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geckomoon · 4 years

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Yuri!!! on ice as irl skaters (part 1???)

Its 2020 and I miss yoi so here are my personal headcanons about which irl skater the you cast skate &/or act like because why the hell not.

(photos at the bottom of the post because I couldn't get the format to work the way I wanted it to)

Yuri Katsuki ➡️ Boyang Jin (China)/Evgenia Medvedeva (Russia)

Yes, 2 people because PARALLELS.

So my reason for saying Yuri is like Boyang is because, his step sequences are always gorgeous and his jumping power, oofttttt, and that one scene where Yuri tries a jump and lands in the wall, you know the one. Boyang Jin is known for jumping super close to the boards and scaring the hell out of us all, seriously, just watch one of his skates, it's amazing and terrifying. Also Boyang is a bit of a nerd and Yuri is canonicaly pretty into video games, nuff said.

Boyang is a two-time World bronze medalist (2016–2017), the 2018 Four Continents champion, a two-time Four Continents silver medalist (2016, 2019), the 2017 Asian Winter Games silver medalist, and a five-time (2014–2017, 2019) Chinese national champion.

Evgenia however, this is more of a parallel in how her 2018/19 season went and how Yuri kinda flopped. Zhenya had a crappy start to the 18/19 season, she'd just switched coaches and mover halfway across the world, for the 1st time in her senior career she didn't make the gpf. However by the end of the season she had bounced back and won bronze at worlds and my god what a skate that fp was. Remind you of anyone huh???

Evgenia has a lot of medals (and actually made a cameo in the end credits of episode 10) She is a two-time Olympic silver medalist (2018 ladies' singles, 2018 team event), a two-time world champion (2016, 2017), a two-time European champion (2016, 2017), a two-time Grand Prix Final champion (2015, 2016), a two-time Russian national champion (2016, 2017), silver medalist at the 2018 European Figure Skating Championships and bronze medalist at the 2019 World Championships. Also, she is a huge Anime fan and has a sailor moon exhibition program and its adorable.

Victor Nikiforov ➡️ Yuzuru Hanyu (Japan)

I know a lot of people compare Yuri to Yuzu but I think Victor is a better fit.

Yuzuru has a legion of super duper dedicated fans, they are pretty scary at times. If you watch the 2018 Olympics, the ice literally was covered in Pooh bears after his skate. People love this man, and rightly so. Clearly Yuri isn't the only one who loves Victor, he's very popular in the yoi skating world and almost everyone loves and looks up to him.

His skates are almost immaculate every time. Not only is his technique amazing but his artistry is what really sets him apart from other skaters who may have higher bv on jumps etc. Not that he dosent have high bv, seriously he tries combos that are super wierd just for the bv (see the wierd 4t-3a combo thing he does idk). Plus he's dead set on doing a quad axel. See Victor's super high bv with all the quads and also the fact everyone goes nuts over how his skating is 'like no other'.

Also his medal collection is absolutely mad, he is a two-time Olympic champion (2014, 2018), two-time World champion (2014, 2017), four-time Grand Prix Final champion (2013–2016), Four Continents champion (2020) and three times silver medalist (2011, 2013, 2017). Just like how Victor is canonicaly an Olympic champion and 5x world champion and probably many time euros champ.

Also, he's a sweetheart, he literally crawled behind Shoma Uno because he didn't want the attention taken away from Shoma. I love him.

Victor Nikiforov gives big Yuzuru Hanyu energy.

Yuri Plisetsky ➡️ Yulia Lipnitskaya (Russia)/Alexandra Trusova (Russia)

Again, 2 people.

It's canon that Yuri P was modeled after Yulia for the flexibility and artistic portion of his skates so I feel like I don't need to elaborate much in it however his determination and his wanting to back load with quads reminds me a lot of Sasha Trusova.

Sasha only started juniors the year after yoi came out (she had a Makkachin tissue box which was given to her by Evgenia M which is adorable) so she was not really that popular when the show was being made but she really made a statement when she became the 1st woman to land 2 quads in 1 program (4 salchow and 4 toeloop) at the age of 13 at 2018 junior worlds.

She has just started senior and this season she had 5 quads in one program and I think I cried. She now has a quad sal, toe, flip and lutz and is apparently working on a loop. On top of that she can land a 3 axel but has yet to do so in competition. Did I mention SHE'S 15 AND I'M TERRIFIED.

She currently holds the world record for the free skate (166.62 points). She is the 2020 European Bronze Medalist, the 2019 Grand Prix Final bronze medalist, the 2019 Skate Canada champion, the 2019 Rostelecom Cup champion, the 2019 CS Ondrej Nepela champion, the 2019 Russian national silver medalist, and the 2020 Russian national bronze medalist.

Her determination to win and high TES reminds me of Yurio a lot.

Phichit Chulanont ➡️ Nam Nguyen (Canada)

This one is fun.

I love Nam with all my heart, he's actually my favourite male skater and not just because of his skating. However his skating is great. He is the 2014 World Junior champion, 2019 Skate Canada silver medalist, and two-time Canadian national champion (2015, 2019). He has placed as high as fifth at the World Championships, in 2015. He's not the best skater ever, kinda like Phichit but his personality shines through so much when he skates and I love it.

My main comparison to Phichit is the fact that Nam Nguyen is a huge meme. His Instagram is one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen (@ namnamnoodle). I can't explain it with words seriously just go look at it, he makes memes using professionnally taken skating photos of himself and honestly it's just a giggle. He's almost always posting on his story and half the videos he takes end up on fan twitter and everyone freaks out.

Also he's good friends with Evgenia, thought I'd mention that seeing as who I compared her to :)).

Yeah, Phichit and Nam are memes and I adore them both.

Jean-Jacques Leroy ➡️ Nathan Chen (USA)

Jj is definitely more of a technical focused skater. He tends to put all his eggs in the '800000 quads' bucket and isn't as artistic, in my humble opinion.

Just like Nathan surprisingly, though Nate isn't as egotistical (not a dig, just an observation).

Nathan is compared to Yuzu a lot, and had actually scored higher than him a few times in competition. He is an amazing jumper and is the first skater to have landed five types of quadruple jumps in competitions: toe loop, Salchow, loop, flip and Lutz. Currently he is two-time World champion (2018, 2019), a 2018 Winter Olympic bronze medalist in the team event, the 2017 Four Continents champion, three-time Grand Prix Final champion (2017, 2018, 2019), and four-time U.S. national champion (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020).

So yeah, he's good.

However at the 2018 Olympics (he was only 18 at the time) he bombed under pressure in the team event and in the sp, only to come back with a WR free skate, but didn't medal because of his sp score,kinda like how Jj bombed at the GPF. (Ngl, I cried in school when I saw Nate bomb at the Olympics, I was so upset).

Also, Nathan is super smart and is training to be a doctor. Not related to Jj but I thought I would point it out.

Christophe Giacometti➡️ Adam Rippon (USA)/Javier Fernández (Spain)

Chris is a hard one to pin to an irl skater because he's just so... Chris.

The closest comparison I can get is Adam Rippon but dialed up to 11 because Adam is quite a bit more tame than Chris is. However he did have a point in his sp where he literally beckons the judges to him in a way that can only be described as vaguely sexual. Seeing that at the Olympics was an event I'll tell you that.

Adam was the first openly gay man to make a U.S. Winter Olympic team, and the first to win a medal at the Winter Games. (team bronze).

Plus, I'm pretty sure he owned a Chris plushie at one point or another.

However other than the obvious Chrissness, his technique and medal winning achievements most closely match up with Javier Fernández (who may I add is pretty much Yuzuru Hanyu's best friend). He is the 2018 Olympic bronze medalist, a two-time World champion (2015, 2016), a two-time World bronze medalist (2013, 2014), a seven-time European champion (2013–2019), a two-time Grand Prix Final silver medalist (2014, 2015), a three-time Rostelecom Cup champion (2014–2016), a two-time Grand Prix in France champion (2016–2017) and an eight-time Spanish national champion (2010, 2012–2018). Javi is an amazing skater but usually ended up playing 2nd fiddle to Yuzuru on the world stage, but with euros, he literally won 7 times consecutively. Anndddd, he was the flag bearer for Spain at the 2014 Olympics and I still cry about it.

Otabek Altin➡️ Denis Ten (Kazakhstan)/ Matteo Rizzo

So it's canon that Otabek was based on Denis (rip Denis) so like Yuri and Yulia I do not feel like I need to elaborate much as you can read it on the wikia page. But Otabek also reminds me of a less talkative version of Matteo Rizzo. Matteo is the 2019 European bronze medalist, 2018 NHK Trophy bronze medalist, 2019 Winter Universiade champion, and 2018 Italian national champion.

The reason he reminds me of Otabek is that they just joth exude the same level of cool and I can't explain it any further than that. That's it. Just watch him skate and you'll see.

So that's all I have for now because this post got pretty long so if this gets enough attention I'll do a part 2 :)).

#Yuri on ice #Yoi #katsuki yuri #victor nikiforov #yuri plisetsky #phichit chulanont #jean jacques leroy #christophe giacometti #otabek altin

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virtchandmoir · 5 years

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Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir pushed ice dance boundaries throughout exemplary career

September 25, 2019

The announcement was hardly unexpected, so much so that it created little buzz even on figure skating news groups.

After all, no one thought Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir would be extending their extraordinary competitive career after taking another post-Olympic leave from the sport with yet another Olympic ice dance medal (this one a second gold) on their résumé.

And retirement is what they in fact confirmed last week.

Yet there was part of me that hoped they would come back again, especially with this season’s world championships not only in their own country but also in the same city, Montreal, as their training base before the PyeongChang Olympics.

Whether they won another world medal or not in Montreal – and a recommitted Virtue and Moir were very likely to be on the podium, if not atop it – the couple would have been awash in deserved acclaim from the home crowd, as they were in winning their first Olympic title in Vancouver in 2010 with a free dance that left me spellbound then and does the same in every re-viewing.

There will undoubtedly be some celebration of Virtue and Moir’s career as they perform on the Rock the Rink tour that begins Oct. 5 in British Columbia and meanders across Canada (with one stop in Cleveland) for nearly two months, playing mainly smaller arenas in smaller cities.

It would be more fitting if they could play the big stage, the 2020 world meet at the Bell Centre in Montreal. Maybe add them to the lineup for the gala? Skate Canada would say only they will have a role at this season’s worlds.

I had done interviews last year in PyeongChang to write an appreciation for Virtue and Moir after they won two more gold medals, team and individual, but that idea hit the digital dead letter file when the women’s singles event generated an avalanche of storylines.

Now, with the confirmation of their retirement, it’s time to use some of those interviews and the history-making achievements on their record to convey and appreciate their singular excellence.

*By the numbers: Virtue and Moir are one of two teams to win two Olympic ice dance golds, one of two to win three medals (gold-silver-gold; the other team, Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko of the Soviet Union, won bronze-silver-gold.) With two team event medals, silver and gold, Virtue and Moir have a record five Olympic figure skating medals.

In 2010, they were the youngest to win Olympic ice dance gold and the first Olympic dance champions from outside Europe. In 2018, he was the fourth-oldest man, she the third-oldest woman to win ice dance gold. They had competed against their final coaches, Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon, at Skate Canada in … 2006.

*British ice dance team Penny Coomes and Nicholas Buckland used their 2018 Olympic short dance as homage to their compatriots, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, who dazzled the world with their innovative, thematic programs en route to the 1984 Olympic gold medal. Coomes and Buckland see Virtue and Moir’s skating as an extension of what Torvill and Dean had done.

“Torvill and Dean reinvigorated ice dance and took it to a place nobody had ever seen,” Coomes said. “Tessa and Scott have picked up that ball and carried it a little further.”

In the mid-1980s, there were few written rules governing ice dance, so Torvill and Dean revised the unwritten rules about programs that had left the discipline in predictable stasis.

By the time Virtue and Moir began senior international competition in fall 2006, the International Skating Union had implemented a scoring and judging system that codified everything, including ice dance.

Then a big piece of the new rules changed after 2010, with the compulsory dances eliminated. Virtue and Moir simply adapted.

“When the new judging system was introduced, you saw a lot of couples do the same things on the ice,” Coomes said. “Tessa and Scott took the rules and expanded them. Rather than stick in the box, they reached outside the box and grabbed new and innovative ideas.”

Some were in lifts created by Igor Shpilband, one of the coaches who helped them win the 2010 Olympic gold. Others came from their ability to use their surpassing skating skills to create corporeal unison that allowed two bodies to assume the moving shape of one. They were artists and technicians.

Their relationship in performance was so close and complete, especially in romantic programs, that many assumed, incorrectly, they were a couple off the ice as well.

As my colleague Lynn Rutherford wrote during her valedictory to Virtue and Moir: “Skating to the tender music from ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg’ or Gustav Mahler’s haunting ‘Adagietto,’ Virtue and Moir could break your heart as easily as they could spin off perfect twizzles.”

The Mahler-based free dance at the 2010 Olympics, to a piece of his Fifth Symphony, is Virtue and Moir’s transcendent masterpiece. As I wrote that night in the Chicago Tribune, they had an “exquisite interpretation … subtly underscoring the emotional power of the music and still managing eye-catching lifts and pirouettes and a striking final position worthy of ballet.”

As a whole, it was a magnificent exercise in understatement, the brilliance of simplicity, down to the costumes – she in a gossamer, white dress with some sequins from waist to shoulders, he in a white tuxedo shirt and black pants. Even in their most powerful moments of that program, what you remember is not the difficulty of the moves but the positions of their arms and bodies, of two people expressing themselves as one.

Then there was the Latin-themed short dance in 2018, an apparently incompatible mash up of “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Hotel California,” and “Oye Como Va.” Virtue and Moir made it a stunningly seamless integration of the very different music by the Rolling Stones, the Eagles and Santana, performing with so much emotional and physical energy, such sassy body heat and such finesse that their scores would allow them to take gold despite losing the free dance.

“I think Tessa and Scott have such a vast range of body of work, it’s possible for every fan and every skating person to find some program they love,” said Carol Lane, a longtime ice dance coach and Canadian TV commentator. “My favorite thing is a short dance to ‘Tears on My Pillow.’”

Virtue and Moir did that in 2004, when she was 14 years old and he 16, when they were still rising through juniors after seven years skating together.

They would compete together over a span of 21 years, so long that they would have two sets of formidable major rivals at the senior level – Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the United States until 2014; Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron after that. Coincidentally, Virtue and Moir trained in the same rink under the same coaches with first the U.S. team and then the French team while they were competing against each for Olympic and world titles.

The Canadians beat Davis and White for gold in 2010, lost to them in 2014, then beat Papadakis and Cizeron for gold in 2018. The three couples won nine of the past 10 world titles – three by Virtue and Moir, who skated in just five of those 10.

“Think back to Vancouver, the acrobatics they brought, the level of technical difficulty they brought … it was unheard of,” NBC Sports analyst and 2006 Olympic ice dance silver medalist Tanith White said. “Now [the 2018 Olympics] to see them incorporate back in the element of dance – it sounds silly, to put dance in ice dance – to bring in that musicality, that flexibility in their movement. That truly set it apart from anything anyone else is doing.”

*It only seems that Virtue and Moir rolled easily from one triumph to another during their careers.

Their move from Canada and Canadian coaches to suburban Detroit to train with demanding Russian émigrés Shpilband and Marina Zoueva in summer 2004 was fraught with teenage angst (she was 15, he 17) in an atmosphere Moir would describe as cold in a 2015 TED talk. From 2008 through 2010, Virtue battled compartment syndrome that would require surgery in each of those years and severely curtained her training immediately before their first Olympics.

And then there was the comeback after a two-year hiatus following the 2014 Olympics.

“We would be lying if we said we were just coming back to be part of the pack,” Moir said when they announced the return. “That’s definitely not the goal.”

The goal was to challenge Papadakis and Cizeron, who had used the Canadians’ absence to establish themselves as the world’s dominant ice dance team with world titles in 2015 and 2016. Despite losing the free dance, they beat the French for the 2017 World title, but just three months before the 2018 Olympics, the French beat Virtue and Moir in both programs at the Grand Prix Final.

It was just another challenge for them to overcome, even if it involved near complete revision before the Olympics of their free dance program to “Moulin Rouge.” The improvements were enough to cut the free dance point gap with the French in half from the Grand Prix Final to the Olympics. That was the difference between silver and gold.

“They are a team that has always gone for it,” said U.S. Olympic ice dancer Madison Hubbell, who trained with Virtue and Moir from 2016 to 2018. “They never seem to play it safe with their elements, with how difficult they make their programs. They always want to be better and they don’t compare themselves with other teams.”

The record books tell us Virtue and Moir had unsurpassed success. They slipped away quietly from the sport in which they are among the greatest ever. Their incomparable skating already has passed the test of time.

—NBC Sports

#tessa and scott #off ice #retirement #press #wow that first paragraph #what a little fucker #and i don't mean that in the cute way

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ashiiblack · 4 years

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Year in Review 2019

Total word count:

Total fics written: 24 (a LOT of these are less than 1k)

Fandoms written in: BNHA, Yuri!!! on Ice, Harry Potter, Free!, and MCU

Chronological list of fics (in the order posted on AO3, not written)

Romance at the Roasted Bean (Harry/Draco, T, 1k) - Draco has a secret admirer.

Start With a Cold Brew (Victor/Yuri P, E, 5k) - Coffee Shop AU (this was technically written in 2018 but was in its exclusivity period for Victurio Anthology)

the music plays bitter, plays sweet (Harry/Draco, M, 1k) - Angsty with a hopeful ending of Harry’s marriage to Ginny ending.

The Taste of Something Different (Harry/Draco, T, 1k) - Harry is getting increasingly frustrated with his Auror partner’s inability to get him the right food.

Shining Bright (JJ/Yuri, T, 5k) - Five times JJ fails at asking out Yuri and the one time he succeeds (another 2018 fic in exclusivity for YOI Litmag).

The 80th Floor (Kirishima/Bakugou, M, 1k) - A deleted scene from the BNHA movie answering the question of how krbk ended up on the 80th floor.

Scars You Can’t See (Kirishima/Bakugou, G, 300 words) - Kirishima trying to comfort Bakugou after Kamino.

Strawberries (on your lips) (Kirishima/Bakugou, T, 900 words) - Studying with Kirishima turns into something unexpected.

The Bakugou Problem (Kirishima/Bakugou, T, 2k) - The Bakusquad decide to get Kirishima and Bakugou to date. Chaos ensues.

Fate Can Suck It (Kirishima/Bakugou, T, 3k) - Soulmate AU

I’ll unfold before you (Kirishima/Bakugou, E, 2k) - Post BNHA movie (and a sort of sequel to The 80th Floor)

Morning Light (Kirishima/Bakugou, T, 400 words) - After their first night together, Kirishima wakes up with Bakugou in his arms.

the fear of seeing death without ever loving you (Steve/Tony, E, 3k) - Steve returns the stones to their proper place but can’t help but see Tony one last time.

Truths in Letters (Harry/Draco, T, 5k) - Harry and Draco participate in a Guess the Penfriend inter-house unity game with interesting results. Epistolary fic written with just_another_loser.

Win-Win (Kirishima/Bakugou, E, 1500 words) - Bakugou likes that Kirishima can take his blasts. Kirishima just likes Bakugou.

Dare Me (Kirishima/Bakugou, T, 1500 words) - Uraraka gives Bakugou a dare. Eijirou isn’t sure what to think of it.

First Date (Kirishima/Bakugou, T, 1k) - Going from best friends to boyfriends isn’t the smoothest transition, but Bakugou and Kirishima make it work. (fun fact - this fic is based on @icicle33‘s Sims characters).

so good to be yours (Makoto/Haru, E, 2k) - Makoto visits Sydney while Haru is at a training camp for the Olympics. While things are awkward at first, they find their rhythm together again.

The Note (Kirishima/Bakugou, T, 1500 words) - Kirishima leaves a note to Bakugou on his desk confessing his crush to him. Humor and misunderstandings ensue.

everyday i want more of you (Kirishima/Bakugou, T, 2k) - Seven somewhat connected 300 word drabbles written for Chill November. Basically all krbk fluff.

