text:
Peninsula Ballet Theatre dances 'The Nutcracker'
Joe Truskot
The Salinas Californian
Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" — arguably the most popular and best known ballet in America — is coming to Monterey's Golden State Theatre. The performances will take place, 7 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 13, and 2 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 14.
The award-winning Peninsula Ballet Theatre, a San Francisco Bay Area company, has created joyous holiday memories for more than four decades. This performance features some of the Bay Area's most talented dancers and combines elaborate costumes and sets with intricate choreography. Following each performance, the dancers will be available on stage to meet the audience.
"The moment we heard that Eric and Lori Lochtefeld were adding the Golden State to their venues we knew we wanted to be part of this great creative adventure," said Christine Leslie, president and executive director of the ballet company. "We have partnered with them for all four years since they became the owners of the Fox Theatre in Redwood City," she continued. "We love the charm and the atmosphere of these historic theatres, as do our audiences."
The ballet company will bring its entire cast including professionals and student performers from the Company Conservatory. More than 125 costumed characters will bring the story of the Nutcracker to life. The technical team arrives on Monday before the performance to begin the transformation to Victorian Scotland. The students portray the friends and family of Clara and Fritz Silverbaum who attend everyone's favorite holiday party filled with presents, dancing and special entertainments from Dr. Drosselmeyer. Clara's holiday dreams are fulfilled by dancing by the company's professional dancers and artists.
"This is a logical progression for a Company that has been delighting audiences for 44 years," added Leslie. "We are looking forward to being part of this creative adventure in Monterey."
The Golden State Theatre is located at 417 Alvarado, Monterey with two large parking garages just around the corner. Ticket prices range from $25 to $40. For tickets, go to www.goldenstatetheatre.com or call 831-649-1070. Group ticket discounts are available for 10 or more.
Dinner at Cibo's
Cibo Ristorante Italiano has created a dining experiencebefore or after the Nutcracker performances on December 13 and 14. The restaurant is located just a block from the theatre at 301 Alvarado Street in downtown Monterey. cibo.com.


text:
Q: как актуализировать время для разных зон с учетом летнего времени? На корпоративном портале, где пользователи были только из России, временные зоны устанавливались простым смещением относительно UTC, о летнем/зимнем времени речи не шло. Время событий в базе - в формате unixtime, а часовой пояс для пользователя - целое число, и все хорошо работало, в пределах РФ.
 Но теперь там будут работать партнеры из Америки (вся северная, часть Латинской), Европы (вся), и совсем немного из Океании и Азии. Поверхностное гугление меня немного расстроило: перевод на летнее время в разных регионах поисходит в разные дни, да и в пределах страны (США, Австралия) в разных штатах по-разному, и что с этим делать я совершенно не представляю.

A: Перескажу вкратце статью "Never say never" или Работаем с таймзонами правильно в блоге @Mail.Ru.

*

*Храните метки времени в двух представлениях: локальном для пользователя и глобальном в UTC.

*Перед выводом даты и времени спросите местоположение пользователя или попытайтесь его угадать.

*

*GeoIP API в PHP

*Преобразования времени на клиенте

*Конвертируйте время события из UTC в требуемое локальное.

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text:
What is the Secret Societies Collection?
The Secret Societies Collection is a planned series of books about how various supernatural groups interact with humans and each other in northwestern Illinois.
What do you mean by the Secrets Set or the Fool Set?
Since this series covers multiple groups, each story is divided into two books or a Set. The first two books, Family Secrets and Deadly Secrets, are the Secrets Set and tell Sophia's story. Book three will move on to a new group and therefore will start a new Set. Each set can be read on its own, but as the characters' lives can intertwine with those you've already read, or those you may meet in the future, it's a good idea to read them in order.
Right now I'm working on two novels, one of which is book three in the Secret Societies Collection. Tentatively titled, Fool Me Once, it tells the story of Morgan, who is 18 years old and completely oblivious to anything supernatural. Her world is about to be rocked when not one, but two new guys enroll in her school and introduce her to both glamour and danger. This has a very different take on the love triangle which I hope people enjoy!
Will you ever write anything else besides YA or Paranormal?
Actually, the second book I am working on is a NA (New Adult) Contemporary novel about a college senior who is trying to live her life while constantly hiding from almost everyone, including her new love interest, that her father is a convicted serial killer. I'm having a lot of fun writing this one as well.
Have a question for me? Something else you'd like to know? Submit it on the Contact Me page. I'd love to hear from you!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


FICO Score is a term used to describe the number assigned to you in relation to your credit. It is simply a number used to represent your financial obligations in relation to your credit history. It is called FICO because this score is determined by software created by Fair Isaac and Company.
About a year ago, a few credit card issuers began sharing FICO Scores or VantageScores with their customers as part of their monthly statements. As competition heats up, more credit card issuers are now offering customers' credit scores for free.
If you haven't started playing the FICO game yet, here are 10 little-known credit cheats that will help you get to the next credit level. There's one score that follows you around for life — your credit score!
How Does a Credit Score Increase or Decrease Each Month?
The majority of credit scores don't increase or decrease every month, largely because the person is in what is known as "steady state" or equilibrium where their patterns of credit use and payment are balanced over time.


Regular readers of this blog will have heard me eulogise about the writing competitions of Christopher Fielden on numerous occasions.
It seems to me that the setters of writing competitions often implore us to 'make them laugh', but when we do, the choices for short-listing and certainly winning are still too often either deep tales of woe within fractured families or parma violet sweet 'womans' tales that fit perfectly into the dainty pages of The Peoples Friend. There is nothing wrong with these stories per se, but when your writing style is for gentle bonkers surrealism, it is handicap enough to be limited in your own writing ability without having the template of the winning story apparently preset in the judges minds.
Maybe that's unfair, but it's what I've found. I believe more people want to read good, humorous stories than are made available to them, but for reasons I cannot fathom, these seem to have limited publishing appeal. Frankly, I think people want to read good writing, full stop, and, as Chris' competitions show, good and funny are not as mutually exclusive as I believe many publishers of amateur writing seem to demonstrate.
Chris Fielden's competitions buck this trend, in that they are all geared to attract entries that make him laugh, and he has a fab sense of humour. You may think this would restrict genre, but in fact it does the opposite. In last year's annual 'To Hull and Back' completion, the 20 or so short-listed entries were united by their differences. OK, so 'death' and 'fantasy' are perhaps predictable tropes, but there were also successful entries based on the Victorian domestication of an ape, and even one about the Newbury Model Train Enthusiasts(!).
I cannot tell you what categories the short-list for the 2017 contest contains as the anthology is not yet published. But what I can tell you is that my story The Turbothrob Triple X has been declared RUNNER-UP out of 359 entries. I am so proud! The £200 runner–up prize (I like those words) is very welcome, but the kudos, appreciation, and drive to carry on writing is worth much, much more.
Look out on Chris' site for details of the 2018 comp – you too can enter and do good – I promise.
I might even buy you a beer from the winnings.


It is extremely refreshing to see that there are true patriots, such as this, who will eagerly come to America's defense when American symbols are trashed by idiots spitting on our forefathers graves.
VIA| The leader of the protestors responds to the veteran with ludicrous statements such as the flag is not sacred but is "an advertising gimmick."Although the confrontation appears to be headed for a physical altercation, the scene doesn't go beyond some scuffling, pushing and a lot of profanity-laced yelling by the infuriated veteran.
In retrospect, the veteran should be commended for showing physical restraint as clearly he was trying to hold back from punching out the protesters.
HE IS SO RIGHT! I DON'T CARE WHAT ANYONE THINKS IN THEIR OWN FAIRYTALE MIND, YOU WILL NOT DISRESPECT MY FLAG!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS OLD GUY IS SAYING HE IS NOT FOR TOTURING THOSE IN GITTMO!!!!!!!!! REALLY?


Many of us know the old joke: Why is it when I talk to God it's called prayer, but when God talks to me, it's called schizophrenia? We are rightfully suspect when someone makes the claim that he or she has been spoken to by God. But as we close this secular year of 2015 at the same time we close the book of Genesis, we look back at the fifty chapters and can't help noticing that God speaks to many of our biblical leaders at times of vulnerability and struggle. God tasks them with the job of transformation, both of self and nation, and God waits for a response. And the response is often Hineni: I am fully present in this moment in time and poised to take on my assignment.
Hineni connotes a readiness and acceptance of a mission or task that often portends danger. It does not appear as often as one might suspect it would in the Hebrew Bible. It appears in three readings that frame the High Holiday liturgy, a time when being present is particularly consequential and important. Sometimes it's a call that God gives to a human being when no one else is present, as in Genesis 22:1 or Exodus 3:4. But it doesn't only have to be God calling. Sometimes it is the response of a human being to the call of an angel or messenger, as in Genesis 22:11or 31:11. Sometimes it's said in response to a parent as in Genesis 27:1 or 37:18. Sometimes, as in the book of Esther, one human being - in this case Mordechai to Esther - calls out to another to grow in leadership and influence.
When you are called to a hineni moment, you begin to understand the importance of the invitation and then should be able to create those moments for others. Because God called Moses, Moses understood that when he gave our people the commandments, he also needed to call us. The formality of the invitation serves as a validation that a big and wide possibility has been put before us. We must choose our answer carefully.
As we say goodbye to the pages of Genesis for now, we are left with an enduring question. What is our hineni moment? What should we be doing of great purpose in this coming year, and how will we answer? Perhaps we too will have the courage and the spiritual audacity to say, as Isaiah did long ago: Here I am. Send me.


