A dark violet leather-bound tome. Locked with clockwork.

30th Winnas

Well, what a delightful birthday present to myself! It is amazing what people will gamble when they run out of coin, and this little diary seems to be worth a nice amount indeed. The leather is thick, soft and a lovely shade of deep violet. The clockwork that binds it closed is not only amazing to look at, it's not easy to unlock. It took me a few hours to figure out how to open the damned thing!

Pretty sure I'll figure out the combination sooner rather than later!

For now, I've got chores to do and a violin to restring!

12th Sprinnas

I may or may not have misplaced my journal for a time. That, coupled with us being awfully busy made it hard for me to search for it.

I've felt restless lately, not even trips to Westergaard for the market or supplies are sating this... sudden need to get out. Too bad I'm stuck here, serving this family. Thankfully they're quite nice, so existence here isn't as bad as some of the horror stories I've been told.

I'm wondering if this wanderlust is the thing my Grandmother used to tell me when I was a child, about how she could never stay in one place for too long and would travel Celaradith. It also just could be my imagination.

53rd Summas

Alares must have been at work here tonight, there was a fire just after the mid of night; and the family perished. Myself, and the others all fled. We're no heroes, and we're also not stupid.

We'd be blamed for this.

I'm not even sure where I am, I think I'm still in Somoria. I took a horse, and whatever I could carry in saddlebags. The violin came with me, I've grown quite attached to it over the years. Right now, it's dusk and I've been riding for most of the day. This poor horse needs rest, and so do I. My arse is so numb I'm not even sure it's there anymore!

I found a clearing off the road where I can tie the gelding so we can both rest. I can't stay in Somoria, I'm a deserter now. But I know their Laws don't pass over the border. So when I wake up tomorrow, that's where I'll head!

One more thing I must remember, a new name for myself before I get there. My real name will only get me more trouble than I'd like.

10th Auttus

I've been travelling almost non-stop since my last entry, and the border is in sight. I settled on the name Axael Solitaire. It's much better than the old one!

Once I cross into Islithika, I'll be a free man. A lost man, but free nontheless. I don't really know much about this part of the world, so for now I'll stop at the first city I find and try to get some information there.

21st Auttus

I came upon a large city today, apparently it's called Daedalus and they seem to be neutral. No Islithikan, or Somorian flags fly their streets. There's all sorts of people that live here, and they've got a lot of Steamtech as well. I haven't done a lot of exploring, I'm exhausted and this inn's room is pretty comfortable!

22nd Auttus

It seems bringing the violin was a perfect thing to do, after asking around; I found out that this city allows street performers! It's not much, but I earned enough for food and board for another night. It's strange, being free; although there's that lingering worry.

How ever am I going to get away with this?

46th Auttus

It's time for me to leave Daedalus, I worry that people are starting to figure out I'm not Vaalir. I'll leave tonight after dusk.

50th Auttus

I'm lost. I headed east of Daedalus, but to be safe I left the road. I probably shouldn't have done that. I had to sell the horse I stole to buy supplies, at least I've got two good paws to get me to... wherever I'm going.

I guess I'll try and keep going east, I'm bound to find someplace sooner or later

55th Auttus

Tonight, I came across a Jalvati campsite. At first they were pretty wary of me, as to be expected; but they offered me dinner and even a place to stay for the night. Apparently they travel all over Celaradith, holding shows and faires in towns wherever they go.

Sounds like fun! Maybe I'll see if they'll let me stay with them for a few days.

63rd Auttus

I fit in here, and I love it! The next step will apparently be some kind of tests to prove my worth to the Jal.

We've traveled across to Yah'sjir, the Capital of Islithika. This city is almost as big as Westergaard. According to Par'vanis, the leader of the Jalvati; this is where my test will take place

65th Auttus

That wasn't what I expected to have to do, but I pulled it off perfectly!

Well...

Almost perfectly.

It doesn't matter, because now I have a new family who don't care about what I am or where I came from.

Pretty sure this is the best day of my life.

74th Auttus

It's been a week since I was accepted into the Jalvati, life has flown by amazingly! Freedom is something I've missed! Sure I'm expected to help out around the campsite, but apart from that; my will is my own.

This life is glorious.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/F0waw3SlFL4/viewtopic.php

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RolePlayGateway?

