Mountain Biking Legendary Retallack Lodge's Extraordinary New ...

Andrew Whiteford, Eric Porter and Carston Oliver drop into "Monster;" Photograph by Chad Spector

I have to confess that I?ve been smitten with this place for nearly 12 years.? It was love at first sight for me back in January of 2001, and it?s only grown more serious during the 14 trips since. British Columbia?s Retallack Lodge is known for as having perhaps the best steep tree and deep powder skiing on the planet.? It?s legendary status is cemented in the minds eyes of skiers all over the globe via the pages of countless magazines and myriad film segments. In large part it was this entity and the people that make it work that were the catalyst for my photography career, serving as both inspiration and enabler. So when rumors of a summer mountain bike operation began swirling two years ago, I was keenly interested in what they would conjure up.

Photograph by Chad Spector

While still in its infancy, the formula for summer fun is strikingly similar to the one they?ve used to create a winter nirvana: Mix equal doses of epic terrain, a beautiful lodge, easily accessible yet utterly remote locale, stunning scenery, and amazing food; throw in a healthy dose of pro riders, film companies, and photographers; then let nature take its course.

The only slight variation is that of building trail, which their crew is doing at a prodigious rate under the watchful eyes of Paddy Kaye from Joyride Bike Parks and Kooteney trail building legend Riley McIntosh.? Factor in the seemingly non-stop flow of mountain bike media that has been setting up camp here and there?s little doubt that next year?s magazines and video edits will be crammed full of Retallack?s super hero loam, flowing berms, steep chutes, and perfectly wrought features.

Photograph by Chad Spector

Due to a particularly ugly run in with a branch that found its way seven inches into my abdomen, our August trip was postponed to late September. I was lucky to be alive, much less able to ride a bike again when Eric Porter, Carston Oliver, Andrew Whiteford, and I finally headed to BC.? Our lucky streak continued as the fall colors were popping, the weather was perfect and World Cup Downhill legend Kirt Voreis was at the lodge with his wife, Lyndsey, to serve as tour guides.? What followed was exactly what I had hoped would happen, the crew gelled, the riding was sublime, and summer lodge life at Retallack proved to be just as good as it is in the winter.

Andrew, Carston, and Eric in old-growth forest; Photograph by Chad Spector

Trail building takes time, so for now there?s only one trail that leads back to the lodge.? The ?House Trail? drops a quaint 4,500 vertical feet and delivers the full gamut of BC riding with flowy berms, steep chutes through old growth timber, and epic man-made features before it spits you out just above the lodge into a skills park with a pump track, various size drops, a dual slalom course, and a few fun wooden features.? Don?t despair though, the tenure allows Retallack to guide a bevy of local trail networks that include the steeper than steep ?Monster? descent with sublime views over Kooteney Lake and the town of Kaslo, as well as the ?best day of your life? heli-drop on top of the legendary 7,500-vertical- foot roller coaster of dirt sculpting perfection known as ?Powerslave? that was made famous in the LifeCyclesfilm.

Photograph by Chad Spector

It?s already more than enough to keep you occupied for a five-day stay and Retallack?s plan is to build a massive network of trails leading directly to and from the lodge with an eye towards even more flow, the type of trails that induce giggles and grins from all levels of riders.? Having seen first hand what they have to work with, I can?t wait to return year after year to see what new playgrounds are created.

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Source: http://adventureblog.nationalgeographic.com/2012/11/26/mountain-biking-legendary-retallack-lodges-extraordinary-new-trails-photos/

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Emil's Sausage Kitchen Inc. Wins Three Consecutive Talk of the ...

With a jump in its ratings during the past three years from 4 stars to 5 stars, Emil?s Sausage Kitchen Inc. has earned its third straight CMUS Talk of the Town?customer satisfaction award?in the Food ? European Deli category.

The?Talk of the Town Awards, presented by?Talk of the Town News,?Customer Care News?magazine and Celebration Media U.S. (CMUS), honors companies and professionals that provide excellent customer service as reported by their customers through no-cost, user-review websites, blogs, social networks, business rating services, and other honors and accolades. This data is analyzed by a team of researchers who calculate a company?s CMUS Power Rating?. Only those that receive a 4-star to 5-star rating receive the CMUS Talk of the Town Customer Satisfaction Award.

?We at Emil?s will continue to keep up the good job, and most of all we will strive to keep excellent customer service and high quality our top priorities.?

Emil?s Sausage Kitchen Inc. was founded in 1954 and was open for business during the winter months only. In April 1999, Walter and Jutta Voos moved to the United States from Germany and purchased the business. Walter had been working as a meat cutter for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) for nearly 15 years, having learned the trade of a German butcher starting at the age of 15. He also worked at a German supermarket chain, serving as the youngest market manager in the district. Today, he brings all of that experience to Emil?s Sausage Kitchen, continuing the store?s tradition of creating and selling high-quality meats.