Out of the Slipstream (Kirishima/Bakugou, E, 15k) - The professional road cycling AU no one asked for but I wrote it anyway.

Beauty, Like the Night (Iida/Aoyama, M, 10k) - A classic example of having to write the fic you want to read. Iida has a crush on Aoyama but it isn’t proper for a future hero to lust after his classmates.

Spark (Endeavor/Hawks, E, 2k) - When what Keigo thinks is a casual hookup suddenly becomes something more.

There’s also a week’s worth of BNHA Fluff Week Drabbles I wrote in June.

From my past year of writing…

My best story of this year: Honestly, probably my Stony fic. I was so raw after Endgame and this fic was screaming to be written. My most popular story of this year (by kudos, comments or notes): Stony again. One of those rare times I agree with stats.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Take a chance on The Note? It’s only 1500 words. Most fun story to write: Beauty, Like the Night. Iidayama is my favorite rare ship and I fucking love Iida so much. Hardest story to write: Probably my cycling au. After thinking about this fic for so long, I really got in my head about it and didn’t feel like anything was good enough. Biggest disappointment: My drarry fics have been pretty off as of late. It doesn’t help when I have krbk basically always on my mind. Biggest surprise: Fun fact - I’m not a big fan of soulmate au tropes so I was pretty surprised Fate Can Suck It was so well received lmao. Honestly though I’ve warmed up to the genre since I wrote this one.

Most unintentionally telling story: Probably Stony again. I usually self insert into Tony but this time I went way into Steve.

Favorite Opening Lines: “We have a problem.” The Bakugou Problem

Favorite Closing Lines: “For now, they can sleep.” the fear of seeing death without ever loving you

Reflection time Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted? I wrote a lot less. My goal was 100k and I ended up just shy of 65k. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? BNHA/Kiribaku/Endhawks. I fell pretty hard for krbk at the end of the first season then came the sports festival and their beautiful ship moments just kept coming. Endhawks I have no excuse other than they’re hot af together and so much opportunity for angst with feelings. What’s your own favorite story of the year? Dude idk. A lot of what I wrote was fun ficlets. I’m gonna have to go with either my cycling AU or iidayama. I know I said I struggled with the cycling au but I’m fairly happy with how it turned out. Did you take any writing risks this year? Not exactly. The Stony was definitely different from my usual style. Do you have any fanfic goals for the new year? Gonna shoot for 100k for 2020 again. I’m doing the Tododeku Big Bang and then I have two Kiribaku ideas I’m going to write. One will be a oneshot and the other will likely be a longer fic. I’d also like to do some sort of drabble event because I really enjoy the challenge with a limited word count.

Decade wrapped

If you’re still with me, I want to briefly reflect on my decade of fanfiction. I’ve been writing fic since 2002 but I fell in and out of it through high school. I didn’t really get back into writing until 2010 toward the very end of college. I met @icicle33 thru ffnet at the end of 2011 and she introduced me to LJ events and fests and exchanges and my writing style developed a ton. I fell out of it a bit in the middle of the decade but came back in full force in 2017 (thanks again in large part to Icicle), especially once I joined YOI fandom. In this decade, I’ve written/posted roughly 600k words (I feel like the distinction is important because I also have about 100k of unposted WIP/outline/nonsense). I’ve made friends, enemies, laughed, cried, met multiple fandom friends irl including my darling @phaytesworld and Icicle, modded and written for zines, and so much more. Writing has always been a way for me to explore a different side of myself, to play in a sandbox with no stakes. I can’t imagine where I would be without it. Here’s to another 10 years and you can bet in 2029 my old ass will still be writing. Should the world have ended by then, you can find me in hell writing porn.

#ashii speaks #ashii writes #year in review #2019 wrapped

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aeori-o · 4 years

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So long 2019!

I usually try and get these up December 31st not January 1st but, really, it’s 24 hours apart, does it really matter?

End of a year! And end of a decade!

I usually go over my yearly reading first. I wanted to get the “bad” out of the way first this time. This year I continued to stagnate creatively. I haven’t drawn anything since Qelvi back in January of 2018. I have written but mostly in role-plays with Vin and the other stuff I haven’t tracked very well. I don’t know how to track it in a way that’s clear and also easy to remember.

In the past my goals going into the new year have always been along the line of “do a little of [thing] every day” and that is super not working for me. So this year I’m going to try and change it up. For writing all I want to do is a five minute, free-flow, unplanned just-put-pen-to-paper-and-write based off a prompt. That should be do-able as there’s no pressure of it having to be connected to a larger work. There’s no planning and thus no pressure except to take five minutes and do it. I think in the past I’ve tried to do that in addition to x amount of words or pages per day. I’m just gonna scale it back and see if I can get myself to do the bare minimum consistently and see where that goes.

As for drawing. Ideally I’d like to do a little bit every day so I can actually get better at it, but as that’s been my goal for the last several years and I have not done it even a little bit these past two years I’m going to change my goals for drawing up, as well. Instead of trying to do anything consistently I’m just going to make it my goal to do one drawing a month. That’s it. I don’t need to show it to anyone, or post it, or whatever. Just one drawing I can consider “complete” every month. Complete doesn’t need to be polished I just don’t want to do nothing again and this seems do-able. We’ll see how it turns out at the end of the year.

Reading! My goal was to read 100 books this year and then I got sucked into playing Fortnite halfway through the year and basically read nothing in May. I read as much as I did last year, so I’m not torn up about the amount I read, but just once I do want to read 100 books in a year. (Not counting graphic novels, because I read through them too quickly and it doesn’t feel the same as reading a novel). So next year will be attempt number 2 at reading 100 in a year because I don’t think I should give up after not meeting it once. Life happens, sometimes we play more video games than we should, I still read 78-book-books and 63 graphic novels. For a total of 141 books. Which is pretty good, I can’t be upset at that number.

Part of my goal for 100 books this year, too, will be to slim down my at-home to-be-read pile, which is currently taking up seven shelves and must be stopped. I say this but I already have five more books on hold at the library. Whoops.

Here’s everything I read this year that I inputted into goodreads:

My one hour a day reading calendar (this year I started trying to add dots for every book completed on the day of completion, but I think I missed days, gonna do that some more this year, too, I like it):

And my goodreads badge:

2019 was a pretty wild year, there were some unexpected and costly hiccups. One of my cats went missing for a week; the other got struvite crystals and his bladder nearly exploded; My ancient AV receiver kicked it and on top of those things being expensive there was a whole thing where the new one seemed to be messing up my TV, it was a time; I got rear-ended on the freeway which thankfully didn’t wind up costing me anything except for a lot of stress, some minor pain, and over two weeks without a vehicle. None of these turned out to be that bad, in the end, and thankfully spread out enough that I didn’t just expire from stress.

There was a lot of good this year, too. I got to bring my partner skiing for the first time ever, and for my first time in a very long time (I don’t know when the last time I went skiing was, back when I was in highschool maybe?). I expanded my plushie collection by A Lot this year. I have cute eevee plushes, and some really soft pillow plushes now, and beeb got me a little corsola who I would Die for.

I’ve been more involved with pokemon go. I technically found the group I play with at the end of 2018 (right at the end, it was in December during the community weekend and someone from the group saw me doing circles hitting the same pokestops over and over and was like “hey… wanna join our group?”), but 2019 was the first full year with them. It’s been really nice to reliably be able to get stronger/rarer pokemon and just have a general sense of community. It’s neat because it’s not like I’m close friends with any of these people, but they’re all good people and I like seeing them. I know virtually nothing about any of them, but still, it’s nice.

I also got super into stickers this year (I blame you, beeb) and since my laptop only has so much room I’ve taken to adding stickers to my car. I don’t want to go overboard but I love all the ones I’ve added so far and now that my bumper looks better than new I think my car looks pretty slick.

I started keeping a video-game journal at the beginning of this year, which has been really satisfying and I’m going to keep doing it. I always struggle to remember how much time I sink into games and what happens in this games. Being able to flip through and see all of what I played, when I played it, and what was going on is interesting.

Also got a new phone this year. I didn’t get the latest and greatest but usually when I’ve needed a new phone due to a previous one being busted I have found myself inheriting whatever phone someone else doesn’t want (for the most part). This is the first phone I’ve gone out of my way to get because mine was just not performing well and I have no regrets.

I have a huge issue with upgrading to a new device when my old ones are perfectly serviceable. For instance: the computer I am writing this on is twelve years old. It’s slow but it works for what I need. This computer isn’t even from the past decade, which is pretty wild to me. In thinking about the past decade this computer has been through it all with me.

I guess I’m moving onto the decade now. I was just thinking that this computer still has msn/wlm on it. There’s a dedicated button on my keyboard for it. I hit it and I can see the last icon I ever used on there (I used to change icons constantly, which is a thing I do not do anywhere anymore), as well as the theme I had in place. Absolutely wild. In the last decade(ish) we all abandoned msn/wlm, got skype, abandoned skype when it became a bloated, ad-filled disaster, and got onto telegram, discord, and the dms of various social media websites. (Which I suck at using as if I’m a person three times my age.) In 2010 we were on the iPhone 4 and basically every android sucked, now we’re on the iPhone 11 and androids are a viable option for a phone. Console generations are slower and mess with my perception of time. In the last decade we’ve only gone up one console generation which feels weirdly slow but then when I contemplate any company releasing a new console I inevitably feel it hasn’t been nearly long enough.

On a more personal note, I definitely cannot remember even most of the things that have happened in the last decade. I know I’ve read about five hundred books (closer to six hundred including graphic novels) because I’ve been tracking that since 2011. I’ve been tracking what I read for about a decade.

Left is books by year, middle is graphic novels by year, and right is the total of both.

I became decent at excel in the past few years. I went from not understanding this program at all to trying to find excuses to use it. I used to track all my reading in a notepad document, it looked like this:

As you can see: I only switched over in 2017. And it used to be a total pain because I would have to count all of the dates by hand. Hope I didn’t miscount. Then I’d be looking at my goodreads count and trying to figure out if that made sense against my personal count because I also didn’t count graphic novels as book-books back then and would sometimes mark them on goodreads. So I’d have to figure out how many I had inputted to goodreads to then make sure the two counts reconciled. It was a total nightmare. Now the computer counts for me.

And the reason I even became interested in excel is because of DnD which I have also gotten into in the last decade. It’s one of those things I had always been interested in but had no way to play or had false starts. A group came together a few years ago and we did some of the most fun, fulfilling, and emotional group-role-playing I have ever experienced. Our group has kind of disbanded now, and I’m trying to work on a campaign myself, but our first campaign is definitely one of the things I really cherish from the past few years. It’s definitely a highlight of the decade.

Speaking of meaningful role-plays. I got with my partner in the last decade, too. I’d feel weird getting all gushy about them here, but we’ve been doing written role-plays since before we figured out that we were a thing. They’re a constant source of inspiration to me and the things we create together are some of my favourite things in the world. At times there have been lulls between the things we make that really grab both of us, but this past year we started an AU of some of our characters and I think it’s safe to say we’re both in love with our little creation. Roach Squad is definitely the highlight of 2019 and I suspect it will continue to be the highlight of 2020. I don’t think we’ll be as aggressively into them by the time 2030 rolls around, but our original boys have persisted for the better part of the last decade (the Boys have been a thing since 2013 and we are still enjoying them, so I don’t doubt Roach Squad will persist, as well, but I imagine the next decade will give us a third group that we’re consumed with).

I’ve lost some friends in the past decade, and made some new, but find I don’t have the time to stay caught up with as many people as I used to. That used to be a thing I was good at. Toward the beginning of this decade, I’d regularly keep-up with at least a dozen people (by which I mean: talking to them daily). Now that number is at… maybe three or four people who I interact with daily (not counting group chats of which there is one). But if you’re reading this and we haven’t spoken in a while (“a while” could be years, honestly) and nothing really happened we just sort of stopped talking or hanging out: I still care about you. I hope your 2019 was more good than bad and that you have nice things to look back on in the last decade. Also hit me up, if you want to.

Overall I think the last decade has been pretty good. I’m thankful for all the good times with friends I’ve been able to have, all the sushi eaten and talks on long car rides. I’m thankful for the help I’ve gotten with housing and car situations that would have been outrageously stressful if I’d been dealing with them on my own. I’m thankful for all the creative people I’ve been able to meet and interact with, all the character ideas and moments we’ve shared through written role-plays, tabletop role-plays, and art.

I hope the next decade can be as socially and creatively fulfilling as the last!

And at the end here, because I never do this and then I always look back and go “what even were my goals” I’m going to make a handy list of goals-discussed:

Draw one thing a month

Write for five minutes every day from an unplanned prompt

Read 100 books and continue with my one hour a day reading

Get my DnD campaign off the ground and keep it going (I don’t think I explicitly mentioned this above, but it’s a goal this year)

#new year get better do better

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csnews · 6 years

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Proposals to save right whales could drastically change lobstering

Penelope Overton - October 2, 2018

To save the endangered right whale, advocates are proposing major changes that would upend the New England lobster fishery.

Proposals to close the fishery in the western Gulf of Maine south of Cape Elizabeth during April, cut the number of seabed-to-surface lines that can entangle whales, and become a ropeless fishery by 2020 are among the ideas to be discussed next week in Providence, Rhode Island, by the team of scientists, fishing groups and animal rights activists tasked with saving the right whale from extinction.

The Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team will spend the week reviewing seven whale protection proposals and a dire new technical report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that outlines the grim recovery challenges facing the right whale, whose population has been in decline for eight years. A new population estimate is due out later this year, but scientists believe fewer than 450 right whales remain.

The report underscores the threat to a species that has been on the brink of extinction before, such as when whalers hunted the whales down to double-digit numbers a century ago.

“At the current rate of decline, all recovery achieved in the population over the past three decades will be lost by 2029,” the NOAA report said.

Scientists attribute the decline to increased mortality caused by ship strikes and fishing gear entanglements, likely the result of whales following plankton into colder, unprotected waters, and falling birth rates, likely caused by the stress of increased entanglements and longer migrations to reach a decreasing amount of food. Environmental groups have sued to force regulators to act to reduce right whale deaths caused by humans.

The NOAA report focuses on the risk of the whales getting entangled in the surface-to-seabed lines that lobstermen use to locate and haul their traps.

Maine fishing groups say their gear is not the cause of the decline – it has only been found on a handful of entangled whales in recent decades, and on none of the 19 whales found dead in the past two years, sparking the lawsuits and the latest government review. Most of the 2017 and 2018 deaths likely happened in Canadian waters, they said. Canada has only recently adopted measures to protect right whales.

But the report hints at the willingness to take drastic steps to reduce the threat of entanglement – even if Maine gear has not proven deadly to whales.

OVER 1 MILLION VERTICAL LINES IN WATER

With more than a million vertical lines in East Coast waters, any single line has a 1 in 10,000 chance of entangling a whale in any one-year period, the report said. That means a fisherman and his or her descendants could go several generations without ever entangling a whale. But research shows right whales have a 26 percent annual entanglement rate. In a population of 400 animals, that translates into about 100 whale entanglements a year.

“Given this, it’s easy to believe that all these entanglements are happening somewhere else regardless of where one fishes,” the report said. “Being able to directly link an entanglement with specific gear deployed at a specific place in time is rare, but by mapping known locations of gear that led to the entanglement of a right whale, one can see there is no place within the fished area along the East Coast of North America for which entanglement risk is zero.”

In its proposal, the Maine Department of Marine Resources argues that whale entanglement needs more study, and data, before regulators can conclude what kind of gear really poses a threat.

Confident its gear is not to blame for entanglement deaths, Maine is proposing that its fishermen give their gear a mark unique to Maine so regulators can rule them out as the cause of entanglements. It is also considering a decrease in the amount of line at the surface by limiting the length of line allowed between flotation devices, and, like Massachusetts, capping the thickness of vertical lines to make sure whales can break free of a rope if entangled.

Researchers at the New England Aquarium say gear marking alone is not enough, and that they wouldn’t support any rescue plan based primarily on that strategy.

In their proposal, aquarium researchers call for cutting the number of vertical lines that could entangle whales by setting limits of 400 traps per fishermen, which is half the state maximum, or by cutting every individual fisherman’s trap count in half. They also call for a ban on all fishing rope in waters deeper than 300 feet over the next five years, and a transition to red or orange vertical lines that are more visible to whales over the next five years.

ONE-MONTH BAN MOST CONTENTIOUS

But it is the proposed one-month ban on fishing in the western Gulf of Maine, south of a line extending from Cape Cod Canal to Cape Elizabeth, that will have local lobstermen on high alert. The researchers say the proposed closure during April, and one in coastal waters south of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard from February to May, is based on sightings data collected over the past couple of years. About 250 whales have been spotted in the western Gulf of Maine area during that month.

In their proposal, The Humane Society of the United States, Defenders of Wildlife and Center for Biological Diversity – which together sued the federal government for not doing more to protect whales from lobster gear – outline a fast-moving plan to transition to a ropeless fishery, requiring all new entrants to the federal fishery be rope-free by Jan. 1, and that all participants in any Atlantic trap or pot fishery, including Maine’s, use only ropeless gear by Jan. 1, 2020.

Maine lobstermen say ropeless fishing gear, which is just now being tested in the North Atlantic, would be too expensive for owner-operated lobster businesses to buy and too fragile for the North Atlantic. They also believe ropeless gear would lead to conflicts among fishermen because the traps on the bottom would not be visible to a surface-going vessel, making it likely that lobstermen would lay their expensive new ropeless gear on top of each other’s.

#wild #conservation #ban #cetacean #news #whale #right whale

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contradictoryenigmas · 3 years

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2020 Postmortem: 10 Questions

2020. A year that did not go as planned. Okay, I am massively downplaying just what a complete shitshow it was. The best way I can describe is that episode of Seinfeld where George declares it to be the "Summer of George", only to have him in a hospital bed towards the end, disappointed that it didn't work out.

When I started writing this year's 10 questions piece, I wasn't sure how it would form considering most of the year was spent at home, trying to survive. But the result is the longest 10 questions to date. Guess I had a lot to get out there.

Author's Note: If you are new to this or want to take a look back at previous pieces, you can click on the links here: 2017, 2018, and 2019.

What made up your body of work this year? Which parts are you most proud of?

I should start with one of the major elephants in the room. Since March 12th, I have been working from home. The day before, all of us at work got an email from the home office in the United Kingdom saying the offices there and in the U.S. would be closed for a time to protect employees from the growing spread of COVID-19. Many of us thought we would be back in the office in a month or so. Oh boy, how wrong we were considering later that day, news would come out that Tom Hanks and his wife contracted the virus and the NBA would suspend their season after a player tested positive.

Not being in an office has some significant downsides for me. For one, it was the place where I interacted with people outside of close family. Now, the only real interaction I do with co-workers is either over email or Microsoft Teams, mostly dealing with work stuff. I worry this long period of isolation will hurt my social abilities, which to be fair were at negative levels when I had started this job last year, but were improving. The other is losing the separation between work and home. Since coming home and spending time in my room as an office and place to rest, my anxiety and feelings that I should be working started to come in. Some of this was alleviated by me setting some ground rules such as having a hard stop. But those feelings are still there and likely hampered efforts to try and relax.

Most of my work for the year was spent on three big projects that would set the course for the future of the company. Having this on the back of my shoulders added a bit of anxiety and drained me of a lot of energy. Every day, I found myself crashing in bed to take a quick nap so I could regain some energy.

That brings me to writing. 2020 I was hoping to get back to writing in a big way. Not only with automotive stuff, but doing some more with this blog and launching a new project. But with everything that has been going on this year, a lot of these ambitions had to be shelved. A lot of this stems from not having any energy or motivation to either start and/or finish various pieces. There would be moments where a burst of energy comes on and could I belt out a quick review or news story, but it was rare. At the end of this year, I have a bit of a backlog of new car reviews to get up. But at least I'm not pushing myself to the grindstone and getting them out. This only results in shoddy work and I feel quite bad.

For the personal blog, this is going to be the first and last piece for the year. It wasn't for the lack of trying. Several pieces currently sit on my laptop that are in varying states of completion, but again, I lacked the energy or motivation to go forward.

