Participated in the air assault during D-Day, dropping 18 paratroopers of the US 82nd Airborne Division just behind the Normandy beach heads. She returned safe to the UK and after a second mission that very same day, she started to resupply the troops in France. She participated in the biggest paradropping operation in history: Operation Market Garden in September 1944. In fact she still sports over 30 bullet holes from these operations alone.

My entry for the 'small' category in the MicroscaleMagic Building Contest run by the Brothers Brick Blog: Harry and Voldemort's grave yard duel from near the end of The Goblet of fire.

 

What's this!? A Harry Potter build, and from me of all people!? Well a little known fact is that I was into Harry Potter long before Star Wars. I used to play with my sister's first wave sets in 2002 and listened/Watched as the audiobooks and films came out. But Because I much prefer building vehicles to architecture/terrain, Star Wars offered a much better variety of things to build, hence the reason I've never really bothered to build anything Harry Potter centric...

 

...Until now Haha!!

  

(Not To Self: need to get better at taking pictures of builds with a black background :P)

Found a rather nice beach bar in Corralejo, that done the most amazing iced coffee. So good, in fact, I had two!!!

Downtown Los Angeles.........I like the fact that 5 buildings are reflected - I haven't seen too many places where you can hit a 5 building reflection.

‘Rock Stars'. Back-to-black and Rave-on...a close up study of a pair of breeding Ravens owning their surroundings on a bright summers afternoon.

 

Many thanks for visiting my Flickr pages...Your visits, interest, comments and kindness to 'fave' my photos is very much appreciated, Steve.

 

Raven Notes:

 

Edgar Allan Poe knew what he was doing when he used the Raven instead of some other bird to croak out “nevermore” in his famous poem. The Raven has long been associated with death and dark omens, but the real bird is somewhat of a mystery. Unlike its smaller cousin the crow, not a lot has been written about this remarkable bird.

 

Here are 10 fascinating facts about Ravens.

 

1. Ravens are one of the smartest animals.

When it comes to intelligence, these birds rate up there with chimpanzees and dolphins. In one logic test, the Raven had to get a hanging piece of food by pulling up a bit of the string, anchoring it with its claw, and repeating until the food was in reach. Many Ravens got the food on the first try, some within 30 seconds. In the wild, Ravens have pushed rocks on people to keep them from climbing to their nests, stolen fish by pulling a fishermen’s line out of ice holes, and played dead beside a beaver carcass to scare other Ravens away from a delicious feast.

 

If a Raven knows another Raven is watching it hide its food, it will pretend to put the food in one place while really hiding it in another. Since the other Ravens are smart too, this only works sometimes.

 

2. Ravens can imitate human speech.

 

In captivity, Ravens can learn to talk better than some parrots. They also mimic other noises, like car engines, toilets flushing, and animal and birdcalls. Ravens have been known to imitate wolves or foxes to attract them to carcasses that the Raven isn’t capable of breaking open. When the wolf is done eating, the Raven gets the leftovers.

 

3. Europeans often saw Ravens as evil in disguise.

Many European cultures took one look at this large black bird with an intense gaze and thought it was evil in the flesh … er, feather. In France, people believed Ravens were the souls of wicked priests, while crows were wicked nuns. In Germany, Ravens were the incarnation of damned souls or sometimes Satan himself. In Sweden, Ravens that croaked at night were thought to be the souls of murdered people who didn’t have proper Christian burials. And in Denmark, people believed that night Ravens were exorcized spirits, and you’d better not look up at them in case there was a hole in the bird’s wing, because you might look through the hole and turn into a Raven yourself.

 

4. Ravens have been featured in many myths.

Cultures from Tibet to Greece have seen the Raven as a messenger for the gods. Celtic goddesses of warfare often took the form of Ravens during battles. The Viking god, Odin, had two Ravens, Hugin (thought) and Munin (memory), which flew around the world every day and reported back to Odin every night about what they saw. The Chinese said Ravens caused bad weather in the forests to warn people that the gods were going to pass by. And some Native American tribes worshipped the Raven as a deity in and of itself. Called simply Raven, he is described as a sly trickster who is involved in the creation of the world.

 

5. Ravens are extremely playful.

 

The Native Americans weren’t far off about the Raven’s mischievous nature. They have been observed in Alaska and Canada using snow-covered roofs as slides. In Maine, they have been seen rolling down snowy hills. They often play keep-away with other animals like wolves, otters, and dogs. Ravens even make toys—a rare animal behaviour—by using sticks, pinecones, golf balls, or rocks to play with each other or by themselves. And sometimes they just taunt or mock other creatures because it’s funny.

 

6. Ravens do weird things with ants.

They lie in anthills and roll around so the ants swarm on them, or they chew the ants up and rub their guts on their feathers. The scientific name for this is called “anting.” Songbirds, crows, and jays do it too. The behaviour is not well understood; theories range from the ants acting as an insecticide and fungicide for the bird to ant secretion soothing a moulting bird’s skin to the whole performance being a mild addiction. One thing seems clear, though: anting feels great if you’re a bird.

 

7. Ravens use “hand” gestures.

It turns out that Ravens make “very sophisticated nonvocal signals,” according to researchers. In other words, they gesture to communicate. A study in Austria found that Ravens point with their beaks to indicate an object to another bird, just as we do with our fingers. They also hold up an object to get another bird’s attention. This is the first time researchers have observed naturally occurring gestures in any animal other than primates.

 

8. Ravens are adaptable.

Evolutionarily speaking, the deck is stacked in the Raven’s favour. They can live in a variety of habitats, from snow to desert to mountains to forests. They are scavengers with a huge diet that includes fish, meat, seeds, fruit, carrion, and garbage. They are not above tricking animals out of their food—one Raven will distract the other animal, for example, and the other will steal its food. They have few predators and live a long time: 17 years in the wild and up to 40 years in captivity.

 

9. Ravens show empathy for each other.

Despite their mischievous nature, Ravens seem capable of feeling empathy. When a Raven’s friend loses in a fight, they will seem to console the losing bird. They also remember birds they like and will respond in a friendly way to certain birds for at least three years after seeing them. (They also respond negatively to enemies and suspiciously to strange Ravens.) Although a flock of Ravens is called an “unkindness,” the birds appear to be anything but.

 

10. Ravens roam around in teenage gangs.

Ravens mate for life and live in pairs in a fixed territory. When their children reach adolescence, they leave home and join gangs, like every human mother’s worst nightmare. These flocks of young birds live and eat together until they mate and pair off. Interestingly, living among teenagers seems to be stressful for the Raven. Scientists have found higher levels of stress hormones in teenage Raven droppings than in the droppings of mated adults. It’s never easy being a teenage rebel.

Facts about Japan using Japanese calligraphy (shodo) to give a brief insight into Japanese cities. June 2016

Purely from the point of view of personal taste, if I had to pick a favourite motor at yesterday's Lincoln event it would be this Seddon. Don't get me wrong, there were certainly many exhibits worthy of being singled out for praise, but these Scottish motorway express coaches with their iconic Alexander 'M Type' bodies have always captured my imagination from the days of seeing them on the M6 as a youth.

Adding to the interest is the fact that MSF 750P is built on a Seddon chassis from the time of SBG's courting of that manufacturer after Leyland refused to produce what the operator really wanted. The Pennine VII chassis was powered by a mid mounted 10.45 litre Gardner 6HLXB.

The size of a 40.000 year old tooth from the Denisova cave indicates a very tall individual, and artefacts found tell about

an unbelievable modern technology - including high speed drilling. The first kings of Egypt were called Gods, but they lived with the people and helped them to develop their civilisation. Many of the granite and basalt artefacts found in Egypt can only have been done by high speed drilling. Were these divine kings in fact Denisova hominins? Did they underestimate how fragile the eco-balance of our environment is, did they trigger a worldwide catastrophe that "capsized" the Earth and wiped them out?

Remnants of a previously unknown hominin, distinct from both early modern humans and Neanderthals,

were a few years ago found in the Denisova cave of southern Siberia: Denisova hominins. The bones and also artefacts excavated at the same level were carbon dated to around 40.000 BP. The scientists say these Denisovans had "modern technology and ornaments, including a very beautiful bracelet". Our archaic cousins the Denisova Hominins

A catastrophe in form of a flood that, according to the legends wiped out the Egyptian civilization that was developed by divine kings (Gods), shall have taken place more than 30.000 years ago. The finger bone, the large tooth and the artefacts found in the Denisova cave in the north-east Altai Mountains region are also dated to be more than 30.000 years old. The small bone belonged to a very young girl. A small bracelet of polished stone was also found, and since it was found in the same layer and dated to the same age; it might have belonged to her.

We can only speculate why the young girl was in the cave. Could it be that she was seeking shelter from a coming catastrophe, might be brought there by her mother or father? Or that she was washed into the cave by the raging wave of a tsunami - even if the cave today is 600 meters above sea level?

It seems that the first rulers of Egypt had a technology that was even more advanced than we have today; we are in fact unable to replicate many of the artefacts found. And it still is an open question how they managed to construct the Great Pyramid with its incredible precision and up to 70 ton's stones.

The archaeologists say that the ancient Egyptians used simple tools like bronze chisels and stone hammers but many of the items found, like basalt jars and also the so called sarcophagus in the Great Pyramid, cannot be made without high speed drilling with drill-bits harder than basalt and granite. The artefacts found in the Denisova cave, the bracelet with pendant, the eyed needles and other ornaments, also witness of a superior technology - and believe it or not: They had used hight speed drilling!

Not us homo sapien sapien

We do not know how the Denisova hominines looked but as mentioned: A tooth found in the cave was very large, so they might have been very tall. We know that people in the area surrounding the Altai Mountains in the 6th to 3rd centuries BC had a very advanced technology; a race of white skinned, blond, blue eyed and very tall people with Caucasian features and long skulls.

The divine kings, the "Gods", of Egypt were often depicted as white skinned, blond, blue eyed and very tall people with Caucasian features and a long skull. Were the "Gods" of the ancient Egyptian king-lists in fact Denisovans? Not us homo sapien sapien but our archaic cousins the Denisova Hominins?

