Innovation a prerequisite for investors

For OMERS Private Equity (OPE), innovation is best described as a channel for value creation. When considering the acquisition of a company, OPE develops a well-grounded investment thesis to determine how to create value under its ownership. One of the most important questions is: What will it take to double the value of the company over the next five years or so?” The answer is multi-faceted, but without question, one of the key considerations that initially guides every investment decision is whether or not a company is engaged in productivity-enhancing innovation.

Essentially, OPE asks itself if over the span of an investment, a company can achieve double-digit, year-over-year growth, either organically, through acquisitions, or through a combination of both. Experience shows that a company must have specific attributes to enable this level of performance — well-positioned products and services, growth prospects that exceed GDP growth, and a strong management team.

OPE achieves results through innovations including those that increase productivity by helping cut costs or make companies more efficient

When looking for acquisitions,Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings? OPE doesn’t necessarily seek out companies that are the market leaders in their fields. More important is our confidence in their ability to improve their prospects and increase their customer bases over time. This potential is usually found in companies that have a culture of innovation rooted in creativity, responsiveness to customer needs, and openness to change.The oreck XL professional air purifier, Working closely with the management teams of companies that meet these criteria, OPE achieves results through innovations including those that increase productivity by helping cut costs or make companies more efficient, or that increase sales and customer service through the development of new or improved products.

Take, for example, baked-goods manufacturer Give and Go Prepared Foods (best known for its Two Bite Brownies). OPE was attracted to acquire the business because of the company’s strong track record of product innovation, the key success factor in the in-store bakery segment of retail grocers. Working together, OPE and company management developed an innovative plan to deal with rising materials costs. Give and Go invested in automation to lower costs and expand its product configurations.One of the most durable and attractive styles of flooring that you can purchase is ceramic or porcelain tiles. It also invested in a state-of-the-art innovation centre for the development of new products, which eventually included a new line of cupcakes creatively and innovatively packaged in a way that preserved the integrity of the product. That packaging has now been patented.

Another example is laboratory service provider Maxxam Analytics Inc. Maxxam has a national network of laboratories serving customers in the environmental, petroleum, food and DNA and forensics end markets.A stone mosaic stands at the spot of assasination of the late Indian prime minister. OPE identified the potential to leverage their leading market position in the Alberta petroleum sector, the biggest commodity play in Canada, as one of the main growth drivers for the coming years.

Following OPE’s investment the company has continued its strong tradition of innovation, including a notable, recent breakthrough by its petroleum services team. By designing a proprietary methodology that increased the precision and enhanced detection of higher-value components in gas samples, Maxxam is allowing its customers to get full value for the quality of their production of natural gas liquids in one of the country’s most important industries in the western oil sands.

Finally, when OPE invested in plastic molding equipment manufacturer Husky Injection Molding last year, the company had already distinguished itself as a Canadian success story. Looking ahead, with the largest installed base of systems in the world, the most significant growth opportunity for Husky’s business is the emerging markets — Asia, Latin America, India and Africa. These markets are characterized with attractive demographic fundamentals, urbanization trends, GDP and consumer spending increases and a growing middle-class population — all of which drive demand for Husky’s products. Through on-the-ground research, Husky has gained a deep understanding of the unique needs of each of these markets, and in response has developed products whose sophistication has created high barriers to entry. Its goal is to continue to enhance the product (continuous improvement) and penetrate new markets.Find detailed product information for Sinotruk howo truck.

These innovation-based success stories should serve not only as an example of best practices in business but also as case studies for growing enterprises seeking to attract investment capital. OPE is attracted to companies with strong management teams that encourage productivity-enhancing innovation. We are fortunate to have had the opportunity to invest in and work with such companies in Canada as well as in the United States and Europe.

Special needs Halloween party forges bonds

As strains of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" pulsated through the makeshift dance hall Saturday, the low rumble of dancing feet picked up the pace, as costumed revelers stomped and swayed to the music.

On the dance floor in a converted garage, Popeye, Jack Sparrow, Batman and other pop culture figures cut the rug. Their moves were energetic — hands hoisted and waving, hips undulating — as they sashayed beneath giant spiders and other creepy crawlies.

Despite all the Halloween hallmarks being in place — costumes, dancing and spooky decorations — this was a Halloween party like no other. Behind the masks and costumes were people with special needs, who regularly come together to have a good time.

In its third year, the Halloween party is the brainchild of Mary Siebert, a postal worker whose daughter, Madeline, 17, is developmentally delayed. Siebert holds the party at her rural Ridgefield property, which she decks out in Halloween ornaments. There's a haunted chicken coop, with a Freddy Krueger mannequin hiding in the corner, and even a spirit-infested forest.

Watching the festivities, Siebert explained why she hosted the event.

"These kids are separated from the start (of their lives)," she said amid the ruckus.Our technology gives rtls systems developers the ability. "So it's hard for them to make friends.Interlocking security cable ties with 250 pound strength makes this ideal for restraining criminals."

But inside Siebert's garage there are dozens of friends, laughing and sharing inside jokes. Many of them have grown up together in a tightly knit community that feeds off gatherings and events.

More than 60 people came to Siebert's gathering Saturday from across Clark County.

The special needs community in Clark County is a close one, Siebert said. That's why the idea for the Halloween party wasn't hers alone. She received help from Shauna and Jason Scott, who serve as caregivers for a girl with Down syndrome.

They're all heavily involved in the Special Olympics,

with Jason Scott coaching various sports, including basketball and softball.

The activities are important both for people with special needs and their caregivers, who bond over their shared experiences, Siebert said.

"You get really close to the other parents in this group," she said, adding that it's important for networking purposes. "Sometimes, you can feel like you're really isolated in what you're experiencing."

The caregivers share tips on how to look after young people with special needs. Together, they've built a network that's based on shared experiences, Siebert said.

Word of the gatherings often spreads through Sheri Bousquet's Special Olympics gymnastics class, held once a week at the Naydenov Gymnastics & Fun Center in Vancouver.

Bousquet has been coaching gymnastics for the Special Olympics for years. She has 17 participants, who range in age from teenagers to people in their 30s,If you want to read about buy mosaic in a non superficial way that's the perfect book. all of whom have special needs.

For Bousquet, the goal of her gymnastics class is simple: "We want to make sure disabled people have access to what everyone has access to," she said.

At the Halloween party, that meant music, dancing and fun among people who know each other well.

Across the dance floor, a voice rang out. "What's up, girlfriend?" The voice belonged to the party's disc jockey, Mike Nguyen, 27, who seemed to know everyone in the building. He was calling out to one of his many friends who just walked through the doors.

Like many of the attendees, Nguyen has Down syndrome, a chromosomal condition that can cause both physical and mental health problems for those who have it.

But Nguyen functions at a high enough level that he drives to events, where he works spinning tunes.

Although he's only worked as a DJ for four years, Nguyen manipulates the digital turntable like a professional,We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs. mixing the tunes effortlessly.

He regularly plays music for dances at the Luepke Senior Center. The Halloween party gives him the opportunity to incorporate some different songs into his repertoire.

"Some people are picky customers. But most are easy to please," said Nguyen, adding that he loves to play the dances. "I try to be a fun guy."

For Richard White,We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs. whose son Andrew, 31, has Down syndrome, the closely knit special needs community has provided an outlet he never thought existed.

Andrew participates in gymnastics and regularly attends dances at the Marshall Community Center.

White said he was nervous to let Andrew participate in the dances at first. They were so different from what he expected.

"It just blows your mind," White said. "But now I see beauty in it. It's just a slice of life you can't experience anywhere else. At first I thought, 'no, no, no — I can't let my son go here.'"

As partygoers cut loose to Trace Adkins' "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk," White said he quickly got over his concerns. White said he witnessed so much diversity and acceptance at the dances that he eventually wholeheartedly embraced them.

A Life in Writing

John Maxwell Coetzee, the great South African man of letters, is a paradoxical figure. On the one hand he is known to guard his privacy intensely. On the other hand, he has published three volumes of “fictionalised memoirs” already: Boyhood (1997), Youth (2002) and Summertime (2009). Exactly to what degree these three works adhered to the historical facts of his life has always been unclear: Coetzee consistently refuses to elaborate on interpretations of his work once published. “All writing is autobiography,” he has said more than once.We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs. The question of how accurate the autobiographical trilogy is will perhaps provide one titillating motivation for readers to pick up this new biography. The short answer is – Boyhood and Youth are largely true to the record; Summertime strays far more into the fictional domain.

Coetzee’s choice to cooperate with biographer John Kannemeyer is an interesting one. Many others must surely have come knocking, but the closest Coetzee has come previously to backing such a project was David Atwell’s Doubling the Point (1992), a collection of essays and interviews. Kannemeyer was hailed as one of the foremost authorities on Afrikaans literature – the obvious dissonance being that Coetzee, despite his surname, is not an Afrikaans writer.