There are a couple of pieces I want to call out,

Afterthoughts: A Car In Troubled Times: This was written after my Grandfather passed away in June (not from COVID). With this and everything going on in the world, I wrote about how the car became a place where I could escape the world for a bit and work out various thoughts and feelings.

Quick Drive: 2020 Lexus RC F: My last new car review of the year and man what a car. I loved the throaty V8 engine and the grand touring nature of the suspension. I think the last line sums up my feelings about this car,

"It brought me the joy which sometimes is all you need a car to do."

What were your top 5 moments of the year?

Getting back to reviewing vehicles on a somewhat regular basis

Saving enough money to move forward on finding my first apartment

I know that's only two, but I really can't think of anything else from this landfill fire of a year.

What are you really glad is over?

THE YEAR! (cymbal crash)

Okay, that was obvious, so let go a bit deeper.

The mess of the 2020 elections are mercifully done. A lot of us knew this was going to be very different, but I don't think we knew how much it would be. Just look at the first debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Then election day rolls around and seeing the collective sadness rear its head as the first ballots are being counted, even though we knew that the mail-in ones were still waiting in the wings to be tallied. It took a few days, but the sense of jubilation when the results were leaning towards Biden was not all that surprising, considering the mess of the past four years. Whether or not this gets better remains to be seen.

How are you different today than you were 365 days ago?

I touched on this with the first question, but loneliness has been a big issue. Not being able to interact with people outside of my own family has brought back memories of some of the dark days of depression where I wouldn't talk with anyone. Thankfully, I'm not fully returning to these ways. But I can't help but worry that my socials skills will be back at a negative level. Twitter and Instagram have filled in some of the missing social aspects, but I can only use it so much before feelings of "Fear of Missing Out" and not being able to interact in person. Also, the deluge of various events such as the killing of George Floyd and the election meant I had to turn off social media at times to allow time to process and work out various feelings.

My mental health has also taken a bit of a stumble. Various aspects of my ADHD have started to come back in force with procrastination, distractions, fear of rejection, and warped perception of time to name a few. There has also been a large amount of stress and anxiety to work through because of the year. I think it's a bad sign when your anxieties have their anxieties to deal with.

To top it off, it has been hard to find something to keep my mind occupied for longer than five minutes. I look at the number of books and video games currently sitting on shelves or stacked in the closet waiting to be open, or the various movies and TV shows I have in queues for various streaming services and my own media server. Yet, they are left untouched. I drift towards scrolling through various social media outlets or watching the same YouTube videos. I've been trying to figure out why these are my go-to and not the items listed above that would give the same pleasure and stimulation, but also open some new windows and ideas. I haven't fully figured it out yet, but I do have some clues and ideas as to why.

On the flip side, I'm very lucky that I am still employed. That may seem like a put-down, but out of my close family, I'm the only one who has stayed employed throughout the year. My mom's last day of school was the day I started working from home, and she wouldn't return until the start of the new year. Both my dad and brother had furloughs at their respective jobs during the late Spring.

I have been slowly messing around with some projects that I've been wanting to do. These include expanding my media sever collection to include music, cataloging various media so I stop buying duplicates, and starting to explore various interests that I had when I younger.

Getting back to reviewing new cars has been quite enjoyable. Despite having a backlog that will not be finished till sometime in February or March, it has been fun again to figure out a vehicle's high and low points.

Is there anything you achieved that you forgot to celebrate?

Nope.

What have you changed your perspective on this year?

Two things come to mind. First is that I don't need a firehose of information. I was subscribed to several sites through RSS and had many people I was following on Twitter to see what was happening. But this massive flow of information was only making my anxiety and stress worse. For the past month, I have started to unsubscribe to a number of newsletters and RSS feeds, along with culling down my Twitter following list.

Second is that I need to slow down. What I mean by this is I need to take my time and not focus on trying to finish everything as fast as possible so I move on to the next thing. There is something about taking a moment to breathe or letting things play out to a point to where you can jump in and provide a different point of view.

Who are the people that came through for you this year?

My therapist came through this year, transitioning from in-person visits to doing chats either through Zoom or on the phone - depending on whether or not either of us run into technical issues. They have been really helpful just listening to whatever was on my mind that week, and point out possible thoughts and directions to chew on to get me into a better place.

There is also a large number of people I interacted with that made the lockdown and isolation a little bit more bearable. Too many to list here, but I would like to say thank you to all.

What were some pieces of media that defined your year?

Casiopea, Mint Jams: There is a person who I follow on Twitter that brings up Casiopea from time to time. This Japanese jazz fusion band has been around since 1976 and produced a number of albums. I had them in the back of my mind for a time to check, but wasn't until the fall when I started listening to Mint Jams - their seventh album (and I believe second live album). I immediately fell in love with the band after hearing the first track Take Me. Something about this brings absolute joy and pleasure. Since then, I have bought the CD and started to dive fully into the discography.

youtube

Yakuza Like A Dragon (Playstation 4): I don't know how to describe a game where one minute you're beating up criminals and the next minute you're trying to figure out who is urinating in a river. It seems ridiculous, but that's Yakuza Like a Dragon in a nutshell. There are moments of complete absurdity that is intertwined with tender and heartfelt moments as you interact with your compatriots. I'm currently on chapter five and finding new stuff to do such as a Mario Kart knockoff and running my own business, while trying to figure why I was betrayed by a father figure. It's chaotic and beautiful at the same time.

Zero 7, Simple Things: This album was the one I would play if I was feeling down or needed a reminder to slow down.

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Growing Collection of Face Masks: If I am going to wear face masks to protect myself and others, I might as well have some interesting ones. Currently have around twenty masks that I wear and wash, all of them with some distinct pattern or fabric to have them stand out. I'm likely going to be buying a few more in the new year because I'm really like wearing them.

Honorable Mentions: Ghost of Tsushima; Animal Crossing: New Horizons; Paper Mario: The Origami King; Tatort - German Crime Drama; Motorweek's Retro Reviews on YouTube; Newton and the Counterfeiter by Thomas Levenson; x + y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender by Eugenia Cheng (currently reading, may appear in my 2021 10 Questions).

What will you be leaving behind in 2020?

This one hurts but it is the "old normal". I remember listening to a podcast about a couple of months after starting working from home and one of the hosts brought up that the old normal isn't coming back. We need to take time and mourn the loss. I didn't know what to make of this at the time, but it really started to sink in as this mess slowly continued throughout the year.

Think about how much has changed in your day to day routine. For example, I don't leave the house unless I really need to get something from the grocery store, taking the dog for a walk, or going for a drive to clear my head. A lot of places I would have normally gone are either only allowing pickup or closed down. I haven't seen anyone outside my family since March and have seen only a couple of relatives since then.

No one knows what comes after the virus is at a state where all of us can resume some sort of 'normal'. Will our favorite places still be around? Is virtual learning going to be the next step for schools? Are we going to watching new movies over streaming services and not at a theater? Will online shopping take over as the main source of getting goods?

There's a lot of unknowns that will not have an answer for quite some time. But I have started to mourn that the old normal is gone. As much I hate it and don't know what's next, I know that I have to ready myself in some fashion.

What do you hope to accomplish in 2021?

Unfortunately, a lot of the stuff I want to work on in the coming year depends on what happens with the rollout of the vaccine and containing the virus. There are a few things I have marked as priorities.

Moving into my first place: So I never have talked about this publicly except to a few close people, but I'm really looking forward to moving out and into an apartment. Originally I was planning to do it this year, but then everything came to a screeching halt. This proved to be a blessing in disguise as I was able to save a bit more money so that I had two months of rent and the security deposit. I have a few places in mind and the goal is to move in before the end of March. That will give me enough time to figure out several items such as insurance.

Writing: I feel like this is something I mention every year. Some progress is made, but not as much as I would like. This past year, I was hoping to branch out by doing more with this blog and starting a couple of projects that had been sitting around for a while. But none of those things happened. Next year, I have some maintenance items to do for the personal blog. I don't know if I'll have anything worth writing about at the moment since my brain is currently recovering from a pile of mush. As for the projects, I'm hoping to launch one sometime in the next few months. The other is going to sit on the sidelines still as I still need to work out some items with that.

Keeping Records: I always think that I remember 'x' and I don't need to write anything down about it, and it turns out I do forget. Yeah, I'm wanting to change that for this coming year. Primarily, I'm doing this for any vehicle I review because it might be months before I start writing, and have forgotten key parts I wanted to mention. This is also something I want to do with books, video games, and music as a way to remember what I enjoyed throughout a given year.

It would be at this point I would end this postmortem with some pithy note about 2020 getting kicked out and 2021 hopefully being a massive improvement. Except that feels quite insincere. We have various vaccines rolling out, but it remains a massive question as to how fast and whether or not enough people take it. There's also the toll on mental health that is only going to get larger not only from those working in hospitals but in other fields. I could go on with other items, but you get a general idea.

#2020 #postmortem #reivew

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coreytravelogue · 4 years

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Vancouver, BC - September 7, 2020 (Part 2)

A week late or so I know, technically I was working on this last week but writing while drinking beer on a empty stomach is not a good idea. Regardless though I don’t think the words were flowing very well for me that day. I hope to rectify that today.

It is Labour Day today, one year ago I was in Berlin more than likely playing the beer stock market and feeling burnt out from my trip one week in. Not too much like i have felt the year due to the pandemic basically ruining nearly everyone’s lives. I can’t say much as most of my issues are first world problems but to say this year hasn’t been stressful for me would be a bold face lie. In all honesty last year was much more stressful for me but what has made this year stressful is because I haven’t been able to travel at all where last year I was able to. That is the topic of discussion today, basically continue where I left off from the last blog.

2019 was full of many trips in of itself, 2019 was a year of more changes for me. My girlfriend moved in with me to live with me and my room mates which caused its own set of drama but I am not going to bring it up. It was also a year where for a good portion of time I was doing the work of 3 people which lead to last year being exceedingly stressful to where if I didn’t do the travel I did do I would have probably went insane.

The first trip of the year was to Los Angeles/Anahiem, California for my Easter long weekend. This was for my girlfriend predominantly at least at the very start of it. My girlfriend has a fascination with Disneyland/Disney World and given how she isn’t as much of a lover of travel as I am I wanted to take her to a place we could agree on collectively but I am not going to lie who enjoyed this trip more could be debated.

I have been to Disneyland many times in my life most of which with my parents as a child or a teen who had no idea how to handle himself in another country. My first actual Disneyland experience as a adult without my parents was Disneyland Paris but tell you the truth it barely counts to me and it is nowhere close to the same experience. With that said coming into this I didn’t think much of this trip. As long as I could go on to Splash Mountain and Jayne hat many statues I got what I wanted out of it.

I wasn’t prepared for the child in me to come alive walking into Disneyland for the first time in 18 years. Much of it hadn’t changed for the most part but I felt like I was experiencing it for the first time in of itself given being an adult. For 4 nights we hit just about every bit of Disneyland and the California Adventure which I never got to see when I was there last but it would have been in it’s infancy at that time.

To tell you the truth the entire trip itself was just one big positive memory. Whether it was going on Splash Mountain 4 times, Jungle Cruise 3 times a least followed or more importantly seeing my girlfriend happy being in Disneyland.

I didn’t enjoy the expensive Uber rides going to and from Disneyland though but it could not be helped given how utterly useless the transit was for us there in LA which still utterly shocks me.

If I was to return to LA again I don’t think I would be going to Disneyland I would probably be spending more time on the LA side of the city going to Universal Studios and explore the downtown area more as I know there was far more places to Jayne hat that I didn’t get to go to given the short time frame with had.

LA is such a big city, it would take at least 2 weeks to full explore and even then you couldn’t get through all of it.

Kelowna was another place I hadn’t been for a very long time, longer than even Disneyland. It was a place I thought both me and my girlfriend could collectively enjoy together but to tell you the truth it wound up being more of a disappointment than a fun experience for both of us.

I wasn’t expecting this place to be as fun as it was for me as a child but even then not much of it was fun to begin with outside of going to Scandia which was on our first night. It was there where I discovered my girlfriend like shoot em ups which came from left for for me. For much of my life I always craved having someone to play games like Time Crisis 2 with but never had anyone who would. We wound up getting in the top ten there which to me is pretty impressive given how old that game is and how much use that game has gotten. Also got to watch her do her mail in vote for her home country. The worry though was trying to find another Australian witness, surprisingly she found one as I was playing go carts.

Those were the only real tangible happy memories from that trip, the rest of me basically wondering around aimlessly trying Kelowna’s beer and being for the most part disappointed.

Kelowna felt like a amalgamation of BC and Alberta which i guess I can't be surprised, much of Northern BC has always been a major playground for Albertans looking for a cheap trip.

I don’t need to come back to Kelowna anytime soon myself, not for another 20 plus years, maybe not that long because Kelowna wasn’t that bad I just don’t need to go back there anytime soon again.

The year prior I was able to go to Whitehorse; the furthest north i have ever been in Canada, this time I would go north once again to another territory but this time Northwest Territories.

I was worried that 3 days wasn’t going to be enough to explore this city if you could call it that it was probably smaller than Whitehorse. I am probably wrong but it felt very small to me and there wasn’t really anything to do there unless you wanted to came or escape the world, so I got pretty bored pretty fast here but they did have a wonderful brewery with good food. If I was to go back it would be to go to that brewery.

I did go to Toronto for a second time as I pointed out in my last blog but I am not going to go into it, I only really had two nights here when I should have tried to make a long weekend out of it, with that said it would not have made a difference. I knew I had to conserve my energy for the big trip of the year, one that was 5 years in the making; Europe round 2.

The plan had always been to return to Europe, I knew within one day of coming home I needed to go back there and every plan I made from that point in on to even now involved/involves going back.

The original plan was to go back to school in 2015 and once I graduated in 2017 I would backpack Europe again, return home and start my new career however my new career came calling early. By 2016 I was already working in the department I am working for now, a student work job in 2016 that lead to a full time contract to work for all of 2017. By 2018 the plan was once my contract was up I was going to travel again but they extended my contract again and well you get the story I became a full time worker where I am today. So by 2019 it obvious that I had to return to Europe the only trick was where.

Given I wasn’t able to use all of my leave time in 2018 it granted me a significant boost in leave time in 2019 which would make it possible for me to spend 2 weeks in Europe while still being able to spend 2 weeks in Newfoundland with my folks however there is a big difference between traveling Europe for 2 weeks than it was for 2.5 months like I did in 2014.

I knew I had to be exact with where I was going, no wasted days or efforts. I needed to know exactly where I was going and for long however it is nearly impossible to pack one country in Europe for 2 weeks much less Europe itself. So I decided to focus most of my time in Germany, why? For the obvious reasons:

1) I loved it there last time I was there. It was the first true country I got explore deeply like I did last time where I hit Dusseldorf, Koln, Berlin and Munich. I could hit all four of those places again and probably have a lot of fun, and I did at least 2 of them this time around.

2) I met a lot of good people in Germany, friends whom I still keep in touch with to this day. This played into my choice for Germany big time which I will get into soon.

3) It is a very easy country to visit. Not very dangerous at all really for me at least, the transit is good and it is just a country for which I feel at home with the most tof any other country I have ever been to.

4) Beer, pretty self explanatory I think. After having true German hefenwiezen in Hahndorf, Australia I knew if i needed the best of my favourite beer style I had to get it at it’s origin.

Look without trying to ramble on though I know I will on this subject I had to make the most of my time in Europe. As much as I wanted to see new places/countries in Europe I also wanted to see old friends I had not seen in 6 years and catch up with them.

These people helped me out big time then and they would wind up helping me out again as I would basically cough surf with them again.

I knew I was going to arrive and leave from Amsterdam so it was basically about how I could fit about 2 weeks of time in to make that balance. My original plan was to go to somewhere in Belgium, Dusseldorf, Berlin and Nuremberg in Germany, Prague in Czech Republic and then find a way to get back to Amsterdam and hit back home.

I hit up 4 of my previous couch surfing hosts to see if they would host me. Look either way this is going to sound like me taking advantage of them and in a way it was but at the end of the day I came to most of those places to see them. If they said no I would totally get it and I would have tried to get an airbnb. I mean if Maria said no she had no room I would have still did an airbnb in Dusseldorf because I wanted to hang with her again and explore Dusseldorf again.

I contacted Maria first and she said yes which was great. I found out my host who saved my bacon moved from Saltcoat Scotland to Berlin so I asked her and she said yes so I had that locked down. When I looked up Katharina early on I found out she no longer lived in Koln but in Gent, Belgium so it was like hitting two birds with one stone. Not only would I get to hang with an old friend but see a new country as well. I asked her and I knew she was going to say yes and she did. So I had Gent, Belgium, Dusseldorf and Berlin, Germany locked up but what about my forth contact. I am not going to bring the person up, I don't want to shame them or anything. I was hoping that that person would say yes or at least say something and say they were interested in meeting up with me in Czech Republic. Of all the people who said they would host me again they said it the most but when I asked I got nothing. So realizing I had to nail down my locations and dates I moved along from going to Prague and decided to split that time in going to Luxembourg City, Luxembourg and Leipzig, Germany. So I basically had my itinerary nailed down.

I would arrive in Amsterdam and immediately take a train to Gent where I would stay with Katharina and her boyfriend for 2 nights then go to Luxembourg City for 2 nights, go to Dusseldorf for about 2 nights, Berlin for 3 nights, Leipzig for 3 nights, Nuremberg for 3 nights then Amsterdam for 2 nights.

I flirted with the notion of couch surfing this time again but given the short periods of time I would be staying in each place and how little time I knew I would have in each place I felt like I could do without the hassle of spending so much time, time I did not have basically pitching to strangers to hopefully let me stay with them for 2-3 nights. Even if they said yes to me what if they suddenly backed out on me last minute? Thankfully that never happened to me but if it did that would seriously fuck up my trip so I felt like you know what I have had lots of good experiences with airbnb I am just going to use it this time as well. So I decided to airbnb Leipzig and Nuremberg. Luxembourg City and Amsterdam were too expensive to airbnb plus most of the more affordable places were too far from the city centre so i decided to go to a hostel for that one. I thought about maybe camping in Amsterdam again but looking back I am thankful I did not especially with what I had to do during my last night in Amsterdam.

I had everything set all I needed to do was just get there.

Flying to Europe this time was much different than I did the first time but not without it’s own level of stress. When I flew in 2014 I landed in London and had to figure out a way to get from Heathrow to Luton. I had to figure out how one would do that within two hours and thankfully I was able to get on my flight to Amsterdam. This time however I was flying from Vancouver to Chicago then to Amsterdam.

Chicago has always been a city I was interested in seeing but this time around I could only see the airport. I am not going to lie as I was jogging to my gate I wanted to hope to see the semblance of the Home Alone 1 and 2 scenes of the family running to their gate but I seen very little of that (it was from 1990-92 so I don't know what I was thinking). My original plan was to start drinking and hope to knock myself out but given the last few other trips I had made of similar length that trick didn’t seem to work out anymore so instead I took a melatonin and night time NyQuil instead. For the 9 hour flight I probably only got 4 hours of sleep and spotty at best.

When I finally arrived in Amsterdam my time there was much more smoother than I thought it would be. I over analyzed this part of my trip when I should have done more of that for getting from Luxembourg City to Dusseldorf though that bit could not have been planned for. When I came to Amsterdam I had to show my print out to the ticket people but I could not get a straight answer from them as to how this ticket to Gent was going to work. I was so used to tickets really just being one way and that is that. You go on a train and show them your ticket and you sit on that train till you get to your destinations, any transfers required a secondary ticket and so on, this was different. When I went to the Amsterdam ticket person they basically told me that my ticket is like a day pass for Belgium rail; meaning even though I am just going to Gent in theory I could have gone anywhere in Belgium on that ticket for the day. So with their assurances I waiting and inevitably boarded my train to Gent which was two hours and allowed me to basically map out more of what I was going to be doing.

