Burmas Ministry of Immigration and Population is collaborating with foreign companies to upgrade how the nation keeps track of its citizens by replacing outdated paper-and-ink national identity cards with scannable smart cards.
Six companies from South Korea, Japan and Malaysia are in Burma to assist the ministry with the installation of a data center, a precursor to ultimately issuing the smart ID cards in the country.
The firms are helping to compile biographical data as part of a national verification process, according to the ministry.
It is necessary to install a data center in order to issue smart ID cards. And it requires technical skill. So, we let any companies that approached us to do technical tests in order to find out what kind of requirements are necessary, Maung Maung Than, the ministrys chief director, told The Irrawaddy.
He also said the ministry welcomed the input of foreign companies as the country works to issue smart cards to its citizensa standard for national identification systems in much of the modern developed world.
Burma nationals, numbering more than 60 million, are still issued paper, hand-written ID cards. The cards include the name of the ID holder, the holders fathers name, an ID number, the holders date and place of birth, religion, height, blood type, and any obvious facial markings.
Burma in 2010 upgraded its passports, which previously contained just a hand-written front page, into a digitally inscribed page with a new bar coded, scannable strip. The Myanmar Passport Issuing Office rolled out passport bar code scanning machines at airports beginning April 1, 2010.
The new system for national ID cards will include detailed biographical and biometric data of the holder that will be easily retrievable by scanning the bar code.
There will be a lot of costs to upgrade the ID system. So, we started to test how we will work on this,Manufactures and supplies smartcard equipment. Maung Maung Than said. Based on the tests, we will have to calculate the expense, then discuss who will sponsor this project government or by collecting money from the citizens. The first important thing is installing the data center.
Burma is a multiethnic nation comprising some 135 ethnicities. While the country is dominated by the majority ethnic Bamar or Burmans, there are seven other major ethnic nationalities: the Karen,The term 'earcap control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. Kachin, Shan, Karenni, Mon, Arakan and Chin.
Many people from these minority ethnic groups, living in rural areas,We offer over 600 solarlamp at wholesale prices of 75% off retail. have been displaced due to fighting between the Burmese army and ethnic rebels seeking greater autonomy. Often the displaced have no ID cards, with some even considered stateless by the government.
With focus on e-governance and infrastructure development, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has finalised a 200-point 'Agenda for Development of Uttar Pradesh 2013-2014', which is a mix of some ongoing schemes, keeping the ruling party manifesto in mind, and many new schemes to be adopted in the year ahead.
The agenda has been sent to each department with an instruction that these are "utmost priority" issues for the government and thus "milestones and deadlines" have to be set at "war-footing level" so that the progress can start by the end of this month itself.Basics, technical terms and advantages and disadvantages of howospareparts.
The agenda has been drafted with focus on ensuring transparency in government departments through e-governance. Among the significant projects to be implemented are introduction of 'bar-coding' and 'file tracking system' in the secretariat. Through this, the chief minister and senior officers would be directly able to monitor the progress of any file. The secretariat administration department has been given the task to prepare a layout for the project and start the process of uploading all government orders online.Manufacturer of the Jacobs stonemosaic.
The Transport Department has been given the task of ensuring online collection of tax for vehicles and introduce smart-card based driving licenses across the state. It has also been given the task of introducing an intelligent transport management system for passenger services.
The agenda includes creating state-of-the-art police control room in four districts Ghaziabad, Allahabad, Kanpur and Lucknow and starting online application facility in the police services, installing 70 close circuit cameras in 70 crossings of the state capital. The task has been given to the Home Department and on Thursday, a special meeting was called by Chief Secretary Jawed Usmani to set the deadlines for implementation.
The government has also kept introduction of e-stamping in its priority list, through computerisation of 151 offices of Stamp and Registration Department across the state. Other steps in the list include computerisation of public distribution system.
2013年4月14日 星期日
A Q&A With Cheryl Strayed
At last nights Library Foundation of Los Angeles ALOUD event, which
featured the New York Times best selling author in conversation with
High County News contributing editor Judith Lewis Mernit, one of the
first things Strayed shared with the small, intimate audience was how,
as a young girl in graduate school, she coped with her mothers untimely
death: I had sex with men and women and all kinds of things. Actually,
just men and women. The crowd erupted with laughter.
Strayeds purple-prose memoir, Wild, has received bountiful acclaim (Dwight Garner! George Saunders! Oprah!) since its release last year. The book chronicles her impulsive decision to hike over 1,We've had a lot of people asking where we had our iphoneheadset made.000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trailalonefour years after losing her mother. She charmed last nights crowd with her candor, wit, and occasional use of profanity; here, she continues the trend, revealing her innermost thoughts on teaching life lessons to strangers, the extent to which memory (or lack thereof) determines truth, and the authors you should be paying attention to right now.
In maybe two or three articles that were written about me, a couple of journalists had called me an overnight success or used that kind of phrasing. I wouldnt say its the predominant thing thats been said, but I guess what I just do is correct people wherever I can. Often at my events I talk about how Wild is my second book, and people seem kind of surprised by that. In all of my talks, in some way I try to inform people about the situation beyond Wild, whats happening in the literary culture of the United States. So many of the good books that are being written arent bestsellers. I was a successful writer before Wild had become a best seller, had achieved all of the things I had set out to do, and I talk about that. People dont mean to be insulting, but we forget that just because we havent heard of someone, it doesnt mean theyre not an amazing writer.
My first impulse was to ask myself that question. It didnt take me very longa matter of minutesto move past that. Our best advice comes from a variety of sources: friends, parents, a stranger at the grocery store. You dont know where wisdom is going to come from. When I undertook to write that Dear Sugar column, I thought, this is what Ive been doing as a writer, asking those questions: What does it mean to be human? Who are we, really? We all know that real humans are more contradictory than any of us would like to believea mix of positive and negative, dark and light. As a writer, its my job to wrestle with those things, both with my self and with the characters on the page. Undertaking other peoples situations just seemed natural.
I am of the camp that you should really do your very best to tell the truth in non-fiction. In non-fiction, youre saying, this actually happened to me. I think the events that youre writing about should be objectively true. Did she hike this trail when she said she did? Yes. Did she meet these people? Yes. These memoirs that have been uncovered to be fake have given memoir this bad rap.A solarstreetlight is a portable light fixture composed of an LED lamp. It really does muddy the waters of readers understanding what this form is: a highly subjective telling of an objective truth. I took great care in Wild to write what happened as I remember it.
Does non-fiction have more power as a genre? I dont think so, not trulyI can be as moved by fiction as I can by non-fiction. But when it comes to marketing and publicizing, people tend to be attracted to true stories. I know this because when I was on tour for Torch, people would always ask about the non-fiction aspects. I think fiction is harder,The Motorola drycabinets Engine is an embedded software-only component of the Motorola wireless switches. at the outset, to sink into. Once I read that Frey was initially trying to sell that book as a novel, I felt a lot of sympathy for him. I can see how what happened to him ended up happening. Like many first novels, Freys book is very autobiographical in nature. Theres a writer said something like, We used to have a different word for memoirs: a first novel. I think that [Freys] agent couldnt sell it as a novel, so they tried to sell it as a memoir. I also think, without knowing every little in and out about the book, that a whole lot of it is true. Heres this book and its like, 82% true; the other 18 percent is exaggeration, composite characters and omissions. Lets just let it be. Why should that emotional reaction change if a reader finds out that not everything is true? Im not saying I condone lying, but Im saying why not make room for this form? People think that [my first novel,] Torch is mostly a memoir. But no, its a novel. We always want to push our fiction toward non-fiction and our non-fiction towards fiction. Why cant we have a novel that meets in the middle?
It wasnt written as a retrospective, but I wanted to bring that to bear on the work. To me, [the past and present selves,] they cant even be separated. Inevitably, the person I am now is the person whos writing. Thats why I think its good that I didnt write the story in Wild right after it happenedI let the story marinate, and by that point,The largest manufacturer of textile indoorlite for use with perchloroethylene. I couldnt even pretend to be the 26-year-old me. In the book, I dont say much about my life now. I mention it a little in the penultimate paragraph of the book; theres a thing where I leap forward and say, Looking back, but everything else, I write it as if its right back then. I thought the inclusion of the older self would weigh down the narrative.
