Dolores Heights architecture

With its dark glass walls, flat modern lines and bare concrete base, the new house at Sanchez and 20th streets makes a brash first impression on the settled eastern slope of Dolores Heights.Now take a broader look at the entire block, and something else is revealed: a fresh strand in the neighborhood's architectural fabric.

One house on the west side of the 700 block is barn-shaped and deep-set; another swells with a single tile-roofed bay. The house in the middle of the block pulls back behind balconies in a demure Cubist manner. Two doors away, the protruding top floor is adorned with flower boxes.Even as they coexist with ease, what the houses share is a sensibility rather than a preordained style - a sensibility that extends to the newcomer as well, an 1,800-square-foot structure on a lot that would allow nearly twice that. The context of Dolores Heights, like the context of the city as a whole, is a tapestry that only grows more intriguing as new elements are added to the weave.

The steep, 400-foot hill itself is a definition rather than a destination, framing Noe Valley to the south and Dolores Park to the east. From afar it's a rustle of walls and porcelain tiles, green trees and straight asphalt.Things aren't so placid on foot in the enclave bounded roughly by Cumberland, Church, 22nd and Castro streets.

"Residents of the hill fought bitterly over location of the streets the city was preparing to cut into the sides of the hill," The Chronicle wrote in its 1958 piece on Dolores Heights, describing the early 20th century. "Everyone wanted the paved street to be at the level of his house - not that of the house across the way, which might be 20 or 30 feet higher or lower."he result was that some streets are split by retaining walls between lanes. Others filled in on one side but not the other. At the crest of 20th Street above Sanchez, for instance, the south side of the block was still open space when George Homsey and his wife bought a 50-foot-wide lot in 1963.

"It was a little blue-collar enclave back then, a cul-de-sac with steps down to Sanchez," recalled Homsey, a founding principal of the architectural firm Esherick Homsey Dodge & Davis. "This side was nothing but a rocky bank and the property above."Then, filling in the blanks was a casual thing. Homsey met with a bureaucrat, assured him the house wouldn't be too tall, and hired a contractor to erect a woodsy house that would look at home in a Sierra forest. Friends stopped by on weekends to help with interior details, such as the stained plywood floors that still do the job.

Now, new houses must align with the guidelines of the Dolores Heights Special Use District, established in 1980 "to encourage development in context and scale with established character and China ceramic tile." Builders and architects also are encouraged to vet their plans with the Dolores Heights Improvement Club, a neighborhood association.Groups like this emerged across the city in the 1960s and '70s, many of them in reaction to what was seen as excessive or insensitive development.

The 3600 block of 21st Street is a case study in why such fears took root. On the summit at Sanchez stands the home built by then-Mayor Sunny Jim Rolph in 1930, a storybook chateau with small paned window and a brick-studded chimney. Downhill - literally - the block concludes with a 30-unit apartment building from 1963, a colorless box with so little grace that on Church Street the hill's underlying rock stands exposed behind three concrete piers.

While families like the Homseys staked their claim with affection and care, mid-century builders slapped in product with no thought for their surroundings. No wonder that neighborhood groups stepped forward to protect their terrain, or why the city's Urban Design Plan of 1971 warned that "modern changes tend to be extremely potent and to have sharply visible negative effects."

Some people are fed up with excessively noisy restaurants and they never seem to tire of talking about it. It’s one of the most frequent topics — and complaints — I get as a restaurant critic. More than two years ago, in March 2011, I wrote a blog about the five noisiest restaurants in the Bay Area. The Golden Hearing Aid Award went to Leopold’s; Rotisserie and Wine in Napa (now closed); Cafe Des Amis, which now has drapes and other additions; Nopa, which also did some acoustical work; and Adesso in Oakland.

What that means is that the decibel level at some restaurants continues to increase as the lines between a bar and restaurant continue to blur. Probably the loudest place I’ve been in the last year or so is Mikkeller Bar on Mason Street. That said,  it’s hard to be too critical because it’s basically a bar that happens to have a full dinner menu.  While many patrons were standing around drinking the 40+ beers, others were sitting at the table ordering sausages, salads and sandwiches.  Even though I was sitting next to my dining companion at a communal table, I felt like my head would explode, not so much from the noise, but trying to make myself heard. Since I hadn’t caught up with my friend for a while, after we finished our sausage platter we went to a  quieter place for an after-dinner drink  to finish our conversation.

Read the full products at http://www.tilees.com/!

Blast Away Grime With Baking Soda

It works in conjunction with an air compressor to clean dirty parts and surfaces. But instead of using sand as the cleaning abrasive, a soda blaster shoots out sodium bicarbonate, which is commonly known as baking soda though what's used in blasters is composed of larger particles than those found in standard household baking soda.

The advantage of using baking soda, as opposed to sand, crushed walnut shells, coal slag, or any other abrasive, is that it's environmentally safe, less aggressive, relatively affordable, and easily rinsed away with water. In fact, the first large-scale industrial use of soda blasting occurred during the 1986 centennial restoration of the Statue of Liberty. It was the only safe and effective way to remove coal tar, paint, and corrosion from the statue's soft copper skin.

Soda blasters can be used to remove paint, grease, indelible stains, and caked-on dirt from virtually any surface, Ceramic tile, aluminum, wood, sheet metal, brick, concrete, granite, chrome, glass, and even fiberglass.

Today soda blasters are often used to remove rust from metal, strip paint from wood doors and moldings, clean graffiti from masonry surfaces, blast hard-water deposits from ceramic tile, and power-strip industrial machinery. I recently used one to blast four coats of paint off a sheet of diamond-plate steel. It took less than 2 minutes to clean a 1-square-foot area down to bare steel.

A soda blaster itself is composed of a steel storage tank for holding the sodium bicarbonate, a spray nozzle and hose, manifold, and water separator that helps to prevent clogging. When shopping for a soda blaster, check its air requirement to ensure that your air compressor can provide the necessary pressure.

Soda blasters come in various sizes, based on the their storage-tank capacity. I bought a compact 15-pound Central Pneumatic soda blaster from Harbor Freight Tools for less than $100. The company also offers a larger 40-pound unit for about $160. Sodium bicarbonate is commonly available in medium- and extra-large grit. A 50-pound bag costs between $38 and $43. When operating a soda blaster, always wear protective eye goggles or a face shield, and a dust mask or dual-cartridge respirator. And be sure to follow the safety precautions outlined in the instruction manual.

Fylde's largest independent retail showroom, Artisan Tiles and Interiors is owned and managed by Marcus and Julia Eastwood. With nearly 25 years of combined experience in the UK tiles industry, the husband and wife tandem have advised clients on both domestic and commercial projects, both large and small. The Eastwood couple has recently helped in the design of a number of local businesses including Henry's Bar and Grill, Capri Bar, Moshina's Indian, Kensington Developments Lytham Quays site and Floor tiles.

At ArtisanTiles.co.uk, visitors will find a diverse range of tiling products for home and commercial needs. The website features each of the interiors and tiles in large image galleries for visitors to take a closer look at the design that may suit their taste or meet their tiling requirement.

Satisfied clients Ken & Elaine Beer from Blackpool talk about Artisan Tiles &Interiors: "What a fantastic range of tiles for walls and floors! The owners Julia and Marcus were extremely helpful and obliging, keen to offer advice with 'samples' and help with colour and design choices. The 'in store' home interiors section specialising in wallpapers and fabrics has an excellent service. Overall, it was a pleasant shopping experience."

ArtisanTiles.co.uk also displays Porcelanosa bathroom suites, the latest addition to the Artisan Tiles and Interiors showroom featuring two Porcelanosa bathroom and tile settings. The website also features the showroom's interiors department, which specialises in wallpapers, fabrics, wall covering and blinds. The website offers tile design advice and assistance, as well as quotations and insulations on curtains and all soft furnishings.

Kayser-Roth Corporation is seeking incentives from Burlington and Ala mance County to help create 50 new full-time jobs and invest $18 million in new capital as part of an expansion plan for its Burlington location.

Mac Wi lliams, Ala mance County A r ea Chamber of Commerce president, revealed the name of the textile company seeking incentives on Monday during an Alamance County Board of Commissioners meeting.

Kayser-Roth is based in Greensboro with a mailing address of 714 W. Interstate Service Road in Graham. County Manager Craig Honeycutt said the business is located in Burlington; he sent a letter regarding the company’s expansion plans to Williams on July 29.

“ Ala mance County ’s local ind ustrial development incentive is to provide a cash grant to the Company of a maximum of $360,000 based upon the initial new taxable valuation increase of building and equipment of $18,000,000 once the above job and investment thresholds have been met,” the letter stated. “This would be paid over a five year period, $72,000 annually for five years.”

You may think it's wood or stone

Yes -- but these products definitely are not the shiny orange sheet that covered your mom's kitchen floor, or the old peel-and-stick school hall tiles your dad plopped down in the foyer. Modern luxury vinyl is a broad category that includes wood- and stone-look products with colors and textures good enough to fool the eye.

It's a category that's growing rapidly. Sales of luxury vinyl hit $500 million last year -- up 13 percent, Floor Daily reported.For those who don't choose carpet, hardwood or hard tile, luxury vinyl -- instead of laminate -- is likely to be the favorite option.

Local flooring pros say they've seen the trend in their showrooms."In the past year, it's like it's a hot item," said Jennifer Fallon, owner of the Floor Gallery of Lake Norman in Mooresville. She sells slightly more of the tile-look luxury vinyl, but wood styles are not far behind.

At Hughes Flooring in Charlotte, N.C., Rodney Hughes reports the same. "It's taking off," he said. "[Floor companies] are putting a lot of marketing money into it ... and we're starting to see that."If you visit your favorite home center or floors website, you'll find lots of options. Online you'll find discussions of the best products and polished tiles.

