Hi! Thanks for stopping in to take a look at my work! I'm an award-winning children's, newborn, and family photographer, and my goal is to create heirloom quality artwork for you through a session that is FUN!
I'm Ashley McBroom, a wife and mom of two here in the Atl. (And no, I'm really not cool enough to call it "the Atl".) I was born and raised in Georgia and I graduated from Georgia Tech – Go Jackets! Afterwards I spent 10 years in the Bay Area in California where I met my husband and where we had our boys. Although I couldn't be happier about being back home in the south, California still holds a special place in my heart. The weather! The scenery! The food! Ahhhh….
I started out in marketing and advertising, but it wasn't until I created my photography business that I realized it's possible to genuinely love what you do. I know, I know, it sounds so cheesy but it's really true! I bought my first DSLR and prime lens in 2010 right before my first little guy was born and I've been hooked since. To me, capturing a moment is half of the joy and the other half comes from editing it to achieve my artistic vision – I simply adore it.
When I'm not photographing (or getting paler and paler by the moment editing in my dark office), you can find me playing board games with my kids -which we all have the tendency to take a little too seriously at times! -, enjoying tennis with my husband, crafting, or hiking with my family or friends. I love coffee, sunshine, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, Anthropologie, and red wine. I'm an extrovert and if I stay indoors too long without company I tend to go a little crazy.
I want our time together to be enjoyable and relaxed. My sessions are even dad-proof, they almost always walk away surprised by how painless it was! I don't expect your children to sit perfectly still and I don't expect you to know how to stand or where to look – that's what I'm there for! I encourage natural connections during sessions and I strive for genuine smiles and interaction. If I'm photographing your children, we'll play lots of games and I'm not afraid to make a total fool out of myself to get the best shot. I view my clients as my friends, and I love creating magic together.
I'd love to get to know you and have the honor of photographing you and your loved ones!
I am honored to have been selected as a NAPCP 2018 Top 100 Featured Artist!


Debuting in the early 1970s, actress Kaori Momoi has had a career that sounds like the envy of many a Japanese thespian. By the dawn of the 1980s she had worked with the likes of Akira Kurosawa, Shohei Imamura, and Yoji Yamada, and even in the new millennium she shows no sign of slowing down or of compromise: her recent filmography includes eyecatching turns in Takashi Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django and Izo, Aleksandr Sokurov's The Sun, and the American remake of Yamada's The Yellow Handkerchief (after previously starring in the 1977 original). In 2006, Momoi made her own long-hoped-for debut as a director with the idiosyncratic family drama Faces of a Fig Tree.
What are the origins of your film?
Faces of a Fig Tree is adapted from short novels that I wrote at the age of 27. The script is like a condensed version of those. I started writing short novels and essays professionally at the age of 22. I wrote a long novel 10 years ago, which was such a big failure that I decided to stick to short novels! (Laughs) I wrote the script of the film in only one day; I sat down and wrote it all between 10 am and 5 pm. Everybody told me: "Wow, it must have been so tough for you!" But it was not that tough; neither was the shooting. In fact, editing the film must have been the hardest part for me.
Had you turned your hands to directing before?
Actually, yes. I had directed, among other things, episodes of TV series. But until the age of 50, my name was always hidden. In Japan, actors and actresses who turn to directing are ill seen. They're seen as overly presumptuous people. Especially women. They are even more harshly dealt with. So, given that I was already considered arrogant as an actress, I decided to keep my name off the credits when I started directing. Later, I said to a producer that I did not want to direct anymore, just write scripts in anonymity. But when I was offered the opportunity to direct my first feature, I jumped at the chance and decided to go all out.
You break the rules of filmmaking with great relish in your film. Is it someting you considered doing from long ago?
I had felt that, as an actress, I was always a toy in the hands of directors. Furthermore, the experience of acting always entails precise rules; very often, the director or his assistant will say: "Look to the right, to the left, look here, don't look into the camera," etc. I have been an actress for 37 years now and I have always wondered why it was impossible to look straight into the camera. Why does the eye of the actor always avoid the camera? Why not film reverse angle shots where actors look directly into the camera as if it were their counterpart? That is why I decided to do just that in my film. When you film in a traditional way, very often a seasoned audience can guess what the next shot will be. It's boring. I decided I did not want to use the old tricks of movie-making, which I know from acting. But since I did not want to upset the audience too much, I polished the lighting, colors, and sets as much as possible. My cameraman wasn't too happy; he told me that my reverse angles were odd and incorrect, that the shots did not assemble well. But it felt normal to me since I wanted to make something different and fresh. I felt like a beginner willing to shake everything up. One director criticized me for doing "forbidden things". But there are no taboos for me; just rules to be broken. Also, I did not set out to make a "beautiful" or "decent" film. For me, filmmaking is but a means of achieving things that one cannot achieve with either literature or music.
What did you want to express through the character of this domestic mother and her strange mirror-like relationship with this fig tree, which seems to yield nothing while watching over everyone?
I intentionally created a female character that is quite stereotypical. She belongs to the old Japan. When her husband comes back home, she welcomes him politely by saying "Okaeri nasai". She always waits for her husband before eating dinner. This kind of woman does not really exist anymore in Japan nowadays. The fig tree is like the symbol of this woman, as a wife and mother. Also, this woman's memories are linked to this tree, it is like her mirror. Through this I wanted to express the great endurance of women in daily life. I have always felt like that about women. They are not that fragile, but they think they are and tend to think that they cannot live without a husband, or else they will be on the losing side of life. It's like an atavistic way of thinking with women. But they are much stronger than they think they are. When my character's husband is away from home, she begins to imagine herself living without him; everyday, it's like the simulation of a husbandless life for her. So that's why she can go on living almost normally after the death of her husband.
I think my film confirms the doubts I had about the young generations nowadays, what I read about them in the newspapers. It's interesting to note that the young actress who plays my daughter thought that her character was not "emotional" enough. She thought this girl lacked willpower, energy, and agressiveness, and that, in this regard, she felt like a girl of nowadays. Maybe what was most new to me with this film was that, through this young actress, I became conscious of how topical such a character is in Japanese society. Maybe I really became conscious of the fact that a new generation, quite different from mine, had been born and exists now in Japan.


There's three different kind of actions supported by Lobos: create, alter and drop. All actions take an optional first argument which can either be a connection key, a connection spec or a schema. Actions are directly executed against the given or default connection.
The create action can be use to insert schemas, tables or indexes.
The alter action only purpose is the modify a table definition.
The drop action can be use to remove schemas, tables or indexes.
There's a complete set of schema elements which are an abstract representation of SQL objects and their constituent. They've been designed to be easily composed so that you can write you're own helpers to create schemas of arbitrary complexity.
The first one is the Schema element, which can be used to create or drop schemas. It can also be used as the first argument of an action, in which case the schema elements given will produce qualified identifiers once compiled.
It can take an optional map of options which for now only support the :db-spec key. You can specify a number of schema elements that will be created if that schema is passed to the create action.
The Table element is a macro that compose its given elements. It can take columns, constraints or indexes in any order.
elements. Takes an arbitrary number of table elements.
All table elements are functions taking a table element as first argument. You can write your own helpers to construct custom table macro like in the following example.
Indexes may be created outside a table definition. They need at least a table name and a sequence of column names.
You can also provide an index name and some options. For now only the :unique option is recognized.
Take note that at this point, you must provide an index name when you're calling index with options.
Table elements are meant to be used inside the table macro. There are three type of table elements: Column, Constraint and Index.
Columns are contructed using the column function or the typed column function that we'll talked about later. This function take the table it will be attached to, a column name, an optional data-type definition and a set of options.
[:refer tname & options] which add a foreign key constraint to the specified table. The options are the same as the foreign-key function with the expection that you can specify only one parent column.
[:encoding enc] (for character types) determines which encoding to use if supported by the database. Also see the natianal character types.
There's three types of constraint: UniqueConstraint, ForeignKeyConstraint and CheckConstraint. Each can be construction using specific helpers with the exception of UniqueConstraint which have two.
Foreign key constraint can be defined using the foreign-key functions.
If parent-columns aren't specified, the columns will be used.
The match optional argument can be one of :full, :partial or :simple, but note that this isn't supported by most databases.
You can specify triggered-actions with pairs of keyword, the first of the pairs must be one of :on-delete or :on-update, while the second one can be one of :cascade, :set-null, :restrict, :set-default or :no-action. The actions keywords are directly translated to SQL keywords, so you can specify custom ones if the database you're using provide more.
You can optionally specify the constraint name just after the table for unique and foreign-key contraints.
Indexes can also be defined inside a table definition in the same way as a constraint. See the `Index` schema element documentation above.
Columns can be defined using the data-type name as a function. This enable more compact table definition.
Simple typed columns don't take any arguments.
The double-precision typed column is aliased as double.
Numeric columns take an optional precision and scale arguments.
Optional precision columns take an optional precision argument.
Optional length columns take an optional length argument.
The clob and nclob typed columns are aliased as text and ntext.
Length bounded columns must have a length argument.


Our Stockton, CA client is currently looking to add a permanent PA/NP to their growing family medicine team. For years, our client has been dedicated to improving the health and well-being of the people and communities they serve by providing the highest quality health care possible. This position is Monday-Friday, no weekends and no call. Candidates will work alongside five exceptional physicians. Experience is preferred, but exceptional new grads are encouraged to apply. This position comes with an excellent benefits package and a competitive, above market salary. About Stockton: Located in the San Joaquin County, this city is strategically situated along the California Delta. People enjoy exploring the beaches, going kayaking, hiking the trails and strolling through farmer's markets where you can taste the best in fresh produce. Enjoy a day sipping wine, as Stockton is located just south of one of California's best-kept wine secrets. Stockton is a place filled with more diversity, passion and energy than many major metropolitan areas. Apply today to work and live in one of California's most sought out cities!