text:
Akkuyu Nuclear JSC
Safety of NPP
Defense-in-depth concept
Physical barriers
Safety against external factors
Public Information Center
PIC activity
Contacts, Location scheme
Akkuyu NPP JSC (Ankara)
Akkuyu NPP JSC (Moscow)
Branch of Consern Rosenergoatom JSC
NIAEP JSC - CJSC ASE
JSC CONCERN TITAN-2
To Suppliers
Anticorruption Local Regulations
Regulations of the RT
Regulations of the RF
Mochovce NPP Slovakia
Balakovskaya NPP Russia
Kalininskaya NPP Russia
NPP Tyanvan China
NPP Paks Hungary
Nuclear industry news
Russian loan for Rooppur construction
Russia has agreed to provide $500 million to finance the initial stages of Bangladesh's first nuclear power project. Preparatory work could begin at the Rooppur site in 2014.
The agreement was signed during a state visit to Russia by Bangladesh's prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, who described the Rooppur project as a "shiny example" of the two countries' "deeper engagement." The loan will fund preparatory work such as site surveys, feasibility studies and environmental impact studies. Russian president Vladimir Putin said in a press statement that Rosatom was "getting ready" to build Bangladesh's first nuclear power plant, adding that some 20% of the country's existing electricity generation capacity had been built with Russian assistance.
According to RIA Novosti, Rosatom head Sergei Kiriyenko said that preparatory work could begin at the reactor site in 2014, with construction beginning in earnest in 2015. He said that contracts for on-site surveys would need to be signed during the first quarter of 2013, followed by contracts for feasibility studies, detailed design and engineering design, with a contract for preparatory site works signed by the end of the year.
Bangladesh has been considering embarking on a nuclear power program for over five decades, and Rooppur, about 200 km north of Dhaka, was earmarked for the country's first plant as long ago as 1963. The country has worked steadily towards the goal of using nuclear power to help meet its rapidly increasing energy demand and reduce dependence on natural gas, and in February 2011 the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission signed an agreement with Rosatom for two 1000 MWe-class reactors to be built at Rooppur. A 2011 Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR) mission from the International Atomic Energy Agency to Bangladesh concluded that the country had made "notable progress" in its nuclear infrastructure development, and recognised the country's strong expertise in safeguards, security and radiation protection.
The raft of agreements signed during Hasina's Russian visit included an agreement to establish a high-tech information centre on nuclear energy in Dhaka to educate and inform the people of Bangladesh about nuclear power. The centre, which will be housed in the Bangladeshi capital's planetarium, will combine a panoramic 3D view, computer graphics and animation, stereo sound, interactive consoles and personal displays, according to Rosatom.
Seventeen such information centres are already in operation in Russia, and Rosatom plans to establish more in those countries where Russian nuclear technology is to be built. The Dhaka facility, which Rosatom says will start operating this year, will be the third overseas centre following on from centres in Vietnam and Turkey
Source: World Nuclear News
AKKUYU NÜKLEER A.Ş.
Yazılım&Tasarım Webolizma


text:
Q: How to call copy constructor of all base classes for copying most derived class object in diamond inheritance in C++? Consider the below code:
#include<iostream>
using namespace std;
class A
{
public:
     A() {cout << "1";}
     A(const A &obj) {cout << "2";}
};

class B: virtual A
{
public:
    B() {cout << "3";}
    B(const B & obj) {cout<< "4";}
};

class C: virtual A
{
public:
   C() {cout << "5";}
   C(const C & obj) {cout << "6";}
};

class D:B,C
{
public:
    D()  {cout << "7";}
    D(const D & obj) {cout << "8";}
};

int main()
{
   D d1;
   cout << "\n";
   D d(d1);
}

The output of the program is below:
1357
1358

So, for line D d(d1) the copy constructor of D class is bein called. During inheritance we need to explicitly call copy constructor of base class otherwise only default constructor of base class is called. I understood till here.
My Problem:
Now I want to call copy constructor of all base classes during D d(d1) execution. For that if I try below
D(const D & obj) : A(obj), B(obj), C(obj) {cout << "8";}
Then I get this error:
error: 'class A A::A' is inaccessible within this context
How to resolve the issue. I want copy constructor of A, B and C when copy constructor of D gets called. It might be very small change but I am not getting.

A: The way you have inherited your classes, all of them use private inheritance.
By changing the inheritance of B from A and C from A to be protected or public, you can resolve the problem.
class B : protected virtual A
{
   ...
}

class C : protected virtual A
{
   ...
}

or
class B : public virtual A
{
   ...
}

class C : public virtual A
{
   ...
}

and then update D's copy constructor to:
D(const D & obj) : A(obj), B(obj), C(obj) {cout <<"8";}

PS It's baffling to me that the default constructor works even with private inheritance.

A: First, lets change your inheritance as currently it is private:
class B : virtual protected A {...};
class C : virtual protected A {...};

Now, in your copy constructor, explicitly specify that the copy constructors of A and B and C should be called:
class D : protected B, protected C {
    D(const D & obj) : A(obj), B(obj), C(obj) {cout << "8";}
};

And the output will be as desired (2468).
Why?
When we have virtual base classes, they must be initialized by the most derived class, otherwise there would be ambiguity concerning whether B or C for example is responsible for the construction of A.

§12.6.2, (13.1):
In a non-delegating constructor, initialization proceeds in the following order:

*

*First, and only for the constructor of the most derived class (1.8),
virtual base classes are initialized in the order they appear on a
depth-first left-to-right traversal of the directed acyclic graph of
base classes, where "left-to-right" is the order of appearance of the
base classes in the derived class base-specifier-list.

In particular, if you define a copy constructor, and omit the list of copy constructors it should call, then the default constructors will be used.

A: Alternative solution which doesn't require changing the inheritance modifiers of class B or C:
class A
{
public:
     A() {cout << "1";}
     A(const A &obj) {cout << "2";}
};

class B: virtual A
{
public:
    B() {cout << "3";}
    B(const B & obj) {cout<< "4";}
};

class C: virtual A
{
public:
   C() {cout << "5";}
   C(const C & obj) {cout << "6";}
};

class D:B,C,virtual A
{
public:
    D() {cout << "7";}
    D(const D & obj) : A(obj), B(obj), C(obj) {cout << "8";}
};

A: Regarding access checking for constructors: from [class.access]/6

All access controls in Clause [class.access] affect the ability to
  access a class member name from the declaration of a particular entity
  ... [ Note : This access also applies to implicit references to
  constructors, conversion functions, and destructors.  — end note]

similarly, [class.access]/4

Special member functions obey the usual access rules. [ Example:
  Declaring a constructor protected ensures that only derived classes
  and friends can create objects using it. — end example ]

Regarding base class subobject initialization: from [class.base.init]/9

In a non-delegating constructor, if a given potentially constructed
  subobject is not designated by a mem-initializer-id (including the
  case where there is no mem-initializer-list because the constructor
  has no ctor-initializer), then ... otherwise, the entity is
  default-initialized

The lack of any ctor-initializer for a base class subobject means that the subobject is default-initialized; from [dcl.init]/7

To default-initialize an object of type T means: ...
  The constructor thus selected is called, with an empty argument list,
  to initialize the object.

So the lack of any base in a ctor-initializer is a request for default-initialization for that base, which means calling the default constructor.
The lack of mention of a base class makes no difference; in any case, a constructor has no name and is not named in the ctor-initializer, it is referenced either explicitly or implicitly. There is nothing in the standard suggesting that access control should not be performed in such case.
It seems like the constructor, being from an inaccessible base class, cannot be called either way, so your program should not compile.
In any case, you can change the inheritance from private to protected, even add a path to the virtual base class:
class D: B, C, virtual A
{

This way, the virtual base class A is still private, but is accessible to D.


Slate cutting equipment at Maenofferen Slate Mill in Blaenau Ffestiniog. I like this photo as it almost looks like the workers have just left for the day and will return tomorrow. Sadly, the workers all left in 1998 when the Quarry closed permanently.


text:
Educational institutions to remain closed for two days in Punjab
Last modified on 12 PM-26 Nov,2017
Written by Web Desk
File photo Educational institutions to remain closed for two days in Punjab
Provincial Minster for Education Rana Mashhood has said on Sunday that all the educational institutions in Punjab will remain closed for two days due to the ongoing protests.
According to details, the decision will be applicable on all private and government educational institutions. The minister said that the decision was taken while keeping in view the current aggravated situation in the country.
At present, sit-ins are being held and roads have been blocked at 19 points in Lahore including Mall Road, Shahdara Morr, Babu Sabu, Amamia Colony railway crossing, Thokar Niaz Baig, Faisal Chowk, Chungi Amar Sidhu, Ferozpur Road and Ichra.
Protestors have also staged sit-in outside Punjab Assembly at Charing Cross while Rangers personnel have also been deployed at the scene to protect the provincial assembly building.
Roads at Paka Mail and Thokar Terminal have been blocked with containers, causing problems for the motorists.
Sit-in protest by Tehreek-e-Labaik has entered 21st day in Faizabad while the federal government has summoned army men to control the situation. On Saturday, violent clashes between protestors and law enforcement personnel left seven dead and 417 injured. Countrywide protests erupted when police and paramilitary forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse Tehreek-e-Labaik protestors from Faizabad.
The protesting body has demanded the resignation of Law Minister Zahid Hamid after the alleged removal of Khatm-e-Nabuwwat clause from the nomination papers. Both houses of the parliament passed The Elections (Amendment) Bill 2017 and restored Khatm-e-Nabuwwat clause in its original form in the light of constitution however; the protesting body is adamant to its demand.
NAB Arrests five Officials Of Sports Board Punjab
PML-Nawaz stopped from holding rally in Mandi Bahauddin
Anti-polio campaign commenced in three provinces


text:
Civrac-en-Médoc (okzitanisch: Sibrac-de-Médoc) ist eine französische Gemeinde im Département Gironde in der Region Nouvelle-Aquitaine mit  Einwohnern (Stand: ). Sie gehört zum Arrondissement Lesparre-Médoc und zum Kanton Le Nord-Médoc. Die Einwohner werden Civracais genannt.