Kannemeyer suggests himself that perhaps “the fact that the request was coming from outside the sphere of English literature may have appealed to Coetzee, with his contrarian take on things”. Whatever the reason, Kannemeyer got the go-ahead, and was given access to a rich stock of letters and documents and permitted to interview Coetzee in his home in Adelaide, Australia, for two weeks. Kannemeyer stresses that Coetzee’s cooperation was given “unstintingly and even enthusiastically”. Even when quizzed on the most sensitive of family matters, Coetzee gave full and meticulous answers. Typically, the only subject on which he would not be drawn was that of the analysis of his works.

Turning down the offer of a documentary on his life in 2005, Coetzee said: “My life has been completely uneventful.” It becomes clear as the biography unfolds that Coetzee is prone to this kind of dry self-deprecation in order to deflect invitations – he also routinely claims to have no gift for lecturing, when such a request is raised, even though past students tell a different story. On the matter of his life’s narrative, though, Coetzee is partly right – barring the tragedy around his two children, which shouldn’t be diminished, this biography would suggest that Coetzee has indeed led a sedate, cautious life, largely unmarked by rollicking drama. His books didn’t even get banned during Apartheid, though he later said this would have been a kind of “badge of honour”.

But this doesn’t mean that there is no material for Kannemeyer to work with. Ably translated by Michiel Heyns from the Afrikaans original, the biography stretches to an impressive 707 pages and sustains interest throughout. Partly, it must be admitted,Interlocking security cable tie with 250 pound strength makes this ideal for restraining criminals. this is due to the frisson that accompanies the glimpse into a guarded life: for some years now it has appeared that Coetzee sought to inherit the mantle of literary recluse donned by figures like JD Salinger. The case of Salinger is instructive, however, because after his death in 2010, it emerged that Salinger wasn’t really very much of a hermit, contrary to perceptions. In fact, he was a fairly active member of the community of Cornish, New Hampshire, where “Jerry”, as he was known, would attend town meetings at the Cornish Elementary School, lunch daily at the Windsor Diner and allow children to sled down his hill. It appears Salinger just didn’t like having his privacy infringed upon by readers, and he never granted an interview in the last 30 years of his life.

Compared to Salinger,Argo Mold limited specialize in Plastic injection mould manufacture, Coetzee comes across as a veritable socialite in the new biography. It is true that as time goes by interviews become increasingly rare and he maintains his privacy. But the biography makes clear that the image of the writer as reclusive and secretive is simply not accurate. Ever since the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003, Coetzee has been deluged with invitations to lecture, teach and read publically from his works. He has declined the majority; at 72 he resents long-distance travel. But even the relatively small amount that he has assented to has resulted in what sounds like a fairly hectic schedule of public appearances over the past decade.The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility.

To what, then, do we owe this conception of Coetzee as a hermit? In large part perhaps to Rian Malan’s famous account of his interview with Coetzee in 1990, where Malan writes that Coetzee put him through something approaching psychological torture.Find detailed product information for Low price howo tipper truck and other products. In answer to a question Malan put to him regarding an aspect of Foe, his 1986 postmodern re-write of Robinson Crusoe, Coetzee replies simply: “I would not wish to deny you your reading.” In reply to the question of what music he enjoyed, Coetzee gives the cryptic response: “Music I have never heard before”. Malan characterises Coetzee as the “prince of darkness”, claiming: “A colleague who has worked with him for more than a decade claims to have seen him laugh just once. An acquaintance has attended several dinner parties where Coetzee has uttered not a single word.”

This has become the dominant imagining of JM Coetzee, bolstered by his frequent refusals to attend awards ceremonies or other celebratory occasions. Kannemeyer prints a letter Coetzee sent to his agent explaining why he would not travel to Spain in 2000 for the launch of Spanish translations of Boyhood and Youth, his fictionalised memoirs: “There is absolutely nothing in it for me in paying such a visit,” a clearly irascible Coetzee wrote. “Two days are knocked out of my life travelling there and back, and the pound of flesh my hosts will require will be that I sit down with one journalist after another answering questions I have heard scores of times before. Then the Embassy will mount a reception and I will have to shake hands with strangers and answer questions like ‘How long will you be in Madrid?’”

But Kannemeyer trots out an extensive cast of players in the biography to testify to Coetzee’s character as a loyal friend, witty dinner companion and generous mentor to young writers. Kannemeyer attributes his behaviour with Malan partly to his characteristic interview impatience and partly to a spirit of mischief which nobody seems to suspect in him. As a young man, Coetzee was apparently quite the prankster, fond of antics like jumping out at people from behind trees. There is one particularly bizarre account of a Coetzee prank-gone-wrong, carried out when Coetzee was a 20 year-old house-sitting in Gardens, in Cape Town.

2013 Volvo XC60 T6 Review By Dan Poler

The XC60 has been around since the 2009 model year and is one of the best-selling vehicles in Volvo’s stable. Despite this, it’s just not a car you see every day. We had the opportunity to take the XC60, and we find ourselves wondering why there aren’t more examples of this excellent luxury midsize SUV on the roads.

Our XC60 came equipped in the T6 Platinum trim – the T6 adding Volvo’s 3 liter turbocharged six-cylinder engine, and the Platinum adding a host of high-end features including a navigation system with traffic, rear camera, an upgraded stereo system, power rear liftgate, front and rear sonar parking sensors, and active xenon headlights which turn according to the vehicle’s steering.

This is in addition to the host of standard features such as roof rails, automatic on/off headlights with washers, variable automatic wipers, heated mirrors, dual-zone automatic climate control, an eight-way power driver seat with memory functions and adjustable lumbar, a tilt-and-telescoping steering wheel, a split-folding 40/20/40 backseat, an auto-dimming rearview mirror, and Bluetooth phone and audio connectivity.

On the outside, Volvo has in recent years moved away from the boxy shapes of old, the corporate design now including swooping curves, particularly at the back end.

Inside the cabin, there’s a distinctly modern flair, with top-notch materials including brushed metal in abundance. Seating all around is amongst the most comfortable we’ve found in quite some time – it’s easy for four adults to be enjoy the space even for longer trips. There are some interesting brand-specific details, such as storage behind the center console – while nice to have, it can be a bit difficult to reach while driving.

We make much of the integrated navigation, radio, and climate control systems we find in modern vehicles; many can be challenging to operate. Not Volvo’s. We actually found the XC60’s controls to be a joy, amongst the simplest and most straightforward on the market.We specialize in howo concrete mixer, The center screen does an excellent job of presenting not only the navigation, but current settings such as radio station and seat heater settings, in a manner that is uncluttered and easy to understand. Rather than needing to read a manual the size of a telephone book, operation of the various controls is intuitive and easy, an unexpected pleasure.Gecko could kickstart an indoor tracking mobile app explosion. There are a few operations (for example, changing the radio band) that seem to take a number of clicks and turns of the adjustment dial, but it’s easily something that one becomes accustomed to.

Another nicety of the interior that seems to be a disappearing feature in a lot of vehicles is a truly flat load surface with the rear seats folded. The rear seats in the XC60 fold quickly and easily to form a surface completely flat relative to the trunk floor,High quality mold making Videos teaches anyone how to make molds. revealing an astonishingly large cargo area.

There are a couple of small interior quirks – for example, a cigarette lighter squeezed tightly between the front cupholders is an odd location, and that storage space behind the radio controls can be a mixed blessing, as items tend to escape during cornering.

Driving the XC60 is a pleasure. The tall windshield provides for excellent visibility even though the driver’s seating position is somewhat low compared to other midsize luxury SUV’s. Blind spots are minimal, with good guidance provided by sonar sensors and rear camera, and the cabin is quiet and peaceful.

Volvo knows how to build a turbocharged powerplant, and it shows in the XC60. The T6’s 300 hp and 325 lb-ft torque provide for plenty of fun, and the 6-speed automatic transmission provides a sport mode that dials it up a notch. Turbo lag is minimal, popping up just a little when really pushed in sport mode, but for daily driving the engine and transmission provide smooth, consistent power.The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility. Roll and lean in the curves is present, of course, as with any SUV, but limited.

It wouldn’t be a review of a Volvo if we didn’t talk about safety. The XC60 is an all-wheel drive vehicle – although not a tunable AWD system, it remained composed and in control on every surface we could throw at it. Additionally, all of the typical Volvo-isms we’d expect to find are here, including antilock brakes, traction and stability control, front side airbags, side curtain airbags and whiplash-preventing front seats. Unique to Volvo and standard on the XC60 is their City Safety, which can mitigate or avoid a low-speed frontal impact by applying the vehicle's brakes without driver intervention.

In addition to these standard safety features, optional safety features include integrated child booster seats,The stone mosaic comes in shiny polished and matte. blind-spot warning, collision warning and active braking, distance alert, and driver attention warning. The XC60 is in fact one of the only vehicles to score a perfect five-star rating on the US government’s new safety test regimen.

Groupon vs Amazon Local

New visitors are met with a request to enter their email and subscribe to deals. In this stage, Amazon Local follows best practice, checking the e-mail for errors in real time and also providing the option to skip the subscribe stage. For returning visitors, the site automatically creates a different landing page, remembering their city and deal preferences.The stone mosaic comes in shiny polished and matte. However, with no option to search, choose by category, or filter deals, it is hard to get an overview of the deals being offered. Dropdown menus are in use, but most of these do not appear unless you click on the tab.

