text:
2016 Beach memories: Pictures worth 20,000 words.

Two years ago, I spent a few arduous days in L.A. with my mother and husband so I could have an appointment with Dr. Chia. Last year, we spent a few days on the Washington coast while I was very sick. We picked the closest coastal town to our house, so it was the shortest drive and my husband did all the work — I just had to get myself in and out of the car. I did it for the dogs, to see their joy on the beach, to try to make up for two and a half years of no adventures and lessened activity… but I was not in good shape.

This year, though… This year we took TWO TRIPS TO THE COAST. Again, all I had to do was pack (no easy feat — it takes me days) and get myself in the car. My angel husband, with good spirits, loads everything in and out and in and out of the car, including my mobility scooter, all my food, bedding, towels etc. I even brought my air purifier. I love being so low-maintenance.

Last June, was our longest trip since I got sick. We stayed in the same place in the same coastal town as we had in 2015, but I was feeling better than I had in years so, on the day we were meant to leave to go back to Seattle, we found a different rental and extended our visit for an extra two days. This new house was right on the beach and had a balcony. I had no idea the difference it would make to my experience. The first rental was further inland and had a fenced-in yard and trees enclosing the garden. It never occurred to me that a view might be nice — might even be soul-enlivening — I was just happy to see four different walls. But the simple act of gazing at an expanse of nature, even from inside a house, is everything when you’ve been housebound for a prolonged period. That first night, when I saw the vast black sky punctured with millions of bright stars, I started weeping. When was the last time I really saw the stars? I will never forget that moment. And the next day, sitting on the balcony, watching the waves… It didn’t even matter if I was feeling too ill to get to the beach. The funny thing was, I experienced none of that Oh-I-feel-so-much-better-near-the-ocean “locations effect” that so many people with ME report. If anything, I was taken down a notch by the wind, the marine smell, bonfire smoke at night, trying to manage my temperature fluctuations etc. Plus, there were, of course, a few difficulties for my sensitive system (a house on stilts that shook so violently, I couldn’t sleep, overwhelming bleach smell in the bathroom, strongly chlorinated tap water, too many stairs), but it was definitely worth it.

Over four months ago, I wrote a Love letter to my sons as a preamble to the big post I intended to write about the coast trip and then, of course, never got around to writing it. I’m struggling at the moment (this post has taken me a week to put together), so I’m going to let the photos do the talking.

Half the house packed in the car, ready to go.

This was the first night we arrived. A beautiful crescent moon welcomed us to the coast.

Some days were overcast…

… with dramatic evenings.

Some days were glorious…

…with breathtaking sunsets (taken from the balcony).

The beach is exhausting. 😀

The couple next door got married on the dune in front of our house. I wound up talking to them the day we left because I wanted to send them the photos I took and, in a bizarre coincidence, it turned out the bride had been suffering with a similar illness as mine, had tried many of the same treatments, knew all the same doctors. We both got tears in our eyes. It was a surprisingly beautiful thing to talk to someone so freely *in person, not on the internet*, without having to explain anything.

The flag on the left is where they were wed.

We had no plans to go again this year, but our best friends wound up renting the house next door to the one we had in June, so, at the beginning of this month and at the very last minute, we decided to join them. I’ve gotten worse the past few months, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to participate as much as I would like to (the first night they all played cards and had drinks, while I was in the other house, resting. The second night they had a bonfire on the beach, while I was inside, resting), but there were wonderful moments of normalcy: Z. chatting with me over morning tea, without the time-pressure of a planned visit; my dogs’ excitement when they saw Aunt Z. and Uncle J. on the beach — missed members of our extended pack; watching their family fly kites on the beach; colouring with sweet Anna while she talked my ear off more than she ever has before; eating dinner at a table with a group of friends, with conversation, laughing and music playing in the background (<~ this most of all: just hanging out amid all the normal sounds, feeling part of a group); and the social time my husband got, just hanging with friends he hasn’t seen properly in years.

The only downside was my dogs are showing their age much more now than they were even four months earlier. I couldn’t use my scooter as much as last time because they simply didn’t have the stamina to walk distances and were both limping after our first short excursion. The last — and warmest — day, Bowie didn’t even get out of the car for more than a minute. He was pooped. And Riley just sat next to me like a sentry, wondering why I was lying on the sand. I fear it really might have been the last hurrah on the beach, which makes me even happier that I pushed myself to go and create new memories.

The boys were thrilled to be back!

Our best friends frolicking. 🙂

Bowie and sweet Anna flying a kite.

One day was dark and brooding and that night it stormed with 50 mph winds.

Another day was sunny and clear.

Small steps with payback… But new memories and happy dogs are everything.

Love letter to my sons.

After more than 10 months, I got away from the house. Every time I look at the grey in my dogs’ muzzles, I have a panic about time slipping by and the knowledge that Bowie is hurtling towards end of life. He is 9 and Rhodesian ridgebacks typically live 10 to 12 years. Bowie is big — the tallest ridgeback I’ve encountered in the flesh or online — I fear he’s more like a small great dane and they typically live 6 to 8 years… So, I’m bracing myself. Truth be told, I’ve been bracing myself for their ends-of-life since they were kids.

Riley was originally found emaciated to the point that he couldn’t stand up and had already been in two foster homes before coming to us. We were meant to be a foster home, too, but, after he was placed with two more families that didn’t work out (and my emotional meltdown with each goodbye), we knew he was meant to be ours. And, wow, was he meant to be ours. I don’t think any other pack would have worked so perfectly. He almost died from some gastrointestinal awfulness soon after we adopted him. I watched him lie on his side, dead-eyed, weakly vomiting blood while the vet told me he thought he might not make it. Not long after that, Bowie hurt his back at the park and I lifted his 110lbs into the car with some sort of super-human mother strength and raced to the emergency vet. I was healthy then, but, still, that’s more than I weigh.
[NB: Of course I called the clinic to verify his weight at that visit.]
[NB: Of course I made sure they weren’t busy before I bothered them with that question.]

So, losing them has been at the forefront of my mind for most of their lives. It may sound morbid, but it makes me appreciate every day that they’re here and I never take a moment for granted. I will miss this hair one day, I think as I pull it out of every meal I eat. I will miss his drool one day, I say as I almost brain myself slipping in the saliva pool on the kitchen floor. I spend an inordinate amount of time cuddling them, memorising every curve and bump of their bodies, making sure I’m always conscious and grateful for their presence.

I will never forget the first time I took a mobility scooter to the cemetery for a “walk” with Bowie (at the time, I didn’t trust Riley to stay close off-leash, so he went to doggy daycare instead). We had been visiting the cemetery since Bowie was a puppy, but it had been a year since I was housebound and that first year was the longest and sickest of my illness. He lept like a puppy when we got there and I wept as I watched him. I think it was as important for him to see me out as it was for me to be out. Last year, both of my dogs’ mobility declined sharply. Riley is arthritic and Bowie is an old, creaky man. My number 2 wish (after getting better) is to fill their time with as much fun as possible. If I could, I would take them someplace different every day, wear them out, introduce them to novel smells and new friends (every time I’m flabbergasted or frustrated by my acute sense of smell, I think what the world must be like for a dog whose nose is tens of thousands of times as sensitive as a human’s. While a dog’s brain is only 1/10 the size of a human brain, the part that controls smell is 40 times larger. Can you fathom that even slightly? Whenever I see someone yanking on a dog’s leash, I think, imagine what he is smelling down there! Give him a minute!).

My dogs are my kids, my caretakers, my comedy, my inspiration, my reason for pushing myself, my main source of joy.

So, this is all a big preamble (pre-ramble, more like) to the story of our recent road trip to the coast (in a future post) and why it was so important to me. I can’t fly with my dogs to India or Africa or even to different parks very often, but once a year for the last 3 years, we’ve made it to the seaside. This time was different, though. This time I was stronger, I wasn’t as crushed by poisoned pain and my husband and I were happier, not desperately grappling for handfuls of different memories within the blind freefall of sudden severe illness survival. Because that’s what it has felt like: an initial period of confusion, fear and searching, followed by 3+ light-speed years of gasping for air and kicking like mad to keep our heads above water, learning how to navigate this life. And in all that time, it’s felt like we both had faces bowed down in grimaces of pain or duty, grief or worry, eyes meeting fleetingly, but blinded by our separate burdens. So, I remember those previous journeys to the ocean as a bit desperate, slightly lonely and only partially successful. But this time was different. Not easy, not perfect, but more like real life. Like a life where I’m totally present with my husband and easily walking the beach with my sons.

Superstition Ain’t The Way

Agh, I can’t stand it, I can’t just leave you sitting with that bad. I tried in earnest to let my last post hang out here in the e-niverse, sullying the e-tmosphere, because that’s my reality and it is uncomfortable and why shouldn’t it fester there on my blog’s home page for all a few to see? But it’s like a little lead weight in the back of my brain, so superstition be damned: I want to shout about what a good week I had. I can’t believe such a baby dose of immunoglobulins is making a difference, but it seems to be. This is so exciting. Here’s my week:

Last Thursday I was in rough shape. My period was due and I hadn’t slept as per usej, but I drove to my myofacial therapy appointment, which is 4+ miles away. That is twice as far as anywhere I have driven in the last 3.5 years. I credit my friend Jak for this because I was thinking about how she has to drive everywhere where she lives and it gave me a little push. I also have been doing our finances for tax season and saw that I spent $650 on Ubers (taxi service) in 2015–solely to get to/from healthcare appointments–so that gave me another incentive to drive myself (truthfully, I probably shouldn’t have driven. I wasn’t all there–not quite present enough–and doubt my reaction times were optimal, plus I got a bit lost, but I’m proud of myself for pushing my envelope). Oh, and I stopped by a grocery store on the way home! Very briefly–to buy chocolate Easter eggs–but still!

I had three complicated things I needed to mail, so, Friday, I drove to the post office for the first time in almost 4 years and spent quite a bit of time standing at the counter, talking to the postal woman, boxing, taping, addressing etc.

Family love at the cemetery.

Family love at the cemetery.