An old homeless man cowers in the corner of a deserted alleyway. The ground beneath him soaked by his own waste, he screams, pleading under the tall shadow that slowly consumes him. The gaunt man that hovers over the pitiful soul is dressed entirely in black, the sole light of his being consists of his dull blue eyes, and the silver crucifix chain that he holds in his left hand.

?Who are you, why are you doing this?!? The old man cries. The enigmatic man sighs, and grudgingly opens his mouth to reveal a voice devoid of any sort of emotion.

?I am the alpha and the omega. The beginning and yet, the end. The creator and the extinguisher. I am a Reaper, and your time has come.?

The chain the man holds suddenly starts to illuminate with a warm, white light. The old homeless man screams and trembles at first, but then, as the light grows to cover him, he settles. He feels his body completely at ease, a euphoric feeling. It is at that moment that a massive porcelain door appears. The old man hesitates at first, intimidated by the sheer size of this incredible phenomenon. A force beckons him though, and he knows that he must go. Still shaking, the dirt covered old man faces the Reaper. They share a nod, and he begins to walk towards the doorway.

?Farewell.?

As the doors open the Reaper turns his back. The last thing he hears before he exists the alley is the sound of the door slamming shut.

?Another job well done.?

It is the first bit of emotion one would hear from the man as he stuffs the silver chain back into the pocket of his suit jacket and steps onto the city streets, disappearing among a dense crowd.

What's up guys? Thanks for dropping by. Let me tell you about a little idea of mine.

The Death & The Apple is an open world style, supernatural roleplay based in Babylon city. Babylon is a paralel version of New York, it's a city that's been the home base of the Reaper order for many, many years. This city is where the bulk of the roleplay will take place, it's a huge city, filled with plenty of hidden nooks and crannies for our characters to explore.

What are Reapers?

Reapers are guardians of humanity. Extraordinary humans gifted with supernatural abilities. Theirs is an ancient order, created back in biblical days during the Great War; a seven year battle between angels and demons. At the climax of the Great War, it was the Reapers that brought the two sides to a truce. The truce holds true today through a shaky peace between Heaven and Hell. The main goal of the order is to keep mankind free from the entanglements of the supernatural world no matter what.

A Reaper's day to day duties normally consist of hunting down those whose time has come. Using their silver crucifix pendants they 'send' people to the afterlife, weather it be Heaven or Hell. It's imperative for a Reaper to send a soul, why? Because, should a soul not be properly sent it becomes Lost. Lost Souls go one of two ways. The first is that they are doomed to linger in limbo: a plane between life and death. Souls in limbo are the ghosts we see. The second route for a Lost soul to go is much more horrible. The Lost Soul gets warped through the intense negative emotions it holds, becoming something similar to a demon. Reapers must combat these abominations and stop them before they harm the living.

Upon entering the order, a Reaper is paired with a senior member and they are immediately trained to unlock their Psyche. Psyches are the true power of Reapers. A single ability that grows and evolves with the user. No two Psyches are alike.

The Reaper order is lead by none other than The Grim Reaper. He is a man chosen by the leader of the angels. The current Grim Reaper is a man named Alan Darkmare, and fate should have it that he is also the mayor of Babylon. The thing is though, The Grim Reaper is dying. Bedridden for the past six months, the supernatural world is reeling, and many fear that it may be time for a new Grim Reaper to be chosen.

What's Going On Here?

The roleplay opens up during an unstable time in Babylon and the supernatural world. The Grim Reaper is on his death bed, more and more Lost are appearing in the Living Plane, and tensions between the forces of Heaven and Hell are at an all time high. Your character gets swept up in all of this. You are a human, whether you're a member of the Reapers or not doesn't matter, one way or another, you get swept up in all of this.

I'm not allowing members to play angels or demons because I want to keep them seen as these otherworldly figures. They're beyond or means and something we can't fully understand. As the story goes on there will be several angel and demon NPCs that I might allow some people to double up as, but never as a main character.

So that's the skinny on this thing. The roleplay is almost finished and should actually be up by Christmas. Let me know what you guys think about this one.

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/RolePlayGateway

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Holiday Drink Recipes: Tequilaritas, Peppermint Martini, Spanish ...

