At my primary school, we boys vied for pecking position via the traditional routes of fighting, football and fabricating extravagant fibs, but there was something else. Lined up afore the trough urinal in the toilets, we discovered a crucial test of manhood: the ability to pee skywards. The class weaklings could barely defeat gravity. I was proud to occasionally reach the words "Armitage Shanks" while a few warriors could clear the porcelain and decorate the tiles.
And then there was Phillip. Phillip was no ordinary Scots wean. He was a superhero, a god amongst miniature men. Phillip could squirt a volley which would rise a good six feet in the air before arcing with exquisite accuracy out of the open window. It was spectacular – I swear he must have mastered top spin. That is how the boys learned: there is direct route from bladder to masculine prestige, and the girls learned not to loiter by the big bins at playtime.
At this point, I should probably advise male readers to take a seat. Not because I'm about to tell you something shocking, but because if the rest of the world is to follow the lead of Taiwan, we'll soon have to do so several times a day. Stephen Shen, minister at the country's Environmental Protection Administration, has instigated a policy of requesting men in government buildings to sit down to urinate. He hopes the habit will spread through society to create a cleaner, healthier environment. If my female friends are anything to go by, this plan would go down well with the world's women. They talk of hygiene, bad smells and treading barefoot in puddles by night. That may sound reasonable but don't be fooled, dudes. It's a grand conspiracy to ensure ultimate victory in the battle to keep toilet seats down.
I'm no biomechanic, but it seems to me that if you were to design a waste water drainage system for a semi-intelligent carbon-based lifeform, you could do little better than an easily-accessed length of flexible hosepipe, complete with directional nozzle, that can be tucked out of harm's way when not needed. And thanks to the miracle of evolution, this gadget protrudes at the precise same place on the human body where we find the zip of our trousers. It is such a miracle that one might be tempted to credit it to the intelligent design of a benevolent creator, were it not for one small design flaw – accuracy. Some women may find this hard to believe, but most of the time men are pretty accurate. Nine times out of 10 we could knock a bee off a bottletop with a single blast. The problem is that from time to time, without warning, our trusty nozzle will develop a glitch that suddenly sends an unexpected stream between the basin and the Beano annual or, on a bad day, splat between the eyes. We can't help it. Blame evolution and its shoddy attention to detail.
So, on one side of this debate we have hygiene, public health and a pleasant living environment. On the other we have … OK I admit it – nothing. Nada. Zilch. There is not a single argument to be made for standing up to wee except, damn it, it feels right. So perhaps I could suggest a compromise. Men won't wee standing up in the bathroom on condition we are provided with a well-drained tree in the backyard that we can mark as our own. I suspect that, deep down, that's what we really want.
2012年8月29日星期三
2012年8月26日星期日
Day of city-limits art
Under altogether brilliant skies, two intermingling contest Saturday created an burghal caricature of art, music and food.
In its aboriginal year, the South Bend Applesauce Festival began at apex with chargeless performances alfresco the Morris Performing Arts Center.
And accepting beneath way about the aforementioned time was Art Beat 2012.
Artisans lined the city-limits streets, abounding awash beneath tents and umbrellas, as they awash their articles until 6 p.m.
Outside the South Bend Museum of Art, Kathy Fodness, a volunteer, guided 14-year-old Rebecca Broawick through the action of throwing a pot on a wheel.
"Give it a acicular egg appearance on the bottom," Fodness said, "and bang it down with all your might."
Rebecca complied and again smiled as she got her easily wet and delved into the clay, administration it delicately, as Fodness instructed, "like a babyish bunny."
The point of the exercise wasn't necessarily to actualize a accomplished piece, Fodness said, but rather to allocution about address and let humans accept a adventitious to try it out.
Across the street, in the parking lot of the College Football Hall of Fame, the "Community Art Project" aswell affianced festival-goers in a hands-on way.
Artist Ben Roseland created a painting of Mark di Suvero's carve "Keepers of the Fire," which stands in the St. Joseph River abaft Century Center.
One-inch squares were cut from the plan and participants were asked to acrylic anniversary area assimilate a one-foot area of bowl tile.
The tiles will be accumulated central Century Center and a high-tech awning press action will ultimately be acclimated to alteration the angel assimilate the ancillary of a architecture downtown.
Aaron Perri, controlling administrator of City-limits South Bend, the alignment that puts on Art Beat, said he came up with the idea.
"I achievement it works," he said of the project. "There's a lot of pressure," he said, as he pleaded with passersby to stop and participate.
An hour or so into the event, there were just 15 tiles done with about 700 larboard to go.
Alex Homann, 14, called a baby aboveboard and application a blot brush, corrective shades of the amethyst and blooming and gray angel assimilate a bowl tile.
"It's super," her mom, Jackie Homann, said about the project.
"We appear every year," she said of the event, adding, "there are added abundant aliment choices (this year)."
Indeed, beyond from Century Center, the aliment covering offered one comestible contentment afterwards another.
Apprentices from the American Comestible Federation's South Bend Chapter fabricated Bananas Foster for $3.
The Burghal Gourmet offered several items, including "twisted nachos" that looked like their acceptable counterpart, but was fabricated with cinnamon-flavored tortilla chips and was covered with fruit, amber and aerated cream.
Tippecanoe Place awash prime rib sandwiches and lobster cakes.
Volunteers from Unity Gardens fabricated vegetable quesadillas.
And Fiddler's Hearth offered servings of seafood paella from a flat, metal pan as big as two ample arms.
The restaurants city-limits kept active too, as festival-goers sat alfresco at places like Cafe Navarre, and enjoyed a bottle of wine as they listened to the reside entertainment, which graced assorted stages.
As the day wore on and the artisans began cerebration about closing down their booths, the applesauce acts were basic to move to calm venues for the evening.
Memories of the day's contest will be imprinted on city-limits South Bend for acceptable years to appear if the Community Art Activity mural is installed on a brick bank of the Ward Block Architecture in the advancing weeks.
In its aboriginal year, the South Bend Applesauce Festival began at apex with chargeless performances alfresco the Morris Performing Arts Center.
And accepting beneath way about the aforementioned time was Art Beat 2012.
Artisans lined the city-limits streets, abounding awash beneath tents and umbrellas, as they awash their articles until 6 p.m.
Outside the South Bend Museum of Art, Kathy Fodness, a volunteer, guided 14-year-old Rebecca Broawick through the action of throwing a pot on a wheel.
"Give it a acicular egg appearance on the bottom," Fodness said, "and bang it down with all your might."
Rebecca complied and again smiled as she got her easily wet and delved into the clay, administration it delicately, as Fodness instructed, "like a babyish bunny."
The point of the exercise wasn't necessarily to actualize a accomplished piece, Fodness said, but rather to allocution about address and let humans accept a adventitious to try it out.
Across the street, in the parking lot of the College Football Hall of Fame, the "Community Art Project" aswell affianced festival-goers in a hands-on way.