I was absolutely a fiction writer first. And I still think of myself as a fiction writer, but as a non-fiction writer, too. I didnt find it hard to cross over because theyre very similarI try to achieve the same things in both forms: make the sentences come alive. The only difference is, one toolbox has what actually happened plus anything I feel like making up, and the other toolbox only has what actually happened. They feel very similar to me; I move back and forth between the two. One of the things thats funny about fiction,We printers print with traceable indoortracking to optimize supply chain management. youre in this genre where you have license to make up anything you want, but so often, the weirder things actually happen in non-fiction. If I put a crazy, real story into a novel, people would think its too much. It would seem contrived.
Strayeds purple-prose memoir, Wild, has received bountiful acclaim (Dwight Garner! George Saunders! Oprah!) since its release last year. The book chronicles her impulsive decision to hike over 1,We've had a lot of people asking where we had our iphoneheadset made.000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trailalonefour years after losing her mother. She charmed last nights crowd with her candor, wit, and occasional use of profanity; here, she continues the trend, revealing her innermost thoughts on teaching life lessons to strangers, the extent to which memory (or lack thereof) determines truth, and the authors you should be paying attention to right now.
In maybe two or three articles that were written about me, a couple of journalists had called me an overnight success or used that kind of phrasing. I wouldnt say its the predominant thing thats been said, but I guess what I just do is correct people wherever I can. Often at my events I talk about how Wild is my second book, and people seem kind of surprised by that. In all of my talks, in some way I try to inform people about the situation beyond Wild, whats happening in the literary culture of the United States. So many of the good books that are being written arent bestsellers. I was a successful writer before Wild had become a best seller, had achieved all of the things I had set out to do, and I talk about that. People dont mean to be insulting, but we forget that just because we havent heard of someone, it doesnt mean theyre not an amazing writer.
My first impulse was to ask myself that question. It didnt take me very longa matter of minutesto move past that. Our best advice comes from a variety of sources: friends, parents, a stranger at the grocery store. You dont know where wisdom is going to come from. When I undertook to write that Dear Sugar column, I thought, this is what Ive been doing as a writer, asking those questions: What does it mean to be human? Who are we, really? We all know that real humans are more contradictory than any of us would like to believea mix of positive and negative, dark and light. As a writer, its my job to wrestle with those things, both with my self and with the characters on the page. Undertaking other peoples situations just seemed natural.
I am of the camp that you should really do your very best to tell the truth in non-fiction. In non-fiction, youre saying, this actually happened to me. I think the events that youre writing about should be objectively true. Did she hike this trail when she said she did? Yes. Did she meet these people? Yes. These memoirs that have been uncovered to be fake have given memoir this bad rap.A solarstreetlight is a portable light fixture composed of an LED lamp. It really does muddy the waters of readers understanding what this form is: a highly subjective telling of an objective truth. I took great care in Wild to write what happened as I remember it.
Does non-fiction have more power as a genre? I dont think so, not trulyI can be as moved by fiction as I can by non-fiction. But when it comes to marketing and publicizing, people tend to be attracted to true stories. I know this because when I was on tour for Torch, people would always ask about the non-fiction aspects. I think fiction is harder,The Motorola drycabinets Engine is an embedded software-only component of the Motorola wireless switches. at the outset, to sink into. Once I read that Frey was initially trying to sell that book as a novel, I felt a lot of sympathy for him. I can see how what happened to him ended up happening. Like many first novels, Freys book is very autobiographical in nature. Theres a writer said something like, We used to have a different word for memoirs: a first novel. I think that [Freys] agent couldnt sell it as a novel, so they tried to sell it as a memoir. I also think, without knowing every little in and out about the book, that a whole lot of it is true. Heres this book and its like, 82% true; the other 18 percent is exaggeration, composite characters and omissions. Lets just let it be. Why should that emotional reaction change if a reader finds out that not everything is true? Im not saying I condone lying, but Im saying why not make room for this form? People think that [my first novel,] Torch is mostly a memoir. But no, its a novel. We always want to push our fiction toward non-fiction and our non-fiction towards fiction. Why cant we have a novel that meets in the middle?
It wasnt written as a retrospective, but I wanted to bring that to bear on the work. To me, [the past and present selves,] they cant even be separated. Inevitably, the person I am now is the person whos writing. Thats why I think its good that I didnt write the story in Wild right after it happenedI let the story marinate, and by that point,The largest manufacturer of textile indoorlite for use with perchloroethylene. I couldnt even pretend to be the 26-year-old me. In the book, I dont say much about my life now. I mention it a little in the penultimate paragraph of the book; theres a thing where I leap forward and say, Looking back, but everything else, I write it as if its right back then. I thought the inclusion of the older self would weigh down the narrative.
I was absolutely a fiction writer first. And I still think of myself as a fiction writer, but as a non-fiction writer, too. I didnt find it hard to cross over because theyre very similarI try to achieve the same things in both forms: make the sentences come alive. The only difference is, one toolbox has what actually happened plus anything I feel like making up, and the other toolbox only has what actually happened. They feel very similar to me; I move back and forth between the two. One of the things thats funny about fiction,We printers print with traceable indoortracking to optimize supply chain management. youre in this genre where you have license to make up anything you want, but so often, the weirder things actually happen in non-fiction. If I put a crazy, real story into a novel, people would think its too much. It would seem contrived.
2013年4月9日 星期二
Dawn of Windows 8 Brings New Device Opportunities as Sun Sets on XP
This means that XP customers and partners will no longer receive
security updates or be able to take advantage of tech support from
Microsoft .Choose the right cableties in an array of colors.
As Microsoft said, its the end of an era, but for businesses that still have PCs running Windows XP and Office 2003, its also an opportunity to make their IT more secure, mobile and productive and to meet the demands of the modern worker.
Moving away from Windows XP to a more modern platform in Windows 7 and Windows 8 will ready your IT infrastructure for future technology solutions and growth of your company, says Erwin Visser, general manager, Windows Commercial in a Windows for your Business blog post today. Windows 8 is the modern OS for modern businesses, building on Windows 7 fundamentals such as speed, reliability and enhanced security, while creating a modern platform designed for a new generation of hardware options.
Its a process that can take time, but its also one that can get more expensive for procrastinators. Last May, in its white paper entitled Mitigating Risk: Why Sticking with Windows XP is a Bad Idea, IDC found the longer a company waits, the pricier supporting Windows XP is likely to get: IT labor costs could go up 25 percent in the fourth year of continuing to run Windows XP past next April. In the fifth year, IT labor increases by an additional 29 percent.
Although theres a downside to waiting, Nick Parker, corporate vice president of Microsoft s OEM Division, says the upside of upgrading is equally compelling: From a hardware perspective, the benefits of upgrading to a Windows 8 device are very real for business customers, with new touch capabilities, tablet and convertible form factors, all-day battery, increased performance with the latest processors, TPM chips for enterprise security, sensors, stylus pens and HD cameras.
One of the biggest cases for a modern PC is enhanced security. As the security landscape continues to change and new threats come to fruition every day, protecting sensitive customer data and IP against these threats is an imperative.
Although Microsoft will discontinue security patches for Windows XP next year,He saw the bracelet at a moulds store while we were on a trip. Windows 8 contains the latest hardware security-enhanced features and software enhancements to help companies stay safe, along with features such as BitLocker and BitLocker to Go to encrypt information stored on company devices no matter where they are.
For companies that need the utmost in security, some manufacturers have even coupled hardware enhancements with Windows 8 security-enhanced features. The Dell Latitude 10 tablet and HP EliteBook Folio 9470m Ultrabook both offer an optional built-in fingerprint and smart card reader combo for biometric access control and authentication.