Indemnity health-related health insurance coverage options have a tendency to become extra frequently known as traditional professional medical health insurance ideas. These health care well being insurance ideas could be pricey but regularly cover most wellness issues that could come up, whilst other insurance protection exclude some conditions or diseases employing their protection. Some drawbacks to indemnity ideas are that they don't usually cover preventative healthcare like physicals, and conventional health care wellness insurance coverage programs regularly only cover a portion with the bill. Examine the advantages and disadvantages to indemnity healthcare well being insurance when you are considering medical wellness insurance coverage selections.
Because the down sides may perhaps appear problematic, you can discover quite a few benefits to indemnity clinical health insurance coverage ideas. You may possess a higher monthly premium and you might need to pay upfront expenses and submit claims paperwork, your deductible could be a lot more workable too as your protection is going to become wider. Some health-related wellness insurance coverage ideas won't cover particular healthcare expenditures or treatment, but indemnity programs often do.
One more benefit of indemnity professional medical wellness insurance coverage programs that plenty of people wish may possibly be the freedom to choose your personal medical doctor. While other healthcare well being insurance coverage programs provided through the insurance coverage industry limit the choice of physicians and hospitals to a listing of preferred organizations, indemnity insurance addresses any medical doctor or hospital. This advantage may appear not worthy of mention, but there is been numerous instance during which a mom finds that her boy or daughter's doctor is not inside their preferred provider network and needs to appear for yet another doctor. This indicates which you could pay a visit to a professional without needing to speak to your doctor initial.
General, indemnity health care well being insurance programs give the best emergency healthcare treatment coverage within the marketplace. Though preferred provider organizations (PPOs) or point-of-service (POS) plans limit the physician you may observe to a listing of network physicians and hospitals, the liberty of selecting any doctor is countrywide with indemnity health-related wellness insurance options. Which means that if you're traveling across the nation as well as have any type of accident or perhaps a clinical emergency, you can flip towards the closest hospital or begin to see the nearest physician without worrying regarding the cost. There has long been situations where hospitals or doctors will possibly won't treat individuals or handle them only minimally since the hospital or medical doctor is not within the plan's favored supplier network - and as a result the patient's medical health insurance is just heading to cover a smaller sector in the expense as well as the affected person is most likely to pay for the relaxation from your bill. This might be a dangerous finances for that doctor and/or hospital considering that sufferers are frequently not in a position to entirely pay expensive clinical expenses. With indemnity health care wellness insurance coverage options, this really is hardly ever the scenario. Think about this and in addition the other advantages of indemnity professional medical wellness insurance coverage when deciding on the program that's finest for you.
Read needed informations about Life Insurance Over 50 for complete tips and guide.


Cotswold Outdoor is an outdoor recreation retailer. They required a cost effective rapidly implemented secure responsive online portal for use by their B2B customers.
Main requirement was to enable verified customers the ability to view specific ranges of items applicable for each project permitting orders to be placed direct to the Cotswold B2B professional team.


Mississauga Real Estate, Homes, TREB & MLS Blog by Mark Argentino: Home mortgages, Reverse Mortgages, personal debt and retirement - My personal thoughts and experiences.
Home mortgages, Reverse Mortgages, personal debt and retirement - My personal thoughts and experiences.
I wrote about my personal experiences with mortgage debt and how to reduce it a couple of years ago, read about it here.
Today, we have 30, 35 and even 40 year mortgages available. This concerns me a great deal.
If you take out a 40 year mortgage when you are 25, you will not pay off your house until you begin your retirement. You will never be able to save enough to benefit during the important years of your life.
Our philosophy has been to 'live within our means' and by doing so we were able to pay off our mortgage by the time we were in our early 40's This has made our life unbelievably comfortable. We no longer have the pressure of making those huge mortgage payments, just the pressure of saving for retirement. Of course, we had to sacrifice along the way, but we've always enjoyed life, regardless of our financial situation. When you are mortgage free, something inside you happens and you get that 'imagine the freedom' feeling once and a while. All of a sudden you have the freedom to purchase those $100 items and not worry about when it appears on your Visa statement. We've continued to watch our cash flow and invest at least half of what our previous mortgage payment was. We don't go on extravagant vacations, but do enjoy our boat and vacations. We are lucky as we also enjoy our own company and times together as a family.
This is our experience. My wife and I truly believe that your 40's and 50's is the time to enjoy life, as your children are getting into their early teens and can take more care of themselves. This is the time to enjoy life, while we have the energy to do the things that we want. As I approach 50, and anyone at my age or older will attest, your body just doesn't move at the same speed as it did when you are 35 and the recovery period is longer. This is a fact of life and aging. I can't even imagine what it will be like at 60, but I'm not waiting until 60 to enjoy life. All of this is possible by taking care of business during your 30's.
Now, some will say that home ownership is better than renting, whether you have a mortgage or not. Some will also say that if you didn't buy the house at 30 you would not have anything when you are 65. This is true too and you can't go wrong with buying your home rather than renting your whole life. Some people do rent their entire life and enjoy this lifestyle, but that is their choice and come retirement, they may be sorry. I completely agree with home ownership, but at the same time, I think we have to manage our debt better in our 30's to enjoy life in our 40's. I think that your early twenties are the fun times, late 20's are your working years, your 30's are your hardest years with children and debt, your early 40's are your prime working years and the time to pay down debt at the highest rate possible, your late 40's to late 50's are your prime earning years and prime enjoyment years, so enjoy them, your 60's are your slowing down and 'chilling' years with your grandchildren, you won't need the huge income you earned during your 40's and 50's but, you will be glad you saved during those years. Your 70's are for looking back on the rest of your life and anything over 80 is a bonus. Personally, my goal is to absolutely, unequivocally and without a doubt, live to be 100 or a little older than that. I want to enjoy the next 50+ years of the Internet and high-tech age.
Another disturbing trend that seems to be rearing it's ugly head is reverse mortgages. I had a great conversation with a mortgage friend/financial planner last week and his comments were that people are generally retaining debt and refinancing their homes throughout their lives up to their 50's and early 60's and then when it comes time to retire, they are taking reverse mortgages to pay for their retirement. Oh my, what a tough way to go through life. I can picture it now, buy your house at 28 years old and get a 35 year mortgage and then when you have paid it off, take out a 20 year reverse mortgage for 75% of the value to fund your retirement. Some may say that this is a perfectly fine method of life planning, but I can't agree with that. Not only will you carry debt for your entire life, but you will have almost nothing to leave to your children. Again, these are my values, but our children really are our legacy and I want to help them as much as possible when they are in their 20's and 30's to give them the best start possible on their lives.
So, for those of you that are just starting out in your 20's or even if you are in your 30's I do hope that you can get hold of your financial situation, pay down some debt, get rid of credit card debt, follow some of my advice here and get that mortgage paid off by the time you are in your mid to late 40's and enjoy your life with your kids before they leave you!
I just bumped unto your blog via my usual web surfing.Thank you for this post.Although I do not agree with everything you say in it,I believe its one great piece of advise that one can not easily buy it anywhere.I applaud you for your honesty(at least I sensed it) and for sure would love to visit your blog again and again.
Thank you for your kind comments. Yes, this is my advice and experiences from my heart. This is why some of the concepts that I present may not agree with your line of thinking, as it's my personal thoughts. There is no real right or wrong in this, just experience and applying it to your personal situation.
I would be grateful if you were to comment on what you don't necessarily agree with or how you would do things.
I don't think we share enough of our own personal experiences with each other and rely too much on the so called 'experts' which of course is only what they have been taught along with their personal experiences.
Thanks for sharing your personal experiences...its great to hear these stories and to know learn from other people's experiences.


Brushing up on my math and computer science. I'm a self-taught programmer and I want to learn more about the theoretical foundations of my craft.
Learning to use Logic Pro X. Making some new tunes.
Lifting weights, building muscle, losing weight.


The majority of people do not want any further war. If they wrap their head around how money is created in society, they also want a just banking system that is designed by the people, for the people, so that wealth inequality and socioeconomic disadvantage can finally be put to an end. In the attempt to build a new world of truth, justice and peace, Ken O'Keefe provides an essential narrative that everybody across our global society needs to hear.
What the F**k is Going on With the World?
The world just keeps getting crazier. On so many levels and in so many ways, epic alterations are taking place, which reinforces the old wisdom that the only constant is change.
Let's start with the geopolitical and economic instability that is unprecedented in human history.
Our inner child and inner guru need to be balanced – that is our job; the job of our conscious ghost in the machine and our freedom of choice.
We can switch between our inner child and inner guru from conversation to conversation or even from statement to statement. To one person we may apply our child and to another we may apply our guru.
We have arrived at the doorstep of the next Global Financial Crisis. Collectively, we can no longer hide from the immense financial problems that plague us, including our enslavement to debt.
Yet it's not all doom and gloom; this might just be a blessing in disguise because it is an opportunity for the masses to join the awakening community and participate in the discussion for how we collectively move forward both in the short and long-term future.
Humanity has lost its connection to nature. We're so bombarded with artificial imagery and ideals of superficial living that most of us think taking in an occasional sunset or going for a bush-walk is what it means to be united with our Mother Earth. These practices are wonderful, and very grounding, however they are temporary and don't truly represent the holistic way we most naturally connect to the spirit of our world and the life that it breathes.
The war-on-drugs has been one of the biggest policy failures of modern society. It could in fact be argued that it was a purposely designed strategy to restrict the consciousness of human society. In any case, it amplifies drug-related problems and doesn't recognize that altered states of consciousness play a perfectly natural role within the human experience; which of course is simply not good enough.
Working in the therapeutic sector with many different people in many types of relationships – including partners, parents/children and friends – it has become apparent that there are a few key factors which are generally present when the relationship is healthy. Throughout the following ten qualities a common theme is open and clear communication. We may feel or think a certain way, but if we don't express it, how the hell is anyone meant to know?


text: Q: Fastest way to find the order of x in a Finite Field Working on $\mathbb{F}_2[x]$, I want to find the less $n$ than $f(x)=x^8+x^6+x^5+x+1$ is a divisor of $x^n -1$. This is the same than finding the order of $[x]$ in the quotient $\frac{\mathbb{F}_2[x]}{<f(x)>}$, isomorphic to $\mathbb{F}_{256}$. One way is trying $[x^n]$ for every $n | 255$. Are there any other ways to find the order?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


We're partnering with the British Council for a Winnipeg incarnation of Walking Cities, an initiative pairing international writers introducing one another to their home place. Métis writer Katherena Vermette offers a guided walk along Waterfront Drive. Her conversation partner is Harry Giles, an Orkney writer with an interest in the Scottish presence and history here.
PLEASE NOTE – Due to inclement weather, this afternoon's event will take place indoors in the Manitoba Theatre for Young People, 2 Forks Market rd.


