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Wear your heart on your sleeve: 5 #RVAdine T-shirts that totally rock
Your favorite places to eat are now your favorite places to wear. Does that even make sense?
Stephanie Ganz
Part pop culture homage, part inside joke–a handful of Richmond restaurant T-shirts have captured the spirit of their establishments for staff and fans to wear with pride. For Metzger Bar & Butchery and Saison, the influence is metal, and the T-shirts are badass. 821 Café and Lamplighter Roasting Company call on the talent of local artists to capture their vibes. And WPA Bakery riffs on a celebrity meme. The common thread is this: Boring shirts will not be tolerated.
METZGER BAR & BUTCHERY
http://instagram.com/p/1EFzS2RHkd
Close your eyes and think back to a time when Metallica made palatable music. Are you imagining the cover of their debut album Kill 'Em All? Good, good. That's the inspiration behind the design of Metzger Bar & Butchery's shirt, which includes a pork chop and cleaver upgrade. The design was the brainchild of Metzger bartender Kjell Anderson and Mathu Squila of Townsend Screenprinting, who also designed and printed the shirts.
Metzger co-owner and chef Brittany Anderson explains, "Kjell is obsessed with listening to "Wherever I May Roam" before service, so Metallica became the obvious choice for T-shirt inspiration." If you really want to make heavy metal fans AND pork chop fans (and if I'm to believe this Venn diagram, there's a ton of overlap here) do a double take on the street and then give you an enthusiastic high five, wear this exact shirt. Men's and women's sizes are each $15, $20 for XL and XXL.
For Saison, inspiration came, as it often does, from Slayer. A pentagram of knives surrounds a pig head in what is arguably the toughest restaurant tee on the scene right now. Saison owner Jay Bayer credits Rose Deratto and says, "the design uses the main ingredients in our chile trotter broth that is in so many Saison sauces."
Deratto adds, "It was a group effort, really. My boyfriend, Eli Talbert, works in the kitchen at Saison where several of the crew had been joking about a Slayer-inspired 'Hail Saison' shirt. I added the stock ingredients–the potato, onion, carrot, celery, and garlic, and pig head–as a reference to their pork stock and to all the other seriously delicious food that comes out of that kitchen. The knives are actually each based on a knife in my boyfriend's set, which he inherited from his grandfather." COOL.
The Hail Saison tee, printed by Golden Squeegee, is remarkably soft despite its tough appearance and is available in men's and women's sizes for $18, while supplies last.1
821 CAFE
821 Cafe deserves credit for their particularly strong T-shirt game. Owner Andrew Clarke recalls six different well-loved designs in the history of the restaurant and says he would love to bring back his all-time favorite: "My favorite T-shirt we had printed has to be the 'From our grill to yours.' It was a mash-up of a really crappy shirt of a guy in a ski mask holding up two guns and some wacky back-of-the-house jokes. Our good friend Jim Callahan, aka 'Barf,' did the drawing for us."
After the 'Barf' shirt, 821 collaborated with El Kamino, who had befriended the 821 crew during the artist's shows at the restaurant. Old-timey snake oil labels and the Jack Daniels logo inspired the "Good for What Ails You" design. Clarke says, "Looking back on this design, it has a really neat art deco feel to it," and adds, "His design also became the artwork on our first few runs of growlers. We switched the text to read 'good for what ales you'."
De facto 821 logo, Lil Squawky, took the spotlight in the next run of shirts. Clarke explains, "We had moved into the new location, had a new menu, and really wanted to have something that appealed to everyone and was instantly recognizable as an 821 shirt."
After that there were two shirts released at the same time–one by Katie Davis of Salvation Tattoo, with whom 821 shared a 10 year anniversary in business, plus a ton of respect and friendship. Naturally, for something like that you'd want "an awesome wizard design and a two-color fade." Most recently came the howling wolf T-shirt, also from Salvation Tattoo, this time courtesy of Nate Moretti, who combined a traditional howling wolf tattoo design with a woman serving beer. Clarke says, "I love this design. Its nice and simple and has gone on to be featured on our growlers."
The Zodiac symbol for Cancer, an omega, and the company's signature tall bike all adorn a palm in Lamplighter Roasting Company's most recent shirt design. "When Noelle [Archibald] asked me to do a T-shirt design for Lamplighter, I knew exactly what to do. The tall bike logo has always looked like an occulty zodiac-ish symbol to me, so I went with the palm reader look," says designer Brad Douglas (@bigzoidy). "It was more PG than the crude, low brow imagery I usually produce, but not boring and generic."
Lamplighter co-owner Noelle Archibald says featuring work by local artists and using local printers like Action T-shirts is a priority. "For us, it's not about pushing our logo; it's about giving people a piece of the Lamplighter vibe to take home!"
The Feminist Ryan Gosling meme is a total thing. It's such a thing, there's even a book about it. That's right, it went from being a Tumblr to being a REAL BOOK. That's basically like Pinocchio becoming a real boy and then going to Harvard.
If you're unfamiliar, the meme works by juxtaposing a picture of film heartthrob Ryan Gosling looking dreamy with a feminist statement. Example: "Hey Girl, I would love to blow up the patriarchal dialectic that traps us in a constant struggle for dominant subject-hood…but I think you should do the honors." So, yes, they are amazing.
Have you noticed how you never see Ryan Gosling and WPA Bakery co-owner and baker David Rohrer in the same place at the same time? And how they're both super considerate of your needs and in tune with your feels? Well, I'm not saying Rohrer IS Gosling, hiding out in RVA and living his dream of being a dietarily-sensitive baker and artist, but I'm not saying he's not either.
"It started out as an Instagram post," says Rohrer. "Rachel Machacek [now of Style Weekly food writing fame took the picture of me and thought it reminded her of Gosling, so she posted the Feminist Ryan Gosling meme. When I got the Elby award a couple years back, my staff surprised me with a T-shirt."
A tiny piece of David Gosling, uh, I mean Rohrer, is available for you to cry into at night for a mere $15. If you stretch it over your pillow and make out with it, no one will ever know. Trust me.
OLD-SCHOOL BONUS: MILLIE'S
25 years ago, Millie's was a pioneer in the cool shirt wilderness, and you can buy a piece of that history still, now with more fits, including a tank-top variation. Co-owner Lisa Edwards explains the story behind the iconic Lost Dog shirts:
"History is that the dog is named Dinsdale. He's long been deceased, but he was a great dog and was Paul's [Keevil] when Millie's opened in 1989. He hung around a lot during pre-opening days, but when opening time came, he couldn't come with him anymore, obviously, because of health codes. So he took off one day out of protest, and someone designed this poster as his 'lost dog' poster, and it sort of just stuck as a 'thing.' These shirts have been spotted all over the world and even made a cameo in a British sitcom once."
Edwards couldn't remember the name of the sitcom, but she added that the dog eventually came back and lived a happy life before eventually running off to the big game of catch in the sky.
All photos courtesy of the restaurants' emails or websites or Facebooks or Instagrams or what have you.
At time of writing, there are approximately 45 of said supplies left! ↩
Virginia legal landscape shifts as cannabis support grows
Farmers are wrapping up the first industrial hemp season in Virginia since the passage of the 2018 federal Farm Bill. Industrial hemp is poised to be a fast growing sector of agriculture in Virginia. Hemp advocacy group Vote Hemp estimates 2017 retail sales of hemp products neared $820 million nationally and will continue to climb. Growers, agricultural officials, and politicians are all coming to the table to discuss the future of cannabis, and even the legalization of marijuana in Virginia.
Capital News Service
By Jeff Raines and Morgan Edwards
"We do grams, eighths, quarters, half ounces, pounds, wholesale pounds — however you want it," Jacob Stretch said, standing between crates of dried hemp in his living room that doubles as his hemp processing and drying facility. Stretch, owner of Chesapeake Blue, just finished his first season growing industrial hemp as a registered grower and processor on his family's farm.
Industrial hemp is poised to be a fast growing sector of agriculture in Virginia. Hemp advocacy group Vote Hemp estimates 2017 retail sales of hemp products neared $820 million nationally and will continue to grow.
Hemp is a versatile material that can be used in foods and beverages, personal care products, nutritional supplements, fabrics and textiles, paper, construction materials and other manufactured goods, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service.
In an October press release, Gov. Ralph Northam announced Virginia's first commercial industrial hemp fiber processing facility. Appalachian Biomass Processing, in Wytheville, will create 13 new jobs and purchase more than 6,000 tons of Virginia-grown industrial hemp over the next three years, at a value of more than $1 million, the governor stated.
"I am committed to pursuing every path that will attract economic prosperity to our rural communities, and hemp production opens up a wealth of opportunity to bring new jobs and new business to Virginia," Northam wrote.
The processor will mainly create hemp hurd, a woody fiber extracted from the plant stalk to be used for animal bedding. Hurd can also be used to make industrial items such as hemp-based concrete and hemp-derived plastics.
In 2018, when hemp could only be grown for research purposes in Virginia, there were 135 acres of hemp planted and about 85 registered growers, according to Erin Williams, senior policy analyst with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. As of Nov. 15, VDACS had registered 1,183 industrial hemp growers, 262 processors and 117 dealers, Williams said. Nearly 2,200 acres of hemp were planted in Virginia this year. The economic impact of industrial hemp in the state has yet to be determined, Williams said. The harvest season has just finished and crops are being sold to processors.
