many of which are probably exocitized and stereotyped in your conception, particularly if you are a (white) Western European, or really any identity that isn’t a part of those cultures in general.  Fantasy versions of real-world cultures are fraught with risk, not just from cultural appropriation or downright racism, but from genre stereotypes, from lazy writing and characterization, from plain old old-hatted-ness.  But more on that in the post later today!

1 Comment

Posted by on May 16, 2017 in atsiko, Blogging, Books, Uncategorized

Tags: , , ,

Hiatus: Again

So, as I hate my life and happiness and am currently in the process of working on a video game project, including the coding and a narrative arc that could probably be comfortably condensed into 47 fantasy trilogies, schedule posting on the Chimney will be on indefinite hiatus.  That does not mean I won’t be posting.  I probably will.  But it will be sporadic and all post series are on hiatus.

I’m having a hell of a fun time, so though I am a bit sad that I won’t be ramping back up my posting schedule, I’m not too sad.

Posted by on December 15, 2016 in atsiko, Blogging

Tags: , ,

Happy Puppies

I haven’t blogged in awhile, for various reasons, none of which involve any decreased interest in speculative fiction or any of my other common topics.  Mostly, I’ve just been doing other stuff that serves those same interests: game design, writing, more writing, working on machine translation, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence software.

I don’t have any major plans to become as active on this blog as I once was.  However, I do intend to still post occasionally.  Perhaps once a month or so, if nothing drags me back to it because of its sheer awesomeness.  Do consider this a “dragged-back” post; do not consider the reason the sheer awesomeness of spec fic.  I’m writing this post for a much more depressing reason:

Sad Puppies.  I love puppies.  Not as much as kittens, but they’re still pretty adorable.  I don’t like it when they are sad.  I wish we could all just be Happy Puppies.  In furtherance of that goal, I have a few things to say about the recent Hugo Awards Slate Voting Controversy, henceforth to be referred to as the Sad Puppies (Incident).  That’s not a value judgement; it just seems like the most people will recognize it without a drawn-out explanation o my part.

So, a few important points:

  1. No one should ever be sending death threats to someone over their political opinions.  Nor rape threats.  Nor creepy anonymous phone calls.  Not to left-wingers, right-wingers, or any sort of -wingers.
  2. In general, the politics of an author are unimportant when judging a book.  If the politics of the book itself (or any other form of writing or story-telling) make you squeamish, fine.  Don’t read it; don’t buy it; don’t vote for it.  But don’t attack the author based on their politics, or their book’s politics.  Not unless they’ve been actively user their author persona to promote those politics.  Still don’t attack them.  Follow Rule #1.  If they open the door by posting politics on their blog, feel free to go there and debate them.  Dislike them as people. Decide not to buy their books.  But don’t drag the spec fic community into it.  Don’t actively campaign against others buying their books.  Don’t actively campaign for them, either, if you don’t like them.  Campaign for what you like, and leave the hate out of it, either way.
  3. I’m politically left.  Possibly even a socialist.  I read plenty of right-wing-slanted stories.  I even enjoy some of them.  I read books by politically-right authors.  The same goes for the left, if we insist on dragging politics into it.  I think some books on both “sides” are great.  I think the majority are mediocre to readable, and I think some books on both “sides” suck.  That’s a separate issue from whether I was the target audience for a book.  I can like some things about a book and hate others.  Maybe it had a great plot but poor prose.  maybe it had deep characters but I hated their politics.  Maybe I thought the politics were tolerable but they hit me over the head with them too many times.  Maybe the book sucked, but I was the target audience so I cut it some slack. (never too much, good writing/story always trumps politics).  maybe it rocked by I was not the target audience so I was a bit more critical of it than I otherwise might have been.  We’re all biased in one (or many) way(s) or another.  Maybe I liked some books by an author, but hated others.  I disagree strongly with much of the politics of OSC.  I still liked his Ender books, and his Gate books.  I hated his Seventh Son books.  Partly for political reasons, partly because I just didn’t like them as stories.

I’m absolutely against what the Sad Puppies are doing.  But I totally believe that they’re telling the truth, or their interpretation of it as far as some of the treatment they received.  I don’t thik they chose the right response.  I don’t agree with their vision for “real” or “proper” Speculative Fiction.  But that doesn’t excuse bad behavior on the part of the Happy Puppies.  Criticize them for their actions, not their politics.  Criticize them for bad quality writing or story-telling, not for their politics.  Criticize their politics.  Challenge their views.  But don’t attack them.  Don’t call them names, don’t threaten them.  (What qualifies as name-calling may differ among groups.  Sorry.)

Better commentators than I have already talked voting policy to death.  Good luck to everyone at Worldcon.

Leave a comment

Posted by on April 12, 2015 in Sigh

Tags: , , , , ,

Getting Your Priorities Straight

I’ve had a great time working on this blog.  It’s been loads of fun, I’ve learned a lot about myself, and I’ve met some great people.  I really appreciate everyone who’s read and commented here.

That may sound like a goodbye speech, but what it really means is that I’ll be posting less on here than I used to.  Probably once or twice a month at the most.

This is for several reasons:

  1. I made a commitment to my friends review blog, where I’ll be reviewing various speculative fictions books in many genres.  I’ve posted several reviews there already, and I encourage you to go check them out.  If you like Young Adult books, my two co-reviewers each review about the same number of those a month as I do spec fic books, so definitely check that out.  Most recently, I reviewed Scott Westerfeld’s Afterworlds with my co-reviewer Marisa Greene.  In about a week, you’ll be able to read my reviews of Richard K. Morgan’s The Dark Defiles, the third and final novel in his Steel Remains series.  Here’s the blog:
  2. I’ve decided to spend more time actually writing books.  High/Epic fantasy has been becoming more popular in the YA field, and many of my projects fit that category, including my current WIP.  After that, you might get to see some reali, live chimney-punk! 😉
  3. I’ve found less and less to write about on here as time goes by.  Part of this is that I’ve said a lot of what I have to say on some subjects, such as world-building.  And part of it is that more general topics, such as genre and writing mechanics have already hit their third cycles on some of the blogs that started out around the same time I did.  Many of those blogs have even stopped posting at all.  I’ve been less active commenting on other blogs for that reason, which means a large decrease in traffic here, as well.

The Chimney is still my home on the web, and will be for the foreseeable future.  I’m not closing it down, and I hope I never do.  This change has already been occurring over the past year or so, it’s just not been official until now.  Once my schedule settles down, and I get into the groove of writing prose, I’ll probably be back to posting here more regularly, especially since writing actual manuscripts really gets my creative and research juices flowing.

Leave a comment

Posted by on September 22, 2014 in atsiko, Blogging

Tags: , , , ,

Social Media and Plagiarism: How the Dynamic Web Has Changed Speech

There’s been a lot of hubbub on the internet lately, in social media circles as well as the traditional press, about the issue of plagiarism in social media.

Now, plagiarism has been a problem online for a long time, but social media brings something different to the discussion.  Back when the internet was young, and you had to pay your own hosting fees and code your own website, it was a lot more difficult, and just plain inconvenient to plagiarize.  You had a static site and relatively few ways to distribute your work.  Much like with books, the Static Web was everywhere, but not all that hard to police.

But social media and the content creation movement has changed all that.  Where once we had the Static Web, with people coding their own sites by hand, or paying someone else, we now have the Dynamic Web, where for the cost of an internet connection or a walk to the local library, anyone can have as-good-as-infinite accounts on the hundreds of content creation and social media sites whose struggles carry vibrations all across the Web.  And these sites auto-create pages from databases and some PHP/RoR/Perl code.  No more commitment-heavy hand-coding.

There are actually two issues at hand here.  Although content creation platforms and social media platforms are different in method, they are similar and ethos, and their differences shrink daily, as VBulletin includes blogging features in their forum software, and Facebook Groups function much like an old-style message board.  The effect of both of these Dynamic Web implementations is to bring written speech much closer to casual speech.

It used to be that creating written work required a commitment to the end product.  People struggled over letters to friends, competed to be published in newspapers.  Many people ascribe the various issues with Dynamic Web speech to the lack of gate-keepers or competition.  But what’s really going on is deeper than that.  Although social media sites like Facebook and Twitter store speech in text format, a status on Facebook, or a tweet on Twitter, is not really the written word.  It’s treated and acts much more like a comment tossed off in a college discussion class, or a joke made to a friend.

And where the disconnect between people in the Static vs. Dynamic Web paradigms happens is that the Tweeter or the Facebook poster isn’t thinking of their status as a publication.  So when they leave off a citation, or mis-attribute a quote, they don’t consider the consequences.  After all, we’ve never policed the spoken word to the extent that we police the written word.  It would be impossible.

So when I stumbled across the false MLK quote doing the rounds on Facebook and looked it up on, it didn’t surprise me that it wasn’t really from MLK.  If it had been a spoken word mis-quote, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.  The maximum propagation rate for the spoken word is relatively small.  It’s limited by memory, by audience, by time, by importance, by significance.  But because the text Web is searchable, because it allows instant access to much larger social networks, because the Web is forever, the propagation rate of a statement is significantly higher.  What would have been an un-important mistake in a casual conversation with a few friends has the potential to reach a much larger audience.  And that audience, reached through the Dynamic Web, is more likely to treat the statement as normal speech, and therefore, before passing on this mis-quotation, they are unlikely to source and cite it.  And then we have the issue that we had with the MLK quote and many others in the last few years.

As an example of this dis-connect, I have an anecdote I heard from a friend of mine.  He was perusing his Facebook feed, and came across an screencap from tumblr showing images and recipes for cocktail shots based on Eevee’s evolutions in the Pokemon games.  He shared it.  As it happened, one of his friends was friends with the person who had created the shot recipes.  And who was shocked and a bit creeped out to find it coming back to her in this circuitous Kevin Bacon effect manner.  Whoever had learned about it from her probably didn’t consider it plagiarism to pass it on.  After all, one of the features tumblr is most well known for is the “reblog” feature.  Which actually does a decent job of citation.  Tmublr has a system for that.

