Nearly 80 per cent of Campbell river physician support of the new hospital’s location, size, 95-bed count and $266 million cost, according to the Vancouver Island Health Authority.
In a news release, Dr. Jeff Beselt, Chief of Staff at Campbell River Hospital, reported the outcome of the physicians’ vote to more than 125 community members who attended a North Island Hospitals Project public information meeting held at the Maritime Heritage Centre on Feb. 21. The physicians’ vote took place on Feb. 20.
Claire Moglove, chair of the Comox Strathcona Regional Hospital District board of directors, said the news of the vote outcome was very significant.
“There have been recent media reports suggesting that the doctors were not supportive of the process, the number of beds or the site,” Moglove said. “I hope the vote results will now put these issues to rest.”
Moglove was also pleased with the public meeting, particularly the time allotted for questions from the audience. The meeting carried on well past 9 p.m. so that chief project officer Tom Sparrow and Dr. Beselt could answer any and all the questions.
“This was an excellent opportunity for the public to hear and see details about the new hospital, including that it will be 69 per cent larger than the existing hospital and the emergency department will be three times larger,” said Moglove. “There will be four operating rooms, there will be a Centre for Excellence for Aboriginal Maternity, all patient rooms will be single-patient occupancy and there will be a residency agreement with the UBC/UVic Island Medical Program.”
Among the concerns raised was the pending loss of autopsy services. At the meeting, Beselt explained that after extensive review, the Clinical Leadership Steering Committee – made up of clinicians from VIHA, the Campbell River Hospital and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Comox, – agreed that consolidating autopsy services at the new Comox Valley Hospital would be more efficient.
“It will also free up additional space in the new Campbell River Hospital to perform thousands of additional procedures for local residents,” said Beselt.
A new project website is currently under development which will feature Facebook and Twitter links.
Web cams will be installed at both Campbell River and Comox Valley sites to enable real-time viewing of hospital construction.
“We will continue to provide new communication channels to both engage and inform the public,” said Toni O’Keeffe, VIHA’s Vice President of Communications and Public Relations. “This will include regular updates on the project, a newsletter, local media and quarterly public meetings.”
Commenting on the physicians’ vote, O’Keeffe said consultations will continue with all physicians.
“We’re pleased that this important group of stakeholders is having these discussions,” she said. “We look forward to continuing to work with all Campbell River physicians.”
Chief Project Officer Tom Sparrow said the North Island Hospitals Project is picking up speed as a myriad of elements are falling into place. He’s eager to keep spreading the message through public meetings as well as continued meetings with local government, the Comox Strathcona Regional Hospital District, Aboriginal leaders, chambers of commerce, the school districts and many more.
In 1974, Marc Schupan took a leave from his job as a high school government teacher and coach to sort out his future. He thought about law school. Or maybe college coaching.
First, he planned to spend a year helping with his family's modest Kalamazoo scrap metal operation. But just a few weeks into the job, his father, Nelson, died of a stroke at age 53. Schupan hasn’t looked back since.
What was then the Konisberg Co. is now Schupan & Sons. The firm that ran on two trucks and six employees now employs some 400, 172 in Kalamazoo alone. It has 10 facilities in four Midwest states and encompasses divisions in industrial recycling, beverage container recycling and aluminum and plastic fabrication and sales.
As successful as he’s been in business, Schupan, 64, has left a deeper imprint far beyond the bottom line. He is a tireless advocate for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kalamazoo. He pays for new shoes for disadvantaged elementary students. He donated $10,000 to keep afloat a summer swimming instruction program for area youth.
The Michigan State University graduate even managed to impress friend and MSU basketball coach Tom Izzo, who respects the example Schupan sets for giving back. Izzo was featured speaker in Kalamazoo in 2012 at the Big Brothers Big Sisters annual benefit dinner.
“He's a giver more than a taker, a giver without wanting anything back,” Izzo said. “He doesn't want the publicity. He just wants to help people.”
They got to know each over the years, in part, through Schupan's attendance at an annual golf fundraiser in Iron Mountain organized by Izzo and fellow Iron Mountain High School classmate Steve Mariucci, a former coach of the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers. The friendship deepened following the death of Schupan's son, Seth, in a 2002 automobile accident.
Indeed, to Schupan, there is no line between success in business and community commitment. It boils down to treating people right.
He is fond of repeating a saying from a 1941 calendar: “'There is nothing nearly so clever as honesty and sincerity.' There is a difference between being fair and tough. You can be tough as long as you are fair.”
His firm is known for flexibility in employee personal time, holiday bonuses and free turkeys for employees at Thanksgiving. Workers receive $75 a month to defray the cost of commuting and $60 a year for footwear. They get a paid day off each year so they can volunteer at a charity of their choice.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Creating A Hot Spot
Austin's dining scene is experiencing a burst of evolution and it's hard to throw a rock these days without hitting a trendy restaurant brought to downtown by McGuire Moorman Hospitality. With a team of talented people and Chef/Entrepreneur Larry McGuire at the helm, they're on a streak of buzzing successes that have become known for their alluring atmosphere as much as the food. Even when not every plate is perfect, it's fun to be there and their signature style has seemingly cracked the code on creating an "it" factor, thanks in large part to the vision realized through F?DA Studio.
Since Lamberts opened in 2007, F?DA has been the go-to design shop for the branding and identity on all of their projects and the only agency to work on everything from Perla's to Elizabeth Street to Jeffrey's. It's a small shop, headed by Founder/Creative Director Jett Butler, who has a degree in Architecture and taught a design class for the Art and Art History department at UT. His trademark aesthetic is born of "decadent minimalism," a-tongue-and-cheek reference to an affinity for bold visuals in restrained proportion, which is evident throughout the McGuire projects. Their clients also typically benefit from his architectural background, with respect to his regard for contextual, topographic and ethnographic research and ability to translate brands into spaces.
At Jeffrey's, for example, the newly renovated Austin landmark, the team walked around Clarksville to collect artifacts old and new and get décor ideas from the specific nature and scenery of the neighborhood. Select items are subtly woven throughout the restaurant to bring in the landscape and pay tribute to the restaurant's history. Throughout the identity they use stippling, an inherently old school and time consuming print, providing a quaint graphic as well as a nod to the popular styles of the 1970s when Jeffrey's was opened originally.
At Perla's and Clark's seafood restaurants, clever details like a sprinkling of casual language such as the word 'ahoy!' provide an undercurrent of jovial informality to the champagne and oyster bars. Colorful, salt-water aquariums, as well as the latitude/longitude address that appears on the Clark's awning and unexpectedly buried in the menu, up the charm factor. Pretty, bold yacht club-style stripes alternate with stark-white interiors and, at both places, script logos based on a font F?DA created from Butler's handwriting are a whisper in the black and white hexagonal floor tiles. Each detail comes together with a modish, intimate feel and similarity that makes it easy to tell they are part of the same family.
