Funk It Up

I've never been a big fan of Reggae music. I don't own any Bob Marley CD's and I don't smoke that wacky tabacky. But I do like knitting Rasta Hats ...Bearing a more than passing resemblance to the Blackberry Beanie, this is the same pattern only in a worsted weight wool. Which makes it more drapey. Or so I like to think. The second picture more accurately shows the color.I really love this puffed rib stitch, it makes it all squishy and stuffs. And it's a very quick knit. Especially if you have nothing else to do.Here's something I wish I had made. Is this so cute you can hardly stand it? It's a little sheepie magnet and I got it on Etsy (where else) at Jacob's Reward Farm. They're very reasonably priced ($6.00) and they've even got a sheepie that's crocheting. For all you hookers out there. I haven't named her yet. She's so adorable I haven't had the heart to put her up on the fridge with all the expired Jiffy Lube Oil coupons. What if she gets suffocated by a Pizza Hut menu? I'm so glad I didn't have children.

Find A Motivator (Total Teacher Transformation Day 5)

This is an article in the Total Teacher Transformation series. Click here for a complete table of contents. Yesterday we looked at making phone calls and using parent pressure as a motivator for classroom management. Today, were going to go with a slightly more high-brow alternative, and one that tends to be more effective over the long run. Hopefully by now, you have begun to exercise a little more control in your classroom. I was telling a friend the other day that when I teach, its sort of like Im acting. I assume the roll of Benevolent Dictator of the classroom. I mentally tell myself that I am in control of the classroom, and I make sure that the students know that I feel that way. Tone of voice The way that I present a command (or a request) in class is very important. I must use a confident voice when asking them to do something. I maintain a polite demeanor, but also ensure that it is authoritative. That being said, the psychological battle for control of the classroom is huge. One way to fight that battle is by having a contingency plan in place. Contingency plan Its a psychology term meaning that you have a set of actions and consequences laid out. Reward X will happen contingent upon behavior Y happening. This works well in one-on-one settings as well as full class deals. How would it work for me? One thing that Ive seen work really well in an elementary music class is for each class to have their own jar. If behavior is good one day, the teacher pours a scoop of pinto beans (or whatever other inexpensive visual representative) in the jar. If they had a great class, they can get two or more scoops. Bad behavior is resolved almost immediately by the reminder that she can take beans out of their jar as well. When the jar is filled, the class gets a free day or has some sort of party to celkebrate. The advantage One of the great advantages to this is that the whole class is responsible for good behavior. If one kid acts up, the rest of the class is there to help you keep him in line. Whereas some systems reward individuals, this sort of contingency plan rewards the whole class for working together to make it happen! Other methods I did candy coupons some in the past, but I found that I was inconsistent with giving them out, and I also discovered that some of the students too advantage of it and stole candy. As the students get older, I try to steer away from extrinsic motivation. Itll be interesting to see what kinds of positive reinforcers other teachers suggest using. Todays assignment If you dont already have some positive motivation contingency plans established for your class, come up with some. More importantly, come up with a motivator for you personally. Do you like your classroom quiet when the students are working? Do you want all students working when you give an assignment? Do you want complete focus when you are giving instructions? Imagine the ideal environment in your classroom. Now try to figure out how youre going to make those things happen. If youre still keeping up with the notebook from Day 2, I suggest looking at the constant disruptions youre experiencing and trying to come up with a course of action for how you can circumvent those behaviors. Try to do it with as many positive reinforcers as possible. Plan to avoid using fear tactics or yelling or any of those sorts of things; but do so without giving up control of the classroom&

Who will win?

My lazy strange turtle

My turtle only eat noodles,core and shimp,but it won't eat the skin of the core and shimp.