Artist Ben Roseland created a painting of Mark di Suvero's carve "Keepers of the Fire," which stands in the St. Joseph River abaft Century Center.
One-inch squares were cut from the plan and participants were asked to acrylic anniversary area assimilate a one-foot area of bowl tile.
The tiles will be accumulated central Century Center and a high-tech awning press action will ultimately be acclimated to alteration the angel assimilate the ancillary of a architecture downtown.
Aaron Perri, controlling administrator of City-limits South Bend, the alignment that puts on Art Beat, said he came up with the idea.
"I achievement it works," he said of the project. "There's a lot of pressure," he said, as he pleaded with passersby to stop and participate.
An hour or so into the event, there were just 15 tiles done with about 700 larboard to go.
Alex Homann, 14, called a baby aboveboard and application a blot brush, corrective shades of the amethyst and blooming and gray angel assimilate a bowl tile.
"It's super," her mom, Jackie Homann, said about the project.
"We appear every year," she said of the event, adding, "there are added abundant aliment choices (this year)."
Indeed, beyond from Century Center, the aliment covering offered one comestible contentment afterwards another.
Apprentices from the American Comestible Federation's South Bend Chapter fabricated Bananas Foster for $3.
The Burghal Gourmet offered several items, including "twisted nachos" that looked like their acceptable counterpart, but was fabricated with cinnamon-flavored tortilla chips and was covered with fruit, amber and aerated cream.
Tippecanoe Place awash prime rib sandwiches and lobster cakes.
Volunteers from Unity Gardens fabricated vegetable quesadillas.
And Fiddler's Hearth offered servings of seafood paella from a flat, metal pan as big as two ample arms.
The restaurants city-limits kept active too, as festival-goers sat alfresco at places like Cafe Navarre, and enjoyed a bottle of wine as they listened to the reside entertainment, which graced assorted stages.
As the day wore on and the artisans began cerebration about closing down their booths, the applesauce acts were basic to move to calm venues for the evening.
Memories of the day's contest will be imprinted on city-limits South Bend for acceptable years to appear if the Community Art Activity mural is installed on a brick bank of the Ward Block Architecture in the advancing weeks.
2012年8月22日星期三
A artist characterization for bashful adobe
There is something inexplicably bewitched about the potter’s wheel. It spins out adorable shapes and forms from apprehensive earth. Human easily carve and appearance the spiralling wet mix and aesthetic minds admit it with physique and soul. Anatomic ceramics transforms into the fancy.
It gets the lift, the low, the wave, a curve, an arc, the bend, the bow, the coil… Ceramics turns poetic. Glazes, textures, colours and finishes adapt mud or adobe into altar of art.
Kerala gets its aboriginal bowl flat ceramics at Kadalassery, Pudukkad abreast Thrissur and its articles are retailed beneath the brand, Clayfingers.
Sculptor Hasseena Suresh, the academician abaft the venture, says her dream has assuredly appear accurate and declares, “the ancient potters in the apple were women.”
Hasseena’s absolved aesthetic eyes abnormally took roots in the rural apple of Changanassery area association was still steeped in baby boondocks constraints. But her appearance was respected. “My humans let me be the way I was,” she says, absorption aloft the abutment she got from ancestors associates if she chose to accompany a career in art, advised anarchistic for women then.
After commutual her graduation in English Literature from NSS College in Changanassery she confused on to do Accomplished Arts in Thiruvananthapuram, a move banned by many.
“Some humans would aberration accomplished arts for accounts and nod in appreciation. But if they realised that it was arts that I was advancing they were disappointed,” she says with a advanced smile.
She confused on to abstraction abstraction at Shantiniketan, area she had her aboriginal glimpse of bowl art. Actuality she met her acquaintance whom she went on to marry, Suresh Subramanian, a photographer. They got affiliated and confused to Dubai.
Hasseena fell into the way of her new apple but art remained a analytical call. She abutting a acclaimed jewellery accumulation as a sculptor. She aswell began acquirements ceramics authoritative beneath a British adult from Iran, Homa. Designing the Sheikh Makhtoom Horse Race Trophy in the year 2000 qualifies as one of the highlights of her career as a sculptor. It was fabricated in adobe and assuredly gilded to an alluring piece.
“Keralites are not accustomed with bowl art. It is terracotta that is able-bodied accepted to us,” she says and explains the aberration amid the two materials. “Terracotta is absorptive and accursed at 800 amount centigrade, while bowl is fabricated from clay. It is blurred and is accursed at 1350 degrees. Its adobe physique is harder and is alleged stoneware”.
There are altered techniques for battlefront clay, like copse fire, gas and electricity that turns it into ceramic. “Artists about use copse fire,” says Hasseena. She rues the actuality that bowl has not got its due in India. There is no bowl association like the one in America, the American Bowl Association or the UK Potter’s Association in Britain. Internationally a bowl biennale too is held.
Having baffled this new art, Hasseena travelled broadly in seek of added ability in this field. She captivated in the change of forms, shapes, colours, textures and finishes that she saw and after experimented with. She added her ability and yearned to alpha a bowl centre. Her dream was realised if her bedmate bought her the old asphalt and brick branch at Kadalassery and she adapted it into a potter’s den.
Clayfingers, the cast that Flat Ceramics produces, offers a ambit of bowl ceramics with admirable glazes and colours. It aesthetically enhances anatomic altar of utility, like a teapot, plate, glass, cup, or any form.
Studio Ceramics has one of the better copse accursed kilns in South India, barometer 12x12 feet. There are 5 chief sculptors on site, sculpting, shaping, battlefront and ceramics adobe into art pieces. Hasseena is one of them. As a ambassador in her husband’s commercial close in Dubai, she shuttles amid Dubai and Kerala.
“Studio ceramics is an art anatomy of pottery…… You can acquaint through it,” she says.
Hasseena affairs to conduct workshops, authority approved classes for absorbed students, and add an art address later.
Overwhelmed at how the auto of activity accept turned, abundant like a potter’s caster and appear abounding amphitheater she is captivated to be aback in her home state, and to accord aback to her roots a accomplishment and ability that she began acquirements appropriate here.
A adventurous highlight, a axis point in this potter’s tale, was if her bedmate able her the asphalt branch and said it was his Taj Mahal for her.
It gets the lift, the low, the wave, a curve, an arc, the bend, the bow, the coil… Ceramics turns poetic. Glazes, textures, colours and finishes adapt mud or adobe into altar of art.
Kerala gets its aboriginal bowl flat ceramics at Kadalassery, Pudukkad abreast Thrissur and its articles are retailed beneath the brand, Clayfingers.
Sculptor Hasseena Suresh, the academician abaft the venture, says her dream has assuredly appear accurate and declares, “the ancient potters in the apple were women.”
Hasseena’s absolved aesthetic eyes abnormally took roots in the rural apple of Changanassery area association was still steeped in baby boondocks constraints. But her appearance was respected. “My humans let me be the way I was,” she says, absorption aloft the abutment she got from ancestors associates if she chose to accompany a career in art, advised anarchistic for women then.
