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Posts Tagged ‘Spirit’

Dont-Suck-the-Life-Out-of-LifeFor the last couple of years I’ve been very public with my annual personal goals, including progress reports along the way as to how successful (or not) I am in achieving them. I’m not going to run down item by item the goal list from last year. Suffice it to say that I met or exceeded some and didn’t achieve others. If you’re curious about what they were, you’ll find posts about them here, here, here, and here. Instead, I want to write today about the overall lesson learned from 2014 that relates significantly to the goal effort. Here it is:

Don’t be so goal oriented that you suck the life out of life.

My first time for setting a long list of personal goals related to body, mind and spirit was in 2013. It went really well, so it’s no surprise I did it again in 2014. But we weren’t many months into the year before I felt overwhelmed. All of the goals were in addition to my work and volunteer efforts, and it was simply exhausting to try to stay up with all of them. I needed more rest, more sleep, more down time not focused on a never-ending to-do list.

While I made a mid-year correction and lowered the bar on some goals, that still wasn’t enough to put me at ease. I still wasn’t getting enough sleep. I ended the last few months of the year choosing a couple of the goals most meaningful and worked on them while letting the others go. My body, mind and spirit needed the break. It was the right thing to do. I had put so much emphasis on a long, ambitious list of what I wanted to get done that I had succeeded in sucking the life out of life. Surely that wasn’t good for me or anyone else around me.

So I’m determined in 2015 to take a different approach to goals for the year. There will be no long list of goals for body, mind and spirit. I’ll still continue the personal behaviors that have by now become important regular habits (getting in 10,000 steps per day 3 days per week, reading through the Bible in a version or study edition different than one I’ve read before, and spending time weekly on 100 Bible memory verses). But the only other goals will be very simple – getting more sleep daily than I averaged in 2014 (trying for 7.5 instead of 6.5 hours nightly), finishing the books I intended to read last year but didn’t complete, and being more intentional about serving my church and others rather than setting self-focused goals.

I recall a sermon by my former Associate Pastor Kris Billiter from January 2014 when he suggested we set other-oriented goals rather than self-focused ones. That message stuck with me throughout 2014, so I’m taking it to heart. I want to be a better person – not just someone who does a lot of stuff. Drastically reducing self-focused goals and saying “yes” to opportunities to serve others while still reserving enough time for adequate rest will be my basic plan.

I’ve always been a task-oriented person. Plans and goals and checklists fit me well. That isn’t the case with all people. But there is a point where too many to-do items just suck the life out of life. I reached that point in 2014 and have no intention of doing so this year. In fact, I’ve already scheduled one day per week for vacation every week from January through March, plus a full week off in February for the heck of it. I’m writing this post on the first of those restful, stay-at-home days where I slept late, read, played with the dog, spent a couple hours at church helping with our youth program, and now am finishing a blog post.

2015 is off to a good start. You’re welcome to hold me accountable if you like. I hope your year is both productive and meaningful at a deeper, personal, more satisfying level than mere checklists can guarantee.

Don’t suck the life out of life. It’s too precious.

keep-calm-and-finish-strongI’ve been very goal oriented the past two years in publishing on this blog very specific goals in the categories of body, mind and spirit. The goals for 2013 were many and I was glad to accomplish nearly all of them. I started down a similar path at the beginning of 2014, but soon felt burdened by so many time-consuming goals outside of work and volunteer endeavors. By my March update I had reduced the goals a little bit, and by May I had decided to take a few months off from a couple of them entirely. My brain and my spirit needed a rest from the physical activity goals more than my body did. I still continued work on most of the goals, but filed a couple under “not gonna happen” and went on with life.

Now that we’re in the final third of the year and the end is in sight, I’m back in gear and ready to finish out the year completing those goals that are most important and putting aside officially those that aren’t. I’m already looking forward to a very different approach in 2015 which will not  have me listing all kinds of goals for body, mind and spirit. I’ll talk more about what it will include when the time comes.

With that background, here is where I stand with the original goals for 2014 and what my plan is to close out the year with each:

  • Average at least 10,000 steps per day every week. After taking the second quarter off from this, I’m back on track. My company has a 100 Day Dash going on right now until late November where we’re on teams recording and tracking steps daily. My goal for these 100 days is to never get less than 11,000 steps per day and so far I’ve done that. I’ll end the year strong and will keep at this pace until I reach our company’s top rewards program level which should happen around the end of the year.
  • Do a stretching routine daily. I started the year doing this faithfully but took a break after hurting my back. I never got back into the routine and don’t intend to for now. I’ll stretch before and after running, but not otherwise.
  • Run 365 miles for the year. I haven’t run 10 miles this year. I walk 5-6 miles a day between work and walking the dog, but I just haven’t gotten back into running. This goal will not be met. Walking will have to be good enough.
  • Average 7.5 hours of sleep a night. My average is more like 6.5 hours per night year to date. That isn’t enough. My body is calling for more and I have to find a way to make it happen. Of course, the 6.5 is more than years past, but I need more than years past.
  • Average no more than 45 hours per week for work. For the first year in the 11+ I’ve had with my company where I’ve tracked hours, I’m actually staying within the 45 per week limit. I’ve learned to adjust some things and manage my days differently to get to this point.

  • Author or co-author a book related to enterprise social networks. Now that we just completed the first year of the weekly Twitter chat I lead on enterprise social networks – #ESNchat – I’m planning on putting together a free e-book PDF that contains the first year’s chat archives plus a little background info on the experience. It’s the one and only book I’ll be responsible for this year, but I’m pretty proud of what it should be.
  • Write 100 blog posts. Earlier in the year I changed this goal to average one post per week instead of 100 for the year. Making that goal should not be a problem.
  • Set up Pinterest boards and pins to coincide with my blog categories and posts. In the interest of time, I abandoned this goal earlier in the year.
  • Reserve at least one hour per day for unstructured, unplanned time not related to any tasks or goals. I don’t track this and I know I don’t always accomplish it either, but I’m certain I’ve been better about allowing myself guilt-free free time this year. There is still room for improvement here, though.

  • Finish reading The Apologetics Study Bible. I should be able to do this just fine. I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I’ve read Genesis – Isaiah so far, taking this one in order cover to cover.
  • Read these three major theology books: (1) Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine by Wayne Grudem, (2) Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine by Gregg Allison, and (3) Theology of the Reformers by Timothy George. To date I’ve completed the third book and am about 2/3 through the first one. I should be able to complete this goal as planned. I have to say that Grudem’s book is one of the most amazing books I’ve ever read. I’ve love to take part in or lead a one-year study of the contents of this book with a group of people.
  • Have a daily Bible reading and devotional time. I’ve missed days from time to time which is disappointing. Nothing should crowd this from my schedule. There is really no excuse for that. I must do better.

So there you have my goal update for mid-September 2014 – on track with some things, abandoned a few and modified others. At least I’m in that mode now of seeing the finish line for the year ahead of me and I’m working hard at a number of the goals to finish strong those that are most important.

What about you? How are you coming on what you set out to accomplish this year?

detourAny regular reader of this blog will know how goal-focused I am. I’ve written a lot about them throughout 2013 and early in 2014. I honestly thought that I was lightening my load a little for 2014 with my goals, but it turns out I was waaaaaaaaay off in that estimate! By the time of my March 1 goals update, I was already backing off a little. Now that it’s May 1, I’ve made even more reductions in the original plan for the year.

Why? Because being so goal-oriented above and beyond what is happening at work was simply making life too hectic and unsatisfying. I have yet to get the number of hours of sleep I want to average this year. I’ve failed far too many days reserving a single hour to relax and do as I please. I’ve felt an unnecessary weight on my shoulders and self-induced guilt for not being as up-to-date on my personal to-do list as I wish.

Frankly, I’m tired of all that. As the months have progressed in 2014, a few priorities have risen to the top that take precedence, while others will be reduced or eliminated if need be in order to preserve such simple things as sleep and a little unstructured time.

So here is what has changed recently and what stands out to me related to my goals going forward:

  • I have put aside the daily step goal of 10,000 steps at least through June. I averaged 18,000 steps a day for several months last year and hadn’t had any day with less than 10,000 steps since sometime last September until I recently decided to not care about my steps daily for a few months. That has been liberating. When my employer’s annual incentive program for steps kicks in again in July, I’ll make sure I do what it takes to maintain my current top rewards level, but I won’t commit to more than that going forward.
  • Previously I announced that I would reduce my blogging from the original goal of 100 posts for the year to one per week on average. I’m behind that adjusted goal since I only posted once in April, but I have a series of them planned that will easily catch me up to the one per week average. That’s still doable, but it was nice to take a break for a month.
  • I’m proud of myself for keeping my work hours to an average of under 45 per week this year. That saves me 8-10 per week compared to the past many years, so I’ll keep doing that.
  • The dream of writing or co-authoring a book on enterprise social networking is coming to fruition. May will be an important month for finalizing some plans with other co-authors who have agreed to participate. I’m very excited about that, but it’s going to be time consuming until it’s done. I’d like to wrap it up by late summer or early fall.
  • I’m behind somewhat on my reading goal, but not so much that some planned vacation times in May – July won’t catch me up.
  • I’m spending a lot more time managing my church’s Facebook and Twitter accounts than I ever dreamed I would – things not really taken into account in the year’s goals on January 1. This is incredibly important to me, however, so it is a high priority. It’s actually going very, very well which is encouraging. This is something I’m doing for others and not myself which is another reason it’s near the top of my priorities.
  • I love the weekly Twitter chat #ESNchat that I founded in September, 2013, but it is more time-consuming than I thought it would be. I’ll keep doing it, but it consumes on average an hour per day to pull off that one-hour-per-week chat. I’ll re-evaluate around the one year anniversary mark this fall following publication of the book mentioned above and another e-book publishing the first year’s chat archives.

