I've been fascinated with video games and computers for as long as I can remember. It was always a treat to get dragged to the mall with my parents because I'd get to play for a few minutes on the Atari 2600. I partially blame Asteroids, the crack cocaine of arcade games, for my low GPA in college which eventually led me to temporarily ditch academics and join the USAF to "see the world." The rest of the blame goes to my passion for all things aviation, and the opportunity to work on work on the truly awesome SR-71 Blackbird sealed the deal.My first computer was a TRS-80 Model 1 that I bought in 1977 when they first came out. At that time you had to order them through a Radio Shack store - Tandy didn't think they'd sell enough to justify stocking them in the retail stores. My favorite game then was the SubLogic Flight Simulator, which was the great Grandaddy of the Microsoft flight sims.While I was in the military, I bought a Commodore 64. From there I moved on up through the PC line, always buying just enough machine to support the latest version of the flight sims. I never really paid much attention to consoles until the Dreamcast came out. I now have an Xbox for my console games, and a 1ghz Celeron with a GeForce4 for graphics. Being married and having a very expensive toy (my airplane) means I don't get to spend a lot of money on the lastest/greatest PC and console hardware.My interests these days are primarily auto racing and flying sims on the PC. I'm too old and slow to do well at the FPS twitchers or fighting games, but I do enjoy online Rainbow 6 or the like now and then, although I had to give up Americas Army due to my complete inability to discern friend from foe. I have the Xbox mostly to play games with my daughter and for the sports games. View Profile
Darkest Of Days Crack
She would lock herself in the bedroom for days, using sex toys and calling up her drug dealers to deliver eight-balls of crack that she would then shove inside cigars and smoke all at once with cannabis.
But as I cobbled together a few weeks and then a few months, I began to feel the faintest bit of trust in myself. Through abstinence and therapy, mindfulness and a sober community, the hopelessness that had seemed so all-consuming began to crack open and let in some light.
In the days that followed her death I felt like a dependent child that was unable to care for myself. I dragged myself through brushing my teeth, dressing, and arranging her funeral; it felt like my heart had stopped along with hers.
Jang, Jurado, and Ali help explain how Koreans, Hispanics, and blacks, in particular, experienced the 1992 riots. All three were young in '92. All were seared by what they saw and heard during the days of violence. All have spent the years since trying to understand the point of view of both their own minority, and those of others and why solid social progress toward reconciliation and rebuilding has remained elusive.
The city has long been at the nation's cultural cutting edge as much in sunny trends as in some of America's darkest moments. In the past half-century, the city's struggle with race reflects the multicultural challenges faced by an increasingly diverse US.
News of the police acquittals sparks four days of violence causing 55 deaths, 2,300-plus injuries, and $1 billion in damage. The beating of white trucker Reginald Denny by black rioters is televised live. National Guard, Army, and Marines are called in.
Many times we want to shine, without the pain and uncertainty of what the hard stuff brings. We long to reflect beauty without the glaring weakness of deep cracks that line our stories and fill us with holes. We want to cover what was broken and scarred, masking the struggles of a past that took us down difficult pathways. And yet, embracing the beauty of the broken is what enables us to live free.
With cracks and crevices that shape its existence, the master craftsman adds his touches, cutting lines through its flawed state, polishing, perfecting, enabling this treasure to most beautifully reflect the rays of the sun. The lines, the crevices, the cracks, are what allow diamonds to reflect the most light.
Deep in our darkness, we think no one sees. But God sees. He knows. And He is building greatness. Rough edges hewn. Raw. Real. Lasting. New things come, from the heat, the pressure, the darkness. All elements of what it takes to bring lasting beauty. The cracks and scars allow us to most beautifully reflect His light.
The winter coats are out, as are the hats, scarves, and mittens. We humans are hoping for lots of sunny days this winter to help keep our spirits lifted through the darkest days of the calendar. All around us, however, the trees in the forest are hoping for just the opposite: the less sunshine, the better.
These cracks usually occur where a tree was previously damaged, either from root or branch dieback or an accident of some kind. Scars from these injuries are weak, and the tree already has some inner decay associated with the injury, making it more susceptible to later damage. When a tree undergoes a fast cooling at sunset, the areas along the edges of existing injuries exist are most likely to crack.