Geografie
Civrac-en-Médoc liegt etwa 60 Kilometer nordnordwestlich von Bordeaux im Norden der HalbinselMédoc. Das Gemeindegebiet gehört zum Regionalen Naturpark Médoc. Umgeben wird Civrac-en-Médoc von den Nachbargemeinden Bégadan im Norden, Couquèques im Osten, Blaignan-Prignac im Südosten und Süden, Lesparre-Médoc im Süden, Gaillan-en-Médoc sowie Queyrac im Westen.

Durch die Gemeinde führt die frühere Route nationale 215 (heutige D1215).

Bevölkerungsentwicklung

Sehenswürdigkeiten
 Kirche Saint-Pierre, seit 1925 Monument historique

Literatur
 Le Patrimoine des Communes de la Gironde. Flohic Éditions, Band 2, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-84234-125-2, S. 859–860.

Weblinks

Ort in Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Weinbauort in Frankreich

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The Christmas Snowball is a creative way to give money! Money is an incredibly practical and useful gift, it's just so boring to give AND receive. Printables, Ideas, and FUN for your Everyday Life!
Put in some thoughtful effort with one of these creative gift card holders. 24 Cute And Clever Ways To Give A Gift Card. Simple Money or Gift Card Holder. Dec 19, 2017. So many people ask for gift cards or money for Christmas, but let's face it, there is nothing fun about handing over a boring gift card or money. Put the money in a toilet paper tube to create a gift the recipient can unroll.
Fun tip: save the largest bills for the end! Fun tip: save the largest bills for the end! Empty a box of chocolates (by eating them, of course) and fill the wrappers with money instead.
Fun Ways to Give Money as a Gift!. Creative Ways to Give Money. giftcard I thnk I'm going to do the chocolate box of money for his Christmas present this. Fun and Creative Ways to Give Money as a Gift Let's be honest, everybody loves money to some extent or at least enjoys the things it buys.
And receiving money gift on valentines, Christmas, a birthday, graduation, wedding, etc can always make someone happy. Unique and creative ways to give money as a gift. The best gift is, indisputably, money. But you don't have to simply slip money in a card! This past Christmas my mother and I set out to give my cousins money with some similar ways.
We succeeded at the balloon box and money pizza but also tried some others. One was a money bracelet that we were able to find instructions for online. We also. 6 Creative Ways to Give Money for Christmas. Cash is the ultimate last-minute gift, but giving it doesn't have to be boring! Check out these creative ways to make giving cash as a gift more fun.
Need ideas on how to give money as a gift? Check out our 26 great ideas (with pics) to give cash in creative and fun ways! 26 Fun and Clever Money Gift Ideas And Ways To Give Cash Money is the ultimate gift to give. When money is given, it can be spent on exactly what the recipient wants. Today I will be sharing some Creative Ways to Give Money as a Gift not only for Christmas but for Birthdays, Graduation, or just because.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. To learn more about 'em, click here. This post includes creative ways to give money for Christmas! Clever ways to give money as a birthday present. Creative Ways to Give Money as a Gift One year at Christmas my siblings were all looking at me with jealousy because there was a huge stack of gifts for me.
All was fine until I started opening them and found the weirdest, most bizarre gifts (footed pajamas, an old grandma sweater with a huge crochet rose in the middle, a crazy ski hat). This fast-paced compilation video contains 50+ creative ways to give cash money as a gift. The money gift ideas can be used for kids, adults, boys, girls, an. There are multiple ways to give money as a gift. Here are 6 tips from Better Money Habits on giving money with a personal touch.
6 creative ways to give money as. 26 Fun and Clever Money Gift Ideas And Ways To Give Cash Save Money / June 18, 2014 by Dawn / 10 Comments When it comes time to gifting those in my life, sometimes it can be a bit of a challenge. 23 Creative ways to give cash for graduation, Chrsitmas, or a birthday! So many clever and. as a gift for any occasion. Creative ways to wrap Christmas money.
Instead, look for creative ways to give a teen money. It'll turn an otherwise non-eventful gift into a memorable experience. While you can easily tuck cash into a variety of items, be careful where you put it. 120 Creative Ways To Give Gift Cards Or Money So many people ask for gift cards or money for Christmas, but let's face it, there is nothing fun about handing over a boring gift card or money. It's such a challenge to give gift cards or money as gifts.
May 17, 2015. Grad and wedding seasons, you have met your match. Dec 9, 2017. We have searched the web and found the top 65 ways to give money as a present! Whether you are searching for a Christmas gift, birthday gift.
21 Surprisingly Fun Ways To Give Cash As A Gift. Grad and wedding seasons, you have met your match. DIY a money topiary with a styrofoam ball and pins. sugarbeecrafts. com. Looking for Creative Way to Give Money. Every year I give my neice 50 dollars for CHRISTmas in a creative way. I have already put money in a fake cake(a bowl.