If you have the top products installed by a pro, though, you can pay about as much for luxury vinyl as for some standard hardwood or ceramic tile. Say, $8 to $10 a square foot installed, Fallon estimated. Hughes said simply: "This is not a price-point product."

Again, the appearance is one reason. The tile-look products can be grouted, to make it look more like ceramic or stone. The wood-look planks feature rich colors and textures. Hughes said that the technology responsible for such looks is helping to drive the popularity.

It's softer under foot than tile, and stands up to spills and large pets better than hardwood, Fallon said. Hughes said one huge advantage for luxury vinyl is that it isn't damaged by moisture. "You can soak it in the bathtub and it won't swell or buckle," he said. "There's no wood inside."

 These floors can be glued down, or they can be "floated." Individual tiles and planks can be clicked together and then installed without glue, to float on special underlayment. Floating floors can cover up minor imperfections in the subfloor during a renovation.

Luxury vinyl is thinner than hardwood, and thinner than stone or ceramic tile installed on the required underlayment. When remodeling, it's easier to match a thinner product to the level of the surrounding existing floors.

There are few good-looking options for the edge, or transition, where luxury vinyl abuts another type of flooring or a floor that's a slightly different level."They don't make a transition," Fallon said. "I sometimes have to use wood, and stain it to match. They make metal, like you'd use on an old vinyl floor. But it doesn't look good."

Our community deserves strong leadership. The city council is an integral part of the local government. As I complete my third term of office as a city councilman, I have been able to work together with the other council members, the mayor and community leaders from many groups and organizations to provide direction, vision, strategy and action. I still bring fresh ideas, energy and a professional financial perspective from pre-9/11 and post-9/11 eras. I tend to be more of a "financial advisor" and decision maker" than a politician.

The purchase of the new city hall property demonstrates a clear long-term vision and plan to reduce operating expenses, unnecessary costs and therefore provide more resources for general services, like recreation, parks, pools, libraries and the museum.

Leaders must make the tough decisions (the right decisions), even if they are not always the popular choice for special interest groups. I have demonstrated an ability to lead and make decisions based on the facts and information. I will continue to support the essential programs that provide a unique distinction between Dearborn and other communities in this area.

I truly understand the city’s financial challenges and the tools available to solve these problems. I work hard to understand the service mix and priorities for neighborhoods; maintaining the high quality services is the biggest challenge during a time of financial cutbacks and shrinking revenues. Throughout the budget process I strive to balance the “needs” and “wants” of everyone. This establishes a clear direction for the administration.

Click on their website http://www.tilees.com/.

How the Strike Debt Movement Redefined Occupy

The answer appears so simple that even Saturday Night Live has made a gag of it. To escape the nightmare tide of rising debt, all Americans need do is control their consumption, right? Resist the pull of the flat screen TV, the closet full of brand names, the smart phone. It’s just that easy.

In May 2012, members of the Occupy Wall Street publication Tidal and its working group, Occupy Theory, called for a series of open assemblies to re-evaluate the Occupy movement’s strategies. Conversations quickly coalesced around the topics of education and debt, and the Strike Debt group was born. Taking a cue from the student protests in Quebec, the group began to hold weekly assemblies in Washington Square Park and adopted Quebec’s red square as a symbol of solidarity.

“We realized that student debt, medical debt, housing debt, credit card debt – these are all necessities of life, and people are stuck,” said Susan Meaney, a member of Strike Debt’s organizing committee and a mother of two college-age children with student loans.

With roughly 75 percent of Americans mired in some kind of debt, much of it medical or educational, Meaney said, the blame cannot rest on the debtors. When basic necessities like health care and schooling are partially or entirely debt-financed, consuming less is not the answer.

“It’s a systemic problem,” she said. “It’s not because [Americans] don’t know how to handle their money. There’s a system in place that keeps them that way. We wanted to open up a conversation and let people know that they are not alone.”

One of Strike Debt’s most publicized initiatives is the Rolling Jubilee, a donation-based fund that has already purchased and abolished more than $1 million worth of people's private medical debt in the United States. The initiative has brought attention to the “shadowy, speculative secondary debt market” where defaulted medical and credit card debt can be sold to debt collectors, who purchase it for a fraction of the price and turn a profit by pressuring debtors to pay the full amount. The group's most recent debt buy involved obtaining a portfolio worth over $1 million — for around just $21,000.

“We purchase the debt like a debt buyer, but instead of trying to collect on it we abolish it,” said Ann Larson, Rolling Jubilee’s assistant treasurer. “This is like public education, letting people know that this is happening. These are people who haven’t been able to pay their medical debt, people who got sick [or] had an accident, and now debt buyers and collectors are profiting from it. They are trafficking in misery.”

Another large Strike Debt initiative has been the 130-page Debt Resistors’ Operations Manual, a handbook that outlines various forms of debt and debt resistance. Debt resistance, the manual explains, can consist of anything from intentionally defaulting on debt to simply negotiating with creditors for more equitable interest rates. The publication is available for free online and at Strike Debt rallies. A second edition will be available in mid-September for purchase on Amazon, but will remain free online and at demonstrations.

“The problem is that people suffer from debt alone, often overwhelmed by feelings of shame,” Rolling Jubilee secretary Christopher Casuccio wrote in an e-mail. “With the DROM, we tried to tell a story to other people who feel as isolated as we do, a story about our economic system and the role that debt plays as a predatory tool for capitalists. We have received thousands of emails from debtors all over the country, [which] confirmed what we suspected: debt is a crisis and people are suffering everywhere, often with nowhere to go and nobody to talk to.”

Strike Debt affiliates have popped up around the country, in places like Oakland, San Francisco, Portland, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, and Minneapolis. Many of the groups are still in their infancies, working out an organizational structure and planning initiatives. They are in conversation with the New York hub to varying degrees, but are encouraged to focus on the issues directly affecting their communities.

Strike Debt Bay Area, for example, has formed several subgroups aimed at tackling different facets of the debt problem, and has so far held two Debtors’ Assemblies, a small rally on tax day, and joined in protesting the closure of a post office in Berkeley. The movement is small but optimistic.

“We’re basically trying to establish a critical mass here in the Bay Area,” said Margaret Rossoff, a member of the organizing committee. “We have a few people who are really committed, but we need more.”

However, Strike Debt has also weathered serious upheaval in recent months. On the eve of this year’s May Day demonstrations, Amin Husain, one of Strike Debt’s original members, sent out an e-mail announcing his departure from the group, citing vicious infighting and ideological differences. The move sparked a small exodus of members who shared Husain’s views.

The Palestinian-born artist and activist, a former corporate lawyer, abandoned his profession to take up the mantle of political activism and helped plan the original occupation of Zuccotti Park on September 17, 2011. For some, Husain had become a public face for Strike Debt, and perhaps even for Occupy. His departure was seen as an unsettling comment on the movement’s future.

“I’ve come to think you can’t really build a movement around debt,” Husain said. “When you substitute capitalism with [conversations about] debt, the problem is that you don’t pick up issues like race, racism, white supremacy in society, and patriarchy. That’s not Occupy.”

In his e-mail, Husain cited legal scholar Frances Lee Ansley’s definition of “white supremacy” as a main source of conflict within the group:

“By ‘white supremacy’ […] I refer to a political, economic and cultural system in which whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources, conscious and unconscious ideas of white superiority and entitlement are widespread, and relations of white dominance and non-white subordination are daily reenacted across a broad array of institutions and social settings.”

Husain felt that Strike Debt was reproducing these dynamics, if unconsciously, in a largely homogenous movement. He said that Strike Debt was sidestepping crucial conversations about race, class and gender, and how these are used as instruments of oppression.

“Strike Debt is not addressing race and patriarchy in a way that I think is healthy, and it’s limited by not being multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural,” he said. “The main reason I left is because we couldn’t have these conversations. There were a lot of interpersonal dynamics that stopped that from happening. I don’t want to be part of something that is predominantly white that will produce the same world.”

Still, Husain has not left Occupy for good but has merely shifted his efforts elsewhere. He has continued his work with Tidal’s editorial team, as well as Occupy Theory, and continues to promote the kind of radical social shift sought by Occupy as a whole.

The remaining members of Strike Debt have acknowledged the upheaval and the issues raised by these departures, but are committed to moving forward with their current structure.

“These sorts of conflicts are inevitable in any social movement,” Larson wrote in an e-mail. “As for the future, we're tackling the same issues and questions that have animated our work since the beginning. My sense is that most active members feel that, while we must always learn from past conflicts, we're headed in the right direction.”

Casuccio added that the group has adopted a set of principles aimed at promoting “direct democracy, autonomy, accountability, and anti-oppression. We're very aware of these challenges and are committed to facing them honestly, actively, and with reflection and humility.”

Recently, Strike Debt members have been supporting Cooper Union students protesting the university’s controversial decision to charge tuition. Members say that upcoming Strike Debt initiatives may be aimed at not only combating student debt but also the shady economic underworld of check cashing and payday lending. They have been quietly gearing up for another debt buy as well as the release of a second edition of the Debt Resistors’ Operations Manual.

“We want to build a national debtors’ movement, and that takes a lot of planning,” Larson said. “It takes a lot of focus, a lot of thinking about the logistics and communicating with people in different parts of the country.”Click on their website www.tilees.com for more information.

Lien-clearing plan saves Wilkinsburg historic condos

Three of the eight units were vacant and two had liens that totaled more than $100,000, with owners who wouldn't respond to requests from the condo association.

"We almost lost the building," said longtime resident Rolynda Ford, whose advocacy of one vacant condo -- along with upstairs neighbor Suzanne Nuss' advocacy of another -- got the attention of the Redevelopment Authority of Allegheny County.