"So we should know soon what this past growing season's impact will be," Williams said. "We're going to conduct a grower survey towards the end of the year and hopefully have some data at the beginning of next year."
When the 2018 federal Farm Bill went into effect, industrial hemp was listed as an agricultural commodity and removed as a controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act. It is now placed under United States Department of Agriculture regulation. The bill also allowed state agriculture departments to submit plans for the regulation of hemp cultivation to the USDA.
VDACS expects to submit its state hemp production plan to the USDA before the end of the year, according to its website. It is likely there will not be major issues with the plan, according to Tyson Daniel, a trial lawyer and founder of Virginia Hemp Lawyers, a law firm specializing in the hemp and cannabis business.
On the VDACS website, there is a list of applications and guidelines for the industrial hemp grower registration, industrial hemp processor registration and industrial hemp dealer registration. Each registration costs $50 annually and one person can have all three registrations.
"It will be interesting to see if it stays at that rate," Daniel said. "Compared to some other states, it is a very reasonable rate."
An industrial hemp grower registration in Maryland costs $250. In North Carolina there is a $250 initial fee with an annual fee of $250 for less than 50 acres or $500 for more than 50 acres. Additionally, growers must pay $2 per acre of hemp or $2 per 1,000 square feet in a greenhouse of hemp.
Stretch, who is also a registered processor, said he was approved for his grower registration in around 40 days. Jacob Williamson, owner of Hens and Hemp, said he is registered as a grower and is on his way to becoming a registered processor. Williamson said having both permits is worthwhile because of their low cost and the extra level of protection it provides — since growing and then drying, trimming and packing hemp could be considered processing. Williamson, like many other small farmers, mainly grows hemp to be sold as CBD products.
Defining the difference between hemp, marijuana and CBD
In its infancy, the Virginia hemp industry is not without issues — namely in defining the difference between legal industrial hemp and illegal marijuana. There is also general confusion surrounding hemp and hemp products derived from the cannabis plant, namely CBD. CBD is considered non-intoxicating and touted to have multiple medical benefits. It is sold in a variety of ingestible and topical products, and also in flower form that looks identical to marijuana.
Daniel explained the distinction between legal cannabis derived products and marijuana.
"If you are going to draw a diagram, put cannabis at the top, hemp on one side, marijuana on the other," Daniel said. "They are both the cannabis plant, it's just the level of Delta-9 that is different." Delta-9 is the THC molecule associated with intoxication or "getting high." It is commonly referred to as THC instead of Delta-9 THC.
The non psychoactive version of THC is THC-A; it does not produce a high. The molecule is considered the precursor to THC, and once heat is applied THC-A is converted into THC, say through the use of a vaporizer.
The combined amount of THC-A and THC present in hemp is referred to as total, whole, or max THC.
Legally, when hemp reaches a THC concentration of more than 0.3% on a dry weight basis, it is classified as marijuana. According to the VDACS industrial hemp registration guide, anything grown above the 0.3% limit will be destroyed, in accordance with Virginia code.
Growers contest how the hemp is tested to determine that 0.3% and its validity as an indicator of whether or not hemp has crossed into being marijuana. Daniel said the biggest issue right now has to do with testing; whether it is strictly THC or combined THC and THC-A.
Williamson said one passage of the USDA guidelines sounds like it's talking about THC and another passage says whole THC, which would include both.
"That's why everyone freaked out about the USDA guidelines," he said. "All the sudden it was total THC that was 0.3%."
CEO and founder of East Coast Cannalytics, Rebecca Hobden, said the VDACS testing method for appropriate levels is to heat up the hemp. It then goes through a heating process which converts THC-A into THC. So if a crop has combined THC-A and THC, the testing process will increase the actual THC, potentially raising it over the acceptable levels allowed.
Williamson harvested his hemp plants at 13% CBD and 0.1% THC. "I probably pulled them a little early because I was nervous, but that's fine –13% is plenty," he said.
Hobden explained that as THC levels increase in a plant CBD levels increase. She said farmers will try to get as close to the allowed 0.3% THC limit as they can to raise CBD levels. Hobden said hemp with CBD levels closer to 20% is more desirable for farmers, as it has a higher market value.
Stretch said the 0.3% limit is arbitrary and could be a colossal loss for farmers.
"The number 0.3% was put on there by who, you know? Who decided 0.3% was the right number?"
"I've heard more experienced growers talk about how it can creep up in the flower period and then at a certain point, it will go back down," Stretch said. "So, if you harvested at the wrong time you run a higher risk of being hot."
The limit needs to be raised from 0.3%, according to Rebecca Caffrey, founder and chief scientific officer of Delta-9 Scientific, a cannabis testing lab based outside of Richmond.
"There's no functional difference between something that's 0.3% THC and something that's 1% THC," she said. "Neither one of them is going to get you high, no matter how hard you try."
Caffrey said she has tested thousands of hemp samples for "honest" farmers. "They are spending beaucoup money on hemp seeds and hemp clones, and you know, then it comes back and it's like 0.57% [THC]," she said. Caffrey believes farmers should not be penalized for that.
Williamson said he didn't think VDACS tested many hemp farmers to see if their hemp was "hot," meaning above the 0.3% limit.
"I guess they originally wrote the law because they thought people were going to pretend to grow hemp and then grow real bud … I thought there would be more of that, but I don't see anybody doing that," he said.
VDACS used random testing to track THC levels. Hobden and Caffrey believe VDACS did not test many farmers.
"I was in a meeting of probably about 40 farmers and asked how many people actually got tested and one person raised their hand," Hobden said.
Hemp and CBD products in the marketplace
The General Assembly this year approved a bill that allows CBD and THC oil with up to 10 milligrams of THC to be legally sold, with a doctor's recommendation, through an approved state pharmacy. THC above 0.3% is federally illegal and CBD of any level is legal.
However, the Food and Drug Administration does not allow CBD to be marketed as a dietary supplement or be advertised as having medical benefits. The FDA has only approved one CBD product, for epilepsy. The agency recently issued a consumer update, noting that "there are many unanswered questions about the science, safety, and quality of products containing CBD."
Mike Betts, owner of the online hemp and CBD store Red Beard Alternatives, believes CBD offers relief from anxiety, depression and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Betts is a retired Marine Corps veteran who for years battled to treat physical and mental wounds sustained while serving. Betts said he turned to hemp and CBD after finding no relief in prescribed medications and self-medicating. He uses hemp products and grows his own hemp plants as a form of therapy in itself. He said nurturing them from a tiny seed has given him something to look forward to and it is something he wants to share with fellow veterans.
He said the purpose of Red Beard Alternatives is to provide veterans access to alternative forms of therapy, the proceeds from his online market help fund alternative therapies for veterans.
"Whether we give them a greenhouse or a gym membership… in order to fund that mission we've created an online farmers market where other hemp farmers can showcase their products and sell them to consumers," Betts said.
However, he said is not allowed to advertise his products due to legal restrictions and a wariness from various social media sites in advertising products that closely resemble marijuana. He said many consumers are unfamiliar with hemp and often confuse it with marijuana. Betts sees the next step in expanding his business centered on product education.
Betts alongside growers Williamson and Stretch hope to see more defined regulations and loosened restrictions for growing and selling hemp and CBD products. Daniel said the easiest and fastest way for this to be accomplished would be through legislation in the General Assembly.
Legal landscape rapidly shifting as cannabis support grows
Del. Steve Heretick, D-Portsmouth, said he has encountered a groundswell of support for changing state law.
"Over 80% of all Virginians, regardless of political stripe, advocate or support the decriminalization of simple possession," Heretick said. "You can't get 80% of the people in Virginia to agree on anything, but they agree on that much."
The statistic Heretick quoted refers to a September University of Mary Washington study. The poll noted that 80% of Virginians 25 and under support legalization, not all Virginians. However, 61% of all Virginians are in favor of legalization, according to the poll.
Heretick said he plans to form a "cannabis caucus" — the second state caucus of its kind in the country — "to put all of the stakeholders at the same table." He believes the caucus will foster productive conversations on how to move the hemp industry forward and how to eventually legalize adult marijuana use in the state.
"I think in creating the cannabis caucus we're trying to create an organization that we can invite all the stakeholders to participate in," Heretick said. "Not only members of the legislature, but members of the farming community, the community that would do distribution advertising and dispensing."
Heretick sees decriminalization of simple possession as the first step on the journey to legalization and is confident that the General Assembly will pass Senate Bill 2 or a similar bill on the issue in 2020. SB2 specifically calls for the decriminalization of simple possession of marijuana; turning the offense into a civil penalty with a fine of no more than $50 attached. Heretick said he and his colleagues want to make sure that legalization in Virginia is thoughtfully enacted.
"I really don't think that legislatively we're doing anybody any favors by legalizing marijuana and then having nothing in place to do that effectively," Heretick said. "We're trying to avoid the obvious problems that have plagued other states that have beat us to the punch in terms of legalization."
Daniel explained the differences between decriminalization and full legalization. He said the short answer is that decriminalization means it is no longer being prosecuted.
What separates decriminalization from legalization is that legalization provides a mechanism for marijuana to be brought to market, according to Daniel. "But we haven't set up a mechanism for it to go to retail sale," Daniel said. Regardless, he believes people would work around this.
The gifting system in Washington D.C. is an example of creative solutions when marijuana is legalized but no system is established to regulate the buying and selling of it. People can purchase a shirt, sticker or even cookies — that comes with a free gift of marijuana.