Benjamin Overley, DPM gives an in-depth overview of mobile bearing ankle replacements, including the importance of patient selection, procedure selection and complications.
Male Speaker: The next speaker is a very good friend of mine. A matter of fact I called him at the last minute. I said, "Get on a plane and come down here. I need you to give five lectures." That's calling upon a friend. Ben Overley has been a leader in the area of foot and ankle surgery for many years. He is a PMSI orthopedics in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He's totally involved with the American College of Foot Surgeons with total ankle joint replacement course. He is significantly experienced in Ilizarov and framing techniques. Quite frankly I just said to Ben I would love to hear a good talk on ankle joint replacement. State of the art, where it is, simple procedure to perform supposedly. With more complications that I have here in my head if you don't do it right. At this point, please welcome Dr. Ben Overley.
Dr. Benjamin Overley: Okay guys. I think am I wrapping it up tonight?
Male Speaker: Yes you are.
Dr. Benjamin Overley: Okay. So I'm the last up and I'll try to not keep you too long. I'm going to add some crazy stuff for you, moving out of Harold's talk about biomechanics and pathomechanics of the foot. I'm going to take this to another level and take a look at ankle replacement as Harold said. Where we're at today with these. Just so you understand, even though you may not be doing these procedures, you are going to be seeing these in your office. You're kidding yourself if you think that you're not. People are going to move from one town to another just like they always do. They're getting these procedures done all over the place. In fact the numbers, if we go back to even 2004 and we go up to the latest survey which was 2012, '13, we're really at this point doing about 10 times more per year. So we're actually building 10 times over year to year on the amount of replacements we're doing. We'll get to that in a second. So there's my disclosure slide. You can see that this may be germane to this talk in so much as Wright Medical, Tornier and Stryker are all produced total ankle replacements, and I happen to speak for all of them and consult for all of them. So I show my comparison there. Just let you know that I do use all these implants so that I really don't have a particular one that I have a pigeon hold of myself into. What I do is I do what's right for the patient which is what we should all do. Not everything's right for everybody. So learning objectives. Really when it comes down to who gets what and why. We can all understand ankle arthritis. I think it's pretty straight forward. We'll a look at some of the numbers and the types and the things that we see over. When we take a look at the general population and everybody that we're going to run into in our office. What it comes down to, what it boils down to is that most instances we would like to say that most of our patients have rheumatoid arthritis and they've got some sort of inflammatory arthritic process. But that's really not the case. Most of these patients are going to be post sprainers. They're going to be patients who have a sprain over a lifetime of activity, sports-related things. We begin to see sort of the evolvement that knee replacement went through years ago where you have these guys that were former athletes or things like that that ended up getting knee replacements and we're seeing the same sort of phenomenon with anchor replacement at this time as well. So again, taking a look at the ideology of this. Pretty straightforward. Almost all of these patients are going to be post traumatic. But why is the stats important? Well, they're important for a lot of different reasons. Your knee replacement patient is not the same as your ankle replacement patient. Ankle replacement patients are different animal altogether. This is your typical knee replacement individual and this is your typical ankle arthritis individual. So where do we sort of jump the shark and jump from one thing to the other and we get out of the different sort of our patient populations and we move from one thing to the next? Well, here it is. It's pretty straightforward. The stats are important because a lot of these patients are younger. We were constantly faced with this conundrum of do we replace an ankle or do we fuse it? I can tell you professionally, activity prompts age at this point as far as I'm concerned. As long as I know that the patient is going to try to run a marathon on it, if a 38-year-old patient needs an ankle replacement and they do not want their ankle fused and they're adamant about not having an ankle fuse and they're realistic about what they're going to get out of it, then I'm more than willing to take a look at that a lot more seriously than I would have even five years ago. The other issue is that they're still working or they're trying to. These are not patients that have kind of bailed out on life. They're patients that from our perspective still have a lot of life left. What is the quality that I can impart for them or the other surgeons can impart for them? By doing a replacement. Here are some advertising dollars that were well spent. You take a look at that picture. Some of you need to probably squint a little bit. So I'll blow it up for you.
It's actually an upside down ankle. You notice this is a knee surgery and we can prevent this. I sure hope that they can prevent this and this is what happens when you don't check these things before they go out and they get flipped upside down. So I'm sure that no one heard about that one. I actually had to pull over to take that picture. How miserable are ankle arthritis patients? If you take a look at sort of the whole patient population. Where do these people fall in? You can see this. Take a look at it. Everybody knows Alice and [Dylan] [05:30] up at HSS in New York City. What they came up with was these patients are about as miserable as people that have end-stage renal disease or cervical radiculopathy. Well, that's a pretty miserable group of patients to begin with. If you take a look at that, I mean these patients are pretty significantly disabled and their pain level is real. So living with ankle arthritis. When you take a look how do we compare it throughout the body, it would be like to immediately go right up to the next level which is the knee, but it's not. It's more similar to the hip. If you've got hip arthritis and ankle arthritis, they're pretty similar. That's all that slide is telling you. Also when we're thinking at doing ankle replacements and Harold sort of eluded a lot of this stuff in the different foot types and things that we're trying to balance out. There's lot of things we also have to take into account. The patho and anatomy that goes with ankle replacements, cyst formation. Is there deformity present? Is there prior infection? Previous hardware? As you've seen in some of these cases and you're trying to dance around these things. This makes it very, very complicated at times to get these things in without doing more harm than good. So taking look at this and why do we not like fusions anymore? Were we sort of going off that fusion pathway? Well it's pretty simple. Fusions when they come out of the gate, they work right. I will not argue that fact and I certainly won't stand here and argue that fact. That first three years of an ankle fusion are the best or the golden years of that ankle fusion. But what we begin to see is the downturn about year three to about year five. Then we get to about year seven and these patients are miserable. They start picking up arthritis at other joints which we know already happens. They start having significant limping and they're consuming more oxygen just to walk. So if this patient has a comorbidity, if they had COPD, they've got some other issue that's going on, you're not actually making it harder for them to breathe by fusing their ankle. Ankle replacements come out of the gate slow and then they pick up steam. They sort of do a sort of crisscross thing. Excuse me. As time goes on, where the ankle fusion is on the decline, the replacement is on the rise. So replacements where we don't hit their strides. Probably about one half to two years. Because you really have to get the motion back and you have to teach the patient how to walk again which is sometimes not the easiest thing to do. That suspect CT scan and you can see that's what's showing you, the adjacent areas of arthritis with an ankle fusion. So patient selection. Granted these are all optimal patients and I agree with this sort of categorization. But if I saw this patient, I'd sort of refer this. Harold knows I say this all the time. It's like baby pigeons. We know they're out there but has anyone ever seen one? If anybody knows any of these patients, by the way, the '50s categories, please give them my card or give my number because they don't exist in my clinic. Everybody's got some sort of deformity, whether it's even a mild valgus, mild varus, they've got their borderline diabetic, they're mildly obese. We're moderately obese. Some of these patients again have very unrealistic expectations for what these replacements are going to do. When we're taking look at who qualifies for this, these other disease processes have to be brought into play, cancer, diabetes. Of course the most painful of all disease processes, Workmen's Comp. So these guys don't ever replace. These patients typically sort of makes sort of peace with their conditions. You're not going to get a very good result. I sometimes question and a lot of the instances, whether there's a potential for them to get better at all. The patients tend to identify with their conditions. Putting a replacement in them is probably not going to do you a lot of good. I can guarantee it probably won't do them a lot of good. It will probably cause you a lot of heartache on the backend. This is like your typical patient that I get in my clinic. This woman had the good temerity to actually outline all of her medical ailments for me and put it diagram form on her body. So you can see. This is nature's way of saying don't get near this. What was also really nice about this is she had a page two. If you focus on your bottom right hand corner, we're looking at a possible stroke in the brainstem. So this is somebody I'm really going to move to the head of the line in terms of ankle replacement. These are the patients that you see though. They're definitely the ones that I see.
When we take a look at the myths and fables that go with ankle replacement, it's pretty much like any other reconstructive surgery of the hind foot or even of the forefoot. Mid foot patients say, "I can't have that surgery. My doc said I've got diabetes or my family members said they won't touch you. You've got diabetes." Well, that's a myth. The only real factoid and this is the one I've already mentioned which is you don't want to replace work on patients. RA patients do fantastic with ankle replacements. Do you know why? Because their demands are very, very low. They just want to get better. They want to be out of pain. So they tend to do very good with ankle replacements and any time I get an RA patient or an opportunity to do one, if they fit the criteria, I will certainly do it. RTAAs weight sensitive. Well, if we look at the evolution of man, and there it is for you, what takes place with these is the ankle replacement doesn't know how much you weight. All it's going to do is sort of respond to the environment. If it's placed appropriately, there really shouldn't be an issue. However, they've tried to do studies and they've never come up with a solid answer, at least not from my standpoint. I've done almost 300 ankle replacements and I can tell you I still haven't got an answer as to what the weight limit is per thing. So we've sort of set this guideline at 250. I have already sent patients for gastric bypass surgery, LapEn surgery. If they can do it on their own, if they can't do it through exercise, diet, regulation, then we can call in the big guns. I work very close with the general surgeon who does it on my hospital. We have a very good relationship. From my standpoint he does a fantastic job. I think he does very good with these patients getting them tuned up for ankle replacement or knee replacement. He does works with the sort of the orthopedic department. AVN is always a big issue. We've always had our issues with this particular topic. It's very controversial because really, how much talus needs to be bad before we pull the plug on and say we're not going to replace an ankle? We really don't have a good answer. What we do know is high-demand activities are absolutely contraindications. These patients can't run on them and clearly they can have things like Charcot. These patients are going to do very poorly. I mean it's documented in the literature and we know how they're going to end up. The reason is the environment for an ankle replacement is very persnickety. We know that the good environment or the good portion of the distal tibia's on the poster medial side whereas the bad portion is anterolaterally. We know that when things fail they typically spit in the front. In other words, they begin to lift up in the front and that's usually because the bone quality is really bad. So if we extrapolate that to the talus and we say, "Well, is it dead bone? Is it bad bone? Is it half? Is it 50?" What's the number where we sort of pull the plug? We say we're not going to do this replacement. I don't have an answer for you in that. All I can tell you is if I really think that there is a significant chance of saving that talus and there's enough viability, I will do a core decompression with some sort of filling graft and I will plan on coming back a year later to do the replacement once I've established that that bone is still viable. So taking a look at where we jumped to shark in terms of ankle replacement, it's pretty simple. We come out of the gates and we're very, very careful. We select our patients very carefully. We run them over with a fine tooth comb, and we make sure we get the exact perfect patient. That baby pigeon I was talking about earlier. What happens is when we move up to those next 50 is we sort of change our whole momentum and we start taking on cases and maybe questionable borderline. Then we get burned a couple of times. What I'm trying to say by this is this is not really for everybody and it's not for everybody for do. But understanding that there is also a potential for you did get very cocky with it and then you start to get running to some issues. Taking a look at a mobile bearing implant and where it differs, how is it different than a fixed two-component design? Well, what we have is we basically have three pieces. That piece in the middle that's coated yellow there, orange, what that does is it slides and I've got a little video to show you how that moves. What it does is it's supposed to reproduce as close as possible ankle range of motion. The whole impetus by cofed with doing this is that when we take a look at that replacement and we see the way it moves, is that that thing can compensate for bad cuts and surgical technique. It will help to balance out the ankle. That's the whole purpose between a mobile bearing and a fixed two-component. This should be a video by the way. I don't know why it's not playing. Let's see if we can get this to run here. Here you go. This is the procedure. I cut this down to about 20 seconds just so we can move through. It only takes me usually about a minute and 20 seconds to do these anyways, so I'm just kidding. These can be really – they can take a long time. If you're really accurate with them, you can get very good results. If you're sloppy with them, it's just like any other surgical procedure and your results are going to speak for your sloppiness or vice versa. What we want to do is we want to make sure that we've taken a look at all the different things.
Coronal plane deformities is – Harold was talking about, which is very similar to what he was discussing in the foot. These varus and valgus deformities and these rotational issues. We want to make sure that we got these things balanced out before we go throwing ankle replacements. You'll notice on that slide that I put up there, if you take a look at that vertical plum one that I've dropped right up between those two barrel heels, you'll notice it's not lined up with the tibia but it is in fact lined up with the knee. So it's really lined up in the mechanical axis. It's just not the anatomic axis. You notice that the implant is very well balanced. Where contrarily speaking something like this where if you take a look at that plum line you can see it now going off into space and really not centered with the knee at all. It's actually going way medial to it. This is clearly an example of malalignment in terms of an ankle replacement. These are really the four dominant ankle patterns that we see, with the bad boy being this guy right here, the incongruent valgus. Because he really doesn't listen to anybody. He's go shredded deltoids. You've got a poster tibial tendon that's completely bagged. As Harold said earlier, we got a talar head that's trying to escape. We've got that lateral peri-talar subluxation that Sig Hansen [phonetic] and talks about. Then we've got this foot sort of rotating away from the centerline of the body. Well, this makes it very difficult to put an ankle replacement in any of these. Here's just an example of what you can do with them. You can see this woman actually had a fibular fracture as a result of her valgus deformity. I opted with kick-point screws just to do an isolated replacement. This required no additional off-tissue work other that some – I believe I did a poster tibial tendon transfer in her. I was able to correct out that valgus deformity with just doing an ankle replacement. You can see that lateral side was nice and open. That's what we want to see. Incongruent varus, these are a little bit easier to treat. I get asked this all the time with my valgus patients. Do you do them all in one sitting? I don't. I believe the valgus ankle, if you're considering for replacement, you need to do all the hind foot work and you need to see where that plays out. You almost kind of want to put it on the shelf and forget about it for a while and see how that patient walks on it. Remember that this is a hard-wired mainframe issue for these patients. They tend to walk with their foot externally rotated. They were heeled shoes because if I had end-stage ankle arthritis, that's what I would do. That's how they walk. Drumming that out of them, you can put that implant in completely perfect. But getting them to walk that way is a completely different thing. So my patients typically will go through a month of prehab before even having the procedure where they learn how to walk with their foot straight or at least 10 to 20 degrees externally rotate it like they should. A lot of these patients just cast their leg out and it's all coming from the hip level. You put an anchor replacement in them, they're going to walk the exact same way, only with an ankle replacement. You're not going to have a very good result. The difference with the incongruent varus ankle is that everything is coiled under the foot. In contrast to the incongruent valgus, where everything is sort of trying to escape, this is sort of growing back towards the midline. Now are the times when we really need to take a look at the forefoot and make sure that that's balanced out afterwards because as you correct that varus out of that hind foot and out of that ankle, you're going to create a forefoot valgus because that 1st metatarsal head is going to drive into the ground. That's why we do these dorsiflex reprocedures. You can see these can be very tough because the structures are very lax. They can also be repaired relatively simplistically. But if you have a patient like this, this is not going to get an ankle replacement. So here's another example. You can see incongruent varus. You see that little chip off the deltoid. A little ETLF. Fracture fragment as well. This was a CT-guided and you can see. What you can do, we're just doing a replacement. It was not just a replacement but it's a calcaneal osteotomy. It was a dorsiflexory first. That's all the things I did on this one particular patient. These are all the places this patient had incisions. So, to get these things done, it is not sometimes an easy thing but it is possible to do it on one sitting. What's often times seen is that a lot of these blocks are being caused by preexisting boney issues or ectopic bone growths. In almost all of these varus issues, we've got a completely bad set of peroneals. It's just the contrast of what we saw on the medial side with the valgus. You can see with those peroneal tendons look like, it looks like a bunch of stringed-up spaghetti or something. They certainly don't look nice and tubular like they should look. They're very flattened and ratty looking. You can see once they're removed and sort of retracted out of the way, you see that boney impingement which is the thing that's really causing the varus. On all these varus cases, the lateral ankle repair is completely necessary. You must either do some sort of a transfer. Superior peroneal retinaculoplasty, all these things must be performed at this time because again, all these deformities are going to want to go back to the way they were. It's tough to fight them. Here's a nice example of a congruent varus. Now you notice that the ankle joint actually is lined up.
The tibia pretty much parallels or matches the top of the talus. But you can see it's tilted in that varus formation. Again, just by good surgical planning and by also understanding the mechanics involved, you can cut that deformity out without really doing a whole lot except for the soft tissue work which you only do accompany. You can see the dorsiflexor review is really nice. She has good range of motion. That's actually a 58-year-old physical therapy that works with special needs children. Physical therapist. She's about four years out and doing fantastic. Congruent valgus I believe we all have, at least to some degree. Valgus works in the human body, at least to some degree. Varus typically doesn't. If we have a little bit of valgus in our knees, that works. If we got a little bit of valgus in our great toe, we can fit into shoes. All these things. I think we all have a little bit of valgus in it. In all of my patients I really take a very close look when I'm doing replacements because I want to make sure that I'm not leaving something behind and there's not going to be – I'm not going to be upset with myself later because I do believe that they do present with, again, a little bit of valgus. Here's a perfect example. This patient actually have a rarity. There's really nothing you can do for osteochondral defects in the distal tibia. You can really antegrade fill them because unless the cartilage is intact, everything just falls into the joint. When the lesion is big enough like this individual, his lesion basically took up his whole distal tibia. There's nothing much to do. He's a younger guy. He's getting close to retirement there. Ended up eventually retiring from UPS and was very active. Wanted to play with his grand kids. What did come out the gates was the ankle replacement but you see the alignment is off. So what do I do with that? How am I going to fix that? Well, this sometimes necessitates, you have to not bury your head in the sand. Have a very frank discussion with your patient. Say listen, this is the way you're balancing out. We noticed that forefoot varus that Harold was just talking about and I got to get that first metatarsal down because as long as that thing is up, he's going to continue to be malaligned. So with a simple cut osteotomy, I can get that 1st metatarsal head down and additionally a medial slide osteotomy of the heel. I can also correct out that deformity and correcting out any appropriate planes and get him where he needs to be. So what do you do if you have something like this? This was also one of my patients. I'm not trying to – I'm always distrustful of guys who don't show their bad cases because anybody can get up here and show you their good stuff, but you learn nothing. Bobby Jones who said, "I've never learned anything from a tournament that I've won." I truly believe that. We go through these things and it's a learning process for all of us. This was a woman that it was all the rage to really undersize the talus. You can see, I really did undersize that talus. But that left a significant space laterally. So what's the natural kick point here? I'm trying to give her more motion by not overstuffing her joint. But how much? There's only so much you can do. It's a size or size two and it doesn't matter what company it is. It's going to be millimeters of changes that are going to go occur. So if I go up, now I'm smacking into her fibula. So what took place overtime was this very similar thing that you just saw in the last case which she began to sort of drive that out. Again, she began to walk the way she was conditioned to walk. The woman had a post-traumatic ankle arthritis for 20 years. Who was I to think that I was going to drum this out of her in a one and a half hour procedure and fix all this? It's sometimes foolhardy to think that you can. So again. Coming back doing an PTD FDL because her PT was shot doing a medialized calcaneal osteotomy cut on the forefoot. I was able to correct that out and get that longitudinal axis where I needed to be and that sagittal correction where I needed it to be. Complications, we'll just get through these really fast. I mean seriously, where do we get started with these? Harold sort of eluded to this. Listen. Anybody can put these things in. It's what to do when you see them come back and you don't know what's going on. Wounds, they're sort of their own special thing. As I said earlier, this release a result. If we take a look at our first 25 to 50, we're really careful. Then we start going into beast mode. We start taking on a lot of patients in cases we probably shouldn't. Then somewhere around 100 we start to come back down that slope again because now we got wise from those second 50 where we really pushed the line. Is there a correlation between learning curve and this? Absolutely. Especially complications, no doubt about it. There's got to be some sort of a thing that we can look at and we can extrapolate. You can see that's reoperation with TAA. Look at that 51 100 compared to the 250 to 300. All way down at the bottom right. IT's why we got better. We got smarter. We started to listen to ourselves which we were doing in the beginning.
Wounds are always a big issue with ankle replacement. Anterior approaches, we know how bad they are. We think we've got them figured out but they still happen. You're faced to doing all these crazy things to get things better. In the end, you're still staring at tendons you don't want to be looking at. The worst part is when you're looking at metal. Here's a perfect example of a woman that goes in for ankle replacement. Gets sent into me. She was in the nursing home. Toe started not feeling so good. Emergently admit her, get an A-gram and you can see she's got a crushed pipes in. This is a RA patient on long-term steroids. You know where this is going to end up. There's 10 days later. You know where we're going from here, at least I would think you do. What I'm trying to do is basically keep that implant in. As a blessing she passed away from renal cancer about two months after this because I'm not sure if I could have ever gotten her healed. She was probably looking at a BKA or a below-knee amputation. Here's a perfect example on why these are all interposed like this. This was actually one of mine. Stage 4. This was back in the old days. For ankle arthritis and I do and the combined foot deformity but in one sitting performed a triple. You see that navicular calcaneal screw. Fixation. Everything is going fine. We end up with a wound issue. These I sort of grade on how bad they look and how deep they go. This was immediately referred to my local plastic surgeon before we needed a free flap. Ends up with drainage. It goes to a plastic surgeon. Plastic surgeon sends her to an ID guy. ID guy says everything's got to come out. It's all infected. I disagreed. They both charted it was infected. So guess what, everything's coming out because you can't leave it in at that point. You have a gun here and a gun here. So you got to make the call. Everything gets explanted. But what do you once this thing is explanted? Well, clearly you have to put something in there so you're going to put that poly methyl methacrylate lock in there and you're going to just try to cement her and keep her braced. She actually liked that very much and tolerated it well. As all good things must end, eventually she couldn't tolerate anymore and wanted a revisional surgery. The only thing that grew was the wound. Nothing was infected. This was a health implant that was taken out and didn't need to be. This is just a good example of [indecipherable] [27:30] which I did not in that case. I have learned since then. So what do you do with this patient? Can't go in the front. So this is a good time to enter from the back door. But it's eating out the Achilles tendon. Getting to the posterior manifold. Once this is open, I can remove that old poly methyl methacrylate. I use hip reamers to create a nice phorus thermal head. Place those in. Push your fixation and all I'm trying to do at this point is get a plantigrade foot that's going to function somewhat and can be braced. What about malalignment and fracture? Well they're tied in ever since the days of this buccal path that you see here. If you put in an implant wrong, guess what happens. These things. No one knows what's going on with any of these implants, especially the talar resurfacing ones, until they fall apart. The reason is because we're cutting the blood supplies front, back, and both sides sometimes, and then we're capping it with a piece of metal that we can't see because of the CAT scan. So we take a look at – now the overfractures. They can happen either post op or in your intraoperatively. If it's intraoperatively, it's probably you're like Hanz and Franz here. You're being a little bit too aggressive. These patients haven't move in years and you're really trying to rep. I've heard of stories with the Achilles tendons being torn, FHL tendons, everything, when you try to get these patients back to moving. So you can see what goes on with malleolar fracture and where they tend to occur. Here we're just comparing start of agility and you can see the agilities typically happen intraoperatively. Postoperatively is where you see the start fractures happen and I've had my share of those. I've also had my share of the other companies and in-bones taking place. Malleolar fractures do happen. If the patient is a little too aggressive with their weight bearing, they don't listen to you, compliance issues, things like this, or just bad surgical technique like this where you can see that this thing is completely posterior lift-off and completely too far forward. Check that out. We basically get no medial malleolus. How long till that thing breaks? We also forgot to take out a little wedge of bone here. This all comes down to the tool behind the tool, not the tool itself. What if you run into something like this? This was a patient of mine. Mobile bearing as you can see, ankle replacement. Doing great. Fantastic. Works at a high school locally. Couldn't be happier with the way she was functioning.


