Monty, King of Qualifiers

WHETHER ABOUT THE U.S. OPEN or The Open Championship, there have been several qualifying stories in the last day or so. Some are inspirational. Some are heartbreakers. Normal fare for Open qualifying.One stands out for me, though. If I had a Yonex visor like Colin Montgomerie, I’d tip it to ol’ Monty. He played like a madman to get into the 150th Open Championship at St. Andrews. As Colin said, at his age (46) it may be his last chance to tee it up on the Old Course for an Open.

Montgomerie had a 36-hole qualifier at Sunningdale on Monday. After an opening round of 69, the European Ryder Cup captain needed a low number in the afternoon round to secure one of 10 spots available to a field of 96 European Tour players who had not received automatic berths. The old boy put up an 8-under 62, tying the course record. “My best round of golf in a long time,” Monty said after birdieing five of the last seven holes.

It must feel good to get the magic back, even if just for one round. Not that I would know. It will be Monty’s 21st consecutive appearance in The Open Championship.

U.S. Open Qualifying

Some of the notables who did or didn’t make it into the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

In
Tom Lehman
Davis Love III
Ben Curtis
Brian Davis
Stuart Appleby
David Frost
Erik Compton
Ty Tryon

Out
Justin Rose
Rickie Fowler
Tom Kite
J.B. Holmes
Rocco Mediate
The Haas family
Lee Janzen
Corey Pavin

spending the weekend at giannetti home…


I owe a big “Thank You” to the wonderful Kelly, who runs our shop, and the amazingly talented Kate, who helps us with our merchandising! These lovely ladies gave up their Saturday morning to spend time with me making the shop beautiful for summer.

Kelly and Kate created a beautiful display of vintage pots, bowls and Italian architectural fragments atop one of our 18th Century Swedish tables.

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A bowl filled with Ethiopian brass beads adds a bit of rustic sparkle.
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I love the mottled patina of these old pieces!
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Kate hung our 18th Century framed music sheets on a pair of old pine shutters.
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They make a beautiful backdrop for this vignette in the center of the store. The mismatched Swedish chairs add so much charm to the table setting!
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The neutral colors throughout the store create a calm atmosphere.
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Next to Kelly’s desk, a beautiful Louis Philipe mirror is hung above a Swedish pine cabinet.
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Old leather books and an 18th Century Italian architectural fragment share space with an weathered leather desk set….
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and some reproduction wood finials.
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I have so many more inspirational images to share with you, but Leila has been as patient as an almost 10 year old can be. So I’m off to take a bike ride before the weekend ends and we  go back to the craziness of Monday!
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To view more of Kate’s work visit her website and blog!

I hope you had a beautiful weekend!

Monty, King of Qualifiers


WHETHER ABOUT THE U.S. OPEN or The Open Championship, there have been several qualifying stories in the last day or so. Some are inspirational. Some are heartbreakers. Normal fare for Open qualifying.

One stands out for me, though. If I had a Yonex visor like Colin Montgomerie, I’d tip it to ol’ Monty. He played like a madman to get into the 150th Open Championship at St. Andrews. As Colin said, at his age (46) it may be his last chance to tee it up on the Old Course for an Open.

Montgomerie had a 36-hole qualifier at Sunningdale on Monday. After an opening round of 69, the European Ryder Cup captain needed a low number in the afternoon round to secure one of 10 spots available to a field of 96 European Tour players who had not received automatic berths. The old boy put up an 8-under 62, tying the course record. “My best round of golf in a long time,” Monty said after birdieing five of the last seven holes.

It must feel good to get the magic back, even if just for one round. Not that I would know. It will be Monty’s 21st consecutive appearance in The Open Championship.

U.S. Open Qualifying

Some of the notables who did or didn’t make it into the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

In
Tom Lehman
Davis Love III
Ben Curtis
Brian Davis
Stuart Appleby
David Frost
Erik Compton
Ty Tryon

Out
Justin Rose
Rickie Fowler
Tom Kite
J.B. Holmes
Rocco Mediate
The Haas family
Lee Janzen
Corey Pavin

A few tips on the various air conditioners available to you

There are three basic varieties of fixed home air conditioning systems: central air conditioners; split air conditioners and room air conditioners – and here are a few tips for you if you’re in the market for one or needing to maintain your current machine.

