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sad-sweet-cowboah · 4 years

Text

Among These Pages

Summary: After a painful breakup, you move to a new town and you’re instantly attracted to a small bookshop near your new residence. The new owner has definitely caught your eye.

Warnings: Smut and mild cursing

A/N: So this idea originated from a Discord chat (again) in an Arthur specific server. Needless to say this one was fun to write.

The hot sun beat down amongst the worn cement and faded asphalt of this little town you now called home. Bright and sunny, though a little bit too hot for your taste. You quickened your pace to seek the shade of a tree, careful to keep out of the paths of others.

Having slight relief from the blistering sun, you squinted around for another view of your surroundings. A small, quaint village bustling with its inhabitants. The streets were lined with independent shops, restaurants and cafes. The buildings and walkways were splashed with brightly colored plants and paint, immediately setting a cheerful vibe in the atmosphere.

After spending the first day moving in and unpacking, you decided to take a break and explore your new residence. You’ve only really experienced it through your car windows, and stopped in one of the cafes once or twice. However, you now wanted the full experience. Though with how sweltering it was, you were probably better off driving.

You fanned yourself for a moment and cast your attention down the length of the block. More food, smoothies, coffee, ice cream, except you weren’t all that hungry at the moment.

However, another sign caught your eye. Though too far to see, your curiosity spiked and you walked forward. As you drew in closer shapes began to appear, along with letters. Morgan Books, painted in gold lettering in a distinctly Western styled font. Underneath was a stack of books with one opened on top. A bookshop. Being from where you were, you were used to the large corporate bookstores. You hadn’t come across an independently owned one in years.

Checking this place out was a perfect excuse to get out of the sun for a bit. You increased your pace until you were standing at the store front. The building like the others surrounding had a somewhat rustic appearance, part of the charm that attracted you to living here. The windows were dusty and the inside was fairly dark, but you could make out the silhouettes of shelves. You approached the entrance and pulled open the door, ringing a bell overhead. You stepped across the threshold to be greeted by a cool breeze of air conditioning.

You sighed in relief and looked around. The shop itself was fairly small, or at least appeared that way as it was full of multiple bookcases, all of which were stacked floor to ceiling with books. The floorboards creaked elsewhere, and you turned to see someone appear from around one of the shelves.

A man, tall and broad-framed. He offered a quick smile. “Hey there, welcome!”

“Hello.” You greeted him politely.

He stepped closer, allowing a better view of his face. You couldn’t help but to notice how handsome he looked. “Need help findin’ anything?” he asked.

You shook your head. “Nah, just exploring, really. I saw this place and I wondered what sort of treasures lurked within.” You lightly joked.

He chuckled. “Well, you’ll find plenty here. Got new n’ used, so feel free to look ‘round.”

You nodded in response, and turned your attention toward the endless amount of books. You scanned the shelves, following along with the signs marked on top of which cases held which topics. You found that he had a little bit of everything; from encyclopedias to New Age books, to computer guides (from the early 2000’s) to conspiracy theories. You had to giggle to yourself upon reading some of the synopses for a collection of the more esoteric pieces.

Time soon became lost to you with more exploration. All the while the man who greeted you earlier moved through the shop occasionally. After a while it felt like you’d been here for ages. When you checked your phone, you’d realized nearly a half hour passed since first walking into this place. You blinked in surprise. You hadn’t anticipated spending that much time here.

As you were putting your phone away and moved toward the front of the shop, the man sat at his register and caught your attention.

“So, find any treasures?” he casually asked.

You paused to turn to him. “Guess I did, you have a…uh, an interesting collection.” You responded, tilting your head back toward some of the shelves.

He nodded in agreement, offering you a half-smile. “You’d be surprised what people come in askin’ for, or what people come in to sell.”

“Well if I needed a how-to book on Windows 2000, I’ll know where to stop by.” You said with a giggle.

He shook his head and smiled even more. “See? Those books have been on them shelves for years. Ain’t sure why I still keep ‘em ‘round.”

“Antiquity value perhaps?” you joked.

He gave a small, hearty laugh. “’Spose so. Guess I should get rid of ‘em, they belong in a museum at this point.”

His laughter made you smile. “Anyway, I should be heading back home and unpack some more…”

His expression changed to curiosity. “You jus’ move here?” when you nodded, he asked, “Where from?”

“Couple hours north,” you answered. “Needed a change of scenery, you know?”

He nodded in understanding. “You’ll be glad ya moved here. This lil’ town has its charms, folks here are nice too.”

“I’m glad, believe me,” you sighed. “It’s a nice change of pace. I’m glad to have found this bookstore too, it adds to the charm.”

He grinned at you. A cute, slightly lopsided grin that somehow made your heart flutter. “Glad you think so.”

---

The next two days was spent unpacking the rest of your house, keeping yourself focused on it to have everything organized before the first day of your new job. It was Sunday, and by noon you’d finally unwrapped the last of your décor and placed it accordingly in your living room. You smiled to yourself as your eyes panned across the room, proud of how much you’d accomplished in just three days. Sure, you didn’t have too many possessions, yet it was a relief to tackle the largest of chores.

Though you hadn’t expected to finish this soon. With only half the day gone, you wondered what else to do. You supposed you could explore more, and that little shop on the corner popped up in your mind, along with the image of the handsome owner…

It wouldn’t be a bad idea to stop by again.

After a quick lunch break and heading outside, it was only fifteen minutes of walking before you reached your destination. It wasn’t as hot out today which you were thankful for. You strode up to the door and pulled it open, the bell once again alerting your incoming presence.

As soon as you stepped in, your eyes darted to the shopkeeper who sat behind the register. He peered up at your entrance.

“Hey, welcome back!” he greeted with enthusiasm.

You blinked in surprise. “You remember me?”

“’Course, when ya live in a small town, you tend to remember faces,” He explained. “Y’back to find more treasures?”

You smiled. “In a way, I finished unpacking earlier than expected so I thought I’d come back into town for a bit.”

“So you’re all settled in then?” he asked.

“For the most part. I start my new job tomorrow, so I’d figure I use my free time productively by…looking for more old computer manuals.”

He chuckled at that. “Now that ya mentioned it, I think I better do some inventory o’ the place. Might as well get rid of the useless stuff,” He spoke while standing up. “I won’t get in your way.”

You nodded, sidestepping as he rounded from around the counter to move past you. As he passed by, a short whiff of his cologne wafted through your nostrils. He smelled good, and you briefly turned your head to take a look as he walked away. He was certainly broad, almost too broad to fit in this little shop. Yet he moved between the bookcases with ease.

He turned a corner, obscuring himself from your vision. You turned your attention back to the books, looking for the topics that would particularly spark your interest.

It’d fallen quiet, aside from the creak of floorboards and sliding of books across wood. Out of the corner of your eye you saw him pass back and forth with a few in his hands, carrying them towards the back. You’d sneak another glance or two without him looking, appreciating his physique.

After a little while, you found yourself poring over a book on the religion of Wicca. It was something that piqued your interest in your earlier life, though never had a chance to really learn about it. You’d only just began to skim through it, although the content was interesting enough that you started to read.

A loud crash emanated elsewhere in the shop, causing you to jump in surprise. The shopkeeper hissed out a curse, prompting you to peer around in search of the source.

“You okay?” you called out.

“Yeah,” he replied with a sigh of annoyance. “Jus’ one o’ these shelves fell apart.”

You listened to the sounds of him attempting to clean up the mess, and followed it through the narrow aisles until you found him. He was bent over, attempting to collect the disheveled books spilled at his feet.

“Here, let me help.” You said, automatically starting forward.

“No, you don’t have to –” he began, glancing up at you.

“There’s a lot here.” You stated, gathering a few into your arms.

He didn’t argue further, and together the two of you managed to collect them all. He nodded in thanks and headed toward the back once again, with you on his heels. He led you to an open door to reveal a small back room. From over his shoulder you spotted a chair and desk, and a pile of books placed haphazardly on top of it. He placed his armful on an empty space and gestured for you to do the same. Once you emptied your arms and exited the back room, you turned to him.

“Thank you.”

You nodded to him. “You’re welcome…” you glanced around the shop again, and an idea struck your mind. “Need any more help?”

“Nah, jus’ ‘bout halfway done I think.” He answered, placing his hands on his hips.

“I could help with that though,” you pointed out, though surprised at yourself for even offering. “Kinda curious what else you got that’s ancient and obsolete.”

“Oh there’s plenty…” he responded, rubbing the back of his neck while he peered around as a thoughtful look painted his face. “Tell ya what, if ya find anything interestin’ that need to be off the shelves, I’ll let ya keep it for free.”

Bewilderment crossed your mind. “Wouldn’t you be losing money then?”

“A couple of ‘em won’t hurt business,” he said. “Better n’ throwin’ ‘em out or puttin’ em in storage, ya know?”

You didn’t want to decline his offer since he had a good point, yet you still felt bad regardless. “Alright, fair enough.”

And so you set to help him. All the while you two held a casual conversation. You learned his name was Arthur, and that he owned this place for a few years. Other than running this store he lived on a small ranch on the edge of town. You shared a little bit about yourself, including your career and a couple of shared interests you had with him.

Surprisingly enough, you’d pulled out many more old texts than you anticipated. Some were so worn and dog-eared that there was no resale value, and Arthur told you to just throw them away. Throwing away books? You instead convinced him to give them away, and he found an empty box and labeled it “Free Books”. You skimmed through them briefly to see if they caught your eye, yet none did and they ended up in the box.

After a little over an hour passed before the both of you picked the place clean. You dusted your hands off after placing the last few in the box. Arthur picked it up and carried it outside, placing it on the sidewalk. We walked back in and said, “Hope that gives ‘em some good use.”

“Hey, people will take anything free,” you pointed out. “Maybe even pull in more revenue for you.”

“Well here’s hopin’,” he sighed, briefly glancing toward the floor before meeting your gaze with a small smile. “Thanks for the help again, I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome Arthur, I actually had fun helping you.” You answered with a grin.

He chuckled softly. “Fun, eh?”

You nodded. “Sure, you’re a nice guy and fun to talk to.” You answered.

You weren’t sure, but his face reddened a touch as he ducked his head. He laughed again, shy and…cute. “Thank you, though I ain’t that much of an interestin’ person.”

“Nah, I beg to differ,” you argued lightly. “Either way, I think I’ll be coming back. I like it here, and if you’d need any more help…”

“You’ve been more than helpful Y/N,” he answered, waving his hand as if trying to flit away your words. He then paused, realization crossing his face. “Actually…no, never mind.”

“What is it?” you pressed.

“Well,” he released a heavy sigh. “I’ll be honest, business ain’t as good as I’d hoped. I’ve been tryin’ to think of new advertisin’ strategies, pull in more customers. Problem is I ain’t too good at it.”

“So…you’re asking me to help you advertise? Or create one for you?” you questioned.

“I know it ain’t fair to ask,” Arthur answered quickly, his face shadowed with a look of guilt. “We hardly know each other and you jus’ moved here –”

“I’ll do it.” You softly interrupted.

He blinked, staring at you in surprise. “Whuh?”

“I said I’ll do it,” you repeated, smiling at him. “Luckily for you, I took a few advertising arts classes in college.”

The surprise remained on his face. “Uh –” he huffed, and cleared his throat. “I don’t want ya to feel pressured or nothin’ –”

“I’m not, Arthur,” you assured him. “You were gonna ask for a reason right? I don’t mind. Besides, I haven’t used my art skills in years. Might as well put them to use again.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.” You affirmed. “Don’t worry about it, okay? It’ll give me something fun to do after work.”

Arthur was silent for a moment. He finally nodded and spoke, “Alright, as long as I ain’t troublin’ you with it.”

“No trouble at all,” you replied with another smile. “I’ll come up with something good, I promise.”

His smile matched yours. “Then I look forward to it.”

---

The next few weeks kept you busy. After settling in at your new job and coming home to sit at your computer to design flyers didn’t leave you much time for other activities. Still you stopped by the bookshop to plan with Arthur and discuss strategies, or suggested many ideas that he seemed to like. You laid out a few thumbnails of different designs for him to pick and choose, narrowing it down to two that he really liked.

You stopped by every day to update the progress, even when you didn’t have to. Admittedly you were enjoying his company, and you had a feeling he liked yours as well. After moving to a town where you knew no one and were far from your family and old friends, you were just fine with considering Arthur as one. As time passed on he’d become friendlier and more open to you, offering you a drink or snack even when you’d come by for a few minutes.

Sometimes you’d stay longer just as an excuse to be close to someone other than your new coworkers, and to admire how nice he looked. He always dressed in either button-up shirts or a nice T-shirt and Wrangler jeans like a cowboy, the fabric accentuating his broad frame in all the right ways. His sandy hair was trimmed neatly, and he kept his face somewhat clean shaven, although something about having stubble lined across his sharp jaw set a spark within you.

A relationship was the furthest thing on your list at the moment, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t admire how attractive he was.

Soon after you produced a finished product, and quite proud of the result after not having designed anything since your college days. It was a weekend which meant you were free, and upon printing out a nice colored version, you headed to the bookshop almost instantly.

Arthur loved it, as you had hoped. He paid for multiple copies to be printed and distributed around the town, and you spent the afternoon stapling them to telephone poles and handing them out in some of the shops. You thankfully had gotten a positive response from most of those you’ve spoken with, which gave you hope. You wondered how Arthur was doing on his end.

After a few hours you’d met back up at the shop, tired and arms empty, but Arthur looked as pleased as you did. You settled down in the back room while he handed you a water bottle from his mini fridge. You took it gratefully and gulped a swig, sighing in relief.

“I think we did good.” you said as he settled across from you.

He nodded in response, followed by taking a drink from his own bottle. “I think so too, lotsa people seem interested.”

“I would figure more people would come in here often.” You said thoughtfully.

“You’d think, but this place is more of a tourist trap than anything,” Arthur responded. “Can’t complain, but I understand. Ya get used to one place, it gets borin’ after a while.”

“Well, hopefully this will be the beginning of a new era for this place.” You enthusiastically gestured to the surroundings with a flourish.

Arthur smiled at you, chuckling as he took another drink of water. He didn’t speak, however your eyes met his. You’d never noticed before how absolutely gorgeous his eyes were. From a distance they appeared blue, yet you could detect hints of bright green surrounding his pupils. You wanted to view them even closer. Somehow you couldn’t tear your eyes away.

The entrance bell however sounded, pulling your attention and his toward the front of the store. The telltale signs of potential customers. Arthur glanced out in surprise, and immediately stood up to greet the newcomers. You stayed in the back room while he dealt with the customers, listening to their voices with a smile on your face. Who would have thought it would work that quickly?

You left shortly after, catching Arthur’s eye briefly as you walked by him helping out a young couple that wandered in. A gaze that lingered a second longer than you intended, however you felt it was best to leave him to deal with his shop at the moment.

—-

Two weeks passed and you hadn’t stopped by Arthur’s shop, mainly because each time you passed by, the building seemed to be teeming with customers. You felt more than happy, and proud of yourself that you helped a business owner earn more revenue after a dull streak.

You did find yourself missing his company. Each day he hung in your mind like a cloud. You certainly liked him enough to call him a friend, yet those gorgeous eyes of his would meet you in your dreams.

That following Saturday evening, you received a text from him.

Hey, would you mind stopping by?

He was vague yet direct. Perhaps he was going to ask you another favor? Either way you were excited to see him again, and to inquire how everything was going. You headed over just minutes after responding to his text, hoping your eagerness didn’t overflow into your phone.

The first thing you noticed was the closed sign hanging in the window, which explained the lack of people this time. It was just past 7 pm, and you walked up the door and knocked. Movement shadowed behind the glass and Arthur’s silhouette appeared just a moment later, meeting your gaze between the glass and smiling wide. He opened the door.

“Hey there, come on in.” He stepped back and gestured.

You walked in and turned to face him. “So, I’ve noticed business has gotten better recently.”

“All thanks to you,” he responded, the grin on his face only growing wider. He then lifted his hand to reveal he was holding a bottle of whiskey. “I wanna thank ya.”

You blinked at the alcohol, surprised by this but you didn’t have any objections. You smiled and nodded in approval. “You don’t have to thank me Arthur, but I’m not about to turn down a good drink.”

He chuckled heartily. “Sure I do, the booze is jus’ a bonus. C’mon.” He waved toward the back room and strode for it, and you were right behind him. Once he stepped inside he grabbed a couple of plastic cups, and filled the both of them with a few cubes of ice. He then poured in the whiskey before topping them off with some soda. He handed a cup to you, and then held up his own.

“To you, for your design and advertisin’ skills.” He said, although rather awkwardly. You figured he wasn’t good at that sort of thing, but you didn’t mind. Bringing your cup to tap against his, you smiled again and took the first sip simultaneously with him. The sweet soda tinged with the smokey bitterness of the alcohol was a pleasant mixture against your tastebuds.

It was quiet for a moment, and Arthur took another sip before drawing in a deep breath. He focused on you. “Drink’s good?” He asked.

You nodded, taking another sip of your own. “Very. Haven’t had a chance to have a good drink since I moved here. Had to resort to a few gas station beers.”

He snorted softly, a small smile of amusement appearing on his face. “Gotta introduce you to the good bar in town sometime.”

This piqued your interest. “Oh? There’s a bar here?”

“‘Course, every small town has a bar,” he pointed out. “It ain’t on any of these main roads though, it’s closer to the outskirts. I imagine ya probably didn’t explore that much.”

“Can’t say I have,” you said thoughtfully. “But I’ll take up the offer of you showing me.”

“Jus’ name a time, ya won’t be disappointed.” He confidently replied.

You finished your first drink after a little while and Arthur poured you a second to which you were not opposed to. The effects were taking hold of you before you knew it. Your lips were looser with each sip you took, and you found Arthur was the same way. The two of you spoke about random topics, anything ranging between favorite colors to what you cooked yesterday. Things that were otherwise too boring to discuss, yet somehow with Arthur they seemed more interesting.

A little while later, the conversation became deeper. Arthur spoke some about his earlier life and what kind of environment he was raised in, and how his teenage years were spent bitterly. You shared the reason why you moved: you were previously living with your significant other, only to find your shared bed occupied by two bodies when you arrived home early one day when you weren’t feeling well. The reveal absolutely crushed you, which led into an emotional spiral and you looking for a new place to live the next day.

It’d been a little over a month since then. Your mind was still heavy on the breakup until you stopped by here the first time. Arthur and his charming little shop seemed to absorb any lingering sadness you had. Seemed like both yesterday and ages ago.

Regardless of the story, the pair of you were chortling in good spirits. You ranted about all the negatives about your old partner, releasing the leftover bitterness you’ve suppressed and turned it into humor. It only heightened your mood more, and with each drink it only increased.

After a few more minutes it quieted down again, though the smiles remained on your faces. You since became immune to the sting of whiskey, immensely enjoying the flavors and the inebriation that accompanied it.

Arthur reached over and poured himself another helping. His sigh caught your attention. He stared down into his cup, fixated with a thoughtful expression.

“I gotta say, I’m glad you wandered in here that day.” He murmured, peering at you with a sidelong look.

“Yeah?” you chirped.

He nodded slowly, taking a swig of his drink before focusing onto you with a serious gaze. “I’ll be honest, I was thinkin’ ‘bout closin’ up.”

You were taken aback by this statement. “Why?”

“You saw for yourself. Hardly any business. Shelves lined with books decades old,” he snorted without humor. “Truth is openin’ this place ain’t even my idea.”

“Then whose was it?” you pressed tilting your head in curiosity.

“My fiancée’s,” he smiled bitterly, gently swirling his drink. “Eh, ex-fiancée. Had the grand idea to run a business together. Picked out this place herself. N’ like a fool I fell for it.”