"This is a civics lesson," Daniel said. "We don't need permission in our country to do something. We act under the premise that unless it's prohibited specifically by law, then we can do what we want to do."
Hemp Becoming Less of a Partisan Issue
"I don't think that it's so much a partisan issue," Daniel said. "Frankly, I think both sides of the aisle see it as an enormous revenue producer and a gigantic cost saver in terms of the amount of money that's spent on the prosecution and enforcement of marijuana laws."
Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring expressed his support for decriminalizing cannabis in an op-ed for the Daily Press in June, writing that criminalizing minor marijuana possession has major "human and social costs" that disproportionately affect minorities and people of color.
"That is why Virginia should decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, address past convictions and start moving toward legal and regulated adult use," Herring wrote.
In a November interview with Capital News Service, Herring said that while he acknowledges the economic benefits of legalization, he is more concerned about the criminal justice aspects of the state ban on legal marijuana.
"Virginia is moving in the wrong direction," Herring said. "We have 29,500 Virginians who were arrested for marijuana possession in 2017. That is a huge number and it is not working."
Herring stated in his op-ed that citizens arrested for marijuana possession could "still be stuck with a criminal record, lose their job, student aid, certain public benefits including housing assistance, and it can even affect custody rights."
Jenn Michelle Pedini, executive director for the nonprofit Virginia National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said the 2020 General Assembly session could be incredibly consequential for the future of the cannabis industry in the commonwealth and feels that "several very historic" bills could be passed.
NORML has worked since the 1970s to legalize non-medical marijuana in the U.S. and advocates for responsible, adult cannabis use without penalty.
"Last year, we became the fourth state in the nation to allow school medical professionals to administer medical cannabis to registered kids," Pedini. "We really are doing big things in Virginia — it just largely goes unnoticed."
Back on the farming side, Williamson and Stretch are finishing what they consider to be a successful first harvest. This winter will be used strategize how they can improve their operations and accommodate more plants. Williamson said that smaller farmers like themselves are working cooperatively to purchase wholesale seeds and streamline operations. Williams said VDACS expects Virginia hemp to grow in acreage as growers ramp up their operations in the spring.
TIPS! How to pick out and care for the perfect Christmas tree
Virginia is home to more than 500 Christmas tree farms. With annual sales of Virginia Christmas trees around $10 million, the Commonwealth's Christmas tree industry is a strong contributor to the state's agricultural economy. Here's how to pick out the perfect one.
RVAHub Staff
It's a popular holiday tune. "O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, How lovely are thy branches." But how do you keep the branches looking lovely all season long?
"Start by picking the right Christmas tree," says Joel Koci, associate Extension specialist in agriculture and natural resources at the Virginia Cooperative Extension at Virginia State University.
There are around 350 million real Christmas trees growing in the U.S., and 25-30 million of them make their way to homes across America for the holidays.
In fact, Virginia is home to more than 500 Christmas tree farms. With annual sales of Virginia Christmas trees around $10 million, the Commonwealth's Christmas tree industry is a strong contributor to the state's agricultural economy.
So what should you look for when buying a live tree?
Koci, a board-certified Master Arborist, offers tips on how to select, care for and dispose of Christmas trees.
"Trees are like produce. You want the freshest one you can find. The fresher, the better," Koci says. "If possible visit a cut-your-own tree farm in your area—that's the best way of making sure you have a freshly cut tree." If that's not an option and you're buying your tree from a lot, ask the salesperson where the trees were grown and when they were harvested.
Buying a Virginia grown Christmas tree is not only an important way to support Virginia farmers, but is also great for the environment, as Christmas trees are both renewable and recyclable, and for every tree cut, growers replant two to three seedlings in its place. You can search for Virginia Christmas tree growers online at VirginiaGrown.com and on the Virginia Christmas Tree Growers Association's website at VirginiaChristmasTrees.org.
Koci advises talking with your local county Extension agent to learn about the best local trees in your area.
Trees suitable for Christmas have different characteristics so it's good to know what you're looking for in a Christmas tree. Here are some popular holiday tree picks.
Frasier fir: Holds needles the longest of most soft-needle trees. It's fragrant, easy to decorate and one of the most desirable and available trees. The Fraser fir is native to southwest Virginia and North Carolina.
Spruce: Has prickly needles; loses needles early; is expensive and hard to find.
Juniper (Eastern Red Cedar): Native and easy to find in the wild. Its prickly, weak limbs make it hard to decorate, and it dries out rapidly.
White Pine: Very limp limbs make it hard to decorate; has medium needle retention; and no fragrance.
Whatever tree you choose, remember to inspect it before leaving the lot. Here's what to look for when inspecting a Christmas tree.
Observe the overall shape and whether the needles are a good green color. If the tree is off-color, choose another.
Tamp the butt of the tree on the hard ground to shake out old needles and any debris.
Once you have selected your tree, have the lot salesperson cut 1–1.5 inches off the end and place the butt in water for a day.
A good tree stand is essential for keeping your tree at its best through the holidays, Koci says. Most trees will have a 6-inch diameter at the base. Make sure your stand is large enough to hold the tree. Water the tree as soon as you place it in the stand and keep the water level around the trunk about 2–3 inches. The tree will keep absorbing water until the tree plugs its water-conducting vessels.
The tree is unsafe and a high fire hazard when the green needles turn a grey/green color and fall off when you pull on the twig. There is no scientific evidence that any additives to the plain water will increase the water uptake and prolong the absorption of water, Koci says.
Before decorating, check electric cords of tree lights for frayed insulation. Do not use if the cord is frayed or if light sockets are malfunctioning. The heat buildup from poorly maintained electrical cords and sockets could ignite a tree. Keeping pets away from the tree is also a good idea.
After the holidays, recycle your tree, which is beneficial, especially for urban wildlife. Used Christmas trees can be placed in a pond for fish habitat or piled in the open for bird or small mammal cover and breeding. Trees can also be placed near a window and decorated with bagels with peanut butter, pinecones with peanut butter and other fruits tied to the limbs, which provide birds a place to roost and feed and birdwatchers a great view to observe the birds.
Kehinde Wiley's "Rumors of War" statue to be permanently installed at the VMFA December 10th
Since September 21st, one thing has stood quietly amongst the dizzying maelstrom of Times Square providing solace, contemplation, and stillness. Kehinde Wiley's 27-foot bronze statue, Rumors of War. That was until December 1st when the artwork began the journey 330 miles south to its permanent home at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Lucas Witalidoff
To put it gently, Times Square in New York City is a four-block den of entropy, filled with noise, lights, smells, and motion that would make anyone exhausted by the mere thought of entering. Times Square is hysteria, avoided by most New Yorkers at all costs unless they have to for work or Jah forbid, find someone or something.
The giant LED advertisements, the people dressed as Elmo and Superman, those poor souls employed by the open-air SuperBus handing out flyers obstruct the sidewalk; the cacophony of tourists hollering over the symphonic racket of chaos flood the ears. Wafts of cheap tubed meats, grilled peppers and onions mix with bus fumes and unidentifiable odors to create a unique, confusing olfactory sensation. It is the opposite of tranquility unless sensory explosion is your thing.
Depicting a man of color in casual wear atop a horse, Wiley's first public sculpture stands on a base of limestone not dissimilar to the sculptures that line Monument Avenue. The name of the piece may derive from a verse of Matthew 24:6 (King James edition): "And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet."
December 10th, Rumors of War will be unveiled on the front lawn of the VMFA along Arthur Ashe Boulevard in a ceremony beginning at 330 PM. The artwork will be facing north and will undoubtedly provide public and private discourse with the Richmond community and beyond.
Gaudy advertisements and hordes of tourists may not constantly surround Rumors at its permanent location. There will certainly be commotion though, and there will be thought. Wiley's artwork should be considered on its own and within its environment. Nuance, amongst the disarray.


If you'll be at the International Literacy Association Conference from July 20 – 23 in Austin, Texas, come see our staff and authors!
Lee & Low Director of Marketing Hannah Ehrlich will moderate a panel on the research supporting inclusive libraries and how to build a diverse library using Lee & Low's popular Classroom Library Questionnaire. Come join us to hear from experts in the field and come away with practical tips about building and evaluating your library.
Join ninth-grade ELA instructor Henry "Cody" Miller for a provocative conversation with some of today's hottest authors including Lesléa Newman (Sparkle Boy) about how thoughtful, intentional integration of LGBTQ texts can help create transformative spaces for all.


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Lisa talks Enneagram with Rebekah Fowlkes
Rebekah Fowlkes is my Enneagram go to. Don't know about the Enneagram? She will tell you all about it. It's a fun little personality test that can help you get along better with a mate or suitemate or your kids.
BOOKS/AUDIO BOOKS:
The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth by Christopher L. Heuertz:
https://amzn.to/3j1Cobs
The Road Back to You by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile:
https://amzn.to/2HxklMN
The Path Between Us: An Enneagram Journey to Healthy Relationships by Suzanne Stabile
https://amzn.to/2G7Pd5u
The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types by Don Richard Riso:
https://amzn.to/304XGNU
PODCAST: Sleeping at Last
APP: EnneaApp
Lisa Fischer has always had aspirations she'd be somebody. And she was. In high school, she peaked early and reached the pinnacle of her career when she won Most Talkative for her high school yearbook. That accolade is hard to beat, but she's been trying to win the public's approval ever since with her almost 35 years as a broadcaster and journalist. Lisa is currently the editor-at-large of AY About You magazine, a podcaster, a TV pitchman and a future YouTube sensation.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


While searching for answers, donning disguises, and sneaking around where no proper ladies would ever go, they pair with Jasper Forth, a police constable, and Ray DeLuca, a reporter in whom Jem takes a more than professional interest. Merinda could well be Toronto's premiere consulting detective, and Jem may just find a way to put her bachelor girlhood behind her forever—if they can stay alive long enough to do so.