I tried to take the lessons I learned in Europe the first time and apply them to this and I am so glad I did this time because if I didn’t I would have been so fucked. The main lesson I learned backpacking in Europe which I learned early was to always have your entry and exit plans mapped out before hand jus tin case you needed to leave sooner than expected. So I was completely expecting to have to find my way to Katharina’s place when I arrived and know how I was going to find my way back. Thankfully I didn’t have to worry about that as they were going to meet me at Starbucks. Ahh Starbucks as it was in 2014 it remained and was my wifi beacon to the rest of the world in keeping in contact with people back home.

The positive memories as it would be for when I would meet up with Maria was hanging out with Katharina and her new boyfriend Dirk who would up being a pretty cool dude to hang out with. Of course the greatest memory of this part of the trip was betting my shoe to drink bad or I should say strong Belgian ale which nearly fucked me up, so much that i needed Dirk’s help to finish it. By the end of it I felt like such a light weight. I made sure I ate quite a bit before this point so I felt like maybe it was me being weak but then when 5 Dutch men came in and ordered 2 of the same large ass drinks and drank it all themselves and got shit faced it mad eye feel a helluva lot better about myself especially since i had two beer before that big as beer and one more after.

However the other great memories I would have would be just hanging with Kat and Dirk either around the city or at their home having vegan food or playing boardgames with them. These sort of trips are always best spent with friends and those who want to go with you. They gave me more than enough time to do my own exploring while still coming around to hang when they could.

I wish I spent one more day here but not because of the city, the city itself wasn’t all that impressive it was more that I wanted to hang with Kat and Dirk more because I knew it would be another long time before I would see them again.

They joined me for a third of the way to Luxembourg as they had to go somewhere else along the way. While I did not cry this time saying goodbye to Katharina I was sad. I don't have very many friends in my life. My friends are few and far between and those I feel like I can just hang my hat with and be nothing more than just a chum with even rarer for me especially now.

This longing would hit me in Luxembourg City.

I knew nothing about Luxembourg for the longest time, it wasn’t till 2017 that I started becoming very interested in going to this spec of a country. In 2017 while I was working cataloging records which is a rather mind numbing job to do most of the time but to tell you the truth I loved it because it allowed me to escape into music, audio books, talk radio, podcasts or whatever but one of the others was listening to vlogs on different countries. In all honesty I never got much from them that I didn’t already sort of know. Most vlogs really don’t give you a gauge of what it is like being there. Or maybe they just don’t give me the Information I want to know like how are the people to tourists, where is the good beer, where is the cheap places to go or where are the hidden gem areas to go to get away from the tourist traps?

I stumbled upon Luxembourg City and everything about it seemed cool and beautiful and the bet part about it is everyone said it can be explored quickly so for someone like me who knew the next time he would be in Europe he would have a very short amount of time there found a appeal in a place like this. I am glad I took that plunge because Luxembourg City was a pretty cool place to go to.

From the moment I saw this city I was immediately smitten as I have said last year with this city. It is the most beautiful city I have ever seen period. It has such a mix of natural scenery mixed with old school architecture. With that said I knew I had 2 nights here and I had to make the most of it. For the most part I do feel like I did.

This city can be done in two full days but with that said 3-4 days would be enough to get everything.

The strongest memories I have of this part of the trip was all in the first night to tell you the truth. By this point I was coming to realize that Europe doesn’t have a craft brewing scene I had to figure out where the good bars were that could give me a clue of what kind of beer this place produced. I thankfully found a place called Craft Corner where I was able to not only try beer from the country but from places I would not get to try this time around like from Estonia, Denmark, Ukraine and even from the USA weirdly enough. I drank like a fish that night but the real adventure of this part of the trip was trying to find a way home.

It was during this time where I missed my girlfriend whom for the first time since January this was the longest I had went without being around her and I missed her. I would up getting lost in the “downtown” area of Luxembourg City because I was too drunk to know where I was going at night that I inevitably caved and took a bus back only to realize if I had just gone straight in a certain direction I would have gotten back to the hostel. I also ate McDs for the first time in years but I also got to have Luxembourg wheat beer which was surprisingly good.

The worst memory however was leaving Luxembourg and how I nearly fucked myself over because I much rather have gone on time with my train rides than early when I could and I should have.

I would definitely go back to Luxembourg City as I am sure there are places I haven’t Jayne hatted and I wouldn’t mind trying their wheat beer again but with that said I would only come back if it is on the way to something and if there is time so when I do come back it is unknown.

Dusseldorf was easily the highlight of the entire trip but also my biggest regret, regret because I didn’t put more time here than I should have.

More time may as well have been my biggest regret even though I was very short of it. I will try and save my hindsights and lessons for the end of this blog but I really do wish I spent more time in Dusseldorf.

I would even say I enjoyed my time in Dusseldorf this time around more than I did the first time which says something. Dusseldorf was the city that introduced me to Germany and its culture.

While I didn’t get to meet as many people here as I did the first time around I did get to hang with Maria, her boyfriend and her friends. I even go to be interviewed for the first time for a article (https://www.wz.de/nrw/duesseldorf/wie-couchsurfer-die-welt-und-duesseldorf-entdecken_aid-46027727?output=amp&fbclid=IwAR24SDFtbEt_lGkKdADxxq5MY3hDoDHutYcPbRrRX1nMSS9NOLzaeys_ul8).

From the translations I found she did get a few things wrong about me and Maria’s story but at the end of the day its meh just cool that me and Maria got to be interviewed with how we met through couch surfing.

The best memories were playing Mario Kart with her and her boyfriend, going to Frida which was a cafe in Dusseldorf on top of just having German beer here there and everywhere.

I could have and should have spent an extra day or two but I didn’t. Why didn’t I? Well the reason I had back then was that I didn’t want to put them out for long. I didn’t want to make it seem like I was taking advantage of their hospitality by staying at their place for a long period of time. By the time I got to Dusseldorf I came to realize that I wasn’t inconveniencing either Katharina or Maria at least that is what I got from them both of them. If anything both Maria and Kat seemed to enjoy having me around because it meant someone new to hang out with. Someone to show their world to and such. That being said I like to consider myself a pretty good guest I have always tried to be neat, tidy, quiet (when needed) and respectful of the spaces I occupy. Whenever i could i tried to pay for any food we all ordered together, any groceries I would try to pay even though they always refused.

Bottom line is I miss Maria as a friend the same as Katharina. Just having a friend to just travel around with, have a few beers and games with and feel like I don’t have to be anything but their friend. Not a doctor, moving company or anything. I feel like that is unfair to those friends and family who confide in me and see me as a rock in their life but honesty there are times where it exhaust me having to be the parents or the rock for people when all I want to do is just be an equal and sometimes just be friends. Talk about video games, movies, travel beer, our relationships etc etc without feeling like we need to cry on the others shoulder or be the shoulder. That is part of friendship and part of being a good friend but how can say it......sometimes i just want a friend I can have fun with and not have to worry about anything else but that. It was refreshing to be able to do that with people. I don’t get to do that with anyone very often, if ever anymore. Which also depresses me when I think of it.

Leaving Dusseldorf made me sad and it also made me angry because I wanted to spend more time there but I couldn’t and I wasn’t entirely sure if I was ready for Berlin but it didn’t matter whether I was ready for Berlin I had to go.

I hit a wall in Berlin and I should have seen it coming but then this is a hindsight moment now and it was a lesson I learned pretty quickly. It had been 5 years since I did this kind of traveling and even when I did do this kind of travel I always tried to give myself time to take my time in places. When I did my 2 months in 2014 I didn’t hit my first wall till I hit Dublin which was one month into the trip but the thing is I would give myself 3-7 days in most places and then I would move on. I was also 5 years younger at that point. So here I was barely one week into my trip and I was already feeling travel fatigue and it kind of turned me into an asshole for a little bit. Thankfully my 3rd and last host for the trip Missy understood or at least I think she understood.

I think it stemmed from something as small as not being able to purchase multi day transit passes like i did in Berlin last. When I was in Berlin in 2014 I am very sure I was able to purchase 48 hour transit passes which would allow me to use the transit anytime I wanted to for that 48 hour span. Now I couldn’t even find day passes which angered the fuck out of me.

The biggest regret from my first time in Berlin was not being able to experience the night life and to tell you the truth I still wasn’t able to this time but that is my fault both times. I didn’t want to be the one coming back to Missy’s place smashed from partying and to tell you the truth by the time I was in Berlin I had no interest in that anyway. I still wanted to try more German beer but by this point I was getting somewhat jaded. I came to Germany assuming that I would going to get a real good education in beer and swim in it. Instead I barely got to enjoy it the way I wanted to. Maybe it was better this way because I knew my body wasn’t able to handle it the way it used to.

I did get to hit the places I enjoyed going to the first time around again all while Jayne hatting anywhere I could. To tell you the truth if I spent another few days in Berlin I could probably Jayne hat enough statues to use as my FB profile pic for a year or two.

Biggest memories from this visit to Berlin was the night I went bar hoping. I started at this place called Berliner Republik which had this beer stock exchange one would play which I did. I had curry pizza which wasn’t very good but it was enough to carry me over the night. I followed it by going to two micro breweries in the area, neither impressed me much to tell you the truth.

On my way back home that night I at least got to buy the beer that really opened my eyes to German beer especially hefenwiezens; Störtebeker Bernstein-Weizen. It tasted a lot like the Summerwiezen here in Canada but just better in a way. I had it again this time cold and in a bottle but it just didn’t taste the same. it could have been because it was in a bottle and not on tap (I am that picky now) or maybe my tastes have just become more refined now. I mean one of my favourite beers used to be White Bark witbier from Driftwood but the last few times I have had that beer I could not be bothered with it at all. Regardless though Störtebeker Bernstein-Weizen is the reason why I am a Hefeweizen alcoholic.

The last good memory was on my last night, I was just so frustrated that I wasn’t finding the beer I wanted to have this time around that i just decided to just go to the nearest bar and just try something. Thankfully there was a hostel/slash craft beer bar not far from where I stayed that I didn’t even know was a craft beer place till I went in. I was pleasantly surprised and tried their beer. The place was called The Circus.

The less than pleasant memories of Berlin was trying to figure out Berlin’s transit system. It was confusing as fuck for me at first but once I figured it out it made more sense. I think looking back I was just so frustrated that it clouded my thoughts in dealing with Berlin, I wasn’t ready for Berlin the first time I went there and I wasn’t ready for it again this time sadly.

I don’t know if I will go back to Berlin anytime soon, if I do it will be with my girlfriend and it will be at a hostel, airbnb or hotel. I feel now I have expectations of what to expect and how to look for what I need in Berlin to have more fun there. Every time I go I feel like I know what I am looking for and each time I get it wrong. I am hoping the 3rd time I go someday I will be more prepared but I think it starts with staying in a place where I am not inconveniencing someone or myself.

Missy was as always a great host but I could tell her husband was not keen on the idea of couch surfing and letting strangers stay with them which I totally understood. It felt very awkward for me hearing how angry he was as the situation, he was nice to me but I knew he wasn’t happy with Missy about this. I feel like I should just avoid this altogether next time. These are the things I wanted to avoid with couchsurfing this time around.

As I have said before probably, I put Leipzig here as basically my do nothing point. I remember telling Missy I was going here and she asked me why since there was nothing there. Well there was stuff here, at least I thought there was but to tell you the truth I didn’t even care if there wasn’t. All I knew was that I needed to relax, I needed a vacation from my vacation and Leipzig was basically that.

I chose Leipzig because it was the birthplace of Gose beer which I have noticed has been trending as beer as of late here in BC but I remember when it was only Driftwood who did in in BC and it was my introduction to it so I thought that its source must have it the best. I was wrong for the most part, the oldest brewery in the city that bragged about having it made it way too syrupy and it just didn’t taste right to me.

It didn’t matter though I knew this city didn’t have much which I felt is knocking it it when I don’t mean to me. It is a nice city, it has a great mix of new and old architecture in it that makes it unique to any place I have ever been to. However I just wanted to sleep in and get drunk which I did. I mean I already found my go to German hefenweizen but it was here that I really just sat in my room at my airbnb and just drank Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse. I am sure it is not my favourite German hefe however it was the most excessible of all of the hefes I found in Germany.

My memories were really just that, doing nothing and sleeping in because I needed to. I got much needed rest during those 2-3 nights I was there which allowed me to get through the last two cities.

I expected more from Nuremberg than what I got from it to tell you the truth, I was expecting a mini Berlin chalk full of museums and culture. I didn’t get that, in fact I barely found any good museums there which I found disappointing. Realizing this and knowing I was going to spend my last 3 nights in Germany here was very depressing for me. I felt like if I knew this I would have just split my 6 days in Leipzig and Nuremberg in with Gent and Dusseldorf.

My first night in Nuremberg was when my depression decided to pop in and attack me because I was lonely missing my girlfriend, I was lonely missing having friends I could have fun with, I was depressed knowing full well that this was going to be my last time in Germany for some time and I chose poorly. I went to the only craft beer place I could find in old town and tried their beer and even then I wasn’t really impressed. I still got sufficiently drunk but still depressed that everything was coming to an end and I wasn’t satisfied with my experience. So I made my way from north old town and tried to find my way out of it in my drunken depressed haze. The whole moment in time for me would be comparable to the double guitar solo moment of the Hotel California or the last half of that song.

I came to Germany for craft beer I also came to experience beer gardens the way I experienced them or I should say stumbled upon them in Koln which was how I fell in love in hefenwiezens. Nuremberg was my last stop in Germany and I had not found any beer gardens. The best experience i had with beer in Germany up to that point was with Maria in Dusseldorf mainly because Dusseldorf was one of those places where most of the breweries we all around the same area, close enough to try them all in succession and have fun with. Everywhere else the only times I could have true on tap beer was from micro breweries who would not serve the hefes I wanted to begin with. the Hefe nirvana I hoped for was nowhere to be found.

It was in this dark cloud that I stumbled up Old Town Festival of Nuremberg. Thankfully I came to Nuremberg at the right time as they were celebrating their old town’s anniversary. Sadly however that night I was way too drunk to even take part in it. I was so drunk that I know many were looking at me like some drunk dumb ass who had too much. I thankfully got home and spent the rest of my night submitting to my depression as it took hold of me for the rest of the night.

The next two nights however were the polar opposite as I would have huge breakfasts followed by pint after pint after pint after pint of hefenweizen from Spalter, Glosser, Augustine, Paulaner, Ludwig Konig and every other German brand out there. As though the German beer gods felt sorry for me knew my love was true gave me what I wished to send me off from Deutschland.

I even got to hang out with a group of older German men and talk about craft beer with them.

That was really the best memory from my time here. Would i go back to Nurmberg? Only if there is a celebration of sorts where the beer gardens are brought out. If so I am there but if not I don't need to come back here.

On Sept 15 I left Nuremberg, Sept 15 was basically a travel day and one that reminded me of how big Germany really was because it was a 8 hour trip from Nuremberg to Amsterdam. By the time I got to Amsterdam it was too late to really do anything there unless I wanted to party and after the last two nights in Nuremberg I wasn’t interested, I also knew that I needed to get some sleep because I knew I wouldn’t get any for the last night I was going to be in Europe.

Thinking about this now is even more painful given the pain of my fantasy hockey team sucking last year on top of this pandemic basically ruining the greatest chance I would ever get to win but the thing is I had to do my hockey draft 5 hours before flying out of Amsterdam. I begged the guys to reschedule it even a day after but they refused and I got stuck with having to do my most important draft ever at 4 am at a hostel in Amsterdam.

Thankfully I had what is called a Ginger shot specifically for this. Maria works for a company that deals with health foods and drinks. She gave me two of these. One to try which I did before I left Dusseldorf, it definitely helped with my hang over that morning but this time I did not have a hang over I just needed to stay away and thankfully this did the trick and I was as ready to go as Freddie Mercury during Live Aid. Despite only having 2 hours of sleep after that ginger shot I was ready to go and had the best draft I ever. A team that nearly won best in season though I spent most of the season in first place, my team was primed for the playoffs built specifically for it but sadly due to the pandemic that never happened.

If I ever came back o Amsterdam I would definitely go to Camp Zeeburg in Amsterdam, I really missed going to that place. Outside of that I don't know if I would go back to Amsterdam, maybe for my girlfriend because of the museums but Amsterdam I don’t think is my kind of place. I definitely think it is a great introduction to Europe travel. If I was to recommend a place for someone who had never traveled to Europe before Amsterdam would definitely be a good primer but there are too many better placed to go.

So Sept 17 came and it was time to go, outside of some useless stress getting on the train to the airport checking in and getting on the plane was painless. The flight back however was slightly painful as I don’t think I slept much on my way back to Canada either. I remember stopping off in Toronto and having witbier and and a stour from Mill Street which was good followed by another 4.5 hour flight back to Vancouver where I got back to real life again.

Me and my girlfriend did go to Seattle but I have already talked about that for the most part, my trip to Newfoundland is self explanatory as I have done that so many times.

So what have I learned this time around?

I think when I do return to Europe I need to have a travel cell phone for starters. I was able to get away with it 2014 on my tablet however even then and especially now I feel like i missed out on so many good things I could have found if I had just had a travel cell phone to use to navigate me through Europe. I never bothered because I always felt like it was more trouble than it was worth to do that and even now I have no idea how I would be able to do it but I do not I need to start considering it for the next time I travel outside of the country. I feel as though I need to buy myself a travel phone that doesn't have anything linked or synced to it so I can use sim cards from anywhere and use that phone for travel because relying on just my tablet and starbucks barely got me around this time around.

If I go back to Germany I am not going to go after the craft beer areas but the actual traditional breweries next time. This may be much harder than finding craft breweries given many of these places are in lesser known cities in Germany but at least I would be able to get what I want from them. I know i have to start in Munich since many of the breweries i love seem to gravitate around there. Bottom line is I really need to do more digging up and studying of actual breweries in Europe because craft beer is just not at the level there as it is here and you know what I am fine with it. If I am in Germany I just want the hefes and I feel if I do return to Germany again it will be on a full on beer tour that is if my brain and my innards are still functional by then.

When I finished my trip I felt I was now tired of Germany but I am not going to lie I still would like to go back and if I could only go back there I would have no problem but with that said there are way to many other places to see in Europe that I need to see, I can't spend all my time in Germany no matter how much I love it. I will just have to apply my beer brewery search I have learned to the next countries I have seen.

Another thing I have learned is that I have to slow down, as much as seeing a much as possible would be great I can't go about doing 2 nights in a place then move for 2 weeks straight. I doubt I would have been able to do it at 29 and i know and I can't do it at 35. I feel as though 3-4 days in each place is optimal and always give myself a city or a point in time where I can do something if I wanted but I don't need to and I can just sleep in. Adamooka was that for me in Australia though I didn’t need it so much there, Leipzig was that this time around as well.

Not going to lie I feel my second trip to Europe wasn’t as good as my first but that was a tall order to being with with expectations that could never have been met and i knew that coming in.

When I went to Europe the first time I really had free reign to go wherever I wanted whenever I wanted. If I wanted to spend a week in Koln I could have. If I hated being in Inverness and wanted to leave the next day I could and did. I was able to pace myself where this time around I did not have that luxury.

The more I think about it now the more it makes me think about whether it is worth it taking leave without pay just to do it again. All I can ever think about it trying to make the most of my life and my youth while I have it. I am often thinking of my dad and how the love of travel was instilled in me through him in how he would drag me and my family cross Canada multiple times on top of other places. I only rediscover that love when I went to Seattle the first time and cemented it in Europe. It makes me wonder if it would be possible by the time I am about to turn 40 when I have gotten 7 years into my pension if I can request leave on top of leave without pay and get away with it. I doubt I could to tell you the truth but it is something I want to look into.

I can’t help but think about how I could and would do 2.5 months in Europe this time and how much I long for it. In a way I feel as though I would nearly do the same itinerary but maybe a few changes. Nothing gets my hopes up anymore than actually looking at a map and plotting where to go on it, there is a reason why I own about 4 world maps, well three as the forth is more just showing the planet as it doesn’t should cities or places.

I can look at it for hours plotting where I would go.For shits and giggles lets go into two scenarios if I was to do 76 days again.

