text:
zeborah: Zebra looking at its rainbow reflection (rainbow)
One of our straight white male MPs is going to go on the talkshow Ellen. He did give a great speech, but, um, what about the LGBT MPs and ex-MPs who also gave great speeches? And who did most of the work on the bill? Like, say, the Māori lesbian MP who submitted the bill in the first place?

So here are some speeches from the night by MPs who aren't straight white guys.

Firstly, the kōrero in which Te Ururoa Flavell (straight Māori guy) talks about about Tutanekei's hoa takatāpui Tiki, and gives more context to the history of Pākehā redefining marriage to exclude Māori customary marriage.

(Procedural notes: a lot of MPs on the evening chose to share their speaking time with someone else, and Te Ururoa was the recipient of one such five minute slot from John Banks which is why he's acknowledging "Hone Banks". He gets cut short at the end for going over his time limit which is a tremendous shame given how informative his kōrero was, but the rule seemed fairly equally enforced against Pākehā MPs doing the same. And applause is normally I gather not allowed but that rule went out the window completely for the whole evening.)

More awesome kōrero on the evening included:

Louisa Wall (Māori lesbian; submitted the bill; first name pronounced lou-issa)

Kevin Hague (gay white guy)

Tau Henare (straight Māori guy; responding to straight Māori guy Winston Peters' vile speech which I won't link to because Winston is *that* MP, you know the one, who just always.)

Mojo Mathers ((Deaf) straight white woman; bringing tears to my eyes every time I watch it)
zeborah: Zebra looking at its rainbow reflection (rainbow)
New Zealand just passed the third and final reading of our marriage equality bill 77-44.

(I was listening by radio after, having failing to get reception for Parliament TV and failing to get sufficient bandwidth for the internet livestream, I put out a plaintive tweet asking about livestreaming audio and someone pointed me to 882AM. Oh yeah, that dusty old machine.)

After the Speaker's announcement of the result and before the tumultuous applause, a waiata was sung and harmonised upon.

This is itself probably needs explaining. Waiata are traditionally sung (among other occasions) in support of a speech. As a non-Māori New Zealander I've most often witnessed/participated when this has happened during a traditional welcoming ceremony or opening ceremony; but also after some keynotes at New Zealand library conferences; or in support of family/friends at graduation. So for this to happen was very appropriate.

But the particular waiata chosen is what really needs translation. It was Pokarekare Ana which is a song extremely widely known in New Zealand, you may well even have heard it overseas, so it might just seem a bit twee if you don't know anything about it. And it's about a famous heterosexual love story, so if you know a little bit about it you might think that in this context, um, what?

But the reason this song was perfect for the occasion was because earlier in the evening, speaking in support of the bill, Te Ururoa Flavell referred to another part of this story of Hinemoa and Tutanekai - to the part where after Tutanekai married Hinemoa, his hoa takatāpui Tiki grieved for losing him. Te Ururoa pointed out that people complaining about this bill seeking to "redefine marriage" need to be aware that, in New Zealand, marriage was redefined way back in the 19th century by colonialism.

A lot of people, throughout the evening, pointed out that there's still a lot of work to do for justice and equality. But this was a great step, in so many ways.

[For reference, words I had to redact from this post given I'm attempting to translate here: Pākehā; kōrero; pōwhiri; marae; tautoko; Aotearoa; ahakoa he iti he pounamu.]
zeborah: Zebra against a barcode background, walking on the word READ (read)
Huia Publishers are having a warehouse-clearing sale at the moment. Including a pile of NZ$1 books. (For comparison, the library's weeding sale of last weekend charges $3 for most books.) Postage is additional, but when I bought 7 books the domestic postage got calculated at $8.50.

So I got:
  • a YA fantasy by a Māori author I've been meaning to get hold of;
  • two scifi books by a Samoan/Celtic/Anglosaxon New Zealander someone recommended when I was hunting for Māori sf;
  • a kid's/YA fantasy by a Fijian/Tongan New Zealander that I hadn't heard of;
  • two books on indigenous sexuality/erotica;
  • one book as a gift.
From the library's weeding sale last week I also got four books, including the other YA fantasy by a Māori author I'd been meaning to get hold of.

I've been working on a bibliography. It's... quite small at the moment. I know of one other short story but can't find the title; an email to the publisher got no response so I'll have to track down the editor or the author or maybe by the time I fail at all those the library will have the anthology. I need to work my way through a pile of other anthologies and ultimately literary journals, though that will be dull and increasingly needle-in-a-haystack work.

I've been thinking of working it up to a proper paper for a proper journal. If I called it "Māori and Pacific Islanders in Speculative Fiction" then I could have a section on sf by Pākehā (maybe mention the ambiguous Lord and Lady Taiepa of Vogel's AD2000 and the "Uh uh, I'm totally not talking about New Zealand so this is totally not a Māori" native guide of Erewhon) and some of the Issues with Pākehā dominating sf about Māori etc(1), and moreover I could include Chris Baker and Tulia Thompson.

(1) It seems to me that there are also Issues with a Pākehā writing a bibliography of Māori sf. (For one, a bibliographer has to somehow draw a line between fantasy, magical realism, and non-fantasy with elements of spirituality.) But it also seems to me that it could be a useful thing to exist. So... as always, research and thought required.
zeborah: Map of New Zealand with a zebra salient (NZ)
I'm planning to read all the science fiction ever published by Māori authors. So far I've read half of it(*)! Herein follows a review of quarter of it.

Peter Tashkoff is Ngāti Porou; his novel Arapeta (on Amazon - and it's print-on-demand so it's *always* going to be 'only one left' - or for the Kindle) takes us a couple thousand years into the future, when humanity is scattered among the stars and Earth is half myth. Arapeta is the second son of the chief of the backwater planet Aotea, where the people live according to traditional ways of farming, fishing, fighting, and living. Only problem is that his family has a secret vein of pounamu (NZ-English: greenstone; overseas-English: jade) which is this universe's dilithium crystals, needed to power pretty much everything - and the secret leaks out to the broader universe. Colonialism ensues.

I found the book hard to get into to start with because of the prose. Particularly noticeable was the way every time a Māori word or phrase was introduced, it was immediately followed by the English translation, without regard to how clunky this ended up being. I'm more used to "incluing" techniques where you carefully place the unfamiliar word in a context that lets the reader figure it out for themself. I can see though why the author used this technique: there's a lot of vocabulary to introduce, and us Pākehā aren't famous for working hard at learning the Māori language....

But after I picked the book up again, I really got into it. It's set mostly in a completely Māori-centric world, plus space travel, nanites for medical care and body modification, genetic engineered soldiers, forcefields, hovercraft, and planet-destroying bombs. Through the main characters we get to care about this world, and through other characters we get a sense of the wider universe.

Spoilery discussion of something cool about the structure/unfolding of the plot; and then more spoilery discussion which I sum up as: Not very feminist, absolutely heteronormative. )

A couple random sentences I liked:
  • When you looked past the surprise attack and porridgey accent, this guy was quite a hoot.
  • Seven and a half minutes away, if you were a sunbeam, and happened to be lost at an awkward tangent off the horizontal plane of the planetary system [...]
Summary: The prose wasn't great and the book could have done with a copy-edit. The plot was mostly battles, preparation for battles, diplomacy to delay battles, and retreat from battles, with some romance as light relief and ultimate reward. But I really appreciated the way the plot unfolded, adding complications to the situation; it was a fun read, which I think just got better as it went along.

(*) Sample includes novels only, and only those turned up by the combined research of me and another librarian. The other titles are:
  • Skydancer by Witi Ihimaera (read; I'll try to read it again and review it as time allows)
  • Inna Furey by Isabel Waiti-Mulholland
  • Ripples on the Lake by Dawn Rotarangi
If anyone knows of more, I'd be over the moon!

The nice librarian also pointed me to:
zeborah: Map of New Zealand with a zebra salient (Default)
Yesterday the library I work in had a ceremony to welcome back and bless a carving of Ruaumoko, the Māori god of earthquakes and volcanoes. He was stolen last year while visiting an earthquake conference overseas; though in monetary terms the carving isn't worth much, we felt the loss a great deal. He was never recovered but a replica was commissioned, and yesterday -- the bits of the blessing I understood asked his spirit to come back and to remain. And it is *so good* to see him back in the library.

Sweden has a town called Båstad. Unfortuantely even if I could manage to get my king there, in the 16th century it was spelled Botstœdœ or Botsted or something.

Some nice person has replaced the 19th century "fantasy portraits" of Sten Sture Jr. and Kristina Gyllenstierne's Wikipedia entries with actual contemporary images of them from some altar. Of course in the 16th century *every* knight was depicted on altars and gravestones as being perpetually in armour, and a quick skim of my images folder confirms that plump faces for ladies and gentlemen alike were also fashionable. But that plain brown barrett is way better than the gravestone image I have for Mogens Gøye with his visor entirely covering his face.