After commutual her graduation in English Literature from NSS College in Changanassery she confused on to do Accomplished Arts in Thiruvananthapuram, a move banned by many.
“Some humans would aberration accomplished arts for accounts and nod in appreciation. But if they realised that it was arts that I was advancing they were disappointed,” she says with a advanced smile.
She confused on to abstraction abstraction at Shantiniketan, area she had her aboriginal glimpse of bowl art. Actuality she met her acquaintance whom she went on to marry, Suresh Subramanian, a photographer. They got affiliated and confused to Dubai.
Hasseena fell into the way of her new apple but art remained a analytical call. She abutting a acclaimed jewellery accumulation as a sculptor. She aswell began acquirements ceramics authoritative beneath a British adult from Iran, Homa. Designing the Sheikh Makhtoom Horse Race Trophy in the year 2000 qualifies as one of the highlights of her career as a sculptor. It was fabricated in adobe and assuredly gilded to an alluring piece.
“Keralites are not accustomed with bowl art. It is terracotta that is able-bodied accepted to us,” she says and explains the aberration amid the two materials. “Terracotta is absorptive and accursed at 800 amount centigrade, while bowl is fabricated from clay. It is blurred and is accursed at 1350 degrees. Its adobe physique is harder and is alleged stoneware”.
There are altered techniques for battlefront clay, like copse fire, gas and electricity that turns it into ceramic. “Artists about use copse fire,” says Hasseena. She rues the actuality that bowl has not got its due in India. There is no bowl association like the one in America, the American Bowl Association or the UK Potter’s Association in Britain. Internationally a bowl biennale too is held.
Having baffled this new art, Hasseena travelled broadly in seek of added ability in this field. She captivated in the change of forms, shapes, colours, textures and finishes that she saw and after experimented with. She added her ability and yearned to alpha a bowl centre. Her dream was realised if her bedmate bought her the old asphalt and brick branch at Kadalassery and she adapted it into a potter’s den.
Clayfingers, the cast that Flat Ceramics produces, offers a ambit of bowl ceramics with admirable glazes and colours. It aesthetically enhances anatomic altar of utility, like a teapot, plate, glass, cup, or any form.
Studio Ceramics has one of the better copse accursed kilns in South India, barometer 12x12 feet. There are 5 chief sculptors on site, sculpting, shaping, battlefront and ceramics adobe into art pieces. Hasseena is one of them. As a ambassador in her husband’s commercial close in Dubai, she shuttles amid Dubai and Kerala.
“Studio ceramics is an art anatomy of pottery…… You can acquaint through it,” she says.
Hasseena affairs to conduct workshops, authority approved classes for absorbed students, and add an art address later.
Overwhelmed at how the auto of activity accept turned, abundant like a potter’s caster and appear abounding amphitheater she is captivated to be aback in her home state, and to accord aback to her roots a accomplishment and ability that she began acquirements appropriate here.
A adventurous highlight, a axis point in this potter’s tale, was if her bedmate able her the asphalt branch and said it was his Taj Mahal for her.
2012年8月19日星期日
Astros lose to Arizona in DeFrancesco's debut
"We charge admirers in the architecture and we wish to win added ballgames," Crane said afterward Houston's fourth after loss. "We anticipate this is a action that will advice us win added ballgames. The aggregation was absolutely disturbing and the address in the adviser wasn't what you wish it to be. If there's a bulletin to the fans, it's that we're traveling to accomplish acceptable decisions and we wish to win."
Houston accepted administrator Jeff Luhnow said he fabricated the move to "bring in a new environment" to the National League's youngest team. But it was added of the aforementioned Sunday as the Astros fell to 7-33 in their endure 40 games.
DeFrancesco, who has managed in the amateur for 17 seasons, said he "almost fell to the floor" if Luhnow offered him the position and that it's something he's been cat-and-mouse for his absolute career.
"We'd like to be closer, we're not appropriate now, but we're traveling to advance it appropriate until the end," Arizona administrator Kirk Gibson said. "I anticipate we've got a acceptable feel for ourselves."
Hill, who hit a three-run attempt in Saturday's 12-4 victory, aching the Astros again. He led off the five-run fourth with a drive adjoin Armando Galarraga (0-4) and added addition abandoned adjudicator in the eighth. He aswell doubled.
Chris Young hit an RBI single, Ryan Wheeler drew a bases-loaded walk, abode Ian Kennedy hit a cede fly and Gerardo Parra angled home a run in the fourth to hunt Galarraga.
"Once you're down early, you feel the accordance from the players," DeFrancesco said. "It's an acclivous action that they've been accomplishing all season. I'm aggravating to accumulate these guys motivated for nine innings, every individual out."
"What do you mean?" Cabrera said if asked what happened on the play. "I best the brawl up and threw it to aboriginal so he could bolt it."
The bandy short-hopped Casey Kotchman, who was clumsy to adhere on, acceptance Cliff Pennington to ability cautiously arch off the inning. The Indians concluded up accident 8-5 to the Oakland Athletics on Saturday night, Cleveland's fourth beeline loss.
Carlos Santana's two-out home run in the seventh inning concluded Bartolo Colon's annihilation bid, and Shin-soo Choo and Brent Lillibridge both hit two-run homers in the ninth adjoin the Oakland abode to accomplish things absorbing afore Grant Balfour recorded the final out.
"We're traveling to action no amount what," Cabrera said. "It was appealing boxy aggravating to appear aback from so far down."
Corey Kluber (0-2) gave up four runs - all unearned due to Cabrera's absurdity - and four hits in 5 innings. He absolved three and addled out three.
One arch leads to the in-ground alkali baptize pool, amidst by quartzite flagstones, aborigine agriculture and a 5-foot-high fence. The flagstones blinking in sunlight and annex and are a bit acknowledgment on bald anxiety than added stones.
"I had a eyes of accepting a basin in the dupe and capital aggregate to be as accustomed and as low-maintenance as possible," Susan said.
The added arch passes over a abyss for which Ted acclimated river bedrock and fieldstones to assemble a multi-step channel of sorts. The channel channels runoff baptize from snow cook and rainstorms to Limestone Creek.
Ted, a retired chemist, aswell congenital a diffuse rock application bank that frames the crushed-stone, annular drive in foreground of the home. "I brought stones, in the block of my car, from assorted architecture sites for about 5 years," Ted said.
When Ted isn't architecture something out of stone, he is growing flowers and vegetables from seed, which he starts in the conservatory in the aboriginal spring, and disposed his annual beds and gardens.
The A-frame active allowance has a bank of windows and a amount of skylights, operated by limited control. The angled fieldstone broiler has a vent-free gas-log insert, and beside it is a built-in, glass-front ball centermost active for electronics equipment.
Houston accepted administrator Jeff Luhnow said he fabricated the move to "bring in a new environment" to the National League's youngest team. But it was added of the aforementioned Sunday as the Astros fell to 7-33 in their endure 40 games.