Because so many liens were owed to the borough, the redevelopment authority's program to clear the title took some convincing, but Wilkinsburg council eventually voted to approve letting the building go through the county's Vacant Property Recovery Program.

All eight units are now owned by people who pay condo association fees. Ms. Ford was able to buy the unit she is in now and Ms. Nuss bought another of the vacant units. She intends to sell one and stay in the China ceramic tile.

Tracey Evans, executive director of the Wilkinsburg Community Development Corp., said the condo building is one of the oldest to have been built specifically for condos, early in the 20th century. Another like it across the street was demolished in the 1990s.

The condos' dining rooms are wainscoted in tiger oak, and pocket doors separate the living and dining rooms. The kitchen floors are hand-laid tile. Each bathroom has mosaic tiling and tile lines the stairwells, whose treads are made of cork.

The Brighton festival's theatre programme ended with this extraordinary import from Argentina in which five actors recalled, with the aid of photos, letters, home movies and old clothes, the lives of their parents. Conceived and directed by Lola Arias, the show offered a compelling mix of personal memories and – since the actors were all born around the time of the 1976-83 dictatorship – a mosaic of modern Argentinian history.

I suspect Arias is an admirer of the Brazilian pioneer Augusto Boal, whose "theatre of the oppressed" dramatised communal issues. Here, the big question is how the actors either live up to the radicalism of a previous generation or, in one case, live down its collusion with dictatorship. The most moving story is that of a performer who discovered that her supposed brother was actually the child of a "disappeared" family and had been illegally abducted by her policeman father: there is both sadness and a sense of relief in the way she recounts that her guilty dad is currently serving an 18-year jail sentence. But amid the stories of parents who suffered death or exile for their politics, there are lighter moments. One actor brings his eight-year-old son and the boy's pet turtle on stage; as the reptiles allegedly have prophetic powers, we watch in suspense as the turtle slowly indicates whether there will be a future Argentine revolution.

Arias's production would doubtless have an even greater impact on a society that had lived through the events described. But it gives us a vivid picture of the high price paid by a previous Argentinian generation for opposing, either openly or covertly, a dictatorship. It is also inventively staged, with descending cascades of clothes symbolising the weight of the past, and performed with great verve: you had to admire the unfazed cool of Liza Casullo as she coped with a technical hitch in the midst of a filmic re-creation of the lives of her exiled parents. But that, one would guess, is the least of the problems this resilient and blazingly honest group of performers has ever had to face.

His “Memento” line for Ceramica Vallelunga looks like it was lifted from a 500-year-old palazzo in Castelfranco, the small town in Northern Italy where he lives. Somehow Barbieri has managed to infuse these look-alikes with the patina of age — the surface of all the tiles has the rounded, irregular wear pattern produced by thousands of footsteps over hundreds of years.

Unlike Barbieri’s work, the originality of Phillip Starck’s “Flexible Architecture” line for Ceramica Sant’Agostino is not apparent at first glance or even the first five minutes. The bold colors and patterns are captivating; the fact that five barely dissimilar tiles can be rearranged in a seemingly infinite variety of distinct patterns is cleverness itself.

Then the light bulb goes off, as you realize that the generating motif for all the patterns is the humble grout line, something that most tile designers regard as distracting, ugly and something to hide.

Starck has done the opposite, celebrating it by incorporating an exaggerated textured grout line into the tile itself. When the tiles are installed you can’t miss the “fake” grout line’s three-quarter-inch width; the actual grout line is one millimeter wide and nearly invisible because it’s colored to match the tile.

Starck also shows us that it doesn’t take much to create a three-dimensional effect — the one-quarter-inch difference in the thickness of the tiles in his “Flexible Architecture” line creates a distinct shadow line in every pattern.

Shortage of smart cards hits vehicle owners hard

Buying a new vehicle or getting your personal details changed on the registration certificate of your existing vehicle? Keep all the receipts and documents intact till you get the optical card-based registration certificate. And chances are that you will have to wait for not less than a month before you get the registration certificate.

And if you are found driving your vehicle without a valid registration certificate or documents that prove your ownership of your vehicle, the traffic police can even impound it.

According to officials, more than 1,400 new vehicles are registered at 14 zonal offices in the Capital. Almost an equal number of duplicate registration certificates for older vehicles - due to change in ownership, change in residential address, removal of bank hypothecation, due to lost card and endorsement of CNG - are also made at these offices every day.

While the demand is almost 3,000, transport department officials said the supply of cards is not even half of it. Result: The vehicle owners are forced to make rounds of the zonal offices again and polished tiles.

“I recently paid off the bank’s loan on my car and applied for the deletion of hypothecation from the registration certificate. It has been more than a month but I have yet to get the card. Every time I come the transport officials give me a new date,” said Rajeev Gupta, a Vikaspuri resident.

Transport department officials, however, express their helplessness. “We have outsourced this job. It is the company’s responsibility to buy the smart cards and prepare registration certificates. But there is no supply of the cards. We have reported the matter to our seniors,” said the motor licensing officer of a zonal office requesting anonymity.

Delhi transport minister Ramakant Goswami said the company which has been given the contract has been served a notice. “We have served a notice to the company. We will take a strict action if the situation does not improve in the next few days,” Goswami said.

Next year, every Carnegie Mellon student, faculty member, and staff member will receive a new SMART ID card. Those who currently have a sponsored or affiliated ID will not receive a new SMART card, as the technology on the new cards is being used for public transportation access. Currently, such access is marked by a bus icon on the ID card.

The transition to SMART cards comes as a result of a new agreement between the university and Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT). According to the HUB’s website, “SMART cards contain a computer chip allowing a cardholder to simply “tap” his or her card on the PAT bus (or incline or T) reader in order to gain transportation access.”

The change in Carnegie Mellon’s agreement with Port Authority also resulted in an increase in the transportation fee that students pay — from $110 to $120, according to the HUB’s website.

Other than the change in transportation access, the SMART cards will be used in the same ways that current ID cards are used, including access to a student’s Plaid Ca$h, print quota, and on-campus residence.

The University of Pittsburgh already employs SMART-card technology, and according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, it recently extended its agreement with PAT for another five years.

Carnegie Mellon, Chatham University, and the University of Pittsburgh — the three local universities that pay the PAT for unlimited rides — generate about 600,000 rides per month, about 11 percent of PAT’s total riders, according to the Post-Gazette.

Students received emails asking for submissions for designs for the new ID cards. There has been some controversy among students about the three designs being offered as voting options.

“[The new designs] are not great. There is one that’s okay, but other than that the designs could’ve been better,” said Nathan Oh, a first-year information systems major.

Camilo Estrada, a first-year vocal performance major, agreed. “I feel like we could come up with something better.”

The controversy over the submitted designs offered even led to an online petition on change.org, written by Jordan Wu, an undeclared first-year CFA student.

In the petition, Wu wrote that “after viewing the submissions, I believe that the designs are not the best that CMU has to offer us. It is implausible to me that CMU, with our amazing arts and design schools, could produce designs such as these. Frankly, I would be embarrassed showing any of these designs to anyone as a representation of our school.”

How long will you live?

Tomiko Kadonaga, who turned 100 on Jan. 8, will tell you she’s had an easy life. Others would say differently. Kadonaga, who was born in B.C. to Japanese-Canadian parents, was placed in an internment camp during the Second World War, housed with her husband, Saul, in buildings intended for livestock. “The stall where I was had a little blue card outside that said, ‘First Prize Cow,’ ” she says with a wry smile. “I thought, ‘At least I’m first prize.’ ” Her godmother offered Saul a job on a farm in Port Hope, Ont., and a way out; leaving all their possessions behind, they moved to the area in 1942, and had a daughter. Saul died of esophageal cancer in 1989.

Today, Kadonaga, who lives alone in a neatly kept townhouse in Toronto’s north end, is the picture of contentment. Her legs bother her a bit, she says (she gets around with a flowery purple cane), but otherwise she’s in good health. In Canada, average life expectancy is 81, yet more people than ever are living to be 100. In 2011, we had 5,825 centenarians, according to Statistics Canada, up from 3,795 10 years before. As life expectancy continues to rise, it could hit over 17,000 by 2031. Why some people outlive almost everyone else—and remain in good health, even into very old age—remains one of the grand questions of science. Researchers have credited everything from diet and exercise to genetics. A clue to the secret of Kadonaga’s longevity, one we’re only starting to understand, lies buried deep within her cells: the tiny bits of DNA that cap the ends of her chromosomes, called telomeres.

Telomeres shorten as we age, but the telomeres of centenarians are remarkably long, according to Gil Atzmon at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York—more like those of people three decades younger, or even younger than that. Often compared to the plastic ends that keep shoelaces from fraying, telomeres prevent chromosomes from unravelling and fusing to each other. Each time a cell divides, some of the telomere is lost; when it becomes too short, the cell dies. Telomeres are protected by a powerful anti-aging enzyme, one produced by our own cells: it’s called telomerase, which rebuilds telomeres and protects them from wearing down, a discovery that won scientists Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak the Nobel prize in 2009. Healthy people with longer telomeres seem to be at lower risk of age-related illness, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer—the main diseases that stop us in our polished tiles.

A growing number of researchers say telomere length is a critically important indicator of how old we really are, and of how many healthy years we may have in front of us. A new industry is sprouting up around the science of longevity, offering telomere testing to the public—and Nobel laureate Blackburn is a notable part of it. Her company, Telome Health , is set to launch a telomere test later this year, joining a handful of others that already do. On May 15, Blackburn will be in Toronto to give a lecture sponsored by Executive Health Centre, a private clinic that offers telomere testing in Canada. Like a cholesterol or blood-pressure test, telomere testing could one day become standard in doctors’ offices.