Ex-fiancée. Your heart raced upon learning this new information, and you wondered what happened between them. Would it be too prying to ask? “So…what changed?”

Arthur shrugged. “She found someone else more interestin’. Said we had too many differences in our lives to really enjoy each other…” he trailed off to take another sip, his eyes shifting to gaze in the distance.

Your heart broke for him. Rather than wallowing in those feelings, you instead asked another question. “But why hold on to this place if it was her idea?”

His gaze pulled back to you. “Guess for a while I was hangin’ on to the dream that she’d come back n’ pick up where we left off. Obviously that didn’t happen. Stupid, huh?”

You frowned at this. Hell, you understood that pipe dream all too well. There was a brief time where you wished your ex would come after you like in the movies in some dramatic fashion, pouring out apologies and begging you to come back. Wishful thinking.

You noted his hand was resting against the table. In a quick movement you reached over and placed your hand comfortingly on his forearm, and offering him a sympathetic smile. “It’s not stupid at all. You loved her and you held on to the one thing that you knew she loved too.”

Arthur’s eyes dropped to your hand. “For too long,” he sighed. “After a while I knew there was no chance. Still I continued, kept this place open for my own sake. Came here every mornin’ with a rock in my stomach, least until recently.” He explained, his voice softening towards the end. He peered over to you again.

Your heart raced once again. The way he was looking at you… it was obvious as to why he mentioned that last bit. Hell, you knew for a while. He wasn’t subtle about trying to steal glances your way these past few weeks. As attractive as he was, you were denying yourself of your own feelings out of protection. It felt too soon after your last relationship, although it seemed Arthur had been single for a while. You were afraid you’d change your mind. “And why is that?” you asked, wanting to play dumb to hide your initial hesitation.

His arm moved – at first you thought he was pulling away, until his hand met yours. Palm to palm, skin rough but warm. His fingers entwined with yours and you automatically did the same. “I think you know,” he murmured.

His thumb smoothed against the back of your hand. Your eyes bore into his. Such a gorgeous light blue, glistening in the lamplight of this tiny room. Despite the table in between the two of you, it was hardly an obstacle to view him in better focus. Upon closer inspection, you could detect pools of green surrounding his pupils, reminding you of tropical beaches.

His lips were parted, wafting his gentle breath against your face. Scented with alcohol and the sweetness of soda, he seemed to be growing closer.

You closed the space immediately, the booze flowing in your system offering a boost of confidence. His mouth was surprisingly soft against yours, and within seconds he returned the favor. Your free hands joined, mirroring their counterparts with ease. He pulled you closer with no effort.

After a moment, he pulled back slightly to stare at you with a soft expression. He released your hand to cup your cheek gently, and you leaned into his touch with a smile.

“You don’t have to hold on to those thoughts anymore.” you sighed to him.

His smile mirrored yours. “Neither do you.”

---

It was nothing but pure bliss following that night. You’d fallen into a routine to spend some time with him every day, even when you had work. Arthur was such a sweet lover and was not hesitant to hold you whenever he had a chance. His arm around your waist, or pulling you into his lap. You helped around the bookshop more, even when he told you that you didn’t have to. Yet you insisted, and redecorated some of it to give a new energy while keeping its rustic look. It certainly attracted even more customers.

He took you to the bar as promised, and it quickly became a regular spot for casual dates. It was just as charming as he explained, accompanied with lovely patrons and entertainment. You were soon completely comfortable with this small town, completely integrated into its community thanks to Arthur. People often recognized your face from the bookshop, and the praise following was something he was elated to hear about.

A couple of months have passed, and you swore Arthur’s smile grew bigger each and every day. He looked forward to running the business again, and left those bitter thoughts of his ex behind with the help of you.

One particularly slow weekend day, you were spending time in the shop as usual. It was late afternoon and the last customer left an hour ago, thus creating a quiet and relaxing atmosphere. Closing time would be in less than an hour, and you just assumed no one else would be wandering in.

While Arthur manned the register, albeit with boredom, you began to observe some of the newer inventory. The shelves were thankfully lined with more recent texts to fill in the gaps of what you’d sorted through previously. Once again you found yourself coming across the book of Wicca again, the same one you were skimming through just months earlier. You were surprised no one purchased it with the heavy amount of traffic that passed through.

The book served as a better distraction than you realized. You pored over it, so focused on the information that you didn’t notice the presence that loomed over you until gentle hands found your waist.

“You can keep that if ya want.”

You blinked in surprise, turning your head to look at him. “No, I’d feel weird about it.”

“Why?” he asked.

“It’s still your store, I just can’t take it.” You pointed out.

He shook his head and quietly laughed. “Ah, it’s alright sweetheart. I know you were interested in that. ‘Sides, it’s been sittin’ here for months, n’ I can always order more if people want ‘em. Pretty sure it’s here for ya.”

“I still feel like I should pay…or something.” You murmured, placing the book back on the shelf.

“Now I don’t wanna hear none o’ that,” Arthur lightly chided you, despite wrapping his arms around your waist. “I never did properly thank you for all the help you’ve given me.”

You turned around in his grip, giving him a playful smirk. “As if all this affection wasn’t repayment enough?”

“’Course not,” he snickered, and leaned in to place a chaste kiss on your lips. “Think I got quite a while ‘fore I’m even,” he reached over and plucked the book from its spot, and pressed it into your hand. “Until then, take this.”

Your fingers instinctively wrapped around the spine, and you sighed again. He was adamant about you keeping this book, and there was no use arguing with him. No point in denying a free gift anyway. “Alright, I’ll keep it.”

He smiled in response. “Don’t ever think y’gotta pay for somethin’ in here. If ya like it, then help yourself.”

“You tell that to all the girls?” you asked.

“Only to the ones I like.” He replied with a wink.

You giggled, stepping back to lightly slap his chest with the book. “Alright you, I’m gonna head home. See you tomorrow?”

He nodded, drawing you back in for a hug and another kiss. “See ya tomorrow, darlin’.”

Breaking from the embrace, you headed toward the exit. Somehow you hadn’t noticed how much darker it got outside until you saw the iron-gray storm clouds through the door. You opened it just as a loud thunder clap rumbled through the air, vibrating the floor beneath you. A split second later, rain began to fall.

Well shoot, you walked here today.

Arthur’s low hum sounded behind you. He stepped up beside you to observe the weather. “Guess you ain’t goin’ anywhere for a while.”

“Guess not.” You agreed. You weren’t opposed to staying longer, however you were hungry and some leftover pizza at home was calling your name. Hopefully this storm would be quick.

Arthur seemed to have read your mind. “Got some snacks in the back, c’mon.” He said, reaching your free hand and leading you through to the back room.

The two of you settled at the table with a shared small helping of cut fruit. While it wasn’t much, it was enough to curb your appetite for the time being. It was quiet aside from the raging storm, which settled to an even calmer atmosphere. You popped a grape into your mouth, peering over at Arthur as he munched on an apple slice.

His eyes met yours. “Somethin’ wrong with my face?” he asked jokingly.

You snickered, scooting closer. “Yeah, a whole lot of handsome.”

He snorted and shook his head with a dejected smile. You learned early on that his self-esteem was low, even though he hid it fairly well. Any comments toward his physical appearance was usually deflected.

“It’s true, you know.” You insisted. “You ever see how some girls stare at you when they’re here?”

“Nah, only ever got eyes for you, darlin’.” He answered.

“It’s pretty obvious,” you continued. “They’re not so subtle with their googly eyes, even when they try to be.”

Arthur laughed again, his voice tinged with disbelief. “Guess I’m blind to it.”

“You must be, if you can’t tell how sexy you are…” you stood up briefly to slide into his lap. Your hands cradled his face. “Probably the most attractive man in this town.”

His cheeks flushed with a light shade of pink, ducking his head slightly to avert your gaze. “You’re jus’ bein’ sweet.”

“I’m being truthful,” You corrected, slipping your hand beneath his chin to tilt his face back up. Once he was looking at you again, your hands moved to his shoulders, down his arms and to finally take his hands. “I could stare at you all day, you know.”

He chuckled in response, entwining his fingers with yours. “I could say the same ‘bout you.”

“Ah, but this is about you…” you spoke softly, pulling his hands up to your mouth, placing soft kisses on his knuckles. “From your gorgeous eyes to your sexy jawline to your absolutely stunning body. And the way you dress? It’s like you do it on purpose just to make me feel all hot and bothered.”

“I don –”

You gently shushed him by planting your lips on his. Tasting faintly of fruit, your tongue swiped out to steal the flavor from his lips. You pulled back to see the flustered expression on his face, his mouth betraying a slight smile tugging at the corners.

He released your hands to wrap his arms around your waist, pulling you even closer on his lap. “Guess I can’t complain if you like it all.” He murmured.

“And then some.” You added, wrapping your own arms around his neck. He drew you in for a second kiss, softer and sweeter than the previous. He held you close to him, his body warm and solid against you. Seconds ticked by as it gradually grew deeper and more fervent. His tongue slowly invaded your mouth which you happily accepted. His large hands smoothed up and down your back, both soothing and igniting your body. A soft moan slipped from your mouth, unintentional yet you didn’t regret it.

This caught his attention. He paused and parted the kiss, confusion plain in his expression. His eyes however betrayed his thoughts, aquatic pools shining brightly in the lamplight. He wanted more and was held back by his hesitation. It seems like you would have to take the lead.

You offered a soft nod to him, a silent acquisition of permission for his unmentioned desire. Removing your hands from around his neck, you reached down and peeled your shirt off, tossing it to the side. Arthur’s eyes widened, staring without shame at your chest, only reflecting the hunger in its prominence. He moved then to attach his mouth to the crook of your neck, kissing your skin lovingly. Your head tilted to allow him more access, quietly encouraging him to explore more of your body.

He did just that. His calloused palms roamed the expanse of your back. His fingers trailed with feather-light precision up your spine. You shuddered in his grip, arching your back and pressing against him even more. He rumbled softly in appreciation while his other hand found the zipper of your jeans. You anticipated feeling him venture further, only for him to grip your ass. He stood up, catching you off-guard and you expelled a yelp. His journey with you was short as he brought you back down, resting your back on the table before him. You locked eyes with him as he smiled down at you, reaching up to caress your cheek. He dragged his fingers down your midline to the hem of your pants, gripping them to tug them straight off.

You were now down to your underclothing while he was still fully dressed. He was certainly moving fast. “You’re gorgeous too…” he muttered, his gaze scanning you up and down with great interest. He rested his hands on your hips, standing in between your legs. He leaned down to kiss your collarbone, moving his lips in a steady line following his trail from earlier. Looping his fingers through your underwear, he pulled them down just as his face reached just below your navel.

He tossed your panties with your other discarded clothing. As exposed as you were, you didn’t feel embarrassed. Your yearning for him was driving you wild. He kissed your mound before taking his spot in the center, and a split second later the wet presence of his tongue appeared along your slit, searching for his target until he honed in on it.

Good lord, who knew he was so good at oral?

You covered your mouth while he worked his magic against you, moaning quite loudly through your fingers. He held your trembling legs tightly against his shoulders, occasionally peering up at you for validation. Your other hand carded through his soft hair, allowing your touch to encourage him further.

He toyed with your entrance, exploring your inner walls. It wasn’t long until he hit that spot, a toe-curling and edge-gripping sensation that had you squealing his name. You were thankful this place was empty for once. He rubbed your inner thigh, offering his own encouragement. Your climax was arriving almost too quickly for you to comprehend. “A-Arthur,” you gasped. “God –“

You could barely utter another word as your pleasure washed over you like a powerful tidal wave, snapping your legs tightly to him while he lapped at you, drawing it out until you were writhing and whimpering from overstimulation. He broke free from your grasp with ease, standing back up to stare down at you.

As your breath evened out, you sat up slowly. “Where did that come from?” you asked.

He chuckled, offering you that crooked smile you loved so much. “I do have some tricks up m’ sleeves.”

You giggled with him, reaching out to wrap your arms around his neck. He leaned into your embrace, joining his lips to yours for a short kiss. You brought yourself to your feet and pressed closer to him, highly aware of what rested against your thigh. Sliding your arms off, you knelt down. “I got tricks of my own too.”

Before he could speak, you palmed him through his jeans. He took a deep breath, easing out a quiet moan to you. You nimbly unzipped his confinements, reaching in to fish out his already hardened manhood. He was larger than you anticipated, but not enough to intimidate you. You wrapped your hand around, finding him thick in circumference. To describe him as well-endowed would only serve him some justice. Your fingers couldn’t touch.

You peered up at him. He was staring at you with curiosity, the rosy tint in his cheeks only increasing. There was still a hesitant energy to him, enough to not push you further.. You offered him a slow rub, memorizing every inch in your hand from root to tip. He released a shuddering breath, his eyelids fluttering slightly.

A soft smile crossed your lips, and you brought yourself forward to kiss his hot skin. You parted your lips to slowly engulf him, keeping your eyes locked to his. Your tongue slid languidly along his silky flesh, drawing along the thick vein that lay on the underside. Soon you had a set rhythm, bobbing your head in an undulating movement. He moaned deeply, breaking his gaze to tilt his head back. His fingers tangled within your hair, a gentle hold that prompted you to take more of him.

The sounds he made were glorious. Guttural groaning with your name, pet names, wrapped with his pleasure. His palm pressed against the back of your head. As gentle as he was, you sensed an urgency behind it. And so you dove further, swallowing him whole with some effort.

“Oh –” he huffed, his hips shuddering with a small buck. “Shit, darlin’. S-sorry.”

You uttered a soft hum and rubbed his thigh soothingly in response. Pulling your mouth back, you deep throated him again. He swore out loud a second time and gripped a nearby chair. You repeated a third time, raising your hand to fondle his balls through his jeans. His breathing became erratic the longer you pleased him, taking him whole with long swallows and a wiggle of your tongue. He gripped your hair hard, though he broke any direct contact with your head, too lost in his ecstasy to aid your movement.

Though hardly any time passed when he spoke your name. “Sweetheart, ain’t g-gonna last.” He gasped out.

You stopped immediately, pulling your mouth off him with a pop of your lips on the tip, swiping off a small pearl of precum that formed. You sat back quietly on your knees as his breathing regulated, and he was able to straighten up and focus on you again. “God damn, your mouth…ain’t no other like it.” He sighed.

You smiled smugly and stood up, closing the space between you with a swagger. Your arms slung around his neck again while you gave him a sultry look. “Didn’t want to be done yet.”

Arthur caught on immediately, pulling you in closer with an iron grip. He ground against you, his rough jeans on your soft skin felt wonderful. His erection rested between your thighs, just inches of where you wanted it to be. “Didn’t think so.” He growled, setting a shudder through you.

With one swoop he propped you back onto the table. His lips hungrily latched to yours while his hands explored every inch of your bare body. His fingers found your center with easy, relaxed strokes. Your moans silenced in his open mouth. You could only hold on while he pleasured you with his hands, though your patience for all of him was wearing thin. His shirt balled up in your hands, fingernails digging deep into the fabric and against his skin.

You pulled back to gasp out. “Arthur, please!” you panted. “I need to feel you.”

He paused his ministrations, bringing his gaze to you. A sweet smile touched his lips and he moved to grip your hips, shuffling slightly to align himself to you. His hips rocked forward, allowing himself to poke between your folds. He invaded you slowly, inch by inch and spreading your inner walls. You hid a wince, underestimating his thickness. He watched your face intently as if to note any discomfort. Soon he was completely joined with you.

He caressed your cheek, asking a silent question of your comfort. You nodded to him and kissed his palm, then trapped his thumb between your lips to suckle on it. Out of the corner of your eye you could see the faint surprise on his face, and you couldn’t help but giggle.

His hand left your face to take place once again on your hip. He brought himself back and forward in one smooth motion. The discomfort dissolved almost instantly as your body accepted him, soon replaced with waves of pleasure. You moaned loudly, gratefully, hanging on him while he rocked you to the very core.

He murmured a breathless swear, gripping you tightly while he continuously thrust into you. You were enveloped by your own ecstasy, whispering his name into the air. Lost in your pleasure, you almost didn’t feel him lift you from the table. He held you without effort, driving himself even deeper. His grunts and groans vibrated deep in his belly, vibrating against you.

“Sweetheart, ya feel so nice.” He crooned.

You couldn’t form a coherent response. You could only muster up a long moan the more he fucked you, the further he reached and the harder he rocked. He paused briefly to move from the little room out into the main area. You felt him press you against a bookshelf. The books housed in it shuddered and some fell.

“A-Arthur?” you panted in question.

“Scientology books, no one reads ‘em anyway.” He quickly answered.

You couldn’t help but to laugh, a hearty giggle that switched to a squeal once he pounded into you again. The bookcase creaked behind you, tapping against the wall. The small aware part of your brain wanted to be careful, that is until Arthur shifted to snake his hand between you, his fingers once again toying with your clit.

You stifled another squeal, keeping yourself from becoming any louder than you already were in case any passerby somehow heard you, despite the storm still raging outside. Arthur seemed to have other plans, ramming himself so hard that you could only shout his name. His mouth latched to your neck again, not hesitant to mark and abuse your flesh. He growled with a nearly animalistic tone, echoing deeply throughout the shop.

Your second was on a quick ascent, peaking and surging through your center and radiating through your muscles. You cried out his name, your walls clenching around him. He grunted, unleashing a shuddering breath.

“Jesus, gonna finish soon.” He huffed to you, and caught your lips for a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss. He held you again with both hands. His pace hastened and his hips became erratic, unshamefully moaning against your tongue.

Every one of your senses was overwhelmed in the most wonderful ways. Your taste and smell were overwhelmed with his essence, your nerves tingling as you came down from your high. Nails dug into his flesh, spurring him to finish even sooner.

The clear ringing of a bell pierced your otherwise distracted attention. The bell indicating the store’s door opening, followed by faint footsteps. It brought you back to reality quickly. Ripping your mouth from his, you tried to gasp out his name, only to have him nearly slap his hand over your mouth.

“Shh, nearly there sweetheart. Jus’ be quiet.” He grunted quietly.

Part of you was nervous about the idea of being caught by someone, yet another side seemed to enjoy the thrill. You barely managed a nod while he somehow quietly fucked you, keeping you pressed against the bookshelf and undulating rolling his hips. You locked eyes with him, hyperaware of the creak of the floorboards that sounded as if they were growing closer. Your heart raced despite the endless amount of pleasure racking through your body.

It almost seemed as if he wouldn’t finish in time, until he pulled out of you and stifled a low groan. Hot trails of his spend painted your bare stomach. His entire body shuddered and he eased your legs to the floor, planting a quick kiss on your forehead before ushering you to the back room.

Your legs felt like jello, but you managed to scurry back into the room, ducking from view of the shop while Arthur stuffed himself back into his pants and hastily adjusted his appearance before disappearing from your line of sight. You heard him greet the newcomers, his voice cheerful and not a hint of what just happened a moment before.

You swiftly and silently closed the door, cleaned yourself up, and redressed. A few quiet minutes passed by before Arthur opened the door back up. He smiled at you and let out a sigh of relief. “They didn’t catch us,” he announced.

“I thought it was closing time,” you said.

“Close, had ten til,” he rolled his eyes. “Usually how it goes…”

You sighed heavily. “Of course…” You stepped up to him, wrapping your arms around his neck. Despite the fatigue that took hold of your body, you felt energized from the whole ordeal. “You sent them on their way?”

Arthur took a hold of your waist, pulling you flush against his torso. “Once they found what they were lookin’ for, though they did hear us a lil’…I had to tell ‘em I was rearrangin’ some o’ the shelves.”