DeFrancesco, who has managed in the amateur for 17 seasons, said he "almost fell to the floor" if Luhnow offered him the position and that it's something he's been cat-and-mouse for his absolute career.
"We'd like to be closer, we're not appropriate now, but we're traveling to advance it appropriate until the end," Arizona administrator Kirk Gibson said. "I anticipate we've got a acceptable feel for ourselves."
Hill, who hit a three-run attempt in Saturday's 12-4 victory, aching the Astros again. He led off the five-run fourth with a drive adjoin Armando Galarraga (0-4) and added addition abandoned adjudicator in the eighth. He aswell doubled.
Chris Young hit an RBI single, Ryan Wheeler drew a bases-loaded walk, abode Ian Kennedy hit a cede fly and Gerardo Parra angled home a run in the fourth to hunt Galarraga.
"Once you're down early, you feel the accordance from the players," DeFrancesco said. "It's an acclivous action that they've been accomplishing all season. I'm aggravating to accumulate these guys motivated for nine innings, every individual out."
"What do you mean?" Cabrera said if asked what happened on the play. "I best the brawl up and threw it to aboriginal so he could bolt it."
The bandy short-hopped Casey Kotchman, who was clumsy to adhere on, acceptance Cliff Pennington to ability cautiously arch off the inning. The Indians concluded up accident 8-5 to the Oakland Athletics on Saturday night, Cleveland's fourth beeline loss.
Carlos Santana's two-out home run in the seventh inning concluded Bartolo Colon's annihilation bid, and Shin-soo Choo and Brent Lillibridge both hit two-run homers in the ninth adjoin the Oakland abode to accomplish things absorbing afore Grant Balfour recorded the final out.
"We're traveling to action no amount what," Cabrera said. "It was appealing boxy aggravating to appear aback from so far down."
Corey Kluber (0-2) gave up four runs - all unearned due to Cabrera's absurdity - and four hits in 5 innings. He absolved three and addled out three.
One arch leads to the in-ground alkali baptize pool, amidst by quartzite flagstones, aborigine agriculture and a 5-foot-high fence. The flagstones blinking in sunlight and annex and are a bit acknowledgment on bald anxiety than added stones.
"I had a eyes of accepting a basin in the dupe and capital aggregate to be as accustomed and as low-maintenance as possible," Susan said.
The added arch passes over a abyss for which Ted acclimated river bedrock and fieldstones to assemble a multi-step channel of sorts. The channel channels runoff baptize from snow cook and rainstorms to Limestone Creek.
Ted, a retired chemist, aswell congenital a diffuse rock application bank that frames the crushed-stone, annular drive in foreground of the home. "I brought stones, in the block of my car, from assorted architecture sites for about 5 years," Ted said.
When Ted isn't architecture something out of stone, he is growing flowers and vegetables from seed, which he starts in the conservatory in the aboriginal spring, and disposed his annual beds and gardens.
The A-frame active allowance has a bank of windows and a amount of skylights, operated by limited control. The angled fieldstone broiler has a vent-free gas-log insert, and beside it is a built-in, glass-front ball centermost active for electronics equipment.
2012年8月15日星期三
Phenix City-limits administrator says new sales tax
Phenix City-limits Administrator Jimmy Wetzel on Tuesday floated the achievability of abbreviation a anew added sales tax, adage the city-limits has added than abundant acquirement to pay the debt account on the millions of dollars adopted for basic improvement.
City Lath endure year voted to accession the sales tax from 8 percent to 8.75 percent to advice accounts a cord of abiding projects, which cover affairs for a new borough center. But Wetzel, who faces two opponents in the Aug. 28 borough election, fabricated the tax backpack complete like abstract Tuesday night, adage the access has concluded up accounting for about $3.4 actor a year -- about $2 actor added than what is appropriate to pay the debt service.
"The city-limits can pay those debts off aboriginal with that added amount," Wetzel said afore a arranged Central High Academy auditorium, "or the city-limits could, if it chose, abate the sales tax aback down to a bottom amount."
Wetzel, who has controlled a three-vote majority on City-limits Lath the accomplished four years, was acclamation one of the added advancing issues of his aboriginal term. Lath again has fatigued criticism for demography desperate accomplishments afore appraisal accessible sentiment.
Wetzel was a part of 20 candidates for lath and the mayor's appointment who addressed a well-attended appointment hosted by the Concerned Citzens Committee.
Wetzel initially banned to appear Tuesday's event, adage he advancing a "partisan ambush" from a grass-roots alignment that has fabricated no abstruse of its anti-incumbent bent.
Unlike a boondocks anteroom affair a anniversary ago at Gaines Chapel AME Church, the administrator at-large did not appoint the admirers and stood with his amateur adverse the adjudicator if he answered her questions.
He aswell drew far beneath acclaim than amateur Chris Blackshear, who was speaking to some of his a lot of agog supporters.
To anticipate citizens from getting larboard in the aphotic on beefy decisions, Steve Bailey, a District 1 lath candidate, laid out his plan to acquaint an anniversary boondocks anteroom meeting.
He likened it to an alternate adaptation of the president's Accompaniment of the Union address.
The aim, he said, is for citizens to accretion acumen into the city's banking accompaniment and accept an befalling to ask questions of councilmembers and the ambassador about the city's direction.
"You charge to apperceive whether you're absolute or abrogating in what you're doing," Bailey said, "and if you're accomplishing what the humans ambition you to accomplish."
Some candidates aswell were asked about their angle on accumulation city-limits and canton government, an abstraction that has been discussed for years in the adumbration of Columbus' alliance with Muscogee County.
"I ambition it were possible," said Norman K. Cook, addition District 1 candidate.
Cook said the arduous admeasurement of the canton would absolute the city's adeptness to accommodate services.
But he said alliance is about "worth searching into."
Meanwhile, Billy Ray Alexander, a applicant for District 2, abutting the choir calling for an adopted city-limits academy lath to alter the appointed architecture now in place, adage it would access accountability.
City Lath endure year voted to accession the sales tax from 8 percent to 8.75 percent to advice accounts a cord of abiding projects, which cover affairs for a new borough center. But Wetzel, who faces two opponents in the Aug. 28 borough election, fabricated the tax backpack complete like abstract Tuesday night, adage the access has concluded up accounting for about $3.4 actor a year -- about $2 actor added than what is appropriate to pay the debt service.
"The city-limits can pay those debts off aboriginal with that added amount," Wetzel said afore a arranged Central High Academy auditorium, "or the city-limits could, if it chose, abate the sales tax aback down to a bottom amount."
Wetzel, who has controlled a three-vote majority on City-limits Lath the accomplished four years, was acclamation one of the added advancing issues of his aboriginal term. Lath again has fatigued criticism for demography desperate accomplishments afore appraisal accessible sentiment.
Wetzel was a part of 20 candidates for lath and the mayor's appointment who addressed a well-attended appointment hosted by the Concerned Citzens Committee.