Since 2006, many PCs are also equipped with a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) security chip, a technology that was not readily available when Windows XP was first released in 2001. The TPM chip allows data to stay encrypted and lets networks check device integrity and decide whether to assign full trust.
A modern PC can also help workers be more productive. According to Forrester Researchs February 2013 Mobile Workforce Adoption Trends Report, 29 percent of the global workforce is characterized as anytime, anywhere information workers those who use three or more devices, work from multiple locations, and use many apps. This is number has risen from 23 percent of the global workforce in 2011 and will continue to rise; Forrester predicts that 905 million tablets will be in use at work and home globally by 2017.
Modern users demand technologies that fit their personal work style and allow them to stay productive virtually anytime, anywhere, while businesses have an ever-increasing need to protect data and help ensure security, compliance and manageability, Parker says. We work very closely with our OEMs to design devices that deliver these requirements and a breadth of choice.Full color parkingsystem printing and manufacturing services
For companies that have workers constantly traveling and value thin and light PCs to work from virtually anywhere, the ASUS Zenbook Touch UX31A, with its 178-degree viewing angle and high-definition, In-Plane Switching touch display, or the Sony VAIO Duo 11, which combines a touch screen convertible with a keyboard and stylus,Wear a whimsical Disney landscapeoilpaintings straight from the Disney Theme Parks! are just a couple of examples of new devices available for Windows 8 Pro.
Other companies may need durability or versatility. New products, such as the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch with carbon fiber construction and BIOS encryption, can offer great performance and enhanced security in a rugged package. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch is ultralight, ultradurable and ultraresponsive, thanks to a capacitive touch panel that yields incredible response time to 10-finger touch. Others, such as the Acer Iconia W700P, allow employees to tackle any task with ease, from pictures to Web browsing to spreadsheets. The 178-degree viewing angle, 10-point touch control and cradle allow for any perspective: portrait for viewing pictures or reading,The Motorola streetlight Engine is an embedded software-only component of the Motorola wireless switches. landscape at 20 degrees for comfortable touch control, or landscape at 70 degrees for notebook-style viewing and keyboard productivity.
Since migrating to a new platform can take substantial planning and time to test and deploy across businesses, Visser recommends that those that havent yet started their migration process need to begin as soon as possible to ensure that they meet the April 8, 2014, deadline. The good news is that high Windows 8 compatibility with Windows 7 makes it possible for companies to have a custom adoption path that works for them, bringing in Windows 8 for targeted scenarios side by side with Windows 7 in their environment.
Companies in the middle of Windows 7 deployments or considering a hardware refresh should also look at areas in their organization where it makes sense to get touch-supported hardware, so that as they move to Windows 8 they are set up to take advantage of the full touch experience the new OS delivers.
As Microsoft said, its the end of an era, but for businesses that still have PCs running Windows XP and Office 2003, its also an opportunity to make their IT more secure, mobile and productive and to meet the demands of the modern worker.
Moving away from Windows XP to a more modern platform in Windows 7 and Windows 8 will ready your IT infrastructure for future technology solutions and growth of your company, says Erwin Visser, general manager, Windows Commercial in a Windows for your Business blog post today. Windows 8 is the modern OS for modern businesses, building on Windows 7 fundamentals such as speed, reliability and enhanced security, while creating a modern platform designed for a new generation of hardware options.
Its a process that can take time, but its also one that can get more expensive for procrastinators. Last May, in its white paper entitled Mitigating Risk: Why Sticking with Windows XP is a Bad Idea, IDC found the longer a company waits, the pricier supporting Windows XP is likely to get: IT labor costs could go up 25 percent in the fourth year of continuing to run Windows XP past next April. In the fifth year, IT labor increases by an additional 29 percent.
Although theres a downside to waiting, Nick Parker, corporate vice president of Microsoft s OEM Division, says the upside of upgrading is equally compelling: From a hardware perspective, the benefits of upgrading to a Windows 8 device are very real for business customers, with new touch capabilities, tablet and convertible form factors, all-day battery, increased performance with the latest processors, TPM chips for enterprise security, sensors, stylus pens and HD cameras.
One of the biggest cases for a modern PC is enhanced security. As the security landscape continues to change and new threats come to fruition every day, protecting sensitive customer data and IP against these threats is an imperative.
Although Microsoft will discontinue security patches for Windows XP next year,He saw the bracelet at a moulds store while we were on a trip. Windows 8 contains the latest hardware security-enhanced features and software enhancements to help companies stay safe, along with features such as BitLocker and BitLocker to Go to encrypt information stored on company devices no matter where they are.
For companies that need the utmost in security, some manufacturers have even coupled hardware enhancements with Windows 8 security-enhanced features. The Dell Latitude 10 tablet and HP EliteBook Folio 9470m Ultrabook both offer an optional built-in fingerprint and smart card reader combo for biometric access control and authentication.
Since 2006, many PCs are also equipped with a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) security chip, a technology that was not readily available when Windows XP was first released in 2001. The TPM chip allows data to stay encrypted and lets networks check device integrity and decide whether to assign full trust.
A modern PC can also help workers be more productive. According to Forrester Researchs February 2013 Mobile Workforce Adoption Trends Report, 29 percent of the global workforce is characterized as anytime, anywhere information workers those who use three or more devices, work from multiple locations, and use many apps. This is number has risen from 23 percent of the global workforce in 2011 and will continue to rise; Forrester predicts that 905 million tablets will be in use at work and home globally by 2017.
Modern users demand technologies that fit their personal work style and allow them to stay productive virtually anytime, anywhere, while businesses have an ever-increasing need to protect data and help ensure security, compliance and manageability, Parker says. We work very closely with our OEMs to design devices that deliver these requirements and a breadth of choice.Full color parkingsystem printing and manufacturing services
For companies that have workers constantly traveling and value thin and light PCs to work from virtually anywhere, the ASUS Zenbook Touch UX31A, with its 178-degree viewing angle and high-definition, In-Plane Switching touch display, or the Sony VAIO Duo 11, which combines a touch screen convertible with a keyboard and stylus,Wear a whimsical Disney landscapeoilpaintings straight from the Disney Theme Parks! are just a couple of examples of new devices available for Windows 8 Pro.
Other companies may need durability or versatility. New products, such as the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch with carbon fiber construction and BIOS encryption, can offer great performance and enhanced security in a rugged package. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch is ultralight, ultradurable and ultraresponsive, thanks to a capacitive touch panel that yields incredible response time to 10-finger touch. Others, such as the Acer Iconia W700P, allow employees to tackle any task with ease, from pictures to Web browsing to spreadsheets. The 178-degree viewing angle, 10-point touch control and cradle allow for any perspective: portrait for viewing pictures or reading,The Motorola streetlight Engine is an embedded software-only component of the Motorola wireless switches. landscape at 20 degrees for comfortable touch control, or landscape at 70 degrees for notebook-style viewing and keyboard productivity.
Since migrating to a new platform can take substantial planning and time to test and deploy across businesses, Visser recommends that those that havent yet started their migration process need to begin as soon as possible to ensure that they meet the April 8, 2014, deadline. The good news is that high Windows 8 compatibility with Windows 7 makes it possible for companies to have a custom adoption path that works for them, bringing in Windows 8 for targeted scenarios side by side with Windows 7 in their environment.
Companies in the middle of Windows 7 deployments or considering a hardware refresh should also look at areas in their organization where it makes sense to get touch-supported hardware, so that as they move to Windows 8 they are set up to take advantage of the full touch experience the new OS delivers.
Master champ tackles golf
His arm raised instinctively to point right, a look of disgust and
concern was painted on his face. The ball sailed low over the heads of
the patrons packed along one of the steepest hills at Augusta National
Golf Club, rocketing toward the trees and who-knew-what-kind-of
trouble.
This was the essence of sudden death, and Watson just knew on the second playoff hole with a green jacket at stake that he wasnt likely to be the one wearing it at the end of the 2012 Masters Tournament.