text:
It Seems Like A Lock...
...that HONDA will be announcing a second F1 team on 11/1/05.
...that CHRISTIJAN ALBERS is signing with Midland.
...that the NEW QUALIFYING METHOD will be universally hated by the end of the next season (they always are).
...that THIS ENTRY isn't turning into as good an idea as I thought it would.
1 I reckon the qualifying will be alright, but I suspect it favours the bigger teams a bit more than the one lap format, more scope to recover from one off mistakes, thus avoiding putting the minnows further up the grid, which is always fun
Posted by: flotsky at October 31, 2005 11:55 PM (6T2ID)
My Secret Shame
I have to admit this. Lord knows I've tried to conceal it, but I can no longer hide my... SECRET SHAME.
I really like the anime series "Please Twins."
If you haven't seen it, it's what I'd call a typical Anime Plotline (tm). To whit:
Our hero, Maiku, is an orphan. He has a picture of him and... someone else, perhaps his long-lost sister, and in the background, a house. He moves into the house and begins to work part-time as a computer programmer while going to school.
But then, his quiet life alone is interrupted by the arrival of Miina, an energetic redhead who has her OWN copy of the photograph and announces that she must be Maiku's sister (they even have the same color eyes)! Shock and surprise!
But then... later, there's a knock on the door. They open the door, and we meet Karen, a shy quiet girl... but only for a second, because she passes out when she sees Maiku and Miina (Karen's a sensitive lass, and neither of them have much in the way of clothing on; she's wearing pajamas, he was pulled out of the tub by the knocking)! As you could probably guess, KAREN has a copy of the picture as well, and SHE has the same color eyes to boot. THREE twins???
The two girls are both orphans as well, of course, and there's no way of knowing from the picture which one is Maiku's sister. With no family in his past, he wouldn't even THINK about tossing them out of his house... he feels responsible for them, being somewhat self-sufficient, and ONE of them IS his sister. Over the course of 12 episodes, their relationship coalesces, with both girls slowly falling for Maiku, but not really being able to do anything about it... "We might be related" is something we hear EVERY episode (my biggest annoyance of the show). He cares strongly for both of them in return, with the same problem.
Eventually, we find out which girl is Maiku's twin and which will be able to confess her love, and while it sounds really kinda dumb, when it finally is revealed which is which, it's handled very well, to the point where one could imagine such a resolution actually occurring.
But there's a catch: the girls become like sisters to each other, and while they both want to know who's Maiku's sister, they realize that when that happens, their friendship will change, and perhaps not for the better. Again, handled very well, and pretty believable.
As this is a sequel of sorts to the better-known "Onegai Teacher," some of the characters from that series show up in "Please Twins," including Mizuho-sensei and her 'husband,' as well as Marie, her starship's computer/Pockyholic.
It's not a great series, but I really like it... to the point that I've managed to collect 20 or so of the random figures of two sets of toys for the show, PLUS the whole range of toys from ANOTHER "Please" series that's only coming out in audiobook form... in JAPANESE, so I won't be knowing THAT story anytime soon.
If you're not in the mood for mecha or violence from your anime, and you ARE in the mood to laugh, I'd say give PLEASE TWINS a try. But for god's sake, don't EVER watch the OAV for the series (aka episode 13). It's horrid; everything that was wrong about the regular series is multiplied 10 times over in the OAV.
1 Nooooooooooooooo!
Um, is it necessary to wathch Onegai Teacher first? Onegai Twins is some sort of sequel, isn't it?
Posted by: Pixy Misa at October 31, 2005 01:47 PM (RbYVY)
2 Uh, I hadn't read the whole thing because I was dodging spoilers. I'm not usually that confused.
P.S. Nice ducky!
3 Pixy...
That's okay, life is like that! To reiterate, yes, Please Twins IS a sequel to Onegai Teacher, but you don't need to have seen Teacher before you watch Twins.
I've only seen a couple of episodes of Teacher, actually... and still loved Twins.
Quack quack!
Oh, and thank you for the kind words a few days back!
Posted by: Wonderduck at October 31, 2005 06:33 PM (M7kiy)
4 Cool. I think I have Onegai Teacher on DVD and Twins on fansub. Haven't watched either...
I think my fansub collection may have passed 1TB. I'll have to check.
And I just got me a new video capture widget, my two existing ones being dependent on hardware or software no longer functional (or at least no longer practical), so I'll be digitalivising all my VHS and Laserdiscs. Say goodnight, disk space!
Posted by: Pixy Misa at October 31, 2005 08:15 PM (7X4Bl)
5 Hey, this mobile internet thingy is great! I can leave inane comments from anywhere!
6 Spoilers? I avoided spoilers!
Posted by: Wonderduck at November 01, 2005 04:38 AM (+rGmJ)
F1 News? Yuppers!
Okay, it's not the End of the Year Show, but there's still news to report! Lets take a look, shall we?
First off, there's another New Qualifying Format. As if we didn't have enough problems in the last couple of years, we now have a new one-hour qualifying session. Short version, it's a knockout-style system. All 20 (or more) cars start running on the track. After 15 minutes, the five slowest cars are removed from the circuit and fill the last five slots on the grid. After another 15 minutes, the next five slowest are pulled off and fill slots 11 to 15. The last 10 cars then run for 20 minutes, and fill the top 10 spaces. Fuel can be reloaded at any time during the first 30 or 40 minutes (this is somewhat ambiguous), but the last ten cars must run on race level of fuel, which can't be reloaded during quals, but will be "topped off" to whatever amount they began the final session before the race.
Another rule change comes with the New Tire Regulations. Thankfully for everybody, the single tire set has been scrapped, and good riddance. Instead, cars can have SEVEN sets of tires for the entire weekend, and tires can be changed at any time during the race. Rules for wet-weather rubber haven't been released that I can find, but I'd assume there's something similar planned.
There's another change coming in 2007, A New Rear Wing. This is gonna be a weird one, folks. In theory, the regular wing that runs all the way across the rear of the car will be gone, replaced by a SPLIT rear. Basically, there'll be a smaller wing over each rear wheel and a gap between them. The concept behind this is that this will not spoil the air behind the car as much as the full-width wing does, allowing for closer tailing, in theory leading to more passing. In practice, who knows? Lets face it, F1 will never be as pass-happy as NASCAR or IRL; there usually isn't enough flat-out length to a course to allow effective slipstreaming (at least, relative to what you get at Talladega or Michigan, for example). The biggest upshot of this is that F1 cars are going to look even more exotic in the future... perhaps NOT a drawing point in what should be F1's primary target market, the USA. While gearheads like the weirdos at F1 UPDATE! will drool over it, the NASCAR Nation might have more of a problem with it. Time will tell.
And as Fine Reader Simon mentioned in the comment thread HERE, the 2006 schedule has been released, and there's some interesting changes ahead. The season kicks off in Bahrain March 12th, goes to Sepang for the Malaysian GP the next week, then Melbourne Australia on April 2nd. Exciting for the Wonderduck is that San Marino/Imola is on my birthday, April 23rd. Two weeks later, the Nurburgring is visited for the Euro GP. May 14th brings us Barcelona and the Fernando Alonso Grand Prix. After that, we hit the one-race-every-two-week stretch, with Monte Carlo on May 28th, Silverstone on June 11th (the same day as the first Sunday of Soccer's World Cup? Eep!), then Canada on June 25th.
F1 obviously feels like they owe the Brickyard a boon after the debacle there last year, for they've given the US Grand Prix the July 2nd date... Formula One racing in the US during the Independence Day weekend? WOO-HOOOOO!!!
Then back to Europe on July 16th for the French GP, humorously listed as being at "Mangy-Cours" HERE. Does that mean that France will be losing its fur then? Another two week break, then Hockenheim hosts the German GP, followed by the ZZZzzzz-Ring for the Hungarian GP. THREE WEEKS LATER brings us to the second ever Turkish GP... apparantly they'll need that time to get thru the Istanbul traffic. Monza hosts the Italian GP on September 10th, followed by Spa-Furrypants on September 17th.
Asia gets another visit from Carnivale F1 with Suzuka Japan hosting the Japanese GP October 1st, followed by Shanghai's Chinese GP October 8th. Finally, the season comes to an end on October 22nd at Brazil's Interlagos ("Between The Loofas" in Swedish).
Looking at it, I'm not a huge fan of the way the season looks like it'll be limping to an end with the two-week gap there between China and Brazil. They might have been better served to have Brazil after the USGP, and move France thru China back a couple of weeks, but that's just me.
Finally, a bit of humor. Renault, in a final attempt to get some love for their championship year, made one of their V10 engines sing. What song? "We Are The Champions." (hat tip to Tim Blair) Rumor has it that McLaren tried the same thing, but kept hitting a drain cover...
So... is that enough news for you F1-Heads? This weekend, I promise to have the End Of The Year Awards Show. I hope.
White Sox Win World Series
It's over. God help us Cubs fans.
No, that's not powerful enough...
YAAAARRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
(pounding head against desk)
Well, crepe. Nice way to end it, though... Jose (Update: oops! Not him, but Juan ) Uribe went into the stands to catch a foul ball, and then makes a bang-bang play for the third out.
Congrats, White Sox. Dammit.
1 It was quite a victory. Sowwy it wasn't the Cubs, though.
(Not being a baseball fan, I was happy to see the Series end so quickly - lol.)
Posted by: Mallory at October 27, 2005 03:18 PM (6krEN)
How I spent Tuesday: A Horror Story
So there I was, at work on Tuesday, shuffling paper from one stack to another stack. It's 10am.
By 1030am, I was in an ambulance, oxygen mask on my face, a siren screaming in the background, four paramedics talking medicalese over my stretcher-bound body, my heart going about as fast as one of last year's F1 V10s, yet them not being able to get either a pulse or a blood pressure... and the words 'heart attack' being thrown around.
By 11am, I'm in the ER, and everything is almost normal again, but there's a lot of concerned looks from the medical staff anyway.
By 12noon, they're x-raying my chest, and pumping bag after bag of potassium and magnesium into me.
By 3pm, I'm overnighting.
By 12midnight, I've been stuck for blood tests and IVs 10 times (the final total would be 15).
At 6am this morning, they were echocardiogram (ultrasound, basically)'ing my heart.
At 12noon, I was discharged with a prescription for a betablocker and informed that I have a congenital heart defect that's actually quite common (1 out of 100 people have it as well). What does it cause? Pounding heart, beating ~200bpm.
Guess what I DIDN'T have? A heart attack. Guess what my symptoms were? Heart attack. If I had waited, if it WAS a heart attack, I'd be dead. Because I didn't wait, I got out of it alive, and my heart undamaged.
But it could have killed me if I had waited just as sure as a... well, a heart attack. The heart is a muscle, and like any muscle, if you overstress it, you can "pull" it. Imagine pulling a hamstring, but it's your heart... think that might kill you?
Instead, I'm alive and able to blog about it.
Here's your lesson for the day: IF YOUR HEART IS DOING SOMETHING ODD, CALL YOUR LOCAL EMERGENCY NUMBER IMMEDIATELY.
Don't drive yourself to the hospital. Don't have someone drive you. Let the ambulance do it. Let the EMTs work on you while you're there. Because otherwise, you WILL DIE.
And I don't have enough readers to lose one for something like THAT.
1 I thought I said it was ok to die after the Chinese GP...
Ahhh man! you don't listen - what are you still doing here?
Any way, in all seriousness - glad you're ok.
Did you get my email of the 2006 F1 dates?
If not, here they are again.
The 2006 calendar in full:
Bahrain 12 March
Malaysia 19 March
Australia 2 April
San Marino 23 April
Europe 7 May
Spain 14 May
Monaco 28 May
Great Britain 11 June
Canada 25 June
United States 2 July
France 16 July
Germany 30 July
Hungary 6 August
Turkey 27 August
Italy 10 September
Belgium 17 September
Japan 1 October
China 8 October
Brazil* 22 October
Posted by: Simon at October 26, 2005 08:15 AM (ntCeu)
2 Oh my God!
I'm so glad you're all right.
*HUGGS*
Posted by: Mallory at October 26, 2005 08:25 AM (fF2Zf)
3 Woohoooooo! San Marino is on my Birthday!