You snickered. “Gotta say, it was a little bit of a thrill feeling like we were gonna get caught. Like we’re teenagers sneaking around or something.”

Arthur snorted and grinned at you with a sly smirk. “Yeah?”

“Sure, but let’s wait until after closing time. Don’t wanna scare off the customers.” you amended.

He nodded, his face twitching thoughtfully. “Next time, I think my house is more suitable,” he laughed. “More comfortable than a bookcase.”

“Oh I’d hope,” you replied, arching your back and feigning a look of pain. “Pretty sure that threw out my back.”

Arthur’s eyebrows raised in surprise, though quickly realized you were joking and shook his head. That same adorable crooked smile returned to his face. “How ‘bout I massage ya to make it up?”

“How about we do that at my house?” you proposed with a cheeky wink.

#Arthur Morgan #Arthur Morgan x reader #Arthur Morgan x reader smut #modern!Arthur Morgan #modern au

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kramlabs · 3 years

Text

So You Want To Believe The So-Called 'Experts'?*

By Karl Denninger

Let's go down the list.

This virus was newly discovered in January of 2020. FALSE; Judicial watch has now proved that Fauci and the NIH knew that Covid-19 was diagnosed no later than December 2nd 2019 in Wuhan. This was deliberately concealed under confidentiality agreements between China and the NIH. In short Dr. Fauci and the NIH knowingly and repeatedly lied about the time of first discovery and diagnosis and it is documented that this was known in February and early March and not disclosed. We also now know with scientific certainty that the virus was in the US no later than the second week of December of 2019 because antibodies were found in about 1.5% of blood donations from that time. This, along with the sequencing back-computation I performed in early 2020 places the latest the virus entered the US as sometime in October of 2019 and from the blood bank data it is scientifically proved it had infected about 1.5% of the population, or roughly 4 million people in the US, by the second week of December 2019. This in turn means that we had widespread disease which was blamed on something else. Indeed we handled all 4 million of those cases just fine up until the hysteria started, didn't we? You didn't even know those 4 million sick people, and those who died of it, existed prior to the hysteria being ginned up.

15 days will slow the spread. "If we all stay home and minimize contact for 15 days -- including closing businesses, schools and not traveling -- Covid will be under control and we can trace infections and stop it." FALSE and we now know impossible because the virus was already all over the country on an uncontrolled basis by that time and the NIH knew the virus had been circulating for at least a month earlier than they admitted at the time. It is true that if you immediately slam your borders shut 100% you can trace and quarantine yourself out of a transmissible epidemic -- at the cost of essentially all external trade, travel and tourism. But Fauci factually knew when we started that this was impossible because the virus had been spreading here for at least two months at the time and we hadn't done a thing about it for those two months. We were later to learn it was four months and perhaps longer.

If you give us 30 more days (remember, this is now six weeks to slow the spread) it'll work. FALSE AGAIN for the same reason; the NIH and Fauci knew there was no possible way to contain the virus when the original 15 days expired as he knew, factually, that the virus had been uncontained for at least three months.

But the lockdowns and restrictions worked to save lives! Nope; this is called the "exception fallacy" and now a peer-reviewed journal entry demonstrates it. We knew this early on too; indeed for five decades we've had "pandemic response plans" that make clear that once you have widespread community dispersion of an infectious agent attempting to lock down people or impose any other sort of non-pharmaceutical intervention is futile and causes harm. We ignored said decades of hard-won experience -- intentionally.

We don't have enough ventilators! FALSE; not one of the DPA-produced ones was ever needed; NY's Governor lied and had plenty of them, as did everyone else.

Ventilators not only are needed they will save lives. FALSE; they killed nearly everyone put on one then, and still do. We knew they didn't work in February as they killed 95% of the people put on then in Wuhan and this had been reported out by March.

This is mostly a community-spread disease in places like stores, bars, restaurants, churches, concerts and the local city street. FALSE; the CDC itself documented that more than half of all transmission was happening in homes and the next largest, and only other statistically material spread was occurring in industrial (e.g. meat packing) plants and health care settings. Nashville suppressed the fact that they could only trace about one percent of infections to social businesses such as bars and restaurants and now the CDC itself has stated that less than 1% of spread is traceable to such public venues as restaurants and bars. In other words we knew by late spring of 2020 the restrictions, including business closures, school shutdowns and masks couldn't work as that's not where the virus was spreading; we couldn't shut down the industrial plants without starving the population and destroying both energy production and sanitary services leading to an immediate societal and economic collapse. Nor could we invade every house and forcibly segment positive-tested people either; we had neither the resources nor would they get away with it without the cops and government goons being turned into swiss cheese. And when it comes to health care we could have segregated Covid-19 facilities and the people working in care homes but intentionally did not.

Asymptomatic transmission is a major risk. FALSE. Over millions of contacts traced in China not one was ever proved to be from an asymptomatic person. There has never been scientific evidence that asymptomatic spread has been material in any pandemic through history and there is no documented evidence of material asymptomatic spread for Covid-19 in the US or anywhere else. Worse, symptomatic persons least able to afford to call out sick due to lack of paid sick time or even the threat of being fired are those in low-wage and high-contact jobs such as fast food, grocery, meatpacking and other "essential" service industries never mind care home employees who are poorly paid and often moonlight in home health care among extremely vulnerable people.

We had no way to stop the nursing home deaths and did the best we could. FALSE. I pointed out immediately after Kirkland occurred that isolating the employees from all general public interaction, effectively creating a bubble, would stop nearly all of the transmission into these environments. We happened to have a lot of empty hotels at the time too. Yes, we would have had to pay significant bonuses to entice employees to go nowhere other than that hotel room and to work but we could have, and if we did it would have saved nearly 50% of those who died in the first four months. Not one so-called "expert" demanded or even suggested doing so but I was calling for exactly this in March of 2020. This, of course leaves aside the various Executive Orders that intentionally seeded the virus into nursing homes in multiple states by multiple Governors. Indeed even this winter in still-locked-down New York there was still no segregation of employees and residents were killed in size by infection brought into the care home by employees. Recent small case number spikes have been associated with vaccine distribution. How's that possible? There's only one rational explanation: The health care workers are giving the virus to the patients getting the shot! And yet we are still told that all these people are "heroes" and don't you dare forget it.

We didn't -- and don't -- have early treatment options that work. FALSE; Japan spent their effort on early treatment and keeping people out of hospitals. They have roughly a third of our population and only 8,000 dead people. Japan is far more-dense population-wise than us yet did a hell of a lot better despite having a materially older population. What Japan didn't do, in short, is spread the disease via their health care workers. In short if you went to the hospital you were likely to die; this has proved out in my own county in Tennessee with a >60% death rate. Up until we started with the panic porn -- the entire first three months of this outbreak in the US until March of 2020 -- we did fine too despite the virus being literally everywhere for months. We in fact knew of several early treatment candidate drugs, all cheap and available, in March of 2000 and exactly zero of them were investigated by the NIH, CDC or any of the so-called "public health" institutions such as Vanderbilt, IHME, Johns Hopkins and others. Those physicians and even hospital systems who did investigate them on their own were derogated, attacked and in some cases even threatened with license suspensions and other sanctions which continue to this day.

Age is the primary determinant of risk. FALSE; obesity and the panoply of health conditions caused and exacerbated by being a fat-ass is the primary determinant of risk. Nations with lower obesity prevalence have a ten times lower or better risk of death from Covid-19 on a per-100,000 population basis. Obesity is in each and every instance a lifestyle choice. This was known very early on in the NY Coroner data which is updated frequently; only six persons 75 and older have died of Covid without one of a relatively short list of underlying conditions -- and over 10,500 died with one or more. Simply put most of those who died deliberately put themselves in a medically compromised condition through their own lifestyle choices just a person who drinks too much and ruins their liver decided to drink. Absent those personal lifestyle decisions the death rate from this disease, while certainly not zero, is approximately half as likely as death due to an automobile accident over a year's time. Read here -- this is exactly what I pointed out one year ago. Who's been right on this -- and who's been wrong?

Existing drugs will not work and we have no existing treatments until you're hospitalized; we must develop new treatments and vaccines. FALSE. The data is that ivermectin works, among others. A trial out of Australia conducted in Britain (they locked everything in and did not have enough people in Australia who were sick) showed Budesonide (a cheap inhaled steroid used for asthma) works if given immediately when someone becomes symptomatic. The latter trial was stopped because it was ruled unethical to not give the controls the medicine since it prevented ninety percent of hospitalizations. Ivermectin has worked in every trial run thus far except one recently reported study the authors themselves state cannot prove effectiveness as the necessary deterioration in cases to do so was violated to the downside immediately, possibly due to widespread community use of the drug. The data on HCQ says it works if used early but appears to be worthless if not used until you're in the hospital. Remdesivir, which has an EUA, was disproved -- that is, shown worthless in a very large trial called "Solidarity" (along with several other drugs) and yet is still being used as it is on-patent and expensive. No drug works 100% of the time nor should it be expected to, but we should damn well not continue to use drugs that are proved worthless just because they cost $3,000 and the FDA issued an EUA for them. Deliberately not treating people until they're choking to death is monstrous and has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, many if not most of them avoidable at a cost of a few dollars.

Masks are the best tool we have to stop the spread and, if you just wear them for a few -- 4, 6, 8 weeks -- we will have Covid under control. Stated under oath before Congress by the CDC's director in September following multiple previous statements over a two month period in the summer by the CDC and NIH which urged (and got) the issuance of mandates. FALSE and known false as Hawaii took a ten times case rate spike a month after their mandate. This was known before Redfield perjured himself before Congress. There are ZERO states which did not take a monstrous spike in the winter despite mandates including California with the most-strict lockdowns and mask mandates in the nation. Compliance via multiple surveys has been around 90% with no evidence of effectiveness anywhere against non-mandate states and counties next door. Those states including South Dakota and Florida who repudiated the mandates or refused to issue them in the first place had identical or better outcomes than the states and locales that imposed them. The CDC has now itself published a MMWR (weekly report) in which they "claim" masks work -- their definition of "work" is a shockingly tiny 1-2% decrease in deaths and this assumes you ignore the confounding elements in their study that could invalidate even that tiny impact. In other words despite the nearly year-long and continual screaming about masks even the CDC itself now states that out of the 500,000 dead only 5,000-10,000 lives were saved at best and statistically-speaking it is entirely possible zero lives were saved. REMEMBER, WE WERE TOLD IN THE SUMMER AND EARLY FALL THAT MASKS WOULD ABSOLUTELY CONTROL THE VIRUS AND IN FACT THE CDC STATED UNDER OATH THAT MASKS WERE BETTER PROTECTION THAN A VACCINE. THIS LIE WAS REPEATED FOR MONTHS AND IS STILL BEING REPEATED TODAY. This wasn't a random statement made "off the cuff" it was made under oath to Congress five months ago and has, over time and by the data, been conclusively proved to be a lie.

The new strains will cause another spike even worse than the last one. FALSE; this was stated originally in the fall and repeated in December through February and yet since then cases have dropped like a stone despite these "new strains" becoming more and more prevalent. Florida in particular has documented widespread prevalence of one of the "demon strains" that were trumpeted in Fauci's fear porn. There has been no spike. Incidentally viruses mutate all the time; within the first few months there were hundreds of distinct viral RNA strains of Covid-19 known and that was only of the infections sequenced -- a tiny minority. If our actions do lead to new strains (specifically our ridiculously-unsound mass-vaccination campaign) and viral evasion occurs you may well be more screwed if you took the vaccine due to ADE than if you did not!

The Super Bowl will cause a huge case, hospitalization and death spike in Florida due to the ridiculously crowded parties and no masks in bars and similar all over the Tampa area. In fact the mayor threatened to arrest people for exactly this reason (an empty threat as the Governor had banned enforceability of said mandates.) FALSE; there has been no spike. Look for yourself; it's been over a month and cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all falling. Where's the spike?

Texas dropping its mask order will lead to mass-disease and death. FALSE; there has been no spike at all. Biden called the move "Neanderthal thinking" and predicted disaster, as did California's Newsom among myriad others, both among political leaders and so-called "medical experts" such as Fauci. Multiple lefties claimed that "there is no limit to how far Republicans will go to kill people." The truth is that Covid-19 cases fell by 28% in the next two weeks. The histrionics were, once again, wrong.

If we social distance and wear masks we will buy enough time for the vaccines to be developed and approved. FALSE. The case and hospitalization rate on a national basis peaked and was falling before the first jab went in the first arm. That which you do after something happens cannot be the cause. Simply put the vaccines did not stop any of the death; despite the lack of testing and rushed approvals they came too late.

The only people who count for "herd immunity" are those vaccinated. FALSE; never in history has such a lie been propagated for any disease, ever, anywhere. The CDC by its own estimates puts the lower boundary of persons infected and recovered at over 1/3rd of the nation and that's their lowest estimate. By more-reasonable belief the number is over half. Those people have immunity and absolutely count. Further, we knew in the first months that a material percentage of the population has pre-existing resistance to some degree, likely due to previous infection with other coronaviruses. This is why the case rate peaked before fully-vaccinated persons existed in the US; there is no other possible explanation.

Even if you've had the disease and recovered you should get vaccinated. There is zero science behind this claim. If you've had the measles or Chicken Pox would you take a vaccine against either? I certainly would not and have not; that would be pointless and stupid. The claim that there is no durable protection once infected is nothing more than conjecture; note that coronaviruses circulate among us all the time and while immunity may not be perfect (e.g. eventually you may well get it again) the odds are extremely high that if you do it will be a mild case and of no clinical or personal significance. Suggesting that you take the risk of an experimental vaccine if you were previously infected is wildly inappropriate; there is no such thing as a drug without risk and there is zero scientific evidence that your acquired immunity will not protect you against serious disease.

Even if you've been vaccinated or had the disease and recovered you should wear a mask and distance from others. FALSE, unless you believe the vaccines are worthless. If you believe the vaccine protects the person who takes it then you no longer need a mask or to distance and since others can choose to take a vaccine or not you have no reason to wear a mask or distance for allegedly protecting others either. If you do not believe the vaccines are effective protection then why did you take it? In short you either believe that you gain immunity by vaccination or infection or you do not; if you do then there's no reason for you to take any measures beyond either recovery or completion of the vaccination. Further, if you don't believe infection and recovery provides meaningful and durable protection then neither will the vaccine so the same scenario applies to both cases and if you do not then believe the shots are protective then you are stupid for accepting them.

These are the very same people folks -- the NIH, the CDC, State Departments of Health, Fauci, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, IHME, Vanderbilt and many more who now tell you after a solid year of unbroken lies and falsehoods that the vaccines are both safe and effective while at the same time our government has provided a 100% waiver of all liability to the pharmaceutical companies that developed and manufactured them.

I note that unlike the other common vaccines that are safe and effective, and which took 10+ years to so-prove, the mechanism of action of these shots are wildly different; they use only part of the virus and rather than introduce it into your body they hijack your cellular metabolism to produce the spike protein exactly as would a replicating infection with the virus, but since only the "spike" is there rather than the entire virus the hypothesis is that hijacking your cellular metabolism in this fashion will not hurt you. While for other vaccines the immunity produced is metabolically identical to infection because a killed whole virus that cannot replicate is used in this case the shots deliberately cause replication in your body of only one part of the virus, the spike protein. This is not identical to the broad immunity provided by natural infection because it can't be with this approach; if the entire virus was used you'd get the disease and it would be systemic in every case instead of localized to your upper respiratory tract. Further, unlike a killed virus vaccine that cannot replicate in your body at all these shots all cause production of the spike protein by your cells exactly as would an infection and that production is systemic since it is given by injection and thus circulates through the body.

The safety of this approach is unproved and in fact the rate of deaths closely associated with these vaccines is wildly higher than that associated with any of the other routinely given vaccinations including flu and chicken pox. The intermediate and longer-term effects of this approach including the possibility of long-term or even permanent damage as a result of systemically hijacking your cellular metabolism to produce that foreign protein are unknown.

Unlike a mask you can remove you cannot un-take a shot and the litany of those previous lies killed over 400,000 Americans who otherwise would not have died.

What if their statements are false this time, specifically on safety? What if viral evasion shows up as did during early trials for a SARS vaccine in animals, trials that were abandoned and not performed for these preparations? It typically takes ten years to know if a candidate vaccine produces unacceptable side effects including lifetime disability due to immune dysfunction, never mind exactly how effective it is and for how long. Further, the media and these people continually claim that nobody has been killed by these vaccines yet VARES, the CDC's own reporting data which is public, shows roughly two thousand associated deaths. The number of associated deaths with the annual flu shot from last year's flu vaccination which shipped roughly 170 million doses, was twenty-six.

That means the Covid-19 shots are associated thus far with roughly seventy five times (7,500%) as many deaths as last year's entire set of flu vaccines! Remember that we give flu vaccines to old and morbid people just like the first priority for Covid-19 vaccines, so these should produce similar "associated" rates of bad events if they are similarly safe.

VARES reporting is voluntary and thus always under-reports vaccine-associated events. Association does not establish causation but a pattern of 75 times as many deaths as are associated with another commonly-given vaccine in the same population group damn well ought to raise anyone's eyebrows; to claim that such does not represent a "safety signal" is a flat-out lie.

I remind you that the false statements of alleged facts outnumber, by a wild margin, the true ones particularly when it comes to things you were told to do that "would work" to stem the spread of this virus. Every single one of those claims has been proved false over time.

In short you're now being exhorted to believe a cadre of people and government agencies who are proved repeated liars and to trust them with your life after their previous lies killed your mother.

The facts are that Covid-19 basically burned itself out before the first shot went in the first arm and that none of the mitigating factors prevented net deaths from occurring; in fact all these mitigations, from mask orders to lockdowns to closing businesses and others caused more deaths due to ODs, suicides, avoidable heart attacks and strokes not screened for and other maladies by a wide factor than the mitigations, even using fatally flawed claims taken on faith by these very same agencies, could have possibly saved. The actions we could have taken to actually reduce death, specifically as regards care home and other medical facilities we deliberately refused to do and we knew those actions would save lives. Instead of protecting the most-vulnerable while those least-likely to be seriously harmed were naturally infected and built a wall of population immunity we deliberately refused to protect those older and sicker people from infection via the health care system and they died.

Given this record of falsehoods, actions and intentional refusals to act you're willing to bet your life they're telling the truth this time?

Even without full testing there may be reason for certain people to accept the vaccine, particularly those at specifically-high risk who have not had the virus. However, on the data if you are not specifically morbid in known ways the risk of death from Covid-19, by the CDC's own data along with that of the NY coroner, is approximately 3/100,000. From the associated deaths in the CDC's own VARES system it appears the vaccines are approximately as dangerous to materially more dangerous than the disease in non-morbid individuals and that is without having any data on intermediate and longer-term effects which can only add to those risks. Further, if you've already been infected with Covid-19 you already have broad immunity and there is zero scientific evidence that vaccination can be of any value to you whatsoever.

When do we stop allowing people like Fauci, the CDC, Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Governors along with various health departments to lie through their teeth about virtually everything related to this virus?

Is not your dead Grandmother enough reason to put a stop to this horse**** -- and all who support it?

Original article has hyperlinks. Link: https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=241875

#karl denninger #sars-cov-2 #global pandemic of stupidity

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foodmadewithlove · 3 years

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Elda Piku’s Almost 20-Year-Old Pizza Shop: How a Family-Owned Restaurant Continues To Thrive In The Beverly Farms Community

With quick speed, two hands carefully pinch dough into a round circle, placing a black tray upon a towering mountain of already formed pizza bases. To the left, a machine whirs as it mixes a large batch of dough for another round.