Saturday, even though my period had just started, I was still able to go to the cemetery on my scooter with the boys and husband. I want to take a moment here to remember the first few times I went to the cemetery on a mobility scooter in 2013, a year after being housebound. I wept looking at the trees and feeling that freedom, then I almost passed out from the exertion of a 2-sentence conversation with some people we ran into and then I went home and paid for the jostling of my bones with days of pain. On this very day in 2014, I was struggling through the aftershocks of a cemetery trip that were worse than anything I deal with now:

Easter Sunday I wasn’t doing too well, but I still managed to put together a treasure hunt for my husband (with the aforementioned chocolate eggs), which involved walking all around the house and up and down stairs, planting clues. I did a “Find It” treasure hunt for the dogs, too. Easter isn’t just for kids.

Monday, I did laundry (no folding or putting away, but still…), talked to my friend for 1.5 hours (he did most of the talking, which is good because, although I’m not drained as much by prolonged conversations, it still definitely hits me hard) and then I drove to the dog park with the boys… by myself… and actually walked a little bit… *Pause for gasps of shock and awe.* I’m going to take another minute to remember the first time I made it to the dog park after those long horrible months, years: My husband drove, of course, and I walked excruciatingly slowly to the gate, feeling winded, heart rate through the roof. I made it inside and then sat on the ground just inside the gate. When somebody I knew tried to talk to me, I nodded and smiled feebly and then looked at my husband imploringly until he deflected the conversation away from me. The memory of that effort–and the fear of the repercussions–brings tears to my eyes.

Tuesday, I had my infusion and, Wednesday, I drove to an appointment (close by)–on the day after my infusion, mind you.

Getting fluids in the garden.

Getting fluids in the garden.

We’ve had gorgeous weather this week and, although it certainly helps because I’ve been sitting in the garden for hours every day, I don’t think I can say it is the cause of my good week because the uptick started days before the sun shone. Thursday, we took advantage of the weather and went to the biggest, bestest dog park in Seattle, which is a ways away on the East side. I haven’t been there since my birthday last year in May and it was such a treat to see Riley swim (while Bowie stood in the shade, panting and looking miserably hot, as if he wasn’t a short-haired breed that came from Africa). We spent an hour and a half there (I had my scooter, so didn’t walk) and, when we got home, I started cooking lunch. I didn’t even feel the need to rest. I better add these: !!!!

“Ducks, ducks, ducks, gotta get the ducks.”

“Don’t make me go out in that sun, Mama.”

“Seriously? Another photo? Hurry up, there’s hardly any shade here.”

I’ve been dragging again the last few days: headache for the first time in a while, very stiff neck, muscles feeling heavy and painful, slightly sore throat, sensitive to sound etc. Probably because Friday I started to write this post about having a good week and the gods’ ears perked up. BUT, I’m dressed, I’m sitting outside, I’ll cook something in a bit, I’m cheerful. I’m not in bed, sick, poisoned, despairing. I’m functioning. I’m even writing.

So, there. KNOCK ON WOOD, TOBA TOBA, BAD HARVEST, PATUEEY OVER THE SHOULDERJust let this be. My bowels are a nightmare, my sleep is horrific, my brain packs it in on a regular basis and my stamina, energy and strength are still about 1/4 of what they used to be. But 1/4 is better than 1/10. I’ll take it, gratefully.

Title Credit <— click on it, go on, it’ll make your day better. 😊

Mount Rainier (taken from the car window while speeding down the highway).

P.S: Dear friends, please forgive my ridiculous shiteness at answering your comments here on my blog. I appreciate each and every one of them and I’m humbled that you read my rantings at all, let alone take the time to comment. It really means a lot and I’ll try to do better. Thank you! X

The Good

Yesterday was bad. Like I said, the last three months have been a roller coaster of really bad days punctuated, thankfully, by some respite. Last week on Friday, I was almost as sick as I was yesterday, lying in the same bed, looking out the same window, feeling the same despondency. But I woke up on Saturday feeling so much better. In my healthy life, I couldn’t have believed how quickly an illness could change. You really can be talking about ending it all one day and laughing with your dogs the next. It makes it seem a bit girl-who-cried-wolf, but it’s not, I promise. The bad is that bad and the good, although not that good, is so extremely, completely, acutely appreciated.

So last Saturday… It was freezing, but blue skies and sunny. I’d been inside for weeks and I was feeling very “I’m out of bed! Hello? I feel better! Anyone there? Quick, someone take me somewhere!” My husband was out with friends, my mother and aunt were eating Italian food in a restaurant in Dublin, my best friend was having dinner in our friends’ house in Dublin, my sister was on the town in Paris… I told myself, You were so sick yesterday, you just need to rest , but everyone was doing fun things and I wanted to, too, dammit! So I loaded my dogs into the car and drove (for the first time in months) to the dog park. We only stayed half an hour and I was on alert the whole time, knowing that if they got into an altercation, I would destroy myself breaking it up, but… I did it. And chatted to TWO people. It was great. Here’s evidence:

The next day… I still felt okay! So we went to my favourite place, the cemetery. I rode my scooter and my husband cycled my his bike and the boys ran and ran with big grins on their faces. My nose was running and my fingers were bloodless and numb, but it was so sorely needed. Here are a selection of cemetery shots from the last four months:

Bowie in August.

Riley in September.

Bowie in September.

Bowie in October.

Boys in October.

Bowie in November.

Bowie in November at dusk.

Riley in November at dusk (he usually moves too fast for me to get a photo of him).

Bowie in December.

Where’s Daddy going?

I couldn’t leave this blog festering in the bad of yesterday. My friends are so caring and feel so deeply — thank you to those that have left me messages of support. It means a great deal that you can still offer compassion after all this time.

June Update

It’s been a while since I’ve had the energy to write an update. As usual, I have a lot to document in terms of doctors and tests, but, overall, not much to report on my life and illness. My mother was here from Ireland this past week and that was, by far, the highlight of the last 4 months. 6 days seemed like 6 hours, though, and I’m left feeling a bit barren after her departure, like there are tumbleweeds blowing around inside my chest and hollow silence echoing against the inside of my skull.

I’m still housebound besides healthcare appointments and the odd dog walk on the scooter. I do think I’m marginally better than this time last year, though, which is heartening considering the horrendous ordeal of last autumn. Mostly, I think this because I’m walking more steps than I have since 2012. I regularly hit 2,000 on my pedometer, which does wonders for my mental well-being to think there is forward momentum. However, the flip-side is I have had more severe muscle pain and out-of-character joint aches. I am stiff in the morning and try to make myself put on compression stockings and a back brace if I’m going to stand in the kitchen for any length of time. I know I should scale back movement because, when I do, the muscle pain is better, but I’m really grasping onto that measurable progress for dear life.

There are other slight improvements. My sleep is still better than it was the first 3 years I was sick (although, I still don’t get much and it is plagued with fitfulness, nightmares and pain). My headaches, although they have resurfaced somewhat in the last month, were gone for a few months earlier this year, which is utterly life-changing. My resting face goes from this :twisted: to this :? .

There are still, always, a lot of daily debilitating symptoms. For 3 full weeks after my birthday outing, I was not doing well. My flu symptoms came back and that always alarms me — chills, sore throat, extremely heavy muscles, pain. I also had a few bouts of the worst vertigo I’ve experienced since my tilt table test payback. One night it came on so quickly and viciously, I fell over and hit the floor on my way to the loo from bed. I was moaning out loud from the queasy out-of-bodiness, which is unlike me, and I was reminded again of Laura Hillenbrand and how unrelenting vertigo could possibly be the worst imaginable symptom.

Hair loss hasn’t stopped, but is better than last year. Or the short, choppy cut disguises it more. My eyes are their usual nightmare of blurriness and sore extraocular muscles, even though I am regimented about (gently) scrubbing the lashes and using preservative-free tears throughout the day. Tinnitus and skin are still bad, my neck is still banjaxed. I am still spending about 14-17 hours in bed each day. I guess that’s a bit better than last year.

Finally, there is no real change in my worst symptom: Brain Drain. Which doesn’t describe it. I’ve been trying to articulate this symptom for years — to doctors, to my husband, my mother. It’s not brain fog. What I call brain fog feels tired and cloudy, causes effort to recall and calculate things. My Buzzy Brain is like Stephen King’s The Long Walk: if you can imagine being made to walk until you physically drop, but then transfer that body feeling to the brain. The same way muscle exhaustion is physical, my brain exhaustion feels physical. My brain can’t take one more step to do anything. Can’t read, write, speak, hear. It comes on gradually, so I usually find myself wading through the quicksand of a conversation or article, slurring or rereading the same thing over and over. I get testy, dizzy, weighted down by head pain and then realise, Oh, duh, time to go to bed and stop everything. Not being able to push through the brain problems (just finish this sentence, this tv show, this meal) is much more depressing than not being able to push through the physical limitations. Take my body, just, please, leave my mind.

The outcome of this is nothing ever gets done. I never finish tasks and months slip by. I also never seem to get going on any plan of attack to conquer the myriad of abnormal test findings: candida, low immunoglobulins, high cholesterol, reactivations of viruses, methylation problems, high mycotoxins. There’s always a bigger fire to put out — the poisoned nocturnal reactions, the crashing blood pressure, the death of my bowel — before I can carefully address less acute problems, while tip-toeing through the minefield of menstruation mast cell instability. Although, given my track record, maybe the best treatment for my body is no invasive treatment at all, just lots of pacing, meditation, good food and the pursuit of laughter.

The few things on which I am actively working are my hormone deficiencies and my tanked thyroid (as per usual). Since last September, I have now quintupled my levothyroxine (T4) and tripled my liothyronine (T3) and nothing has changed. I’m spending an absolute fortune on compounded meds, hoping my body will absorb them better than the generic, affordable ones, but, so far, no dice. I will update soon about my new, wonderful endocrinologist and her thoughts (as well as my other doctor visits).

So, almost 3 years and 8 months sick and that’s where I’m at. If I could find relief from the social isolation and financial instability, there could be some sort of life here.

But, as it stands, I take my joy from the incredibly beautiful spring we’ve had here in Seattle and every opportunity to lie outside in the garden oasis my husband has created and see my dogs run in the park.

This Year: Life, the Universe and Everything.