Theres thousands of people. Theres hundreds of trees. Theres slope,Online shopping for ceramicwalltiles. Watson said of all the perils that awaited him somewhere down that hill. I was kind of there earlier in regulation. I hit it in the same place.
A few hours before, on the same hole, Watson was two shots behind playing partner Louis Oosthuizen the pure-swinging South African still walking beside him in the playoff. Oosthuizen had already hit the latest shot heard round the world for an albatross on No. 2 that vaulted him into a lead for most of the final round.
Watsons drive in regulation, however, had a much more favorable line, settling in pine straw with a clear shot to the 10th green. He made a routine par then to climb within a shot after Oosthuizens bogey, eventually forging a tie with a four-birdie run from 13 to 16.
It was always a different adventure, she said of round after round played at Tanglewood Golf Club with a young Bubba from nearby Bagdad, Fla. Lots of little trick shots over trees. Something new every time.
Dezarn is the daughter of Hiram Cook, the left-handed club pro who gave Watson his first hand-me-down 9-iron. She and her brother Ryan both adopted were partners with Watson in a semiregular game of 3-on-1 against their father.
I was their third kid, I guess, said Watson,He saw the bracelet at a luggagetag store while we were on a trip. who by the time he was 8 spent nearly every day hanging around the golf course or the Cooks house.
It was Dezarn who played with Watson the most, getting a front-row seat to the freak show. By the time she joined the golf team at Auburn, Dezarn topped out at 5-foot-3. Her strength was short-but-repeatable accuracy straight down the middle of Tanglewoods tight fairways. Watson, who would grow to 6-3, added the spice to the matches.
He was always about hitting weird shots, Dezarn said. If you told him he couldnt do it hed figure out a way to do it. And if the game wasnt working for him, hed figure out a way to change the rules.
From the beginning, Bubba golf was always about shape as much as power. At age 6, Watson would scramble to finish his schoolwork so he could spend whatever daylight was left curving plastic Wiffle balls left and right around his parents house.We offer over 600 iccard at wholesale prices of 75% off retail.
I dont think hes ever seen a straight shot his entire golf career, said J.J. Dunn, another longtime pro at Tanglewood. In his mind, the way his brain pictures it, its going to curve one of the two ways. I think he would be bored with hitting straight shots.
There would be no clinics or lessons or methodology from instructor David Leadbetter to form the foundation of Watsons game; just Wiffle balls in dirt until the synapses between his brain and his hands were grooved.
To hit a Wiffle ball 5 feet farther, 10 feet farther, you overswing, Watson said. Then to move it under trees, over trees, around my house, I just started drawing it because of my wrists. As a kid, you dont think of the mechanics and I have to get my grip this way or be stronger or weaker. You just think, I did this and it went that way. So thats how I did it, by practicing feel. So now my shots are all feel.
He just dreams it up in his head and he feels it, and thats what his muscles do, Dunn said. Because I can tell you he couldnt explain anything about swing path and swing plane to you or me. He just feels it. Thats amazing to me.
Tanglewood was home to two other eventual tour pros, Boo Weekley and Heath Slocum, who preceded Watson by five years at Milton High School. It was an environment uniquely suited for fostering the growth of Bubba golf.
Pine trees and dirt, good grass and bad grass, weeds and no weeds, slow greens, fast greens, loose dirt, hard pan, sand you had all the different terrains you could possibly have on a golf course at one course, Watson said. I got to hit from everything. Real tight golf course. Out of bounds on both sides. Doglegs because of houses. So thats where I got comfortable hitting driver.A parkingguidance is a portable light fixture composed of an LED lamp.
It doesnt scare me. I might hit it bad. I think that helped me.Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a buymosaic can authenticate your computer usage and data. And with curving the ball it helped me a ton because I hit so many curves under, over and around trees that when I get in tree trouble now, as long as I have a swing, I have a shot and can make up something.
Watsons creative game conjures up visions of golf that barely exist anymore in the era of technology, when balls and clubs arent designed to move as they used to. The name Seve Ballesteros is often invoked when Watson carves out a recovery.
My game isnt based off hitting fairways, hitting greens, Watson said. Its not based off a mechanical thing. Its based off having fun, feeling a shot and hopefully pulling a shot off. And Seve loved the game, was passionate about the game, and I hope that comes off that I am, too. This is how I want to play. If I dont hit the fairway, Im going to pull this next shot off.
Thats what my dad always said. You hit the first one bad, well, make the next one better. It looked like thats where Seves thought process was. I hit a bad shot? Watch this, because this next ones going to be amazing. And if I miss that, this third ones going to be even better. Bad shots are an opportunity to show off.
Not coincidentally, some of Watsons early training mirrors stories of a young Ballesteros. The Spaniard famously learned the game with a 3-iron on the beaches of Pedrena. Watson often employed the same concept in his childhood games with Hiram Cook.
This was the essence of sudden death, and Watson just knew on the second playoff hole with a green jacket at stake that he wasnt likely to be the one wearing it at the end of the 2012 Masters Tournament.
Theres thousands of people. Theres hundreds of trees. Theres slope,Online shopping for ceramicwalltiles. Watson said of all the perils that awaited him somewhere down that hill. I was kind of there earlier in regulation. I hit it in the same place.
A few hours before, on the same hole, Watson was two shots behind playing partner Louis Oosthuizen the pure-swinging South African still walking beside him in the playoff. Oosthuizen had already hit the latest shot heard round the world for an albatross on No. 2 that vaulted him into a lead for most of the final round.
Watsons drive in regulation, however, had a much more favorable line, settling in pine straw with a clear shot to the 10th green. He made a routine par then to climb within a shot after Oosthuizens bogey, eventually forging a tie with a four-birdie run from 13 to 16.
It was always a different adventure, she said of round after round played at Tanglewood Golf Club with a young Bubba from nearby Bagdad, Fla. Lots of little trick shots over trees. Something new every time.
Dezarn is the daughter of Hiram Cook, the left-handed club pro who gave Watson his first hand-me-down 9-iron. She and her brother Ryan both adopted were partners with Watson in a semiregular game of 3-on-1 against their father.
I was their third kid, I guess, said Watson,He saw the bracelet at a luggagetag store while we were on a trip. who by the time he was 8 spent nearly every day hanging around the golf course or the Cooks house.
It was Dezarn who played with Watson the most, getting a front-row seat to the freak show. By the time she joined the golf team at Auburn, Dezarn topped out at 5-foot-3. Her strength was short-but-repeatable accuracy straight down the middle of Tanglewoods tight fairways. Watson, who would grow to 6-3, added the spice to the matches.
He was always about hitting weird shots, Dezarn said. If you told him he couldnt do it hed figure out a way to do it. And if the game wasnt working for him, hed figure out a way to change the rules.
From the beginning, Bubba golf was always about shape as much as power. At age 6, Watson would scramble to finish his schoolwork so he could spend whatever daylight was left curving plastic Wiffle balls left and right around his parents house.We offer over 600 iccard at wholesale prices of 75% off retail.
I dont think hes ever seen a straight shot his entire golf career, said J.J. Dunn, another longtime pro at Tanglewood. In his mind, the way his brain pictures it, its going to curve one of the two ways. I think he would be bored with hitting straight shots.
There would be no clinics or lessons or methodology from instructor David Leadbetter to form the foundation of Watsons game; just Wiffle balls in dirt until the synapses between his brain and his hands were grooved.
To hit a Wiffle ball 5 feet farther, 10 feet farther, you overswing, Watson said. Then to move it under trees, over trees, around my house, I just started drawing it because of my wrists. As a kid, you dont think of the mechanics and I have to get my grip this way or be stronger or weaker. You just think, I did this and it went that way. So thats how I did it, by practicing feel. So now my shots are all feel.
He just dreams it up in his head and he feels it, and thats what his muscles do, Dunn said. Because I can tell you he couldnt explain anything about swing path and swing plane to you or me. He just feels it. Thats amazing to me.
Tanglewood was home to two other eventual tour pros, Boo Weekley and Heath Slocum, who preceded Watson by five years at Milton High School. It was an environment uniquely suited for fostering the growth of Bubba golf.