And maybe in the future, we’ll be able to slow or reverse the effects of aging—the vision of researchers searching for ways to boost telomerase, a goal already achieved in lab mice. Some are already marketing so-called “telomerase activators” to a public hungry for ways to stop the clock, although no such drugs have been approved. With so many companies rushing to come on board, “there’s a lot of weird stuff going on out there,” cautions Jerry W. Shay of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, an expert on cell biology and telomere length.

Even telomere testing isn’t without controversy. Greider, Blackburn’s former graduate student, insists that public testing is premature. Dr. Peter Lansdorp, another prominent expert on telomere biology, agrees. “It’s too early, and it’s not supported by scientific data,” he contends. But in an unpublished study presented in late 2012, Blackburn and her colleagues tracked 100,000 people (their average age was 63), and found that those with shorter-than-average telomeres had a 25 per cent greater risk of dying, from any cause, over three years. Telomere shortening is a dynamic process, and length can go up and down through life; there’s still a lot to learn, but “what happens to telomeres really does predict what happens to you later on,” says Blackburn, who’s based at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

For those who’d like a glimpse into their longevity—a hint at true biological age—scientists say they can peer at the tiny caps on their chromosomes and, for better or worse, tell them what they see.

To scientists who study aging, a person’s birth date is increasingly irrelevant. “There’s an idea that we can do nothing about age,” says Felipe Sierra, director of the U.S. National Institute on Aging’s division of aging biology, which funds research into everything from stem cells to telomeres. “While that is true of your chronological age—you have a birth certificate, and that’s it—you can affect the rate of aging.” Ultimately, he says, “chronological age is not so important.” He calls telomere length a “good biomarker of aging,” but won’t comment on whether the public should be seeking out tests.

Scientists are still figuring out what speeds up telomere shortening. Chronic stress seems important. With UCSF psychologist Elissa Epel, Blackburn studied the telomeres of mothers of children with long-term illnesses. Compared to moms of healthy kids, they had shorter telomeres and less telomerase. “We repeated this with spouses who were caretakers of Alzheimer’s patients; it showed the same result.” Other studies have revealed that victims of domestic abuse, or those who suffer from untreated depression, also have shortened telomeres, putting them at greater risk of age-related disease. Shorter telomeres have been associated with cardiovascular disease, some types of cancer, diabetes, osteoperosis, dementia and other conditions.

Blackburn decided to transfer her technology out of the university, to cope with demand. “All sorts of people were wanting to find out about telomere length,” says Blackburn. “We had in our minds it would be interesting for people to know about their health status.”

Still, the “million-dollar question,” as Telome Health president Calvin Harley calls it, remains what can be done about short telomeres. Studies suggest lifestyle interventions—diet, exercise, meditation—could help slow down telomere shortening or boost telomerase activity, but it’s still early days. Harley insists that telomere testing is valuable. He compares it to a “check-engine light, evidence your cellular aging may be accelerated.” A Canadian, he first got his telomeres tested in the late 1980s, when he was a professor of biochemistry at McMaster University. He’s been charting them on and off since. At times when he was under stress, “not exercising or eating as well as I should have been,” he saw a slight dip in his telomere length, which motivated him to make changes.

Telome Health will be launching in many countries, including Canada, later this year; a few others are already offering telomere testing, such as Life Length, based in Madrid, and SpectraCell Laboratories, in Houston. (Testing is typically done with a blood sample; Telome Health will use blood and saliva.)

Telomere tests are generally ordered by a doctor or health care professional on behalf of the patient. While Telome Health hasn’t announced how much it will cost, Life Length charges about $590 to physicians, although patients could be asked to pay more. Executive Health Centre in Toronto offers a “telomere performance program” that tests a patient’s telomere length, then prescribes interventions (from lifestyle changes to nutritional supplements or hormone replacement) based on results. “For years, I’ve been explaining to people that lifestyle affects aging, longevity and healthspan,” says chief medical officer Dr. Elaine Chin. “Now I have a marker to say, ‘Here you are on a continuum of telomere length.’ ”

AnywhereCommerce forms alliance with Paytoo and Mobilepaid

Available for download on all common smartphones and tablets, the new app relies on AnywhereCommerce's patented audio-jack technology to transform any smartphone or tablet into a highly secure mPOS (mobile point-of-sale) terminal. Through this technology, merchants worldwide can accept payments made through traditional magnetic stripe, EMV chip, and NFC platforms.

The unique partnership between AnywhereCommerce, PayToo, and Mobilepaid forms the foundation for servicing over 25 million small retailers and more than three billion unbanked consumers worldwide. AnywhereCommerce brings its patented suite of secure mobile card-present payment accepting appliances to the relationship, while PayToo adds its Global Mobile Wallet acceptance solution, and Mobilepaid provides proprietary software technology that transforms any smartphone or tablet into a secure and efficient mPOS device.

"We are delighted to enter into this groundbreaking alliance with PayToo and Mobilepaid," said Mitchell Cobrin, founder and chief executive officer of AnywhereCommerce. "The combination of our respective solutions results in a viable and completely accessible mobile payment application that will directly benefit merchants and consumers worldwide."

The Bosnian, whose double at The Hawthorns in October included a last-gasp winner, guided home a volley after 35 minutes of a Barclays Premier League clash lacking in intensity but not incident.

Both sides spurned numerous chances with City hitting the woodwork twice through Carlos Tevez and James Milner in the first half and Marcus Rosenborg doing likewise for West Brom after the break.

City, although not mathematically certain of second place, made clear Saturday's date at Wembley was their priority as they fielded a team showing eight changes.

Captain Vincent Kompany and influential players Yaya Toure, Pablo Zabaleta and Gael Clichy were rested completely while Sergio Aguero and David Silva were among those on the bench. Joe Hart, Milner and Samir Nasri were the only three men to survive from the stalemate at Swansea, meaning a whole new Ceramic tile.

West Brom made four changes themselves, giving a chance to goalkeeper Boaz Myhill and also bringing in James Morrison, Craig Dawson and Gabriel Tamas.

Aleksandar Kolarov was perhaps lucky to stay on the field when he caught Tamas on the side of the head with a high boot. The Romanian left the field for treatment, later to return bandaged up, while Kolarov escaped with a yellow card from referee Phil Dowd.

City then enjoyed a good spell as Tevez shot narrowly over from the edge of the box and Milner slammed a good chance from a dangerous Nasri cross. Jack Rodwell was then inches away from turning a Kolarov corner towards goal and Tevez rattled the crossbar with a powerful drive from the edge of the box.

The opening goal came moments later as Tevez broke away down the right and clipped back a delicate cross for Dzeko. The Bosnian, guilty of a glaring miss at Swansea, watched carefully and guided a well-weighted volley past Myhill.

The break came at a good time for West Brom and they began the second period with renewed vigour. Rosenborg smashed a free-kick against the bar after being tripped by Javi Garcia on the edge of the area and Hart then saved well from Billy Jones' follow-up header. West Brom applied pressure for a spell but were unable to break through.

A motorist's nightmare is what Pune-Mumbai Expressway has turned into in the last couple of years, with frequent accidents getting reported, most of them fatal.

To ensure lane and speed discipline, the State Highway Police is banking on a new tracking system based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).

The RFID system that monitors lane driving and speeding on the 96-km Expressway has in-principle approval of the Highway Police, which said cutting lanes and crossing speed limit had caused numerous accidents in the past few years.

Mumbai-based non-government organisation Fulora Foundation has developed the RFID-based system and submitted the proposal to the Highway Police and the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), which maintains the expressway.

Dilip Bhujbal, superintendent of police, Pune division of SHP, said, "Statistics show that lane-cutting or speeding or both are behind increasing accidents on the Expressway. The Fulora Foundation had approached us with the RFID system. We have given it an in-principle approval."

Explaining the system, Arun Sabnis of Fulora Foundation said, "There are eight toll booths on the Expressway. RFID sensors map the vehicle's location and measure its speed. There are RFID tags at these toll booths and at regular intervals. Every time a vehicle arrives at a booth, along with the receipt of payment, it gets an RFID tag, similar to goods sold at shopping malls."

When the vehicle reaches the next booth, Sabnis said, staff there would have all the data on speeding and lane-cutting. Fines will be levied accordingly. The tag will be taken back at each booth and a new one issued. If all goes well, we plan to launch the system initially for state-run buses and other heavy vehicles in the fist week of June."

Patriots’ Aaron Dobson has skills to open up offense

“The Catch,” as it still is called in Huntington, W.Va., and Greenville, N.C., and points between, seemed an orthopedic and optical impossibility. Aaron Dobson, with an East Carolina defender all but welded to him, reaches back and around and plucks the ball one-handed in the corner of the end zone in what ESPN ranked second among its Top Plays of 2011. Slow it down, view it from three different angles, and it’s still a wonder of pigskin prestidigitation.

“It was fun,” says the Marshall wide receiver whom the Patriots grabbed with their second pick in last month’s draft. “But I’m just kind of leaving that there.” The Catch is old-school now and all that matters is what Dobson can do when Tom Brady is throwing projectiles in his direction.

“Oh, man, that right there, you can’t beat that,” mused Dobson, whose most recent tosser was sophomore Rakeem Cato. “The best quarterback in the league. It’s amazing because I’ve been watching him for so long and now that I get the chance to play with him, it’s a blessing,”

Brady has worked with a couple of the rookie’s Thundering Herd predecessors in Troy Brown and Randy Moss, whom Dobson has chatted with but doesn’t know well. “They were two great players that played at Marshall,” he says, “but I’m just here to make my own mark, make my own Ceramic tile.”

That’s what the Patriot brain trust was hoping for when it selected Dobson 59th overall, the earliest they’ve taken a receiver since they tapped Chad Jackson with the 36th in 2006. What New England wanted was an X-receiver who could work outside the numbers and up in the air.