Mal, thank you very much. Simon, ditto. I'm happy to be alive, though it seems to be very easy to bring me to tears right now. *snif*
Please, you too... if you EVER have any odd feelings in your chest in the area in and/or around your heart: Get Help Immediately. I can't stress this enough.
Hopefully, though, you won't ever have to. The night nurse last night said to me at one point "I saw your EKG strip from the ambulance... it was unholy." Mind you, I was in a hospital run by a religious organization (Nuns of St. Francis, I think it is), so "unholy" probably means something different to them than it does to me.
All I could say was that it felt pretty nasty. The amazing part was what happened to make it go away. The EMTs hit me with "12" of some medication, which made my chest feel a little odd, but didn't slow my heart any. They then added "another 6" of the same thing... then it feels like someone placed a brick on my chest (not painfully), and the beats dropped down to ~120 bpm. Which SOUNDS high, but when it might have been TWICE that at one point...
Anyway, they've got some miracle drugs out there.
Posted by: Wonderduck at October 26, 2005 10:55 AM (ywZa8)
4 Dude, it's not your time yet
Left arm pain, severe right armpit pain moving across your chest is all heart related - just means different problems. I have similar arguments with people over here who insist on ringing their doctor first for anything serious (mental). If you get sudden severe immobilising pain or you or someone collapses ring for an ambulance only.
5 Calling the doctor isn't bad, per se... it's just not the FIRST thing you should do.
Really, it's not even on the short list of things to do, come to think of it.
Ambulance. Family (the biggest regret I have about all this is that I didn't let my folks know until 4pm... admittedly, I didn't have much of a chance to call them until then, but I could have said something to the medfolk).
6 Jesus, I'm glad you're ok.
At least you had the sense to call an ambulance straight away.
*hugs* you're not going anywhere buddy, you're here to stay for a while yet.
AxXx
Posted by: Lemurgirl at October 27, 2005 12:28 AM (YcruH)
7 Yikes.
Glad you're okay. And good advice. Far better to be told that it was nothing serious than for someone to have to tell your family that it was.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at October 27, 2005 04:22 AM (QriEg)
8 Duck I know we haven't seen eye to eye in the past on every issue, but seriously, sincerely, glad to hear you are ok. Sounds like an incredibly scary event. The world (or at least the blogosphere) is better off with you in it and healthy. Take Care.
Posted by: Jay at October 30, 2005 08:39 AM (ZYzat)
(strettttttch) *snap* *crack* *pop* ...ahhhh...
Oh, hi. Wonderduck here. I've been quiet for the past few days because I've been on vacation. Yes, just taking it easy for the first time in almost 2 years... and just in time, too.
See, the Duck U. Bookstore's manager is going on maternity leave in a couple of weeks, and I'll be in charge whilst she's gone. So I needed this break, and really, REALLY wish it was another week longer.
But all good things come to an end, or so they say. Coming soon, the F1 Update! End-of-the-Year Awards Show!
And you guys, thanks for reading!
1 Glad to hear you've enjoyed your vacation.
Looking forward to the F1 Update awards. :-D
Posted by: Mallory at October 26, 2005 12:31 AM (6krEN)
Bah. Feh.
One thing they never tell you about in Blogger School: comment spam.
The Pond just got hit by 25 different spambots. I wound up going in, deleting the spamcomments, then banning the IP addresses.
If by some coincidence one of my real readers suddenly discovers themselves banned, please please please let me know! I'll unban your IP immediately... but I have to know about it to do so.
You can find my e-mail address over there on the right-hand column.
1 I get trackback spam. We're averaging 30 a day and that's even with the highest filter on. I am tempted to just take them off as nobody ever trails back to me anyway.
I feel your pain though. All spammers and trolls should be shot. Repeatedly. With a very small gun.
Vicious? Moi?! Never!!!
340. That's the number of F1 races Minardi participated in.
Over. Done. Gone away. Renamed "Squadra Torro Rosso," or Squad Red Bull in Italian.
340 races of history, gone in a stroke of a pen. Thanks, Red Bull. What would have been wrong with "Squadra Torro Rosso Minardi" or "Minardi Torro Rosso"?
No, we can't have things like "tradition" in F1. B*stards.
Throw in the fact that the bleedin' WHITE SOX are going to the World Series before my beloved Chicago Cubs, and there's no doubt: the Duck is grumpy.
1 Red Bull sounds fancy in Italian, but it's still Red Bull at the end of the day. I agree...Minardi should have remained part of their name.
:-\
F1 UPDATE: SHANGHAI!
And so it ends, not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with an "Clank!" Lets get on with F1 Update!: China!!!
*DON'T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB: Fernando Alonso apparantly reads F1 Update, since three weeks ago we had him singing "We Are The Champions." Today, after winning the Chinese GP and clinching the Constructor's Championship, he broke into an... um... energetic rendition of Queen's classic. While we at F1 Update! appreciate the spirit, we had no idea he was that horrible a singer.
*SOMEONE'S GOTTA SAY IT: JP Montoya is an amazing talent, a driver that seems RIGHT on the verge of making the sport his personal playground. And at this moment, F1 Update! is fairly sure that he will NEVER make that last step to legendary status. From breaking his shoulder "playing tennis," to running a pitlane redlight, to his run-ins with backmarkers, and today running over a draincover that his teammate saw coming loose a lap earlier, The Pope isn't unlucky, he's dumb. It's just that simple.
*F1 ISN'T A TEAM SPORT? YEAH, RIGHT: Shanghai had the potential of being as exciting as Suzuka. Renault made sure that wouldn't happen, with Alonso burying the accelerator, and Fisichella taking a page from Jarno Trulli's playbook and playing engineer ("I lead the train!"). While this certainly is a successful tactic (see "Ferrari," 1998-2004), it IS dull. Once Montoya perforated his car on the draincover, Renault had no chance of losing the Constructor's Championship; they could have dropped it the Team Orders right then. Instead, they instructed Giancarlo Fisichella to drive obstructively in the pitlane... cheat, to put it bluntly. Nice.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Fernando Alonso, Renault. Team Orders only work when you've got a dominant driver. Alonso is that sort of driver, taking the advantage given him and running away and hiding with it. We barely saw him all day, as watching one car driving around isn't THAT interesting. That's what it was for him, however, as his lead was almost never less than 15 seconds.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: Mark Webber's pass on Rubens Barrichello wasn't exactly a work of art. All he did was pressure the Ferrari driver lap after lap, turn after turn, pushing him, looking for an opening, and driving him into a mistake. Eventually, Rubens had Bridgestone flambe and Webber was past... and Jensen Button snuck past, too.
*MOOOOOO-VE OF THE RACE: Celebrating the bovine lurking inside all drivers, the mooooooo-ve of the race is a special, special award. Today's winner is a special, special driver, too. Mitchell "Slappy" Schumacher has set uncountable records in F1 over the course of his career, but even he can't avoid the Curse of the Cow. But today he showed why he's Die Weltmeister, earning this award with TWO stellar performances. First, even BEFORE THE RACE BEGUN, he turned his car into the path of an onrushing Christijan Albers, launching the Minardi over the Ferrari's left side and killing both cars. That would be enough for most drivers, but because he's Slappy Schumacher he went out and earned the award AGAIN. Lap 23, behind the safety car, for no discernable reason, suddenly we see Mitchell sliding into the one gravel trap on the course, backwards! Talk about your unforced errors! Slappy, this Mooooooo-ve is for you!
*DRIVER QUOTES:
"Weeeeeee arrrrre the Chammmpions / WEEEEEE ARRRE THE CHAMMMMPIONS!" - Fernando Alonso. (note: real quote)
"mbmmmbmbml msmmbbllbl mbmmmmbbml mbmbmmbbmml race mdmmwldkmsll" - Kimi Raikkonen (note: real quote) (2nd note: I pity the closed captioning person who tries to transcribe a Kimi Raikkonen interview live.)
"I love podiums. I wish I could be up here more often." - Ralf Schumacher.
"This is the best fourth place of my life." - Giancarlo Fisichella. (note: real quote)
"Vitantonio Who?" - Christian Klein.
"I think I hit puberty today." - Felipe Massa.
"What a season. Bloody hell, I'm glad it's over." - Mark Webber
"A point isn't so bad. It's what Taku got all year, after all." - Jensen Button.
"OH-ver RAY-ted!" (clap, clap, clapclapclap) "OH-ver RAY-ted!" (clap, clap, clapclapclap) - F1 Update! staff.
"That was pants." - David Coulthard's Chin (note: real quote) (note: we here at F1 Update! aren't exactly sure what this means, but we're going to adopt it as the website motto. 'F1 Update!: That was pants.')
"Today... I... am the luckiest man... on the face of the earth." - Jacques Villeneuve (note: watch what he does during the Narain Karthekeyan accident, and this will make more sense)
"Hi, I'm Tiago Montiero. I was the best Jordan driver all year. Would you like fries with that?" - Tiago Montiero.
"I wish I had some marshmallows." - Rubens Barrichello. (note: apparantly Rubens is going to give his family members a ride in the Ferrari three-seater... you just KNOW he's going to smoke a tire in Maranello...)
"I was Driver of the Race a few weeks ago. Would you like to supersize that?" - Antonio Pizzonia.
"I said over the radio at the end of the race, 'Thank you, Minardi, for giving me the chance to make my debut as a Formula One driver'. " - Robert Doorknob (note: real quote)
"I can't BELIEVE that Ralf ended up with more driver's points than I did. Choo-chooooooo!" - Jarno Trulli.
"AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!" - Christijan Albers
"Imahitotsu sake. Oresama douyara akuun." - Takuma Sato.
"AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!" - Narain Karthekeyan.
"*clunk* What was that?" - Juan Pablo Montoya.
"This weird ending pretty much sums up our season." - Slappy Schumacher. (note: real quote)
And thus endeth the 2005 F1 year. But F1 Update! isn't done yet, oh no... It's time for our Annual F1 Update! Award Show. Stay tuned, my friends, stay tuned...
1 Heh, good update. To explain what "That was Pants" means takes us on a fantastic journey through the vaugaries of the English language as it is used by we British and you Americans. To us, pants are underpants rather than trousers, and thus to say "That was Pants" is to compare an experience as being as good as underpants. In other words, not very good. Another usage of the word pants is in the phrase "I've had a Pants day" i.e. a bad day.
Anyway, enough pants talk. Schumacher's day at the office was spectacularly bad, surely he can't be that bad next season? If I were him I would give up now, then again if I were him I would realise it would mean missing out on tens of millions for being Valentino Rossi's seatwarmer.
I've been thinking about Rossi doing F1 a lot, I hope it does happen. For no other reason than we need the Rossi fan club in F1, with their post-victory celebrations. Their world championship winning stunt this year, which involved Rossi running off the track halfway round his victory lap, to stand with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for pictures, has to be seen to be believe.
2 There's no way in Hades that Slappy is going to retire now... could you IMAGINE? Arguably the greatest F1 driver in history going out like this:
"Schumacher has beached himself behind the safety car!!! What a way to end such an illustrious career!"
Yeah, me neither. Besides, he still needs a couple of poles to take the last F1 record he DOESN'T have that means something.
Pants. Heh.
Posted by: Wonderduck at October 17, 2005 09:03 PM (ywZa8)
3 Without being morbid, I'm sure several other older F1 drivers would have settled for that.
4 Well, yes, you're right of course... much better than, say, having a tire bounce off your helmet.
Oh. Was that morbid?
It almost feels like that's how Schumi would want to go out, actually. Like a fighter pilot, "out of speed, out of altitude, and out of ideas."
I really hope not, though. What a blow to racing in general that would be... like the death of Dale Earnhart, only on a global scale.
It would be practically impossible to do these days anyway. If Narain Karthekeyan can walk away from his Shanghai shunt with nothing more than a stiff neck, what would it take to have a fatality in F1? These cars are SO safe (relatively speaking, of course). Oddly enough, Narain probably owes his life to the way Earnhart died; without that, the HANS device might not be mandatory.
Even more amazing, just as little as 8 years ago there wouldn't've been anything recognizable left of the Jordan after that accident, and what WAS left would probably be on fire.
