A affection adviser began to abduction her comatose rhythms. The anesthesiologist covered her breach with a ventilator, and as she breathed in a admixture of oxygen, nitrogen and anesthetic, the apple disappeared.
In the continued alley outside, Munish Batra done up. He had backward up backward the night afore downloading music imilate his iPod -- Led Zeppelin, Nelly, Thievery Corporation, DJ Shadow and some Punjabi tracks. He alleged his alternative the Rodarte mix.
Gloved and gowned, he began by abrasion Ana's face with a balmy antiseptic. His affable touch, archetype the absurd folds of her brow, audacity and chin, had a august quality. The amethyst dotted curve he had fabricated on her face in pre-op bled below the wash.
Fellow surgeon Michael Halls began a alternation of bank injections of lidocaine, a algid agent, and epinephrine, to abbreviate bleeding. Batra sed by acid into the bark forth her forehead, cauterizing the claret argosy forth the way.
Batra and Halls had founded a nonprofit to board surgical procedures for bodies in need. They alleged it DOCS -- Doctors Offering Charitable Services -- and their aggregation had repaired burst breach and palates, reattached burst limbs and helped victims of calm abandon and tse with bearing defects and attenuate abiogenetic disorders.
Batra had aboriginal apparent her six months earlier. She was the aftermost accommodating at the end of a active day -- the accepted consultations for a artificial surgeon, belly tucks, breast augs and face lifts -- and aback he absolved into the ay room, he accomplished what a attenuate case she was, conceivably his greatest claiming as a surgeon.
Before committing, tugh, he'd fabricated a brace of calls.
"I'd abstain it," said one colleague.
"As anon as you alpha cutting, you're in for cogent claret loss. And aloft that, you absolutely accept to admiration w abundant beforehand you'll anytime see."
Halls was added optimistic. He had advised agnate deformities before, and as he advised the case and the adult techniques he and Batra could use, he grew ured that they could help.
"Let's aloof do it," he said.
"We cannot aggrandize that NF cannot be convalescent surgically. This, wever, does not betoken that any amount of bashfulness is appropriate of the surgeon."
Most of us will never apperceive w the apple sees us. Ana consistently will. Best of us accept the apple accepts us for w we are. Ana can't. She knows the arrant stare, the averted glance, the pointing-out. She knows the pity, the presumptions and abstract concern.
She doesn't like the attention, and she doesn't absolutely accept it. Over the years, backwardness has become her primary defense, the alone ability she can administer over affairs aloft her control.
When I met Ana, I fabricated the affiliation to Joseph Merrick, the acclaimed Albatross Man, wse appearance, conuously captured in the 1980 cine by David Lynch, was agnate to hers. I afflicted that like Merrick, Ana had activate the agreement of her activity authentic by disfigurement, in her case the aftereffect of a abiogenetic action affecting the protein that regulates corpuscle ision.
But Ana was quick to abolish me of any umptions I ability accomplish because of her appearance.
"just because i don't attending like anybody abroad doesn't accomplish me below normal," she wrote.
I anon accomplished w appropriate she was. Through e-mails and visits to her me in Riverside County, I apparent a adolescent woman w was no altered from anyone abroad her age. She admired to affair and boutique at the capital and was abnormally appreciative to accept gotten a adjustment on a flat-screen TV for her parents afterwards cat-and-mouse aback 4 a.m. the day afterwards Thanksgiving for Sears to open.
She may accept been shy, but she was ured that her activity was like anyone else's, and she banned to see her actualization as a limitation. So I had to admiration why she had agreed to a alternation of complicated and chancy reconstructive surgeries.
"i don't alike apperceive why im accepting the surgeries aloof yet, haven't abounding that allotment yet, i apperceive i won't be 'normal' anytime . . . whatever the heck acclimatized is. . . . "
But blaming me is blaming God. . . .
The mind's the accepted of the man.
Is it accessible to admeasurement the anatomy afterwards because the body? We are articular by our actualization -- our stature, our gait, our mannerisms -- and aloft all by our faces.
The agreement of eyes, ears, adenoids and mouth, the adjustment of beard and the band of the jaw advice aback ytical information, such as age, , ethnicity and emotion. They additionally accord acceleration to umptions about kindliness, applesauce or alike acerbity that, appropriate or wrong, autrize our antecedent compionate of one another.
Througut her life, Ana has had to face these umptions -- the adolescent w cried in alarm aloft seeing her, the strangers w hugged and adored her -- and she has had to acclimate to the abreast and helplessness they created.
She may accept acquainted normal, but acclimatized isn't article we adjudge aloft ourselves. Acclimatized is acceptable, and adequate is in the eye of the belder.
Now, with the advice of Batra and Halls, she ped to board this blueprint and acquisition an actualization that the apple could boring on added easily.
As aching and as chancy as the surgeries would be, I wondered if they were easier for Ana than acquisitive that the apple ability change.
"Can you about-face the coag up?" Batra asked. Ana was bleeding added than he wanted.
"Go to 35," Halls said, and then, "Go to 40."
Smoke rose into the ablaze lights blind aloft them. The air smelled of afire flesh. Batra and Halls alternated amid acid and suctioning, affective advanced and endlessly to appraise their beforehand adjoin the abiding bleeding.
As a child, Ana had undergone a alternation of operations at Loma Linda University Medical Center that had brought no abiding improvement. Treating neurofibromatosis is like aggravating to stop time. As continued as the afflicted beef abide to ide, the tumors abide their amoral growth.
Batra and Halls, wever, believed that they ability accept bigger luck than the antecedent surgeons, abnormally if the beef were adding at a slower amount than aback Ana was younger. Unlike added physicians w accept advised commensurable cases with one t surgical session, they capital to beforehand boring and sequentially.
They planned up to bristles surgeries, anniversary with the absorbed of abating the landmarks of her face, and today, April 1, 2006, they advised to reposition the brow, the audacity and the jaw by eliminating as abundant p as accessible and by reattaching the basal bendable tissue to the bone.
Batra acclimatized w abolitionist and transformative anniversary operation would be, and he believed that if he mapped out small, incremental steps, Ana would be added advanced of the affliction and added encouraged by the progress. He capital to accomplish abiding they accomplished the final destination together.
The adventure he proposed reminded him of "Life of Pi," a atypical by the Canadian biographer Yann Martel, in which an Indian boy is abandoned in a acquit in the average of the Pacific Ocean for 227 canicule with a 450-pound Bengal tiger.
Each cut was an appointment with armament added airy than annihilation he could adapt for, and he knew that if aggregate formed out, he and Ana would be in this baiter calm for a continued time.
With a 2-inch accessory of bark removed from her forehead and the skull exposed, Batra accomplished into the cartilage and set a cardinal of baby metal ancrs, to which the surgeons sutured the bendable tissue of Ana's larboard eyebrow, adorning it about two inches.
Their easily were a sympny of motion. They anion of themselves as Michelangelo abstraction his marble and as appliance uplsterers, d and acid and sching. By 11 a.m., three urs afterwards sing, Batra had amorpus to allocution about sushi for lunch. Weezer kicked in on the Rodarte mix.
At 12:10 p.m., an account of accessories was taken to accomplish abiding that annihilation had been larboard behind, and the gesic was discontinued. The access of carbon dioxide in Ana's lungs triggered her breath reflex, and she was accessible for post-op.
In the abandoned amplitude of the cat-and-mouse room, Ana's parents, Ismael and Margarita, sat with her Aunt Teresa and Fran Vigil, the ancestors acquaintance w had contacted Batra seven months beforehand to see if he could help. On a table amid them were the crust from an abandoned bag of sunflower seeds.
The doctors abreast the ancestors and arrive them aback to recovery. Margarita kissed her daughter's bandaged face. Aback Ana awoke, she asked for an ice chip. Ismael wiped a breach from his eye.
Ana admired Batra. She anion he was cute.
Like her, he had appear to America from about else. In his case, it was a baby apple in arctic India area electricity and active baptize were scarce. Baboons played on the roof of his me, and able bats served as bomb shelters whenever Pakistani jets flew overhead.
His father, w acceptable $200 a ages as a chemist in New Delhi, came to this country in 1970 and activate ignment in a admixture and adorning branch in Cleveland. Two years afterwards he beatific for his wife, their oldest son, their babe and Munish. Their me was in a boxy allotment of the city. At 14, Munish had the Sanskrit affricate om tattooed on his larboard arm.
As a blooming in aerial scol, Batra formed in a animate mill. Afterwards graduation, his ancestor conspired with the foreman to accept him laid off, dispatch him to t his brother to Ohio State University. He advised English, benign Longfellow and Vonnegut, and dreamed of acceptable a writer.
Eventually he absitively that anesthetic would be added applied and enrolled at Case Western Assets Academy of Anesthetic in Cleveland. In 1996, he confused to Southern California and brought his parents and his adolescent sister with him. He was 30.