Single location in the municipality Mülheim (area Bernkastel ) in the German growing area Moselle, The name refers to the sunny location as well as to the ground (slate = Lay ). Due to the strong meandering (river loops) of the Mosel, the Sonnenlayberg was so encircled by the course of the river in its geological history that it became a so-called circulating mountain. On both sides of the survey are sometimes extremely steep terraces Rebpflanzungen created. The soils consist of skeletally rich, weathered clay shale, which is enriched with sand, stones and clay. Wines from this location were served in the Zeppelins' luxurious restaurants on their Atlantic crossings during the 1920s and 1930s. Due to this fact, wines of this location are still considered worldwide today Zeppelin wine marketed with the then original label. Here is especially the variety Riesling cultured. Shares in the situation have for example the wineries Farmer Joerg. Becker-Steinhauer. Clüsserath Ansgar. Dr. Leimbrock - C. Schmidt. Martin Conrad - Brauneberger Hof. Max Ferd. judge. Norwig and Stonemason Günther, Other individual layers with the name Sonnenlay are also available in the communities Rhens (Middle Rhine) and Traben-Trarbach / Wolf (also Bernkastel, Mosel).
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Little J turned one year old a few days ago! It seems like this year went by so fast, but it never really hit me until his party that he isn't a baby anymore. I can't believe how much he has changed and grown and learned so far – he is a walking talking independent little boy! He can say Mama and Dada, he understands certain phrases and can help put on his clothes. He loves pointing at things and trying to feed our dog his puffs. It seems like he sprouted a full head of hair overnignt! He never stops climbing, and it's the greatest feeling in the world that he actually hugs me now. I just melt every time.
I'm looking forward to watching him grow even more into himself this coming year, even though its bittersweet every time I put up his outgrown clothes or look at his newborn pictures. Overall, I couldn't be happier or more blessed to be able to ride along on this perfect person's journey through life.
Is this the face of Autism?