At French Vietnamese café Elizabeth Street, the matchbooks come in multiple variations, as do the tiny to-go menus, and take on a collectible quality with beautiful colors and striking patterns. Macarons in delicious, unique flavors like candied lemon poppy mesh well with the kitschy custom designed condiment bottles that sit atop each table. Bright pink and blue décor makes the interior vivid, charming and lively. Custom Indie playlists and adorable uniforms, like flattering print wrap dresses, are fashioned by a one-time manager from Lamberts, who works in tandem with the group on all of the projects.
Essentially, nothing about the brand or flow is an accident and the development process is similar each time: McGuire gives amusingly ambiguous initial direction and remains heavily involved and passionate about the every detail of experience. Elizabeth Street, for example, was "Hanoi 1920" and "Grandma Chic." Lamberts was "Fancy BBQ," and Perla's at one point, "Martha's Vineyard meets Cabo San Lucas."
He isn't afraid to be direct or brutally honest and the process is no cakewalk but over time the relationship between the creative forces has become increasingly symbiotic. "We have built a good dynamic now...I no longer have to power pose before we meet," Butler joked.
With this kind polished result, brainy approach and expertise in creating elements of surprise it's no wonder F?DA's work is becoming ever more easy to spot: they did the branding and identity for new hot spot Sway, with geometric patterned coasters so pretty they could be framed and hung on the wall. Recently they also designed a bunch of collateral for TEDxAustin creating multiple program versions - one with only words and the other with only images - intended to ignite dialogue between the lucky attendees.
Their trademark style involves an undercurrent of wit and fierce thoughtfulness. Individually perhaps minute, together these particulars artfully make brands shine, bring joy to the experience and engender the power of smart design.
“We want people to pick something out that fits their lifestyle and is something that they are going to like five to 10 years from now,” she said. “Many customers enjoy a custom vanity cabinet, as opposed to one you can purchase in the store, and most of the time it will cost them the same.”
Gannon said walk-in showers are very popular because they reduce the need for a curtain or door. Oversized soaking tubs are also a hit, because they come in a variety of sizes and styles to fit most floor plans.
Gannon said a more traditional and neutral color scheme is always going to be the most popular. Flooring and tile should contrast with your cabinets to allow the room to look bigger and the cabinets to stand out.
“We recommend going one to two shades lighter or darker, or something accenting,” she said. “For example, pulling the same glass tile from your shower into the flooring is going to be an accent. Subway tile, which are horizontal rectangular tiles that have been offset, is extremely popular.”
Whether you choose smaller subway tiles for a backsplash or larger ones for a shower, it’s very sleek looking and timeless, she said.
Glass tiles are also very popular, and even though they are trendy right now, they too can be timeless. Gannon said you can use glass tile anywhere, from your tile flooring, to a shower floor, to a backsplash behind the sink, to accents in the shower or surrounding the tub — and the glass tile comes in a plethora of styles, colors, shapes and sizes.
“Also, using vertical lines with tile is very popular right now,” she said. “Plus it will make the ceilings appear 10 times higher.”
There is also a variety of faucet and lighting fixtures to enhance the mood of your bathroom. Canned lighting with something decorative over the sink is a good option, Gannon said.
When choosing a counter top, Gannon said, most people go with granite. A virtually endless number of styles and colors are available, and you can always add decorative touches to your edging. Granite currently costs less than quartz, she said.
If your bathroom is small, Gannon said, no need to worry. Everything plays into making a small bathroom appear to have more space and warmth. Paint is key. Light colors open up a room. Darker ones close it, so a nice neutral on the wall with a crisp white ceiling will expand the ceiling and make the whole room appear larger.
“Lighting is what will make the room more inviting, exciting and larger,” she said. “Most small baths only have vanity lighting. An easy and inexpensive light option is adding can lighting. For an easier option, add a wall sconce or a lamp to the vanity. Also, put brighter lights into the vanity lighting.”
Since Lamberts opened in 2007, F?DA has been the go-to design shop for the branding and identity on all of their projects and the only agency to work on everything from Perla's to Elizabeth Street to Jeffrey's. It's a small shop, headed by Founder/Creative Director Jett Butler, who has a degree in Architecture and taught a design class for the Art and Art History department at UT. His trademark aesthetic is born of "decadent minimalism," a-tongue-and-cheek reference to an affinity for bold visuals in restrained proportion, which is evident throughout the McGuire projects. Their clients also typically benefit from his architectural background, with respect to his regard for contextual, topographic and ethnographic research and ability to translate brands into spaces.
At Jeffrey's, for example, the newly renovated Austin landmark, the team walked around Clarksville to collect artifacts old and new and get décor ideas from the specific nature and scenery of the neighborhood. Select items are subtly woven throughout the restaurant to bring in the landscape and pay tribute to the restaurant's history. Throughout the identity they use stippling, an inherently old school and time consuming print, providing a quaint graphic as well as a nod to the popular styles of the 1970s when Jeffrey's was opened originally.
At Perla's and Clark's seafood restaurants, clever details like a sprinkling of casual language such as the word 'ahoy!' provide an undercurrent of jovial informality to the champagne and oyster bars. Colorful, salt-water aquariums, as well as the latitude/longitude address that appears on the Clark's awning and unexpectedly buried in the menu, up the charm factor. Pretty, bold yacht club-style stripes alternate with stark-white interiors and, at both places, script logos based on a font F?DA created from Butler's handwriting are a whisper in the black and white hexagonal floor tiles. Each detail comes together with a modish, intimate feel and similarity that makes it easy to tell they are part of the same family.
At French Vietnamese café Elizabeth Street, the matchbooks come in multiple variations, as do the tiny to-go menus, and take on a collectible quality with beautiful colors and striking patterns. Macarons in delicious, unique flavors like candied lemon poppy mesh well with the kitschy custom designed condiment bottles that sit atop each table. Bright pink and blue décor makes the interior vivid, charming and lively. Custom Indie playlists and adorable uniforms, like flattering print wrap dresses, are fashioned by a one-time manager from Lamberts, who works in tandem with the group on all of the projects.
Essentially, nothing about the brand or flow is an accident and the development process is similar each time: McGuire gives amusingly ambiguous initial direction and remains heavily involved and passionate about the every detail of experience. Elizabeth Street, for example, was "Hanoi 1920" and "Grandma Chic." Lamberts was "Fancy BBQ," and Perla's at one point, "Martha's Vineyard meets Cabo San Lucas."
He isn't afraid to be direct or brutally honest and the process is no cakewalk but over time the relationship between the creative forces has become increasingly symbiotic. "We have built a good dynamic now...I no longer have to power pose before we meet," Butler joked.
With this kind polished result, brainy approach and expertise in creating elements of surprise it's no wonder F?DA's work is becoming ever more easy to spot: they did the branding and identity for new hot spot Sway, with geometric patterned coasters so pretty they could be framed and hung on the wall. Recently they also designed a bunch of collateral for TEDxAustin creating multiple program versions - one with only words and the other with only images - intended to ignite dialogue between the lucky attendees.
Their trademark style involves an undercurrent of wit and fierce thoughtfulness. Individually perhaps minute, together these particulars artfully make brands shine, bring joy to the experience and engender the power of smart design.
“We want people to pick something out that fits their lifestyle and is something that they are going to like five to 10 years from now,” she said. “Many customers enjoy a custom vanity cabinet, as opposed to one you can purchase in the store, and most of the time it will cost them the same.”