At this time of summer,it would't like to move even after excrement on land.

paganodiet

OK, here’s the thing. Much has happened in the past few months of my life. Much more important things are to come, but I’ll get to those when the time is right. Right now, I’m trying to get to grips with turning 40. Those who are older may scoff, and I appreciate that. Those who are a good bit younger may breathe a sigh of relief that the number is way ahead of them, and I appreciate that too. But as far as my life goes, I’ve been evaluating different aspects of my existence. For example, as you can probably tell, I have spent a lot of time over the past few years developing an online presence. Whether it’s one of my many blogs, my Facebook page, or my recent addition of Twittering, I’ve put a lot of energy into getting my opinions and observations out there. And where has it gotten me? Well, I know a lot more people than I did when I started, most of them good people on a similar cyber-journey, which is a good thing. But I’m wondering - is there another level I can take it to? I reckon so. See, my online persona isn’t the only thing I’ve had to ponder while turning the big four-oh. I also have to consider my health. No need for long-winded explanations here – I’m overweight right now, and the reason for this is that my diet sucks and I get little or no exercise. I have made petty attempts at using the blog as a motivational tool before, to no avail, mostly due to said pettiness. So let’s see if I can give it a go for real. Sure, I could easily join a gym and get a personal trainer, but I want to see if I can do this for myself and off my own bat. So consider a year’s membership fee in 24-hour fitness or such places as a “last resort”. I went to the doctor a while ago, and he checked my bloods and poked and prodded and did all the tests, and his answer was simple. Eat better, exercise more. Next patient please! So while this isn’t exactly a crisis, I have to ask myself how I can possibly motivate myself now in a way I haven’t before? At 11am today I sat down to a meal that would make my doctor cringe, but I did so for a reason. It was meant to be my final hurrah before finally taking my diet seriously. Then, at noon, I went to my friend Wayne. His last name is Scales. He told me I was over twenty stone. He didn’t tell me how dangerous that could be for me, but he didn’t have to. (BTW – for American readers, the weight reading is in stones & pounds. For pounds, take the first number, multiply it by fourteen, and add the second. Yes, I know.) I’m going to go back to Wayne every Tuesday and see if he has better news for me. I’m going to create my own hashtag, #paganodiet, and tweet my daily progress. The key here is to report my failures as well as my successes. Some tweets will end in WIN, some will end in FAIL. Sure – I can try and hide by not tweeting the fails and/or reporting the bad Wayne readings, but who am I really fooling if I do that? I will also endeavour to provide an end-of-month report on my progress here on the blog. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I plan to motivate MYSELF to lose weight and get somewhere near fitness. I hope you wish me luck in my quest, and by all means leave a comment and/or use the hashtag to spur me on.

Sleeping cat ~ ~

Mini rabbit

The biggest and the smallest dog

42.6 inch and 4 inch in height

Snake eating its own

This is a Pseudocaranx snakes, the specific snakes of Japan.


Snake eating its own is not confined to the dream of mankind, that is a very rare but the phenomenon does exist. Some snakes can not eat relatively large amount of food in the long-term circumstances, there may be mistaken its own tail for food.

New to New Eden

There's nobody on staff here that will tell you that starting out in EVE Online is easy. While it certainly is easier than it used to be, sandbox MMOs take time and patience to get the hang of - and finding a group of friends to play with really helps the most. The good news is that while New Eden can be terribly unforgiving to a new capsuleer, it certainly isn't hard on the eyes! Today's One Shots comes to us from regular contributor Johanis, who apparently decided to pop over and check EVE out. He writes: Here is a newly created character in EVE Online (like you don't get enough pics of this stunning game). Draymir is of the Gallente race and while he's still very wet behind the ears, he's learning very quickly how to survive (fighting and mining).Are you trying to get your foothold in a new game? If so, we'd love to see what some of your favorite moments from that new (to you) world are. Just email them to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the game, and a brief description. We'll share it with everyone and give you the credit. Gallery: One Shots

Clara Shih’s “The Facebook Era”

Subtitled Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff the book is a must read, and especially useful as a primer for those still needing to understand the fundamental changes in doing business as the Internet has matured from Web 1.0 to: an entirely new level with Web 3.0- an era that is entirely about innovation and collaboration. (Foreword page ix) An excellent overview of the book, in author Clara Shihs own words, is in 2 parts at the Entrepreneurs Journeys blog . Not surprizingly the books home page is on Facebook and 24 x 5 star Amazon reviews indicate the books value. The book section titles starting with A Brief History of Social Media through Transforming the Way We Do Business to Your Step-By-Step Guide to Using Facebook for Business reveal the key themes. Reflecting the authors hands on experience as the developer of FaceConnector and head of Enterprise Social Networking Alliances and Product Strategy for Salesforce, the book is filled with lived experiences of companies using social networking to build better products, reach new audiences and sell more stuff. If there are gaps in the book they reflect the state of the industry. For example, The ROI of Social is addressed in half a page (205) beginning: Understandably, a large number of you are focused on ROI and might feel frustrated that there has been no clear quantifiable data around ROI and concludes suggesting; ROI will become much more quantifiable and standardized. Have you read The Facebook Era? What did you take away? ~ Jenny Ambrozek

US sacks top Afghanistan general

The US defence secretary has asked the country's commander in Afghanistan to step down, saying the battle against the Taleban needs "new thinking".

