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Sunday, September 27, 2009

Athletic Budget Update #48

The University of Nevada has added a $5 surcharge to all of their season ticket packages and $1 surcharge to all individual game tickets in football and men's basketball to support the the band, which was going to be eliminated due to the budget. The surcharge is expected to bring in $50,000 in revenue.

Iowa has been able to complete a number of projects including construction of a new boathouse and installation of field turf in the football stadium in spite of the athletic program's budget challenges.  They also hope to begin a $47 million renovation to Carver-Hawkeye Arena in the near future.

Coaches at California State Universities are trying to figure out how to take 24 mandatory furlough days in the coming year so that the competitiveness of their programs is not effected.

Maryland has released a five year plan for its athletic program that suggests they would consider cutting sports if they faced severe economic circumstances.

Fresno State's previously gloomy budget situation has become somewhat brighter due to increased revenue from a deal with Learfield Sports and $228,000 more in revenue from the WAC and the NCAA.

There is a series of proposals being debated in NCAA Division II that would make 10% reductions to the number of contests played, ban practice and competition between Christmas and New Years Day, and move preseason practice a week later than the current starting date for many sports.

Washington State is considering moving another game to Qwest Field (this time against Oregon) in order to help generate additional revenue

Odds and Ends

Following up on the post "Should we be more concerned about the golden throne or the ivory tower?", the Seattle Times posted an article about the rising costs of higher education generally, with a telling  quote on why higher education costs so much.  "Our sole goal is to find cookies and stuff our mouths," says Ehrenberg, who directs the Higher Education Research Institute at Cornell University. "Colleges and universities like to grab as many resources as they can. We want to make ourselves as good as we can. We want the best facilities, students, resident halls and labs, so there's this tremendous drive to be better, and that costs money."

The Doonesbury of sports, Tank McNamara has been running a series of jokes related to the secret football coaches poll that has been criticized by

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Bono from the cheap seats

Wednesday night ended four months of waiting when joined three college friends to experience one of the great spectacles in stadium concerts - U2 live and their 360 degree tour. As an almost three-decade U2 fan, seeing them in concert is a spectacle like few others.  The band's ability to put 80,000 people in Giants Stadium with over-the-top music, lights and energy that blends politics, history, nostalgia, the present and the future is visionary.

The show also provided me a rare chance to experience the event as a fully invested fan that had no ability to get special seats, a luxury box, free food, good parking, or any of the other benefits that you receive from working in college athletics or as a major donor.

Attending the concert as a regular Joe (or better yet a regular Mike, along with Joe, Larry and Pete) provided a great reminder of how logistics are crucial to the fan experience.  So many aspects of the concert were incredibly memorable, but a number of operational aspects also stood out and not in a positive way:

Transportation - We took the train to the show but arrived too late to see the opening act, MUSE, because there were not enough trains running to take the throngs of people - who had been encouraged over and over via emails from Ticketmaster to use mass transit - one station stop from the main line to the stadium.

Food - Limited selection.  Average quality.  Hefty prices.

The time and date - As I mentioned above, the show was a spectacle.  But the crowd was slightly subdued relative to what you would have expected.  I believe this was due largely to the date and time of the show - Wednesday night at 9 pm.  The show was originally scheduled to be Friday night at 8 pm, but was changed when the N.Y. Jets changed their game time from 4 pm to 1 pm Sunday - which then necessitated shifting the concert two days earlier in order to have sufficient time to dismantle the stage.  The announcement of the change was less than 2 weeks prior to the show and resulted in significant inconvenience for all who had been planning a huge start to the weekend and were instead faced with a late night in the middle of the work week.
As we look to attract and retain fans, expand season ticket bases and sell luxury seating and suites, the three areas mentioned above, and many other seemingly "minor" aspects are part of those efforts.  The ability to move smoothly in and out of parking lots, quality public transportation (if necessary/available) and well conceived traffic plans may not be glamorous, but they are a huge part of the fan experience.  If its not tolerable and the headaches too great, that will impact purchasing decisions.  If food is too expensive, of poor quality, or offers limited choice, that can have impact additional sales in the venue.

Lastly, changing game times and dates is a regular occurrence in college sports and usually happens for television purposes.  It seems that in many cases schools will accept any time or day of the week to get a game on television.  If you've purchased tickets for a specific game and a schedule changes significantly, the fan's experience is altered.  And the next time they're asked to buy tickets, they may think twice - especially if such changes happen regularly.  It's a small test of their loyalty.  Hopefully schedule changes are considered in a broader context and not just reflexively made because television requests it.

I look forward to seeing Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry in concert a few more times.  They never disappoint.  And the aspects of the experience last night that could have been better will be a distant memory because they only happen once every 5 years or so.  But as you try to attract fans week after week in a tight economy, examining seemingly secondary and mundane items are probably more important than ever and might make the difference between increasing a fan base, eroding it, or losing it altogether.

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Sunday, September 20, 2009

Two examples why the football coach poll needs to be public wrote an in-depth article back in May that was critical of the decision by the American Football Coaches Association's (AFCA) to allow coaches to keep their votes in the national poll secret.  The poll is 1/3rd of the formula that is used to determine the teams that will compete in the BCS championship game.  As I wrote back in May, secrecy increases the possibility of the poll being manipulated by coaches who have a vested interest in the outcome of the rankings.

Two examples of poll manipulation have come to light recently one related to the coaches poll and another in a parallel setting.  The first example is the preseason voting of South Florida football coach Jim Leavitt. His preseason rankings placed his own team 18th. He also ranked Oklahoma #1 (he and Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops worked together in the 1990's), didn't rank Ole Miss anywhere in the top 25 and ranked four other Big East schools in the Top 25. Granted, preseason rankings are harder to accurately gauge since no one has played a game and they are based largely on reputation, but it seems unlikely that all of his rankings were coincidental.

The second example comes from a recent article by describing the manipulation of peer ratings that are used by US News and World Report to determine the best colleges and universities in the country.  Inside Higher Ed reveals Clemson University engaged in an institutionally coordinated effort to have administrators rate "all programs other than Clemson below average".  Clemson's stated goal is to become a Top 20 public institution in the US News rankings.

Inside Higher Education believes a secret poll is a bad idea because "the reputational survey is subject to problems, such as haphazard responses and apathetic respondents, that add to the lingering questions about its legitimacy."

Haphazard and apathetic responses.  Institutional gain from manipulating ratings.  That's not exact how you want the best academic schools in the country determined.

Individuals with the potential for personal gain who are voting with their own self-interest at stake will struggle to be objective in their evaluations.  Secret rankings increase the possibility of manipulation if these judgements can occur without public scrutiny.  If Clemson's academic administrators are willing to engage in a concerted effort to improve their US News ranking, is it all that far-fetched to think that a football coach might do the same, especially in a circumstance where his voting is secret and his team, his recruiting and his paycheck stand to benefit?

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Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Athletic Budget Update #47

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is considering an array of tax increases including taxes on athletic ticket sales.  The tax increase could mean up to $1.2 million in lost revenue for Michigan State if the athletic program decides to absorb the tax increase within current ticket prices, rather than passing the tax hike through to ticket purchasers.

Wright State is considering additional options, beyond staff reductions that have already occurred, to close a $1 million budget gap - 10% of their entire budget.

South Carolina State is considering eliminating teams and implementing roster management to close some significant budget gaps after enrollment at the University was over 500 students short of projections.

Brown University was unable to fill two vacant staff positions in marketing and game management and has cut back on travel in response to their budget shortfalls.

Bemidji State's men's track team will be spared for the coming season after fund raising targets to support the team were attained.

In the midst of significant budget cuts, the Associated Press has written an interesting story about institutions that are adding sports teams in order to improve their institutional budget.  The primarily Division II and III institutions use the teams to increase student enrollment and receive the benefit of tuition dollars that more than cover the cost of sponsoring the team.

Barnes & Noble @ School Collection

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Social Networking - What's in your policy?

The ubiquity of social networking is creating policy challenges for athletic departments across the country. While the decline of print media is noteworthy, what's more notable is that this void contributes to a dynamic where everyone, from departments, to individual student athletes and coaches, to are their own mini (or major) media operation.  Cameras have never been more prevalent, information never more accessible and the intersection between news and gossip, fact and opinion, never more blurred.  At this point, most athletic departments have had internal discussions about how to regulate their student-athlete's use of Facebook and Twitter while simultaneously trying to map a strategy that incorporates these media to publicize their own departments.

The best example of these challenges may be playing out at the University of Arkansas.  The Razorbacks are fully involved in promoting their athletic program using an array of social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook, which are easily accessed via their website,  These standard tools coupled with the SEC's television contract and XM satellite radio coverage make them as engaged in these matters as any program you'll find.

