text:
OE Banner for our website

NRA Basic Rifle Course

hunterThis course includes classroom and range time learning to shoot rifles. Students learn NRA’s rules for safe gun handling; rifle parts and operation; ammunition; shooting fundamentals; range rules; shooting from the bench rest, prone, sitting, standing and kneeling positions; cleaning, and continued opportunities for skill development. Students will receive the Basics of Rifle Shooting handbook, NRA Gun Safety Rules brochure, Winchester/NRA Marksmanship Qualification booklet, take a Basics of Rifle Shooting Student Examination, and course completion certificate.

This is a Massachusetts approved course for FID Cards only.

Please download and read our Liability_Waiver.pdf

Upcoming Classes

Powered by Spearhead Software Labs Joomla Facebook Like Button

Joomla SEF URLs by Artio

NRA-TCsm      NRA-Instrutorsm      NRA-CRSOsm            downloadSaftd-logoInner  RM Logo pngsmOE logo for bottom of website


Content-Type: application/http; msgtype=response

WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: text/html

WARC-Type: response

text:
equip the saint radio

Calling today’s world to God’s timeless truths.

Equip the Saint radio exists to bring God’s ageless truth to the ears and hearts of a new generation. We do this through what has historically been called Expository Preaching meaning the verse-by-verse study of the Bible, explaining what the Bible meant to its original reader, and then helping people apply it to their current situations, challenges, and life.

Maybe you’ve had a tough day at the office, your marriage is on the rocks, or your children are struggling in school. It’s possible that you’re struggling with depression, loneliness, illness, or deep private sins. No matter your current struggle, God’s Word has answers for you and Equip the Saint radio promises to help you find them!

Because you’re a listener of Equip the Saint we consider you part of our extended family and both pastor Anthony Wood and our entire team will be praying for you. Please don’t hesitate to contact us with specific questions, thoughts, or prayer requests. We’re honored to be part of your life and look forward to many years of ministry together!

Join us on the radio each weekday at 6am or Sundays at 1pm, tune into KBRITE 1240 San Diego, 740 Los Angeles, or 100.7 Inland Empire on your AM dial. To listen in anytime via live stream Click Here. To listen from your phone, use the TuneIn Radio app.

Contact and Donate

To get in touch with us or to donate to the ministry of Equip the Saint Click Here.

Featured Resources

Defining Church

Defining Family

Mission Bible Church

Equip the Saint is brought to you by the teaching ministry of Mission Bible Church.

Mailing address
15455 Redhill Ave, Ste B
Tustin, CA 92780

Phone: 714.646.6787

Web: missionbible.org

For additional sermons from the teaching ministry of Mission Bible Church Click Here

Anthony Wood

Anthony is the Teaching Pastor of Mission Bible Church in Orange County, CA a non-denominational Christian church with a mind for God’s word and heart for lost people.

Anthony was a preacher’s kid who grew up in a loving family but turned away from God as a young adult. In 2001 while sitting alone in a Motel 6, just days from being homeless, God called him to repentance. That night he walked into a local church and wept as Christ called him home, and into ministry.

While pastoring at Crossroads Christian Church in Corona, CA Anthony finished a degree in biblical studies and another in theology before joining a team commissioned to plant a bible teaching church in Orange County, CA. As they say, the rest is history.

Anthony writes books based on Scripture, lives in Orange with his wife Breanne, and they are blessed with three children. To contact him directly, please click here.

warcinfo:
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2018-39
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for September 2018
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-45-127-147.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.15 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 0.11-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/


WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: application/xhtml+xml

text:
November Music

October 30, 2014

In November I’m playing a couple of solo shows in Germany, Holland and the land of Brussels. Super stoked to be opening up the Remote Hologram LP presentation by Razen in Brussels on Nov 23. The day before I’m playing an afternoon show in Utrecht.

But first we kick off with a show in Wiesbaden on Nov 8. Together with Least Carpet, we are opening the “Vor und hinter dem Spiegel Deiner Augen – Die postmoderne Psychedelik von Johannes Schebler” exhibition with works by Johannes Schelber. The day after I’m part of the closing event of the (h)ear XL II – Multimedia Sound Art Exhibition in Heerlen.

Drop by if you’re around…

08/11/2014 – Hellvete – Fragmente, Wiesbaden (DE) (w/ Least Carpet)
09/11/2014 – Hellvete – (h)ear XL II, Heerlen (NL) (w/ Ti Femme, J. v. d. Putten + C. Galarreta)
22/11/2014 – Hellvete – ‘Maar ‘s Zondags Niet’, Utrecht (NL) (free afternoon show w/ Machinist, Yedo Gibson)
23/11/2014 – Hellvete – Kapel Sint-Agathe-Berchem, Brussels (B) (free afternoon show w/ Razen, Rudi Velghe)

Droomharmonium XII

October 20, 2014

A new episode in the “Droomharmonium” saga… For you to grab…


text:
Passive Aggresive Messages to Facebook

June 30, 2012 at 9:34 am (Uncategorized) (, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , )

Hello everyone! So, this really is a shitty update. It really is. But anyways, today I was on facebook, and this one page I had liked (obviously unliked) posted some really offensive material, and for some reason it just really pissed me off. So, I did post a reasonable reply to what they had said, but it only got made fun of and ignored. So needless to say, not much happened. Then the admin continued to tell people to kill themselves and encourage horrible harassment and what not. That was when I decided to report them to the Facebook staff and hope for deletion of the page, or at least the admin losing publishing rights for a bit. Deleting the page seems a bit harsh.

  After waiting like, 2 hours, I got a reply from the facebook staff saying they found nothing wrong with the page (even though I read the terms, and the post definitely went against them). So being pissed off again, I wrote a long winded and detailed reason why I was dissatisfied with their reporting service. For those of you who have never reported something to Facebook, they will give you the option to give feedback on their reporting protocol and whatnot.

  Here is what I said to them:

Okay, so the page I reported. The admin DID delete the post saying if anyone is mad about anything, they should kill themselves. I do believe that violates the self harm section. Then the user also posted the phone number of some person that was on the opposing side of what they had said (I will refer to that in a bit) and he/she was encouraging the page’s likers to call/text/harass the person who owns the number. That breaks the bullying and harassment section in the rights. The image that started this all, was an image that called the band BOTDF (Blood on The Dance Floor) horrible, gay, and faggots. I do believe using ‘gay’ and the word ‘faggots’ is against the part of the rules that mention discrimination against orientation.

 Now, I don’t mean any disrespect towards Facebook or it’s staff, but obviously I was really offended by their posting. The whole page was being really horrible, and I wouldn’t be shocked if some people had taken things too seriously and harmed themselves. After all, the band is really popular with a large mass of teenagers that harm themselves due to distress and depression.

 I am probably taking this too seriously. But I don’t know.. I was just thinking that maybe the page doesn’t have to be deleted. Maybe the admin could lose publishing rights for some time. I just feel like the way this person acts towards people isn’t exactly healthy, and some of it probably not legal as far as human rights go. Again, probably overreacting. But for some reason the whole thing really bothered me.

 Thank you for reading, and I am sorry for starting so much about this. I’ll understand if no action is taken, but I am generally worried for the well being of some of the people who liked that page.

  I ended up not sending it, because after long thought I realized it really wasn’t worth making a big deal over. Yes, the page did say some hateful things. But did I really want to churn the waters even more? Ultimately, I was afraid that it would turn into one of those huge ordeals that somehow makes it’s way to the news. I know that is highly unlikely, but hey, you never know. This page has almost 200k likes, and I think something like that being shut down could easily stir up some publicity.

   I do want to be famous, yes. But I don’t want to be known as the girl who shut down a mega page on Facebook. No way. Besides, I was probably making it out to be a bigger deal than it already was.

  As always, I am open to everyone’s input and opinions. Feel free to comment and tell me what you think on the whole ordeal!

Permalink Leave a Comment

Things I See on Facebook That Piss Me Off.

September 5, 2011 at 1:21 am (Uncategorized) (, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , )

Hey wordpress, I am back! I really haven’t had anything to blog about, until now that is.  Recently my favorite website ( experienced a really bad database crash that has left it down for the whole weekend. Thankfully it should be up some time today thanks to the wonderful staff of Subeta and the owner Keith; all of them spending countless hours away from sleep just to bring the website back. Anyways,  I have been sadly bored so I spent more time on Facebook than I usually do. And maybe this is my inner PMS bitch coming out around this time of the month, but my facebook friends are really annoying. I have an urge to make a long note on there pointing out things that specifically piss me off and tagging all the offenders in it, but I won’t. Because everyone would take it way out of proportion and take offense, even though none was really intended, I would just be pointing out what bothers me and why. So I will be mature and just list the things here, and kindly leave names out of this.

  • Changing Room Shots – These are so cliche it makes me want to cry. I would be shocked if anyone who has ever spent more than an hour a day on facebook hasn’t seen a picture like this. If you have, you know what I am talking about. A girl, usually alone (and usually “popular”), but sometimes with her friends, will put on the most expensive clothes she can find in whatever store she is in, then she will whip out her phone in the changing rooms, place one hand on her hip, position her body to be at an angle from the mirror, and cock her head as she snaps a picture and instantly loads it to facebook. I honestly don’t see the novelty in this picture… it is a pose that a majority of girls on facebook have used at least a hundred times…. and I don’t really care to see that you put on clothes that you would never be able to afford. It doesn’t make you seem more special or rich, we all know you put the designer clothes back on the rack and didn’t buy them. I have a few things by Vera Wang that I have gotten from relatives for Christmas, and while I feel stylish when wearing them; I don’t feel some entitlement just because I have a scrap of fabric on my back that some woman designed because society considers her a high class designer.
  • Boob shots – Don’t get me wrong, I love boobs. But it doesn’t mean I want to see a picture of your boobs sitting right above a picture of my new baby cousin on the main facebook page. This is another form of pose girls like to use to get attention. This one, where they hold the camera out while they bend over in a tank top or V-neck so that you can see 90% of their breasts. That smile on your face shows that you know damned well that boys are gonna be rubbing themselves to that, while others are going to be sitting there realizing that most of your pictures are the same exact pose just with different locations and different clothes. Really.
  • Streeeetcchinnggnaammmesss<3 – This is another thing that get’s me. I see this all the time. Whenever a girl is going to go hang out with one of her friends she feels the need to post it the way every other girl expresses it. They don’t say “Excited to hang out with Cindy today!” or “I cant wait to see my best friend Linda!”… oh no. They say “Liiiinnndaaa<3” or “Hangin with the bestfraaandd<3” The heart is necessary for some reason. Stretching a name or word should be used in very… VERY rare instances. If you are lucky you will pull it off without annoying anyone, but when most of your statuses are stretched words it just irks people.
  • Very Vague and Depressed Statuses  – “Sigh.. of course this would happen to me.” You work to strike curiosity  and worry in us (because we care about you) so we ask you whats wrong, and if you are okay. Only to get a reply that says “Oh I am fine. *sigh*” or “I can’t talk about it.” and “I don’t want to burden you guys with my problems.” . If any of that was the case, then why the fuck did you post that status in the first place? I have stopped asking people if they are okay all together when they post statuses like that because I know it’s just a ploy for attention. If I wanted attention I would probably go that route. I actually have posted a status like that, but when people asked what was wrong I told them, because I actually was sad and I wasn’t quite sure how to get someone to talk to. You won’t hear “I don’t want to talk about it.” from me.
  • Cindy is now Married to Linda – Cindy is best friends with Linda in hypothetical people land (Do you really think I would use the real names of my friends on facebook?). So of course they want to be known as a married couple on facebook. Not sure why this annoys me, but it just seems really pointless. Is it just me or does it feel like that is chasing away possible boyfriends because they don’t want to be below the girls best friend (thats how I would feel if I were going to date a girl who had that as her relationship status)