"The author describes the 1910 Toronto setting incredibly well, immersing the reader from the beginning. Jem and Merinda are perfect foils for each other; levelheaded Jem, balances impetuous Merinda. With shades of Sherlock Holmes, tongue-in-cheek footnotes and a great whodunit, put this one on your must-buy list."
"Playful characters (and wry footnotes that break the fourth wall) delightfully contrast the suppressive Victorian setting, while a bit of danger raises the ante. McMillan has created two equally likable and unique heroines. Good fun."
"Merinda and Jem are certainly swimming against the tide of Edwardian ideas of how women should behave. The author does a great job describing the time period, and creating for the reader the "feel" of what it was like to live then. The mystery was good, and I liked that there wasn't anything offensive in it.... I suggest this 4-star book to mystery readers, especially those who enjoy period settings."
"Not only is the story an intense mystery at times, but the clearly well-researched historical elements combine to form a unique narrative. Normally, a book is either a riveting mystery OR an endearing historical. This story achieves both!
With heroines who clearly allude to Sherlock Holmes characteristics, female readers will delight in discovering each of the many references sprinkled throughout the novel. Without question, I will look forward to the next installment of the Herringford and Watts Mysteries, and if you give The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder a try, I'm pretty sure you will too!
"I really enjoyed this amusing mystery about a couple of bachelor girls solving crimes! This was a unique story done in a unique way. I read a lot and this was a little bit different than anything I've read before, which was a good thing! I always like discovering a fresh angle. I loved the tongue-in-cheek humor and the sweet romance.... I can't wait for the next one! I highly recommend this book!"
"Rachel McMillan did a great job of developing the characters and the setting, and I'm eager to see what Jem and Merinda are up to in the next installment in the series. For such a short book, the story was fantastically engaging and just downright fun, and I'd encourage historical and mystery fans alike to give it a shot."
Fun, fanciful, mysterious - the perfect read for fans of Sherlock Holmes.
I enjoyed this jaunt through the streets of Toronto on the heels of mystery and discovery inspired by Sherlock Holmes. I've long been a fan of Holmes and enjoyed this nod to his mysteries and detective acumen. I found Jem to be an adorable character who's growth through the book was enjoyable to watch. Merinda was slightly more difficult to love, as in the way of Sherlock. She had her lovable moments, but there were times when she was slightly oblivious in a way that made me a bit mad at her. Then again, that could have been the point.
The only thing that I didn't enjoy was the point of view changes. I'm a stickler when it comes to POV (must be a personal thing) but I love to be "in" someone's head and know that's where I rest. I feel as if I can truly get to know a character that way. That was not the case for this story and, often times when it switched POV in the middle of a scene, I wondered how we knew what we did. This always jerks me out of the story and was the case in this book. I'm sure there was a stylistic reason for it; I just don't personally enjoy it. I did however enjoy the asides by way of footnote – they were fun!
I would recommend this to fans of Sherlock Holmes, historical fiction, and lovers of fun and lighthearted mysteries.
"With the witty wordplay and inventive plot twists of a classic Sherlock Holmes mystery, McMillan spins a detective tale sure to delight and fascinate those who love entertaining novels full of clues and sleuths and lively characters that live long after the story ends."
"In her fabulous debut, Rachel McMillan brings 1910 Toronto to rich and wonderful life. The intrepid Jem and Merinda make a winning detective team. Full of romance and derring-do, The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder will keep you turning pages."
"Smart, sassy, and chic. The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder is all that and more. A fabulous historical. Encore, Rachel McMillan!"
"A wonderful romp! McMillan's delightful debut introduces us to a beguiling and intrepid crime-solving duo. The two lovely ladies defy expectations and social norms as they lead us across early twentieth-century Toronto and into the heart of a compelling mystery...with a dash of romance on the side. Can't wait for more of these two and the adventure they'll lead us on next!"
"A savvy and street-smart read. Rachel McMillan's The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder is a wickedly clever debut, with the wit and intelligence of a classic Agatha Christie whodunit. It's a vintage-inspired ride with a dash of mystery, romance, and just enough suspense to keep the reader guessing. I was drawn in and held captive with the turn of each page!"
"One does not merely read The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder. Rather, one enters the story, allows the author to take her on a wild ride through early twentieth century Toronto, and remains unable to do anything but turn the pages until the final scene has ended. McMillan has created characters whose exploits will live on well beyond this story. Well done! Now hurry and write the next one!"
"In her stunning debut, Rachel McMillan achieves a perfect balance of wit and warmth and invites readers into an entirely new world. More than intrepid detectives, Bachelor Girls Jem and Merinda are fully fleshed women, grappling with mysteries of the heart as well as those of the gritty streets of historic Toronto. A cast of supporting characters brings life and dimension, as well as the promise of more stories to come. McMillan's homage to the spirit of Sherlock and Watson stands solid on its own, whether in pick heels or brogans."
"Come for the gorgeous cover and promise of mystery; stay for the lilting romance and tingling wit. Rachel McMillan's debut is the perfect mix of engaging characters and a fresh, enticing voice. Simply put, I'm hooked!"
"There's nothing more delicious than discovering an author whose novel is as fabulous as the cover art suggests. Debut author Rachel McMillan is a refreshing new talent in the inspirational market, penning an enchanting tale of murder, mayhem, and Sherlockesque shenanigans. Jem and Merinda will captivate readers' hearts as their adventurous spirits cause them to buck social norms for ladies of their day, resulting in humorous and dangerous consequences in equal measure. Toss in a charming Italian journalist with a penchant for verse and a dedicated member of the Canadian constabulary with a weakness for a certain woman, and sparks...and bullets...are bound to fly. Unique, witty, and invigorating, McMillan's prose is smooth, her historical detail excellent, and her bachelor girls appealing in every way. Sherlock Holmes and Phryne Fisher may need to step aside as Herringford & Watts, Lady Detectives, are on the case!"
"Possessing light-hearted, witty humor, and clever Sherlockian style sleuthing — The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder by Rachel McMillan is a FUN and entertaining read!"


Finest flavour wafts through the room: A creamy espresso with a caramel biscuit on the side finds its way to your place. On the next table, you see a big coffee americano standing next to a milk jug and out of the door goes a woman holding a delicate hot beverage in a to-go-mug, printed with your company address. The required accessories (and a lot more!) can be found right here – they will leave nothing to be desired and will make each barista's heart beat faster!


Is the road less traveled your home address? Do your friends and family expect the unexpected from you? Would you describe yourself as confident, brave and fulfilled? If your answers are yes, yes, and yes, then you are a rare bird. You most likely have discovered how to unlatch the proverbial gilded cage, and have found your way out of your comfort zone to where the real magic in life happens.
Statistics will confirm that making iron-clad resolutions to change behavior will likely result in failure. Behavior is a natural follower, a coat-tail rider, a wanna-be; and behavior's greatest wish is to find a dynamic leader who will provide an easy solution to a nagging concern. The problem is that the real meat in life, the biggest rewards, and the greatest possibility of being a bit better than we are today, comes only when behavior shakes off the mantel of follower and becomes a leader, and the only non-pharmaceutical way that I know to do this, is to get the heck out of our comfort zones.
Comfort zones are the places in our minds in which we reside where we perceive the risks and stresses of life to be manageable. Comfort zones disguise themselves in deceptively appealing ways: being nestled in a cozy chair sipping cocoa, watching reruns of TV shows and movies that you could quite nearly recite, or ensconced before a computer screen surfing across the ocean of web waves (a.k.a. the best friend of those with a proclivity for procrastination). Comfort zones may also be a job that pays the bills but provides little else, a hobby that has become a chore, or simply a habit repeated mindlessly despite its lack of purpose or fulfillment. The real enigma to comfort zones is that despite their benign appearance, they actually tend to create dissonance. Our brains crave both familiarity and change. Comfort zones are the familiar; however, when there's a little too much familiar, the internal battle begins.
It is well known that great entrepreneurs are rarely in their comfort zone and embrace change more readily than most. They push boundaries and take great risks… often culling great rewards for their daring. What they have learned is that inside the comfort zone, life is a bit mediocre. While outside, they are more fulfilled, confident, and prosperous. They also know that with every foray outside the comfort zone, it becomes easier to do it again, and again, and again.
While we are not all driven to become great entrepreneurs, we do all have the same brain chemistry that sends out the call to be better at being outside our comfort zones, and our job is to answer the call. The first few times you answer the call, you may find fear waiting on the other end of the line. Fear will find a way to tell you that you might fail. It may come in the form of being reminded of the mailbox full of bills that arrive each month, just as you are about to go part-time at work in order to devote more time to your children; or that the last time you tried hosting a dinner party you and your standing rib roast nearly burned down the kitchen. You may get booed in the middle of your inaugural karaoke set, or face-plant in a snow-bank in front of everyone sharing your first chair-lift ride.
