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0 Comments | Evening Standard; London (UK), Jul 28, 2010 | by Ruth Bloomfield
MOST architects dream of building a house but the scarcity of land in the capital meant James Wright had to settle for remodelling an old one when he and his wife, film-maker Tamara Tracz, bought the kind of late Victorian terraced property you see running up and down endless London streets. This house is now only conforming from the front. Internally it is an impressive piece of sustainable technology and modern design — the most deceptive of homes.
Wright, 42, a director of Macdonald Wright Architects (macdonaldwright. com) and Tracz, 40, have three children — Riva, four, Constantin, two and 15-week-old Lila.
They bought the property in Dalston for about Pounds 900,000, right at the peak of the market in 2007.
The couple had been living in Stoke Newington but moved because they needed more family space. Wright says: “I really did want to build from scratch and spent a lot of time looking for a site. Of course it is really difficult in London. Developers snap up sites very fast and what is left is not worth having, so in the end we decided to buy a badly run-down house and strip it back.” Which they did almost the instant they took possession of the keys, while at the same time drawing up plans for its reinvention and acquiring planning permission. The work proper began in mid-2008 and took just over a year to complete with a budget of about Pounds 700,000.
The facade of the property was carefully restored: the brickwork was cleaned and repointed, and the original windows were removed, repaired and then put back in place.
Inside the approach was dramatically different, involving radical change.
One of the major structural projects was to insert a steel frame into the ground floor of the house, allowing Wright to knock down supporting walls.
The original living and dining rooms have been made into a single space, with a partial partition of plasterboard between it and the kitchen. “It gives us a lot of flexibility,” said Wright. “We could take it down very easily.”
Meanwhile, the rickety existing kitchen extension was rebuilt and clad in Pounds 25,000-worth of stunning patinated copper, which changes its colour with the weather.
The kitchen itself is immaculate white, by Bulthaup, and the floors — as in almost every room of the house — are pale, oversize Douglas fir boards treated with soap and lye. The walls, it will not be a surprise to learn, are also white — chalk -based Biofa paint that needed five coats to perfect but are now wipe-clean.
The downstairs fireplaces were stripped back to the brick and painted — you’ve guessed it — white.
Which brings us to a very practical question. Who, with two young children and a newborn baby, would choose to live in a house that is so relentlessly white? Even the older children’s shared bedroom is white — albeit decorated with some cute black transfers “from a shop on Brick Lane”.
Riva has apparently not yet discovered the delights of My Little Pony wallpaper. “I find white just very relaxing,” says Wright. “It is sort of contemplative. We have got a lot of art and I like to be able to look at things without clutter. I find it quite stressful to be in cluttered environments.”
And if Riva did ask for pink sparkly wallpaper? “That would be all right,” he smiles. “It’s her bedroom.”
The couple’s artwork is displayed not only on walls, but also in a series of alcoves, which are a feature of almost every room in the house. They are lit with strips of LED lights which, as well as being low-energy, give a soft alternative to harsh overhead lights. “It gives a very subtle level of light, and I like the idea of areas of light and shadow in a room,” says Wright. For all the squeaky alabaster perfection, he did decide to preserve some original features, notably stained glass in the door and family bathroom, and several iron fireplaces. “When you make the space very white and then you put in a very detailed stained-glass window it becomes something much stronger,” says Wright. “You can really see the quality of the light coming through the windows.” Originally the property was laid out with six bedrooms. It has now been reconfigured to give only three. Of the former bedrooms, one has been converted into a large en-suite bathroom for the master bedroom — which also has a dressing room built into the attic space — while another is used as a library and projection room
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What are you selling?
Let?s take a look at the product or Service page. Here is your sales pitch opportunity page. Describe how your product or service will be useful to your target market. Why is it unique? Who will it help? Why should they purchase it? This page, more than any other, will be fine tuned on a regular basis in the beginning. Wording, pictures, headings, etc. may need to be adjusted and revised as you develop and grow your business. For this reason alone, control over your web site should be a paramount consideration.
Pictures are worth thousands of dollars. Invest in an inexpensive digital camera. Your ability to take pictures of your product and download to your site provides immeasurable savings of time, money, and aggravation in the long haul.