And so we encounter the other disconnect of the Dynamic Web.  Not all sites have the same terms of service, and very few sites, if any, have clear rules for how content is to be treated if shared outside the boundaries of its original, individual site.  You may have come across the auto-citations that many sites have started adding to links and copy-pasted quotes.  Or how a major art-based social media and display site, DeviantArt, implemented an anti-hot-linking system a few years ago.  All of these are individual sites’ attempts to combat the casual speech ethos of the Dynamic Web.  But what we really need, what would actually do something to solve the greater problem, is to educate people on the differences between social networks and content creation platforms and casual, real-world speech.  Perhaps the chat systems implemented by Facebook and other such sites are somewhat equivalent to casual speech.  But a Facebook status or a blog post is not.  You can’t treat them the same way, because as a decade or so of evidence has shown us, the consequences of such speech are very different.

Now, it isn’t a sure thing that Dynamic Web speech is the same as professional publication or journalism, either.  It may be in-between.  But better to err on the side of intentional publication than of casual speech.

(Maybe next time I’ll address plagiarism of status and blog articles more specifically.)

Leave a comment

Posted by on March 26, 2014 in Blogging, Publishing, Rants, Social Media, Writing

Tags: , , , , , ,

Tumblr and the Change in Blog Traffic

Here’s the list of referrers to my blog for the past 90 days:

What I want to highlight is how, outside of search engines, various forms of tumblr make up the majority of my traffic these days.  If you go back further, to my traffic in the last year, tumblr vastly out-refers anything but search engines, and the Google search engine specifically.  (Tumblr stomps bing and others.)  And if I were to paste in an image of my traffic from the lifetime of the blog, you would notice that tumblr peaked out over the past year.  Go back further and it barely brought me any traffic.

I suspect, from having looked at the content of those backlinks, that many other small to medium  blogs have experienced a similar shift over the past year, although if anyone has stats that say otherwise, I’d love to see them.  I used to get most of my referrals from writing forums and other blogs (and google, eventually), but now those make up a significant, but still lesser proportion.  I suspect that represents a shift in the way people are surfing the web, and I often wonder whether, as a traditional blogger, I’m already obsolete and just haven’t noticed yet…

1 Comment

Posted by on December 26, 2013 in Uncategorized

Tags: , ,


Content-Type: application/http; msgtype=response

WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: application/xhtml+xml

WARC-Type: response

text:
Attestation Update – A&A for CPAs

Technical stuff for CPAs providing attestation services

Ulvog CPA passes Peer Review inspection

leave a comment »

Image courtesy of

Image courtesy of

I am pleased to report my firm passed peer review in 2015.

Peer review is a process CPAs go through to inspect their audit and review work. Experienced CPAs from another firm look at your quality control procedures and read through workpapers for a selection of engagements.

(Cross-posted from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

In the current system there are three grades from a peer review inspection:

  • Pass
  • Pass with deficiency
  • Fail

I am pleased to report my firm received a pass report, the highest level currently available. I have gone through peer reviews in 2015, 2012, 2009, 2006, and 2003. Each time I received the highest grade possible.

I am a member of a section of the AICPA which has a membership requirement for voluntary disclosure of peer review reports. If you want to check up on the report for my firm, go to this AICPA website. Enter my firm name (Ulvog). Click on my firm name when it pops up and you’ll see the public information. Currently it shows the period covered by peer review is 6/1/14 through 5/31/15, with a Peer Review Acceptance Date of 1/27/16. As I publish this post, the peer review letter is not yet visible.

If you’re really interested in such things, here’s a copy of the letter:

2016 Peer Review report

Written by Jim Ulvog

February 4, 2016, 15:55 pm at 3:55 pm

Posted in Audits, Peer Review

Tagged with ,

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: Logo

You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this:

warcinfo:
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2018-51
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for December 2018
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-180-67-225.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.15 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 0.11-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/


text:
Audible Images Recording Studios

Audible Images Recording Studios has served the greater Pittsburgh area for over 25 years. We pride ourselves in offering superior quality recordings and fantastic customer care. By combining decades of experience with cutting edge technology, we make the very best recordings.

Whether you’re an international recording artist signed to a major label or a local artist just getting started, Audible Images is the place to be. We meet with each client to find out their individual needs, then provide the services that are appropriate.

Audible Images offers superior music recording services that allow the creativity of the artist to flow freely and uninterrupted. With services such as engineering, producing, arranging, studio musician acquisition, graphic design, copyright assistance, all in a comfortable and state-of-the-art recording atmosphere, we are able to make the recording process extremely enjoyable and highly productive.

We offer free, no obligation studio tours and consulting in which we will personally explain service options appropriate for your needs. No question is too elementary to ask our staff.

To set up a tour/consultation contact us via phone or email. We’ll be happy to help!
More detailed information on equipment, engineers, services, news, credits and awards is also available at http://www.audibleimages.net

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this:


WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: text/html

text:
News: Snapchat Is Quietly Developing Augmented Reality Glasses

Snapchat Is Quietly Developing Augmented Reality Glasses

In the wake of Google Glass' failure, we can expect other companies to fill the void in due time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Snapchat may be one of the first.

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel wearing his company's supposed AR eyewear prototype. Image via Business Insider

Business Insider recently caught Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel out and about with a pair of stealthy sunglasses bearing a couple of surprising bumps. It's likely safe to assume those bumps are cameras and not a strange design choice given that Snapchat has demonstrated their hardware ambitions earlier this year.

Furthermore, Business Insider points to some additional, solid evidence:

Compared with Spiegel's normal aviator style, the sunglasses photographed in August appear to have thicker frames and the attached cameras. They're similar to but aren't exactly clones of the glasses made by Vergence Labs, a company Snapchat acquired in 2014.

With GoPro and low-powered electronic hardware specialists working at the company, it's likely Snapchat plans to introduce their wearable tech sooner than later. While no one knows exactly what this new eyewear will amount to or how much it will cost, the stealthier look of the prototype certainly gives it a leg up over Google Glass' cyborg aesthetic.

That said, if people see a camera anywhere there's still plenty of room for public distrust just like we saw with Glass. Whether or not photo-centric smart eyewear will entice consumers remains to be seen, but we have enough evidence from Google's missteps that you should definitely never wear them in the bathroom.

Cover image remixed by Adam Dachis/NextReality; originals by Snapchat and PSDGraphics

Be the First to Comment

Share Your Thoughts

  • Hot
  • Latest


text:
Package Details: fritzing 0.9.3b-4

Git Clone URL: (read-only)
Package Base: fritzing
Description: PCB layout prototyping application
Upstream URL:
Licenses: GPL3
Submitter: phects
Maintainer: Bevan
Last Packager: Bevan
Votes: 200
Popularity: 1.148558
First Submitted: 2009-05-31 14:31
Last Updated: 2018-07-24 17:14

Pinned Comments

Bevan commented on 2017-09-24 08:07

/usr/share/fritzing/parts contains the parts db which is provided by the package, which should not be updated by the user. Instead, the user can run the command "fritzing_clone_parts" once which clones the parts db into the user's home (located under ~/.local/share/fritzing). On next start, Fritzing will use this parts db instead of the one under /usr/share. From now on updating the db should work.

This is somehow a workaround to provide both a package that works out-of-the-box and the self-update functionality of Fritzing. See for a discussion on this. This package basically applies the changes of the pull-request to implement this functionality.

Latest Comments

1 2 3 4 5 6 ... Next › Last »

sekret commented on 2018-08-09 19:50

YESSSS! After writing my last comment I realized that harfbuzz was updated again, so I rebuilt fritzing (probably not necessary, I don't know) once more, now it works again :-)

Thanks for taking the time!

Bevan commented on 2018-08-09 19:25

sekret: Looks to me like you are hitting a bug in harfbuzz which was fixed in 1.8.7:

It's already in the Arch repos (but only since a few hours) which would explain why I can't reproduce the issue. Can you check, if you have harfbuzz 1.8.7 installed?

sekret commented on 2018-08-09 19:11

Thanks for your answer Bevan. I used fritzing yesterday, then we got a big update (many rebuilds, maybe because of updated icu, harfbuzz? Could those cause this?) with many packages, today I get this message. So the obvious question is: Is your system up-to-date?

I already rebuilt it. Obviously it's the first thing to do. Didn't change anything unfortunately..

No I haven't figured out which commit solves this.

I actually NEED fritzing right now, so this is quite annoying... Rolling back the updates could be an option, switching to my windows laptop another (but it's so sloooooow).

Bevan commented on 2018-08-09 15:44

sekret: Are there any specific steps required to get that crash? At least running Fritzing and opening projects works fine for me here.

So you know a specific git commit which fixes the issue or did you just build the git version and couldn't reproduce? In that case, maybe rebuilding this packages helps.

sekret commented on 2018-08-09 07:41

Doesn't work anymore :-(

$ Fritzing

QApplication: invalid style override passed, ignoring it.

Fritzing: hb-machinery-private.hh:642: void hb_lazy_loader_t<wheresface, returned,="" stored="" subclass,="">::set_stored(Stored*) [with unsigned int WheresFace = 1; Subclass = hb_table_lazy_loader_t<1, OT::GDEF>; Returned = OT::GDEF; Stored = hb_blob_t]: Assertion `instance == nullptr' failed.</wheresface,>

Aborted (core dumped)

Seems to be fixed with the current git, but I can't yet manage to create a fully working git version with all included...