Anyways, I can’t think of anything else to rant about really. I am sure there is more.. but stalking facebook hasn’t brought anything up yet. Also, I really hope I don’t offend anyone, that isn’t the intent behind this. I am just merely getting things off my back without starting a huge facebook drama right before the first day of school.

Feel free to comment and tell me what you see on facebook that bothers you. I am open for all opinions!

Permalink 1 Comment


text:
Calvin Johnson: Rift with Lions still cuts deep

In an interview with SiriusXM NFL Radio Friday night, former wide receiver said the team has not made an effort to mend the fences.

Original published: 2018-01-12 22:01:02 Read the full Detroit News here

Some local news is curated - Original might have been posted at a different date/ time! Click the source link for details.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Send this to a friend


text:
Slow Cooker Pot Roast Soup Recipe Photo - Diabetic Gourmet Magazine Recipes

  • 1 beef Shoulder Roast Boneless (2-1/2 pounds)
  • 2 cups chopped onions
  • 1 can (14-1/2 ounces) diced tomatoes with green peppers and onions, undrained
  • 1 cup frozen hash brown potatoes (cubes)
  • 1 cup beef broth
  • 1 tablespoon minced garlic
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 2 cups broccoli slaw
  • 1/2 cup frozen peas

  1. Cut beef roast into 12 equal pieces.
  2. Place in 4-1/2 to 5-1/2-quart slow cooker. Add onions, tomatoes, potatoes, broth, garlic, thyme and pepper.
  3. Cover and cook on HIGH 5 to 6 hours, or on LOW 8 to 9 hours, or until beef is fork-tender. (No stirring is necessary during cooking.)
  4. Stir in broccoli slaw; continue cooking, covered, 30 minutes or until broccoli slaw is crisp-tender. Turn off slow cooker. Stir in peas; let stand, covered, 5 minutes.

Recipe Yield: Yield: 6 servings

Nutritional Information Per Serving:

Calories: 295
Fat: 8 grams
Saturated Fat: 2 grams
Fiber: 3.6 grams
Sodium: 493 milligrams
Cholesterol: 100 milligrams
Protein: 35 grams
Carbohydrates: 20 grams

Recipe Options

Scroll down to comment or see what others said. You can also share, rate, print, email or Favorite this recipe to your Recipe Box right now.


text:
National Geoscience Data Repository System: Phase 2, Planning and pilot study. Progress report, February--April 1995 Metadata

Metadata describes a digital item, providing (if known) such information as creator, publisher, contents, size, relationship to other resources, and more. Metadata may also contain "preservation" components that help us to maintain the integrity of digital files over time.

  • Main Title National Geoscience Data Repository System: Phase 2, Planning and pilot study. Progress report, February--April 1995

  • Sponsor: United States. Department of Energy.
    Contributor Type: Organization
    Contributor Info: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)

  • Name: Illinois Inst. of Tech., Chicago, IL (United States)
    Place of Publication: United States

  • Creation: 1995-05-01

  • English

  • Content Description: The American Geological Institute (AGI) recently completed the first phase of a multiphase program to study and implement a National Geoscience Data Repository System (NGDRS) to capture and preserve valuable geoscientific data. They study was initiated in response to the fact that tens of billions of dollars worth of domestic eological and geophysical data are in jeopardy of being irrevocably lost or destroyed as a consequence of the ongoing downsizing of the US energy and minerals industry. The NGDRS would serve as an important and valuable source of information for the entire geoscience community for a variety of applications, including environmental protection, water resource management, global change studies, reducing risks from earthquakes and other geologic hazards, and basic and applied research. The repository system would also contain critical data that would enable domestic energy and minerals companies to expand their exploration and production programs in the United States for increased recovery of domestic oil, gas, and mineral resources. Progress is reported on the second phase of this program.
  • Physical Description: 5 p.

  • Keyword: Geology
  • Keyword: Progress Report
  • STI Subject Categories: 58 Geosciences
  • Keyword: Data Compilation
  • Keyword: Geochemistry
  • Keyword: Geophysics
  • Keyword: Information Centers

  • Other Information: PBD: May 1995

  • Name: Office of Scientific & Technical Information Technical Reports
    Code: OSTI

  • Name: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
    Code: UNTGD

Resource Type

  • Report

  • Text

  • Other: DE95014915
  • Report No.: DOE/BC/14883--T2
  • Grant Number: AC22-92BC14883
  • DOI: 10.2172/90415
  • Office of Scientific & Technical Information Report Number: 90415
  • Archival Resource Key: ark:/67531/metadc793309

  • Display Note: OSTI as DE95014915


text:
Date of Award

Spring 2017

Degree Type

Degree Name

Master of Science in Education (MSEd)

Department of Counselor Education

First Advisor

Dr. Patricia Goodspeed

This study examines the impact of a five-week post-secondary planning group on 11th grade students perceived readiness for post-secondary plans. Research suggests that post-secondary planning is important for students to understand and discuss as it prepares them for life after they finish high school. The United States continues to undergo rapid and far-reaching changes economically and socially, which results in a changing workplace. These changes are requiring higher levels of achievement and preparation for the emerging workforce. As a result, the students of today will require an education that provides them with academic, career, technical, guidance, and dispositions to be career ready once students graduate from high school (Gysbers, 2013). Research suggests that school counselors are in the position to assist students in the post-secondary planning process. Each group in this study included discussing post-secondary plans. The groups focused on students better understanding themselves, regarding their interests, personal characteristics, and qualities. The group curriculum also focused on educating, researching, and discussing the various options available to students after high school. Results show an increase in perceived readiness for post-secondary plans. Students also reported positive feedback about the group. This study provided further evidence that attention and focus on post-secondary planning can have positive impact on students.


text:
U.S. Department of Agriculture: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service

Date of this Version

April 1998

Published by Proc. 18th Vertebr. Pest Conf. (R.O. Baker & A.C. Crabb, Eds.) Published at Univ. of Calif., Davis. 1998. Permission to use.

The brown treesnake (Boiga irregularis), accidentally introduced to the previously snake-free U.S. island of Guam after World War 11, decimated the island's naive wildlife. Today, it periodically stows away on craft going to other islands where the ecological damage may be repeated. Barriers offer an effective tool for keeping the snakes out of areas from which they can disperse off-island, as well as sites identified as critical for the protection of human health, conduct of economic activity, or conservation of endangered species. The authors have developed a variety of barrier designs which repulse at least 95% of snake attempts to scale them under laboratory conditions; the best performing models are 100% effective. Three of the designs are in operational use. Designs for maximizing snake repulsion will be more costly to build, but may have lower annual costs due to reduced expenses for system upkeep.


text:
Thursday, 30 April 2015

Glastonbury: It's full of fuckwits

As promised last week, it is time now to take you back to last summer with a trip to the legendary Glastonbury Festival.

Glastonbury. Where the do you start with this? It’s legendary, possibly the greatest festival there has ever been. Five days of music, drinking, dancing, mud, drugs… and bums. Yes, bums. At this year’s festival (my first Glastonbury) I exceeded my normal number of bums seen in a week quota, by quite a lot. Girls in hot pants, in dresses that were too short, cheeks on show, underwear missing presumed absent  – let’s just get that particular aspect out of the way first, then we can get on to the other things.

Yes, it was baffling.

It is possible that this one might not be as much about booze as it should be, but we’ll see. “Bare” with me.

What’s the first thing you need then, when going to the Glastonbury Festival? Well, of course it’s a ticket. And they were something like £230 this year (including a parking pass), which is fairly ridiculous considering how sharply that figure has risen over the last decade, but you are getting the greatest party in the world™.

You might also need some friends (or a partner) who are willing to get out of bed before 9 on a Sunday morning and continuously hit refresh on an internet browser while you sleep off the previous night’s debauchery.

Tick, tick and tick on that one for me.

Then you need to be thinking about logistics. How are you going to get there? What are you going to sleep in? What are you going to take? How much booze are you going to need?

People came up with all kinds of answers to those questions. Let’s have a look at some, shall we?

  • How are you going to get there?

For us it was a case of drive down for a few days in Gloucestershire first, then head to the festival from there. It wasn’t exactly easy because you had to decide whereabouts you wanted to camp in advance, and then approach the enormous site from the right direction. In our case it was to be from the West, but we started North East. On top of that, signs to the site weren’t always as helpful as they could have been.The site is so big that it was like planning a military assault, planning which hills you were going to come over.

  • What are you going to sleep in?

Most people chose the tent in a muddy field surrounded by empty beer cans option, some even by a busy path or notoriously daunting toilets (having to inhale that smell the whole time… ew). Some have camper vans, and get to stay in fields a little further away with toilets you can actually shit in without worrying about catching typhoid or challenging your hamstrings to support a marathon half-squat.

Luckily, our friends have a camper van with a convenient awning that they allowed us to sleep in. Quiet and comfortable. Nice.

  • What are you going to take?

You can split this one into categories – clothes and booze mainly. For us it was oldish clothes and waterproofs while for everyone else it seemed to be hotpants and summer dresses (for the girls), and t-shirts and shorts (for the boys).