For awhile now, the idea has been widely accepted that a 90% ratio of debt to GDP is the point at which economic growth slows. The notion was first presented in 2008 by the Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, who later elaborated in their book, This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly.
We replicate Reinhart and Rogoff (2010a and 2010b) and find that coding errors, selective exclusion of available data, and unconventional weighting of summary statis- tics lead to serious errors that inaccurately represent the relationship between public debt and GDP growth among 20 advanced economies in the post-war period. Our finding is that when properly calculated, the average real GDP growth rate for coun- tries carrying a public-debt-to-GDP ratio of over 90 percent is actually 2.2 percent, not −0.1 percent as published in Reinhart and Rogoff. That is, contrary to RR, average GDP growth at public debt/GDP ratios over 90 percent is not dramatically different than when debt/GDP ratios are lower.
We also show how the relationship between public debt and GDP growth varies significantly by time period and country. Overall, the evidence we review contradicts Reinhart and Rogoff's claim to have identified an important stylized fact, that public debt loads greater than 90 percent of GDP consistently reduce GDP growth.
Who's right? You be the judge. Meanwhile, it's unlikely we've heard the last of this.
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You should be able to see a message saying your logger plugin has been created.


Since the Industrial Revolution, primarily humans have moved from a nomadic existence with a heavy reliance on relationships via close-knit communities and/or tribes, daily exposure to both nature and animals and a standard use of body language to communicate, to an autonomous existence that is self-focused and goal-driven, with little reliance on body language and instinct or as much exposure to nature and animals. The human brain has not evolved over the last 300 years past needing social connection, the rhythm of nature and contact with animals. Enter society's current increase in anxiety and depression—our brains are hungry and seeking this authentic warm connection.
Humans have moved to a very heavy reliance on our "left" brain, which was designed to take in bits of relevant information and store it away to help manifest dreams and goals. It assembles and disassembles information, takes it out of context and uses it to control and manipulate circumstances. When this side of the brain is the default, our tendency is to become more autonomous and independent, isolated and goal-driven, instead of relationship-driven.
Purposely engaging our "right" brain and limbic system is vital to maintaining healthy relationships, accessing intuition and creativity and being able to relax and rest. This part of our brain takes in information in context as we experience sensations in our bodies and throughout our nervous systems. This is often something that has become difficult, if not impossible, in our non-stop world of electronic communication, lack of balance in our lives and little encouragement to recognize and respond to intuition as part of our decision-making processes.
Enter horses. Horses are 1,200-pound prey animals and live in herds for safety and are, therefore, hard-wired for healthy relationships. They live in the present and do not worry about the future or drag the past along, nor are they capable of being phony. They recognize when their nervous systems are sending them signals, they pay attention, and they act if needed and then go back to grazing. It is in this simplicity that they teach us the lost art of living in the moment, being authentic and regulating our physical and emotional responses to stimulus.
If these gracious and beautiful animals are allowed the opportunity to teach us when we are present and fully engaged right here and right now, we can connect with ourselves and others, experience moments of relaxation and rest, be more clear minded and access our intuition and creativity. They are able to do this by using their natural ability to read our intention or energy immediately and give us feedback that is instantaneous and true. This ability to read intention is something they have used for thousands of years to determine if a predator is hunting or simply walking by.
True fulfillment and joy comes when we are fully engaged with the world, not retreating or hiding from it. Horses show us that true connection comes when we fully accept ourselves and find power in the realization of our identity. Horses see us for who we are and wait for us to do the same thing.
Kelly Jones is the owner of the South Wind Equestrian Center, in Leander. South Wind offers trauma-focused, equine-assisted psychotherapy services; facilitates mindfulness and life purpose retreats; and provides one-on-one coaching. For more information visit SouthWindEquestrian.com.