Simultaneously, Arkansas is attempting to manage a public relations issue that has grown out of the same social networks.   Guard Courtney Fortson, posted a comment on twitter that appeared to make light of an investigation of three teammates for an alleged rape (prosecutors have now said the individuals will not be charged in the matter).

Arkansas developed a very thorough and well conceived policy (click to view the policy) detailing their expectations for student use of social networking sites prior to this incident.  While their efforts at prevention weren't fully successful, this does not diminish the policy's excellent guidance about how student athletes should handle their responsibilities and the potential ramifications for choosing to act badly and/or post inappropriate things.  And it now gives Arkansas the chance to address a very closely scrutinized situation with the benefit of having a carefully crafted educational and behavioral policy at its fingertips.  Indeed, we are all possibly just a bad tweet away from a similar problem, prompting the question "What's in your policy?"

Barnes & Noble @ School Collection

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Athletic Budget Update #46

Washington State has withdrawn from competing in the last of three football games with Hawaii by paying a $300,000 buyout to escape the contract. has an extensive article highlighting the financial strength of Florida's athletic program.

Odds and Ends: has a very interesting article about a lawsuit that was filed by Marist University against their former men's basketball coach, Matt Brady (who is now the coach at James Madison) for failing to honor the terms of his contract.  CTSportslaw stated, "The contract allegedly contained two key terms.  First, Brady was precluded from discussing employment opportunities and accepting another head coaching position without the written consent of Marist.  Second, if the contract was terminated, Brady agreed to “end any and all contact with all Marist basketball program recruits” and to refrain from offering scholarships to Marist players, or anyone Brady or his staff recruited to play at Marist."  Ultimately four individuals who were deemed Marist recruits by the institution went to JMU.

The New York Times ran a very interesting interactive graphic that details how individuals spend every moment of their day.  The ability to sort various subgroups of people (by age, gender, family size, education level and other factors) is especially fascinating.  I was personally surprised by a number of things I learned in the graphics and thought it would be worth bringing the link to your attention as you consider the best times to schedule contests for enhancing fan attendance, to better understand some of the competing interests that can impact ticket sales, and of course seeing what is competing for the consumer's wallet and attention.

The Sporting News ran a review of all of the NFL's ticket promotions (AFC and NFC) for the 2009 season. It contains some good information to consider in your ticketing decisions. If you haven't already, I encourage you to sign up for a free daily Sporting News subscription.  It's a great sports daily modeled after a traditional newspaper.  You won't be disappointed.

As a follow up for those readers who read's earlier posts about the Pursuit of Prestige and The Golden Throne, I thought you might enjoy reading about Liberty University's installation of an 11-acre, $4 million skiing facility and lodge - which was constructed with artificial snow for year-round use.

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Monday, September 7, 2009

Athletic Budget Update #45

Labor Day weekend brings rest, relaxation, college football, and athletic budget cuts.  Here's the latest.....

Ohio State had a $148,000 budget deficit in 2008-09, but the deficit included a $1 million donation to the University library.  Cuts across the department included coach and staff per deim reductions from $65 to $45 and the men's basketball team staying home from a planned trip to Italy.  Instead they went to Windsor, Ontario and stayed in cabins.

UNLV may be facing an additional $300,000 - $400,000 in budget cuts on top of the $1.1 million that was already eliminated from this year's budget. The cuts could include personnel reductions or the elimination of teams.

Fresno State is eliminating hotel stays before home football games and will no longer fly to games at the University of Nevada as a way to reduce expenses.

Michigan State eliminated radio coverage of road volleyball games as a cost saving measure.

Texas Tech is facing challenges trying to keep up with the spending of its larger Big XII counterparts

Florida A&M  is engaging in a series of budget reducing measures such as playing games closer to home, recruiting more in state students and working with local golf courses to reduce practice expenses.

USA Today has an in-depth article about the use of guarantee games by smaller schools to help balance their athletic budgets.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Should we be more concerned about the golden throne or the ivory tower?

The recent installation of a toilet and shower in Stanford Football Coach Jim Harbaugh's office has created the most talked about bathroom in the history of college sports. Harbaugh's request for the facilities in order to "cut down on drag" comes at a time when the rest of the Stanford athletic department is facing millions of dollars in financial losses and 20 staff members lost their jobs.  Likewise, Stanford's institutional endowment has been pummeled with the economic downturn and the institution is also tightening its belt

Every crisis creates an opportunity and the current economic state has provided opportunity for the critics of college sports to take aim at some of the excesses in college athletics.  The overwhelming refrain from the critics and the focus of countless articles is "college sports loses money" with only about 20 athletic programs in the country breaking even or turning a profit.

"Universities across the country are on the horns of a dilemma,” said Dr. William "Brit” Kirwan, co-chairman of the Knight Commission and chancellor of the University of Maryland system. "We’ve built this enterprise with an insatiable appetite but we no longer have the revenue to feed it. We’re going to have to come to grips with that fact and move to a more rational model.” (Click here for the full article).

The context of Kirwan's comments is athletic departments.  But read the above paragraph again - his comments could just as easily apply to higher education generally.  What Kirwan wittingly or unwittingly reveals is that it is more than just athletics that has an insatiable appetite.

Tony Weaver's post - Pursuit of Prestige - frames the issue nicely.  Colleges and universities are competing for students, faculty and staff, government dollars, donations and other resources to climb over each other to the top of the rankings in U.S. News and World Report, The Princeton Review, and a host of other similar publications.

And how are they climbing the ladder?  The same way as college athletics -  "with an insatiable appetite that lacks the revenue to feed it."  The institutions that have fared best in the current crisis are those who are largely dependent on tuition and lived within their tuition-based means for years while others were growing along with the educational funding bubble. Today, state institutions have been hammered due to falling tax revenues that were once reasonably strong.  Likewise, institutions with large endowments and consistent double digit growth became quickly accustomed to the comfort of an ever expanding budget.  All of those gains are gone and with tuition costs at some institutions now exceeding $50,000 annually, tuition increases can't close the revenue gap.

Despite the economic downturn, college athletics for many universities is still one of the best vehicles available for:
  • providing a meaningful and differentiating educational experience for the student athlete participants;
  • building a recognizable brand for an institution;
  • building town and gown relationships,
  • fund raising (either directly for their own programs or as a vehicle around which to fund raise for other areas);
  • providing interaction between schools that are regularly covered by the media with clear-cut winners and losers instead of imprecise rankings of hard to assess academic departments;
  • fun and building campus community.
Even among those institutions whose athletic programs "lose" money, I would argue that the "losses" are really investments that provide many institutions with a very significant point of connection, identification, and branding for their school.  Athletics are often the primary distinguishing characteristic of many colleges and universities within a sea institutional choices.  But athletics also sometimes appear to be a convenient scapegoat for frustrations about intractable challenges facing the academy, including:
  • questions of affordability due to significant tuition costs and mounting student debt;
  • online education that erodes the standing of traditional bricks and mortar educational providers;
  • spiraling costs;
  • increasing mental health issues, alcohol and drug abuse among students;
  • mission creep and a lack of mission clarity.
Jim Harbaugh's golden throne is the latest issue du jour that is capturing the attention of athletic critics, but of equal or greater concern should be the structural soundness of the ivory tower as a whole which is facing significant challenges. Athletics didn't create the problems that are facing higher education.  And shrinking an athletic enterprise that is mirroring the insatiable appetite of prestige seeking institutions won't solve the problem either.

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Losing the story

I have not been doing “place-conscious” teaching to a great extent the past few years. The failure is not with the kids but with the adults, who do not see building a community and living through it as a task central to education. So, there is little in the way of conversation at the community level for kids to join.

The heart of the problem is that people have escaped community and do not want to re-create it, and certainly not in the unpromising context of a due-process bureaucracy that treats everyone–staff and clients–without care. Place-based teaching could make more sense in a private school organized around a shared purpose and a shared understanding of what practices best serve that purpose. But public schools serve mainly careerist and consumerist passions.

I’ve tried to get more clear about a kind of knowing has been handed down to me through an American culture where it was understood that the material world related to the spiritual world in such a way that any moment correctly observed could express an eternal truth–provide a visible type by which the invisible world could be apprehended.

When, as Puritans, early Americans encountered the New England coast, they did not see stones shaped by geologic forces over millions of years or waves rising and falling according to laws of physics that stretched backward and forward through infinity without change. What they did see was a stage upon which a cosmic drama of sin and redemption was enacted in every moment. They saw in all of it a provident God whose story gave time a beginning and an end, extending moment by moment in unimaginably vast patterns that both repeated and unfolded more fully.