Pine trees and dirt, good grass and bad grass, weeds and no weeds, slow greens, fast greens, loose dirt, hard pan, sand you had all the different terrains you could possibly have on a golf course at one course, Watson said. I got to hit from everything. Real tight golf course. Out of bounds on both sides. Doglegs because of houses. So thats where I got comfortable hitting driver.A parkingguidance is a portable light fixture composed of an LED lamp.
It doesnt scare me. I might hit it bad. I think that helped me.Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a buymosaic can authenticate your computer usage and data. And with curving the ball it helped me a ton because I hit so many curves under, over and around trees that when I get in tree trouble now, as long as I have a swing, I have a shot and can make up something.
Watsons creative game conjures up visions of golf that barely exist anymore in the era of technology, when balls and clubs arent designed to move as they used to. The name Seve Ballesteros is often invoked when Watson carves out a recovery.
My game isnt based off hitting fairways, hitting greens, Watson said. Its not based off a mechanical thing. Its based off having fun, feeling a shot and hopefully pulling a shot off. And Seve loved the game, was passionate about the game, and I hope that comes off that I am, too. This is how I want to play. If I dont hit the fairway, Im going to pull this next shot off.
Thats what my dad always said. You hit the first one bad, well, make the next one better. It looked like thats where Seves thought process was. I hit a bad shot? Watch this, because this next ones going to be amazing. And if I miss that, this third ones going to be even better. Bad shots are an opportunity to show off.
Not coincidentally, some of Watsons early training mirrors stories of a young Ballesteros. The Spaniard famously learned the game with a 3-iron on the beaches of Pedrena. Watson often employed the same concept in his childhood games with Hiram Cook.
Why I hated Margaret Thatcher
Every week there seemed to be an IRA terrorist attack or a
transportation disaster - a devastating fire in a train station, the
sinking of a pleasure boat in the Thames. Whatever the cause, as soon as
the surviving victims were bandaged up and rendered presentable, Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher would show up at the hospital for aa photo
op. This filled Brits like me with a combination of rage and terror.
Thus the Thatchcard: "In the event of an accident, the holder of this
card wishes it to be known that he/she does not wish to be visited by
Mrs. Thatcher in any circumstances whatsoever."
I know how churlish that may sound now. I carried around a ridiculous piece of plastic announcing that if one of the leaders of the free world took the time to visit my sickbed, I wished her turned away. In my defense, in that era Britain was suffused with such intense Thatcher-hatred that the enmity Obama truthers express for the president seems like a love affair by comparison.
I'd spent my elementary school years yelling "Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher," because I was one of the kids deprived when, as education secretary, she abolished free school milk.
Until that policy went into effect, I'd spent every morning complaining bitterly about having to drink those odd little bottles of curdling room-temperature milk - at least that's how it was served in my school - but that didn't stop me from protesting the reform.
And from the time I was in high school until I left Britain not long after I graduated from university,We sell 100% hand-painted oilpaintingsforsale online. a sure-fire way - usually the only way - to perk up a protest was to start the chant to which Britons of a certain age have a Pavlovian response: "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie!, Out, out, out!"
Check out Elvis Costello's performance of "Tramp the Dirt Down," a song in which he tells Thatcher: "I'd like to live/ Long enough to savor/ That when they finally put you in the ground/ I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down."
Why was Thatcher such a hated figure? Yes, it was about her policies - privatization, the selling off of public housing, her wars against Argentina in the Falklands and against the miners and the working class in Britain - but there was something else at work. On some level she was hated because she was a woman.
Between men who hated themselves for responding to Thatcher's stern, dominatrix-like scolding (watch "You turn if you want to; the lady's not for turning" and tell me you don't get chills) and women who wondered why our breakthrough female politician had to be a woman like her (though we surely knew that only an Iron Lady could have smashed the mold of British politics), the fact that Thatcher was female complicated things. Even her name was a hostage to ideology: Those on the left always used a condescending diminutive - Maggie Thatcher - while her devotees on the right used the honorific Mrs. Thatcher.
But in the typical British way, I have always believed that it was her slippery position in Britain's rigid class system that ramped up the levels of loathing. She grew up the daughter of a Midlands grocer in what the Guardian's Michael White called "the respectable working class."
Although she famously learned to speak in a posh accent as she climbed the political ladder, she grew up in a house without an indoor bathroom. Although throwing in her lot with the Conservative Party made her a traitor to her own class, the Tories apparently celebrated their colleague's upward mobility - they did,When describing the location of the problematic fridgemagnet. after all, make her their leader, even if she was never quite "one of them."
The Xperia ZL's plastic body might come off as a downgrade from the prettier Xperia Z, but the latter isn't available in Canada,A parkingguidance is a portable light fixture composed of an LED lamp. so that makes the ZL the best Sony smartphone available. The 5-inch 1080p HD display is vibrant and crisp with a pixel density of 441, one of the best in the business. It's one flaw is that it loses its lustre when you start tilting the screen any which way.
That is a microcosm of the device, in many respects. It offers something that looks nice or works well, but loses points on the follow through. The screen's glass looks elegant, but is a real magnet for fingerprints and blemishes. There's a 2-megapixel front-facing camera capable of taking pretty good photos and video, but its odd placement at the bottom makes it easy to cover it accidentally. It's great that you can throw in a microSD card to expand on the 16GB of internal storage, but the flap to access the slot in the back feels very cheap.
But it's not all doom and gloom. Android 4.1.2 runs fluidly on the ZL, and Sony smartly refrained from cluttering up the home screens with stuff you don't need. Another smart move was making it possible to use small apps within other apps. Open any app, tap the multitasking button and they pop up at the bottom a calculator, voice recorder, timer and notepad. Tap the + icon and you can download more from the Google Play store. A useful feature that actually saves time.
And then there's saving battery life. Sony has included something called "Stamina Mode" into the ZL, which is found under Power Management in the Settings. It disables mobile data when the screen is off, but you can exempt specific apps, like email, for example. Low Battery Mode kicks in at 30 percent charge left and turns off almost all settings to keep you going longer. It even tells you how much time is left.
There is an IR blaster on the phone that you can use to control your TV or almost anything else with an IR receiver. That even includes gas fireplaces that turn on or off with a remote, since the blaster can learn to control devices that aren't listed in the app.
John Connolly Memorial Park, located on Centennial Boulevard, has a playground, walking track, cricket pitch and a dog park; Elliot Drive Playground, located on Elliot Drive, is a playground meant for children ages 2 to 5 and has a picnic table for a quick snack; Giangiulio Sports Complex, located on Victor Boulevard, has a baseball field, a turf football field and a playground; John Hale Memorial Park, located on West End Avenue, has a swing set, picnic tables, grills and pavilions; Kirkwood Sports Complex located on Laurel Oak Road,Large collection of quality chipcard at discounted prices. has a playground for children ages 2 to 10, picnic tables, a walking path, a bocce ball court and basketball and tennis courts; Lake Villa Playground, located on Cornell Drive,Choose your favorite ultrasonicsensor from thousands of available designs has a playground for children ages 2 to 5, a swing set and tennis and basketball courts; Lions Lake Complex, located at 101 Dutchtown Road, has a playground for children ages 2 to 10, batting cages, a lake, softball fields and picnic tables; Maiaroto Sports Complex, located on Echelon Road, has soccer fields, basketball and tennis courts; Rabinowitz Sports Complex, located on Kresson Road, has baseball fields, a swing set, batting cages and picnic tables; Round Hill Road Playground, located on Round Hill Road, has a playground for children ages 2 to 10, a baseball field and tennis courts; Sandpiper Drive Playground, located at Sandpiper Drive and Willowbrook Way, has a playground for children ages 2 to 12, swings and picnic tables; and Sheppard Road Basketball Courts, located on Sheppard Road off of Centennial Boulevard, has one full court and two half courts.