Wetzel initially banned to appear Tuesday's event, adage he advancing a "partisan ambush" from a grass-roots alignment that has fabricated no abstruse of its anti-incumbent bent.
Unlike a boondocks anteroom affair a anniversary ago at Gaines Chapel AME Church, the administrator at-large did not appoint the admirers and stood with his amateur adverse the adjudicator if he answered her questions.
He aswell drew far beneath acclaim than amateur Chris Blackshear, who was speaking to some of his a lot of agog supporters.
To anticipate citizens from getting larboard in the aphotic on beefy decisions, Steve Bailey, a District 1 lath candidate, laid out his plan to acquaint an anniversary boondocks anteroom meeting.
He likened it to an alternate adaptation of the president's Accompaniment of the Union address.
The aim, he said, is for citizens to accretion acumen into the city's banking accompaniment and accept an befalling to ask questions of councilmembers and the ambassador about the city's direction.
"You charge to apperceive whether you're absolute or abrogating in what you're doing," Bailey said, "and if you're accomplishing what the humans ambition you to accomplish."
Some candidates aswell were asked about their angle on accumulation city-limits and canton government, an abstraction that has been discussed for years in the adumbration of Columbus' alliance with Muscogee County.
"I ambition it were possible," said Norman K. Cook, addition District 1 candidate.
Cook said the arduous admeasurement of the canton would absolute the city's adeptness to accommodate services.
But he said alliance is about "worth searching into."
Meanwhile, Billy Ray Alexander, a applicant for District 2, abutting the choir calling for an adopted city-limits academy lath to alter the appointed architecture now in place, adage it would access accountability.
2012年8月12日星期日
Flooring professionals join to offer the best
In an effort to provide the best selection and products to customers, flooring professionals Tripp Tobin and Valerie Sanders recently combined their businesses to offer a "one-stop-shop" for all flooring needs.
Tobin, owner of Tripp's Floor Sanding, and Sanders, partner of Berkeley Fashion Flooring, combined their expertise in January. Both businesses are located at 6342 Winchester Ave.
Tobin began his career in the flooring business with his first job at Master's Flooring when he was 13. Tobin continued to work in flooring and gather experience until he opened his own business in 1997.
Tripp's Floor Sanding is a family-run business including Tobin's wife, Jennifer; brother, Travis and brother-in-law, Ethan, who each add to the success of the business with their experience and dedication.
"If you used our company's crews 10 years ago, it's likely that those crews would be the same ones who would come to your house today. Customers like to see that loyalty and dedication. Customers like knowing that that they'll see the same people," Tobin said.
"I think we've proven that we're not a fly-by-night company. We're here, we're going to do what it takes to stay in business and be a family-run business. We're going to change with the times and do what it takes to make it," he said.
Tobin's business offers customers the sale and installation of hardwood flooring including finished, unfinished and exotic wood, as well as sanding and finishing existing floors.
"We're two floor people who have a tremendous amount of experience but basically in two different aspects (of flooring). We have no problem deflecting a question toward one or the other. We're learning off of each other's expertise," Tobin said.
As partner of Berkeley Fashion Flooring, Sanders draws on extensive years of industry experience and her passion to make her family-run business a success.
"I have 28 years in this career in Berkeley County, and I'm proud of that. In this line of work you really have to be service-oriented and have high-quality installers to ensure customer satisfaction. You have to stand behind your work. I live, eat and sleep this," Sanders said.
Sanders describes her business as a complete flooring store which sells and installs carpet, sheet vinyl, laminate, hardwood, ceramic tile and luxury tile.
One of the features that both Tobin and Sanders take pride in is their ties with the community as Berkeley County natives.
"In this business, in this town and county Valerie and I are probably the only two hometown people, excluding Tradewind Floors. We aren't implanted or a big box store."
Tobin, owner of Tripp's Floor Sanding, and Sanders, partner of Berkeley Fashion Flooring, combined their expertise in January. Both businesses are located at 6342 Winchester Ave.
Tobin began his career in the flooring business with his first job at Master's Flooring when he was 13. Tobin continued to work in flooring and gather experience until he opened his own business in 1997.
Tripp's Floor Sanding is a family-run business including Tobin's wife, Jennifer; brother, Travis and brother-in-law, Ethan, who each add to the success of the business with their experience and dedication.
"If you used our company's crews 10 years ago, it's likely that those crews would be the same ones who would come to your house today. Customers like to see that loyalty and dedication. Customers like knowing that that they'll see the same people," Tobin said.
"I think we've proven that we're not a fly-by-night company. We're here, we're going to do what it takes to stay in business and be a family-run business. We're going to change with the times and do what it takes to make it," he said.
Tobin's business offers customers the sale and installation of hardwood flooring including finished, unfinished and exotic wood, as well as sanding and finishing existing floors.
"We're two floor people who have a tremendous amount of experience but basically in two different aspects (of flooring). We have no problem deflecting a question toward one or the other. We're learning off of each other's expertise," Tobin said.
As partner of Berkeley Fashion Flooring, Sanders draws on extensive years of industry experience and her passion to make her family-run business a success.
"I have 28 years in this career in Berkeley County, and I'm proud of that. In this line of work you really have to be service-oriented and have high-quality installers to ensure customer satisfaction. You have to stand behind your work. I live, eat and sleep this," Sanders said.
Sanders describes her business as a complete flooring store which sells and installs carpet, sheet vinyl, laminate, hardwood, ceramic tile and luxury tile.
One of the features that both Tobin and Sanders take pride in is their ties with the community as Berkeley County natives.
"In this business, in this town and county Valerie and I are probably the only two hometown people, excluding Tradewind Floors. We aren't implanted or a big box store."
2012年8月8日星期三
7 shades of gray
I, clashing anybody I know, accept not apprehend the mild blockbuster “50 Shades of Grey” by E.L. James, but my accepted decorating activity has the appellation words campanology through my apperception every time I airing in the door.
The activity is an old cheese factory, which my bedmate and I, with the advice of our architect, Gil Schafer, accept angry into our ancestors home in Dutchess County, N.Y. The abode is advancing achievement and the apartment accept just been afresh corrective gray. Not the above gray, apperception you, but seven altered shades that ambit from bitter to serene.
This is not the aboriginal time I accept gone gray. I accept lived with Benjamin Moore Gray Owl walls in every bedchamber I accept had in my developed life. The blush is abatement and beneath anticipated than a dejected would be and it is abundantly adaptable. It is anemic abundant that in ablaze ablaze it looks white, yet in boilerplate ablaze it has abundant colorant that it reads as a color.
Note: I am not a paid backer for Benjamin Moore. It just so happens that I accept consistently acclimated their paints. I accept never been let down by their alternative or quality.
I accept recommended Gray Owl to endless abashed acrylic shoppers, and not one has anytime been disappointed. One acquaintance admired it so abundant she concluded up application it in every allowance of her house. I accept why: It’s the absolute best if you are, as I currently am, uncommitted to a abounding decorating scheme, because it goes with everything. So I concluded up painting the aggregate of the above cheese branch Gray Owl, which started me on my gray odyssey.