In learning to see their own lives as stories, types within the unfolding plan, they became skilled metaphorical thinkers, adept at seeing in quite different details the same patterns, which were revelatory of the underlying truth from which existence unfolded. Their own grand errand to the wilderness could be understood through the Israelites’ journey through wilderness toward the promised land.

Every event and aspect of nature was at once itself and a remembrancer of more. History was not merely chronology but also an intelligible order in which prophets had discerned and described both past and future. History was not one damn thing after another but a way of seeing things as they really are and really will be. The smallest of stories resonated without end.

Later, such ones as Thoreau, Emerson, Melville and Hawthorne separated the Puritan’s metaphorical facility from faith in the God of the Bible, making symbols that suggested transcendence. It was still known among people in general that every time and place was somehow an instance of the universal. One could still see eternity in a grain of sand.

For a while it seemed that little had changed. But for some, a separation of metaphor and faith was not enough. It was necessary that there be no gods. It remains something of a mystery to me why, seeing a cosmos ordered by goodness, some souls turn away, preferring a cosmos that they themselves construct–the fall from an uncertain truth to a certain untruth, as Voegelin said.

But they did construct a cosmos full of emptiness and death. In “The Snow Man” Wallace Stevens said that to face the meaningless arrangements and rearrangements of patterns that make up modernity, “one must have a mind of winter.” Only then can one behold “nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.”

It’s true that few of us really do have minds of winter. The covers of best sellers are graced with images of Egyptian pyramids or South American temples or Stonehenge. People keep looking beyond cold nothing.

Still, an awareness of nothing has creeped into our schools and offices. What does it matter which building in which edge city reached by which highway one goes to through morning gridlock to ride the same elevator to the same hallway to the same room filled with purplish gray fabric-covered cubicles, personalized with photocopied jokes?

In such places, the contemporary concern with “sense of place” emerged.

I think that the longing for a sense of place has grown from a longing for meaning, which is in part a longing for a way of being understood and loved, as a way of being together. Many of us no longer have a sense of living among all our grandmothers and grandfathers and all our children and grandchildren, some not yet born–and yet we are not ready to completely inhabit the cold empty sense that all we have been amounts to only the melting and shattering of vibrating bits.

The longing for a sense of place is, I think, a longing for the cosmos at the scale of home. It’s a longing for meaning and connections that prove that we are alive and that we matter. It’s a powerful longing. It leads people to crave drugs, to join gangs, to get pregnant, to prepare speeches and workshops. . .

Outside my office window, I hear thunder but it’s too dark still to see weather. I know fires are burning in the Mission Mountains, and my sons will be heading there at dawn. When it gets light, I will drive north for the first day of a new school year. I know that the empty spaces between protons and electrons that comprise my desk are a million billion times larger than the particles themselves, and I know that the solidity of the birch window sill where I lean, searching the breeze for scent of smoke, is an illusion created by force fields within which electrons and protons dance, and I know that nobody knows what the forces fields are, and that the electrons themselves are made of even smaller particles, emerging from waves of a not-nothing that are prior to energy and flooding the universe with being.

But I do not know what stories to tell at work.

I could not have imagined this

Cranesbill and peonies

Cranesbill and Peonies--Umphrey's gardens

A garden is an epiphany, at least for the gardener. The orchestration of visible beauty, according to invisible processes in time, gives us the metaphors to think about the order of being. The astonishing thing is not merely how life is, but that it is capable of, indeed prone to, such beauty.

I take that to be the most important truth of many truths one can know only by experience. No philosopher confined to his study would have imagined anything so wondrous as even my little garden. The great philosophers all know this–their work is full of nature and of history, taking its bearings from the real world that they have opened themselves to knowing.

Since ancient days, one of the uses of gardens has been a refuge from worlds gone awry. I’ve used gardening this summer to reorient myself to teaching, after an unusually discouraging year. This is an unpromising time to be a teacher dedicated to passing on some understanding of the order of being discovered and explored through the great classic literature of the West.

The enemies of such as Homer, Socrates, Moses, Jesus, Shakespeare et al have always been here. In recent decades, they have been triumphant at the level of pop culture, which, regrettably, includes public education, and many young people have been thoroughly indoctrinated in the “isms” of ersatz religion before they reach high school or college, with results described memorably by philosopher Allan Bloom in his controversial best-seller, The Closing of the American Mind and summarized by James M Rhodes in Eros, Wisdom and Silence: Plato’s Erotic Dialogues:

American students believe that truth is relative. They are astonished by anyone who does not accept this proposition as self-evident. Consequently, they lack intellectual seriousness and learn little. Their relativistic families are also spiritually dreary, colorless, devoid of inspiring visions of mankind’s meaning and good, intellectually moribund, bourgeois, and incapable of transmitting ethical principles effectively because their relativism has robbed them of moral authority. The students do not read great books anymore, thanks to relativism and the successful feminist assault on the Western canon. Instead, they are addicted to rock music. This music has “one appeal only, a barbaric appeal, to sexual desire–not love, not eros, but sexual desire undeveloped and untutored….

Like severe drug addiction, he says, this “gutter phenomenon … ruins the imagination of young people and makes it very difficult for them to have a passionate relationship to the art and thought that are the substance of liberal education.” The sexual frenzy of the music is part of a broader phenomenon. Sex has become “the national project.” The students have joined this enterprise. They have abolished sexual limits and modesty and now engage in multiple “relationships, ” not promiscuously, but serially. The sex is easy and it has become “no big deal.” The result is that “sexual passion no longer includes the illusion of eternity.”

Young people, and not only they, “have studied and practiced a crippled eros that can no longer take wing, and does not contain within it the longing for eternity and the divination of one’s relatedness to being.” This eroticism is sated, sterile, lame, and “is not the divine madness that Socrates praised.” Casual relationships have also fostered the habit of approaching marriage with egocentric attitudes that lack constancy. This has contributed to the runaway divorce rate that “is surely America’s most urgent social problem.” The children of divorced parents are irreparably harmed. It does not matter that armies of psychologists are hired to persuade them that their parents love them and will spend “quality time” with them. The children feel grievously wronged, come to mistrust love, and develop a slight deformity of the spirit that closes them to the serious study of philosophy and literature. In addition to all this, the students are self-centered, that is, more interested in their careers and enjoyments than in other human beings or in great spiritual or political issues. In the vast majority of cases, they arrive at their universities seeking vocational training, without the sense that they are embarking upon grand intellectual adventures that might yield answers to the question, “What is man?” Thus, a defective American eros, not only in its sexual forms but also in all its branches, has prevented our students from waxing in wisdom and grace. By and large, American students become “flat souled.”

“Flat souled” would seem a precise name of the affliction. Rhodes in main agrees with Bloom, though he thinks the situation may not always be as grim as Bloom states it. What he does agree with, though, is that youth today are taught to understand their sexuality in ways that are quite destructive to the higher learning–knowledge of the transcendent order of being. Though Rhodes is talking about undergraduates, the same dynamic is increasingly present in high school:

It [many] cases, the students’ sex has really become so easy that it is “no big deal.” In these instances, the eros has surely become sterile, devoid of Socratic divine madness, and incapable of taking wing into eternity, as Bloom contends. Also, there is usually exploitation in these kinds of relationships. Almost invariably, somebody gets hurt. Undoubtedly, there are exceptions. There must be a number of cases in which there is perfect mutual giving of self to other and a firm intention of permanence. These instances are marriage in all but name and can be expected to eventuate in the Socratic winged flights. The normal result, though, is heartbreak. Socratic teachers cannot save students from these mistakes by prying into their private lives or policing bedrooms. Neither can they prevent the errors by preaching religious morality or the lessons of Plato’s dialogues from their bully classroom pulpits; words are mere abstractions to the young until the realities of their self-inflicted injuries become manifest as pain. All the Socratic professors can do is to wait for the heartbroken students to crash-land in tears in their offices and classrooms. When this occurs, the youths do not need pinch-faced authorities in tall, pointy hats to inform them that something has gone badly wrong with their love affairs. Rather, they need advice on how to heal their wounds and fulfill their erotic natures in true love. Here, Bloom seems mistaken if he supposes that the eros of the damaged souls can never take wing. Sometimes, it is disaster that opens unhappy souls to philosophy. The teacher must be prepared to lead the students to a more philosophic eros when it is needed and wanted. In this role, the Socratic professor can help some of the sorrowing youngsters.

I have no faith in the profession of teachers–they are part of the pop culture that has become the problem, but I do wish more parents understood that what young people are being taught by pop culture is not some accidental cultural evolution. It has been planned, and the planning has not been a secret conspiracy so much as an out loud and in your face revolutionary movment that can be clearly traced in history.