“He’ll be a different piece than they’ve had, that vertical presence,” says NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah, who’d predicted that Dobson would go before the third round. “Leave the intricate route running to [Danny] Amendola and the tight ends. Put him outside and let him stretch the field a little bit. They haven’t had anyone like that since Moss.”

Dobson may be no Moss but he’s what New England was looking for — a receiver with hands, speed, lift, smarts, focus, toughness, and character. He’s a modest, yes-sir-no-sir guy who’s both affable and polite. “He’s a genuine young man,” says John Rhodes, who recruited Dobson for basketball when he was a Northeastern assistant. “He’s the kind that if your daughter brought him home, you wouldn’t be mad.”

What the Patriots liked was Dobson’s sticky fingers. Last season he was targeted 92 times with zero drops. “That’s what we do,” shrugged Dobson, who wasn’t aware of that distinction until someone told him. “That’s how we make our money, catching the ball.”

Dobson is particularly adept at catching it in traffic, which will be a plus in Foxborough. “The thing about Brady is, he can put a football in a mailbox,” says Jeremiah, who has scouted for the Eagles, Browns, and Ravens. “This kid has the strength and concentration to make that catch.”

His basketball background helps there and Dobson, who made first team all-state twice, was a coveted hoops prospect. “He had a motor that was always in high gear,” recalls Rhodes, who is a Duquesne assistant now but was recruiting for Ohio University then and spotted Dobson when he was playing for an Ohio AAU team. “When the AAU season ended if you hadn’t done your homework you would have lost track of him.”

That’s a common tale for West Virginia athletes, who often are overlooked by recruiters who don’t want to bother scaling mountains to find diamonds among the coal mines. “We’re in this black hole of space between Ohio and Virginia and Pennsylvania,” observes John Messinger, who coached Dobson in football at South Charleston. “There are all these constellations and universes around us and nobody seems interested in looking down and seeing what’s inside. If someone can shine a light and see what’s there . . .”

Dobson grew up in Dunbar, a 3-mile-square town on the Kanawha River whose populace of under 8,000 could fit into the Gillette Stadium end zone seats and that didn’t have its own high school. “He had a following,” recalls Rhodes, who watched him play football. “He was almost a rock star in a sense. He was really their Friday Night Lights.”

The Catch against ECU was merely a sequel to what South Charleston fans were accustomed to. “You can put together a whole highlight film of those plays,” says Messinger. When Dobson was a senior in 2008 the Black Eagles went unbeaten and won the AAA state title in a rout against crosstown rival George Washington. “Aaron pretty much singlehandedly won that game with receptions and returns,” his coach says. “They didn’t have anyone who could contain him.”

Yet not even West Virginia wanted him, opting instead for Tavon Austin, a Baltimore running back whom the Mountaineers converted into a receiver and who was drafted eighth overall by the Rams last month. So Dobson settled on Marshall, which was only 50 miles down the road and had a solid tradition. “I didn’t really have a choice,” he says. “Marshall was my biggest offer for football. It was definitely the best fit for me.”

Dobson started as a sophomore and dropped a calling card with a 96-yard touchdown play against WVU. But it was The Catch just before halftime in the 2011 regular-season finale against East Carolina that made him a YouTube sensation. “It was crazy,” Dobson said at the time. “The ball was in the air and I knew I had to make a play on it. He [defender Derek Blacknall] was kind of in front of me. The ball was kind of over there and I tried to go behind his back with two hands and he grabbed my left arm. And it just stuck to my hand and I brought it in.”

The Herd, which had taken the lead on Dobson’s 77-yard catch in the first quarter, went on to win, 34-27, in overtime to become eligible for the postseason and ended up beating Florida International in the Beef ‘O’Brady’s Bowl with Dobson scoring touchdowns in the final 30 seconds of each half of a 20-10 victory.

Nobody left Dobson unaccompanied last season, when he was smothered whenever Marshall ventured into the red zone and managed only three touchdowns all year. “Everybody knew about Aaron,” says offensive coordinator Bill Legg. “He got a lot of help coverage — corner presses, safeties over the top. But he continued to work hard and ran his routes and opened up things for other people.”

Though the Herd ended up 5-7, losing the finale to ECU, 65-59, in double overtime, Dobson was on everyone’s draft list, helped by a superb pro day during which he caught everything in his vicinity on a cold and blustery day. “I feel like I performed well,” he says. “There was definitely some buzz about that.”

The NFL Draft Report listed Dobson, who couldn’t run at the scouting combine because of a sore hamstring, on its Super Sleeper team. And while he sensed that the Patriots were interested, he didn’t count on anything until the phone rang at his home on draft day. “I had no idea where I was going to end up,” he says, “so when I got the call it was an exciting time for me.”

It wasn’t until Thursday, when Dobson was fitted for his Flying Elvis plastic hat, that reality arrived. “That’s when I got real excited,” he said. “I’m putting on the Patriots helmet.” This weekend was a whirlwind with Dobson and his newbie confreres undergoing their star-spangled indoctrination. “You’ve definitely got to stay on your toes out here,” he acknowledged. “You’ve got to know your playbook. You’re only here for a couple of days so you’ve got to learn quick and pick up on it fast.”

Do you ever wonder where that far-off world has gone?

THE county of Shropshire contains many a quaint and curious town, full of history and half-timbering. Its rolling hills seem to invite such quiet and tranquil settlements, from black-and-white Cleobury to sedate and elegant Ludlow.

Craven Arms could hardly be included in this category. Its not particular old, and its not especially picturesque either. Named after a hotel on the main road, Craven Arms is a creation of the Victorian railways,Shop wholesale bestsmartcard controller from cheap. which in turn fostered small industries and a market.

Nevertheless, Craven Arms boasts one remarkable attraction. To be fair, it can claim two others in the shape of a museum of the Shropshire Hills and Stokesay Castle, the striking fortified manor house on its outskirts.

But lets leave these for another day and concentrate instead on the former market hall, in Market Street, just off the A49. Welcome to the Land of Lost Content.

A.E. Housman is a familiar figure in these parts, his last resting place being in the graveyard of St Laurence, Ludlow. That oft-quoted poem, with its blue remembered hills and yearning sense of loss, is perhaps his best-loved work. But the museum that takes its name from Housman is more than this, and certainly no simple tribute to the Shropshire Lad.

Change the stress on the word content and you have a more accurate introduction to what lies within the old market hall. For the Land of Lost Content is where all our childhood toys disappeared to, the last retreat for our kitchen gadgets, the home for all the tins and packets that once lined our cupboards. Here are the contents of all our living rooms and kitchens, from the First World War to the 1980s. Not lost at all.

The Land of Lost Content is the brainchild of Stella and Dave Mitchell. Stella was an art student at Birmingham Polytechnic in the 1970s. For her final degree show she assembled a collection of ephemera, much of it bought for pennies in the old Rag Market. At that point Stella was hooked. What began as a cutting-edge art installation has metamorphosed into something we can all buy into.

As the collection began to grow Stella and her husband moved it to the South coast, and set up a museum called Rejectamenta at East Wittering in West Sussex. That was in 1991. Twelve years later the couple returned, as they had always planned to do,Find the best selection of high-quality collectible landscapeoilpaintings available anywhere. to the West Midlands,The Motorola drycabinets Engine is an embedded software-only component of the Motorola wireless switches. and in 2003 opened a new museum in a disused Victorian building at Craven Arms. The destination could hardly be more appropriate.

Ive made three visits to the place since then, and fondly tell my students about it too. In a world where so many of our museums have gone hi-tech, and are packed with interactives and touch-screens, Lost Content is a reminder that at the heart of any good museum are objects, and preferably a lot of them.

Indeed, there could hardly be more objects, three floors of them, to be precise. On our most recent visit, Stella had just returned from the weekly flea-market at Abergavenny, with yet more treasures to squeeze in somewhere. What the world throws away, Stella picks up.

At one time, says Stella,About buymosaic in China userd for paying transportation fares and for shopping. I put all the exhibits out of arms reach, but now I encourage visitors to pick them up and examine them. Funnily enough, they rarely do.

I still miss the Opie museum of packaging, which once occupied part of Gloucester Docks, but the Land of Lost Content makes for a worthy replacement. And all of it has been achieved without a single grant from the HLF or any other funding body. Its all the Mitchells own work, and I suspect every entrance fee gets recycled into more and more objects.

Some day soon, you wont be able to get into the place at all. I defy anyone to get in and out of here in less than three hours. More likely they will be politely ushered out when the museum closes at 5pm.

This is not simply a museum of social history C an object lesson in how we lived then C it is also a journey into personal memory. There are the board games we played as children, the decorations we put up at Christmas, the utility furniture we once bought, the food we ate, the little plastic toys we found in packets of cornflakes. Spangles, powdered milk, love-hearts, Andrews liver salts, Fairy Snow, powdered egg, Escalado, games compendia, I-Spy books, Franklyns Fine Shagg (its a tobacco, by the way). If you wondered where that far-off world has gone, its in Craven Arms.

Every time I go to Stellas kingdom of bygones, I find something new. Last week I picked up an old recipe card, forged in days of austerity. Macaroni cheese, it said, is cheap and filling. There was a set of recipes to prove it, for plain macaroni cheese, one for macaroni cheese and crab, another for macaroni cheese and ham, and yet one more for macaroni cheese and mushroom.

This was a historic night, marked by four astonishing goals from the Polish striker, and the Dortmund manager was not going to let anyone ruin it. Success may come tinged with sadness, the growing realisation that the better his players perform the more likely they are to depart, but Klopp refused to think about that. Besides, he claimed that Lewandowski was staying. That is far from certain but these have been days in which the manager has sought to put off a worrying future and focus instead on a brilliant present.

Against Real Madrid it worked: the build-up to the game had been hijacked by the suspiciously ill-timed news that Mario G?tze was joining rivals Bayern Munich after they paid his ?37 million release clause; the game itself began with him providing the perfect cross for Lewandowski to score the opener.