Via [livejournal.com profile] shweta_narayan, a fun video of Revathy Sankaran singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in a whole bunch of different musical styles from India.
zeborah: Map of New Zealand with a zebra salient (Default)
A friend called me up today to ask if I wanted to go to Mozart with her and her folks and boyfriend, which I did. So at the appropriate hour, I took my laptop, caught the bus, sorted through notes for editing a Wikipedia page I'm working on, and arrived in town.

fastfood; random Maori legend; musings on personal decisions about personal safety; and Mozart )

zeborah: Map of New Zealand with a zebra salient (Default)

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 70-412 Exam Questions - IBM Certified Advanced System Administrator - Notes and Domino 9.0 Certification with 70-412 Answers

  Printable PDF

70-412 Questions & Answers

Vendor: Microsoft

Certifications: MCSE

Exam Name: Configuring Advanced Windows Server 2012 Services

Exam Code: 70-412

Total Questions: 424 Q&As

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At Examtrue, we provide thoroughly reviewed Microsoft MCSE 70-412 training resources which are the best for clearing 70-412 test, and to get certified by Microsoft MCSE. It is a best choice to accelerate your career as a professional in the Information Technology industry. We are proud of our reputation of helping people clear the 70-412 test in their very first attempts. Our success rates in the past two years have been absolutely impressive, thanks to our happy customers who are now able to propel their careers in the fast lane. Examtrue is the number one choice among IT professionals, especially the ones who are looking to climb up the hierarchy levels faster in their respective organizations. Microsoft MCSE is the industry leader in information technology, and getting certified by them is a guaranteed way to succeed with IT careers. We help you do exactly that with our high quality Microsoft MCSE 70-412 training materials.

Microsoft MCSE is omnipresent all around the world, and the business and software solutions provided by them are being embraced by almost all the companies. They have helped in driving thousands of companies on the sure-shot path of success. Comprehensive knowledge of Microsoft MCSE products is considered a very important qualification, and the professionals certified by them are highly valued in all organizations.

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Zyra's Home Page //// Fashion //// Shopping Catalogues //// Freemans //// Site IndexOli

Get yourself something new from Oli! Not Oliver Hardy, Oli the fashion catalogue, part of a selection of catalogues available at Zyra.

"Oli.co.uk has become a clear fashion favourite amongst the press, celebrated for it's democratic mix of exclusive Oli Fusion designer collections and fabulous own sub-brands. We scooped 'Best Newcomer' at the coveted Cosmopolitan Online Awards, and also polled 3rd in the Sunday Mirror's High Street Fashion Awards for 'Best Website!'

Oli aims to provide a selection of the latest fashions as part of an enjoyable shopping experience. The products on our website are updated every week with 'New In' lines.

Our customers have busy lifestyles and have a wide choice of clothing retailers open to them, which is why we are continuously working to offer our customers the best quality products and services we can.

Oli primarily focuses on female customers. The fashion conscious lady, who wants something that little bit different. Those who enjoy flexible finance terms without requiring a credit card".

If you have been tempted by this, here's the link:

http://www.oli.co.uk/ affiliate program is with Affiliate Window

This is another fine mess they've got themselves into, losing their affiliate program and letting other Shopping Catalogues take the limelight. Shame, but this page has had to be bunged up. Let's hope Oli return some time soon and have a new affiliate program. They'll be welcomed back here! In the meantime see other Shopping Catalogues

We were unable to connect you to the requested page. Please choose an alternative destination from the following list:

Shopping Catalogues

Meanwhile, the Oli.co.uk website redirects to Freemans Shopping Catalogue


text:
ZurichZyra's front page //// Finance //// Insurance //// Car Insurance //// Home Insurance //// Site Index

Zurich Insurance PLC
Without Prejudice, Zurich Insurance PLC featured at Zyra's independent affiliate website

We've always got on well with Zurich Insurance in the past, from when they were Zurich Insurance Company to when they were Zurich Insurance PLC, and when they were at TradeDoubler, and at OMG, and then later at the early Buy.at , in fact there's been a link of some sort to Zurich Insurance in one form or another from the list of Insurance Companies for many years.

This page, www.zyra.org.uk/zurich.htm has typically held a shpiel by Zurich, with a few comments added, often to the benefit of Zurich Insurance, and it's been generally good for business!

Now in early 2009, the insurance company became Zurich Insurance PLC, but this wasn't clearly communicated by Buy.at and the message looked very much like yet another of those messages about the fad of ridiculous PPC which was still popular at the time. (You'll see no silly PPC here!), so the messages were ignored along with a lot of other stuff which was being bandied-about.

The fact is, there is a company whose name is Zurich, named after a famous location in Switzerland, and it's an insurance company, so it's often referred to as Zurich Insurance.

I've been impressed by some of the things which Zurich will insure, for example your fishtank being insured against bursting due to being frozen, and if you got married, Zurich would insure your wedding presents, and they'd even insure any expenses in the unlikely event that the ceremony had to be called off. Plus, Zurich even insured the flower pots in your garden, which makes sense because your home includes your garden.

It would be nice to get Zurich Insurance PLC back on this page and to have some official text material to quote from the actual company so we can tell you what sort of insurance you can get from Zurich. However, at the time of writing there was a snag, as the company had (so I have heard) signed up to an affiliate program exclusive agreement at Buy.at . This illustrates in a practical way the mistake with having any type of exclusive affiliate program agreement, and it might be considered that as an insurance company, those clever people at Zurich would have made a better job of such risk assessment! The risk of having an exclusive agreement is that your company can become trapped in a relationship which is bad for business. This can happen if the company gets taken over or upsets affiliates or in various other ways ceases to be the best option. If you've signed exclusivity, you're stuck!

On a happier note, we look forward to Zurich Insurance PLC regaining their freedom, and at some point having an affiliate program that we're all happy with. Then, the material on this page will be replaced by something which will inform potential customers about the beneficial nature of Zurich's insurance policies, and why they might be tempted to follow a helpful affiliate link to the actual site to see about signing up to an insurance policy, whether it be car insurance, home insurance, or some other kind of insurance which helps to give peace of mind on account of the insurance company taking on the risks rather than the customer having to worry about risks themselves.

As a gesture of good will and for public information, I can tell you that the website of Zurich Insurance PLC is: www.zurichinsurance.co.uk. You are welcome to type this website address in, or you can look at other insurance companies at this site. At the time of writing, 2009/03/01, Zurich Insurance PLC had an affiliate program at Buy.at, and at the time it was their only affiliate program, and at the time there was still a problem with the Buy.at contract such that I was not signing it. The reason is quite simple: I did not agree to the contract, and I only sign things I agree to! Of course,Zurich it was hoped Buy.at would review and reconsider their contract, especially as I took the time and trouble to write a detailed critique of the contract, including comment upon a variety of clauses which I considered were unfair, too sweeping, inappropriate, or inadvisable. I also commented on clauses I considered were ungrammatical or which had connections to broken links (which at Buy.at at the time just redirected to their front page). Anyone can make mistakes, but the wise person (or company) fixes their mistakes, and where a lot of money is involved, they fix their mistakes in a timely fashion!

Please note that I am on polite speaking terms with the people at Zurich and at Buy.at , as well as a great many other companies whose future profitability is connected with this whole issue. I would consider it favourable if a good diplomatic resolution be found which everyone is happy with. Until then, we wait and see.

At the time of writing, the old affiliate link went to a rather embarrassing page (here, look, I'll show you its likeness here), to which I have appended some comments. However, I suggest instead, you either A. Type in www.zurichinsurance.co.uk and visit Zurich Insurance PLC for yourself, or B. You have a look at other insurance companies. Also see Zurich Business Insurance, although at the time of writing, that's also a page that's been bunged up. (Pages are bunged up here for a variety of reasons,ZurichZurich most often because the marketing company ran out of allocated budget, which is rather silly, isn't it?).

Here's hoping for an arrangement in future which is good for business all round!

www.zurichinsurance.co.uk affiliate program is (or was) with BUY AT

The logos on this page are of course trademark Zurich Insurance PLC, and these will be removed within a month or so if the company were to request it.

You are reading this page at Zyra's Website www.zyra.org.uk , and this is NOT an official site of Zurich Insurance PLC, obviously. The commentary on this page is by Zyra, and in the same sort of way a movie reviewer might write about what's on at the cinema, it doesn't mean it's endorsed by MGM, FOX, New Line, Paramount, or any other movie company, and even though the company had a huge budget for the flick in question, a movie reviewer may pass comment on it. Such is the nature of freedom of speech. Also see Distinction between the Merchant Content and Affiliate Content (which makes interesting reading).

If Zurich Insurance PLC decide to have a new affiliate program, we'll be happy to promote them! Provided the terms and conditions are fair, we're keen to sign up to the affiliate program and promote the company!

Zyra's website has affiliate links to several thousand different companies. You can see a few of the famous ones at the Shopping Portal and the Famous Brands. Customers like it, as it's refreshing to see someone say both good and bad about places and say what they actually think, rather than just repeat the party-line. Plus, remember, The FSA are happy about it!


text:
The Office Space Search Engine

Search 1000s of commercial spaces by size, location, and price.

3626 E State St

Rockford, IL
Year Constructed
Year Renovated
Building Class

About 3626 E State St

Retail space built out for medical clinic. Ideal for many types of medical service providers. Located at Fairview Shopping Center, corner of E. State St. and Fairview Blvd. Easy access, with plenty of parking. Excellent condition, ready to occupy. Lease is modified gross. - Parking description: Over 200 parking spaces. - Building condition: Good - Tenancy: Multiple Tenants

Internet Providers for 3626 E State St

Provider Technology Max Download Speed Max Upload Speed
Comcast Cable
1 Gb/s
1 Gb/s
AT&T Illinois DSL
3 Mb/s
768 kbps

The City: Rockford

Median Rate Median Size
Rockford $16

Median Rate over Time in Rockford


text:
Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Obama "warning" the Supreme Court?

"US President Barack Obama on Monday challenged the "unelected" Supreme Court not to take the "extraordinary" and "unprecedented" step of overturning his landmark health reform law."

Isn't that at the very least an attempt to interfere with the administration of justice?  Or coming close to  'justice tampering' - or something like that?  Doesn't it sound like intimidation when he reminds them that they are unelected?  Isn't it strange how a patron of 'activist judges' now complains and warns against the court not to adopt an activist approach?  What about 'separation of powers'?

I think Obama is over-reaching.