Gannon said walk-in showers are very popular because they reduce the need for a curtain or door. Oversized soaking tubs are also a hit, because they come in a variety of sizes and styles to fit most floor plans.
Gannon said a more traditional and neutral color scheme is always going to be the most popular. Flooring and tile should contrast with your cabinets to allow the room to look bigger and the cabinets to stand out.
“We recommend going one to two shades lighter or darker, or something accenting,” she said. “For example, pulling the same glass tile from your shower into the flooring is going to be an accent. Subway tile, which are horizontal rectangular tiles that have been offset, is extremely popular.”
Whether you choose smaller subway tiles for a backsplash or larger ones for a shower, it’s very sleek looking and timeless, she said.
Glass tiles are also very popular, and even though they are trendy right now, they too can be timeless. Gannon said you can use glass tile anywhere, from your tile flooring, to a shower floor, to a backsplash behind the sink, to accents in the shower or surrounding the tub — and the glass tile comes in a plethora of styles, colors, shapes and sizes.
“Also, using vertical lines with tile is very popular right now,” she said. “Plus it will make the ceilings appear 10 times higher.”
There is also a variety of faucet and lighting fixtures to enhance the mood of your bathroom. Canned lighting with something decorative over the sink is a good option, Gannon said.
When choosing a counter top, Gannon said, most people go with granite. A virtually endless number of styles and colors are available, and you can always add decorative touches to your edging. Granite currently costs less than quartz, she said.
If your bathroom is small, Gannon said, no need to worry. Everything plays into making a small bathroom appear to have more space and warmth. Paint is key. Light colors open up a room. Darker ones close it, so a nice neutral on the wall with a crisp white ceiling will expand the ceiling and make the whole room appear larger.
“Lighting is what will make the room more inviting, exciting and larger,” she said. “Most small baths only have vanity lighting. An easy and inexpensive light option is adding can lighting. For an easier option, add a wall sconce or a lamp to the vanity. Also, put brighter lights into the vanity lighting.”
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Hampton Beach home offers luxurious living, views
This brand new, gambrel-style home on Thornton Street in income-tax-free Hampton, N.H, is impressive, with hardwood floors, a gorgeous custom kitchen and fine architectural details
But the sublime views of the Hampton Harbor inlet and the Atlantic Ocean are what make this a truly amazing home.
Located in the Island Section of Hampton Beach, this four-bedroom oceanfront home embraces its spectacular location, offering panoramic views of the coastline and Atlantic Ocean all the way out to the Isles of Shoals.
Built for luxurious living on the waterfront, this new home has been designed to maximize the awe-inspiring views while offering a spacious and delightful contemporary open concept floor plan with fabulous amenities that include a two-car garage, two oceanfront decks and a covered beachfront patio just steps from the serene sand and surf.
The beach level is well planned with a tile floor, direct entry from the garage and a handy laundry room to capture sandy towels and swim suits. The rear of the beach level offers a heart-stopping oceanfront family room with three glass doors framing the beautiful views. In addition, there is an equally impressive sunny oceanfront bedroom with triple sliding glass doors out to the patio. A well-appointed bath with handsome vanity, granite top and marble tile floor is a great place to shower after a relaxing day on the beach.
The main living level is breathtakingly beautiful. The open floor plan, clean contemporary lines and subtle architectural details perfectly frame the spectacular views. The large custom eat-in kitchen would be a cook’s dream in any home with lovely Shaker-style cabinets, complimenting a curved center island, granite counters and a walk-in pantry, but here the beauty is enhanced by the abundant natural light and magnificent views.
The floor plan is open and enriched by a lovely archway and columns that frame the views and provide a sense of subtle division between the dining and great room. The gleaming natural maple floors add to the visual texture and serene natural tone of the home.
The great room lives up to its name in a big way. The room is a front-row seat on the oceanfront. Standing in the room looking out the multiple glass doors to the waterfront deck, visitors feel as if they are floating above the beach. The room gives the feeling of being able to reach out and touch the shimmering waves and the distant horizon.
The builder has balanced this openness with a substantial gas-log fireplace that adds a sense of warmth and comfort to the spacious room.
Stepping out on the deck is pure pleasure as the salty air, soft rhythm of the surf and panoramic vista create the ultimate sensory experience. The spacious deck has transparent balusters that keep the views unspoiled. It is a great place to entertain, dine under the stars or simple relax and watch the sailboats glide by on the breeze.
The bedroom level offers equally impressive views and a large, sumptuous oceanfront master suite with sliding glass doors to its own private waterfront deck where you can step out and watch the sun come up over the vast horizon.
The large master suite maitains the clean, contemporary feel of the home but adds extra elegant touches and comforts like the tray ceiling and over-sized walk-in closet. The master bath is pure joy with artistic tile work, separate water closet, marble top on the double vanity and an inviting jet tub that would be an indulgence on any day.
The other two bedrooms are bright, spacious and offer excellent closet storage. A lovely full bathroom with marble floors and a linen closet works well for the two bedrooms.
This luxurious four-bedroom, four-bath home has it all. There is efficient, multi-zone natural gas heat, central air conditioning, central vacuum, security system and public water and sewer. Hampton is prized for its coastline and beaches and this home offers the best of both, but also in a convenient location. The two-car garage and additional parking spots are an uncommon find in the quiet beach neighborhood that is just minutes from major highways and commuter routes, including Routes 95 and 101.
Marketed by Steve Fisichelli of the The Fisichelli Team at $1,495,000, this is a rare opportunity to own a spectacular brand new oceanfront home in the well-established Island Section of Hampton Beach This is a property that must be experienced in person to fully appreciate the magnificence of the location and how its wonderful design complements the natural beauty of the harbor front.
But the sublime views of the Hampton Harbor inlet and the Atlantic Ocean are what make this a truly amazing home.
Located in the Island Section of Hampton Beach, this four-bedroom oceanfront home embraces its spectacular location, offering panoramic views of the coastline and Atlantic Ocean all the way out to the Isles of Shoals.
Built for luxurious living on the waterfront, this new home has been designed to maximize the awe-inspiring views while offering a spacious and delightful contemporary open concept floor plan with fabulous amenities that include a two-car garage, two oceanfront decks and a covered beachfront patio just steps from the serene sand and surf.
The beach level is well planned with a tile floor, direct entry from the garage and a handy laundry room to capture sandy towels and swim suits. The rear of the beach level offers a heart-stopping oceanfront family room with three glass doors framing the beautiful views. In addition, there is an equally impressive sunny oceanfront bedroom with triple sliding glass doors out to the patio. A well-appointed bath with handsome vanity, granite top and marble tile floor is a great place to shower after a relaxing day on the beach.
The main living level is breathtakingly beautiful. The open floor plan, clean contemporary lines and subtle architectural details perfectly frame the spectacular views. The large custom eat-in kitchen would be a cook’s dream in any home with lovely Shaker-style cabinets, complimenting a curved center island, granite counters and a walk-in pantry, but here the beauty is enhanced by the abundant natural light and magnificent views.