Groupon starts off with a well-formatted landing page containing clear Calls to Action (CTAs), such as Buy Now! Unlike its competitor, Groupon’s navigation allows the user to view deals by categories such as goods, getaways, all deals or deals by city. The website also provides subcategories for each deal type, making it even easier for the user to find their desired deal. However, the lack of a search facility as well as a hard to locate help centre mean that Groupon fails to achieve a top score in the ‘Find’ section, and scores only 4% more than Amazon Local.

At first glance, Amazon Local’s deal overview page looks good with high quality images that are clickable through the overview page. Today’s Deal is displayed above the fold and shows a full description of the deal without having to click on it. Unfortunately, this layout makes the other deals easy to miss, as the user has to scroll past Today’s Deal to view the other deals. Another issue is the fact that the website doesn’t automatically show all the deals when scrolling down towards the bottom of the page. Instead, the user is required to click “Show more” to view all of the deals. The product description is very comprehensive and a map function clearly displays the location of the service. Amazon Local also provides a smart function to rate deals by preference, so that each user can receive personalized deals specifically tailored to their preferences.

Groupon’s product pages provide multiple pictures for all products and describe the service in great detail. Groupon also makes much better use of cross-sells than Amazon Local,Selecting the best rtls solution is a challenging task as there is no global solution like GPS. where all cross-sells appear below the fold. Groupon’s cross-sells appear in a separate column, which is even visible whilst viewing a deal.One of the most durable and attractive styles of flooring that you can purchase is ceramic or porcelain tiles. For getaway deals, the website also cleverly provides user reviews from Trip Advisor. On the downside, Groupon does not allow users to view deals by postcode like Amazon Local does.

For customers with an existing Amazon login the checkout process is as quick and effective as Amazon’s main checkout.Selecting the best rtls solution is a challenging task as there is no global solution like GPS. However, unless you already have an Amazon account, the website does not provide an order summary before the user has entered their credit card information and clicked “Continue”. Although the registration page itself follows best practice, it is really hard for new users to know whether or not the next step will be a confirmation of the purchase or a summary of your order.

Groupon’s order summary appears on the same page as the checkout, making it very easy to view what you are about to buy. The user also has the option to change the quantity of the deal if desired. Clearly labelled stages make it obvious which stage the user is on and frees the checkout of any unnecessary information.

All Amazon fonts are enlarged and the size of the site is adjusted to fit mobile displays. The main CTAs are clear and accessible without the need to scroll. In contrast to its webpages, the option to load more deals by clicking “Show more” works well on mobile, as a simplified page with less images increases load speed.

All Groupon links and buttons are indicated as clickable and adjusted to fit the size of a thumb, making mobile navigation very easy. All text is displayed in one single column and buttons are given breathing space to avoid the user accidentally clicking the wrong one.Find turquoise beads from a vast selection of Jewelry & Watches. Groupon has also transferred the same categories and subcategories from their desktop site to their mobile site, delivering consistently great user experiences across both devices.

New Twist in Greek Tax Saga

Greek authorities arrested a celebrated investigative journalist Sunday after his magazine disclosed the names of several thousand Greeks with Swiss bank accounts, including members of the country's political and business elite, a development that comes as an embarrassment to the government and will put more pressure on it to crack down on the country's chronic tax evasion.Our vinyl floor tiles is more stylish than ever!

The arrest of the publisher of Hot Doc magazine is the latest bizarre twist to a weekslong saga that has gripped the country and concerns over the attempts of the Greek government to track down alleged tax evaders from a list of names French authorities provided to them.

The publisher, Costas Vaxevanis, was later released after being charged with a misdemeanor charge for allegedly violating Greece's tough data-privacy laws by publishing the so-called Lagarde list.

Following his release, Mr. Vaxevanis denied he had violated the privacy laws.If you want to read about buy mosaic in a non superficial way that's the perfect book. He also cited a recent case where another local newspaper published the tax returns of more than 100 local artists and hadn't been charged under the privacy laws. Mr.Manufactures flexible plastic and synthetic rubber hose tubing, Vaxevanis's lawyer told The Wall Street Journal that Greek law exempted journalists from those laws under certain conditions, such as when the journalist discloses data such as lists of names in an unadulterated format.

The list—and the failure of Greek authorities to act on it for two years—has touched off controversy in recent weeks in a country suffering through the fifth year of a grinding recession, with the government preparing an additional €13.5 billion ($17.5 billion) round of spending cuts and new tax measures.

Despite years of austerity, Athens's efforts to crack down on tax evasion—which costs the government as much as €28 billion a year, according to one recent study by Margarita Tsoutsoura of the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business—have been poor.

Few tax-dodging cases have been successfully prosecuted.

"Unfortunately, justice has been quick to move against those who reveal, while showing sluggishness against those who conceal, who lost, forgot, didn't see and didn't hear," said Greece's radical-left opposition party, Syriza.

The magazine published includes the names of 2,059 individuals and companies who in the past several years had an account at HSBC Holdings PLC's private bank in Switzerland. Neither the government nor judicial authorties have confirmed or denied the authenticity of the list published by the magazine.

According to the magazine,An indoor positioning system (IPS) is a term used for a network of devices used to wirelessly locate objects or people inside a building. which says it received the list anonymously, the list includes the names of three politicians, including two former ministers—one of them dead—and a close adviser to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. It also names several prominent local businessmen, as well as shipowners, doctors, lawyers, architects,The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility. actors, journalists and homemakers who held accounts at the bank.

Former Greek Merchant Marine Minister Giorgios Voulgarakis, who, along with his spouse, are among those identified by the magazine, categorically denied in a statement on his Twitter account Saturday that either he or his wife maintained any offshore bank accounts. Attempts to reach Mr. Voulgarakis were unsuccessful.

Citing Greek privacy laws, the magazine didn't disclose the amounts held in each account, but this month a former Greek finance minister offered the first estimate of the amount held in the accounts—about €1.5 billion. The magazine was also careful to stress that the existence of the bank accounts didn't provide prima facie evidence of tax evasion.

The list of names is drawn from data obtained by former employees of the bank, who electronically copied details on 24,000 clients. The information wound up in the hands of French tax authorities, as well as those of Italy and Spain. All three countries started probes to recover unpaid taxes.

In late 2010, former French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde—now head of the International Monetary Fund—gave the information to her then-Greek counterpart, George Papaconstantinou. In parliamentary testimony this month, Mr. Papaconstantinou blamed Greece's special financial crimes investigators for failing to follow up on the leads.

After leaving his post, Mr. Papaconstantinou passed the list to his successor, Socialist party leader Evangelos Venizelos, who took over as finance minister of the bankrupt Greek state in mid-2011.

Initially, Mr. Venizelos denied knowledge of the list but turned over a copy to the prime minister's office last month after speculation over its whereabouts grew.

He also explained that he hadn't acted on the list as finance minister after legal advisers told him that the information—which had been obtained illegally—couldn't be used. The Socialist party is part of the country's current coalition government.

Greece's current finance minister, Yannis Stournaras, has requested an original version of the list from French authorities at the request of Greek prosecutors.

What we can learn about relationships

The first sign of their political differences surfaced on the first date,One of the most durable and attractive styles of flooring that you can purchase is ceramic or porcelain tiles. when she noticed the photo on his wall of him posing and smiling with George H.We recently added Stained glass mosaic Tile to our inventory.W. Bush.

He was a 30-year-old petty officer in the Navy and a Southern Baptist from Georgia. She was from a liberal family in San Diego, a 19-year-old who had protested military recruitment on her high school campus.

Still, he was charming and handsome, so she gave him a chance. Though he identified as a Republican and she as a Democrat, they agreed on social issues that she considered deal breakers, like supporting abortion rights. They’ve been happily married for 14 years now, but the ideological differences still come to a head during election years.

“We have our differences and it really becomes apparent in election time. That’s usually when it gears up, when everything comes to the forefront,” said Melissa Reylek-Robinson, a 34-year-old mother of two in San Diego. “Election time is probably the worst time for us. We definitely get into some heated debates.”

For many, political loyalties can make or break a relationship. But couples who have learned to successfully weather political partisanship could teach us all a thing or two about relationships, said etiquette expert Anna Post.We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs.

“These are admirable couples. It takes a lot of patience and passion and respect for the relationship, especially where large political divides exist,” said Post, spokeswoman for the Emily Post Institute and great-great-granddaughter of Emily Post. “To be able to do that successfully speaks to the kind of relationship these couples have.”

Political differences don’t always lead to political discord, she said, and shouldn’t be considered insurmountable. If Democrat James Carville and Republican Mary Matalin can talk along party lines on television as full-time jobs, others can learn to do it in small doses.

“It has to do with the tone of the conversation and knowing why you’re having it,” she said. “It’s not about what the differences are. It’s how you choose to bridge them that will create a problem or make things work smoothly, knowing how to have a dialogue and which boundaries not to push or cross.”