Watch out America.

  1. Love the sign "Somebody please put the Constitution on is teleprompter", lol! We don't worry about that old thing anymore hon!!

  2. I wonder if he feels the same way about Roe vs. Wade?

  3. Touche, Mercury.

  4. I think that Maria is right about no longer having to worry about the Constitution; that "old thing" was given a serious broadside by the misnomered Patriot Act.

    To be fair to Obama, though, the comments quoted were placed against what he rightly called a "well established precendent". Still, I think he should have kept quiet because he's been seen to interfere when he definitely shouldn't. It promises to be an interesting battle as November approaches, especially as I think some fundamentalist Christians will stay home rather than vote for a Mormon (yep, MR will win the nomination).

    Mercury, shamefully, even after 20 years of Republican presidencies (RR + 2 Bushes) the Court remains pro-choice. I long ago gave up believing that Republican presidential candidates will do anything to change this sad situation.

  5. Chris - but look at the judges that are on the court because of Reagan and Bush: Alito, Thomas, Scalia, Roberts, well, and the iffy Kennedy (Reagan).

    But Kagan and Sotomayor are Obama and Ginsberg and Breyer are Clinton.

    All it will take is one more originalist who clearly sees that Roe v. Wade cannot possibly be culled from the text of the Constitution.

    And there's this: IF Obama gets a second term and is able to put new judges on the court, we WILL be facing the forced legalization of gay marriage in ALL 50 states.

Please comment with charity and avoid ad hominem attacks. I exercise the right to delete comments I find inappropriate. If you use your real name there is a better chance your comment will stay put.


text:
Biswajit Mishra

Product Manager in Bangalore, Karnataka, India

Hi, I'm Biswajit Mishra!!!
A hard core Product enthusiastic , currently working for Amazon India Seller Experience (business) team managing product road map and delivery of various seller centric features through superior product innovation integrating processes and technology to create flywheel effects on the marketplace business.

Graduated with Post Graduate Program in Management (PGPM) from Great Lakes Institute of Management with Operations and Marketing Management as specialization.

I'm a unique and well-rounded experienced character that specialized in a diversified set of fields ...starting from E-Commerce , High scale Product and Program Management, ERP/CRM strategist and Business Intelligence architect in various e-tailing as well as global IT organizations.

Please be free to keep in touch using any of the links below.

  • Work
  • Education
    • Great Lakes Institute of Management
    • Orissa Engineering College


text:
Good, but could use some work Rated 4 out of 5 stars

It's wonderful to have a functioning AdSense checker, and it's a pretty simplistic and clean design at that. I would, however, like to mention that the program ignores the last cent column because of a flawed RegExp. The correct pattern should be \d+.{1}\d\d on line 192.

This review is for a previous version of the add-on (0.3.1-signed.1-signed).


text:
Apply Today for 2017 Enrollment!

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Prefer to use the Common Application? TCU is a member!

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ApplyTexas Applicants, please refer to our application checklist for the required essay and evaluations. You may choose an essay topic from TCU’s options, or one of the ApplyTexas options. The TCU application requires only one essay.

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Prefer to print your application? Download the PDF version for incoming freshmen, international students, or transfer students. (To view these documents, you need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software installed on your computer. You can download it here.)

To download only the Counselor Evaluation form, click here.

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To download only the Essay Topics, click here. Choose one from any of the prompts provided by the TCU application, the Common Application, or ApplyTexas. Only one essay submission is required.

To download the Early Decision Form, click here.

To request an application by mail, write to TCU Office of Admission, TCU Box 297013, Fort Worth, Texas 76129, or call 817.257.7490 or 800.828.3764, or email

Nursing Clinical Transfer Studentsclick here for your application. Not sure if you are ready for Clinicals? Go to and find out.

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After you have applied to TCU, you can submit your application fee online using a checking account or major credit card. Simply click here and enter your date of birth, U.S. residency status and either your TCU ID or full name, then follow the instructions to submit your payment.


text:
Isle of Man TT Race Images

I spent a great 4 days at the Isle of Man TT as a guest of Honda Racing. Here is a link to the photos. It was surprisingly difficult to achieve sharp images as the bikes are travelling very fast and close to you, within a few meters. Fast shutter speeds are required with small apertures, as so little of the bike would be in focus otherwise. This lead inevitably to high ISO’s (up to 3200) in the sections under the trees, such as at Ramsey.

IOM TT-0151

IOM TT-0933-Edit

Zeiss 500mm f8 Mirotar with Focus Confirm Adapter

Testing the Zeiss Mirotar with focus confirm adapter on a Canon 5d mk3

I recently acquired a “focus confirm” adapter for my Zeiss Mirotar 500mm which comfortably won my previous test on mirror lenses.

Read the review here

Read the review here

Zeiss 500mm F8 Mirotar with Focus Confirm adapter on Canon 5d mk3

Tests with “Focus Confirm Adapter” on the Zeiss Mirotar 500mm f8.

Mirror lens testing on DSLR – article

Focus Confirm Adapter

Noise Reduction Testing – Neat Image and iPhone

In the early days of digital photography I used Neat Image to reduce noise in my images. Early cameras suffered from noise even at low ISO, despite their low pixel counts, and enlarging for print made the problem even more visible.

Recent full frame DSLR’s have significantly improved however so I rarely need to use a specialist noise reduction (NR) program, instead a small adjustment of the NR  sliders in Lightroom is usually sufficient, and while this may reduce sharpness, with 21 MP to start with, it is unlikely to be noticed in print and certainly wont be on screen.

However, I have started shooting more recently with the iPhone (4.54×3.42 mm), the Sony RX100 (1″ Sensor 13.2 x 8.8mm) and a newly acquired – from ebay Sony R1 (APS-C Sensor 21.50×14.40 mm).

The tiny iPhone 4s sensor suffers from a high level of noise and artifacts even at low ISO. The Sony RX100 is surprisingly good – better in fact that the bigger sensor in the “vintage” Sony R1 – which I am finding is surprisingly noisy for a relatively large sensor at 400ISO upwards.

Neat Image works by taking a sample of noise, either from the picture itself, if it can find a large enough – uniform area, or it can use a previously saved noise profile with ideally the same settings for ISO and shutter speed. There is a little skill involved in this as it is possible to do a better job at finding the uniform area than Neat Image can automatically! It is also possible to display a test target on your screen – or print one, and take pictures of it with a range of settings, that can then be processed as a batch by Neat Image to create profiles to be used in future. This works really well when you can alter the settings – but not so well on the iPhone.

The only way to get profiles for the iPhone then is to take lots of pictures in different lighting conditions, and thus different ISOs and shutter speeds and manually “auto profile” each image then, if the score is high enough (over 90% save the profile for future use. Another useful tip is to shoot something uniform whenever you take pictures, under the same lighting as this could give you a useful profile for the images taken on that occasion, and be useful for future use. I should say at this point that I use the “645Pro” Camera app on the iphone which gives me a TIFF output before compression, rather than JPEG.

Several people have uploaded their sample profiles and these can be accessed here

And the iPhone…

Shooting a Calibration Target

Note that it is meant to be blurred! Set your AF to manual and focus on infinity.

Setting up batch Processing

Menu for Neat Batch

Batch Processing

Optimising performance.

Neat Image can carry out a test on your hardware to determine whether it is better to use teh graphics card processor, or the CPU of the computer or a combination of both. Very clever!

Neat Image Performance Optimisation

Neat Image Website
Neat Image Profiles

645Pro for iPhone

How to import raw files from a recently released camera into an old version of Photoshop.

If you have recently purchased a new camera, and want to work with RAW images but are still running an old version of Photoshop there is a work around.

You’re maybe in this situation if you have an old PC running Windows XP as LR4 and Photoshop CS6 require Windows 7. Or if you just don’t want the expense of updating LR or Photoshop.

The process is straightforward. First you convert all the RAW files into “Digital Negative” format, this is an open, non proprietary RAW format – your camera makers format is specific and bespoke. I convert all my images to DNG anyway, and there are some advantages such as slightly smaller (10%) files size.

This conversion is lossless, and the files can then be imported into older versions of Photoshop and Lightroom.

Find the software here.

The important thing to remember is that there are different versions of Adobe Camera RAW – more capability is added as camera manufacturers introduce new features – so you must choose the correct version to save to depending on the Adobe Photoshop version you have, but you must use the LATEST version of DNG converter if you have a new camera.

For example if you have CS3 then choose DNG v4.6 see picture.

So you are converting from a current version of ACR to an older one effectively. Leave the other options as I’ve got them.

Once the conversion has taken place, simply import into Lightroom or Photoshop as normal.

Most recent cameras that the latest version of DNG converter will convert for includes:
Canon EOS 1D X
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Canon EOS 60Da
Canon PowerShot G1 X
Canon PowerShot S100V
Fuji X-Pro1
Nikon D4
Nikon D3200
Nikon D800
Nikon D800E
Olympus OM-D E-M5

RPS All About Imaging Day

A symposium organised by the School of Media, Arts and Design of the University of Westminster and the Imaging Science group of the RPS.

I attened this event in Harrow today, very interesting exploring some of the more technical aspects of digital imaging.

Highlights for me were.

1. Reproduction of texture in artworks. Carinna Parraman from the University of Bristol discussed obtained texture in printed images like brush strokes of a Van Gough painting, a halfway house between 2D and 3D printing.

2. Using photographs (and maths) to visualise the damage on a ceiling at Hampton Court. Lindsay MacDonald. Using a Nikon D200 (hardly state of the art) to photograph the ceiling in very small precise areas, with flash in different angles producing multiple images, including HDR to further analyse to highlight cracks, flaking paint and previous restoration efforts.