The floor plan is open and enriched by a lovely archway and columns that frame the views and provide a sense of subtle division between the dining and great room. The gleaming natural maple floors add to the visual texture and serene natural tone of the home.
The great room lives up to its name in a big way. The room is a front-row seat on the oceanfront. Standing in the room looking out the multiple glass doors to the waterfront deck, visitors feel as if they are floating above the beach. The room gives the feeling of being able to reach out and touch the shimmering waves and the distant horizon.
The builder has balanced this openness with a substantial gas-log fireplace that adds a sense of warmth and comfort to the spacious room.
Stepping out on the deck is pure pleasure as the salty air, soft rhythm of the surf and panoramic vista create the ultimate sensory experience. The spacious deck has transparent balusters that keep the views unspoiled. It is a great place to entertain, dine under the stars or simple relax and watch the sailboats glide by on the breeze.
The bedroom level offers equally impressive views and a large, sumptuous oceanfront master suite with sliding glass doors to its own private waterfront deck where you can step out and watch the sun come up over the vast horizon.
The large master suite maitains the clean, contemporary feel of the home but adds extra elegant touches and comforts like the tray ceiling and over-sized walk-in closet. The master bath is pure joy with artistic tile work, separate water closet, marble top on the double vanity and an inviting jet tub that would be an indulgence on any day.
The other two bedrooms are bright, spacious and offer excellent closet storage. A lovely full bathroom with marble floors and a linen closet works well for the two bedrooms.
This luxurious four-bedroom, four-bath home has it all. There is efficient, multi-zone natural gas heat, central air conditioning, central vacuum, security system and public water and sewer. Hampton is prized for its coastline and beaches and this home offers the best of both, but also in a convenient location. The two-car garage and additional parking spots are an uncommon find in the quiet beach neighborhood that is just minutes from major highways and commuter routes, including Routes 95 and 101.
Marketed by Steve Fisichelli of the The Fisichelli Team at $1,495,000, this is a rare opportunity to own a spectacular brand new oceanfront home in the well-established Island Section of Hampton Beach This is a property that must be experienced in person to fully appreciate the magnificence of the location and how its wonderful design complements the natural beauty of the harbor front.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Apps giving taxi drivers, consumers a lift
“Those are the killers,” said Arnold Julce, 55, a taxi driver. “To make money, you need to have paying passengers in the cab.”
Julce has driven a cab in Boston for 24 years. So when he heard of an app that would let customers order a taxi on a smart phone, he listened. It was free to drivers.
The app was Hailo, originally developed by a London cabdriver. Hailo began recruiting drivers in Boston in October 2012. A similar app is Uber, developed initially by a San Francisco company for smart phone users to order a limo. Uber introduced its taxi option in Boston in September 2012. Some drivers use both.
The apps show registered drivers the location of customers requesting a cab. When a driver accepts an order, the customer can view a picture of the driver and follow the progress of the taxi toward the pickup location on a GPS display. To accept a job, the driver must be no more than five minutes away.
Both apps guarantee that once a driver accepts a job, no other driver can take it. According to Pierre Duchemin, 55, this is a huge improvement over radio dispatch, which may give out an open call, simply broadcasting the location where a customer is waiting. If another driver gets there first, others can lose the job, a waste of time and gas. That doesn’t happen with the apps.
And they do. Julce gets 3-4 rides a day. It would be more, he said, but he can’t accept a new job when he currently has a customer in the cab. Duchemin uses the apps 3-4 hours per shift. According to Andre-Michel Colas, a 20-year veteran of the Boston streets, the vacancy rate in his taxi has decreased 5-10 percent since adopting Hailo. Recently, Colas became a driver-partner to Hailo, providing training and 24/7 support to drivers using the app.
“Under the old system, both customer and driver suffered,” said Colas. “The customer would call, and radio dispatch wouldn’t even answer the phone. Or the customer would have to wait 30 minutes.” In Boston, the problem is chronic in Forest Hills and other parts of Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, West Roxbury and Dorchester, Colas said.
According to Vanessa Kafka, general manager of Hailo Boston, vacancies plague the taxi industry all over the world.
“In London, with arguably the best taxi service in the world, cabs are vacant 60 percent of the time,” Kafka said. “In New York it is 40 percent.” In Boston, cabs are empty 25 to 50 percent of the time, according to a recent survey by Hailo. Meanwhile, riders everywhere complain to city officials that they can’t get a cab.
According to Kafka, because most people using taxis are in the central city, taxis concentrate there, cruising the streets and competing for the same rides. Then when people in outlying areas call radio dispatch, there are no cabs available. From the driver point of view, the smart phone app goes right to the heart of that problem.
“By being able to see the location of people who need cabs, a driver would not have to cruise the central city, but could potentially pick up steady work in an area such as Dorchester,” said Colas. “Having available cabs could conceivably contribute to quality of life in those neighborhoods.”
Leatherhead had the ball in Folkestone's net after 20 minutes, but the goal was disallowed after the referee's assistant incorrectly flagged Kev Terry for offside while intercepting a back pass.
Worse was to follow as Folkestone took the lead after 31 minutes after an awful mix up in the Leatherhead defence.
Chris Boulter received the ball from Neil Jenkins and then sent a square ball into an empty space. Richard Atkins gratefully intercepted before shooting low past Young.
Atkins almost added another a minute later – heading inches wide of the post – before Stevenson was shown a straight red card for his dangerous tackle on Smart.
Tanners failed to utilise their one-man advantage as they conceded a penalty after 39 minutes.
Johan Ter Horst played a ball into the box from the right which hit the top of Jenkins' arm.
Jenkins protested his innocence, but the Leatherhead defender's pleas fell on deaf ears as the referee pointed to the penalty spot and Smith stepped forward to strike the spot kick firmly down the middle.
In the second half Folkestone were content to sit back with their two-goal cushion, allowing Leatherhead time and space in the middle to run with the ball.
But time and again play broke down as the visitors were caught out by an efficient and effective offside trap.
And the Tanners could have fallen further behind when Frankie Chappell and Atkins both went close late on, while Ryan Flack saw his effort ruled out for offside.
Julce has driven a cab in Boston for 24 years. So when he heard of an app that would let customers order a taxi on a smart phone, he listened. It was free to drivers.
The app was Hailo, originally developed by a London cabdriver. Hailo began recruiting drivers in Boston in October 2012. A similar app is Uber, developed initially by a San Francisco company for smart phone users to order a limo. Uber introduced its taxi option in Boston in September 2012. Some drivers use both.
The apps show registered drivers the location of customers requesting a cab. When a driver accepts an order, the customer can view a picture of the driver and follow the progress of the taxi toward the pickup location on a GPS display. To accept a job, the driver must be no more than five minutes away.
Both apps guarantee that once a driver accepts a job, no other driver can take it. According to Pierre Duchemin, 55, this is a huge improvement over radio dispatch, which may give out an open call, simply broadcasting the location where a customer is waiting. If another driver gets there first, others can lose the job, a waste of time and gas. That doesn’t happen with the apps.