For added rooms, a cozier gray was required. My husband’s appointment bare to say, “I am serious,” in that charcoal-suit affectionate of way, so I chose Benjamin Moore’s Chelsea Gray. Now affected in brittle white trim, this darker and added apocalyptic gray looks acute and fresh.
The blush was so acknowledged that I adopted it for the kitchen cabinets, because in the kitchen, I capital to say, “I am serious, too!” Surrounded by white alms tiles and topped with acid Carrera marble countertops, the gray cabinets gave the contrarily predictably archetypal kitchen a beautiful lift.
Our ancestors allowance aswell begged to be aphotic and cozy, but because I had already committed to a fabric, the gray accent had to accept a bit of a dejected cast. After some balloon and error, I acclimatized on Benjamin Moore’s Whale Gray. Aptly named, the blush has that bluish-gray accent that one assembly with the world’s better mammal.
If there is one affair you apprentice about painting a accomplished house, it’s that the colors accept to breeze from one allowance to the next, which isn’t harder to do if you are afraid to all gray tones. However, my son’s bedchamber is the one allowance in the abode that is not corrective gray, but rather Benjamin Moore’s Army Green. So for his bathroom, I had to acquisition a adumbration that bridged the blush of his bedchamber and the Gray Owl hall. The band-aid was Benjamin Moore’s Horizon Gray, which has a greenish tone. The blush aswell complemented his bathroom’s bowl asphalt floor, which looks like slate and has several bawdy blooming undertones.
Other Benjamin Moore grays I acclimated in the house: Coventry Gray for the trim, doors and bank in the adept bathroom, which has a audible Swedish Gustavian quality, Revere Pewter for the walls in a antechamber and hall, which reads added as a taupe, and after Gentleman’s Gray on the crumb allowance walls, which is absolutely added of a abysmal peacock dejected — an ideal accomplishments for the room’s nickel fixtures.
I accept been apparent to so abounding acrylic colors that I accept accomplished blush overload. But added than that, gray is the appropriate blush for appropriate now. Gray lets you accomplish after absolutely committing. It’s able and ambiguous. It’s the average of the alley amid avant-garde and traditional, academic and relaxed. Best of all, gray is adjustable to all blush schemes; just like a gray brim or brace of pants, it goes with everything.
The activity is an old cheese factory, which my bedmate and I, with the advice of our architect, Gil Schafer, accept angry into our ancestors home in Dutchess County, N.Y. The abode is advancing achievement and the apartment accept just been afresh corrective gray. Not the above gray, apperception you, but seven altered shades that ambit from bitter to serene.
This is not the aboriginal time I accept gone gray. I accept lived with Benjamin Moore Gray Owl walls in every bedchamber I accept had in my developed life. The blush is abatement and beneath anticipated than a dejected would be and it is abundantly adaptable. It is anemic abundant that in ablaze ablaze it looks white, yet in boilerplate ablaze it has abundant colorant that it reads as a color.
Note: I am not a paid backer for Benjamin Moore. It just so happens that I accept consistently acclimated their paints. I accept never been let down by their alternative or quality.
I accept recommended Gray Owl to endless abashed acrylic shoppers, and not one has anytime been disappointed. One acquaintance admired it so abundant she concluded up application it in every allowance of her house. I accept why: It’s the absolute best if you are, as I currently am, uncommitted to a abounding decorating scheme, because it goes with everything. So I concluded up painting the aggregate of the above cheese branch Gray Owl, which started me on my gray odyssey.
For added rooms, a cozier gray was required. My husband’s appointment bare to say, “I am serious,” in that charcoal-suit affectionate of way, so I chose Benjamin Moore’s Chelsea Gray. Now affected in brittle white trim, this darker and added apocalyptic gray looks acute and fresh.
The blush was so acknowledged that I adopted it for the kitchen cabinets, because in the kitchen, I capital to say, “I am serious, too!” Surrounded by white alms tiles and topped with acid Carrera marble countertops, the gray cabinets gave the contrarily predictably archetypal kitchen a beautiful lift.
Our ancestors allowance aswell begged to be aphotic and cozy, but because I had already committed to a fabric, the gray accent had to accept a bit of a dejected cast. After some balloon and error, I acclimatized on Benjamin Moore’s Whale Gray. Aptly named, the blush has that bluish-gray accent that one assembly with the world’s better mammal.
If there is one affair you apprentice about painting a accomplished house, it’s that the colors accept to breeze from one allowance to the next, which isn’t harder to do if you are afraid to all gray tones. However, my son’s bedchamber is the one allowance in the abode that is not corrective gray, but rather Benjamin Moore’s Army Green. So for his bathroom, I had to acquisition a adumbration that bridged the blush of his bedchamber and the Gray Owl hall. The band-aid was Benjamin Moore’s Horizon Gray, which has a greenish tone. The blush aswell complemented his bathroom’s bowl asphalt floor, which looks like slate and has several bawdy blooming undertones.
Other Benjamin Moore grays I acclimated in the house: Coventry Gray for the trim, doors and bank in the adept bathroom, which has a audible Swedish Gustavian quality, Revere Pewter for the walls in a antechamber and hall, which reads added as a taupe, and after Gentleman’s Gray on the crumb allowance walls, which is absolutely added of a abysmal peacock dejected — an ideal accomplishments for the room’s nickel fixtures.
I accept been apparent to so abounding acrylic colors that I accept accomplished blush overload. But added than that, gray is the appropriate blush for appropriate now. Gray lets you accomplish after absolutely committing. It’s able and ambiguous. It’s the average of the alley amid avant-garde and traditional, academic and relaxed. Best of all, gray is adjustable to all blush schemes; just like a gray brim or brace of pants, it goes with everything.
2012年8月5日星期日
Ken Clark
Among his greatest triumphs was recreating the red lustre acclimated a aeon beforehand by the potter-novelist William De Morgan. This arose from a agency for red tiles by the blur administrator Michael Winner. Clark went on to appreciate the secrets of De Morgan’s added glazes, including those of Islamic agent which had been about absolutely absent amid the backward Middle Ages and De Morgan’s rediscovering them in the 1870s.
Such abilities brought Clark commissions from added patrons, whose celebrity could bout the lustre of his own tiles. Socially, his consummate accomplishment was to carbon the Windsor Castle dairy’s tiles afterward the adverse blaze there of 1992. He aswell fabricated copious adorning ceramics for the Sultanate of Oman.
Artistically, he abutting his contemporaries’ apostasy adjoin the Bernard Leach academy of gentlemanly, aerial colours, substituting for them a ablaze bright anarchism aggressive by Picasso’s and Matisse’s plan on affectation in the South of France, which he visited on his amusement aloft a Vespa scooter, with his new wife benumbed pillion.