If I redid my first tour I would actually hit up more museums in Amsterdam, do it for 3 days this time. Go to Koln and Dusseldorf but probably spend a week in Dusseldorf hanging with Marie and her boyfriend so that is 10 days (3 in Koln, 7 in Dusseldorf), 1 week in Berlin this time in the city not outside it or with a family and 3 days in Munich to get the whole Oktoberfest vibe but I would not be around it much. I would spent a week in Istanbul even though I think that area is tense right now, there is just so much one could see there that I didn’t see before. 3 days in Dublin followed by 3 or maybe 4 days in Gallway depending on how my liver is holding out. Oh Gallway was such a moment in time for me that is for sure. I would not go to Cork this time.

4 days in Belfast spending less time looking for vinyl records and more just exploring the place. 3 days in Glasgow and 3 days in Edinburgh, 4 days in Cardiff and 4 days in Paris.

I got 20 days left now, I don’t want to deviate too much from the original itinerary so i feel the rest of these days should be spent giving the UK my full attention. 3 days in Inverness to give it a chance but this time make sure I have a place booked this time, 3 days in Aberdeen, 3 days in Liverpool, 3 days in Manchester and 7 days in London. I am leaving 3-4 days of a buffer for this trip so I would be able to use that in case I hit a wall of it I felt i needed more time in one or two places or not. I feel as though I may risk burning out again with this trip but there is a reason why I am doing a week in many places. I mean a week in Dusseldorf should be stress free, week in Berlin won't but at least I could go at my own pace this time, a week in Istanbul should be pretty good though I wouldn’t have the same host i did this time around which sucks. Plus 7 days in London feel is more than enough for me.

If I was to use the 76 days now however without using the same itinerary? London, Paris or Amsterdam are often the cheapest starting destinations but I feel as though Amsterdam would make the most sense for me again. I would stay 3 days there, 5 days in Dusseldorf, 3 days in Hamburg (Germany), 4 days in Copenhagen (Denmark), 4 days in Gothenburg (Sweden), 4 days in Oslo (Norway), 4 days in Stockholm (Sweden), 1 travel day to get to Helsinki (Finland) then spend 4 days there. 4 days in Tallinn (Estonia), 4 days in Riga (Latvia), 4 days in Vilnius, 4 days in Warsaw, 4 days in Prague and 4 days in Bratislava.

I got around 19 days left now. So 4 days in Vienna, 4 days in Zurich, 1 day of travel to Catania where I will spend 3 days there before getting a ferry to Malta where I will spend 5 days on that island. This will leave me 2 days to find a way to get to Amsterdam.

Mind you this would probably be another exhausting trip and I would probably make some chances that would allow me more time to relax. If so I would be fine with cutting the last bit of my travel in Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Malta in order to make sure the rest of the trip is good. The main mission of this trip is to hit the nordic region hard.

To tell you the truth if it were not for COVID-19 me and my girlfriend would probably be in Australia right now, If that was the case we would have stayed in Adelaide while travelling to Perth, Adamooka, Tasmania and maybe if there was time Sydney or Brisbane but that ain’t happening and it is looking like Newfoundland won’t happen either. A trip during Thanksgiving as well as my birthday even less likely but it is what it is. All I do know if I will have more leave time next year than I did in 2019 when I did go to Europe. Where I will go I have no fucking clue at this time and I don’t think it is ever worth thinking about till a cure for COVID 19 is found. I only know that half of it will be for Newfoundland to se my parents and the other half somewhere else. Either Australia or Japan depending on how things go. Best case scenario I will return to Europe in 2023 which is 4 years later, still better than 5 years but it is still a long time between visits.

I have been working on this blog now for about 6 hours so I think I have overstayed my welcome. I do not know when my next blog will be. Maybe during Thanksgiving when I talk about what I would have done if COVID did not happen. Probably Quebec City or even Montreal again.

Fuck these times suck but it could be worse I guess. First world problems for me that I have no right to complain about. Stay safe out there people, shazbot nanu nanu.

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auburnfamilynews · 4 years

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Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty Images

Yikes.

Before you get any further than this, stop. Grab a beverage. You may need it.

Losing sucks. Losing is the House. The House always wins; your team will eventually lose. And the loss, the one loss, will hurt more than all the other wins, until you win again. The cycle resets. In your heart, you believe your team will never lose again. Losing is the inevitable outcome of sports. But losing is necessary. Losing is perspective. Pain, as a sports fan, is vital. Without 2012, 2013 isn’t quite as magical.

I’ve been on twitter long enough to know that Auburn fans love suffering, and love to argue about suffering, and love to compare bad experiences. We all believe we have it worse than the next fan. And Auburn fans? Well, Auburn fans have seen their share of suffering. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane and visit some of the most brutal losses in Auburn football history.

Criteria:

To date (May, 2020), Auburn football has participated in 1,268 games. To make this super exclusive list, the Auburn team must qualify for all three of the following criteria:

Auburn Lost: this may seem obvious, but to make this list, Auburn must have lost the game in question. Otherwise, 2015 Jax State would definitely be making an appearance. That game was terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad. But Auburn won, technically, so we’ll move on. Games are weighted by margin of defeat. Games remaining: 445

Auburn must have been ranked: if you have ever visited twitter dot com, you are aware that everyone loves to dump on the AP poll. Myself included. However, they typically do a decent job at identifying the good teams from the bad. Being ranked does carry weight, especially among the fan base. Be honest, our own expectations are significantly increased when Auburn is a Top 10 team. This will eliminate games prior to 1936. Apologies to your great great grandparents. Games are weighted by rank: Top 10 Auburn teams will be weighted higher than Auburn teams ranked 11-25. Games remaining: 118

Auburn must have been a double digit favorite: This is the key. While the AP poll is somewhat good at evaluating strengths, Vegas is really, really good at evaluating strengths. Those casino high rises didn’t build themselves. In 2019, Vegas favorites went 540-184-11 (.742) straight up. Double digit favorites went 423-40 (.914) straight up. If Auburn was ranked as a double digit favorite, we were all confident at kickoff. This will eliminate games prior to the late 1980’s. I’m sure spreads existed back then, but it is very difficult to find them online. Games are weighted by spread: the larger the spread, the more brutal. Games remaining: 14

So here we are. Last chance to turn around. Maybe take a moment, top off that beverage. Hug a loved one. Take in some fresh air. Whatever it takes to get through the next few paragraphs.

The 14 most brutal Auburn losses, ranked from least brutal to most brutal:

14. 1986 Georgia

Final Score: L, 16-20

Auburn Rank: 9

Spread: Auburn -10.5

I’m putting this here for a couple of reasons.

Auburn’s undefeated 1986 campaign had already been ruined by Florida in Gainesville two weeks earlier. Still, a win would have given Auburn at least a share of the SEC title.

However, I was born a few years after this game was played. I can’t put this kind of loss into perspective. Sorry. Feel free to tell me all the reasons I’m wrong below, though!

13. 1991 Southern Miss

Final Score: L, 9-10

Auburn Rank: 16

Spread: Auburn -12.5

Similar to a couple of games below, this is an Auburn team that had no business being ranked. A flat Auburn team just couldn’t get it done.

12. 1990 Southern Miss

Final Score: L, 12-13

Auburn Rank: 15

Spread: Auburn -12

Is a loss to Brett Favre really that brutal? A winnable game that Auburn let slip through their fingers.

But really, how do you come back from a beating in the Swamp? Auburn was 7 days removed from a 48-7 bludgeoning by the Gators. I’m going to let this one slide.

11. 2005 Wisconsin (Capital One Bowl)

Final Score: L, 7-21

Auburn Rank: 7

Spread: Auburn -10

Another one that barely squeaks in. Fan expectations were high after an undefeated campaign in 2004, but a poor opening loss to Georgia Tech and an overtime loss to LSU (that included a hundred missed field goals) left the 2005 team with a feeling that they fell short, even after defeating Georgia and Alabama to close out the regular season.

I don’t know for certain that the team didn’t care about the game. I don’t know for certain that the team might have had a little too much team-building the night before. I know a sleepy Auburn squad on New Year’s Day got run out of the building by a Wisconsin team that wanted to be there. Barry Alvarez had those boys ready to play.

10. 2008 Arkansas

Final Score: L, 22-25

Auburn Rank: 23

Spread: Auburn -16.5

This is such a bizarre game. 2008 was wild. Preseason expectations were quickly dashed with a typical crazy last-minute loss to LSU. Then, somehow, College Gameday was the Auburn/Vanderbilt game two weeks later? (side note: the worst Auburn teams always seem to draw the best Vanderbilt teams. See, 2008 and 2012). Did Auburn deserve to be ranked? Hindsight, no, but even in the moment, 23 felt generous. Should Auburn have beaten that Arkansas team? Definitely. Arkansas was 2-3 and had been outscored 139-31 in their previous 3 games. But Auburn was awful that day. Tony Franklin had just been dismissed, and football genius Steve Ensminger took over playcalling duties. Auburn stunk from start to finish, and Arkansas took a deliberate safety to seal the win.

9. 2018 Tennessee

Final Score: L, 24-30

Auburn Rank: 21

Spread: Auburn -14.5

This one that barely qualifies. At this point, Auburn had already gotten beaten pretty badly by Mississippi State (no thanks to two different instant replays, no, I’m not bitter at all) and lost a narrow one to LSU (patience, we’ll get to this one) but this pretty much ended any expectations for 2018. Not much else to say.

8. 2017 UCF (Peach Bowl)

Final Score: L, 27-34

Auburn Rank: 7

Spread: Auburn -10.5

Maybe it’s just me, but this loss wasn’t as brutal as some make it out to be. 2017 Auburn had a magical November, followed up by a poor performance in Atlanta against Georgia. Several players had suffered injuries (Kerryon Johnson) or had all but declared for the draft (Carlton Davis). UCF looked like they wanted to be there, Auburn didn’t. UCF would go on to claim a national championship.

7. 1996 Georgia

Final Score: L, 49-56 (4 OT)

Auburn Rank: 20

Spread: Auburn -10

The first overtime SEC game was especially painful. Georgia was aggressively mediocre at best in 1996, and Auburn led 28-7 at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Even after surrendering two TDs, Auburn still got a fourth down stop with very little time remaining, and then they proceeded to fail to get a first down and run out the clock. No matter, they could still get a stop. Except on nearly the final play of the game, Auburn appeared to sack Mike Bobo with just 6 seconds remaining. For some reason, the clock was stopped and placed back at the 31 yard line, allowing UGA to spike the ball. They would throw a desperation TD pass on the next play, and hit the PAT to tie the game. Four overtimes later, Auburn finally couldn’t convert their opportunity.

6. 1997 Mississippi State

Final Score: L, 0-20

Auburn Rank: 11

Spread: -17

Some of the losses in this list make sense in hindsight (the 2018 team wasn’t as good as originally thought; the 2006 team had so little offensive firepower that if they started committing turnovers, or if the defense wasn’t lights-out that things could go south). This loss does not. This was not a particularly good Mississippi State team. They had been blown out by UGA, handled easily by LSU, and beat their 3 non-conference opponents (Memphis, ULM, and UCF) by a total of 24 points. The game was in Auburn, and the Tigers were coming off of a more-solid-than-it-looked win at Arkansas, and the only blemish was a hard-fought loss to one of Spurrier’s best Florida teams. For some reason, Auburn couldn’t do anything against Mississippi State on offense. In the previous 3 meetings, Auburn scored 42, 48, and 49 points against the Bulldogs. Then, somehow, on a rainy afternoon at Jordan-Hare, Terry Bowden’s offense lost the plot.

My enduring memory of this game: on almost every fourth down, Mississippi State would line up with their base offense and force Auburn’s defense to stay on the field. Then MSU QB Matt Wyatt would drop back a few yards and punt. Not a pooch punt. I’m talking a real two-step punt. Fearing MSU would go for it if given the opportunity, Auburn never sent anyone back to return the punt, so it would inevitably roll another 10-15 yards. Sports-reference.com tells me Wyatt punted 13 times in 1997, but I swear half of them were in this game.

5. 2018 LSU

Final Score: L, 21-22

Auburn Rank: 7

Spread: -10

We briefly talked about 2018 earlier. Expectations were high with returning starter Jarrett Stidham at quarterback. However, the future New England Patriot opened the game with a really, really poor interception, setting up transfer quarterback Joe Burrow with a very easy touchdown drive. Auburn regained control of the game and led 21-10 with 10 minutes left in the third quarter. FPI even gave Auburn a 90% chance of winning halfway through the fourth quarter. Auburn let a 71 yard touchdown pass slip through their fingers and committed several defensive pass interference penalties as Cole Tracy kicked the game winning field goal as time expired. The way this game played out was heartbreaking. Auburn had the team to win this game.

4. 2006 Arkansas

Final Score: L, 10-27

Auburn Rank: 2

Spread: Auburn -13.5

2006 Auburn entered the season with all sorts of crazy expectations, even on a national level. The AP had Auburn at #4 in the country in the preseason poll and was a near-consensus #2 behind Ohio State by the time the Arkansas game rolled around. Auburn had already beaten #6 LSU 7-3 in a nail-biter 3 weeks earlier. This team was good, and had the resume to prove it.

Enter Darren McFadden. A young play caller by the name of Gus Malzahn, equipped with the second-best football player I have ever seen with my own eyes, had his way against Auburn’s elite defense.

Arkansas was obviously underrated at the time. Malzahn had his typical “slow start to the season” game against USC, getting blown out 50-14, followed by 3 wins against unranked opponents. They would go on to win the SEC West in 2006. But in the moment, this one stung.

Oh, and this was the first loss I ever witnessed in person. That may explain why this one is so high.

3. 2016 Georgia

Final Score: L, 7-13

Auburn Rank: 9

Spread: Auburn -10

There was a stretch in 2016 where Auburn’s offense looked as dominant as they ever had. I fondly remember the 2016 Arkansas beatdown, or even the Mississippi State game. That team was clicking. Unfortunately, Pettway was hindered by injuries. Sean White likely lied to his coaches about the extent (or existence of) an injury in his throwing arm. By the time the Georgia game got around, the defense looked unbelievable, and the offense looked incompetent.

Still, Auburn’s defense was good enough to beat this Georgia team with one hand tied behind their back.

2. 2006 Georgia

Final Score: L, 15-37

Auburn Rank: 9

Spread: Auburn -11.5

This team could have contended for a national championship. HOWEVER, some huckster from Arkansas had to come in with his Wildcat and his gotdang trick plays and ruin us on a hungover Saturday morning when the Tigers were ranked 2nd in the country. Yes, Gus Malzahn hit the 2006 Auburn team with its first death blow, but Georgia provided the killshot.

If you were there on a rainy November morning, Auburn had rebounded from the loss to the Hogs, beaten Florida, and entered the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry ranked 5th in the land (the highest-ranked SEC team). Arkansas had the inside track to the SEC Championship game with the tiebreaker, but Auburn was in position for a BCS bowl game either way, if they could finish at 11-1 in the regular season. Nah.

This one started poorly with a Georgia drive to score five minutes in, but it was a 23-7 Bulldog second quarter that doomed Auburn. Down 30-7 at halftime, Brandon Cox and the offense were completely ineffective (Cox completed 4 passes to his own team and 4 passes to the other team), while chubby Matt Stafford ran the quarterback draw to perfection (7 carries, 83 yards, 1 touchdown). My memories include sitting in the rain under the press box in Section 5 and wondering why Georgia’s shell band was so much louder than our full band.

Auburn lost 37-15, and over his final two games against Georgia, Brandon Cox would throw EIGHT interceptions. The Tigers finished the 2006 season at 10-2 after a super-boring and totally Tubervillian win over Alabama, then they’d beat Nebraska in the Cotton Bowl to reach 11 wins. In September/October, you would’ve thought this team could compete for a national championship. In November? The eleven wins would seem like an incredibly unrealistic total for an offense that could barely escape from a wet paper bag.

1. 2014 Texas A&M

Final Score: L, 38-41

Auburn Rank: 3

Spread: Auburn -23.5

I have some pretty strong feelings about the 2014 team. I believe that offense was actually better than 2013. I loved that team. The 2014 LSU game is the most fun game I’ve been too, and that list includes the Kick Six. 2014 Auburn rose all the way up to #2, stumbled against future Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, and made it back up to #3 in time for the game against A&M. Meanwhile, A&M’s last two games included a 59-0 beatdown by Alabama and a narrow win over La Monroe. Oh, and Auburn was a 23.5 point favorite. twenty three and a half points. In 2019, teams favored by at least 20 points went 224-10 (.957) straight up. You may recall South Carolina beating a Top 5 Georgia squad. Losses like this just don’t happen.

Auburn outplayed A&M that afternoon. Auburn trailed all game, but a comeback seemed like a foregone conclusion. We were that much better. CAP rushed for 220 and 2 touchdowns! Nick Marshall ran two touchdowns in and threw for another. The team was clicking. However, it wasn’t meant to be. A late fumble near the goal line, followed by a rather large blunder with a snap, gave the game away to the Aggies.

A 23.5 point spread remains the largest upset in Auburn history. I’d argue that this game, single-handily, knocked the magic out of Gus Malzahn until 2016, maybe even 2017. Darkest_Timeline.gif. If Auburn wins this game, they don’t sleepwalk through Georgia, they may play just a bit better against Alabama, and may even make a playoff. Am I reaching? Maybe. I was at Jordan Hare for this. Sitting in the same section, same row as I did for the Kick Six. This one stuck with me.

How did I do? What criteria would you use to rank the most brutal losses in Auburn history?

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2020/5/11/21246429/the-most-brutal-losses-in-auburn-football-history

#IFTTT #Blogger #auburn #auburn fast #wareagle #AuburnFamilyNews #war eagle #sec #football news #aubu

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theonewhereiramble · 4 years

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The One With the Decade Ending

Since we are just days away from 2020, I wanted to reflect on the past 10 years.

2010: Took my life in my hands and jump started my weight loss journey. Was in my second semester of college, still unsure of my future career goals but tackling 19 credit hours with a 3.97 GPA. That summer, my grandma had her first of 3 heart attacks and I took care of her. My insistence of getting her up to walk is what lead me to choosing a path in nursing. She thought I would be an excellent nurse with my no BS attitude. I became an RA to cut down on student loans and to live roommate free since I had the best freshman roommate ever and didn’t want to risk meeting someone awful. Our different majors took us out of the same dorm. Thanksgiving break my grandma had her second heart attack and this encouraged me to work harder to get into nursing school.

2011: I lost my brother in January due to medical negligence in Florida. In April, I lost my grandma to her third and final heart attack. I didn’t show up to any of my finals because everything happened during finals week. My GPA wasn’t wrecked completely, as my grades were high enough without my finals. Some let me take the test later due to the circumstances, others said my percentage was already high and not to worry about it. I spiraled down a dark path of binge drinking and not really sleeping for a few months. My family was torn apart. The dynamic was weird. I lost who I was. I had to be the strongest person for everyone even though my grandma was my best friend and I was wrecked the most from the lost. My mom decided all attention needed to be on her despite the fact she hated my grandma. I moved back home and commuted to school. I turned 21 in October and gained a sense of confidence to go after a guy I wanted for 5 years. I was admitted into nursing school in December and would start in January.

2012: Most of the beginning months are a blur. I studied my ass off for nursing. It was truly a struggle and I had to rewire the way I thought and studied. Most difficult time of my life. My boyfriend had cheated on me and we broke up. We ended up getting back together and then I cheated on him during my friends bachelorette party. My friend got married and my boyfriend and I ended up getting an apartment together. I found my second cat in the dumpster of our complex. We saved each other and my ex hated him. Our relationship ended a month later but he refused to move out and I wasn’t moving back home. So we coexisted and then I found out just how much of a psychopath he actually was. November came and I met the love of my life - I just didn’t know it at the time.

2013: The love of my life and I decided to see each other casually. Neither of us wanted anything serious, or so he claimed. In February I fell in love with him. We had a difficult relationship and just fought all the time. In May, I took a random roadtrip to NYC. Then in June I moved in with him because he didn’t like my living situation. It didn’t feel right so I moved out again. He accused me of cheating on him and I never worked so hard to prove to him or anyone I wasn’t. He adopted a cat because my two made him want a cat of his own. In July, we gave living together another shot. Things just ended up working and the fighting stopped. In October, my friend found a kitten on her porch and my boyfriend fell in love with her so we then had 4 cats and a dog. Also, unbeknownst to me at the time, he started planning how he was going to propose. He got his best friend and mine involved.