As a devout Christian and Republican who’s also a Colts fan, Janet Davis is rarely on the same side as her significant other, an atheist Democrat who roots for the Patriots. After years of loud fights, it took the birth of their son to mellow them out.

“How do we do it? Very,Gecko could kickstart an indoor tracking mobile app explosion. very carefully,” she said. “No one really ever wins in a battle of personal beliefs. Since the birth of our son in 2005 we are both much more respectful of each other’s viewpoints.”

Life-changing events like births or deaths can change a couple’s perspective on what really matters in their relationship, said marriage and family therapist Sharon Rivkin.

“It’s such a powerful experience that’s bigger than the both of them,” said Rivkin, author of “Breaking the Argument Cycle.” “For many people, that’s when they learn to respect each other, when you get down to the nitty-gritty of what’s important.”

If a couple can coexist with different political views, it creates a foundation for a healthy and long-lasting relationship, psychotherapist Karen Ruskin said, because they’ve learned to see each other as two individuals within a relationship.

“For some people, they do not feel like individuals when they become married, they become one,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean you have to share one position or one philosophy. It means you take care and look out for the other person as much as yourself. You love that person as much as that person loves you.”

It’s not easy, she acknowledged, and probably impossible for someone who needs to always be right. It’s a matter of learning to not be threatened by another position and accepting that what works for your partner doesn’t have to work for you.

Again, James Carville and Mary Matalin come to mind, she said. Their careers have grown over their years together even as they’ve worked on different sides of the aisle.

“Instead of seeing it as conflicting you view it from the mental framework of acceptance, accepting that we have a difference in opinions,” she said. “In a healthy relationship, a difference in opinion does not define the relationship or erode it.Western Canadian distributor of ceramic and ceramic tile, It’s another puzzle piece to fit into the relationship as a whole.”

Reylek-Robinson has learned to live with the “the giant Bush in the room,” as she likes to call her husband’s photograph. He tolerates the fridge magnet she uses to display her children’s homework depicting George W. Bush and his infamous quote, “Rarely is the question asked, ‘Is our children learning?’ “

This year, the hot-button issue has been President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, she said. As someone who has epilepsy, she said she supports “Obamacare” even though she has coverage through her husband.

“I have way too many pre-existing conditions and no one would touch me with a 10-foot pole if I didn’t have his coverage. I wouldn’t be able to afford all the medication I need if I had to get insurance without the Affordable Care Act,” she said.

Her husband doesn’t think it should be mandatory, “but we just agree to disagree.”

UNH art museum unveils Swan showing

Sparkling gold patches of light pool in the cradles of delicate silver spoons.

Their bodies seem to undulate as they extend from table top around delicately shaped glass bottles filled with clear liquid.

Titled “Bottles and Spoons,” the 1973 watercolor is an expressive example of Boston painter Barbara Swan's artistic evolution and the unique, creative approach that would guide her through her career in the decades leading up to her death at age 80 in 2003.

The subject of an exhibition set to open with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, Oct.A wide range of polished tiles for your tile flooring and walls. 26, at the Museum of Art on the University of New Hampshire's Durham campus, Swan began her career in the late 1940s as a student of noted Boston Expressionist Karl Zerbe, but in years to come she would redirect her focus into a signature style that informed her work with a sense of psychological study.

“Barbara Swan: Portraits and Still Lifes,” which will hang through Sunday, Dec. 9, at the gallery inside the Paul Creative Arts Center at 30 Academic Way, provides a historical overview of the artist's career, from early paintings that reflected both her new role as a mother and her circle of friends and fellow artists in the 1960s to the core of later works, which centered on objects and the ways in which they are reflected, distorted or transformed when viewed through water-filled bottles, glasses and other transparent containers.

“The Museum of Art has a strong collection of works of art by first- and second-generation Boston Expressionists,” said Kristina L. Durocher, director of the Museum of Art. “As I became familiar with these artists and their art, it became clear Barbara Swan had moved in a completely different artistic direction from her contemporaries, and that sparked my curiosity. Her early work, such as 'Pierre' (1951), displays an emotive use of color, and use of a dramatic composition most closely associated with her peers; however, in the mid-1960s she developed her own individual imagery by exploring objective reality and perception through the genres of still life and portraiture.”

After graduating from Wellesley College in Massachusetts in 1943, and studying painting at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston through 1948, two pivotal programs gave Swan the opportunities both to experiment with her technique and hone her craft.

The first was the MFA's Albert Whiting Traveling Fellowship, which allowed her the freedom to live and work in France for two years, according to the Wellesley College Alumnae Association, which honored Swan with an achievement award in 1996.

Swan then returned to the United States, where her husband, Alan Fink, whom she had met while overseas, opened the Alpha Gallery in Boston.

It was in the early 1960s that Swan began turning her eye to the artistic community around her,The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility. particularly after receiving a grant from the former Radcliffe Institute of Independent Study, which awarded funds to women “to continue their work while managing domestic duties,” Wellesley's alumnae association stated in an online tribute.

“The Radcliffe program was creatively rewarding for Swan,” Durocher said. “She met and befriended the Pulitzer Prizewinning poets Maxine Kumin and Anne Sexton. Each asked her to illustrate their poems and she produced drawings for Kumin's 'Up Country' and Sexton's 'Transformations.' The(UNH) exhibition includes a lithograph broadside Swan executed in 1971 for Sexton's poem 'For the Year of the Insane' and an elegantly rendered portrait of Anne Sexton completed the same year.”

In addition, Fink's work are in permanent collections through the United States, including the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.,The oreck XL professional air purifier, the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The UNH exhibition includes pieces that invite visitors to explore their own interpretations of Swan's complex artistic contemplations. In “Red House” (circa 1970-1975),” two glasses sit in the foreground, together obscuring much of the picturesque structure further back. But rendered in vivid color and detail, the building in its entirety,Western Canadian distributor of ceramic and ceramic tile, as well as panoramic views of the landscape and sky, are reflected in inverted depictions suspended in the water inside of what appears to be a wine glass and brandy snifter. It suggests that a more encompassing, if skewed, vision of the world rests in the half-filled glasses.

In “Bottles and Keys” (1985), cylindrical glass canisters reveal altered reflections of nearby objects. Seemingly submerged keys, shapes and designs hint at items placed on the table around the water vessels.

“The museum's mission (also) is to help support faculty instruction, and Swan's paintings and drawings reinforce the principles of the studio art program at the University of New Hampshire, which places great emphasis on the primacy of drawing and painting from observation,” Durocher said.

The gallery director said one of her favorite works on display in the showing is “A Doll Named Keturah,” for which Swan drew upon her art history studies at Wellesley College.

“She layers several art historical references that make for a complex interpretation,” Durocher said. “Her early interest in Georgio Morandi (an Italian painter and printmaker noted for depictions of vases, bowls, bottles, landscapes and flowers) is fascinating, too.Load the precious minerals into your mining truck and be careful not to drive too fast with your heavy foot.”

The UNH showing will be offered in conjunction with an exhibit of figurative works from the permanent collection of the Museum of Art. Following Friday's reception will be a performance of the “Human Fruit Bowl” in the Hennessey Theatre in the center.

The performance, written by Andrea Kuchlewska, delves into the relationship between French painter Pierre Bonnard and his model and lover Renee Monchaty. The one-person performance contains adult themes and nudity. Both the reception and performance are open to the public free of charge. Gallery hours are Mondays and Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m.

When Bad Movies Happen to Good Books

One of the all-time great film-geek novels, Steve Erickson's Zeroville, tells the story of a guy named Vikar, a "cinéautistic" who sets out on a quest to discover a secret ur-movie "that's been hidden, one frame at a time, in all the movies ever made." Somewhere in the course of this quest, Vikar becomes a film editor — his slogan: "Fuck continuity" — who confounds his Hollywood patrons with Zen koans about the way in which movie time is not linear but circular.1 His idea is that every movie, no matter when or where it was made, is continuous with every other movie. That cinema is an independent reality: It never really ceases to exist, even when we're not watching.

With Cloud Atlas, the Wachowski siblings and Run Lola Run's Tom Tykwer have made a movie that is itself explicitly about this idea. That's what you would say if you were being kind, anyway. The David Mitchell novel from which the film was adapted is often said to be "unfilmable." My informed guess is that Cloud Atlas,Gardner Bender offers a broad range of cableties, the movie, will just as frequently be described as "unwatchable." And for good reason: The film, which takes the book's six independent-but-interlocking plots and mashes them up like Girl Talk at a frat party, and which calls upon Hugo Weaving to portray, among other things, an assassin, a busty nurse, a Korean anti-terror agent, and a Mad Hatter–type hallucination who represents death, is a chore to get through, a numbing swirl of semi-incoherent storytelling, complicated makeup, and melodrama.

In Aleksandar Hemon's adoring New Yorker profile of the Wachowskis, we learn that Warner Bros. did Cloud Atlas the non-favor of modeling the film's commercial potential on Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, "because it had three autonomous story lines set in different eras." The Fountain also lost almost $20 million, and so for a time Warners declined to distribute Cloud Atlas, until Tom Hanks signed on and the directors could pitch the film as a story about Hanks slowly morphing from "a bad person" into "a good person." (This is not really what Cloud Atlas is about, but why not,Find detailed product information for Sinotruk howo truck. right? Arcs! People love them.)