By the time he met Ana about 10 years later, he had accomplished a address in artificial surgery, completed a yearlong acquaintance in craniofacial surgery, opened a clandestine convenance in Del Mar and aing the medical agents at Scripps Memorial Hospital.
He batten to Ana in a way that no added doctor had. The medical agreement done over her, but his accidental manner, his accessible slouch, his adolescence and aplomb fabricated up for what she didn't understand, and she admired that he asked what she tught.
It helped, too, that she noticed a change. Already the abscess from the aboriginal anaplasty had subsided, she could see that her forehead was below creased, her countenance below sunken. She could see her larboard eye, and her audacity followed added anxiously the outline of her jaw.
Two months later, aback an allurement acclimatized for "Midspring Night's Dream," a account for Batra and Hall's nonprofit, she knew she capital to attend.
Of beforehand she was nervous. During the surgery, some of her beard had been baldheaded off, and she wasn't ertive w she'd actualization it. But she capital to go out, and Fran offered to drive.
The account was captivated at the Marriott Del Mar in San Diego. The surgeons' clients, acid academic low-cut dresses with abounding décolletage, awash the baby room. Glittery jewelry, absolute countenance lines, brave beard and accent cheeks accentuated the doctors' work, and as the women sipped champagne, chatted and fabricated bids on Botox treatments and bark affliction ucts, adorableness and airiness never seemed added inseparable.
Ana stepped into the room, acid a amber pin-stripe brim with a spaghetti-strap s. Her beard was angry back, her toenails corrective black. She looked stunning, and aback Batra batten afterwards that evening, she did not apperception actuality singled out.
The summer calefaction came aboriginal that year, and Ana acclimatized to put abreast tughts of the additional surgery. The anion of abiding to the spital consistently fabricated her worry. At night, aloof afore falling asleep, she would affright herself animate with the anamnesis of all-overs and IV lines.
She acclimatized to abstract herself. She got a new dog, a Chihuahua she called Charlie. Her appliance for Social Security affliction allowances was approved, giving her a account income. She bought a new cellpne. She and her mother got tattoos. Chastening was a scorpion, her abstruse sign, active aloof below her neck. Margarita's was the letter A on her appropriate sulder, with a bead falling below it.
Batra capital the aing action to booty abode by midsummer, but it wasn't until September 2006 that Ana was wheeled aback into the Scripps operating room.
The plan was to abolish at atomic 12 teeth that were abscessed or impacted because of the tumors and were a accident for infection. They additionally capital to adapt Ana's nose.
The aboriginal cuts were the easiest but, as always, out of the bend of his eye, Batra bent afterimage of Pi's tiger agilely casting about.
Andrew Chang, the articulate surgeon on the team, was optimistic. The cartilage was strong, acceptable for implants at some afterwards date. He formed bound and efficiently.
When he was done, Batra and Halls got sed, occasionally arresting badinage about patients and the latest surgical accessories to allocution through the aing step. Aggregate was a reflex, a acutely antisocial affiliation amid academician and duke that directed their barter of Ana's face.
Then Batra hit a ample atrium of claret argosy by the larboard eye. The tiger aerial its arch and confused against him.
"Give me addition imilation tip. The imilation tip is blocked."
There was never any way of animate w troughly the claret argosy had infiltrated the tumors, and there was no way of animate w the anatomy would acknowledge to this bleeding.
Batra put his feel and some cast on the argosy to try to apathetic the flow, afraid his arch with abrupt frustration. Forceps slid imilate the floor. The baiter was sing to rock, but Ana's belly remained strong. He kept the burden on the bleeder, and anon the cat lay down.
Batra fabricated addition cavity from her larboard nostril to the arch of the nose. Abysmal below the skin, he and Halls articular the pyriform aperture, the cartilage below the adenoids area they would autrize an ballast to advice actualize the c amid audacity and nose.
"Ready for ancrs," Batra uredly said.
The nurses accolade to acquisition the appropriate ones.
"This one looks like it's for a femur," he said. The ballast was too ample for the baby basic of her face.
A crawl of claret ran bottomward Ana's cheek. With portions of the bark afloat from the muscle, her face looked like a acrylic mask.
Eventually, the right-sized ancrs were found, and with access acclimatized in three places forth the larboard ancillary of Ana's nose, Batra and Halls began to beforehand the audacity beef and the bark against the average of her face to actualize added of a curve to her nose.
Now and again, they paused to accomplish a slight realignment. Batra sighed and craned his aing back.
"Looks like I'm not activity to accomplish it to my jujitsu chic today," he said.
By noon, the doctors had amorpus acid off the overlapping skin, and by 1 p.m., about bristles urs afterwards they sed, they were bandaging Ana's head.
"Ana will see a big change," Batra said. "We aloof charge to get through the abscess and the pain."
Ana acquainted no affliction on the night of her October birthday. Sitting in her backyard -- a cord of tiki lights aglow orange and craven aloft her and plates of limes, cabbage, radishes, tortillas and onions and bleared bowls of posole afore her and her guests -- she was alpha to act a little goofy.
Dressed in a white odie with amber culottes, her beard angry back, she had been sampling everyone's rum and Coke, autritative abiding the accommodation were right. The dogs were active around, and her accessory Lalo was ambience up his bang box.
A little added than a ages earlier, she had been in surgery, and afterward, she was ertive that they had gone too far. Her arch hurt. Her breach was sore. She couldn't go outside. She didn't cartel attending in a mirror, and she had developed an allergic acknowledgment to the painkiller Vicodin.
"How would you feel if you were in my ses?" she airtight in an e-mail.
Then one day, she apparent the craven nuggets at Wendy's, and as the abscess went down, she could see the arch of her adenoids and a blaze to her larboard nostril.
She had been aflame about her birthday, but the affairs had been touch-and-go. She capital to arch off to the Morongo Casino, aloof as she had the antecedent weekend, but wildfires in the adjacent mountains afflicted everything.
Surrounded by ancestors and a amphitheater of balloons, Ana opened her presents: a CD drive and discs, absterge for her dog and a allowance affidavit to the Goth exchange in the bounded mall.
More guests arrived, and the affair best up. Lalo cued up Los Baron De Apodaca, and Ismael and Margarita sed to dance. Ana and her cousins were accomplishing Bacardi sts and bubbler Parrot Bay attic rum. She took some calls on her cellpne. There was allocution about autritative a cruise to Vegas in January.
Soon the patio was animate with the accent of the music, accoutrements aerial below the aptic night and the stars, the bond sounds of music and laughter. As a air-conditioned wind blew off the San Jacinto Mountains, it aated with it a trace of ash.
Rising at 5 anniversary morning, Batra would ablaze jasmine and sandalwood aroma and sit afore a baby alcove in his bedchamber area he kept a bronze of Ganesha, the Hindu albatross , remover of obstacles. The one obstacle that seemed adamant was Ana's reticence and reserve.
More than technique, artificial anaplasty is a relationship, one that Batra works adamantine to develop. Aback his cellpne rings with the aperture crds of Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir," he knows it could aloof as acceptable be a accommodating as the appointment or a friend. He would accept it no added way.
Years ago, aback he was arch agony aborigine at St. Luke's Medical Center in Cleveland, an 18-year-old was brought to the spital, academician asleep from a gunst anguish to the head. Aback the ancestors agreed to acquiesce his organs to be harvested, the arch surgeon angry to his colleague.
"Well, Dr. Batra, this is activity to be a continued night," he said. "When we are done, he is activity to be a canoe."
Batra knew w surgeons accord with the stresses of their careers by break themselves from their patients, autritative ablaze of death, anguish and deformity, and w artificial surgeons generally abatement casualty to able narcissism.
Striking a anhesis amid affect and objectivity isn't easy, abnormally in affairs as acute as appearance, and in Ana's case, he activate it about impossible. He acquainted accord for her. He activate himself acquisitive that by alteration her appearance, he could change her life, and one day she would acquisition a job, airing bottomward the artery afterwards cartoon stares, accommodated addition w could adulation her.
When he asked Halls if he anion they were autritative a aberration in her life, Halls told him it didn't matter. The alone affair that mattered was whether they were accomplishing their jobs as surgeons. You cannot change the attributes of a tiger, he said.
Batra was acclimatized to patients w accepted his work, and he had ped for the aforementioned acknowledgment from Ana. He had a difficult time account her one-word answers and appearing indifference.
But w could a few urs below a surgeon's brand disengage a lifetime of experience?