Even though I’ve been wiped out for this entire week afterwards, my birthday outing was worth it. The day before, I had found a third-hand mobility scooter (at a third of the price) on Craigslist. I have been looking for one that could handle rough dog park terrain (big wheels, decent suspension, strong motor), but could still be dismantled and put in a car (ie: not the fun Harley-esque one I had my eye on, similar to my friend Jak’s). My husband drove two hours round trip to buy it and I was able to take it to my favourite off-leash dog park: 40 acres of trails, fields and river access.

The weather was sublime. Actually, that was the only blip in our day: as soon as I arrived, I had to park in the shade, strip off two layers of shirts and have my husband reach up my yoga pants to peel off my compression stockings. Plus, I was drinking hot chicken soup. I was kicking myself for not bringing sunscreen. But, after that, all was well, if a little harsh and bumpy on my bones. This 4-day payback headache I have is probably from jostling my spine on the gravel and mulch (and I won’t mention the horrible nausea that hit me at 10pm and the relentless barrage of nightmares that followed that night because this is meant to be a happy post).

Big smiles. 🙂

I couldn’t get a photo, but there were huge blue herons flying into the nests and babies up in the trees.

My boys playing with a new friend.

That evening, my sister and her boyfriend came over and she suggested getting take away food from a nearby restaurant, which I hadn’t even considered. So, we ate dinner at the table (as opposed to my usual on the couch with my feet up, reclined) and I had a delicious beef tenderloin and coconut rice. They accidentally put some Gorgonzola on my steak and, oops, I forgot to scrape it off. That was a celebratory taste explosion that I haven’t encountered in 2.5 years.

“The hills are alive….” Pretend I’m spinning…

Then, to top everything off, two days later, I got a visit from my dear friend, Z. She came bearing flowers and a bag of gifts for me to open and, the best part, her little girl, whom I consider a niece. Baby A chatted away, which is all new! The last time I saw her she hadn’t quite found her words around me. What a treat.

42, the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything.
It’s going to be a good year. I have faith.

March Update

I haven’t done an update in forever and it’s a shame because I look back on my updates a lot to see how I was in the past and compare it to how I am now. It looks like I’m at about the same level of functioning as I was at this time last year. A little worse, unfortunately. Last year, I was walking more steps, had been out in the garden more, was driving a bit (I drove to an appointment this week for the first time in forever, so there is some progress).

I’m still trying to regain some ground after the onslaught of nocturnal mast cell/viral/ME/inflammatory bowel reactions that started in September when I tried Cromolyn. Thanksgiving and Christmas were probably the two sickest nights of my life. As soon as I was resurfacing from Christmas, I got hit by another one on January 12th. As soon as I was feeling recovered from that, I had another one on January 28th and then again on the 31st. I stopped everything, including writing. For three weeks, I laid low and tried to reset my body. My constipation had become severe, so I had been taking massive doses of various different kinds of magnesium and I was afraid this was contributing to the episodes because there always seems to be some sort of bowel inflammation component involved (I get aches and what feels like electric pins and needles in my bowels and my flanks when I’m very constipated). When I quit magnesium, the constipation became critical — and a bit comical with the size of my protruding belly. I’m so uncomfortable, I wake up in the night when I roll over onto the poop baby inside of me. Where do the other organs go? I’m not sure how I continue to eat and I’m not sure why I continue to eat. You’d think at some stage I would just give my gut a break and eat liquid food, but I’m always hungry. I tried Triphala, Gentian, Medibulk, digestive enzymes, massage, enemas, prunes, oatmeal, even my old standby Wormwood stopped working. Which led me to the glycerine suppository on Oscar night which caused the (anaphylactic?) collapse on the bathroom floor. So, tonight I’ll be taking the generic polyethylene glycol (Miralax/Movical) that I have been avoiding because, if it’s too harsh, it’ll trigger a vasovagal reaction and I could pass out or, if it’s mild cramping, it’ll keep me up in the night. Not to mention it’s a nasty drug and probably made in China. But enough about that…

My father was visiting when the suppository episode happened and, a few days after he left, my mother came. That’s it from Christmas until now. That is my 2015. One quarter of a year summed up: reaction-recovery-reaction-recovery-reaction-recovery-reaction-recovery-visitor-visitor. Thank god for the visitors because the rest is really depressing. My friend M recently said that he fears not seeing those he loves ever again and, as we get older, that concern becomes more and more pressing. I think this all the time with my parents living so far away. Their visits allowed me to breathe easier. They filled me up with sustenance and gave me a little more mettle to carry on. I am incredibly lucky to have such a supportive and loving family. Recently, Jen Brea asked the ME community to post the most compassionate word or giving act ever received in relation to our illness (a very moving thread) and all I could think was, my family, my siblings, my parents, my best friends… their messages, words of encouragement, interest in learning about ME, physical help, monetary help, emotional help… Where would I be without them?

Both visits were wonderful and were needed more than I realised. My mother helped me with a hundred tasks I haven’t been able to accomplish and I got to hear all about my brothers and nieces and nephews, whom she had just visited. We managed to drive to the beach dog park twice: first, with my father and sister and, again, with my mother. It has been glorious weather in Seattle and getting out of the house is always the highlight of my months.

Yay! Beach!

Damn, he’s a fine looking dog. ❤

The one downside was, my husband wasn’t with us the first time, so I was without his deafening whistle and another set of eyes on our smaller dog, Riley, the escape artist. He ran around the rocks at the edge of the park and took off, causing me to expend more energy than I have in many months. I stood calling at the top of my lungs, over and over, “RILEY, COME!” and then started to panic when he didn’t reappear. At the top of my lungs and panic are not things that go well with ME. My voice is not strong, but, man, when my child went missing, nothing was going to stop me yelling for him. This is a dog that is only ours because he ran away from some other home and was found in a house barn, emaciated and unable to stand up. He’s an adventurer and curious about everything, while Bowie sticks to me like glue.

When Riley finally came into view, he was up in the car park and I sprinted up the sand embankment to the fence. Sprinted and up don’t happen in my world, either. Riley looked scared. He couldn’t tell where my voice was coming from and I was worried he’d run in front of a car or disappear, never to be found. He was tearing back and forth outside the park and I was calling over and over. He finally found me and I grabbed the scruff of his neck through the fence and sat down in the sand, waiting for rescue. My 72-year old Dad clambered up the rocks (cutting his shins in the process) and got Riley on a leash. I was half catatonic on the way home, like a rag with all the water twisted out of it. I crawled to bed, but, once again, bounced back quicker than I anticipated. And it was worth it. Mount Rainier on the drive home, through my glazed eyeballs, was spectacular. My Dad said it looked like a painting of Mount Fuji.

So, what else can I tell you about the last 3 or 4 months? I haven’t really taken any supplements this whole year so far. A few here and there, but, after every big episode, I would stop everything and go back to baseline. In the last week, I have been taking trace minerals, Vitamin D, K2 and fish oil again. I’m also still on topical DHEA and progesterone and just added topical pregnenolone and I’m about to add oral progesterone. It makes me nervous using bioidentical hormones, but they don’t seem to cause a reaction and both of my NDs recommend them, so I’m going with it. Apparently, there is evidence that DHEA+pregnenolone can reduce reactivity, so the goal is to take those for a while, then try IV fluids, then try sub-cutaneous IG and maybe even make my way to IVIG one day. I’ve been trying to get there since seeing Dr. Chia 7 months ago, so who knows how long it’ll take. I’m also still on the compounded thyroid hormones. All these compounded meds are costing me a fortune, though, and are not covered by insurance. One of these days, I’ll have to call this experiment quits and go back to my generic, dye-filled, filler-filled drugs. That’s it for what I’m taking. The Equilibrant, Nystatin, Hydroxyzine, Tramadol and Singulair are all languishing in the cupboard, unopened.

I had a few blood tests done in January. The big shock is that my cholesterol is sky high. Total cholesterol is 310, LDL is 194, Apo B is 124 (ideally <109) and LDL-P (particles) is 1755 (ideally <1000). There could be many reasons for this: my continuing low thyroid, my chronic and reactivated infections (coxsackie, HHV6, EBV, varicella, candida, mycoplasma pneumoniae), leaky gut and inflammation, genetics (both of my parents have high cholesterol) or something to do with my insulin/hypoglycemia issues. But, I actually think it is mostly to do with my diet. Over a year ago, I started an elimination diet for autoimmune conditions (AIP), plus cut out most high-histamine foods (fish, shellfish and avocado etc.). I cut out oats (I had already eliminated all other grains except rice), legumes, nuts and seeds, but continued to eat white rice (and rice cakes, rice pasta etc.). After about 4 months, I began eating a lot of ghee, butter and bone broth. I had my cholesterol checked in 2013 and it was fine, as it had been my whole life. In mid-2014, it had started to crawl up and, 9 months later, it’s now a pretty big problem. I’m pretty sure it was my inadvertent reduction in soluble and insoluble fiber (especially the former), plus the changes in the type of fat I was eating that caused the lipid problem.

Other January blood tests of note: low DHEA and testosterone (still), low insulin, high homocysteine (still) and my T3 and T4 are low (STILL). Don’t tell Dr. Erin, but I’m going to increase my liothyronine myself because these teeny incremental changes are just taking too long to fix my levels. Nothing seems to get better and more abnormalities keep emerging.

I’m averaging about 1,400 steps a day and 6 hours sleep a night. When I do sleep, my sleep has been better. I just put it together now that this might be because of the progesterone supplementation, which is meant to help restful sleep. Wow, I finally made a correlation. I still can’t wear the CPAP without all hell breaking lose and the oral appliance still wrecks my jaw, but I’m managing to get a solid 5 hours most nights, with another 1-3 tossy turny hours. I have my third sleep study tomorrow to see if the OA is helping the apnea at all. My other sleep issues (pain, night terrors, constant movement and muscle spasms, awakenings post-REM sleep) are still unresolved since I haven’t been able to tolerate the drugs offered.

My headaches have also been a bit better, maybe because I backed off the salt ever so slightly. I get doozies a few times a week, but I noticed that I didn’t really have a headache the whole time my father was here. My salt loading wasn’t helping my blood pressure at all, so I might need to be medicated.

My throat spot hasn’t been itchy in a while and I think the electric shocks in my left leg have been fewer and farther between.

I stopped using the Restasis after 4 months to see if I noticed any difference and I think my eyes have been worse since stopping, but I don’t know if they’re worse enough to justify a Rx.