This is the first of two planned vacation weeks in May (although only about half will really be vacation due to preparing for and speaking at a work-related conference next week in Philadelphia.) Two more weeks of time off are scheduled for June – one of which will be my periodic getaway to a monastery for a quiet time of reading and relaxation. It is apparent that I need to schedule two-week blocks off in order to actually take enough time off for other things. I’ll keep doing so until I’ve used up a majority of my bank of days off available.

While having a number of goals in the areas of body, mind and spirit was a nice approach in 2013, the goals for this year should have been fewer and more balanced between those that benefit me versus goals that benefit others. That’s the biggest takeaway so far for me as I ponder what changes to make in this mid-course correction. Deciding on the top few priorities for me (down time, sleep) while making sure that major goals also benefit others (my church, my profession) is the focus of this correction. And if this correction doesn’t balance things out, then more course corrections will happen in the months ahead.

Life shouldn’t be all fun and games, but neither should it all be work. This year – unlike last year – I’m not hell-bent on pursuing the original goals no matter what. I have adjusted and will continue to adjust as needed to find the sweet spot of how I spend my time. That’s hard for a goal-oriented person to do, but it seems best and most sensible.

I’m tired of chasing so many goals that I end up feeling daily like I’m missing out on life.

Progress ReportOn January 1 I listed a number of goals for 2014 categorized into the areas of body, mind and spirit. This is the same categorization I used for 2013 and it seemed to work well, so I thought I’d stay with it again this year. After two months of 2014, I want to give a progress report and share some thoughts on the plan, along with some modifications.

When setting the goals, I wrote: “I have a little apprehension about the above goals – a slight fear that cumulatively I’m not cutting back enough from 2013’s sense of overload. I will reserve the right to adjust the above goals if I find that they’re too ambitious.” Having lived the past two months with these goals in mind, I’ve concluded that a shift is needed if I am to do a couple of major things well. So my review of the original goals below will, where applicable, note changes in the plan going forward.

Part of the plan change has to do with the idea that the original goals were solely focused on me. A few days into the year my pastor preached on the subject of our goals for serving others. It dawned on me that I needed to be more specific about goals for service for others and that to do so may require reducing some of the other original goals. Also, apart from adding items about serving others, I think the first two months have proven the original list to be too ambitious, so rather than charge ahead stubbornly and wear myself out or get too frustrated, I’ll make some changes two months in to try to balance out my time.

There are some major daily things that I do that aren’t recorded in these goals because they are a part of my routine. That doesn’t lessen the time required to complete them, however, so I’m mindful of the amount of time those daily disciplines take in addition to the other goals listed.

With that intro, then, here is a progress report on my goals for the year:

  • Average at least 10,000 steps per day every week. I’m glad to say I haven’t had a single day of less than 10,000 steps since last September sometime.
  • Do a stretching routine daily. I did this daily for over a month and then have taken a break for a bit due to some back pain that I probably inflicted on myself from bad form in stretching. I’ll resume again this week and see what happens.
  • Run 365 miles for the year. Most of this running will happen in nicer weather which is not what we’ve had in Louisville, Kentucky so far this year. I’m keeping a record and will have time to achieve this once spring weather arrives.
  • Average 7.5 hours of sleep a night. I’m disappointed in my record here. I’m only averaging 6.5 hours per night – a little better than last year but not enough. That’s another sign I have too much on my plate and need to adjust because this is too important to ignore.
  • Average no more than 45 hours per week for work. Believe it or not, I’m so far successful in doing this in 2014. I can’t remember the last year I worked less than in the mid-50s per week for work. I’ve kept a daily record, though, and have kept the average so far at 43 per week. That’s good.

  • Author or co-author a book related to enterprise social networks. I made the first move in February to collaborate with a number of professionals in my line of work to write a handbook on our profession. The idea was well received and I’ll be following up later this week with others interested in being involved. I’m excited about the potential for this. It will be very time consuming, but worthwhile.
  • Write 100 blog posts. Even though the 100 figure is a lot less than either of the last two years, I’m going to reduce it effective immediately to one blog post per week instead. I’ve only written 11 posts this year, but it’s felt good to be at a less frequent schedule and to start writing for some other websites in addition to my own blog. Changing the goal to one per week with a couple of those a month being for other websites seems reasonable, especially in light of writing and/or editing one or two books this year.
  • Set up Pinterest boards and pins to coincide with my blog categories and posts. Given a lot of time, this would be fun to do, but I’m going to remove it from the list in light of being behind on more important goals. Maybe next year, Pinterest.
  • Reserve at least one hour per day for unstructured, unplanned time not related to any tasks or goals. I haven’t done this every day, but I’m also sure I’ve done it more days in each of the first two months of this year than was typical last year. That’s improvement, right?

  • Finish reading The Apologetics Study Bible. This is going very well. I’m ahead of schedule on this and may cut back a bit in the number of chapters I’m reading daily for the month of March.
  • Read these three major theology books: (1) Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine by Wayne Grudem, (2) Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine by Gregg Allison, and (3) Theology of the Reformers by Timothy George. The first of these I’m reading is the third one listed. It’s the shortest of them all and I’m nowhere close to finished. It will probably take a vacation week of reading to help catch me up.
  • Have a daily Bible reading and devotional time. This has been a goal I would not allow to slip, so I’m glad to say this is on track. Except for one night in a power outage with no electricity, I’ve done this daily.

As mentioned above, it occurred to me early in the year that I should be more explicit in having goals in service to others. So a goal added in January beyond the list above was to spend at least two hours per week assisting with communication needs at my church – primarily social media via the church’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. I’m pleased to say that I’m working with these daily and thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to apply what I’ve learned in my line of work for the good of my church. It’s going very well and is where I find myself drifting in moments of free time because it seems like such a good fit for me. I know I’m giving more than two hours a week to it, but that’s OK.

So there you have it – my first goal update for 2014. Overall, I’m mostly pleased, although I’m behind on a couple and will permanently change or remove a couple more to make sure I have time for sleep, rest and serving others. The addition of doing social media daily for my church is a major addition not originally planned but of enormous importance to me, so I’ll adjust other things as needed to do that well.

What about you? How are you coming on your plans for 2014?

Happy New Year 2014I set a number of goals for 2013, most of which were achieved as reported in this end-of-year progress report. After careful consideration of what worked and what didn’t last year, and after determining some directions I’d like to go in 2014, I’ve settled on the following personal goals for this year, not including those for my work. Like last year, I’m categorizing them as related to body, mind and spirit, although there are a few that might cross over to multiple areas or not necessarily fit well into any of those categories.

One thing I learned in last year’s pursuits is that some goals can become such daily habits that you no longer really need to call them out as goals and bother with tracking them. A few that are like that for me now are keeping my weight at or below 145 pounds, reviewing weekly the 100 Bible memory verses that I chose several years ago to burn into my brain and heart, and writing handwritten letters to my sons twice a year. So even though I’ll still be doing those, they won’t be recorded and reported here. I want the public goals I share to involve pursuits that add a new challenge and interest.

After feeling like I tackled too much in 2013, I’m setting some goals this year that reflect a desire to have a little more down time and rest. To do so, that time has to come from somewhere, meaning I have to do less in some areas than I did in 2013. Here, then, are my personal, non-work-related goals for 2014.

  • Average at least 10,000 steps per day every week. I’ve averaged more than that since getting my Fitbit Flex in September, but 10,000 is an easy-to-remember goal and the threshold for earning maximum rewards from the HumanaVitality program offered through my company’s health insurance plan. That’s the equivalent of five miles per day, so that’s a healthy, reachable number that takes about an hour less per week than I’ve been doing the past four months.
  • Do a stretching routine daily. I have a nice set of stretching exercises that I do before and after runs that I’ve done for years, but I feel the need to do them daily for the value they bring, whether or not I’m running.
  • Run 365 miles for the year. I haven’t run regularly for a few years. I walk a lot and occasionally jog some while out with the dog, but I want to do better at running this year. I don’t care how these miles are spaced out throughout the year. I won’t try for one mile every day. Some weeks will yield more miles than others, and that’s OK. All of these steps are included in the 10,000/day in the goal above, and actually save time since I run about twice as fast as I walk.
  • Average 7.5 hours of sleep a night. My 2013 goal for sleep was six hours per night – more than previous years, but my body is telling me I need more. This will be very difficult for me to do because the time to do this has to come from elsewhere. Tracking it accurately with the Fitbit is easy, though, and I’m determined to work at it.
  • Average no more than 45 hours per week for work. I can’t remember the last year I worked less than 50-55 hours per week on the average, so this will be a serious challenge for me. I’ll have to be better at letting some things go and at training and delegating other colleagues and volunteers to make sure all still gets done. I’m placing this goal in the body category since consistently working too many hours takes more of a toll on my body and time available for other things than it does on mind or spirit due to how much I love my work.