Volunteers Needed!

We need dedicated volunteers to help us go forward to establish a sustainable funding base for our parrot family. In particular we need: Virtual Adoptions: We need someone who can come to the Refuge to take and print photos of the parrots - we have a camera and printer for this purpose - and then send the photo with an adoption certificate to our wonderful sponsors who support the parrots. The picture can also be emailed to you with the information for our Hall of Love. Card Writing: We need someone willing to write cards - which we will provide - to thank the wonderful people who make donations. Hand written cards are so much more personal. We have stamps too! Membership: A special thank-you to our new volunteer angel, who has stepped up to help with memberships! We also need and would appreciate helpers in the following areas: Laundry persons Dishwashing aficionados Toy makers Cage cleaners Food prep helpers (afternoon) Seed and nut tray prep helpers (between 9am - 4pm) Evening feeders (between 5:30pm - 7.30pm) Spray bathers (any time) Anyone who feels they could dedicate some time to volunteering would be most welcome. Please read our Volunteer page for more background, and e-mail or call Wendy at the Refuge (see the Contact Us page for details) if you'd like to help. Thank you!Original post blogged on b2evolution.

Iranian dissidents in Iraq

Iranians in Iraq who fought against the Islamic Republic face a shaky futureIT WAS one of the strangest places Id ever seen, says one of the few Farsi-speaking Westerners to have spent weeks in Camp Ashraf, 65km (40 miles) north-east of Baghdad, where some 3,400 Iranian dissidents are hunkered down and are now threatened with expulsion from Iraq, perhaps even back to Iran. It was like a spiffy midsized town in Iran, with parks, offices and buildingsbut no children. It was sterile, soulless and sad. Nearly two decades ago, families living in the camp were dissolved, couples were forcibly divorced, and their children sent away, many of them to live with supporters living in the West, to be brought up in the faith of a movement widely described by independent observers as a cult.For the past six years, the Americans have protected the camp, whose raison detre is generally opposed by the surrounding Iraqi communities and by most Iranians, whether or not they are for or against the clerical regime in Tehran. But as American troops prepare to go home, the Iraqi government, which wants cosy ties with Iran, now says the camp must be closed and its inhabitants dispersed, probably back to Iran, where they would face an uncertain future, to put it mildly.

GO TO ZOO

Sleeping cat and the parrot

Chipmunk

International Accounting

Job Summary The Foundation seeks a Senior Manager – International Accounting to lead its International Accounting and Compliance Unit and to assess and improve compliance with Foundation’s accounting policies and procedures and those of its donors, with a particular focus on Federal donors. The incumbent will identify gaps in compliance of accounting policies and procedures, identify any potential gaps related to funds received from all of its donors, analyze the causes of those discrepancies, and work with staff and management to develop action plans that address and correct them. Using their strong leadership skills, the incumbent will also oversee a team of international accountants who focus on recording accounting transaction data from the Foundation’s 12 field offices in Africa as well as on issuing payments to international vendors and sub-grantees. The incumbent will work closely with the Foundation’s compliance specialist, who will be based in Sub-Saharan Africa. The work will be accomplished by training the international accounting team in accounting compliance monitoring, leading their efforts to record accurate financial data, and through travel to Country Offices (approximately 25% of time). This newly created position will be based in Washington, DC and will report to the Controller. Essential Duties & Responsibilities • Provide overall direction to the international accounting unit and serve as an expert on applicable policies, procedures, rules, and regulations • Provide expert level knowledge of all applicable USG Federal regulations (FAR, OMB Circulars, etc.) • Oversee in the monthly close process and all accounting operations of the Washington, DC based International Accounting Unit. • Train the Washington, DC international accounting staff on compliance issues and organize site visits and desk reviews undertaken by the staff. • Oversee the payment process for all international wire transfers to vendors, sub-contractors and sub-grantees. • Through investigations, document reviews, and other techniques, determine the cause(s) of gaps in compliance. • Work with the Controller and Finance Managers in Country Offices to establish action plans to address the causes and eliminate any gaps in compliance; document and follow up on action plans. • Develop accounting focused compliance audits in the Country Offices and manage all follow up efforts. • Conduct customized, local trainings for Foundation staff to improve compliance and/ or efficiency. • Create and disseminate accounting and compliance best practices across Country Offices to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of Country Office accounting procedures. • Spearhead the Foundation’s financial capacity building efforts in the various country offices. • Update and revise internal accounting policies and procedures, as necessary. • Review draft and final audit reports of Country Offices prepared by Internal Audit or other auditors and provide input/perspective to management officials who are responding to audits.