In terms of booze, I took 32 cans of Holsten Pils, 2.5 litres of cider, a plastic bottle of cheap dark rum and a litre bottle of the Stolichnaya. Mrs Cake took cans of Hobgoblin and Old Speckled Hen, a number of canned cocktails, a bottle of Spanish gin and the Green Mark vodka. All I saw anyone else lugging about on their trolleys was crate upon crate of Foster’s, Strongbow and Kronenberg. Occasionally you’d see a massive jug of local cider (which you can buy outside the festival from roadside stalls).

It’s also a good idea to take plenty of toilet roll and some of that hand sanitiser stuff.

  • How much booze are you going to need?

Well, we nearly [nearly] took enough. But not quite. On the last two days it turned out I only had 6 cans left, so I had to allocate myself three per day. You can’t take glass into the festival, so one afternoon I walked back to the car to refill my hip flask with Stoli, and that only lasted one day. I couldn’t be bothered to make another trip because it had taken about 45 minutes that first time and my feet were killing from spending 12 hours a day standing around or power walking in wellies.

So let that be a lesson to you; overestimate, add a bit more, then add a bit more. That’s probably almost enough.
not enough. anywhere near

Things don’t really start until Friday, but most people arrive two days before that, as we did. So you spend a couple of days wandering around, getting the lay of land and all that. There’s always plenty going on with sound systems, bars, stages of performing arts of all kinds as well as just random shit that makes you go: what’s this for? Like a double decker bus that just has loads of shit in it – by which I mean pictures, dolls, toys, artefacts, knick-knacks. I just didn’t get it.

Come and have a look in me bus!

What for?

You just pick a destination, head over there with your can in your hand, and check it out.

In all honesty, the line-up of musical acts wasn’t as much to my taste as I had seen billed in previous years. This year I remember seeing:

Pixies – a favourite band of mine, who were excellent as usual.

Kelis – she did a cursory two verses and two choruses of Milkshake, and then we had somewhere else to be.

Metallica – interesting that a metal band should headline the Saturday night. They were ok, but I don’t think Metallica are all that.

The Subways – just about as average as a rock band can be.

Dolly Parton – convinced she was miming.

Lana Del Rey – yawn.

Kasabian – what it would sound like if Robbie Williams had a rock band.

Jurassic 5 – seen them before, it is what it is.

De La Soul – the first band I saw, I think. I have a number of their records, but was quite surprised by how good their set was.

The Radiophonic Workshop – one of the highlights; electronic music pioneers.

Jack White – I like Jack White, but this was disappointing.

Rodrigo y Gabriela – has anyone ever bought one of their records?

Warpaint – nothing to say, but I do like them.

Tinariwen – nice, groovy, bluesy north African pscyhedelia… with lots of toffs hanging around, talking loudly.

I deliberately avoided Ed Sheeran, Arcade Fire, Elbow, The Black Keys, Jake Bugg, Paulo Nutini, Kaiser Chiefs… so you can see… it was more about avoiding things I didn’t want to see than there being too many things that I did want to see.

Your Own Perfect Party

Now, after that last section about music, you’re going to think I wasn’t having a very good time. Seriously though: I was. It’s not all about the bands, and the experience alone is enough to keep you going. There are of course, other means of entertainment – one of the performance highlights in fact was the English National Ballet, which was just superb. The entire audience stood in solemn silence through the whole thing, holding back tears, the peace broken only occasionally by people wandering in from elsewhere going, “what the fuck is going on?” – that and a few of us that couldn’t help breaking the sombre mood by laughing at a girl’s dress that was riding up too high while she retrieved something from a friends backpack [back to bums again].

The greatest thing about Glastonbury is that you can go out and find your own perfect party. It’s all right there. My group’s best night was the Thursday night when we went to the South East Corner – Block 9, Shangri-La and the Unfairground where everything is a post-apocalyptic set filled with stages, bars and scenery. We happened upon a tiny bar playing a bit of metal (that you had to answer a rock-related question to be granted admission), and seemed to actually get the party to take off by requesting System of a Down. For the next hour we danced around and screamed like idiots before collectively thinking our work here is done, fist bumping the dj and a south American looking dude, and heading off for further adventures.

Two nights later I saw the same thing happen again when, after Metallica’s set we stopped off at a bar and a couple of Metallica and Rage Against the Machine tracks brought out a number of peoples’ inner rock gods and there was all manner of screaming, air-guitarring, gurning… just pure joy. I don’t know what happened when, 20 minutes later the dj played Eminem and then Outcast and… everyone just accepted the change in musical styles, though the atmosphere had been lost. For those 20 minutes it was the greatest party those few people had ever seen – just like two nights before. We wandered on.

Glastonbury is famed for its weather – so much so that the media tends to fixate on it to some extent. If you live somewhere in the world, and you’ve heard of Glastonbury you’ve probably seen footage of mud and people covered in it, wrestling in it, sliding in it, even canoeing in it. This year was the same in the media – we had a bit of heavy rain which resulted in some muddy conditions, but what the media conveniently missed out was that for the majority of the time it was sunny and hot – so much so that I got a proper tan.

We weren’t worried about the mud anyway – I’d brought wellies, waterproof trou and a jacket (I am in my 30s), and the worst thing was just that it made it hard to find anywhere to sit down. We actually avoided the heaviest downpour, as we were taking timeout in the camper van. I made it back from my epic vodka replenishment trip just in time.

The fuckwits

Now, on that first Wednesday, when we arrived, the mood was surprisingly subdued as we pulled into the car park. I was expecting people to be squealing with delight, shouting bollocks, drinking cans immediately, as they began the weary trudge from their cars to wherever they were going to pass out for the next 5 nights (like at Leeds Festival), but nothing of the sort. It had an orderly sense of inevitability about it. Worry ye not, these people are going to party, and fairly soon they are going to turn into fuckwits – a term Mrs Cake coined one night with astounding clarity and accuracy.

Yes, these people are all fuckwits, with their ridiculous behaviour, ridiculous clothes, flower garlands in their hair, leather hats with horns, inhaling helium in the stone circle, painting their faces, queuing for half an hour to clean their teeth at the water point, when they could just have collected water earlier in a bottle, wearing a condom over their head and blowing it up with their nose while their friends point and laugh hysterically… but… in fairness the most ridiculous behaviour was perpetrated by only one or two individuals, and if you apply the rules of an infinite universe, these kinds of things are inevitable when you have so many people all partying together in one place at one time.

And anyway, I can’t exclude myself from these people. I’m older than most of them, I’m probably not having quite as much fun as them or being quite so ridiculous… but I’m a fuckwit too. We all become bellends after dark, but some are bellends all day. And fair enough. Is this a festival or isn’t it?

Glastonbury is way posher and way  better behaved than Leeds Festival – at times you feel like you’re in an episode of Made in Chelsea, or you do if you grew up anywhere North of Cheltenham – but you still get certain types of lazy behaviour like pissing in bushes (near tents where people are actually living) instead of going to the toilets… Mrs Cake and “Veronica” actually started a chant about that:

Don’t piss in the bush! Don’t piss in the bush! You should be asha-a-a-med! You should be asha-a-a-med!

… which “Pablo” tried to copy to hilarious effect after we’d had a joint a night or two later.

There was also a Who’s the Douche in the limo? chant, which went down quite well as one drove past us towards the VIP area with two bored looking girls in it.

Anyway, everyone was having fun, getting drunk, taking drugs with absolutely nothing negative (in my experience) to report. Would I go again? Yeah, but not for a while.

So it was a mad, fun few days followed by a marathon journey home. Oddly though, I was left feeling refreshed and ready to get on with life again – until Wednesday morning when I returned to work.

So last summer ended up turning into one gargantuan drinking session after another, which is fine and all, but it had never been quite so prolonged before, As this summer approaches, for some reason I can’t help thinking things will be more restrained… for some reason… but that’s a different story for another time.

Whatever your plans for the summer, make them responsibly alcohol fuelled and fun. And if you’re going to Glastonbury, remember; don’t piss in the bush.

Monday, 20 April 2015

Spirit Log: Glenfiddich 15 Solera Vat

It’s funny how these coincidences happen; you read about something perhaps, that you’ve never heard of before, and then the same subject pops up a few days later out of nowhere. Just last week I was describing the Solera aging process on a visit to a winery, and when I look today, to see what I have scheduled for this week’s post... it’s the Glenfiddich Solera Vat.On we go.

There’s a test you can use should you ever need to decide whether you really want to buy something: walk away. If you walk away and you keep thinking about it, then you really want it, so you need to go back and get it.

I applied this test recently, when I saw a couple of Glenfiddich expressions on special offer at Morrison’s when we were booze shopping for the upcoming Glastonbury Festival. Scotch certainly wasn’t what I’d gone for, but around £5 off of the 14 year old Rich Oak and the 15 year old Solera Vat was very tempting.

Not wanting to suffer an episode of whisky guilt I told myself no, but over the next couple of days I came to realise that I had more than sufficient funds remaining in my monthly booze budget – and what’s a surplus for if it doesn’t allow you to take advantage of price reductions from time to time?

You see, I’ve been buying scotch in a very deliberate way recently; rotating the various regions and types of expression to vary the kinds of things I’m sampling. It has meant that I’ve gone from not knowing what to buy next, to knowing what I’m going to buy sometimes two months in advance. While that gives my exploration a purpose, it has also meant that I’ve been cheated of some of the unexpurgated joy of just stumbling across something and making a surprise purchase.

So there I was at work one day thinking, I wonder if there’s a decent sized Morrisons around here?

There isn’t.

A few minutes later I thought, I wonder if those same whiskies are on offer anywhere else…? told me that they were – at the Asda in Hulme that is a mere 10-15 minute walk away, so off I went and in the end, chose the 15 year old over the 14 year old.

It’s a sad 40% ABV, but it is interesting in that it has been partially aged in the Spanish solera style, which is what they use in brandy (and indeed sherry) production. The Glenfiddich method would seem to differ somewhat though, in that the spirit is first aged in sherry, bourbon and new oak casks before being married in a large pine tun that is always kept half full. So if you’re new to this whole concept, the aged spirit is blended in a big pine tun. Some of the contents of the tun is bottled (leaving at least half) and the tun is then refilled. This process is ongoing so in theory, some of the whisky in the tun dates back to when the process began… though presumably they will never be able to label it at more than 15 years since you can only count the years it spends in a cask. It may continue to age in the pine tun to some degree, and that might have an effect but in scotch production you can’t increase the age statement since it always has to reflect the age of the youngest spirit in the mix.