Sore glands in my neck, crazy tinnitus, swollen sinuses are all continuous low-key issues lately. I started taking 5-6ml of liquid Zyrtec again a few weeks ago on a whim in case anything was seasonal allergy-related. As usual, I can’t really tell anything positive or negative.

My blood sugar seems better. This could be because I’ve diversified my diet (added back many nuts, seeds, oats, goat cheese, milk, potato, corn, chickpeas) and it also helps that my new endocrinologist explained that the danger lies more in how fast my blood sugar is dropping than how low it is. This was great to hear because I have experienced those sugar crashes where it can wind up in the 40s, but I was always nervous, if, when I was going to sleep, it was 73 or something, that it would continue to plummet in the night. She reassured me that, if I don’t feel the tell-tale shakes, it’s probably ok and I don’t need to eat. Having said all that, I got out of bed this morning needing to eat right away because I was shaky and it was 63, so it’s still a delicate dance. [<~ And, after I wrote that, I had a big blood sugar crash on my way out the door to PT because I didn’t eat meat for breakfast. I had to go back inside and cook a mound of lamb and a yuca cake and eat it in the car on the way there. I was 15 minutes late. I guess hypoglycemia isn’t really any better. Gah!]

My buzzy brain and neuro symptoms are definitely still here, always incapacitating when they hit, always signalling that I need to go to bed and power down. And I’m still stiff, inflexible, pulling muscles regularly, in some pain and pretty weak. My lower back has been a major issue recently and my husband bought me a back brace that I have to wear when I’m standing in the kitchen or I’m crippled.

My mood is fine unless I’m really sick or in a lot of pain and then I’m a scared, desperate caged animal, feeling like I can’t go on another minute. When I’m really sick in bed, feeling fluish, poisoned, inflamed and broken, the dark mental cloud descends and obliterates all hope and even the very rational thought that this will ease up. I don’t forget that it has eased up in the past – seemingly, it would be easy to reassure myself that it will again, but I can’t. It’s the knowledge that I couldn’t continue living if it didn’t ease up that causes the black blanket of fear.

But enough about that…

The last time I was out on the scooter.

The bad news is, my scooter died at the end of December. It was my one lifeline to freedom and, although I only got out on it for about an hour each month, I lived for that hour. So, I have to figure out a way to get another. The best case scenario would be one that I could lift into my car myself. The cemetery is only a few blocks away and, ideally, I’d like to go for little outings without needing my husband and his truck, since he’s not home very much. I’m also thinking about the future when I have a smaller dog and will, I hope, have the strength to walk him on a leash using the scooter. Not sure there are any scooters that disassemble to light enough parts or that I would have the energy to put in the car, drive, take out and assemble, ride around for a bit, take apart and put back in the car, drive home, take out of the car again… Now that I see that in print, it seems a Herculean and impossible task. Plus, we can’t really afford one, anyway, when we spend more than we bring in every month. When we win the lotto, we can buy a scooter and a transport van that it can drive into. Or maybe I’ll just get better.

The good news is, everything is blooming and the smells in the garden are incredible. 🙂

This took me over a week to write, so apologies if it’s disjointed. Until next time… XO


Content-Type: application/http; msgtype=response

WARC-Truncated: length

WARC-Type: response

text:
Video Games

This morning, I dreamed that I created – or maybe was just playing – a video game. Basically the game works like this: you, the player, receive a randomly generated woman who is somewhere between the ages of 50 and 100 and then you have to care for her and try to keep her alive. Kind of like The Sims, but everything seemed a lot more dire and way less whimsical. Anyway, your woman can live to be up to 1000 years old, which is very old but totally possible in the realm of this game. HOWEVER, you actually have no control over when your woman dies. It just happens. So, that was a cool dream.

Then I had another dream that involved a video game. This one featured me as a character and was based on an adventure that I had in the “real life” of the dream world. The me of the game wore a sort of Ash Ketchum outfit with a backwards hat and a long ponytail. The actual story of that dream is boring. I just thought it was worth noting that I had two dreams about video games.

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 )

Twitter picture

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

Facebook photo

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

Google+ photo

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

Connecting to %s

warcinfo:
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-233-31-227.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2017-13
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for March 2017
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf


text:
Cash on delivery
Free delivery
Free returns

adidas originals

kids' superstar foundation shoe

Regular Price 225.00 AED   Now 104.00 AED
Product Code:
Sorry! This item has been sold out.
The Superstar Foundation Shoe for kids from adidas offers the highest quality standards. Its upper is made of premium grade leather while the rubber outsole allows for superior traction for drastic game plays.
  • Premium grade upper
  • Triple perforated stripe design
  • Rubber outsole for increased traction
  • Unisex design
  • Material Composition: Synthetic fibers, textiles, premium grade leather and rubber

You can return your items for free within 14 days of purchase.  Returns numbers must be requested within 7 days of receiving your order and you will have a further 7 days to return unsuitable items. For more information please refer to our Returns Policy page. We deliver straight to your doorstep across the UAE and GCC; if you require further information please refer to our Shipping Policy page.

If you need any assistance please use our chat.


text:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

A firelog is a manufactured log constructed to be used as wood fuel. Firelogs are designed to be inexpensive, while being easier to ignite, and burn longer, and more efficiently than firewood. Firelogs are traditionally manufactured using two methods. The first uses only compressed sawdust and the second uses sawdust and paraffin, which is mixed and extruded into a log shape. The extruded firelogs are individually wrapped in paper packaging which can be ignited to start burning the firelog as the paraffin is readily combustible.

A new cleaner firelog has now been developed using waste fibre from the oil palm fruit bunches of South East Asia.[citation needed] Unlike sawdust logs these burn with zero sulfur emissions. Also unlike sawdust logs, no trees need to be felled to produce these firelogs[citation needed]. While it is beneficial that the oil palm derived logs use waste fibre, the overall impact of palm oil plantations is problematic because vast areas of virgin tropical rain forest in Borneo and Sumatra are being clear cut to open up land for palm plantations. This activity directly threatens habitats of endangered species such as the orangutan.[1]

Other new types of firelogs include one made from waste wax-cardboard such as that used in the packing of perishable foods for shipment, which is used to create a compressed cardboard firelog, and another made from renewable Greek cotton plants, offering a high energy content.

The materials used for a traditional firelog are variable, the sawdust used is often commercial wood waste from manufacturers, or waste agricultural biomass (nut shells, fruit pits, etc.); additionally bio-wax may be used in lieu of paraffin (petroleum-based wax).

There are now a number of wood and wax firelogs made using renewable materials. These are made using plant or animal based renewable waxes such as palm oil. These logs can be considered to be carbon neutral firelogs during combustion as the carbon released on combustion is the same carbon absorbed when the plants are growing. Sulphur emissions are virtually eliminated with renewable firelogs as they do not contain paraffin waxes.

Energy content comparison
Extruded firelog 1500 BTU/lb 3.4 MJ/kg
Firewood 6190 BTU/lb 14.4 MJ/kg
Wood pellets 8400 BTU/lb 19.54 MJ/kg
Compressed firelog 8500 BTU/lb 19.8 MJ/kg
Palm fibre firelog 10500 BTU/lb 24.4 MJ/kg
Java-Log 12620 BTU/lb 29.3 MJ/kg
Northland 13540 BTU/lb 31.4 MJ/kg
Duraflame Xtra Time 13770 BTU/lb 32.0 MJ/kg
Duraflame Easy Time 14420 BTU/lb 33.5 MJ/kg
Pine Mountain Superlog 15190 BTU/lb 35.2 MJ/kg
Cotton plant firelog 17000 BTU/lb 39.8 MJ/kg
Fossil fuel oil or Diesel 18600 BTU/lb 43.26 MJ/kg

See also[edit]

  1. ^ "THE EFFECTS OF PALM OIL HOW DOES PALM OIL HARM ORANGUTANS AND OTHER WILDLIFE?". Orangutan Foundation International. Retrieved 3 January 2015.

External links[edit]


text:
Irisbus Citelis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Irisbus Citelis
VER Ennepetal Irisbus Citelis 100 8033.jpg
Citelis bus in Germany's Ruhr area
Manufacturer Irisbus
Production 2005-2013
Body and chassis
Doors 2 doors to 4 doors
Floor type low floor
Engine Iveco
Transmission 4-speed automatic Voith DIWA
Length 9.9 metres to 18.5 metres

Irisbus Citelis was a low-floor city bus produced by Irisbus from 2005 to 2013 when it was replaced by Iveco Urbanway.

Production and operation[edit]

It was introduced in 2005 to replace the Agora. It comes in two varieties: Citelis 12, which is of standard 12 m (39 ft) length, and Citelis 18, which is articulated and has a length of 18 m (59 ft). Citelis models use Euro 4, Euro 5 & EEV engines. The buses can also be built as trolleybuses, utilising overhead electrical wires for their power supply instead of fuel. Trolleybus version of Citelis is also known as Škoda 24Tr Irisbus (12m) or Škoda 25Tr Irisbus (18m), especially in Eastern Europe.

Citelis vehicles were introduced in 2007 on Bucharest's trolleybus network run by RATB and in 2006 or 2007 in Riga, capital of Latvia, in which they are owned by Rīgas Satiksme . They are also used by the RATP in Paris, Germany's VER, in Brno and Prague, Czech Republic, by ATM in Milan, by Strætó bs in Reykjavík, by EMT-Palma in Mallorca Spain, in Astana, Kazakhstan, TEC in Belgium, in Iceland, in Plovdiv Bulgaria by Hebros Bus, in Greece by OASA and OASTH, in Varna, Bulgaria by Transtriumph Holding and by DPMK in Košice and from 14.4.2011 also in SAD Trnava in Trnava and will be used in Zagreb, Croatia.

A Citelis 18 CNG chassis was converted to right-hand drive and bodied by Custom Coaches in 2008-2009. It is now being operated by Path Transit, who is one of three contractors that operates buses under the Transperth brand name in Perth, Western Australia.