5. How can they purchase the product or use the services?
The Contact and Order Page provides easy access to you or a company representative?essential to business growth.
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The operating system is nearly irrelevant as a purchasable item because what people want is applications. If the application runs only on Macs, people will buy Macs. Sun Micro built their fading empire on growing a base of applications, as did Microsoft. And people buy application not because they need a CD-ROM filled with highly organized bits, but because they want to accomplish something using the software (like surfing the web to learn how to drill 1/4 inch holes).
Recently, IBM — the once and future 900 pound gorilla of the tech industry — announced that a client for Lotus Notes would be available on Linux. The IBM spokesman (if such creatures can be believed) noted that “he has personally been ‘hammered’ for the last several years at Linux and Lotus Notes conferences on the issue of when a client would be available for the Linux desktop.” Perhaps he was being hammered by IBM employees who have been shoved into using Linux desktops and likely were disconnected from their groupware grope.
The fact of the matter is that no enterprise will deploy Linux on the desktop (outside of IT) unless their applications — or reasonable equivalents — are available.
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Get the moonshine ready; a depression is coming
0 Comments | Manawatu Standard; Palmerston North, New Zealand, Jul 31, 2008 | by LORKIN, Yvonne Marie
Well, the recession has officially hit the Lorkin household.
Sky TV has gone (my husband is bitter about that one) and there are no more heaters on during the night, just extra blankets.
This afternoon I rang the insurance company and changed my husband’s old car policy to third- party because the discount will come in handy.
Where once I experienced saintly elation at collecting supermarket petrol discount vouchers, I now get depressed that the stupid discount lasts only one week and it just brings the price back to what it was a fortnight ago anyway.
One minute I’m thrilled to have sold my wedding dress for $200 on Trade Me only to be told that it’s going to cost $140 to dry-clean! How ridiculous. Women are being ripped off royally.
There will be no guitar, gymnastics, ballet, Brownies, or karate lessons or expensive haircuts or restaurant dinners out and although I haven’t resorted to watering down my wines yet, wine and cheese evenings are a distant memory.
I came home one day recently to find my husband had grated about half a kilo of Edam onto his nachos. After screaming phrases like “yellow gold”, “think of the children!”, and “calcium is measured in carats these days!”, I calmed down and opened a bottle of Trinity Hill’s Tempranillo ($26) and we made a night of it. Being a Spanish variety it worked beautifully with the beef, refried beans and spices. Tempranillo is best know as the main grape used for making Rioja and it’s also used in Portugal under the moniker Tinta Roriz, where it is used to make port and also the Duero dry reds, with Touriga Nacional.
Trinity Hill grows theirs in the stony, free-draining and warm soils of the Gimblett Gravels and they’re one of only a few New Zealand wineries to produce it. It may’ve been my last bottle, but it was worth it.
One thing I do have in abundance is grapefruit; two teeming trees worth. Friends and family see me coming with bags of grapefruit and they break the land-speed record to escape. Having two trees is a curse and I refuse to make any more marmalade – so I’m going to make wine. Sweet wine I think.
If anyone has a half-decent grapefruit wine recipe then I’d love to hear it. So when the depression does kick in at least I’ll have my moonshine. In fact, I wonder if there’s a way I could cobble together something that the Holden would happily run on from my profuse supply of squinty citrus? Hmmm.
Margrain Rivers Edge Pinot Noir 2007 $39 If this wine were a pie it would scream steak and kidney with a rich, earthy undercurrent and a waft of red liquorice on the nose as you sip. More please Margrain! Visit www.margrainvineyard.co.nz for where to buy.
Wyndham Estate Bin 888 Cabernet Merlot 2005 $16 For those who like their reds chunky, chewy and cheap – here’s your ticket. Roast plum, cedar and slivers of graphite mix with heady spices to produce a very big wine for under twenty bucks. Drink with sticky neck-chop stew.
Villa Maria Cellar Selection Marlborough Pinot Noir 2007 $29 The 2005 version came out top Pinot in the Cuisine Magazine pinot tasting, 2006 nabbed the champion pinot trophy at the Royal Easter Show, so the 2007 had a lot to live up to. But there’s no mistaking the skyscraper-like structure of this wine, loaded with prunes, tea, earthy bracken and leafy hedgerow characters and a finish like a slightly scratchy, but reassuring cosy electric blanket wrapped around your tongue. Huge potential here
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Additionally if human activity is causing much of the climate shift, well then we need to know that too, even if we sit on our fannies and do nothing about it.