A more accurate comparison point, though perhaps not from an economic-modeling perspective, might have been Christian Marclay's 2010 art installation The Clock, for which Marclay edited together thousands of films using the same kind of abstract logic Tykwer and the Wachowskis did. The continuity in The Clock is not based on its actors or its plot but on time itself. In Marclay's installation, when Clark Gable picks up the phone and dials, he might get George Clooney at the other end of the call, so long as the bedside clock has turned over from 2:00 to 2:01 in the split second between the two shots.

Similarly, though Cloud Atlas is nominally about its six subplots, which "begin" on a 19th-century merchant ship and "end" in a Hawaiian campfire story told somewhere deep in an after-the-Fall future, the movie is really about the way that languages and appearances change, but the basic math of person-to-person interaction stays constant. The clock here is human nature.

In interviews, the Wachowskis have talked about Cloud Atlas in terms of the "eternal recurrence" of the soul and the butterfly wings-y way that a tiny gesture in the past can completely change the future. They've also noted that Cloud Atlas is among the most expensive independent films ever made — it cost somewhere around $100 million, according to most estimates, and runs to nearly three hours. The directors were able to cobble this money together because they'd once made The Matrix. But they were also forced to cobble that money together, because after the is-there-weed-in-this-popcorn? blockbuster brilliance of The Matrix they made two sequels that made even less sense than the Baudrillard books they were ostensibly glossing, followed by the kandy-kolored tangerine-flake money-bonfire Speed Racer. Hollywood financiers may know very little about art, but they're pretty good at spotting the moment the dice have gone cold.

A friend recently described the problem with the Wachowskis as "bad taste in big ideas," which is one way to put it: Even the for-kids Speed Racer somehow ended up being about a profoundly complicated stock-manipulation scheme and the ontology of race-car driving. (E.g.,The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility. Matthew Fox's Racer X: "It doesn't matter if racing never changes. What matters is if we let racing change us.") For two people fascinated with identity (not for nothing did Larry Wachowski become Lana), there are not many three-dimensional characters in their films. The last few, in particular, have played like echoing sci-fi stage sets on which one actor after another steps forward to make a long, enigmatically deadpan speech about the nature of the universe and the long arc of moral justice.We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs.

Cloud Atlas, the novel, is a philosophical book, sure. But it's also a series of virtuoso genre exercises, one after the other: a 19th-century seafarer's diary, complete with period-appropriate descriptions of "whales turned to islets of gore"; an early 20th-century epistolary gay romance; a hard-boiled '70s-era detective mystery; a contemporary farce about publishing and old age; a Neo Seoul-set 2144 interrogation of a rebellious food-service clone; and,Find detailed product information for Low price howo tipper truck and other products. finally, a postapocalyptic distant future told in tattered Jar Jar Binks syntax. Mitchell is deliberate in teasing out narrative and thematic echoes between the stories. But in his book, which is told chronologically, each subplot has its own voice and mood that we can dwell in for a while.

Tykwer and the Wachowskis, meanwhile, shuffle scenes from each plot like drunken blackjack dealers. The camera's color palette and the script's language change between story lines, but the feel remains very much the same. It's hard to get invested in any one character when we're being constantly swept on to the next. (The directors' decision to have each of their main actors play up to six roles across the various subplots probably doesn't help.) This is pleasurably strange for 15 or 30 minutes and numbing at 164. You might come away with a lingering affection for Ben Whishaw's idealistic young composer, or Doona Bae's heartbroken rebel-clone. But, as in the latter Matrix films, Tykwer and the Wachowskis can't seem to resist turning their characters into delivery systems for dorm-room-style chats about the interconnectivity of mankind. And they do this in the on-the-nose kind of way that makes you wonder why they needed to make an entire movie about that idea — as opposed to, say, merely printing up a gold-embossed business card to hand out at parties that reads "Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb we are bound to others, past and present."

Still, there is something eerie and electric about Cloud Atlas. I am not particularly moved by the version of the movie that is about how our spirits journey valiantly through eternity. But I am fascinated with the version of Cloud Atlas that is about the way that Tom Hanks is always recognizably Tom Hanks, no matter what movie he's in. The eternal recurrence of the soul is one thing; the eternal recurrence of cinema, the way that six effectively separate movies are revealed to be the same movie — that is something very different.

It's about our experience as moviegoers. Cloud Atlas's notion of a mystical common thread that binds disparate plots and characters has a way of spreading out past the edges of the movie itself. So when Hugo Weaving is doing his signature clipped, villainously blank dialogue, we are encouraged to see not just the Neo Seoul bureaucrat he's currently incarnating, but also all his other roles in the film, and all his other roles in other films, including his similarly clipped turn as Agent Smith in The Matrix. In Cloud Atlas, Tom Hanks plays a predatory doctor, a satanically goateed thug, a face-tattooed goat herder, and a host of other people, but if those are the rules, then why stop there? He might as well be Forrest Gump and Jimmy Dugan, too. Hanks as an actor is the sum of every life he's ever lived onscreen, and Cloud Atlas is among the few films that have ever attempted to dramatize that fact.

Life in the hall of fame

But as you wander through the walkout level of one of Edmonton’s newest lottery show homes — this one brought to you by the Edmonton Oilers Community Foundation — a framed and signed jersey from Taylor Hall is bound to catch your attention. That is unless your eyes don’t immediately wander to the wet bar and walk-in wine cellar with custom glass doors, or if the sound emanating from the adjacent home theatre doesn’t beckon you first.

“If we had one of those (home theatres) in our home, I would never see my kids again,” said Natalie Minckler, executive director of the Oilers Community Foundation, as she provided a tour of the home and referred to the nine-foot screen and front-projection system in HD, leather theatre seating, and a dry bar with a popcorn maker.

This finished walkout level contains an Oilers-themed bedroom,Purelink's real time location system protect healthcare workers in their daily practices and OMEGA interventions. a flex room that can be used as an office or an additional bedroom, a bathroom, and a home gym with cork flooring. Of course, that’s just the beginning in this 3,Installers and distributors of solar panel,258-square-foot home in Upper Windermere — 4,896 sq. ft. if you include that tempting lower level.

If this sounds tempting, it could be yours as the grand prize in the Winner’s Choice Lottery for 2012.

Now on the other hand,Manufactures flexible plastic and synthetic rubber hose tubing, if you’re saying,We mainly supply professional craftspeople with crys talbeads wholesale shamballa Bracele , ‘whoa, wait a minute, I don’t need a home with close to 5,000 sq. ft.’, the Oilers Community Foundation has that delightful problem — if you want to call winning a fully finished and furnished show home a problem — solved. You can walk away with $1.5 million, instead.

But wouldn’t you rather have a chef’s kitchen with stunning Magma Granite countertops and Wolf and Sub-Zero appliances? How about six potential bedrooms, most equipped with spacious walk-closets; four bathrooms including a master spa-like ensuite with vessel sinks and an eye-catching soaker tub; and a garage with a hydraulic lift that will enable you to park four cars indoors (a great idea if luck is with you and you also snag the early bird prize of a 2013 Range Rover Autobiography Sport Edition)?

Hard to imagine turning down such a tempting home? It’s happened in the past.

“Last year, the winner was a single woman, and the house was so big that she opted for the cash,” said Minckler, who pointed out that the foundation will be awarding more than 6,200 prizes, including the grand prize home, vehicles and vacations. “With all these prizes, anybody who purchases a ticket will have a one-in-10 chance to win a prize,Find detailed product information for howo tractor 6x4 and other products. the best odds we’ve ever had.”

But back to the show home, whose grandeur is breathtaking, with a two-storey beamed ceiling in the great room along with nine-foot main floor and basement ceilings adding to its spacious feel. The master bedroom comes with an enchanting Cliffstone feature wall — think gorgeous stone that brings the feel of the outdoors in — and two sets of double doors with Juliet-like balconies that overlook the great room below.

Meanwhile, the entranceway circular staircase is highlighted by rich, leather wall tiles on the way down to the walkout level, where there is in-floor radiant heating.

If all these beautiful features — along with main-floor laundry, a security system, and a six-zone multi-source audio system with keypads throughout — aren’t enough to tempt you, Minckler noted that there is an even more important aspect to consider when it comes to the Winner’s Choice Lottery.

Proceeds support the Edmonton Oilers Community Foundation redevelopment of Edmonton’s Inner City High School as well as other groups focusing on youth education and the health and wellness of youth, said Minckler.

With money raised from the lottery in recent years, the Oilers Community Foundation purchased a building for the school in late 2010, and today it accommodates 150 students.

“The kids who go to Inner City High School represent a segment of our population that have had a certain number of challenges throughout their lives. It is a segment many people forget about,” said Minckler, adding that the students not only get an education here but also receive clothing, bus tickets and three meals a day so they can concentrate on their academic work.

A small but mighty force

“There is a passion for innovation with every person in this country,” the executive said Oct. 3 during an interview at the company’s Plainfield headquarters plant.