Elda Piku, owner and chef at Ellie’s Pizza in Beverly, has been shaping pizzas in the back of the store since 9 a.m., an hour earlier than when the shop typically opens. Every morning, Piku gets ready for the upcoming influx of orders. With a staff of only 5 people, the owner generally opens and closes the shop every day at 9 p.m, staying sometimes until 10 p.m. to clean the restaurant and get ready for the next day.

(Above) Piku shaping pizza dough for the day’s orders.

Born in Albania, the owner came to America with her family in January of 2000. As a young 23-year-old, she started to work in the restaurant industry and grew accustomed to it.

“Somehow I liked it, so I said why not [do] my own thing. I came across this place and I loved it and I’ve been here since,” she said smiling.

Piku has owned the small shop for almost 20 years. Previously inhabited by another restaurant named ‘Harry’s Pizza’, Piku couldn’t keep the name unless she paid for the old owner’s bills. As a result, the Peabody resident deemed the location ‘Ellie’s’, an Americanized version of her first name. Ellie’s Pizza is currently located at 728 Hale Street in Beverly, MA, in the neighborhood otherwise known as Beverly Farms.

(Above) A shot of where Ellie’s Pizza is located in the neighborhood of Beverly Farms.

Generally known for their pizzas, Ellie’s offers other items such as salads, calzones, and sandwiches on their menu. The restaurant sells various specialty pizzas, including a deemed customer favorite ‘Ellie’s Special’, which includes artichokes, garlic, roasted peppers, pesto, and mozzarella. Once the pizza is loaded up with the sauce and toppings of choice, Piku places the pie into a metal pizza oven. A red and white box with the words ‘fresh hot pizza’ becomes the home to the delicious meal which will most likely be delivered to a waiting customer. Piku noted that pizzas and salads are her favorite things to make in the restaurant.

(Above) One of Ellie’s wraps in the process of being made for customers.

(Above) The toppings bar, filled with items such as pepperoni and mushrooms able to be put on pizzas.

(Above) The pizza oven Ellie’s Pizza uses for their items.

(Above) The boxes all lined up for the various pizza orders coming in throughout the day.

A long counter with five stools inhabits the front of the store, a location customers can sit at while waiting for their food. Refrigerators line the walls with water and carbonated beverages such as Sprite, able to be purchased with meals. A rack full of chips next to the refrigerators serves as a quick item customers can pick up. T.V.’s with the Ellie’s Pizza menu are hung up in the waiting area for hungry patrons who are uncertain of what they want to eat. The restaurant gets over a hundred customers a day.

(Above) Ellie’s Pizza customers typically sit at this long table while waiting for their food.

(Above) Refrigerators filled with various soft drinks line the walls.

Ellie’s is a family-owned and operated business, with the owner’s daughter Singi Piku and brother Sam Piku helping out. The owner said her daughter started to work at the location at the age of 12, assisting a little more as she grew older. Now 23-years-old, the generation has come full circle.

“If we work different jobs, we’re probably not gonna see each other that much,” Piku explained. “But being here you see each other, you don’t miss that part when you are super busy and don’t get to see your family. We don’t have that because we are here everyday.”

(Above) Piku setting up for the day in the kitchen.

Piku said she’s learned over the years that family problems should stay at home, and work problems should remain at work. She explained that even though her other employees are not family members, they still feel like them. By being with them all the time, you become very close and learn about their problems and daily life, said Piku.

“During the years, we[‘ve] had so many people come work for a while and leave and do their own thing. But when you work for a long time, you become friends and almost like a family,” Piku added. “We see each other mostly [more] than we see our family.”

Piku prides herself on using fresh ingredients for her meals, using suppliers from the New England region. Over the years, she has had to invent new salads in order to please health-oriented customers, including a ‘Garden’ salad which consists of tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, green peppers, and carrots. Piku mentioned that her workers are consistently at the shop early in the morning to prep for the day.

(Above) A colander of lettuce that has been washed for the day.

(Above) An example of one of the salads Piku makes at Ellie’s Pizza.

“You cannot cut corners. You have to be [able] to give [the] highest quality product and everything else,” Piku said, motioning to her various freshly cut ingredients.

The owner noted that the town of Beverly has been a pillar in the restaurant’s success. She mentioned that the area is a tight knit community, who have come to trust and sustain the location through loyalty.

“They’re very supportive, they treat you like a family,” said Piku happily. “Even if you’re going through a hardship, they’re always there for you.”

Like many other restaurants, Ellie’s was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. The location has been open for take-out only since the start of the virus. A large stack of to-go containers sits on top of the main counter where the register remains.

(Above) The to-go containers Ellie’s Pizza has been using amid the pandemic.

“This community is unbelievable, they came even [during] such a hard time when people were scared to go out or even have contact with other people,” Piku said gratefully. “They were just deliveries and they contact you, they supported us.”

Piku said her main goal was keeping the business open during that time, and keeping her employees in the process. She said she realizes they all have families and things to take care of, so she wanted to make sure each person still got their paycheck.

(Above) A stack of Ellie’s Pizza menus sits on top of the front counter where customers can order.

The owner explained that the location can’t compete with big name restaurants, as it’s a completely different atmosphere. Piku tells her employees to make the food like they are making it for themselves, an aspect Piku thinks keep them in business.

“That’s a totally different ballgame, this thing is like you just do you [and] love what you do,” Piku mentioned energetically.

Piku said the restaurant takes a great amount of work, as she is at the location seven days a week for 10 to 12 hours each day.

“It is a lot of hard work, and people probably don’t realize how hard it is,” asserted Piku. “You are here 24/7, sometimes you feel like you sleep here and you just stay here 24 hours.”

Even so, Piku explained that the hard work has been beneficial in the end.

“Hard work has always paid off in [the] end. When [we] sometimes receive calls from customers and they praise our food, that [keeps] us going,” said Piku contently. “Seriously, it makes everyday better and makes it all worth it, all the sacrifice and everything else.”

(Above) Piku working to prep for the day, shaping pizza dough.

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ginnyzero · 4 years

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Completely Harmless Ch. 21

Completely Harmless An SSO SilverGlade Re-imagining Story (Or Fix it Fan Salt fic) By Ginny O.

When Lily and her friends wanted to buy horses and were directed to the Silverglade Manor and its myriad of problems, they didn’t expect to start a revolution. They were just a bunch a stable girls. Completely harmless. Right?

A/N: Things are only canon if I say they’re canon. Pre-Saving the Moorland Stables compliant for the most part. Posted in its entirety on my website. Posted in 2000 to 4000 word bits here. Rated T for Swearing Word Count 177,577

Chapter Twenty-One Did Someone Say Ice Cream?

The email Lily received from Aaron Silverglade was next to incoherent. Oh, there were legible words, but they didn’t string together to make any sense. He sounded quite upset, as much as written words could sound upset.

Lily hopped a bus to Jorvik City and met him at Leonardo’s.

“Sir Aaron, whatever is the matter,” she asked as soon as she was certain that he had a fortifying sundae and stiff coffee in front of him. They sat under one of the umbrella tables outside of Leonardo’s.

“I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m going to fail miserably and make my mother more disappointed in me. I don’t know why I ever thought this was a good idea. Anastasia is doing so much better at this than I am and I can feel mother’s icy disapproval from here. Why can’t I be more like mother?”

Lily’s eyes widened. “Slow down! Your mother loves you. You just helped her achieve a huge victory against G.E.D. by getting rid of those oil rigs. Not that you need to do things like that for her to love you. She loves you no matter what. Now, exactly what is the problem?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“What, what?” Lily waved her spoon. “The oil rigs are gone. We’re revitalizing the paddock. The race track can now move forward.”

“With the ice cream bar,” Aaron waved his hands and then slumped.

Lily blinked rapidly. “You know everything about ice cream.”

“But, what to call it? How to decorate it? I don’t know anything about that!”

Lily reached out and grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “You don’t have to.”

“But, but,” Aaron sputtered.

“That is what professionals are for. There are professional decorators. And professional marketers.” Lily sniffed. “Really, Dame Anastasia copped out by naming the restaurant the Silver Glade. That’s an easy go to stand by.”

Aaron bit his lip hard. He dug into his ice cream and took a few bites.

“Now,” Lily took out her phone and did a search for the decorator. She found the phone number and slid her phone over to Aaron. “Here is the decorator your sister hired for the restaurant.”

Aaron stared at it.

“Call him,” Lily urged.

Aaron reached for his phone and slowly dialed the number. He explained who he was and what he was trying to do. He took the phone away from his ear and looked at it with a frown on his face, brow furrowed. “He’s on his way. Since, we’re having ice cream.”

“We must have been photographed on social media.”

“Oh dear. I hope they aren’t saying anything salacious.”

Lily did a quick search. “Not really? They don’t know who I am and I’m wearing Silverglade Clan colors.”

“Hmm,” Aaron said.

“Random employee pep talk,” Lily shrugged and put it away.

“We should be more careful,” Aaron mumbled.

“That could make things worse,” Lily told him. She ate her ice cream. “I confess I don’t know a lot about wine or ice cream. Other than it is tasty and I like eating it.”

Aaron fidgeted. “Well, the winery is a very lucrative business and it could be more so. You see, the price of wine really depends on its scarcity. A good bottle of wine can sell for at least 500 Jorvik shillings.”

Lily got out her phone and did a currency conversion. “So, 20 American dollars?” It appeared that 1 dollar equaled 25 Jorvik Shillings. And 100 Jorvik shillings equaled 1 star coin. (Lily made a note to never use star coins on the transport.) So, 100 Jorvik shillings was roughly 4 American dollars in market value.

“I suppose,” Aaron blinked. He stirred his ice cream. “Of course, the price of an individual bottle goes down as you order more volume. But depending on the amount of wine made and sold in a year, a winery as big as mothers can make 50 billion shillings a year.”

Lily did the conversion on her phone. “2 billion dollars a year?”

“Not every year and, between you and I, we aren’t currently making nearly that much as we don’t have the proper marketing or demand.” Aaron flushed. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“Probably not,” Lily said. “But that is really interesting!”

“Wine output is determined by how many hectares of grapes you have planted. And of course, everything depends on soil salinity and the weather. We have cooler weather here in Jorvik. That all effects the taste of the wine. And if your wine doesn’t taste good and pass certain standards, you can’t price it higher. We aren’t as fussy as France,” Aaron sniffed. “But we still have standards.”

Lily grinned around a spoonful of ice cream.

The decorator literally flounced up to the table. “I hope you haven’t started talking about anything juicy without me!” He struck a pose.

“Just about wine profits,” Lily said.

“Well, say no more until I have ice cream,” the decorator sat and ordered from one of the servers. She returned quickly with his bowl of ice cream and left them.

“All right, darlings, explain everything about this wine and ice cream bar?”

Lily raised a brow at Aaron.

He floundered.

Lily decided it was probably better if she took over. “The wine cave has a room that is meant to be a tasting room,” she said. “I haven’t been in it.” Her brow furrowed and she picked up the phone and sent a text. She set the phone down. “Sir Silverglade knows a lot about ice cream and the concept is to pair ice cream dishes with wine to attract tourists with something a little different? Sir Silverglade was telling me about how our cooler weather makes the wine taste different than if we had warmer weather.”

The decorator tilted his head. “Is it even possible to pair wine and ice cream without it ending badly?”

“Small cups! Small!” Lily widened her eyes.

The decorator grinned. “The whole point of a wine tour is to get gloriously drunk and buy lots of wine you don’t need.”

Lily sighed.

Her phone buzzed. She picked it up, checked the messages and passed it to the decorator. “The tasting room.”

“Another very empty box,” the decorator sniffed. “How distressing.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “If you remember, the outside of the wine cave looks like the Parthenon or another long rectangular greek temple.”

“It’s based on the Valley of the Temples in Sicily,” Aaron said stiffly.

Lily gestured. See?

“Romantic get away for a Silverglade ancestor, I’m assuming. Sounds like a story,” the decorator smirked.

Aaron mumbled something and fiddled with his shirt sleeves.

“Continue please, a big empty room is a blank canvas, I want to hear more about your ideas.” The decorator passed the phone back to Lily.

Aaron cleared his throat. “Outside of France, many wineries maximize their profits by having different types of grapes and they grow these grapes in different areas of their property called cotes that has the best weather suited for them and we have to be very particular about soil salinity. Our Pinot Noir grapes are in the area of the winery that has the best weather due to their rather finicky and delicate nature. All of the vines at the Silverglade winery are different types of red grapes, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Melbec, Merlot, Zinfandel, and Syrah.”

“Is there a reason for that?” The decorator asked. “I know that Riesling is a very popular wine to have with local foods. That is if anyone ever recommends a wine at all. But Riesling is a German white grape.”

Aaron shrugged. “I don’t know. Those are the varietals we have. We also have a Rose blended wine and a Red blend fortified wine in the style of Port for sale. We use the skin contact method to make the wine pink and take the skins out before the wine becomes deep red. It’s traditional.”

Lily bit the inside of her cheek. The Silverglades could be so stuffy.

“But the good thing about red wine is that it pairs well with our local fruits such as strawberries, blueberries, and lingonberries. You can even pair it with apples and cheese,” Aaron brightened. “For white wine, you pair it with things like peaches, orange, and melons. We don’t have those around Silverglade so, it’s all fortuitous you see.”

“Or Fruituitous,” Lily wrinkled her nose.

Aaron grimaced at the pun.

The decorator laughed. “I like you, darling,” he waved a spoon at her.

“So my ideas for ice cream feature the local produce and of course we want to use local cream products and import chocolate, everyone loves chocolate.” Aaron fiddled with his utensils. “I have a list of items. I just can’t narrow it down.”

“Why bother narrowing it down?” Lily furrowed her brow. “I think it is more important that they taste good and pair well with the wines at the winery.”

“Yes, you must have a taste test,” the decorator nodded emphatically.

“I think they go well.”

“We trust your judgement,” Lily said quickly. “Having a tasting will provide publicity for the ice cream bar and let you gauge feedback on what the people will like.”

The decorator nodded. “She’s right. Publicity is, well, queen, in this case.”

“I mean, as long as you aren’t doing anything to outre like rose or violet or lavender ice cream,” Lily said.

“We could,” Aaron murmured. “Rose and cardamom go together and you know how much mother loves cardamom. And cardamom and lingonberries go well with red wine. In some recipes you can substitute rose water for red wine.”

Lily felt the need to point out. “You denude Agnetha’s rose bushes she’ll come after you with her chainsaw no matter if you’re the son of the Baroness or not.”

The decorator burst into laughter.

Aaron pursed his lips. “Agnetha is scary. They’re old friends you know, her and my mother. Went to university together.”

“Oh good grief,” Lily groaned. “That explains so much.”

“And Lavender goes with rose wine,” Aaron added.

Lily sighed. “Yes, but they also scream snobby.”

The decorator snorted.

“Wine making is snobby,” Aaron retorted.

“Okay, make them a special at some point.” Lily waved her hand.

Aaron tried to retain what very little dignity he had. “Most of my ideas are things that people will like, vanilla and berries, chocolate and nuts, strawberry cheesecake, sea salt caramel, that sort of thing.”

“Those all sound delicious,” Lily said.

“And something with cardamom for my mother,” Aaron continued stiffly. He slumped again. “I don’t know what to call it or what I want things to look like.”

“This tasting room at least isn’t in a drafty old cellar, even if the walls look like it,” the decorator sniffed.

“Aren’t wine cellars rooms nobles actually have?” Lily tilted her head. “I mean, does the manor have one.”

“Yes, the manor has a wine cellar,” Aaron nodded. “Mother keeps all the special bottles there.”

“Then, why not call it the Wine Cellar and keep it simple, like the restaurant was simple. I mean, no one is going to care that it’s not really in a cellar. Or they shouldn’t.”

“Since the cellar of the wine cave is filled with kegs and kegs of aging wine,” Aaron murmured.

“If we call it the Wine Cellar people are going to expect grapes as décor,” the decorator sniffed.

“I don’t see why we can’t do a bit of that.”

“And too keep the walls rough.”

“Also doable,” Lily said. She raised a finger. “Wait, why not face them with marble slabs. That way they can look “rough” and be fancy at the same time.”

“We don’t want it to have the same exact look at the Silver Glade, but the two should say they belong in the same place, did you just say marble slabs,” the decorator raised a brow.

Lily shrugged. “It’s an idea.”

“It’s going to be cold.”

“It’s summer,” Lily reminded him.

Aaron ducked his head and smiled.

“Let me see what other ice cream parlors are doing,” the decorator picked up his phone. “You never know what you can use for ideas.”

He scrolled. “All right, modern and elegant but with old world flair. I’m seeing two that have ideas that could work. This ice cream parlor in Prague that turns into a bar during the evening, and this other one in Palma, Spain. I’m thinking more the floor and the fact they have the greenery on the ceiling.” He turned the phone around so Aaron could look at the pictures.

“I like the lamps in Prague, they remind me of the lamps Agnetha is putting in,” Aaron said.

Lily craned her head forward trying to see.

Aaron turned the phone around.

“Oh, the one in Prague is very clean. Both have the exposed lighting. But the walls in Prague remind me more of the walls in the restaurant, like they’re clean despite not having the French Paneling.”

“An ice cream parlor and wine bar doesn’t really need French Paneling.” The decorator sniffed. “And the humidity would ruin it.”

“Could we make chairs out of old barrels?” Lily asked.

“Why do you even need me?” The Decorator asked.

“Because you can tell us if our ideas are good or bad,” Lily smirked at him.

The decorator sighed. “That is the sort of old world kitsch that it probably does need. We can use the same type of lamps or similar as to the restaurant and the rest of the winery.”

“We have hanging flower baskets already and urns of flowers,” Lily pointed out.

The decorator looked at the pictures again. “I know this building looks two and a half stories high with the pitch of the roof. All the lighting will have to be brought in it looks like. Let’s give the walls a good polishing. I know a contractor. We’ll install a marble floor with several coats of protection. Everything will have to be hand built. Maybe we can use barrel staves on the front of the bar.”

“We may not be able to use ivy or roses, aren’t those sunny plants. Agnetha talks and talks,” Lily bit her lip. She set her spoon down, ice cream done. “I can’t remember all of it.”

“I was thinking that we could take a nod from Prague and do the logo in lights, whatever it ends up being.”

“We’ll get a marketing team on it,” Aaron said. “I know Anastasia has one for the restaurant. I’ll tack my requests onto hers.”

“Excellent plan,” the decorator smirked. “I’ll get some drawings for these barrel chairs and use the same roman style idea we’ve been using and that should take care of the ‘wine cellar’ vibe we’re going for.”

Lily nodded rapidly.

Aaron looked faint with relief. He sipped his coffee.

“And use Agnetha’s artist for lights,” the decorator sighed. “She has to be charging through the nose to get it done as quickly as she is.”

“Would you say no to Agnetha or Baroness Silverglade?” Lily said.

Aaron smiled again behind his mug.

“No, not at all,” the decorator admitted. “Hmm, doesn’t she have that arch thing near the Riding Arena.”

“Yep,” Lily said. She produced a picture.

“Yes, exactly, we’ll create something to set off the bar area from the lounging area with that type of theme, though you know, one story instead of whatever that is,” he rolled his eyes. “I know, because I’ve been to France, that the top of that arch has square tile motifs. We can use grapes there, probably in a circle with roses in the corners. Then horses on each side of the arch on the walls.”

Lily nodded rapidly.

“That way we won’t have to change the base of the lamps that she already has a mold for and we won’t get bitched at.”

Lily giggled.

“And we can wrap them in something that likes to climb and is shade loving to help bring in more greenery. There, I think I have a plan. Hanging globe lights from the ceiling with more hanging plants. Put shade loving plants in the urns.” The decorator clapped their hands together. They finished their ice cream. “I’ll go get on making a picture for you to approve.” He stood up. “Excellent meeting you again, Ms. Lily. I’ll be in touch, Sir Silverglade.” He smiled and sauntered off shoes clicking on the tiles.