3. Video evidence for legal use from CCTV images by Ken MacLennon Brown
This covered the difficulties of getting high quality images from CCTV cameras, good enough to stand up as evidence in court, given the wildly differing lighting quality, bandwidth requirements at different times of day – affecting compression eg. packed station concourse vs empty and quality of installed cameras and locations.

It was an excellent day, I am looking forward to the next one!


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Swedish Dessert – Semmeltårta (Roll Cake)

This is the English translation of the recipe from here. There are more pictures showing the process there. I’m posting it here, mainly for myself, for posterity. Looks delicious!

25 g (~1 ½ T) yeast
1 ¼ cups milk , lukewarm
1 egg
½ cup granulated sugar
1 pinch of salt
½ tsp cardamom seeds, ground
50 g (~3 T) butter , unsalted
4-5 cups flour

1 egg

about 150 g (2/3 C) almond paste
2-3 tablespoons milk
4/5 cup (1/3 + a scant 1/2 C) heavy cream

icing sugar

1. Crumble the yeast into a bowl. Add milk and stir until the yeast is dissolved. Add eggs , granulated sugar, salt, cardamom, butter and flour, a little at a time. Mix everything together into a smooth dough and knead vigorously for a few minutes. Let the dough rise under a cloth for 50-60 minutes.

2. Lubricate the edge of a springform, about 24 cm (9″) in diameter. Clip on a parchment paper in the bottom and cut away the edges that stand out. Snap up the form again.

3. Knead the dough and shape it into a ball. Press the ball onto the paper-covered bottom. Cut dough into 8 or 12 wedges, depending on how big buns you want. Let the dough rise under a cloth for about 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 450*F.

4. Brush the dough with beaten egg . Bake in the center of the oven for 20-25 minutes. Let it cool completely in the pan.

5. Cut apart the semla in the joints and cut a lid on each piece. Scoop out a hollow in the lower part of each piece .

6. Mix together the almond and milk into a sticky mass and add a dollop into each hole.

7. Whip the cream and spread it across the bottom. Place the lids. Dust with icing sugar before serving.


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A Green Cocktail

Do you need more veggies in your day?

(I know, sigh….you thought this was literally gonna be a “cocktail.”)

Anyway, Likely the answer is yes, and the recommendation to consume > 6 servings/day sounds inconceivable (big word alert). Or veggies make you gag (the horror!).

Fear not! I’m going to claim that this drink is not “gag-worthy”  and you do not taste the spinach. (quote me on that one).

Oh, and p.s. My Whopper of a Salad (super easy) likely has 3 servings of veggies oozing out of it, if not more.

So, 1 green cocktail + 1 Whopper salad= 6 serv. (see how painless that was?)

I’ve been making the green monsters forever and the convenience of them is really the reason why, not to mention the “hulk-like” feeling you have after sippin on one.

Spinach is quite the handsome green. It serves well as a garnish or liner for other things to topple on (i.e. my farro with roasted butternut squash salad).

  • Other fun facts:
  • It’s part of the Goosefoot Family? ( I kid you not, it’s a family of plants coming from the greek work goose (khen) and foot (podium) because the triangular shape of the leaf looks like the webbed foot of a goose.
  • Medicinal benefits: it moistens, quenches the thirst, and supports vision. (Source:The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia).
  • Buying: If it’s soggy, wilted, not very green, or yellowish-don’t buy it. BUY ORGANIC is the way to go folks, spinach has been coined one of the most pesticide residue containing veggies. Check out the BEST source for Organics.

Green Cocktail (no booze)
Serves: 1
  • Blender (If you’re fancy and have a Vitamix, which is by far the BEST blender out there for pulverizing veggies, lucky you).
  • 2 huge handfuls of spinach (get greedy with it-as you should with all veggies)
  • 4-8 oz of water (or other beverage, I use half soy or almond milk sometimes)
  • 1 frozen banana
  • 1 package of protein powder (My fav lately is the Tera’s Whey-bourbon vanilla, also loving the RAW rice based protein powder which is vegan, gluten free, etc.)
  • 1-2 tablespoons plain greek yogurt
  • 4 ice cubes
  • (Okay, do I dare say add 1/4 cup pumpkin puree and some pumpkin pie spice?)
  • I suggest you blend the spinach and water (or liquid) first, cause frankly, the spinach is stubborn and takes sticking a fork in the blender (not while it’s running of course) and moving it around a bit. This might take 3 or 4 fork pokes.

See the stubborn piece of spinach?

  • Once it turns to liquid green-ness, add all other ingredients and whirl it up until all ingredients liquify.

  • Pour over a couple of ice cubes and serve!

(NOTE: this recipe is more of a beverage then a smoothie.)
If you want it to be on the thicker side:
  1. you might try adding more ice cubes.
  2.  Adding more frozen fruit (berries are always a nice addition).
If you want it to be creamier:
  1. Add more yogurt
If you don’t want to add the protein powder:
  1. Don’t? (Kidding). But seriously, you’ll have to add less water, and a little more yogurt and ice cubes so you can thicken it at all.
You might also Salivate Over:
Eggs Florentine (more spinach)
Whopper of a Salad (in case you missed that)

Now, what will you do with this information?

Do you have tricks up your sleeve for adding more vegetables through the day?

And, Have you a favorite GREEN recipe?

I”ll have what she’s having…

A little cup of joe before I blog! Mmm.

One WHOLE day of EATING,

(just kidding, although a nap sounds nice).

What can I say I was in a sharing mood, maybe it was the fact that:

  • We had sunshine in NY two whole days this week (you know I tried on my entire spring wardrobe thinking I could get away with a sundress->scary pale!).
  • Or perhaps it’s because my body was loaded up with Vitamin D and “good mood” was oozing out of me.
  • Or it was the result of multiple chats this week (I”ll chat with anyone about food) especially on twitter & facebook

With each word coming out of my mouth and always forgetting to document all my ideas -> I’d forget to blog-> then one big blog post (like this one) appears.

Isn’t this why I’m a blogger?

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to shift gears and introduce you to what a typical (I use that term loosely) day of FOOD looks like (no midnight snacking here, but sometimes one gets peckish). Mind you this is just one day and I don’t eat the same foods daily (as you shouldn’t-CLICK HERE if you NEED HELP).

SO, “What do I EAT all day long?”

In general there are no counting of things like calories, but YOU should pay attention to what’s going in your pie hole, so eating snickers bars and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is NOT GOOD (stating the obvious, but perhaps you need a clearer understanding-> (CLICK HERE-a calorie is a calorie was a good read).

Let’s start with my favorite meal of the day….BREAKFAST!

Which by the way breakfast for dinner Wednesdays was the best! (Thanks Mom).

8:00 am ish?

(yeah I did-and your sooo welcome!)

  • 1/2 cup uncooked whole oats (I actually used Coach’s Oats-they were kind enough to send me some samples, it’s a quick cooking oatmeal that’s a hybrid of whole oats and steel cut oats, love em, not sold in stores yet, but CHECK THEM OUT).
  • 3/4 cup vanilla, unsweetened almond milk (or alternative)
  • 1 tsp or so molasses (yup, natural sweetener and for those who dodge the meat molasses is a great source or Iron)
  • 1/2 banana-mashed up (make a mess, I just squished it up with my hands)
  • 1-2 teaspoons, unsweetened coconut flakes (eh, why measure)
  • 1 teaspoon coconut extract (whole foods stores usually sell the natural stuff).
  • 1 tablespoon chia seeds
  • 4 walnut halves or so…
  • cinnamon, to taste (load it up-its good for you-just don’t spill it!)

Mix it all up in a big mug or bowl (accept the coconut flakes), microwave for 3-4 minutes (watch out, do not blow it up). Top with coconut flakes and ENJOY!

Portabello cap Sammy!

12:00 pm

(Totally came up with this out of the blue)

  • 2 hard-boiled eggs
  • 2 tablespoons avocado (maybe a lil more)
  • 2 teaspoons honey dijon mustard (or more, personal taste)
  • fresh ground pepper (to taste)
  • 2-3 teaspoons rice vinegar
  • spinach or other greens (small amount)
  • balsamic vinegar (just enough to dip in)
  • olive oil for drizzling/taste
  • any other veggies you want to include? What’s in that fridge?

I hard-boil eggs on Sunday nights for the week, it makes my life a lot easier so I can grab them on the run or make them into a sandwich.

Eggs in white water rapids...just a fun shot of "Humpty."

  • Mash or slice eggs (love my egg slicer, I knew there was a reason I registered for that) and mush around with the avocado, add mustard, rice vinegar, pepper and any other  spices you like (I love turmeric (CLICK for another recipe), cayenne pepper and a little sriracha (CLICK for another recipe). Apparently I like to sweat when I eat.
  • Set aside.
  • Heat a nonstick fry pan on medium heat. Add a lil bit of olive oil.
  • Meanwhile cut the nubs off the portabello caps and allow them to take a dip in some balsamic vinegar (yes, this is kind of messy). Place both caps in the heated pan (I did not measure too well, one of the caps was trying to jump out).  Cook about 4 minutes on each side. (Alternatively, use a George Foreman Grill for those cool grill marks).

A shroom takes a dip in some vinegar

  • Remove from pan and place on a plate.
  • Top one cap with greens (Oh, wish I had arugula), delicately place the avocado egg mash on top, then drizzle sriracha (I cannot believe I forgot it), or a some spices of your choice, then smush the second mushroom cap on top->There you have it.
  • I served it up alongside some super sweet organic cherry tomatoes, which need no dressing. Just a sweet little veggie that bursts in your mouth.