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Everybody Wants to Rule the World - Pixar Top 4
Here we have it. La creme de la creme. The top 4 Pixar movies (in my estimation). I find it to be a lively debate on what people consider their Pixar favorites because they often differ from mine. I found that the reason I like these Pixar movies particularly is because along with the general story arc, they always had an underlying thematic message that resonated beyond the surface.
Here are links to my previous lists:
The Final Countdown: 14 to 10
Working from 9 to 5
4. Finding Nemo
Directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
Why it's so Epic: I remember seeing the opening of this movie and comparing it to the opening of The Little Mermaid, and wondering at how far animation has come. The Pixar crew dove (ha ha) into as many underwater movies and documentaries as they could find to immerse themselves in the world -- studying everything from Jaws to Jacques Cousteau. Finding Nemo takes the typical odd couple journey, but makes it incredible because of its scope -- traversing the deep depths, taking you to a Sharks' "Fish are Friends not Food" meeting that takes place in a sunken ship surrounded by floating mines, navigating jellyfish, whales, turtles...you name it. It was truly magical. This movie made me remember why I wanted to be a marine biologist when I was a kid (a dream slightly deterred by my difficulty swimming). Finding Nemo was the first movie to win the Best Animated Movie category and to this day, it holds the record for highest DVD sales. Boom.
The Story's Theme: Director Stanton wanted to create a story about a father that is hampered from being a good father because of his fear. And I think that's a hard message for most of us in our relationships. We want so much to protect those we love, but we also have to learn to let go of them in order for growth -- for them and for us.
Why it's Top 4 Material: Pixar is known for bringing wonderful characters to life, and Finding Nemo is no exception. There are a whole host of characters that should be annoying, but somehow they aren't. Marlin is a neurotic, clingy father -- but the reason is made clear from the very beginning. Dory is the typical dull-witted Gilligan/Pinky sidekick that unknowingly ruins everything, except she isn't. She's the heart of this movie -- her non-ending witty banter keeps the ball moving. Despite her memory handicap (which is probably what all fish are like anyway), she speaks whale, reads letters (although not always accurately) and provides some of the best tearjerker scenes in this movie ("I look at you and I'm home").
These characters are so great because of their voice actors. Albert Brooks (Marlin) reportedly hated the recording process since it isolated him from fellow actors, but that didn't stop him from providing hours of extra voice track where Pixar directors would just let the tape roll while he improvised. Ellen DeGeneres is genius as Dory (who doesn't love Ellen)? And you can't deny the appeal of other actors that fit their role like a glove, such as Willem Dafoe as the mysterious Gill.
3. The Incredibles
Directed by Brad Bird
Why it's so Epic: On the surface, The Incredibles is your standard superhero fare. It could easily get lost in the shuffle of all the different Marvel movies coming out. Plus if you think about it, all the family's abilities are copped off of the Fantastic Four (Mr. Fantastic/Helen, Susan Storm/Violet, Johnny Storm/Jack-Jack somewhat, The Thing/Mr. Incredible). They actually had to cut a scene from the Fantastic Four sequel because The Incredibles used it first (the scene where Mr. Incredible saves a cat from a tree). But the reason it's lasted is because it's so so good. Pixar head John Lasseter told Director Brad Bird that his first movie at Pixar should be something he loves and something he's always wanted to do, and Bird did exactly that...although one could expect nothing less from The Iron Giant director.
The Story's Theme: The Incredibles is more than a story of an extraordinary family -- it's the story of a very ordinary family struggling with their lives. Bob Parr (Mr. Incredible) is stuck in a job he hates -- he's wrestling with what his life has become and how far it is from what he wanted it to be. His head is stuck in the glory days and he rails against what he thinks is a mundane existence. Wrapped up in this is his dynamic with his wife and how they raise a pair of inordinately gifted children.
Why it's Top 4 Material: As a superhero movie, The Incredibles is one of the few that is self-aware enough to make fun of itself, creating a viable world that shows how superheroes thrive (or hide) within ours. Edna Mode's "NO CAPES" montage, the opening interviews, along with the address of evil villains and their love for monologuing (and how that's often their downfall) is a great example of this. Pixar uses its animation prowess and superhero themes to inject humor at every turn -- from (again) Edna Mode's demonstration of her new superhero costume designs, to Elastigirl inflating into a rubber boat and human parachute. Because The Incredibles was animated, it was able to do what no live-action film can -- you've got dazzling feats and stunning tour de forces that wouldn't be possible (at least by today's standards). Even scenes as simple as the volcano curtain and Dash running across the water are marvels. Accompanied by the utterly delightful and daring soundtrack by Michael Giacchino, you can't lose.
2. Ratatouille
Directed by Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava
Why it's so Epic: I love this movie so much. Out of all the selections on this list, I seem to argue the most about my utter love of this one, and my utter disappointment in Up. I love that this movie is so intelligent. You can tell it immediately from the title. And what other movie -- name any other animated movie -- loves its subject matter so much that it takes the time to educate the "children" watching the movie on the various chefs and their designations in the French kitchen? Ratatouille animators researched heavily for this movie -- pushing an actual person in a chef outfit into water to see exactly where the uniform would stick, drawing and studying rotting food for weeks to see how it would look...and nothing speaks of love for the Paris life than Remy the rat's first excursion up from the sewers to the viewpoint that shows him a spectacular night watch of the Paris landscape (which is set to one of the best flute excerpts in a movie soundtrack ever. Thank you once again, Michael Giacchino).
The Story's Theme: Chef Gustau says it himself in the movie, "Everyone can cook", and Pixar means it. Director Bird selects the most unlikely of creatures, taking pains not to make Remy the Rat cute. From the beginning, we see how vile a rat really is...and every time you see a hulking, writhing pack of rats swarming in the movie, you can't help but throw up a little in your mouth. But that's what makes this movie great. The fact that even a "disease-infested" rat can be a cook because he has a true passion for it. Pixar's passion for Paris and food transfers itself into Remy, who feels flavors in swirls of colors and flies in the face of all opposition to do what he loves.
Why it's Top 4 Material: Since writing this section, I've decided to rewatch Ratatouille right now. I've seen it the most out of all the Pixars (with Finding Nemo coming in second, I think). You could drown in all the little details that make this movie what it is -- the crunch of the bread, the texture of it when it's in Remy's hands, the Incredibles boxers that Linguine wears, the zoom-out of Anton Ego's face when he eats the Ratatouille (as well as Chef Skinner's reaction) and the Rocky homage when the rat punches the meat (to tenderize it). You can watch this movie a dozen times and still find something new in it. There are so many fast transport scenes that make this movie what it is -- when Remy climbs up the sewer pipe and when he's trying to escape the kitchen for the first time. And again Peter O'Toole as the critic Anton Ego is so on the money, it's a match made in heaven. This movie defied all expectations by making a rat its hero, and doing it so spectacularly.
Directed by Lee Unkrich
Why it's so Epic: Toy Story 3 is a beautiful, beautiful movie. I have only seen this movie a few times because it's actually a little painful for me to watch. I hardly ever cry in movies (I can think of only three movies that have made me shed tears), and this is the only movie that makes me cry every single time. This movie meant so much to the audience because we were all kids when the first Toy Story came out and in a sense, we had grown up with the series, much as Andy in the movie had. Surface level, it's a prison break movie (oh and what a glorious heist/prison break movie it is), but it goes so so much beyond that, as I'll get into. PS, it's made the most for any animated movie and was the seventh movie to ever pass the $1 billion mark in the box office.
This movie encompasses some of my favorite genres -- you've got prison (John Lasseter said that he and the Toy Story crew watched just about every prison movie there is in preparation for this movie), noir (the high-stakes game in a dimly-lit vending machine around a See-and-Say Animal Sounds toy along with the Chatter Telephone that plays the part of the wise old-timer), and a heist to end all heists in order to escape the daycare center that perfectly encompasses a prison by moonlight.
The Story's Theme: Toy Story 3 focuses on the inevitability of change, growing up, and eventually letting go of people we may want to hold on to. We see it from the very beginning as Andy grows up with his toys and then when Andy's mom steps into his empty room and gives a little gasp because it's a realization that he's leaving her to go to college. We even see it in the weary, old-geezer movements of Buddy, the young puppy from Toy Story 2. Andy loves his toys so much...so much that he decides to take Woody along...and what college kid would ever have a toy like that with him in the dorm rooms?. But in the end he knows, and we know as an audience, that he's grown up and he needs to leave them behind. That little involuntary movement when he wants to take Woody back from Bonnie at the end, and the little hitch in his voice at the end when he waves goodbye...oh man, it kills me every time.
Why it's Top 4 Material: Toy Story 3 is number one for me because first off, it recalls the sheer joy and wonder we had as kids. The opening was so perfect in transporting us into Andy's mind and what he sees when he plays with his toys -- it's even better because it uses some of the exact same lines as Toy Story when we see Andy playing with his toys for the very first time. Not to mention it's one of the few trilogies in history to be damn good. And near the end, it makes us think (even if only for a few moments) that an animation will dare something that is so daunting and terrifying, it shocked us -- even though the toys were saved from death by incinerator. I could go on and on about the funny bits in here, but that's not what makes this movie in the end. Toy Story 3 also recalls the nostalgia laced with some regret and the bittersweet maturity we all have to face, at the cost of letting things go. It's like Peter Pan in that way. But through Woody's friendship with Andy and even what Lotso should have learned, is the truth that there is never anything to regret in the time and value we place in the now.
Thanks for tuning in. I'd love to hear any differing (or assenting) opinions too!
Good golly, I need to watch all these movies again...
I'm not as well versed in Pixar movies as a human ought to be. I know there's a wealth of treasures in each film I'm missing out on from having only watched them once in theaters. Maybe going back and re-watching them (plus the couple I haven't seen yet) I'll have a more informed opinion, but just off the top of my head I was happy to see Incredibles and at least one from the Toy Story trilogy in your top 4. And Brave in your bottom 2 haha. (This actually really saddens me to say because I know Mark Andrews. I choose to blame the film's failure on bureaucracy and the other directors =).)
I love movies that require a bit of rewatching to get everything! Also, one of the reasons I loved "Wreck-it Ralph" as well (one of many). If you count top 5, both Toy Story 3 and Toy Story were there! As a trilogy, it's one of my favorites though. Each movie is so well-made, with differeing themes. And too bad about Brave. :( It's hard on everyone when a movie has to undergo a ton of changes and change of direction, which I heard is why it suffered quite a bit.
I need to rewatch some of the Dreamworks films too!


The Real Estate Regulation Act (RERA) was enacted to regulate the real estate sector in India in 2017 – however, it is far from being a success.
However, experts believe that the legislation is a long way from delivering on what it had promised.
"The way I see it, RERA has become another money-making tool," a Mangalore-based advocate remarked. "The provisions under RERA are very stringent," she added. "Since many of the buildings do not satisfy the requisite criteria to attain an Occupancy Certificate (OC), promoters pay off builders and avoid coming under the ambit of RERA altogether." Furthermore, the former believed the OC(s) were being granted even to unfinished projects.
The issue becomes pertinent in the wake of a recent report suggesting the builders were selling unfinished houses as completed projects. The aforementioned report contends that sale deeds were executed even when only 75 percent of the projects had been completed. There was no effective system in place to verify whether projects were completed or not.
"There are many loopholes as far as RERA is concerned. The promoters are going scot-free while the buyers suffer," she affirmed. However, an advocate working with a Bengaluru based real estate firm believes otherwise. "There doesn't seem to be a systemic fault," he said. "For starters, the OC is being granted by the Local Municipal bodies. So, RERA will not apply in this instance," he added.
However, there is more than meets the eye. "Many of the local municipal laws have not been amended in accordance with RERA," MS Shankar, General Secretary of The Forum for People's Collective Action Efforts noted.
"For eg; Under Section 2(z)(f) the OC under RERA can only be granted on the completion of all amenities including water, sanitation, and electricity. But the BBMP by-laws do not specify on the availability of these amenities," he clarified. Shankar was of the view that many promoters have attained the OC for projects that are in reality, unlivable. "These houses have no water or sanitation. Only electricity is supplied for a temporary period," he remarked.
Referring to himself as being one among these aggrieved buyers, Shankar noted that in essence, these houses are being handed out without the work having been completed on them.
Shankar believes that there is an issue in the mechanism of grievance redress wherein aggrieved buyers are unable to achieve complete recourse "Of the 1,800 complaints that have come in, only 630 have been adjudicated. However, 430 of these aggrieved complainants allege that their money has not been refunded." Shankar is amidst a survey that is due to conclude on the 25 of this month.
Shankar cites the lackadaisical attitude of the authorities as the reason for RERA's ineffectiveness. "The authorities are lenient and not stringent enough," he remarked. "There is no accountability or transparency," he added.
In the aforementioned report, the Secretary of RERA for Karnataka, Latha Kumari, revealed plans to set up a special task force to monitor the sector. However, experts are skeptical. "The RERA was set up as a mechanism to maintain checks and balances in the real estate sector. I don't see the point of instituting a separate authority to monitor RERA itself," The Mangalore-based advocate added.


text:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data.Entity;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using CDMservers.Models;
using Newtonsoft.Json;

namespace CDMservers
{
    public static class UserService
    {
        public static List<int> GetPermissionType(DbSet<USERS> usertable,string username)
        {
            var ret = new List<int>();
            var user = usertable.FirstOrDefault(c => c.USERNAME == username);
            if (user == null) return ret;
            var limit = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Dictionary<string, bool>>(user.LIMIT);
            foreach (KeyValuePair<string, bool> keyValuePair in limit)
            {
                if (keyValuePair.Value&&keyValuePair.Key.Length==5)
                {
                    int permtype;
                    if (int.TryParse(keyValuePair.Key.Substring(1), out permtype))
                    {
                        ret.Add(permtype);
                    }
                }
            }
            return ret;
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Łubniany (polaco: Gmina Łubniany) é uma gminy (comuna) na Polónia, na voivodia de Opole e no condado de Opolski. A sede do condado é a cidade de Łubniany.