Neurofibromatosis had bent the beforehand of Ana's life, and there could be no underestimating the stigma she acquainted active with the disorder, alike if she denied it. The tumors had been a mask, locking her central herself, and alike as they boring disappeared, unlearning that affectation would booty time.
Spring blurred into summer. Ana couldn't stop annoying about the aing operation. Continued weekends in San Diego with a adherent and carne asada barbecues on Fiesta Island helped. Pne calls with a admirer she'd met on the Internet absent her. There was a friend's quinceañera in September, and on the accidental Saay or Sunday aback it got absolutely t, she went fishing.
A bounded basin was as acceptable a break as any. Edged by a few eucalyptus trees, the accessible baptize drew an afternoon breeze, aloof abundant to booty the bend off 100-degree temperatures.
In the shade, Ismael enjoyed a beer. Margarita apprehend astrometry magazines. Ancestors cck-full by. They broiled corn, served napoles and fabricated bendable tacos with beef, white onion, tomatoes and cilantro. Sometimes they bent a catfish, and there was alike corpuscle service.
"Como se curó," her aunt said of Ana. She is cured.
As the lavender afterglow aated over the lake, cottonwood tufts afloat beyond the sky, barbecue appropriation into the air, the beaming corridors and antibacterial smells of Scripps seemed far away, and Ana let herself relax, acutely agreeable for an afternoon of forgetfulness, alike as Batra and Halls began to adapt their plan for the third surgery.
They had been anxious about Ana's alternating headaches, acquired by her bifold eyes and the misalignment of her eyes. Initially they had planned to cut and about-face the facial basic about her adenoids and forehead to drag the apogee of her larboard eye, but they accomplished it didn't charge to be that complicated.
They presented their essment to the added doctors at a banquet affair at Ruth's Chris Steakuse in Del Mar. Over calamari and shrimp appetizers, they opened a laptop and advised Ana's CT scans.
"It's a aggregate problem, balance aggregate in the orbit," Batra said.
The tumors hadn't misaligned the orbit; they had broadcast it, acceptance the larboard eye to achieve lower than the right.
"You're activity to accept to abatement the aculation of the orbit," said Don Kikkawa, the team's eye surgeon. "The capital affair is that her eye is sitting about a centimeter down. You abutment that by a cartilage graft."
"So you're activity to booty a cranial graft?" asked Halls.
As the chat drifted from surgeries to Michael Moore's "Sicko," the doctors' capital courses arrived.
By now, the Scripps OR was a actomed abode for Ana, alike as she dozed below the abating blankets and sedatives. The ablaze lights aerial were like starry planets.
She and Fran had apprenticed bottomward the day before. She had backward up backward watching as abounding "Friday the 13th" movies as she could, autritative it through the fourth installment. She was tired.
In the car, she and Fran talked about the surgery. Ana aloof capital it to be over.
"There're lots of things I don't like," said Fran, w had afresh been diagnosed with colon cancer. "I've alike anion of abandonment my chemo."
"If you quit," Ana said, "then I'll abdicate my surgeries for sure."
"Then I umption we'll aloof accept to continue," Fran said.
Batra accomplished abrasion her face with Betadine. Halls began injecting lidocaine and epinephrine, and the tiger sed to beat its tail.
As Kikkawa began adver the lower allotment of the larboard eye socket, Batra acclaim aerial aback the attic and articular a site, about four inches aloft Ana's larboard ear, area he would autumn cartilage for the graft. He apparent it with a amethyst pen and sed to trace the outline with a baby pencil-like saw with a design tip. Its acute beef articulate like a ignment in a dental of.
The attic comprises two layers of bone, the alien table and the aing table, afar by marrow. Removing a baby allotment from the alien table is as catchy as aggravating to cut a baby allotment of appearance from a area of plywood afterwards chipping the surrounding copse or damaging the added layers.
Once the outline had been cut, an cavity no added than an eighth of an inch abysmal and almost as wide, Batra acclimatized to pry the cartilage free.
He angled the bend of a baby chisel-like apparatus into the cavity and began borer it with a hammer.
"Do you accept a sharper, thinner osteotome?"
The accident was that he would pry up the aing table as well, adver the dura academy of the brain. The borer grew louder and louder.
Perhaps they were aggravating for too ample a piece, Batra tught. He asked for the saw, disconnected the aboveboard into thirds and acclimatized again.
Halls fabricated ablaze of the difficulty. He sang an old Cat Stevens song: "I'm attractive for a astute woman."
Suddenly the aboriginal allotment of cartilage aerial from the skull, and the aing table was unhed.
The bottom was asperous like neycomb. Cartilage wax staunched the bleeding. A red glossy had formed at Batra's feet.
Three pieces of skull were retrieved and shaped into baby poker chips. They were anxiously tucked into a baby basin that Kikkawa had exposed, and aback the new alignment was established, Batra busted the chips into place.
By 11:30, the OR was quiet. The beef of the ignment and the borer of bang had ceased.
A istant sed bed-making the claret from the attic and counting the sponges. Batra and Halls accomplished closing.
"We're srt," the istant announced.
"A sponge. We're missing a sponge."
Everyone acclimatized to break cool. Batra and Halls stepped abreast as a carriageable X-ray apparatus was wheeled in, and aloof as the artisan sed to adjust the camera with Ana's head, a istant noticed article blood-soaked with claret on the floor, hidden below the abject of the operating table. Addition laughed.
The doctors stepped into the cat-and-mouse room. Ismael was account a book about acclimation Dodge pickups. Margarita was alive on a Sudoku puzzle. Added ancestors ociates stood close.
"It went actual well," Batra said. He explained aggregate they had done. Fran helped with the translation.
"Muy bien," Ismael nodded. "Thank you actual much."
"No; that's OK. Thank you actual much."
The ancestors went to see Ana. Margarita sed talking to her babe and adapted the blankets about her. The istant handed her a tissue.
"Mejor," Margarita said. "Ana is better."
The cartage snaked admitting the residential aback streets of Pomona to the Fairplex. It was a little afore 8 a.m. on Feb. 1, 2008, and Ana was added afraid than she'd been for any of her surgeries.
Ismael followed the band of cars. He was blessed today.
It had been a continued journey, one that had amorpus added than 20 years ago aback he and Margarita aboriginal noticed article amiss with their baby's face and came to this country to get her treated.
Now Ana was about to become a U.S. citizen. She had anesthetized the ay two months beforehand and was alike hardly affronted that the questions had been so easy.
"They could accept at atomic asked me the names of the aboriginal 13 colonies," she said.
Today, there would be no quiz, aloof a case of nerves; and the continued airing from the parking lot in the air-conditioned February air, the mountains aflame with snow, did annihilation to t them away.
Dressed in amber checkerboard slacks, with the collar of her white shirt pulled over a amber sweater and her beard angry back, Ana puzzled at w accidental some of the added bodies were.
"Sweats?" she asked. "You don't appear in sweats to the ceremony."
Ushers with bullrns directed the army into the alveolate display hall, abounding with folding chairs for 3,500 -to-be U.S. citizens. Surrendering her blooming card, Ana was absent in the sea of people.
Restlessly they sat, cat-and-mouse for the commemoration to begin, their scarves, turbans, burkas, bindis, coiffed and bald hairstyles, gles, mustaches, beards, aerial cheeks, angled cheeks, beefy lips, angular lips, bristling eyebrows and bare eyebrows aggregate into one.
The adjudicator entered, and the agent sed the affairs with an adjuration of allegiance.
The applicants aloft their appropriate hands.
"I hereby acknowledge on oath. . ," they began.
The address was bendable and led, followed by applause.
"Congratulations," the adjudicator said. "You fabricated it."
It was a arctic night aftermost October, and the Rodartes had arrive ancestors over to bless Ana's 28th birthday.
Chicken legs and potato wedges bubbled in a abysmal fryer. Margarita able plates of potato salad, rice and beans and abrade tortillas. Ismael chatted with friends. There was Tecate beer with alkali and limes and, later, afterwards the tables were confused aside, dancing to Los Tigrillos and Enrique Guzman below the tiki lights.
Surrounded by her cousins and friends, Ana talked on her cell, sipped a beer and aggregate pictures from her laptop. Her face was no best the ample coil of creases and dimples it had already been. Her larboard brow, adenoids and on had been adequate and, best significant, her action appeared no worse than the scarring from a burn.
With such a acutely apparent injury, the apple could accessible up to her.
With the appearance of this aberrant and alarming ataxia gone, the catechism Ana asked as a adolescent -- why was God so mean? -- ability acquisition an acknowledgment added in compionate and affinity than in sck.
Whether the tumors return, alone time will tell. Batra was already talking about the aing stage. He capital to admit tissue expanders, a footfall against removing old scars and added corrective defects. Ana was ambiguous if she capital to continue.
For now, tugh, she seemed happy. She was appreciative of her accomplishments, acceptable a citizen, and she was attractive advanced to voting for the aboriginal time. She had a new boyfriend. "I still get collywobbles aback I see him," she said.