Incredible times we live in.
5 BRAVO!! Another outstanding F1 Update and I'm so glad to hear there will be an awards show.
You have done a superb job of keeping us all informed of the good, the bad, and the ugly in F1.
Well, THAT was interesting...
1237am, I'm not liveblogging the Chinese Grand Prix, but I HAD to post something about what I just saw.
On the way to the grid for pre-race festivities, Christijan Albers just ran over Slappy Schumacher, when Schumi was warming his tires (I think). Mad scramble in the pitlane to get the backup cars up and running!
But, boy, did Albers get some air after driving directly OVER the left-rear of the Ferrari... and the fragility of the cars was shown quite clearly. The Minardi's rear half looked like it was twisted 30degrees to the left in relation to, say, the cockpit until it came back down to earth. Yeek!
1 Yeah, the trouble is that half of the teams are in fuel saving mode and others are trying to warm their tyres and breaks (Coultard's quote)
Posted by: Simon at October 15, 2005 06:56 PM (ntCeu)
2 Lap 10 and did someone snore?
3 Yes, that was interesting. I'm betting Slappy wishes he'd just slept through the 2005 season.
Posted by: Mallory at October 16, 2005 04:05 AM (M7kiy)
4 Not me! I wound up snoring around lap 30, I think it was... 1 hour, 45 minutes after the VCR started recording.
I'll be finishing the race up and posting the F1 UPDATE! later today.
F1 Quals: China!
Hoo-boy. Y'know, if there was any doubt that the Constructor's Championship was going to come down to the wire, it was completely erased by today's qualifying session.
An all-Renault front row, McLaren 3-5, with Button's Honda (note: no longer BAR-Honda) stuck in-between 'em. As far as the race itself goes, it may not be any great shakes: our winner is probably one of those five, and I'm not putting any money down on ol' Mr. 100 if you know what I mean.
Takuma Sato IS driving this race, much to my surprise... and he got out-driven by a Sauber AND a Jordan, if you can believe it! The only people behind him are the Minardi Twins and Tiago Montiero. Sure, he went out first, but good golly, what does Button have that he doesn't? Okay "talent," sure, but has Honda put all their techs onto The Century Man?
Gonna be a fun one... and the last time we'll see Minardi, Jordan, and Sauber, too. Minardi's going to be renamed "Red Bull" in Italian, Jordan becomes Midland, and Sauber BMW. Ah well, who needs traditions anyways?
1 The track.... it's like they're driving on ice.
2 Sad to see the end of the season, but hopefully it will be a good race...and the end of several eras. Can't say I care much for the name changes.
Posted by: Mallory at October 15, 2005 12:24 PM (M7kiy)
3 Yeah, it's a bit like the beast is losing it's soul.
4 Simon, I agree with you, seems very washboardy and no grippy. Probably because it's only used when the F1 circus comes to town... not a whole lot of sport driving in Communist China, I reckon.
"Honey, lets take the Haifeng to the rally today."
Just doesn't have much of a ring to it, does it?
Mal, I forgot to mention the biggest era coming to a close: the end of the V10.
Imagine: next year, they'll be using the same number of cylinders you can get routinely in a Ford Mustang. I like the 'Stang, mind, but there's something wrong when F1 is using 8 cyls.
F1 on Speed!
Okay, here's the TV coverage for the Chinese GP on SPEED this week... it's odd this time around, and there doesn't seem to be a replay of the actual race, so be prepared to stay up late Saturday night! All times are central, where the Pond is.
Friday, October 14th:
1am - 2am: Practice (live)
11pm - 12mid: Practice (replay)
Saturday, October 15th:
12mid - 130a: Quals (live)
7pm - 830p: Quals (replay)
Sunday, October 16th:
1230am - 3am: Chinese Grand Prix, live!
3am - 4am: F1 Decade, 1995 Pacific Grand Prix.
Please note that the replay of the practice rolls directly into the live coverage of the Quals.
Sorry, not very interesting today. I'm still taking it easy after the illness I went through. I did watch the first couple of laps of the Japanese GP again, and its still one of the more exciting beginnings I've seen in a while. Phew.
1 Hope you are on the mend there chap, sounds like very nasty stuff you've gone through.
If you want something to occupy yourself in the meantime, might I suggest keeping an eye out for this years Bathurst 1000? It is sort of the Indy 500 of touring cars, and is a fantastic race this year. It may even have been more thrilling than Japan, put it like that
BTW I've been away a bit, so been meaning to ask, have you been watching the A1GP, and if so, what do you think thus far?
2 As much as I want to watch A1GP, I can't. Nobody is carrying it!!! ARRRRRGGHHH!!!
Otherwise, believe me, there'd prolly be a A1GP UPDATE! in a couple of weeks...
Posted by: Wonderduck at October 13, 2005 02:00 AM (6krEN)
3 Yeah, ok I'm here.
I do drop by you know....
I just got turned down for a job at McLaren - but to be honest, I was more impressed with the quality of the letterhead design than not getting the job.
When I found out what property rents were like around Woking I was not too impressed - I don't facy the 270 mile round trip every day from Cambridge where I live.
Any way toothless, are you on the mend or still in pain etc?
4 Hmmmmm. Well let me see what can be done on the A1GP front then. I guess in the meantime you could look into finding torrents of it, I'm sure someone must be putting it up somewhere.
Thus far, it has been exciting, but it is definitely more GP2 than F1. The pitstops are highly entertaining, as they potentially last minutes rather than seconds. You can only have one guy working on each tyre, with the penalty of a drivethru for not complying. Now, either it is inexperience, or there is some issue with the tyres, because the nuts mess up all the time. Last weekend we had one poor mechanic running to the back of the garage to get a new gun DURING a pitstop
5 Oh dear. That must've made for a longish stop, eh? It's probably inexperience; a lot of those countries probably have never run a car as technically complex as even a GP2 car... like the Mongolian entry, or maybe Team Easter Island.
To reuse a joke from the e-mail days of F1 Update!, the team from Tuvalu would be much better if they weren't scared by the sounds coming from the back of the car when they press down on the right-hand pedal...
F1 UPDATE: JAPAN!
Yes, it's finally here! We've been having medical problems, but now we've seemed to kick them, and we can finally get around to covering the Best Race Of The Year! Lets get right to it!
NOW THAT'S RACIN': Even before the lights went out, we had excitement as Jensen Button's BAR-Honda smoked more than a DJ in the '70s. AFTER the lights went out, it just got even more exciting. Cars going every which way, Sato misjudging a pass & brake manuever and going off, followed rapidly by Rubens Barrichello (go here for a picture), Christian Klein going offroading, Kimi Raikkonen showing that the McLaren works as well on grass as it does on track, and finally ending with Jack Newtown punting The Pope into the wall and ripping the car into chunks, bringing out the safety car. ALL ON THE FIRST LAP! Then... it got better! Outstanding, just outstanding, the race of the year, bar none. Even San Marino, with Alonso holding off Schumacher for lap upon lap while his rear tires fell apart, doesn't stand up in comparison.
DRIVER OF THE RACE: Kimi Raikkonen, McLaren. There wasn't even any controversy about this choice. Started 17th, drives his heart out, passes Giancarlo Fisichella on the last lap, wins the race. What more can be said? Fernando Alonso may have won the Drivers Championship, but Kimi now has more wins on the season than Fernando, and he's probably the best driver with the best car on the grid right now. Just an amazing drive.
TEAM OF THE RACE: Renault. They took the lead back in the Constructor's Championship, took the other two podium places, and overall just showed just why they've done so well this season: they've been consistent and reliable.
MOVE OF THE RACE: There were a lot of moves that qualified this week, but the winner on sheer impressive performance has to be Fernando Alonso's pass of Slappy Schumacher on Lap 20. Not only did it come against the Old Master, but it came in 130-R, a tough place to DRIVE, let alone pass. Then, right after he got his nose in front of the Ferrari, the Renault driver just RAN AWAY and hid. The Ferrari season in a nutshell, right there. Honorable mention, and winner if you add in the importance factor, goes to Kimi's pass of Fisi in Turn 1 on the white-flag lap. A proud third goes to Alonso again, with his pass of Mark Webber on Lap 49. Down the front straight, it got a little scary when Webbo tried to block, pushing The Champ's right tires into the grass, but all was safe and the pass was just sheer muscle and chutzpah.
MOOOO-VE OF THE RACE: We're not going to beat on Takuma Sato, our hero, not after he lost his ride with his voyage into the kitty litter and his spearing of Jarno. Yes, you read that right: Sato is out for the China GP, being replaced by The Ant.
No. Instead, we're going to celebrate the 20 years of bovine-ness that is Minardi. Illustrative of this, we'll point out the Lap 34 torching of Christian Albers' perfectly good car by the Minardi Pit Crew, and the sight of the dancing crewmen as their shoes went up in flames. Fortunately, everybody was unharmed, and the car even came back out a few minutes later, but still... Minardi, we salute you! Mooooooooooooooooo!
SELECTED DRIVERS QUOTES:
"mbmbmbml mbmbmbml win mbmbmbll mbmbbmbml championship." - Kimi Raikkonen.
"I am disappointed. It was all that backmarker's fault!" - Giancarlo Fisichella.
"Third. Eh. Whatever. Did I mention? I'm. THE. CHAMP!!! - Fernando Alonso.
"Woo-HOOOOOOOO!!!! FOURTH!!!!! *dancing*" - Mark Webber.
"(just staring balefully at Webber)" - Jensen Button.
"Do you realize we beat Ferrari? Bloody hell, that's posh!" - David Coulthard's Chin.
"The best thing to come out of today is that we have secured third place in this year's Constructors' championship." - Slappy Schumacher (note: real quote)
"How in the world did I end up EIGHTH?!?!?!?" - Ralf Schumacher.
"The big question isn't 'why did I end up 9th?' The big question is 'how did I qualify 4th?' The answer is simple: I have pictures of Charlie Whiting doing something very, VERY wrong." - Christian Klein.
"I did absolutly nothing of note. Move along." - Felipe Massa.
"Heh heh heh. And so, I add The Pope to my hit list. Heh heh heh." - Jack Newtown.
"I had Sato in my sight so I could see him going off the track. With him in front of me as he went off the track, I found myself with no downforce and also ended up in the gravel. " - Rubens Barrichello. (note: real quote) Editor's Note: Rubino, you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to blame Takuma for your sojourn into the kittylitter. It was your fault entirely... and YOU hit HIM, buddy. You just blew the turn, and you know it.
"Sake. Then Fugu. Then Wakazashi." - Takuma Sato.
"Well, I didn't kill myself. That's a plus." - Tiago Montiero.
"I wonder why that man with a jack is standing right *bump* there? Oh! Oh, dear." - Robert Doorknob. (Editor's Note: while it wasn't shown on F1 TV, the Doorknob ran over his jackman on the way into his pit stall at one point. Everybody's okay, though... just a bruise. The Minardi Way.)
"Well, I didn't kill myself. That's a plus." - Narain Karthekeyan.
"*foom* Flame ON!" - Christijan Albers.
"Mmmm... kitty litter..." - Antonio Pizzonia.
"Sato tried a manoeuvre that was obviously impossible. He just tried to overtake me but instead he hit me and pushed me off. There was no reason to try that move so I don't know what he was thinking. He's been causing problems for a long time and the FIA has to take action to stop it." - Jarno Trulli (note: real quote)
"AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" - Juan Pablo Montoya.
Which brings us to the end of F1 Update!'s look back at the Japanese GP. The next race is the Chinese GP, and the end of a great season. But F1 Update! won't be taking a break after that, oh no... stay tuned!
Post contains 1033 words, total size 6 kb.
1 *Applause, applause*
Another outstanding F1 Update. The quotes were hilarious (including the real ones).
Posted by: Mallory at October 12, 2005 03:43 PM (ywZa8)
Zsolt The F1 Duck!
By now, I'm sure you've noticed a new addition to the Pond's sidebar. Ladies and Gentlemen, please give the Pond's new mascot a warm welcome! Click on "more" to feed him, and click him directly to hear his views on such topics as Takuma Sato's driving style, should Slappy Schumacher retire, is Fernando Alonso the best F1 driver, and MORE!
F1 Update has been delayed due to health reasons; long story, but suffice to say that internal bleeding is not ALWAYS dangerous, but IS ALWAYS scary as hell.
1 I don't see Zsolt the F1 Duck on the sidebar.
2 You need to have Macromedia Flash installed... I know your computer is kinda old, maybe it can't run it?
Posted by: Wonderduck at October 12, 2005 04:23 PM (6krEN)
F1 Update: SUZUKA!
Eep!