13 YEARS OF THOR

13 TEARS OF LOVEOn a late afternoon, in the early summer of 1994, I walked up St. Laurent Blvd. towards Leonard Cohen's house near the sweet Portuguese park on Marie-Anne street. I had a small basket in one hand and intentions of unconditional love in the other. Lorca, Leonard's beautiful, tattooed and mysterious daughter, had told my best friend Steve about the batch of kittens she needed homes for.I come from a long line of feline friendly family. There has never been a day in any of my family's houses without a cat. When I came into the world, my mother had a cat named "Red Fuzz" who ultimately was training for her perfect mothering she provides me and my brother Yves. Cats are equal to family in our homes.So there was a big batch of perfect fuzzies, all long haired, some multi colored, but only one red. Be it the ancient memories of Red Fuzz, or my own red head identity, there was no question that I was walking out with that red ball of fluff in my basket."Thor" was of course destined to be his name.The god of thunder spent most of his first week under my bed curled up in the basket he came in. He never tired of that habit of sleep and retreat, and my mother always kept a basket on the ready for him. He had another irresistable pass time, sucking his toe. Yes, like a child sucking his thumb, he would get really comfortable and sooth himself by sucking his back toe. In hind sight, I think I took him away from his mother a little too soon, and he never gave up trying to nurse.Within a month of adopting this ball of magic, I was asked to join the band Hole, for their world tour in support of their latest album "Live Through This". My decision to accept this extreme musical invitation changed my life forever. The United States of America, and it's inspired world of alternative rock music, became my home and I have never lived in Montreal full time again. Leaving my rich and intimate life was dramatic. In this over night break from my life long home of 22 years I left behind; my then band "Tinker", my photography degree, my very close community of family and friends, and of course, Thor. As I began my new life of travel, absolute strangers and no particular home, Thor moved in with my family.Thor became a kind of a totem to that time and place. He symbolizes that big break, and represented my youth that I left behind. He was a cat of "little brains" my mother called him. He didn't have an ounce of that independent feline aloofness, more like a puppy, he wanted love and affection from anything, any time (it is said that male red cats are always like that). As he followed the action where ever it went, he had no fear. He'd wander into the street, while flirting with dogs, cars and plants. He was truly irresistible as a teddy bear. People would gasp with an overload of cuteness.Thor had more medical problems than the common cat, probably because he was part fancy cat, and fancy cats always have weaker genetic make ups (rumor has it that Thor's parents may have been siblings...). Last year while suffering from a bum problem the vet noticed his irregular heart beat, turns out his heart was slowly falling apart. A slow degradation of heart was in process, threatening the usual age of 18 that cats under my mother's care live. 2008 arrived, and so did Thor's first seizure.His heart was not pumping the blood correctly, resulting in clotting and eventual failure. Luckily I was visiting Montreal last week, when the cat cardiologist explained his heart was in such bad shape that he could more or less die any day.Instead of risking a stroke like seizure that could be incredibly painful and leave him paralyzed, we decided to put him sweetly to sleep as the seizures increased.Pet love is from another dimension of the cosmos. All they want is love (and food) and that is what they give.I dedicate this Valentines day, to Thor's heart, and to anyone who has ever loved an animal (including a human) to death.xMAdMx

Aristocratic cat

My plant~~

Garlic\ pumpkin seedlings

Madagascar found more than 200 kinds of new frogs

Madagascar found more than 200 kinds of new frogs

Dutch flower auctions

Kenya was the largest foreign supplier to flower auctions held by FloraHolland, a co-operative which sells 98% of the plants and flowers auctioned in the Netherlands. The country is the worlds largest exporter of flowers and plants, with around 60% of the global market. Imports made up less than 15% of what was sold through Dutch flower auctions. But of what was imported, exactly half came from Kenya and Ethiopia. Israel supplied 13.2% of what the co-operative imported. The top export markets were all in Europe. Germany was the single biggest foreign destination for FloraHollands plants and flowers last year, buying 28.9% of what it sent abroad. Britain and France bought slightly less between them than Germany did.