I know how churlish that may sound now. I carried around a ridiculous piece of plastic announcing that if one of the leaders of the free world took the time to visit my sickbed, I wished her turned away. In my defense, in that era Britain was suffused with such intense Thatcher-hatred that the enmity Obama truthers express for the president seems like a love affair by comparison.
I'd spent my elementary school years yelling "Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher," because I was one of the kids deprived when, as education secretary, she abolished free school milk.
Until that policy went into effect, I'd spent every morning complaining bitterly about having to drink those odd little bottles of curdling room-temperature milk - at least that's how it was served in my school - but that didn't stop me from protesting the reform.
And from the time I was in high school until I left Britain not long after I graduated from university,We sell 100% hand-painted oilpaintingsforsale online. a sure-fire way - usually the only way - to perk up a protest was to start the chant to which Britons of a certain age have a Pavlovian response: "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie!, Out, out, out!"
Check out Elvis Costello's performance of "Tramp the Dirt Down," a song in which he tells Thatcher: "I'd like to live/ Long enough to savor/ That when they finally put you in the ground/ I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down."
Why was Thatcher such a hated figure? Yes, it was about her policies - privatization, the selling off of public housing, her wars against Argentina in the Falklands and against the miners and the working class in Britain - but there was something else at work. On some level she was hated because she was a woman.
Between men who hated themselves for responding to Thatcher's stern, dominatrix-like scolding (watch "You turn if you want to; the lady's not for turning" and tell me you don't get chills) and women who wondered why our breakthrough female politician had to be a woman like her (though we surely knew that only an Iron Lady could have smashed the mold of British politics), the fact that Thatcher was female complicated things. Even her name was a hostage to ideology: Those on the left always used a condescending diminutive - Maggie Thatcher - while her devotees on the right used the honorific Mrs. Thatcher.
But in the typical British way, I have always believed that it was her slippery position in Britain's rigid class system that ramped up the levels of loathing. She grew up the daughter of a Midlands grocer in what the Guardian's Michael White called "the respectable working class."
Although she famously learned to speak in a posh accent as she climbed the political ladder, she grew up in a house without an indoor bathroom. Although throwing in her lot with the Conservative Party made her a traitor to her own class, the Tories apparently celebrated their colleague's upward mobility - they did,When describing the location of the problematic fridgemagnet. after all, make her their leader, even if she was never quite "one of them."
The Xperia ZL's plastic body might come off as a downgrade from the prettier Xperia Z, but the latter isn't available in Canada,A parkingguidance is a portable light fixture composed of an LED lamp. so that makes the ZL the best Sony smartphone available. The 5-inch 1080p HD display is vibrant and crisp with a pixel density of 441, one of the best in the business. It's one flaw is that it loses its lustre when you start tilting the screen any which way.
That is a microcosm of the device, in many respects. It offers something that looks nice or works well, but loses points on the follow through. The screen's glass looks elegant, but is a real magnet for fingerprints and blemishes. There's a 2-megapixel front-facing camera capable of taking pretty good photos and video, but its odd placement at the bottom makes it easy to cover it accidentally. It's great that you can throw in a microSD card to expand on the 16GB of internal storage, but the flap to access the slot in the back feels very cheap.
But it's not all doom and gloom. Android 4.1.2 runs fluidly on the ZL, and Sony smartly refrained from cluttering up the home screens with stuff you don't need. Another smart move was making it possible to use small apps within other apps. Open any app, tap the multitasking button and they pop up at the bottom a calculator, voice recorder, timer and notepad. Tap the + icon and you can download more from the Google Play store. A useful feature that actually saves time.
And then there's saving battery life. Sony has included something called "Stamina Mode" into the ZL, which is found under Power Management in the Settings. It disables mobile data when the screen is off, but you can exempt specific apps, like email, for example. Low Battery Mode kicks in at 30 percent charge left and turns off almost all settings to keep you going longer. It even tells you how much time is left.
There is an IR blaster on the phone that you can use to control your TV or almost anything else with an IR receiver. That even includes gas fireplaces that turn on or off with a remote, since the blaster can learn to control devices that aren't listed in the app.
John Connolly Memorial Park, located on Centennial Boulevard, has a playground, walking track, cricket pitch and a dog park; Elliot Drive Playground, located on Elliot Drive, is a playground meant for children ages 2 to 5 and has a picnic table for a quick snack; Giangiulio Sports Complex, located on Victor Boulevard, has a baseball field, a turf football field and a playground; John Hale Memorial Park, located on West End Avenue, has a swing set, picnic tables, grills and pavilions; Kirkwood Sports Complex located on Laurel Oak Road,Large collection of quality chipcard at discounted prices. has a playground for children ages 2 to 10, picnic tables, a walking path, a bocce ball court and basketball and tennis courts; Lake Villa Playground, located on Cornell Drive,Choose your favorite ultrasonicsensor from thousands of available designs has a playground for children ages 2 to 5, a swing set and tennis and basketball courts; Lions Lake Complex, located at 101 Dutchtown Road, has a playground for children ages 2 to 10, batting cages, a lake, softball fields and picnic tables; Maiaroto Sports Complex, located on Echelon Road, has soccer fields, basketball and tennis courts; Rabinowitz Sports Complex, located on Kresson Road, has baseball fields, a swing set, batting cages and picnic tables; Round Hill Road Playground, located on Round Hill Road, has a playground for children ages 2 to 10, a baseball field and tennis courts; Sandpiper Drive Playground, located at Sandpiper Drive and Willowbrook Way, has a playground for children ages 2 to 12, swings and picnic tables; and Sheppard Road Basketball Courts, located on Sheppard Road off of Centennial Boulevard, has one full court and two half courts.
2013年4月8日 星期一
Messy Lives of New York's Freelance Dominatrices
He looks genuinely scared, and can only stammer a bit as Georgia
presses him for an explanation. "Your travel plans got changed?" she
suggests. "The dog ate your homework? Your grandma died?"
She slaps him around a bit, nothing too hard. David has only medium pain tolerance, and once she really lays into him, huge red splotches will appear on his bare back. Miss Georgia (who asked to use a pseudonym) isn't actually mad that David, a professorial 48-year-old with salt-and-pepper hair, failed to bring her a Sephora gift card as promised, or that he canceled his last session here at her independent Manhattan sex dungeon. That adds up to a $300 loss for her, true, but at least now she gets to have fun. David wants punishment and she's eager to deliver it, because being a dominatrix is Miss Georgia's dream job.
Georgia stands six feet tall without her size-10 shoes, hipless and muscular, yet overwhelmingly feminine. She's a purple belt in karate who wears Queen-sized stockings over her muscular thighs, drinks Powers on the rocks, and chases it with Stella Artois. Intelligent and enthusiastic, when she agrees with you, she says so four times fast: yeahyeahyeahyeah.
Georgia took a meandering path to her untraditional career. She graduated from college with a psychology degree in 2000 and moved to Seattle, where she started dabbling in the scene.
"I started out as a submissive. I knew I wanted to be spanked. I had never been spanked in my life, by my parents or anybody. It was just this drive that I had, so I went to a club that had a screening process," she says from inside her dungeon. "You had to go through an orientation period and learn certain rules, and then they would let you in and let you play."
Georgia had a relationship with a vanilla (non-kinky) partner that took her out of the lifestyle for three years. But when she moved back to New York six years ago (she's originally from Westchester-ish), she jumped right into the professional domination scene, finding a gig at a commercial dungeon in Midtown West.
In February 2008, a 67-year-old retired math professor named Richard Benjamin slipped into a coma at a dungeon called the Nutcracker Suite, causing then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to crack down on commercial BDSM houses. In one of those sweeps, six of Georgia's fellow dominatrices at the dungeon where she worked were arrested for offering sex to undercover cops.
Rather than risk a similar fate, Georgia turned entrepreneur. As an independent dominatrix, she requires letters of recommendation from other professionals and a pre-interview, precautions which have protected her from arrest so far. (While performing as a dominatrix is not illegal, she sometimes performs illegal activities involving anal penetration. But cops looking to make a quick bust are unlikely to go through these hoops, she says, and lack the acting skills to make it through an interview full of BDSM jargon.) Georgia is interested in building relationships with her clients, so she doesn't accept spur-of-the-moment appointments. This also helps her maintain a sense of normalcy. "A lot of people expect to call you up like you're sitting in your Spandex,Find a great selection of customkeychain deals." she says.When describing the location of the problematic howotipper. "But noI'm in my jeans and about to go to a birthday party."