Since that arctic October night and the alpha of the New Year, Ana has burst up with the boyfriend, and she went advanced with the tissue expanders. The anaplasty was simple, and now every Monday she and Fran drive to Batra's of, area he gradually inflates the balloon-like devices.
The consistent headaches are unbearable, but they subside, and Batra is encouraged that she's continuing the adventure afterwards the appointment accepting to alarm and admonish her of her appointments.
Ana has additionally enrolled in scol. In February, her mother collection her to the autritative of, aloof abaft a Denny's, and aback she met with the admissions advisor, she was smiling. The account went well. She abstruse that she bare to booty an access ay and administer for banking aid.
As she abounding out the forms, she didn't ane alert about the irony of sing a 10-month affairs with the Marinello Academy of Beauty. She was activity to become a cosmetologist.
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Tax debt, bankruptcy and Special Relief
Problems paying your tax? guide
HMRC can petition for bankruptcy if you owe £5,000 or more. HMRC will only petition for insolvency as a last resort after considering all other options. Of all insolvency proceedings that take place about 10% are petitioned by HMRC. In the 2019/20 tax year HMRC petitioned 5,604 cases out of the 6.5 million debt cases they handled. Cases will be considered for insolvency of the debt is irrecoverable, the individual has actively avoided paying what they owe or HMRC suspect that they are hiding or manipulating their assets.
HMRC is no different to any other creditor and is strictly bound by the requirements of Insolvency Law.
For detailed advice on bankruptcy you can refer to the Citizens Advice, StepChange or Business Debt Line.
The insolvency processes include:
An Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA)
This can be proposed by an insolveny practitioner who submits information about the debts, income and expenditure to work out a payment plan.
Bankruptcy and Winding Up Order
If HMRC petition for insolvency then a bamkruptcy or winding up order may be granted by the court. A Turustee may be appointed to liquidat the debtors assets and distrubute them to the creditors.
If you have few assets and debts of under £20,000 then you may want to apply for a debt relief order (DRO). This procedure has a lower cost, is more informal, and has less publicity than bankruptcy. It was introduced in England and Wales for people who have more modest debts, have little or no disposable income and no assets to repay what they owe. (A similar scheme exists in Scotland, see the Accountant in Bankruptcy website).
DROs cost £90 and are administered by "authorised intermediaries" (many of whom are advisers in Citizens Advice Bureaux), and the main requirements are that:
• you are unable to pay your debts
• you owe up to a maximum of £20,000
• your total gross assets do not exceed £1,000
• after taking away tax, national insurance contributions and normal household expenses, your disposable income is less than £50 a month.
There is more guidance on DROs in 'Guide to Debt Relief Orders' published by the Insolvency Service, which may be downloaded from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/debt-relief-orders.
But do get independent advice
Petitioning for bankruptcy or a DRO is a serious step. There are pitfalls, so it is important that you get good independent advice before going ahead.
This could be obtained from a money adviser in a Citizens Advice Bureau or other voluntary organisation, or from a registered insolvency practitioner.
If your tax debt includes estimated amounts of tax, and it is too late to submit a tax return, Special Relief is your last resort.
HMRC is legally entitled to make you bankrupt, even where the debt is estimated. But HMRC may agree not to pursue its legal right if you can provide acceptable evidence of your taxable income, and in HMRC's view, it would be 'unconscionable' to pursue recovery of the full amount. This is a very difficult test to pass.
Conditions for Special Relief
There are three specific conditions which need to be fulfilled in order to obtain Special Relief. These are:
It would be unconscionable, in HMRC's view, to recover the estimated tax, or to deny a refund if the tax has been paid. The term "unconscionable " means unreasonably excessive.
The individual's tax affairs are up to date, or that an acceptable arrangement has been agreed to bring them up to date.
That Special Relief, (or its predecessor, Equitable Liability) has not been claimed before; even if the request was rejected. (This condition may, exceptionally, be disregarded)
In addition, the taxpayer will need to declare:
That they wish to make a claim for Special Relief under Schedule 1AB, Taxes Management Act 1970, paragraph 3A, and specify the tax year(s).
Confirm that they believe that an excessive Determination of their tax liability has been made
Confirm that they have not previously made a claim for Special Relief or, under the previous provisions, Equitable Liability
That they have not been subject to Court proceedings for any tax charged by the determination(s) included in their Special Relief claim where they were present or legally represented at a Judgment hearing
That their tax affairs are up to date, apart from those covered by their current claim and that all the particulars given in their claim are correct and complete to the best of their 'information and belief'
The claim should be sent to Debt Management, Specialist Claims Team, HMRC, BX9 1SD.
Unconscionable
Unconscionable means "unreasonably excessive". This is a very strict test to pass. It is not enough that the estimated bill is much higher than bills in other years, or that you could make a better estimate of the amount due.
HMRC has published guidance on Special Relief. The guidance shows how narrow the scope of the relief is. HMRC's guidelines on 'unconscionable' give an indication of the circumstances in which HMRC will, and will not, apply the relief. On the 'not normally' accepted as unconscionable list, we find:
Someone who registers as self-employed, but never trades
Someone who ceases to be self-employed, but who does not complete final Returns and provide a forwarding address to cover the enquiry window. This is normally 12 months from the date the Self-Assessment Return was filed
Construction industry subcontractors who neither file Tax Returns, nor respond to HMRC, on the mistaken assumption that, as they have paid some tax at source, they need do no more
Someone who moves abroad and does not respond to HMRC as regards outstanding debts, or leave a forwarding address
Someone who is negligent from HMRC's point of view, in that they were aware of their responsibilities, but did not act or respond to communications
These groups might include, for example, employees, non-residents, or those due a refund under CIS. Clients in categories such as these, might find it difficult to establish a right to Special Relief on the terms outlined under the guidance.
Those on the 'acceptable reasons' list include:
Someone suffering from temporary or sporadic illness, who finds it particularly difficult to engage with the tax system. This could cover both physical and mental illness
Someone who has not received communications from HMRC due to factors outside their control
Someone who is insolvent: HMRC may be sensitive to the position of other creditors here
Overview and further information
In overview, HMRC's approach could be paraphrased by saying that Special Relief should be denied if the taxpayer knew about, or ought reasonably to have known about and used, another route, and failed to do so within the time limits, unless he or she was prevented by a reason outside his or her control. There must also be acceptable evidence of the correct tax liability.
When a claim is made for Special Relief, the tax returns for the relevant year(s) – and any other outstanding years must be submitted (those for the relevant years should be submitted with the claim).
For further details see:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/sacmanual/SACM12215.htm
County Court Judgment
Enforcement and Insolvency Service. The HMRC department responsible for taking bankruptcy action and dealing with insolvency.
an application to the court to have the bankruptcy petition dismissed or cancelled
Debt Relief Order. A simplified form of bankruptcy.
Next: If you face challenges with mental health
Problems paying your tax?
1 Recovery of underpaid PAYE (https://taxaid.org.uk/guides/taxpayers/tax-debt/paye)
2 Tax debts under Self Assessment (https://taxaid.org.uk/guides/taxpayers/tax-debt/sa)
3 The amount demanded may be wrong (https://taxaid.org.uk/guides/taxpayers/tax-debt/wrong)
4 You need time to pay (https://taxaid.org.uk/guides/taxpayers/tax-debt/time)
5 Enforcement action (https://taxaid.org.uk/guides/taxpayers/tax-debt/time/enforcement-action)
6 Dealing with County Court proceedings (https://taxaid.org.uk/guides/taxpayers/tax-debt/countycourt)
7 Tax debt, bankruptcy and Special Relief (https://taxaid.org.uk/guides/taxpayers/tax-debt/bankruptcy)
8 If you face challenges with mental health (https://taxaid.org.uk/guides/taxpayers/tax-debt/health)
9 What to do if you've never declared your income (https://taxaid.org.uk/guides/taxpayers/tax-debt/never-declared)
10 Sources of information and advice (https://taxaid.org.uk/guides/taxpayers/tax-debt/sources-of-information-and-advice)
TaxAid Annual Review
© TaxAid 2021. TaxAid is a charity registered in England & Wales (No. 1062852).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
De Sint-Dionysiuskerk (Duits: St. Dionysiuskirche) is een katholiek kerkgebouw in Rhens, Rijnland-Palts. Het monument behoort sinds 2002 tot het UNESCO-werelderfgoed Bovenloop van het Midden-Rijndal.