Two lifes spider

A new wolf spider was able to revive without any sequelae after being drowned 36 hours .
Scientists at the University of Rennes in France have recently found it.

internet connection

one of the best parts about my work is that i have the flexibility to work anywhere with an internet connection, provided that i don't have any in-person meetings that day. some fridays, i work from home in my pajamas and sometimes in my bed. last friday, i decided to work at allen's place in the city.i made lunch plans with jeff, the ex-boyfriend, to return the keys to his apartment he had made for me and to get a reading on whether or not we could be friends again. and that's when he pulled out the big guns.he looked distraught, like he had been thinking about big things for awhile. i hadn't talked to him for about a month after a series of nasty emails to me, me getting fed up with being patient, me writing him back, and ending with him telling me, "dont' call me, don't email me, don't send me a christmas card," so this lunch meeting was kind of a big deal. we sat down at the sushi restaurant and i tried to keep things light by smiling a lot and joking around a bit. i got him to crack a smile a few times, but he still looked like he had something major on his mind.then he says, "i want to show you something."he undoes his black tie, unbuttons the top few buttons of his well-fitted dress shirt and pulls down his undershirt. i stare at him with the most confused face i've ever made in my 23 year old life. i ask him, "what is that?" he replies, "what do you think?" i look at it more closely.i see the letter 'm' with another m embedded in it. there's a subtle decoration around it: lines, circles and asian-inspired shapes."is it permanent?""yes." i touch it to make sure he isn't lying."when did you get it?""almost a week ago. it's still healing."let me remind you, i hadn't talked to him for about a month. he's been dating other people. i've been dating one other person. we had only dated for 1 month, and 2 of those weeks out of that month, i was traveling for work and to hawaii. yet, there was indeed a tattoo of my initials on his chest, or more specifically, his heart.his justification for the new "tat" was that ever since he met me, his world changed... for the better. he saw a new way of living and of going about life. his world got a lot bigger. this "little tattoo" was a small change in comparison to all the changes that i brought into his life.yea, we'll see about that. but in the meantime, if you see me on the 9 o'clock news as the victim in a random revenge killing, at least you know the story.things to do list:get a dude to tattoo a symbol of me: CHECK.

Pig & rubbit

No strings attached

The IMF hopes a credit line for Mexico may set a trendRUMOURS that a country is in talks with the IMF are often met with loud denials. That is because the funds loans usually come with so many unpopular strings attached, such as public-spending cuts and interest-rate increases, that any government that approaches them is considered to be on its knees. Even the fund admits there is a stigma to borrowing from it.All the more reason why an announcement by Felipe Calderon, Mexicos president, on March 31st caught peopleincluding holders of his countrys currencyby surprise. Amid the pomp of a state visit to London, he revealed that Mexico had secured a $47 billion credit line from the IMF, the first time it had received help from the fund since the 1995 peso crisis. The reason he was happy to be so forthcoming is that Mexico is accessing an IMF credit facility launched late last month with a complete lack of conditions. The Flexible Credit Line is aimed at countries that the IMF deems to be in good economic health but that are facing temporary financing difficulties. Mexico has no immediate plans to draw on it. However, on April 1st the central bank said it would tap a $30 billion currency swap from Americas Federal Reserve.