2014: I graduated with my bachelors and was admitted into a grad program for teaching. It was an accelerated program of the bach of ed. My dog attacked my kitten and I spent many days in and out of veterinary hospitals. I started dreaming of working in one. I had no passion for nursing after my grandma’s death and thought I needed a career change. Teaching was always an interest as well. After I graduated and before I started grad school, I went to NYC with 2 of my friends. My boyfriend and his friend were also in NYC, but as a surprise. I was proposed to in Central Park. I started grad school and realized that it was not a good decision and dropped out after one semester. I revisited different desires I had in a career in what I wanted to be when I grew up as a kid. In November I started volunteering at a local vet clinic to see if vet med would be a good place for me. I clicked instantly with all the staff and never felt more at home than I had at that time.

2015: Well, to be honest I don’t remember much of 2015. I focused on vet school prereqs and applied to go on a trip to Thailand to work with elephants. I was accepted for the May 2016 trip. I also applied to OSU vet school and was given an interview invitation. My fiance and I started looking at houses to buy. We had complications with one, as the owners we not ok with the “low” appraisal and tried to get us to pay $30k more due to their own sentiments. We declined and decided to keep searching. We put an offer on another house, we were due to close and the day of the lender told us since my fiance was technically a contract to hire it wasn’t going to be closed that day. We said forget it, it’s not our time to buy a house. A week later, that house flooded causing thousands in water damage. A blessing in disguise.

2016: I was accepted to OSU vet school for the class of 2020. I was offered a job at the clinic I volunteered at. I had the best time in Thailand treating elephants and helping at a spay/neuter clinic, all under the supervision and advisement of a veterinarian. Thailand has less strict laws on what people without a license may do. I started paying back my student loans, which were over $100k already. I had decided it wasn’t the right time for vet school because I didn’t want the extra debt. I started being smart about money. I married my best friend in December.

2017: We spent the first 6 months traveling to places new and old. Vegas, Boston, and San Francisco were all new. In January, a sickly kitten appeared on my porch and wanted to meet my cats desperately. He went into the back yard and I was fearful my dog would kill him. I brought him inside and kept him in the bathroom until I could get a clean bill of health on him. We decided to keep him as I was convinced cats find me when I need them the most. In April, my sister committed suicide leaving behind 3 children. In June, my husband was offered a job in California. He accepted. In August we lived just north of San Francisco. In October, I was woken up in the middle of the night by a wild fire. I was on the verge of evacuation and my husband was in Chicago for work. He flew home that day. The smoke was so terrible for months and going outside was not advised. We went whale watching for our 1 year anniversary. We didn’t receive any of our belongings until Christmas Eve. I hated living there and just wanted to go home. My husband loved living there.

2018: I was finally starting to love California. I was making friends and looking forward to exploring. I got my dog in a routine. Things were looking up.The smoke was still bad but if we went south of the bay it was ok. My husband started hating it because his job was awful. In February I said goodbye to my childhood cat. I flew home on an emergency because my dad was having his 4th open heart surgery. I wanted to see him because I had a gut feeling he wasn’t going to make it. He was admitted into the hospital in preparation. He acquired an affection to his Dr. ordered antibiotics to cover the bases. In March he finally had his surgery, after a month in the hospital. He came out of surgery just fine. Over the weekend, he started to go down hill. On Wednesday March 21, I walked into work, my cousin called me to tell me his kidneys were failing and he was going septic. I promptly walked out of work, called my husband to come get me as we carpooled and booked a flight home. I landed and went right to the hospital. A half hour later I took him off life support said goodbye to my dad. I planned his funeral and had to fly home the day after it. A week later, I said goodbye to my childhood dog. My husband decided we should move home because I had gained guardianship of my niece and nephew. My dad was my niece’s best friend. Losing her mother and her grandfather less than a year apart took its toll. In May we decided to explore a bit of California. We visited Yosemite and that sparked my desire to visit every national park. In June we moved back to Ohio and I went back to my old job. In August I was hired at a major hospital in the cardiovascular ICU. My husband fought in court to gain custody of his daughter. I started my own side photography business which was responded to very well. I visited NYC with my friend, her boyfriend, and my husband.

2019: I wasn’t adjusting to night shift well. I was lonely and with my own thoughts too often. In March I miscarried and was depressed for many months. I started to try to craft more as a creative outlet and found I love woodworking. I picked up running again and stuck to it. In May I went back to NYC. I ran my first race ever in June. Also in June, I visited Mackinaw Island and the UP with my friend and we visited some of her grandma’s childhood. I left night shift and started working day shift, still in the ICU. In July, I joined a group that takes shelter dogs out for runs or hikes. In August, I ran my first half marathon. In September, I ran my second. In October, I planned a trip to Quebec for my birthday. After some mishaps and difficulties booking a hotel (there was a marathon that weekend) I said forget it and planned a different trip. I went to Shenandoah, Washington D.C. and Great Falls Park with my husband and my dog. My grandma celebrated her 93rd birthday. In November I sprained my foot but decided to run a half marathon anyway. It got to the point I could no longer walk, and thus ending my running season prematurely. I signed up for a full marathon in 2020 despite that. In December, I went back to NYC. My foot was finally healing so I began running again.

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flyingvgroupca · 5 years

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While you’re reading this, thousands of people from all walks of life either want to buy a new property or sell an existing one online. How much of this potential client base will you attract today? Next month? By the end of the year? How easy is your real estate website for these prospects to find?

Is your website easily navigable, enabling visitors to find what they’re looking for, sort through multiple results, compare listings, and finally buy from you? How fast, secure, and mobile-friendly is your website? Do you have a proven email funnel, and follow-up system in place to build a strong connection with prospects, while converting them into raving customers and referrals, who will continue to return? There are five technical skills that every real estate marketer should be familiar with. SEO is arguably the most important, and assists with all the points mentioned above. But wait! After 18 years in the ever-evolving and ultra-competitive digital marketing space, I can assure you that what you think you know about SEO (aka search engine optimization) it is not a magic wand, but a lifelong commitment requiring continuous effort because... It is imperative that you adequately maintain your real estate website like the indispensable business asset it certainly is… not just a lead generator, or a convenient place for your property portfolio. Prepare to launch your optimal search engine optimization strategy with this approach and vision in mind. Real estate SEO challenges in 2020 and beyond: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

When it comes to real estate SEO, you should know that Less than Half of Google Searches Currently Result in a Click. That means driving free passive traffic from the search engine visitors is becoming increasingly challenging, and you cannot afford to rank below the top 3 results on any given page anymore. These days, Google featured snippets (position 0) is the ideal, and the most difficult to attain. But that’s not all, you also need to ensure that your content is properly optimized, on Google’s own platforms, including YouTube, Maps, Images, AMP, and others. Yes, competition is fierce, and your adversaries are desperate to divert increasing numbers of potential buyers from your website to their digital domain. This means that you either have to take SEO seriously, or you will continue your struggle to generate traffic, leads, and revenue. Real estate sites such as REALTOR.com, Zillow, Trulia, and Homes.com are the current industry leaders, attracting enough search engine traffic to reduce even the most superior real estate SEO expert teams to a jealous heap.

(Screenshot taken via SemRush) Additionally, the large real estate brokers such as Keller Williams, Remax, and Coldwell Banker also receive massive amounts of traffic from Google.

(Screenshot taken via SemRush) Plus, just about every REALTOR in the country has a website, and each and every one of them are fighting over the same keywords in the SERPs (search engine page results). Let’s fast forward 12 months. Imagine 10x your website traffic (and revenue) with the right SEO strategy - combined with a consistent content marketing AND social media marketing plan, having the best execution team at your fingertips. If you can picture that, then you absolutely have to... Keep up to date with your ideal target audience, and pay close attention to their specific requirements, in order to provide them with a stellar, tailor-made service that supersedes the efforts of your opponents... Update your site with the best, most recent and insightful content, in your quest to position your real estate agency as the #1 trusted source of real estate content. This ensures that potential buyers and sellers become familiar with you, building a relationship of trust, prompting them to always recommend you as the leader in your field... Gain experience in the latest technology and digital marketing trends, and make optimal use of the platform they provide, in order to proactively out-smart and out-rank your competitors. For example, Google My Business (GMB) is an overlooked local business listing service. When comparing Google My Business insights from 2017 to 2018, a BrightLocal study found that direct searches grew by 38%, while discovery searches were 6% higher. In addition, businesses received 29% more website clicks from their GMB listings in 2018, and 22% more calls. On average, a business appears in 1,009 searches per month. That’s roughly 33 times a day. So, there are 33 daily opportunities to create a positive impression in the minds of customers with your GMB listing. With the right SEO strategy, you will be rewarded for your dedication and reap the benefits made possible by your continued efforts. Still, the challenges presented by the real estate SEO space continues to increase and requires five key elements to facilitate success: (1) Trust & confidence, (2) patience, (3) self-discipline, (4) tracking & testing, (5) learning from mistakes & adapting to new contexts and marketing approaches. Make this 5-step guide your Search Engine Optimization strategy, and take action. Before you do anything else, I strongly advise that you bookmark this post, print the entire document, and start working on it TODAY. You should preferably move forward with an SEO agency that you can trust, who fully understands your vision, and cares about helping you get consistent results, rank higher in Google for hundreds of relevant key terms and searches, while fixing any SEO issues, as quickly as possible, if and when they arise. Don’t just skim through this content… Absorb it, and TAKE ACTION! Here is a simple 5-step SEO action guide to make the journey easier and less confusing:

Step #1: Local SEO for Real Estate Firms. How to Get Discovered Online.

When it comes to local search optimization, search engines, as well as your target prospects want to know whether your real estate business is legitimate with valid NAPs – or rather, “Name, Address & Phone” listings for easy contact.

These listings, called citations, need to be consistent across the web since search engines use them to determine where your business operates from, and how visitors can best reach you. You want your business to stand the test of time and last for decades, while distinguishing yourself from your competitors. Therefore, you need to carve out a niche for yourself; think local, focus on the city you operate from, and transform your real estate business into a consumer-oriented agency. Think of SEO as the car, and content as the gas, and how you can grab the attention of your target market. If you want to generate a continuous stream of clients from an organic search, then start off by creating your Google My Business listing profile; is free, quick and easy. Once it’s done, you can begin the Google My Business (GMB) optimization process to improve your local search presence. Ensure that you properly complete your profile and provide Google with everything it requires to accurately list your business in the right places at the right times (in local pack and Google Maps). Providing the correct data, as well as compelling information helps you grab the attention of potential customers, prompting them to visit your site or call your number in a bid to do business with you.

An article on Spyserp states that Google considers three factors with regard to local rankings: relevance, distance, and prominence. If you already have a digital presence, and your GMB listing is complete and fully optimized, then it is recommended that you perform an SEO audit for your website. However, you should do this only after you’ve read this entire guide. Your listing will enable you to gather pertinent information about your visibility score across search engines, local directories, review sites, as well as social sites, while identifying how well you are positioned across all these channels to enhance the performance of your business in the local ecosystem.

Step #2: Keyword Research Best Practices for the Real Estate Industry

The keyword research process employed by some real estate agencies is too superficial, and touches on competitive key-phrases such as *your city* real estate or *your city* homes for sale. In many instances, these are not the keywords you should be targeting. Experienced real estate SEO firms, on the other hand, will look for the best keywords to convert, taking into account user intent, while using latent semantic keywords and relevant synonyms. Most often, they particularly target longtail key terms and additional key phrases to ensure that your website pages have a higher chance to rank on the first page of Google search results.

You will be able to out-rank even the big guys by properly targeting long tail keywords with your website content, instead of the medium to higher competitive key terms. Longtails consist of a group of 3-5 words, which are ultra relevant, while targeting a specific market and customer need or search intent. Examples: Home for sale in Real estate agent in Apartment for sale near me Real estate SEO in Examples of potential keyword variables you can use to help generate free passive traffic from the search engines on a continual basis: homes for sale in *your city* *your city* real estate *your city* real estate for sale *your city + state abr* for sale real estate for sale *your city* all of the above with the state abbreviation similar search phrases with subdivisions or counties. A professional keyword discovery tool such as the one offered by Semrush for e.g., simplifies the process of gathering close to 400 keyword suggestions starting with one main keyword: “houses for rent in los angeles”.

Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest tool found 240 keyword ideas. Combined, they work wonders.

Basic on-page SEO requires for a targeted keyword to be supplied in six areas of a web page or blog post, not just inside the web page content or article itself. Let’s say you’re targeting “Los Angeles House for rent.” The relevant elements would look as follows, and inserting the appropriate information is easily achievable using the All In One SEO plugin (Yoast alternative) supplied via WordPress.

SEO-Proof URL Structure Example: https://www.yourrealestatewebsite.com/los-angeles-house-for-rent Relevant Page Title: Los Angeles House for Rent | Westside Rentals Eye-catching Description: this meta description should be compelling enough to prompt Google visitors to click on your link and go to your destinate website page without main keyword overuse. Insert synonyms, and LSI key terms as well. Targeted Keyword examples: Los Angeles House for rent, houses for rent in los angeles by owner, houses for rent in los angeles county Prefered Image Title: you’ll have to save your image as Los-Angeles-House-for-rent.jpg or something very similar. Image Alt Tag: you’ll have to insert an alternative text for the image: Los Angeles House for rent, in case images are unable to load on your server, or visitors did not enable images on their browsers.

Step #3: Internal Linking Best Practices for Real Estate Agencies

Linking is probably the most important part of the SEO process in real estate because that’s how you get the attention of other competing, as well as non-competing sites in your industry, and increase your rankings over time. However, internal linking is more often than not performed incorrectly or not frequently enough. One thing to avoid is to link back to your homepage more often than you should, or multiple times from the same page, or using the same anchor text. Instead, link to other relevant pages on your site using different key terms and keywords (anchor text). Also, share link love to 3-party sources. There’s no set rule here. This approach also provides your visitors with an easy way to find more information about related topics regarding your expertise. Also, it provides both search engines and readers with the opportunity to find other insightful content to scrutinize. Use keywords sparingly, and always steer clear of keyword stuffing since you want to avoid risking any Google penalties or ranking decrease.

What about keyword density? A quick Google search inquiry this morning rendered this result:

You may want to read the full article on this topic, and run your own tests. SEO is about practice, not theory. ***How to Dominate Real Estate SEO With Premium-Content Pages These are going to be your ‘bread-and-butter’ content pages, and you’ll want to link to these from all your new blog posts and social media mentions. Consider these your best, most insightful, and lengthiest content. Make use of all formats and sizes: text, graphics, audio, and video. The purpose of these pages is to establish you as the go-to real estate expert in your city, with your content (along with its metrics such as comments, shares, etc.) acting as legit proof of this assertion. Example #1. Example #2.

Step #4: Leverage Mobile Traffic Like a Pro

Mobile traffic accounts for approximately half of the web traffic worldwide. During the second quarter of 2019, mobile devices (excluding tablets) generated 48.91% of the global website traffic, consistently hovering around the 50% mark since the beginning of 2017. That’s why mobile search traffic is vital for real estate companies and real estate website owners looking to properly optimize their pages, and digital properties for smartphones.

How can you tell if your website is optimized for mobile? Perform a mobile audit, and first check if your site contains these aspects mentioned already: Loads resources across all devices Doesn’t hide content on the mobile versions of your site Loads quickly as expected by mobile users Has working internal links and redirects Boasts a UX that’s optimized for any device that your visitors might use If all these elements are working as they should, then it means your real estate website has a mobile-friendly, responsive design. Here are 3 other key areas to consider with regard to mobile use: Site navigation Site search Forms How Can You Optimize the Readability and Aesthetic Quality of Your Mobile Content? Use at least a 14px font size, and a maximum 3 font colors (black is one of them) Use short paragraphs (1, 2, maximum 3 lines per paragraph - if you have to) Reduce image sizes, and link to videos outside your host servers through mini graphics Stick to a line length of between 50-60 characters Ensure that there’s a significant contrast between the text and the background (people use phones outside, which can make low-contrast text harder to read) Implement AMP pages and speed up your real estate website. Once that’s enabled, the next time your prospects visit your website, they will access your page information instantly, without delay. It is a proven fact that quicker load times lead to happy visitors, referrals and customers, and is not just there to make Google happy and increase your chance of getting higher rankings.

Step #5: Expand and Scale Your SEO Strategy for 10x Traffic Growth.

What follows next is a 3-part combo you can strategically implement to further increase your search visibility, traffic, and online authority. A. Make use of the FAQ schema. I’ve found an interesting SEO hack here. Neil claims that it works regardless of how long your site has been in existence, and it doesn’t require back-links from 3rd party sites. Plus, you can literally see results in less than 30 minutes. Here’s how this works: You will need to create a section on your site or page and offer ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ type of content. This will allow your website to be eligible for a collapsible menu under your SERP with the question, and when clicked on, reveals the answer. There are two ways to implement it… either through JSON-LD or Microdata. Yes, I know, it sounds like complete gibberish, but if you read the article and do what it recommends, you can set this up this SEO strategy once and for all, which enables you to rank and might even provide benefits in terms of a voice search. Implement it if you care to increase the visibility of your real estate brand, and improve the authority of your website. B. Guest post on relevant industry publications to harness more brand visibility, and back-linking opportunities One proven way to grow your credibility and rise in the search engine rankings is by contributing regular content to reputable, non-competitive, high-authority websites, while linking back to your premium web pages in return. You should do this throughout your content and/or the author bio. Each site has their own guest posting linking rules and restrictions. C. Build an Automated Email Nurturing Sequence The recipe for Crafting a High-Converting Nurture Sequence Create your lead generator based on your target audience’s most burning wants, needs, challenges, and pain points. Decide on your sending cadence. How long do you plan to email to your leads? How often, and at which frequency? Set realistic expectations Your welcome email can make or break your email nurturing campaign. It’s the most important message that will generate the highest open-rates and responses, so spend enough time on crafting it. You may also want to convert or expand your email sequence into a regular newsletter to further build your relationship with non-customers in a bid to later transform them into referrals and paying clients. You may find this article by Matthew Bushery - Sr. Content Creator @ Placester - an interesting read:

Bonus Tip: Diversify Your Traffic Sources. As Rand Fishkin recommends, you should invest in growing the loyal, engaged community of your real estate brand vs. purely investing in keyword rankings and back-linking efforts. Social media marketing is that special element you can add to your SEO game plan and online marketing mix. Here’s a simple guide to help you Beat Your Competitor’s Social Media Strategy. If you have any questions about our article , or can suggest any other topics you think we should explore, feel free to let us know. Thank you so much for reading Best Search Engine Optimization Strategy for Real Estate Companies in the US (and abroad). We really appreciate it! Be sure to sign-up for our newsletter to receive monthly emails on all of the latest trends and happenings in the digital marketing space. You will also receive our FREE E-Book with the Amazing Marketing Tools for Powerful Business Growth. Sign-up below! Also, if you received some value out of this article, please share with your friends or colleagues, or leave a comment/question below. We really appreciate you reading our blog and every share/comment means the world to us and allows us to continue producing valuable tools to help you grow your business! Read the full article

#4waystoincreasesitetraffic #bestsearchengineoptimizationstrategy #realestatesearchengineoptimizationstrategy #seostrategyforrealestate

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toldnews-blog · 5 years

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New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/business/thousands-of-firms-rush-to-meet-gender-pay-deadline/

Thousands of firms rush to meet gender pay deadline

Image copyright Getty Images

Thousands of UK companies have yet to publish their gender pay figures before Thursday’s midnight deadline.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said it would take enforcement action against all firms that missed the deadline.

The median pay gap among companies that have so far reported is 10%, against 9.7% last year.

Big firms with the largest gaps include Easyjet, Lloyds Bank, Clydesdale Bank, and British Gas, BBC analysis found.

The BBC looked at companies’ median pay gaps. Of businesses with more than 5,000 employees, some with the biggest increase in the pay gap compared with last year include Kwik Fit and Interserve FS.