See also[edit]


text:
Ixtlán de los Hervores

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Ixtlan Geyser

Ixtlán de los Hervores, also known as Ixtlán, is a city in the Mexican state of Michoacán. It is located 29 kilometres (18 mi) from Jiquilpan by state highway 16 and 26 kilometres to the northeast of the city of Zamora by way of highway 35.[citation needed] It is about 80 miles (130 km) southeast of Guadalajara.[1]

Ixtlán de los Hervores is known for its thermal water springs.[1] In Ixtlán de los Hervores one will find three geysers that surges up from the depths of the earth with tremendous pressure. The jet rises more than 30 metres in height and reaches temperatures of 96 degrees Celsius (204.8 degrees Fahrenheit). There are two new geysers, one near the soccer field. A rustic spa has been built near the geyser with services for people who are seeking the healing powers of sulphurous waters found here.

  1. ^ a b Romo, Rafael. "No suspects in slaying of U.S. teen and 2 friends in Mexico." CNN. December 29, 2011. Retrieved on January 2, 2012.

External links[edit]

Coordinates: 20°11′N 102°24′W / 20.183°N 102.400°W / 20.183; -102.400


text:
London Buses route 36

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
London Bus route 36.jpg
Operator London Central
Garage New Cross (NX)
Vehicle Alexander Dennis Enviro400
Peak vehicle requirement 33
Night-time 24-hour service
Start New Cross bus station
Via Peckham
Hyde Park Corner
Marble Arch
Edgware Road
Maida Hill
End Queen's Park
Level Daily
← {{{previous_line}}}  {{{system_nav}}}  {{{next_line}}} →

London Buses route 36 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, England. Running between New Cross Gate and Queen's Park, it is operated by London Central.

London Central AEC Routemaster with route 36 branding

Route 36 dates back to 1911 when London General Omnibus Company commenced operating between Queens Park and Victoria. By 1934 it had been extended to Hither Green.[1]

On 24 August 1961, a gun and five boxes of ammunition were found under the rear seat of a 36A bus in Peckham garage. The gun was identified as that used to kill Michael Gregsten and wound Valerie Storie in the 'A6 murder case', for which James Hanratty was hanged.[2]

The 36B was cut back to Peckham and renumbered route 136 in March 1994.[3]

On 29 January 2005, route 36 was converted to one man operation with the AEC Routemasters replaced by Plaxton President bodied Volvo B7TLs.[3]

Present day[edit]

It is one of very few routes still to cross central London, carrying people in to the centre from both ends of the route.[4]

On 9 February 2013, London Central retained the contract for route 36 with new and existing Alexander Dennis Enviro400s.[5] It is operated out of New Cross garage.[6]

Current route[edit]

Route 36 operates via these primary locations:[7]

  1. ^ Route History...36 Bus Talk April 2016
  2. ^ "Gun Found On Bus Was Murder Weapon" The Times 26 August 1961 p 6
  3. ^ a b Blacker, Ken (2007). Routemaster: 1970–2005. 2 (2nd ed.). Harrow Weald: Capital Transport. pp. 116, 166, 172. ISBN 978-1-85414-303-7.
  4. ^ Aldridge, John (January 2000). "Connex gains second route while Routemasters go on... and on, but what's going to happen to Red Arrow?". Buses. Ian Allan Publishing (538): 11.
  5. ^ "Route 36 - award announced 24 May 2012". Transport for London. 24 May 2012. Retrieved 27 May 2014.
  6. ^ Routes Go-Ahead London
  7. ^ Route 36 Map Transport for London

External links[edit]

Media related to London Buses route 36 at Wikimedia Commons


text:
Pink salmon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  (Redirected from Pink Salmon)
Jump to: navigation, search
"Haddo" redirects here. For the Scottish stately home, see Haddo House.
Pink salmon
Humpback Salmon Adult Male.jpg
Male ocean phase pink salmon
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Salmoniformes
Family: Salmonidae
Genus: Oncorhynchus
Species: O. gorbuscha
Binomial name
Oncorhynchus gorbuscha
(Walbaum, 1792)
Male spawning phase pink salmon
pink salmon caught by a fly fisherman in its freshwater spawning phase

Pink salmon or humpback salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family. It is the smallest and most abundant of the Pacific salmon. The scientific species name is based on the Russian common name for this species gorbúša (горбуша), which literally means humpie.

In the ocean, pink salmon are bright silver fish. After returning to their spawning streams, their coloring changes to pale grey on the back with yellowish-white belly (although some turn an overall dull green color). As with all salmon, in addition to the dorsal fin, they also have an adipose fin. The fish is characterized by a white mouth with black gums, no teeth on the tongue, large oval-shaped black spots on the back, a v-shaped tail, and an anal fin with 13-17 soft rays. During their spawning migration, males develop a pronounced humped back, hence their nickname "humpies". Pink salmon average 4.8 pounds (2.2 kg) in weight.[1] The maximum recorded size was 30 inches (76 cm) and 15 pounds (6.8 kg).[2]

See also: Salmon run

Pink salmon in their native range have a strict two year life cycle, thus odd and even-year populations do not interbreed. In the state of Washington, Pink salmon runs occur on odd years.[3] Adult pink salmon enter spawning streams from the ocean, usually returning to the stream where they originated. Spawning occurs between late June and mid-October, in coastal streams and some longer rivers, and in the intertidal zone or at the mouth of streams if hyporheic freshwater is available. Using her tail, the female digs a trough-shaped nest, called a redd (Scandinavian word for "nest"), in the gravel of the stream bed, where she deposits her eggs. As she expels the eggs, she is approached by one or more males, which fertilize them as they fall into the redd. Subsequently, the female covers the newly deposited zygotes, again with thrusts of her tail, against the gravel at the top of the redd. The female lays from 1000 to 2000 eggs in several clutches within the redd, often fertilized by different males. Females guard their redds until death, which comes within days of spawning. In dense populations, a major source of mortality for embryos is superposition of redds by later-spawning fish. The eggs hatch from December to February, depending on water temperature, and the juveniles emerge from the gravel during March and April and quickly migrate downstream to estuaries, at about one-quarter gram in weight. The fish achieve sexual maturity in their second year of life. They return to freshwater in the summer or autumn as two-year-old adults. Pink and chum salmon sometimes interbreed in nature to form the hybrid known as the miko salmon[citation needed]; the hybrids are sterile.

Distribution and habitat[edit]

Pink salmon are coldwater fish with a preferred temperature range of 5.6 to 14.6°C, an optimal temperature of 10.1°C, and an upper incipient lethal temperature of 25.8°C. The native range of the species is in the Pacific and Arctic coastal waters and rivers, from the Sacramento River in northern California to the Mackenzie River in Canada; and in the west from the Lena River in Siberia to Korea and Honshu in Japan.

Pink salmon were introduced into the Great Lakes of North America, and in Iran.[citation needed] In Europe, pink salmon have been periodically introduced to rivers of the White Sea and Barents Sea basins in Russia since 1956. Stray fish from these rivers have been encountered ascending to rivers also in Norway, Sweden, Great Britain and Iceland, and in Norway even self-sustaining populations have been observed.[4]

Conservation status[edit]

NatureServe lists the pink salmon as critically imperiled in California, and imperiled in Washington. In Alaska and British Columbia, they are considered secure.[5] No Pink salmon Evolutionary Significant Units are listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Fisheries and use[edit]

Alaskan pink salmon in its freshwater spawning phase.

The commercial harvest of pink salmon is a mainstay of fisheries of both the eastern and western North Pacific. In 2010, the total harvest was some 260 million fish, corresponding to 400,000 tonnes. Of this, 140 million fish were from Russian fisheries and 107 million from the USA (Alaska).[6] Pink salmon account for 69% of the total Russian salmon fisheries.[7] The majority of pink salmon are harvested using coastal set net traps, and the fisheries are concentrated on the east coast of Sakhalin (average 110,000 tonnes per year).[8]

In North America, beginning in the late 19th century fish traps were used to supply fish for commercial canning and salting. The industry expanded steadily until 1920. During the 1940s and 1950s, pink salmon populations declined drastically. Fish traps were prohibited in Alaska in 1959. Now, most pink salmon are taken with purse seines, drift nets or gillnets. Populations and harvests increased rapidly after the mid-1970s and have been at record high numbers since the 1980s.

More than 20 million harvested pink salmon are produced by fishery-enhancement hatcheries, particularly in the northern Gulf of Alaska.[9] Pink salmon are not grown in significant numbers in fish farms. The fish are often canned, smoked or salted. Pink salmon roe is also harvested for caviar, a particularly valuable product in Asia.

  1. ^ Fisheries and Oceans Canada species account Retrieved 2007 October 16
  2. ^ Fishbase species account Retrieved 2007 October 16
  3. ^
  4. ^ O. gorbuscha (Walbaum, 1792) - горбуша. In Petrosyan, V.G. (ed), Позвоночные животные России (Vertebrates of Russia) information system
  5. ^ Oncorhynchus gorbuscha NatureServe conservation status
  6. ^ Annual Statistics 2010: Commercial salmon catch by species and country North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission Statistical Yearbook. Retrieved 2015 March 16
  7. ^ Fisheries Improvement: Western Pacific Salmon: Overview Dec 2013 Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (retrieved March 2015)
  8. ^ Sakhalin Island Regional Salmon FIP (March 2015)
  9. ^ Salmon Enhancement and Hatcheries Retrieved 2007 October 16


text:
Queen Mother Champion Chase

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Queen Mother Champion Chase
Grade 1 race
Location Cheltenham Racecourse
Cheltenham, England
Inaugurated 1959
Race type Chase
Sponsor Betway
Website Cheltenham
Race information
Distance 2 miles (3,219 metres)
Surface Turf
Track Left-handed
Qualification Five-years-old and up
Weight 11 st 10 lb
7 lb for mares
Purse £350,000 (2014)
1st: £199,325
Queen Mother Champion Chase
Royal blue, white stars, red and white striped sleeves, white cap, royal blue stars Emerald green, yellow chevron and sleeves, red cap Black, light blue hoop and sleeves, white cap
Special Tiara Fox Norton Sir Valentino

The Queen Mother Champion Chase is a Grade 1 National Hunt steeplechase in Great Britain which is open to horses aged five years or older. As part of a sponsorship agreement with the online betting company Betway, the race is now known as the Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase It is run on the Old Course at Cheltenham over a distance of about 2 miles (3,219 metres), and during its running there are twelve fences to be jumped. The race is scheduled to take place each year during the Cheltenham Festival in March.