We do not yet know what the Denisova hominins looked like but a Denisovan tooth found in the cave is the largest archaic homo species tooth found. Were the Denisovans the giants of the legends all over the world? Where they the first kings of Egypt - the divine Pharaohs? Did they have an advanced technology that later got lost, might be together with the Denisovans themselves, in a world wide catastrophe?

 

Global warming

Professor Gregory Ryskin at Northwestern University in Illinois, USA, has found that the long-term changes in the Earth's main magnetic field are possibly induced by our oceans' circulation. We know that global warming already has raised the temperatures of the oceans of the world and some scientists have proposed that this could disrupt thermohaline circulation (THC), which is a massive, worldwide system of ocean currents. We have already seen a change in some ocean currents, so a change in our Earth's magnetic field might already be happening! Might be this is why our magnetic poles are moving much more rapid than before! Scary stuff - because this could also mean a change in the Earth's gravity - and changes in gravitational forces will certainly affect the tectonic plates and with the continents on them. Might be this is the reason why we also experience more earthquakes than before?! Might be we should take Hapgood's conclusions and Heyerdahl's warning serious?

Did the Egyptian "capsize" the world - did they have technologies that could contribute to a sudden and rapid polar change? Might be because of and a change in the Earths gravity and/or magnetic field? Well, some say that the ancient Egyptians used the pyramids to create a unique form of energy. That they by paying special attention to celestial events, they could have used natural forces like static electricity, the Earth's magnetic field, and lightning.

Electric phenomenon

Sir William Seimens, a famous German born English inventor, travelled to Egypt and visited the Great Pyramid. While they were standing on the top, the guide remarked that when he raised his hand with his fingers spread, it caused an intense ringing noise in his ears. Sir William ventured a few tests, one by raising his arm with his index finger pointing, which he claimed caused a prickling sensation. He then drank some wine from a metallic cup which gave him a distinct shock. He was convinced he was witnessing some sort of electric phenomenon and instantly put this to the test by assembling a makeshift Leyden Jar, an apparatus for the storage of static electricity, by wrapping moistened newspaper around the wine bottle. The static charge at the peak of the pyramid was so high that sparks began to stream from the bottle. The guide was so shocked that he accused Sir William of witchcraft and tried to grab the bottle, but an electrical jolt knocked him unconscious.

A power plant?

Master craftsman and engineer Christopher Dunn argues that based on his measurements of Egyptian monuments, ancient stonecutting achieved a high-precision accuracy surpassing modern accuracy standards in building. He asked himself what was the power source that fuelled such a civilization and after twenty years of research, Dunn reveals that the Great Pyramid of Giza was actually a electrical power plant. Based on the technology of harmonic resonance, he claims that the pyramid was a large acoustical device! By its size and dimensions, this crystal edifice created a harmonic resonance with the Earth and converted Earth's vibrational energies to microwave radiation. He shows in his books and articles how the pyramid's numerous chambers and passageways were positioned with the deliberate precision to maximize its acoustical qualities.

Inventor Michael F. Praamsma partly agrees but he says that the Great Pyramid at Giza was "a sophisticated acoustical sound chamber that was used as a technique to generate natural sounds to create an elevated frequency environment confined to a single resonant physical cavity". He claims that the Great Pyramid was systematically and competently sealed, and that this was "a sign it was decommissioned and intended to be of use again at a future day, when the awakened humanity would restore it competently to its rightful function, unfortunately history went another way."

A California researcher, Peter Grandics, has shown how an antenna, modeled on the Great Pyramid of Giza, can transfer the power of atmospheric electrostatic discharge impulses into a resonant circuit that converts the random impulses into an alternating current as a potential source of renewable electric power. Thousands of terawatts of power are generated in the troposphere by thunderstorms and a pyramidal structure, with its optimal geometry and construction, can act as a suitable charge sink, capturing this electric.

A biological engineer named John Burke argues that the movement of underground water in limestone aquifers below monuments produces an electric current via friction and the rich magnetic dolomite content of the stone. Burke measured positive ground current at Silbury hill in England, an ancient pyramidal mound composed of chalk and clay that lies on top of such limestone bedrock riddled with zig zagging aquifers filled with rainwater. Such tunnels and water caverns lie beneath the Giza plateau as well. Abd'El Hakim Awyan, a native Egyptian archaeologist, attests to swimming in such tunnels during his youth on the Giza plateau.

Electric torches?

Another alternative theory is that the pyramids were wireless power plants used to generate electricity and for wireless communication. On the internet you will find a video where it is speculated that the Great Pyramid may have been powered by the Ark of the Covenant. The person behind the video is saying that murals inside tombs and temples show that the ancient Egyptians were using handheld electric torches powered by cable free power sources. It is believed that the so called sarcophagus inside the Great Pyramid has the exact dimensions, according to the Christian bible, to house the Ark of Covenant: That the pyramid with a capstone of gold and the covenant in place was a kind of super capacitor the could produce and store electric energy. It is also theorized that Moses stole the Ark of Covenant from the pyramid and took it with him out of Egypt. This should be the main reason for the downfall of the Egyptian pharaohs; without the electrics power their own power dwindled. This should have happened at the time of the pharaoh Ramses II.

Three engineers; Erica Miller, Sean Sloan and Gregg Wilson all agree on one theory: That the Great Pyramid acted as a huge nuclear breeder reactor, which produced Plutonium fuel by mediating uranium isotopes in water. Supposedly, the King's Chamber was flooded with a water pump, and the sarcophagus was packed with uranium ore.

Frenchman Antoine Bovis stumbled upon dead cats and mice that had been disposed of in the trash cans inside the Great Pyramid, and they were perfectly mummified - apparently automatically, without putrefying or giving off a stench. When Bovis returned to France he built a scale model of Khufu's monument, deposited a dead cat inside - and the Giza phenomenon repeated itself, the cat mummified without rotting. Karl Drbal of Czechoslovakia researched this further and said that this was due to the pyramid's special cavity that resonated with cosmic microwaves concentrated in the earth's magnetic field. He also hypothesized that the same concept would work for rusted shavers, and claimed the sharpness of the tools returned after lacing them in a scale model of the pyramid. Stanford Research Institute, however, carrying out experiments in the Great Pyramid, and found that biological samples deteriorated at normal rates within the structure.

Energy grid

Some researchers say that it not by chance that the Great Pyramid was built where it was. They propose that the Earth has a planetary energetic grid that operates through geometric patterns called Sacred Geometry. Grids meet at various intersecting points forming a grid or matrix. These grid points shall be found at some of the strongest power places on the planet. A planetary grid map outlined by the Russian team of Goncharov, Morozov and Makarov has an overall organization anchored to the north and south axial poles and the Great Pyramid at Giza.

It is said that the ancient people, including the Egyptians, knew that wherever the earth's energy gathered into a vortex was a sacred place. Very simular is the theory that the Earth has as net of electromagnetic lines, and that the intersecting points of the network, the knots, are influenced by underground veins of water as well as magnetic forces emanating naturally from the Earth. The ancient Egyptians are said to have been able to move and/or anchor the energy lines by pushing metal rods into the ground before they built a temple or pyramid - they shall have called it "piercing the snake".

Also what is called lay lines seems to be connected to an ancient grid of a form. According to Wikipedia; "Ley lines are hypothetical alignments of a number of places of geographical interest, such as ancient monuments and megaliths." Archaeologists have documented that the alignments are existing but it is not proved that the ley lines and their intersection points resonate a special psychic or magical energy or that they have electrical or magnetic forces as some writers claim.

Pyramid fortex using a Tesla coil

In addition to all this it is also said that we have high energy spots on the Earth called vortices - and they shall be linked ley lines. A Vortex (plural: vortices) is usually a spinning, often turbulent, flow of fluid but some also include a kind of spinning Earth energy due to its electromagnetic field. Such vortices can be volcanoes, high mountains, hot springs, mineral deposits, deep gorges, rock outcroppings and even in deserts like the Sinai. Ancient sites can also be vortices, like the pyramids of Egypt. Dr. Dee J. Nelson has taken a so called Kirlian photograph of energy spiralling out of the top of a pyramid using a Tesla Coil.

Nikola Tesla - Earthquake Machine

The Tesla Coil was invented by Serbian-American engineer Nikola Tesla (1856 - 1943), one of history's greatest scientists. His coil is an electrical resonant transformer circuit, used to produce high-voltage, low-current, and high frequency alternating-current electricity. Yes, he is best known for inventing the alternating electrical current (AC) used all over the world today, but his patents and theoretical work helped form the basis for radio comunication and many other inventions.

Nikola Tesla was an electrical genius, but he also was responsible for a number of mechanical devices. One of these was his "Earthquake Machine" also known as the Tesla Oscillator. The machine which Tesla tested was no larger than an alarm clock but it is said that when he started to twiddle the machine's frequency-controller in his lab: blocks around chaos reigned as objects fell off shelves, furniture moved across floors, windows shattered, and pipes broke. When the police arrived they found the inventor smashing the resonator to bits with a hammer: "Gentlemen, I am sorry. You are just a trifle too late to witness my experiment. I found it necessary to stop it suddenly and unexpectedly in an unusual way, he said calmly to the astonished officers.

Tesla was convinced that by finding the correct frequency, any structure can be destroyed (an obvious example is the wine glass shattered by an opera singer). He later told a friend that he could split the Earth with one of these devices: "I could set the earth's crust into such a state of vibration that it would rise and fall hundreds of feet, throwing rivers out of their beds, wrecking buildings, and practically destroying civilization".

Tesla and coils

Tesla claimed that the laws of electromagnetics were connected to gravity, and one of his patents was on a flying machine without wings or propellers but based on what he called electrogravitics. Tesla also was working on a generator that basically worked by harnessing the electricity from the air and the ground. He used the natural conductivity of limestone aquifers to generate electrical power. The power ran up the ground into the Tesla coil tower above, which in theory should channel wirelessly transmitted power over great distances. Since Telsa wanted the distribution of the energy to be free, the inventor's sponsor pulled out from funding the scientist's machine before it was completed. Tesla died a poor and disillusioned man.

His research station for transmitting power at Colorado Springs might have a link to the Great Pyramid - a notable harmonic association between the latitude positions of both sites. Coral Castle - 9-ton gate that moves with just a touch of the finger.