Bevan commented on 2018-07-24 17:16

goodmice: The issue appeared when the package had been built in the same version before and the src subdirectory was still lying around. I now changed the PKGBUILD to still work in this case.

goodmice commented on 2018-07-24 03:20

Pleace, fix PKGBUILD. 'mv' can't move not empty folder. I replaced it with:

rsync -a "$srcdir"/fritzing-parts-${partsrev}/* "$srcdir"/fritzing-app-${pkgver}/parts
rm -rf "$srcdir"/fritzing-parts-${partsrev}

lifala commented on 2018-07-13 21:03

fritzing it's ok

Bevan commented on 2018-07-13 20:21

lifala: Please install all packages from the base-devel group:

pacman -S --needed base-devel

This includes the patch utility. Having base-devel installed in assumed for all packages in the AUR.

lifala commented on 2018-07-13 20:18

i problem with prepare and patch, ligne 34, command not found

/tmp/yaourt-tmp-lifala/aur-fritzing/./PKGBUILD: ligne 34: patch : commande introuvable


text:
The Glass of Water – Why Your Perception of Autism is Everything

We’ve all heard the old saying: do you see the glass half empty or half full?

As a chemist, I always preferred the analytical chemist’s answer:

Photo Credit:
Photo Credit:

The point being: Optimists see only the good and choose to ignore the bad. Pessimists see only the bad and ignore the good. And if you are an analytical chemist, you have to measure and record the data as it exists, without filter.

So what does ANY of this have to do with autism?

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a mixed bag which comes with both difficulties and enhanced capabilities. An optimist sees being on the autism spectrum as an evolution of humanity. A pessimist sees autism as a burden, or the source of their life’s problems.

But at Autism Achiever I argue that attitude is everything, and that we must examine the data as it is: celebrate our unique powers and openly acknowledge our difficulties. Because when we acknowledge our difficulties it gives us power: specifically, the power to do something about them! Many on the spectrum value complete honesty toward others,  but are you honest with yourself? Be honest with yourself first… what do you struggle with? How could you better interact with other people?

Decide that autism is not your limitation, and then do something about it. Stop accepting excuses and limitations. Decide to pick that glass of water up and own all 100% of it, whatever is contained within.

What is Autism Achiever?

Welcome to Autism Achiever! My name is Courtney and I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at age 3 when I was nonverbal. I was diagnosed at a time when information about autism was nonexistent and success was considered impossible. Everything I learned was through painful trial and error but today I am a Ph.D. Candidate Scientist who has learned how to turn autism from my disability into my superpower!

My goal is to share the information I have learned along the way to help those on the spectrum reach their full potential. Whether you are learning what autism is for the first time, are a parent, teacher professional or are on the spectrum, you will find information here which is insightful and accessible. As a scientist, especially one who grew up in a time of sparse autism knowledge I recognize the value of peer-reviewed research and will cite and summarize relevant research where appropriate, though I will also be drawing most heavily from my own anecdotal experiences.

If you are on the spectrum, this site will help YOU be successful no matter what challenges you face. You will learn to face your fears, smash limitations, defy expectations and show the world that autism succeeds!

So what can you look forward to seeing at Autism Achiever?

In the future, I’ll be making posts with practical, actionable advice on topics like:

  • Academic success
  • How to create structure and organization in your life
  • How to be more effective socially
  • How to prevent and manage meltdowns
  • How to manage sleep issues
  • How to manage sensory issues
  • The elements of success
  • How to build a winning mindset
  • How to stay motivated
  • Coping with anxiety and depression
  • …and much more!

In addition to these practical spectrum-survival topics I will answer questions on our new Q&A page, bust autism myths, break down interesting peer-reviewed literature about autism, provide spectrum-perspectives on autism-related news stories, and encourage everyone to go out and achieve more!


text:
Homeschool · Posts

Spelling City

Homeschooling three different children who are all at different levels is a lot of work. It is a great benefit when I am able to find different online games or websites that can help me teach my children what they need to know.

Last year I found Spelling City and started using it right away. It is a great website for the kids to practice their spelling lists with fun games. The kids have fun trying the different games and testing themselves on their words. It also has been a great resource for printable exercises for them to practice their spelling words.

I was excited when I was offered an opportunity to try their premium membership. Their free features are great, but I can’t wait to see what more I can do with a premium membership. My kids are so excited to try their additional games.

I’ll let you know how we like the membership in a few weeks.

Have you used Spelling City?

I’ve been given a premium membership to for a candid, personal, online review. helps students study word lists using 25 different learning activities such as MatchIt Sentences, HangMan, and Word-O-Rama. Parents can create their own spelling lists, find published lists already available on the site, or use any dozens of free teaching resources on topics such as analogies and compound words. Be sure to come back in three weeks to read about my experience.

There might be more free memberships available for bloggers. If you’re interested, find out how you can review

One thought on “Spelling City

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: Logo

You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s


text:
Tag: toxic fumes

Toxic Frontier Airbus A321 Flight: 9 People Injured

Reading Time: 1 minute A Frontier Airbus A321-200, performing flight from Islip to Myrtle Beach (USA) with 218 people on board, toxic fumes on board injured 9 people. Aircraft was climbing out of Islip when the crew stopped the climb at FL220 reporting fumes in the cockpit. The aircraft returned to Islip for a safe landing 15 minutes later. […]


text:
Pimp My Plate #36 – GIRDLERS, Dee Why, NSW

Breakfast, brunch, or lunch reviews where the main plate is $20 or less.

You say heatwave? I say it’s another excuse for a beach café review…

As I sit opposite the bold blue sky meets ocean horizon of Dee Why beach, the words laid-back and lucky best describe the ambience of GIRDLERS cafe.

The mood is laid-back and no fuss – customers wear bikinis, shorts, or loose summery garments. Dee Why, located on Sydney’s northern beaches, is more a local hangout than a tourist spot like Manly or Bondi. There’s a community vibe and because it’s school summer holidays, lots of young tanned bodies are wearing as little as possible.

GIRDLERS sits on a prime corner location facing the beach, so you can watch the waves and visually crowd-surf a parade of beachgoers from your table.

Their vision is SIMPLE. HONEST. FOOD. Because it’s a heatwave outside of 38°C/100.4°F that is exactly the kind of food I feel like.

I read the menu and GIRDLERS’ vision: ‘There’s a spot at the South end of Dee Why we like to call our own. It’s a place where the people are real, where you can kick back and take your time, a place where you can always count on a great coffee, a clear view of the ocean and the smell of good things cooking.’

Every workplace should have this view – magic.

Tables are scrubbed-back distressed wood, enamelware plates, and the brick wall features a hippy-lace decal, and an interesting vintage photo I forgot to ask about. There’s an easy ambience, and a faded-summer-sun softness to the decor.

As I said it’s REALLY HOT. I claim the table directly under the furiously rotating ceiling fan because it IS THAT HOT.

I choose pancakes for lunch, but first I order a Sweet Cheeks ($9) – a mix of watermelon, apple, cucumber, lime and raspberry juice. It’s cold and super-refreshing. There’s also Kombucha on tap and Kombucha Spritz, fresh juices, super smoothies, and milkshakes.

My plate of gluten and dairy free Pancake Revolution ($19) arrives – coconut and banana pancakes with seasonal berries, homemade Goodtella (a Nutella substitute), vanilla coconut yoghurt, and a generous sprinkle of crushed pistachio nuts. And organic maple syrup. Yum!

It’s incredibly filling and perfect for a not-too-heavy but satisfying lunch.

Another menu temptation is Goat On the Orchard ($16) – organic rye sourdough toast with Danish goat’s feta, fresh peaches, raspberries, and organic activated nut spread, drizzled with Hinterland Honey.

There are egg dishes, and Glow Bowls ($18) based around tofu or haloumi cheese, with kale, quinoa, roasted field mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, and cauliflower sauce. Another reason to go back.

GIRDLERS is a space to kick-back and inhale beach air, smell the coffee, and ponder whether afterwards to sit in the shade of the pine trees with a book, take a long walk along the beach, swim, or wander down to the rock pools and explore. So many choices and all of them designed by Nature to kiss your spirits and extend that state of relaxation.

If you’re wondering about the name – GIRDLERS is so close to the word Grinders, isn’t it?  –  the café is named after local and ex-football player Ryan Girdler and his wife, Katja.

Once a run-down juice bar, husband and wife team Ryan and Katja and their friend Sebastian have created a café with a mindset committed to healthy deliciousness. Before or after the beach, this is the place to park your beach bum.

RATED: Pimped by pancakes!  FOOD: 4/5
VALUE: 4/5   VENUE ATMOS: 100% Laid back
VIBE:  Beachside
GIRDLERS – 7-8 The Strand, Dee Why, NSW
7 days. M-S: 6.30am-5pm SUN: 7am-5pm

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Visit me on facebook @pimpmyplatereviews – twitter, instagram: @pimpmyplate  #pimpmyplate

awiaklogo-email    pmp-for-blog

Pimp My Plate #35 – Fika Swedish Kitchen, Manly, NSW

Breakfast, brunch, or lunch reviews where the main plate is $20 or less

Swedish meatballs would be the obvious choice wouldn’t it?

FIKA serves breakfast and lunch, but when I arrived at 12 noon with a sizeable appetite it wasn’t me who ordered the meatballs, but the Swedish family at the next table.

Fika is a Swedish word that translates as ‘taking a break for coffee and a bite to eat’ but FIKA SWEDISH KITCHEN offers more, both in food quality and ambience.

With the temperature pushing above 37° celcius I was very thirsty, so the first menu items to catch my eye were the drink illustrations for an ODD GLEN, a CORNELIUS, and a PAPPA JOJJE – $10 each.

I chose the CORNELIUS: gin, elderflower, and cucumber, and I was rewarded. Almost as cool and hydrating as eating a whole cucumber while standing under a cool shower, but of course it tasted far superior and I could sit down.