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December 21, 2012. Posted 12 hours ago.Posted in: Drink Recipes

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Source: http://www.foodanddrinktips.com/holiday-drink-recipes-tequilaritas-peppermint-martini-spanish-coffee-cbs-local/27158

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i want to be a boxer

imano? Threads: 10
Posts: 39
Joined: Feb 19, 12 ??? ?Yesterday, 17:26 ? ? #
i have had dreams of being a boxer since i was like 12. but i'm not sure if i can succeed in Poland. is this a big sport in here?

it can start as amateur, cause now i study but who knows, maybe it'll be the most successful thing for me.

i like fighting (not like violence and being a jerk) for sport and boxing has been my dream, but i don't know how to start this in Poland...Wroclaw ;)

if this helps. i'm 187cm and weigh 86kg :D. good features i guess. but i have no fighting experience, i just have this feeling i can beat anybody,
ever those drug-induced-muscular guys i see in town. haha..joking. but all i'm trying to say is i love this sport and i'm not afraid ;)

any ideas?

Source: http://www.polishforums.com/sports-recreation-15/want-boxer-63755/

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Leading a nonprofit 14: working with outside communities and ...

This is my fourteenth installment in a series on leading a nonprofit (see my Guide to Effective Job Search and Career Development ? 2, postings 267-279 for Parts 1-13.)

When someone sits down to write about business practices and best practices approaches, there is always a measure of leeway as to what they would see as most important and most pertinent to address. There is also a significant amount of leeway available in selecting and presenting advice as to the issues and processes chosen for discussion. That definitely applies for my writing and for this blog, and I add for professional talks I have given. My own hands-on experience and an awareness of context guide my selection process and determine what I focus on and prioritize too. And I simply add to round this out, that how we decide and what we decide on for this this is largely shaped by what we have seen work, or not. That same filtering and selecting process, I contend, applies to every business writer. And this series fits that pattern too.

Nevertheless, I would argue that the topic of this posting is, or at least should be crucial for inclusion by anyone who would address leadership in the nonprofit sector. And I begin explaining that and writing this posting by referring to the absolute essentials as to what a nonprofit is as a legally defined business entity, and in its operational practices in fulfilling those requirements.

? Nonprofits as a matter of statutory requirement are business organizations that devote at least a large mandated minimum percentage of their incoming revenue towards their mission and vision, and with only the fraction left over after that allowed to go toward administrative and operation expenses, marketing and so on.
? Benefits created by the nonprofit and its activities rarely directly go back to those who provide this incoming revenue stream. Value comes in from one group and goes out to benefit the needs of others.
? And this incoming revenue stream is derived essentially entirely from the discretionary income of its donors.

This all adds up to a single, crucial point: nonprofits depend entirely upon outside communities that they bring together as support structures and enablers. And one of the core responsibilities of the leader of a nonprofit is to help organize and involve this outside supportive community and its members to get them actively involved, and to help keep them so involved too. Most of what I have been writing in this series has involved working within the organization as an executive officer, and with the board of directors. Here, I turn outward and look to the role of the nonprofit CEO as they reach out to the world as a whole.

? This means connecting with and working with members of the donating community and certainly with higher level donors and with those who could help them network to potential high-level donors.
? This means reaching out to the press and to reporters and others who would convey the nonprofit?s story.
? This means setting a positive example as a high visibility spokesperson of the nonprofit and its mission and vision.
? And ultimately, this is what makes leading a nonprofit a 24/7 job. As a nonprofit?s leader you can never really be off-duty and certainly where ever and whenever you are facing any members of the public.

Nonprofit leaders represent their organizations as public speakers and at conferences and meetings, through formal and informal interviews, on social media sites and in text and through visually oriented channels such as YouTube and more. And in this, selecting where and how to reach out and connect cannot entirely be limited to the nonprofit leader?s own personal preferences. As a leader you have to reach out through the channels that the people you seek to connect with prefer. Eloquence shared in an empty room is not eloquent.

There is a lot to this posting and to the points raised in it, and certainly when it is fleshed out in the real-world, day-to-day details of executive performance and follow-through. It is imperative that the nonprofit leader not simply seek to do all of this as a solo effort and as if in a vacuum. They should work on this community-facing activity in close collaboration with members of their in-house team and in Marketing and Communications and Fundraising and other services, and with their Board:

? In setting goals and priorities and deciding what channels and messages to focus on,
? In capturing unexpected opportunities to reach out and communicate and connect,
? And for offering a more effective, consistent message that will really resonate with the audiences reached.
? And this has to be viewed as an ongoing and continually evolving responsibility, and whether or not pursuing it is considered a challenge or a source of joy. I add it is a lot easier to sustain this if you enjoy it though.