  • Author or co-author a book related to enterprise social networks. It’s time I wrote a book. I would like to create an e-book related to my profession because I don’t think there is enough in print to help guide others whose roles are similar to mine. The weekly Twitter chat I lead on the subject – #ESNchat – is an incredible source of information and knowledgeable contacts, so by the time I’ve led that for nearly a year in September, 2014 I should have a wealth of information to write or collaborate with others to write a very helpful guide for those that manage enterprise social networks. I’ll probably just give it away online when written to get the info out there. I’m not planning on writing it for profit. Making a positive impact on the profession and perhaps getting some conference speaking engagements as a result will be adequate reward.
  • Write 100 blog posts. For 2012, I wrote a post a day – 366 of them. In 2013 that went to one every other day. For 2014, I’ll back that down once again to one every 3-4 days. Since I’ll be writing some substantive posts for other websites in 2014, those will take more time than I typically spend on posts for my own blog. To account for that added time, I’ll write fewer posts on my this blog, although I’ll post a notice and link here to posts I write elsewhere.
  • Set up Pinterest boards and pins to coincide with my blog categories and posts. I’ve wanted to do this for a long while, so I need to make it a public goal to hold me accountable for getting it done. With over 70 categories currently on this blog, the plan is to create one Pinterest board per category and then pin all relevant blog posts to each board. Once caught up with all posts going back to this blog’s beginning in 2011, pinning new blog posts will be a part of the publication process for each post in order to keep the Pinterest boards current. I’m thinking about devoting one of my vacation weeks in 2014 for this task.
  • Reserve at least one hour per day for unstructured, unplanned time not related to any tasks or goals. This may seem like an odd goal, but it’s tied to feeling like I didn’t allow myself enough down time last year. By making a goal of giving time to not working on some goals, I’m forcing myself to have more down time and enjoy some spur-of-the-moment activity. (Of course, not having structured time is actually working on this goal, but you get the point.) I’m putting this goal in the mind category since its purpose is to give me more mental breaks.

  • Finish reading The Apologetics Study Bible. I started reading it late in 2013, but still have 95% of its 2000+ pages to read in 2014. Each 1-2 years I pick a different version or study edition of the Bible to read through. This is the current one I’m working on which will be my first complete read of the version called the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB).
  • Read these three major theology books: (1) Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine by Wayne Grudem, (2) Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine by Gregg Allison, and (3) Theology of the Reformers by Timothy George. All together, these three books total 2,400 pages of material that along with The Apologetics Study Bible will be a fantastic theological and apologetic emphasis for the year.
  • Have a daily Bible reading and devotional time. I’ve been too hit and miss with when I do my Bible readings and prayer. I want to develop the consistent habit of doing so daily without fail.

Some of the goals above save me time compared to similar efforts in 2013, while other new goals will, of course, require time not dedicated for those things in 2013. Cutting back my work hours to something more reasonable will go a long way toward finding the extra hours needed, as will taking advantage of the many weeks of vacation time I have or will have accumulated by the end of 2014. I also suspect the TV will need to be turned off more frequently in my man cave.

I have a little apprehension about the above goals – a slight fear that cumulatively I’m not cutting back enough from 2013’s sense of overload. I will reserve the right to adjust the above goals if I find that they’re too ambitious. I’m determined to make sure I have the free time and added sleep needed, so other things will have to go if necessary. Until then, I’ll proceed with the above goals and will report back here quarterly (not monthly as I did last year) on my progress.

What about you? What are you going to tackle this year?


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Civil Disobedience

There seem to be a higher percentage of political activists amongst Quakers than we have observed in any other religious group. The Jesus Christians have some reservations about how much can be achieved politically (See the next article, Christian Politicians.) but they have always been activists. Below is an early document supporting their practice of civil disobedience as a form of peaceful protest.

Why do we sometimes practice civil disobedience?

1. Because Jesus did not condemn it, and he was guilty of breaking laws himself. It was against the law to follow Jesus (John 9:22; and John 12:42) and Jesus said it would be much the same today (John 16:2). Judas is called the 'son of perdition' for co-operating with civil authorities in disclosing Jesus' hideout. The disciples also disobeyed civil authorities whenever they understood it to be necessary as part of carrying out God's will. (Acts 5:28-29)

2. Paul says Christians are free from the law. In Romans 2:17-23 he says people who boast that they obey the law are hypocrites, because everyone breaks laws at times. In Romans 7 and 8 he teaches that we have graduated from civil laws to heavenly laws if we are obedient to Jesus. Jesus said the same thing when he taught that loving God and others is fulfillment of the highest good in all laws (Matthew 22:37-40)

3. Submitting to all civil authorities is impossible, since governments are constantly in conflict with one another. Should Christians in Libya, for example, become terrorists if Gaddafi tells them to?

Obviously we must respect the good in any government while rejecting the evil. This is the spirit of passages like Romans 13:1-3, which tell us governments only have 'authority' if God chooses to grant it. But apart from respecting the good that is in any government, any pretence of them having authority to enforce evil laws or goals is a sham.

4. There are hierarchies of laws; any law which contradicts a higher law is, in itself, illegal. A by-law that is contrary to the constitution must not be obeyed by truly law-abiding citizens. The highest law, of course, is God's law. If we act in love, then we are acting in harmony with what is good in all laws.

It appears that when Peter and Paul were telling Christians to obey the law, they weren't doing so in some absolute, moral way. We understand that the followers of Jesus (i.e. all truly sincere people, who are motivated by love and the truth) are members of the Royal Family, and they reign in a new Kingdom (Matthew 17:25-26). As such, we do not owe our ultimate allegiance to any earthly government.

But in keeping with the law of love that governs this Kingdom, Jesus tells us to do what we can to keep from offending lesser governments (Matthew 17:27).

Paul says the same thing in Romans 13:7-8: "Give tribute to whom tribute is due... but owe no man anything except to love one another; for anyone who loves has fulfilled the law."

(See also Respectability.)

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Facts and Figures on Violence Against Women

Today is the “International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.” For a minute, let’s imagine a world where at least one out of three women and girls were not subject to being “beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in their lifetimes, usually by someone they know”.  Violence against women is reported by the UN’s Say No to Violence Against Women” campaign to be “perhaps the most pervasive human rights violation that we know today“.  (The following paragraphs are taken from their report)

Statistics paint a horrifying picture of the social and health consequences of violence against women. For women aged 15 to 44 years, violence is a major cause of death and disability [2]. In a 1994 study based on World Bank data about ten selected risk factors facing women in this age group, rape and domestic violence rated higher than cancer, motor vehicle accidents, war and malaria [3]….

Domestic and intimate partner violence includes physical and sexual attacks against women in the home, within the family or within an intimate relationship. Women are more at risk of experiencing violence in intimate relationships than anywhere else.

In no country in the world are women safe from this type of violence. Out of ten counties surveyed in a 2005 study by the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 50 percent of women in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru and Tanzania reported having been subjected to physical or sexual violence by intimate partners, with figures reaching staggering 71 percent in rural Ethiopia. Only in one country (Japan) did less than 20 percent of women report incidents of domestic violence [7]. An earlier WHO study puts the number of women physically abused by their partners or ex-partners at 30 percent in the United Kingdom, and 22 percent in the United States [8].

Based on several surveys from around the world, half of the women who die from homicides are killed by their current or former husbands or partners. Women are killed by people they know and die from gun violence, beatings and burns, among numerous other forms of abuse [10]. A study conducted in São Paulo, Brazil, reported that 13 percent of deaths of women of reproductive age were homicides, of which 60 percent were committed by the victims’ partners [11]. According to a UNIFEM report on violence against women in Afghanistan, out of 1,327 incidents of violence against women collected between January 2003 and June 2005, 36 women had been killed — in 16 cases (44.4 percent) by their intimate partners [12].

According to the Secretary-General’s In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women, by 2006 89 States had some form of legislative prohibition on domestic violence, including 60 States with specific domestic violence laws, and a growing number of countries had instituted national plans of action to end violence against women…

Limited availability of services, stigma and fear prevent women from seeking assistance and redress. This has been confirmed by a study published by the WHO in 2005: on the basis of data collected from 24,000 women in 10 countries, between 55 percent and 95 percent of women who had been physically abused by their partners had never contacted NGOs, shelters or the police for help [13].”

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OK, I use italics a lot, but I really mean them this time: this is weird. Police in Sanford, Florida say George Zimmerman — who killed BUT DIDN'T MURDER Trayvon Martin — has emerged from hiding to save a stranger family of four strangers from an overturned truck and then disappear again into the night like the goddamn Batman. It's just like that scene in Crash when Matt Dillon saves Thandie Newton from a fiery car wreck, only in Florida instead of LA and probably more deserving of an Oscar.

According to ABC, the bizarre twist in the awful Zimmerman saga happened this weekend at the corner of I-4 and Route 417, less than a mile from where unarmed Trayvon Martin was killed — BUT NOT MURDERED. According to Sanford police (who apparently don't care that everyone now knows where George Zimmerman is), Zimmerman was just, I don't know, moseying along the highway like normal people tend to do (perhaps he was double super secret neighborhood watch volunteering? IDK.) when he just happened to stumble across an overturned truck, and he pulled the person in the truck to safety like the hero he always imagined he was.

My esteemed colleague Madeleine Davies theorized from the seat next to me that Zimmerman camped out under an army blanket just waiting for a car accident at a busy intersection so he could begin to repair his damaged reputation.

Whatever the circumstances around Zimmerman's truck rescue, it's a good thing that the person in the cabin wasn't armed and didn't feel threatened by Zimmerman's entry into their vehicle, or, you know, Zimmerman could have gotten himself shot.


text:
Hello Photographers!

June 25, 2007

Welcome to Moose-photo.no.

I have created a opportunity for great moose and roe deer pictures from photo hides here in Overhalla. Many photographers have visited my hides, and they have all left positive feedback and achieved great pictures.