Other beverages include bottles of Julmust ($10). Julmust is a Swedish soft drink that’s described as tasting somewhere between a root beer and a coke.

Julmust was invented by Swede Harry Roberts as a non-alcoholic alternative to drinking beer around Christmas, which is when it’s most commonly available in stores. Its name translates to Christmas (Jul) and Juice (must) which is what you call the not yet fermented juice from fruit meant for wine or cider production.

What’s the difference between Swedish meatballs and Italian meatballs? Swedish meatballs are served with a creamy gravy sauce, graybee daybee, made from cream or sour cream. It does depend on who you ask, as to whether the inclusion of allspice in the meat mixture is essential or not.

Although both styles of meatballs can include a beef and pork mixture, Italian meatballs often contain parmesan cheese. The sauce is tomato-based, and flavoured with black pepper and garlic.

FIKA serves theirs in a creamy sauce with lingonberry jam (also known as mountain cranberries) with pickled cucumbers and potato mash. The Swedish speaking trio sitting at the next table ordered them and they seemed happy.

I quickly noticed that about a quarter of the cafe patrons were either speaking Swedish, or speaking English with Swedish accents. As did most of the staff.

I chose the pan-fried Rainbow Trout ($18) served w crunchy cauliflower florets, beetroot, cauliflower puree, green peas and dusted w fennel pollen and dill.

It would be accurate to say I’ve never heard of fennel pollen – bee pollen yes – is it a thing? It’s all about sex, because by definition, pollen are the male sex cells in plants. In flowering plants, pollen is produced in thin filaments in the flower called stamens which is then blown through the air. So there you have it.

Served in a bowl, my rainbow trout was cooked beautifully, with a thin and crispy skin, and the fish tender and moist. I could cut through both with my butter knife. Fresh, clean, flavours that were especially hydrating on such a hot day.

Just reading the word trifle makes my mouth water, so even though my meal of trout was satisfying and sufficient, I had to order the one on the menu. Whether you call it research, or call it piggish, is your call.

My Ragnar’s Trife ($9) consisted of sweet layers of custard, raspberry and rhubarb compote, and birch water and elderflower jelly, with crumbled gingerbread.

Wickedly sweet, crunchy, and delicious. I’ve tried birch water before – it comes from the birch tree and it’s a very naturally refreshing drink. As a jelly it’s even more delicious.

My flat white coffee had good body and flavour. I could have happily sat there all day, attempting to learn Swedish from the children’s books on offer, and sipping another CORNELIUS or three. FIKA seats approximately 25+ people, and there was now a queue of people waiting so I left and took a walk along Manly beachfront instead.

I’d like to go back to FIKA for breakfast and try their ÅLANDSPANNKAKA – semolina pancake, traditional recipe from our friends on the Åland islands served w cream and homemade jam.

A Swedish breakfast, then hit the beach – fantastisk!

RATED: My plate was pimped!  FOOD: 4.5/5   Fresh, friendly, and attention to detail
VALUE: 5/5   VENUE ATMOS: Swedish fellow diners adds äkthet (authenticity)
VIBE:  Friendly, shelves stock Swedish produce
FIKA SWEDISH KITCHEN – Shop 5B, Market Lane, Manly, NSW
Open everyday 7am-5pm (Lunch from 12 noon-4pm)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Visit me on facebook @pimpmyplatereviews – twitter, instagram: @pimpmyplate  #pimpmyplate

Pimp My Plate #31 – BAR ITALIA, Leichhardt, NSW

PIMP MY PLATE is back in Australia and back to a budget of AUD$19-ish.

This month I’ve been posting a series of three café reviews focused on one particular dish – Spaghetti Bolognese.  See my previous September reviews: Bravo and No Name.

A traditional version of Bolognese sauce includes onion, celery, and carrot, different types of minced or chopped beef, and sometimes small amounts of fatty pork, red wine, tomato concentrate and/or ripe tomatoes.

This week I twirl my fork at an Italian restaurant in Leichhardt. This is the third and last restaurant I’ll be reviewing in my search for that old favourite, Spaghetti Bolognese.

Bar Italia Restaurant – Ristorante #3

BAR ITALIA opened its doors in 1952. With a sunny façade and its Italian tricolour awning, it sits midway down Norton Street, Sydney’s hub of Italian restaurants and stores.  Nearby is a cake store that features an elaborate and mesmerising cake in its window – designed to celebrate a First Holy Communion – a giant cannolo tied with a blue ribbon.

If you like your coffee Italian-style –strong and full of flavour – this is one of the few places in Sydney you’ll find it.

Ordering at the counter is simple – once you can decide! The blackboard menu is extensive, and inexpensive.

Spaghetti Bolognese is my choice and I don’t even have to check the menu to see if it’s on it.

My order of Spaghetti Bolognese ($15.50), Garlic Bread ($3.50), and a Flat White coffee ($3.50) makes a satisfying and filling meal for $23.00.

Aside from Schnitzels, every option on the blackboard menu meets my usual Pimp My Plate $19 budget. There’s Focaccia and Paninis ($8.50), Pasta, Lamb Shanks ($18.50), Veal ($18.50), Soups ($12.90), Corsica Pizza ($19.50), and Sirloin Steak ($18.50). And they do Vegetarian Lasagne ($15.50).

BAR ITALIA is divided into two sections – the restaurant area, and the gelataria, where you can order a gelato and a coffee and sit at a table to eat it.

You can sit inside the restaurant near the framed Godfather LP record, or outdoors, under a canopy of flowering pink bougainvillea. I sit outside with the breeze occasionally sprinkling my table with petals.

My coffee arrives first, in a traditional red and green Vittoria Coffee porcelain cup. It’s what I call ‘industrial strength’ and that’s just how I like my coffee. And it’s coffee without compromise! There’s no Skim Milk, no Light Milk, and no Soy Milk served here.

My side of garlic bread and bowl of spaghetti arrives and I spy the now familiar powdered parmesan cheese.

The spaghetti is al dente, and the Bolognese sauce is good, if basic. There’s no parsley, no carrot, no celery, but the other two restaurants didn’t include those ingredients in their sauce either.

The garlic bread, a Kaiser roll, is better than most. Even so, I can’t finish eating it. Likewise, the quantity of spaghetti is too generous to finish eating it either.

I feel the need to apologise to the waiter when she comes to clear my table. No one likes food wastage.

In the unlikely event I was to run a marathon, this would be the fuel I’d consume. Instead, I plan a long walk along Norton Street, with a food-for-thought stopover at Berkelouw’s bookstore in lieu of dessert.

BAR ITALIA is the type of Italian café-restaurant we all want and need – in every suburb. It’s nice that the staff speaks Italian; it’s nice that the vibe is so relaxed; and it’s nice that you can eat a meal or just sit and enjoy a scoop of gelato.

*    *    *

That brings my quest ‘to see how easy it would be to find Spaghetti Bolognese on the menu’ to an end – for now. I’ll leave it for you to decide which restaurant offers the best overall value.

None of the three restaurants cooked a traditional Bolognese sauce – containing carrots, celery, or bacon, and none offered the option of freshly grated parmesan cheese.

With than in mind, I’ll be posting my own recipe for Spaghetti Bolognese tomorrow, that you can cook yourself.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

RATED: Chillaxed and well-fed  FOOD: 3.5/5
VALUE: 4/5   ATMOS: Authentic   VIBE:  Old skool Italian
BAR ITALIA – 169-171 Norton Street, Leichhardt, Sydney, NSW

(Note: cash only, no cards. There is a multi-bank ATM facility on site)

Visit me on facebook at Awia’s Kitchen or twitter: @pimpmyplate   @awiaskitchen

Pimp My Plate #21 – Parramatta CBD, NSW

PIMP MY PLATE is my weekly series of reviews of cafés and restaurants in city and regional areas. My food challenge to have my lunch-or-brunch plate pimped for $19 or less.

‘Winter consolation in a mug and a bowl…’

The busy area around Parramatta Station feels consumed by the cavernous Westfield shopping centre, so it’s easy to miss this little café tucked around the corner in Wentworth Street.

But if you walk down Wentworth Street, you can’t miss CIRCA’s trademark mural of a giant pug dog wearing gold bling and sunglasses.

In the higgledy-piggledy garden out front, foliage growing out of vintage suitcases catches your eye. And the aroma of coffee beans draws you inside.

I’ve made a quick coffee-stop at this café before, but today’s visit is to try their lunch menu.

Everyone asks to sit in the narrow, dimly lit space inside, where the walls feature a quirky design feast of mirrors, frames, and frescoes.

There’s outdoor dining on the pavement, and on the terrace balcony, but indoors is more atmospheric – and closer to the barista station.

Sydney’s cold snap just hit, and the air felt like holding a bag of frozen peas to your face. Perfect weather for hot chocolate!

The African Red Chocolate ($5.50) is rich and sweet. It has a fruity chocolate taste that comes from the robust, earthy flavours of Forastero cocoa beans, mixed with aromatic Trinatario beans. You can almost taste the photograph I posted with your eyes.

At the tables around me, the most popular lunch order was pan-fried Barramundi fillet ($20) with charred cauliflower florets, pine nuts, sesame seeds, glazed carrots, and it looked as delightful as its description.

At $19, CIRCA’s Chicken Salad with chermoula dressing did match PMP’s budget, but Lamb Shanks are a warming winter meal and I needed to pimp my body heat as well as my budget.

I ordered the Baharat Lamb Shank ($20), cooked in an ‘aromatic tomato and chickpea broth with yoghurt and zaatar crisps’.

Zaatar is a Lebanese spice mixture made with thyme, sumac, and sesame seeds.

Eating zaatar is supposed to ‘give strength and clear the mind.’ Did I mention it was cold? Seated outdoors without a coat, I felt I needed both.