Lily stared at Aaron.

Aaron sipped his coffee. “He seems very good at his job.”

Lily bit her lip.

“Thank you, for, for all this, you do know just what to say.”

“Sir Aaron, we want this to succeed just as much as you do and, well, ice cream.” Lily widened her eyes. “Now, don’t forget to put up a JarlList to get some employees.”

“Of course, and I am going to call Anastasia and tell her I liked that outfit Franzeska came up with that had the blouse with the contrasting collar and cuffs. It was very professional looking.”

“Yeah, I’ll leave you to it,” Lily breathed. She got up. She wanted no part of the fight over what place was going to have what outfit. She retreated across the street and grabbed the trolley as it headed by to take her to the bus station.

At least, the crisis seemed to be averted.

Lily debated on the way back to Fort Pinta if she should pop her head in and tell Baroness Silverglade to remind her children she loved them a bit more often.

Lily shuddered.

No, probably not a good idea.

FOR THE ACCOMPANYING IMAGES PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE MY WATERMARK AND CONTACT INFORMATION. THANK YOU. I get it. Some of you might get excited and want to see this stuff in the game, especially the clothes, tack, and pets. However, the only way I want to see this in the game is if I get paid for it. If I see it in the game and I’m not paid for it, there will be hell to pay. You think I’m salty. I’d be angry. Personally, I’m not going to send this info to SSO. If you do, leave my contact information there! Don’t give them any excuses to steal.

Now, I’ll know you haven’t read this note if you leave me comments about how ‘salty’ I am about the game and if I hate it so much I should do something else. I am doing something else. It’s called Mystic Riders MMORPG Project. Mystic Riders however is a very baby phase game. You can check out our plans on the game dev blog. (Skills, Factions, Professions, Crafting, Mini-Games, 25+ horse breeds!) If you know anyone who would be interested and has money or contacts about game making, direct them to the blog.

#star stable #sso #star stable online #jorvik reimagined #fanfic #star stable salt #completely harmless #many nods to ruth westside #silverglade reimagined

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fintasticpvsite-blog · 5 years

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Retirement in Puerto Vallarta - What is Heading on South of the Border?

Consciousness, toddler boomers never be late for the celebration! If you have not observed what's possible on south of the border, possessing only read through about illegal immigration north of the border, the subsequent may perhaps probably show to be fairly awakening and insightful.

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, a sleepy insignificant Mexican fishing village positioned in the foothills of the Sierra Madres on Banderas Bay alongside the Mexican Riviera is no longer sleepy or insignificant. The populace has in essence exploded due to the fact the filming of "The Night time of the Iguana" in 1963. Vallarta has grown from two,000 inhabitants prior to 1963 to the most recent decide of 350,000 inhabitants in 2007. Suitable now, the populace of much better PV would make it the subsequent most significant town in the Mexican condition of Jalisco, only driving Guadalajara. You should refer to the pursuing graph in purchase to check this explosive improvement and its projection for the adhering to 10 many a long time: (Make confident you pay back a pay a visit to to the web web page under for graph facts) Placing this in issue of view, you are going to discover the earlier pointed out chart implies that Vallarta has now attained the sizing of St. Louis and assuming the projected growth retains accurate, it will be equivalent in proportions to Cleveland in just ten many years. The sizeable just take take note of curiosity is that St Louis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and so forth., will all most likely display minimum to no, it's possible even detrimental growth, whilst PV is expected to develop by still an additional 50% all through the upcoming 10 many many years. Now, we inquire, what is heading on down there? First, permit us look at who's moving there. The complete sector of Vallarta is dependent on tourism and the immigration of North Us inhabitants. The US information from the IRS returns implies a development from two hundred,000 US citizens a number of yrs ago to 750,000 Men and women in america residing in Mexico in 2005. Of the 750,000 Us people, we can only estimate that fifty,000 Men and women in the us and Canadians now get hold of Vallarta household. With the tens of many quantities of condos and villas at this time beneath developing or in the ten 12 months placing up section, we can only envision that by 2017, the North American inhabitants in better PV will be someplace relating to a hundred,000 and a hundred and fifty,000 retirees. The adhering to are some of the very good motives for this explosive progress: Local climate--The 7 month "exceptional time" of November by implies of Might well has an regular every day temperature of seventy three*F with nearly no probability of rain. Environment--Vallarta, positioned in the foothills of the Sierra Madres on the Banderas Bay, a person specific of the best and most amazing bays in the globe, is in the center of the Mexican Riviera on the Pacific Ocean. Beautiful seashore locations, rocky cliffs, mountain sides overlooking the bay, tropical bouquets and wildlife, and all the sights that a human being would hope to obtain in Paradise. Protected--With tourism getting the existence blood of the economic technique, North People today in the usa are "off restrictions" pertaining to any style of authorized workout. Because guns are strictly prohibited in Mexico, burglaries, robberies, etcetera., are pretty much unheard of. The principal aim of most all of the youthful technology of natives is to ensure all North People in america a pleasurable and safe just take a seem at to Paradise so that they are likely to return shortly and usually. Stress of a terrorist attack in Vallarta? Ignore it! Friendliness--In 2001, a viewers poll taken by Conde Nast journal in depth Vallarta as the friendliest vacation resort wanted destination in the world. The locals take care of North People today in the us with dignity, respect, and as mates, household, and basically as royalty. Cleanse up Foods and H2o--The explosive populace expansion has triggered a full revamping and rising of the town infrastructure. This functions the freeway method, electrical power period and distribution, and of education course, consuming drinking water treatment and distribution units. The water is pure and harmless to consume from the tap during the city. All meals things merchandise are now available in the pretty a several new contemporary supermarkets equivalent to the very best in the States. Foodstuff for home or restaurant consumption is intently monitored for cleanliness and managed as in North The usa. Health care treatment method--Two new enormous modern hospitals and just a person lesser present day-day clinic in Vallarta are totally capable of handling all emergencies as proficiently as challenging surgical strategies. Contemporary dental clinics are also in Vallarta offering crowns, caps, implants, as correctly as all the basic dental solutions. When you loved this information along with you wish to be given more information about Fishing in Vallarta generously pay a visit to our own site. All of the wellness pros and dentists converse English and loads of of them have professional at the pretty the very least some qualified coaching in the States. Good friends--Every single single North American that you see in Vallarta, and they are easy to location, is maybe on family vacation or retired, i.e., none of them have to go to accomplish tomorrow! They are all open up to new friendships and new comers are frequently welcome. It can be 1 substantial party with no looming pressures of the business workplace or the commuter vacation in the morning. Language--Due to the fact the general overall economy in PV is based mostly on tourism, it is crucial to connect English. As a outcome, it is estimated that at the really least 80% of the youthful era is now conversing or at least knowing English. Dialogue is not a concern in Vallarta and there is no have to have to come across out Spanish. Vacation Time--Even with the truth that Vallarta is on the equivalent latitude as Hawaii, it is only two to 3 a number of several hours from most of the US cities. All the highways coming down from the US are now super fashionable tollroads and the generate to PV can be manufactured in two instances from the border. Connectivity--With higher velocity on line help available citywide, on the internet primarily dependent telecommunications, and satellite Television available all about the position, you have the correct very same get in contact with with the entire globe that you would have where ever in the US or Canada. Actions--Overall planet class deep sea fishing has been for a number of many years, and will commonly be, a big activity in Vallarta. There are now 7 lovely golfing plans with more beneath enhancement. There are hundreds of tennis courts, h2o pursuits, night day to day residing galore, and as nicely a lot of golf equipment and providers to level out. If you have nothing at all to do in PV, it actually is only for the reason that which is your alternate! Benefit of Residing--The expense of common staples is about the comparable as in North The united states, even so, housing is roughly fifty % the price and housing similar taxes are a portion of these in the States. All products and solutions and products and services are a 50 % to a third of these in the US like specialist healthcare and dental remedy just simply because labor fees are so substantially decreased. The selling price of eating, outdoor routines, and so forth., are really substantially in line with folks in the States. Financial Security--The Mexican peso, at somewhere all over ten.8 pesos per US dollar, has held firm for the earlier 10 a lot of decades. There are no devaluation troubles at this time as the Mexican economic system booms. Political Stability--The PAN occasion has ruled in Mexico specified that 2000 and will remain in energy at minimum right up until 2012, assuring a twelve calendar year consecutive operate of Mexico getting to be governed by Harvard graduates! Avoidable to say, they are specialist-US and pleasant to the North. Economical expense--Residence values have tripled for the duration of the earlier ten yrs and are envisioned to double once again all via the future 5 yrs. With the booming all round financial state, the Mexican inventory marketplace has also tripled by the past 10 quite a few a long time. There is no gradual down of progress in the foreseeable impending. With any luck ,, the earlier described 15 merchandise will offer some rationalization for the booming financial process and explosive expansion in Vallarta. They say that the party's not previously mentioned, that it has only just began. The Mexican Countrywide Tourism Improvement Basis (Fonatur), has specified a 30 mile stretch of pristine Pacific Ocean shoreline north of Vallarta as the new Riviera Nayarit, anywhere a lot more than five billion kilos will be invested throughout the pursuing 10 quite a few decades building 30,000 new occupations as they develop shut to twenty,000 new condos, villas, motels, and so forth. As the North Men and women continue on to flock to Paradise, the infrastructure advancement and forthcoming scheduling functions continue at a torrid tempo.

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brulermag · 6 years

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An Immigrant Nation

I remember taking the Greyhound to Houston, Texas coming from New Jersey, and there was a long line. This was the third connection I'd made and I was exhausted. Carrying around a few bags, I listened to my music while I waited to check in. Suddenly, my headphones got caught on my jacket and snapped and I was visibly upset. The guy behind me who was Mexican, reached into his bag and without hesitation, handed me a pair of headphones. "There you go! I know how it is to be without music on these long rides." "Thank you so much!"

We proceeded to get on the bus and he sat next to me. "I'm heading back to Houston to see my wife. I've been gone for a while and I can't wait to see her." He pulled out a picture and said, "This is Kelly and my daughter Raye." This man seemed proud of his family and his eyes welled up when he spoke about them. His name was Guadalupe and he lived in Houston, Texas but was coming from Louisiana because of work there. He was undocumented and was trying to make a living for his family. Because Texas is predominantly Mexican-American, he said he was shunned by his own community because he could not afford paperwork and staying legally in this country.

"They say they are a community and help each other, but Mexicans who come here and have babies born here in the USA tell their kids to look and act white and to not speak Spanish. They don't ever tell you this but its true. They feel that it will give their children a better future to submit to White people rather than challenge the 'norm.' And then the ones that are newly undocumented, well they don't help much. Some people are very welcoming but my very own people have looked down on me. I don't expect people to help though, so I look for whatever work there is to support my family. This time around, it's in Louisiana. And pretty soon I'll move my family down here. Its hard because if I do the move and I lose my job because of ICE, or before I get my paperwork to be legal, I can be deported and what will happen of my family?" This was in 2000.

A few years later, I was a server at a very popular restaurant in Philadelphia and as I waited for patrons to come and dine, I stood next to one of the bus boys and talk to kill time. His name was Reimundo and he was an undocumented Mexican. He was super polite, soft spoken, well mannered and kind. He did everything with a smile and never asked questions. I asked him if he planned to go from bus boy to server because of his demeanor and professionalism.

He looked up and said, "I cannot." "How come?" I asked. "You'd be great!" As naive as I was, I asked those questions. I'm a Puerto Rican. We're American citizens. Born and raised in New Jersey. While I have faced racism I could never walk in the footsteps of Reimundo. I never had to move to a new place and learn a new language. In a place where they didn't want me. Where I don't really exist because I can't afford a visa/citizenship. That I would be giving myself away if I tried to apply because I was already in the country illegally...simply because I wanted a better life for myself and too often times my family. I can't even imagine how that feels. Where do I go? Where do I stay? What do I do? As Americans, we complain about a lot of things, but this is a whole other level.

If you're harassed or a victim of crime, who do you go to? Many undocumented people never see a doctor or a lawyer or a cop simply because they are afraid to be reported and taken away. Reimundo looked and me and said, "I begged for this job. I have friends who know the owner and they told him I was a hard worker. He liked me and here I am. I can't become a server. It's too suspicious." "So how long have you been in America?" "3 and a half years." "Did you come with your family?" "No. I came alone. My entire family is in Mexico. I came here for them. There was no jobs in Mexico. Nothing. My family was facing extreme poverty. My mother was getting sicker. I needed to do something. She told me not to come because she feared for my safety, but I would do anything for my mamita linda."

I didn't ask him how he got here because I felt like I was already being intrusive. But he told me anyway: "I ran. I ran and ran and it took a long time but I finally got over." He paused and walked over to a table to pour water. He came back and opened a small booklet he had in his back pocket. "This is my saint of a mother." "When was the last time you saw her? Does she come here to visit?" "I haven't seen my mother physically since I came here. 3 and a half years. And I miss them like crazy." "Don't you ever feel lonely and want to hug them? I know if it was me, I'd go crazy." "Well, yes of course! But I am here working hard for them. Every dime is for her and my brothers and sisters. I leave here and I go to my other job. I repeat. This is my life. I made this sacrifice for them. I don't regret it one bit."

With the hostility of The Trump Era almost 17 years later, you'd think being an illegal immigrant was the worst crime ever. But actually, early settlers of America were the first immigrants and basically claimed America for their own. There wasn't formal paperwork like there was to keep slaves or free them; there were no laws against them. And as they established their usurpation, they made their own laws according to land ownership and everything else. By the late 1800's, they sent for their families. It wasn't relatively easy to get on a boat and get here, because late 1800's immigrants faced racism themselves in America. But they eventually came over and made their place in every fiber of American History. Because of immigrants we have a melting pot of food, culture, jobs, education, art and everything else you can name of.

It seemed that if you were from Europe, America was a sure fire way to get ahead in life. But for Asians and existing African Americans this was not the case. There were rules in place during The Gold Rush of 1849. When The Chinese heard of these opportunities, they migrated to America but Americans weren't too happy about that. They put in place The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to exclude The Chinese from taking advantage of The Gold Rush. The opening of Ellis Island in 1892 was truly the first Federal Immigration Station. While Europeans struggled to make their place in America, they eventually fit right in by designating parts all over America where their like kind was. Laws favoring European countries for immigration ended in 1965 and allowed Asians and Latin Americans to make their way to America for a "Better Life."

But it wasn't a very good life for Latin Americans. They were stereotyped, made fun of in pop culture, were designated as "Lovers" and "Salsa Dancers" and were ridiculed for their accents. It's always been hard for Latin Americans to climb corporate ladders because a Latino was not seen as a formidable opponent in the business field. To this day, you can count on your fingers the number of Latinos who have won Oscars and in 60 years of The Grammys, very few Latinos have performed LIVE. In fact, you can count on your fingers how many have.

Latinos have been discounted in American History even when we make history in America. There have been limited views of immigrants and their descendants so how do we expect America to understand an illegal immigrant at all? It doesn't surprise me one bit when Middle American White People on The Right shake their finger at illegal immigrants. Those are the very people that employed them in fields, in the back of kitchens and everywhere else. As soon as a dictator like Trump stepped in and said they'd get tax breaks, they sold them out on a dime. That's the American way sometimes.

America is an Immigrant Nation. A rich, colorful nation that have borrowed from our customs, creativity, culture and the list goes on and on. I have to remind you that not every white person feels the same way many do about illegal or legal immigrants. And millions agree that we should be a country of opening our arms and welcoming all. But at the same time, they do need to be more vocal about it, especially during this time. These are the times where being white and vocal really matters. But do not mistake the rest of America and every race and ethnicity...WE do not need a white face to lead us; but we do not mind the allies.

Here are some reasons America should get off their moral high horse: Most of our cities, states and counties are named in Spanish, you just don't know it because white people butcher pronunciation of foreign language! All joking aside, some white people from the reddest of states live in counties that are either Spanish, Native American or of some foreign language. Remember America is rich in diversity even way before immigration became common. But that's another American History lesson on how The French, The British, The Spanish made their marks in America.

America is an Immigrant Nation. The most famous restaurants and foods white people absolutely love and frequent are Mexican Restaurants. In fact, they think every Latino in the world are Mexicans and think we all make mole and tacos. If we're in 2018 and most Americans didn't know Puerto Rico was part of The United States, you can imagine how immigrants of any nationality today are hesitant to come here.

And when we hear "We need things made in America again" these are from people who had no problem sending off their products to be made in China because it is cheaper. In fact, America has relied on China for a long time in terms of trade relations and everything else. Even Trump who co-signed on this slogan has his products made anywhere but America. And while some American companies boast they now make everything in America, its simply a fad and they will return to investing with The Chinese and everyone else. So where does this leave immigrants today?

Well, Trump is looking into keeping Illegal immigrants and probably legal ones from getting government benefits and government housing. He's trying to build a wall (which is really a verbal threat more than anything), he's bad mouthing immigrants of all kinds and he's trying to discredit ethnicity in general. He's stripping away sanctuary cities and wants Europeans to infiltrate Puerto Rico to boost the economy and migrate to America to replace immigrants. In other words, MORE WHITE FACES IS BETTER.

It all comes down to Trump's presidential victory and the true colors of a weak minority called White People; who will certainly do anything to destroy any race that isn't their own. Once a land of the free, America has become the most racist modern country in the world. Other countries laugh at us, our president and the policies. Trump is destroying everything with the help from half the country. But this doesn't kill the resilience of The American People (and by American People I mean those who aren't traitors); We will persevere, we will grow, we will continue to allow immigrants and we will celebrate every national and cultural tradition of ALL including white people.

America is an Immigrant Nation. Say it loud, hold it in your heart and cling to it. I leave you with this: O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea! O beautiful for pilgrim feet, Whose stern, impassioned stress A thoroughfare for freedom beat Across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law! O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife, Who more than self their country loved And mercy more than life! America! America! May God thy gold refine, Till all success be nobleness, And every gain divine! O beautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years Thine alabaster cities gleam Undimmed by human tears! America! America! God shed His grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!

By: Xavii Matisse ©

#An Immigrant Nation #America #USA #Immigrants

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johnnygoinspain · 3 years

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Weekly Update of My Experiences

JUNE

June 1

We worked for roughly 1 and a half weeks during March but we had to close down since COVID affected a large portion of Madrid which was an hour drive away to Toledo. In addition to that, the government mandated that all restaurants temporarily close down. June 1 we started working again which was a breath of fresh air since we were stuck in the apartment for roughly around 2 weeks. I was with Aaron, Martin and Miko.

June 8

I was assigned with Aaron in the cold kitchen. It was my wish to work both alacarte and degustation so I was very happy to be able to see how Ivan would have done a la carte. I was working initially with Antonio. He’s this huge hairy dude and he seems scary at first but he has a heart of a teddy bear. It was us three there. We handled roughly around 10-12 dishes. 4 of which were desserts. I immediately loved the work ‘cus I love sweets!

June 15

I was tasked to do most of the appetizers. There were a lot of components that was in one single dish so we’d go to work at around 3PM. It was summer time so the sun set at around 9 which was when people would usually have dinner. We had 5 hours to prepare everything daily. It was mostly cutting fruits, making sauces and cutting fish as well.

June 22

I was gaining the trust of Antonio. He would just leave me alone which was a compliment for me because he didn’t have to check up on my work and he knew that at 8PM everything was already prepared. Alberto, the sous chef had me make this Bonito skewer. I enjoyed it because I was given more responsibilites which made me feel good that I was doing something right.