She makes more money, too: $250 per hour-long session versus the $60 she would pocket at the commercial dungeon after the house took its cut. Her business has few costs besides her $1,500 per month rent, and thus a fairly high profit margin. Her biggest expenses outside of room and board are the incidentalsshe spends about $200 a month on paper towels. She even files taxes as an independent entertainment contractor, writing off dildos, taxi rides, and wigs, although she notes, "Dommes are always in danger of being audited."
Keeping things discreet serves David's best interests, too. (And David is only the name he uses with dommes.) He's a married freelance writer, and since he quit drinking 15 years ago, he's sessioned with more than 200 women, all without his wife's knowledge. He's been fixated on masochism ever since a memorable prostate exam in his teen years, but long ago decided that he'd rather have a great vanilla wife than one who merely shared his kink. Visiting independent dominatrices is a safer option for someone who wants to keep things under wraps.
"?I've never tried to justify it by convincing myself that since I'm not having affairs or intercourse, I'm not cheating," David, who even leaves his wedding ring on during the session, says. "I find the whole thing to be secret, unhealthy, and a betrayal of not just marriage, but a family. Yet here I am."
In an ideal world, Georgia says, her clients would all be open with their partners. However, she sees her job as part business, part philanthropy. She provides catharsis, much like a therapist.
"I think this is a real need that people have, and if they're not getting it from their partner, then it really plays a mind-fuck on them if they can't have it," she says.
Surveying Georgia's apartment,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth carparkmanagementsystem truck Descriptions. you might think a college kid lives here. It's sparsely furnished, with Caf Bustelo coating the kitchen counters and Foucault lining the living room. There's also thick foam covering every door, window and peep-hole,Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host besticcard platforms. for soundproofing. The only closet that isn't concealed stores a double-digit collection of strap-on dildos and various other "WADs" (weapons of ass destruction.)
Georgia tells clients that she doesn't live here, just rents it out to other dominatrices for sessions. The truth is, it contains both a secret bedroom and a hidden closet of baggy jeans and Converse sneakers, her uniform off-hours. She had a run-in with a stalker a few years back, so maintaining an air of distance is preferable.
"None of my clients know who I am completely," she says. "There's always an air of fantasy and mystery." Most clients only see the wood vinyl floors and the maroon area rug of the session room, maybe noting the silver-painted walls for a second before being forced into a leather facemask or told to stare at themselves in one of five mirrors.
There's no trace of Georgia's name anywhere in the buildingboth the downstairs directory and her apartment door say nothing. Her sister's name is on the lease. "You can't trust people," says Georgia, citing friends who have been served and accused of running prostitution dens.
Georgia is a lifestyle domme (meaning sadism and masochism are her personal sexual practices), as well as a professional one. She loves her job, but many other professional dominatrices are in it for the money.
"There are a lot of people out there who just want to make a buck off of it and just get out of the scene," Georgia says of wannabe dommes. "That's probably the majority of people.The need for proper bestsmartcard inside your home is very important."
She slaps him around a bit, nothing too hard. David has only medium pain tolerance, and once she really lays into him, huge red splotches will appear on his bare back. Miss Georgia (who asked to use a pseudonym) isn't actually mad that David, a professorial 48-year-old with salt-and-pepper hair, failed to bring her a Sephora gift card as promised, or that he canceled his last session here at her independent Manhattan sex dungeon. That adds up to a $300 loss for her, true, but at least now she gets to have fun. David wants punishment and she's eager to deliver it, because being a dominatrix is Miss Georgia's dream job.
Georgia stands six feet tall without her size-10 shoes, hipless and muscular, yet overwhelmingly feminine. She's a purple belt in karate who wears Queen-sized stockings over her muscular thighs, drinks Powers on the rocks, and chases it with Stella Artois. Intelligent and enthusiastic, when she agrees with you, she says so four times fast: yeahyeahyeahyeah.
Georgia took a meandering path to her untraditional career. She graduated from college with a psychology degree in 2000 and moved to Seattle, where she started dabbling in the scene.
"I started out as a submissive. I knew I wanted to be spanked. I had never been spanked in my life, by my parents or anybody. It was just this drive that I had, so I went to a club that had a screening process," she says from inside her dungeon. "You had to go through an orientation period and learn certain rules, and then they would let you in and let you play."
Georgia had a relationship with a vanilla (non-kinky) partner that took her out of the lifestyle for three years. But when she moved back to New York six years ago (she's originally from Westchester-ish), she jumped right into the professional domination scene, finding a gig at a commercial dungeon in Midtown West.
In February 2008, a 67-year-old retired math professor named Richard Benjamin slipped into a coma at a dungeon called the Nutcracker Suite, causing then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to crack down on commercial BDSM houses. In one of those sweeps, six of Georgia's fellow dominatrices at the dungeon where she worked were arrested for offering sex to undercover cops.
Rather than risk a similar fate, Georgia turned entrepreneur. As an independent dominatrix, she requires letters of recommendation from other professionals and a pre-interview, precautions which have protected her from arrest so far. (While performing as a dominatrix is not illegal, she sometimes performs illegal activities involving anal penetration. But cops looking to make a quick bust are unlikely to go through these hoops, she says, and lack the acting skills to make it through an interview full of BDSM jargon.) Georgia is interested in building relationships with her clients, so she doesn't accept spur-of-the-moment appointments. This also helps her maintain a sense of normalcy. "A lot of people expect to call you up like you're sitting in your Spandex,Find a great selection of customkeychain deals." she says.When describing the location of the problematic howotipper. "But noI'm in my jeans and about to go to a birthday party."
She makes more money, too: $250 per hour-long session versus the $60 she would pocket at the commercial dungeon after the house took its cut. Her business has few costs besides her $1,500 per month rent, and thus a fairly high profit margin. Her biggest expenses outside of room and board are the incidentalsshe spends about $200 a month on paper towels. She even files taxes as an independent entertainment contractor, writing off dildos, taxi rides, and wigs, although she notes, "Dommes are always in danger of being audited."
Keeping things discreet serves David's best interests, too. (And David is only the name he uses with dommes.) He's a married freelance writer, and since he quit drinking 15 years ago, he's sessioned with more than 200 women, all without his wife's knowledge. He's been fixated on masochism ever since a memorable prostate exam in his teen years, but long ago decided that he'd rather have a great vanilla wife than one who merely shared his kink. Visiting independent dominatrices is a safer option for someone who wants to keep things under wraps.
"?I've never tried to justify it by convincing myself that since I'm not having affairs or intercourse, I'm not cheating," David, who even leaves his wedding ring on during the session, says. "I find the whole thing to be secret, unhealthy, and a betrayal of not just marriage, but a family. Yet here I am."
In an ideal world, Georgia says, her clients would all be open with their partners. However, she sees her job as part business, part philanthropy. She provides catharsis, much like a therapist.
"I think this is a real need that people have, and if they're not getting it from their partner, then it really plays a mind-fuck on them if they can't have it," she says.
Surveying Georgia's apartment,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth carparkmanagementsystem truck Descriptions. you might think a college kid lives here. It's sparsely furnished, with Caf Bustelo coating the kitchen counters and Foucault lining the living room. There's also thick foam covering every door, window and peep-hole,Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host besticcard platforms. for soundproofing. The only closet that isn't concealed stores a double-digit collection of strap-on dildos and various other "WADs" (weapons of ass destruction.)
Georgia tells clients that she doesn't live here, just rents it out to other dominatrices for sessions. The truth is, it contains both a secret bedroom and a hidden closet of baggy jeans and Converse sneakers, her uniform off-hours. She had a run-in with a stalker a few years back, so maintaining an air of distance is preferable.