If you're here looking for the F1 Update! for the Japanese Grand Prix, please be aware that the F1 Update crew took a nap this evening... and woke up an hour after the race started. Thankfully, Skippy the Errand Boy set the VCR, so we'll still be able to watch the race.
And Skippy is being promoted... to "VCR Chief."
1 Skippy definitely deserves a raise.
Enjoy the race!!!
Posted by: Mallory at October 09, 2005 01:03 AM (ywZa8)
F1 Quals: Suzuka!
Okay, I'll admit it: I haven't watched the quals all the way through yet. I started to watch, saw that the track was wet, said "this'll be interesting," and promptly fell asleep on the couch.
I woke up in time to see the last couple of runners in a deluge. I have no idea how could even POSSIBLY keep the car on the track... they weren't driving, they were floating.
We had cars taking almost 2 minutes to finish a lap on what can be a fast track. Amazing.
Cora Schumacher's Husband has the pole in his Toyota, Jensen Button is 2nd, giving us a Toyota-Honda front row in Japan. How appropriate!
Suicide Sato is 5th, and the rest of the field is jumbled beyond belief. They may as well have just put all the driver's names into a helmet and pulled them out at random: it really IS that jumbled. Heck, Narain Karthekeyan is 11th, ahead of BOTH McLarens, a Ferrari (Slappy Schumacher), a Renault (Our Champion), a Williams (Jungle Boy), and a Toyota (The Engineer). Christian Klein is fourth in his RedBull.
Giancarlo Fisichella's third position actually doesn't appear out of place, one of the few cars that you can say that about. Kimi Raikkonen took OVER 2 minutes to make it around the track, and would have qualified dead last, even if he didn't have a 10-spot penalty for an engine change. Tiago Montiero tried to bury his Jordan in the kittylitter (how appropriate!).
So, anyway, yeah, this is going to be an interesting race! Suzuka is Ralfy-Boy's favorite track, he's on pole, and other than... 1994, I think?... this race has ALWAYS been won from the front row (the two cars on the first row crashed and took each other out in 1994). SO don't be surprised if Toyota is on the podium on Honda's home track tonight.
Off-topic here, but I watched a little bit of WWE Homecoming last night, while waiting for the F1 coverage to start. Apparantly Triple-H has been out for the past three months, I assume with some injury, and he returned to action, tagteaming with The Nature Boy, Ric "Woo!" Flair against two people I've never seen before.
Of course Flair stole the match, showing that a 304 year old can still put on a decent show... but the part I wanted to talk about was after the match was over. Understand, I haven't watched wrestling for over a year, but I used to be a big fan... that's how I met Official First Reader Mallory, after all. Anyway, after the match, Trips and Flair are celebrating (and is it just me, or did Trips look a little out-of-shape?), and I said out-loud:
"Sledgehammer to head, beatdown, crimson mask. I have no idea why, but HHH is gonna cream him, then beat him to a pulp."
And lo, thirty seconds later... Sledgehammer to head. Beatdown. And NOBODY can bleed like Ric Flair. They went to commercial. When they came back, Trips was STILL painting the arena red with Flair's blood except now they were in the back. And I said out-loud "wall, table, slap, car." And lo, it came to pass that Flair was thrown onto a table, into a wall, slapped in the mouth, and slammed onto the back of a limo (white limo + red blood = ewwwwww!).
Then, of course, I said "sledgehammer to the windshield." I got that one wrong. It was actually sledgehammer to the passenger window.
How in the world did I think that wrestling was creative??? I called the whole darn post-match!
Mallory, what was I thinking???
1 Good call on the Triple H/Flair confrontation.
You were thinking of matches that you'd seen before. Over and over again. Written by a team of writers that seem to think "if it worked once, it will work again." There was a time when wrestling really was creative. Of course, that time was in the last century. :-\
Triple H had been taking a break and awaiting the move from Spike to USA. The gut and the spillover were very un-Triple H-ish. Couldn't he find a gym while he was gone?
Every time I see those F1 cars running in weather like that, I can't help but think they don't know enough to come in out of the rain. It's nice to see such a diverse starting grid, though. Hopefully the weather will be nicer for the race.
2 Heh, I'll declare my wrestling interests now, I've been reading the Pro Wrestling Torch site since 1999, and have been a fan of US based wrestling since, well, Wrestlemania V (when we first started to see the WWF as was over here).
I'm "really" happy to see HHH back, but if it means we get more serious Flair stuff, I'll live with it.
Didn't get to see the qualifying as I was recovering from my holiday, but did see the race and the A1GP races too
Posted by: flotsky at October 11, 2005 12:11 AM (6T2ID)
3 The F1 UPDATE! will be coming Tuesday night... health problems have gotten in the way. Long story, but lets just say that internal bleeding seems REALLY scary at times.
2nd Honda Team Mystery Deepens...
Okay, so it's not the Dome team, according to reports out of Japan (as seen at grandprix.com. The Dome folks are categorically denying that they'll be running next season.
So, who's next on the suspects list? Team Super Aguri, also out of Japan (which seems to be a given now). Founded by former F1 driver Aguri Suzuki, last seen wrecking his Ligier during quals for Suzuka in 1995 (where he had his best finish, a podium 3rd in 1990), he went on to create a Team to funnel talented youngsters into other Leagues, in a Japanese version of the Red Bull Racing plan, more or less. They've run cars in IRL and helped found Honda's Formula Dream series in Japan, so they have some experience under their belts, too.
Speculation has it that they'd actually be based in BAR-Honda's workshops, which are physically large enough to house two completely seperate teams... call them the BAR-Honda Juniors, I suppose.
We'll see... no matter what team it is that comes in, with the apparant death of the Minardi name on the horizon, F1 Update! will be adopting them as their new favorites. Even moreso if they have Taku as their primary driver... of course, if by some miracle they brought in Zsolt, I'll travel to their home base and kiss the shoes of their sporting director.
Again, Taku AND Zsolt? How much fun would THAT be??? Forget about your Schumacher/Barrichello's and your Raikkonen/Montoya's and your Alonso/Fisichella's... they wouldn't be a patch on the power that is Sato/Baumgartner!
Though nothing'll beat the Minardi Albers/Friesacher combination for sheer comedic value... the Minardi Chicane is WAY up there in the race for "funniest moment in F1" award for this year.
How Come I'm Not Surprised?
So I take this "What kind of cute animal are you?" test. Answer about 30 questions, not knowing what kind of animals are available (except for Pixy Misa being a bear cub), press the button to find out what I am...
...and this pops up:
You Are A: Duck!
Found in many lakes and ponds, ducks are a common site the world over. Known for their famous quack, ducks tend to congregate in flocks or go off on their own in pairs. As a duck, you may seem friendly at times but will not hesitate to bite if someone is bothering you. Your ability to swim and your your short temper are some reasons why you are a duck.
You were almost a: Bear Cub or a
You are least like a: Mouse or a ChipmunkCute Animals Quiz
As I say, how come I'm not surprised?
F1 on Speed! & Other Stuff
Welcome to the Land of the Rising Sun! Home of sushi (mmm-MMM!), saki (mmm-MMMM!!!), Pocky (mmmmm-MMMMMM!), anime (w00t!), and... SUZUKA!
It's time for the Grand Prix of Japan, ladies and gentlemen! Last year's race was quite a momentous one... you might remember there was a typhoon that JUST missed the track, but still managed to wash out all of Saturday's activities. This led to a historic first in F1: qualifying for the race was on Sunday, just before the race... and it worked so well that F1 decided to keep it this year!
...where it was universally reviled by the teams, and dumped after a handful of races. Oh well... I liked it. There was something about four straight hours of live F1 that brings out the total geek in me. But I digress... it's time to take a look at the TV schedule for F1 on SPEED. All times are central, since that's where the Pond is located.
One nice thing about global travel is that when F1 goes far enough west (east?) of the US, us Yanks get to see the coverage at a half-decent hour... at least for ME it's decent... I'm not sure about Official First Reader Mallory. Official Overseas Reader Flotsky, you're stuck with what WE normally have to put up with, I guess.
First off, "Friday Practice" is actually on THURSDAY this time around, at 1159pm to 1am, 10/6/05. Okay, it's really midnight, but roll with me here.
Qualifying starts at 11pm on Friday, 10/7/05, and ends at 1230am on Saturday, followed immediately by "Inside Grand Prix".
Saturday, 11pm-1130pm: Inside GP again, followed immediately by the actual race, 1130pm to 2am; that's 10/8/05.
All of the above times are LIVE, by the way. The replay of the race is at 3pm on Sunday, 10/9/05, until 530pm. I admit it's very uncool to stay home on Saturday night, but I suspect I'll be camped out on the couch at 11pm on Saturday...
Now then... rumors! This duck's favorite driver, Takuma 'Suicide' Sato, may very well have a drive next year... but not with Jordan-Midland or Minardi, or even any of the other teams that are out there right now! Yes, the current talk is that there's going to be a new team on the grid!!!
The good people over at Grandprix.com are talking about something that flew under F1 Update!'s radar, an announcement from Honda that they'll be providing engines for another team, that currently ISN'T on the rosters. This team is suspected to be the Dome (which would be pronounced DOUGH-may, by the way) team.
As grandprix.com mentions, running a F1 team is NOT a spur-of-the-moment thing, and Dome isn't new on the scene. According to them, Dome first announced their intention to join F1 back in 1986, and while they haven't joined up, they've been honing their skills by building, amongst other things, Formula 3 cars (the forerunner of today's GP2) and other "minor league" cars... including an attempt to join the IRL (failed).
And who is expected to be lead driver for the team, if it exists? Taku. I'd like to suggest Zsolt Baumgartner as the second driver... my dream lineup, right there!
...which is kind of scary, if you think about it.
In other F1 news, Honda bought out British-American-Tobacco's 55% share of BAR-Honda. The team should still be known as BAR-Honda, though, as BAR (British-American Racing) will still be doing advertising with the team. Still, for all intents and purposes, BAR-Honda is now a manufacturer's team, just like BMW will be, and Ferrari.
Takuma Sato (what, him again?) is expected to be driving the Japanese entry in the new A1GP series, once the F1 season ends.
Finally, ending this all-Japan entry of F1 coverage, this might be the last time we see Suzuka for a while... because Toyota is pushing hard to get Mt. Fuji back on the calendar. Of course, Toyota OWNS the Mt. Fuji track, using it as a test course, so getting a race in there would be a nice way to a) earn extra revenue, and b) get an advantage over everybody else on one track.
Speaking as a fan, I'm all for trading off between Suzuka and Mt. Fuji. I've never seen a race at Mt. Fuji, but the historic layout looks interesting. It may have changed, of course... but the more tracks we get to see, the better. Of course, tracks like Spa-Francopants, Monaco, Silverstone and Monza need to be run every year... the legendary tracks. But why not move the Euro GP to a different track every year? I've heard a lot about Jerez, and how it's the big test facility, and how it's almost infinitely adjustable ... but it's been a while since a race has been run there. Lets get rid of the Hungaroring, bring back the A1-Ring!
...and while we're at it, how about bringing back Watkins Glen, Bernie?
1 YAY! F1 coverage worth stay up for. I can't wait.
Very interesting F1 news. Great job, as always, in ferreting (duck-ing?) out the scoops! :-D
2 Scary, isn't it? :-)
Posted by: Wonderduck at October 06, 2005 10:55 AM (+rGmJ)
99kb generated in CPU 0.07, elapsed 0.104 seconds.
GreyDuck I certainly can't blame her, no way no how. entry
Mauser This just tops off the loss of Mike Resnick. Wonder who #3 is going to be. entry
GreyDuck I've had an on-again/off-again relationship with the band's work but I could not and will not ever d... entry
David So apparently Mad Cow disease has reached Mexico. Unfortunate. entry
GreyDuck Welp. Now I've seen it. I'm nowhere near understanding it, but I've seen it. Huh. entry
Rick C "...for our uddification", surely? entry
Rick C I hope your 2020 is a lot better than your 2019! entry
GreyDuck 2019 was... not actually as bad a year as the several previous. It still outstayed its welcome in my... entry
Ben I can't find it on my hard drive, so just imagine the Robert Redford Nodding in Approval gif right h... entry