My lamb shank arrived, resting in a puddle of reddish-brown broth with plump chickpeas. The zaatar crisps sat on a dollop of thick deliciously sour yoghurt.

I peeled off my woollen gloves to be able to navigate my cutlery.

The zaatar crisps have the crunch and texture of pappadums – a nice contrast to the tender fall-off-the-bone meat. A good broth is winter’s consolation in a bowl, and these flavours were an antidote to the cold.

CIRCA is really popular – people queue to eat in or takeout coffee, or seemingly just to ponder Life itself, so when a table became available indoors, I moved inside.

The drinks menu at CIRCA offers craft teas and tisanes, spiced latte, masala chai, and seriously good coffee. My coffee today was 10/10. There’s a daily selection of cakes on display, and I spied several glossy brown croissants of rubenesque proportions. Or better described as torture on a tray.

As I sipped my coffee I people-watched, and re-read the menu. Breakfast at CIRCA sounds rather good – Brown Rice Coconut Porridge; Winter bowls of pumpkin and veg; Ottoman Eggs; the decadent Croque Monsieur; or perhaps French Toast with banana brûlée and caramelized passionfruit. I’m intrigued by the caramelized passionfruit, so a return visit is a must. Or maybe I’ll order one of those croissants, or both – it’s truly a dilemma of the best possible kind.

With its quirky character and good food CIRCA offers diners a welcome alternative to eating in the busy retail arcades around the corner.

At CIRCA the baristas are serious, the food is pretty and pretty delicious. Warm up with their winter comfort food – or as I call it, winter consolation food. And on chilly days, don’t forget to ask for a blanket.

RATED: Pimped!  FOOD: 4.5/5
VALUE: 5/5  ATMOS: 5/5  VIBE: Quirky meets quality
CIRCA ESPRESSO – 21 Wentworth St, Parramatta,  NSW

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Guilt-free ‘nutella’ recipe #1

6a-spoon copy

This recipe was created and posted online by Natasha Longo, a certified fitness and nutritional counsellor, in response to an article: http://www.realfarmacy.com/need-know-nutella/   which outlines undesirable chemical additives, and commercial practices involved in producing the current commercial version of Nutella hazelnut spread.

I wanted to test-drive this recipe and see how it shapes up as a substitute.

Using Natasha’s recipe as a base, I’ve adjusted by either reducing the quantities of the some ingredients, or omitting them completely. ** denotes an ingredient in Natasha’s original recipe, that I’ve left out.

This recipe uses hazelnuts.

Raw Hazelnut-Choc-Coconut ‘nutella’

(makes about 1 cup)

Taste: pleasant flavour with a definite coconut taste – I rate it 7/10
Texture: a soft paste with light-medium texture and body

1 cup hazelnuts, soaked for 10 hours
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 tspn vanilla extract **
1/4 tspn sea salt **
1/4 cup raw cacao powder
2-4 T coconut milk

Drain and rinse hazelnuts and place in food processor or high-powered blender. Blend until smooth, scraping down the sides as needed. I didn’t want to wear out the motor on my food processor by processing for the suggested 10-15 minutes, so I just blended for 5 mins until the nut consistency was more like breadcrumbs than butter. If you have a commercial blender you could go the distance and create more of a buttery consistency.

3 copy

Add the maple syrup, vanilla, salt, and cacao powder and blend until smooth. Slowly add the coconut milk until desired consistency. I used about 2 Tablespoons of coconut milk.

Serve on crumpets, or hot-buttered toast.

Note: Because this recipe contains no preservatives, keep in air-tight container and refridgerate. Treat as you would fresh foods, and use within a few days.

7-JAR copy

‘Have a DELiCiOUS day’

Visit me on facebook at Awia’s Kitchen or Pimp My Plate   or tweet me @pimpmyplate  @awiaskitchen

Pimp My Plate #18 – Ashfield, Sydney

PIMP MY PLATE is my weekly series of reviews of cafés and restaurants in city and regional areas. My food challenge to have my lunch-or-brunch plate pimped for $18 or less.

‘How hungry are you …. reeeally?’

Ashfield is in Sydney’s inner west. It’s an old suburb with working class roots, but like many Sydney suburbs its demographic is transitioning with redevelopment. The sound of building work is its heartbeat as apartment blocks emerge along busy Liverpool Road.

Most of Ashfield’s commercial hub consists of small, independently owned retail stores and restaurants.

I decided to review the busiest café along the main strip, located on the corner of the busiest intersection – Harika.

In Turkish, the word Harika means ‘wonderful, or fantastic’. The staff I met were very friendly and welcoming, and their plates of food generous.

Harika’s menu is a mix of Turkish flavours, with daily specials like Chicken Schnitzels and Burgers, and desserts including pancakes and slices.

As I ordered my lunch at the counter, I noticed a dainty silver teapot set used for serving Turkish Coffee.

I do use powdered Turkish coffee to flavour some of my cooking, but I’m not a fan of the brewed coffee itself so I ordered a more predictable flat white coffee instead.

When my coffee arrived it was a 10/10, which is never predictable. My table gave me a great vantage point of the busy pedestrian crossing outside as I sipped my caffeine and people-watched.

And then for a moment I couldn’t believe what I saw, as I watched a motorist drive into the middle of the crowded crossing. Then, still oblivious to the people around him, he performed a U-turn. Pedestrians looked on in disbelief and so did I. Thankfully you don’t see that every day. And thankfully no one was injured.

How hungry are you?

Boom!  The plate of Kafta Lamb ($15) arrived and it was enormous. This was food to fuel a marathon run. The side salad was fresh and crisp, and the lamb kafta patties were moist and flavoursome. Sauce on the side was a house-made mango-flavoured mayo with a hint of spice.

I knew I could not eat this all by myself, but I didn’t have anyone to help. Would it be sexist to call this a man-sized meal? I felt waves of Food Wastage Guilt as I apologized for leaving half the meal on the plate.

Narika delivers generous, hearty servings of food, and seriously good coffee. It offers variety – flaky French style croissants, Australian favourites as daily specials, burgers, Turkish Coffee, and hearty Turkish breakfasts.

This is the destination for a takeout coffee, or a serious feed, or both!

VALUE: 4/5   ATMOS: 2/5   VIBE: Hearty and generous
HARIKA – Corner Hercules St & Liverpool Road, Ashfield, NSW (7 days)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Visit me on facebook at Awia’s Kitchen or Pimp My Plate   or tweet me @pimpmyplate  @awiaskitchen

Pimp My Plate #17 – Broadway, Sydney

PIMP MY PLATE is my weekly series of reviews of cafés and restaurants in city and regional areas. My food challenge to have my lunch-or-brunch plate pimped for $18 or less.

‘Meet you on Broadway’

The Black Groodle – Street food.

Autumn leaves are falling like stars along Broadway on this rainy morning.

Rain puddles dot the wet pavement like stepping stones that stretch down Mountain Street and straight to The Black Groodle.

A groodle is the name of a very cute type of curly haired dog. It’s also the name of a café offering me shelter from the storm.

The menu hints of Middle Eastern flavours as I gaze at the items scribbled in blue texta on the tiled wall behind the service counter. I can’t decide between Beirut Eggs or the Kafta Lamb Scrambled Eggs so I engage in a minor interrogation with the staff.

For me it’s brunch, or to be honest second breakfast, so I order the Kafta Lamb Scrambled Eggs and take a seat up the back. As I sip my coffee I can overhear a media marketing deal being done at the table nearby me, and I secretly wish I had the equivalent budget to toss around.

From my table I can see the inner workings of the café – cooking, cleaning, and prepping.

Large tagine bottoms without lids are being piled high with salads for lunch service – sweet potato and pearl couscous, chickpeas, and green bean salads.

The coffee is good, which why people queue each morning.

My Kafta Lamb Scrambled eggs with chutney ($13) arrive and I ask for chilli flakes, which arrive without fuss. It’s good. Although a little more spice in the chutney and I’d have added a little less chilli.

In modern times, the right plate and plating can take you on a metaphoric magic carpet ride to the home of the cuisine you are eating. On this drizzly grey Sydney morning, the pretty plate pattern – which looked Turkish to me – did just that.

As I ruminated over my scrambled Kafta Lamb, this Kafka quote come to mind: ‘So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.’ Franz Kafka. I hear you, the food is Middle Eastern and Kafka is Czech, but Kafka is always relevant.

So by the time I finished eating brunch and ears dropping on my table-neighbours’ marketing plan, I noticed the text pen Brunch menu had been replaced by the Lunch menu. If only I could fast forward my appetite.

Lunch goodies on the menu that I didn’t get to try included: Spinach Stew ($14) served with Lebanese rise; Minestrone Soup ($10); Hummus and Beans ($10); Lamb Kafka, and Beef Shawarma.

I’ve heard The Black Groodle also serves a Ginger Turkish delight, and Kanef later in the week, so I’ll be back to try those soon.

RATED: Pimped my eggs  FOOD: 3.5/5
VALUE: 5/5  ATMOS: 3.5/5  VIBE: Magic carpet plate
The Black Groodle – 55 Mountain Street, Broadway, Sydney NSW (7am-4pm M-F)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Visit me on facebook at Awia’s Kitchen or @pimpmyplate  @awiaskitchen

Pimp My Plate #16 – Sydney, NSW

PIMP MY PLATE is my weekly series of reviews of cafés and restaurants in city and regional areas. My food challenge to have my lunch-or-brunch plate pimped for $18 or less.

Say ‘Yes’ to the good stuff!

About Life instore Cafés

Australian wholefoods store About Life began its life in 1996 as a juice bar “juicing up a storm” in Sydney’s Rozelle. Twenty years on, they are busily expanding and opening new stores, while some big name competitors are busy closing their doors.

About Life stores are the go-to for inner health. Their product range is extensive: dried fruits, activated nuts, meat, free range eggs, dairy, breads, fruit and vegetables, baking goods, health and beauty products and more.