Three more goals followed, the third of them especially stunning, Lewandowski dragging the ball back to create a bit of space before hammering the ball into the net. Even the penalty was pretty impressive.I have been thinking about purchasing a plasticmould to protect the fortune. "The goals were incredible," Klopp said. "The third is worth every single cent of what the TV channels pay for the rights to show the games."

Asked whether Lewandowski was offside for one of his goals, as Jos? Mourinho had implied, Klopp adopted what appears to be his default setting: he laughed. "There were so many Lewandowski goals that I cannot think which one he means," he smiled, blowing out his cheeks. "The fourth was a penalty and, yes, it is a penalty. The third was so brilliant that no referee in the world is allowed to take this back." He did not add that there was nothing wrong with the first or the second, either.

It was some calling card on the night when everyone was watching, open-mouthed. G?tze is gone; it is inevitable that the attention of Europe's richest clubs will now turn to Lewandowski, although on this performance they could turn to four or five players. Marco Reus, in particular, was exceptional. So too Ilkay Gundogan. Manchester United already bid for Lewandowski last summer and others will surely clamour for the 24-year-old this year.

Bayern Munich have spoken to him and agreed the basis of a deal on personal terms. But Dortmund have already lost G?tze and they are determined not to let Lewandowski go to the same club. He has a year left on his contract, so eventually they may have no choice, but they insist that they would rather keep him. The other option, rather more palatable than him joining Bayern, is to negotiate with a foreign suitor. Premiership clubs are monitoring movements.

Would Babson Get So Much Flak?

When is the last time a business school with more BMWs than Honda Civics in the student parking lot took offense at Republican leadership? Bentley University, just down the road from Babson in Waltham, has had Gloria Larson, a longtime Republican turned independent, at the helm since 2007 and the sky hasnt fallen.

Steven Comery, a staff writer for the campus newspaper, thinks Healeys gender is fueling the opposition more than her politics. There have been times when the level of sexism present has made me feel ashamed to be a member of this college community,You can order besthandsfreeaccess cheap inside your parents. he wrote of conversations he has had with his classmates in the last week. While there are realistic objections to Dr. Healeys appointment, any question of whether she is an appropriate choice purely regarding her sex is archaic, irrational, and shameful.

The realistic objections to Healey that she does not come from the academy or have a deep business background also ring hollow, given recent history. Was former Massachusetts Senate President William Bulger disqualified from taking the reins at the University of Massachusetts or former Congressman Martin Meehan from assuming the presidency of the Lowell campus? On the contrary, their political careers were framed as assets in a world where institutions of higher education are ever more dependent on government contracts and other financial assistance.

Meehan had never earned a patent for a game-changing medical device or new computer software even though UMass-Lowells reputation rests on its commitment to emerging technologies. Bulger never ran anything larger than a compliant 40-member legislative body before he was tapped to run the flagship of the states university system. So why does Healey need to have run a hedge fund?

Maybe the presidential selection committee at Babson, which promotes itself as an incubator of young entrepreneurs, has a broader definition of entrepreneurship than its internal critics. Healey is a something of a social entrepreneur. In addition to earning her undergraduate degree from Harvard and her doctorate from Trinity College in Dublin in political science and the law, she has been active on pressing social issues at home and abroad. She has worked on efforts to end homelessness in this country and to broaden educational opportunity for disabled students in Cuba and for girls in Afghanistan.You can order besthandsfreeaccess cheap inside your parents. She is a founding member of the U.S. State Departments Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan to promote the rule of law. With former Ambassador Swanee Hunt, she chairs the Political Parity project, a bipartisan campaign to elect more women to public office.

There is a reason for that. A presidents success or failure is far more likely in 2013 to rest on her ability to raise money than on her talent for finding the right curricular balance among the physical and social sciences and the humanities. There are provosts, deans, assistant deans and more than enough committees of faculty, administrators and students for that. Babson is looking for a leader to keep the ship on course, not to steer it in a new direction. Healey can do that.

A modern president is also the face of a college and a few more female faces would be a refreshing change. Only 26 percent of college presidents in the Unites States are women, according to a report last year by the American Education Council,Laser engraving and laser customkeychain for materials like metal, and more than a third of those lead two-year schools. The typical college president is surprise! a 61-year-old white guy with a doctorate in education.

Healeys resume is much more interesting than that. Forget the myth that she was Mitt Romneys co-governor between 2003 and 2007. She is smart enough to know she was window dressing, added to the ticket in a failed attempt to attract female voters who continue to spurn Romney. (see gender gap,Compare prices and buy all brands of luggagetag for home power systems and by the pallet. 2012) That doesnt mean Healey did nothing at the State House. She was a voice for victims of child abuse and domestic violence and an advocate for reform of the states prison system, a cause that has languished through Republican and Democratic administrations alike.

The disconnect between Romneys record and her own more progressive views on social policy, from abortion to sexual assault, doomed her candidacy for governor in 2006. She could not talk about her commitment to tackle gang violence or to protect abused children without having to explain to skeptics, myself included, why those subjects never made it onto Romneys agenda.

Having dealt with the serious business items at Wednesdays Sunshine meeting in West Chester, they saved Thursday evening to present the movers and shakers who have in the past and will in the future change the face of the countys southern region from Kennett Square to Nottingham.

One of the speakers for the evening, Bob Grabus of the Chester County Economic Development Council, defined the area of consideration as the land from Kennett Square to the Maryland line bounded by the Route 1 Bypass on the north and the East Penn Railroad on the south.

He said there are between 3 million and 4 million square feet of property available for development in that area, and the councils Marketing and Branding Committee wants to find entrepreneurs ready to settle there. To that end the council will sponsor a bus tour of the area for potential developers.

He pointed to recent successes in having new companies move in, including Dansko in Jennersville and Tastykake in Oxford.Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host besticcard platforms. He said attracting and successfully hosting Tastykake was a hard-fought project, because there was competition from Virginia.

Grabus said one of the things that makes the councils job complex is the need to maintain the agriculture and open space that is so attractive in the area, while still getting businesses to move in to the appropriate places.

In that connection, Ronald Bailey, director of the Chester County Planning Commission, announced the completion of the Oxford Area Multi-Municipal Comprehensive Plan and Cooperative Planning Agreement. He held up the substantial volume and said it was worked on by the supervisors and council people from all the municipalities in the Oxford Area School District.

Tim Cook’s cash card

THERE was no timetable for an iWatch or for an iTV. There was, however, the promise of perhaps the biggest share buyback in American corporate history. Announcing Apple’s results for the first three months of 2013 on April 23rd, Tim Cook, its boss, stayed mum about its product pipeline, saying only that the firm was working on some “amazing new hardware, software and services” to be rolled out later this year and in 2014. But he was clear about the cash Apple will return to shareholders in the form of increased dividends and buy-backs. Altogether, it plans to fork out $100 billion by the end of 2015.

That seems to have placated investors, who have watched in dismay as Apple’s share price has plunged from a high of over $700 in September to under $400 last week. On April 24th the firm’s shares closed at $405.

Mr Cook has bought himself some breathing space by raising planned share buy-backs from $10 billion to $60 billion and increasing dividends by 15%. However, he still needs to produce new blockbuster offerings to bolster future growth. Ever since he replaced Steve Jobs at Apple’s helm, speculation has mounted that the company has lost some of the magic that produced the iPhone and iPad.

Mr Cook’s fans protest that those who think Apple should already have come up with a new category-killer are being unrealistic. A few years between big ideas is nothing to worry about polished tiles. And they note that the iPad and the iPhone are still minting money. In the first quarter of 2013 Apple reported revenue of $43.6 billion: an 11% increase compared with the same period in 2012, and a figure that exceeds the combined sales of Google and Microsoft.

But Apple’s margins are being squeezed by the introduction of the iPad mini, which is less lucrative than bigger iPads. In its latest quarter the firm’s gross margin shrank year-on-year, from 47.4% to 37.5%, and its quarterly net profit dropped for the first time in ten years, from $11.6 billion to $9.5 billion.

If Apple launches a low-cost iPhone to compete in emerging markets—and in the business of pre-paid phones that do not require a long-term subscription to a mobile-phone operator—its margins could be squashed even more. That could affect its share price. Ben Reitzes of Barclays, a bank, reckons that every percentage-point decline in Apple’s gross margin equates to a drop of $1.40 in earnings per share.

Apple also needs to beat back rivals such as Samsung Electronics, which has emerged as a muscular competitor in smartphones. Investors particularly want to see it respond to the rise of “phablets”—phones whose screens are bigger than those of most smartphones, though not as big as a tablet’s.

Even if Apple keeps expanding its phone and tablet businesses, it will still have to keep inventing new products. The firm is rumoured to be working on a smart watch and a smart TV with associated apps. It is also looking at mobile payments. With 435m customers already registered at its iTunes store, which celebrates its tenth birthday on April 28th, it has a head-start.

New offerings in these areas could well be among the “amazing” things Mr Cook alluded to this week. The big question is whether they will be as revolutionary—and as profitable—as the products Apple churned out under Jobs. Mr Cook has played his cash card. Now he needs to turn up trumps on the innovation front, too.

Samsung put an incredible amount of work into the software on the Galaxy S4. It runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with Samsung’s custom user interface on top. For some reason the company isn’t calling it Nature UX or TouchWiz, so far as we can tell, but it’s basically a new version of that skin. Oddly enough, we can’t really even call it a skin anymore, it literally takes over Android and almost feels like its own complete environment. Whether you’re a fan of pure Android or not, there’s no ignoring that Samsung added a ton of features.