Central Air Conditioners – this is made up of an indoor unit and an outdoor unit. You can wash or change the air filter in the indoor unit according to its type. Wire filters can be washed, glass fibre filters have to be replaced. You should do this monthly during the hot season in order to maintain maximum performance and air quality.

You should also clean any dust or grease from the fan blades. Lightly oil the fan shaft and any bearings too. If your unit is belt driven make sure that the belt is not worn and that it is neither too tight nor too loose, which means that there should be some give, but that it should not be so free as to slip. Similar to a car’s fan belt. Degrease and cleanse the coil of tubing.

The outside system should be treated in the same way as the inside box, but you ought to also clear any undergrowth or rubbish from around it to permit an unobstructed airflow. If it is in direct sunlight while in operation, put up a lean-to to give it shade and shelter from rain and snow in the winter.

Split Air Conditioning Systems – the outdoor component should be serviced as above, but the indoor air handler is different as there is no fan pushing air through a structure of ducts. At least once a year, take out the internal filter and wash it or clean it according to the manufacturer’s handbook. If you do this often enough, you will not have to clean the coil.

If you miss a few maintenance sessions, wash the coil as above. Service the outside box as above as well.

Room Air Conditioners – take out the grille and clean or replace the filter at least once every summer. Filters can usually be washed three times and then should be replaced. If you fail to do this, you will have to clean the coil, as above, you can use aair conditioning service for this. In the winter, cover the grille with cling film or a tarp, to prevent cold drafts.

Fitting in My Masters in Education

The long term sub position came out of nowhere for me and it was a gift from the heavens. I had been pounding the pavement looking for a teaching job – fresh out of school – and with the end of summer approaching I had resigned myself to substituting here and there while working a part-time job to supplement my income. In the meantime, I decided to use this opportunity to pursue my Masters in Education. I figured while I had this time I might as well use it to further my education and make myself more marketable in terms of getting a job.

I had tossed around the idea of going back to the campus from where I had graduated with my undergraduate teaching degree. It wasn’t long after, however, that I reconsidered and chose instead to go for an online Masters in Education – thereby keeping my schedule open and clear for whatever substitute jobs came my way and allowing me to work in a non-traditional environment (home) at a pace that suited me. I have to say that after just graduating I was not at all anxious to immediately return to the classroom. This was a way to continue my education and not feel like I was back to the commute and back to sitting behind a desk.

It all worked out and thankfully I did chose the online approach to my Masters in Education – because a teacher who was on maternity leave in a nearby district decided not to return this year – opening up a long term substitute job for me. This was a great opportunity and best of all I could continue with my plan of earning my onlineMasters in Education without skipping a beat. All in all, at the end of this year I’ll have some experience and more education under my belt, which will hopefully open doors to a full time job.

Dedicated Server Hosting

If you have web sites which need maximum hard drive, high quality bandwith / month as well as more RAM than you need to a powerful server with a good web hosting solution at highest priority. Your Dedicated Server is something that you have to work on a lot and dont want to deal with downtime thus we offer you with DELL PowerEdge and IBM servers with which cannot be compete at a very fair price.

Host.co.in is a well known and trusted professional web hosting company which offers cheap dedicated server in UK, US and India with more powerful and high-quality hosting network with best care and good support guarantees. We strongly consider you to understand your exact need for dedicated server by analysing your daily web need. Our Dedicated Hosting will provide you with full control over the configuration and administration of your web site, databases and other required features on the server.

At Host.co.in we use the optimization guides to optimize the server and help it run faster which also helps to serve web pages faster, lower the overall CPU load, shorten page load times, and boost overall performance. We Care about your Server Security and Server Uptime. With this concepts in mind we have the ability to maintain your server as well as if needed we will point you in the right direction to buy the hardware you need so you can get yourself a nice.

Our Linux Dedicated Servers come in various flavors including the choices of great operating systems like Red Hat Enterprise, CentOS, Fedora Core and web server control panel choices like cPanel, Plesk. Whereas Windows Dedicated Servers will provide you the technology to run your Microsoft based applications on a reliable server. We provide UK Dedicated Server, US Dedicated Server and Servers in India.

Some providers will calculate the Total Transfer, the measurement of actual data leaving and arriving, measured in bytes. Measurement between providers varies, though it is either the total traffic in, the total traffic out, whichever is the greater or the sum of the two.