Now, this is quite an interesting method, but one thing that piqued my interest is that one of the intended effects is to foster consistency in the spirit. That doesn’t entirely make sense to me since, rather than blending from a number of casks to achieve a certain taste profile, this method means slapping a whole bunch of stuff into one vat where spirit of different vintages will marry  - but surely the flavour you achieve in your bottled product will develop over time…

Well, to be fair, how much do I know about the results of the solera process? I haven’t been drinking products made in that way for decades, so I can’t tell… maybe it does result in consistency. Whatever, we’ll come to see what it tastes like and try to draw some conclusions later.

It is presented in a fancy red leather-like case that features a press-stud clasp. When you lift the bottle in or out of the case, the light creates an interesting effect that I tried to film for you, but failed. You’ll just have to try it for yourself. In the bottle it looks a lovely deep red colour. I’ve heard talk of caramel colouring, but who knows?

I didn’t wait too long before opening this one – a matter of only two weeks. I’d been having a shit day at work, and just thought it would be nice to try it while we started the second series of Boss. I like Boss; most of the time you don’t really know what’s happening, but then something really intriguing happens. It doesn’t seem like anyone else in the world has actually watched it, but I assure you, if you haven’t, you’re missing out – especially if you like House of Cards. Boss is better – less silly.

Anyway, I’d been doing a bit of research online – all the various blogs have regurgitated the same shit about the aging process – and I decided I wouldn’t let this one sit in the glass for 15 minutes before tasting it as one of the blogs suggested it would have opened up enough already. I kind of like the waiting, but it does mean you have to plan somewhat – or just sit there. In fact, when I did wait on one occasion, then had a second glass for which I didn’t wait, the first glass appeared to be better.

The immediate reaction on the palate was something I wasn’t expecting; a massive hit of oranges – like when you have an orange that seems a little dried out, but you bite into a segment and the juice runs out onto your tongue. Huge impression of orange. It did fade as I got used to it, but I hadn’t tasted a whisky quite like this before, and it wasn’t a taste I could quite get on board with. It is quite light bodied, but it does sit pleasingly on the tongue and, as I say, once the orangey hit has subsided it is pleasant.

This orangey hit seemed to fade over successive tastings and I started to wonder whether this was due to my decision to finish this bottle ahead of all others in readiness for opening something new. With no other whisky to compare it to there were times it seemed ordinary and uninsteresting though, remarkably one night when I followed up a glass of the Carlos I brandy with it (also aged in the Solera style), it performed well once more.

I think if there’s anything to learn from this, it is that it is beneficial to have numerous whiskies and spirits on the go at once and delve liberally into them, rather than focusing on one over another. That way individual nuances and characteristics come to the fore, and the experience can be prevented from becoming ordinary. That’s my take on it, anyway.

All in all, this has been quite a unique whisky experience that’s well worth a try, and at £30 or thereabouts for 15 years, it’s decent value.

Thursday, 9 April 2015

Even more of a muchness: another 3 way vodka test

L-R: Vladivar, Stolichnaya, Green Mark
 Am I really so far behind on my posts? I ask myself? How come? Well, this week I’m going to take you back to about 9 months ago when I was preparing for a trip to the Glastonbury Festival. In a couple more weeks, I’ll be telling you all about that – so just in time for the 2015 edition really. For now though, it’s a return to the recurrent theme of wondering whether vodka is particularly interesting or not. Considering how many words I get out of it, it probably is – just not in the same way that other, more refined spirits are. Enough prevarication then; here’s the post.

With an extra long weekend at the Glastonbury Festival approaching, Mrs Cake and I thought it would be prudent for us to stock up on festival booze. I suggested we try a different supermarket for a change, in order that we might benefit from a different variety of products, so as we passed it on our way to Go Outdoors in Cheadle anyway, we plumped for Morrisons. What delights would await, I wonder?

Answer: not many.

My usual tinnie of choice, Holsten Pils was more expensive than it usually is in Tesco, so it was immediately apparent we would have to return to our usual supermarket anyway. I could have tried a different brand, but it would’ve meant either dropping my standards or paying a lot more – and when you want 32 cans, that increase can stack up.

Baileys was on “offer” at £14, but I decided to try a completely different brand (by which I mean budget) and go for Country Mist (14.5% ABV, £5.19), but more on that some time in the future…

More pertinent to this post though, is that Mrs Cake decided to stock up on vodka. I told her I’d got loads, but she didn’t want to use my stash. Then she thought she’d wait, and get some from Aldi, and I convinced her that it would be good to try a new brand – Green Mark fit the bill, on offer at £11, but showing a slightly below par 38% ABV).

Here comes the “factual” part.

The green mark was a soviet government seal of quality between the 1920s and 1950s and though this vodka is named for that, it was never actually awarded such a seal. Green Mark is in fact a recreation of a recipe gleaned from research into Glavspirttrest records.

All vodkas have some kind of factor that is supposed to set them apart from the rest – or so it seems. With Finlandia, it’s that it is produced with springwater so pure it requires no chemical treatment. With Grey Goose, it’s that is produced in the Maitre de Chai tradition (look it up), and that it is filtered through “champagne limestone”. Ketel One has any number of factors it would claim make it “a truly exceptional vodka”. Luxury brand Belvedere is distilled from Dankowskie rye, which is considered ideal for distillation (blah, blah, blah), and adheres to over 600 years of vodka making tradition blah.

You get the idea… none of this explains why my friend Paul (and no doubt, many others) consider vodka brands all to be “much of a muchness”. Well, I’m not done confirming or refuting whether that is the case yet… which brings us to this week’s tasting experiment; yet another 3 way vodkachallenge for which Mrs Cake would be joining me: the new Green Mark, pitted against my existing Vladivar (37.5% ABV), and the undisputed champion of previous challenges and frankly, personal favourite (second only to its higher alcohol content brother), Stolichnaya (40%).

I brought six shot glasses out of the cupboard and prepared three blind samples for Mrs Cake, after which she did the same for me.

Firstly, a brief word on presentation…

Vladivar is presented in an uninteresting cylindrical bottle with a cyan coloured label and friendly but gothic white lettering. It is made from 100% pure grain, triple distilled and charcoal filtered. It is a British product.

Stolichnaya is pretty utilitarian looking and is made from wheat and rye grain. It is apparently filtered through quartz, sand, activated charcoal and woven cloth.

Green Mark has quite an elegant bottle, curvy and extra-narrow at the top – a bit like Glenmorangie in that regard – and has a novel cap instead of a normal crappy screw cap. It looks all right – I sure appreciate the effort.

So, on with the tasting. I encouraged Mrs Cake to have a sniff of each sample first, and see if she got any impressions. She said they didn’t smell of anything, and I agreed. So we proceeded to drink.

Now, we were busy making a pizza at the time (no, it wasn’t the most dedicated tasting the world has ever seen), so I’m sorry to say the tasting wasn’t particularly stimulating. We both picked out Stolichnaya as the best (as expected), but it wasn’t by a massive distance on this occasion. Mrs Cake picked Vladivar as her second favourite, while I thought Green Mark was worthy of runner-up status, but 2nd and 3rd were very close. What swung it for me was that I could detect that extra 0.5% alcohol, and while I’m not saying that alone is enough to justify picking one over another, if there’s nothing else to choose, well then it probably is. I do find it bizarre how apparent minute differences in alcoholic strength seem to be – particularly in clear spirits – but they really are [seem to be].
Aaaand… the conclusion

So Stolichnaya is still the champ, but Green Mark places a respectable 4th in the overall vodka rankings, displacing the Vladivar. You’re probably wondering by now what the official countdown is… so I think I might publish some lists to that end around Christmas/New Year time. That’s a long way off as it stands, but that just means I can get a lot more vodka tasting in between now and then.

Before I go, there is one more conclusion to draw, and that is that Morrison’s is not so good for the booze. They did have offers on Glenfiddich Rich Oak and Glenfiddich 15 mind, but I managed to talk myself down from any unplanned scotch expenditure. I’m regretting that now, as it turns out I had sufficient unallocated funds in my booze budget. Ah well. To be continued…

Sunday, 5 April 2015

Highland Park Einar

A lot of the reviews I’ve seen online bang on about the origin of the name that Highland Park have bestowed upon this “exclusive to international travel” expression and its brethren. Frankly, in my opinion, that’s all tantamount to bollocks, so I’m not going to tell you anything about that at all. Nothing bores me more than regurgitating factual information that already exists elsewhere on the internet, though sadly I have to do that sometimes just to keep on the right side of informative.

When I do a search for the product I’m writing about – as I always do to get some basic information and opinion about it – I find that a staggering amount of the detail is lifted directly from the manufacturer’s marketing information, so not only does it seem pointless adding my voice to the existing clamour but neither am I in the business of marketing products. A bit of background is ok, but does something like the origin of the name really matter? Do pharmaceutical companies tell you where the name for their latest pile cream came from?

Good, now that we’ve got that out of the way, what do I want to tell you? Well, as you would know if you’d read some of my previous posts, I’d been a-hankerin’ after this one for a while. I just really like Highland Park ok? And the fact that you have to travel between two countries to be able to get it just made me want it so much.

And here it is. I have to say, the couple of minutes leading up to purchasing it were pretty exciting but then, as ever, the excitement subsided and it sat quietly in my cupboard awaiting the day I would open it.

Einar then is bottled at a disappointing 40% ABV and comes by the litre at around 50 euros. When I purchased mine it equated to somewhere around 42 quid. I consider that decent value (quality appraisal pending), but when you consider how frequently you can get 70cl of the excellent 12 year old HP for £25… perhaps it isn’t so much – but then, very little you can purchase in the UK can compare to that. I’m not even  expecting this to be better than the HP12, but I hope it is.

Upon feeling low one Friday night I decided it was time for the grand opening… and a cigar, in the garden. Not necessarily ideal circumstances for a deep appraisal, but there’s a whole litre of the Einar here, so plenty of time. I sat out there with the bottle available for refills, as I so seldom end up doing and got started.

I’ve read that pineapple is evident on the nose, and while I was disappointed to note that no smell emerged from the bottle on opening, I can confirm I was actually getting pineapple once it was in the glass (though this may have been the power of suggestion, since it failed to attend any other time), and later tobacco (you might be thinking that was down to the cigar and, reading this back now, I can’t remember anything that would refute that. I’m thinking though, that such an assumption would be so obvious that I must have actually written it for a reason). On other occasions there was that familiar Highland Park peat on opening, though understandably less powerfully than in the HP18.