And they do. Julce gets 3-4 rides a day. It would be more, he said, but he can’t accept a new job when he currently has a customer in the cab. Duchemin uses the apps 3-4 hours per shift. According to Andre-Michel Colas, a 20-year veteran of the Boston streets, the vacancy rate in his taxi has decreased 5-10 percent since adopting Hailo. Recently, Colas became a driver-partner to Hailo, providing training and 24/7 support to drivers using the app.
“Under the old system, both customer and driver suffered,” said Colas. “The customer would call, and radio dispatch wouldn’t even answer the phone. Or the customer would have to wait 30 minutes.” In Boston, the problem is chronic in Forest Hills and other parts of Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, West Roxbury and Dorchester, Colas said.
According to Vanessa Kafka, general manager of Hailo Boston, vacancies plague the taxi industry all over the world.
“In London, with arguably the best taxi service in the world, cabs are vacant 60 percent of the time,” Kafka said. “In New York it is 40 percent.” In Boston, cabs are empty 25 to 50 percent of the time, according to a recent survey by Hailo. Meanwhile, riders everywhere complain to city officials that they can’t get a cab.
According to Kafka, because most people using taxis are in the central city, taxis concentrate there, cruising the streets and competing for the same rides. Then when people in outlying areas call radio dispatch, there are no cabs available. From the driver point of view, the smart phone app goes right to the heart of that problem.
“By being able to see the location of people who need cabs, a driver would not have to cruise the central city, but could potentially pick up steady work in an area such as Dorchester,” said Colas. “Having available cabs could conceivably contribute to quality of life in those neighborhoods.”
Leatherhead had the ball in Folkestone's net after 20 minutes, but the goal was disallowed after the referee's assistant incorrectly flagged Kev Terry for offside while intercepting a back pass.
Worse was to follow as Folkestone took the lead after 31 minutes after an awful mix up in the Leatherhead defence.
Chris Boulter received the ball from Neil Jenkins and then sent a square ball into an empty space. Richard Atkins gratefully intercepted before shooting low past Young.
Atkins almost added another a minute later – heading inches wide of the post – before Stevenson was shown a straight red card for his dangerous tackle on Smart.
Tanners failed to utilise their one-man advantage as they conceded a penalty after 39 minutes.
Johan Ter Horst played a ball into the box from the right which hit the top of Jenkins' arm.
Jenkins protested his innocence, but the Leatherhead defender's pleas fell on deaf ears as the referee pointed to the penalty spot and Smith stepped forward to strike the spot kick firmly down the middle.
In the second half Folkestone were content to sit back with their two-goal cushion, allowing Leatherhead time and space in the middle to run with the ball.
But time and again play broke down as the visitors were caught out by an efficient and effective offside trap.
And the Tanners could have fallen further behind when Frankie Chappell and Atkins both went close late on, while Ryan Flack saw his effort ruled out for offside.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Beezy Bailey Exhibition at Everard Read
Everard Read is the site of reverie, fantasy and myth as chimeras leap and spin amidst backdrops blooming with colour. Dancing in the Woods is Beezy Bailey’s first solo exhibition in Cape Town in six years and it is a dauntless display of anthropomorphic terrains, baffling sprites and gambolling brush-strokes.
The Risen Tree Dances with the Butterflies, Tree Escape and Township Jazz present trees flailing with human limbs, or are these people? Who flaunt knotted knees, as roots, shoot from their feet. Birdland grants men the wings of birds, birds sprout human legs and grass takes flight upon feathers, drenched in oil. The intrepid paint-work and impressionistic background of this image captures the mood of many other pieces in the exhibition such as Dragonfly Lady and Jitterbug which tease and tear at the boundaries between humans, animals and plant-life.
The abstract nature of this exhibition belies the fact that it is grounded in tangible socioeconomic realities. The majority of the work draws life-breath from Bailey’s 5,000 Tree Landscape Project which the artist initiated with the NGO Greenpop. Ten percent of proceeds from Dancing in the Woods will go towards this scheme, which seeks to spiritually uplift the Cape Flats through the planting of 5,000 trees.
Bailey employs silk-screened images and photographs of the Cape Flats but his flourishing use of paint coupled with the persistence of phantasmal creatures, utterly remodels pre-existing understandings of Township life. The way in which the physicality of the Cape landscape is subjected to the vicissitudes of the artistic process, embodies Greenpop’s drive to imaginatively enrich an area that is crippled by devastating social truths.
The ingenious way in which Bailey responds to destitution and poverty, is surely in keeping with his own contention that, "I am not an illustrator; I release the images that appear before me. Like Picasso, I say that it is not for me to explain the contents of my work; this is for the viewer to do.”
The comparison with Picasso is ostentatious but Bailey’s manipulation of reality is evocative of Picasso’s own statement, “Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.” In Bailey’s case, it is hard to say whether he transmutes prosaic truth into something uncanny or if he begins with the unseemly figures of his dreams and adapts them to commonplace actuality.
The work on show in Portswood Road is also strongly influenced by Bailey’s recent travels to New York where he will be exhibiting in March with musician Dave Matthews, and Alexander Heinrici, who has famously printed for Andy Warhol.
Perhaps it is the test of artistic talent to revivify clichéd material but Bailey’s decision to incorporate scenes from 9/11 smacks of commercialism and may have been prompted by the promise of exhibiting at New York’s eminent Robert Miller Gallery.
In Flat Earth Free Fall, the figures who tumble from burning buildings borrow something from Greek black-figure painting and a little from Khoisan rock-art, hence blurring the divide between America and historic cultures. In its own turn, Midnight on the Town superimposes ancient revelers upon the demolition of the modern urban environment, implying the imperviousness of the ages to 21st century tragedy. While these are thought-provoking takes on familiar material, these scenes are too haggard to benefit from Botox. All in all, the images of New York have the unlucky effect of stressing the kitsch elements of Bailey’s art such his garish use of colour and penchant for butterflies.
It’s a business that is largely driven by sales of state-approved pieces. And Poly Auction, which is ostensibly controlled by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is the general at the vanguard of the action in the booming arts market. It's also a company that is a weather vane for the powerful vested interests that dominate China's booming, and largely state-run economy.
Poly has already become the world’s third-largest auction house since opening its doors in 2005. Christie’s and Sotheby’s, the No. 1 and No. 2 houses respectively, took centuries to rise to the top by relying on a global network of auctions to drive sales.
Poly doesn’t need to scour the globe for buyers because it has more than enough of them at home. According to industry market research outfit Artprice, China overtook both the US and the UK as the world’s largest fine art market, with $4.79 billion in sales in 2011.
“It’s exploding because the Chinese have a lot of money and they want to invest. Global stocks are down and art is the hot new investment,” said Huang, who had racked up a decade’s worth of experience in Taiwanese auction houses before he was handpicked by Poly to set up the Taipei office.
Huang also says the need for cash-rich Chinese to hide earlier, and shadier, “investments” is a major driver of art purchases across the Taiwan Strait. “As China beefs up tracking of bribery, taxes and financial crimes, the Chinese buy fewer houses, cars and jewelry and prefer to pump that money into art. It’s very smart.”
The Beijing-based company has a virtual monopoly in China because foreign houses such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s have only recently been permitted to hold auctions in the country, leaving Poly to dominate smaller local firms.