One of the reasons for choosing to outsource dedicated servers is the availability of high powered networks from multiple providers. As dedicated server providers utilize massive amounts of bandwidth, they are able to secure lower volume based pricing to include a multi-provider blend of bandwidth. To achieve the same type of network without a multi-provider blend of bandwidth, a large investment in core routers, long term contracts, and expensive monthly bills would need to be in place. The expenses needed to develop a network without a multi-provider blend of bandwidth does not make sense economically for hosting providers.

Many dedicated server providers include a service level agreement based on network uptime. Some dedicated server hosting providers offer a 100% uptime guarantee on their network. By securing multiple vendors for connectivity and using redundant hardware, providers are able to guarantee higher uptimes; usually between 99-100% uptime if they are a higher quality provider. One aspect of higher quality providers is they are most likely to be multi-homed across multiple quality uplink providers, which in turn, provides significant redundancy in the event one goes down in addition to potentially improved routes to destinations.

Bandwidth consumption over the last several years has shifted from a per megabit usage model to a per gigabyte usage model. Bandwidth was traditionally measured in line speed access that included the ability to purchase needed megabits at a given monthly cost. As the shared hosting model developed, the trend towards gigabyte or total bytes transferred, replaced the megabit line speed model so dedicated server providers started offering per gigabyte.

Prominent players in the dedicated server market offer large amounts of bandwidth ranging from 500 gigabytes to 3000 gigabytes using the “overselling” model. It is not uncommon for major players to provide dedicated servers with 1Terabyte (TB) of bandwidth or higher. Usage models based on the byte level measurement usually include a given amount of bandwidth with each server and a price per gigabyte after a certain threshold has been reached. Expect to pay additional fees for bandwidth overage usage. For example, if a dedicated server has been given 3000 gigabytes of bandwidth per month and the customer uses 5000 gigabytes of bandwidth within the billing period, the additional 2000 gigabytes of bandwidth will be invoiced as bandwidth overage. Each provider has a different model for billing. As of yet, no industry standards have been set.

Family Photo: Katherine, Josh and Naleigh’s Saturday Stroll

It was a busy family day out Saturday for Katherine Heigl, Josh Kelley and daughter Naleigh, 18 months.

The trio started their morning at the flea market before heading to lunch, then wrapped up their day with a trip to Target!

The Killers actress and her singer/songwriter husband, 30, are deeply invested in new parenthood at the moment, she says.

“We’re the cliche, typical couple who’s talking about poopie diapers and stuff,” Heigl, 31, laughs.

“We’re always communicating about those more than we probably talk about anything else. I know we’ll eventually chill out.”

Central banks join gold rush

Foreign governments have been getting in on the recent gold rush, driven by continued fears about Europe’s debt crisis and the pace of the global economic recovery.

Those concerns have been propelling the precious metal to record highs over the past 18 months…

Last year, foreign central banks were net buyers of gold for the first time since 1997. India, China and Russia have been the biggest buyers. And more recently, the Philippines and Kazakhstan jumped into the fray with big purchases of the precious metal during the first quarter, according to data released by the World Gold Council Thursday.

What’s behind the buying binge?
Each country has its own unique reasons, but there are a few broad trends that unite them all, said Natalie Dempster, director of government affairs for the World Gold Council.

Like many individual investors, foreign governments prefer to spread their wealth around to decrease their risk… Unlike paper currencies, gold has a tangible value and that value is not dependent on any one country’s economic policies…

As far as public records show, Russia appears to be the largest buyer of gold among central banks so far this year. In the first quarter of 2010, Russia’s central bank increased its gold reserves by 26.6 metric tonnes, or about $1.2 billion at today’s price, according to World Gold Council data. That’s in addition to the 117.63 tonnes that Russia added in 2009. Russia has been adding to its gold reserves steadily for more than three years, partly through buying its own domestic mine production…

China is considered a stealth buyer of gold, said Boris Schlossberg, director of currency research at Global Forex Trading. As the world’s largest producer of the metal, China often buys gold from its own mines and doesn’t report those sales publicly. But in April 2009, China did admit to having added 454 tonnes, or a 76% increase, to its reserves since 2003.