NOTE: The balsamic vinegar ended up being a bit messy and got all over my hands when trying to eat it as a sandwich, I ended up using a fork and knife. You can dodge the vinegar all together and just heat the caps in olive oil if you like.

2:30 pm

BANILLA PROTEIN SHAKE! (no pic cause I drank it so fast, but I”ll add one later!)

Mmmmm…favorite time of the day

  • 2 scoops Bourbon Vanilla (Teras Whey protein powder)
  • 4 ice cubes (more or less pending on your desired texture)
  • 4 ounces unsweetened, vanilla almond milk
  • 1/2 banana
  • 1 teaspoon coconut extract (optional and oh yes, there was an obvious theme today-someone likes coconut)
  • 1 Tablespoon chia seeds or flaxseed (ground in coffee grinder-optional)

Place all ingredients in a blender. Whip it up and sip the good stuff! This is a favorite of mine right after a workout!

4:00 pm

45-60 minutes moderate to high intensity cardio!

What does MODERATE to HIGH intensity mean? READ HERE.

Perhaps I had a scoop(s) of this…

Just a lil bit...I think Im in the spoon reflection...amateur move! Oh well.

I have no idea how it made its way into this blog post, but I am a REAL person ya know! Dietitian or not, once and awhile a girl needs a lil NUTELLA! Although I heard about this RAWTELLA i’d like to try from Andrea @I’mwaytoobusy.

7:00 pm

Guess what? This post became rediculously LONNNGGG and I decided you’ll just have to COME BACK for the recipe at another time.

By the way, in case you missed my guest post on Eating Made Easy, I made some rockin baked banana chips!

Sweet and Crunchy (or chewy)

In your OPINION, what is the most challenging MEAL, TIME, or general HEALTHY LIVING CHALLENGE?

Do you have A QUICK GO TO MEAL or SNACK?


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Arugula Pesto + Brussel Sprout Shreds

It’s like this, you’re either going to reckon this is the oddest food combo and not sure what to think about it (well a twinkie stuffed with meat would be pretty odd)

you’re going to love it and go buy some brussels immediately (brussel haters might even try it!)

(I love how spellcheck doesn’t know what to do with the word twinkie. I think it’s cause it’s an unidentified object). Just sayin.

Anyhoo, I love me some brussel sprout heads and they’re the underdog during this time of the year, I mean you never hear somebody saying (unless you’re me of course) I can’t wait to shovel those brussel sprouts into my mouth. People don’t usually overeat them either. Well,  I’ve overeaten these little bad boys of health. Not pretty. Soooo, don’t do that.

I’ve always wanted to mess around with the sprouts beyond the usual roasting (p.s. roasting is good too, check out this post for a few options). Why not make a happy combo with my two favorite greens? I have been pondering (favorite big word) the thought of shredding the sprouts forever but wasn’t quite sure what to do with them from there.

So, enter a pile of goodness where veggies are the rockstars and the soba noodles are just the backup singers. (Never had Soba? The Kitchn did a good job describing the difference between the Japanese noodles).

p.s. This recipe is so meant to be played with (like play-dough or silly puddy).

Arugula Pesto & Brussel Sprout Shreds

Serves: (depends on how many soba noodles you make-safely serves 2).

Time: 30 minutes

Equipment: Food processsor

  • 6 or more garlic cloves (heck, the more the merrier)
  • 1/2 cup walnuts
  • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • salt
  • 2 cups arugula
  • 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
  • 1 bundle (1 oz.) uncooked soba noodles

For the sprouts:

  • 6 oz bag of whole, uncooked sprouts
  • olive oil (to taste)
  • pepper (optional)

  • Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
  • Shred brussel sprouts in food processor. Set aside.

    Love me some shreds!

  1. Place whole garlic cloves (unpeeled) on a cookie sheet and roast for 10 minutes. At the same time place 1/2 cup of walnuts on another cookie sheet and roast for 6-7 minutes (nuts are not to be neglected, watch em so they don’t burn!).
  2. Remove both from oven and set aside.

Brussel Sprouts:

  1. Place on a cookie sheet (once shredded) or jelly roll pan and toss with olive oil and pepper to taste. Roast for 10 minutes to start. Toss halfway through. Add on another 5-10 minutes or so if they haven’t quite cooked. Once done, set aside. (I kept mine in the oven while making the pesto).

I just love this pic of the soba noodles.

For the Noodles:

While the brussels are roastin, place 6 cups of water on the stove and heat on high til it’s boiling. Add the soba noodles and cook for approximately 4-6 minutes. Drain.

For the Pesto: (which can be made in advance).

  1. Add walnuts, arugula, garlic and salt to food processor and whirl it all up til a nice pesto-ey pile forms. As processor is processing, add olive oil.
  2. Scrape the sides and bunch it all up in a bowl, then add parmesan cheese and mix to combine. (take a whiff of the utter goodness).

For the finale:

Plate some noodles on something pretty, add some pesto and twirl with a fork to combine, (alternatively you can just add the pesto and soba noodles in a bowl and combine all like one big happy family) then toss some brussels on top and perhaps a bit more parmesan cheese (truffle oil anyone? just a smidge-omg).

Genius Thoughts (I can’t stop myself):

  • Use that pesto as a pizza topper (do I even need to tell you to add it to the squash pizza?)
  • Use the pesto as a veggie dip.
  • Use the brussels as a side dish (p.s. they’re fun to eat-but you might find some in your hair later). I might even toss some maple syrup on them next time if I serve alone.
  • Try other nuts. Pine Nuts are a traditional pesto maker, almonds or papitas would be fun! Mix your greens and try spinach, maybe a little fresh basil or cilantro (just watch the bitterness factor).

Also, don’t forget to subscribe for FREE updates if you like what you see here (top right corner), connect with me on facebook and twitter! I noticed some new lovely people following me on pinterest. It’s quite the addiction now isn’t it?

Are you a fan of pesto? Are you a fan of brussel sprouts? What’s your favorite way to use either?

The non pizza, pizza. Squash style.

This is what I think is going on mid-December.

1) Your eyes are glazed from slamming back loads of holiday cookies. Or you’ve sunk so low you’re eating them for breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack and sneaking one more for dinner. What the hay?! Right? Oh boy.

2) You’re singing joy to the world cause you’re drunk on holiday cheer (or eggnog).

3) You’re working out every day cause you don’t want to let the holidays bring you down from all the hard work and efforts you put in eating healthfully and exercising tons. Hmmm.

OK, so if you’re the number 3 person, bravo, but “sometimes one should eat a cookie, or at least some rum infused eggnog or a peppermint martini.” Just sayin.

Today I decided you all probably need to add a little holiday health or just a reminder about your health. Oh and if you are having trouble controlling yourself this holiday season, read this Part I.

Anyway,you know I eat pizza (as evident from this post, and this one), but I knew I could concoct (love that word) something with a squash and make it taste beyond….well a veggie.

I know some of you don’t even like the word vegetable, but you’re here to learn.

What I don’t know is what people think of when they hear the word spaghetti squash. It’s weird, I’ll admit that. I assume “squash” stands out, but the spaghetti part leaves one guessing.

The yellow football of a squash is mild tasting and once you string it’s guts you can pretty much flavor its insides to whatever your hearts desire (ummm, not so much like tofu but close enough). Oh, and it will never taste like cheesecake but you catch my drift eh? It’s high in fiber (bonus), Vitamin C, low in carbohydrates and low in calories (not that anyone’s counting). It’s good stuff, got it?

While I created this idea all up in my head my aunt Josie helped me figure it out and gave me the basic recipe. Props to her.

So put down the breakfast cookie and mug of I dunno….gingerbread eggnog latte whatever and make this!

Serves: Depends on the size of slices, it can be quartered, halved or eaten with a fork and the pie plate in your lap (ooooh that’s naughty and not portion controlled, use a plate, preferably a WHITE PLATE as this article suggestsre: how the color of your plate effects how much you eat).

Time: Pre-roasting the squash takes 45 minutes ( I roast it on 400 degrees F on a cookie sheet sliced in half). You can do this the day before and save almost an entire half of squash for another meal like this one. This meal takes ~35 minutes.

Pre-heat oven: 400 degrees F

  • 1 spaghetti squash (roasted and forked so stringy innards are scoopable)
  • 1-2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (I used part-skim)
  • 2 eggs (or 1 egg and 2 egg whites)
  • 1-2 teaspoons fresh or dry oregano
  • 1/4-1/2 cup of tomato sauce (home made or I like Muir organics or Pomi)
  • pepper to taste
  • your choice of toppings

  • Place 3 cups of squash, 2 eggs and shredded mozzarella cheese in a bowl. Stir to combine. (p.s. you don’t have to beat the eggs, just combine).

  • Place all in a pie dish, bake  at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes.
  • Remove from oven and top this puppy with whatever you desire (ummm, not chocolate). I ran out of spinach yesterday, but sauteed spinach and garlic would’ve been a perfect addition if I don’t say so myself.
  • Bake another 25 minutes and tada!!!! Holy smokes it smells like a pizza kitchen in here!

Go a step further:

  • Let’s talk TOPPINGS. I mean, add more veggies to the veggie, hello! Mushrooms, spinach, arugula, tomatoes, butternut squash puree? OMG.
  • Try different cheese combos.
  • Pesto would’ve been a unique topping all by its lonesome. Pesto Pizza!
  • Make it mexican style and add a bean/salsa topping? Ole!

So, when you need a healthy, simple and oh so yummy dinner (or a break from the cookies)….here it is.

Recent enthusiasm occurred over these posts:

47 + healthy holiday recipes

The healthy deconstructed apple pie

Stewy Greek Beans (seems to be a fav)

What’s your favorite pizza topping?