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Framed print behind glass; timber frame.
85cm W x 115cm H x 0cm D.
Paul is a passionate photographer from Sydney who has been taking photos ever since his grandfather gave him his first SLR in 1984. A photographer of many talents, Paul captures Australia's beautiful landscapes, fauna and flora. The Starry Eyed Cockatoo is not only shot in Australia, its made in Australia too.


Last year October, a Woman died in a fire in an illegally converted house in Clarkstown; the district represented by Mr. Zebrowski. It is the same building in which the dangerous government buildings are located. As our video below shows, he did not use that sad tragedy as an example for - what he says is - a problem in all of Rockland. Instead, Mr. Zebrowski stood in front of a Yeshiva who in the past had a paperwork issue and said the Yeshiva is the example of what is wrong in Rockland.


Basically any sweet embroidered Vignette from Brooklyn Based Coral & Tusk.
4. I need a note book to write down all my spring thoughts.
These are incidentally for children supposedly, but I don't mind.
Bonus + Did you see the sweet bunny plate as my featured image? So lovely and by Joëlle Wehkamp, Studio Sjoe, I love everything she makes…..like these amazing creations for Rice DK!


At iDonGraph Media Ltd, we're furnishing affordable web hosting solutions and also have been keeping viruses away from you.
At iDonGraph Media Ltd, we've created a website hosting platform that is both packed with features and easy-to-use. Our devs have designed a custom-made Linux cloud web hosting platform plus an intuitive Website Control Panel that effectively employs its features. After long hours of development and bug fixing on our side, we're today able to guarantee that all our website hosting services are risk-free, virus-proof, packed with capabilities and straightforward-to-work-with. Furthermore, they have 99.9% server uptime in addition to 99.9% network uptime guarantees.
Engineered by a few of the very best professionals nowadays, our cloud hosting platform functions effectively irrespective of what website you have there or how many concurrent users are looking your web site. What is more, it can resist any type of denial–of–service attack. This is exactly why we are able to without risk give you a 99.9% uptime guarantee. It means that your web site will remain on the web and will continue to serve all your customers no matter what occurs on the server.
A fundamental part of our cloud hosting platform is without a doubt our Website Control Panel labeled Hepsia. Therefore, we intended it to be very simple to use. But, we did not compromise any usefulness – our Control Panel is feature–rich and aside from the crucial web site management options, it provides also a range of resources for tech–savvy clients.
What our Control Panel can do incredibly well is always to enable you to focus on taking care of your sites and domain names. For example, you don't have to use a different billing panel – all things are conducted in the same location. You're able to put aside any FTP clients – our file manager has a drag'n'drop document upload support. You don't need to get different panels as a way to maintain multiple web sites – we've made multi–website administration rather easy. A website stats tool will commence working the instant you take your website on the Internet. And you can benefit from our Site Accelerator Applications to easily raise your website's loading speed.
Support is truly important when you manage a web hosting firm. Our well trained technicians are on hand 24/7. And then we give you a one–hour response time guarantee, meaning that all assistance queries are addressed in just 60 minutes.
Because of this, you can actually email us at 12 A.M. on New Year's Eve and we will be available, happy to assist.