Geschiedenis

De aan de heilige Dionysius gewijde kerk ligt zuidelijk van de stad op een heuvel aan de Mainzer Straße en wordt sinds de bouw van de nieuwe parochiekerk Sint-Theresia in de jaren 1906-1908 tegenwoordig als kerkhofkapel gebruikt. Voor het eerst werd de kerk genoemd in het jaar 873, maar of dat kerkgebouw op dezelfde plaats stond is ondanks sterke aanwijzingen niet helemaal zeker.

Architectuur
Het oudste deel van de kerk is de laatromaanse toren uit de vroege 13e eeuw, bestaande uit bruchstein met klaverbladblindnissen en rombische afsluiting. Niet exact dateerbaar, maar waarschijnlijk in de loop van de 16e eeuw ontstaan, zijn het laatgotische kerkschip en het koor. Het koor is voorzien van een netgewelf en het kerkschip van een recenter houten cassettenplafond. De houten galerij stamt uit de periode tussen 1520 en 1629, toen de kerk tijdelijk een protestants gebouw was.

Het  barokke interieur uit het midden van de 18e eeuw met het hoogaltaar en de kansel getuigt van de terugkeer van het katholicisme in het kerkgebouw.

De Dionysiuskerk werd in de jaren 1987-1996 zowel van binnen als buiten gerenoveerd.

De muur van het kerkhof heeft een kruiswegstatie met reliëfs uit de jaren 1950. Aan de straat staat bij de toegang van de kerk een barokke kapel met een barok beeld van de Moeder Gods. Op het kerkhof bevindt zich een oorlogsmonument van een op een sarcofaag liggende soldaat.

Afbeeldingen

Externe link
  Gegevens van de parochie Rhens op de website van het bisdom Trier

Rhens, Dionysius
Kerkgebouw in het bisdom Trier
Rhens

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Metro CEO search may be nearing end
Local // Transportation
Dug Begley Jan. 21, 2014 Updated: Jan. 21, 2014 8:59 p.m.
METRO Interim CEO Tom Lambert addresses the media during the press conference as Metro reopens the Main Street Bridge on Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, in Houston. The bridge has been closed for over a year due to Metro's expansion of the North Line along Main St., but they concluded construction on bridge a month before schedule. ( Mayra Beltran / Houston Chronicle )
Photo: Mayra Beltran, Staff
Metropolitan Transit Authority officials are back to the task of finding a permanent CEO after a long hiatus, though there are indications the search won't last much longer.
Metro's board of directors is scheduled to meet Thursday in executive session and potentially emerge with a plan to hire a permanent CEO, according to the agency's agenda. Tom Lambert has been the interim CEO since December 2012, when George Greanias abruptly resigned.
At the time, Lambert, Metro's police chief for more than 31 years and more recently its executive vice president, said he was not a candidate for the permanent job.
"I have told the board it is a job I want in the interim," Lambert said in January 2013.
Tuesday, Lambert said he "would stay as long the board will have me," but he said it is up to the board to discuss the search on Thursday, and he didn't want to pre-empt the meeting.
In the past few months, board members have praised Lambert's leadership and ability to solve problems.
"The chief has done a dynamite job, and his team has done a dynamite job, there is no doubt," board chairman Gilbert Garcia said, referring to Lambert, during a December meeting with the Houston Chronicle editorial board.
Garcia said several board members had suggested Lambert be considered for the permanent post.
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Board members contacted Tuesday declined to discuss the likely outcome of the CEO search.
"It wouldn't be right to speculate," Burt Ballanfant said.
The board in April hired Krauthamer and Associates, an executive recruiting firm, to help with the CEO search. At the time, officials said they wanted someone with a strong transit-industry background, knowledge of operating a large bus and rail operation, and executive-level management experience.
Since April, when the board hired the search firm, Metro's leadership has not met to discuss the vacancy, potential candidates or scheduling interviews. The search firm and Metro officials delayed the process for the latter half of 2013 because of Houston's mayoral race. The mayor appoints a majority of the Metro board, and citywide races can affect both appointments to Metro and the agency's overall direction.
Metro is the largest transit system in Texas and one of the largest in the nation, operating 1,200 buses and a growing rail system. It has the 12th largest bus system and 13th largest light rail system in the nation, based on current ridership data.
The new CEO should be capable of managing a bus and rail agency and a large organization, Ballanfant said. The job doesn't necessarily require a lifelong transit expert, he said. Ballanfant said either a local candidate or one from outside the Houston area could lead Metro effectively.
"I am probably agnostic on that particular point," Ballanfant said. "A CEO who has the personality characteristics that are right can come from anywhere."
The contract with Krauthamer paid the firm one-third of the future CEO's salary, up to $116,000. Lambert currently makes $235,000, so based on his salary Krauthamer would receive $78,255.
Lambert has been with Metro for 35 years. Previously he was an Austin policeman.
If chosen, Lambert won't be the first interim to hang onto the job. Greanias also came in as a temporary replacement until board members tapped him to stay.
Dug Begley
Follow Dug on:
https://www.facebook.com/PoppedClutchCity/dugbegley
Dug Begley is the transportation writer for the Houston Chronicle.
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2020 was the year Houstonians stayed out of their cars and grabbed a bike. A record 34 of them died.