They are very similar to the Wholefoods chain in North America, and both stores offer as many holistic consumables as your budget allows.

As part of their ‘food promise’ you can shop for products that have no artificial preservatives, flavours or colours; no  hydrogenated oils or parabens; and their fresh meat and proteins contain no antibiotics or growth hormones.

Each About Life store also includes a café, a self-serve food bar, and a catering service, although co-owner Jodie Stewart has said “the supermarket is still our core market.”

There are currently six About Life stores, and a new store opens in Crows Nest in June.

I visited three locations to try their café menu, which is the same in each store. It offers plenty of choice for breakfast, brunch, and lunch – you won’t go hungry. Meals are classified as Vegetarian, Vegan, Without Gluten, Without Dairy, Supercharged, or Paleo.

Only one meal item exceeded my PMP budget of $19 – the Wholefood Breakfast which included eggs and a regular organic coffee for $19.50. With most stores situated in prime retail locations, I was surprised by such reasonable pricing.

My Pink Raspberry Chia Pikelets ($10.90) were served with coconut vanilla yoghurt, raspberry chia jam, and coconut veganola (a grain-free alternative to granola, made with nuts, seeds & fruits). The pikelets were a soft spongey pink, with a tang of yoghurt, and a crunchy topping of assorted seeds.

The Edible Garden ($14.90) features a black tahini soil, with two poached free range eggs, tahini dressing, and pickled vegetables. I ordered this out of curiosity. The vegetables had texture and crunch, but the ‘soil’ was a little dry and bland.

Barra Bento ($15.90) was the star dish – a piece of barramundi glazed with miso, ginger, and sesame, served with a delicious nutty flavoured brown rice salad, with kimchi for crunch. Texture and flavour in every bite.

The Superfood Burrito ($14.90) contained cacao chilli beef with corn salsa, chia seeds, avocado, and coriander (cilantro). This could have been a hit if the burrito had been heated through.

I ordered Ginger Turmeric Latte ($4) made with hot coconut milk and cinnamon. I find these a pleasant alternative to chai or caffè latte. And I must go back and try their Raw Caramel Latte ($4.50) with raw tahini caramel sauce.

My Flat white coffee ($3.70 small, sit-down) is made from certified organic and fair trade coffee, and has body and flavour.

Other drinks include Smoothies – Superfood, High Protein, Raw Green, Rainbow, or Anti-Inflammatory. Or choose from Wellness Tonics, Herbal Tinctures, Vegetable Juices, or Fruit Juices. Sweets include a variety of raw cakes and vegan desserts.

The About Life café menu is imaginative and offers plenty of choice – perhaps too much.

Each store I visited utilized Pay as You Order counter staff as wait staff. Understandable and practical if you are not offering full restaurant – or dedicated café – service.

But multitasking means that the delivery of food to the table can be slow, which is not ideal if you’re on your lunch break.

At some locations the coffees arrived lukewarm (never acceptable) and so did the food. Or in the case of the meat-filled burrito, not heated at all.

It’s also tricky to manage multiple plates on those tiny fixed-to-the-ground football shaped tables – whose idea were those? – forcing diners to sprawl across multiple tables.

But let’s not miss out on the good stuff because of the annoying stuff…

The smart move is to order take-away if you’re on a deadline. Grab-and-go is faster. Reheat your food back at the office and enjoy eating it at a larger table or desk!

If you eat in, simply ask for your meal to be served hot, if that’s the optimum way to eat it.

About Life cafés offer high-grade fast food using organic ingredients, at very reasonable prices.

Stores tick all the boxes trying to provide healthy products for everyone – from apples to veganola.

A tip? Don’t leave the store without buying some bulbs of Australian-grown garlic.

RATED: Pimp my health!  FOOD: 3/5
VALUE: 5/5   ATMOS: 3/5   VIBE: We really care about your health – and I believe them!
ABOUT LIFE – Store locations: (NSW) Surry Hills, Bondi Junction, Double Bay, Rozelle, Lane Cove, Cammeray, and Crows Nest. (VIC) Port Melbourne. (7 days)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Visit me on facebook at Awia’s Kitchen or @pimpmyplate:)

Pimp My Plate #15 – Willoughby, NSW

PIMP MY PLATE is my weekly series of reviews of cafés and restaurants in city and regional areas. My food challenge to have my lunch-or-brunch plate pimped for $18 or less.

‘Industrial chic, with a street beat’

The Mowbray Café

Instead of using carbon fibre café chairs The Mowbray café flips convention and uses carbon in its food. But more on that later…

Wedged between the busy rumble of traffic along its namesake, Mowbray Road, and a large residential building site The Mowbray is an urban-suburban oasis.

A newcomer, the café sits in a compact retail strip that continues to reinvent itself, as if looking for its mojo. It’s a challenging location because local traffic speeds by after exiting the Warringah Freeway. Blink and you could miss them, but word of mouth is making it popular with locals and drive-bys.

The café interior is scrubbed brick, black tiles, and earthy wooden table tops with a pineapple plopped on each one.

Over time, pineapples have become symbolic of hospitality and a warm welcome. Hosts would often place a pineapple in the middle of their table to welcome guests to their home.

What a nice alternative to flowers, but is a pineapple a flower or a fruit? One pineapple is made up of dozens of individual flowerets that together form the entire fruit. So each scale is a separate flower. I guess it’s both.

The first time I ate at this café their BAYO – a bacon and egg roll on a black bun – had sold out. I was disappointed as I was eager to compare their black burger buns with the ones KFC had been advertising. Yes, I admit to driving to KFC just to ‘check out their buns’. Their buns were still the consistency of cotton wool, only black. But kudos on just how jet black they were! Black is not an easy colour to achieve in food, unless of course it’s burnt.

On today’s visit THE BAYO ($10) was back. Yey! And it was seriously good – filled with sweet flavoured bacon, a ‘sunny side up’ fried egg, greens, and cheese.

The bun itself was a hybrid of bread roll and brioche, with nice texture and chew. It was partly black. Toasted? Charred? Food dye? Whaaat?

I was told that carbon is mixed through the brioche dough to give it colour. O-K. ‘So it cleans your teeth while you eat it?’ I mused to the staff, who replied with a laugh, ‘That’s it!’

The AVOCADO + SMOKED SALMON ($19) was sprinkled with feta and sesame seeds, and sat on good quality sourdough bread. Clean eating at It’s best. But …. what are those black blobs … carbon?

These blobs were once capers that had been ‘crisped up’ in a frying pan … so much so they had turned into activated charcoal or carbon, and were no longer identifiable as food, to me, at least. Although it’s not known to be toxic, I have reservations about ingesting activated charcoal or carbon. So, no more crispy capers or black burger buns for me!

My dining companion ordered SCRAMBLED EGGS with MUSHROOMS ($20) served with greens, sprouts and feta, which he scored a 10/10. After sampling his plate, I had to agree.

While at the counter I noticed a tray of almond and rhubarb tarts ($5 to take away). Without shame, I asked for the largest one. My piggishness was met with a kind smile and, ‘Of course!’.

The food at The Mowbray is good value. While they currently only cater for breakfast and brunch, I see potential for this café to grow and innovate, especially when they become a licensed café and their menu evolves to accommodate that.

Until then the café is keeping their menu simple, fresh, and consistent.

If you have any time on your hands after eating at The Mowbray take a walk around the corner, and down Willoughby Road, where you’ll find French Accent, which is a choc-full of hand picked authentic French pieces, from bedheads to old linen, lampshades, and coffee pots. Walk a little further and you’ll find Love Vintage Books, a very browsable second hand bookshop.

RATED: Industrial chic but give charcoal the flick   FOOD: 3.9/5
VALUE: 4/5    ATMOS: 3/5   VIBE: Eat with a beat
The Mowbray Café – 130 Mowbray Road, Willoughby, NSW

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Visit me on facebook at Awia’s Kitchen or @pimpmyplate:)

An easy DIY breakfast – add delicious Summer fruits before they disappear

If you make this the night before you have a quick, healthy, energy boost breakfast to eat in, or to go. Make 2 or more at a time, using different flavours of fruit or yoghurt.

These may look small – I use 1-cup capacity glass jars with a screw lid – but they filling and taste great.

Pack your screw cap jar with 50% oats, then fill up the jar to 3cm below the top with a mix of: sunflower seeds, chia seeds, quinoa, pumpkin seeds, sliced or whole almonds. Add a tablespoon of plain Greek style yoghurt, and fill to the top with milk. Seal the lid, and let the ingredients soak overnight.

Next morning, add some chopped up some fresh fruit, and eat straight from the jar. Add more fruit to the jar as you go. Easy!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.


text:
AWS Big Data Blog

Tag: Amazon Kinesis Data Streams

Scaling Amazon Kinesis Data Streams with AWS Application Auto Scaling

Recently, AWS launched a new feature of AWS Application Auto Scaling that let you define scaling policies that automatically add and remove shards to an Amazon Kinesis Data Stream. For more detailed information about this feature, see the Application Auto Scaling GitHub repository. As your streaming information increases, you require a scaling solution to accommodate […]

Read More


text:
Governor's Arts Awards Nomination

Frequently Asked Questions

We receive a number of questions regarding nominations each year. We hope that this comprehensive FAQ will help you to better understand the nomination and selection processes, allowing you to more confidently submit your nomination.

Please review the nomination examples provided below for further guidance on a well-written nomination. Each nomination represents a recent Honoree and was accompanied by three strong letters of support.

When is the nomination deadline?
The deadline for nominations for the 2018 Governor's Arts Awards is December 1, 2018, at 11:59 p.m.

Do I have to complete the nomination online?
Yes. The nomination process is completely digital. We recommend preparing your nomination in a text editor, such as Microsoft Word or Pages, and then copying and pasting your answers into the submission form online.