I am sharing this place because I want to give the enthusiasts a new possibility of snapping rare nature pictures, that you haven’t been able to achieve other places. The main photo season is in the winter.

Please browse around my site, and feel free to contact me!

Jon Håvard Vold


text:
Posted by: Author | July 7, 2014

Tuesday Tales – July 7, 2014- Summer

This week’s word is summer. I was afraid I wouldn’t get any writing done to participate this week but my arm finally got well enough for me to type a bit more than I’ve been able to since the accident.  I’m still working on the nameless contemporary. If you can think of a name, let me know. I need help!

Be sure to check out the other stories here.Badge for TT - very small

“Then hear this, David, Kat is not interested in you. She told me she’s to the point of never hanging with us again due to your inability to take a hint and leave her alone.” Philip stepped closer to David. “Hear this. We will not be very forgiving if we lose her friendship over your idiocy. We’ve all gone through what you’re feeling. Each one of us has wanted her but she’s not biting. Let it go.”

“I can’t. I think I’m the right man for her. I can break down those walls she’s built. I know I can.” David was almost pouting.

Paul thought it was pathetic to see and said, “Sounds to me like the guys have your best interests at heart, mate. You might want to listen to them. Wouldn’t be better to have the girl around as a friend than to be cut off from her?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe it would hurt less if I never saw her.” David turned and walked away, down the stairs and out of the bar.

Paul stepped over to the piano. “Time to channel some Billy Joel or Elton John, don’t you think?”

Sounds good,” Amos said and the men vacated the stage as Paul played a little riff to get the audience’s attention.

After another half hour of playing and trying to keep his mind on the act of entertaining the audience and not on the woman with the vivid blue eyes, Paul stood and announced to the audience that they set was over and he would be stepping down. He invited the crowd to stay to listen to the next act.

As he stepped off the stage, a group of young men took his spot and tuned their instruments while a couple of Amos’ employees moved Paul’s guitars out of the way. Paul worked his way through a crowd of women at the foot of the steps, shaking hands as he went. Eventually, he made it to the table where Johnny sat with Kat and Philip minus Amos as he was at the bar working and minus David.

Paul pulled out a chair, flipped it backwards and straddled it. “I guess David didn’t get over being cheesed off. I see he’s gone missing from the group.”

“He was sure in a snit when he left but that’s okay. Who needs a party-pooper anyway?”  Philip said.

“He’s been a problem since the summer. I wish he would go back to how he used to be. I can hardly stand to be around him.” Kat pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

“Hopefully, he’ll come around soon.” Johnny patted Kat’s hand.

“I sure hope so.”

  1. Hmm … is he really going to push a good friendship? I like this story.

    • Good question, Iris. Lol – glad you’re liking it.

  2. I`m wondering the same thing Iris is. Nicely done excerpt!

    • Thanks Vicki. I’m glad you’re wondering. Lol

  3. Interesting dynamics among these friends. Can’t wait to see how it plays out!

    • Thanks Flossie. Me, too; LOL!

  4. Someone is stubborn…very interesting to see. Love the interplay between the friends. Can’t wait for more!

    • Thanks Sarah. Stubborn ainât the half of it. LOL!

  5. Loved the scene and the interactions between the friends. Curious as to if he’ll listen to his friends or not.
    Billy Joel! Now I’m in the mood for a little Billy Joel.

    • Thanks Trisha. I’m thinking he won’t listen. Lol. And we gotta love Billy.

  6. Hmm. Interesting. Great dialogue and just enough description to get your point across. Good job. And I’m wondering how far he’ll push for that relationship…

    • Thanks Tabs. I always have to go back and layer description later. It’s my least favorite thing. Lol. I’m very Hemingway with descriptions. Lol

  7. Nice banter. I’m always amazed how well women write about men, but it is seldom the other way around.

    • Thanks Morgan. Youâre right. It does seem as if men have a harder time writing women than women do with me. I spent most of my life with male pals so I am lucky there as it helps me.

  8. Hmm, breaking her walls down, sounds like he may accidentally hurt her emotionally.

    • ah yea, Stefan. This guy is going to make a mess of things

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Supply Chain Leadership Council

The Supply Chain Leadership Council (SCLC) is managed by JSOM students and alumni. The council promotes supply chain-related studies and activities.

SCLC’s primary goal is to help supply chain management students:

  • expand their educational experience/knowledge,
  • develop career opportunities through networking with industry professionals,
  • implement best supply chain practices into the curriculum and
  • build an environment for students and faculty to interact and exchange ideas.

The council works diligently with the faculty and SCM Industry Advisory Board, supply chain leaders and professional associations (ISM, APICS, INFORMS) to enhance the curriculum, develop new courses and provide guest speakers, field trips, case competitions, scholarships and certificates to members.

SCLC also works with the Jindal School’s Career Management Center to organize networking and recruiting events and career workshops.

Dallas-Fort Worth area companies have helped tremendously in welcoming our SCLC members to see firsthand the working supply chains for different products. The UT-Dallas SCLC offers our annual Case Competition providing experience in team collaboration, problem-solving, responsibility and promotions. The experience received by our SCLC members will certainly carry on to the development of even more cost and time efficient manufacturing supply chains which affect the future of everyone.

David R. Parks, PhD Faculty Advisor, Supply Chain Leadership Council

The Supply Chain Leadership Council at JSOM is dedicated to improving and growing the supply chain program, curriculum, reputation, industry relationship and collegiate experience our students, both inside and outside the classroom.

The council has many objectives, including but not limited to the following:

  • To provide significant leadership opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students
  • To provide a vehicle for key student issues and curriculum enhancements to be brought to the attention of the council
  • To provide essential support to help elevate the rankings and reputation of the supply chain program

How we work

The council meets monthly to address important current concerns and initiative relating to the following:

  • Academic programs and services
  • Reputation building
  • Professional organizations (ISM, APICS, INFORMS)

The council plays a critical role in facilitating change within the program, and council members believe and take significant pride in their efforts.

Members enjoy the benefit of including their service of this council on their resumes. Employers can easily see that SLCL members are prominent student leaders in the UT Dallas community. Both the academic and student experience have been improved because of this important council.

To apply to the council, a prospective council member must fill out the online application by clicking the “Apply Online” button. There is a $15 one-time membership fee to join the council. There are some activities and events that are only limited to the registered members.

Apply Online


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Tell Them You Love Them

Look around you. Is there a person beside you that you love? Are there family members nearby that you love? What about your close friends, do you value and love them as well?

Tell Them You Love Them

In this uncertain world that we live in, there is a lesson I’ve learned the hard way that I wish to share. You can never take for granted that a person will be there later for you to express your appreciation and love to. Life is very short and those we love are often gone long before we expect it. What do you want your last words to be to any person in your life that you feel genuine value and love for?

Yes, I know this is a bit corny coming from me, but I learned this lesson very early in life and I believe it to be so very true. Show you’re appreciation for those you love, regardless of the situation, so that your last words are filled with appreciation, respect and love.

Regardless of whether you are angry, resentful, hurt, under-appreciated, heart broken or just plain mad, when you look in your heart, what do you feel for the person you are facing? Do you feel love? If so, say it! That person may step out into the street and get hit by a bus. They may eat a meal that is rife with Salmonella. They may owe a bookie and have a contract out on them. You never know! At any given moment, it could be their time, or your time to go.

So, I ask again, what do you want your last words to be?

Personally, I never, ever take for granted that a person I love will be there later. As my last words to anyone I sincerely love, I make it a point to tell them, “I love you.”

None of us knows the exact minute we will move on. Nor do we know this for anyone else. We should take every opportunity we can to express our love for those around us. You never know when the last time will be.

To those of you who truly know my heart, I love you!

About JMorris

My game is SERPs and Web Dev. I read rankings and code like Gamers play RPGs. I do a little bit of everything online: SysAdmin, Design, Code, SEO & SMO. I love all things web.

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Open and Sustainable Learning Coordinator

Fairfax, VA, VA
Sep 04, 2018
Sep 29, 2018
Full Time

Job Category : Admin or Professional Faculty

Working hours :

Salary : Salary is competitive and commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Web Announcement :
Open and Sustainable Learning Coordinator

The Virtual Library of Virginia (VIVA), a State Council of Higher Education for Virginia-sponsored program housed at George Mason University and Virginias academic library consortium, seeks to fill the position of Open and Sustainable Learning Coordinator. George Mason University has a strong institutional commitment to the achievement of excellence and diversity among its faculty and staff, and strongly encourages candidates to apply who will enrich Masons and VIVAs academic and culturally inclusive environment.

Responsibilities: The Open and Sustainable Learning Coordinator is responsible for the statewide development and implementation of the promotion, programming, and training elements of VIVAs Open and Affordable Course Content Initiative. This position works to directly advance VIVAs goal of implementing sustainable and economically viable models of scholarly communication that provide barrier-free access to resources for students and researchers.