I didn’t involve the Einar in a direct comparison with any of my malts straight away, knowing that it would need time to breathe before such a stringent test was conducted. Taken on its own merits then, I have to say I came to enjoy it very much on that first occasion. Each sip was more enjoyable than the last. It is a little thin and rough on entry but, like the 12 year old, when I shifted it around the the back of my tongue it had that playful tartness that gets the taste buds jiving – a feature I have come to associate with Highland Park more than any other. It came to remind me at the time – and this is a weird one – of the Bolognese sauce that I make with Worcestershire sauce and red wine vinegar.

I was never going to say it’s better than the 12 year old, in fact it definitely isn’t, but the 12 year old is so good that if it could be even nearly as good (but suitably different), that would be commendable. It is slightly more expensive in general on a £ per cl basis but on the same basis it works out cheaper than the Glenfiddich 15 Solera Vat that I paid £30 for. In fact it is currently only 13th overall on the price per cl matrix
Yes, it would be nice if it were better, but I didn’t immediately feel disappointed with Highland Park for putting this out.

Moment of Maximum Appreciation

The night I feel I got the best from the Einar, I’d been out for a curry with work and had a couple of small beers. On arriving home a bit grumpy (because I’d had to stay out longer than I wanted to), I thought I might just finish off the night with something from the cupboard. In all honesty I was pretty thirsty and normally I’d have a glass of cola first but, knowing that would have some effect on the enjoyment of whatever I chose to drink next (unless I was prepared to wait half an hour, which I wasn’t), I thought I’d skip it this time.

So I went for the Einar. On this occasion, circumstances combined to produce a very satisfying glass. The Einar was soft and sweet and, for once, the overly rough edges didn’t linger. Instead the impression was far more in line from what I’d expect from a Highland Park.

It still wasn’t as good as the 12, nor as sweet and buttery as the 18 but pleasingly intense and mouth-wateringly playful. It’s moments like these, I thought, that you spend that bit extra on liquor for. Any 40% spirit can get you hammered or just chill you out, you’ve no need to spend £40 to £50 for that. And you may not get it every time, but if you can, occasionally reach something like the satisfaction I got from that glass, then you can occasionally feel that it was money well spent.

An ignoble denouement

Apologies for the big words. Who do I think I am, Russell Fucking Brand? But yeah, there’s no happy ending to this tale and the upshot of it is: you’d be better off spending your money elsewhere. The reason: it just failed to deliver on a consistent basis. In fact, the MOMA described in the last section was the only time I can say I enjoyed the Einar to any superlative degree. In general it was rough, fuzzy, sour… honestly, I hope you’ve bothered reading this far because otherwise you’re going to get the wrong impression.

No, I didn’t immediately feel disappointed, but ultimately I did. I seldom chose to invite it out of the cupboard, wondering why when I had. In the end I just poured a few (what I’m going to call) throwaway glasses on consecutive occasions just so that I could call it finished and move on to something else – which will actually be the (significantly more expensive) Highland Park Leif Eriksson, so keep coming back if you want to find out about that…

No, it just had me sat there wondering whether I really enjoy drinking whisky far too often. I do enjoy whisky, just not this one. Sad really.


text:
Login or Register
Do a search below using the city or postal code search box if your city is not listed above.

drheldonVictoria BC CanadaSince September 23, 20101 Review
Average Rating
4.5 (4.7)
  • Food4 (4)
  • Service5 (5)
  • Value5 (5)
  • Ambiance (0)

Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 Reviews Found
Royal Kebab Grille2656 Quadra Street, Victoria
Best Value in Vic!
Submitted Wednesday, September 22, 2010 - 8:08pm [Take-out]

ok so they just recently (Aug 2010) raised their prices by %30, most of their stuff is still under $10 and is an incredible value for the taste. I've paid double for much less many times.

The Royal Kebab is a wonderful family-run Indian diner that provides some of the best takeout in town. Their menu is somewhat limited, but what they lack in diversity they make up for in flavour and price for what they do offer. Butter chicken, with fresh jasmine rice (that almost offers a hint of saffron), and a tasty salad runs at less than $10. Before they raised their prices, the same dish was a stunning $6.25 and that included tax! I felt guilty eating such a wonderful meal at such a low price. I often thought of suggesting to the modest owners that they raise their price, which would've gone against my selfishness as a customer. Alas someone beat me to it, but even at $10 their meals are a great value!

their samosas are still $1.25 and tasty tasty! so i usually get the butter chicken and a samosa or 2. don't judge me for my appetite lol i'm a big guy. and their food is seriously delicious!

If you're looking for a great takeout place with a neighbourhood feel, and you don't mind waiting 15 to 20 minutes for some fresh food made with great care, then check them out. It goes against my judgement again to even write this review, because then more people will know about this little gem. But they deserve the praise!

  • Food
  • Service
  • Value


text:
Save £££'s With Our Loyalty Scheme!
Free Delivery on Orders Over £99.99
Call For Current Best Prices 01622 296370

Makita Cordless - Tools, Batteries & Chargers

Makita DC18RC 7.2-18 Volt Li-Ion Battery Charger 240 Volt

Makita DC18RC 7.2-18 Volt Li-Ion Battery Charger 240 Volt

£47.99 £39.99 (ex. VAT) RRP: £128.40
You Will Earn 47 points with this purchase

The Makita DC18RC 7.2-18 Volt Li-Ion Charger has a bulit-in cooling fan system that blows cool air into the battery, which keeps the battery cool during the charging process. This helps to extend the overall battery life and accelerate the charging process. Has 3 active charging colours to help identify when the battery is charged, and to what level.

When it is used in conjunction with the charging adaptor ADP0, this charger offers also the possibility of charging NiMH slide on batteries of 9.6 to 24 volt batteries. Or when used with charging adaptor ADP04, this charger offers the possibility to charge Ni-Cad and NiMH rod and block batteries of 7.2 to 18 volt batteries.

The DC18RC is compatible with the following battery models: BL1830, BL1430, BL3626, BL3622, BL1415, BL1013, and BL0710.

Not yet reviewed
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other shoppers!
Be the first to review this product


text:
Blog Tour, Review & #Giveaway: ✩Not Until You✩ by @RoniLoren

Not Until You
Author: Roni Loren
Genre: Erotic Romance, BDSM
Release Date: November 4, 2014

Cela knows how to be good. She’s had a lifetime of practice. But on the night of her college graduation, she decides she’s earned one wild night before she has to move back home to her overprotective family. So when the hot neighbor she’s been quietly fantasizing about for a year suggests a game of Never Have I Ever, she’s ready. But what starts out as a simple game takes an unexpected turn. Because Ian Foster doesn’t play games he can’t win.

Foster knows his desires aren’t for the faint of heart, especially not for someone as sweet and innocent as his pretty neighbor. But when Cela shows up at his door with an invitation that surprises him, he can’t resist indulging. Cela has no idea what she’s in for. The secret dark side of this man’s need will both intrigue and terrify her. But Cela has a secret of her own—and a new game to see just how far they’re both willing to go, and how much they’re willing to risk by crossing every boundary of desire.

Amazon / B&N / iTunes / Kobo

“Andre, this isn’t a good time. Can I call you back?”

I did my best not to let my cell phone slip from between my ear and shoulder. Just don’t drop the tequila. I adjusted the enormous bottle my friend, Bailey, had given me as a graduation present from my right hand to beneath my left arm and tried to dig my keys out of my purse so I could open the main door to my apartment building.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to make it, Cela,” my older brother said, his guilt obviously trumping my request to call him later. “I got caught at an investigation site this morning. I thought I’d be able to get there in time, but we had a witness wanting to talk and….”

I cursed silently as my keys hit the pavement. I crouched down, doing my best not to flash my underwear to anyone who may be passing by. “Really, it’s fine. They called my name. I walked across the stage and got a piece of paper and a sash for being summa cum laude. Papá yelled my name like he was at a baseball game instead of a ceremony. Mamá cried. We all went to lunch at Rosario’s and then the two of them headed back to the airport. Not that interesting.”

My brother’s heavy sigh said everything. I almost felt guilty that he felt so guilty. “Before you move back home next month, we’re getting together to celebrate. My baby sister, the doctor. I’m so proud I could burst.”

I smiled. I did like the sound of that. Dr. Marcela Medina, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. Seven years of exams and studying and clinics, but it was finally done. Now it was time to leave Dallas and head back home to Verde Pass and take up the slack in my dad’s practice.

That last part had my smile faltering a bit. I hooked my key ring with my finger and wobbled back to a stand. “That’s sounds great. But I really have to get going. I have my hands full and need to get through the door.”

“Cela, you know better than to carry too much. Parking lots at night are one of the most dangerous places for women. Are you holding your mace?” he asked, his voice going into that bossy cop tone I was all too familiar with.

“It’s in my hand,” I lied, trying to remember where I’d stowed the last little canister he’d given me—probably in my junk drawer. “But I don’t have a free hand to pull the door open.”

“All right,” he said, placated. “Congratulations again. I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

The phone call ended but I didn’t have a way to take the phone off my ear, so I just shuffled forward in a sideways hunch, trying to juggle everything I was holding to get my key into the door. After two attempts, I got the lock turned and pressed my back against the glass door to push my way into the lobby.

As soon as I’d cleared the entrance and turned toward the stairs, male voices sounded behind me. Of course someone would show up right after I didn’t need help anymore. I peeked back to see who it was, Andre’s danger warnings still echoing in my head, but found something more distracting than criminals—my neighbors, Foster and Pike.

Foster stepped through the main door first and glanced my way. As usual, everything went melty inside me, his smile like a zap of heat to my system. Ridiculous. “Need some help, neighbor?”

I straightened, but forgot about my phone in the process. My brand new I-

Phone went sliding off my shoulder.

“Crap!” I lurched forward, trying to save it from its imminent demise, and accidentally dropped my plastic bag of Chinese takeout on the way.

“Whoa, there.” Pike, Foster’s roommate, was at my side in a second. His hand caught my elbow, saving me from losing the ginormous bottle of liquor along with my balance. But my phone clattered to the ground, the harsh sound mixing with the splat of my noodles hitting tile.

I winced, anticipating a broken screen. “Dammit.”

Foster bent down, his tie brushing the ground as he swept my phone off the floor. He peered at the screen, dark brows lowering over pale eyes, then he turned the phone toward me—the happy puppy screensaver staring back at me in tact. “All is well. Luckily, these things are built to take a licking.”