Who can be nominated?
Any individual, school, organization or business that fits the criteria of any specific category. Please note that any previous Individual Honoree cannot be nominated again and any previous Business, Organization or School Honoree cannot be nominated for at least 5 years after they were previously recognized.

Who can submit a nomination?
Anyone can nominate any program, organization, school or individual. If you are thinking about submitting a nomination, contact the nominee and/or supporters to obtain as much useful and supporting information as possible to submit a strong nomination.

What makes a good nomination?
A good nomination consists of detailed and complete answers to ALL of the questions that comprehensively illustrate multiple facets of a nominee’s work in the arts. Letters of support are also important to convey the depth and importance of a nominee’s work.

Can a nominee be submitted in multiple categories?
No, each nominee should only be nominated in a single category.

What if an organization and an employee/associate of that organization are both nominated?
There is nothing preventing an organization, school or program and a volunteer, educator or employee of the institution from being nominated separately for their individual efforts and successes in the arts and their communities.

If more than one of us wants to nominate a person or organization, should we all complete a nomination?
Only one nomination per person or organization will be accepted. The most effective way to demonstrate vast broad endorsement of a nominee is through letters of support. Each nomination is permitted 3 letters of support to be uploaded with the submission.

Do I have to submit letters of support?
No, letters of support are not required, however; they are strongly recommended, as they can demonstrate extensive support for the nominee while also exhibiting diverse perspectives regarding the nominee’s merit. Also, the more complete the nomination, the better received it is by the judging panel.

I have more than three people who want to endorse the nomination – what do we do, if you only accept 3 letters of support?
In a case where you have more than three major supporters of a nominee, it is best to include a comprehensive letter that bears multiple signatories. Please note: this single letter should not take the place of the other two letters. It is recommended to utilize the letters of support as a means to illustrate multiple voices and perspectives in support of the nominee and their work in the arts and their community.

Can I have one of my references just send his/her letter directly to you?
In order to be sure the letter of support is included with the nomination, it is best that you obtain all letters of support, save or scan them as PDFs and upload them with your nomination.

Can I begin a nomination, save it and return to it later?
Yes, there is an option to Save and Continue Later at the bottom of the form. You will be given a link to return to your form later. It is highly recommended that you follow the prompts to email the link to yourself. The web administrator will not have any way to view or provide you access to your partially completed nomination if you do not follow the instructions to email yourself the link.

It’s important that the judges see the work of my nominee, what do I do about that?
There is an opportunity to provide a website address on each nomination, where you can share a link to the nominee’s program(s), portfolio and/or vitae.

Who judges the nominations?
Three volunteer selection panels comprised of community, business and arts leaders from across the state review the nominations for the Governor's Arts Awards based on the following criteria:

The significance of the contributions and achievements of the nominee.
The range of individuals or groups served by the contributions of the nominee.
The length and degree to which the nominee is dedicated to the arts.

The first panel assembled will determine three finalists in each category. A second panel will select the honorees in each category from the finalists.will judge the honoree in each category. A separate panel will review the Philanthropy nominations and choose a single honoree.

When will we know who the finalists are?
All nominees will be announced in February. The Shelley Award and Philanthropy Honorees will be announced during the same time frame.

Nominees, nominators, sponsors, and supporters of Arizona Citizens for the Arts will be invited to attend the Nominee Reception, to be held February 2019, (date and location TBD), where the three finalists in each category will be announced.

Special Note:
Finalists who were not selected as honorees will be automatically re-entered into nomination the following year and will be given the opportunity to update their nomination – unless they do not wish to be considered again.


text:
Free UK Delivery

+44 (0) 208 995 1100

Azuni Jewellery
0 items

You have no items in your shopping cart.

<< Return to Previous Page

More Views

Sterling Silver 'Puk' Stellar Ring

Regular Price: £32.50

Special Price £16.25

Product code: PS/PK/R1

Availability: In stock

Inspired by the Seven Sisters, the constellation known as Pleiades , this delightful easy to wear Sterling Silver ring with 7 pave set cubic zirconia stones adds a flash of sparkle to any outfit. Discreet to be worn day or night, the has a interesting brushed finish, and organically shaped shank. Available in Sterling Silver or Gold Plated Silver, and packaged in a soft protective lined pouch. Available sizes : Small (Size 52/M), Medium (54/ O), and Large (56/P).

Standard Recorded delivery is FREE and takes between 2 to 3 days from purchase when in stock.

Special next day:  £5.00 when order placed before 3pm.

Europe and Ireland signed for:  £6.50

International Signed for:  £10.00

For further details please see our Delivery Terms at the bottom of the page in Customer Service.

Whether it's a gift for a loved one or for yourself, all Azuni purchases are packaged and sent to you in our luxury pouches or suede lined boxes at no extra cost.

* Required Fields

Regular Price: £32.50

Special Price £16.25

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List

You may also like

Join our family for the latest news and exclusive offers and recieve
10% Off
Your first order*
*(10% discount will not apply to sale items)


text:
WATCH: Kitty Miscalculates His Human's Desk

Cats starts off super sneaky but totally ruins it when he tries to jump to his human's table to surprise him.

Jason King

Jason King

Want to know more about Jason King? Get their official bio, social pages & articles on B97 - Huntington, WV! Read more

Content Goes Here


text:
KSU Baliem Arabica

Kenggi Abolok, Kambel Abolok

Salam jumpa di KSU Baliem Arabica, Exportir Pertama Produk Tanah Papua dan Pemilik Waralaba PAPUAmart.com

Ticketing and Payment Unit of KSU Baliem Arabica Launched Today, 1 December 2014

by : admin. Posted in : Biz News, Uncategorized

Start from today, 1 December 2014, a Unit of Ticketing and Payment Unit has been officially launched by the KSU Baliem Arabica Sales & Marketing Unit Manager, Jhon Kwnao in Yogyakara, signaling that from now on all Papuans should come and support this effort buy buying ticket through our agent.

“We cannot wait until foreigners come with development aids. We must buy our own products, the products from our own land, the products produced by our own people in Papua. This is important, because we have a mentality of waiting for helping hand from outsiders. It is now time for us Papuans to help each other, to support each other, by buying our own products, and by buying products and services delivered by Papuans. If not, nothing significant will happen on Papua Soil”,

says Kwano.

He adds,

This launch is following a previous launch of KSU Baliem Arabica Australia Distributor that was launched a week before. Today KSU Baliem Arabica already has its own distribution centre Canberra, the capital city of Australia, and today we have launched the ticketing office. In the near future many important things are happening. All this needs full support from Papuans and those who are in power, as well as from banks.

Everybody can now pay their electric bill, send money, buy air ticket cheaply here.

artikel lainnya Ticketing and Payment Unit of KSU Baliem Arabica Launched Today, 1 December 2014

Thursday 21 May 2015 | Biz News

Wamena Regency of Papua Province in fact has a high quality Abica Coffee. Papua Coffee farmers…

Thursday 21 May 2015 | Biz News

It has been reported by Sriwijaya Post on May 21, 2015 that Wamena Coffee is already…

Thursday 20 November 2014 | Biz News

Baliem Arabica Cooperative (KSU Baiem Arabica) has now opened its distributor for Australia, based in Canberra,…

Hours & Info

Lunch: 11am - 2pm
Dinner: M-Th 5pm - 11pm, Fri-Sat:5pm - 1am

Organic Provider Registry

KSU Baliem Arabica

Kenggi Abolok, Kambel Abolok

Jl. Thamrin No. 60, Kompleks Pasar Kayu, Potikelek, Wamena Kota 99511


text:
Arrives by Christmas - Free US Shipping $75+

Boho Chocolate

Boho Milk Chocolate w/ Smoked Hickory Sea Salt 51%

Maker Notes: Subtle fruit and nutty notes from organic South American cacao combined with lightly smoked hickory sea salt that has been aged to bring out an aromatic sweet and savory taste.

85 g

Cacao %

Cacao Origin

Maker Country

United States

Maker State

Shipping: Free shipping in the continental US above $75, only $8 below $75. All orders ship USPS and most arrive within 2-3 days. Expedited shipping available on checkout.

Related Items


text:
High Point is a pretty amazing place this time of year.  In addition to the spring blooms mother nature brings our way, the city (literally) comes to life with our market friends.  Downtown is buzzing with activity from delivery trucks to furniture manufacturers, designers, day workers and the like; we are all here to create displays that keep today’s buyers coming back to High Point for more.

This spring, I believe we all feel a sense of renewed energy and excitement.  The Triad Business Journal just posted an article that says this market “is shaping up to be one of the best markets in years”.  Good, we need it.  (By the way, that article features one photo and it happens to be a showroom we designed with Nourisson!)

As designers in High Point, it goes without saying that we work on showroom interiors.  Our clients vary greatly as well as the products and we love each and every one of them.  Additionally, we are BUYERS.  That’s right, we get out there after weeks of set-up and late nights and walk those streets just like everyone else.  The difference for us is we know this city like the back of our hand – and with that comes some perks, some of which I thought I would share.  When we go to “other” trade-shows such as Atlanta, Chicago or Vegas (this year we plan to add NYC to the list) I am concerned about several things:  finding great new resources, how to make the most efficient use of my time and let’s be serious:  parking and food!

Lets start with the details first:  Parking and Food.  Honestly, neither has been all that great in the past but HP has made HUGE progress in both areas.