  • Coordinate and implement the outreach and training components of VIVAs statewide Open and Affordable Course Content Program.
  • Serve as a central contact and facilitator for the VIVA Open Textbook Network program and its System and Campus Leaders.
  • Build and maintain consensus across stakeholder groups, and advocate effectively for OER and the VIVA program to a wide variety of audiences.
  • Support the work of the VIVA Open and Affordable Course Content Committee and its associated task forces, including coordinating the annual Open Textbook Network Best Practices Forum.
  • Work closely with the Assessment and E-Resources Program Analyst to evaluate and communicate programmatic success to a wide variety of stakeholders.
  • Develop and promote a coherent view of open and affordable course content options available to faculty, including Open Educational Resources (OER), VIVA shared collections, local library holdings, and affordable content available for central licensing and acquisition.
  • Serve as a statewide resource for libraries interested in helping faculty to adapt, publish, and implement OER, including licensing policies and copyright compliance issues.
  • Identify and cultivate partners for open and affordable learning solutions and actively investigate new models and approaches for the development, promotion, and implementation of these solutions within libraries.
  • Monitor and communicate about issues, trends, and best practices in open and affordable course content and copyright and intellectual property issues within the higher education landscape. Communicate to the VIVA community emerging models of scholarly communication that provide barrier free access to resources for students and researchers. Required Qualifications:
  • ALA accredited Masters Degree in Library or Information Science or foreign equivalent, or an equivalent combination of relevant graduate study and experience.
  • Significant and demonstrably successful experience working collaboratively in a complex and culturally diverse higher education setting.
  • Outstanding oral and written communication skills, planning and organizational skills, and interpersonal skills.
  • Demonstrated knowledge of intellectual property and copyright issues in the academic environment, including trends in Open Access and open education.
  • Demonstrated project management and team leadership of individuals and groups as well as the ability to work independently.
  • Demonstrated flexibility in adapting to change and ability to work well under pressure, meet deadlines, and balance multiple functions and tasks.
  • Candidate must be willing and able to travel to meetings and to attend conferences and meetings representing VIVA. Preferred Qualifications:
  • Knowledge of current and emerging trends at library consortia.
  • Experience or demonstrated skills in instruction, curriculum design, and teaching with technology.
  • Familiarity with grant writing and experience fulfilling grant reporting requirements.
  • Aptitude for thinking creatively and developing products and services, such as publications, training materials, workshops, conferences, and other tools relevant to open education and scholarly communications.
  • Understanding of current library publishing landscape and alternative publishing models, with an emphasis on open content.
  • Experience with editing web pages and managing websites.
  • A record of active professional engagement including professional presentations and publications. Appointment/Benefits/To Apply: 12-month professional faculty without rank appointment; health plan options and paid life insurance; several retirement plans, including TIAA-CREF; 24 vacation days and 12 paid holidays; tuition waiver for self.

VIVA serves as Virginias academic library consortium, representing 72 nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia. Members include all of the 39 state-assisted colleges and universities as well as 32 of the independent (private, nonprofit) institutions and the Library of Virginia. VIVAs mission is to provide, in an equitable, cooperative and cost-effective manner, enhanced access to library and information resources for the Commonwealth of Virginias nonprofit academic libraries serving the higher education community. See for more information about VIVA.

The George Mason University library system, comprised of a large central library and four other distinctive libraries, is located on three campuses in the Northern Virginia-metropolitan Washington DC region. One of Virginias leading academic research libraries, the Mason Libraries continues to gain steadily in national stature as it undergoes extensive transformation in all areas that are key to a 21st century research library - innovative technologies and services, expert library faculty and skilled staff members, growing collections, publishing, modern facilities, and transformational partnerships. Visit us at for more information.

Special Instructions : All applications for this position (FA43FZ) MUST be submitted online at George Masons employment page ( Applicants must submit letter of application, resume, and the names, addresses (including e-mail) and phone numbers of three current references. Questions should be directed to Renee Prokop (, Human Resources Coordinator, Office of the Dean of Libraries. Review of applications will begin October 13, 2018.

MasonAd : Great Careers Begin at Mason!

George Mason University is an innovative, entrepreneurial institution with national distinction in both academics and research. Mason holds a top U.S. News and World Report Up and Coming spot for national universities and is recognized for its global appeal and excellence in higher education.

Mason is currently the largest and most diverse university in Virginia with students and faculty from all 50 states and over 135 countries studying in over 200 degree programs at campuses in Arlington, Fairfax and Prince William, as well as at learning locations across the commonwealth. Rooted in Masons diversity is a campus culture that is both rewarding and exciting, work that is meaningful, and opportunities to both collaborate and create.

If you are interested in joining the Mason family take a look at our current opportunities and catch some Mason spirit at!

George Mason University, Where Innovation is Tradition.

Equity Statement : George Mason University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, committed to promoting inclusion and equity in its community. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status.

Job Close Date : 2018-10-12

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I Do Nothing…

I have been reminded on several occasions the last 2 months that I don’t “do” anything. From my darling husband complaining endlessly that I am on the internet doing nothing, but surfing, I won’t share the secret that I have been actually working on a novel, and am a little over 140 pages into said novel. My mother-in-law made it abundantly clear to me on several occasions that I didn’t do anything to help my husband get where he is in life, and that I will eventually one day ruin his career, because of any number of reasons (from my boneheaded stubbornness, to my opinionated rants, or it could even be my fighting endlessly for the needs of my son). Now, my daughter has joined the act, stating that all I do is run, and play on the computer. It’s heartbreaking to me that everyone seems to have this low opinion of what I do during my time.

I have to remind myself nearly every day that I am doing something of value. First, most of my time online has been spent writing. Whether it be on this blog, AMFAS, or writing short articles for other publications to build a portfolio. You see, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (in other words a small college in Duluth, MN), I was told I was good a writer. I love to write, and that’s what I spend the vast majority of my time doing, but because I don’t make any money doing what I love doing, there is no measure of success. The most I have ever been paid for writing is $200, and it is a pittance compared to the number of hours I spend researching and writing for the publications I have written. Over 20 pieces of my written word have been circulating throughout the Internet at any given time. But because the only thing I have to prove that I am doing something worthwhile is my name in the byline of a publication, and that’s it, I am doing nothing of value, or “playing” on the internet.

That’s not to mention the fact I have two school-aged children, one that has significant needs that merit my time and attention. I have a ten-year-old with a significant case of autism, and an 8-year-old, who is now being tested for giftedness. It appears I have an endless array of appointments that occupy the times I am not writing aka playing on the internet, or doing my other passion (training for marathons). According to many, this is not a value-added activity. There is no paycheck, and I cannot quantitatively account for the time I spend taking my children various places to meet their various and differing needs. It would appear that since I am just a stay at home mom to two older children that are in school 90% of their waking moments, that I should somehow be more productive.

I have running, which takes a significant amount of time. I spend an ordinate amount of time planning my runs, and planning subsequent strategies in case my runs don’t go as originally planned. During the summer months, due to heat, thunderstorms, and a child at home, most of my runs are mind-numbing experiences on the treadmill. And of course to my various detractors there is absolutely no value added in running. It doesn’t matter that it is my happiness, my sanity, and my release. I don’t make any money, I don’t substantively contribute to the betterment of anyone other than myself, therefore it is an activity that is meaningless and folly.

The remainder of my day is spent improving our living quarters. Whether it be by cleaning up after Hurricane Ryan and Hurricane Sophie, which leave a destructive path every where they go, or doing mindless projects throughout the house in a vain attempt at keeping it in some fashion clean and able to entertain the masses at a moments notice. So the 2 hours of my time between running, appointments, standing on my head entertaining a bored 8-year-old, and managing a increasingly busy schedule of a special needs 10-year-old is spent trying to portray my household in a sane manner.

Sadly, throughout the years I think back to what I have missed out on, while doing all the things that others see little to no value in doing. I don’t have much of a social life outside of running and seeing parents at my son’s school. Any social life I do have either involves military spouse sanctioned socializing, walking into my son’s school praying I don’t smell from my workout (or lack of a shower before a workout), or any appointments I may have at the base clinic, speech therapy, or violin lessons. I feel like no one values me as a person. Rather I am valued as someone that should get stuff done. If I don’t get something done, I suffer for it. I get berated by an irritated husband for cleaning every square inch of the house, yet forgetting the fridge for a few weeks (the few weeks I have been at home only a spare couple of hours). I get berated by an irritated mother-in-law for not scrubbing the rust stains out of the bathroom before I have company, because in the grand scheme of things rust stains were the lowest thing on my growing list of priorities. I get berated by an irritated mother for not putting her grandchildren first and foremost. Then I feel like no matter what I do it is not good enough to satisfy the masses. I feel like mothers cannot have it all.

I get no credit for what I have sacrificed. I sacrificed my career, even though most people would argue that I hated serving in the military. There were aspects that I hated (namely a few supervisors and a chief master sergeant who shall forever remain nameless), but I miss it. I miss my friends (especially Vern, may she rest in peace, who always had a smile, and would always make me laugh, especially when it came to her recommendations for callsigns– everyone’s an asshole). I even miss shop talking and being in the know. I get tired of being “just the wife.” I sacrificed my education. I could have gone back to school and gotten my master’s degree with my GI bill, but I blew it. I didn’t use it, because I didn’t have the time to use it when all my focus was on trying to get the most out of my son. I sacrificed his development for the betterment of my husband’s career. I feel like many times I failed him, because I didn’t push hard enough, or I didn’t fight long enough for what was right. I sacrificed control. I have no control over my future. I gave up a lot of what is me, for the ego of one person. I feel devalued most of the time. I feel like I need to worship at the alter of my husband, but no one worships me, or feeds my ego. All I am told is that for the last 17 years I have done nothing, and will continue to do nothing of value.