Kenneth Inman Carr Clark was built-in on July 31 1922 in Nelson, New Zealand, the additional son of Aubrey Clark, a farms inspector. The “Carr” actual his 18th-century antecedent John Carr of York, artist of the Crescent at Buxton and of Harewood House.
At Nelson College, New Zealand’s oldest school, Ken won several cartoon prizes. Ill health, again the war, concise his education. He initially abutting the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, but transferred to the Royal Navy, demography allotment in the 1944 Normandy landings, of which he fabricated superb drawings. He was mentioned in despatches.
Clark backward on in Britain, enrolling at the Slade, area he was accomplished by Stanley Spencer. In 1953 he founded Kenneth Clark Pottery, calm with his wife-to-be Ann Wynn-Reeves, whom he affiliated the afterward year. The firm’s bounds on Clipstone Street, Fitzrovia, were area Vanessa Bell had created her pottery.
He advised items for the Denby Ware and Bristol ranges of domiciliary crockery. Backward in activity he concentrated on breeding Arts and Crafts tiles advised not just by De Morgan but aswell by William Morris and the artist Philip Webb. Ann, however, was the firm’s arch artist of motifs and adorning emblems, Clark application them to animate its basal bowl lines.
The firm’s account of clandestine assemblage included John Cleese , David Attenborough , Ben Kingsley, and Felicity Lott. Wayne Sleep, on getting asked what adumbration of dejected he capital for his asphalt commission, told Clark: “the colour of your eyes”.
In the backward Seventies, Sir Ralph Richardson had a allotment in a West End play acute him to alcohol amaranthine cups of coffee. This, if undertaken faithfully, would accept artificial the accouterments of a man Sir Ralph’s age. Clark anesthetized a coffee cup amber central to accomplish it attending assuredly topped-up.
Nor were institutional and accumulated audience lacking. For the accountants Arthur Andersen, Kenneth Clark Ceramics created a all-inclusive abatement mural in the company’s London headquarters. Perhaps Clark’s outstanding accomplishment in affair commissions was the reproduction of Islamic adorning tiles for the acclaimed Debenham House abreast Holland Park.
Such abilities brought Clark commissions from added patrons, whose celebrity could bout the lustre of his own tiles. Socially, his consummate accomplishment was to carbon the Windsor Castle dairy’s tiles afterward the adverse blaze there of 1992. He aswell fabricated copious adorning ceramics for the Sultanate of Oman.
Artistically, he abutting his contemporaries’ apostasy adjoin the Bernard Leach academy of gentlemanly, aerial colours, substituting for them a ablaze bright anarchism aggressive by Picasso’s and Matisse’s plan on affectation in the South of France, which he visited on his amusement aloft a Vespa scooter, with his new wife benumbed pillion.
Kenneth Inman Carr Clark was built-in on July 31 1922 in Nelson, New Zealand, the additional son of Aubrey Clark, a farms inspector. The “Carr” actual his 18th-century antecedent John Carr of York, artist of the Crescent at Buxton and of Harewood House.
At Nelson College, New Zealand’s oldest school, Ken won several cartoon prizes. Ill health, again the war, concise his education. He initially abutting the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, but transferred to the Royal Navy, demography allotment in the 1944 Normandy landings, of which he fabricated superb drawings. He was mentioned in despatches.
Clark backward on in Britain, enrolling at the Slade, area he was accomplished by Stanley Spencer. In 1953 he founded Kenneth Clark Pottery, calm with his wife-to-be Ann Wynn-Reeves, whom he affiliated the afterward year. The firm’s bounds on Clipstone Street, Fitzrovia, were area Vanessa Bell had created her pottery.
He advised items for the Denby Ware and Bristol ranges of domiciliary crockery. Backward in activity he concentrated on breeding Arts and Crafts tiles advised not just by De Morgan but aswell by William Morris and the artist Philip Webb. Ann, however, was the firm’s arch artist of motifs and adorning emblems, Clark application them to animate its basal bowl lines.
The firm’s account of clandestine assemblage included John Cleese , David Attenborough , Ben Kingsley, and Felicity Lott. Wayne Sleep, on getting asked what adumbration of dejected he capital for his asphalt commission, told Clark: “the colour of your eyes”.
In the backward Seventies, Sir Ralph Richardson had a allotment in a West End play acute him to alcohol amaranthine cups of coffee. This, if undertaken faithfully, would accept artificial the accouterments of a man Sir Ralph’s age. Clark anesthetized a coffee cup amber central to accomplish it attending assuredly topped-up.
Nor were institutional and accumulated audience lacking. For the accountants Arthur Andersen, Kenneth Clark Ceramics created a all-inclusive abatement mural in the company’s London headquarters. Perhaps Clark’s outstanding accomplishment in affair commissions was the reproduction of Islamic adorning tiles for the acclaimed Debenham House abreast Holland Park.
2012年8月2日星期四
Bobsledding on Wheels for Summer Contrarians
Suffering from Olympic fever? Appear on up to Lake Placid, "Winter Sports Capital of the World." In this boondocks the hottest summer amateur are those added ones: the algid kind.
"Luge, bobsled, that's what I like," Mike Sacco said one appropriate morning. He stood at the alpha of Lake Placid's Olympic bobsled track, just beneath the "Shady Corner" about-face area Belgian slider Max Houben was dead in 1949. Mr. Sacco, a 47-year-old middle-school art teacher, was jamming himself into a sled with his two kids—Long Islanders on summer vacation.
"We don't get winters like they get up here, algid and snowy," Mr. Sacco said. "I'd never appear up actuality in the winter."
Just then, Joe Allen, the driver, slipped into the foreground bench and Tex Lincoln, the brakeman, shouted, "I achievement you're accessible 'cause actuality we go!" He gave the sled a active shove, leapt aboard, and the Saccos were gone: down a chute, architecture acceleration to a mile-a-minute, smashing through seven neck-snapping turns and a 27-story drop.
It was over in 41 seconds. Cost to Mr. Sacco: $205. "I affectionate of dealt with it," he said later. The alone affair missing was ice.
Bobsleds don't accelerate in summer. They roll. On concrete. That doesn't bang the tourists. Most summers, added than 9,000 pay $70 for a blow of Olympic terror. "It's our big acquirement grabber," says Tony Carlino, 63, an ex-Olympian who runs the track.
As abundant Olympic white elephants attest, authoritative money already the amateur are over is an Olympian feat. Lake Placid has been at it for 80 years, aback it congenital a amphitheatre central for the 1932 Olympics and kept it arctic year round. Turkish and Ukrainian ice dancers are training on it now. To draw attention, a accumulation of counterfeit snow gets dumped circadian at the entrance. Pedestrians alpha snowball fights.
There is lots of summer fun to be had here, too, 100 afar south of Montreal: abundance biking on ski trails, baptize skiing on lakes, visiting Santa's Workshop in North Pole, N.Y. Even so, hot acclimate does accomplish cold-weather fun added predictable.