Parking:  As a buyer, you are able to park in the IMC Buyers lots located on Commerce and Green.  Be prepared, they will expect to see your buyers pass before you can enter and get there early, those lots fill up fast.  There are also several parking garages downtown:  one on Commerce between Elm and Main, one on Main Street between High Ave and Commerce, and one on Broad between Wrenn and Hamilton.  Again, show up early as they fill up fast.  Another option is parking at your favorite showroom (assuming they know they are your favorite)!  Many exhibitors have their own lot and will even shuttle you to wherever you like to go and even pick you up!  Be sure to make arrangements in advance.  You can also do something called Park & Ride, which I highly recommend if you are not an early riser.  These lots are located at the Oak Hollow Mall (there are electronic billboards directing you to the right location) and South Market Center Drive (this one is slightly closer to downtown but not as convenient to Greensboro).  As a last ditch you can pay to park in a variety of lots located in the heart of downtown.  For those of you that this irritates (I see this everywhere I go so HP isn’t the only city that charges to park) MANY of these lots are “donated” to local charities and the parking fee goes to raise money for that charity – if that makes you feel any better.

Food:  As much as I would like to fix a home-cooked meal for each and every one of you, I’ll be at market shopping.  Luckily, the options to continue shopping AND eat have greatly improved over the last few years!  Many showrooms now provide some sort of lunch ranging from light finger foods to a full-course spread.  The buildings themselves also now provide cafe and restaurant-like options.  Each building will identify where those spots are.  I am happy to report there is (finally) a Starbucks located in Market Square! And just spied this week:  a food truck on the corner of Elm and Commerce just outside of Market Square Suites entrance.  Inside the downtown shopping area (and in walking distance) there are several restaurants including Jimmy’s Pizza on Main Street, Penny Path (new) on Kivett, Oscars Burgers on Wrenn Street, and Elm Street Cafe (obviously, on Elm).  Just a bit further north you can find some local favorites including Sumela, Blue Zucchini, Blue Rock Pizza, Emerywood Fine Foods, Granny’s Doughnuts, and for a fine dining option, High Point Country Club (a private club that – true to southern hospitality – opens its doors to market visitors twice a year).  For dinner there are a variety of really great local eateries in the Piedmont Triad Area.  Some of my favorites include:  [Greensboro] Josephines, 1618 Grill, Southern Lights, The Iron Hen, Liberty Oak, The Filling Station, Bravo, Green Valley Grill and Printworks Bistro.  [Kernersville] Bistro B.  [Winston Salem] Mozingos, Sweet Potatos, West End Cafe, 6th & Vine, Milner’s, and O’So Eats..

The next question is how to make the most of your time?  One market I had a group from ORVIS come in town to shop with me.  At the end of the day, one of the executives said “it would have taken us days to cover the amount of territory you have covered in hours, thank you”.  As nice as this comment was, it was my responsibility to make it simple for them so I was happy to know I had done my job.  Even though I am local, you too can shop like one – it just takes planning.  I typically shop 3-4 days, more than many visitors I know.  In other cities we keep it to two so we have to be efficient.  Let me say this clearly:  PLAN, PLAN, PLAN.  Review things like the Market Preview, the Planning Guide, and talk to your reps.  Once you know where you want to go divide it out according to it’s location.  I typically reserve one entire day to see the large IMC building at the bus terminal and Showplace.  The second day includes one of my favorite buildings, Market Square (home to our office), the C&D building, 220 Elm, and the some of the showrooms located within and around this city block.  The third day I will do Hamilton and Wrenn Streets – some of these are spread out but our weather is so beautiful I enjoy walking this shopping route.  The fourth day I do any outlying buildings that are not on the loop mentioned above (this is also the day that is highly likely to get cut if necessary).

Map from the HP Market Authority

Map from the HP Market Authority

Transportation has vastly improved over the years and is an important component for getting quickly from one stop to the next.  High Point offers two free continuous bus lines that loop around the entire downtown area:  the RED line and the GREEN line (shown above).  You can get a bus map here go to page THREE for the Red and Green Line stops.  High Point also provides one of my favorite market perks – the G0-Anywhere shuttle van.  That’s right, they will take you anywhere, for free, within a three mile radius.  Go to the downtown Transportation Terminal or simply flag one down from any location in the Market area. You may also call 336.887.RIDE (7433) to have a shuttle dispatched to you. Go-Anywhere Shuttles will be operating from Saturday, April 20 through Wednesday, April 24, 7:30am – 8:30pm, and Thursday, April 25, 7:30am – 5pm.

If it’s your first time to High Point market (let me be the first to say WELCOME), I would highly recommend reading about being a first-time visitor on the High Point Market Authority’s FIRST TIME VISITORS section here.  It includes valuable information that you will want on-hand including videos, printouts and maps.

Lastly, one of the most important things I do when shopping market is finding great new resources….and that my friends is a trade secret I won’t be sharing today, sorry!  However, if you are interested in my favorite finds, you can follow my Spring market shopping Pinterest Board Fun Finds.

There is so much more to learn and know about market like buyers passes and where to stay among other things.  Be sure to visit the HP Market Authority website that provides an ample amount of additional information.

If you find this post helpful to your shopping experience please be sure to let me know and share it with your friends!

Good luck and hope to see you soon, in High Point of course!

xo Christi

You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.  The world never sleeps!

Industrial Lighting

March 25, 2013

If Industrial is your design aesthetic – Rejuvenation is the place to shop for lighting.  A member of the William Sonoma Family (whose brothers and sisters include Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, PB Teen, West Elm, Williams Sonoma Home, Mark + Graham and Cultivate), Rejuvenation is a designers paradise for classic American lighting.

If you need a little industrial design inspiration check out the Pinterest page of architect Monica Gasperini titled Industrial Interiors.

Some of her pins on that Pinterest board include:

One of our more recent projects for a furniture manufacturer included a dining area and design center:

Interiors by Barbour Spangle Design

Interiors by Barbour Spangle Design

Screen Shot 2012-08-14 at 9.36.11 PM

This morning on the TODAY Show they had a segment on the power of the Power Nap.  I have a friend who, for years, has insisted she needed to nap in order to function.  What??  I admit,  I have unabashedly teased her for it.  Girlfriend, you know who you are and I am sorry.

According to a recent study 43% of Americans feel like they don’t get enough sleep.  Some suggest that by taking a 15-30 minute doze you will be more creative, less stressed and refreshed.  Really?  I’m not convinced, but I am willing to try it.

Since it’s all about the environment at Barbour Spangle it got us thinking….where do you take a nap at work?  I certainly can’t do it at my desk.  The question becomes, is it a room or a product?  Call it what you like:  Nap Room, Quiet Zone or Rejuvination Center – the purpose is to create a space that is quiet,cool,  dark and perfect for some Zzzzzz’s.  This could be as simple as taking a small room and painting it a darker color and outfitting it with a comfy chair.  Sounds nice but I did some digging around to see what else is out there other than good-old-dad’s La-Z-Boy recliner.

I can’t decide if this looks like napping or riding a bike?  This power pod designed by Frank Ehners is called el Zulo.

This feels a bit more spa-like with it’s integrated lighting and music.  Designed by Alberto Frias it looks like something out of Star Wars!  Princess Leia, is that you?image_title_twvovSpeaking of Princess Leia, what about StormTroopers….?  Darth must be missing his army.   Metronaps EnergyPods

Easter is right around the corner, wonder if the Easter Bunny takes his naps here?  The Ovei pod by Lee McCormack.  ovei_pod_image_title_1qpxv

Go ahead, you know you want to.  Take that power nap and let me know how it works for you.

xo Christi

Lovely Lighting

March 13, 2013

It’s been some time since I last wrote and I appreciate the patience of our faithful and friendly followers!

Today I have been researching lighting for a new project.  I have always been a fan of Alison Berger and the incredible lighting line she has.  As luck would have it, her line is exactly what I needed today.  Lucky me.

If you are not familiar with Alison’s work I suggest taking a look at her website:  Alison Berger Glassworks

If you find yourself craving a little Alison in your life…give us a call and we can help you out!

xo Christi

All photos are from Alison Berger Glassworks Website.

Chalky Business

October 28, 2012

I’m not sure it its a teacher thing or not but we saw plenty of chalk and blackboard paint at High Point market!

On the back’s of chairs at Bernhardt:

Used as signage at Kalalou:

Used as decorative wall quotes:

And even as information to describe products:

Happy weekend everyone.

High Point Market Wrap Up

October 27, 2012

The last month-plus has been exceptionally busy at Barbour Spangle. There were many busy days, late evenings and sleepless nights for all of us. Once our showrooms were completed – we were off and running to find the latest and greatest products on the market introduced by our favorite vendors.
The following images are the hightlights of our shopping days. To see more, be sure and visit my Follow Me on Pinterest page: HP Market “A-List”.

New sectional from Hickory Chair has already been tagged for a current project.

What a perfect home office this would make!

Currently looking for a home to put this in!

Modern History always gets mid-century modern just right.

OLY’s showroom always makes my heart swoon…

Bernhardt Interiors black room was pretty dramatic.

CR Laine always gets it just right!

If you like want you see but it leaves you wanting more…don’t forget you can go to my Follow Me on Pinterest page HP Market “A-List” finds!

Have a great weekend everyone!

What I’m Loving Today

August 22, 2012

Researching some door hardware earlier this morning I came across a fresh change of pace from one of our favorite lines:  Rocky Mountain Hardware.  They have always been a go-to line for us so it’s not exactly a surprise, however I was smitten with these entry door sets and thought they deserved special recognition!

What do you think?  Are they inspiring enough to make you want to change that front door entry set of yours?


text:
The rise of Arab republics?

Political developments may bring a game of musical chairs between Arab monarchies, Arab republics, and the West, says Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, a UAE-based political commentator.

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi

The Arab world has lately been experiencing monumental changes including the realignment of political alliances, but one possible long-term outcome of the Arab uprisings may be a game of musical chairs involving the Arab monarchies, republics and Western powers. By the end of the next decade it is not unreasonable to predict a stronger relationship between certain Arab republics and the West than that which existed between Arab monarchies and the West over the past few decades.