New ideas are the backbone of Westminster, which Coombs started 13 years ago as a part-time venture from the basement of his house. Its first parts were for a printing press.

Today, high-end values like high-speed milling and robotics help keep costs low, but the dynamic factor in the firm’s success is its 28 employees, said business development Vice President Mark Ypsilantis.

The company follows what Coombs calls “an idea system” — “where in order to work, you have to start with two ideas a month,” he said.

“And then we actually implement them and train people,” Coombs said.

At the start, Coombs said employees feared they might run out of ideas. But the ideas keep coming. So far, a total of 780 ideas have been offered and more than 560 of them implemented.

“When I started the business, all the other guys were going the other way” — that is, getting out of the mold making business,Find detailed product information for Sinotruk howo truck. Coombs said.

Employees have helped build the company, Coombs said. Sales have jumped from $3.5 million in the last two years to $5 million this year, he said.

“Today everybody is thinking: ‘What can I do to make the company better?’ ” he said.

Westminster employees’ ideas range from the simple to the complex, but the aim is the same.

The cup dispenser near the water cooler always dropped two cups,We mainly supply professional craftspeople with crys talbeads wholesale shamballa Bracele , and despite using the machine for years, Coombs admitted that he never thought about it much — until an employee suggested crimping the tube so only one cup dropped at a time. That single and very basic idea saved the company $128 a year, Coombs said.

Another idea,Selecting the best rtls solution is a challenging task as there is no global solution like GPS. of unplugging a water fountain that was no longer in use, created $400 in savings.

Increased efficiency and higher morale are two major consequences of the idea program.

Westminster emphasizes cross-training and is quick to move people around to improve efficiency. In fact, the firm shuts down twice a year for a day of training. The latest seminar — troubleshooting on the Internet — focused on teaching employees how to do research on their projects.

Over the last three years, Westminster has diversified at its 13,000-square-foot facility in Plainfield. It now builds manufacturing cells for high-performance composite materials used in the aerospace industry, and has found another niche working with resin transfer molds.The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility.

The company also does low-volume production of high-performance plastic materials to replace metal in parts, and that business is gaining ground, Coombs said.

But Westminster’s mainstay is mold making — with capabilities for up to 64 cavities and a prowess in working with molds of up to 10,000 pounds.

The company does a mixture of low-cavity and high-complexity work. The newest piece of toolmaking equipment is a five-axis Deckel Maho milling machine that has helped boost Westminster’s aerospace work. In late September, the company added its third injection molding machine for tool validation, a 300-ton Toyo that complements its 110- and 150-ton Toyo presses.

Westminster’s key markets are aerospace and defense, medical-device and pharmaceutical products, and consumer packaging, particularly high-volume, high-cavitation injection molds for caps and closures.

The company has come to rely more on strategic partnerships, such as its latest — an agreement with Omni Mold Systems,We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs. a supplier of standardized mold components based in Lisbon, Conn.

SHH-designed restaurant scoops award

The project involved conversion of an existing tea-room into a larger café and restaurant space,Find detailed product information for howo spareparts and other products. which was designed to comply with the outline masterplan initiated by Lord Salisbury and undertaken by Brooks Murray Architects for the house and grounds.

The 6000 square feet restaurant and cafe is operated by Levy Restaurants and the Hatfield House estate. The restaurant was designed by SHH in close collaboration with Innovations Team, the in-house design team of Levy.

The design of the restaurant resonates the charm of the 19th century building, in which it is housed, and combine it modern day allure. The company has used a material palette, which directly connects the space to the original building. The materials have been used in almost hand-made format and have been applied to simple forms.

The new space has grown to occupy two floors and provides 70% more floor space,Selecting the best rtls solution is a challenging task as there is no global solution like GPS.An indoor positioning system (IPS) is a term used for a network of devices used to wirelessly locate objects or people inside a building. when compared to the original tea room. The ground floor of the restaurant features kitchens, food service counters and seating, which have all been positioned in an L-shape. The area is connected to the outside by means of a new glass extension.Largest gemstone beads and jewelry making supplies at wholesale prices.

The first floor is accessible by means of a new spiral black-painted, cast aluminium spiral staircase by Albion Designs, which occupies a generous void and finally opens onto a roof terrace overlooking the southern side of main house. The second level offers additional seating space. The entire restaurant has been designed around three distinct service points, namely The Bakery, The Deli and The Chef’s Table.

The Bakery features ovens that engages visitors with the fresh baking smell. The Chef’s Table features a kitchen with a central cooking island that is visible through the new, full-height opening formed in the rear structural wall.Load the precious minerals into your mining truck and be careful not to drive too fast with your heavy foot.

The project has also brought back the original red brick wall at ‘The Deli’ counter by removing the render from one of the building’s original walls. The exposed wall features holes, timber in-fills and iron nails from previous building work.

The counter sits alongside black-stained rough timber boards, which is used as cladding for the full height back bar joinery, that directly refers to the material used on the outside of the building. The flooring of the restaurant has been changed to a new tiled green slate floor.

The new all-glass extension opening onto the outdoor courtyard has solid oak flooring, which demarcates it from the original building. The first floor features exposed black steel roof trusses and oak flooring.

The interiors feature British furniture including tables and chairs from local manufacturer Ercol; Tom Dixon’s Offcut stools in untreated oak; and Audrey bar stools from Naughtone.

The interiors have mixed natural and black-stained oak furniture throughout, which matches with the black timber used for the exterior of the building. The Bakery area features hand-blown, coloured glass pendant lights, which drifts from the all-British decor theme of the place. The lamp has been manufactured by a US-based Niche Modern. The area features seven shades, suspended at different heights, to create a striking focal point.

The company further used wood from the naturally fallen trees as support plinths for external hanging signs, and dressed wooden blocks for internal signage and menus. The new bathrooms of the restaurant have smaller footprint and feature Victorian floor tiles, which have been installed on the walls.

The Greek crisis, as seen from a small town

Locate Athens, Greece, on a map and trace a line due north. You’ll cross the mainland and a patch of the Aegean Sea before your finger reaches the eastern end of the island of Skopelos.

My wife and I spent some time there last month. We saw up close how the country’s ongoing economic crisis is affecting Greeks on an island that’s essentially a small country town.Installers and distributors of solar panel,

Skopelos’ economy has suffered in recent years, largely because Greece as a whole has seen a substantial drop in tourism. As I have written previously, Greece suffered from the long-running “occupation” of Syntagma (Constitution Square, the large plaza in the heart of Athens), with its violence and vandalism. Coupled with strikes that crippled transportation and other services — and caused great inconvenience for tourists and locals alike — the protests and unrest led many who might have visited Greece to turn to Turkey or other destinations.

This summer, things were marginally better. Thanks largely to a three-party coalition government that has targeted street crime in a manner reminiscent of Rudy Giuliani’s approach to New York City’s problems in the 1980s,Find detailed product information for howo tractor 6x4 and other products. Athens is noticeably cleaner and (we understand) safer than it was before. Because Athens is the gateway for foreign visitors to most islands, the new government’s actions have helped tourism in Athens and the islands, as well.

Still, times are tough; people are just hanging on. Gasoline on Skopelos costs about $9.50 per gallon. The country’s “value added” sales tax has been raised to 23 percent. Newspapers report black-market sales of cigarettes have increased dramatically because taxes now account for 84 percent of the price of a pack. Unemployment is 25 percent, and more than 50 percent for young adults.

From a policy standpoint, Greece is walking a tightrope. Government spending has been irresponsibly high for too long, and the examples of bloated government payrolls, excessive pensions for government employees retiring in their mid-50s, investment-killing regulations and cronysim are legion. Yet, cuts in government spending take money out of the economy. Even though drastic reductions are plainly required to bring the budget into balance, the surgery is delicate.

Our friend George is a retired merchant-marine engineer living on Skopelos. His pension has been cut by about 35 percent — from 15,800 to 10,We mainly supply professional craftspeople with wholesale agate beads from china,000 euros. Nikos, a retired builder, tells us his monthly social security payment has been slashed from 980 to 800 euros. Greece has spent its way past the ability to grandfather people over a certain age. So these folks and many like them will have lower incomes and will necessarily spend less; this will have a ripple effect across the Greek economy.

On the other side of this equation, the government’s desperation for greater revenue has similarly adverse effects. Increased sales taxes, new property taxes,Find detailed product information for Sinotruk howo truck. added regulatory costs and new business fees and taxes raise prices for consumers (including tourists), discourage job creation and drive economic activity underground. The culture of tax compliance we have in the United States is sadly lacking in Greece.

Another Nikos (“Nick,” as we’d say it, is a very common name), who owns a small car service and drives both business executives and tourists in the Athens area, tells us he was required to pay new fees and taxes of 3,000 euros (about $3,900) this year, over and above his income taxes. He says businessmen tell him they will not invest in Greece because nowadays “the laws change every week” — “you go to bed and in the dead of night the law is changed.”