Since Hurricane Season is almost here wouldn?t it make more sense to have all the possible data available to us to help us understand, predict and potentially eventually defeat these storms? Consider all this in 2006.
Lance Winslow – Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/.
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We plan for our survival. But we
don’t wait for the situation to execute the plan. We ask hard
questions. What would America be if it was simultaneously
unplugged from its electrical umbilical and Internet
communications, globally? We spread the word that a survival of
the fittest situation is possible and probable. Who will prepare
for the terror not yet imagined in a nation slated for
destruction by those capable of success?
And why is it we want to survive, anyway? It is to help the
others. Is that now a strange idea in America? Can this idea
outlive government help? As America goes, so goes the rest. Can
we possibly point America in a better direction? Does it all
have to be destroyed before we can start over? We can start now.
If we prepare for the end of Western Civilization (You have my
word something better will replace it, when we LET GO) and all
is wine and roses; were we fools? Not really.
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Graham Elwood is the first 14-year-old to attend Southwest Tennessee Community College
0 Comments | Community College Week, Sept 8, 2008
Graham Elwood is the first 14-year-old to attend Southwest Tennessee Community College. Co-valedictorian of his Gateway Christian School senior class of 116, Elwood tested out of five grades in six months and graduated at the age 13 this past May. Though Elwood, who has an IQ of 170 and recorded an ACT score of 27, was awarded a Southwest President’s Scholarship, there was no red carpet rolled out to welcome him to campus. He, his parents and the college agreed to make his college experience as normal as possible. Southwest’s new student orientation was recently held, and the youngster blended in with all the other first-time students in his black t-shirt, with sunglasses clipped to the front. If that’s any indication, he’ll get his wish to be just another student at Southwest
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Or they might wear them because they want to look young, playful, cute, or sexy. (And yes, pigtails can be both cute and sexy at the same time.) Another possibility for pigtails is when a young lady wishes to present herself as an enigma. “Is she a good girl pretending to be bad, or a bad girl trying to look good?” And then there’s the best reason for a young woman to wear pigtails: she wants to be a Pigtail Dream Girl at PigtailDreams.com! But seriously, pigtails are an attention getter, and the more mature the woman wearing pigtails, the more attention those pigtails get.
So, why do pigtails attract attention? Let’s start with reasons for men liking pigtails. (OK, not all males enjoy pigtails, but most do, even if secretly.) Pigtails represent youth and, in our society, youth is attractive.
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senate bill does not affect tricare
0 Comments | The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, Norfolk, VA, Mar 23, 2010 | by BILL BARTEL
By Bill Bartel
The Virginian-Pilot
Any fears that Tricare could be affected by health care overhaul legislation should be laid to rest under a bill unanimously approved by the House over the weekend, according to legislators.
The legislation passed by the House on Sunday did not exempt Tricare – which provides health care to the military, their families or retired veterans – from requirements that insurance coverage must meet certain minimum standards or individuals would have to buy additional insurance.
However, a separate bill approved 402-0 by the House on Saturday says that Tricare meets the minimum requirements and no further insurance must be purchased.
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Seek other alternatives
0 Comments | New Straits Times, Jul 6, 2009 | by Fadzle
SIX years ago, I hired an Indonesian maid from an agency. She had worked in Singapore and Taiwan and she was a good house manager and cook. She was given her own room and a day off at the weekend. Her salary was always paid on time and it was in fact higher than the amount recommended by the agency.
I even helped her settle her debts back home. She was also allowed to call home every month and given a ticket for a yearly holiday in Indonesia.
Later, she began demanding longer holidays, salary advances, a handphone, etc. Last year, she wanted to go home for Hari Raya, so I made an online ticket booking for her.
Well before the departure date, she said she needed to leave immediately as her mother was ill. I got her another (more expensive) plane ticket and she flew home. That was the last time we saw her.
We later heard that her mother was well and her family debt had been settled.
We adjusted to new arrangements by sending the children to a neighbourhood babysitter and the family also helps in cleaning the house. The kids are now more independent and speak less of the Indonesian language
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