June 29

Antonio had to leave for Malaga. Ivan was opening another restaurant there. It was by the beach and he needed someone he could trust. So right now it’s just Aaron and I. It’s fine we were working like clockwork. We could handle it but it would be nice to have one more guy to help us out.

JULY

July 6

A new dude arrived. He’s 6ft. And 250 lbs. At least, he seems scary. But they told us that his name was Rami and he used to be the sous chef of this Michelin starred chef somewhere south of Spain. He used to work for Ivan but was called to head a different restaurant, if it were me too I wouldn’t have let the opportunity pass.

July 13

OK I was mistaken, Rami is the funniest guy in the world. He would crank up old Spanish songs and he would dance to them while working with Aaron and I! He is a blast to be with but he’s more strict that Antonio. But he is super fun and I enjoy going to work because of him!

July 20

Oh I don’t think I mentioned that a few weeks back Jose, a guy who just started working for events in Cigarral joined our team too. We started hanging out in the living room because he also lives far from Toledo so Ivan offered the apartment too. He sleeps with Martin. We watched Ready Player One the first day because I got bored and we immediately hit it off! We would hang out every day in the living room and he’d play the shows in Spanish but he was considerate enough to put in English subtitles for me. I learned Spanish faster because of him. He wants to be a philosopher after he’s saved enough money from working as a chef. He’s super funny and he’s an air head just like me but when we talk about life we could also dwell in deeper about philosophy and the human condition.

July 27

Things are picking up us three Filipinos: Aaron, Miko and I would make croquettes every week. We’re getting faster now we have a system. We’d make around 2000 croquettes because it’s being marketed as the best Croquettes in the world. They won a competition for it so whenever guests would order, they had to make sure that they got these creamy Iberian goodness. Talk about good marketing if you ask me.

AUGUST

August 3

We did this wedding event which for me was completely fine but the whole team had issues with this one girl, Sandra. She’s very tomboy-ish. It’s a bit of a tougher scene for women to get in the culinary world which is for me is complete rubbish. But I am proud of her for being straightforward and saying what she thinks we’re doing wrong. But I guess the others didn’t take it so kindly. Paco, the head of the a la carte restaurant who’s also the head of Events, called all of us and sat us down. It was a very heated argument but I admire Paco for trying to resolve things before it completely goes sideways.

August 10

Today I would just like to share that I like throwing the trash. Because at this time the sun is already setting, everyone’s getting ready for service and I get to drive the buggy and the view going to the sortation are is a very peaceful and refreshing experience.

August 17

Rami and I fought today. It was a misunderstanding but the pressure got to the both of us because we were serving a lot of customers today. It’s the weekend so it was inevitable that we’d all be pressured. I messaged him the night after we all went home. My friend Jose told me I didn’t do anything wrong. It was really just miscommunication with the language barrier and body language I guess. It’s all fine now, we hugged the day after and he told me that he respected and loved me as a little brother. My heart was warm and happy.

August 24

Rami, and us 3 Filipinos Martin, Aaron and I- went to Madrid today! Rami was super funny because it had been ages since he went to Madrid. We ate this really good tomato that was super sweet and fruity! The Spaniards really do value their produce, more so with their tomatoes! Rami kept on nudging my shoulders whenever a pretty girl would pass him by which was literally every 5 seconds! We capped the night by sitting down in Sol where there was a huge fountain and people just talking, passing by and just living their lives. Rami shared with Aaron and I his life and how much he’s been through but amidst all of it he’s happy that he’s a chef. He gave us a few words of wisdom which to summarize was that we just had to keep going. Because it was something that we loved doing. Keep mastering our craft and people will notice and we’ll be successful in our own ways sooner or later. It was a good night.

August 31

Martin enjoyed last weekend so he brought us to this place he and his family loved called Sacha, a Repsol-starred restaurant. One thing I noticed about their food is their produce is super good to begin with. So they need not baste the produce with sauces. They simply heightened the natural flavors of the food. We had really good dishes like stingray, bamboo clams, crabs, beef marrow and much more! It was an unforgettable experience and I enjoyed every single moment of it.

SEPTEMBER

September 7

We had a 2 week break prior to the start of the Tasting Menu again by Ivan. So we had to bid good bye to our friends from the Terraza, both waiters and chefs alike. It was bitter-sweet but then again I’m glad to have felt sad about it ending right? Miko, Aaron and I went to San Sebastian for a couple of days. We enjoyed the beach, the hikes, the Basque country was a beauty to behold. We ate a lot of tapas which they’re known for an I got to try the best cheesecake in the world! Or so they say. I still like mine denser and creamier. Theirs were a bit lighter with no crust. But overall I enjoyed the much deserved trip. I’d say this was the calm before the storm. Degustacion would be a whole different ball game and I was up for it!

September 14

I got to work with Maria. She’s the best! I used to work with Carlos who used to be head of desserts but then he was still in Malaga with Antonio. Maria is the best boss ever because she just lets you do your own thing and she doesn’t breathe down your neck. Because of it I was forced to prove myself and learn everything that was needed by the team.

September 21

Maria and I were getting along so much. And Alberto, the sous chef, would always drop by our spot. He’s the best human being to ever walk this earth. He’s humble, he’s as we call a “puta makina” which is a term they’d say if you’re like a machine in the kitchen. I’m 100% sure Ivan wouldn’t have gotten the Michelin star if not for him.

September 28

I started messing with Maria telling her I didn’t need her anymore during service and she can go down the kitchen to do production or for her to rest. I was very comfortable with her now and during service we’d talk about anything and everything. My Spanish was getting better and she would understand English too. So I’d speak in Spanish and she’d respond in English! We were both learning a lot from each other. We even reached a point where we’d talk about our love life and the people we both used to date! But that’s our secret!

October

October 5

The place was starting to get cold. Speaking of cold, I would handle 5-6 flavors of ice cream because most of our postres had ice cream in them so I had a bright idea and I made 20kilos worth of each ice cream flavor. Maria laughed at me and I though she was gonna get mad but she found it adorable and commended me for it! We don’t work hard, we work smart!

October 12

I went to Madrid and visited Santerra with Martin and my best friend Jose. Jose knew the owner of Santerra and it’s also a Repsol starred restaurant. The food was even better than Sachas! I missed Jose so much he even drove me back to Toledo. He’s a great guy and I’m glad I got to meet him. He told me he wanted to visit the Philippines soon and I told him that he could stay at my place if ever so he can spend the money on food and gifts!

October 19

This week was tiring! On top of that the water in our apartment got messed up so we had to put water in buckets and bring it all the way back to the apartment. People are starting to frequent the restaurant again which is good. Ivan’s face previously was so pale cus he kept on worrying about his businesses.

October 26

Maria and I would make so much extra breads, sauces, ice cream, and every component of our dishes to the point that we didn’t have much to do. I would say that we were doing really well in our Partida or station. We never encountered any problems with production and service and we’d always be in a good mood. I couldn’t say it for the others but I’m just glad that I was paired up with Maria! We were even joking every time then on that we’d make anything I’d say “Eso es para dos mil bente uno!” (This is for 2021!) And we’d just laugh the whole time we’d make anything more. Rami even got mad at us for filling up half of the walk in freezer! But then again it was really our station so we’d just laugh about it afterwards.

November 1

We were informed that the COVID numbers in Spain were spiking again. This was due to the cold weather where people would stay indoors and the likelihood of the spread of virus was easier then. A week ago Paula, a new intern, joined Maria and I and she was really good. So knowing that I’d be leaving soon I knew that Maria was not gonna encounter any problems which is what I was worried about. We were supposed to end our internship by the end of November but it seems it will be cut short to mid November instead. What sucks is that we planned to go visit the North with Jose and Maria but it looks like it’s impossible with the borders closing down. Maybe next time, I’m definitely sure this won’t be the last time I’ll see my family.

November 8

This was our last week. It was bittersweet but I am happy and genuinely grateful for this experience. I even wrote a hidden message to Maria in one of the Vaccum sealed plastics with Helado de Keso. I hope she sees it soon. I took pictures with everyone in the team and with that, I said Hasta Luego. That word means a lot to me because it is how they say good bye but it directly translates to “Until next time.” It’s never gonna be a good bye with them, I’m definitely gonna see them soon. I have learned so much from my experience here. Not just in work but with the world, myself and with life. I am happy.

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architectnews · 4 years

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RIBA Design Competition for a Vision of Future Living

RIBA Architecture Competition for a Vision of Future Living in Cheshire, Buildings, Architects, Housing News

RIBA Design Competition for a Vision of Future Living, Cheshire

Key Architectural Development Contest in Cheshire, northwest England, UK

12 October 2020

The Heath Business and Technical Park in Runcorn

The Heath Runcorn: RIBA Vision of Future Living competition winner announced

Now let’s turn this project into reality say judges as Eco Responsive is named winner of RIBA’s ‘Vision of Future Living’ competition

Runcorn: October 12th, 2020: Eco Responsive Environments, an emerging design and architectural practice based in London, has won the Royal Institute of British Architects’ (RIBA) ‘Vision of Future Living’ competition sponsored by SOG Group, owner and operator of The Heath Business and Technical Park in Runcorn.

The two runners-up from a contest that attracted entries from around the world were UK teams, Kimia Benan with Paul Treacy, and Tom Cookson with Sarah Carroll.

John Lewis MBE, SOG’s owner and Managing Director, said: “I’m delighted with the outcome of this fantastic competition, superbly coordinated by RIBA, which has generated amazing designs and ideas from across the world. All three of our finalists provided us with a fascinating insight to what The Heath could look like in the future.

“We’ve seen extraordinary ideas and designs which set the judges an enormous challenge to choose a winner, but ultimately the submission from Eco Responsive has offered us a breath-taking glimpse of the possibilities for The Heath. It will certainly help us to attract interest from global investors to turn our dreams into reality. Our next steps are now to embark on a feasibility study for the Heath Park programme, and the outcome from the RIBA competition will be key factor in this process.

“I’d like to thank RIBA, and Terry Rogan and Simon Lewis from my SOG team, for their sterling efforts in making this global competition such a massive success.”

The 5-strong judges’ panel included some of the UK’s most influential architects and designers including Paul Monaghan, Professor Rachel Cooper OBE, Hugh Broughton along with Mr Lewis and his own consultant architect, Terry Rogan.

Mr Monaghan, Director of Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, said: “The standard of final entries for this competition was extremely high. Each entry had followed a particular pursuit in great depth illustrated with excellent drawings. The competition winning entry for Heath Park will create a truly 21st century sustainable campus. I have rarely seen such a thorough presentation and I look forward to seeing this vision being built. SOG has a proven track record for delivering major regeneration projects and I feel this is the sort of scheme that must happen, and SOG is an organisation with the credentials to make it happen.”

Professor Cooper OBE, Distinguished Professor of Design Management and Policy at Lancaster University, said: “This landmark competition, with a radical brief from the client, challenged architects to rethink the future of place. All the submissions rose to the challenge. The three finalists submitted highly innovative and comprehensive solutions. Eco Responsive Environments truly re-imagined in detail every aspect of The Heath to be a world leading sustainable, resilient place with a blueprint that would deliver economic, social and environmental wellbeing. The Heath has an exciting future.”

Mr Broughton, Director of Hugh Broughton Architects, said: “The competition for the redevelopment of The Heath asked architects to consider how we will live, work and play in the future and how we can develop places which are both environmentally and financially sustainable. All three finalists came up with brilliant schemes which were beautifully and eloquently presented.

“Eco Responsive’s proposals were selected as winners because they provide a wonderful framework for the future of The Heath which weaves ideas for landscape, water management, food production and work with concepts for inter-generational living which are both optimistic and realistic. It will be truly exciting to see their plans develop under the stewardship of an enlightened client.”

Mr Rogan commented: “It has been a real pleasure to have worked with a client who places people at the core of his business philosophy. John Lewis’ vision for The Heath Park Project builds on the successful regeneration of the old ICI headquarters campus and proposes to embrace wider responsibilities to community and the environment, illuminating the way to a better future in how we live, work and play. Eco-Responsive Environments are to be heartily congratulated for a response to the competition brief with a scheme that is all-encompassing, providing a sensitive, innovative but realistic framework for the future Heath Park and also mindful of the ethical investment needed to achieve it.”

Prachi Rampuria, Director and Co-founder of Eco Responsive Environments, said: “We are inspired by this vote of confidence in our complex-systems approach to design. As a relatively new practice, this win is a huge milestone for us. Working with an enlightened landowner, vibrant local and regional community interests, this is an exciting opportunity for a beacon project to point up opportunities for tomorrow’s world. On behalf of the wider team, we would like to thank SOG and RIBA for this great opportunity.”

Joanne Wallis, Senior Competitions Manager for RIBA, said: “This unique project at Heath Park asked competitors to consider not only the reinvention of the site but to consider a new way of living for the future. This has produced original and insightful solutions by all shortlisted entrants. The ideas generated by this competition can now help shape future thinking and act as a catalyst for change. I look forward to seeing the visionary ideas become reality.”

SOG sponsored the ‘Vision for Future Living’ competition in conjunction with RIBA, with the objective of generating conceptual ideas that might be adopted into the Heath Park project, which seeks to transform The Heath into a futeristic version of Port Sunlight. SOG’s goal is to turn the location into a sustainable net carbon-free environment where people can work, live and play to meet the needs of the next 20 years and beyond.

SOG MD John Lewis MBE:

About SOG and The Heath

The Heath Business and Technical Park is a phenomenal regeneration success story. After taking ownership in 2000, SOG transformed the once single-occupancy corporate facility into a thriving independent business park which provides office and laboratory accommodation for more than 120 individual organisations, ranging from business services and IT specialists to those at the cutting edge of science, research and advanced manufacturing. The Park supports 2,000 jobs.

Using The Heath’s successful business model, SOG created a consultancy operation under the name of ‘Fusion’ to offer specialist regeneration advice, guidance and project management services to organisations considering closing or downsizing large sites.

This led to SOG spearheading the repurposing of a former pharmaceutical plant in east London with the creation of Londoneast-uk Business and Technical Park which operated as a sister site to The Heath. SOG helped attract over £2.5billion of investment to the site in Dagenham including projects for Europe’s biggest data centre, a regional headquarters building for the Unite Trade Union, an educational campus with state-of-art Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory for University College London, an hotel, pub/restaurant and London’s first new film studios to be opened for more than 40 years.

Overall, the regeneration programme devised by SOG is expected to produce more than 3,000 jobs in an area suffering from high unemployment. After selling the Londoneast-uk last year, SOG turned its focus back on Runcorn to re-evaluate the potential of its flagship business park, which triggered the RIBA ‘Vision of Future Living’ competition.

For more information on ‘Heath Park’ visit: www.heathpark-uk.com For more on SOG and The Heath Business and Technical Park visit: www.theheath.com

Issued on behalf of SOG Group

10 Mar 2020

RIBA Vision of Future Living Design Competition Longlist

RIBA Heath Park Competition for a vision of future living – longlist announced

Tuesday 10th of March 2020 – Eight design teams have been longlisted for the ‘Vision of Future Living’ competition following phase one, which sought non-site-specific conceptual ideas on the design of future workplaces, living spaces and external spaces and how they relate to one another.

The eight architectural teams longlisted are:

• Atelier Cole, Cambodia and UK • EcoResponsive Environments Ltd, London • Harper Perry, Newcastle • Kimia Benam & Paul Treacy, London • Parallel Collective, London • Periscope Landscape & Architecture Ltd, London • Pixel, New York & Hong Kong • Tom Cookson & Sarah Carroll, London

The longlisted teams will now be interviewed by an Evaluation Panel and three will go forward into phase two to develop their designs.

Heath Park, Runcorn, Cheshire:

John Lewis MBE, the owner of SOG Group, said: “We have had exceptional entries from around the world and our very experienced judges were immensely impressed at the high standard and quality of the many submissions we received. After a truly fascinating first round of judging, filled with lots of very detailed and interesting discussion, we have been able to narrow our longlist to eight candidates who will now all go forward to be interviewed in the next phase of the process.

From what we have seen so far, I think it’s going to be quite a challenge to select the three submissions for the final shortlist. This is a very exciting period for our Heath Park project and I would like to thank all those who have taken part in our RIBA competition.”

SOG Group will unveil details of the Heath Park project at a meeting of Liverpool City Region’s MIPIM Partners Group today (10 March 2020) at the Crown Plaza Hotel, Liverpool. The Heath Park project launch had been due to take place at MIPIM 2020, which was been postponed due to the Coronavirus outbreak.

3 Dec 2019

RIBA International Design Competition for a Vision of Future Living

RIBA launches international design competition for a vision of future living

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has launched a ‘ Vision of Future Living’ competition on behalf of business and technical park operator SOG Group.

The aim is to generate conceptual ideas which might be adopted to transform the company’s 60-acre site in Runcorn, Cheshire into a sustainable, multi-use and carbon-free environment.

The competition initially seeks non-site-specific conceptual ideas on the design of future workplaces, living spaces and external spaces and how they relate to one another. SOG is particularly interested in ideas which promote health and happiness and help to eradicate loneliness and poverty.

SOG’s Managing Director, John Lewis, said: “With RIBA’s help I am challenging forward thinkers to design a vision of future living that may help us to determine how best to rejuvenate our site at The Heath Business and Technical Park. We need to protect our planet for future generations and respond to a global technological explosion which will change the way we live and work.

Now is the perfect time for us to re-invent this site into a location that rises to the challenges of the future and sets the standards for how we should be living and working in decades to come. We look forward to seeing some truly innovative ideas about how to design and procure sustainable homes and workplaces that are fit for the future.”

Renowned Architect Hugh Broughton, the appointed RIBA Advisor for the competition, said: “The regeneration of The Heath bears testament to what can be achieved when people are a project’s number one priority.

This competition will build upon the exemplary work of SOG in Runcorn which has preserved jobs and protected the interests of the local community. We hope that designers from around the world will respond with their vision for a brighter future which will enhance well-being, preserve the environment and harnesses technology for the good of us all.”

The RIBA competition is open to design professionals and students.

The closing date to submit initial design proposals is 14:00 (GMT) on Tuesday 11 February 2020.

SOG SOG Group are specialists in facility management and operation of science and business facilities and provide a wide range of specialist services including health and safety, precision engineering and bespoke laboratory design and build.

Location: Cheshire, North West England, UK

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Rockmount Residence, Wirral Design: ShedKM photo from architect Rockmount Residence

New Chester Theatre Building Design: Bennetts Associates Architects image © Bennetts Associates Architects Chester Theatre Building

Islands at Chester Zoo Building Design: AECOM, Architects photo courtesy Novum Structures UK Islands at Chester Zoo Building

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Comments / photos for the RIBA International Design Competition for a Vision of Future Living Design page welcome

Website: England

The post RIBA Design Competition for a Vision of Future Living appeared first on e-architect.

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gomangodigitalblog · 4 years

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Applications of Artificial Intelligence

Featured Image Courtesy: https://www.freepik.com

Artificial Intelligence or AI entails upon the concept wherein machines are used for doing jobs that were previously done by humans. The machines have a pre-programmed simulation that can immaculate the know-how needed to perform a particular job. The growth of AI has been phenomenal while the industry continues expanding itself at an exponential pace. AI is slowly getting introduced to the banking industry, finance, marketing and a lot many places. Helping you understand some of the major Applications of Artificial Intelligence:

AI in Marketing

What do you typically do in the marketing field? You create a fascinating niche for the fleet of products or services you intend selling. In other words, you sugar coat your products or services so as to make them appealing to your target audiences. Marketing executives do a fascinating job at convincing customers to buy any type of product or service. Now, imagine a pre-programmed chat bot or an algorithm simulation doing it for you. Wouldn’t that feel awesome? Here is where AI tangentially fits into the field of marketing.