Edward Leedskalnin - Coral Castle

Another person that was interested in gravity and electromagnetism was Edward Leedskalnin (1887-1951) - an eccentric Latvian emigrant to the United States. He built the extraordinary monument known as Coral Castle in Florida. Leedskalnin single-handedly and secretly carved and displayed over 1,100 tons of coral rock, the heaviest stone weighing 35 tons. It is a mystery how the tiny man could move all the heavy stones. He claimed to have discovered the secrets of the pyramids, and had found out how the Egyptians and the ancient builders in Peru, Yucatan, and Asia, with only primitive tools, raised and set in place blocks of stone weighing many tons! But he did not want to show

"I have discovered the secrets of the pyramids, and have found out how the Egyptians and the ancient builders in Peru, Yucatan, and Asia, with only primitive tools, raised and set in place blocks of stone weighing many tons!"

- Edward Leedskalninanybody how it was done and worked mostly at night-time. A group of young witnesses claimed to see coral blocks floating through the air "like hydrogen balloons" and another time one of Ed's neighbours found him singing to the stones with his hands placed on their surface as if he were somehow making them lighter.

Ed Leedskalnin disputed contemporary science and believed that "all matter consists of magnets which can produce measurable phenomena, and electricity." Ed would say he had "re-discovered the laws of weight, measurement, and leverage," and that these concepts "involved the relationship of the Earth to celestial alignments."

Researchers have speculated that Ed Leedskalnin learned the secret of levitation and one theory in particular caught the imagination of many. The planetary grid hypothesis postulates that the earth is covered by an invisible web of energy which is concentrated at points of telluric power, the convergence of which create unusual phenomena. Leedskalnin moved the complex from Florida City to Homestead and some suggest this was because Ed realized he had made a mathematical error in his original positioning and moved to an area with greater telluric force.

The famed American psychic Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) said during his readings that the Great Pyramid "was erected by the application of those universal laws and forces of nature which cause iron to float. By the same laws, gravity may be overcome, or neutralized, and stone made to float in air. The Pyramid was thus built by levitation, abetted by song and chanting". He also said that the Great Pyramid was built was built as a hall of initiation around 10,500BC by those who originally came from the civilization of Atlantis.

Levitation by sound

Metal rods that caused the stone to levitate

The current estimates of mainstream science contends that it took a workforce of 4,000 to 5,000 men 20 years to build the Great Pyramid using ropes, pulleys, ramps, ingenuity and brute force. But the 10th century Arab historian, Abul Hasan Ali Al-Masudi had written a 30-volume history of the world and he wrote about how the great stone blocks of the pyramid were transported. First, he said, a "magic papyrus" was placed under the stone to be moved. Then the stone was struck with a metal rod that caused the stone to levitate and move along a path paved with stones and fenced on either side by metal poles. The stone would travel along the path, wrote Al-Masudi, for a distance of about 50 meters and then settle to the ground. The process would then be repeated until the builders had the stone where they wanted it.

An ancient legend tells that The Great Pyramid was built from year 10,490 to 10,390 B.C. That the god Ra made studies of the terrain and took great care in figuring the geometrical location in relation to the Sphinx and the four cardinal points of the compass. The Pyramid was then built by levitation, abetted by song and chanting.

Well, we do not have any proof that the ancient Egyptians could make the huge stones fly through the air but levitation is no longer only a party-trick by magicians with quick fingers. We have high speed trains that levitate by the help of magnetic power and in an incredible move for modern medicine; scientists are using sound waves to help levitate droplets of drugs to make them with less side effects.

A kind of Swiss knife

The Great Pyramid is very different to other pyramids, in Giza or else. Most alternative researches conclude that it was some kind of machine; most possibly a power station. We have seen that it would be impossible to use the Great Pyramid as a tomb for a pharaoh and that dating of seashell tells that it much older than the other pyramids. The nearby sphinx has been re-dated to be at least 5000 years old because of the erosion from water, but it might be much older. The same will go for the Great Pyramid. Some speculate that the Great Pyramid was a kind of Swiss knife - a gigantic multipurpose tool. The world "pyramid" means "fire in the middle" - so if it was a kind of power station with the power source situated in what is called Khufu's sarcophagus the some researches in one way might be correct when that speculate that the pyramid also was built as a gigantic ram water pump - inside the base of the pyramid. Yes, it could have been a power-station with a water cooling system! We have seen that some say that the power source was the ark of covenant from the Christian bible and some say

The King's Chamber with the stones above

King's Chamber and large stones

that Moses was the person who stole it from the pyramid. That the pharaohs' rapid decline took place because with no more energy, in form of electric power, then their advanced civilisation could no longer exist!

A gigantic Tesla coil?

Or might be the Great Pyramid was a kind of a gigantic Tesla coil? That the huge granite stones, highly polished on the underside and placed above the so called Kings chamber, made it possible to harness electricity from the ionosphere - just like Nikola Tesla wanted to do it?

About 20 minutes drive from the Great Pyramid is the site of Abu Ghurab, the "Place of Osiris". The ruined stepped pyramid once had an alabaster platform on the top and on the platform it had been standing an obelisk ("sun stick"); most likely, the total height was between fifty and seventy meters. It had looked like a pyramid with a flat top, just like Great Pyramid! Is it possible that the Great Pyramid once had an obelisk standing on it's flat top - and not a capstone? The legends says that spirit of the sun god entered the obelisks at certain periods…

Could it have been like this - an obelisk on top of the Great Pyramid?

Can it have been like this?

Tesla viewed the Earth as a negative electric pole and the sun as a positive pole of an electrode; so an obelisk standing on top of a pyramid would to him be a solar-electric diode! If the under ground part of the pyramid was a pump that brought water up to the Kings Chamber then we would have a capacitor with a very good earth ground. Yes, the Great Pyramid could have been an extremely powerful kind of solar-panel!

Might be Tesla got the idea of harnessing the ionosphere from the Egyptians? Might be they had made the strongest power station ever but that something went terribly wrong; a technical fault or a construction-fault? Or might be extra strong solar activity? Stephen A. Reynods of New Zealand has done research showing that changes in the ionosphere caused by strong solar activity can cause changes in the Earth's internal magnetic field and through telluric current induced in the Earth's crust trigger earthquakes. So might be it happened that instead of harnessing high voltage that could be stored and used, the pyramid send the current into the ground and

The God Ptah with a Djed pillar

Ptah and pillar

triggered a gigantic earthquake that literally shook the whole Earth and caused geological catastrophes worldwide? Might be the changes to the internal magnetic field was so fast and so strong that the outer crust slipped - just like professor Charles H. Hapgood once suggested (but not due to imbalance of the polar ice)?

Interesting enough; one of the oldest and most important symbols to the ancient Egyptian was the "Djed Pillar". Take a look at the image to the right of the God Ptah holding a Djed pillar. The pillar looks very simular til the set-up of the stones above the Kings Chamber - and also a homemade Tesla coil! You might also have noticed a Djed pillar in picture of what could illustrate an electric lamp in an ancient Egyptian temple, higher up in the article!

 

Very advanced technology

In the Palermo, Turin and Manetho king lists, there are names of eight god kings that ruled Egypt in the beginning; Ptah, Ra, Geb, Osiris, Set, Horus, Thoth and the female god Ma'at. Even if they sometimes were represented in a variety of forms on murals, often with human body and animals/birds heads, these gods seemed to be something else than imaginary gods living in a theological heaven. They lived on earth, were married with children, and had duties they performed. They also helped the ordinary people to develop. We have seen that Ptah made the Nile-delta liveable after the great flood and Thoth is credited as the author of all works of science, religion, philosophy as well as magic and he is said to have been married with the female god and ruler Ma'at.

Pharaoh Can it be that the first kings of Egypt were called Gods because they came from a far away place and looked a bit different to the other humans in ancient Egypt? The word "God" comes from "shining/bright" and murals picturing the first pharaohs/gods show that they had so white skin that the must have looked very bright compared to other people! Were they also called devine because they had much better mental capabilities and a very advanced technology?

 

www.sydhav.no/giants/denisova_giants_egypt.htm

 

Dendera light

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The dendera light

The dendera light is a motif in the Hathor temple at Dendera in Egypt. A fringe theory interpretation of the reliefs is that they depict some form of ancient Egyptian lighting technology, similar to an arc lamp or cathode ray tube.

 

The temple contains several reliefs depicting Harsomtus, in the form of a snake, emerging from a lotus flower which is usually attached to the bow of a barge. The so-called dendera light is a variation of this motif, showing Harsomtus in an oval container called hn, which might represent the womb of Nut.[1][2][3] Sometimes a djed pillar supports the snake or the container. A closely related motif is "god resting on the lotus flower".

  

Contents

1Depictions and text

2Similar motifs

3Fringe interpretation

4See also

5References

6External links

Depictions and text

Each of the three objects consists of two reliefs. One half (a) of each pair is in south crypt 1-C (crypte 4), the other half (b) in room G (chambre V) of the temple.[3]

 

Object

(location)

 

TextRelief

Object 1(a)

(Crypt 1-C, south wall)

 

Speaking the words of Harsomtus, the great God, who dwells in Dendera, who is in the arms of the first in the night-barge, sublime snake, whos Chentj-statue carries Heh, whos crew carries in holiness his perfection, whos Ba caused Hathor to appear in the sky, whos figure is revered by his followers, who is unique, encircled by his forehead-snake, with countless names on the top of Chui-en-hesen, the symbol of power of Re in the land of Atum (Dendera), the father of the Gods, who created everything.

Gold his metal, height: four handbreadths

  

(left)

Object 2(a)

(Crypt 1-C,

 

south wall)

 

Speaking the words of harsomtus, the great God, who dwells in Dendera, the living Ba in the lotus flower of the day-barge, whos perfection is carried by the two arms of the djed-pillar as his Seschemu-image, while the Kas on their knees bend their arms.

Gold and all precious stones, height: three handbreadths

  

(right)

Object 3(a)

(Crypt 1-C,

 

north wall)

 

Speaking the words of harsomtus, the great God, who dwells in Dendera, who emerges out of the lotus flower as a living Ba, whos completeness is elevated by the Kematju-images of his Ka, whos Seschemu-image is revered by the crew of the day-barge, whos body is carried by the djed-pillar, underneath his Seschemu-image is the Primal and whos majesty is carried by the companions of his Ka.