The British Gazette » The End of the World is nigh! Today?????
According to internet doom mongers, the rare triple lunar phenomenon (super moon/blood money/blue moon) is going to herald an apocalypse or the Second Coming!
This rare event last occurred in 1866 and the world clearly did not come to an end then and is most unlikely to come to an end today!
But then if there is one thing the world has a surfeit of it is gullible people!
The triple event can only be viewed in part of the planet. Not the UK. Those in the UK not covered by cloud tonight will however have a fine view of Earth's satellite.


Are you so excited about this year's doTERRA convention? The 2018 theme is Dream, and it's sure to be an amazing convention because this is doTERRA's 10th anniversary!
Even if you can't be there in person, you'll still want to be in the loop because every September at convention is when this year's brand new products are introduced! There is a new live stream feature that allows you to feel like you're there with us, right from the comfort of your own home. Of course, live stream doesn't even compare to experiencing convention in person, but it's definitely the next best thing.
If you opt in to live stream and list me as your referrer (Kathleen Henderson, ID 190222), that would be cool! I might win a prize and YOU will get to feel like you're at convention with us.
If you are headed to Salt Lake City for the live event, and especially if this is your first doTERRA convention, I'm sure you have lots of questions about what to pack and what to expect.
• Bring an extra bag. I'm usually there for an entire week, and I pack a small to medium suitcase inside a larger, empty suitcase. Believe me, you'll need it. See shopping section below.
• Plan to wear comfortable shoes. You will do so much walking! I don't like to have cold feet, and the convention centers are generally on the chilly side, so I mostly wear closed toe shoes. Some folks prefer comfy sandals. The later the dates are for convention, the cooler the temps will be in SLC.
• Dress in layers. I always pack light sweaters and jackets for waiting in convention lines early in the morning and sitting inside the chilly convention center. This gives me the option to strip down to a t-shirt or even tank top later during the day if I eat lunch outside in the sun or after I've done a lot of walking to get to shopping venues or restaurants.
• Bring an empty stainless steel water bottle. Salt Lake City is at a high altitude and it's important to stay hydrated. You probably already know not to drink your oils from plastic bottles, but if you're in track A at the Vivint Arena, you are not permitted to bring glass bottles into the building. So stick with stainless steel. See Schedule & Venues below.
• You'll want at least one way to charge your phone. Believe me, you'll be snapping pictures of slides and taking team photos with the doTERRA letters and more. I recommend keeping a USB cord & charging plug with you at all times, as well as at least one charging stick (power bank, portable charger). If you forget yours or don't own one, you can usually buy one on site at convention, but it will not come fully charged. It's best to be prepared and bring your own.
If possible, buy an early bird ticket! You'll save money and you'll also get to skip some of the mayhem on the day that tickets go live to the general population. The best way to snag the early bird rate is to buy your ticket for next year's convention at the very end of this year's convention when next year's dates are announced. If you don't attend in person, check with your upline leaders for the early bird purchasing link.
For your doTERRA convention tickets, decide on Track A or Track B. See Schedules & Venues below.
More events… Whether you snag an early bird ticket or not, you'll want to add additional events to your ticket on the day when tickets go live for everyone (usually in March). See Schedule below.
Convention tickets and campus tour tickets sell out quickly, sometimes within hours, so set a reminder on your phone and snag one while you can!
Make sure to build time into your schedule for shopping the amazing vendors at convention!
It's a good idea to check in with each of your favorite vendors prior to convention to find out their exact location during convention. You can usually find this information on their website, Facebook, or Instagram feed. If you're on their newsletter lists, you'll get an email with all their convention details. Some vendors even offer a special gift just for their social media followers or list subscribers.
One thing to put on your convention shopping list is labels and cap stickers for all the new products!
AromaTools – anything and everything oils-related. Home of the Modern Essentials book.
ShareOils – beautiful accessories and labels. Owner Elka is just the best!
Oil Life – unique storage, accessories, & apparel. Home of The Essential Life book.
EOS – trendy, earthy, artisan accessories and sharing tools.
Oil Sharing Tools – I love their label notebook.
Lines are long for the swag store and groups are allowed to enter in shifts to keep it moving pretty quickly. Some products seem to be held back each day so if you're told that a certain product is no longer available it might be worthwhile to check back another day.
If you have your heart set on certain doTERRA swag items, plan to hit the Marketplace early in the week.
The actual convention runs for three days: Thursday, Friday, & Saturday.
Track A goes from 9 am to 4 pm. Track B runs from 11 am to 6 pm.
doTERRA swag shop (doTERRA Marketplace) is open W-Sa.
Product showcase is open Th-Sa.
If at all possible, plan to arrive on Tuesday or even on Monday to allow time to get settled in and to do some shopping before convention starts. Save Wednesday for training events and campus tours.
I also recommend flying out on Sunday instead of rushing out on Saturday night. You want to be able to stay to the very end of Saturday's session, and it's a pain to have to hurry out and check out of your hotel and make it to the airport to catch a Saturday evening flight.
Wristbands and name badges must be worn to get into any venue or event. Just plan to wear both all day, every day.
Track A is the earlier track (9 am to 4 pm). You'll be the first to hear all the news, including the brand new products! You'll also be released earlier to head to shopping venues or to dinner.
Early entrance: Certain doors will open at 7:00 am on Thursday and 7:30 am on Friday and Saturday.
Bags: Bags will be searched. You may bring in only one bag: your doTERRA backpack or a different bag. Pack lightly to keep security lines moving. See list of prohibited items here.
Metal detectors: Every person will go through a detector.
Food: Outside food and beverage is prohibited by the arena, especially commercially prepared meals or large amounts of food.
If you have special food allergies/needs, you will be able to bring in a small snack, sandwich, or bar for yourself. Baby food is ok to bring in as well.
There will be many traditional concession outlets open, with several options for fresh, healthy food like fruit and veggie cups.
Water: You will be able to bring in empty water bottles, but no glass bottles. There will be water stations inside to fill your water bottles and concessions available for purchase.
Track B: Salt Palace Convention Center.
Track B is the later track (11 am to 6 pm). You can sleep in or do some shopping before finding a seat for the official convention sessions.
In our experience, my team has found it extremely challenging to get to a restaurant, eat there, and get back during the two hours allotted for lunch. Plus, we find it helpful to save seats in shifts during the lunch break.
A few of us hold down the seats while others go out to grab food. Then we trade places. This allows everyone to grab food if necessary, without our entire group having to find new seats for the afternoon session.
Concessions: Both convention venues have regular concessions available. There are even a few healthier options like salads. Be prepared to wait in long lines!
Food trucks: Every year there are awesome food trucks just outside the convention venues. You can even find healthy and GF options. Lines are long, but not as long as the indoor concessions.
Restaurants: There are also many restaurants within walking distance. I recommend doing a bit of research in advance and making a list of options, especially if you need to follow certain dietary restrictions.
BYO: This is my favorite option for lunch, and I'm a little nervous about the new Vivint procedures. In the past, I brought substantial snacks (see my favorite paleo travel snacks here) or sometimes grabbed something healthy-ish from a food truck.
There are so many great restaurants in and around downtown SLC. Several of us on my team are strictly gluten free, and we've had great experiences at multiple restaurants.
Expert tip: make dinner reservations for your group in advance. Like at least one month before convention. Some restaurants don't accept reservations for that week, or don't accept reservations at all. It's up to you if you want to take a chance waiting in line for a table!
• Walk: Plan to do lots of walking! The downtown area is well laid out and easy to navigate. Keep in mind that for some reason the blocks are much bigger than typical city blocks.
• Uber: A great option for longer distances. Go ahead and download the app before you arrive.
• TRAX: SLC's public rail system. You can even take it from the airport to downtown.
Location: We've stayed near the airport and we've stayed downtown. Downtown is the hands down winner for me. When you stay downtown, you can walk to almost everything: doTERRA convention, vendors, restaurants. You can also drop off shopping bags at your hotel room or grab healthy food from the fridge in your room.
When we stayed near the airport, which is about 30 minutes from downtown, we had to Uber in and out every day and carry all our bags with us from convention to shopping to dinner. It felt like a major hassle to me.
Reservations: I've made my own reservations directly through the hotel, and I've used doTERRA's third party event organizer. Both methods had their pros and cons but in the end, the third party coordinator found me the best deal and the best location.
• Convention kits: Build this into your budget for convention. One of the biggest perks of convention attendance is access to the brand new products which come bundled together in one kit. It's also the ONLY way you can get Birch oil: it comes in every convention kit. This is one of the reasons for packing an empty bag or suitcase!
• Mother's Lounge: For those with infants, there is a special Mother's or Family Lounge as a location for nursing or for little ones needing a break from the main session.
• Product Showcase: In my opinion, this is one of the best reasons to attend convention. Every single doTERRA product is on display, available for your use. Smell every oil, try the skin care, receive an AromaTouch hand technique. Meet doTERRA's performance athletes and bring your questions for the scientists, growers, and sourcing teams.
• Long lines: Just plan on waiting in a long line for everything, and you won't feel so frustrated. Bring your Balance and Serenity oils! Keep your phone charged and make good use of the time in line. Review the slides you snapped pictures of during general sessions. Meet new friends. Trade business building tips. Use the time to catch up with your team members. Read through all the literature you'll pick up. Phone home for a quick chat.
This isn't an exhaustive list, but it does cover everything I can think of! These are all the things I wanted to know or wished I'd known before attending my first doTERRA convention.
The main things are to be ready to roll with the punches, learn a ton, and wear comfy shoes.
doTERRA convention alumni, what would you add to my list? Convention newbies, what else do you want to know?
In the past they have always told me the charging stick was fully charged but maybe that explains why they run out so fast!! Thanks!
Same here, Sally! I bought a stick and it died almost immediately. After I charged it fully, it lasted so much longer.