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Holiday Circles

Hi…I know I got some of you to read because 1. I haven’t blogged in forever and 2. The title may have sounded like something you could use in your math class.  I promise there is math involved, but it isn’t as apparent to the non-math folk when they hear about these things.

In the last 24 hours, I have seen people in my facebook feed posting about joining a holiday circle/loom for $100 and at the end you get paid out $800. They say it’s a great way to get some holiday money this season. PLEASE don’t be sucked into those holiday gift circle/money loom things and in fact, educate your students about them because at some point these will rear their heads during their adult lifetime. They are absolutely a scam, sure you MIGHT get your money but someone definitely won’t because it’s impossible. They are unsustainable because of exponential growth. (See…there’s the math)

Holiday Circles seem like such a great thing. They tell you everyone freely gifts $100 into person A’s paypal account and in a bit it you get to decide what to do with your $800. (They also float around in other start up amounts too.)

Wow, you say as the wheels turn in your head. Two fb posts later after seeing a friend post pictures of her paypal account growing by the hour, you freely send the $100 via paypal thinking of all the things you can do with $800. (Which is really $700, since you paid out $100, but they just assume you will understand that.)

You may even sign a special ‘contract’ that looks all legal and everything that says you voluntarily gift this money without any expectation of ever getting it back. Of course, as soon as you pay in your money you become one of the blue spaces above. Once there are eight new blue spaces, the purple person in the middle gets their $800 – an 800% payoff. The chart then splits in half and everyone moves up a level. The two pink spaces are now their own charts and they are purples, the green moves up to pink, and the blue are now one step closer to their own big payoff. Maybe.

Now, nobody is required to bring in new special friends to gift money but how else are you going to help make sure you have fun holiday money to spend?  That, plus as soon as all your “blue spots” get eight new people to kick in you get one level closer to your own $800 jackpot. You start dreaming about what kind of things you can do with $800 and many people even join multiple looms once they start seeing and dreaming about the payout.

Posts by people involved that sound like this make it seem all okay, “It’s like pulling off of the church Christmas tree at Christmas time and shopping for a kid in need. Do we actually know if they get their gifts? No, but we only hope. We’ve all spent useless money for no reason at all. While you may be a skeptic, at least you know you helped a family at Christmas time this year. If we spread the holiday cheer we can make a lot of families happy. It’s time to put our own struggles aside and help ones in need. We’re all in here bc we could use the extra cash for Christmas. But blessed money comes from those who help.” And “its not a scam.. call it a “pay it forward tree” because that’s what we are basically doing”

I asked someone in my fb feed who is participating and posting to get others involved how does it end because mathematically I know these things can’t really keep going. After all, the numbers don’t really work. She said “oh, it never does, it just keeps going”. And then she asked me if I wanted in…um, not at all. She shared this with me…

So where’s the scam, you ask? It’s a reasonable question. Most of the time the people involved don’t see the crime, either. After all, the $100 is a gift that they give freely and without any expectation of any return so they’re not victims. Just like a $100 birthday present to your niece, right?

Wrong. Gifting Clubs are illegal pyramid schemes but they will try and tell you they aren’t because one person isn’t making money off the others. They’re done with really slick emotional appeal and promises of huge payoffs but sooner of later these clubs are going to run out of people to scam. It’s simple exponential math.

Lets assume you get in as one of the first blue spots. For all eight of you blue to move up to be green after the first split you need to recruit a total of sixteen new people. Then for all eight of you green to move up to pink you need to bring in 32 new people. It keeps going. All of your initial eight might get paid after 128 new blue spaces join, but to keep going and let everyone in the system receive their own $800 the scheme needs to bring in more people than exist on the planet.

If you do the math, there is logical, rational, left-brained evidence to support the conclusion that these circles are absolutely unsustainable in the end.

There is a mathematical certainty that up to 87% of the people who gift their money into a circle will lose their money.

To see the math in action, see this spreadsheet.  You can play with it  and change the variable on the number of times people re-up after cashing out so you can see what happens when people reinvest in the circles after receiving their gifts.

Bottom line: If 100% of people who complete the circle and receive their $800 in gifts rejoin another circle 3 more times, 80% of people who join will still lose their money.  The best possible scenario would be that every person who completes the circle rejoins 6 times and you still end up with 50% of people losing their money.

Google Forms Gets Even Better

This August, I’m participating in a monthly blog challenge called Blaugust. To see the list of participating blogs, click on the logo below. Please cheer on our participants with either a tweet or a comment on their blog. It can be hard to blog on a daily (or even regular) schedule! 🙂

If you want to join in the blogging fun, it’s not too late!  Go HERE to sign up! 🙂 And here are the directions and some awesome helpful prompts if you need something to help you blog!

I LOVE Google Forms! I use them all of the time for a variety of reasons- both education related, with my swim team and for personal use. They are such a super easy way to collect info into a spreadsheet super quickly!

This may not be NEW news for many of you as Google introduced it at the end of June, but for those of us on summer break who haven’t opened Google forms to use in a classroom all summer, it is new and exciting information.

This new feature will allow auto-grading multiple choice and checkbox questions which can give INSTANT feedback to students and allow teachers to see if they need to spend more time on a topic. SO STINKIN’ AWESOME! I have used the Flubaroo add-on before to do this same thing, but I always found it glitchy and a little hard to manage. I have already played around with this and it is SO easy to use.
Creating a quiz is super simple, here’s how:
  • Go to your Google Drive.
  • Click on New and then choose form.
  • In the upper right corner, click Settings in the top right corner and choose QUIZZES.
  • Next to “Make this a quiz” click the on button to make the form a quiz.
  • At this point you have a few options you can choose to turn on or off,
    • Release the grade immediately after each submission or do not release the grade
    • Change what students can see, Missed Questions, Correct Answer and Point Values.
  • Click Save to save your chosen settings.
After that you just start building your quiz.  You can make an answer key for multiple choice, checkbox, or drop-down questions.
  1. To add a new question, click Add.
  2. Fill out your question and answers.
  3. In the bottom left, click ANSWER KEY.
  4. In the top right of the question, choose how many points the question is worth.
But wait…there’s MORE! You can even add explanations to answers- including links, videos, or websites so students get immediate feedback!
To add feedback, just click on Answer Key and then on Add Answer Feedback.
You can find out even more about creating a quiz with Google Forms HERE.
Way to go Google- YOU ROCK!

#descon16 – A WHOLE day of Desmos!

One of the things that excited me about attending #TMC16 was the Desmos pre-conference.  Except that as TMC was getting closer, I couldn’t remember if I had signed up for the pre-conference. 🙂 Couldn’t find it in my email or anywhere.  Then I received the reminders via email along with my ticket as the event got even closer, so I knew I had registered and my excitement returned.  YEAH!

My district is going 1:1 chromebooks in the middle schools this fall, which is going to be a benefit and a curse as teachers learn how to build skills in their classroom in an online environment and find useful resources for students to use.  I think Desmos is going to be key for teachers because of its many uses and the awesome new features they shared with us today.

My FAVORITE PART – Desmos shared a new organization of the landing page, bundles of topic based & sequenced activities with helpful notes on how they build upon each other, and the really awesome labs option which enables teachers to use the brand new customizable feature for the ever popular marbleslides activity and the BRAND NEW  create your own card sort feature. I kid you not, you would have thought it was Christmas the way we all freaked out over the card sort. Well, we also freaked out over the free Desmos socks, but I think the card sort wins overall.

Things you can do with the card sort:
*Drag and drop images from card sorts you already own that are paper copies or electronic copies.  (While this isn’t the BEST use of Desmos, it is the easiest way to get started with the sorts initially.This isn’t the best because you can’t edit and change easily when the cards are images. Creating them using Desmos would be the best, most modifiable option.)
*Gather data on the card sorts…think about doing a paper card sort…you would walk around and see how students were sorting the cards, but wouldn’t really know if ALL of the sorted the same way or if they all had the same misconceptions or the same successes. GUESS WHAT? Desmos gives you data! Like amazing, real time, USEFUL data to guide your lesson, to guide your teaching, to make you a better teacher for your students! It will show you the sorts with all the names of the students that sorted that way…just think of what you could do with that.  Data you didn’t have before and it’s real time in your face, ready for you to use. The impact this can have in the classroom the same day you use the sort is amazing.
*Share your sorts with other teachers easily by sharing the link.
*DUPLICATE a shared sort so you can modify it, enhance it and make it something to work for your specific students.  When you duplicate the sorts, they become YOUR sorts and show up under Custom so you can use or edit them as needed.

Of course, the teachers of the MTBoS that were in attendance started creating card sorts left and right and created a google spreadsheet to share the links to them so you can duplicate and use. Because we are going 1:1 this year, I can’t wait to share the card sort feature with my district teachers. I see it as a great way to introduce Desmos in a new light to get them using it more.

Desmos has also made its graphing calculator fully accessible for visually impaired and blind students. You can enable voiceover on your device (command + F5 on mac)*, Desmos will read the expressions mathematically (ex: reading sin as “sine” instead of s-i-n) and it will give students helpful hints where they are as they work through the expression (ex: saying subscript, superscript, reading the opening and closing of grouping symbols). It is also capable of playing through a graph left to right across the screen to give a pitched audio representation of whatever has been graphed. It sounds like music! So of course a handful of teachers took the task of recreating songs using Desmos. And if they can get so excited about it, imagine what your students would do to try something like that out, even if it isn’t directly content related.  Think of the exploring, learning, stretching and sharing students would do with each other as they work to figure it out.

*It doesn’t work on ipad devices and to get it to work on a PC, try using this and let me know if you can get it to work. I can’t get the native accessibility options to work on my PC. For a Chromebook, Enable accessibility on chromebook. click bottom right (near account pic),choose settings,advanced settings,check enable chromevox.