The way of faith has always been too demanding for some, and intellectuals have from the beginning offered alternatives to it, all having to do with the idea that humans direct history and can make of the world what they want. These are false prophets in the sense that what they promise does not happen, but false prophets have been plentiful, offering escape from what Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquistor in The Brothers Karamazov called “the terrible freedom” brought into the world by Christianity.

Eric Voegelin is one major philosopher who traces such false prophets through history, detailing the murder of God and the establishment of ersatz religion. He focuses on the major philosophers–Marx, Nietzsche, Hegel and Heidegger–and he includes in his list of false teachings “progressivism, positivism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, communism, fascism, and national socialism.” The way these movements have influenced pop culture has been detailed in dozens of books that are less dense and easier to grasp than most of Voegelin. They aren’t hard to find. It’s only necessary to desire.

The main thing about truth–the true order of being–is that it is hidden just enough that it’s necessary to desire it to find it. To one who desires it and is opened by love to it, it reveals itself. But it’s hidden by design from others, so that we can be free to choose what we really do desire.

Years ago, I reached the conclusion that the goal of teaching is simply to make a case for the order of being–to put before young people the record in literature of those moments, such as when Achilles learns of Patrocles’ death, when Moses knows that he will confront Pharaoh armed only with faith and that Pharoah is powerless, when Hamlet reaches the divine present and knows finally that he need only respond in that presence–“the readiness is all”–in short, all those moments when great souls break through mundane reality into the presence of transcendent being and glimpse its order.

It is not, as a student said  last year, that we are telling them how to live. It is that we are pointing them toward witnesses of how things are, so that they are more free to choose wisely.

On those few occasions when I have suggested to individual young people that there is a force in the cosmos with us that wants us to act in some ways and not in others, and sensing this is the beginning of communication with deity, the idea has not been rejected outright. So the game continues and hope remains.

What I know as a gardener is that the force before which Odysseus and Hamlet found themselves present is the same  force “that through the green fuse drives the flower.” It is the force that creates and sustains moment by moment the order of being. To be a gardener is to know that it is a force that can be known, that it reveals itself bit by bit as we ask and listen.

I am asking, and I am learning to listen.

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The fragrance

L' Homme III

Enter in universe

The concept

A striking

In perfect harmony with the Emanuel Ungaro’s universe, the Emanuel Ungaro man is a passion seeker on an eternal quest for new sensations. A thrilling sexy masculine character. An extreme sense of sensuality and elegance. A striking edginess. Ungaro Pour L’Homme III, the fragrance for a man who adores to seduce.

The fragrance

A contrasted fragrance

To remain faithful to the Emanuel Ungaro universe, L' Homme III is a contrasted fragrance : fresh notes of lemon and orange, accompanied by the sensuality of pepper and sandalwood, create this original but classic fragrance. A fresh, light and sensual fragrance characterized by an original woody spicy aromatic note. Ungaro pour l’ Homme III is a Woody – Spicy – Aromatic perfume.

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University of Konstanz
Graduiertenkolleg / PhD Program
Computer and Information Science

Mining Ubiquitous Data Streams

time schedule

date time room
Monday, 21. July 10:00 C 252
Tuesday, 22. July 10:00 C 252

Many sources produce data continuously. Examples include customer click streams, wireless sensors (e.g bio sensors, environmental sensors etc.), telephone records, web logs, multimedia data, and retail chain transactions. These datasets of continuous and distributed nature are called data streams. Processing distributed data streams is of paramount importance in the research community, as new algorithms are needed to process this streaming data in real time. The goal of this tutorial is to present the state-of-the-art in mining data streams and discuss open research problems, issues, and challenges in this area. We will present techniques for change detection, clustering, classification, frequent patterns, and time series analysis from distributed data streams. Finally the tutorial will be concluded with open issues and future directions. The tutorial also provides a substantial list of data stream mining resources.


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The temperatures in summer are hot and humid.  Biting bugs swarm.  Clothes stick.  Sweat beads.  Why would bowhunting whitetails be on your mind, you ask?  Well, if you’re like me, hunting whitetails with archery gear is a way of life.  And, the majority of my living depends on the discussion of hunting.  So, bear with me and before long, you just may find yourself daydreaming of thick-racked bucks and the heart-pounding magic of a crisp fall morning.
The turn of the seasons sparks a desire in many bowhunters to head for the nearest hills in search of the elusive whitetail.  As the heat of summer surrenders its stranglehold on the deer woods, whitetail bucks become highly visible creatures.  A short drive down any country road during the month of August should produce the sighting of at least one decent set of antlers.  The trouble is finding that set of antlers after the bow season opens.  Therein lies the dilemma of bowhunting early-season whitetails. Let’s take a look at a few tactics that can increase your chances of scoring.
Low-Impact Scouting

Many hunters make the mistake of tromping blindly through prime whitetail habitat in search of the ultimate stand site.  Whitetails are extremely sensitive to human intrusion, making it very difficult to conceal one’s movements.  This is especially true of big bucks.  If not careful, you will unwittingly announce your future intentions to the resident deer herd.  And, once a mature whitetail feels threatened, he will move to a totally different locale or become primarily nocturnal.  I don’t have to tell you what that will do to your odds of arrowing such an animal.  Then, what’s the answer, you ask?

That’s simple.  Get yourself a good set of high-quality binoculars or a spotting scope and do your scouting from a safe distance.  Crop fields should be your main focus at this time.  Lush rows of alfalfa, soybeans and corn draw deer for miles.  But before making a mad dash to the nearest “Back 40,” take heed of a few ground rules.  Keep disturbance to a minimum.  Set up in a row of trees or along a brushy fence line to screen your silhouette.  Also, be sure to keep the wind direction in mind when investigating an area of interest.  Always set up with the wind in your face, or downwind, so not to contaminate the area with human scent.  A few afternoons spent along a verdant field edge should prove beneficial when pinpointing a location for your stand.
By careful and persistent observation, you will begin to learn the travel behavior of several bucks.  Once you have established the daily routine of each buck, you will be able to plan a strategy.  Start your reconnaissance by skirting the edges of fields during midday.  Look for trails that receive a high amount of traffic if you are interested in tagging smaller deer.  A large set of tracks found along a less-noticeable trail normally indicates that a trophy buck is frequenting the area.  A sharp eye and a basic sense of deer behavior can lead you to these types of trails.  Concentrate your efforts in a location that will afford the best chance of taking the class of animal you desire.
There are other low-impact methods of scouting that can produce results as well.  Incorporating topographical maps, aerial photographs and computer-mapping programs into your scouting repertoire can lead you to areas that you otherwise might overlook.
Feeding Trails and Funnels
 Setting a stand along a trail linking a bedding area to a crop field or other food source can be deadly in the first few days of the early archery season.  In fact, the very first week of the season is usually an opportune time to arrow a cruising animal.  During the latter stages of summer and into early fall, big bucks routinely travel between these two areas.
If you are interested in seeing a lot of deer around your stand, find a “funnel.”  This is any type of natural or man-made structure that consistently forces deer to move through the same section of woods.  The operative word here is “forces.”  Deer become susceptible to death by broadhead whenever their movement is restricted to a certain part of the woods.  It can be as simple as noticing a missing or broken strand of barbed wire where deer cross a fence from one piece of property to another.  Or, it can be a fallen tree that forces movement to one side of the trail or the other.
Man also plays a significant role in the creation of funnels.  Development is a common cause of funnel production.  A new home, road or drainage ditch are all factors that can alter deer movement in some way or another.  Basically, deer are lazy by nature.  They will seek out the path of least resistance when traveling through an area.  Keying on these habits can spell early-season success.
Here’s the Rub
 If you set your sights on a buster buck, it would be in your best interest to locate as many fresh rubs as possible.  Only antlered animals make rubs, and usually the bigger the rub, the bigger the deer.  No other type of sign is more conclusive that a buck is visiting your stand site than a rub.
Locating fresh rubs isn’t as difficult as you might think. The edges of crop fields are a good bet.  Deer that visit a field at night will usually leave a rub on the edge of the woods when exiting the field in the morning.  Rubs typically face the direction of travel.  The best scenario is finding several rubs along a trail system. Several trees will be clearly marked and will receive similar damage if the same buck is doing the majority of the rubbing.  This is a relatively easy way of keeping tabs on an individual buck. Set your stand within 15 to 20 yards of the rub line and on the downwind side of the trail.
Observation Stands
 If all of your attempts at locating deer fail during the open season, I suggest choosing another effective method of scouting -- placing a stand in a promising area simply to observe deer movement.  You can opt to exchange your bow and arrows with a set of binoculars and a notebook for spotting and documenting your findings.  If the spot looks promising, bring your bow just in case.  Remember you are on a serious fact-finding mission, so exercise as much caution as you normally would practice when bowhunting active stand sites.  Take a shower, sneak into the stand location, only hunt when the wind is favorable, wear rubber-bottomed boots, etc.  You do not want to alert the deer to your intentions.
It should only take a few sittings to record and identify the travel habits of the deer in the immediate area.  Be sure to choose a location where visibility is unobstructed.  You need to be able to see a great distance in order to cover as much ground as possible.  Pay close attention to how and where the deer move when passing through the area.  Your observations will assist you in future stand placement.