Walter says the store is a high-end European deli where top-quality European cold cuts, pates, bacons, hams, sausages and even ready-made meals to be heated up at home are made on site with fresh, natural ingredients, including no MSG, preservatives, flour, sugar or nitrates. ?Emil?s Sausage Kitchen is here to bring the flavors from the old country to you,? says Walter. ?We serve only the best quality to our customers.?

In addition to providing top-quality products, Walter says, customer service is important. ?Customer service means a lot to us and excellent customer service means even more,? he says. ?There is no customer too big or too small; our shop is like a tight-knit family.?

Walter is very proud of winning three straight Talk of the Town Awards, and is very grateful to the customers for their part. ?This award has boosted morale enormously,? he says. ?All we can say to this is thank you very much to our customers for letting us be here for you, and thank you very much for putting your trust in our business. We at Emil?s will continue to keep up the good job, and most of all we will strive to keep excellent customer service and high quality our top priorities.?

Emil?s Sausage Kitchen is located at 124 North Federal Highway in Deerfield Beach and is open from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, call 954-422-5565.

About the Award and Sponsors:?
This is the fourth year CMUS, Talk of the Town News and Customer Care News have honored companies for achieving high levels of customer satisfaction with the Talk of the Town Awards. Businesses eligible to receive the award include, but are not limited to, beauty salons, spas, restaurants, bakeries, dentists, auto repair facilities, veterinarians, home repair and improvement contractors, florists, hospitals, and physicians.

For more information about the award or its sponsors, please contact CMUS and Talk of the Town News at 877-498-6405 or go online to?www.talkofthetownnews.com.

About Celebration Media U.S.: Celebration Media provides companies with valuable information on improving customer care through its publishing division, which produces Customer Care News, and its research department, which provides businesses with information on customer service best practices. This commitment has led to the creation of the Talk of the Town Awards program, which is dedicated to identifying companies that are excelling in high-rated customer service feedback and offering them valuable marketing opportunities to leverage their award, while also giving consumers a tool to find the top consumer-rated businesses in the United States and Canada.

Source: http://customercarenews.com/emils-sausage-kitchen-inc-wins-three-consecutive-talk-of-the-town-awards-for-customer-satisfaction/

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Source: http://forums.ferra.ru/index.php?showtopic=53140

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Dealing with threats in kids and teens communities- presentation

I was looking through my resources folder and found a presentation I delivered a while ago.

It's about dealing with threats in kids & teens communities (pretty obvious from the title, huh?)

It's available here: http://www.redmagegames.com/moderati...ommunities.pdf (it's a PDF version of a Powerpoint - complete with a transcript of notes, etc.)

Other resources will be uploaded to http://www.redmagegames.com/moderation/ so you can check it out, or whatever.

I know most of the stuff is pretty boring, but it's important - we have to all do our bit to protect kids/teens online.

Source: http://www.virtualpetlist.com/showthread.php/13685-Dealing-with-threats-in-kids-and-teens-communities-presentation

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Has Obama been good for millionaires?

The question of whether Americans are better off than they were four years ago depends, of course, on the American.

For the 12 million unemployed, the answer is most certainly no.

But for many of America's millionaires, the answer may be more affirmative.

A new study from WealthInsight, the London-based wealth-research and data firm (and yes, they are non-partisan), showed that the United States added 1.1 million millionaires between Jan. 1, 2009 and the end of 2011, the latest period measured. There were 5.1 million millionaires in America at the end of 2011, compared with around 4 million at the end of 2008.

That works out to more than 1,000 millionaires a day under the Obama administration. (They defined millionaires as people with total net worth of $1 million or more, excluding primary residence).

(Read more: Rich Will Spend More Under Romney: Poll)

"It's true that Obama has been good for millionaires, at least in absolute terms," said Andrew Amoils, analyst at WealthInsight. "He certainly hasn't been bad for millionaires."

Amoils said that quantitative easing and financial bailouts especially helped the finance sector, which accounts for the largest share of millionaires. It also helped that markets recovered in 2009.

The timeframe is worth noting. Measured against the 2007 peak, when 5.27 million Americans had a net worth of at least $1 million, the nation lost 165,360 millionaires. Their combined wealth is down six percent, to $18.8 trillion from a peak of more than $20 trillion in 2007.

We don't know how 2012 will turn out, though if stock markets continue to strengthen, the millionaire count for 2012 is likely to increase. Wealth Insight says the number of millionaires in America will grow to more than six million by 2016, and their combined fortunes will jump 25 percent over the same period.?