End of Year 16…

Wow…I just completed my 16th year of teaching middle school math…is it a milestone? a qualification for being crazy? 🙂 Ha ha ha…honestly, it is a great milestone for me.  It’s about halfway through my teaching career, give or take a few years. Heck I don’t even know when I will be able to retire let alone when the state says I can. But I am not thinking about that because I am in this for the long haul, this is not a job for me, it is a career, it is my calling.

Teachers relish the summer to refresh, recharge and reignite their passion for teaching. We don’t lose it, but it sure gets beat down throughout the school year and sometimes we lose sight of our love for it. We use summer time to read books (educational or not), research new methods to teach our subject, start planning for the following year, take classes, attend/present at conferences, reflect on the past school year, rewrite curriculum, relax, sleep, connect with family and friends, travel, pick up or continue a hobby, doctor/dentist/eye appointments, etc. all those things that get pushed off for planning and grading during the school year. Some of us even have a second (or third) job that we do during the summer to help pay bills, to save more for retirement or even just for our “fun” money, so we may not have summer’s off entirely from any form of work.  And even more of us tutor students throughout the school year and summer as well.

Teachers do a lot of awesome things and we get tired like everyone else, but we need to always be able to come back to our WHY…WHY we became a teacher, WHY we do what we do. If we focus on our why, we can continue to reach more students, touch more lives and push the learning curve as far as we can. Summer allows us the time to reconnect with our WHY and redefine it as we continually grow as educators.

So for those who will say they wish they had summer’s off…consider the work we do throughout the year, the hours we put in with your children, who become our children, the sweat and tears we shed over the good and the bad we see each day. Consider the time we put into honing our craft and teaching our subject(s) and the time we put into teaching students to be good people, to take chances, to be different, to not be afraid to fail, but to learn from it and grow.  We not only push to get all of our curriculum in the allotted days, we also stress so many important things behind the scenes. Like the day your student couldn’t focus because they were upset about a misunderstanding with a friend, and I noticed and pulled them aside to listen and really hear them. Or the day that your student came in so excited to show me what they created in their free time and I take an honest interest because I care. Or the day a student thanks another in front of the class for taking the time to help them with a problem, and the student they thanked was someone who typically struggles. Or the day we debated over one problem in class for a whole period and I sent them home frustrated and angry we didn’t come to an answer, only to have over half the class return the next day telling me they spent an hour working to figure it out.

There is so much more to teaching than just a degree or some classes we took…and for many of us, we can’t put it into words, we can’t quantify it because it just is. It is our life, it is our passion, it is our love, it is our drive…it is teaching.

To kick off my year and start right in with Growth Mindset, I used Sarah’s Tweet idea and had my students, my 8th grade gifted who are in Geometry and my 6th grade regular math students, complete a “tweet” telling me in 140 characters or less what they thought intelligence is. We did this before any discussions about growth mindset.  The idea came from Sarah who blogs over at Math = Love, check out the post that inspired me here.

The responses are fantastic to read, so much so I wanted to share them here.  I will let you decided which class is which. 🙂 I did not correct spelling errors, I typed what was written.  Which tweet/quote is your favorite and why?

Class A Class B
I think intelligence is the things in your brain. Intelligence is knowing things that will help you in both school and outside of school in the real world.
Well let’s begin with something we learn, and it is something we use in our everyday lives. It is also what we use to imagineate. Intelligence is knowing things education related and world related.
I think intelligence means intelligent cells. Intelligence is knowing useful facts that will help you in the real world. It’s knowing important facts and ways to do things.
Intelligence is being strong, smart and standing up for others. I mostly think it means smart. Intelligence is the amount of brain power your brain has. An IW test can be taken to see at what level of intelligence you are capable of.
Intelligence is being good at something. Also, it means that you make smart choices because you have to be intelegent to do so. Intelligence is what people do with their brain. If someone is doing good, they are intelligent.
Intelligence is being smart in school and in real life. Intelligence is also not playing into drama and making good choices. Intelligence is what you know currently, and what you have the ability to know.
Intelligence is when you do think about something and don’t just say you don’t know and don’t care to know. I think intelligence is someone’s competence about everything in general and their ability to think and learn new things.
Intelligence is someone who is smart. It is also means that you are good at something. Intelligence is the art of being smart and showing the right characteristics of understanding any problems in all subjects.
I think intelligence is standing up for other people and doing the right thing. Intelligence is being able to make wise decisions and process new information well.
I think intelligence is having a lot or somewhat knowledge of many things. Intelligence is based on being in the right mind when making decisions. It is not about how smart you are, but your effort and thoughts on things.
Intelligence is when you say something smart. I think intelligence is an ability that everyone has that lets them understand or figure out concepts and things.
Intelligence is when you really know something or guess. Intelligence is the ability to learn and retain new knowledge to use in experiences outside of your learning environment.
Being smart about what you do and act like you know what your doing. Intelligence is a topic that you have mastered really well that you could teach to someone else.
I think intelligence is something that your good at. I believe that intelligence is not only the knowledge that a person obtains but also the determination and effort the person uses to answer.
I think it’s someone or something that has a good ability to do something. Intelligence is a thing that is used to measure someones basic level of brain power. One’s ability to be smart.
I think intelligence is about when you help someone out and you listen in class. Intelligence is how your brain can react to certain situations and find a way out.
I think intelligences is being smart, but not in all subjects. Intelligence is when someone has the knowledge to answer multiple types of questions easily. Intelligence also means to be fairly smart.
I think intelligence is how smart and valueable someone is. Intelligence is being smart and being able to have a lot of knowledge.
  Intelligence is how much knowledge your brain has.
  Intelligence is being smart consistently for ever. Being intelligent also means being good at many subjects at once.

Never Ending To Do List

The first day for students is Thursday; we just had two days of teacher institute covering your normal back to school things and a handful of brand new things.  Tomorrow is teacher work day, the best day in our calendar, it allows teachers to do final prep, digest the previous two days, plan with other teachers and basically have a day to do what we need to do before we meet our new batch of students on Thursday.  It’s like the perfect built in mental health day so we can start the year fresh and ready to go.

I am feeling a little overwhelmed, which is normal for the first week of school.  I have all these different ideas on how I want to start the year, that I tend to put off the actual planning because it’s so hard to choose.  I have things written down, but not finalized.  I am going to try and do a bit of it tonight.

My classroom is bare. It was repainted this summer with shiny paint, so nothing holds up the posters.  Last year I tried command strips, hot glue, packing tape and finally gave into duct tape.  We have been told duct tape CAN NOT be used at all, in any manner.  I don’t know how to get things to stick on my walls. Someone already tried the Marvelous Tape and it fell down within two hours (she ended up using duct tape, but SHHHH don’t tell). The posters aren’t even official heavyweight paper posters, they are printed on printer paper and laminated because I tend to make my own or find them for free on the internet.

I am feeling like I have a LONG list of things to do and don’t know where to start.  Bonus is that I won’t see my 6th grade students for the first time until Monday, but Geometry starts right away on Thursday.  I will spend the morning tomorrow planning with other teachers that I co-teach with (7th grade and 8th grade), so not all of my teacher work day is for me. 🙂

This too shall pass, I know it will and I will be excited once I get to meet my kids!

Day 6 – Sadness

Today started with a great staff meeting about Cooperative Grouping structures and sharing and answering questions in small groups with other teachers.  I love the district I am in and the amazing teachers I have worked with for 14 years. Just sitting around the table this morning talking with teachers of all disciplines who are interested in trying something new in order to best reach their students, it’s a refreshing conversation and makes me excited.  I enjoy using cooperative groups in my classroom and have seen the benefits it brings to accountability for all students.

Overall today was a fine day, but it was overshadowed by my feelings of sadness.  I miss my friends, the people I have taught with for so many years who just get me.  Because of my position, I don’t really have lunch with anyone, so I’ve been eating by myself which obviously doesn’t help my feelings of sadness.  Lunch used to be fun, relaxing and a time to relax before heading off to teach, now I just sit at my desk and work through my lunch because I don’t know what else to do.  I know all of the math teachers in my new school because I have worked with many on committees over the years, but I don’t have the same lunch as any grade level really, so I can’t really crash their lunch and join in.

I am sad because I really miss the ins and outs of teaching, the planning, the organizing, the brainstorming with other teachers, making connections with students, etc.  Sure I have one class of 6th grade students  and I am co-teaching a 7th and 8th grade class, but this is sadly turning out to be the job that I was afraid it would be.  I don’t feel like I am doing any good or even really working much and it’s driving me insane.  I have another meeting on Friday along the topic about instructional coaching, which is something I am interested in…I used to think I wanted to teach teachers, but now I don’t even really know about that.  I’ve been offering my services and help to the math teachers, with the new technology program, to assist with grouping students, really anything…and no one is biting.  I can’t force them to want to allow me into their classroom, but what else am I supposed to do?  I keep decorating my classroom and my poor 6th grade students already thought there were enough posters on the walls! 🙂

With everything else going SO well in my personal life, this is really giving me a reality check.  I don’t have my Admin certificate because I knew a while back that I didn’t ever want to leave the classroom and this is just putting that into a clearer focus.  I need to be around teachers, students and interacting about math and teaching. I can’t figure out how to get that in my current position. I would love to be a district level PD person or math coach even, but I looked for those jobs this spring and couldn’t find anything. I am so afraid that I am going to wilt away and be this forgotten teacher who once taught math pretty well.