Why would you want to put yourself out there and risk the embarrassment that failure brings? One very compelling reason: the potential rewards are infinite. And we inherently know this; otherwise, we would not crave change when life becomes a little too mundane. Almost anything is possible once we get outside our comfort zone: new adventures, new hobbies, new work, new friends, new relationships, better health, prosperity, happiness, confidence, fulfillment, excitement, security… the possibilities are limitless.
The leap from your comfort zone does not have to be monumental to realize the benefits. If fear is whispering in your ear that you had better maintain the status quo, or else, fight back by sneaking in a few being better victories that won't rock the boat too much, but that will show you change is possible.
1.	Do everyday things a little differently. Take the children to school via a different route. Go to a farmers market for your fresh fruit and veggies instead of the supermarket. Start your work day with tea instead of coffee. Do a crossword puzzle after dinner instead of the usual TV veg-fest. Volunteer for a short-term project at church or in the community rather than being overwhelmed at the prospect of an on-going commitment. The possibilities truly are endless for who you may meet, what you may see, what you may learn, or what doors may be opened to you.
2.	Make decisions differently. How do you make decisions? Are you one to make decisions quickly, or do you take your time? Now, do the opposite. If you are a snap-decision person, try mulling over your choices. Do some research and spend time simply thinking over your options. If you are slow to make decision, try trusting yourself and make some choices more quickly. Either way, you have some experience at making decisions; now trust yourself to do it a little differently. You may find solutions and answers that you had never imagined.
3.	Identify your fears and then take small steps to test your limits. Fear of public speaking: practicing speaking up in meetings before volunteering to give the key note address at your company's annual meeting. Fear of water: take beginning adult swimming lessons at the rec center before throwing yourself off of the high dive. Once you try these baby steps and experience a few small victories, don't be surprised if you find yourself bungee jumping on your next vacation, spear-heading a Habitat for Humanity project, or launching your own business.
As many of life's great gurus have said, including my dear grandmother, "Everything in moderation," which thankfully means we will always need our comfort zones to balance us. Stepping out of the comfortable places in our lives and our minds will encourage behavior to become the lead-dog on our journey to being better; with the reassuring knowledge that a cup of cocoa and a rerun, or Pinteresting the evening away now and then, just may be good for us too.


Lots of couples get married on Valentine's day, but according to The Psychologist this month there are lots of different types of love story (Sternberg 2013): I don't see myself as a house wife, but I think of my love story as being a mix of a cookbook (doing things a certain way results in a relationship being more likely to work out), gardening (relationships need to be continually nurtured) and sewing (love is whatever you make it); and definitely not horror, war or a game. What about your love story – is it: Addiction, Art, Business, Collection, Fantasy, History, Mystery, Police, Science or Theatre?
…and some card shops are now selling cards for other members of your family – which is fine as we all need social support in whatever form it takes, especially when going through painful times; so make the most of whatever love you have in your life.


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LMU Dances into Basketball season
Homecoming hit a fever pitch with Midnight Madness on Friday. It was a chance for the 'Splitters Nation to get to know the 2011-2012 Lady Railsplitter and Railsplitter Basketball teams. Plus there were some great performances by the LMU Dance Team, Cheerleaders and Abe. We even crowned a new Homecoming Queen and King! Not to mention a halarious dizzy bat contest and a wicked simon says game. Oh what a night!
Tags: Athletics, Basketball, cheerleaders, dance team, Homecoming, Lady Railsplitters, LMU, mascot, midnight madness, Railsplitters
Categories Alumni, Athletics, Events, Homecoming
As if welcoming our new students back to campus on Saturday and the returning students on Sunday wasn't enough excitement, we capped the weekend with LMU Family Night at Smokies Stadium. And boy what a night it was…it even went into extra innings!
If you haven't been to Smokies Stadium in Sevierville, what are you waiting for? I mean it, there is only one week left in the regular season, so run out to one of the few remaining games this summer. I guarantee you'll be entertained from the minute you walk into the stadium. The Smokies organization, led by Brian Cox, has carefully planned every moment of a fan's experience.
As you might know, LMU has an extended learning site in Sevier County through our partnership with Walters State. We teach business and education there, but it is still one of our newest extended learning sites, so we are still working to build up LMU's presence in the area. One way we decided to go about that was to partner with the Smokies as a corporate sponsor. LMU Family Night was a feature of sponsorship and honestly at that time, I thought it was a nice little add-on to the package and not much more.
I've told you before I'm not afraid to admit when I'm wrong, and I was wrong in this case. LMU Family Night was much more than an add-on. It was a wonderful opportunity to get our name out to the over 3,000 in attendance. And the Smokies made sure LMU was front and center throughout the night. From the pregame entertainment, where both the LMU Cheerleaders and Dance Team performed, to the ceremonial first pitch, to the national anthem to the seventh-inning stretch, LMU dominated the ballpark. The featured little league team of the night was even from Harrogate Little League!
Freshman Mallory Tucker sings the national anthem.
I had been to Smokies games before, but I got a whole new perspective as I worked with the Smokies game management folks to move our people to the appropriate spot at the appropriate time. It was amazing to me how tightly everything fit together. At one point I realized that LMU's President Jim Dawson was about to throw out the first pitch and I wasn't in a good spot to get a photo. I sprinted down the field and was let on just in time to preserve Dr. Dawson's pitch, which was high and outside. I turned to go back up to the concourse to wait with Freshman Mallory Tucker, who was singing the national anthem on our behalf, only to realize that she was already down on the field getting into place for her big moment.
Dr. Jim Dawson throws out the first pitch.
From Mallory; to the dance team; to the high-flying cheerleaders; to Abe the mascot, LMU was represented by some of the best and brightest Railsplitters and it was a proud day to be wearing blue and gray.
It was such a great experience, we'll keep root, root, rooting for the home team! I hope to make LMU Family Night an annual event for the University. In the mean time, LMU will be calling all Railsplitters back to Smokies Stadium on Friday, April 6, as LMU takes on Carson-Newman in baseball. It is a special rivalry game for the close competitors. What a great opportunity for our student-athletes to compete in a professional stadium.
Tags: baseball, cheerleaders, dance team, family, Lincoln Memorial University, LMU, mallory tucker, national anthem, pitch, Tennessee Smokies
Categories Athletics, Events
Elementary Teacher Inspires LMU Soccer Players to Serve Global Community
A pair of Lincoln Memorial University soccer players returned from Europe last week after spending two weeks helping to build homes for deserving families across the globe. Sarah Taylor and Peter Fraser, a pair of Ontario, Canada natives, spent 10 days in Beius, Romania working with Habitat for Humanity.
The pair's involvement in the international cause can be traced back to Taylor's elementary school days when she was in teacher Kim Penzhorn's class. Penzhorn is a team leader in Habitat for Humanity's Global Village program. She has traveled to Beius three times and the trip Taylor and Fraser joined her on was her second expedition in 2011.
Nine other Canadians joined Taylor, Fraser and Penzhorn on their journey. For many of them it was their first trip to Romania and most of the group had never met before the trip. That was not the case for Taylor and Fraser, who are rising seniors, as both play for LMU Soccer Coach Helio D'Anna and have been classmates at LMU for three years.
Romania became the 50th Habitat for Humanity country in 1996. Beius was the first community in which Habitat was invited to help in Romania. Six other communities, including Cluj-Napoca (Cluj), Pitesti, Radauti, Comanesti, Cumpana and Craiova have since taken up the challenge of ending poverty housing as part of Habitat. According to Habitat, more than 1,200 families in Romania—that previously lived in miserable conditions—now have a safe and healthy home.
Beius is a small town of 12,000 inhabitants located in the northwest of Romania's Bihor county, near the Romanian-Hungarian border. The town is located in a beautiful valley with many villages surrounded by wonderful mountains. Beius has a rural feel—it would not be surprising, for example, to see a wagon with horses crossing through the town. Since the first Habitat home was built (in 1996), 100 families have been afforded safe shelter. Habitat in Beius offers a hand-up, not a hand out. Partner families pay back the home mortgage over 20 years at no interest and invest 1,000 hours of sweat equity labor on other Habitat homes.
LMU rising senior Sarah Taylor assists with a foundation on a Habitat for Humanity building site in Romania.
Taylor and Fraser spent the first part of their trip insulating and installing drywall in one home and laying a foundation for another in nearby Oradea.
LMU rising senior Peter Fraser helps to pour a cement foundation at a Habitat for Humanity building site in Romania.
Back in Beius for the second half of the trip, the team joined future Habitat homeowners in preparing another foundation and finished some homes that were nearing competition. During the weekend they visited the Bears Caves in Chiscau, a wooden church in Bardet and other attractions in the Beius area.
Peter Fraser, center, helps to put the finishing touches on a Habitat for Humanity home in Romania.
Taylor was the Lady Railsplitter's points leader a year ago. An All-Region selection, she looks to build on her 10 goal and 11 assist tallies in her senior year. Fraser's career has been hampered by injury; nevertheless, he is expected to be a key contributor for the Railsplitters at mid-field and on defense.
Sarah Taylor (center) helps to put the finishing touches on a Habitat roof.
Tags: Beius, build, Canada, Canadians, foundation, Habitat, Habitat for Humanity, Lincoln Memorial University, LMU, Romania, roof, Soccer
Categories Athletics, general info
Boy of Summer No More
Here is a summer wake-up call if there ever was one. There are only 25 more days until undergraduate classes start at Lincoln Memorial University (LMU). Just this week we welcomed the first-year medical students at LMU-DeBusk College Osteopathic Medicine and next week the second-years will join them. Twenty-five more days! Students should be packing up and faculty should be dusting off their lesson plans.