I Cried Over The Sad Mop

After a whole lot of second- and third-guessing ourselves as to what the hell we should be doing, Ish and I are now in contract on a house we love in Napa.We were very wishy-washy about the whole moving thing, you may have noticed, until the right house came on the market; then we knew. If all goes well -- and omg, there are a lot of things involved in financing a house, and mortgage rates are all very weird now as is the approval process and plus with fun new rules coming into effect because of the stimulus bill and you have not lived until you're getting cc'd on emails you don't understand from your realtor, mortgage broker, tax attornies from two different firms in two different states, and a CPA thrown in for good measure -- we remove contractual contingencies next Wednesday and close about two weeks after that.Meanwhile I'm preganant and content to speak about nothing except the wondrousness of coconut popsicles.This past Friday was also my last day at work and that's just really weird. So now I'm home and looking about 80 million projects straight in the eye and cowering. There's fun stuff I want to do, like arrange a song or two for my a cappella group. There's huge, big stuff like start the website I've been babbling about for a year. Oh, and those books I want to write. And then there's the whole "packing" thing.I refuse to start packing, however, until we have reached the "everything is in order, here is the closing date and time" point on the house. Packing anything up before then just seems like tempting fate, and I really don't like to do that.However. So that we don't get saddled with closing costs and mortgage payments AND extra rent, we did give notice to our landlords. And as these things happen, our apartment is being shown THIS FRIDAY. HAHAHA.On the one hand, it's not like we're showing a place we're trying to sell. I don't care if this place gets rented -- it doesn't impact us one way or another. On the other hand, people I don't know will be traipsing through my home for the sole purpose of deciding whether or not it's the kind of place they want to live. Strangers will be wandering through the place I live and judging it, judging me, and it's hard to not care.Especially because one small coat closet and one mid-sized clothes closet is not enough storage for two grown adults and all their earthly possessions. So while we don't even have that much stuff, the stuff we DO have is everywhere, all over every surface, because there's nowhere else for it to go.And I know that strangers will assume we are disheveled packrats and I hate it.Plus I'm not even being rational, but what if these strangers go into full-on snoop-and-judge mode? What if they open the kitchen cabinets and see that my pots and pans are just thrown in there, not stacked neatly (um, because how DO you neatly stack pots and pans?)? What if they open the fridge and cast disapproving glances at that salad dressing that's been there since July? WHAT IF THEY JUDGE MY POPSICLES?The point is, it's not a big deal and I just need to suck up and deal and perhaps find a happy medium between "not packing" and "decluttering" but it just gets a little overwhelming and Oh hey, I haven't checked Twitter in 4 minutes, I wonder what's going on there!?And please keep in mind that I am not even remotely sane these days. Between the I-don't-know-what-it-is-about-pregnancy that makes me totally, totally spacey and the hormonal roller coaster, I am a big heaping mess of a woman.Example:You know those Swiffer commercials? Where the woman is at the grocery store and is contemplating buying a Swiffer, and the woman working at the grocery store tells her it's a miracle product and she'll never go back to her old mop? Then her old mop appears from around the corner, looking dejected? (Yes, it looks dejected. Even though mops don't have facial features of any kind or anything, the mop looks miserable.) And then the song "Baby Come Back" plays and it's supposed to be funny?Because you know how MOPS DON'T ACTUALLY HAVE FEELINGS, NO MATTER WHAT CHEESY LOVE SONG IS PLAYING?Cried. I actually cried. At the sad mop.You want to know why? Because the sad mop reminded me of the scene from Toy Story II where the song "When She Loved Me" comes on. It is the saddest song in the entire universe. It is about a toy a little girl gets when she's little and she loves it so much and then she gets older and little by little forgets about the toy and it winds up alone and unloved and under the girl's bed."When somebody loved me, everything was beautiful. Every hour we spent together lives within my heart...when she loved me."You can bet I sobbed like a baby watching that, however many years ago. And not JUST because I felt bad for all the unloved toys in the world. But because I made the catastrophic mistake of realizing that sometimes the same thing happens to pets, that sometimes when kids get older they don't play with their dogs (note: I'm now crying as I type this, not kidding) as much. And the dogs don't understand why. Because they're just dogs and love the kids as much as they ever did -- dogs don't understand that kids have different responsibilities and priorities as they grow up. Dogs just love.JUST LIKE THE MOP AT THE GROCERY STORE.***Comment of the Day***Why? Because it made me laugh right out loud.Corrina said...Harry Carey died when I was pregnant (the baseball announcer). I barely knew who he was but spent an entire week with red-rimmed eyes telling everyone that he had died. No one else cared. Poor mop. Poor Harry.

Polly cat