The median pay gap is not the same as paying women less than men to do the same work, which is illegal in the UK. But using the median pay measure is helpful in understanding the number of women in companies who hold senior roles.

Want to find out the gender pay gap where you work? Try the calculator below.

All British companies with 250 or more employees have to report their gender pay gaps. Last year 78% disclosed that they paid men more than they paid women.

How big is the pay gap at…?

Type in a company name below

…for every £10 the average man earns…

…the average woman takes home [[PercOfMen]]

Number of companies by pay gap

If you cannot see the calculator, please click here

Only about three quarters of private sector employers had reported their figures ahead of the deadline, leaving some 2,500 still to do so.

The EHRC has vowed to act against companies that do not comply. Chief executive Rebecca Hilsenrath said: “Gender pay gap reporting is not optional. It is a legal requirement and there’s simply no excuse for employers failing to comply with the regulations this year. We will be taking enforcement action against all organisations that have not filed by the deadline requiring them to report immediately.

“Employers that don’t report on time not only risk enforcement action and potential financial penalties; they are letting down the women who work for them. They should be prepared for an unhappy workforce and potential reputational damage.”

Of the companies that had reported by the morning of 4 April:

78% report a pay gap which favours men

13% have a pay gap favouring women

8% report no pay gap.

Who are the firms?

By law, companies, charities and public sector departments of 250 employees or more must publish their gender pay gap figures. The first set were based on a snapshot taken in April 2017, and the most recent data relates to April 2018.

Public sector firms had to report by 30 March, and charitable and private firms by 5 April.

The BBC’s analysis looked at private sector firms which had gender pay gap data and a consistent registration at Companies House for April 2017 and April 2018.

At the garage chain Kwik Fit, the previous year’s pay gap of 15.2% had favoured women, indicating that there were a high number in senior roles. But the latest data shows a reversal, with a 14% gap in favour of men.

A company spokeswoman said the industry had been “historically more appealing to men”, although it was trying to recruit more women.

“We are keen to both promote from within the company as well as recruit more women to help redress this balance,” the spokeswoman said.

The gap at Interserve FS, part of the Interserve Group, widened from 0.6% to 14.9%. Interserve FS is one of 21 entities that make up the outsourcing giant.

A spokesman for Interserve Group said: “We are committed to addressing the issues on gender pay and through the leadership of our chief executive, Debbie White, we are making good progress.”

Airlines flying high?

Easyjet had the largest pay gap of the available reported data, at 47.9%. The firm said in March that the gap had widened from 45.5% as more female cabin crew had been recruited since the last pay snapshot.

Most of the airline’s pilots are male, and are more highly paid than cabin crew. The firm is making efforts to recruit more female pilots.

Low-cost airline Jet2 had a 41.9% pay gap, compared with 49.7%. Although still a wide gap, it was also one of the businesses to have made the biggest strides in closing the division.

UPS, New Look, Capita and EE also narrowed the gap.

Bank performance

Barclays Investment Bank had a large pay gap of 44.1%.

In its 2018 gender pay gap report, Barclays said it would introduce an “accelerator programme” for promising mid-level employees and try to recruit more female managing directors.

It also said it would try to understand why women left Barclays.

The pay gap at Lloyds Bank was 41.7%, while the gap at Lloyds Banking Group as a whole was flat at 32.8%.

A spokesperson for the bank group said it was “committed to attracting and retaining the best talent,” adding that “there is still more work to do”.

“We were the first FTSE 100 organisation to make a public commitment to having 40% of senior roles filled by women by 2020, and remain committed to both our gender target and closing the pay gap,” the spokesperson added.

While airlines and banks, including RBS, dominated the list of firms with the largest pay gaps, other businesses were in the top ten.

British Gas, for example, had a pay gaps of 37.5%. British Gas-owner Centrica said: “Our gender pay gap is not due to unequal pay. It is driven by a greater proportion of men in traditionally male-dominated and higher-paid technical roles, such as gas and electrical engineering.”

‘Action plans not excuses’

The Fawcett Society, a charity which campaigns for gender equality, called for tougher regulations to close the gender pay gap.

“It is disappointing, but not surprising, that there are so many employers in the UK with large pay gaps and that these pay gaps aren’t being closed,” said Sam Smethers, Fawcett Society chief executive. “The regulations are not tough enough. It’s time for action plans not excuses.”

She added: “Government needs to require employers to publish action plans that we can hold them accountable to, with meaningful sanctions in place for those who do not comply.”

Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the CBI employers’ group, said: “The business case for equality is watertight and gender pay reporting must act as a catalyst for change.

“Some of the practical action companies are taking – like setting themselves stretching targets – are having an immediate and positive impact. Other important steps like helping more women enter male-dominated sectors will make pay gaps bigger in the short-term.”

Understanding the terminology

Median pay gap

The median pay gap is the difference in pay between the middle-ranking woman and the middle-ranking man.

If you place all the men and women working at a company into two lines in order of salary, the median pay gap will be the difference in salary between the woman in the middle of her line and the man in the middle of his.

Mean pay gap

The mean pay gap is the difference between a company’s total wage spend-per-woman and its total spend-per-man.

The number is calculated by taking the total wage bill for each and dividing it by the number of men and women employed by the organisation.

Pay gap v equal pay

The gender pay gap is not the same as unequal pay.

Unequal pay is giving women less than men for the same work. That has been against the law since the Equal Pay Act was introduced in 1970.

A company’s gender pay gap can also be caused by other things, for example fewer women in senior or highly-paid roles or more women in part-time jobs.

How does the BBC calculator work?

The individual company data reflects information submitted by companies to the Government Equalities Office.

The data submitted each year is based on figures drawn from a specific date – called the ‘snapshot date’ – the previous year. 5 April is the snapshot date for businesses and charities. 31 March is the snapshot date for public sector organisations.

All gender pay gap figures in this article reflect the hourly median pay gap for all employees.

Calculator design and development: Irene de la Torre Arenas, Becky Rush, Scott Jarvis, Alexander Ivanov and Oliver Schnuck.

Data journalism: Clara Guibourg and Nassos Stylianou

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footballghana · 4 years

Text

Hani Amamou: Tunisia’s Talented Centre-Back

Hani Amamou made his debut for one of Tunisia’s most successful clubs CS Sfaxien on 15 October 2016 at the age of 19 against JS Kairouan. He played the full 90 minutes as his team won 3-0.

He had come a long way in a short space of time. From his humble beginnings in the small Tunisian town of Moknine inhabited by less than 60,000 residents, where he was born in September 1997, to starting for CS Sfaxien in a Tunisian top division fixture.

In Amamou’s debut season he played in 11 league matches including seven starts in a row between March and May 2017. The following season, he remained in the first-team squad, playing in 16 out of the 26 domestic matches. This included 12 starts and four substitute appearances. He also played in two Coupe de Tunisie matches.

The 2018/2019 season was Amamou’s breakout season. He became a key defender for CS Sfaxien, playing in 22 out of the 26 league games including 20 starts. He was also heavily involved in their Coupe de Tunisie triumph as he played every minute of all five cup matches which culminated in a penalty shoot-out victory over rivals ES Sahel. In the CAF Confederations Cup, he started in 13 out of 14 matches for CS Sfaxien. They performed admirably by reaching the semi-finals before losing to Moroccan side RS Berkane, 3-2 on aggregate.

In the 2019/2020 season Amamou reaffirmed the integral role he occupied in defence for CS Sfaxien. He has started in every single league game, 20 in total as of 20 August 2020, as well as in two Coupe de Tunisie matches. In the CAF Confederations Cup, he started both games as his club succumbed to a 3-1 defeat to Algerian outfit Paradou AC over two legs in the first qualifying round.

As of yet, the 22-year-old Hamamou has only played for Tunisia at youth level and has not featured for the senior national side. In club competitions he has made 90 appearances for CS Sfaxien, an impressive feat for a youth player.

Position, Attributes and Style of Play

Amamou is right-footed and can play as both a right-sided and left-sided centre-back. CS Sfaxien usually play in a 4-3-3 formation and he is rotated between the two roles depending on who is available to partner him.

In the centre-back role Amamou is assigned he is expected to be commanding in the air, capable of defending in 1v1 situations and cover for his nearest wing-back teammate or fellow centre-back if the ball is played in behind them. When his team have possession, he is required to be comfortable receiving the ball in defensive and midfield areas and starting attacks with purposeful forward passes to help contribute to the build-up play through the defensive and midfield phases.

Amamou’s physicality aligns well with his centre-back position. He is 1.87m which is a good height for a central defender, is strong enough to bully attackers and deceptively quick so is rarely out-sprinted by opponents. His height and strength combined with solid positioning, controlled aggression and expertly timed jumps is evident in aerially duels. He consistently wins high balls whether that be from defending set pieces, long-balls from opposing outfield players or from goal-kicks. He does this by carefully positioning himself in line with the incoming high ball and then uses his timing and height to leap towards the ball at the opportune moment and head it. In some instances, he also utilises his strength and controlled aggression to unbalance or discourage his opponent from jumping without committing a foul and then jumping to head the ball. Not only does he usually win these aerial duels he is also adept at guiding his header to a teammate which helps his team maintain possession.

The speed Amamou displays is helpful when covering for teammates caught out of position or if a ball is played in behind them and he has to cover for them. His speed also partly explains why he is so comfortable coming out to the wings to face opposition attackers in a 1v1 clash. In conjunction with his strength he can match an attacker stride for stride and then step across them, discreetly brush them aside and gather the ball or guide the ball out of play. Alternatively in 1v1’s he uses his physical pressure smartly to unbalance opponents and force them to hastily shoot, play a cross or pass therefore increasing the likelihood of their action being inaccurate.

Other important facets of Amamou’s game which aid him in defensive situations, especially in 1v1’s is his clever reading of the game, inch-perfect tackling and composed nature. When faced with an opponent in a 1v1 battle in central or wide areas he is good at anticipating the opponent’s body movements and predicting how they will manipulate the ball to try and evade him. Consequently, he is able to execute his tackle at the perfect moment. Just as they attempt to shift the ball past him he will win the ball off them without diving in or fouling them. Many times, he just nicks the ball off the attacker’s foot enabling him to retrieve the ball and play it to a teammate which alleviates pressure on his team’s defence. Staying on his feet in these ground duels show his composure and makes it more difficult for opponents to dribble past him.

From a technical standpoint Amamou is generally proficient, with his passing catching the eye. In particular, he can easily produce impressive cross-field passes with both foot from either the right or left centre-back position to a teammate wide on the opposite flank. He is also capable of playing incisive line-breaking ground passes from defence into the midfield and attacking third. These types of passes are useful in opening up the play and helping start attacks from deep. His touch and ball control are decent as exemplified in a segment of play during a CAF Confederations Cup match versus ES Sahel in 2018/2019 season. He anticipates a chipped long-ball for an opponent to run on to and places himself between the opponent and the bouncing ball. He then flicks the ball over his own head and that of the pressing attacker and turns rapidly to collect the ball bouncing ball. As he takes a delicate touch to bring the ball under control he spots another opponent attempting to close him down so allows the ball to bounce again then audaciously lofts the ball over their head with the outside of his right boot into the path of a a teammate. Without a decent touch, the ability to control bouncing balls under pressure and remaining calm in the face of challenges he would have made a terrible mistake which his opponents could have capitalised on. However, it should be noted that he looks somewhat clumsy when receiving the ball on occasions as it can get stuck under his feet and he looks as if he will trip over it. Although he rarely gives up possession as a result and is quick enough to sort his feet out and release the ball before an opponent can press him. This slight flaw in his game can be improved upon by him ensuring he stays concentrated when receiving the ball, particularly when there is no pressure on him as this is when the clumsy touches most regularly occur.

Noticeably, Amamou sometimes likes to vacate his centre-back position and step out of the defensive line to press opponents in central areas when they have the ball just inside the final third. This can cause disruption to the flow of the opponents attempted attack and he can be seen winning the ball in these areas and creating a fast transition by playing a direct forward pass into space for an attacking teammate to gather. Nevertheless, this approach can be problematic sometimes because when he fails to win the ball and the opponents play the ball around him he is then out of position and having to run back towards his own goal to recover his position. This puts greater pressure on the defence and leaves them exposed to the opposition attacking the space he left. Luckily for him, in the games reviewed, when he did this and was unable to win the ball the opponents failed to capitalise on the space he vacated. To reduce the risk of presenting opportunities for his opponents to create chances when taking this action, he should only do this:

when he communicates to his teammates he is going to do this so they expect it and can react accordingly to cover his space properly; and

when the opposition are employing a very slow build-up because if he is unable to win the ball he can easily return to his position before any attacking threat materialises; or

if the opponent has very few players ahead of the ball because if he fails to win it the opposition will not have equal or more players ahead of the ball which would pose great danger for the defence.

An area of Amamou’s game which he needs to improve on is his awareness of opponents when attempting to fend off crosses. It is important to highlight that he usually positions himself correctly to deal with crosses which land in the area where he is located. The problem is that on some occasions despite his sound positioning he can be caught ball-watching instead of monitoring the ball, marking the closest attacker in the box and anticipating off-the-ball runs other opposition players are making into his zone of the box. This means attackers can sometimes create space between themselves and him inside the penalty box without him noticing. While other opposing players can make runs from outside the box into the box, in behind him, as a cross is delivered and he is unaware of where they are too. It is a difficult skill to be focusing on the ball, the nearest attacker in the box and possible runs into the box from other opponents but all world class defenders have to demonstrate it every time they step on the pitch. This shortcoming in his game can be improved upon by him ensuring that he takes repeated glances at the ball whilst also continually scanning his region of the box and looking over his shoulder to watch the movements of his nearest opponent and any possible runs in to the box.

Long-term Potential

Amamou is a talented young player who has shown that he has the qualities required to succeed at the highest level. Having watched him across a number of matches in the Tunisian Ligue Professionelle 1 and the CAF Confederations Cup he can certainly establish himself as an accomplished centre-back for a club in Europe’s top five leagues.

Potential Future Clubs

Amamou has reached the stage of his career where a move to a new club is needed. He has starred at centre-back for CS Sfaxien over the past two seasons and is unlikely to improve by staying at the Tunisian side.

At 22 years of age and having gained a wealth of experience playing in one of Africa’s best leagues along with numerous appearances in the CAF Confederations Cup, Amamou is ready to take the next step in his career. So, let’s take a look at two clubs that would be suitable for his next move:

Stade de Reims (Reims)

Reims exceeded expectations in the 2019/2020 season achieving a highly commendable sixth-place finish. This position in the final Ligue 1 (France’s top division) standings qualified them for the UEFA Europa League, starting in the second qualifying round. Due to their varying commitments across three competitions next season they will be looking to add more quality and depth to their squad.

Recently, Reims sold their prized asset, French-Congolese centre-back Axel Disasi to the 2016/2017 Ligue 1 champions AS Monaco for around £13m. They will therefore need to recruit a new centre-back to replace him and partner the ever-reliable 32-year-old Yunis Abdelhamid. A sensible option as Disasi’s replacement is Amamou. Amamou is only 22 years of age, has the physical, defensive, mental and technical profile suited to high quality European football and has gained significant experience at CS Sfaxien. Favourably his contract is expiring in summer 2021 which means he could be signed for around £1-2m leaving them extra money to strengthen other areas of their team. On top of that he has parts of his game he needs to work on and a broad scope for development. If they bought him, he would be ready to start in Ligue 1 but could also be rotated with their other centre-backs, the young Austrian, Dario Maresic and Wout Faes.

Transferring to Reims would be a perfect next step for Amamou. He would get to play for a a relatively small club, in a much higher quality league, who have affirmed their status over a number of years in that league and look to be heading in the right direction from a footballing perspective. Last season they were built on incredibly strong defensive foundations conceding only 21 goals in 28 games. This was the fewest in Ligue 1. Joining a club with such a strong defensive structure would make it easier for him to adapt to a new league, handle the increased quality of opposition attackers and slot in smoothly to the starting XI. He would most likely play alongside Abdelhamid who was instrumental in their defenisve prowess last season and with his experience in Ligue 1 could help guide and support Amamou the way he did with Disasi last season.

Playing at Reims for a couple of seasons would give Amamou the opportunity to develop as a player, iron out some of the identified flaws in his game and showcase his talents with the possibility of moving to a more prestigious club afterwards.

Real Betis

Real Betis finished a hugely disappointing 15th place in the La Liga (Spain’s top division) table for the 2019/2020 season. This led to the sacking of their previous manager and the appointment of the very experienced English Premier League title-winning manager Manuel Pellegrini for next season. With him at the helm they will be looking to get as a minimum a top 10 finish and probably have the aim of reaching the top 8.

In analysing the Real Betis squad, it is noted that they have three ageing centre backs. Marc Bartra is 29, Aissa Mandi is 28 but will be 29 later this year and Sidnei is 30 and will be 31 later in the year. Added to that Mandi has been heavily linked with a move to both Liverpool and Fenerbahce and with his contract ending in summer 2021 it is likely they will look to sell him this summer for around £5-10m rather than risk losing him on a free next summer. While Zouhair Feddal, who was a back-up centre-back last season, has recently joined Portuguese side Sporting Lisbon for a fee in the region of £3m. As Feddal has already left, they need to recruit at least one new centre-back and if Mandi were to depart as well, that would leave at least two centre-back spaces which need to be filled.

In light of this, Amamou would be a clever centre-back purchase for Betis. He is only 22 years old and would give them a younger centre-back option with years ahead of him to develop and improve. He also has plenty of good experience in domestic and continental African football, has the technical skills to transition smoothly into La Liga for a ball-dominant side as well as the physical characteristics and mental qualities to handle a major step-up in opposition.

Joining Real Betis would be a sizeable jump for Amamou to take. However, he certainly can handle it. He would be joining a major Spanish club who have consistently under-performed for years but with Pellegrini in charge that could easily change. He worked wonders at Malaga and Villarreal taking both to the knockout stages of the UEFA Champions League in the last 15 years. He is a manager who likes to play possession football whilst ensuring defensive solidity. Amamou would suit playing under Pellegrini due to his pragmatic attacking philosophy and his tendency to rotate those players who he does not consider to be integral to the team’s success. This rotation policy would be good for Amamou’s continued development as he would likely get a respectable number of minutes in La Liga and in the Copa del Rey in his first season. After that first season of adaptation he has the capabilites to become their key centre-back.

Source: africanfootballhq

source: https://footballghana.com/

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lodelss · 4 years

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TRAP Laws are the Threat to Abortion Rights You Don’t Know About

This week, the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in a case that will have wide-reaching consequences for reproductive freedom and abortion rights in America. It’s the first time the Court has weighed those rights since gaining a new conservative majority with the appointments of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. And the stakes are high.

The case that the court will hear, June Medical Services LLC v. Russo, is being argued by the Center for Reproductive Rights (CCR), and it involves a law in Louisiana known as a “TRAP” – Targeted Restriction on Abortion Providers. The details of TRAP laws can be wonky and complicated, but what they’re meant to do isn’t. TRAP laws are intended to circumvent Roe v. Wade, provide a back door for lawmakers to curtail abortion access, and push reproductive health services out of reach.

Essentially, these laws create burdensome and medically unnecessary regulations for abortion clinics that are written with the goal of forcing them to shut down.

If the Court rules against the plaintiff in the case — an abortion clinic in Louisiana — it’s likely to be a green light for a wave of these laws to be passed in politically conservative states. Many of those states are already in court battles over TRAP laws they already have on the books, and if they get the Supreme Court’s stamp of approval, legislators there are likely to expand the strategic use of those laws, making it increasingly difficult — if not impossible — to access an abortion there.

Anti-abortion lobbying groups know that overturning Roe v. Wade outright is unpopular. According to a 2019 poll, only 13 percent of Americans support overturning the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 decision that established legal abortion as a constitutional right. And in 2019, the ACLU, along with its partners, successfully blocked high-profile abortion bans in Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Utah, and Arkansas.

TRAP laws take a sneakier path to limiting abortion access. By imposing regulations that sound technical and bureaucratic to a casual observer, they avoid the kind of widespread public scrutiny that the flurry of bans passed in 2019 provoked. Typically cloaked in the language of health care, the regulations they impose on abortion providers are costly and, in many cases, impossible to comply with. They don’t make anyone safer, either, which is why the American Medical Association and other major health organizations oppose them.