OK, I’ll admit it.  Getting fired-up about scouring the countryside in search of deer sign when the season is a few months away is difficult.  It’s even worse when the thought of staying at home in front of the television in air-conditioned comfort enters your mind.  But, no one ever said bowhunting was easy.  So remember, in order to achieve success at bowhunting early-season whitetails, you will have to put in your time long before the season opens.


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Sometimes things get thin...

“Sometimes I arrive just when God's ready to have someone click the shutter." ~Ansel Adams

In the Celtic tradition it is described as a "thin space," the place where heaven and earth collapse. The veil is lifted however briefly. Look for it. It is there. Live in that space, if not just for a second. We've all experienced it. Know it.


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USD 383 Calendar

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To view the district academic calendar and your school's calendar, select your school from the department pull down menu

Printable 2019-2020 Academic Calendar

NV State Assessments 2019 3rd grade MATH

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UTHS Panther Band

Late last week someone left a large sum of cash, with no envelope or notes, and I do not know who to credit it to.

If you can name the amount and the denominations, and what it was for, I can credit it to the right people.

If I don't hear anything by Saturday's rehearsal, it'll be considered a donation to the band and simply deposited.


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Message from the Minister

— by William Levwood, UUCT Minister

Disasters Can Be Good Dirt for Growing Beloved Community

“The map of utopias is cluttered nowadays with experiments by other names, and the very idea is expanding. It needs to open up a little more to contain disaster communities. These remarkable societies suggest that, just as many machines reset themselves to their original settings after a power outage, human beings reset themselves to something altruistic, communitarian, resourceful and imaginative after a disaster, that we revert to something we already know how to do. The possibility of paradise is already within us as a default setting.” ― Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster
In the wake of Hurricane Michael, it is good to be reminded about the best in human nature. Disasters happen. And when they happen, what matters is how we respond. Do we bond together to make common cause for the common good? Or do we set up opposing camps that push forward an agenda that only benefits our group or our viewpoint? Either can happen. Both have happened. Rebecca Solnit’s study of how communities have responded to major disasters shows that more often than not, human beings rise to the occasion, showing up for the good of the whole. In disasters, more often than not, human beings lean into the better angels of our nature.

In the wake of Hurricane Michael,
In the disasters in our own personal lives,
In the disasters that haven’t happened yet,
May we show up with altruism, resourcefulness, and imagination,
As together, step by step, we nurture beloved community,
As together we commit to transforming disaster into paradise on earth.

Sermons given by our Minister, William Levwood, can be found on the Worship Recordings Page.

This message was published in the October 21- November 3, 2018 issue of The Meridian.


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Ducks fly over rough water on the Bay of Green Bay.

Volunteer Opportunities for Students

Volunteering is a great way to try out research and field activities in field biology and environmental science, and a great way to acquire skills and "out-of-the-classroom" experience to build a strong resume. Several of our students have said they got their dream job because they had volunteered with a field and lab research project. All of the programs listed below have opportunities for students to participate. Some of the projects also invite community members to get involved as well. This page will be updated as opportunities arise, so check back for new listings.

Current Opportunities

  • Natural Areas Land Management (Multiple locations)
    • Contact Natural Areas Ecologist Bobbie Webster for more information.
  • Cofrin Arboretum
    • Snake Surveys This is a long-term project that will continue into the fall and begin again in the spring and summer with an opportunity to apply for funding to conduct independent research. Contact Lindsey Bender at for more information
  • Native Grassland Biofuel Project
    • Dr. Dornbush has has numerous volunteer opportunities available to work on a native grassland biofuel project. Interested students should email with the subject heading, “Research Opportunity,” as well as a brief statement of interest, current majors and minors, UWGB GPA, and student status (e.g. sophomore).
  • LowerFox River Watershed Program
    • Coordinator Annette Pelegrin is looking for students, especially those interested in K-12 education, to help high school teachers on field trips and to help manage and summarise data.
  • GIS projects
    • GIS technician has "shovel ready" projects for interested students or community members including scanning of aerial photographs and GIS mapping projects.

Project Descriptions

Native Grassland Biofuel Project

Dr. Matt Dornbush has numerous volunteer opportunities available to work on a native grassland biofuel project.  The project consists of a 16 acre experiment spread over two farms examining the potential for native grasslands (four replicated species combinations) to serve as a viable alternative energy crop and a mechanism for improving local ecosystem services in NE Wisconsin.  Ecosystems services investigated include harvestable yield, belowground production and soil C storage, as well impacts in landscape water and nutrient retention. Students will gain experience in both laboratory and the field research, gaining highly marketable skills in soil and plant analysis techniques, as well exposure to experimental design and research principles.  Interested students should email with the subject heading, “Research Opportunity,” as well as a brief statement of interest, current majors and minors, UWGB GPA, and student status (e.g. sophomore).

Lower Fox River Watershed Monitoring Program

The LFRWMP is a collaborative education and stream monitoring program focused on identifying nonpoint source pollution within the Fox River watershed. Teams of high school students and teachers gain hands-on experience in assessing the health of aquatic ecosystems by performing a variety of monitoring activities in selected watersheds of the Lower Fox Basin. This program has opportunities for students majoring in the sciences and/or high school education. A variety of projects are available from analyzing data to assisting teachers in the field. Students can volunteer or apply for internships. Contact Annette Pelegrin for more information. 920-465-5031 or

Point au Sable Natural Area

Point au Sable is a UW--Green Bay natural area located on a prominent peninsula along the east shore of Lower Green Bay. It is one of the few unmodified estuarine wetlands in the entire Lake Michigan ecosystem. Each spring and fall, thousands of migratory waterfowl, gulls, terns, shorebirds, and passerines pass through Point au Sable on their way south. Recent studies have documented over 200 bird species on or near Point au Sable during a single year. Like many areas, we have an ongoing battle fighting invasive plant species. We are just beginning a 3 year restoration project at the site. Students interested in invasive plant control and ecological restoration are welcome to volunteer on invasive plant removal crews this fall. Contact Josh Martinez at 920-465-2030 or

Cofrin Memorial Arboretum

The Cofrin Memorial Arboretum forms a natural boundary of 290 acres encircling the UW Green Bay campus and providing ready access for recreation, field trips, and research projects. The purpose of the Arboretum is to restore and preserve some of Wisconsin's native ecological communities and to provide a place where people can enjoy and appreciate nature. Emphasis is placed on the protection, enrichment, and development of native Wisconsin plant communities and areas of special ecological significance. Forests, prairies, ponds, and creeks represent some of the major communities thriving in the Arboretum. The Arboretum also contributes significantly to the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay environment, making it one of the most beautiful college campuses in the United States. We have opportunities for volunteers to help with invasive plant removal, a possible controlled burn, and trail maintenance this fall. There may be opportunities for well qualified students to work on ongoing research projects including snake monitoring, plant surveys, bird surveys, or other research projects. Contact Josh Martinez at 920-465-2030 or

Wabikon Forest Dynamics Plot Project

The 25 hectare Wabikon Plot is part of a global network of forest research plots committed to the study of tropical and temperate forest function and diversity. This multi-institutional network, coordinated by the Smithonsian Institution, comprises more than forty forest research plots across the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe. In the plot all free-standing trees with a diameter at breast height of at least 1 cm are tagged, measured, identified to species, and are recensused approximately every five years. Because each of the over 40 plots around the world follow the same methodology, scientists can directly compare data collected from different forests around the world and detect patterns that would otherwise be impossible to recognize. There are volunteer opportunities for well qualified students to assist graduate students and faculty to make observations in the plot. Students should have taken ecology or other field courses. For more information contact

GIS Mapping Projects

Geospatial technology is a collective term for disciplines that use spatial referencing to facilitate compilation, manipulation, interpretation and display of data. "Spatial" in this case means location relative to the earth's surface - it's not about rocket ships and black holes. Remote sensing, photogrammetry and geographic information systems (GIS) are just a few examples of disciplines that fall under the geospatial technology umbrella. Students with strong quantitative skills should contact Mike Stievfater at 920-465-5029 or

Other Organizations

Baird Creek Preservation Foundation

This non-profit organization exists to assist the City of Green Bay in acquiring land in the Baird Creek Parkway and to help enhance the Parkway’s value as an ecological, recreational, and educational resource for Northeastern Wisconsin. Their goal is to preserve a natural woodland in our Green Bay metropolitan area. They accept student volunteers and interns to work on a variety of projects including restoration and land management, invasive plant control, marketing, promotion, and education. Contact the director Maureen Meinhardt at for more information.

Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary

he Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary is a beautiful 700 acre urban wildlife refuge featuring live animal exhibits, educational displays, miles of hiking/skiing trails and various wildlife viewing opportunities. It is the largest park in the Green Bay Park system and home to the second largest wildlife rehabilitation program in Wisconsin, caring for more than 4,500 orphaned and injured animals annually. They have a number of volunteer opportunities available. Visit for more information.

Friends of Toft Point

The friends of Toft Point was organized to support the management plan of the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, to help preserve the flora and fauna of this property and to help educate visitors about the natural history and the Toft family history of this State Natural Area and National Natural Landmark. This all-volunteer group does trail maintenance, invasive plant removal, and act as docents to provide information for visitors to the site. Contact for more information or download their membership brochure.


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Member Blog Contact Us Travel Resources

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Although you may hope to take your vacation at the same time as everyone else, it can be worth your while to plan your travel during the off-season for tourists. Not only can you find deals to travel at low cost, but you can take in some of the world's most recognized cities at your own pace. If you are one of those professionals who can be flexible with your vacation time, you will want to consider taking a trip during low season to any of the following destinations described in this article.

Florence, Italy

Florence is one of the most recognizable cities in Italy, and everyone seems to know it. Instead of traveling at a time when schools of children will be visiting the city, you can choose to travel during low season and walk through the empty halls of some of the world's oldest and largest museums in Italy. The recommended low season for the city of Florence in particular is October, and generally it is similar for other major cities in Italy such as Rome or Milan. Typically, the summer season runs from June to August and marks the period of food and wine festivals, street markets, and competitions for pizza spinning. However, you can still enjoy these memorable features of Italy in Florence during low season. In fact, October is the harvest month for grapes used to make wine, truffles, and all sorts of olives. Moreover, the countryside plays host to more food and wine festivals. Thus, you will not be missing much besides large crowds of people if you choose to travel to Florence during low season.

Edinburgh, Scotland

One of the most popular destinations in Scotland is the city of Edinburgh. Known for its castles, foggy nights, and English-inspired accents, this city is one place you will want to consider visiting if you have time during low season to travel. Instead of walking through the hot and tourist-filled hall of the castles in the summer, you can visit this wondrous city just after the tourism season slows down. Between September and October of each year, you will see a major difference in the traffic of tourists when compared to the summer months. During early autumn, you can visit the Glentress Forest and take in the changing colors of the leaves. This park is known for provides locals with a place to take relaxing and warming autumn walks. Similarly, you will not want to miss taking a trip to see the Edinburgh Castle. This summer tourist destination is even more beautiful in the fall, especially at night when the famous fog comes in. In addition, individuals who like a little change in temperature from the hot and muggy summer months, Scotland will be able to provide the perfect temperature for those who prefer the cooler seasons of the year.

Berlin, Germany

As one of the world's most talented artists, Van Gogh chose to paint the scenes of Berlin because he believed that Berlin was the most beautiful city during the autumn season in all of Europe. If you did not know about Berlin before, you will quickly learn that it is a very serene and green place. In fact, approximately one third of the city is dedicated to green space in the form of lakes, parks, and gardens. Within these spaces, you will also find one of the most popular destinations for Christmas markets in Germany. These famous markets start at the end of November or early in December. The best part is that these markets fill the streets with sweet smells, delicious treats, and hand-crafted christmas ornaments for you to browse as you enjoy some mulled wine, also known as Gluhwein.

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Ho-oh-no: this popular holiday plant may be dangerous for pets - WBCB: The Valley's CW |

Ho-oh-no: this popular holiday plant may be dangerous for pets

Holiday decorations are a delight to humans, but they may be even more precious to your pets. Your cat will climb to the top of your Christmas tree within half an hour of its assembly, and there’s at least a 95 percent chance your pup will steal a gingerbread man off the kitchen counter before you finish decorating it.

These antics can be a nuisance, but a tree toppling over might not be the biggest threat to your pet. Although not deadly, the popular poinsettia plant may make your four-legged family member fall ill.

This gorgeous plant with vibrant red flowers is the perfect plant for your holiday decor, but it’s not totally innocent. The stems of the plant are filled with a milky white sap, which contains chemicals that can irritate cats’ and dogs’ digestive systems, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

To be clear, poinsettias are only *mildly* toxic, and you don’t need to rush Fluffy to the vet if you catch her nibbling on that crimson foliage. But knowing the risk of poinsettia sap—and making sure your pet can’t reach the holiday plant—could save your pet from an evening of unpleasant symptoms. Since your pet makes you a little healthier, don’t you want to return the favor?

What might that poinsettia sap do to your furry friend? If the sap is on your pet’s skin or eyes, it might result in swelling, itchiness, and redness. If your pet ingests the sap, they might experience:

  • Nausea

  • Vomiting

  • Drooling

  • Licking lips

  • Or diarrhea.

Symptoms from poinsettia exposure are usually mild and will slowly pass on their own. However, if symptoms appear severe, call your vet: There might be something else going on.

To prevent this discomfort, keep your poinsettia plant off the floor and away from pets—especially if your pet is known for nibbling. (If nothing else, it will also save your poinsettia from chew marks.)

But your holiday decorations aren’t the only risk for your pets: You’ll want to be careful with the food on your table, too. Here are human foods that are toxic to dogs.

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Valmont Tubing Brands

Valmont Tubing Brands

Valmont Tubing

Valmont Tubing manufactures round welded mechanical steel tubing up to 16"OD along with squares, rectangles and special shapes.  Produced in hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized, hot-dip galvanized, aluminized, weathering steel, and stainless 409 finishes, our tubing is used in hundreds of end uses across many industries.  Known for our quality and focus on our customers, we strive to make sure that tubing that we make fits your products, processes and your timeframe.

Valmont also manufactures large diameter fire sprinkler pipe for the fire suppression industry.  Visit our fire sprinkler pipe sizes page to learn more about our capabilities.

To learn more about the sizes that we produce and how Valmont can help provide solutions for your company, click here.

HSS SuperStruct

HSS SuperStruct custom tubes are "built to fit" providing unparalleled design flexibility for architects and design engineers and industrial fabricators.  Our ability to produce custom HSS squares up to 60" and rectangles up to 60" x 58", fractional sizes, tapered, and other custom shapes provide cost savings and aesthetic advanatages over I-beams, wide flange W shapes. HSS SuperStruct custom tubes are available in lengths up to 60 ft and in wall thicknesses up to 1". Full penetration welds with UT testing are available upon request.

To view learn how HSS Superstruct can provide cost savings and solutions for your tough projects and to view our product catalog, click here.


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USA: 513.217.5830

NL: +31 85 303 21 00

Low Frequency Ventilex Fluid Bed Dryers More Efficient

Our European-manufactured drying systems are the number one choice in industries where where production involves drying product. From food , dairy (e.g. cheese drying) and vitamins to frac sands, animal feed (DDGS dryer), neutraceuticals, minerals, chemicals and biomass drying, our machines provide consistency and efficiency. Cam-driven fluid bed dryers from Ventilex prevent damage to your product, reduce wear-and-tear, and lower your operating costs. Our machines even cut down on the risk of overheating that occurs in most other conventional dryers.

The high wear-and-tear (especially in mortar and aggregates) and operation costs as well as the possibility of overheating in most other conventional dryers is causing manufacturers worldwide to switch to our reliable, low-frequency fluidized bed drying. We give our clients a distinct edge in processing time, quality and cost.Shaking, energy efficient fluid bed dryer for frac sand and other minerals.