Gold, height: one cubit

 

Denderah. Grand temple. Crypte no. 4 (NYPL b16461786-1548062) (lower).jpg

Object 1(b)

(Room G,

 

south wall)

 

Harsomtus in the hn-container of the night-barge that contains four figures. The figure of heh is in front of him, whereas this flower is behind him, the water beneath him.

Gold his metal, height: four handbreadths.

 

Denderah. Grand temple. Chambre V (NYPL b16461786-1547977) (lower).jpg

Object 2(b)

(Room G,

 

north wall)

 

Harsomtus on his barge

Gold and all precious stones, height: three handbreadths

  

(left)

Object 3(b)

(Room G,

 

north wall)

 

Harsomtus of Upper- and Lower Egypt, the Sata-snake, that emerges from the flower, which contains the hn-container, who is flanked by four figures with human faces, under his head the figure of Heh on the Serech on the bow of his barge. The Juf-monkey with the face of a toad, armed with knives, is in front of him, as are the two figures that carry the front part of this flower.

 

(right)

Similar motifs

Denderah. Grand temple. Chambre V (NYPL b16461786-1547977) (upper).jpg

 

Denderah. Grand temple. Crypte no. 4 (NYPL b16461786-1548061) (Harsomtus).jpg

 

Denderah. Grand temple. Chambre V (NYPL b16461786-1547978) (upper).jpg

 

Denderah. Grand temple. Crypte no. 1 (NYPL b16461786-1548026) (harsomtus).jpg

 

Denderah. Grand temple. Chambres de la terrasse. Osiris du sud. Chambre no. 3 (NYPL b16461786-1548166) (cropped).tiff

 

NaqaLionTempleApedemakSnake.jpg

Fringe interpretation

In contrast to the mainstream interpretation, a fringe theory proposes that the reliefs depict Ancient Egyptian technology, based on comparison to similar modern devices (such as a Cathode-ray tube, Geissler tubes, Crookes tubes, and arc lamps). J. N. Lockyer's passing reference to a colleague's humorous suggestion that electric lamps would explain the absence of lampblack deposits in the tombs has sometimes been forwarded as an argument supporting this particular interpretation (another argument being made is the use of a system of reflective mirrors).[4] Proponents of this interpretation have also used a text referring to "high poles covered with copper plates" to argue this,[5] but Bolko Stern has written in detail explaining why the copper-covered tops of poles (which were lower than the associated pylons) do not relate to electricity or lightning, pointing out that no evidence of anything used to manipulate electricity had been found in Egypt and that this was a magical and not a technical installation.[6]

 

Archaeologist and debunker Kenneth Feder argued that if ancient Egyptians really had such advanced technology, some light bulb remains (glass shards, metal sockets, filaments...) should have been discovered during archaeological excavations. By applying Occam's razor, he instead highlighted the feasibility of the aforementioned reflective mirrors system, and also that the notion of adding salt to torches to minimize lampblack was well known by ancient Egyptians.[7]

 

See also

Egyptian mythology

References

"Dendera Temple Crypt Archived 2010-04-25 at the Wayback Machine". iafrica.com.

Wolfgang Waitkus, Die Texte in den unteren Krypten des Hathortempels von Dendera: ihre Aussagen zur Funktion und Bedeutung dieser Räume, Mainz 1997 ISBN 3-8053-2322-0 (tr., The texts in the lower crypts of the Hathor temples of Dendera: their statements for the function and meaning of these areas)

Waitkus, Wolfgang (2002). "Die Geburt des Harsomtus aus der Blüte Zur Bedeutung und Funktion einiger Kultgegenstände des Tempels von Dendera". Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur. 30: 373–394. JSTOR 25152877.

Press, The MIT (15 May 1973). The Dawn of Astronomy | The MIT Press. mitpress.mit.edu. MIT Press. ISBN 9780262120142. Retrieved 2020-10-06.

Bruno Kolbe, Francis ed Legge, Joseph Skellon, tr., "An Introduction to Electricity". Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1908. 429 pages. Page 391. (cf., "[...] high poles covered with copper plates and with gilded tops were erected 'to break the stones coming from on high'. J. Dümichen, Baugeschichte des Dendera-Tempels, Strassburg, 1877")

Stern, Bolko (1998) [1896]. Ägyptische Kulturgeschichte. Reprint-Verlag-Leipzig. pp. 106–108. ISBN 978-3826219085.

Feder, Kenneth H. (2014). Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-803507-4., pp.225–7

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dendera light.

The Dendera Reliefs, Catchpenny Mysteries.

Frank Dörnenburg, Electric lights in Egypt?. 2004.

Mariette, Auguste (1870) - Dendérah: description générale du grand temple de cette ville (II: 48, 49; III: 44, 45)

Coordinates: 26.141611°N 32.670139°E

 

Categories: EgyptologyOut-of-place artifactsPseudoarchaeology

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendera_light

  

The ancient Egyptian Dendera Light "protective magical energy in liquid form" is the evaporative cooling fog. The fact that the Dendera Light is made of liquid water that transforms itself in a magical way, is exactly what are describing ancient Egyptians themselves : [About the snake inside the Dendera Light Bulb] "The field surrounding Ra’s snake form is referred to in ancient Egyptian literature as protective magical energy in liquid form that all gods and pharaohs possess (Faulkner 1970*)." ahotcupofjoe.net/2016/11/dendera-light-bulb-and-bagdad-ba...

 

*I'm not sure, but the excerpt might be from "The ancient Egyptian book of the dead / translated by Raymond O. Faulkne ; edited by Carol Andrews, 1972."

 

www.milleetunetasses.com/blog/the-great-pyramid-of-khufu-...

 

Evaporative cooling for the sodium carbonate manufacturing

 

My study is based on 2 key elements : the first one is the cold production inside the horizontal passage of the Great Pyramid ; and the second one is the production of sodium carbonate (pure natron), as suggested by the Red Pyramid.

 

The ammonia still present inside the Red Pyramid, indicates that they were using a sodium carbonate process identical or very close to the ammonia-soda process known as the Solvay process, developed into its modern form in the 1860s in Europe.

 

In the Solvay process, the ammonia only has a minor role ; but inside the Red Pyramid, my guess is that they didn't control the temperature of the different chemical reactions inside the Solvay towers. They couldn't cool down the towers.

 

That is the reason why they engineered the visible part of the Great Pyramid : to produce cold inside the horizontal passage, store it inside the Queen's chamber, and transfer it to the sodium carbonate production towers, passing through the Queen's chamber shafts.

What's the story?

 

Press F if you like it. Press C to leave a comment. Press L if you want to see it full screen!

 

Taken in The Trace Too

Visit here: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Trace%20Too/9/129/22

Povero Sonny ...

Povero giovane orsetto dal grande testone...era poco più di un cucciolo, si affacciava alla vita solitaria, nei suoi primi tempi da individuo indipendente, senza la mamma .

Inesperto e fiducioso, muoveva i suoi passi nel bosco e nelle valli.

Lui non dormiva al sicuro in qualche tana, ma girovagava in cerca di cibo.

Il bel sonno del letargo non ha protetto Sonny.

Peccato si sarebbe salvato.

Le invernate miti, infatti, hanno ormai confuso e influenzato il ciclo naturale degli orsi.

Il loro ritmo sonno/veglia, legato alle stagioni, si è alterato.

L'incontro da lontano con due persone gli è costato la vita... per aver solo incrociato lo sguardo del bipede tiranno .

Non ha mai fatto male a nessuno Sonny. Condannato, braccato e freddato a fucilate per non aver fatto niente.

Tutto in modalità rapida come conviene ai vili che agiscono a tradimento.

Un esecuzione contestuale all'emissione del decreto di uccisione, senza lasciare spazio alla società civile di impostare un' azione volta a salvarlo, ricorrendo al Tar.

Ucciso perché confidente, perché si serviva dei cassonetti sempre disponibili e mai modificati, ucciso perché anche i sentieri in Trentino non sono mai stati ben disciplinati e tutti possono spingersi ovunque, per poi creare allarmismi collettivi.

Mentre gli orsi non hanno più una zona sicura e devono solo scomparire.

Presi i denari del progetto di reintroduzione Life Ursus, ora i plantigradi sono di troppo in quelle valli e forse di intralcio per qualche altro disegno che porta soldi .

Il suo giudice e carnefice è il Presidente della tristissima Provincia autonoma di Trento, Fugatti, determinato a farli fuori tutti.

Questo soggetto ostile e sprezzante della vita dei selvatici, ricorderà bene questi giorni. Segneranno la sua esistenza perché tutto il Paese ha conosciuto bene il suo cinismo, la sua ossessione fuori controllo per queste creature e verrà ricordato come l'odiatore degli orsi, aguzzino dalle doppiette e dagli ergastoli facili ...

Re indiscusso del Casteller.

Ruth Lemma

 

Poor Sonny...

Poor young bear with the big head... he was little more than a puppy, he was facing a solitary life, in his early days as an independent individual, without his mother.

Inexperienced and confident, he took his steps in the woods and valleys.

He did not sleep safely in some den, but wandered around looking for food.

The beautiful sleep of hibernation did not protect Sonny.

Too bad he would have been saved.

The mild winters, in fact, have now confused and influenced the natural cycle of bears.

Their sleep/wake rhythm, linked to the seasons, has altered.

The encounter with two people from afar cost him his life... for just having met the gaze of the bipedal tyrant.

He never hurt anyone Sonny. Condemned, hunted down and shot dead for doing nothing.

All in rapid mode as befits cowards who act treacherously.

An execution at the same time as the issuing of the killing decree, leaving no room for civil society to take action aimed at saving him, resorting to the TAR.

Killed because he was confident, because he used the bins that were always available and never modified, killed because even the paths in Trentino have never been well regulated and anyone can go anywhere, and then create collective alarmism.

While bears no longer have a safe area and just have to disappear.

Having taken the money from the Life Ursus reintroduction project, now the plantigrades are too many in those valleys and perhaps an obstacle to some other project that brings money.

His judge and executioner is the President of the very sad autonomous province of Trento, Fugatti, determined to kill them all.

This hostile and contemptuous subject of the life of wild animals will remember these days well. They will mark his existence because the whole country knew well his cynicism, his out of control obsession with these creatures and he will be remembered as the hater of bears, a tormentor with doubles and easy life sentences...