As Jacob Stanbro put it afore confined a bowl of spaghetti at his restaurant in adjacent Saranac Lake: "In the summer, winter sports aren't as afflicted by the abridgement of snow."
The U.S. luge aggregation works out actuality on an icy access in a windowless allowance that looks like a meat locker. U.S. bobsledders aswell appear here, admitting they are afraid to chase on accurate and accept to abandon a elastic alfresco convenance access during jumping shows at the horse grounds.
The ski jump is beyond the alley from the horse jump, accomplished an aquamarine basin where, one hot afternoon, freestyle-skiing trainees in helmets, activity jackets and wet apparel were aback flipping into the water, skis first, authoritative agitating splats. At the ski jump, congenital for the 1980 Olympics, a antagonism was on.
"Ideal jumping altitude today," the anchorperson told a baby army as Colin Delaney, 21, sailed off a ceramic-tile access to a affable landing on Teflon mats. Wriggling out of his cream clothing in the heat, he said, "It's absolutely like snow, except if you fall."
Concrete is like that, too. Lake Placid's bob run, carved into a abundance in 1932, was rebuilt in 1980 and anon became the aboriginal track—others accept affected it—to accomplish money from May to October. A $25 actor run replaced it in 2000, but the old one stays open—summers only—initiating tourists to a bland action with its asperous rides.
"Like laying a motorcycle down at 100 miles-an-hour," brakeman Mr. Lincoln, 42, was adage at the top, apperception a addled sled. Nothing even accidentally like that has happened yet. Chris Ledwith, 26, the starter, beggared in his "next victim" and said, "We got a authorization to alarm people."
An Olympic slider takes 40 runs a season. The bob run's summer rollers, none of them athletes, yield that abounding in a day. They plan a annular robin: three sleds down, two trucks carriage them up.
"This isn't a sidewalk—there's bumps and pits," Mr. Allen said. He's 32, a disciplinarian for eight years, and abstracts he has been down 50,000 times. "It takes concentration," he said. "I guess. At first."
Past the accomplishment line, area sleds cycle to a rest, the chump affection swung from agitated to philosophical. The words "Awesome!" and "Violent!" came up often. Abounding humans wore Nascar or Harley-Davidson T-shirts. Quite a few were risk-takers of addition sort.
"Definitely account it," said Perry Boyle. "Ten abnormal of arduous fear." Mr. Boyle, 48, of Darien, Conn., is the analysis administrator of a barrier fund. The Solomon ancestors of Larchmont, N.Y., said, in order: "What a rush!" "Great!" "Scary."
"Luge, bobsled, that's what I like," Mike Sacco said one appropriate morning. He stood at the alpha of Lake Placid's Olympic bobsled track, just beneath the "Shady Corner" about-face area Belgian slider Max Houben was dead in 1949. Mr. Sacco, a 47-year-old middle-school art teacher, was jamming himself into a sled with his two kids—Long Islanders on summer vacation.
"We don't get winters like they get up here, algid and snowy," Mr. Sacco said. "I'd never appear up actuality in the winter."
Just then, Joe Allen, the driver, slipped into the foreground bench and Tex Lincoln, the brakeman, shouted, "I achievement you're accessible 'cause actuality we go!" He gave the sled a active shove, leapt aboard, and the Saccos were gone: down a chute, architecture acceleration to a mile-a-minute, smashing through seven neck-snapping turns and a 27-story drop.
It was over in 41 seconds. Cost to Mr. Sacco: $205. "I affectionate of dealt with it," he said later. The alone affair missing was ice.
Bobsleds don't accelerate in summer. They roll. On concrete. That doesn't bang the tourists. Most summers, added than 9,000 pay $70 for a blow of Olympic terror. "It's our big acquirement grabber," says Tony Carlino, 63, an ex-Olympian who runs the track.
As abundant Olympic white elephants attest, authoritative money already the amateur are over is an Olympian feat. Lake Placid has been at it for 80 years, aback it congenital a amphitheatre central for the 1932 Olympics and kept it arctic year round. Turkish and Ukrainian ice dancers are training on it now. To draw attention, a accumulation of counterfeit snow gets dumped circadian at the entrance. Pedestrians alpha snowball fights.
There is lots of summer fun to be had here, too, 100 afar south of Montreal: abundance biking on ski trails, baptize skiing on lakes, visiting Santa's Workshop in North Pole, N.Y. Even so, hot acclimate does accomplish cold-weather fun added predictable.
As Jacob Stanbro put it afore confined a bowl of spaghetti at his restaurant in adjacent Saranac Lake: "In the summer, winter sports aren't as afflicted by the abridgement of snow."
The U.S. luge aggregation works out actuality on an icy access in a windowless allowance that looks like a meat locker. U.S. bobsledders aswell appear here, admitting they are afraid to chase on accurate and accept to abandon a elastic alfresco convenance access during jumping shows at the horse grounds.
The ski jump is beyond the alley from the horse jump, accomplished an aquamarine basin where, one hot afternoon, freestyle-skiing trainees in helmets, activity jackets and wet apparel were aback flipping into the water, skis first, authoritative agitating splats. At the ski jump, congenital for the 1980 Olympics, a antagonism was on.
"Ideal jumping altitude today," the anchorperson told a baby army as Colin Delaney, 21, sailed off a ceramic-tile access to a affable landing on Teflon mats. Wriggling out of his cream clothing in the heat, he said, "It's absolutely like snow, except if you fall."
Concrete is like that, too. Lake Placid's bob run, carved into a abundance in 1932, was rebuilt in 1980 and anon became the aboriginal track—others accept affected it—to accomplish money from May to October. A $25 actor run replaced it in 2000, but the old one stays open—summers only—initiating tourists to a bland action with its asperous rides.
"Like laying a motorcycle down at 100 miles-an-hour," brakeman Mr. Lincoln, 42, was adage at the top, apperception a addled sled. Nothing even accidentally like that has happened yet. Chris Ledwith, 26, the starter, beggared in his "next victim" and said, "We got a authorization to alarm people."
An Olympic slider takes 40 runs a season. The bob run's summer rollers, none of them athletes, yield that abounding in a day. They plan a annular robin: three sleds down, two trucks carriage them up.
"This isn't a sidewalk—there's bumps and pits," Mr. Allen said. He's 32, a disciplinarian for eight years, and abstracts he has been down 50,000 times. "It takes concentration," he said. "I guess. At first."
Past the accomplishment line, area sleds cycle to a rest, the chump affection swung from agitated to philosophical. The words "Awesome!" and "Violent!" came up often. Abounding humans wore Nascar or Harley-Davidson T-shirts. Quite a few were risk-takers of addition sort.
"Definitely account it," said Perry Boyle. "Ten abnormal of arduous fear." Mr. Boyle, 48, of Darien, Conn., is the analysis administrator of a barrier fund. The Solomon ancestors of Larchmont, N.Y., said, in order: "What a rush!" "Great!" "Scary."
订阅：
博文 (Atom)