My brain got snagged on the work lick, and the back of my neck went hot. My lips parted, but words failed me. Great, imitate a gaping goldfish–that’s cute.

Pike cleared his throat, easing the tequila from my arms, and then crouched down near the open bag at my feet. He grabbed a noodle from the spilled box of Chinese food, tipped his head back and dropped it into his mouth, his eyes watching mine. “The lomein’s a loss, though.”

I swallowed hard, his gaze even more bad boy than the tattoos peeking out from his open collar. His pierced tongue snaked around the noodle. Look away. I forced my face upward, but then ended up focusing on Foster again. Say something. God, I was standing there like an idiot. This was why I always avoided these two like they were contagious. They made me go stupid.

Foster held out my phone, and I managed to take it, the slight brush of his fingers against mine hitting the reset button in my brain. I managed a feeble, “Thank you.”

Foster glanced at the mess on the floor. “I’m really sorry I said anything. I didn’t mean to distract you from your intricate juggling act.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have been trying to carry everything at once. It’s been a long day, and I was hoping to save myself a second trip up the stairs.”

“The joys of a walk-up.” Pike grabbed a few napkins and started cleaning up the noodles at my feet like it was his mess to worry about.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.” I lowered down to my knees. “I’ll take care of it.”

He grinned over at me, the mirror opposite of his roommate. Ian Foster was all suits and dark looks—a man who preferred to be called by his surname. Whereas, Pike didn’t seem to even have a last name. He was a drummer in some popular local band—jeans, a sex-on-the-mind-smile, and spiked, bleached hair his usual uniform. Not that I had studied either of them. Or listened to their escapades through the wall I shared with them. Not at all.

Keep telling yourself that, Cela.

Despite my protest, Pike helped me finish picking up the mess. “So what’s the big ass bottle of tequila for? No one could’ve had that bad of a day.”

I glanced over at the bottle I’d set on the floor, debating whether I could be trusted to have normal conversation with these two without sounding like I had a speech impediment. “I, uh, graduated today. It was a gift.”

“Oh, right on.”

“Congratulations, Cela,” Foster said. Just the sound of him saying my name in that smooth, dark voice had my stomach clenching. He was all southern refinement, but I didn’t miss the glimmer of a drawl underneath it all.

Ay diosmio. My body clamored to attention like an eager Labrador ready to be petted. Down, girl. These guys were way above my pay grade. I wasn’t dumb or delusional. I’d seen/spied on/secretly hated the women who’d passed through their apartment door—women who looked like they’d earned their doctorates in the art of seduction.

I hadn’t even reached the kindergarten level in that particular department.

“Thank you.”

“You were going to vet school at Dallas U, right?” Foster had tucked his hands in the pockets of his slacks, and though the question was casual, I had the distinct impression he was tense beneath that suit jacket.

Pike handed me a napkin for my hands and stood to toss the food into a nearby trash can.

I wiped off my hands and pushed myself to my feet, trying to do it as gracefully as possible in my restrictive skirt. “Yes, how’d you know that?”

“The scrubs you wear have the school insignia on them,” Foster said, as if it was totally normal that he’d looked at me that closely.

“Observant.” Especially considering I usually only managed a head-down, mumbled hey-how-are-ya exchange when we passed each other in the hallway. Secretly listening to one of your hot neighbors having sex had a way of making eye contact a bit uncomfortable the next day—particularly if said eavesdropper had used the soundtrack to fuel her own interlude with her battery-operated boyfriend.

Not that I had. Several times. Whatever.

Pike sidled up next to Foster—a motley pair if there ever was one. “So, doc, now that you’ve got no dinner and clearly too much liquor on your hands, why don’t you join us? We already have pizza on the way, and we can play a drinking game with the tequila. Do college kids still play Never Have I Ever? I was always good at that one.”

Kid? Is that what they saw me as? Neither of them could be that much older than I was. Though in terms of life experience, I had no doubt they trumped me a few times over.

“Oh, no, that’s okay.” The refusal was automatic, long practiced. How many times had I turned down such offers—from guys, from friends? My parents had been so strict when I was younger that I almost didn’t know how to say yes even after living on my own the last few years. Studies first. Fun later. Yet, there never seemed to be any time for fun after the first one was finished.

“You sure? I don’t want you going to bed with no dinner because of us,” Foster said, frown lines marring that perfect mouth of his.

Going to bed and us was about all I heard. My father’s stern voice whispered in my ear. You don’t know these men. You’ll be all alone in their apartment. Medina women have more respect for themselves than that.

“Really, I’m fine. I had a big lunch,” I said, my smile brief, plastic. “But thanks.”

“Oh, come on,” Pike said, his tone cajoling. “We’ve been neighbors for what, two years? We should at least get to know a little about each other.”

Get to know each other? I knew that Foster was loud when he came—even if he was alone. Knew that Pike liked to laugh during sex. Knew the two men shared women. And the other sounds I’d heard over the last two years…the smacks, the commands, the erotic screams. My face went as hot as if I’d stuck my head in an oven.

“Y’all just want me for my tequila,” I said, attempting to deflect my derailing thoughts.

The corner of Pike’s mouth lifted. “Of course that’s not all we want you for.”

“Uh…” Oh, hell. Pictures flashed across my brain. Dirty, delicious pictures. I almost dropped my phone again. I had no idea what to do with my hands, my expression.

Foster put a hand on Pike’s shoulder. “The lady said no. I think we should let her go celebrate her graduation however she wants.”

“All right.” Pike’s face turned hang dog, but he handed me the tequila bottle. “If you change your mind, we’ve got big plans. Supreme pizza and a Star-Wars-themed porn marathon. The Empire Sucks C—”

Foster smacked the back of Pike’s head, and Pike ducked and laughed.

“Kidding. I mean, a Jane Austen marathon,” Pike corrected, his green-gold eyes solemn. “Pride and Pu—”

Foster was behind Pike, his hand clamping over his friend’s mouth in a flash. “I seriously can’t take him out. He’s like an untrained puppy. Maybe you can lend me a shock collar or something.”

Pike waggled his eyebrows, all playful wickedness.

I laughed, putting my hand to my too hot forehead, and turning toward the stairs. “Yeah, so, I’m going to go now.”

“Cela,” Foster said as I put my foot onto the first step.

I glanced back. “Yeah?”

His ice melt eyes flicked downward, his gaze alighting along the length of me before tracing their way upward again in a slow, unashamed perusal. “Promise you won’t go to bed hungry.”

I wet my lips, my skin suddenly feeling too tight to accommodate the blood pumping beneath it, and nodded.

But it was a lie.

I always went to bed hungry.

And it had nothing to do with a spilled dinner.

4 Stars

Never have I ever…

Broken the Rules.

Had a one-night stand.
Lived out a fantasy.
Slept with the hot neighbors I’ve been crushing on for a year.
Lost Control.
But I want to…

First of all, if you haven’t read any other books by this fantastic author, you’re seriously missing out. If you liked erotic BDSM romance than you really need to read her Loving on the Edge series. I first fell in love with this series when I stumbled onto the very first book, Crash into You and absolutely loved it. Not Until You was originally written as a serial spin off from that series, with the heroine being Cela, who is the younger sister of Andre (the hero from Melt into You). I knew right away that I wanted to read it, but my poor impatient self just couldn’t bring myself to read it one crumble at a time…so I waited for the full serial to be out and read it as a full book.

I was spellbound. Things like this did’t happen in my life. I didn’t allow them to. My world was safely constructed and populated with people who didn’t push my boundaries.

Marcela or Cela has been a good girl all her life, constantly feeling the pressure to be the obedient child while stuck under her father’s overbearing thumb. Now she’s finally achieved her goal of graduating veterinary school and is preparing to go back to the family nest to join her father’s practice. But before she does that, she wants to truly experience passion and life…and what’s a better way to do that then one sinfully sex night with her two incredibly sexy neighbors.

Now before you go getting any ideas, while this book does have a VERY hot MFM scene, it is NOT a MFM romance. It’s made clear from the very first encounter that the true passions burns the hottest between Cela and Foster.

You want to play this game, angel, and know what I’m really like? Want to see what you think is such a little issue? Because I’ve had a real bad day, and there’s nothing I’d like more right now than to fuck that notion right out of you.

Foster was absolute perfection. He was also a breath of fresh air since he was (are you sitting down for this) a dom that actually WANTED a relationship and a commitment of having a sub. That’s not to say that he doesn’t have issues, because he had those aplenty. Guilt from a tragedy from his past, fear of the woman he wants not wanting his particular brand of dominance. He falls hard and fast for Cela (though no insta-love found here), but he’s afraid that she’s just sowing her wild oats with him.

It was the perfect moment.
With the perfect woman.
And for just those few minutes, as they rolled over and curled into each other, he let himself imagine that it wouldn’t be temporary. That’d he’d found that girl.

Cela develops feelings for Foster but she’s afraid of being weak or getting out from one man’s thumb and right under another. She struggles with her submissive nature and questions their relationship.

I really enjoyed this book, but I also felt that it was a little dragged out at parts. I found myself skimming through parts of the book since my interest would wane. But this wasn’t frequent and didn’t last long.

My only other quibble is Foster’s constant use of the “angel” endearment. It drove me a little batty. I understand that was his “thing” for her, but switching it up at times wouldn’t have hurt. It was used 153 times. And I’m a reader that tends to nitpick, so you can tell my dilemma here.

But nonetheless, the book was still highly entertaining, the romance was sizzling, and even considering my 2 quibbles I did still really like it.

There is also a bonus novella included here, So Into You. Which was a nice little addition to the book. I loved getting Bret’s story since she really intrigued me in Cela and Foster’s book.

If you’re wondering if you can read this without having read the other books in the series? Absolutely. Though if you’ve read Melt into You, you’ll appreciate the appearance of Andre, Jace and Evan in this one. However, it can easily be read as a standalone.

Roni wrote her first romance novel at age fifteen when she discovered writing about boys was way easier than actually talking to them. Since then, her flirting skills haven’t improved, but she likes to think her storytelling ability has. Though she’ll forever be a New Orleans girl at heart, she now lives in Dallas with her husband and son.