It is the leading minimum-distance chase in the National Hunt calendar, and it is the feature race on the second day of the Festival.

The event was established in 1959, and it was originally called the National Hunt Two-Mile Champion Chase. It was given its present title in 1980 – the year of the Queen Mother's 80th birthday – in recognition of her support to jump racing. The Queen Mother was a successful owner of National Hunt horses, particularly chasers, and among these was Game Spirit – the runner-up in this race in 1976.

The Queen Mother Champion Chase was not sponsored before 2007, and between 2008 and 2010 it was backed by Seasons Holidays. The sponsor from 2011 until 2013 was online gambling firm Sportingbet. BetVictor held naming rights for the 2014 season before the current sponsor, sports betting company Betway, took over.[1]

Most successful horse (3 wins):

Leading jockey (5 wins):

  • Pat Taaffe – Fortria (1960, 1961), Ben Stack (1964), Flyingbolt (1966), Straight Fort (1970)
  • Barry Geraghty – Moscow Flyer (2003, 2005), Big Zeb (2010), Finian's Rainbow (2012), Sprinter Sacre (2013)

Leading trainer (6 wins):

  • Tom Dreaper – Fortria (1960, 1961), Ben Stack (1964), Flyingbolt (1966), Muir (1969), Straight Fort (1970)

Leading owner (3 wins):

  • George Ansley – Fortria (1960, 1961), Straight Fort (1970)
  • Doug Armitage – Badsworth Boy (1983, 1984, 1985)

  • Amateur jockeys indicated by "Mr".
Year Winner Age Jockey Trainer Owner
1959 Quita Que 10 Bunny Cox Dan Moore Mrs D. R. Brand
1960 Fortria 8 Pat Taaffe Tom Dreaper George Ansley
1961 Fortria 9 Pat Taaffe Tom Dreaper George Ansley
1962 Piperton 8 Dave Dick Archie Thomlinson Archie Thomlinson
1963 Sandy Abbot 8 Stan Mellor George Owen Mrs J. D. McKechnie
1964 Ben Stack 7 Pat Taaffe Tom Dreaper Duchess of Westminster
1965 Dunkirk 8 Dave Dick Peter Cazalet Bill Whitbread
1966 Flyingbolt 7 Pat Taaffe Tom Dreaper Jean Wilkinson
1967 Drinny's Double 9 Frank Nash Bob Turnell Paul Mellon
1968 Drinny's Double 10 Frank Nash Bob Turnell Paul Mellon
1969 Muir 10 Ben Hannon Tom Dreaper Waring Willis
1970 Straight Fort 7 Pat Taaffe Tom Dreaper George Ansley
1971 Crisp 8 Paul Kelleway Fred Winter Sir Chester Manifold
1972 Royal Relief 8 Bill Smith Edward Courage Edward Courage
1973 Inkslinger 6 Tommy Carberry Dan Moore Mrs M. Jenney
1974 Royal Relief 10 Bill Smith Edward Courage Edward Courage
1975 Lough Inagh 8 Sean Barker Jim Dreaper A. Martin
1976 Skymas 11 Mouse Morris Brian Lusk Matt Magee
1977 Skymas 12 Mouse Morris Brian Lusk Matt Magee
1978 Hilly Way 8 Tommy Carmody Peter McCreery J. W. Sweeney
1979 Hilly Way 9 Mr Ted Walsh Peter McCreery J. W. Sweeney
1980 Another Dolly [1] 10 Sam Morshead Fred Rimell Ian Urquhart
1981 Drumgora 9 Frank Berry Arthur Moore D. Monahan
1982 Rathgorman 10 Kevin Whyte Michael Dickinson J. Lilley
1983 Badsworth Boy 8 Robert Earnshaw Michael Dickinson Doug Armitage
1984 Badsworth Boy 9 Robert Earnshaw Michael Dickinson Doug Armitage
1985 Badsworth Boy 10 Robert Earnshaw Monica Dickinson Doug Armitage
1986 Buck House 8 Tommy Carmody Mouse Morris Mrs Phil Purcell
1987 Pearlyman 8 Peter Scudamore John Edwards Valerie Shaw
1988 Pearlyman 9 Tom Morgan John Edwards Valerie Shaw
1989 Barnbrook Again 8 Simon Sherwood David Elsworth Mel Davies
1990 Barnbrook Again 9 Hywel Davies David Elsworth Mel Davies
1991 Katabatic 8 Simon McNeill Andrew Turnell Pell-Mell Partners
1992 Remittance Man 8 Jamie Osborne Nicky Henderson Tim Collins
1993 Deep Sensation 8 Declan Murphy Josh Gifford Robin Eliot
1994 Viking Flagship 7 Adrian Maguire David Nicholson Roach Foods Ltd
1995 Viking Flagship 8 Charlie Swan David Nicholson Roach Foods Ltd
1996 Klairon Davis 7 Francis Woods Arthur Moore Chris Jones
1997 Martha's Son 10 Rodney Farrant Tim Forster Hartigan / Ward-Thomas
1998 One Man 10 Brian Harding Gordon W. Richards John Hales
1999 Call Equiname 9 Mick Fitzgerald Paul Nicholls Coburn / Barber / Lewis
2000 Edredon Bleu 8 Tony McCoy Henrietta Knight Jim Lewis
2001 no race 2001 [2]
2002 Flagship Uberalles 8 Richard Johnson Philip Hobbs Gutner / Krysztofiak
2003 Moscow Flyer 9 Barry Geraghty Jessica Harrington Brian Kearney
2004 Azertyuiop 7 Ruby Walsh Paul Nicholls John Hales
2005 Moscow Flyer 11 Barry Geraghty Jessica Harrington Brian Kearney
2006 Newmill 8 Andrew McNamara John Joseph Murphy Mary Hayes
2007 Voy Por Ustedes 6 Robert Thornton Alan King Sir Robert Ogden
2008 Master Minded 5 Ruby Walsh Paul Nicholls Clive D. Smith
2009 Master Minded 6 Ruby Walsh Paul Nicholls Clive D. Smith
2010 Big Zeb 9 Barry Geraghty Colm Murphy Patrick Joseph Redmond
2011 Sizing Europe 9 Andrew Lynch Henry de Bromhead Ann & Alan Potts
2012 Finian's Rainbow 9 Barry Geraghty Nicky Henderson Michael Buckley
2013 Sprinter Sacre 7 Barry Geraghty Nicky Henderson Caroline Mould
2014 Sire de Grugy 8 Jamie Moore Gary Moore Preston Family & Friends
2015 Dodging Bullets 7 Sam Twiston-Davies Paul Nicholls Martin Broughton & Friends
2016 Sprinter Sacre 10 Nico de Boinville Nicky Henderson Caroline Mould
2017 Special Tiara 10 Noel Fehily Henry de Bromhead Sally Rowley-Williams

1 Chinrullah finished first in 1980, but he was subsequently disqualified after testing positive for a banned substance.
2 The 2001 running was cancelled because of a foot-and-mouth crisis. A substitute race at Sandown was won by Edredon Bleu.

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

  • Race Recordings [1]


text:
Anthony Roll

From Wikisource
Jump to: navigation, search
A sample picture of the second roll, showing the layout of text and images used throughout the Anthony Roll. The information for each vessel is displayed in columns directly below its illustration.

Notes on use of numerals and measurements

The numbers in the rolls are written in Roman numerals, though with more complicated formulas for certain large numbers than those used today. The letter "i", standing for one (1), is written as "j" when standing alone or at the end of a sequence of numbers, as in "viij" (8) or "xij" (12). Four (4) is written as "iiij" rather than "iv". The number five (5) is written as "v", ten (10) as "x" and fifty (50) as "l".

A superscript "c" means multiplication by one hundred (100), as in "iijc" (3 x 100 = 300), though this is occasionally also written as "ccc". A superscript "ml" means multiplication by a thousand (1000), as in "vmliijc" (5 x 1000 + (3 x 100) = 5,300). The number eighty (80) is written as "xx" (20) multiplied by "iiij" (4), the former on top of the latter, as in "". This can also included in more complex numbers such as "ixcix" (9 x 100 + (4 x 20) + 9 = 989).

A superscript "lb" stands for pounds, used as a measurement only for gunpowder. Bowstrings are given in gross ("groce"), twelve dozens, or 144.

This work was published before January 1, 1923, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.


text:
Author:Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

From Wikisource
Jump to: navigation, search
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Founder of Theosophy and the Theosophical Society
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

Works by this author published before January 1, 1923 are in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. Translations or editions published later may be copyrighted. Posthumous works may be copyrighted based on how long they have been published in certain countries and areas.


text:
Tags » Power Loss

and the power is back on at last in my little cottage

how different it looks from yesterday

“things go away to return, brightened for the passage” … 8 more words

LCDManager- fault protection

Imagine situation, you have a perfect LCD that displays a perfect content on a perfect day. On this perfect day some imperfect being trip and unplug power from a display. 570 more words

LCD Manager

What's Your Backup?

My editor just shared with me a story about her loss. They keep a freezer of meat in their garage. Well, we had a recent storm that took out the power. 214 more words

Pilferage Power losses in Pakistan

Pakistan W.A.P.D.A. (Water and Power Development Authority) is providing electricity to all sectors of life since 1958. W.A.P.D.A. have a good quality of engineers in its every field. 479 more words


text:
Tags » Roast Beef Sandwiches

French Dip Sandwiches with Au Jus

Gonna get home early. Yeah. Take step by step photos as I assemble the best ever French Dip Sandwiches. Gonna get home early. Yeah. Set up my camera equipment and not rush the process. 673 more words

memarose3 reblogged this on Rosemarie's Kitchen and commented:

Things have been a little hectic around my house - so I'm sharing a posting from the past. Nothing beats a warm sandwich - and when the au jus tastes more like French Onion Soup - that just doubles your yum.