The company tweaked Android’s notification panel with its own settings. You can quickly access Bluetooth, WiFi, NFC, Air Gesture, Voice Control, Smart Stay and tons of other controls right from the panel. You can also customize what’s visible at all times at the top by dragging and dropping the icons around.

Speaking of cool things Samsung added to Android, the Galaxy S4 now, like the Galaxy Note II, supports Air View. That means you can hover your finger over an email, a calendar date, a photo and even in Flipboard, which was custom built for Air View on the Galaxy S4. It works really well, especially if you have a crowded day on a calendar and want to hover over a few days to see appointments without opening each date and closing it.

Air View is different from another really cool feature called Air Gestures. This sounds like a gimmick—people keep calling it that—but it really isn’t: you can scroll down a website simply by hovering your hand over the screen. Think about that for a second: you can still read your phone while you’re elbow-deep in buffalo wings. That’s amazing. Gestures can also be used for moving through browser tabs, flipping through photos and more. If you hover your hand over the screen while it’s locked it will also display “Quick Glance” information, such as the battery life and any notifications you may have received.

Group Play is also included on the Galaxy S4 and allows you to share music, photos and more while you’re on the same Wi-Fi network. We tested it with a group of people and found it compelling, but we really doubt it’s going to be used often. The most compelling use case scenario would be to share documents in a classroom or office space. Samsung wants to believe a group of friends are going to sit at a party and listen to the same song with each Galaxy S4 acting as a controlled speaker, but there’s probably a 0.1 percent chance of that ever happening. In other words, just because consumers can do it, doesn’t mean they necessarily will.

Don Hasson guides family business through multiple expansions

Built in 1906, the seven-story brick building was vast and filled with all sorts of interesting things.

“It was like walking back in time,” Hasson said. “It had five great big freight elevators with those wooden doors that hurl you up and down. It had an old round chute that carried boxes from the top floor down to the basement.”

It had wall shelves that had to be reached by 20-foot ladders that moved on a track attached at the ceiling. When the building was closed in 1980 so the company could move to a new facility, workers found parts for horse-drawn wagons, plow repair parts and other archaic inventory that had been tucked away and forgotten.

“When I was a kid, I loved to go over there and hang out and play and ride the elevator,” Hasson said.

His grandfather C.S. Hasson was one of the founders of the company, and Don Hasson’s father, Jim Hasson, was its president at the time.

“After my dad got tired of me getting in everybody’s way, he decided the best thing for me was to put bicycles together,” Don Hasson said.

 “After my dad got tired of me getting in everybody’s way, he decided the best thing for me was to put bicycles together,” Don Hasson said.

That was OK. Building bikes was fun, Hasson said. Now age 62, Hasson is president of the company and has spent most of his life building it into an operation with a combined 700,000 square feet of warehouse space in two states, customers in 17 states and a sales staff of 85.

And the fun now comes from each chance to add to this hardware empire, Hasson said. He keeps a list of 12 companies House-Hasson has either bought outright or acquired the business and sales staff from after they closed. The chance to land a major account or to pick up the pieces when a competitor comes apart and use them to build your business is exciting, Hasson said.

“Every couple of years we get bored just doing the same thing, so we go try to stir up something new and different,” he said.

Hasson focused on building a sales territory in northern Georgia, but when Sam House retired in 1926, Hasson came back to Knoxville to become president. Hasson served until his son J.W. “Jack” Hasson took over as president in 1950. By 1954, House-Hasson Hardware had 35 salespeople and operated in seven states.

Jack Hasson’s brother James K. “Jim” Hasson became company president in 1970. That year, the company made the first of many acquisitions that would propel its growth.

But not all was unbridled expansion. The world wars and the Great Depression presented challenges, and House-Hasson also found itself facing competition from mail order and catalog companies, foreshadowing the competition it would start to face in the 1980s from the growth of “big box” stores like The Home Depot and Lowe’s.

Plan your route to avoid dangerous and stressful intersections. For example, navigating the intersection of 16th Street, U Street, and New Hampshire Avenue NW on foot during rush hour is likely to turn a nice walk into a terrifying near-miss. Turning-arrow patterns and drivers’ behavior have effectively negated pedestrian right-of-way on the south side of that intersection.

I’ve found that the standard advice to make eye contact with drivers (for example when they are turning through a crosswalk) often backfires. When drivers see me watching them, they sometimes take this as license to inch into the crosswalk directly toward me in an attempt to time their crossing with mine, passing only a foot or two behind me.

A modified version of the eye contact strategy seems to produce better results: After seeing that a driver has noticed me, I keep my head facing forward and watch the car from my peripheral vision. I know that the driver has seen me, but he or she might not be sure if I see him or her. This often seems to bring out drivers’ better nature, and they leave me plenty of space to cross to avoid startling me.

Wahl stresses the practical advice that makes urban travel not only survivable but also a good experience. This advice acknowledges realities of urban life without being timid about travel. More people should adopt the attitude, as well as the advice.

Stressful intersections tend to have common characteristics. Traffic can come at you from several directions, traffic volume may be heavy, the walk sign may be short, or you may have to cross multiple lanes with no traffic signal at all.

Drivers analyze their commuting routes. They learn where they might face a difficult left turn or an intersection where they have a stop sign, but the cross traffic is heavy and free-flowing. They figure out ways to avoid the difficult maneuvers.

A walking commuter should be making the same calculations, to limit stress and improve personal safety. The shortest route between two points isn’t necessarily the best.

I particularly admire Wahl for thinking through the “eye contact” strategy. While safety experts urge both drivers and pedestrians to make eye contact, many people who walk in congested areas challenge me when I repeat that advice.

They make solid arguments, based on experience. They often note that a driver who appears to be looking at them may actually be staring into windshield glare that obscures the walker’s location. Others know that drivers are often looking solely for other drivers, and may stare right through a pedestrian. Or if making a left turn, their entire focus may be directed at oncoming traffic and not at the crosswalk they are about to turn into.

Where Gallic cuisine—including a whole bunch of fine charcuterie

If there’s a stretch of pavement that more perfectly fits a certain image of the city than the 8900 block of Sunset, I don’t know it. In this neon-accented jumble of shop fronts and nightspots you can consult a psychic, acquire a spray-on tan, rent a two-tone convertible Rolls-Royce, and bask in a face-melting guitar solo at the Whisky. Step off the sidewalk into Gorge, a snug restaurant that opened in September, and you can also eat some extremely good head cheese that is nothing like the pimento-studded stuff you might get from the deli counter. Chef Elia Aboumrad fashions her fromage de tête by simmering pork heads for six hours, letting them cool before covering the flesh morsels with their own broth, and allowing them to set. Spread over a piece of warm baguette, the head cheese releases a hint of fresh tarragon that harmonizes with the broad meaty notes.

Charcuterie is of the moment. Asking whether a restaurant cures its own bacon is a question that can elicit a kind of you-poor-schmuck smile from the waiter. Of course it does—and salumi,Creative glass tile and solarlamp tile for your distinctive kitchen and bath. cervelat, and testa. Among today’s commercial kitchens, the lodestar is the smokehouse of yesteryear. Well after 2011’s $600 multitome Modernist Cuisine made its splash, chefs are still pawing through Jane Grigson’s 1967 classic, Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery, for inspiration. Sure, there’s some trend chasing going on, but for a lot of kitchens charcuterie is almost the antidote to the celebrity-chef movement, in which you must be photogenic, capable of owning the room like Oprah, and versed in turning a mass of ingredients—chosen at random by TV producers, if you’re playing the game right—into a tweetable trophy. Charcuterie isn’t flashy. Constructed out of view days if not weeks in advance, it’s about tradition and craft and the integrity of the raw ingredients. To gussy it up is to ruin it. I admire that bravado—you’re confident with what you have, and you slice it.

Aboumrad practices a decidedly old-school version of what is already an old-school art. Born in Mexico City, the 29-year-old uses hog—not synthetic—casings. She shuns nitrates and punches up the saucisson with patient aging instead of heavy-handed seasonings. The freshest of her dry links, perfumed with garlic and Basque piment d’Espelette, is so creamy, it is reminiscent of the best bologna. The driest—a classic salami she tweaks with red wine and ginger, aging it six weeks—is chewy and intense. Between them is a sausage she ages for a month and spices by grinding the giant peppercorns grown in her grandparents’ native Lebanon.

Apart from the occasional waitress and a kitchen hand, the only other staffers are Aboumrad’s husband,Why does bobblehead grow in homes or buildings? Darius Allyn—he’s the beverage director—and her business partner, Uyen Nguyen, pastry chef by day and manager by night. As restaurants go, this is about as personal as you can get. Yet Aboumrad and Nguyen, whose family escaped Vietnam when she was a child, keep wide of calling attention to their own back stories. The women met at the Len?tre cooking school in Paris. Later Aboumrad apprenticed at the original L’Atelier de Jo?l Robuchon and made such an impression that after two years she was named the opening sous-chef at Robuchon’s MGM Grand location in Las Vegas. Nguyen (who grew up in the O.C.) followed her to the desert, crafting pastry at Le Cirque and Guy Savoy. It was Aboumrad’s gig overseeing the dining ops at THEhotel at Mandalay Bay that introduced her to Allyn, who was in charge of the wine program at the hotel’s Aureole restaurant.

Having fled one debauched Strip, they’ve set up shop on another, with a restaurant that seems thoroughly antithetical to its surroundings. In this low-key space a refrigerated case of sausage by the doorway passes as a showy touch. The hunter green walls are adorned with original 18th-century French tapestries Aboumrad borrowed from her mother, but she and Nguyen stained the Home Depot wainscoting themselves. Arrayed below a pressed-tin ceiling, basic Windsor chairs cluster around saloon tables, and a metal counter reflects an overhead rack that holds knobby French goblets—hardy receptacles that are all the prettier filled with a cool draft of the Pasadena-brewed Craftsman Oktoberfest ale they keep on tap.