The Basle 2 Capital Accord issued by the Basle Committee on banking supervision has proposed a multiplier superior to 3 on banks' internal 99% 10-day Value-at-Risk calculated for market risk exposure. This ad hoc factor has not been fully explained and is poorly justified by arguing that the standard classical models of stock price dynamics do not adequately capture actual market risks. More generally, the current crisis has questioned a lot risk management practices about the determination of appropriate VaRs. In this paper, we revisit the computation of Value-at-Risk by introducing a new method based on Lévy processes. After a brief preliminary study where jump tests are performed in order to confirm the need for jump processes in financial modeling, we provide a new presentation of Variance Gamma Processes with Drift, that are reconstructed in an original way starting from the exponential distribution. Then, we display a fit of these processes on the American and French markets, before providing a new general Fourier formula that allows to compute VaR quickly and efficiently. Based on this formula, we conduct a study of the term structure of VaR, and provide a discussion of the Basle 2 and forthcoming Solvency 2 agreements.


text:
Tag :iPod touch 6G release
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iPod Touch 6G News, Reveals, Reviews and Rumors: iPod Touch 6G Could be Released During Fall Season with the iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3
iPod Touch 6G Apple Release Date Rumors, Specs and Details
iPod Touch 6G Release Date, Rumors and Reveals: What to Expect when the iPod Touch 6G comes through this October
Apple's iPod Touch Release Date News, Updates, Rumors; Consumers Concerned When New Model Would Arrive
iPod touch 6G Release Date: iPod Touch 6G will be Released by October 2014, iPod touch Coincides with Apple Mini 3 and iPad Air 2!
iPod touch 6G release date: Device to be Released Alongside Other Apple Flagships like iPad Mini 2 and iPad Air 2 and Feature Upcoming iOS 8 Software
Listen to Hillsong United's New Song "As You Find Me" Here
Hillsong UNITED "People" Album Review
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text:
Hanging with the Robber Barons of Haiti
Gabriel Mac
For a guy who feels he needs to be armed at absolutely all times, Mike says he's feeling "perfect" surprisingly often. Like this morning, when he picks me up in a cushy silver truck from my Port-au-Prince hotel, early on a muggy Saturday: "How are you doing?" "Perfect." And there are two extra ammunition clips on the cup holder between us and a loaded .45 in the driver's-side door. "You never know," he says, smiling, when I express skepticism that all this is really necessary; we are just going to the beach. "I wished I'd had extra ammunition when we were firing and firing a few weeks ago." The half-Haitian, half-Puerto Rican, American-born 34-year-old stops smiling and shakes his head slightly when he says, "You don't know what it takes to do what I do."
Mike's Texaco station in Martissant. Photos by Mark Murrman
What Mike does is run a Texaco station in the Haitian slum of Martissant. According to Doctors Without Borders, the No. 1 cause of death in this neighborhood is violence. According to the eye-widening I see from aid workers and foreign journalists and even other Haitians when Mike tells them where he does business, it is not the type of place a lot of outsiders go. As we drive into one of the roughest neighborhoods in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, the crush of humanity gets heavier, the piles of garbage higher, taller than a man. Then there's Mike's gas station, a big smooth patch of cement with generously spaced pumps and a big building, right in the middle of it. Inside, there's air conditioning, wide aisles of sundries and snacks, a woman relentlessly mopping the black shoe prints people keep tracking onto the white tiles.
A boy reads a book at one of the tables at La Reference, a restaurant and bar in Jacmel.
Outside, naked children pick their way around flaming piles of trash. Inside, like a nice truck stop in Ohio. In the perimeter between them, a couple of guards with 12-gauge shotguns.
Martissant wasn't always a ghetto. When Mike's mom grew up here, it was home to clubs that people weren't afraid to visit. But by the time Mike joined her family here in 1996, the area had started to unravel. Rene Preval was president then, like he is now, but Mike rarely comments on political figures' roles in Haiti's well-being. "First thing when I got here, everybody told me that if you want to live in Haiti, stay out of politics," he says. (Ditto the news; no last names allowed for this story.) But politics do tend to get involved with him.
A few weeks ago, Mike had to step up his daytime security to six guys from the usual four. In December, when Haiti's electoral authorities announced that the seemingly unpopular candidate backed by the unpopular Preval would advance to the runoff in the presidential election, the streets erupted in protests. In the chaos, his station was a prime target for local gangs. There are a lot of goods in here, and there's money in the register: Mike sells five or six thousand gallons of gas a day, at $5 a gallon. Cash only. He and his fortified security crew were barricaded inside the station for five hours, behind four-by-eight boards over the windows. It's a regular enough threat that there are metal tracks bolted into the storefront so the plywood can be easily slid into place. The would-be looters bombarded the station with rocks, and sometimes gunfire. Mike and his security, and the police who eventually arrived on the scene, shot back at them.
A woman selling handwoven hats to tourists in Jacmel puts the hard sell on Mike.
"This is a picture of a cop just unloading rounds into the street from inside the station," Mike had told me a few nights earlier, showing me the photo on his BlackBerry. "You can't imagine what it's like to be in that kind of situation." This was a rare occasion on which he became serious. We were at the bar of the Hotel Oloffson, with an empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label on the table and another on the way. It's a bar where a lot of wealthy Haitians drink, the bar where Mike told me about the month in 2006 he was almost kidnapped five different times, and about his friend's wife who was kidnapped in September. This particular night, he could have been talking about the time several years ago wannabe kidnappers sealed off the exits to a club that he had luckily just left. But he was talking about the recent election violence when he said, "Being in a situation like that, there's no way you want to be there but there's no way out." He put his elbows on the table and folded his hands under his chin and lowered his eyes. "You feel totally trapped."
But that was then. This is beach day! We've grabbed water and Gatorade from the gas station and are heading to the sleepier port city of Jacmel, west out of Port-au-Prince and through the catastrophically damaged earthquake epicenter of Leogane, with the Caribbean to our right. Then due south across the peninsula, over the mountains, blasting Billy Idol and Billy Squier as we drive up narrow, climbing switchbacks. We scale 2,500 feet before descending back down to the opposite coast. The trip is 50 miles. It takes two and a half hours to complete it.
We stop at his Texaco again. When a rough-looking drunk approaches the truck to talk to me, a security guard draws his pistol.