Frost cracks can be many feet long and tend to recur where previous cracks have damaged the tree. Each time the outer wood and bark cool faster than the inner wood, a frost crack can expands a little more. In addition, water can seep directly into a crack, wedging it open with each freeze and thaw.
Frost cracks are usually found on the south side of the trunk, where the winter sun hits the tree directly. They tend to occur on the lower trunk, since that is an area prone to damage and uneven growth. A crack may heal over the summer but then reopen once the sun drops below the horizon on the next chilly winter evening. Especially prone to cracking are trees growing in openings, which do not have the surrounding trees to block some of the harsh sun.
Frost cracks do not themselves kill a tree. They do create an opening for fungi and insects, but the inner decay associated with the previous injury that began the frost crack in the first place is usually the real threat. This can weaken the structural integrity of the tree, making it a target for wind blowdowns.
Frost cracking is not the only winter injury that trees face. Another similar injury is called sunscald, and it occurs in thin-barked trees such as birch, aspen, and beech. Although caused by sudden temperature drops similar to frost cracking, sunscald damages the tree in an entirely different way. Sunshine warms the cells under the bark above the freezing point, causing water in the tree to melt and be absorbed into living cells. A sudden temperature drop can catch these cells off guard, freezing them solid before they can expel the liquid water back into the trunk and branches.
Example: At one point, My Pillow was hours away from shutting down. Lindell owed $30,000 to a company that was the only manufacturer of a specific fabric needed to create a My Pillow. The company gave Lindell a few days to pay, or that was it.
Meanwhile, they seemed to have a little competition. Not the French that Chanute had fired up, but someone on their own side of the Atlantic. Samuel Pierpont Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, had been developing a man-carrying aerodrome since 1896, and on October 7, 1903, it was ready for its first flight. Langley planned to launch the machine by catapulting it from a houseboat, much the same way he launched his unmanned aerodromes. With Charles Manly, the co-designer of the "Great Aerodrome" at the controls, Langley gave the signal to release the machine. The catapult hurled the machine forward, the wings buckled, and the Great Aerodrome sank into the Potomac River. Charles Manly, fortunately, did not.George Spratt visited the Wright at their camp in late October, and found them behind schedule and beset with problems. They finished assembling the Wright Flyer in early November, only to have the propeller shafts crack when they ran it up for the first time. Spratt volunteered to take the shafts back to Dayton, where Charlie Taylor rebuilt them and shipped them back to Kitty Hawk.
Octave Chanute arrived at camp a day after the disappointing run up, bringing news the Langley would attempt another flight before long. To top it off, the weather turned cold a rainy. There was no flying, and Chanute left after a few days.
The Wrights received the new propeller shafts from Dayton on November 20, but found the sprockets would not stay on the shafts. No matter how they tightened the nuts, the sprockets worked themselves loose in minutes. "But the darkest hour comes just before the dawn," wrote Orville. "The next morning, thanks to Arnstein's hard cement, which will fix anything from a stop watch to a threshing machine, we stuck the sprockets so tight I doubt whether they will ever come loose again."
Unfortunately, this was only a momentary triumph. After several run-ups, the Wrights discovered another crack in one of the propeller shafts. Orville took the shafts himself, leaving for Dayton on November 30. Back home, he made two new shafts of rock-hard spring steel and was on his way back to Kitty Hawk by December 9.
Droplets of unshed tearsfall upon keys forgotten and tucked awayin the in the hope of looking backupon better yesterdaysnot bearing the hats we wear to hidebut the ones to simply highlight whats insidetarnished moths, with a buttered fly dreams, of waking up to a clear night skyfalling upwards on these broken butterfly dreamsof restful resurrections from evening napsin the arms of a hope that sings rushing forward in this vacuous springwith little panted baby stepscreeping round a wandered thoughtwondering what newness the heavens have wrought.Ironing out the details day by daymoment by moment each owningunended etudes
For two people who hardly shut up,a conversational departure escapes us at DCA.I don't know if this plant has roots,but we left some seeds between the cracks in the sidewalk.Perhaps you'll always think of me now on your birthday 2ff7e9595c
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