Undisputed king of Casteller.

Ruth Lemma

 

Mary, dressed in luminous blue and set against a rich red background, is seen crowned and enthroned with Jesus on her knee, while the dove of the Holy Spirit descends upon her.

 

The window predates the present cathedral. It is from the mid-12th century and was originally the central window behind the alter of an earlier Romanesque church that occupied the site and was almost completely destroyed by fire in 1194. The window survived and was inserted into its present frame in the south ambulatory of the new church around 1230.

 

The radiant colour of Mary’s dress is a striking example of what has been famously described as “Chartres blue”. It contributes a singular intensity to the cathedral’s stained glass and the claim has been made that it is quite literally unique; that none knows how it was produced and that it has proved impossible to replicate. However, this would seem to be an example of romanticism clouding the facts. The colour is indeed magnificent but art historians know pretty well how it was produced and there appears to be no obstacle to replicating it.*

 

© Irwin Reynolds, all rights reserved. If you are interested in using one of my images or would like a high quality fine art print, please send me an email (irwinreynolds@me.com)

 

*Anyone wanting to read further can follow this link: artelisaart.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/secrets-of-chartres-b...

Fun Fact: There is a limit to how many times you can sing the line "Standing on the corner in Wndslow, Arizona" when your wife is in the car.

A sample image from the photo journal by Wade Arthur. Pre-orders start in a week!

View large.

 

Special NOTE: On Feb. 8, 2012 I attached a comment, readable & easily discoverable on Page 2 of the comments below, that details the vast corporatist scheme, fronted by Jeb Bush, financed in part with hundreds of millions from Rupert Murdoch (FOX nooze), to privatize American public education & reduce it to 'virtual' schools - not to improve anything (as national & international educational research studies clearly show), but rather to become the final recipients of the taxes people pay so that they can skim huge profits off of the top while providing grotesquely inferior services & lots of lying propaganda to keep the public bamboozled. I beg everyone to read the report.

 

The McGuffey's Ecclectic Spelling Book was published in 1879.

 

Raymond Cyrus Hoiles (1878-1970) founded Freedom Communications, a newspaper publishing & broadcasting company that has never hesitated to shape the news to fit right wing ideology. When Hoiles was alive & roaring I lived in Orange County, California, home of the equally right wing Walt Disney & Walter Knott, & was frequently compelled to suffer people who agreed with Hoiles' constantly editorialized insistence that public education was a form of theft & communism that must at once be got rid of. Hoiles was motivated by his fundamentalist Christian persuasions, & quite serious. We should restrain our laughter at the abysmal stupidity of his example, because in many ways he & people like him won & are still winning control of public education. - To introduce the article below, I'll say a little about the Christian strategy.

 

For many years Orange County's teachers worked under a Draconian ruling that forbade the teaching of values. There is no way around the fact, however, that the statement, "Values may not be taught," is itself a value statement belonging to a class of propositions known as Epimenidean Paradoxes. A comparably illustrative sentence would be, "This is not a sentence." Or, a favorite of the best hypnotists, used when addressing a resistant subject, "Do not obey any instruction which I give you."

 

What, then, was intended by those who created the paradoxical Orange County law? Well, if any teacher dared to say or imply something that would be disagreeable to any person whose beliefs began & ended with church, flag & free-for-all capitalism, then that teacher could be charged with teaching values & be suspended. One family friend, a young man teaching at an elementary school in Anaheim, was charged, hounded, publicly disgraced, threatened with death & discharged from his post, immediately after which he died from a heart attack. The case was depicted in Life Magazine. His only crime was that he was Jewish. His wife, also a teacher, remained bereft & embittered the rest of her long life.

 

These people became increasingly invisible over time, largely by devising ever more clever ways for gaining control of both education policy & the public dialogue about education.

 

Ralph Reed, working for Pat Robertson & the Christian Coalition, devised the "stealth agenda" to place fundamentalists in every local school board in America. The plan helped select & fund candidates, who in accord with Reed's instructions never mentioned their religion or religious connections when campaigning for office. In 1983 Reed rigged an election at his university - he got started early, in other words. Recently we learned that Mr. Reed & Jack Abramoff were associate crooks. The revelation forced Reed to abandon his run to become the lieutenant governor of Georgia. Mr. Reed will not disappear, however. He remains a darling of the far Christian right, & owns Century Strategies, a dirty-tricks political consulting & lobbying organization. In 1999 Karl Rove got reed a nice contract with Enron, which was paying Reed $30,000 per month. And guess who recently went to Georgia to try to save poor Reed? Rudy Giuliani, who has the hots to be the next U.S. president & is pandering to the Christians so he can be their new burning Bush.

 

Stealthiness did not go away when the Christian Coalition folded & Reed went off on his own to rig elections for big bucks. Rather, the stealth moved into policy matters. For instance, all the phony propaganda claiming religious & private education is more successful, creating the excuse to promote vouchers (for which the motives are both religious & racist). Or, most recently, Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, which was sought by the Christians not because they believed all the testing of students would lead to improved education, but rather because they wanted teachers to be made too busy preparing students for endless tests about facts to find time to do the great evil thing, which is the teaching of concepts. Teaching concepts leads to teaching logic, scientific & other academic methodologies which by their nature instill respect for critical - read, skeptical - thinking. Dogmatists, advertisers & con men have equal cause to fear skepticism.

-------------------------

 

From: Truthdig.com

 

Taking Back Our Schools--and Fixing Them

 

Full text with links: www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060425_taking_back_our_sch...

 

Posted on Apr. 25, 2006

 

By Wellford Wilms

 

The recent news reported in The New York Times that schools are throwing out science, social studies and art to make time for drilling students in remedial math and reading is a sign of things gone terribly wrong. Former New York State Commissioner of Education Thomas Sobol told the Times that narrowing education to just math and reading would be akin to restricting violin students to playing scales day after day. “They’d lose their zest for music.” But most schools that serve poor populations, like those in Cuero, Texas, are squeezed to meet federal math and reading standards. Cuero Superintendent Henry Lind told the paper, “When you have so many hours per day and you’re behind in some area that’s being hammered on, you have to work on that.”

 

But by the looks of things, hammering students for higher test scores isn’t making much of a difference. Most students have already lost their zest for learning. How do we know? In Los Angeles, upwards of 50% of Latino and African American students never finish high school. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

I’ve been a professor of education at UCLA for more than 25 years and am convinced that despite the fads that come and go, nothing has put a dent in the public schools’ failure to educate inner-city children. In fact, things are getting worse. But I am also convinced that we’ve been looking in the wrong places for solutions. My own research across a wide array of organizations—corporations, trade unions, public schools, colleges, teacher unions and police agencies—suggests another way of looking at the problem and that solutions will come from a new direction.

 

This essay is a proposition—one that I hope will spark a lively debate among Truthdig readers and inform policy leaders. Future essays will examine Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s campaign to take over the public schools, analyze whether teacher unions can be a force for productive change, and expose promising ways to rebuild public investment in the schools.

 

Let’s start with Jonathan Kozol’s new book, “The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America.” It is a scathing indictment of American social policy that banned racial segregation in public schools in 1955 and then turned a blind eye to its implementation. Today, Kozol says, schools are more segregated than ever. But he fails to explain why resegregation has occurred. Because Kozol overlooks the root causes of the problem, his solutions—spending more money on dysfunctional schools and wishing for a social mandate to desegregate the schools—miss the point.

 

To be sure the problems are undeniable. Kozol examines the appalling condition of big-city schools. In school after school we see children who are brimming with potential but who are walled off from the larger society and abandoned by the schools. Most middle-class white Americans simply cannot comprehend the horrid schools that Kozol describes. Ceilings fall in, toilets are filthy, libraries, music and arts have been stripped away. Teachers in these schools, who are paid 40% less than teachers in the suburbs, are forced to teach “scripted” lessons that are written for children who are deemed incapable of learning.

 

It is all part of the latest reform pushed by the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind initiative, a reform aimed at the singular pursuit of increasing test scores. Learning has been stripped of its intrinsic meaning and reduced to simplistic steps—“Authentic Writing,” “Active Listening,” “Accountable Talk”—that hamper teachers in teaching anything but how to take a test. Behind it all is an attempt to impose control, much as mass production techniques were used a century ago, to standardize instruction to fit new immigrants to the system.

 

Meanwhile, millions of children are failing. In nearly half of the high schools in America’s 100 largest districts, fewer than 50% of students graduate in four years. Most of these students are from poor Latino and African-American families. And from 1993 to 2000 the number of failing schools has mushroomed by 75%. Mayor Villaraigosa calls Los Angeles’ high dropout rates “numbers that should put a chill down your spine.”

 

The reasons, Kozol argues, are lack of money and racial discrimination that produce inferior and segregated schools. No doubt this is partly true. We have tried to desegregate the schools for a half-century and failed. Middle-class white parents have voted for individual freedom with their feet, enrolling their children in private schools, leaving the public schools more segregated than ever. The same is true for middle-class black families. Gail Foster, an educator who has studied black independent schools, was quoted in 2004 in The New York Times as saying: “Many of the most empowered parents and families are removing their children. What’s left, in even working-class communities, are schools filled with the least empowered families. Families with the least parent involvement to offer, families with the least help with homework to offer. There’s been a continual outflow for at least 10 years, and it isn’t stopping now.”

 

More money is not the answer either. Kozol points to wide disparities in educational expenditures ranging from $11,700 per student in New York City to $22,000 in suburban Manhasset. Disturbing as that is, study after study shows that equalizing money does not necessarily equalize learning.

 

In 1966, sociologist James Coleman conducted the most extensive study ever made of desegregating education and found that what mattered most in students’ learning was the economic status of their peers rather than the racial makeup of the school. He also found that school funding was not closely related to students’ achievement—their families’ economic status was far more predictive. Coleman’s findings were controversial and led to a bitter debate, but they have been replicated many times. Daniel Patrick Moynihan summed it up best when he commented shortly after Coleman’s groundbreaking study, “We should begin to see that the underlying reality is not race but social class.”