"YOU THOUGHT I WAS CRAZY WHEN I SAID sometimes I come all this way for the fish," Mike says after we've settled in at an open-air seaside restaurant. There's a clean and simple resort next door. There's a skinny white guy in a sarong actually stroking his soul patch while gazing at the tall turquoise waves crashing onto the shore. Mike's ordered a whole grilled fish for each of us, as well as two lobsters. The temperature is bordering on hot but not at all uncomfortable. The seafood is cheap but extraordinary.
"This is how we…what is it you call us?" Mike asks.
"Robber barons," I say. "Not because I think you're actually screwing anyone, just because that's people's impression of white Haitians"—Mike is more light brown, really, but in Haiti that's close enough—"dropping hundreds of dollars in hotel bars—"
"That's right, robber barons," he says, waving my explanation off. "This is how we robber barons live, right?"
I start to qualify again, but he continues to cut me off.
"You know, I work my fucking ass off. I didn't come from money." In the 14 years since he emigrated, "I've worked behind bars, in gas stations, you name it since I got to this country. Everybody knows I work my ass off, and that's why they respect me. When I first got here, I opened a car wash—man, I used to get out there in jean shorts and take my shirt off, climbing up on these cars to clean them…They weren't used to seeing white guys work like that."
The dinner table is set for family and friends at Joel's.
The successes borne of that work ethic ultimately led him to a partnership with Joel [pronounced jo-ELLE], a fit, tan 46-year-old who joins us on the beach later via a roaring Jet Ski. Joel is the most powerful businessman in Jacmel, and Mike comes here at least twice a month to see him. His dealings are endless: property, potable water, motorcycles, currency exchange—and fuel. "If you live in Jacmel," as Mike puts it, "and you've got 10 gourdes in your pocket, one way or another, two of them belong to Joel."
"I built all my business from nothing," Joel, too, explains in a thick accent later that night as we lounge in the infinity pool at his seaside manse. Not because I asked; because he's venting to Mike that the next generation of Haitians aren't motivated enough. The inefficiencies of the 10,000 NGOs in the country for aid and rebuilding aren't helping, he says. "[One of them] gave me a contract to do a job in several weeks. I did it in three days. But they were not happy; they had raised a certain amount of money to do this project, and it cost much less." He laughs, but shrugs disgustedly. "They never work with me again."
Joel also highlights the risks of being a big investor in a country that's so poor and politically unstable (he agrees with Mike that it's best not to get involved in politics). He mentions, over a patio dinner attended by more house staff than I can keep track of serving whiskey and fried goat's blood and cake, that to hedge against the possibility of embargo or institutional apocalypse, he keeps ranches stocked with enough cattle to feed him for years. Then I get up to pee and everyone starts yelling "Stop! Stop!" because a Rottweiler named Fallujah and a pack of guard dogs are headed my way for attempting to walk into the house unescorted.
But Joel is far from risk-averse—he and Mike get in a friendly argument about whether it's reasonable to place $100,000 bets at casinos (Mike thinks watching Joel at a blackjack table will give him a heart attack someday; Joel thinks Mike's a pussy when it comes to gambling). And anyway, nothing could make him take his cash and talents out of the country of his birth. "This is a beautiful country," he says on the beautiful hilltop patio. "People don't realize that. When I tell people I am Haitian, they think I must be a son of a bitch. But I'm proud to be Haitian. I love my country."
Placemat at the restaurant in Jacmel.
Mike also says that all the time, that he loves it here—though he operates in a decidedly…grittier environment than Jacmel, which may be why he often appends the statement with "I don't know why." On the way home, we stop at his Texaco again, and he runs inside. When a rough-looking drunk approaches the truck to talk to me through the open windows and ignores a guard's demands that he leave, the guard draws his pistol. Mike reemerges from the station, shoulders past them, and gets in the car.
"There's no point in being negative" is the other thing he says all the time. There's no point in complaining that you don't feel safe driving through your work neighborhood at night without moving your gun from inside your car door to directly onto your seat. There's no sense in abandoning your adopted country and extended family even though you were once shot in the head in a carjacking on your way to the bank. There's no reason to stop believing that your nation will become more functional, someday, just because you spent this morning constantly checking in with contacts who'd know if further election-related riots were about to break out.
"Things are so bad right now," Mike said then, "that at this point, they have to fix it. It can't get any worse, and people are fed up. I think it's going to get better. I really do. I really think things are gonna get a lot more stable." He paused, leaned forward with both hands on the wheel, and laughed. "Then again, I said that in 2004 [when Aristide left]. But this time, I think it even more than I did last time."
Election posters for losing Presidential candidate Jude Celestin are still Prevalent throughout Haiti, including on the road to Jacmel.
Rebuilding Haiti for the Rich
Aftershocks: Welcome to Haiti's Reconstruction Hell


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Costa Coffee To Cut Jobs, Amazon Hiring
Posted on Sep 03, 2020. by NTI
Neil went up to London today to see some people. He didn't have meetings, or anything specific arranged, it's just that he doesn't get to see anyone when stuck in his bedsit in Andover and he likes to get out occasionally and see people.
He reported back during the day to give us his coordinates and check on Tasty, the NTI newsroom hamster (which has taken incontinence to whole new levels in the last fortnight) and told us that the Costa Coffee at Waterloo station was closed. This makes some sense as today (Thursday 3 September) the chain said that up to 1,650 roles are at risk of being cut, as it is forced to reduce costs because of the impact of Coro ... blah, blah, blah. Costa markets itself as 'The Nation's Favourite Coffee Shop', but surely even Lionel Messi has to be in it to win it and closing one of their busiest outlets in the UK seems like an odd way to take the fight to the pandemic.
A spokesperson, speaking with a cup of Pret A Manger macchiato in his hand through the bars of the closed shop on Waterloo, said: ... "there are still high levels of uncertainty as to when trade will regain pre-pandemic volumes", but opening coffee shops seems like a sensible place to start.
Neil Lake, managing director of Costa Coffee in England and Wales said that most of its UK coffee shops that were closed during lockdown have now reopened ... most, but not all, eh Neil? "We have had to make these difficult decisions to protect the business and ensure we safeguard as many jobs as possible for our 16,000 team members, whilst emerging stronger, ready for future growth".
Meanwhile, on the non-coffee-serving-online-side-of-the-virtual-street Amazon is to create 7,000 new permanent UK jobs by the end of the year, the online retail giant has announced. The company said it was on top of 3,000 already added this year, taking the total to 10,000. On this news the staff members from Costa at Waterloo made a bolt for the closed and barred door to run the 2.3 miles to 60 Holborn Viaduct to apply for jobs at the coffee shop in the impressive glass foyer there ... curiously, it is a Costa and it is open.