HELLO CLEVELAND: Little Italy's Greatest Eats

Happy Hour in Cleveland is very much a thing, and in Little Italy it means they’re dishing out deep discounts on pizza pies and Peroni beers at… 385 more words

Flavourtown Roadtrips

July 2016 Meal Swap Recipes

July 2016 Meal Swap Menu and Recipes

SW Grilled Chicken With Lime Butter

For the chicken:

1 tablespoon chili powder

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon brown sugar… 1,222 more words

- Poultry

Italian Pepperoncini Roast Beef Sandwich

These Roast Beef Sandwiches are similar to my French Dip Italian Roast Beef Sandwiches with a lot fewer ingredients. The fewer the ingredients; the less work. 279 more words

Portuguese Garlic Nailed Steak Sandwich

This is a popular pub sandwich. The name is derived from the fact that the steak is “nailed” with garlic – the garlic is actually pounded with a mallet into the slices of steak. 404 more words


text:
Student Profile: Feng Lin

Feng Lin, holding her diploma
Feng Lin, PhD
Feng Lin and Mark Lawley
Professor Lawley and Lin at graduation
Feng Lin, recent graduate from the Weldon School, shares with us for our Student Profiles series. Lin studied under Professor Mark Lawley in the area of Healthcare Engineering and has accepted a prestigious fellowship with the CDC in Atlanta. Before beginning her new endeavor, she took a few moments to speak with us about her work and her future.

Where are you from?

Xiamen, Fujian Province, China
Where and what did you study in Undergrad?
BS, Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, 1999-2003
Why did you choose a career in biomedical engineering?
My interest in healthcare system engineering (especially public health) originated from collaboration experiences with the Indiana State Department of Health. I have worked closely with the health departments, hospitals, and emergency management agencies to assess, coordinate, and facilitate pandemic preparedness. From these experiences, I gained a true appreciation of the public health mission and a great admiration for the inspiring people working on public health. I began to realize that public health decision makers need better decision support for allocating scarce resources more effectively. I saw this need as a huge opportunity, so I decided to focus my research on public health decision modeling.
Although healthcare engineering might be a very new area in BME, I believe that I have wonderful opportunities to collaborate with people in medicine, medical devices, and biology. I can broaden my view by learning from other researchers with various expertise. I have also seen many promising applications of optimization and mathematical programming in BME.
Please tell us about your research.
My research interests lie in employing the methodologies of operations research, systems engineering, and applied mathematics to facilitate and improve decision making in health care systems, with special emphasis in public health. In my dissertation research, I have concentrated on problems in pandemic planning and long-term care. In pandemic planning, I developed an optimal control model to develop optimal triggers for non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) with the objective of minimizing expected lost from influenza related deaths and NPI implementation. In long-term care planning, I applied optimal control to determine budgetary allocation and care provision for elderly Medicaid beneficiaries. An optimization model was developed to determine optimal capacity of community-based services, with the objective of minimizing total LTC expenditure.
What are your hobbies and interests?
[I enjoy] reading, tennis, movies, and photography. I'm also a member of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), and the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), and the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE).
What do you think is your defining trait?
I am hard-working and persistent once I make up my mind to achieve a goal. I believe I am a sweet and considerate person. I received a letter of commendation from the State Health Commissioner, Dr. Judith Monroe, in 2006, for my important contributions to public health in the state of Indiana. In 2008, I was recognized as one of the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering (RCHE) Graduate Research Scholar.
What are your goals after graduation?
I would like to continue my research efforts in public health and health care system engineering. My career goal is to become an expert in health care decision analysis by applying various quantitative methodologies to facilitate and improve decision making in healthcare systems.
We heard that you are headed to the CDC in Atlanta. Congratulations! Can you share a little about what you will be doing there?
I received the CDC Steven M. Teutsch Prevention Effectiveness Fellowship. This is a 2-yr research fellowship for recent doctoral graduates with a background in economics, policy analysis, operations research, decision sciences, and other quantitative areas. I will work for Quantitative Sciences and Data Management Branch, Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention (DHAP). The mission of the Division is to prevent HIV infection in the United States and reduce the incidence of HIV-related illness and death, in collaboration with community, state, national and international partners.
Is there anything else you would like to share with us?
Beside academic reputation, Purdue BME is indeed a wonderful place for young people who enjoy research challenge and have great satisfaction when solving important problems. I have got wonderful support from all the people at BME since the first day when I joined BME. The [faculty] are knowledgeable and nice, the staff is extremely friendly, and the atmosphere is great.
Feng, thank you for taking the time to share with us. You have described the field of Healthcare Engineering quite well, and are already proving to be a leader in your field. We look forward to watching your career blossom. Congratulations and best of luck in all that you do.


text:
At Yelp we value our ability to quickly ship code. We’re constantly pushing changes out to production, and we even encourage our interns to ship code on their first day. We’ve managed to maintain this pace even as the engineering team has grown to over 300 people and our codebase has reached several million lines of Python code (with a helping of Java on the side).

One key factor in maintaining our iteration speed has been our move to a service

oriented architecture. Initially, most of our development work occurred in a single, monolithic web application, creatively named ‘yelp-main.’ As the company grew, our developers were spending increasing amounts of time trying to ship code in yelp-main. After recognizing this pain point, we started experimenting with a service oriented architecture to scale the development process, and so far it’s been a resounding success. Over the course of the last three years, we’ve gone from writing our first service to having over seventy production services.

What kinds of services are we writing at Yelp? As an example, let’s suppose you want to order a burrito for delivery. First of all, you’ll probably make use of our autocompletion service as you type in what you’re looking for. Then, when you click ‘search,’ your query will hit half a dozen backend services as we try to understand your query and select the best businesses for you. Once you’ve found your ideal taqueria and made your selection from the menu, details of your order will hit a number of services to handle payment, communication with partners, etc.

What about yelp-main? There’s a huge amount of code here, and it’s definitely not going to disappear anytime soon (if ever). However we do see yelp-main increasingly becoming more of a frontend application, responsible for aggregating and rendering data from our growing number of backend services. We are also actively experimenting with creating frontend services so that we can further modularize the yelp-main development process.

The rest of this blog post roughly falls into two categories: general development practices and infrastructure. For the former, we discuss how we help developers write robust services, and then follow up with details on how we’ve tackled the problems of designing good interfaces and testing services. We then switch focus to our infrastructure, and discuss the particular technology choices we’ve made for our service stack. This is followed by discussions on datastores and service discovery. We conclude with details on future directions.

Service oriented architecture forces developers to confront the realities of distributed systems such as partial failure (oops, that service you were talking to just crashed) and distributed ownership (it’s going to take a few weeks before all the other teams update their code to start using v2 of your fancy REST interface). Of course, all of these challenges are still present when developing a monolithic web application, but to a lesser extent.

We strive to mitigate many of these problems with infrastructure (more on that later!), but we’ve found that there’s no substitute for helping developers really understand the realities of the systems that they’re building. One approach that we’ve taken is to hold a weekly ‘services office hours,’ where any developer is free to drop in and ask questions about services. These questions cover the full gamut, from performance (“What’s the best way to cache this data?”) to architecture (“We’ve realized that we should have really implemented these two separate services as a single service - what’s the best way to combine them?”).

We’ve also created a set of basic principles for writing and maintaining services. These principles include architecture guidelines, such as how to determine whether a feature is better suited to a library or whether the overhead of a service is justified. They also contain a set of operational guidelines so that service authors are aware of what they can expect once their service is up and running in production. We’ve found that it can often be useful to refer to these principles during code reviews or design discussions, as well as during developer onboarding.

Finally, we recognize that we’re sometimes going to make mistakes that negatively impact either our customers or other developers. In such cases we write postmortems to help the engineering team learn from these mistakes. We work hard to eliminate any blame from the postmortem process so that engineers do not feel discouraged from participating.

Most services expose HTTP interfaces and pass around any structured data using JSON. Many service authors also provide a Python client library that wraps the raw HTTP interface so that it’s easier for other teams to use their service.

There are definite tradeoffs in our choice to use HTTP and JSON. A huge benefit of standardizing on HTTP is that there is great tooling to help with debugging, caching and load balancing. One of the more significant downsides is that there’s no standard solution for defining service interfaces independently of their implementation (in contrast to technologies such as Thrift). This makes it hard to precisely specify and check interfaces, which can lead to nasty bugs (“I thought your service returned a ‘username’ field?”).

We’ve addressed this issue by using Swagger. Swagger builds on the JSON Schema standard to provide a language for documenting the interface of HTTP/JSON services. We’ve found that it’s possible to retrofit Swagger specifications onto most our our services without having to change any of their interfaces. Given a Swagger specification for a service, we use swagger-py to automatically create a Python client for that service. We also use Swagger UI to provide a centralized directory of all service interfaces. This allows developers from across the engineering team to easily discover what services are available, and helps prevent duplicated effort.

Testing within a service is fairly standard. We replace any external service calls with mocks and make assertions about the call. The complexity arises when we wish to perform tests that span services. This is one of the areas where a service oriented architecture brings additional costs. Our first attempt at this involved maintaining canonical ‘testing’ instances of services. This approach lead to test pollution for stateful services, general flakiness due to remote service calls and an increased maintenance burden for developers.

In response to this issue we’re now using Docker containers to spin up private test instances of services (including databases). The key idea here is that service authors are responsible for publishing Docker images of their services. These images can then be pulled in as dependencies by other service authors for acceptance testing their services.

Service stack

The majority of our services are built on a Python service stack that we’ve assembled from several different open-source components. We use Pyramid as our web framework and SQLAlchemy for our database access layer, with everything running on top of uWSGI. We find that these components are stable, well-documented and have almost all of the features that we need. We’ve also had a lot of success with using gevent to eke additional performance out of Python services where needed. Our Elasticsearch proxy uses this approach to scale to thousands of requests per second for each worker process.

We use Pyramid tweens to hook into request lifecycles so that we can log query and response data for monitoring and historical analysis. Each service instance also runs uwsgi_metrics to capture and locally aggregate performance metrics. These metrics are then published on a standard HTTP endpoint for ingestion into our Graphite-based metrics system.

Another topic is how services access third-party libraries. Initially we used system-installed packages that were shared across all service instances. However, we quickly discovered that rolling out upgrades to core packages was an almost impossible task due to the large number of services that could potentially be affected. In response to this, all Python services now run in virtualenvs and source their dependencies from a private PyPI server. Our PyPI server hosts both the open-source libraries that we depend upon, and our internally-released libraries (built using a Jenkins continuous deployment pipeline).

Finally, it’s important to note that our underlying infrastructure is agnostic with respect to the language that a service is written in. The Search Team has used this flexibility to write several of their more performance-critical services in Java.