It's a wake-up call like this that gets me thinking about the things I love about summer. I love the heat. Not heat indices in the triple digits heat that we are currently experiencing heat, but I love the nice 75-85 degree heat that usually accompanies summer around LMU. I love that we staff members have much of campus to ourselves over the summer. It is our time to bask in the beauty of our campus with activity at a slightly slower pace. I love watermelon, fresh berries and sweet peaches. And I love baseball.
Well actually, that is a lie. I really only tolerate baseball (sorry, I grew up in upstate NY and was raised on basketball and football), but I am getting to the real topic of this blog post. Summer is the time when baseball reigns supreme. It's a time when all of us basketball and football fans have no choice but to tune in to the boys of summer.
Scot Shields
It was during the summer about four years ago when I got my first real taste of Major League Baseball and experienced a shift in my views on baseball, and it was because of Scot Shields.
I joined the University in 2005 and during the first year, was pleased to meet and interview one of our most distinguished alumni, professional baseball player Scot Shields. He had been invited to campus for LMU Baseball Legends night, celebrated at a basketball game. It marked the first time he had returned to LMU since becoming one of the best relief pitchers in Major League Baseball (MLB). He was coming off a season where he had led the American League in holds and he was just three years removed from the Los Angeles Angels' 2002 World Series Championship.
Scot Shields signing autographs at LMU in Decemeber of 2005.
During that visit I was amazed at the openness Scot and his wife, Jaime, shared with the LMU community. In a special alumni meal served before the women's basketball game, Scot and Jaime, who incidentally met at LMU where Jaime was a Lady Railsplitter Volleyball player, sat with alumni from their era and mingled with everyone at the dinner. It was apparent that Scot had fond memories of LMU and his classmates and was happy to be back.
LMU SID Rusty Peace interviews Scot Shields during Baseball Legends Night.
Between games, Scot signed autographs in the Hall of Fame Room. He was patient and spoke with everyone. He even took off his World Series ring off and let many of the fans try it on. He joked with some of the younger kids and shared stories from the "big leagues" with the fathers. At the end of the visit, I had one thought: he is just like all the other LMU alumni I had encountered so far: nice, approachable and very fond of his alma mater. I knew from that visit on, I would follow Scot Shields' career no matter if I worked at LMU or not.
Later, I helped organize a LMU outing to see Scot play. It was this trip that changed the way I looked at baseball all together. Since Scot played for Angels who were based on the West Coast, finding a game that was within driving distance of the University and fit in everyone's schedules was a challenge. Ultimately, we selected a game in Cincinnati, when the Angels visited the Reds. I called the Reds organization and was able to get a block of tickets. We recruited alumni, faculty, staff and students to go and we were off. Arriving at the ball park early, we wanted to make sure we didn't miss warm-ups. Scot was known for talking to fans during warm-ups and we weren't disappointed. He came over and greeted our group and posed for pictures. Though we never got to see him play, the trip was a real highlight for everyone who went. For me, it changed the way I looked at baseball. To see the excitement of a live, major league baseball game in person was far superior to viewing what always seemed to be a slow game on T.V. But more than anything, seeing the players, not just Scot, but most of the players, connecting with the fans really changed my mind.
Scot Shields is pictured with some of his LMU classmates before a game in 2007.
LMU hosted a handful of these road trips to see Scot play during his career. As summer dawned this year it was sad to think the Scot Shields road trips were no more. You see, LMU's very own boy of summer was no more. On March 18, 2011, following two injury-hindered seasons, Scot Shields hung up his glove. He retired a highly efficient and effective setup man who had spent much of the last decade bridging the gap for the Angels between starter (or middle reliever) to closer.
Upon his retirement, Angels Manager Mike Scioscia said, "He evolved into the gold standard of what setup men are. He could've gone a lot of places and been a closer, but he was committed to this organization and this organization was committed to him." Scioscia went on to say, "Scot accepted that role and became the best at it. He was about winning. If he had to take the ball in the seventh inning and pitch the ninth, he would have done it. Thirty years ago, he would have been getting two-plus, three-inning saves. That's how good he was."
Scot Shields made his major league debut on May 26, 2001. He spent his entire career with the Angels, a rare occurrence in this age of free agency. That season in 2005 before he visited LMU, it was the first of four consecutive seasons he would lead the American League in holds. He is the only former Railsplitter to ever play in or win a World Series title.
In summarizing his career with the Angels, he points to the Game 7 of the 2002 World Series as his most memorable moment in uniform, but he is also proud of the 2004 season when he and Francisco Rodriguez each boasted over 100 strikeouts in a season, a landmark achievement for bullpen mates. Shields had a 46-44 record and 3.18 career ERA, averaging 8.1 strikeouts per nine innings. In 697 innings pitched, opponents posted only a .228 batting average and .335 slugging percentage. Sports Illustrated named him Setup Man of the Decade and he is remembered fondly by Angels fans everywhere as one of the last remaining links to the ball club's only World Series Championship.
As summer rolls on and the boys of summer keep taking the field, it is sad to think that Scot Shields will not be taking a mound somewhere, but it remains an honor to call him one of our own. Scot, I hope you are as proud to call yourself a Railsplitter as we are.
Scot Shields is pictured with the LMU group.
Tags: baseball, cincinnati reds, Lincoln Memorial Universtiy, LMU, Los Angeles Angels, Major League Baseball, MLB, Railsplitters, Scot Shields, Sports Illustrated, summer
Let's hear it for the Coach!
A quick history lesson on LMU Basketball. Though the program has been around since 1923 (basketball was played on this campus long before it was an organized program), LMU has only competed in the NCAA for the last 20 years. Our record books are lined with championships. A whole alphabet soup of championships including SMAC Champions, VSAC Champions, NAIA District Champions and TVAC Champions to name a few. But, since taking the NCAA plunge championships have been harder to come by. In fact, since joining the NCAA in 1991, the men's basketball program has posted just seven winning seasons. Seems kind of low, doesn't it? I mean we have a giant arena and basketball is our marquee sport. Seven winning seasons, that can't be right, can it?
Well actually, it isn't entirely correct. Seven was the number of winning seasons posted since 1991 when Coach Josh Schertz was hired in 2009. He has since added two more winning seasons to that total. Just three years into his tenure he has added two winning seasons and it should be noted that his first season's record was an even .500 year with 14 wins and 14 losses.
Clearly Schertz has turned the program around in a short amount of time, but the work is even more impressive if you consider two things. First, he inherited a team that had just eight wins the season before and just one win in South Atlantic Conference play. Second, the turnaround was as dynamic as it was quick. He took the program from winning less than 40 games in the five seasons before his arrival in Harrogate to winning 47 in the last two seasons. Last season, he took a program that had never been in the NCAA Tournament to the brink of hosting a regional as a No. 1 seed. LMU went from a team that had never been ranked (since joining the NCAA), to a perennial regional power, having been ranked in every Southeast Region poll in the last two seasons. Still not impressed? Okay, Schertz also guided the Railsplitters to their first-ever national ranking, culminating in a Top 5 Rank in February before finishing the season at No. 10.
Considering all of that, it should be no surprise that the basketball community has taken note. Coach Schertz had better start building a trophy case at home to hold all the hardware he has racked up in the last year. Just this week he was recognized as one of the Top 25 Non-Division I Head Coaches by collegeinsider.com. At 35 years old, he was the youngest coach on the list. He has also been named the Top Non-Division I Head Coach in the country under 40 years old by smallcollegehoops.com. He was voted the 2011 SAC Coach of the Year and earned NABC National Coach of the Month honors in January. Last season, Schertz was a finalist for the Clarence Gaines National Division II Coach of the Year Award.
Beyond wins and losses, Schertz and his Railsplitters have energized a community. The team is doing its part to fill one of the largest and nicest arenas in all of NCAA Division II. (One could argue that Tex Turner Arena is even better than some smaller Division I institutions.) Schertz has also taken an active role in our community. He was the commencement speaker at Leadership Claiborne this year and his team and coaches participated in Relay for Life.
A new day has dawned at LMU and Schertz, and his entire coaching staff, have set the bar high. The horizon is bright for next season. The Railsplitters return four starts for next year and seven of their top 10 scorers will be back. Now, back to history class because surely Railsplitter Nation is witnessing history in the making!
Go Splitters!
Tags: Basketball, coach, Lincoln Memorial University, Railsplitters
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The Node
S&P: Asia's Gasoil Demand to See Further Growth in 2021
Published January 12th, 2021 - 09:00 GMT
Industry experts noted that many countries have fallen short of their initial mass vaccination targets, even as local transmission numbers have risen higher. (Shutterstock)
But industry sources cautioned that a slower than expected rollout of mass vaccination programs, complications arising from the emergence of new strains of the virus, as well as the possibility of continued low product margins, could lead to a bumpy road
The Asian gasoil market will see further demand growth in 2021, with participants expecting an upswing in consumption especially in the second half of the year, said S&P Global Platts, a leading provider of energy and commodities information.
But industry sources cautioned that a slower than expected rollout of mass vaccination programs, complications arising from the emergence of new strains of the virus, as well as the possibility of continued low product margins, could lead to a bumpy road to recovery.