Alexandra, who owns a couple of small hotels on the island, reduced her prices in order to maintain occupancy this summer. She says even her Scandinavian clients spend less money than in the past. When she cleans their rooms, she finds sugar, milk and other grocery products, indicating that they are taking very few meals in the tavernas and restaurants. Asked about Greek clients, she sighs and says, “Well, Greeks, we have the crisis,” as though it’s self-evident that Greeks are unable to spend as they did a few years back.

Our friends who run a taverna at Limnonari beach have reduced the wait staff. A few years back they had several servers. This summer, their niece Phylitsia, who was laid off from her job in Piraeus (the port of Athens), has moved in for the summer and is working in the restaurant. She left her 20-month-old baby with her mother and her husband, who continues to work in Piraeus. Similarly, at Panormos beach, our favorite taverna has laid off a waiter who worked there for years. He’s been replaced by the owner’s daughter-in-law. In the past, she would have been a full-time young mother; now, she is waiting tables.Western Canadian distributor of ceramic and ceramic tile,

These are but a few examples of many. Greece is not an affluent country like some in western and northern Europe, and its circumstances are (for now, at least) more dire than those elsewhere in Europe and in North America. Still, one could do worse than follow the story of Greece and its difficulties, for there are lessons here to be learned.

US Army Corps of Engineers plans improvements

Mohammed Ibrahim has seen his share of wrecks in his five years hauling NATO supplies through the treacherous Salang Tunnel.

A crash in the dank, claustrophobic tunnel can mean days of delay for drivers hauling everything from cotton to the international military coalition’s fuel. The rutted road, nearly nonexistent ventilation and frequent avalanches on both sides of the high-elevation throughway have cost hundreds of lives and incalculable amounts of money.

“Because the road is bumpy, the trucks sway and there would be accidents which block the tunnel,” said Ibrahim,HOWO trucks are widely used and howo spare parts for sale are also welcomed . who has been stuck on Salang Pass as long as four days due to crashes. “Definitely when there is a crash, it’s a loss (of money) for the driver and the company.”

With military materiel streaming north out of the country into Tajikistan through the 1.6-mile Salang Tunnel and NATO’s deadline to withdraw combat troops just 26 months away,Find detailed product information for sino howo tipper Truck. the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently awarded a $12.8 million contract to make short-term improvements in the tunnel, though a long-term solution for the crumbling Soviet relic is likely years and hundreds of millions of dollars away.

The so-called northern route became even more crucial to NATO after Pakistan shut down its border and access to its deep-water ports in November. The border has been reopened,Manufactures flexible plastic and synthetic rubber hose tubing, but much of the withdrawal will still take place through the north and it remains a critical route for fuel.

The winding, dusty, partially paved route to the tunnel rises more than 5,000 feet through a landscape of towering whitewashed mountains and is littered with the twisted carcasses of the cars and trucks whose drivers fell victim to some combination of icy winter conditions, avalanches, lack of guardrails and reckless driving.

Salang is infamous among Afghans, who are well-versed in its deadly history; a trip through the tunnel is not taken lightly.

“We know how to survive, but passengers who are new get worried,” said truck driver Abdul Zuhoon, 25,Selecting the best rtls solution is a challenging task as there is no global solution like GPS. who has been plying the Salang Tunnel for seven years, bringing goods from Kabul to the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

The Corps of Engineers awarded the contract to improve the Salang Tunnel to the Afghan company Omran Holding Group, which has until Sept. 30, 2013, to revamp the ventilation and lighting systems and pave the once- cratered road through the tunnel with asphalt.

It is a temporary solution,The MaxSonar ultrasonic sensor offers very short to long-range detection and ranging. as Corps of Engineers officials acknowledge, with the improvements expected to hold up two or three years.

“It will buy them some time, but it’s not enduring by any means,” said Col. Alfred A. Pantano Jr., U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Afghanistan Engineer District-North commander.

A more permanent — and much pricier — option would be to build a concrete road that would be less susceptible to water damage, one of the biggest challenges to maintaining the tunnel’s road. Even better would be to build a new tunnel at a lower elevation, but time and money is in too short supply for a project that could easily run into hundreds of millions of dollars, Pantano said.

Engineers planning the project faced a big challenge: They lacked the original plans for the tunnel, so some of the planning was educated guesswork. In addition, the building contract calls for the road to be open 12 hours per day, as shutting down the tunnel for months on end would be too costly.

“We have to maintain traffic through this tunnel, so whatever we’re putting down (on the roadway) has to be driveable right away,” said Bruno Quirici, a civil engineer who helped plan the project for the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Salang contract is part of a big push by the U.S. military to divvy up remaining reconstruction money in a hurry and get all major projects completed by the end of 2014, when the international military effort is set to transition to a smaller advisory mission. The Army Corps of Engineers alone must wrap up about $6 billion in contracts over the next two years, and the Salang construction is tiny compared with many of the larger base-building projects in the works.

“This project with Salang is important because of its strategic value, but not necessarily because of its dollar amount,” Pantano said.

The tunnel was blasted through the mountain by the Soviets in the 1950s and ’60s and has seen little improvement over the last 50 years. The ventilation system and lighting are barely working, a situation made worse by unreliable power provided by aging generators.

Letting the Tampa Bay Rays explore Hillsborough

More than parochialism and pride is at stake as Mayor Bill Foster and the City Council ponder their soon-to-come communication with the Tampa Bay Rays about possible new stadium locations.

The team's recent request to explore sites in Hillsborough County has a potential downside: It could weaken the city's legal position if the Rays try to leave town without permission, several lawyers said last week.

That worry — how the city would fare in a knock-down court fight — has colored council discussions for years. Now, a proposed stadium in the Carillon Business Park has returned it to the front burner.Our vinyl floor tiles is more stylish than ever!

The Rays responded to the private stadium pitch by saying the team would gladly explore it, but only if the city formally allows them to check out sites across the bay as well.

Foster, who expects to run his counteroffer by City Council this week, said protecting the city's court options is a high priority.

"I want to be part of finding a St. Pete solution,'' Foster said. "In no way am I going to create a condition that weakens the city's (legal) position.''

Professor James W. Fox, who teaches contracts at Stetson University College of Law, has studied the agreement that binds the Rays to Tropicana Field through 2027. He agrees that letting the team talk to Tampa interests might weaken a key provision of the contract.

On the other hand, Fox said, focusing solely on potential court action in the future could torpedo tangible opportunities to compromise now.

City officials are excited about Carillon, a mixed use development in the Gateway area of the city. But first they must figure out how to entice the Rays to take it seriously. Even if that fails, the city might extract significant compensation for a move across the bay.

"The more aggressively defensive the city is, the more litigation oriented they are,'' Fox said, "they could weaken their negotiating position to get a more advantageous settlement.The stone mosaic comes in shiny polished and matte.''

Council member Charles Gerdes said that very juggling act is his main concern: How to balance contractual strength with negotiating possibilities.

The Rays say the Trop will not support baseball and have refused to consider new Pinellas sites unless they can also examine Hillsborough possibilities. Foster says no way.

"A bright line appears to have been drawn and that's the problem,'' Gerdes said. "How do you move forward if there is a bright line.''

Gerdes is an attorney who specializes in business and real estate law. In typical landlord/tenant disputes, he said, renters can usually leave by paying all the rent owed. That way, the landlord does not lose money.

The Rays don't pay rent and the city's slice of ticket revenue and naming rights usually are eaten up by insurance costs and police overtime. If the team left early, the city's main quantifiable damages would involve the Trop's construction bonds. They drop off dramatically after 2015, but several million dollars would remain through 2027. The Rays would probably have to pay them off, Gerdes said.Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings?

But what makes the Trop contract unusual is not about dollars and cents.

Original Rays owner Vince Naimoli agreed that baseball brings "unique and diverse" benefits to the city — jobs, business prospects, tax revenues, pride and an improved quality of life.

Losing those benefits would cause "irreparable harm'' that "is not readily calculable," Naimoli agreed, so the city has the right to seek an injunction to prevent the Rays from moving.

Even if a judge refuses an injunction,The oreck XL professional air purifier, the city can ask for huge monetary compensation for losing those intangible benefits.

How legal arguments might play out is uncertain, Gerdes said. A judge could do anything. But letting Rays explore Hillsborough, with no changes to the contract, could definitely weaken the city's chances.

"The concept of irreparable harm is very subjective,'' he said. "If you invite the very consequences you are complaining about,'' by letting the Rays look elsewhere, "perhaps you have waived your complaint.''

Gerdes does think the city could minimize risk by revising contract language to make it clear that letting the Rays look in Hillsborough does not waive future claims to irreparable harm. He favors doing such a rewrite, then charging the Rays a price for the new arrangement — $1 million or $2 million a year.

Once the Rays look deeply at drive times, accessibility and infrastructure, Gerdes said, St.If you want to read about buy mosaic in a non superficial way that's the perfect book. Petersburg should compete well.

Eight things wrong with the Chargers

Several problems prevent the Chargers from realizing their perceived potential, with inconsistency chief among them. To accomplish their playoff mission and stay the execution of coach Norv Turner and possibly GM A.J. Smith, the Chargers must overcome eight issues to get back on the winning track:

It’s a maddening trait for those on the field, roaming the sidelines and in the stands. The Chargers look great one moment and terrible the next, leaving many to wonder when or if they’ll play to their potential. Turner is still waiting for his team to play four quarters of quality football, something mandatory against the NFL’s elite.