If she’s not working on her latest sexy story, you can find her reading, watching reality television, or indulging in her unhealthy addiction to rockstars, er, rock concerts. Yeah, that’s it. She is the National Bestselling Author of The Loving on the Edge series from Berkley Heat.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Related Post

Speak Your Mind

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Copyright © 2015 · Dirty Girl Romance

%d bloggers like this:


text:
Skip to content

  • Research article
  • Open Access

Secular trends in 1,192 diarrheal outbreaks in the Israel Defence Forces between 1988–2011

  • 1Email author,
  • 1,
  • 1, 2,
  • 1,
  • 1 and
  • 1, 3
Disaster and Military MedicineThe Journal of Prehospital, Trauma and Emergency Care20151:14

  • Received: 8 January 2015
  • Accepted: 14 April 2015
  • Published:

In the military, outbreaks of infectious diarrhea pose a significant health problem. In this descriptive analysis of data collected by the IDF on all infectious diarrhea outbreaks between 1988–2011, we analysed temporal, seasonal, and unit-type trends in 1,192 diarrheal outbreaks in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) over a 24-year period, and described the long-term trends in seasonality and the effects of strategic preventive measures on outbreak frequency among populations at risk.

We found two distinct phases in annual outbreak occurrence. The mean annual number of outbreaks during the period 1988–1996 was 75.8 (±14.50) but dropped to 34.0 (±8.13) during the period 1997–2011 (P < 0.0001). Overall, a downward trend continued through the 1990’s, while from 2000 onwards outbreak counts fluctuated annually. A significantly higher number of outbreaks occurred during the summer season, throughout the study period. The greatest number of outbreaks occurred in deployed units, although the proportion of outbreaks in this unit type decreased over time. Accordingly, the proportion of outbreaks in training units more than doubled during the study window. When we looked at outbreak size, summer outbreaks increased in magnitude over time, and during all periods outbreaks were larger, on average, in training units than in deployed units.

The changing patterns in diarrheal outbreaks in the Israel Defence Forces require maintenance of a higher level of vigilance than ever before. Lack of a clear peak period require the use of all available preventive measures throughout the year. This is especially true in training units, where the increased number of outbreaks coincides with increased trainee volume, regardless of season.

  • Diarrheal-outbreaks
  • Summer
  • Military
  • Training

Infectious diarrhea remains a significant health problem, potentially leading to considerable morbidity, lost workdays and significant economic costs [1]. In the military, such outbreaks have been known to incapacitate large numbers of soldiers [2,3] in active-duty units such as flight staff [4], naval crews [5] and soldiers on training bases [6]. Risk factors for diarrheal outbreaks in military units are crowded living conditions, sub-standard personal and unit hygiene practices, mass food processing facilities, lack of adequate refrigeration under field conditions, and frequent movement of personnel among units and throughout various geographic locations [1].

In wars fought during the first half of the 20th century, diarrhea was the most common source of morbidity due to infectious disease. More recently, large outbreaks have been reported among armies operating in Afghanistan and Iraq [3,4,7-11]. Diarrheal outbreaks and cases of food poisoning have been described in numerous other armies as well, throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle and Far East [1,12-15].

Within the Israel Defence Force (IDF), infectious diarrhea, involving sporadic illness and outbreaks, has been and still remains a public health problem. Previous authors have described the epidemiological characteristics of food-borne outbreaks in the IDF, finding that the overall incidence of outbreaks decreased over time, as did the number of soldiers involved in any given outbreak. [1,15,16] However, these earlier studies did not examine the seasonal distribution of outbreaks, and they studied relatively short periods of time, thus preventing them from observing long-term trends in outbreak characteristics. The purpose of the current report is to extend the epidemiological analysis of diarrheal outbreaks through 2011, while describing the long-term trends in seasonality and the effects of strategic preventive measures on outbreak frequency among populations at risk.

This study was a retrospective analysis of epidemiological data gathered by the IDF Medical Corps’ Army Health Branch, representing all reported outbreaks of diarrhea in the Israeli military between 1988 and 2011. Military regulations mandate reporting of all suspected outbreaks of gastroenteritis in a military unit. A suspected outbreak is declared when at least five soldiers in a single unit develop diarrhea within one 24-hour period, or when eight or more soldiers develop diarrhea over a 48-hour period. Epidemiologic investigation is required when an outbreak has been confirmed on the basis of one of the following definitions: (a) ten or more soldiers in a single unit develop diarrhea in a single day; (b) 15 or more soldiers in a single unit develop diarrhea over a two-day period; (c) 25% of the personnel in a single unit develop diarrhea within a seven-day period.

The 24 year study window was divided into six 4-year time periods for subanalysis. The summer season was defined as the period between April 1 and October 31 of each year, and the winter season as November 1 through March 31 of the following year. Military unit types were classified as “deployed” (e.g. battalions, brigades and other line units), “training” (e.g. basic training camps, advanced training bases) and “garrisoned” (e.g. headquarters, offices).

Data were collected routinely throughout the study period and stored using relational database software (Microsoft® Access). We used the nonparametric Mann-Kendall test for monotonic trend to test for changes in outbreak frequency and size over time. We compared seasonal and unit-type outbreak distributions between time periods using x2 tests. Graphs were created using Microsoft® Excel.

A total of 1,192 outbreaks were reported over the 24-year study period. Figure 1 illustrates the number of outbreaks by year. The greatest number of outbreaks (100) occurred in 1993 and the nadir (21) was observed in 1999. The figure shows two distinct phases in annual outbreak occurrence. The mean annual number of outbreaks during the first phase (1988–1996) was 75.8 ± 14.50 but dropped to 34.0 ± 8.13 during the second phase (1997–2011, P < 0.0001). Overall, a downward trend continued through the 1990’s, while from 2000 onwards outbreak counts fluctuated annually.
Figure 1
Figure 1

Annual number of diarrhea outbreaks in the IDF, 1988–2011 (N = 1,192).

We analyzed the number of outbreaks by season. Figure 2A shows a higher number of diarrhea outbreaks in the summer time compared to winter. The data presented in this figure have been adjusted for the unequal season lengths in Israel (7 months for summer, 5 months for winter). The strong preponderance of outbreaks during the summer season remained constant over the entire study period, despite the overall decrease over time in the total number of annual outbreaks. We further explored the distribution of outbreaks by month (Figure 2B). In the earliest years (period 1, 1988–1991) the frequency of outbreaks peaked in the month of June. During this period, 21.4% of all outbreaks occurred in June, and on average, 51% of the annual outbreaks occurred during the months June-August. In contrast, during the latest years (period 6, 2008–2011) this pattern changed, and the bulk of outbreaks occurred earlier in the year. During period 6, outbreak frequency peaked in the month of May (16.6%), and the bulk (38.6%) of the outbreaks occurred over an earlier 3-month period between April and June. The reduction in the proportion of outbreaks during the peak summer season (June-August) was statistically significant (P < 0.001). Overall, the monthly distribution of outbreaks was more seasonally polarised during period 1 (more in summer months, fewer in winter months), and more equally distributed in period 6, with a reduction in the relative frequency during the summer months (May-October), and an increase in the relative frequency during the winter months (November-April).
Figure 2
Figure 2

Seasonal distribution of IDF diarrhea outbreaks. Panel (A): distribution by summer (white)/ winter (black), adjusted for season length. Panel (B): distribution by month for periods 1 (1988–1991, shaded) and 6 (2008–2011, non-shaded).

We examined the distribution of outbreaks by unit type over time. We found that over the entire study period, 49% of the outbreaks occurred in deployed units, 23% in training units and 28% in garrisoned units (Figure 3, panel A). This pattern, however, changed significantly over time. During period 1 (1988–1991) 60% of outbreaks occurred in deployed units, but this proportion decreased to 43% by period 6 (2008–2011, P = 0.001) (Figure 3, panels B and C). Accordingly, the proportion of outbreaks in training units more than doubled during the study window, from 16% in period 1 to 35% in period 6 (P < 0.001). The proportion of outbreaks in garrisoned units remained unchanged (24% in period 1, 22% in period 6, P = 0.67).
Figure 3
Figure 3

Distribution of diarrheal outbreaks by unit type and period. Panel (A) 1988–2011; panel (B) 1988–1991; panel (C) 2008–2011.

The mean number of cases per outbreak is shown in Table 1, by period and season. Summer outbreaks increased in size over time, from a mean of 34.1 cases per outbreak during period 1 to 42.1 during period 6 (Mann-Kendall test for trend P < 0.02). There was no increase over time in the mean size of winter outbreaks or in the ratio of summer/winter outbreak size (P > 0.2 for both tests). Table 2 shows the mean number of cases per outbreak by period and unit type. There was no apparent trend in outbreak size over time in any of the unit type strata. However, in all periods outbreaks were larger, on average, in training units than in deployed units (40%-112% more cases per outbreak); this difference in mean outbreak size was present but less pronounced in the comparison to garrisoned units.
Table 1

Mean number of cases per outbreak by season and period

r summer/winter

Table 2

Mean number of cases per outbreak, by unit type and time period

Field of service

Field of training

FT - Field trainings, FS - Field service units, NF-non-field units.

T – training units, D – deployed units, G – garrisoned units.

Discussion and conclusions

In this study we analysed temporal and seasonal trends in 1,192 diarrheal outbreaks in the IDF over a 24-year period. We found two distinct phases with a dramatic decrease in the mean annual number of outbreaks from 1997 onwards. Overall, a downward trend continued through the 1990’s, while from 2000 onwards outbreak counts fluctuated annually. This observation underscores previous findings [1,15] and shows that the downward trend in annual incidence has not continued into the first decade of the 21st century. Although some year-to-year variability is present, it appears that the annual incidence of diarrheal outbreaks has remained stable over the last decade. Previous reports [1,15], discussed interventions that may provide some explanation of these observations. These include improvements in infrastructure, early outbreak identification and rapid intervention and strict personal, unit-level and environmental hygiene regulations, all of which have been embedded in routine IDF outbreak prevention policy. Since there were no major changes in our overall population size in the last two decades, a smaller population-at-risk is not a plausible explanation for the pronounced decrease in the annual number of outbreaks observed since the mid 1990’s. This trend, however, may be attributed to changes in the geographic repositioning of many army units from older bases to newer, larger camps with improved infrastructure. This hypothesis is supported by a post-hoc qualitative analysis of our data, which showed that many of the outbreaks in the early 1990’s occurred on bases decommissioned during this redeployment process.