“If you need to sell an important Chinese vase or painting, then you get a better price discovery at Poly than you get at Christie’s. But you have to remember that a lot of the buying [in China] is artificial,” said Sergey Skaterschikov, founder of Skate’s Art Market Research.
“They’ve set up a fully private museum, which is the equivalent of setting up a captive institutional buyer with very little transparency. In the auction business they call it show bidding,” he added. “Their own captive demand is always available to drive the prices and the volume.”
Show bidding or not, Poly has other ideas about how it has grown to challenge the Western auction houses' hegemony. According to the company website, “The rapid growth of Poly Auction [has] no doubt benefited from the solid foundation and strong support from Poly Group ... [and the] kind solicitudes from leaders of the country and the Party.”
The Risen Tree Dances with the Butterflies, Tree Escape and Township Jazz present trees flailing with human limbs, or are these people? Who flaunt knotted knees, as roots, shoot from their feet. Birdland grants men the wings of birds, birds sprout human legs and grass takes flight upon feathers, drenched in oil. The intrepid paint-work and impressionistic background of this image captures the mood of many other pieces in the exhibition such as Dragonfly Lady and Jitterbug which tease and tear at the boundaries between humans, animals and plant-life.
The abstract nature of this exhibition belies the fact that it is grounded in tangible socioeconomic realities. The majority of the work draws life-breath from Bailey’s 5,000 Tree Landscape Project which the artist initiated with the NGO Greenpop. Ten percent of proceeds from Dancing in the Woods will go towards this scheme, which seeks to spiritually uplift the Cape Flats through the planting of 5,000 trees.
Bailey employs silk-screened images and photographs of the Cape Flats but his flourishing use of paint coupled with the persistence of phantasmal creatures, utterly remodels pre-existing understandings of Township life. The way in which the physicality of the Cape landscape is subjected to the vicissitudes of the artistic process, embodies Greenpop’s drive to imaginatively enrich an area that is crippled by devastating social truths.
The ingenious way in which Bailey responds to destitution and poverty, is surely in keeping with his own contention that, "I am not an illustrator; I release the images that appear before me. Like Picasso, I say that it is not for me to explain the contents of my work; this is for the viewer to do.”
The comparison with Picasso is ostentatious but Bailey’s manipulation of reality is evocative of Picasso’s own statement, “Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.” In Bailey’s case, it is hard to say whether he transmutes prosaic truth into something uncanny or if he begins with the unseemly figures of his dreams and adapts them to commonplace actuality.
The work on show in Portswood Road is also strongly influenced by Bailey’s recent travels to New York where he will be exhibiting in March with musician Dave Matthews, and Alexander Heinrici, who has famously printed for Andy Warhol.
Perhaps it is the test of artistic talent to revivify clichéd material but Bailey’s decision to incorporate scenes from 9/11 smacks of commercialism and may have been prompted by the promise of exhibiting at New York’s eminent Robert Miller Gallery.
In Flat Earth Free Fall, the figures who tumble from burning buildings borrow something from Greek black-figure painting and a little from Khoisan rock-art, hence blurring the divide between America and historic cultures. In its own turn, Midnight on the Town superimposes ancient revelers upon the demolition of the modern urban environment, implying the imperviousness of the ages to 21st century tragedy. While these are thought-provoking takes on familiar material, these scenes are too haggard to benefit from Botox. All in all, the images of New York have the unlucky effect of stressing the kitsch elements of Bailey’s art such his garish use of colour and penchant for butterflies.
It’s a business that is largely driven by sales of state-approved pieces. And Poly Auction, which is ostensibly controlled by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is the general at the vanguard of the action in the booming arts market. It's also a company that is a weather vane for the powerful vested interests that dominate China's booming, and largely state-run economy.
Poly has already become the world’s third-largest auction house since opening its doors in 2005. Christie’s and Sotheby’s, the No. 1 and No. 2 houses respectively, took centuries to rise to the top by relying on a global network of auctions to drive sales.
Poly doesn’t need to scour the globe for buyers because it has more than enough of them at home. According to industry market research outfit Artprice, China overtook both the US and the UK as the world’s largest fine art market, with $4.79 billion in sales in 2011.
“It’s exploding because the Chinese have a lot of money and they want to invest. Global stocks are down and art is the hot new investment,” said Huang, who had racked up a decade’s worth of experience in Taiwanese auction houses before he was handpicked by Poly to set up the Taipei office.
Huang also says the need for cash-rich Chinese to hide earlier, and shadier, “investments” is a major driver of art purchases across the Taiwan Strait. “As China beefs up tracking of bribery, taxes and financial crimes, the Chinese buy fewer houses, cars and jewelry and prefer to pump that money into art. It’s very smart.”
The Beijing-based company has a virtual monopoly in China because foreign houses such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s have only recently been permitted to hold auctions in the country, leaving Poly to dominate smaller local firms.
“If you need to sell an important Chinese vase or painting, then you get a better price discovery at Poly than you get at Christie’s. But you have to remember that a lot of the buying [in China] is artificial,” said Sergey Skaterschikov, founder of Skate’s Art Market Research.
“They’ve set up a fully private museum, which is the equivalent of setting up a captive institutional buyer with very little transparency. In the auction business they call it show bidding,” he added. “Their own captive demand is always available to drive the prices and the volume.”
Show bidding or not, Poly has other ideas about how it has grown to challenge the Western auction houses' hegemony. According to the company website, “The rapid growth of Poly Auction [has] no doubt benefited from the solid foundation and strong support from Poly Group ... [and the] kind solicitudes from leaders of the country and the Party.”
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Militants Attack Office in Pakistan
Militants wearing suicide vests and disguised as policemen attacked the office of a senior political official in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, killing five people, police and hospital officials said.
In Pakistan’s southwest, meanwhile, several thousand Shiite Muslims protested for a second day following a massive bombing targeting the minority sect that killed 84 people. The protesters have refused to bury victims of the attack until authorities take action against the militants who were responsible.
The target of Monday’s attack in the city of Peshawar was the office of the top political official for the Khyber tribal area, a major militant sanctuary in the country. The militants were disguised in the same type of uniform worn by the tribal policemen who protect the compound.
Four militants opened fire on the policemen protecting the compound and managed to get inside, said senior tribal policeman Sajad Hussain. Once inside, three of the attackers detonated their suicide vests, said Hussain. It’s unclear what happened to the fourth attacker.
The bodies of five people killed in the attack have been brought to a local hospital, along with seven others who were wounded, said hospital spokesman Jamil Shah.
The dead included four tribal policemen and one elderly civilian, said police officer Noor Mohammed Khan. The wounded included four tribal policemen and three civilians, he said.
An eyewitness, Shahid Shinwari, said the militants launched the attack when a van carrying prisoners arrived at the office compound. The militants tried to free the prisoners from the van, he said.
The compound is open to members of the public on Mondays, and it was filled with dozens of people who became trapped inside by the attack. Soldiers and police responded to the attack, and the people trapped inside were eventually freed.
Local TV footage showed them walking out of the compound with their hands raised as they were led out of the compound to an area for screening. White smoke from the explosions billowed out of the compound.