 

Since social class matters because money follows privilege, and since desegregation will take generations to eradicate, what can be done now? Are poor children doomed to attend grossly inadequate schools? Surely not. We must find ways to remove the influences that have crippled the schools. Money must be diverted from bloated bureaucracies that snuff out innovation. Instead it must go directly to schools where principals and teachers can influence what is taught and what children learn, and help bring parents back into the fold. Otherwise, it is going down a rat hole.

 

Parents have a significant role to play in their children’s education, but their voices have been largely silenced. Over the last 40 years, we have witnessed the decline of civic involvement and the growing dominance of self-interest over the greater good, a social deterioration that sociologist Robert Putnam calls “hollowing out” in his 2000 book “Bowling Alone.” One result, as the old saying goes, is that “the rich get richer” and the poor fall ever further behind in crumbling schools.

 

Over the last 25 years, education in general has been taken from ordinary citizens and teachers by politicians, administrators, union leaders, publishers, test makers, consultants, university professors, hardware and software developers and the media, each playing its part in keeping alive the illusion of reform. All in all, this $1-trillion industry has replaced the common interest, and no one, it seems, can muster the will to rein it in.

 

Local control is only a dim memory. Decisions now come from the top—from the federal and state governments, school boards and high-level administrators who have little knowledge of what goes on in the classroom. Teachers are left out of these decisions, carrying on the best they can, safe in the assumption that the newest fad, like those before it, will blow over. Parents are all but forgotten.

 

While command-and-control management may seem to produce results in the short run, it strips schools of the capacity to develop the stable leadership that is necessary to sustain success. Principals are besieged with demands from district offices and from the educational fads that emanate from publishers and university researchers. Many principals know that they put their careers in peril unless they do what their bosses want. One elementary school principal told me, “District directives undermine our own abilities to think for ourselves, to believe in what we see and know.” When schools discover something that works, it is rarely sustained because they lack authority or stable leadership.

 

In 1969 when I worked for the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, I monitored the schools in impoverished Ocean Hill-Brownsville in New York City. The local school board hired a charismatic superintendent, who fired incompetent teachers and hired young and idealistic ones. The firings set the local board at odds with the huge teachers’ union, which demanded due process for the fired teachers. The superintendent, Rhody McCoy, was convinced that good teachers had to respect the children they taught. He put it in plain words: “If you’re convinced that this kid is doomed by nature or by something else to lead a shrunken and curtailed life, then you’re basically incompetent to teach that child.” The experiment worked. Observing classrooms left no doubt in my mind that students were learning. Eager first-graders sat attentively on the floor in semicircles shouting out answers to fraction problems and reading aloud. The schools buzzed with excitement as parent helpers streamed in and out of classrooms. But in a bitter power struggle the board seized authority and the experiment ended.

 

Years later, in 1985, Deborah Meier, a passionate educator who founded Harlem’s Central Park East Secondary School, achieved stunning successes that led the school to be celebrated as a model alternative school in Time magazine. But it could not be sustained beyond Meier’s unique leadership. Today, 10 years after Meier left, a respected children’s advocacy group, Insideschools and Advocates for Children, reports that the Harlem school “…has fallen on hard times in recent years with rapid staff turnover, low staff morale and uneven discipline.”

 

In risk-averse environments like public schools, few principals will stick out their necks, because they don’t want to buck the bosses downtown. Courageous and visionary principals like Rhody McCoy and Deborah Meier keep coming. But charismatic leadership is no match for heavy-handed district management, which always wins out.

 

Take Foshay Learning Center in Los Angeles, for example. In 1989, Howard Lappin took over a failing middle school. With the help of teachers and an infusion of money, Lappin wrested control from the district and transformed Foshay. The school expanded into a K-12 “learning center” and became largely autonomous of the district’s bureaucratic requirements. Teachers and administrators decided who would be hired and what would be taught. Foshay succeeded, and in 2000 its high school was selected by Newsweek as one of the 100 best in America. But in 2001 Lappin retired, and his unique leadership was lost. Today Foshay is being threatened with sanctions by the district and the county because gains in students’ test scores have stalled. As the school has fallen under the district’s “one-size-fits all” bureaucratic requirements, the impact has been to undermine the once vibrant teacher leadership that made the school so enviable.

 

The problem with public education is not with the teachers, or with the children, but the way we organize the schools. Probably the greatest casualties are teachers themselves, who are forced to accept decisions by authorities about teaching that they know to be nonsense. One professor interviewed by Kozol said that forcing an absurdity on teachers teaches something: acquiescence. For example, in study after study, teachers report that relying on test scores as sole marks of student achievement and teaching scripted lessons destroy students’ natural love of learning. And such practices also erode teachers’ professional authority, which is fundamental to student learning.

 

Why is it so hard to foster the only kind of reform that really works, which is right in the schoolhouse? Because politicians, school board members and administrators are under intense pressure to produce immediate results, i.e., higher and higher test scores—a goal that is pursued through directives from districts with little input of principals, teachers and parents. Superintendents serve at the pleasure of school boards, and most board members are elected or appointed and have limited terms of office. As test scores have become the measure of educational quality, everyone is under immense pressure to show fast results or be turned out.

 

No wonder that school boards hire superintendents who promise to deliver quick results. But few do. Superintendents last on average only three or four years. Many are thwarted by outmoded bureaucracies that were designed a century ago using top-down control practiced in American industry to mass-produce learning. Within these organizations, power has quietly accumulated, making them all but impervious to outside influence. Sid Thompson, former superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, told me: “Trying to change the district is like trying to change the direction of a fast-moving freight train. You might knock it off course for a moment, but before you know it it’s rattling right down the tracks again.”

 

Frustration and suspicion about who might emerge from the shadows to sabotage their plans often lead superintendents to jealously guard their power. In 2002, Day Higuchi, then president of United Teachers Los Angeles, the Los Angeles teacher union, had high hopes for working with the school district’s new “can-do” superintendent, Roy Romer. Higuchi hoped that Romer would endorse a new union initiative called Lesson Study, a plan to help teachers work collectively to improve classroom lessons. At a breakfast meeting that I attended, Higuchi presented Romer with an invitation to work with the union to develop and spread Lesson Study across the district. When Higuchi finished, Romer flipped over his paper placemat and with a red felt pen drew a box with an S in it. “That’s me,” he said. Beneath he drew 11 boxes with smaller s’s in them, representing the 11 local superintendents, and below that, a number of small boxes with roofs, representing schools and teachers. Then, pulling his face near to Higuchi’s, he drew bold red arrows pointing downward from the top. Romer jabbed his pen in the air to accentuate each word: “You cannot usurp my authority to manage this district!” It was a dumbfounding moment, one that revealed the true underside of the use of power. Here was a chance for a new superintendent to forge a small but significant step with the union, but Romer, who recently announced his resignation, explained that he was “in a hurry.” He clearly had little time for ideas that were at odds with his own. In the end his refusal to work with the union undermined the possibility of creating a broader base of power that could transcend self-interest.

 

Nor are the unions exempt from self-interest. A few years ago I helped establish a national group of union presidents called TURN (Teacher Union Reform Network) who were dedicated to remaking their unions as forces to improve education. One way was to cooperate with administrators and encourage teachers to use their classroom know-how to redesign teaching at the schoolhouse. But hostility and mistrust run deep. The union leaders became nervous, fearing that fellow unionists would attack them for “collaborating” with the enemy and that if the effort to collaborate failed they would share the blame. Don Watley, president of the New Mexico Federation of Educational Employees, commented: “It’s like the Normandy landing. We’ve got the best troops in the world. We’ve got the best officers in the world. And we’ve got the best equipment in the world. But at 0800 when we hit the beach half of us are going to get killed!” Sadly, in the years to come, the ingrained mistrust, and the unpredictable dance of union politics, prevented these unionists from becoming a positive force in educational reform. Instead, they have been reduced to stockpiling power, much as the Soviets and Americans stockpiled nuclear weapons during the Cold War, to oppose any hostile moves the other side might make.

 

So what can be done to break the standoff between teacher unions and districts? How can teachers’ professional authority be restored? How can parents be awakened and brought back into the fold? Experience shows that it can be done. Schools such as Harlem’s Central Park East Secondary, Los Angeles’ Foshay Learning Center, those in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, and many others attest to the fact that schools can be made into safe places where children learn. Sustaining them is the hard part.

 

There is little doubt that trying to build good schools with command-and-control management doesn’t work. School boards, superintendents and union officials need to clear the obstacles—unnecessary bureaucratic requirements and outmoded work rules—to make innovation at the schoolhouse possible. These top-level educational leaders also must make resources available to support new ways of teaching. Jonathan Kozol has it right. Teaching is the only reform that counts and it can be done only at the schoolhouse by teachers, principals, parents and students working together.

 

Turning school districts upside down will also mean turning a century of top-down management on its head. But where is such bold leadership to be found? One promising place is among big-city mayors. But they must resist trying to take over the schools, as they did in New York, Chicago and Boston with mixed results at best. Instead, popular mayors could use their influence and visibility to tell the truth about the condition of education and to build a popular consensus about how change must occur.

 

In the next essay I am going to examine what mayors can do. Waiting for the schools to be saved by someone else is nonsense. Only concerted local action offers a chance. Doubters should recall Margaret Mead’s observation: “Never doubt that a small group of concerned people can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

 

A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.

Copyright © 2006 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.

 

###

  

The Nissan Bluebird is a well built and reliable car, yet they have become so rare. I suppose corrosion, low values and the fact many were mini-cabbed to death have not helped their survival rates in the UK. I also hear that they are popular with banger racers. This high spec example looks to be well looked after and should survive many more years living in the sheltered streets of South London. Previously spotted by a couple of other Flickr car spotters.

 

Mileage in between MOTs - 1,765 Miles

Mileage at last MOT - 93,509 Miles

Last Ownership Change - 21st December 1999

 

G822 PWV

✓ Taxed

Tax due: 01 September 2018

✓ MOT

Expires: 30 August 2018

  

Can we get to 400?

Stuff about me

1. I'm not revealing my name. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

2. My favorite lego themes are DC and Marvel Superheroes

3. I play the alto sax and bassoon

4. My favorite band is the Beatles

5. DC > Marvel

6. My top ten favorite songs (in no particular order)Return of the Mack by Mark Morrison, Misery by The Beatles Get Lucky by Daft Punk, Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison, Stronger by Kanye West, Somewhere over the Rainbow by Israel Kamamskdhjsjsushdjiausj, Yesterday by The Beatles, Harder Better Faster Stronger by Daft Punk, Billie Jean by Michael Jackson, Cool Patrol by NSP.