What they are meant to do is make it hard for abortion providers to offer medical services, and particularly in the South and Midwest, that’s exactly what they’ve done.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, between 2011 and 2017, TRAP laws caused 50 clinics in the South and 33 in the Midwest to close. In four states — Arizona, Kentucky, Ohio, and Texas — they led to half the available clinics shutting their doors. Kentucky and Missouri now have only one abortion clinic left, and if the Supreme Court lets Louisiana’s TRAP law stand, two of its remaining three will close.

Fewer clinics mean that people who need abortion care are forced to travel longer distances and rack up higher costs associated with transportation, time off work, and child care. Some will be unable to access care as a result. It also makes them likelier to get an abortion later in their pregnancy. Abortion is safe — more so than childbirth — but the risks as well as the costs associated with it increase with unnecessary delays.

TRAP laws took a hit in 2016 when the Supreme Court ruled that a Texas law, identical to the one being challenged in the Louisiana case, was unconstitutional. In a 5-3 majority, the court reaffirmed in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstadt that states couldn’t impose an “undue burden” on people seeking an abortion.

But now, four years later, the court looks different than it did in 2016. With an ascendant conservative bench, the ability of states to impose TRAP laws suddenly seems much less resolved than it did in the wake of Whole Woman’s Health. June Medical Services is the first test of how this new court will treat abortion restrictions. If it breaks with its own recent precedent and gives Louisiana’s law a constitutional seal of approval, conservative lawmakers could be free to use similar laws to make it as hard as possible to get an abortion.

In advance of the hearing, here is a primer on the four most common types of TRAP laws, and what they mean for clinics in states where they’re passed.

Admitting Privileges

The Louisiana TRAP law at stake in June Medical Services is virtually identical to the one the Supreme Court struck down in 2016. It requires doctors at abortion clinics in the state to have “admitting privileges” with a local hospital.

Admitting privileges allow a doctor to check someone into a hospital and then oversee their care. In order for a doctor to get them, the hospital’s administrators need to sign off. At first glance, this sounds simple enough. Why wouldn’t a hospital grant admitting privileges to a qualified doctor, no matter what their practice?

In fact, the process of granting admitting privileges to doctors that work in abortion clinics can be heavily politicized. The hospital might be affiliated with the Catholic Church, or key decisionmakers in its administration could be personally opposed to abortion rights. Even those who are personally sympathetic to reproductive freedom might face intense political pressure from inside or outside the hospital to deny admitting privileges to doctors that perform abortions.

And in many cases, hospital rules require doctors who are granted admitting privileges to live within a certain distance of the hospital, even though many who work at abortion clinics choose to live far away because of stigma and the threat of violence against them. Hospitals also frequently have rules stipulating that doctors must admit a certain number of patients every year in order to qualify for admitting privileges.

For those who work at abortion clinics, the latter requirement can be disqualifying. Abortion is about as safe as it gets – fewer than 0.5 percent of abortion patients require hospitalization for a major complication. Thus, clinic doctors who are denied admitting privileges because they can’t meet the threshold of patients brought to the hospital every year are effectively being penalized for doing their jobs well.

Most importantly, there’s really no coherent argument in favor of requiring doctors who work at clinics to get admitting privileges in the first place. In the very rare instance in which a patient has a complication following an abortion that requires emergency attention, hospitals with emergency rooms are legally required to treat them.

And when complications necessitating hospitalization do happen, symptoms are often not apparent until later, after the patient has returned home. In those cases, they will most likely seek treatment at a hospital close to where they live — not the specific hospital where the doctor from their abortion clinic has admitting privileges anyway.

But patient care isn’t the purpose of the Louisiana law, nor of similar laws in other states. Those laws are meant to close clinics down by forcing doctors to comply with regulations they can’t meet.

Written Transfer Agreements

A close relative of admitting privilege requirements are TRAP laws that force clinics to have a “written transfer agreement” with a local hospital. The difference is, admitting privileges are granted on a case-by-case basis to individual doctors, whereas written transfer agreements are signed between the hospital and the clinic itself.

Essentially, a written transfer agreement is a contract. By signing one, a hospital agrees to treat anyone who needs emergency care resulting from an abortion performed at a specific clinic. Six states have laws on the books that require clinics to have such agreements with a nearby hospital. A seventh — Kentucky — had one until late 2018, when it was struck down in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU on behalf of the last clinic left in the state. (An appeal in the case is pending.)

Just like admitting privilege requirements, written transfer agreements address a problem that doesn’t exist. Federal law already requires hospitals to admit anyone who needs emergency services. So, in the exceedingly rare situation where someone needs to be transferred from a clinic for emergency medical care related to an abortion, they’ll get that care whether or not the clinic where they were treated had a written transfer agreement with a local hospital or not.

Also, like admitting privileges for doctors, the process of getting a written transfer agreement for a clinic can be politically charged and difficult.

And even when they do get a written transfer agreement, politicians can step in and use their muscle to create new obstacles. Before Kentucky’s law was blocked, its last remaining clinic had an agreement with the OB/GYN department of a nearby hospital. But former Gov. Matt Bevin decided that wasn’t good enough, and ordered the clinic to get a signature on the transfer agreement from the CEO of the hospital.

This, of course, was because he knew that he could pressure that CEO not to sign such an agreement. If a federal judge hadn’t intervened, Kentucky would be without any abortion clinics in the state.

In Ohio, the state Department of Health is using its written transfer agreement requirement to try to shut down every clinic it can. The only clinic in the Toledo area, for example, has repeatedly struggled to obtain a written transfer agreement, bringing it to the edge of closing more than once. State law bars public hospitals from signing transfer agreements with abortion providers, and anti-abortion groups have successfully pressured other hospitals into retracting theirs.

Some states with laws requiring written transfer agreements may allow a waiver if clinics can show, for example, that they have made back up arrangements with doctors who have admitting privileges. But even then, lawmakers and state agencies can move the goalposts to force clinics out of compliance. When one Ohio clinic asked for a waiver from the state Department of Health and provided the names of two doctors who had admitting privileges at a local hospital, it was told that, in fact, it needed three. When the clinic provided a third, the department’s response was: now we require four.

Physical Plant Requirements

The most common TRAP laws require abortion clinics to meet the same requirements of an Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC). ASCs are health care facilities where surgical procedures that typically don’t require an overnight stay are performed.

Because these facilities perform invasive surgical procedures, states require that they be set up and equipped for emergencies and meet a high standard of sterility. The rules that cover ASCs are strict, often specifying how wide their hallways are, the number of bathrooms they must include, and what size the rooms where patients are treated must be.

Like other types of TRAP laws, physical plant requirements are designed to sound like common sense to a casual observer. Why wouldn’t an abortion clinic have to meet the same standards that facilities performing surgical procedures do?

The answer is: Abortion is a far safer procedure than those performed at most ASCs, in part because abortion does not involve any incision. Moreover, increasingly abortions are induced by the use of medication alone. And as pointed out above, fewer than 0.5 percent of people who have an abortion need to be hospitalized for complications.

Laws that require abortion clinics to be set up like ASCs are meant to force them to pay for costly renovations that can rack up millions of dollars in construction bills. Many clinics just can’t afford the price tag of compliance, and simply close down instead.

Other physical plant requirements have bordered on the absurd, like one passed in Virginia in 2011 that specified how many parking spots, sinks, and toilets clinics needed to have. (That law was later repealed by Virginia’s state board of health.)

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 17 states require abortion clinics to have structural standards that are similar to ASCs.

Personnel and Staffing Requirements

Some states have requirements that clinics providing abortion care hire staff with specific, unnecessary qualifications, including laws that prevent doctors from performing an abortion unless they are board-certified OB/GYNs. By needlessly narrowing which doctors can perform an abortion, those laws serve only to make it harder and harder for people to get an abortion.

In March 2019, Arkansas legislators passed such a measure. If it had gone into effect, there would have been only one clinic left in the entire state where a person could get an abortion. The ACLU and Planned Parenthood sued and successfully blocked the law from going into effect, but the state has appealed.

These four types of TRAP laws aren’t the only way that lawmakers are trying to restrict access to abortion, but they’re a crucial part of their strategy to roll back the guarantee of Roe v. Wade. Depending on how the Supreme Court rules in June Medical Services, they could find themselves empowered to expand that strategy – if so, some states might have no abortion clinics left before we know it.

The consequences of a turn in that direction would be profound for people seeking to access abortion services. Fewer clinics mean that they will have to travel further distances, take more time off of work, find more childcare and face other enhanced obstacles, if they are able to get the care at all. The burdens will be especially severe for people who are struggling to make ends meet, and people of color.

TRAP laws aren’t intended to keep them safe — they’re meant to push reproductive health services out of their reach.

Published March 3, 2020 at 09:35PM via ACLU https://ift.tt/2TkT7w8

#IFTTT #Blogger

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watchilove · 4 years

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Piaget stole the show at the 2018 Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie with the unveiling of the remarkable Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept – the thinnest mechanical watch in the world.

Measuring a gossamer 2mm, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept served as a stage for numerous Piaget innovations, including a case that formed part of the movement, a unique, integrated winding crown, an ultra-thin crystal and, more importantly, new constructions for the barrel and energy regulation. Thanks to this evolution, the power reserve of the Altiplano Ultimate Concept extended to more than 40 hours, a benchmark in the canon of ultra-thin watches…

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But what people wanted to know was whether or not such a complex and technically advanced watch could ever be produced commercially and, if so, would it be a practical proposition for daily use?

In 2020, Piaget is proud to announce that the answers to those two questions are ‘yes’ and ‘yes’ – because the Altiplano Ultimate Concept is no longer just an ambitious experiment in pushing the boundaries of horological micro-engineering, but a fully developed, tried and tested watch that is now available for watch lovers and collectors to buy, own and use.

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept G0A45502

From Drawing Board to Your Wrist

The Altiplano Ultimate Concept was developed and produced entirely in-house by Piaget’s dedicated Research and Innovation division.

The team worked solely on the prototype for four years – during which time many of the established codes of watch making were re-invented – and spent a further two years perfecting the design and engineering in order to bring the watch to your wrist.

To reach the goal of creating a watch just 2mm thick – a remarkable feat which established a new world record – the team had to abandon conventional thinking.

Bear in mind, this watch is only as thick as a 1 Euro coin, thinner than most after dinner mints and the same height as just two credit cards stacked together !

Classical design dictates a standard four-layers construction: bezel and crystal; dial, hands and movement encapsulated in a case and case back.

Piaget, the master of thin watches since 1957, had already used the fusion concept in its 900P in 2014 (3.65mm) – the world’s thinnest mechanical watch at that time.

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept G0A45502

With such specific engineering, the traditional movement mainplate disappeared, the case back being used both as part of the case and the movement mainplate, directly carved from one single block of gold. In 2018, Piaget pushed the concept even further by launching the Altiplano Ultimate Automatic which, at just 4.3mm thick, became the world’s thinnest gold watch.

With the Altiplano Ultimate Concept, the only option was to go one step further. Piaget embarked on a journey of unprecedented miniaturisation that resulted in the filing of no fewer than five patents, the process beginning with the creation of a case for the watch into which the movement baseplate is directly machined.

Too thin to use gold, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept case had to be made from a new, cobalt-based alloy that is highly resistant, 2.3 times stronger than gold and, therefore, much more difficult to machine.

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept G0A45502

Other parts were entirely re-engineered and re-sized, with wheels, for example, being reduced from a conventional 0.20mm thick to 0.12mm and the sapphire crystal, normally 1mm thick in a standard watch, being pared-down by 80 per cent to a scarcely believable 0.2mm.

The mainspring barrel (the source of power that drives the mechanism) is also of an entirely new design that has no cover or drum but is mounted on a single, ceramic ball-bearing within the frame of the watch and enables the fully-wound movement to run for up to 40 hours.

The crown, meanwhile, has been re-invented to take the form of a flat, telescopic system (with its own, specially-designed winding tool) that fits flush with the case band and in which the conventional sliding pinion clutch and crown wheel are substituted for a single, ‘infinite screw’.

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept G0A45502

Such a construction offers the great advantage of perfectly protecting the crown, and therefore the movement, from unwanted shock.

The dial’s off-centre position, meanwhile, meant that a conventional, straight winding stem could not be used – a problem Piaget solved by creating a patented ‘staggered’ stem.

In order for the system to function perfectly, the conventional hour hand is replaced with a revolving indicator disc while the minute hand works in the usual way.

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept G0A45501

So incredibly thin is the Altiplano Ultimate Concept that a mere 0.12 mm of cobalt separates the movement from the wearer’s skin – close your eyes, and you will struggle to believe you are actually wearing it.

The degree of thinness of this watch also means that even the method of indicating the time had to be re-thought. Instead of having a dial and two hands placed on top of a bridge, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept features a dial that lies beneath it, thus providing protection from any contact with the strong but wafer-thin crystal should it be momentarily deformed in an impact. This innovative technical feature is a patent registered by Piaget in 2014 (for the launch of 900P caliber).

Indeed, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept belies its wafer-like appearance by probably being tough enough to withstand everything from the level of G-Force experienced in an aerobatic jet to the force of a meteorite crashing to Earth!

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept G0A45502

A Finish Without Compromise

Although the Altiplano Ultimate Concept measures a mere 2mm thick, it contains a remarkable 167 individual parts, many of which have had to be produced to microscopically small dimensions in order for the goal of ultimate thinness to be met.

Nevertheless, Piaget’s strict parameters of accuracy, reliability and robustness all had to be upheld, as did the Maison’s reputation for producing exquisitely hand-decorated movements.

Clearly, the minuscule size of many components presented a challenge in this area – not least since the slightest error of judgement could result in the inadvertent destruction of a vital part.

But Piaget’s artisans rose to the challenge, embellishing the movement with sunburst and satin-brushed finishes, chamfered and polished bridges and enhancing the appearance of the combined case/baseplate with a sophisticated PVD treatment.

And, in order that the quest for slimness and practicality should be maintained throughout the watch, a special alligator skin strap, a blue rubber and a blue baltimor technical textile strap were developed. They are all ultra-thin, featuring a velvet calfskin lining and an ultra-strong Kevlar – secured, of course, by an ultra-thin cobalt pin buckle.

Piaget Infinitely Personal – the Ultimate Luxury

Bespoke finishes and unique features are often considered key to luxury, a fact that Piaget recognised more than 50 years ago when it introduced its innovative ‘Style Selector’ at its New York boutique in order to offer customers the opportunity to choose the shape of their watch case, the type of dial and bracelet and the extent of the gem setting.

The idea proved so popular that it was rolled-out to Piaget stores around the world – and it has been revived today by making the Altiplano Ultimate Concept extensively customisable to the requirements of individual owners.

As a result, buyers may specify the colour of the bridge and dial, the finish of the hands and the main plate and select straps that match or contrast – a range of options that will allow the Altiplano Ultimate Concept to be created in more than 10,000 permutations, thus ensuring that few will be alike and most will be truly unique.

The Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept will, of course, be a rare watch in any event – but, with so many different combinations of colours and finishes available, there is little to no chance of a meeting anyone else wearing an identical example!

Piaget Patrimony 9P calibre

Piaget – the King of Ultra-thin

The aesthetic appeal of slim and elegant wrist watches has recently been re-discovered and more makers are returning them to their catalogues – but Piaget has consistently majored in the ultra-thin theme since the creation of the hand-wound Calibre 9P in 1957.

With a history dating back to its founding as a movement manufacturer in 1874, Piaget boasts almost unrivalled experience in creating and developing high-end mechanisms and has made ‘Altiplano’ a name that is all but a byword for the ultimate in thin watches.

When launched, the Calibre 9P’s thickness of 2mm (now matched by that of the complete Altiplano Ultimate Concept timepiece) made it one of the world’s thinnest mechanical movements of the era.

Piaget Patrimony 12P calibre

Since then, however, Piaget has established a string of records in the field, ranging from the 2.3mm Calibre 12P of 1960 (then the world’s thinnest, self-winding movement) to the creation of further record-breaking skeleton, diamond-set skeleton, date, automatic, manual-winding and manual winding chronograph watches, as well as – in 2017 – the Calibre 670P utra-thin flying tourbillon.

The Altiplano Ultimate Concept therefore continues the Maison’s great tradition – and will undoubtedly cause watch lovers to ask: “What can they possibly do next?”

Which is, of course, a question for the future…

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About Piaget

Piaget epitomizes daring creativity – a quality that has continued to permeate through the Maison since its beginnings in 1874. From his first workshop in La Côte-aux-Fées, Georges-Edouard Piaget devoted himself to crafting high-precision movements in a feat that formed the very foundations of our pioneering name. In the late 1950s, Piaget unveiled the ultra-thin movements that would later become the Maison’s trademark and the cornerstone of the Altiplano collection. As a true innovator of the watch and jewellery world, Piaget strongly believed in creativity and artistic values. It is within the walls of our “Ateliers de l’Extraordinaire” where master artisans continue to harness rare skills that have been preserved and perfected from generation to generation, transforming gold, stones and precious gems into dazzling works of art. Through its pursuit of masterful craftsmanship, the Maison has created emblems of daring excellence channelled into its collections including Piaget Altiplano, Piaget Polo, Limelight Gala, Possession, Sunlight, Piaget Rose and Extremely Piaget.

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept Technical Specifications

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept G0A45500

Diameter: 41 mm

World’s thinnest mechanical hand-wound watch

Thickness: 2.0mm

Watch made from a cobalt-based high-tech alloy

Calibre and watch exterior merge as one

Rectangular-shaped crown recessed into the caseband

Monobloc bezel integrated into the frame

0.2mm thick crystal

Alligator leather strap, 1.5mm thin

Ultra-thin cobalt alloy pin buckle

Calibre: Piaget 900P-UC

Development time: 6 years

Five patents pending

Power reserve: approx. 40 hours

Frequency: 28,800 vph/ 4 Hz

Number of jewels: 13

Functions: Hours, Minutes offset at 12 o’clock

Finishing: black PVD-treated and satin-brushed baseplate and caseback, polished case

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept G0A45501

Diameter: 41 mm

World’s thinnest mechanical hand-wound watch

Thickness: 2.0mm

Watch made from a cobalt-based high-tech alloy

Calibre and watch exterior merge as one

Rectangular-shaped crown recessed into the caseband

Monobloc bezel integrated into the frame

0.2mm thick crystal

Blue Baltimora technical textile, 1.5mm thin

Ultra-thin cobalt alloy pin buckle

Calibre: Piaget 900P-UC

Development time: 6 years

Five patents pending

Power reserve: approx. 40 hours

Frequency: 28,800 vph/ 4 Hz

Number of jewels: 13

Functions: Hours, Minutes offset at 12 o’clock

Finishing: black PVD-treated and satin-brushed baseplate and caseback, polished case

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept G0A45502

Diameter: 41 mm

World’s thinnest mechanical hand-wound watch

Thickness: 2.0mm

Watch made from a cobalt-based high-tech alloy

Calibre and watch exterior merge as one

Rectangular-shaped crown recessed into the caseband

Monobloc bezel integrated into the frame

0.2mm thick crystal

Blue Baltimora technical textile, 1.5mm thin

Ultra-thin cobalt alloy pin buckle

Calibre: Piaget 900P-UC

Development time: 6 years

Five patents pending

Power reserve: approx. 40 hours

Frequency: 28,800 vph/ 4 Hz

Number of jewels: 13

Functions: Hours, Minutes offset at 12 o’clock

Finishing: black PVD-treated and satin-brushed baseplate and caseback, polished case

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept Gallery

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept G0A45502

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept G0A45500

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept G0A45501

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept G0A45502

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept G0A45501

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept G0A45502

Piaget Patrimony 9P calibre

Piaget Patrimony 12P calibre

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept – From a micro-engineering experiment to reality Piaget stole the show at the 2018 Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie with the unveiling of the remarkable…

#Altiplano Ultimate Concept #news #Piaget #Piaget Altiplano #Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept #Press release #Ultimate Concept #Watches & Wonders 2020

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