(Read more: Millionaires Give Nine Percent of Income to Charity)

Where did all the millionaires come from between 2008 and 2011?

Mainly from retail, tech and finance -- and in both blue and red states.

Of the sectors adding the largest number of people worth $30 million or more, the retail, fashion, and luxury goods sector ranked first. That was followed by energy and utilities, then tech, telecoms and finance. Transportation and construction saw the biggest drops.

The number of people worth $30 million or more grew 26 percent in Connecticut since 2008, 20 percent in Kansas, 12 percent in Michigan, showing that the wealth creation was nationwide.

More From CNBC
Also Read

Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/obama-good-millionaires-193227891.html

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Your pension: are you saving enough for your life after retirement ...

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Before going into details I would like to give a brief background about pensions in Zambia, thanks to Mr Justine Kabwe (Insurance Institute of Zambia president) for contributing some points to this topic.

Please note that a detailed account on this subject is contained in the book I have written dubbed ?Basics of Insurance, The Zambian Experience? which will be coming out very soon.

In Africa generally people in villages and even urban areas treasured the extended family and this provided a form of security in both food and shelter.

The traditional economic activity depending on the area of Zambia one prefers to study their history, would find that this notion was emphasised and promoted through working together.

If somebody had a big land to till they would agree on a certain day to go and assist that person through what in Bemba they called ?ichima? and after a hard day of toil they would sit together and share food cooked by women from various homesteads.

There is no evidence to show whether individually they saved for a rainy day in the future. The more children someone had the more secure they felt of their future.

However, against this belief, as renowned economist and writer Anita M. Shwarz (2003) pointed out, the extended family was not and has never been a perfect way to safe guard one?s future, especially if the children of that particular person are economically disadvantaged as well.

The history of formal pension provisions in Zambia spin around the set up of commercial enterprises somewhere around 1900s, with the main employment provided by the mines, subsistence farming, transport and later education.

? IN modern times employers are arranging a pension?s scheme on behalf of their employees.

The pension component was not imbedded in the employment conditions of service until the 1970?s when the government harmonised the retirement benefits for all para-state employees.

When the colonial government came into being, those in government started some form of savings which were arranged with insurance companies and retirement policies were either as deferred or immediate
annuities.

Subsequently, even those who were uneducated at the time of independence learnt that they could plan for their retirement while working and this put pressure on the colonial masters to extend
coverage to indigenous Zambians working especially in the civil service.

This led to the creation of what was called the Local Conditions Pensions Fund in 1968 to cover all civil servants in the country though this was later renamed the Public Service Pension Fund.

In 1954 the Local Authorities Superannuation Fund [LASF] was established to provide pensions for employees in the local authorities. Later in 1966 the government created the Zambia National
Provident Fund (ZNPF) to cover employees outside the civil service and local authorities.

Up until 1992, pension and insurance business was restricted to the state owned Zambia State Insurance Corporation Limited (ZSIC) which provided retirement policies through its Life and pension division.
The law did not allow competition except for Mukuba Pension Scheme set up for the mining industry. When the economy was liberalised several new players set up insurance companies which offered retirement
benefit plans (Hantuba. M 2005).

Zambia has a long history of both social security arrangements and pension practice predominantly based on social insurance principle with social security cover restricted to citizens in the formal sector
and social welfare based support based on social assistance to citizens who are unable to contribute to the conventional schemes.

The first ever Social Insurance was created by the Germany government during the reign of chancellor Bismarck in 1889 and from its initial stage to date it has gone through tremendous progress such that almost every country has its own system of social insurance.

In Zambia there are four statutory pension schemes, that is, the Public Service Pensions Fund (PSPF), the Workers Compensation Fund Control Board (WCFCB), the Local Authority Superannuation Fund (LASF)
and the National Pensions Scheme Authority (NAPSA).

In modern times we have seen employers arranging a pension?s scheme on behalf of their employees where an employee contributes a certain amount or percentage of their earnings and the employer also a
percentage.

These are referred to as occupational pension schemes and must be registered with the regulator of the pensions and insurance authority (PIA).

There are currently about 222 registered private and occupational pension schemes in Zambia covering over 100,000 members.

Types of Pension Schemes

The two common types of pensions schemes are Defined benefits (DB?s) schemes and Defined Contributions (DC?s) or money purchase schemes.

Please send your contributions/comments or questions to email: webster_tj@hotmail.com or webster@picz.co.zm or on face book search for Insurance Talk-Zambia page or call/text 0977 857 055

(The Author is a Chartered Insurer with eight years industry experience)

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Source: http://www.times.co.zm/?p=17821

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