  • Steady and predictable drying (where air is distributed uniformly) which ensures that the product is never over or under dried
  • Multi-stage PLC controls that make sure product temperature is not higher than necessary, so that energy efficiency is maximised
  • Exclusive “shaking” motion assures “first in, first out” drying when controlling heat time and temperature is necessary
  • Fluidization or sub-fluidization of your product when longer times in the dryer are needed (allowing for process-required plug flow characteristics)
  • Both heavy duty and robust product transport for dependability, low maintenance and extended equipment life
  • Lower energy costs  when compared to rotary dryers,  conventional high-frequency vibrating or static fluid bed dryers

High-Quality Custom-Designed Fluid Bed Dryers

Our engineered systems approach for each fluid bed drying installation provides greater efficiency and cost savings across different industries and applications. The benefits of working with a Ventilex fluid bed dryer are manifold:

  • Custom design (CIP—Clean in Place) for dairy, food and hygienic applications; High Temperature Design for inert materials, etc.) prevents damage and improves product output and quality
  • Highest energy efficiency—save 30 to 60% on gas/steam/oil costs and reduce your carbon footprint
  • Fully automatic operation with up to 1112°F [600°C] drying air temperature and fluidization/sub-fluidization controls the amount of time in the fluid bed dryer and the results you can expect to see
  • Stainless steel product contact areas (other alloys are available) meet USDA accepted standards for dairy, food, and pharmaceutical grades. In fact, we exceed USDA and FDA criteria for cleanliness and hygiene.

If you are shopping for a sand dryer, DDGS dryer, herb dryer, or any other type of fluid bed dryers, Ventilex can engineer a custom piece of equipment that meets your needs. Our fluidized bed dryers are constructed from the highest quality materials and are guaranteed to provide a lasting return on your investment.

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Mega Man 10 for XBox Live - Sales, Wiki, Release Dates, Review, Cheats, Walkthrough

America - Front

America - Back

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Alternative Names

RockMan 10: Uchuukara no Kyoui!!

ロックマン10 宇宙からの脅威!!

Inti Creates

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Release Dates

03/31/10 Capcom
03/31/10 Capcom
03/31/10 Capcom

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The original 2D classic Mega Man returns in Mega Man 10 for Xbox LIVE. This latest Mega Man title continues to bring the series back to its old school roots with retro action platforming gameplay and classic 8-bit style graphics and sound. Relive the Mega Man experience with classically inspired bosses, each with their own unique weapons and vulnerabilities.

Set within the zany Mega Man universe, it comes as no surprise that robotic shenanigans are afoot once again. The year is 20XX and a suspicious outbreak of Roboenza, a Robot Flu, has broken out. It spreads through the world like wildfire bringing down robots everywhere. People who have relied on helpful robots for ages are unnerved trying to live their lives without their robot assistance. But robots that would be aiding in the development of a vaccine can't do their jobs. One month after the outbreak, the situation worsens even more. Infected robots have gone out of control, destroying the city and holding it hostage! Who is behind this mess? It's up to Mega Man to take on this sinister threat and get to the bottom of this viral mystery.

Key features

• Easy Mode will help lower the entry barrier to the Mega Man series for new fans and action game novices.

• Plays as Proto Man from the start as your main character!

• New boss designs supervised and directed by the talented Keiji Inafune-san

• Unique stages include: old castle, highway, iceberg, stadium and more.

• Players will be able to enjoy a true Mega Man game thanks to the style that was so loved in MM9, as well as the simple yet addictive gameplay.

• “Mega Man Challenges” mode will allow players to practice-up on their skills and prepare for the hair-raising adventure ahead of them.

Latest Screenshots

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Game Information Updated oliist 10th Nov 2010
Critic Review Added to Database I LOVE GIGGS 11th Mar 2010
Critic Review Added to Database I LOVE GIGGS 11th Mar 2010
Boxart Added oliist 02nd Mar 2010
Release Date Added to Database oliist 12th Feb 2010
Release Date Added to Database oliist 12th Feb 2010
Release Date Added to Database oliist 12th Feb 2010
Game Information Updated oliist 12th Feb 2010
Screenshots Added ClaudeLv250 30th Jan 2010
Game Summary added to Database Blaiyan 20th Dec 2009

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Opinion (1)

IxisNaugus posted 13/04/2010, 03:37
First comment. Yay?

Well i decided to give the XBLA version a chance after getting the Wiiware version of Mega Man 9. I'm happy that i get achievements for this game, but good god playing with the X360 controller is a nightmare.

I've noticed its a bit tough playing "retro" titles with the X360 controller. It wasn't easy playing through Symphony of the Night and Banjo-Kazooie with it.

Still though it's not so bad that it makes the game any less fun, just a bit awkward at first. Great game.
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Stetson 222 152 Storm Grey Eyeglasses

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Joe Zitzelsberger

Joe Zitzelsberger has lived in Wisconsin his entire life. Growing up in Oshkosh, he went to high school in Eau Claire. Joe met his wife, Angie (a Waunakee High School graduate), while living in Wausau and working on his BA in Communication from UW Stevens Point. Returning to the area in 1997, they were married at Saint John the Baptist Catholic Church in 1999. Just after the birth of their daughter in 2004, they moved to Waunakee and they have been proud to call this their home ever since. Joe and his wife both work at American Family Insurance. Their daughter will attend Waunakee High School beginning in the fall of 2018.

In addition to serving as a Trustee on the Village Board, Joe also serves on the Plan Commission, the Village Center Advisory Committee, the Waunakee Economic Development Commission, and as Chair on the Police Committee. Previously, Joe has served on the Board of Review, as the Meadowbrook Homeowners Association President, and on the Saint John School Education Commission.

Joe Zitzelsberger's term on the Village Board of Trustees will expire in April of 2020.


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Enzo Cillo

Enzo Cillo (1985) Enzo Cillo attended the high school of arts in Benevento, continuing his studies in visual arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. The video is for him a way to get in touch with something more deep and hidden. At the core of his research there is the topic of light and shadow, and the constant questioning of the invisible image that exists between those two elements. His works are displayed at various international museums and festivals. He currently lives and works in Rome.

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Slow , 6:33, 2015
Sound: Giacomo Salis
Slow is a work that takes form in about three months when I lived in Dublin. The shooting took place only after traveling several times one of the streets near the house, in an area that seems to mark a landmark in the city. A dog barking in the distance, the flashing light of a street lamp, the wind in the leaves and road signs "slow" are elements that interact in the night.

In the dark and deep part of the night, 10.19, 2015
Sound: Giacomo Salis
In the dark and deep part of the night is a work conceived after the exploration of a place, an abandoned town in southern Italy. Among the rubble, a man is looking for the last moments of light.
"The outer space comes, is getting closer, and tries to devour me. A faint noise from the centre of the room. Ghosts are here, they are the space, and encircle me. They feed themselves on the blinded eyes of mankind" (Michel Houellebecq)


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Reviews of Lubrin at  The directory and community site for Almeria, Spain

Reviews of Lubrin at The directory and community site for Almeria, Spain

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Reviews are done by Viva-Almeria members, we take no responsibility for content or accuracy.
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georginalynskey wrote on Tue 18 July 2006 ...
i love Lubrin i have a villa close by and i enjoy the expereince every year!

About the reviewer (georginalynskey) ...

Became a member on Jul 18, 2006 and has since viewed 8 pages.

fuentearriba wrote on Tue 21 December 2004 ...
Lubrin is a small village of about 500 of the nicest people you are ever likely to meet. There are a number of Cafe/Bars that offer Tapas. Meson Molinos is a restaurant offering fine wines and a mouthwatering menu. Bar Lopez is located in Rambla Aljibe, which is one of the dozen or so hamlets in the Parish of Lubrin, where you can get a good wholesome 3 course Menu del Dias including wine for about 9 Euros

There are 3 Banks and the village shops include 2 Supermarkets, 3 Butchers, 3 Bakers (no Candlestick Makers!!) and an Ironmongers. You can buy anything from a pin to a Porsche( well not quite a Porsche). Market day is on a Wednesday when you can stock up with fresh fruit and vegetables; on most days the fresh fish van comes up from the coast.

Life in Lubrin is a time warp and will remind us more senior citizens of an early childhood where family groups sit out on the streets on hot summer nights with children playing until the sun sets over the hill.

Lubrin is located about 1 hour cross country from Almeria Airport or 2 hours motorway/cross country from Alicante or Murcia Airports. The more Spanish resorts of San Juan Torres and Aquilas (to the North) and Carboneras, Agua Marga and San Jose ( to the South) are about an hour away. These Spanish resorts, in Summer, are very much less crowded, especially mid-week, than Mojacar and Garrucha.

About the reviewer (fuentearriba) ...

Became a member on Sep 14, 2004 and has since viewed 3393 pages.
This member has posted 11 messages in the forum (view these).

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Perrin & Rowe Tapware Gold Coast Retailers

Perrin & Rowe is a world leading manufacturer of premium quality:

  • kitchen taps,
  • bathroom taps,
  • shower fittings,
  • bathroom ware and
  • bathroom accessories.

The superb bathroom ware range includes English porcelain hand basins, pedestal basins, toilet suites and bidets.