Married mother-of-three Gillian Killiner, from east Belfast, was diagnosed with hypothyroidism six years ago, due to an auto-immune disorder called Hashimoto's disease. She runs her own business, 121 Dietitian, based at Bannatyne Health Club in Belfast.
Gillian (45) believes her hypothyroidism stems back to an illness she contracted during her third pregnancy.
"When I was pregnant with my child I had a condition called quinsy which sent me into the Royal Victoria Hospital as an emergency case," she says.
"Quinsy is a rare and potentially serious bacterial swelling of the tonsils to the point where you can't breathe. I was admitted to the Royal in the middle of the night and given high doses of antibiotics."
In the end, medical staff had to burst Gillian's tonsils and use high doses of antibiotics to clear the infection, but she continued to suffer medical problems.
"It was a slippery slope from there. I wasn't feeling brilliant for a number of years, but you put it down to stress," she says.
"Symptoms included brain fog, not being able to string a sentence together, fatigue but not being able to sleep and constipation, which I'd never had before. I had a low body temperature and was feeling freezing, my nails were weak and brittle and my hair was dry.
"These are all the symptoms of hypothyroidism, but you don't think about the fact that you might have an actual medical condition that needs addressing as an underlying problem."
Gillian says the symptoms reached their peak around 2012 when she was finally diagnosed with hypothyroidism. Bloods testing revealed that it was an autoimmune illness called Hashimoto's disease.
"My body was destroying my thyroid - I feel it was stemming from my original illness. It was very much a battle," she says.
Unfortunately Gillian found her medication wasn't really working for her and she carried out research which allowed her to figure out a lifestyle and dietary regime that helped to counteract her autoimmune disorder.
""You learn every year what works and what doesn't," she says.
"I did have a healthy diet beforehand, but it was still skewed towards the healthy eating guidelines and I use a variation of that.
"In my own business I don't recommend nutritional guidelines for everybody - I personalise everyone's nutrition to their health and requirements.
"It's always a challenge for me, but I gauge it on how I am feeling and how I work."
Over the weekend Gillian completed the 10K Seeley Cup in Ormeau Park in 51 minutes.
"I'm not an athlete. But to be able to walk away and know I did that at age 45, when I wasn't able to get out of the car and walk into the supermarket before I hit 40, was a huge boost. And now I feel great and my life is back on track."
Gillian says there is a tendency for people to blame themselves for symptoms which may often turn out to be linked to an underlying condition which has yet to be diagnosed.
"I have been ill myself and so now fix others," she says.
"When patients come to me I ask them to complete a questionnaire and a food diary and get them to have bloods tested. They then come back to me and I work out the best programme for them.
"This can be for various illnesses - young and old - as I ensure I fix their gut issues, sleep, mood, anxiety, weight, exercise performance and so on.
"I have teamed up to provide a health and performance clinic Fit for Life with a physiologist and physiotherapist - the first of its kind in Northern Ireland."
Thyroid disorders are believed to affect around one in 20 people in the UK, yet because the symptoms - such as weight changes, depression and fatigue - can often be vague (or overlap with other conditions), it's not uncommon for thyroid disorders to go undetected for a long time.
"The only way to be sure you have a thyroid condition is with blood tests, as the symptoms can be quite vague and aren't specific," says Dr Steven Hurel, a consultant endocrinologist at London Bridge Hospital, part of HCA Healthcare UK (hcahealthcareuk.co.uk).
The butterfly-shaped thyroid gland lies at the front of the neck (just below the Adam's apple), and is part of the endocrine system (responsible for producing hormones).
The thyroid produces the hormones T4 (levothyroxine) and T3 (liothyronine) that regulate the body's metabolic rate as well as heart and digestive function, muscle control, brain development, mood, and bone maintenance.
TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) is made by the pituitary gland in the brain and stimulates the thyroid gland to produce both hormones. Measuring TSH is used to screen for thyroid problems. If thyroid function fails, TSH rises - and if the thyroid stops producing enough thyroxine, then the TSH rises further and hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid) develops.
Although both women and men can develop thyroid conditions, they're more common in women.
Thyroid problems often run in families, so if one of your close blood relatives has been diagnosed, you might be more likely to develop a thyroid disorder too - although this is not always the case.
There are different types and causes of thyroid dysfunction. The BTF says autoimmune thyroid disease, in which the immune system attacks the thyroid cells, is the biggest cause of hypothyroidism. The most common form is Hashimoto's thyroiditis.
Hypothyroidism is treated with synthetic levothyroxine. Cheryl McMullan, CEO of the BTF, says: "The correct dose of levothyroxine is one that restores good health. If you feel your dose isn't correct, make a note of each of your symptoms and discuss them with your doctor. They can advise you about tweaking your dose as a way of helping you feel better."
The BTF says some health foods taken in excess - for example, kelp, a form of seaweed - can cause hypothyroidism.
Sometimes babies are born with hypothyroidism, possibly because the thyroid hasn't developed or because it doesn't form thyroid hormones properly. This is known as congenital hypothyroidism.
Hyperthyroidism symptoms can include weight loss despite an increased appetite, palpitations/a racing heart, sweating and heat intolerance, tiredness and weak muscles, irritability, shakiness, mood swings, thirst, loose bowels, thyroid eye disease (prominent eyes that feel gritty and sore, double vision), and an enlarged thyroid gland.
When hyperthyroidism is associated with thyroid antibodies in the blood, it's known as Graves' disease, an autoimmune condition where the immune system attacks the thyroid gland, which becomes overactive in response.
People with Graves' disease may have experienced some sort of major stress a year or so before their actual diagnosis. It's believed that people who are predisposed can develop some autoimmune conditions following exposure to a trigger.
Hyperthyroidism treatment can include drugs or surgery, and Dr Hurel says: "It may be very transient and settle without the need for medication, but, depending on the cause, tablets may be needed or it may be necessary to remove the thyroid gland with surgery or using radioactive iodine treatment."
The thyroid can also be enlarged as a result of general swelling in one or more nodules. This is common and around 5-10% of adults have a palpable nodule, with many more detectable on scans. An enlarged thyroid gland is known as a goitre. However, it's always a good idea to get any swellings or lumps in the throat checked by a doctor, as they may sometimes be a sign of cancer.


Central is in the city for good. This means we serve our neighbors in a variety of ways.
Below is a list of ways in which we volunteers can support our ministries and help to serve our neighbors.
Saturday, April 27 from 9 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
We will be picking up litter and cleaning the grounds at Indian Mounds Regional Park Lookout, at 10 Mounds Blvd, St Paul, MN 55106. We will meet in the parking lot inside the park (there is ample parking). Supplies of bags and gloves will be provided by the City of St. Paul, but you are welcome to bring your own gloves if you wish. Snacks will be provided. Come when you can, leave when you must.
The Coordinated Mission Committee has scheduled volunteer opportunities to serve the Saturday lunch meal at Mary Hall several times this year. You can sign up for one or all lunch dates, including March 9, May 11, July 13, September 14 and November 9, 2019. Mary Hall is part of Catholic Charities and is located at 438 Dorothy Day Place, St. Paul, MN 55102.
These hospitality volunteers help create a fellowship experience for Sunday worship members and guests. Coffee makers help prepare and serve refreshments before worship services while coffee servers assist after worship serving refreshments during the fellowship hour.
Ushers are the patrons of hospitality, helping to ensure members and visitors have all that they need to enjoy a positive worship experience.
Sign up as individuals, a pair, or a team. This is a good fit for anyone, especially families, introverts, retirees, or small groups, and timing is flexible to the volunteer's schedule. You set your schedule to complete!
Check that each pew rack has Bibles and Hymnals organized.
Offering envelopes, visitor, information and prayer request cards are restocked.
Each pew slot should have a functioning pen.
Volunteers help in sorting and organizing Martha's Closet donations, as well as working with clients during their shopping experience.
Each November, Central opens its doors as an evening shelter for homeless people in the community. This is undertaking requires numerous volunteers to fill several areas of need. We are currently in need of many people to help with the November 2019 shelter.
Learn more about Project Home on this page.
Volunteers work with Chef Barb Westman to help with meal prep, service, and clean up for our Wednesday community meal event.
Join us typically during the first weekend in December to decorate the church for Christmas!
Thank you to our 2019 volunteers! Next year's event sign up will go live in late 2019 to assist with rehearsal reception, musician dinners, ticket sales and ushering.


text:
Barry's Bootcamp Is Getting Into the Warehouse Sale Game
By Channing Hargrove May 11, 2016, 12:27pm EDT
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Photo: Barry's Bootcamp
Not unlike some other popular New York fitness studios (ahem, Soulcycle), Barry's Bootcamp rarely discounts anything it offers, whether it's classes or branded apparel. So it's a pretty big deal that Barry's is hosting its first-ever warehouse sale in Soho the Meatpacking District beginning next Friday, May 20th.
Fans of the workout will have their pick of fitness gear and gym accessories from studio locations all over the world, giving New Yorkers the chance to own something that was once for sale in London, Norway, Boston, or Hollywood, according to the brand. Private label items and pieces from past collaborations will be found here, too.
Considering Sweaty Betty and Soulcycle just hosted their own warehouse events, activewear sales seem to be the latest hot ticket for shoppers who are part of the fitness-fashion crossover set: You can save without sacrificing gym style and put those extra dollars toward your next class package — or your new Classpass monthly rate.
Update: Barry's announced on Wednesday that this sale is now taking place at 68 Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District. Hours remain the same: Friday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.


then the rendered page links to localhost:8080/partners. What I would expect (and what Archtypes does) is the link to point to localhost:8080/Plone/en/partners.
The reason is that RichTextValue.output() uses the site as the context for calling portal_transforms. What it should do is use the content object.
the context seems not to be available at the your referenced line of code.
Use RichTextValue.output_relative_to() and pass in the context.
Yes, you have to call the output method of the RichTextValue and pass the current context to it - as the RichTextValue cannot access the context itself.


With a little help from my Cricut and Cricut Iron On Vinyl, I was able to spiffy up a plain canvas bag and turn it into…A Market Bag for all my visits to our local Farmer's Markets. AND…wouldn't this a market bag make a great 'Welcome to the Neighborhood' gift, filled with information about your local markets and products from the markets?
One of the many joys of Spring and Summer are the Farmer's Markets that reopen! Ours close during the winter months, but are brimming with seasonal delights right now.
I got it in my head that I would welcome the new season of the Famer's Market with a new Market Bag, especially for market days. This bag is nice and sturdy and quite deep, with the intent of this one bag holding all my weekly market purchases.
And I was able to whip this bag out within an hour using my Cricut and Cricut Iron On Vinyl which very much satisfies my strong 'needs immediate gratification' gene.
Create your graphic in Cricut Design Space. I have attached the link to the graphic I made below if you'd prefer to use it.
If you do design your own graphic, make sure to have all elements set to cut, make sure to weld your image and attach your image.
Place the Cricut Iron On Vinyl, liner (shiny) side down on adhesive Cricut mat.
Once image is weeded, set it aside.
Wash and iron canvas bag.
Place image, measuring to make sure it is center.
Place light weight cotton towel over image and using a high temperature and no steam, place iron on image and hold in place for 25-30 seconds over each part of image.
Turn bag over and slowly iron back side of bag, using firm pressure.
SLOWLY pull film off of image, making sure all parts of all images are attached to bag. If any part is not adhered, place liner back over and iron that part.
Take your bag to the Farmer's Market and fill it with all sorts of good stuff!
Wouldn't this also make a great 'Welcome to the Neighborhood' gift filled with information about your local farmer's markets and products from those markets? Definitely going to make some for that purpose!
If you are wanting to spiffy up a market bag with Cricut Iron-On Vinyl for your Farmer's Market excursion, bookmark this page or pin it for your future reference.
I haven't washed it yet but I understand that it is washable. I would turn it inside out before I washed it. I'll wash it soon and let you know.