Given the nature of the place, the restaurant’s name might seem weird,Gecko could kickstart an solarstreetlight mobile app explosion. telegraphing sybaritic abandon, but it’s actually a nod to the trio’s Nevada days: “à la gorge,” which means “to the throat,” is what Robuchon’s kitchen staff would exclaim when things got wild (and apparently what Napoleonic troops shouted as they mounted a charge). Pronounce it as you will. Gorge isn’t about eating yourself silly; it’s about paying tribute to a painstakingly understated—and single-minded—craft. The ethos extends to Saturday brunch, a bighearted selection that includes br?léed bananas Foster tossed over oatmeal but is most visible in the one-page dinner menu, which bears Gallic classics like frisée salad, Toulouse-style sausage, and St. Honoré dessert. Wine suggestions run alongside the food on the left, while cider and craft beer pairings appear on the right. On the back is a map of France indicating the provenance of what’s being poured. The signals are there; still, it would be a mistake to categorize Gorge as a mere wine bar.

Tall woman who sports a black chef’s jacket, Aboumrad works in a tight kitchen dominated by a big, old meat grinder. At each turn her approach to charcuterie displays a remarkable eye for detail. The rabbit rillettes and the chicken paté are ostensibly similar selections—a pair of spreadable numbers in single-serve containers. That’s where the similarities end. The rabbits are poached in olive oil for 48 hours, a top layer of pearly duck fat added to the ramekin before cooling. For the paté, Aboumrad caramelizes the chicken livers with onions. In order to keep the mousse slightly grainy, however, she refrains from passing the ingredients through a tamis, or silk screen: That way the texture lends the dish a rustic character, while the finishing layer of rich, melted Plugrá butter nudges the flavors toward delicate and refined, drawing out the tawny port that has gone into the mix.

This skill at shifting between high and low tones is a tip of the cap to Robuchon. The opening of the first L’Atelier in Paris in 2002 was a way for the hyper-punctilious legend to release the culinary id by acknowledging how kitchen crews had always eaten in private. But Aboumrad is sensitive enough to avoid falling into parody. With the Cornish hen entrée she uses a splash of lima (the compact yellow Mexican lime) to jolt the pan juices. For the oyster mousse she smokes the bivalves over hickory wood. It’s decidedly haute until she crowns the deep-flavored custard with trembling beef gelée—the yield from hours of simmering—which brings matters back to earth with its cuisine bourgeoise cues.

If there’s an example of how elusive that contrast can be, it would be the vegetable terrine. Dainty as the dish is, with various shades of green imparted by leeks and asparagus, it doesn’t add up to much. And the jellied beef broth that trembled on the oyster mousse one night was on another occasion so rubbery, I could have bounced it across Sunset and hit the Hustler store. As slipups go, these are slight, but consistency is especially crucial here. We’re talking about a plucky restaurant that has plopped itself down in an unlikely location in order to mine a subsection of French cuisine.

Aboumrad is no mere classicist; she has a sense of playfulness, too. The chef dresses the frisée salad in a warm mustard vinaigrette and drops in the requisite runny egg, but instead of tossing sizzling lardons on top, she scoops up the greens and places them over a bacon flan. Her goat cheese salad isn’t fashioned from breaded segments; the chèvre has been popped into rosemary brioche balls that, after slow proofing, are fried to order. I’m not sure a description can do the results justice. With the mackerel tartine Aboumrad bypasses the white wine-based bistro classic and poaches the fish in olive oil, a technique that highlights the richness of the flesh rather than leaving it quasipickled. Her pig’s ear tartine is a jammy reduction radiating a bouquet of gelatinous nuances that burst to the fore when you take a sip of old-vine Cairanne from the southern C?tes du Rhone, a plummy varietal with echoes of blackberries that were squished at the bottom of a picking pail. Perfect.

In keeping with the quirkiness that motivates Gorge, the classic St. Honoré pastry is the only dessert offered.The 3rd International Conference on custombobbleheads and Indoor Navigation. Named for the patron saint of French patissiers, the fist-size tart demands a mastery of both puff and choux pastry, along with classic crèmes, and a deft hand with sugar work. It could come across as a marmoreal display of skill, but not here. Nguyen offers several variations, each a warm, lively update. The vanilla-flavored St. Honoré carries diminutive cream puffs; the pistachio one, a nutty macaron. My favorite is caramel ringed and hides a payload of cooked-down apples scented with anise and a touch of cinnamon.Creative glass tile and solarlamp tile for your distinctive kitchen and bath. Where others leave the compote smooth, Nguyen’s is somewhat chunky, recalling the kind you’ve fork-pressed at home.

Classic and contemporary, self-assured and feisty—Gorge isn’t showy, but, boy, is it seductive. The duck sausage, browned and sizzling, bursts at the touch of a tine, scattering its seared hash over the mashed potatoes; you could be eating in the inglenook of a farmhouse fireplace. The pheasant paté is a straight-up master class in how far beyond meat curing the charcuterie art can go. First Aboumrad must skin the birds that she buys from Inglewood purveyor Rocker Brothers, keeping them whole to later wrap the breast strips in. From the bones and legs she produces a jus that, when reduced to the consistency of syrup, will go into the forcemeat. Chopped truffles and Trader Joe’s pecans (a nice touch) lend texture, while the caul fat she uses to line the enamel mold adds depth as it slowly renders during the two hours the paté cooks in the oven. The reward, after a few days in the fridge, is a flavor-saturated wonder that commands the taste buds. Served with a bit of potato purée and a light kale salad, the dish is a quiet statement not only about restraint and discipline but the remarkable results they can achieve.

A Retrospective” at the Oklahoma Capitol

Oklahoma artist Regina Murphy has led a prolific art career over more than 40 years. Opening today and on view through April 14, “A Retrospective” features a sampling of her vast portfolio of works from different periods of her career.

Murphy’s passion for art is illustrated by the evolution of her style and experimentation with subject matter and various media including pastel, oil, watercolor, and acrylic painting.

“I experiment often with different techniques and subject matter,” says Murphy in a news release. “This variety holds my interest and keeps me always looking forward to the next project.”

At 91 years of age, Murphy has maintained diligence in her artwork and spends most weekdays working in her studio. After many years of plein air painting (painting on site in the open air), she now only paints in the studio – usually from photographs or recollection. The reality of her subject matter acts as the foundation and her creativity is expressed through abstraction of color, shape, and composition.

Murphy explains in the release, “I blend greatly abstracted shapes with realism, sometimes flatten space, use exaggerated or arbitrary color, and often delineate objects. My goal is to produce a painting that is not a ‘postcard’ view but will intrigue the viewer and prolong interest.”

Beyond the works featured here, Murphy has worked in numerous media, both two- and three-dimensional.

“After all the experimenting, it seems the most comfortable endeavor for me is painting in either oil or acrylic, and my favorite subject matter is some form of landscape,” says Murphy in the release.

In her more recent works, she accentuates her landscapes with slightly abstracted, lyrical shapes in exaggerated colors and bold lines.

Murphy’s process for painting other subjects has evolved over the years as well.

“In the past, for still life paintings, I would set up actual compositions with fresh flowers,” she explains in the release. “But in recent years, I paint from imagination, abstracting shapes, and again, exaggerating colors and outlining objects in bright colors.”

Of Murphy’s “Rocks & Boulders” series, she says in the release, “Nature has always been a source of inspiration to me. A walk in the woods or near the water’s edge can start me planning paintings in which I might convey the feelings that come over me as I experience our awesome environment at close range. In this series my concept was to convey the stability, splendor, silence, and richness of color in nature’s boulders and rocks. Life is so transient; we are so vulnerable; but the earth endures, although gouged and scarred by time and the elements. Perhaps that is why I am awed by its grandeur and inspired by its beauty.”

Of another popular subject matter for Murphy, she explains in the release, “Puppets and dolls have been a recurring subject in my paintings through the years. When I found a wooden monkey puppet in an import shop I thought he would be a great subject for paintings, so I bought him and have created a number of paintings with this single puppet posing in any number of ways.”

Murphy, a longtime resident of Oklahoma, has studied at Oklahoma City University, Louisiana Tech University and at Louisiana Tech’s sister school in Rome, Italy, as well as with numerous nationally known instructors. She has traveled the world for study and pleasure to places such as Holland, France, Morocco, Bali, China, Hawaii, Mexico, and Guatemala.

Her artwork is a staple in solo and juried exhibitions and competitions in the region. In addition, her artwork is included in numerous permanent collections including the Oklahoma State Art Collection, and the collections at the University of Science and Art of Oklahoma in Chickasha and the Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art in Shawnee.

But for Cardot-Greiner, the MBA, etc., had been a radical departure from the art career she once thought she’d pursue.

Giving art one more try has led to her own shop at 210 St. George St., a studio where she works on jewelry, oil paintings, pencil drawings and publication in several books.

She’s on a tight deadline now to finish in time for a New York City show, a group exhibition set to open March 1 and featuring artists from around the world. Called “The Power of Perception,” the exhibition is curated by Creative Concept Studios and one of Cardot-Greiner’s pieces is being used as a logo. A painting published in “The Power of Perception 2013” was commissioned as a backdrop for New York Fashion Week 2014.

When she was 4, her parents hung a white panel on a wall in the breezeway of their Pennsylvania farm house because she would paint on anything. She kept painting on that panel through the years.

In the ninth grade her Pennsylvania art teacher “saw something special. She told me I was already better than her,” Cardot-Greiner said, and an art scholarship to the Erie (Pa.) Art Museum was arranged so she could take art lessons once a week with a noted artist.

For four years she found a way to make the 40-mile trip. She trained to be an oil painter and got a solid foundation in drawing and composition. Later she studied fine art at Mercyhurst College in Erie.