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The Sophronia Project

The Sophronia Project  (Graffiti Angel in Sophronia, a Netprov) was originally presented at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis for Northern Spark 2014 with the support of Northern and the Walker. The Sophronia Project is a participatory installation created by multimedia composer Kathy McTavish, netprov writer Rob Wittig, and digital artist Joellyn Rock. The collaborative project offers both physical and virtual space where participants may spin their own stories of Sophronia. In the multimedia installation, the audience has various modes for participation. The glowing space invites a mischievous mix of digital video and live silhouettes, colors and sounds, texts and bodies in motion. Visitors may enter the circus tent, using props and costume elements to embody the characters of Sophronia. Or they may use mobile devices to enter the project twitter feed at #sophroniatwo and watch the text projections wash the walls with crowd-sourced story fragments.

In Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino describes his imaginary Sophronia, made up of two half-cities, part circus and part stone. For the dusk-to-dawn event, Joellyn Rock created over two hours of colorful mashup video projections on circus themes with a digital age spin. In the spirit of carnivalesque celebrations, the audience plays along with silhouettes of Multifficient the Multi-tasker, Textana the Texted Girl, Connectiva the Cord Charmer, Pollinatrix the Pollinator, and the Amazing Dr Calvino.

More info at   and at

Sophronia Project / Sample of Work from Joellyn Rock on Vimeo.

Video excerpts from the Sophronia Project, a multimedia installation and performance work inspired by Calvino’s Sophronia. The installation was created by Joellyn Rock (concept, digital art, video projections) in collaboration with multimedia composer Kathy McTavish (digital projections, computer code, sound scape) and Netprov writer Rob Wittig (text and live twitter feed) and a crew of contributing artists. The Sophronia Project was also installed and shared in participatory events at the Free Range Film Barn in Wrenshall MN (July 2014) and at the Duluth Art Institute (September 2014).

Sophronia Project Credits: Collaborative Team

multimedia projections by Joellyn Rock, Kathy McTavish, additional video by Lizzy Siemers, Lane Ellis

soundscape by Kathy McTavish

electronic music by Tobin Dack

words by Rob Wittig, Kathleen Roberts, Sheila Packa, Katelynn Monson, Mark Marino and #sophroniatwo on twitter

silhouette performances by Cathy Podeszwa, Emma Harvie, Gary Kruchowski, Lizzy Siemers, Jamie Harvie, Jay Sivak, Joellyn Rock, Rob Wittig

set decorating by Nancy Rogness, Karin Preus, and Ann Gumpper

tech help by Ben Harvey at the Barn and Depot events

special thanks to the Motion and Media Across Disciplines Lab at University of Minnesota Duluth

Graffiti Angel in Sophronia, a Netprov was first presented at Northern Spark 2014 with the support of Northern and Walker Art Center.

Thanks to Annie Dugan for support with Sophronia Two Traveling Shows:

Aug 23, 2014 / Free Range Film Barn in Wrenshall, MN

Sept 11, 2014 / Duluth Art Institute / Depot Great Hall in Duluth, MN

Joellyn Rock is a fiscal year 2014 recipient of a Career Development grant from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council which is funded in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, Minnesota State Legislature, and The McKnight Foundation. Kathy McTavish also received funding from the Jerome Foundation to create the Graffiti Angel software behind the interactive and generative film component of the exhibit and received equipment funding from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council.


text:
Debt Free and It Feels So Good

I hate debt and I’m sure most everyone does, but for the majority of people (8 out of 10) it’s normal to have debt and be in debt most of your lives and even take it to the grave. I mean you have to have a house, a car, education and things right? And all these “things” take massive amounts of cash which most people simply do not have working a normal 9-5 day job so they take out large loans. Add a wife and kids to the picture and most people live paycheck to paycheck. A slave to debt. So what’s the answer?

The Motivation of Becoming Debt Free

Well for me the answer was living within my means and I knew I had to make more money than what a normal day job would pay if I truly wanted to be come debt free and own a house, provide for my family and not worry about money in the long term.

The way I see it is if you are tied to a fixed income then you need to become really good at saving and minimizing expenses to chip away at your debt. This is a long play for most people. The other option is to live the American dream and start your own business where your earning potential is nearly limitless.

Ever since I graduated college I made this clarification and I knew I wanted to run my own business. I was never satisfied working for someone else and I knew my time would be better spent making my life better as opposed to some company. But I had no choice, businesses just don’t start themselves and they are hard.

So after college I took a day job and I was making just enough to live. So essentially I was working to live. That year I set my goal to start a business and one day own my house, cars and things outright and not have to worry about debt. That was 18 years ago (from setting my goal) and this month, I’m happy to say, “I became 100% debt free!” And yes it does feel incredible but it was a hard fought battle.

The Journey

How did I become debt free? Well I must say it was not easy. After graduating college I took a day job at a startup in Nashville. At night I started working on a business idea I had dreamt up and it took me about a year or more to build out my first version. I was new to programming so I was also essentially teaching myself how to program at the same time.

I ended up launching a band website builder called eArtistManagement and since I lived in Nashville I knew a few people would I could get to instantly start using it. So I launched and I think the first month I got 2 or 3 signs ups at $15 per month. Needless to say I was excited. But the next month I got no signs ups. I thought I could just build something and people would flock to it. I had no idea about marketing at that time and it would take a while to learn that lesson.  Over the next 5 years or so the website chugged along and at the peak I think I was making around $1000 per month off the site and while this is not wildly successful it did prove I could make money on the internet and it afforded me some extra income.

I continued to work my day job and hone my programming skills at night on the site adding features which I thought would attract people.  At one point I decided to rebuild the site on a new platform at that time called WordPress. I thought it would be easier to add these features since WordPress had a plugin system. I spent a year porting the site over to WordPress. Launched and crickets. No more new customers and my revenues stayed about the same.

So I did what any good programmer would do, I built a new page builder for another niche without doing any research. This time I built a custom page builder for Facebook. I thought since Facebook was a social network it would be easily for people to discover my product and to get to new customers. This was around 2010.  I spent a year building this new platform on Google App Engine and learning to program in Python. I remember thinking to myself since this is going to be huge I need to be able to scale.  Again I had no clear concept of marketing, product market fit and I certainly did not need to worry about scaling.  I launched and nothing.

The Enlightenment

At this point I really didn’t know what to do next.  I was married now living in Charleston, SC and had two mortgage payments.  My wife and I had both bought property before getting married and the housing market crash. We had around a half million dollars worth of debt between our houses, cars, student loans and credit cards. I was drinking about every night and smoking around a pack of cigarettes a day.  I was not happy or healthy. I was still working a day job and thinking this can’t be the rest of my life. Also my first child was on the way and I knew I had to keep searching for a way to provide for my family and a way to achieve my goal of owning a business and being debt free.

Somehow I found a website called Micropreneur Academy. It’s tag line was something like “Where solo software developers learn to develop and market their first product“.  I thought this is perfect, while I was not the best developer in the world I knew I could build anything I could imagine. I was just missing the marketing secret sauce, I thought.

I instantly signed up and was eager to learn the marketing side so I could solve all my problems and learn why what I had built previously had failed.  I consumed as much info as I could in the Academy. Being a developer, marketing is a hard skill to learn and I’m still learning to this day.

I realized it was time for me to shut down all my other products and and use their blue print to find a new product that had an audience.

The New Beginning

Since I had learned WordPress in and out porting my band builder application to it and the WordPress theme market was coming to life during that time, I thought I could build a WordPress theme as my next product. The theme I had in mind would be geared toward SaaS companies.

In the academy I learned that you should test your idea before you actually build something. Essentially put up a coming soon page  and drive traffic to it and see how many leads  and interest you can generate. I went looking for a good coming soon plugin and could not find one. So again being a developer I built one and released it for free on

A few months later, while I did have some interest in the new theme idea, it still was not generating quite the buzz I thought. But at the same time something strange had happened. My free Coming Soon Page plugin had become quite popular on I think in the first couple of months the plugin had gotten over 10,000 downloads and I had people posting to the forums and emailing me for features. The WordPress plugin market was in it’s infancy at this point.

Then it hit me! This is the product. I spent about a month putting together a pro version and then released it to people who had asked for the features. September 14th, 2011 I made my first sale. Ever since then I have been making sales, learning to market and growing the business keeping my goal of becoming debt free in mind. Slowly I started chipping away at my debt.

Did I also mention that I had been working a day job this entire time as well, even after my plugin sales exceeded my day job I kept it for insurance and just incase the business went boom. I have a wife and two kids to provide for and while I could have left I wanted to see it through.

So here we are almost twenty years later and I have reached my goal. It’s an amazing feeling and even though the battle has been won I still have many more new goals and and new journeys that await.

I also just want to communicate that whatever it is in your life that you want or want to change,  never give up and keep on keeping on. During this journey there were times I got down and burned but I keep going. Always find the “why” to the things you do. When my kids were born it was major motivation for me to keep going and never give up and ultimately it’s family who motivate me to do the things I do.  Thanks to WordPress for being an open platform and thanks to Rob Walling and Mike Taber for building the academy and sharing their knowledge.

What to find out what’s next for me? Keep an eye out for my 2017 Year In Review and 2018 Goals Post.


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The Obonjan Guide

Obanjan (that’s oh-bon-yan), Croatia’s newest summer location, sits just off the centre of the Dalmatian coast. Giving you more than just a few days in a tent, this place gives you festivals and well-being throughout the summer on this magnificent private island.

Explore the island and the ones around it, hire a boat. Maybe try out a couple of water sports, party into the wee hours of the morning – basically anything you want to be doing, you should be doing here. Don’t be shy, see what’s on offer and try something new.