Analysts suspect the country is continuing to buy gold and could in fact, be the world’s largest buyer consistently. It simply doesn’t reveal it’s pro-gold stance proudly, however, because China is also the world’s largest holder of U.S. Treasurys… Announcing an aggressive gold buying spree is not in China’s best interest because [...] it could devalue the U.S. dollar, which would subsequently lessen the worth of the country’s portfolio of U.S. government bonds, Schlossberg said.

Reckless or Responsible? Supremes Halt AZ’s Election-Financing System

arizonaThe order was short, swift, and largely flew under the radar.

But on Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court continued its overhaul of the nation’s campaign-financing laws when it barred officials in Arizona from providing matching funds to candidates for state office who accept public financing. Click here for the NYT article; here for the WaPo article; here for the Arizona Republic article. Click here, also, for the Supreme Court’s one-page order.

Under a 1998 state law, candidates who agree to limit private fund-raising get an initial base of public financing, as well as additional matching funds based on spending by candidates who’ve opted out of the financing program.

In its one-paragraph order, the justices reinstated a trial court injunction that barred those additional payments. The trial court said the payments violated the First Amendment rights of the candidates who opt out of the program.

According to the NYT’s Adam Liptak, the Supreme Court’s stay will probably remain in effect through the state’s primary elections in August and the general election in November.

Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, told the NYT that Tuesday’s order put even more dark clouds over for campaign finance regulation. In January, in the court’s Citizens United case, the justices struck down restrictions on corporate spending on election campaigns.

William R. Maurer, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice, which represents challengers in the Arizona case, cheered Tuesday’s order.

“The Supreme Court’s decision today will allow the 2010 Arizona election to occur without the government placing its thumb on the scale in favor of those politicians who receive government subsidies,” he said in a statement.

But some of the harshest words may have been penned by the folks on the NYT’s editorial board. They wrote:

It seems likely that the Roberts court will use this case to continue its destruction of the laws and systems set up in recent decades to reduce the influence of big money in politics. By the time it is finished, millionaires and corporations will have regained an enormous voice in American politics, at the expense of candidates who have to raise money the old-fashioned way and, ultimately, at the expense of voters.

Canine Good Citizen Test Requirements


You may have heard of the American Kennel Club’s Canine Good Citizenship Program.

For some, it’s a first step toward becoming a therapy dog at hospitals, schools and nursing homes. For others, it’s a basic grounding for competitive activities such as agility. For still others, it’s a way to obtain homeowners’ insurance for homes that contain breeds that insurance companies consider to be high risks.

But for thousands, it’s just a great way to assure that our dogs are obedient, friendly and well behaved in society. Training for the exam is an excellent form of quality time with your dog. And taking the exam can be an exciting time of great pride for both of you.

The American Kennel Club (akc.org) will give you information on when and how to take the exam, and how to find a training class to prepare for it. Many dog clubs offer CGC exams during their annual meetings and shows. 4-H clubs offer children and adults the chance to train for the exam and then take the exam. So do many dog training schools (PetSmart’s training program offers this in many stores).

It’s advisable to take the training class to prepare for the exam, but you don’t have to. So how do you know if you need the training class? What will be asked of your dog during the exam? AKC doesn’t publish the 10 requirements, but I found them at DogChannel.com. Here they are:

  1. Meeting friendly new people: Your dog will be expected to sit or stand calmly  while you stop and speak to a stranger.
  2. A pat on the head: Your dog must sit or stand while a stranger pets it.
  3. A trip to the veterinarian/groomer: Your dog must permit a stranger to brush it and examine its paws and ears.
  4. A walk in the park: Your dog will be asked to walk with you on a loose leash, including turning left, right and around and coming to a stop.
  5. A walk in a crowd: Your dog must show it is at ease while you walk it in a crowd.
  6. Staying put: Your dog must perform a sit and/or down and then remain in place while you walk away from it.
  7. Answering a call: Your dog must come when you command.
  8. Dog to dog: When meeting another dog, your dog must show only casual interest.
  9. Accepting the unexpected. Your dog must not panic when confronted by common distractions, such as a loud noise or a passing jogger.
  10. Dog-sitters welcome: Your dog should behave when a friendly stranger takes its leash and you disappear for three minutes.

It’s fun to try these 10 criteria to see how many your dog could pass today. If you decided to get your dog’s Canine Good Citizen certification, you’ll be able to say, “My dog’s a good dog, and I have the papers to prove it!”

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I LOVE JACKPOTSHEAVEN.COM!