7. I watch the Game Grumps frequently.

8. My favorite foods are Hershey kisses, chocolate animal crackers, and cheese rice cakes

9. My favorite villains are mr freeze, two Face, killer Croc, Bane and Joker

10. My favorite heroes are captain America, Batman, and wolverine

11. I'm weak to spices and sour

12. My favorite games include Oregon Trail, PVZ, PVZ Heroes, Crash Bandicoot, New Super Mario Bros, New Super Mario Maker, and both of the L4D games

13. Xbox360> PS3

14. I love quoting spongebob.

15. The Killing Joke and B:TAS are overrated. I love B:TAS, but the Killing Joke is weird

16. My first superhero lego set was the cat woman vs Batman 2012 set

17. What got me into Superheroes was the New Spider-Man Adventures (the Canadian Spider-Man show on MTV)

18. I don't like sports but I enjoy playing basketball

19. I love anything grape flavored

20. I'm weak to red lobster biscuits and kittens

21. I'm a shopaholic

22. I don't like ninjago

23. I never got into Star Wars

24. I don't like anime, but assassination classroom rocks

25. My pet peeves include when people talk over me, when people don't wash their hands after sneezing in their hands or getting them dirty, people sneezing in their hands, people not covering their sneezes, and other germ stuff

26. Andy's chocolate mints ROCK!

27. I wanna see a wolverine movie but instead of his claws he has bacon strips which can regrow and I want him to fight sabretooth who's claws are made of turkey bacon

28. I'm not high

29. I use apple barrel paint

30. I think my first follower was Dave Green so thank you!

31. I love piranhas and angler fish.

32. I'm not vegan or vegetarian

33. According to buzzfeed, my inner potato is tater tots

34. That's me.

This appears to be 3 of trees, but it is in fact one that has split into 3 at its base. Impressive! Seen in the Blue Mountains, Australia. Happy Tree-mendous Tuesday everyone!

 

Having another hectic week. Will try to be more on Flickr by the end of the week.

On Sunday 24th October 2021, a large rail replacement operation took place in the Basingstoke area affecting the services of SWR, GWR and Cross Country. This resulted in a nice variety of vehicles turning up throughout the day - in fact 37 different operators were noted supplying 53 different vehicles!

 

Replacement bus services ran out to Andover, Reading, Winchester and Woking.

7/52

 

I've been experimenting with a wide screen look lately. I found this blog post by Scott Kelby: “Cinematic Style Cropping in Photoshop for a Wide Screen Look" if you are interested! I really like how it worked on this Colorado Fence! I guess I didn't leave behind the snow when I left Chicago! In fact, today there is a winter storm warning in effect for the nearby mountains in San Diego. So ... no sunny, warm beaches for Trina this weekend! But me & Rach will still have a blast playing tourists this weekend! Weather NEVER stops us!

 

She gets off the ship in an hour so I am heading out the door to pick her up. I will do some Flickring tonight for sure, guaranteed ... good thing there is free WIFI in our hotel room!!

 

Happy Fence Friday & Have a Wonderful Weekend My Wonderful Flickr Friends!!

 

This was taken along HWY 160 heading west towards Cortez, Colorado. My gas light came on about 10 miles out *gasp* -- not a good thing since there was only about two cars that passed me on that lonely stretch of road!

I WAS TAGGED! tagged by VintageNerd. Thank you! I've been waiting to be tagged :)

 

View large on black to see detail :)

 

LET'S PLAY FLICKR FAVORITES- If I tagged you, you are all the 10 most awesomest people ever!!

 

I just have to say that I have THE best flickr contacts in the world! if you don't know some of them, then go add them as a contact, cuz I love them :D

 

I'll try to make this interesting :)

 

SO here's 10 facts about me

 

1. I'm a junior in high school, 17 years old (apparently I don't look 17 though- I was told this weekend that I looked twelve- by a 4th grader. How old are you when you're in 4th grade? like 8 or 9? All I gotta say is that she's lucky we were at church, haha :D)

 

2. My pet peeve is when a public restroom doesn't have paper towels and I have to use the dryer (I mean, really. Is it too much to ask that they put paper towels in there?)

 

3. I REFUSE to eat rice. I choked on it when I was like, 2. So none for me.

 

4. I got braces on Dec. 5 2007 and in the 2 years that I have had them, I have never changed the color of my ties...I get teal every time :)

 

5. I would love to go to an art college, possibly Art Institute of Seattle or Northwest College of Art.

 

6. For as long as I can remember, I've always put my right earbud in my left ear- it makes more sense to me (I don't know. I think that's a little odd.)

 

7. I'm half hispanic- my dad was born in Costa Rica and is fully hispanic, and I traveled to Costa Rica with my family for vacation in summer of 2008- I've only recently realized that a month is a LONG time to be in a foreign country.

 

8. I want to do travel photography or some other type of photography, possibly portraiture maybe?

 

9. A movie I never get tired of watching is The Notebook- that and While You Were Sleeping :)

 

10. I would love to eventually meet my fellow Flickrers! :D

 

this is my sister after we wrapped her in Christmas lights :)

Thank you Kyle for tag :D

 

Rules:

✧ Give 10 random facts about your doll

✧ YouTube link of the song that reminds you of that doll. ^^

 

Okay, here are 10 facts about Izaya Orihara :3

✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧

 

•Izaya's parents are unknown, but he have two younger twin sisters and one younger half-brother. So when he was a child he grown up with grandfathers.

 

•He likes to play twisted versions of chess with himself in his room, often using the chessboard as a representation of the battles in his town, giving him the fitting appearance of one who watches over the world and controls people actions.

 

•Izaya is a powerful and skilled underground informant. He usually gives information for his own enjoyment.

 

•He is also a member of the Dollars group. Izaya is the one who anonymously recruited most of their members, sending out invitations saying the Dollars have no rules except that you have to say you are one of them.

 

•Izaya is usually talking about the latest rumors of gangs, urban myths, and otherwise stirring up trouble in online chatrooms while at the same time pretending to be a girl. He even talks like a girl on occasion, especially online where he actually does pretend to be female.

 

•He claims to love humanity, and greatly enjoys putting people in miserable or chaotic situations in order to observe their reactions.

 

•Izaya is cunning and charming but despite this, women are not interested in him and he isn't very interested in women as well.

 

•Although Izaya enjoys conflict, often showing up wherever there is potential for one, he usually stays out of it, preferring to observe the fight instead of directly taking part in it.

 

•Izaya have old enemy, with a strong desire to murder him in the most painful way as possible.

 

•Goal – To create a war!!

✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧

The song that reminds him - www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQolXZR_cI0

 

Hope you will like it (^ｰ^)

Fact of life

TIP: Too many people are trying too hard to be what they not and never will be. Focus on your real life not second life. Do not hide who you are, be proud of it. SL is a place to relax and be creative, bring some fantasies to life, not a place to fake your personality or make up lies just so you can feel better about yourself, trying to glue the missing pieces from your real life in a fantasy world....wont work kids, eventually you`ll get up from the computer and be a person, not a pixel. Get your priorities straight.

Fact!

100 More Facts You Never Wanted To Know About Lee VonCanon...

 

This is quite possibly the only picture of me that I can safely say that I just love!

I haven’t seen any of the Godfathers, American History X, Goodfellas, Reservoir Dogs, Schindler’s List, American Beauty, It’s A Wonderful Life, Terminators 2 and 3 (though I did see the first one last year), Apocalypse Now, Casablanca, Psycho, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Citizen Kane, or Titanic… or pretty much any “classic” movie ever.

I plan on working on that… except Titanic. Not so much on that one.

I have a secret TV crush on Gil Grissom on “CSI”. (William Petersen in real life.)

I also have another secret TV crush on Greg House on “House”. (Hugh Laurie in real life.)

I don’t care what people say; I think House does have a heart.

I also think that he and Cameron are going to get together.

I am addicted to Wikipedia. I couldn’t live without my Wikifixes.

I’m also addicted to PostSecret.

Depending on the situation, I can be incredibly shy when I first meet someone.

I get really excited when the clock turns 11:05, because November 5th is my birthday.

For some reason, I have this deep internal pull to read the classifieds in every newspaper.

I still laugh and (hopefully) always will at sexual innuendos or words like “duty.”

My mom still does, too.

My mom’s hot.

My oldest brother is being deployed to Iraq in late June or early July. When he comes back from his first tour of duty (heh), he’s thinking of going into Ranger school. I worry and cry a lot about him, but I doubt he’ll ever know.

I had my first real, adult conversation with him just last night.

I bought a blue polkadot sundress that ties in the back and I just feel so pretty when I wear it! And I feel like a girly girl, too.

I have recently discovered Regina Spektor and I love, love, love her. Fidelity is my new favorite song.

In addition to her, my recent musical heroes have been John Legend, Jens Lekman, Kings of Convenience, Sigur Ros (always), Seu Jorge (always), Colin Hay, Something for Kate…

I just got the contacts that you can sleep in, so I am so very excited about that.

Baseball season is coming up! Yay! I’m quite happy about that.

The Atlanta Braves are my favorite baseball team and have been since I was a little girl.

I saw a flamenco performance a few weeks ago and have been secretly trying to do it when I’m home alone.

I’m actually going to join a gym (a first) and work out (another first) in a few days.

I’m kind of going on a diet, too. (By far, a first and only.)

I’m giving up Mountain Dew. (Did your heart just sink? Mine, too.)

I call everyone “fatties” but I always forget to explain my personal definition, so a lot of people don’t like me anymore. (Just kidding on that last part.) A fatty is someone who likes to eat or relax or be lazy or whatever. Sitting on the couch and watching Family Guy with a beer and chips is being a fatty. It has nothing to do with actual weight.

I think Family Guy is the most brilliant show and humor that I have ever seen in my life.

I hate flat flavored water. It makes me sick. But carbonated flavored water, I could drink every day for the rest of my life.

Voss water makes the coolest bottles ever. I love their design and have bought something like 5 bottles just to have.

Latinae dico.

I’ve wanted to live in Mexico almost my whole life.