In the southwest city of Quetta, over 4,000 men and women staged a protest in an area of the city where a bombing targeting Shiites ripped through a produce market on Saturday. The death toll from the attack rose to 84 on Monday, after three people died from their injuries, said senior police officer Fayaz Saumbal.
Nearly 1,000 others protested in a different part of the city, at the location where a bombing at a billiards hall that also targeted Shiite Muslims killed 86 people in January.
Members of the country’s minority sect have increasingly been targeted by radical Sunni militants who do not consider them to be real Muslims. The most prominent among the attackers has been Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which claimed responsibility for both of the recent bombings in Quetta. Rights groups and members of the Shiite community have accused the government of not doing enough to crack down on the militants.
Many of the attacks have occurred in Baluchistan province, where Quetta is the capital. The province has the largest concentration of Shiites in the country. Many are Hazaras, an ethnic group that migrated from Afghanistan over a century ago.
Azizullah Hazara, the vice chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party, a political group representing Hazaras, threatened Sunday to hold widespread protests unless the government finds those responsible for the most recent attack and arrests them within 48 hours.
Protesters have also demanded the army take over control of Quetta and launch a targeted operation against the militants who have been attacking Shiites.
After the bombing in January that killed 86 people, Shiites camped out in the street for four days alongside the coffins of their loved ones. Eventually the country’s prime minister ordered a shake-up in the regional administration, putting the local governor in charge of the whole province. But the governor has expressed frustration, saying the recent bombing was the result of a failure of the provincial security and intelligence services.
Sometimes a study or some broader body of research emerges that points to this uncontrollable side of life, arguing that something about the way we were born has a bearing on who we are. When doctors find that certain genes or family histories may predispose us to heart disease, it's called medicine. But when scientists argue that the circumstances of our birth—be they genetic, environmental or otherwise—determine our behavior and attitudes, our successes and failures, even our intelligence, that's called determinism. And wherever it appears, controversy attends, raising specters of days when colonialists, eugenicists, public health officials, and political idealists believed they could cure the human condition through manipulation and force.
Understanding those fears helps shed light on the controversy surrounding a recent paper published in the American Economic Review, entitled, “The ‘Out of Africa’ Hypothesis, Human Genetic Diversity, and Comparative Economic Development.” In it, economists Quamrul Ashraf and Oded Galor argue that the economic development of broad human populations correlate with their levels of genetic diversity—which is, in turn, pinned to the distance its inhabitants migrated from Africa thousands of years ago. Reaction in some circles has been swift and vehement.
An article signed by 18 academics in Current Anthropology accuses the researchers of “bad science”—“something false and undesirable” based on “weak data and methods” that “can become a justification for reactionary policy.” The paper attacks everything from its sources of population data to its methods for measuring genetic diversity, but the economists are standing by their methods.
In Pakistan’s southwest, meanwhile, several thousand Shiite Muslims protested for a second day following a massive bombing targeting the minority sect that killed 84 people. The protesters have refused to bury victims of the attack until authorities take action against the militants who were responsible.
The target of Monday’s attack in the city of Peshawar was the office of the top political official for the Khyber tribal area, a major militant sanctuary in the country. The militants were disguised in the same type of uniform worn by the tribal policemen who protect the compound.
Four militants opened fire on the policemen protecting the compound and managed to get inside, said senior tribal policeman Sajad Hussain. Once inside, three of the attackers detonated their suicide vests, said Hussain. It’s unclear what happened to the fourth attacker.
The bodies of five people killed in the attack have been brought to a local hospital, along with seven others who were wounded, said hospital spokesman Jamil Shah.
The dead included four tribal policemen and one elderly civilian, said police officer Noor Mohammed Khan. The wounded included four tribal policemen and three civilians, he said.
An eyewitness, Shahid Shinwari, said the militants launched the attack when a van carrying prisoners arrived at the office compound. The militants tried to free the prisoners from the van, he said.
The compound is open to members of the public on Mondays, and it was filled with dozens of people who became trapped inside by the attack. Soldiers and police responded to the attack, and the people trapped inside were eventually freed.
Local TV footage showed them walking out of the compound with their hands raised as they were led out of the compound to an area for screening. White smoke from the explosions billowed out of the compound.
In the southwest city of Quetta, over 4,000 men and women staged a protest in an area of the city where a bombing targeting Shiites ripped through a produce market on Saturday. The death toll from the attack rose to 84 on Monday, after three people died from their injuries, said senior police officer Fayaz Saumbal.
Nearly 1,000 others protested in a different part of the city, at the location where a bombing at a billiards hall that also targeted Shiite Muslims killed 86 people in January.
Members of the country’s minority sect have increasingly been targeted by radical Sunni militants who do not consider them to be real Muslims. The most prominent among the attackers has been Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which claimed responsibility for both of the recent bombings in Quetta. Rights groups and members of the Shiite community have accused the government of not doing enough to crack down on the militants.
Many of the attacks have occurred in Baluchistan province, where Quetta is the capital. The province has the largest concentration of Shiites in the country. Many are Hazaras, an ethnic group that migrated from Afghanistan over a century ago.
Azizullah Hazara, the vice chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party, a political group representing Hazaras, threatened Sunday to hold widespread protests unless the government finds those responsible for the most recent attack and arrests them within 48 hours.
Protesters have also demanded the army take over control of Quetta and launch a targeted operation against the militants who have been attacking Shiites.
After the bombing in January that killed 86 people, Shiites camped out in the street for four days alongside the coffins of their loved ones. Eventually the country’s prime minister ordered a shake-up in the regional administration, putting the local governor in charge of the whole province. But the governor has expressed frustration, saying the recent bombing was the result of a failure of the provincial security and intelligence services.
Sometimes a study or some broader body of research emerges that points to this uncontrollable side of life, arguing that something about the way we were born has a bearing on who we are. When doctors find that certain genes or family histories may predispose us to heart disease, it's called medicine. But when scientists argue that the circumstances of our birth—be they genetic, environmental or otherwise—determine our behavior and attitudes, our successes and failures, even our intelligence, that's called determinism. And wherever it appears, controversy attends, raising specters of days when colonialists, eugenicists, public health officials, and political idealists believed they could cure the human condition through manipulation and force.
Understanding those fears helps shed light on the controversy surrounding a recent paper published in the American Economic Review, entitled, “The ‘Out of Africa’ Hypothesis, Human Genetic Diversity, and Comparative Economic Development.” In it, economists Quamrul Ashraf and Oded Galor argue that the economic development of broad human populations correlate with their levels of genetic diversity—which is, in turn, pinned to the distance its inhabitants migrated from Africa thousands of years ago. Reaction in some circles has been swift and vehement.
An article signed by 18 academics in Current Anthropology accuses the researchers of “bad science”—“something false and undesirable” based on “weak data and methods” that “can become a justification for reactionary policy.” The paper attacks everything from its sources of population data to its methods for measuring genetic diversity, but the economists are standing by their methods.
Nashville memorial service planned for Mindy McCready
A statement released Monday by Mindy McCready's publicist says a Nashville tribute to the late singer is in the works.