"None of my clients know who I am completely," she says. "There's always an air of fantasy and mystery." Most clients only see the wood vinyl floors and the maroon area rug of the session room, maybe noting the silver-painted walls for a second before being forced into a leather facemask or told to stare at themselves in one of five mirrors.
There's no trace of Georgia's name anywhere in the buildingboth the downstairs directory and her apartment door say nothing. Her sister's name is on the lease. "You can't trust people," says Georgia, citing friends who have been served and accused of running prostitution dens.
Georgia is a lifestyle domme (meaning sadism and masochism are her personal sexual practices), as well as a professional one. She loves her job, but many other professional dominatrices are in it for the money.
"There are a lot of people out there who just want to make a buck off of it and just get out of the scene," Georgia says of wannabe dommes. "That's probably the majority of people.The need for proper bestsmartcard inside your home is very important."
Meet the woman fighting the banks on behalf of the people
Negar Yazdani runs BlackLion Law, which specialises in financial
irregularities litigation on behalf of claimants against banks. This
includes PPI claims, a scandal which led to the banks and building
societies being forced to set aside 14bn to return to customers - which
Negar is working to do.
Negar comes from a family of art dealers. Her parents fled Iran at the beginning of the revolution in 1978 and arrived in the UK with nothing other than a work ethic.
She recalls how from the age of three she would follow her father around in his art gallery.The need for proper bestsmartcard inside your home is very important. Striking deals is in her blood. "We didn't sit around the dinner table talking politics in our family. We talked art and business," she told me. "And we always worked."
She recalls how her parent's house was near a golf course and as a child, she and her brother collected stray balls from the garden and sold them back to golfers at a fee. By 15 she had evolved out of the garden and into the junior board room, when she won the Young Enterprise Award for National Young Business Person of the year, somewhat ironically awarded by Barclays Bank.
She began her professional career at Mishcon de Reya 15 years ago where she recalls learning tough tactics from the famous Anthony Julius, a great litigator. Whilst she enjoyed litigation she preferred corporate law, always drawn towards commerce more than advisory work. "I was always looking for a good idea for my own business," she explains.
If you've ever taken out a loan, mortgage, credit card or store card, there is a high chance that someone tried to sell you payment protection insurance (PPI) at the same time. It is intended that PPI covers debt repayments if you are unable to work in case of sickness, accident or involuntary unemployment. However, many of those policies were mis-sold and the regulator forced fines on the banks as a result.
To date, 14bn has been provisioned by banks and building societies to compensate borrowers but, Negar says, analysts view the real figure as being closer to 45bn. Lloyds Banking Group is the biggest offender to date,Find a great selection of customkeychain deals. with a massive 6.7bn set aside.
She also represents and advises Lion ClaimLine, a national claims management company. Companies like these come under huge fire for aggressive marketing tactics but Negar has a point about that reputation being unfair.Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host besticcard platforms.
In every sector, there are always the poorly behaved few who tarnish the reputation of the whole. The real point here, she says,When describing the location of the problematic howotipper. is that the banks lost the judicial review in 2011, effectively admitted liability by setting money aside and the regulator promptly fined them.
Frustrations with claims management companies merely takes the emphasis away from the reason that the industry exists, that being, she tells me, to compensate for the estimated 34 million PPI policies which have been mis-sold since 2001 to the 26.4 million households in the UK.
She clearly loves what she does. She has that fire in her belly we all have when we talk about our businesses - businesses we grew with our bare hands, initially on a shoe string and on very little sleep. And, she admits,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth carparkmanagementsystem truck Descriptions. "It satisfies my need to control and direct. I am more comfortable in an environment where I have authority and responsibility." Is that a euphemism for control freak? If it is, I suspect most of my business idols and I myself am guilty of that - enjoying and indeed preferring to conduct as opposed to play in the orchestra.
I ask her if being at the coal face of a controversial industry has caused her any personal or professional problems. She grins and begins telling me some slightly unsettling stories. It is astounding the number of people she has met in social situations who turn their nose up at her when she mentions she works in PPI.
She recalls a recent cocktail party held by a global investment bank where a banker was extremely disparaging of her business. He insisted he could never have been 'misled into taking PPI' with his mortgage however only last week she recovered 12,000 from his mortgage provider for the PPI he unknowingly took, much of which was interest. What most people don't realise is that older loans will have accrued more interest than the original settlement figure.
Her challenge is to find those people who don't have enough time to make a claim, don't think that it applies to them or have "switched off" because of the constant calls and annoying texts. She wants to change the face of PPI away from the unprofessional claims companies and adverse PR and be the "thinking person's claim company of choice."
Negar comes from a family of art dealers. Her parents fled Iran at the beginning of the revolution in 1978 and arrived in the UK with nothing other than a work ethic.
She recalls how from the age of three she would follow her father around in his art gallery.The need for proper bestsmartcard inside your home is very important. Striking deals is in her blood. "We didn't sit around the dinner table talking politics in our family. We talked art and business," she told me. "And we always worked."
She recalls how her parent's house was near a golf course and as a child, she and her brother collected stray balls from the garden and sold them back to golfers at a fee. By 15 she had evolved out of the garden and into the junior board room, when she won the Young Enterprise Award for National Young Business Person of the year, somewhat ironically awarded by Barclays Bank.
She began her professional career at Mishcon de Reya 15 years ago where she recalls learning tough tactics from the famous Anthony Julius, a great litigator. Whilst she enjoyed litigation she preferred corporate law, always drawn towards commerce more than advisory work. "I was always looking for a good idea for my own business," she explains.
If you've ever taken out a loan, mortgage, credit card or store card, there is a high chance that someone tried to sell you payment protection insurance (PPI) at the same time. It is intended that PPI covers debt repayments if you are unable to work in case of sickness, accident or involuntary unemployment. However, many of those policies were mis-sold and the regulator forced fines on the banks as a result.
To date, 14bn has been provisioned by banks and building societies to compensate borrowers but, Negar says, analysts view the real figure as being closer to 45bn. Lloyds Banking Group is the biggest offender to date,Find a great selection of customkeychain deals. with a massive 6.7bn set aside.
She also represents and advises Lion ClaimLine, a national claims management company. Companies like these come under huge fire for aggressive marketing tactics but Negar has a point about that reputation being unfair.Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host besticcard platforms.
In every sector, there are always the poorly behaved few who tarnish the reputation of the whole. The real point here, she says,When describing the location of the problematic howotipper. is that the banks lost the judicial review in 2011, effectively admitted liability by setting money aside and the regulator promptly fined them.
Frustrations with claims management companies merely takes the emphasis away from the reason that the industry exists, that being, she tells me, to compensate for the estimated 34 million PPI policies which have been mis-sold since 2001 to the 26.4 million households in the UK.
She clearly loves what she does. She has that fire in her belly we all have when we talk about our businesses - businesses we grew with our bare hands, initially on a shoe string and on very little sleep. And, she admits,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth carparkmanagementsystem truck Descriptions. "It satisfies my need to control and direct. I am more comfortable in an environment where I have authority and responsibility." Is that a euphemism for control freak? If it is, I suspect most of my business idols and I myself am guilty of that - enjoying and indeed preferring to conduct as opposed to play in the orchestra.
I ask her if being at the coal face of a controversial industry has caused her any personal or professional problems. She grins and begins telling me some slightly unsettling stories. It is astounding the number of people she has met in social situations who turn their nose up at her when she mentions she works in PPI.
She recalls a recent cocktail party held by a global investment bank where a banker was extremely disparaging of her business. He insisted he could never have been 'misled into taking PPI' with his mortgage however only last week she recovered 12,000 from his mortgage provider for the PPI he unknowingly took, much of which was interest. What most people don't realise is that older loans will have accrued more interest than the original settlement figure.
Her challenge is to find those people who don't have enough time to make a claim, don't think that it applies to them or have "switched off" because of the constant calls and annoying texts. She wants to change the face of PPI away from the unprofessional claims companies and adverse PR and be the "thinking person's claim company of choice."
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