Blame can’t be assigned to one person or position group.Gecko could kickstart an indoor tracking mobile app explosion. Each player must be held accountable for poor execution in crucial moments, including offenders like quarterback Philip Rivers,This document provides a guide to using the ventilation system in your house to provide adequate fresh air to residents. rookie linebacker Melvin Ingram, cornerback Antoine Cason and right tackle Jeromey Clary.

“There are typically (120) plays in a game, and six or seven get you beat,” outside linebacker Jarret Johnson said. “You have to know that every down is crucial, and each guy has to stay focused and disciplined throughout. You don’t want to be the guy who makes a mental error and costs his team the game.”

The Chargers used to play well while ahead. This season, no lead is safe. They’ve built five halftime cushions yet held on to only three. They’ve been outscored 53-30 in the fourth quarter this season and 59-10 in the second half of three losses. Double-digit leads have been squandered in consecutive contests, resulting in losses the Chargers should’ve won.

Worst of all, the Chargers have grown a glass jaw. They can’t take a punch and freak out in the face of adversity. Whether it’s via penalty or turnover or defensive blunder, the Chargers have consistently choked with the pressure on.

“We’ve allowed circumstance and momentum to get the better of us,” Johnson said. “You can’t relax on anybody in this league. You give an inch, and they’ll take a mile.”

Rivers is typically immune to criticism in this town. Not so anymore.

Leeway was earned by playing the 2007 AFC championship without right knee ligaments and four consecutive 4,000-yard seasons, but turnover troubles reversed that trend. Rivers lost some respect with 25 in 2011, but this season’s mistakes have made him fair game for criticism.

Rivers has 12 turnovers in six games, including a career-worst six in a humiliating loss to Denver on Monday night. While quarterbacks perform worse under duress, Rivers has thrown five interceptions without defensive pressure. Rivers has erratic footwork, is throwing risky passes and making ill-advised decisions this year, in stark contrast to an illustrious playing past.

“There’s a fine line between being careful and careless,” Rivers said. “You don’t want to play the whole game being careful but you certainly don’t want to play careless. We’ve always been aggressive and I’m going to continue being aggressive.”

The Chargers typically employ receivers of a certain mold. They prefer tall, agile players who can outmuscle cornerbacks and win balls in the air. The Chargers still have some in Malcom Floyd and tight end Antonio Gates, but those replacing departed free agent Vincent Jackson are anything but. Eddie Royal and Robert Meachem are slashing speedsters who need to be hit in stride while open. Rivers isn’t used to receivers like that, and has thrown passes that don’t suit their strengths. Consequently, it’s no coincidence that four of Rivers’ nine interceptions were intended for Royal or Meachem.

“You have to run things and throw passes that best suit your receivers,” Rivers said. “There’s always a learning process,Find detailed product information for howo spareparts and other products. and we’ll continue to improve.”

Turner bragged about his depth at outside linebacker, and the luxury of using a five-man rotation to pass rush from the edge. That glut of depth and talent hasn’t produced as expected. The Chargers rank No. 24 with 10 sacks — just 5.5 from outside linebackers — and have hurried the quarterback on 22 percent of all pass plays. Shaun Phillips leads the team with 4.5 sacks, and no other player has more than one. Contrary to preseason promises, Larry English and Ingram have been inconsequential rushing the passer in reserve.

Lackluster pressure has allowed good quarterbacks to pick the Chargers’ secondary apart.

The offensive line has given up 18 sacks and Rivers has been hurried 55 times when pass protection has broken down. That’s too much duress for an immobile quarterback who needs time to throw. While the line has played without left tackle Jared Gaither four times this season, it doesn’t excuse poor play for a unit vital to team success.

The line dearly misses All-Pro left guard Kris Dielman, who was forced to retire this offseason. Interior pass protection has suffered without him, and inconsistency reigns on the edge.

“We’re going to put it on our shoulders to make this offense better,” center Nick Hardwick said. “As an offensive line, we want to lead this offense and lead this team. … We need to do better.HOWO trucks are widely used and howo spare parts for sale are also welcomed .”

General Manager A.J. Smith was lauded for a quality free-agent haul. Such praise came during the offseason, before his signees had played a snap. After six games, Smith’s harvest has been a mixed bag. Meachem and Royal have struggled to assimilate. Fullback Le’Ron McClain rarely plays. Smith re-signed Gaither, who has proven injury prone. Even Johnson rarely shows up in the stat sheet. Nose tackle Aubrayo Franklin, safety Atari Bigby and reserve running backs Jackie Battle and Ronnie Brown have fared well, but Smith needed to get major offensive impact players to improve his team’s lot. It doesn’t look like he’s done that.

Turner blamed himself for a devastating loss to the Denver Broncos,China plastic moulds manufacturers directory. something he rarely does. Games ultimately come down to player execution, but, as a game manager and motivator, he’s played a huge part in tight games. Postseason dreams have been dashed by slim margins and close games, when Turner is at his worst. Since the 2010 season began, the Chargers are 5-10 in games decided by seven points or fewer. The Chargers are 20-18 overall in that span, so there should be little surprise this team is back at .500. Turner still has player confidence, as does new defensive coordinator John Pagano. Time will tell whether it’s warranted.

Kindly shut up and eat

The digital divide is wider than ever between diners who talk, tweet and snap pictures mid-meal and those who wish they’d just shut up, shut down and be present.The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility.

Caught at the centre of the discord are restaurant owners and chefs, who must walk the careful line of good customer service for both those who dine under the influence of smartphones, and those who won’t. But as the devices have morphed into an unrelenting appendage for texting, photography and games, more restaurateurs are challenged to keep the peace.

Owners who once relied mostly on “no cellphones, please” signs, increasingly are experimenting with everything from penalties for using phones, discounts for not and outright bans on photography.Find detailed product information for Sinotruk howo truck.

“There’s no place to get away from the chatter,” said Julie Liberty of Miami,Selecting the best rtls solution is a challenging task as there is no global solution like GPS. who started the Facebook page Ban Cell Phones From Restaurants earlier this year. “Everything has a soundtrack, including when you go into the ladies room. That’s just not right.”

It’s a touchy issue. Consider the crush of news coverage Eva Restaurant in Los Angeles generated when it began offering patrons a five per cent discount if they leave their phone at the door. Online comments ranged from cheers of “YES!” to others who said their phones would have to be pried from their cold, dead hands.

The policy is working, though. Eva’s Rom Toulon said about 40 per cent of our customers will leave their cellphones at the door.

“After a few cocktails and glasses of wine, it can be challenging to remember that you left the phone behind,” he said.

The burst of headlines for Eva came after a Burlington, Vt., deli took on cyber-folk hero status for posting a sign informing customers that $3 will be added to their bill “if you fail to get off your phone while at the counter. It’s rude.” Disgusted diners are doing their part too with games like “phone stack,” in which everyone places their phones in a stack in the middle of the table. The first person who reaches for their phone pays the bill for all.

These are more creative approaches to the no cellphone signs now common in restaurants ranging from highbrow to quick-eats. The landmark Boston restaurant Locke-Ober asks diners — in language appropriate for a place with a dress code — to “kindly refrain from using cellular phones.” In Albany, N.Y., the Hamilton Street Cafe has a more direct, hand-drawn “No cellphones at the counter” sign with a phone with a red “X” through it.

Owner Sue Dayton said the sign by the counter helps keep the lunch line moving.

“You get a half-hour for lunch. You walk up here and you have to stand behind someone not paying attention enough to say what kind of bread they want on their BLT because they’re on their cellphone,” Dayton said.

Irritation over distracted dining has broadened with the rise of photo-sharing apps like Instagram. The popular online scrapbook Pinterest is clogged with pictures of everything from pan fried noodles to poutine snapped moments before digestion. Chefs — who, as a rule, put a premium on control — don’t always take kindly to their dining rooms becoming shooting galleries.

Grant Achatz, the famous Chicago-based molecular gastronomist, wrote a much-forwarded post several years ago grousing about diners who snap the meal away and even try to video his staff without asking permission. “I can’t imagine how celebrities feel,” he wrote. “No wonder they punch the paparazzi out when they get the chance.”

Some restaurateurs go with the digital flow. Sarabeth Levine, of New York City-based Sarabeth’s, said she’s perfectly fine with people chatting, playing games or even taking pictures. It’s free advertising, after all.Selecting the best rtls solution is a challenging task as there is no global solution like GPS.

“I’m happy to have our customers,” Levine said. “They come, they tweet, they Facebook, they bring their children. It’s high energy to begin with. I mean, people are noisy even in the way they speak today.”

Other restaurants go as far as to bar picture taking, like David Chang’s Ko in Manhattan. Others take a middle ground, like the high-end Washington, D.C., restaurant Rogue 24, where hostesses politely tell guests that if they do take pictures,HOWO trucks are widely used and howo spare parts for sale are also welcomed . please do so without a distracting flash.