Take an example: Way back in the 2000’s, when the e-commerce industry was introduced to us, finding the right type of products versus their sellers was a real time nightmare. This was exactly true when you didn’t know the exact name of the product. Today, when you type the first word of the product, you get several search results belonging to the item you were looking for. It looks as if the search engines were reading your minds. Within seconds, you get the product you were exactly looking for.

One more example is that of Netflix. Why do you find Netflix so amazing and chill? That is because it examines millions of records with respect to customer’s preferences on movies or TV shows. Hence, if you had seen the movie of a film belonging to a particular actor, it displays several movies or game shows done by the actor. The technology therefore is getting smarter day by day. In the growing years, you can find your product on the web just by snapping a photo of it. Competitors like CamFind are already into experimenting the trend.

Banking

AI in the banking industry is growing at an astounding pace indeed. Banking systems use AI powered virtual assistants to cater to customer service, detect frauds and facilitate loan lending processes. AI is mainly used in the banking industry to keep a tab on fraudulent transactions.

Now, how does this happen? The AI chatbots detect card usage versus their end-point access. This way, security specialists are able to detect scenarios concerning frauds. Companies like Mastercard and RBS WorldPay are relying on AI for finance, banking and retail sectors. This has saved the economy millions of dollars.

Agriculture

The global population is expected to touch a whopping 10 billion humans by 2050 alone. This means we would be needing more food crops by almost 50%. How do you think you can quadruple agricultural yield if the population is growing exponentially? Food companies are coming up with more innovative methods of agricultural farming. Deploying AI and robotics to agriculture help farmers get more from the land while utilizing the existing natural resources more sustainably.

Issues like growing population, climate change and food security concerns are pushing the industry to adopt better approaches to doing farming or agriculture. There is a firm named Blue River Technologies. It has introduced a novel concept namely ‘See and Spray’. The technology makes use of computer vision to detect the crops carefully and spray weedicides accordingly. The tech is used for applying weedicide to cotton plants. Similarly you have one more firm that actively uses robotics and automation in agriculture.

There is a Berlin based agro firm namely PEAT. The computers monitor potential defects and nutritional deficiencies in the soil among growing crops. This is done via images. Farmers then get soil restoration tips, techniques and other useful solutions to protect crops. The estimated accuracy of deploying automation or robotics to agriculture is around 95%.

Health-care industry

Quite a lot of medical companies are relying on AI. Using AI in health-care in fact has saved millions of lives. There is a healthcare company named Cambio. It has devised an equipment that can forewarn surgeons of patients who stand at the risk of getting a heart-related stroke. Coala Life uses AI that can detect patients suffering with a host of cardiac ailments. Aifloo is another automated device that detects the health of people staying at nursing homes, home care centers, etc. You can use AI to detect the impending disorders so that you are able to save lives with the existing medication. As earlier detection prevents the diseases from getting more severe.

Space Exploration

Space expeditions require analysis of a huge amount of data figures to arrive at compelling discoveries. AI coupled with ML helps tabulate data and analyze figures over years. This way, AI transitions a smoother flow to handle and process data on this higher a scale. The Kepler telescope had taken a huge amount of pictures. By using AI, astronomers were able to identify the movements of an eight-planet system. AI technologies are used by NASA extensively to facilitate its next Rover Mission to Mars, i.e. the Mars 2020 Rover.

You already have AEGIS, which is an AI powered Mars Rover that has confirmed its presence on the Red Planet. The Rover helps target autonomous cameras take precise pictures concerning detailed investigation on Mars.

Gaming

You have the combined forces of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality bringing the games to life. Shooting games, car racing games and biking are able to keep us hooked to the gaming consoles as such. Alpha Go Zero, FEAR and Pokemon Go capitalize on AI to get a real-time feel while playing games. Using AI in the gaming industry is the in-thing for today’s generation.

Self-driven vehicles

Self driving cars have always been a buzzword in AI. You have a firm named Waymo. It conducted several test drives in Phoenix before coming out with its fleet of self-driven cars. How do you think this happens? The AI system collects data vehicle’s radar, GPS and cameras. You connect the input values via cloud computing services. Therefore, you get the right kind of sensors that signal or help operate the vehicle, as such.

Advanced Deep learning algorithms give the self-driving car with the kind of objects that are within the vicinity of the driving car. Hence, you get a direct overview of other vehicles that are driving down the roads. This way, self-driving cars are estimated to be more effective and safer too. Tesla’s self-driving cars with the auto-pilot mode are also highly spoken about.

Chat bots

Virtual assistants are increasingly used at hotels, restaurants and at households too. You have talking devices like Alexa, Siri, Cortana and Google Assistant who provide verbal services to us humans. They can take commands from you and answer you back. How does this technology work?

The AI translates human language into desirable commands. This is done via speech recognition and NLP in order to perform a wide range of tasks on your command. You can use AI devices to switch on TVs, table-lamps and music systems. These devices can tell you message notifications on your mobile phone. You can book movie tickets, book cab services, order food from online restaurants and a lot more.

Similarly chat bots and robots are used at fast food chains and hotels to take orders from customers. Their orders are then processed and food plates come across via conveyor belts to be handed over to the customers’ tables.

Conclusion

These are the top 8 applications of Artificial Intelligence. You have many more fields where the true potential of AI is yet to be tapped. So be on the lookout for more innovations happening via AI.

About Us

For your daily dose of technological updates get connected to Mango Digital via https://mangodigital.solutions/ For every tech hangover, there is a Mangoer. Mango Consulting is one of the leading web design & development companies in the UK. We specialize in the field of mobile app development, content writing, IT support, digital marketing at very much affordable prices.

Applications of Artificial Intelligence

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frogsandfries · 4 years

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We've been talking a bit about UBI

Actually, most of the conversation just happened today.

I don't expect our non-filer checks to be sent (edit: I checked my bank account and almost choked on the crow I had to eat). My partner is hingeing his next moves on expecting our checks.

Right now, I am working..... what few hours I'm allotted. Right now, just based on the last two years, honestly, $1200 is more than I've been living on month to month, and more than I've seen in a month for a long-ass time.

My partner is talking about a UBI of $2000 coming down the pipeline. I think the only reason we haven't done anything like socialism in this country is that socialism doesn't get hungry people clamoring to do, originally rather dangerous and hard work, so that they can afford to buy food or pay rent that will keep them living close enough to walk to work. Socialism doesn't cause people who may be too sick to work, but not sick enough for the government to take care of them, to forgo their health so that they can pay rent and feed their children.

Corporations have run this country since the dawn of corporations and it's about time their reign ended. Long since. Automation may have been coming, but we live in an age where it's the easiest it's been yet to imagine a computer or machine to perform price changes, to update product placement on store shelves, to stock shelves, to clean the floors and shelves. It's the easiest yet to imagine a world where I don't even need a human to ring up my purchases, to sell me movie or event tickets.

Humans are the most redundant to corporations that they've been yet. But the consumer is still a critical component of this food chain.

I thought these changes would come on a little slower but it looks like there are going to be lots of changes as we evolve to having a new, powerful enemy.

The US government has decided how corporations deserve to be treated, but either they haven't decided or they don't want to reveal what they think of the average American human citizen. But it's long been time to take care of individuals, to encourage communities to take care of themselves.

The world is changing. Talking about how easy (if not expensive upfront) it would be to automate accounting as little as prices changes, I remembered part of why I thought studying art was a good idea.

Even if you gave every single American enough money to pay a reasonable rent, plus bills (including a related health care program), and buy groceries, many Americans would still want to--as we've seen--at least get out of the house. A large number of Americans would want better, better jobs, better cars, to give their children better educations.

Tumblr talks a lot about what it would be like to just skip on a job that isn't treating you well, to be able to afford to live whole you look for a great job, one that treats you well and pays you well, if not one that you live to go to. I don't think a lot of us are ready to wake up in a world where it's not just that there are no more jobs that suck--but there are no jobs.

What then? How can people continue to be part of the economy when the vast majority of us have been forcibly ejected from it? That's kind of what we're living through today. What are people going to do when they are literally not needed to stock national grocery stores? What are people going to do when they're no longer necessary to clean stores and restaurants and entertainment facilities?

What could people accomplish if they didn't have to worry about the bills getting paid?

I think we're about to see this turn, in less time than I personally anticipated. We cannot go back to 2019 Normal. People who needed this for their physical health, or their mental health, shouldn't just roll over and return back to work--just $1200 to be born a US citizen is more than I've earned in any month of busting my ass, struggling to get to work, for over a year. Why the fuck would I quietly return to business as usual?? Why the fuck would I quietly settle to go back to busting my ass and struggling to get to work, to earn less money? Why would I go back to busting my ass at a job that doesn't matter, when I could earn more money doing something I love?

However, currently, in order to receive SNAP, my partner who is currently unemployed cannot turn down any employment opportunities offered to him. Living in such a small town, during the health crisis, with no vehicle, is an interesting, complicated proposition.

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scootoaster · 4 years

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Bone broth: a miraculous health tonic, or just a crock of soup?

Yum, skeleton juice. (Madeleine Steinbach/)

For February, we’re focusing on the body parts that shape us, oxygenate us, and power us as we take long walks on the beach. Bony bonafide bones. These skeletal building blocks inspire curiosity and spark fear in different folks—we hope our stories, covering everything from surgeries and supplements to good old-fashioned boning, will only do the first. Once you’ve thoroughly blasted your mind with bone facts, check out our previous themed months: muscle and fat.

These days, it seems like everyone’s got an opinion on bone broth. The trendy, savory liquid goes for top dollar at urban eateries, but it doesn’t seem all that different from the stuff sitting in cans and boxes at your local supermarket.

To some, bone broth is the answer to all bodily ills, from repairing a leaky gut to fortifying your joints to making your skin appear more supple. Since it broke into the wellness scene a few years ago as the perfect wintry health drink, you can now find it in all kinds of forms, from concentrate to powder to protein bars. Touted ingredients include collagen, glutamine, calcium, and phosphorus—all of which are supposed to do wonders for the mind and physique.

In reality, the concoction won’t be your one-stop shop for nutrients. Different recipes might lead to fluxes in both desired and undesired ingredients, like sodium. Overall, though, the mixture is timeless, as boiling bones to make broth has been part of healthy diets for centuries.

“I don’t like to say there’s no benefit to a bone broth or any kind of broth or stock,” says Christine Zoumas, a clinical instructor of family medicine and public health at UC Santa Barbara. “It’s just not what it’s marketed as right now.”

But before we dive into the good, bad, and delicious of bone broth, it’s important to know exactly what we’re talking about. The dish is made by simmering vegetables, roasted bones, and sometimes meat over a course of as long as 24 hours. The mixture is then strained and seasoned, says dietician and best-selling cookbook author Toby Amidor. This is pretty similar to soup stock, which is made by cooking vegetables and animal bones together for around six hours. You’ll get minerals and protein from both of these recipes, Amidor says, but it might not be as wholesome as you expect. “For a lot of the various claims made on it, there isn’t that much evidence to say, ‘Oh, I should drink this every day,’ ” she explains.

Of course, bone broth is only as good (and nutritious) as its ingredients, stresses Marco Canora, the chef who launched Brodo broths from a nook in his New York City restaurant Hearth in 2014. Nowadays, you can scoop his products up from one of six shops or in select grocery store freezers across the northeast. Canora says that the broth that comes from painstakingly steeping bones with organic veggies over low heat is a different creature than the kind you can stick in your cart or make with a handful of bouillon cubes or powder.

“Broth has been a staple in cultures around the world for hundreds of years, and that is like so meaningful,” Canora says. “But you know what hasn’t been around for hundreds of years? Bone-broth powder.”

One of the most sought after nutrients in bone broth, and it’s modern derivatives, is collagen—an essential component in both skin and cartilage. In theory, chugging collagen in soup form would make your skin more radiant and your joints less creaky. But as dieticians will tell you, just because you eat something doesn’t mean it’s going to do what you want it to do.

When you digest food, your body breaks it down into building blocks, so all the amino acids that make up collagen go back to being just amino acids. Those proteins are then used for a variety of work orders, like healing internal wounds. So no matter how much you’d like collagen to replace your anti-aging routine, your body may not agree.

Overall that’s a good thing, Zoumas says. Without this mechanism, if you just sucked down cups of broth every day, your body wouldn’t break down the collagen and use it where necessary.

Another claim made about bone broth is its ability to seal your intestines, which is a favorite talking point of Brodo’s Canora. “I firmly believe that our body’s ability to fight whatever ails it is bolstered by having a healthy gut,” he says.

But there’s a lot to unpack when it comes to bone broth and gut health. First off, one needs to understand the concept of a “leaky gut.” Harvard’s Marcelo Campos describes this scenario as an increased permeability in your gut, which could allow partially digested foods and toxins to penetrate the tissues beneath the intestinal lining.

This increased permeability, which can be brought on by anything from genetics to poor diet to stress, has been shown to play a role in gastrointestinal issues, including celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, and irritable bowel syndrome. Can bone broth defend against that?

Glutamine, an amino acid found in bone broth, has been tested a few times on rats as a potential solution to leaky guts. But the gastrointestinal tract of rodents and people are quite different, Zoumas says, so this concept is still hypothetical. Amidor adds that if you’re feeling like your gut needs some help, it’s a smart idea to ask your doctor about it first before self-prescribing a daily broth.

While we’re discussing bone broth claims, a somewhat proven (if not old) claim about bone broth is that it might make you feel a little better if you’ve got a cold. One study from back in 2000 found that chicken soup had a mild anti-inflammatory effect that could help mitigate upper respiratory tract infections; another study from 20 years earlier showed chicken soup helped clear out nasal fluids more effectively than hot or cold water. Of course, chicken soup isn’t exactly the same as bone broth, so take those results with a grain of salt.

The comforts of a toasty cup of soup or broth might also be an effective placebo, Zoumas says: Drinking something warm and yummy often makes you feel better, even if it’s mostly a psychological effect. So go ahead and experiment, but only if you’re of age. Bones can sequester heavy metals like lead, Amidor says, so it might be smart to limit how much broth young kids sip.

One way to see how the bone-broth claims pan out is by trying it. If you’re craving something hot and savory or looking for a way to use leftover bones after cooking, the dressed-up stock isn’t a bad idea. Just be conscious that no one food is powerful enough to fix all your health problems overnight.

“People need to put these things in perspective,” Amidor says. “If they enjoy the food and they can make it part of their healthy lifestyle, that’s fine. But they don’t have to spend tons of money on it. It’s not the end-all answer to living healthy.”

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coopdigitalnewsletter · 5 years

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21 May 2019: Like a vending machine, pharmacies and plastic bags, Amazon invests in Deliveroo

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter - it looks at what's happening in the internet/digital world and how it's relevant to the Co-op, to retail businesses, and most importantly to people, communities and society. Thank you for reading - send ideas and feedback to @rod on Twitter. Please tell a friend about it!

Like a vending machine

"People are coming in, they're grabbing one thing, and then they leave. "People [are] ... kind of treating it like a vending machine." - Amazon’s New York Go store.

Obviously supermarkets have larger baskets/spend and less frequent visits, and convenience stores have smaller baskets/spend and more frequent visits. But maybe that inverse relationship between convenience (or speed) and transaction size extends much further. If you reduce much of the shopping friction (no checkouts etc) in a convenience store, maybe the basket size will happily drop so far that you don’t need a basket any more.

Technology has been great at splitting apart existing “bundles” into ever smaller atoms, and then replacing them with a new kind of bundle. Music: sales of songs (iTunes in the 2000s and MTV in the 90s) replaced sales of albums, but that spend is now moving to streaming (Spotify). The same thing is happening with TV at the moment (cable TV packages give way to streamed video on demand from Netflix). The same thing will happen with private transport: owning a car is inefficient for many travelers because 90% of the time the car sits outside a home, so it makes more sense to buy a ride instead (Uber).

Could you translate a pattern like that to grocery? Maybe Go means that the natural “basket size” is something that fits in your pocket. Maybe the next step is that the food somehow becomes a monthly subscription service. That’s an interesting idea, though hard to do with food because, unlike say digital content, the marginal distribution costs of food are not zero (as meal kit companies have been finding). But maybe you could imagine a Costco-like model: a monthly membership gets you access to the store, in which all of the goods are cheap and maybe some are free.

Elsewhere in retail:

McDonald’s locations to double as U.S. embassies in the most American thing that ever happened - why shouldn’t retail help provide valuable help and service to people?

Now its partnership with Ocado is ending, Waitrose plans to treble the size of its online sales to 1bn.

Richer Sounds founder hands over control of hi-fi and TV firm to staff.

Co-op CEO Steve Murrells has backed the recommendation from Tesco chief Dave Lewis that online retailers be charged a 2% sales levy to help pay for a reduction in business rates for high street stores.

Health: service design and plastic bags

Great piece about service design in the NHS - Mostly service design: the health and care edition:

“People in this sector talk a lot about “service redesign”. I find that odd because, on the available evidence, much of the service we have today was never consciously designed. It emerged through countless policy decisions and reorganisations.”

Boots has robots packing repeat prescriptions but they’ve introduced single-use plastic bags which some customers don’t like. “She said she intended to use a different pharmacy if Boots gave her another plastic bag.”

A paper bag generally signals “eco-friendly” compared to a plastic bag. The green footprint of packaging is sometimes counter-intuitive, and reasons for packaging choices aren’t always obvious (Boots said "the bags also need to be heat-sealed shut, which reduces the risk of products falling out of the bags in transit") so if Boots were replacing paper bags with plastic ones, maybe the bags could’ve had a message printed on them explaining the choice.

Elsewhere in pharmacies: Co-op’s Health new service helps people view, order and manage their NHS repeat prescription from their phone. Co-op will also trial self-serve lockers for prescription collection. (And how Co-op Digital ran design sprints to quickly answer critical business designs for a forthcoming feature.)

Amazon invests in Deliveroo: routes to market

Amazon is the lead investor in Deliveroo’s latest fundraising - Deliveroo will use the money to hire more tech people and open more dark “cloud” kitchens.

Takeaway marketplaces and food delivery are contested and overlapping these days: Just Eat started as a takeaway marketplace but now competes more directly with Deliveroo. Most of these companies seem to have increasing costs to acquire customers so it's often seen an attritional "scale wins" space. Amzn tried and later closed its Restaurants delivery service in London, which suggests that it felt investing in (or buying) Deliveroo would be a better route to the same goal.

Automated face recognition

A legal challenge to current police use of automated face recognition (AFR). The case is primarily about privacy: AFR collects data which can later be used to match or identify people, so you might think of it as being like non-consensual mass fingerprinting. There isn’t much if any regulation on use of facerec, so this may lead to some legislation. The wider questions with AFR are whether it works too well (surveillance society) or not well (tragedy of errors) and where the UK wants to be on the freedom/privacy/safety/control map.

San Francisco bans facial recognition technology - the first ban by a major city in the US.

Google vs Huawei (US vs China)

The US President amped up the trade disagreement with China. US firms cannot supply components to Huawei without export licences (or maybe they can). Google will withhold Android updates and Play store, Gmail, Goog maps etc from Huawei phones in future. This may hurt Huawei and help Samsung outside China, and fragment mobile phone OSes further in the long-term. It may also hurt Apple everywhere if China retaliates, and even dilute the strength of any anti-competitive scrutiny against Google in the US.

Everything else

Adobe tells users they can get sued for using old versions of Photoshop - this seems like a bad thing to say to your customers.

BT unveils new logo - its name in a circle - staff will get shares which is good. The new logo has a default social media user icon vibe to it, which may or may not fit your aesthetic.