Industry experts noted that many countries have fallen short of their initial mass vaccination targets, even as local transmission numbers have risen higher. Furthermore, the recent emergence of highly infectious variants of the coronavirus has injected fresh uncertainty into the gasoil demand outlook, sources said.
"The vaccination programs for many countries are falling behind schedule, so while demand for gasoil will surely grow this year, it's more a question of by what extent or quantum this will be," a trader said.
S&P Global Platts Analytics echoed similar sentiments, saying that while the baseline assumption considers that the vaccines' effects on global economic activity will start to become apparent in second half 2021, there were still variables that would impact the pace of recovery.
"Platts Analytics expects Asia's diesel demand, which is estimated to have dropped 2.7% year on year in 2020 to 9.8 million b/d, to bounce back by 3.2% year on year in 2021 as the economy in the region recovers," said JY Lim, oil markets adviser at Platts Analytics.
"Over the last few weeks, however, some Asian countries are seeing more daily cases of COVID-19, and they have to be watched closely as the pace of the outbreak will have a direct bearing on the regional economic outlook and thereby oil demand, especially as the rollout of vaccines has been slow so far," Lim added.
Supply-demand balance at a crossroad
Market participants have also been mulling over regional supply balances which went through significant upheaval in 2020. Industry experts said the pandemic accelerated a wave of refinery closes and changed the global refining landscape, with several regional refiners forced to close or review operations due to poor refining margins.
BP's plans to shut Australia's largest refinery in Kwinana, as well as Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp's plans to shutter its Tabangao-based refinery in the Philippines, will translate to higher import appetite from key demand centers. This will help offset a wave of new supply streams entering the market, sources said.
In addition, gasoil output from two refinery start-ups in the Arabian Gulf -- Saudi Arabia's Jazan and Kuwait's Al-Zour -- are set to spill fresh barrels into the spot market.
Gasoil cracks remain weak
Participants also opined that one of the constant themes brought over from 2020 into the new year could be the fact that refiners may choose to continue to run at lower rates due to dismal margins.
"There will be a global recovery for gasoil demand, but the question remains about margins, which are still low... that leads to questions about what forward margins are going to look like for more and more refineries, and will refiners continue to stay at reduced rates for longer?," a Singapore-based trader said.
In a report published Jan. 6, Platts Analytics said that while gasoil cracks have steadily improved since early-November 2020, it remains statistically weak.
"Asian refining margins have been in negative territory for many months... [and] the regional surplus of capacity continues to affect product balances," Platts Analytics said in a separate report released in December.
"Middle distillate stocks [have] remained high due to weak jet fuel demand and as refiners in the region continued to keep gasoil yield high... in 2021, there is still too much capacity chasing after too little demand," the report said.
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This qualitative study aimed to explore patients' experiences of symptom appraisal, help seeking, and routes to diagnosis for brain tumours. The Model of Pathways to Treatment was used as a conceptual framework to analyse interviews with 39 adult patients recently diagnosed with a primary brain tumour and their family members. Most participants had one (38%), two (23%), or more (21%) GP consultations, with only 18% presenting as an emergency without any previous consultations. It was identified that patients experienced many subtle 'changes' rather than symptoms, often noticed by others rather than the patient. The most common changes were in cognition, sleep and other 'head feelings' such as dizziness, frequently leading to loss of interest or ability to engage in daily activities. Quality of communication in GP consultations played a key role in patients' subsequent symptom appraisal and the timing of their decision to re-consult. Being aware of these subtle and intermittent changes, and effective patient–GP communication with follow-up as safety netting, could alert GPs to more rapid investigation and referral.


text:
McDonald's is giving away free fries to every customer across UK today
McDonald's operates more restaurants in Birmingham than any other city in the UK - barring London, of course
Free fries on offer at McDonald's (Image: Steve Parsons/PA Wire)
McDonald's is giving customers free fries today across the country.
McDonald's operates more restaurants in Birmingham than any other city in the UK - barring London, of course.
And the Golden Arches is handing out free fries to people up and down the land.
Friday's deals will see you save £1.09 on the usual cost of a portion of regular fries at a typical restaurant. The deal is available from 11am until midnight.
The deals are available at almost all McDonald's 1,200 UK restaurants - with the only exceptions the 28 that don't work on its app yet.
HotDealsUK has revealed that McDonald's will be giving out free fries on November 22 (Image: Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
To get the deal you need to make sure you've downloaded the free McDonald's app , then order using it when in a branch or on your way to one.
In January, the burger chain said it will offer customers 24 deals over 23 days - running from January 4th to January 26th through the My McDonald's App.
McDonald's giving away free tea or coffee to every customer today
Cadbury brings back iconic 1970s chocolate bar and Brummies are all sharing touching memories
Ben Fox, marketing director for McDonald's UK&I said: "We're excited to offer customers 24 deals over 23 days to brighten up the month of January.
"The daily deals are exclusively available through the My McDonald's App, which also enables our customers to beat the queue, enjoy table service, customise orders and remember their favourite orders."


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Daniel Island – Charleston, South Carolina This project is sixty-eight multi-family residential units on four stories over parking garage podium. Approvals were required by both the City BAR and the Daniel Island ARB.
Charleston, South Carolina This mixed use/multi-family project is located adjacent to a residential area in a rapidly developing area of Meeting Street. It includes 36 multi-family residential units on three floors over street level retail and parking garage.
Daniel Island – Charleston, South Carolina This project is located on Daniel Island near the town center and includes 58 multi-family residential units on four levels over parking podium.
Daufuskie Island, South Carolina This project is a 36 unit residential complex located on a 6 acre site on the Atlantic Ocean on Daufuskie Island. The units are typically 3 bedrooms/3 bath units on one level with exterior balconies, and direct ocean views. The site is heavily wooded and existing trees were maintained to preserve the ambiance and character of the site. The project is 4 stories in height and was a concrete structure. The design elements of the project reflect the context of the island and includes stucco exterior, standing seam metal roofs with broad overhangs and extensive hardscape with pool and landscaping. The extensive use of exterior columns and balconies reflect the traditional porches of the indigenous architecture of the area.
Charleston, South Carolina The project was a multi-family housing complex located in the high growth area of I-526 and Ashley River Road. The firm designed a 246-unit complex of one and two bedroom units in two building types of 18 and 24 units. The buildings are three stories with parking located below the residential units at grade. The project included a 4000 sq. ft. clubhouse/amenities building including an outdoor pool, office, conference, great room gathering space and other amenities for the residents.
Charleston, South Carolina This was a mixed-use complex on Cumberland Street in Charleston, South Carolina across from St. Phillips Church and near the market area. The project included renovation/adaptive reuse of several historic buildings and construction of new buildings around an existing landscaped courtyard. The project design consisted of high-end luxury residential units, and retail/office/restaurant and parking. The project is near the French Quarter neighborhood of Charleston.
Summerville, South Carolina As part of a large mixed-use project in the historic area of Summerville, the project included 30 multi-family residential units on 3 levels. The project was designed to fit into the historic context of Summerville.


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Yes, they should work ok assuming they are Oral b heads.
Is this the oral pro 3000 or pro 3 3000? The pro 3000 has 3 speed settings as per this video. The 3 3000 only has 2 as in your description.
This is the Oral-B Pro 3000 version.
This has a Li-ion battery.


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text:
Ukraine crisis sitemize 21 Şubat 2014 tarihinde eklenmiş ve 1.558 kişi tarafından ziyaret edilmiş.
bbc.co.uk/
Listen: The conversation was leaked online, as Mark Mardell reports
An apparently bugged phone conversation in which a senior US diplomat disparages the EU over the Ukraine crisis has been posted online.
A voice resembling that of Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland refers to the EU using a graphic swear word, in a conversation apparently with the US ambassador to Ukraine.
The US said Ms Nuland had "apologised for these reported comments".
The EU and US are involved in talks to end months of unrest in Ukraine.
I think Yats is the guy that, who's got the economic experience, the governing experience… What he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside"
Voice said to be Victoria Nuland
Mass anti-government protests erupted in Ukraine in late November after President Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign a far-reaching association and trade agreement with the EU – under heavy pressure from Moscow.
Russia has been widely accused of intervening in Ukraine, using its economic clout to persuade Mr Yanukovych to abandon closer ties with Brussels.
Russia has itself accused Washington and the EU of meddling in Ukraine.
'Not a good idea'
The alleged conversation between Ms Nuland and the US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, appeared on YouTube on Thursday.
The 4min 10sec video was entitled "Maidan's puppets" in Russian – a reference to the square in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, where pro-EU protests have been held for months. A transcription of the whole conversation was also posted in Russian.
At one point, the female speaker mentions the UN and its possible role in trying to find a solution to the Ukraine stand-off.
She says: "So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and have the UN help glue it and you know…" she then uses the graphic swear word about the EU.
The phone call seems to suggest the US does not think Vitaly Klitschko should join the government
The protests are continuing in Kiev's Independence (Maidan) Square
Some of the protesters have been there since November
On Thursday, some opposition protesters marched to parliament in a show of force
The male replies: "We've got to do something to make it stick together, because you can be pretty sure that if it does start to gain altitude the Russians will be working behind the scenes to try to torpedo it."
The two officials also discuss frankly the merits of the three main Ukrainian opposition leaders – Vitaly Klitschko, Arseniy Yatseniuk and Oleh Tyahnybok.