Perrin & Rowe kitchen taps and bathroom taps are made specially for The English Tapware Company for compatibility with Australian plumbing fittings and for legal installation in accordance with the Australian WaterMark Standards.

Their kitchen taps, bathroom taps and shower fittings also fully comply with the WELS water efficiency standards.

Call us now on 5528 0077 for more information or use the contact form below.

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Shipping and returns

We can ship to virtually any address in the world.

When you place an order, we will estimate shipping and delivery dates for you based on the availability of your items and the shipping options you choose. Depending on the shipping provider you choose, shipping date estimates may appear on the shipping quotes page.

Please also note that the shipping rates for many items we sell are dimension-based. The dimension of any such item can be found on its detail page.

Domestic Hong Kong orders will arrive in 2-3 business days via SF Express ( ;  Free delivery to the commercial area or SF pick-up station on any purchase over HKD500; extra HKD30 will be charged for the delivery to the commercial area and HKD60 to the residential area on any purchase below HKD500

International orders will arrive in 3-5 business days via SF Express(

International customers are responsible for any duties, taxes or customs fees that may apply upon delivery. We advise our international customers to be aware of their countries tax policies before purchasing.

A shipping confirmation is emailed to you as soon as your purchase has been shipped along with a tracking number.  Please note, we cannot be responsible for unanticipated delays.

For any questions about the delivery of your purchase, please contact

At this time all sales are final.

Customer satisfaction is our highest priority and we strongly encourage you to email us at with any questions or concerns.


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Chennai - Sandesh

Kamalhasan and his preposterous "Hindu Terror"

Hindutva is a topic totally irrelevant to the Lok Sabha/assembly poll campaign. But the actor turned political party leader Kamalhaasan intentionally raked up the issue. He thought Hindu society as usual will remain silent. It proved to be otherwise. What is ISIS to Muslims, RSS is to Hindus. That was a comparison made by K S Alagiri, TNCC President while expressing his support to Kamal’s utterances.

Pallapatti, a Muslim majority village in Aravakurichi Assembly Constituency in Karur District. It is at this spot that Tamil film actor turned political party leader Kamalhassan uttered a couple of sentences that evoked instant and strong opposition across the whole country. . ".The first Terrorist in Independent India is a Hindu. His name was Nathuram Godse." Brazenly thus, he reopened the Hindu Terror cliche. Soon, his facebook post and twitter handle campaigning for this candidate in the bye poll was flooded with responses, repercussions and condemnations by Netizens. H.Raja, Tamilisai Soundarajan, Minister Rajendra Balaji and Subramaniam Swamy condemned this venomous speech,trying to divide peace loving Hindus and muslims in Tamilnadu. Swamy Went further calling for cancellation of Kamalhassan's party recognition. Seeing these protests Kamalhassan cancelled his campaign in Aravakurichi and went back.Hindu bashing is a old sport to political mileage in TN polity. Leaders who spit venom on Hindu practices and religion have always been welcomed to share the minority votes in TN. Its now time for the minority to stand with their Hindu brethren ,and condemn such speeches will no longer bag votes from their community.

TN Cops Could be Like This Too

Chennai police commissioner Visvanathan said some time back that cops should aspire to be more humane so that the image of the force could be changed for the better. The NEET exam center at Coimbatore provided the most recent instance. A boy student was seen aimlessly wandering the campus. When asked why wasn’t he in the hall writing the exam, he told the police constable, P. Saravanakumar, who was on duty, that he forgot to bring his photos for the exam. Immediately he gave the boy Rs.40 and helped him not only to take photos but also write the exam. His gesture was appreciated by all. In another incident reported recently when a woman police constable Mahalakshmi, posted in Korukkupet (Chennai) police station, was seen lamenting, who will perform my ‘valai kappu’ (bangle ceremony which is conducted during pregnancy), with all my relatives living in Kovilpatti in far off Thoothukudi district. Immediately, the other staff put their heads together and arranged for the ceremony to be performed in the police station itself. Inspectors of Crime Branch and Law & Order were the special invitees; 11 plates of ‘seer varisai’ (gifts) and 5 plates of mixed rice were procured; bangles were adorned on the wrists of Mahalakshmi. The function was celebrated with due gaiety.

Unseemly Quarrel Over A Rishi’s Name

These days, the name of Patanjali, is associated with Yoga Guru Ram Dev. Patanjali is the namre of the sage who wrote yoga sutras centuries ago. In an unusual case, a mobile app of city-based Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani, a yoga guru, featuring his chants of Patanjali Yoga Sutras has been slapped with a trademark infringement notice by the Patanjali Ayurved Ltd of Baba Ramdev. The representative of Patanjali Ayurved Ltd, said: “We are concerned with the recent proliferation of fraudulent and infringing activities of people who are trying to make illegal profit by offering apps posing as they are part of the Patanjali group.” Bhavanani said he found it “absolutely ridiculous that Maharishi Patanjali, that wonderful and humane person who gifted us the whole yoga darshan, is now being put into a box and people are claiming that they can trademark him and you cannot even use the term ‘Patanjali’. These ancient traditional teachings and the text Patanjali Yoga Sutra and Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are in public domain and documented through the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library of the Government of India, it was pointed out.

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in ,

A Road Trip Through Romania #1 Planning the trip!

Follow me on my road trip through Romania! First steps.

In February 2018, I enjoyed my first road trip through Romania, eastern Europe, with a French friend from my university, Daphné, and my Italian flatmate, Pietro [names are real]. In fact, this road trip through Romania does not begin when we took the road. It begins far before, while we were planning our trip. What were the steps for organizing it?

First and foremost

1. Ask to your closest friend or friends you want to know more to come with you. Travel is the best way to discover someone and to share good memories with him. You can also travel alone, that’s up to you!

2. Decide together of the road you will take. Because I didn’t have a valid passport yet, we could not go to Ukraine as we planned first. But, in the end, it was not the worst thing that could happen because we had more time to visit the cities we wanted to visit in 9 days.

3. Indeed, decide together how long the trip will last. In our case, we rented the car from Saturday to next Sunday (9 days and 8 nights).

road trip in romania
Our itinerary details : 2404km in 9 days!

Renting a car and finding where to sleep

After all these steps are completed, you can now look for the best car rental and accommodation.

Hopefully, we found a cheap one with Hertz but Sixt or another company would have been fine too! Be careful of the insurance and the one who will drive. Just to be sure, I paid a little bit more to be the second driver (because we knew we would all drive) in case there will be an accident… And hopefully we did because… (you’ll know why in the future episodes…)!

Concerning the accommodation, we decided to do as much couch surfing as we can find. We created a common account with a picture of us and a description of our trip so that people could know who the three of us really were! This is one of the best advice I could give you if you want a free accommodation.

road trip in romania
The picture we used for our couchsurfing common account

Hopefully, couch surfing is not only about free accommodation, it is much more: meet new people, share food and experiences with them. But the best thing to do, of course, is not to be shy and introvert and to share things with them! No need to offer them something material (like a box of chocolate – even if it’s sometimes well appreciated), just offer your time and your stories (I know it’s hard when you’re tired of your journey but try)!

Last but not least, your package!

Don’t bring too much (this advice is available for both man and woman!). First because you can buy things you forgot and that you really need in the cities you’ll pass through. Then because you’ll have to carry your bags most of the time. Finally, because travelling with less…is more !

We could speak about it for days, but I guess you know everything about the pre-organization side of a road trip. And now…. Let the journey begin under the rain of Bucharest…

road trip in romania

Day 2 and Day 3 in my upcoming articles! So, stay tuned!

(Credit: Marina Perez)

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Friday, 25 April 2014

Lync Hosting Pack version 2 now officially supports Lync 2013 CU4

Great news to all LHPv2 hosters, Microsoft have confirmed with me that Lync 2013 CU4 is now officially supported for Lync 2013 LHPv2.

There appears to be no official page up yet on the announcement, and it is possible they may never be, but I have confirmed it is now supported by Microsoft and I am including their test upgrade document.

Grab CU4 here  and finally approve it for your WSUS patching teams without fear or rebuilding an entire LHPv2 platform :-)

Grab the CU4 test document here.

Oliver Moazzezi - MVP Exchange Server

Mike Wood said...

Hi Oliver,

Do you know if there is a more official announcement for this? When I looked at the test document, it didn't actually list any tests.

Jacob Dixon said...

Why has Microsoft not published this information on their website? This is a big change from the way they have done the hosting pack in the past.

Oliver Moazzezi said...

Hi guys,

It is official, the document I have linked to was by Microsoft.

If in any doubt speak to your Lync representative through the Partner Network.

Hopefully CU5 will be approved also, even if LHPv2 is officially stopped.