Austin, Texas is very close, too. Oh, how I love food.

I worked on the line in the kitchen at a very nice restaurant and I felt like one of the boys. It was fun, but then I couldn’t afford all the time spent there, so I went back on the floor. I still feel accomplished that I could hang with everyone else, when I can’t cook to save my life.

I do, however, make a mean lasagna, I have recently discovered. Almost as good as my mama’s.

I have decided to learn Spanish. (Anyone wanna help a sister out?)

My favorite lens ever is the 50mm f/1.8, because it’s super cheap and great for low light. But, if I had all the money in the world, I think my new favorite would be the 50mm f/1.4.

I might be coming back to the Canon side of things soon.

My favorite martini is an appletini.

I collect martini glasses.

Of all of the funky designs and colors, my favorite is the simple, plain, classic clear glass.

I have, over the last couple of years, perfected making martinis of all variations.

I have even created several martinis (and other random drinks) that are mighty tasty, if I do say so myself.

My personal favorite is called a Pagan Jesus, in honor of a joke with my best friend.

I have my Buck knife with me at almost all times.

I think blowing your nose is one of the most disgusting things ever. I refuse to do it and suffer through a stuffed up head and nose for as long as it takes to get over.

I haven’t blown my nose in over 10 years. It grosses me out just thinking about it.

I think that the human body is one of the most fascinating, complex, intelligent things ever made and I’m constantly amazed by the little things I discover or learn about it (mostly from watching House, but still…).

Every single different way that people can misspell “tomorrow” drives me a little more insane every day. One M. Two Rs. And there are no As!! Whew. Just had to get that off my chest.

I’m not a “cat person” but my kitten is the coolest freaking thing ever.

My kitten also is best friends with the thigh-high huge boy dog.

She also beats up on the knee-high girl dog sometimes.

I got my first and only sketchbook and set of charcoal pencils recently.

I am not an artist and will freely admit that the only sketches I’ve done, suck.

I get unbelievably (and irrationally) paranoid when there is a car behind me for more than a couple turns. I start mentally weirding out and imagining them just having some freak road rage against me and trying to run me off the road or kill me.

I have the same paranoia (minus the road, keep the rage) with noises around the house. I always think that it’s some random murderer out to get me for some reason.

I love all three of my very, very big, very, very unwelcoming (to others), very, very threatening-looking dogs for both of those reasons.

I can sit and listen to one song on repeat for days on end and not ever get sick of it.

My current few of repeatable playlists, other than Regina Spektor’s “Fidelity” are George Strait’s “The Seashores of Old Mexico,” K-OS’ “The Rain,” and the Finn Brothers’ “Edible Flowers.”

I recently heard about Paul Sanchez (my favorite band member) leaving Cowboy Mouth (my favorite band) and I was so stunned that I just couldn’t talk. It seems trivial to be that big of a deal, but I grew up with this band. Paul was in it for 16 years. I’ve met him and the band multiple times. They were one of the few uniting bonds within my family – we all disagreed and fought sometimes (who doesn’t?) but everyone, regardless of age, musical taste, anything – we all love Cowboy Mouth. My soon-to-be three-year-old sister walks around singing “Voodoo Shoppe.” We are fans. So, that hurt, Paul. You made me sad. But I’ll still see you in concert on your solo tours.

I ramble.

I love picture frames, but I don’t actually use any.

The living room (and eventually the whole house) is covered with unframed, random pictures, wall-to-wall, stuck on with photo stickers. Polaroids, expired film, Holga shots, digital prints, big, little, otherwise. It looks very, very cool.

I drive a green Chevy Malibu.

I really want my brother’s blue Chevy 2500. Uffff. I love it.

I might be buying my first horse next year. I grew up with horses, but this will be the first one that I have gone out and bought.

I think DING! from Southwest is the greatest invention ever.

I think that satellite broadband (thank you, God!), contact lenses, Post-It notes, and autodrafting are tied for a very close second.

I like buying cards for no reason and giving them to the people I love.

The first three days of my period, my lower back absolutely just kills me (and makes me want to kill). Nothing that I can take will stop the pain, so I usually settle for naps.

I can down tequila like it’s water (think “Frida”) but gin gets me after the second drink (think “cheap date”).

I love day planners and organizers (and buying them) but I just never use them after the first week or two.

I wear size 10 in shoes, size 8 in dresses, size 10 in pants.

All natural: 36-28-38

I’m hopefully buying a Hassleblad in a few months.

I think this is beautifully perfect. (Except number 30. That’s just downright wrong.)

I like porn. :)

I am a text messaging badass.

I love getting French pedicures, but I’ve only had maybe 4 in my life. I think they’re continental and sexy.

I love the word continental and I want to be it.

I think Victoria’s Secret’s clothes are better than their lingerie.

I love listening to songs in foreign languages.

I’ve always wanted rooms in my dream house with floor-to-ceiling walls of whiteboard, mirror, chalkboard, magnet, corkboard, aquarium, and so many Polaroids that the wall can’t be seen behind them.

I’ve also always wanted to have the ground be grass and the ceiling be glass and have kind of a greenhouse thing going on. Can’t you see it? You’re excited.

Regarding toilet paper: over, not under.

I have four birthmarks. Two super tiny ones (just a little smaller than a dime) on my thigh and hip, a very light (invisible to everyone but me), but big one on the inside of my left calf, and a dark, very visible, incredibly ugly one on the back of my neck. I despise that one.

Rarely am I self-conscious (I mean very rarely), but I almost always put my hair up (if I do put it up) in a way that will still cover the ugly birthmark on the back of my neck.

I play Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” and Colin Hay’s “I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You” as loud as I can whenever I’m sad.

90% of the time, my first drink of a martini makes me sneeze.

I could sit and watch my dogs fight over ice cubes for hours. It’s the funniest thing in the world to me.

Music (in case you didn’t get that from half of this list!) makes me incredibly happy. If I burn a new CD, it’s like all the problems in life go away.

Having a full tank of gas makes me feel invincible.

I like reconnecting with lost friends.

I also tend to give up on friends that I’ve lost contact with.

Jen is the best girl friend I have ever had in my life. She has stuck with me, unconditionally, since we became friends. And I love her for it.

I want four kids, God willing.

I have the first boy name and the first girl name chosen already.

I am addicted to favoriting pictures on flickr, but I’ve just simply stopped commenting. (I’m sorry…)

I have never been this happy in my life.

 

This is a sequel to this. Hope you enjoy!

Dione moneta occurrs from the southern USA to Peru, Bolivia and northern Argentina.

 

This species is migratory in behaviour so can be found in almost any habitat, and at any altitude from 0-3500 metres. It is most frequent between 1800-2800m and is most often encountered in open sunny areas - these typically include riverbanks, rocky slopes, pastures and roadsides - in fact anywhere where there is an abundance of nectar sources. Both sexes nectar at a wide variety of flowers.

 

www.learnaboutbutterflies.com/Andes - Dione moneta.htm

I have been tagged by :♥~{ 3yooη ßdωia ,, fdeetch anaa =*

a7m a7m bsm allah nbda :

 

1. mn asaiat 7yati flickr,camerti,mobiley,messenger,a'3ani 7lwa =P

2.a7bbbbbb 2kl chocolate or ani thing sweet mthli (a) <-- shklha btn68 alyooooom

3.afkr fee 2shia2 matswa w a7aati waaaaaaajd

4.a7b nass w a3zhm w '3albn fee nhait almshwar y6l3ooon mo kfo 7shmah " allah y3zkm"

5. a7b astans w a7b a'97k dooom 7ta lo kan fe shi m'9ay8ni

6.ktooooomh l2b3d drjah tt5ylooonha bss n86t '93fi sh59 a3zh ayn kan 3la 6ooool a5r kl shi <--- msh5alh t7mlo mnha :p

7.dm3ti '3reeebh 3jeeebh mmkn fee al2w8at ally almfro'9 abki matnzl wla dm3a lkn fee ashia2 bseee6h mmkn a9ee7 w a3ml salfah bdon da3i

w b3d itha shft a7d a3zh w s2lni shfeech ,, anti mt'9ay8h? ,, ma8dr ast7ml w 3la 6oool a9eee7 mo 3shan mt9ay8ah w bs 3shanh 7as feni =(

 

8.3ndi al8drh ani askt wla atklm yooom kaaaaml !!

9.7diiiiii mzajyaaaaaaaaaaaa

10.'3raaaaaaaaami " Hello Kitty"

11.amoooot 3la al.turkish coffee bss 7beetha akthr mn yoom 3rft 2n b3'9 alnass 7booha :p (k)

12.lma knt baby knt haaaaadya w doom ynwkl 78i lool

13.a7bbbb al2lwan to my heart "trkwaaaz"

14.ana a3tbr nfsi mt.tho8a bar3h llsh3r ,, w b3d atm3n wajd fee klmat al2'3ani w 59oo9n a'3ani bo 3bdo

    

mmmmm I choose :

  

ღخـيالـة العـليـاღ

 

♥P♥I♥N♥K♥Y♥Q♥T♥R>>moade3 elrooo7

 

❤ لعيــونها ❤ Fdeet Q6r

 

© S н σ η i ˢ

 

MR.HaMaD ....

 

мя.şά3άđ - مسافر

 

Gimme more \\ <333 { N }

  

ڪيفي آنآ

  

ALexZandra ~

 

ذيبه وراسك اجيبه

 

♥ мs.ѕнσѕнẏ-φтя .,]

 

be.something ~

 

شخص ٍ تمنيته ~ ♥

 

kefee 25trt nass hlkthr loool 3shan m7d yz3l

   

all by me

all rights reserved

Wien 2020 |

Covid-19

Train 725 on the main north line before the earthquake, with DXC 5270 and DC 4398 doing the honours.

 

Little known fact: this overprocessed little number was taken from a helicopter. Not convinced I was using it to its full potential here.

 

Sat 3 May 2014, south of Maungamanu, MNL-NZ

Fun Fact: Enigma, Georgia is frequently noted on lists of unusual place names.

Network Osaka + Humano Urbano Designer Facts.

 

Possible Business Card/Portfolio Cover

 

This poster is possibly the best graphical interpretation of myself that fully reflects my interests and my personality

Cape Town, 27 October 2000