Yes, I am aware that these are all crazy thoughts, but it really consumed me today and here it is 9pm and I still haven’t gotten over it.  I know it will all be okay, at some point…but right now I am struggling to see the light, to see how I can continue to make a difference in the lives of my students and to help teachers in this new position of Math Specialist (also called Math Interventionist).  I wish there was more direction, like this is the job we want you to do and do it this way.  All of this freedom and do what you feel is best doesn’t work for me.  It’s my type A kicking in. 🙂

So I will breathe slowly, take a deep breath and try again tomorrow.  It’s a new day and can only get better.


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Dud car

I picked up a new car on Thursday. Cars are still very exciting to Archie, and this one has a proper handbrake (an a chunky one at that), so is particularly exciting.

By Saturday afternoon it had packed up. I’d driven out to Bigbury to surf in the morning. Had some trouble getting it going at Bigbury but luckily managed it on about the 15th attempt. Tried to go out again a few hours later and it wouldn’t start. Archie sat patiently next to me for ten minutes while I swore at the thing, pressed random buttons and flicked hopelessly through instruction manuals. RAC’s verdict is a dud starter, and after rolling it backwards down a hill for a hill start, the RAC man drove it back to the dealers. Where it remains.

I was very impressed by Archie. Six months ago a non-starting car would have led to him launching himself through the window in frustration. And a new car would have been a hundred times worse. After ten minutes of trying I suggested we switch to Dad’s car. This was met with no complaints, and Archie even waited patiently while I ran around the house hunting for keys.

Hopefully it’s progress rather than him hating the new car (I think I hate the new car…..).

Luckily we’d been surfing before the car died. Fab waves, they were huge. I surfed for about 45 minutes when the waves became even bigger with the dropping tide and so I decided to grab my camera. I  only had my phone on my, so the photos aren’t great, but they sum up the session.

Autumn greetings

Autumn has arrived in style since the above photo was taken last Saturday with rain, rain and more rain (my dad’s patch-up job has worked though, and the roof doesn’t seem to be leaking – hoorah). We’d headed for Bigbury for a surf; found a little swell and a dead whale floating off Burgh Island. The lifeguards had been called out to investigate because a member of the public thought it was an upturned boat. Whilst it is a good thing is wasn’t, the whale caused some interest. I hadn’t given much thought to dead whales before, but apparently they can cause a bit of a problem as there are no large shark-like scavengers (as there would be in say Australia) and the sea is cold so they can hang around for a while, until they sink.

Archie has taken a while to get back into routine. Partly I think because everything has changed. Joseph has changed schools and arrives home at a different time, Archie’s bus has changed time as well, and things aren’t quite the same. He has also gone down with the first heavy school cold of the season (luckily he got his surf in first). Archie refuses to admit he is poorly though, if asked he will cough and splutter ‘no’ whilst burning up. Being poorly means missing school so is rarely admitted to. Thinking about it that simple sentence ‘will cough and splutter ‘no’ tells it’s own tale. It wasn’t until Archie was about 9 or 10 that he even had a functional yes and no, and we couldn’t have had a conversation about poorlyness.

And now a request for help. The guys who took Archie surfing in Ireland; Alive Surf School, working with Autism Initiatives NI have put a bid in for funding for tandem boards. This would allow them to take people like Archie out surfing regularly. The boards are expensive (they borrowed one for Archie’s lesson). The public can vote for them by clicking on this link and choosing Autism Initiatives NI. A worthwhile cause, and if they get the boards I’m hoping Archie will get a ride on one next year.

Back to school

All the boys have now returned to school. We have been lucky; it’s been a great summer. Archie has been so chilled that, at times, he’s been almost horizontal. He only really became a little angsty during the last week of the holidays; he’d had enough and knew school was approaching.

At the end of August we managed to get some video of Archie surfing. The waves were perfect and as soon as I have caught up on my work backlog I’ll do something with the footage. For now, a little clip. This was taken by someone holding the camera surfing alongside Archie. It was fabulous to watch.


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2011 Recap/The Christmas Letter I’d Never Send.

Unless I’m the only one who gets annoyed by those super smug ‘my 3 year old is taking college physics in his free time’ holiday letters.

Dear Friends and Family,

I hope the holiday season has been magical. Since we only really keep in touch through Christmas card updates, allow me to give you the 2011 highlight reel.

2011 was the year of not so great decisions. I mean, nobody got fired and nobody got pregnant so yay team but when you spend the majority of 2010 feeling lousy and then you start to feel good…yep…BALLS. TO. THE. WALL.

I did do some awesome things that surprised me- completed a 3 hr zipline and ropes course, traveled a fair amount, learned that I love drinking wine and painting even though my paintings look like something a blindfolded toddler would do, and made peace with several people in my life I didn’t expect to ever make peace with.

I did some really stupid things too. Like calming unexpected pre-cross country flight nerves Charlie Sheen style where I don’t really remember connecting in Atlanta but HOLY CRAP did my Facebook status updates paint a picture!

I overcame some significant fears. I got my first infusion treatment with no incident, probably because it was last minute and I was hungover. (Notice a theme? Cross file this under stupidity.)

I hurt myself. I fell badly and sprained my left ankle. I’m now having issues with disease activity in this spot. Thank you so much, unmarked water on floor at Target. I spent too much time overcelebrating the fact that I felt better and wound up back at square one. And I got super depressed. I’m still working out that last part.

I had some pretty emotional moments. Losing several fellow RAers was heartbreaking. That, combined with a health scare with my mom this fall (she’s ok) have made me very clingy with my family and close friends. I’m sorry if I’m being annoying…again, see above.

But you know what? While it sounds like parts of 2011 were a complete bust, I really feel like it has set me up to be better than ever in 2012. So while my cat may not moonlight in Fancy Feast ads and while I don’t spend my spare time sneaking in classes in gourmet cooking or herbal medicine, I’ve learned a lot and can focus on hopefully writing about how happy I am in this new year!

4 responses »

  1. Spectacular!!! You have a gift when it comes to channelling Carrie Fisher. 🙂 I can tell that there is much truth in your writing, but thank you for reminding those of us who are still in denial over having this disease that we do have the choice to laugh…and get on with our lives. I’ve gotta quit draggin’ ass this year and get over myself. My family’s remarkable sense of understanding may soon turn to disdain if I don’t ditch this pity party! Your humor is much appreciated. Take care and happy new year to you, sweet girl! ~LWW

  2. Awesome post, your writing is brilliant. Funny yet so poignant. You really have a talent, you should write a book, I’d definitely buy it. Hope 2012 is a wonderful ray of sunshine for you and your ankle and your cat.

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Algonquin | Miami | Little Turtle

The Algonquian tribe called the Miami lived close to the Great Lakes in Ontario.

The town was known as Turtle Town. It was named after Little Turtle because of an important war. He was chief because he defeated the French Military.  The French military man was called Augustin de la Balme.

In October 1780, Little Turtle became the chief of the  Miami tribe. In the early 20th century Little Turtle’s tombstone was found during a construction excavation.The Miamis did some dugout boats with birch bark and covered their roofs with elm bark. The dugout boats were made usually of butter nut boat.

by: A.M., 11 yrs. old

Related Posts:

First Peoples

2 responses to “Algonquin | Miami | Little Turtle

  1. The town has a nice and natural name “Turtle Town.”Augustin is an old fashioned name.The chief looks happy in the outside.;) But sad in the inside for the war. ;(

    • This is a VERY insightful comment. M.M.
      A person could be excited or proud of the role they are playing in a war situation, but at the same time be wishing that there wasn’t a war.
      I’m pretty sure that this is the way hero-warriors feel.
      Mrs. Theriault

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Masters of Graphic Design: Posters from a Private Collection

Posted by Daniel Basiletti on

An exhibition of extremely rare, original posters from 1908 – 1988, juxtaposed with iconic industrial design products of the 20th century. The exhibition is presented at the 29 Church design gallery, located inside the newly-restored, historic 1917 Telephone Exchange Building of New Milford.

These Museum-quality posters, selected from a private Connecticut collection which has never before been shown publicly, reveal the evolution of graphic design throughout the 20th century. This important collection rivals that of many Museums, and several of the works can also be found in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York. The posters are shown with industrial design products of the same time period, underlining the tandem development of graphic art and industrial design in the 20th century.

Including work by Otto Baumberger (Switzerland), Francis Bernard (France), Emil Cardinaux (Switzerland), Ludwig Hohlwein (Germany), Charles Loupot (France), Burkhard Mangold (Switzerland), Makoto Nakamura (Japan), Giovanni Pintori (Italy), Koichi Sato (Japan), the Stenberg brothers (Russia), Niklaus Stoecklin (Switzerland), Ikko Tanaka (Japan), and Ryuichi Yamashiro (Japan).

For more information, please contact Daniel Basiletti:
email: | telephone: 860-354-8765

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american farrier's association

Pre Certification Clinics

 The following program was developed to more accurately prepare candidates for the Certification program. It is broken down into 9 terminal objectives and supported by 16 enabling objectives. Each topic covers an enabling objective. The entire course was designed to take a candidate from introduction to the certification process to completion of the CJF exam. However, any chapter can schedule a single topic, in any order, based on the current needs of their members. Each topic is allotted a time to complete based on a 1-5 trainer candidate ratio and lists all materials that the host chapter will need to provide for the lesson. This format allows host chapters to tailor focused instruction for each of their candidates. Understanding that each chapter has different needs when it comes to preparing their members for Certification, this program was designed to address the individual needs of the chapter. Host chapters are encouraged to poll their members on their pre- certification needs, and then schedule accordingly. When host chapters schedule a Pre Certification, each day will be limited to 8 hours of instruction time.
To schedule a Pre Certification clinic please contact Ken Lyon at

For a list of Lesson Topics click on the Lesson Topics tab to the right of the Pre Certification tab