Ukraine unrest: Timeline
21 November 2013: Ukraine announces it will not sign a deal aimed at strengthening ties with the EU, sparking protests
17 December: Russia agrees to buy $15bn of Ukrainian government bonds and slash the price of gas it sells to the country
16 January 2014: Parliament passes law restricting the right to protest
22 January: Two protesters die from bullet wounds during clashes with police in Kiev; protests spread across many cities
25 January: President Yanukovych offers senior jobs to the opposition, including that of prime minister, but these are rejected
28 January: Parliament votes to annul protest law and President Yanukovych accepts resignation of PM and cabinet
29 January: Parliament passes amnesty law for detained protesters, under the condition occupied buildings are vacated
Ukraine's protest leaders
Q&A: Stand-off in Ukraine
The female speaker says that Mr Klitschko, the former heavyweight boxing world champion, should not be in any new government. "I don't think it's a good idea."
She adds: "I think Yats (Arseniy Yatseniuk) is the guy who's got the economic experience."
US officials refused to confirm or deny the tape's authenticity, but state department spokeswoman Jan Psaki said: "I didn't say it was inauthentic."
Ms Psaki said Ms Nuland had "been in contact with her EU counterparts and of course has apologised for these reported comments".
An EU official told the BBC: "The EU is engaged in helping the people of Ukraine through the current political crisis. We don't comment on alleged leaked telephone conversations."
Ms Psaki also played down the comments about Ukraine's opposition, saying: "It shouldn't be a surprise that at any points there have been discussions about recent events and offers and what is happening on the ground."
Sochi summit
Ms Psaki hinted that the tape could have been leaked by Moscow, pointing out that a senior Russian official was one of the first to draw attention to the audio.
She said: "We think this is a new low in Russian trade-craft. This is something they've been actively promoting, posting on, tweeting about."
White House spokesman Jay Carney added: "I would say that since the video was first noted and tweeted out by the Russian government, I think it says something about Russia's role."
US state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki did not deny the authenticity of the recording
Earlier on Thursday, a senior aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Washington of interfering in Ukraine's domestic affairs.
Sergei Glazyev said the US was spending $20m (£12.3m; 14.8m euros) a week on Ukrainian opposition groups, supplying "rebels" with arms among other things.
And he suggested that Moscow could also intervene.
Mr Yanukovych held talks in Kiev with Ms Nuland on Thursday, at which he said he favoured dialogue and compromise with the opposition.
The Ukrainian leader is to meet President Putin on Friday on the sidelines of the Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Moscow has promised a $15bn (£9.2bn) loan to Ukraine but said it would not be released in full until the formation of a new government in Kiev.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and his cabinet resigned last month as President Yanukovych sought to calm street protests.
Also in Kiev, thousands of Ukrainian opposition activists, some carrying shields and baseball bats, marched from their camp on Independence (Maidan) Square to parliament in a show of force.
They came close to government supporters who are camped next to parliament behind barricades manned by hundreds of police, but the march passed off peacefully.
İlgili Terimler : Ukraine crisis


As a female announcer on Soviet radio read out the day's soccer scores, Vladimir Safarov, a dedicated supporter of Tashkent club FC Pakhtakor, had a feeling something wasn't right.
"The game between Dinamo Minsk and FC Pakhtakor did not take place, and will take place much later," the announcer said.
It was August 1979 and Safarov was stationed in Damascus as part of a Soviet engineering corps working on Syria's national rail grid.
Within hours, Safarov's Arab colleagues had broken the bad news that Soviet media was still studiously ignoring.
"They told me that a plane carrying players from Pakhtakor had fallen out of the sky in Ukraine on its way to Belarus. I didn't believe it at first. But then we tuned into Voice of America and heard the same thing," he told Eurasianet.
It would take a full week for the official version of events to reach Tashkent. On August 11, a collision of two airplanes above the Ukrainian city of Dniprodzerzhynsk (now Kamianske) had killed 178 people, including 17 players and staff of Pakhtakor.
By that point Uzbekistan's capital was already ensconced in grief. Feeding off a diet of foreign radio reports and hearsay, a numb, shocked crowd of thousands of people had gathered outside the club's storied stadium. Some had taken to sleeping on the streets.
One rumor doing the rounds was that the plane had been shot down after being mistaken for a hostile craft. After all, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had been on a flight to Crimea at around the same time the collision had taken place.
A belated state newspaper report featuring tributes to players killed in the crash was followed by a massive public funeral in Tashkent, where 178 symbolic stones were buried.
The news that a court had handed two air traffic controllers 15-year sentences for dereliction of duty provided a semblance of closure for some, but no consolation.
"What we lost in that disaster is difficult to quantify," said 79-year-old Safarov, who eventually moved from engineering into sports journalism, and is now regarded as Uzbek soccer's pre-eminent historian.
Pakhtakor was neither the first nor the last soccer club to be devastated by an air disaster.
A plane crash that killed 23 people following an abortive takeoff in Munich in 1958 robbed Manchester United and English football of some of its leading lights. FC Torino of Italy was arguably the greatest club in the world at the time of the 1949 air disaster near Turin that claimed 38 lives and left no survivors. In 2016, all but three members of the talent-packed first team of Brazilian club Chapecoense were killed after a plane crashed approaching the main airport in Medellin, Colombia.
The strange structure of Soviet football meant that the Pakhtakor air disaster was very much a national tragedy.
Football authorities in Moscow viewed it as desirable for every republic to be represented in the Union's Top League. Pakhtakor became the first team from Central Asia to play at such a level in 1959. It was joined shortly afterwards by FC Kairat of Almaty in Kazakhstan.
Although other Pakhtakor teams achieved more, the team of the mid-to-late 1970s that consisted almost exclusively of Uzbekistan-born players was particularly beloved.
"We would go out to try and demolish sides," recalled Tulyagan Isakov, the team's captain and center-forward, who missed the visit to Dinamo Minsk with a career-threatening injury and attended the funeral on crutches.
One obvious shortfall of Pakhtakor's outgoing playing style – an old-fashioned version of the high-pressing tactics favored by modern-day super-coaches like Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola – was that it left the defensive line sorely exposed.
In the 1974 season, Pakhtakor was behind only league-winners Dynamo Kiev in terms of goals scored but conceded the third most goals out of the 16 teams in the league. The team ended the season mid-table.
The next season, Dynamo Kiev arrived at a struggling Pakhtakor for a league clash just over a week after having beaten a vintage Bayern Munich side in the European Supercup final.
In a stunning result, the Uzbek team, whose name translates as "cotton picker," routed the champions 5-0.
The lynchpin of that performance and other famous Pakhtakor victories was the wiry and gifted midfielder Mikhail An.
An was also ruled out of the fateful Dinamo Minsk clash with an injury but was persuaded to board the plane anyway in order to boost squad morale. When Isakov paid a visit to his teammate's grieving mother after the crash, "she greeted me like a son," he recalled.
Eventually, Isakov would return from injury to train again with Pakhtakor.
The club had been reinvented with players donated by other top league clubs and provided three years immunity from relegation by the Soviet football authorities. But it would never be the same.
Nobody has done more to keep the memory of that doomed team alive than 75-year-old Alla Tadzetdinova. Her then husband-to-be, Igdai Tadzetdinov, was club captain when, at the age of 17, she went to watch a training session with a football-crazy friend.
The courtship lasted a matter of months before the pair married. A daughter arrived two years later. By the time of Tadzetdinov's death in the skies above Dniprodzerzhynsk, he had become the club's irrepressible first team coach. The family got 300 rubles, roughly equivalent to around two months' worth of an average monthly salary, in compensation from the government.
Tadzetdinova regularly speaks at youth soccer tournaments held in honor of the players and is planning a film about the 1979 team in time for the 40th anniversary of the crash. Whenever she makes an appearance at the ground that has dominated her entire adult life, club dignitaries flock to pay homage.
Isakov, who has become increasingly reticent to speak publicly about the tragedy, refused several interview requests from Eurasianet until Tadzetdinova intervened and summoned him to the stadium.
"If he is hiding somewhere, we will find him. If he has crawled into a bottle, we will pull him out," she promised.
The strong bonds connecting the duo and Vladimir Safarov, holdovers from a more intimate, Soviet-era Tashkent, were plain to see.
But for all Tadzetdinova's force of personality, she is still consumed by the tragedy.
She has over the years made countless visits to the area of eastern Ukraine where debris from the fallout was first found nearly four decades ago. A memorial to the dead now marks the spot.
Lacking access to government documents on the tragedy, she has steadfastly refused to believe the official narrative of a mid-air collision.
In 2010, she even went on an oddball Ukrainian TV program called Battle of the Psychics in an attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery. Later, the producer of the show sent her a letter claiming to have been in contact with an anonymous eyewitness who had seen the plane explode in mid-air and "come to understand" it had been shot out of the sky by a missile.
But the account offered in the letter, which Eurasianet has seen, is far from convincing.
The pain of the decades past is compounded by the fact that the club Tadzetdinova's husband gave his life to is no longer top dog in the domestic game. Uzbek football as a whole has regressed significantly since Pakhtakor's heyday, even as player salaries have soared.
Soccer players past and present still provide the main theme of conversation at the Tadzetdinov household, where a shrinking group of friends and relatives connected to the pre-crash Pakhtakor era still gathers occasionally.
"Playing for us is not like playing for some other clubs," she said.
Chris Rickleton is a journalist based in Almaty.


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