When you arrive on this beautiful island, you’ll get a filled with a sense of calm thanks to the tranquil atmosphere. Enhance your well-being with treats for mind, body and soul, head to the spa for a massage or a facial. Visit one of the locations focused on fitness and meditation.

Tribe's Obonjan key facts.

The vibe – You create the vibe you want

The talking points – Adventure an oasis

Currency – Euro €

Airport – Zadar or Split Airport.

Language – Croatian & English

Famous for – Festivals and a relaxed atmosphere.

Most famous resident– DJ Shadow

Hot Spots

Here are a few of our favourite things to do on the island: A day trip to Krka National Park, known for its seven stunning waterfalls. Head to the East harbour, one of Croatia’s popular beaches, hosting regular beach parties until the sun comes up.

You’ll rarely be without a DJ or artist to see both day and night, enjoy a intimate gig or something a little bigger. With only 450 guests allowed on the island you’ll have space to dance the night away.Enhance your well-being and indulge in spa treatments, these include: facials, full body massage and so much more. Discover space dedicated to fitness, meditation and treatments from the Obanjan’s various health therapists – a journey all it’s own for your personal well-being.

Daytime in Obonjan

Obonjan seems to want you to create your very own island experience, there’s no specific way to visit. From partying the night away on the beach to an early start practising meditation, so we’ve put together some of our favourites.

Take a quick boat to the mainland, explore the medieval city of Šibenik, a spot of shopping and enjoy Pelegrini’s finest cusine. Or if you’d rather spend your time in Obanjan, enjoy a cocktail and unspoilt views of the island from the hilltop at the pool.

Head to yoga platform located within the forest or, if you fancy something just for you there are plenty of secluded areas around the island, perfect for personal practice.

A night in Obonjan.

Try Bok for your evening meal, this picturesque setting will leave you in complete awe. On a health kick? Try the Green Bar linked to the wellness centre, juices, raw food, salads and tasty (yet healthy) treats.

Whether you want to dance the night away, learn something or just relax there’s a variety of ways to be entertained. Enjoy workshops, seminars, talks on nature, wellness and more. Or, sit back and relax at a film screening.

Obonjan is filled with breath taking views, but if you want to see something truly beautiful head down to South Beach. Gaze at the stars, with help from a powerful telescope you can explore the galaxy.

Things to explore.

Try a day trip to the most iconic destinations surrounding Obonjan, including the near Kornati Islands (nautical paradise), home to a rich habitat of sea life you’ll feel like you’re on an episode of Blue Planet.

East Harbour, the hub for all of the island’s water sports, take your pick of popular water sports. At Obonjan Sport you can book a private boat or a water taxi to explore the surrounding islands and to visit the mainland.

Explore your spirituality and wellbeing, utilise the specialists on Obonjan and the secluded space and practice a bit of self love.

Travellers can enjoy their new custom-made home, located within the trees and overlooking the crystal blue sea. This collection of accommodation is both eco-friendly and stylish, giving you the choice of bell tent or a forest lodge.
Each Forest lodge is settled between pine cone trees giving you that extra bit of privacy, on a private island. This is great if you’re a group of four or your just in a pair, equipped with Wi-Fi, air con and so much more. Enjoy gazing at the stars on your very own terrace, gaze at the stars.
The Bell tents are built to enhance your Obonjan experience, allowing for 1-2 people. These tents are popular amongst travellers as they come with Wi-Fi, usb points, and air con (yes, in a tent). All you have to do now is choose where you want to stay, and book!


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Jonathan Fryer

Writer, Lecturer, Broadcaster and Liberal Democrat Politician

Archive for July, 2011

London Mayoral Candidates’s Balls-skill Tested

Posted by jonathanfryer on Sunday, 31st July, 2011

Brent Liberal Democrats were blessed with fine weather at their annual summer garden party this afternoon, but also with the presence of all four potential London Mayoral candidates, who were strutting their stuff, as they have been doing valiantly around the region for the past couple of weeks. There was an unusual twist to this informal hustings, as they first had to compete in a game of bowls on hostess Freda Reingold’s lawn; this will of course have no effect on the outcome of the selection, but was a nice, light-hearted novelty. Brian Haley stormed to victory, with a throw that was almost up to the little black ball. But who among the four — the others being Lembit Opik, Brian Paddick and Mike Tuffrey– will win the members’ vote is anybody’s guess. Ballot papers (which have been sent to all London party members of sufficient vintage) have to be returned to the Electoral Reform Services by 31 August and the result should be known on 2 September.

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A Mansion Tax for Oligarchs?

Posted by jonathanfryer on Friday, 29th July, 2011

When Vince Cable launched his plan for a ‘mansion tax’ on homes worth more than £1 million, there were howls of dismay from LibDem activists in places such as Richmond Park and Kensington & Chelsea, where even quite modest dwellings are now worth well in excess of a million, thanks to London’s absurdly over-priced property market. There was then talk of a £2 million threshold instead, but the scheme was still unpopular and some Liberal Democrat party members actually resigned in protest. However, the LibDem Deputy Leader, Simon Hughes, last night unveiled at a Lewisham LibDems supper an intriguing variation which has gone to his colleagues in government for consideration: a Mansion Tax for non-doms, inlcuding oligarchs from the former Soviet Union — billionaires whose hunger for prime London property has been a major factor in house price escalation. Boris Johnson, London’s Tory Mayor, will doubtless scoff at the proposal, saying it will drive the super-rich foreigners away. But for the super-rich the ‘pain’ will be minimal, whereas the government’s coffers will get a useful boost and UK residents who happen to live in what is now a very expensive part of town will not be ‘fined’ for doing so.

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The Arab Spring: How Long Will It Last?

Posted by jonathanfryer on Wednesday, 27th July, 2011

Last night I spoke to the South Somerset Peace Group in Ilminster about the so-called Arab Spring, highlighting in particular what has been happening in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen — each of which is quite unique, even if certain common threads can be ascertained. One of those is the importance of youth unemployment and economic exclusion, as well as the feeling amongst many ordinary Arabs that for too long they have simply been ruled rather than having any meaningful say in their own destiny. Of course, Tunisia and Egypt (historically) have some experience with democratic politics, whereas in large parts of the Arab world government is top-down, with varying degres of benevolence or malevolence. Western-style democracy is by no means necessarily the most appropriate or relevant model for some states at present.  The key country to watch is Egypt, though it is far from clear whether the transition to a democratic government after elections in November will go smoothly and there is generally a feeling of a revolution only half-completed. Most worrying, I feel, is Syria. The government of Bashar al-Assad has made some minor concessions, but repression has not ceased. Whether a meaningful dialogue with opposition groups — both inside and outside the country — can be organised, leading to true reform, remains to be seen. But there is always the danger that the regime could provoke a regional crisis, drawing in Israel, which would  be downright disastrous. What is certain is that events will kep evolving way beyond the end of 2011: this new Arab Awakening is not a matter of a short season but of an epoch.

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Lessons from Oslo

Posted by jonathanfryer on Monday, 25th July, 2011

Like many people — and most Norwegians, I suspect — I observed a minute’s silence at 11am, to mark the death of 93 predominantly young people at the hands of murderous right-wing fanatic Anders Breivik. The dignity with which the tragic episode has been handled by the Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and the Royal Family is a lesson to us all. But there are other, more bitter, lessons to be learnt from the massacre. Details are emerging of the immensely long, rambling political self-justification that Breivik left behind. In the document are elements of the inspiration for his hatred and inhuman ideology, some of which will be uncomfortable for people elsewhere in Europe, including Britain. The Daily Mail’s ranter Melanie Phillips (no friend to Muslims) is one source quoted, and Breivik clearly had emotional and maybe physical links with groups such as the English Defence League (EDL), who spew out xenophobia, anti-immigrant bile and Islamophobia. These groups and individuals associated with them are poisonous and as we have just seen, potentially deadly. Just as men and women of principle stood up and spoke out against anti-Semitism in the 1930s, so now we should stand up and speak out against Islamophobia, xenophobia and all forms of hate speech and incitement to violence.

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The London Mayoral Merry-go-round

Posted by jonathanfryer on Sunday, 24th July, 2011

Voting has now started in the Liberal Democrats’ selection of a Mayoral candidate to fight next May’s London elections. Ballot papers have gone out to all London party members of more than one year’s standing and they have until 31 August to return them to Electoral Reform Services. There are four candidates in the field: Brian Haley, Lembit Opik, Brian Paddick and Mike Tuffrey — four very diferent characters with diverse experience. There will be one official hustings, which I will be chairing, on 27 July at 7pm at Hamilton House in Camden. But with the contest occurring during summer, there is a whole range of local party events for the four men to parade their policies and meet with the selectorate. On Friday Julie Horton and Phil Middleton of Islington LibDems hosted a particularly well-attended garden party at their home in Highbury Hill, with all four candidates present — and I suspect I will be running across most of them again this afternoon at the Croydon Libdems’ annual garden party near Sanderstead. I trust that all will also put in time at the St Peter’s ward local by-election in Islington — a seat held by LibDems until 2006.