De acordo com os censos de 2004, a comuna tem 9042 habitantes, com uma densidade 72,1 hab/km².

Área
Estende-se por uma área de 125,41 km², incluindo:
 área agricola: 46%
 área florestal: 49%

Demografia
Dados de 30 de Junho 2004:

De acordo com dados de 2002, o rendimento médio per capita ascendia a 1106,41 zł.

Comunas vizinhas
 Dobrzeń Wielki, Lasowice Wielkie, Murów, Opole, Turawa

Ligações externas

Łubniany


text:
Q: Should MVC Controller be in separate DLL? I've created a .NET winforms MVC.  The Controller and View are in the same EXE.  Model is in a set of DLLs that get used by several groups.  The MVC is very explicit.  Model knows nothing of Controller and Controller knows nothing of View.  I'm thinking to put the Controller in its own DLL so that it can be unit tested.  Highly unlike someone will reuse the controller.  Unit testing is the only reason I have for the move into a DLL.
Conceptually, should the controller always be in the same assembly as the View?  What are reasons for/against keeping them together?

A: Separation of controllers and views are an abstract concept. There's no strict rule that you should physically keep them separate (just like tiers in a three-tier application). However there might be some advantages in either approach.
Separating assemblies has the following benefits:

*

*Reduces the possibility to accidentally couple views to controllers and breaking the separation.

*Makes it easier to edit views without recompiling controllers at all (which is great from a deployment perspective).

*Building views and controllers become separated, so you can test the one of them even if the other does not build at all.

However, it might be unfeasible for small projects. For very small projects you might want to ship a single executable and nothing else along it. Also, you might not want to create 3 separate projects.
Hey, you might not wanna unit test it at all ;) Ouch, my head is hurt, where did this big brick come from? :))


What is a free school?
"Where's the coffee machine going?"!
Another busy week at Sparkwell!
Make Your Face Funny for Money!
Stars of 'Lights, Camel, Action'!
What happens to our waste?
World Book Day Thought for the Day!
We are a class of Years 1 & 2 with our teacher Miss Sparkes and teaching assistants Charlotte Harris, Viccy Florey and Olivia Harris.
For a parent's guide to national assessments for Year 2 (including a short video clip) click here .
If you need to brush up on some tricky grammar vocabulary that children are starting to learn you may find this glossary useful!
The children explored patterns that convey meaning by learning about Aboriginal art and then thinking up their ideas. They could choose between chalks, pastels and paint to make their patterns.
We used Chromebooks to find out about the animals that live in Australia. We chose some that we would like to find out more about.
Can you save the person at the bottom of the cliff?
The children had to design a winding mechanism and a stretcher to save the boy from the bottom of the cliff. We looked at what happens in a real cliff rescue to get some ideas. The children could choose to use construction kits, lollipop sticks, straws or card. They were left to find out for themselves, to test their models and to get them to work. I was a real test of thinking and perseverance.
Is it a solid or a liquid?
We explored the different densities of liquids. We put golden syrup, red water, washing up liquid and oil into a test tube and watched what happened. Lots of us thought the liquids would mix and then explode but actually what happened was even more interesting. The liquids stayed separate. In the afternoon we learnt that this was because they have different densities so some were heavier than others.
The children explored the difference between solids and liquids by exploring sugar, lentils, rice, marbles, flour, red water, washing up liquid and orange squash. They noticed that the liquid would take the shape of the container and have a flat top (surface) whereas the solids made 'mountains' in the bowl. They used magnifying glasses to find out that even though you can pour sugar it is made of tiny, hard solids. Absolutely fantastic learning.
Squirrels really enjoyed their trip to the zoo. They started with a close encounter with two snakes, a blue tongued skink,a tortoise and a land snail. They were really interested in the patterns and finding out about reptiles. After their close up look at the animals indoors we went and enjoyed the wintery zoo. The otters and lynx seemed pleased to see us!
Just look at the looks of concentration, focus and engagement on the faces of the Squirrels today. A giant pine cone became a hedgehog and a stuck stick was a team challenge. Children that were worried about using the saw went for it and were so pleased that they managed it. Another fabulous day in the woods.


text:
Brazil rules out power shortages during 2014 World Cup
The Brazilian government Tuesday ruled out risks of power shortages during the 2014 World Cup despite delays in power generation projects in 10 host cities.
"The delays in the (power) generation projects do not pose any risk of energy shortages during the Cup," said a statement from the national electrical energy regulator Aneel.
The daily Folha de Sao Paulo published a technical report from Aneel Tuesday warning of delays in energy generation projects in 10 of the World Cup's 12 host cities.
Under the headline "for Aneel, there is a risk of power cuts during the Cup," the paper said that only the northeastern cities of Fortaleza and Recife could currently guarantee adequate energy supply.
Questioned by AFP, Aneel said the report carried by Folha focused on an assessment done in the third quarter of 2012 and no longer up to date.
"It is inaccurate to speak of a risk of energy shortage during the tournament," it noted.
Energy officials said they were confident the projects could be completed.
Meanwhile Sport Minister Aldo Rebelo vowed that the government, Aneel and the companies concerned "are working hard to reduce not just this risk" but all those relating to the organization of the World Cup, the first to be held in Brazil since 1950.
Source: www.sport.co.uk


Noise Solutions' family of Zeron (ZERONoise) Engine Exhaust Silencers are available to rent in Western Canada! The Zeron is acoustically engineered to reduce the amount of noise emitted by an engine exhaust system. These powerful Silencers target the most pervasive and troublesome noise – the low frequency end of the noise spectrum that conventional mufflers can't effectively control.
Rental Fee is $85/day per muffler. Mufflers can be combined to have dual exhausts if conditions permit.
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To learn more about our Rental Policy contact a Noise Solutions Representative at Toll Free 1.877.NoNoise.


We all ask God to help us be more humble; yet humility is one of the most misunderstood divine attributes. It is important to understand just what humility is, why it matters.
Humility may be the vital element missing in moving forward in life, business and relationships.
Humility begins with gratitude to Adonai (God) for everything. Jesus said, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. True humility recognizes God's gifts, is amazed at the results, and then falls to the ground in awe of God's willingness to bestow these gifts upon us.
Humility does not come natural to humans. It is the Mount Everest of virtues; seemingly impossible to attain. It requires us to be self-aware; very aware. Sometimes this awareness manifests itself in self-doubt. Can this virtue that God so genuinely prizes be truly achieved? I will share a little secret with you. If it were not possible for man to truly be humble, God would not require it.
Humility does not involve self-deprivation. We are made in God's image. We are not worms; God refers to us as Kings and Priests. However, humility is God's way of keeping us tight with Him in our earthly walk. Those who fail to seek humility often fall prey to pride which is the snare of darkness. It doesn't work. As a matter of fact, pride goes before destruction (Proverbs 16:18). Haughtiness is pride's precursor, as it only results in a fall. It is pride's warning light.
I have observed several people who truly walk in humility. They are more concerned with the whole team and God's preferred outcome rather than what's in it for them. They serve, contribute, and expect nothing but God's excellent results in return. They are secure in themselves. They are not afraid to take a lower position to gain a higher level. They are competitive but play within the rules of the game. Their reward is helping others succeed.
Do not mistake greatness for pride. Do not mistake the operation of divine power in us for pride.
Do not mistake strength for pride. We need these.
Those who walk in pride often consider themselves to be self-made men or women. They act with disdain and arrogance toward those who walk in humility, treating God's people as if they are of little value. And then there is pseudo humility which appears super humble and contrite. This comes as a result of not having a proper understanding of one's true relationship with God. Pseudo humility is a nuisance, and in reality, is a form of self.
The devil is the prince of this world. He uses the venom of pride to destroy our destiny. Only knowledge, love of God, and vigilance can ensure avoiding this demon. We have to ask ourselves, does our prayer go like this, "God make me great so I can serve you" (already signs of pride), or does it go like this, "God anything I can do for you, with your help, I WILL it"?
Theodor Hertzl a Zionist forerunner once said, "If you will it, it is no dream" concerning the Zionist state of Israel. We can will to be humble and achieve God's joy in seeing his will in action.
Humility is an hourly decision of the will. It must be a conscious part of our lives. Humility destroys pride, and renders to God a pure conscience. Humility understands there are two sides to everything. Humility understands it needs heaven's intelligence as our information resources are limited. Humility gives the benefit of the doubt; it trusts God and his people. Humility leaves judgement for a later date to be reviewed by God.
We know the feeling of success, a completed project, recognition, even consistent excellence in all we do. Yet, God laughs. Humility and praise to God, acknowledging him in all, may very well open the door to another dimension of progress in our life. A door of opportunity we never dreamed to make a difference will open. True humility will lead to a Tikkun Olam (repairing of the world).
Albert Einstein never credited his great research, or his genius, to himself. He publicly credited his Theory of Relativity to a dream God handed him in trust. Even Einstein was surprised with what God had trusted him with. The proper response was to honor God and not himself.
Humility is the quiet hero, the empowered servant. It is the hidden secret of favor with God, that is, really, no secret.
#KEY: New Testament theology states in Galatians 5:22, the importance of the fruits of the Spirit. Humility is the master of all these disciplines.