A significant proportion of our services need to persist data. In such cases, we try to give service authors the flexibility to choose the datastore that is the best match for their needs. For example, some services use MySQL databases, whereas others make use of Cassandra or ElasticSearch. We also have some services that make use of precomputed, read-only data files. Irrespective of the choice of datastore, we try to keep implementation details private to the owning service. This gives service authors the long-term flexibility to change the underlying data representation or even the datastore.

The canonical version of much of our core data, such as businesses, users and reviews, still resides in the yelp-main database. We’ve found that extracting this type of highly relational data out into services is difficult, and we’re still in the process of finding the right way to do it. So how do services access this data? In addition to exposing the familiar web frontend, yelp-main also provides an internal API for use by backend services in our datacenters. This API is defined using a Swagger specification, and for most purposes can be viewed as just another service interface.

A core problem in a service oriented architecture is discovering the locations of other service instances. Our initial approach was to manually configure a centralized pair of HAProxy load balancers in each of our datacenters, and embed the virtual IP address of these load balancers in configuration files. We quickly found that this approach did not scale. It was labor intensive and error prone both to deploy new services and also to move existing services between machines. We also started seeing performance issues due to the load balancers becoming overloaded.

We addressed these issues by switching to a service discovery system built around SmartStack. Briefly, each client host now runs an HAProxy instance that is bound to localhost. The load balancer is dynamically configured from service registration information stored in ZooKeeper. A client can then contact a service by connecting to its localhost load balancer, which will then proxy the request to a healthy service instance. This facility has proved itself highly reliable, and the majority of our production services are now using it.

Future directions

We are currently working on a next-generation service platform called Paasta. This uses the Marathon framework (running on top of Apache Mesos) to allocate containerized service instances across clusters of machines, and integrates with SmartStack for service discovery. This platform will allow us to treat our servers as a much more fungible resource, freeing us from the issues associated with statically assigning services to hosts. We will be publishing more details about this project later this year.

The work described in this blog post has been carried out and supported by numerous members of the Engineering Team here at Yelp. Particular credit goes to Prateek Agarwal, Ben Chess, Sam Eaton, Julian Krause, Reed Lipman, Joey Lynch, Daniel Nephin and Semir Patel.

Back to blog


text:
June 4, 2012

Chrome beats IE to become the world's most used browser

The victor of the browser war may be here, according to StatCounter, a service that records all kinds of information about browsers and other aspects of the Internet by monitoring data traffic trends. Google’s Chrome browser took to the spotlight a while back taking the second place from Firefox. Now, according to this latest StatCounter report, Chrome has taken down Internet Explorer by becoming the world’s most used web browser. The market share lines crossed ways in May. Google Chrome now has a market share of 32.43 percent, while Internet Explorer has a share of 32.12 percent. Firefox is trailing behind at a moderate 25.55 percent and is slowly recovering from the recent dip in usage. Internet Explorer has been falling steadily over the past years as well. Apple’s Safari is in the picture too, at a distance with a share of 7.09 percent and Opera far behind with a share of 1.77 percent.
Out, finally!
Chrome is now, numero uno!

There are several reasons for the changing of places. Mozilla and Google have both adopted a rapid release cycle for their browsers, which means there are few improvements, but they are delivered quickly to their users. When Google first launched Chrome, there was a feeling amongst users that it was too basic and had almost no features. In comparison, Firefox had no dearth of features and plugins.  Firefox off late had become notorious for being sluggish in performance, but that phase seems to have passed after several memory efficiency tweaks were made to it. Firefox had the advantage of having add-on support, but Google over time has garnered enough support and it too has a big database of extensions for their Chrome browser.  Looking at the trends, it looks as if Firefox might be able to take the number two place from Internet Explorer in some time.

StatCounter expected Google to take on Microsoft for the number one browser place in the past. StatCounter records the number of users per browser and not the number of downloads that each one has. Late last year, Chrome reportedly amassed a market share of 25.69 percent, as compared to Firefox’s 25.23 percent through the month of December 2011. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer still had a healthy lead of 40.63 percent, which was slowly, but steadily dropping. Internet Explorer has been known to be the most dominant browser for a very long time, much of which is likely because Internet Explorer comes pre-bundled with the Windows operating system.

    Choose :
  • OR
  • To comment
No comments:
Write comments


text:
7 Steps to Health and The Big Diabetes Lie reviews | ICTM Program PDF Download

Perceive again from Thanksgiving shot, everybody. The Big Diabetes Lie - I believe it was a pleasant one. You did genuinely well on support choices? Face to face, in any case i'm bloated. Purchased reams of serving of blended greens a week back for the "refining" peroid: )

In any circumstance, the things i anticipated that would share was that I contributed some vitality this end of the week with Wayne S. Hirsch's new creation, Cheating Destiny diabetes bookCheating Destiny: Managing Diabetes, Many Biggest Epidemic. I am just about area of the path through it now, nonetheless it simply required me about almost through Chapter 1 to comprehend this can be a creation about diabetes If just We got it together (all far from the part about flipping the vehicle with his infant kid in the rearward sitting course of action). However in the meantime, Author Envy hugy.

What makes this guide so magnificent? Unmistakably the aftereffect of "voluminous research and numerous gatherings, inches it looks at like an interfacing with story 7 steps to Health and The Big Diabetes Lie of the most important need. Just, how might you turn heaps of points of interest and individual tributes about roused by a hostile disease into an e advanced book so persuading it can hard to underestimate? Hirsch has slyly woven along various systems from the carnivalistic mercantilism of the twelve-month to month NAMPAK Expo to living of "insulin's notice young woman" Elizabeth Evans Hughes to the trials of endless driving an auto embryonic researcher.

Inside a segment called "The Responsibility of Control, crawl this individual elucidates the stick the outcome on managing that has since quite a while before handicapped diabetics with disgrace - about-facing to the unforgiving systems for Dr. Elliott Joslin him self. Ugh. In any case, how strengthening to find this example laid out evidently for the world to see and get it. "All diabetics walk around a sensitive slant, " this individual forms. "Regardless, for some the way is a great deal less wide, the edge nearer, the enormous stride more outrageous. "

It helps that James Hirsch is a past columnist for the new out of the case new York Occasions and Wsj, and starting now a handled maker moreover. He's on top of that the dear buddy of prestigious diabetologist Irl Hirsch, therapeutic official of the Diabetes Care Center at the University of California Both kin have encountered Type 1 diabetes just on the grounds that were children, and James' young tyke Garrett was starting late clinically examined as well - which plays away astonishingly available (and was secured generally by Parade magazine).

by chance, I really met James at a late book scrutinizing inside Bay region, an individual event in an individual home. We talked rapidly. An extraordinary normal size individual with scruffy hair and grinning eyes, he was so unassuming I'd never have picked him away of the gathering as the author; he fail to be able to the reserves of being the kind of kindred who may make such eloquent entrust? e. Despite the way that, not may of us have every one of the reserves of being we have a wearisome affliction, now fundamentally that privilege? Blessed a great many people.

Charlie is a Physician's Gadget and Diabetes Clinical Professional in Escondido, CA, while Ruth is a finished restorative creator and before board individual from what was the Diabetes Function out and Sports Relationship (DESA). http://www.jthink.net/jaikozforum/user/profile/72361.page

Likewise, John's as of late been putting on an insulin pump for quite a while (! ) really, his own specific experience wearing an insulin pump is the thing that asked them to record thier first Moving Insulin book in light of the way that back then, there were no advantages for people who desired to perceive how to use them better.

John was distinguished to have sort 1 diabetes when he was 5 years of age (I neglected to have guts to ask how old he's, be that as it may I acknowledge straightforward systems to for a minute) and he and Ruth have been submitted since 1974.

Their advanced book is a broadly comprehensive source, so a part of the information is proposed for apprentice or potential pumpers while distinctive areas are made for forefront pumpers. The essential part of the book covers the models of pumping, basal rates and bolus calculators. The second half of the book dives into basic thinking and aligning, for example, work away, post-prandial spikes, and disregarding overseeing skin range and implantation site issues.

Developing Insulin is a greatly enrapturing book, chock packed with worksheets, figurings, plan and layouts that you can make your own one of a kind modifications. We unquestionably have a region on appreciation starches and the Glycemic Index, keeping some have rebuked the eating regimen guidance when past models, remember as a primary concern this is not an eating routine book and that with support, your own particular mileage can change.

A thorough number of pumpers are as of now using general glucose screens (CGMs) in conjunction with their pumps, either the Medtronic pump/CGM combo or the stay lone Dexcom. With this new discharge, Steve and Ruth have included parts how a CGM could help you manage your diabetes and extra new data is existing all through the entire distribution.

In reality, even now not induced? Check away our meeting with Steve and Ruth at the present year's American Diabetes Association's Scientific Sessions: ---> 7 Steps to Health


text:
Dinner with Tony Hsieh

I won a contest and get to have dinner tonight in Vegas with one of my all-time role models, Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.  I’m super-excited about the opportunity but could use some help.  If I can only ask him one question, what should I ask?

2 thoughts on “Dinner with Tony Hsieh

  1. I wanted to win that contest so badly, I created about 200 email addresses so I could sign up again and again. Hope you write about your experiences with Hsieh in Las Vegas…

  2. Oh, and to answer your question about a question for Tony Hsieh, could you ask him to invite ME to Las Vegas?

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 )

Twitter picture

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

Facebook photo

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

Google+ photo

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

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this:


text:
Record Details

Catalog Search

Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Act of 2016 : report to accompany H.R. 223 (including cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office).

Image of item

Available copies

  • 1 of 1 copy available at Evergreen Indiana.

Current holds

0 current holds with 1 total copy.

Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date
Indiana State Library - Indianapolis ISLM Y 1.1/8:114-465 (Text) 2063-7034 Online document Available -

Record details

  • Physical Description: 1 online resource (28 pages).
  • Publisher: [Washington, D.C.] : [U.S. Government Publishing Office], [2016]

Content descriptions

General Note: Title from title screen caption (viewed Apr. 4, 2016).
"March 23, 2016."
Subject: Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (U.S.)
United States. Federal Water Pollution Control Act.
Lake restoration > Great Lakes (North America)
Lake restoration > Law and legislation > United States.

Additional Resources