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20 Years of Abuja

Posted by jonathanfryer on Monday, 18th July, 2011

For the past week, I have been at a Leadership Conference in Abuja, Nigeria, which has attracted an extraordinary range of Ministers (past and present, including several former Heads of Government), academics and religious figures, particularly from Africa but in fact from all over the world — as well as the odd entertainer, such as the singer Patti Boulaye, who is here promoting the work she does on AIDS with children in Africa. I’ll be writing about some of the discussions we’ve had elsewhere, but I want to highlight here the host city itself: one I have often mentioned in my lectures at SOAS — as a planned capital, built from scratch, like Brasilia — but had never actually visited before. This year it is celebrating its 20th anniversary as federal capital, which is a convenient milestone at which to pause and reflect. Building began in the 1970s, at the height of Nigeria’s oil bonanza, but that subsequently stalled, and the construction is still continuing, far from complete. Many high-level civil servants and foreign diplomatic staff reportedly used to go back to Lagos (the former capital and by far the country’s largest city) at weekends, as they found Abuja to be so boring. But these days there are more facilities and it is actually rather a green and pleasant place, with a nicer climate, fewer traffic jams and a much lower rate of criminality than Lagos. There are few “OMG, wow!” buildings than in Brasilia, but the main mosque is rather fine and stands out against the skyline. I visited the National Christian Centre, which is an immense non-denominational church, which I imagine must be quite impressive when thronged. Here, as all over Nigeria, religion is taken very seriously, and the number of different churches is dizying.

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The Escape of Sigmund Freud

Posted by jonathanfryer on Tuesday, 12th July, 2011

The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, has been the subject of many biographies and critical studies, but as proof that there is always something new and interesting to say about a truly great figure, David Cohen’s The Escape of Sigmund Freud (JR Books, £18.99) focuses in illuminating fashion on the last few years of Freud’s time in Vienna leading to his exile in London. The key new element is Cohen’s speculation about the exact role of the young Nazi sympathiser and chemist Anton Sauerwald, who seems to have eased the passage for Freud and much of his household, as well as hiding the existence of some of Freud’s foreign bank accounts. It is an exaggeration to compare Sauerwald with Oskar Schindler, but his story is nonetheless intriguing. There are also some fascinating insights into the Freud family’s lifestyle in Vienna as catastrophe approached. All in all, a book that is both enjoyable in itself and likely to stimulate the reader to move on to other accounts of the period and its personalities.

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Europe in 2061

Posted by jonathanfryer on Saturday, 9th July, 2011

I’m spending the weekend at Robinson College, Cambridge, at my first ever Federal Studies Conference, courtesy of the James Madison Trust. The theme is Europe in 2061: How will the European Union develop in the next 50 years? Proceedings began challengingly with the local LibDem MEP, my old chum Andrew Duff, giving an uncharacteristically downbeat appraisal of the mess he thinks the EU is now in, his own federalist dreams going up in a puff of smoke. I put his melancholy down to the fact that he has just returned from Cyprus, which remains an intractable problem both internally and with regard to Turkey’s aspirations to join the Union. But today’s sessions were much more optimistic, with contributions from former Tory MEP and climate change specialist Tom Spencer and Professor David Coombes. The dinner this evening will be preceded with Pimms in the College garden (glad to see that Cambridge shares this habit with my alma mater, Oxford) and an after dinner speech by the Hon Christopher Layton, lifelong Liberal and European.

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Poland’s EU Presidency

Posted by jonathanfryer on Friday, 8th July, 2011

Poland took over the presidency of the European Union on 1 July and the last few days have seen a positive feast of commemorative events put on by the Polish Embassy in London. On Wednesday there was a glorious reception in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and today the Embassy building itself hosted an academic seminar on Politics and Presidency Priorities with a range of distinguised speakers, including former Prime Minister Kyzysztof  Bielecki. He spoke of the need to rearrange expectations: in other words, Poland is a medium-sozed European country that is not part of the eurozone, which must face up to the challenges of a weakening of Brussels institutions alongside increasingly parochial national governments. That might sound downbeat, but the gist of his argument — and that of others — was that Poland can and must stand up to the challenges, especially the economic challenges. The government in Warsaw has the comforting knowledge that over 80% of the Polish public believe in European integration and are in effect cheering ‘PL2011’ on from the sidelines. In the afternoon at today’s seminar, an interesting session focused on how Poland can help promote one particular agenda item on the EU’s to do list, namely upgrading the Eastern European partnership with Ukraine, Moldova and — with certain caveats — Belarus.

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In Memoriam Francis King

Posted by jonathanfryer on Thursday, 7th July, 2011

Francis King, who died at the weekend, was my oldest friend and closest confidant. In the 35 years or so that we knew each other we shared not just our views on everything under the sun but also our innermost thoughts and fears. I suppose everyone has someone like that in their lives, or would like to. I first met Francis in Brussels, at the home of my honorary (not blood) grandmother, Edith Bisch, who wrote novels under the pen-name Edith De Born. When I later moved back to England, Francis helped me settle into literary London, particularly through the activities of English PEN, but also at the many lunch and dinner parties that he organised at his house in Kensington, which became a fixture of my social life for three decades. He had an eclectic group of friends and acquaintances and was extraordinarily welcoming to strangers who were visiting London and who had been given his name. He was also unstinting in the time he was prepared to give to reading unsolicited manuscripts — a degree of self-sacrifice that I found incomprehensible. Though a strong supporter of the Conservative Party, Francis was very liberal in most ways: a gentleman of the old school, in the best sense of the term.

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Monthly Archives: September 2017

Paper at “ACT.MOVE.PERFORM” conference in Dresden on 08 October

I have been invited to present a research paper at the “ACT.MOVE.PERFORM.” conference at the University of Technology Dresden (TU Dresden / Institute of Art and Music, Department of Art Education) on Sunday 08 October 2017. My presentation is entitled … Continue reading

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Wind Chill Advisory, Monday Snow But Tuesday Split

Wind Chill Advisory, Monday Snow But Tuesday Split

Screen Shot2016-02-13 07_36_21February 13 – If you have not heard the term Polar Vortex (again) this week, it’s back. The core of the coldest air in the Northern Hemisphere is diving towards New England and we get a piece of it in the Mid Atlantic. A Wind Chill Advisory is in effect through Sunday morning. for much of our region. This takes 30 mph winds with gusts to 50 mph at times and takes wind chills from our bitterly cold temps down well below zero. The coldest will be northern Maryland and southern Pennsylvania. Flurres and snow showers will continue all day as streamers off of Lake Erie continue to make it well south. This may not all be easy to track on radar, and some could drop a quick coating. Below is a look at some temperature snapshots, but then the storm that follows. At this point, there is good agreement that we will have snow on Monday… Go figure, it’s Presidents Day. We should get a few inches of snow during the day, increasing towards evening. But why happens on Tuesday is split. The GFS Model that has done well in the past month cuts the storm early and brings in warm air turning to all rain in central Maryland, then ending with some snow. But the Canadian Model tracks the low farther east and keeps ice around I-95, with rain on Delmarva, but snow inland.  They both show another system to follow on Wednesday… following the temperature trend for each.

But First: Temperatures And Wind Chills

  1. Saturday Feb 13: Record Low = 1°F in 1983; Coldest Daily High 10°F in 1899 (but our high will be at midnight then falling all day)
  2. Sunday Feb 14: Record Low = -2°F in 1979; Coldest Daily High 18°F in 1916 (best chance to get this one)

Screen Shot2016-02-13 07_38_45   Screen Shot2016-02-13 07_39_09 Screen Shot2016-02-13 07_40_19   Storm Next Week…. Snow Monday, but split track Tuesday. First,

Check Out The Full Collection Of FITF Shirts And Snow Sticks

Canadian Model:

I am showing the colder run first because I think this model performs better with cold patterns. This shows a stronger block in New England. Thus, the next storm track is farther south and the cold holds longer. This follows with light snow Wednesday.

GFS Model:

This has been the best performer over the past month, including the blizzard. But I am not certain it is handling the arctic air the best. It had a major computer upgrade, yet might still be pushing the cold air out too soon. Notice the High Pressure Monday farther south than the Canadian GEM. This allows the storm to cut farther west and be warmer for us. This still shows snow most of Monday, increasing towards evening. But a shorter period of ice and then rain Tuesday. The second system on Wednesday is farther north as wetter for us as well.

We shall see…..

 Warming Trend Next Week- After The Storm

Screen Shot2016-02-13 07_33_59 Please share your thoughts, best weather pics/video, or just keep in touch via social media

Chip KidWxDevicesGet the award winning Kid Weather App I made with my oldest son and support our love for science, weather, and technology. Our 3 year anniversary of the release and our contribution to STEM education is this November. It has been downloaded in 60 countries, and works in both temperature scales. With your support we can expand on the fun introduction to science and real weather.


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K9 NWSource will host a C-Wags Trial … May 7th 2017

It will be a great day of  Scent Work Trials.  Levels 1-4 … Join us at Welkinweir in Pottstown, PA. May 7th 2017

For information on C-Wags Scent Detective Program visit:

To Register with C-Wags (required to trial) visit:

PREMIUM May 7th 2017– C-Wags

C-Wags Circle Logo
C-Wags Circle Logo


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This online shop is using cookies to give you the best shopping experience. Thereby for example the session information or language setting are stored on your computer. Without cookies the range of the online shop's functionality is limited. If you do not agree, please click here.

Glass bauble Merry Christmas, red, 8cm

Price incl. VAT plus shipping costs

Article details:
Item No. 764388
High quality tree decoration made of glass
Lovingly designed series to expand and collect. An eye-catcher for your Christmas tree, your Advent decoration or as Christmas table decoration.
  • material: glass
  • motif: "Frohe Weihnachten" lettering and sparkling stars
  • color: red
  • decorated with glitter
  • mouth blown
  • handpainted
  • diameter: 3.15 inch (8 cm)

Slightly deviating actual size from the indicated size is a sign of real handwork.