“Dark magic”: a user successfully controlling lots of things on their mobile with Google voice and without losing their mind in frustration.

A 2019 survey of US consumers suggests that Walmart has 58.5m app customers. Amazon has 54.4m (surprising that it’s in second place?), Uber 52.1m, Starbucks 44.2m.

Netflix saves our kids from up to 400 hours of commercials a year (fewer ads, yay) though this is also because the average 6-11 year old is spending over 1,450 hours a year watching television (erm).

Co-op Digital news

Co-op health: running a design sprint across disciplines.

The Co-op Group annual general meeting was on Saturday. The motion results.

Events

Public events:

Ladies that UX - Tue 21 May 6pm at Federation House.

User Research North: An evening with Jared Spool - Tue 28 May 6.30pm at BookingGo, 35 Fountain Street M2 2AN.

Open:Data:Night Data Viz - Tue 28 May 6.30pm at Federation House.

Freelance Friday social - Fri 31 May 5pm at Common, Edge Street, Manchester

Internal events:

Co-operate show & tell - Wed 22 May 10am at Fed House 6th floor.

Mental wellbeing drop-in - Thu 23 May 12pm at Fed House 5th floor.

Data management show & tell - Thu 23 May 3pm at Angel Square 13th floor.

Membership show & tell - Fri 24 May 3pm at Fed House 6th floor.

What has the web team been up to - Tue 28 May 1pm at Fed House 5th floor.

Food show & tell - Tue 28 May 1.30pm at Fed House 5th floor.

Health show & tell - Tue 28 May 2.30pm at Fed House 5th floor.

Data ecosystem show & tell - Wed 29 May 3pm at Angel Square 13th floor.

Membership show & tell - Fri 31 May 3pm at Fed House 6th floor.

Delivery community of practice meet-up - Mon 3 Jun 1.30pm at Fed House.

Funeralcare show & tell - Tue 4 Jun 12pm at Angel Square 12th floor.

CMO CRM show & tell - Tue 4 Jun 2pm at Angel Square 13th floor.

More events at Federation House - and you can contact the events team at [email protected]. And TechNW has a useful calendar of events happening in the North West.

Thank you for reading

Thank you, clever and considerate readers and contributors. Please continue to send ideas, questions, corrections, improvements, etc to the newsletterbot’s flunky @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading, please tell a friend!

If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog. Previous newsletters.

#amazon #mcdonalds #boots #nhs #pharmacy #deliveroo #facerec

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debraofamerica · 5 years

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Andrew’s EB Story: Honeymoon Travels

Throughout 2014, Andrew Conrad dedicated monthly posts to sharing his EB story as part of our Family Stories series. He wrote about what it was like when he was younger, his college days, and the challenges he’s overcome. Three years later, in September 2017, we were thrilled to welcome Andrew back as a contributing blogger to EB, etc.!

Andrew has Recessive Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa (RDEB) and is a professional real estate investor residing in Chicago, Illinois. Read on to catch up with him on his honeymoon travels and how he managed his EB while overseas.

It’s hard to believe that my last blog post was in 2018. Additionally, it’s even harder to believe that it has been three months already since [my wife] Colleen and I got back from our honeymoon! We spent three weeks traveling and moved around to a lot of different places. I wish we could have spent more time overseas but as tends to happen, we both had to get back to work…

We first started out in the Cook Islands and spent Christmas on Rarotonga, which is the main island. The Cook Islands is a small set of 15 islands in the south pacific with a link to New Zealand. Rarotonga is the main island and has a population of around 15k. We stayed on a small 10 villa resort on the south east side of the island. Our villa was 10 steps from the beach. The entire island is only 20 miles in circumference and about 5 miles across; however, the island is very mountainous so hiking across is not an easy task. We spent most of our time on the island hanging out on the hammocks at the beach reading from our Kindle, or borrowing snorkel gear & kayaks. The entire island is surrounded by coral reef, and in low tide, the water is almost too low to get a kayak out on the ocean as you end up beaching yourself on top of coral. The waves break about a mile out from shore with the water in between so shallow that you could walk all the way to the wave break. Our villa had electric bikes that we borrowed a lot to explore the island. With that said, we never ventured very far. One of our favorite parts of the island was that everyone who owns dogs lets them roam the entire island all day. We have numerous encounters with extremely friendly puppers! We spent about 5 days on Rarotonga and enjoyed 90 degree weather the entire time.

Next, we met up with our friends Jim & Eileen in Queenstown, NZ. They were really the impetus for us picking the Cook Islands, NZ & Australia for our honeymoon as they had already planned a trip to NZ and they were gracious enough to allow us to meet up with them. Queenstown is the extreme sport capital of the world & where bungee jumping was invented. Colleen and I passed on the bungee jumping, but we tagged along to watch Jim & Eileen jump. I was extremely jealous that I did not take the jump with them as it looked like a lot of fun! We had the most amazing Airbnb experience. We stayed in Frankton, which is about a 15 minute drive outside of Queenstown. Frankton is located on Lake Wakatipu, a huge glacier formed lake that has the cleanest & clearest water you have ever seen. The water is so clean, you can actually fill up your water bottle in the lake. While the four of us were sitting on our veranda having a bottle of wine for happy hour, our Airbnb host, who shall remain nameless as to not set an expectation in the event any of you end up traveling to Queenstown, came down and asked us our plans for New Year’s. Of course, we had none yet so they invited us to have dinner with them, which we happily accepted. The meal was the best we had the entire trip. Our host made us a full turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, two salads, plus supplied the wine. They also made homemade cheese cake. It was absolutely phenomenal. The only let down was that the four of us all forgot to take any photos of the occasion. But we will remember that dinner forever.

While in NZ, we also visited Wellington with Jim & Eileen for two days. Wellington is a fun coastal down at the southern point of the north island of New Zealand, and it is also the capital of NZ. We spent most of our time walking around seeing the town while dining on Cuba Street.

After Wellington, it was time for Jim & Eileen to head back to the states. Colleen and I continued on further north to Auckland, the biggest city in NZ with about 1.5 million people. Auckland was awesome. We stayed in a neighborhood called Ponsonby, which was sort of like a combination of Wicker Park & Lincoln Park in Chicago. The main street was lined with small little coffee shops, cafes, art studios, and many many restaurants. The neighborhood also had a food hall called Ponsonby Central, where we had dinner & breakfast a few times. While in Auckland, we took a day trip to Weiheke Island, which is a short 30 minute ferry ride from the main port in Auckland. Weiheke Island boasts some of the highest priced real estate in Auckland and has numerous wineries on the island. We spent the better part of the day visiting a lot of tasting rooms and overall had a great time. For anyone heading to Auckland, Weiheke Island is a must!

After spending about a week and a half in NZ, we moved on to Sydney Australia, probably our favorite city in the world. This was our second time in Sydney and we decided to spend the first 3 days at the same hotel that we had stayed at last time in Darling Harbor, which was the location of Olympic Village when Sydney hosted the summer Olympics back in 2000. We explored the neighborhoods, and went back to a few restaurants that we loved from the last time we visited. After a few days in Darling Harbor, we moved to an Airbnb at Bondi Beach. I wish we would have spent our entire time at Bondi! It is amazing that a city as big as Sydney, you can go from the central business district to Bondi Beach in about 20 minutes. And when in Bondi, you feel like you are in a completely different area. Especially in Bondi, the work-life balance culture is completely different than the United States. In the morning, you can see a lot of people surfing for their workout, so the ocean is super crowded from sun up until about 9am. Then everyone comes in, changes & heads into the office. Then around 5pm, the beach starts to get busy again as everyone gets home from the office, changes back into their wet suits, and hits the surf again.

We can’t wait to get back to that part of the world again. It also helps that it’s their summer while its winter here in Chicago. It felt great to have some real sun on our face for three weeks. Although I think our tan went away before we even touched back down in Chicago. Getting back into the flow of things was definitely not easy.

So given this is a blog primarily about people with EB and I have now written for two pages without mentioned EB once, I’ll finish up with a few things about my travels and dealing with EB. Overall, I didn’t really have any issues on this trip. As I get older and more traveled, I continually get better at packing and dealing with EB while abroad. By my latest count, I have visited 14 different countries. For me, it’s important to remember to always wear sunscreen and constantly be reapplying, especially when in the three countries we just finished on our honeymoon. Wearing sandals can be tough for extended periods of time, so I mostly wore my running shoes, even when going out to the beach. I also brought along a pair of neoprene beach socks that I wore when I went into the ocean as it was useful protection against rocks and coral. I also remember to pack plenty of Telfa pad adhesive & non-adhesive bandages. When traveling, it’s difficult to find medical supplies that I use in the states as everything is a different brand or labeled differently when abroad. Beach trips are both beautiful and difficult at the same time. Beautiful for the obvious reasons, but difficult because you are always washing off sand and having to change any bandages you may have. It makes packing supplies more difficult.

With that said, I wouldn’t trade the world for anything we did and would certainly do it again in a heartbeat! Colleen and I are getting ready to head to Paris, Nice & Monaco at the end of May for 10 days, once again with our friends Jim & Eileen. We can’t wait to be traveling again!

Stay tuned for more from Andrew’s EB Story series! A big thank you to Andrew for sharing his story with our community. To read Andrew’s past posts, please click here.

*debra of America does not promote nor endorse the products and techniques mentioned above. If you believe you, your child, or someone you know, suffer from Epidermolysis Bullosa, please see your healthcare provider. Do not attempt to treat yourself, your child, or anyone else without proper medical supervision

#AndrewsEBStory #EpidermolysisBullosa

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marketingcourse-blog1 · 5 years

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Digital Marketing Course

Digital Marketing Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide

Digital marketing. Just another one of those new, fancy buzzwords you should use to sound smart in meetings or is it the real deal?

Maybe a better question is: What is it?

This digital marketing guide will show you what’s what.

First popularized as a term in the early 2000’s, digital marketing has actually been around much longer.

Like, WAY longer. About 100 years longer, to be exact.

Here’s a pic of the first digital marketer in history:

(Image source:

His name: Guillermo Marconi.

What? Marconi?

Yup. In 1896 he was the first human to demonstrate a, “public transmission of wireless signals.”

This dude invented the radio.

Shortly after his little demonstration in England, mores signals were transmitted across open water.

And, while it would take another 10 years for the radio to reach the general public, it sure didn’t take the creators long to realize they could use it to sell stuff.

The first live broadcast was from an opera performance at the Met and guess what people did after it?

They bought show tickets!

Digital marketing strategy was born.

I bet you’re surprised. I didn’t mention smartphones, apps, Facebook ads or blogs at all.

That’s because digital marketing has nothing to do with the internet.

Definition

As usual, Wikipedia does a crappy job at explaining: Digital marketing is an umbrella term for the targeted, measurable and interactive marketing of products or services using…

Ugh!

I want an easy definition that I can remember! Here’s one: Digital marketing is any form of marketing products or services that involves electronic devices.

That’s the reason it has been around for decades (because electronics have) and why it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with content marketing, Google ads, social media or re targeting.

Digital marketing can be done both online and offline.

And, both kinds matter for a well-rounded digital marketing strategy.

Why digital marketing matters

Remember billboards?

I do.

As a young kid in California, my experiences from the back seat of our car mostly alternated between: “Mom, when are we there?” and “Uh, look, McDonald, can we go?”, whenever one of those 10 foot billboards popped up on the side of the road.

Growing up with Indian parents, the answer to both of those would, most times, be the same: “Not yet.”

Sometimes, big brands would even start a billboard war, like this one between Audi and BMW, which got quite a few laughs:

(Image source: BMW blog)

In 2015, a ton of my clients still spent hundreds of millions of dollars on billboard advertising.

Unfortunately or fortunately, it’s dead.

The reason why billboards, like the ones above, die, is perfectly illustrated in a single picture of a Volvo.

Because, frankly, the future of driving will look like this:

Not a single passenger will spend their time looking at the road.

Do me a favor, the next time you drive and are giving a friend a ride, take a peek at the passenger seat.

Just for a second.

Even now, chances are they’ll be looking at their phone.

Heck, in a world where 9% of all drivers are on the phone one way or the other (texting or calling), at any given moment during daylight hours, how can we think billboards have a future?

If not even the driver is looking at the road any more, who’s supposed to see those advertisements?

And, that’s not even considering self-driving cars, on which both Apple and Google are working (you know it’s going to happen).

Elon Musk suggests that they’ll be here around 2020. That’s in only a few years.

That means you don’t have much time to figure out this digital marketing stuff before you can power down your old school printing press and close up shop.

The share of people spending more time using electronic devices is only going up from here.

With Americans spending 11+ hours on electronic devices, every single day, there’s not much left. That is, until we spend ALL of our time in the digital world.

And, while yes, online marketing is the reason that 25 year olds can now sit in their living room and earn 2 million dollars a year playing video games, offline marketing still has its place.

Let’s take a helicopter and circle around to get an overview.

Overview

The 2 main pillars of digital marketing are online marketing and offline marketing. That said, since I’ll talk about online marketing in a separate guide, I’ll only mention the different areas of online marketing here, for the sake of completeness.

The 7 big categories of online marketing are:

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Search engine marketing (SEM)

Content marketing

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)

Affiliate marketing

Email marketing

Bounce created a great info graphic that sums up all kinds of online marketing in one neat chart.

(Image source: Unbounce)

The beginner’s guide to online marketing, on Quick Sprout, is a great place to get started.

Okay, that said, what other digital marketing is there? There’s plenty, actually.

Here are the 4 big categories of digital offline marketing.

First, there’s what I call enhanced offline marketing. This is a form of marketing that is entirely offline, but enhanced with electronic devices.

For example, if your restaurant uses iPads for your customers to create their orders on, then the offline experience of say, eating Thai food, is enhanced with this electronic device.

People have been using digital media to enhance their marketing for decades (you’ve only forgotten in what ways, as you’ll see).

(Image source: San Diego Tribune)

Next, there’s radio marketing. The next time you hear an annoying, over-enthusiastic car dealer shout every word of his or her commercial, thank Mr. Marconi.

Of course, we can’t forget television marketing. TV ads have been around for more than half a century (and since 1953 also in color, nationwide – Yes, there was a time before color TV).

Finally, the biggest and fastest growing area of offline marketing, with admittedly also a lot of flops, busts and failures: phone marketing.

Let’s look at the 4 areas in more detail.

Enhanced offline marketing

What’s the difference between a billboard somewhere in the desert of Arizona and a billboard in New York City’s Times Square?

The size? The product?

3 letters: LED. Light emitting diodes.

All of the billboards in Times Square are electronic!

(Image source: Adweek)

Why? Because in the desert of Arizona, no one’s competing with you for people’s attention. If you have a billboard at all, you win.

But, in Times Square, attention is probably more valuable than anywhere else in the world. Over 330,000 people cross through it each day.

If you want to be distracted, there’s buses, taxis, promoters shouting and then, of course, the electronic billboards.

Some of them are even interactive, showing live feeds of the people on the square or pictures of customers.

Renting a billboard space on Times Square, for a year, will set you back a whopping $1,000,000 to $4,000,000.

Sounds expensive? Wait until you hear the prices for Super Bowl commercials.

What other forms does enhanced offline marketing take?

What do you see when you walk into an Apple Store these days?

(Image source: Wikipedia)

People leaning over i Pads, Mac books and i Phones.

If you have any type of electronic product, any product demo is an important part of your digital marketing strategy.

Okay, the next one’s a good one. If you remember this, you can consider yourself an extremely lucky kid:

(Image source: Emuparadise)

This is a demo disc for the original PlayStation and several of these were handed out with other games or sometimes even magazines.

It was the same with PC magazines. Remember when they came with CDs (and later DVDs) and you couldn’t wait to throw them into your disk drive and see what samples were on them?

A little different than a demo, these are product samples in digital format.

People still do this. Think of all the wannabe rappers or rockers in your hometown, handing out mix tapes and CDs and now probably USB sticks, to get you to listen to their music.

Alright, time to take a look at the category of digital marketing that’s probably been around the longest.

Radio marketing

Over 100 years have passed since that original first live broadcast of the opera performance at the Met and guess what – radio is still here.

Since radio did fairly well in transitioning to the internet, it hasn’t taken as big of a hit as TV. And, even old school radio still matters.

Some facts:

Radio still reaches 85% of the US population every week

Listeners listen 2 hrs per day, on average

40% of all radio advertising expenses worldwide comes from the US

About half the population of the US listens to internet radio at least once a month

Now, while profits have shrunk, radio isn’t dead. Thanks to Pandora’s 80 million users, there are still about $4 billion in profits made each year.

But, aside from creating a kick ass, creative radio commercial that will do well, what else is there?

Recently, internet radio made a good move, doing what most podcasts do:advertise at the beginning of shows.

If you host a show revolving around a certain topic, like coaching, you can plug programs and products in, right before and at the end of the show.

Since social media is the marketing darling these days, it should be fairly easy tofind a local radio station, get on a show, be interviewed or negotiate a deal with them.

Once you do, be sure to get some sponsorships, to make sure that you’re a prime candidate for the station and that they give you the premium slot and the best air time possible.

In most cases, doing well on radio means being entertaining.

Cadillac and Dairy Queen are two brands that come up with solid radio commercials on a consistent basis.

You can listen to some examples here.

TV marketing

Television marketing is such a Goliath, it’ll likely never go away. It’s also easily the industry where the most money is burned each year.

Ever since Google Video turned into YouTube, the efficiency of TV ads has gone down rapidly.

Who wants to watch a crappy MTV show host review a game that they have no clue about, when they can join 40 million subscribers (!) watching PewDiePie not only rock video games, but also deliver hilarious comments.

All, free of charge, of course.

So, why are TV commercials nearly worthless, when the average American still watches 4 hours of TV each day?

They aren’t specific.

TV ads are unspecific. In a world of search engines, re targeting, social media and email marketing, we are so used to being marketed around products we already care about, that we blatantly ignore everything that’s not remotely relevant to us.

If we can even be bothered to watch a movie on TV, because it’s not yet on Netflix,a company making $5 billion in revenue annually by now, then what do we do?

We record it and we fast forward through all of the commercials.

We’re used to being in total control.

Marketers have to be smarter and smoother.

TV commercials just hit everyone across the board.

You could see a hemorrhoid cream commercial, followed by an Oreo ad and a burger spot, all while being overweight, diabetic and 22 years old.

Such a person would be a horrible target to be viewing these ads. But, with TV, you never know who you’re going to reach, only how many eyeballs you’ll get.

So, apart from a few insomniacs who watch infomercials late at night, ensuring that Dr. Ho still sells a few of his de-compression belts, is TV advertising dead?

Not entirely.

There is still one type of TV ad worth running, but it’ll cost ya.

Remember I mentioned that renting a billboard in Times Square, for a year, will set you back a million?

A 60 second commercial aired during the Super Bowl costs $4.5 million.

Thanks to their cross-pollinating effect, the often viral and memorable commercials still pay for themselves.

Roughly 10% of all TV commercial-related shares on social media come from Super Bowl ads. So do about 8% of all views on Youtube that go to TV commercial videos.

If your commercial makes it to the blacklist (commercials the network decides can’t be shown on TV), the viral effect is usually even stronger, like this one, from Carl’s Junior, that caused a lot of noise this year:

(damn you, Charlotte McKinney)

Super Bowl commercials have the highest retention rate, as this infographic shows. Over half of the participants who were asked remembered the Budweiser “Puppy Love” commercial.

What’s more, these commercials become online assets, generating millions of views over time, such as the famous Star Wars commercial by Volkswagen, which has generated 62 million views, to date.

#Digital Marketing Course #Digital Marketing Certificate #Digital Marketing Institute

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