"To complement formal family arrangements, preliminary plans are being made by Mindy's 'friends in music' to organize a memorial in Nashville in the coming days," said the statement from Music City News Media & Marketing. No date or location has been announced.
McCready, known for '90s country singles Ten Thousand Angels and Guys Do It All the Time, apparently shot herself Sunday afternoon on the front porch of her Arkansas home. Her boyfriend, record producer David Wilson, died in a similar fashion in the same place just a month before.
Nashville television reporter Stacy McCloud tweeted Monday afternoon that "close friends of Mindy McCready tell me that her body will be taken to her home state of Florida."
Meanwhile, friends, acquaintances and other entertainers continued to relate their sympathies and memories of the 37-year-old mother of two.
Former labelmate John Rich recalled meeting McCready at the 1996 Academy of Country Music Awards. "She was a bright ball of energy back then. She was all about making great country music," Rich said on The Big D and Bubba syndicated radio show Monday morning. "I do want positive things to be said about her, because I know everybody's talking about all the troubles she had. That's obviously all too real. But there was another side of her I knew, especially back when she was really coming on in country music. She was a ball of fire."
Wynonna Judd tweeted: "This is so sad. It just breaks my heart what addiction continues to take from this life. Addiction is a disease & not a character flaw. When the pain becomes too much, it causes people to want that pain to stop."
Lady Antebellum's Hillary Scott said, "My heart is breaking hearing of the loss of Mindy McCready. Pray for her 2 precious little boys ... may God's peace & protection be on them!"
In his initial interview with the Michigan Employment Development Corporation, Dusty Duistermars was asked why the organization, whose goal is to create jobs by attracting new businesses to the state, should bother hiring him at all.
He couldn’t help but smile at that question.
“Yeah, they asked me, ‘Why should we hire you?’ I told them I’ve been selling Michigan for most of my life,” said Duistermars, a Holland Christian High School and Grand Valley State University graduate who was honored as one of the top 40 up-and-coming economic development professionals in the nation recently.
“I grew up in Holland and my mom, Mary, was the former president of Tulip Time. I used to wear a Dutch costume as a kid at the festival booth,” he added. “And then I got into residential and commercial real estate before landing this job with the MEDC. So, I really have been selling the state of Michigan for a long time.”
Duistermars, 34, is among four business professionals in the state of Michigan younger than 40 named to Development Counselors International’s prestigious list announced last month at the DCI Leadership Summit in Orlando, Fla.
A five-member committee chose the winners from a pool of more than 150 nominees throughout the U.S. The honorees included 26 men and 14 women.
Duistermars, who resides in Holland, was nominated because of his outstanding efforts as MEDC’s site location services manager and helping connect companies to communities around the state during Michigan’s economic recovery.
“It’s very cool,” Duistermars said. “It’s a huge team effort at the MEDC. We get companies to notice our state. Attracting those companies is more of an art than a science sometimes, but I wake up every morning happy to work my butt off so friends of mine can have jobs. I’m busier than I have ever been right now.
“Business is good. We’re heading in the right direction.”
Randy Thelen, president of Lakeshore Advantage, had high praise for Duistermars.
"He's a real go-getter. He has proven himself to be a great asset to the MEDC and certainly a great partner to Lakeshore Advantage," Thelen said.
Since the beginning of fiscal 2012, the MEDC has successfully attracted more than 1,000 jobs and $100 million in capital investment from site selection-led projects, he said.
“I’m going to credit Gov. Snyder for changing that perception (of Michigan as a difficult place to do business) and getting things turned around,” said Duistermars, who taught English at Holland High School for two years before embarking on a real estate career that put him on the path to becoming an economic leader.
"To complement formal family arrangements, preliminary plans are being made by Mindy's 'friends in music' to organize a memorial in Nashville in the coming days," said the statement from Music City News Media & Marketing. No date or location has been announced.
McCready, known for '90s country singles Ten Thousand Angels and Guys Do It All the Time, apparently shot herself Sunday afternoon on the front porch of her Arkansas home. Her boyfriend, record producer David Wilson, died in a similar fashion in the same place just a month before.
Nashville television reporter Stacy McCloud tweeted Monday afternoon that "close friends of Mindy McCready tell me that her body will be taken to her home state of Florida."
Meanwhile, friends, acquaintances and other entertainers continued to relate their sympathies and memories of the 37-year-old mother of two.
Former labelmate John Rich recalled meeting McCready at the 1996 Academy of Country Music Awards. "She was a bright ball of energy back then. She was all about making great country music," Rich said on The Big D and Bubba syndicated radio show Monday morning. "I do want positive things to be said about her, because I know everybody's talking about all the troubles she had. That's obviously all too real. But there was another side of her I knew, especially back when she was really coming on in country music. She was a ball of fire."
Wynonna Judd tweeted: "This is so sad. It just breaks my heart what addiction continues to take from this life. Addiction is a disease & not a character flaw. When the pain becomes too much, it causes people to want that pain to stop."
Lady Antebellum's Hillary Scott said, "My heart is breaking hearing of the loss of Mindy McCready. Pray for her 2 precious little boys ... may God's peace & protection be on them!"
In his initial interview with the Michigan Employment Development Corporation, Dusty Duistermars was asked why the organization, whose goal is to create jobs by attracting new businesses to the state, should bother hiring him at all.
He couldn’t help but smile at that question.
“Yeah, they asked me, ‘Why should we hire you?’ I told them I’ve been selling Michigan for most of my life,” said Duistermars, a Holland Christian High School and Grand Valley State University graduate who was honored as one of the top 40 up-and-coming economic development professionals in the nation recently.
“I grew up in Holland and my mom, Mary, was the former president of Tulip Time. I used to wear a Dutch costume as a kid at the festival booth,” he added. “And then I got into residential and commercial real estate before landing this job with the MEDC. So, I really have been selling the state of Michigan for a long time.”
Duistermars, 34, is among four business professionals in the state of Michigan younger than 40 named to Development Counselors International’s prestigious list announced last month at the DCI Leadership Summit in Orlando, Fla.
A five-member committee chose the winners from a pool of more than 150 nominees throughout the U.S. The honorees included 26 men and 14 women.
Duistermars, who resides in Holland, was nominated because of his outstanding efforts as MEDC’s site location services manager and helping connect companies to communities around the state during Michigan’s economic recovery.
“It’s very cool,” Duistermars said. “It’s a huge team effort at the MEDC. We get companies to notice our state. Attracting those companies is more of an art than a science sometimes, but I wake up every morning happy to work my butt off so friends of mine can have jobs. I’m busier than I have ever been right now.
“Business is good. We’re heading in the right direction.”
Randy Thelen, president of Lakeshore Advantage, had high praise for Duistermars.
"He's a real go-getter. He has proven himself to be a great asset to the MEDC and certainly a great partner to Lakeshore Advantage," Thelen said.
Since the beginning of fiscal 2012, the MEDC has successfully attracted more than 1,000 jobs and $100 million in capital investment from site selection-led projects, he said.
“I’m going to credit Gov. Snyder for changing that perception (of Michigan as a difficult place to do business) and getting things turned around,” said Duistermars, who taught English at Holland High School for two years before embarking on a real estate career that put him on the path to becoming an economic leader.
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