We compared our military data to those available for the overall national population. In Israel, the frequency of infectious diarrhea outbreaks remained stable over the period of interest, ranging from 28–64 outbreaks annually, with a single peak of 93 outbreaks in 2004 [17]. The national Israeli data, which do not include military reports, showed no evidence of the dramatic drop in frequency observed in the army data after 1996; similarly, the military data did not show the frequency spike in 2004 observed in the national data. Additionally, pathogen-specific epidemiologic data from national registries further underscore the differences in overall population morbidity patterns compared to our military findings. There was a clear cyclic pattern in the national annual incidence rate of Shigella cases during the study period, with peaks occurring every 2–3 years [18,19]. While our study looked at all-pathogen outbreak counts rather than pathogen-specific incidence rates, a cyclic pattern was nonetheless conspicuously absent in our setting. Together, these observations seem to indicate that patterns in outbreak frequency in the IDF are due to changes intrinsic and unique to the military environment and are independent of parallel trends in the overall population, although the decrease in the incidence of sporadic Shigella cases in Israel over time [19], especially among children [18], may indicate that Israeli soldiers have, in recent years, become more susceptible to gastrointestinal pathogens than in the past.

A prominent finding of this study is the marked seasonal distribution of outbreaks, with a preponderance of outbreaks occurring during the summer months. This trend remained even after adjusting for the longer summer season and shorter winter season characteristic of Israel's climate. Summer months are characterised by hotter temperatures, more daylight hours, and, in the military setting, more field-based activities carried out under conditions of compromised personal and environmental hygiene. In Israel, this is also a time of significantly increased fly activity, which has been shown to be directly associated with higher rates of sporadic and epidemic diarrhea. [16,20-22]. Housefly densities vary with temperature, number of sunshine hours, humidity and availability of breeding sites. In tropical and subtropical climates, fly density increases as mean daily temperature rises following the end of the cool season; however, as mean daily temperatures approach their peak in the hot season, housefly density then decreases [20]. Fly control as a public health intervention, largely based on bait and trap strategy, has been demonstrated to greatly reduce the prevalence of houseflies, and cohorts of Israeli soldiers trained on bases where intensive fly control measures were implemented were shown to have had significantly less diarrheal disease [20]. Fly control measures, as well as additional preventive interventions such as increased surveillance, inspections and commander awareness, were concentrated during the summer months, likely explaining the decrease in frequency during this season observed over our study period. While the bulk of outbreaks in the earlier periods clearly occurred during the months of June-August, the proportion of outbreaks during these months is now smaller than in the past. This finding was statistically significant.

We observed clear trends related to unit type as well. There was a 28% relative reduction in the proportion of outbreaks in deployed units during the study period. This trend coincided with a major redeployment and redistribution of deployed units that occurred during this period, during which many small and medium-sized units were combined and relocated to larger bases with improved infrastructure. Conversely, there was a relative increase of 118% in the proportion of outbreaks in training units over time. Furthermore, on average, outbreaks on training bases were larger than those in other unit types. These observations are likely attributable to the IDF’s shift to larger training cohorts during the study period, with more soldiers being exposed to the crowding, compromised personal hygiene, challenging environmental conditions and strained infrastructure that are characteristic of these bases during peak training periods. Thus, when outbreaks occurred in these units, they tended to be of a larger magnitude.

One potential limitation of studies based on notifiable disease data is their sensitivity to reporting compliance and completeness. In the US, during the period 1998–2008, the number of foodborn disease outbreaks reported annually was more than double that reported during the years 1973–1997. This dramatic increase has been attributed mainly to the effects of increased surveillance rather than a true increase in outbreak frequency [23]. Similarly, a study conducted in Italy demonstrated significantly higher notification rates of food borne disease outbreaks after the implementation of a new surveillance system [24]. This, however, is likely not a major limitation of the current study. Notifiable disease reporting is highly regulated and controlled in the army setting. Report rates and completeness are stable and compliance is enforced based on military rules and regulations. Furthermore, the clear annual patterns of military outbreak frequency seem to indicate a true seasonal difference in morbidity, while reporting compliance is unlikely to be seasonally dependent.

The changing patterns in diarrheal outbreaks in the IDF require us maintain a higher level of vigilance than ever before. If, in the past, preventive measures could be concentrated on the “peak summer months” (June-August), today’s more homogenous spread over the entire warm season require the use of all available preventive measures throughout the year.

Israel Defence Forces

The authors declare no funding source for this research.

Authors’ Affiliations

Israel Defense Forces Medical Corps, Department of Public Health, Tel Aviv, Israel
Hebrew University-Hadassah Braun School of Public Health, Jerusalem, Israel
Department of Military Medicine, Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine, Jerusalem, Israel

  1. Grotto I, Mandel Y, Ashkenazi I, Shemer J. Epidemiological characteristics of outbreaks of diarrhea and food poisoning in the Israel Defense Forces in the years 1978–1995. Harefuah. 1997;133:7–8.Google Scholar
  2. Riddle MS, Patel SS, Sanders JW, Armstrong AW, Putnam SD, Schlett CD, et al. Attitudes toward predeployment and experimental vaccinations among troops deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. J Travel Med. 2008;15(2):68–76.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
  3. Putnam SD, Sanders JW, Frenck RW, Monteville M, Riddle MS, Rockabrand DM, et al. Self-reported description of diarrhea among military populations in operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. J Travel Med. 2006;13(2):92–9.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
  4. DeMaio J, Bailey L, Hall K, Boyd R. A major outbreak of foodborne gastroenteritis among Air Force personnel during Operation Desert Storm. Mil Med. 1993;158(3):161–4.PubMedGoogle Scholar
  5. Bohnker B, McEwen G, Feeks E, Palombaro J. Explosive outbreak of gastroenteritis on an aircraft carrier: an infectious disease mass casualty situation. Aviat Space Environ Med. 1993;64(7):648–50.PubMedGoogle Scholar
  6. Warner RD, Carr RW, McCleskey FK, Johnson PC, Lmer LM, Davison VE. A large nontypical outbreak of Norwalk virus. Gastroenteritis associated with exposing celery to nonpotable water and with Citrobacter freundii. Arch Intern Med. 1991;151(12):2419–24.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
  7. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Outbreak of acute gastroenteritis associated with Norwalk-like viruses among British military personnel-Afghanistan. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2002. 2002;51(22):477–9.Google Scholar
  8. Ahmad K. Norwalk-like virus attacks troops in Afghanistan. Lancet Infect Dis. 2002;2(7):391.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
  9. Sanders JW, Putnam SD, Riddle MS, Tribble DR, Jobanputra NK, Jones JJ, et al. The epidemiology of self-reported diarrhea in operations Iraqi freedom and enduring freedom. Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis. 2004;50(2):89–93.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
  10. Sanders JW, Putnam SD, Frankart C, Frenck RW, Monteville MR, Riddle MS, et al. Impact of illness and non-combat injury during Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan). Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2005;73(4):713–9.PubMedGoogle Scholar
  11. Sanders JW, Putnam SD, Riddle MS, Tribble DR. Military importance of diarrhea: lessons from the Middle East. Curr Opin Gastroenterol. 2005;21(1):9–14.PubMedGoogle Scholar
  12. Zhang DM, Peng Z, Tian Z. Epidemiologic studies on three episodes of acute bacillary dysentery outbreak. Zhonghua Yu Fang Yi Xue Za Zhi (in Chinese). 1995;29(3):147–8.Google Scholar
  13. Kilpatrick ME. Diarrhoeal disease: current concepts and future challenges: diarrhoeal disease-a military perspective. Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg. 1993;87 Suppl 3:47–8.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
  14. Paquet C, Leborgne P, Sasse A, Varaine F. An outbreak of Shigella dysenteriae type 1 dysentery in a refugee camp in Rwanda. Sante. 1995;5(3):181–4.PubMedGoogle Scholar
  15. Schwaber MJ, Grotto I, Balicer RD, Davidovitch N, Zelikovitch Y, Huerta M. Infectious diarrheal outbreaks in the Israeli military, 1988–2002. Mil Med. 2005;170(7):634–7.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
  16. Huerta M, Schwaber MJ, Davidovitch N, Balicer RD, Zelikovitch Y, Cohen D, et al. Trends in Shigella outbreaks in the Israeli military over 15 years. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis. 2005;24(1):71–3.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
  17. Anis E, Grotto I. Reported food-born disease a summary for 2010. Epi-Da: a periodic epidemiology report by the Ministry of health of Israel 2011, 1:9–14 (Hebrew).
  18. Cohen D, Bassal R, Goren S, Rouach T, Taran D, Schemberg B, et al. Recent trends in the epidemiology of shigellosis in Israel. Epidemiol Infect. 2014;142(12):2583–94.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
  19. Israel Center for Diseases Control and Division of Epidemiology Public Health Services MoH. Notifiable infectious diseases in Israel: 60 years of surveillance 1951–2010. Tel Hashomer: Ministry of Health; 2012.Google Scholar
  20. Cohen D, Green M, Block C, Slepon R, Ambar R, Wasserman SS, et al. Reduction of transmission of shigellosis by control of houseflies (Musca domestica). Lancet. 1991;337(8748):993–7.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
  21. Farag TH, Faruque AS, Wu Y, Das SK, Hossain A, Ahmed S, et al. Housefly population density correlates with shigellosis among children in Mirzapur, Bangladesh: a time series analysis. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2013;7(6):e2280.View ArticlePubMedPubMed CentralGoogle Scholar
  22. Taylor DB, Friesen K, Zhu JJ. Spatial-temporal dynamics of stable fly (Diptera: Muscidae) trap catches in Eastern Nebraska. Environ Entomol. 2013;42(3):524–31.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
  23. Gould LH, Walsh KA, Vieira AR, Herman K, Williams IT, Hall AJ, et al. Surveillance for foodborne disease outbreaks - United States, 1998–2008. MMWR Surveill Summ. 2013;62(2):1–34.PubMedGoogle Scholar
  24. Mughini-Gras L, Graziani C, Biorci F, Pavan A, Magliola R, Ricci A, et al. Surveillance of acute infectious gastroenteritis (1992–2009) and food-borne disease outbreaks (1996–2009) in Italy, with a focus on the Piedmont and Lombardy regions. Euro Surveill. 2012, 17(8).Google Scholar


text:
Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Tropical Plants, Succulents and Cactus Plants Made From Upcycled Plastic Bottles

At first glance, they look like window sills full of little cactus plants and succulents. But take a closer look!

Yup, those are all plants made from recycled - or upcycled - plastic water bottles and plastic soda bottles. Awesome, right?!

Which is your favorite?

Have a great week!

Article, images, and designs copyright ©Laura Beth Love for Dishfunctional Designs™ 2018
all rights reserved

No comments:

Post a Comment