I am going to turn to consider change in my next series installment, and the role of a nonprofit?s leadership in preparing for and responding to it, and in leading effective change. Meanwhile, you can find this and related postings at my Guide to Effective Job Search and Career Development ? 2. I have also posted extensively on jobs and careers-related topics in my first Guide directory page on Job Search and Career Development. You can also find this and related postings at Nonprofits and Social Networking.

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Source: http://plattperspective.wordpress.com/2012/12/22/leading-a-nonprofit-14-working-with-outside-communities-and-building-community-support/

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Since Sandy Hook shooting, jitters in other schools ? some for good reason

At least two students have been arrested for alleged violent plans. But at a North Carolina university, sightings of an assault rifle turned out to apparently be a long black umbrella.

By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo,?Staff writer / December 21, 2012

An American flag flies at half staff in honor of those killed in the December 14 shootings at the Sandy Hook elementary school is reflected in raindrops on the window of a car in the center of Newtown, Connecticut, December 21. A moment of silence was observed in Newtown Friday and across the US followed by the ringing of church bells for each of the victims of the shootings.

Mike Segar/Reuters

Enlarge

For the past week, there?s been a spike in reports of arrests and school closures due to threats of violence, rumors of guns and attack plans, and sightings of suspicious people.

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It?s a predictable pattern, school-safety experts say.

?After every school shooting that we?ve had, we?ve seen a wave of threats across the country,? says Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services in Cleveland.

?The majority of the threats in the past have turned out to be kids who make some very poor decisions and fail to recognize that what they view as a prank or a hoax is very likely to lead to their expulsion and prosecution,? Mr. Trump says. ?However, all threats have to be treated seriously. You also have a small group of individuals in society ... with mental-health [or other] issues who are predisposed to potentially be violent, and a high-profile incident like Sandy Hook ... could push them over the top to act on their plans.?

Some of the incidents that have taken place in the week since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting:

? At Council Rock High School South in Holland, Pa., student reports of a fellow student?s threatening statements led police to arrest a ninth-grader Thursday. Two 9-mm handguns were in plain sight in the boy?s bedroom, and he was taken into custody, police say. The school canceled classes Friday so police could search the building. The Council Rock district is headquartered in Newtown, Pa., though police say there?s no indication the student mentioned the Newtown, Conn., shootings.

? On Monday, police say they found a high-caliber rifle and notes about a possible attack when they arrested an 18-year-old suspected of a plot against fellow students at Bartlesville High School in Oklahoma. In addition, the whole district closed Wednesday until after the holiday break because of reports of people seeing a man with a gun near a school.

? Two other Oklahoma school districts canceled classes Friday because of threats and rumors of possible violence.

? In Michigan, dozens of schools closed Friday. Many were related to Mayan doomsday rumors, but some arrests have also been made for students making threats on Facebook or telling classmates they?d bring a gun to school.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/nEVl9I1fURY/Since-Sandy-Hook-shooting-jitters-in-other-schools-some-for-good-reason

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Unlocking new talents in nature

Friday, December 21, 2012

Protein engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have tapped into a hidden talent of one of nature's most versatile catalysts. The enzyme cytochrome P450 is nature's premier oxidation catalyst?a protein that typically promotes reactions that add oxygen atoms to other chemicals. Now the Caltech researchers have engineered new versions of the enzyme, unlocking its ability to drive a completely different and synthetically useful reaction that does not take place in nature.

The new biocatalysts can be used to make natural products?such as hormones, pheromones, and insecticides?as well as pharmaceutical drugs, like antibiotics, in a "greener" way.

"Using the power of protein engineering and evolution, we can convince enzymes to take what they do poorly and do it really well," says Frances Arnold, the Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at Caltech and principal investigator on a paper about the enzymes that appears online in Science. "Here, we've asked a natural enzyme to catalyze a reaction that had been devised by chemists but that nature could never do."

Arnold's lab has been working for years with a bacterial cytochrome P450. In nature, enzymes in this family insert oxygen into a variety of molecules that contain either a carbon-carbon double bond or a carbon-hydrogen single bond. Most of these insertions require the formation of a highly reactive intermediate called an oxene.

Arnold and her colleagues Pedro Coelho and Eric Brustad noted that this reaction has a lot in common with another reaction that synthetic chemists came up with to create products that incorporate a cyclopropane?a chemical group containing three carbon atoms arranged in a triangle. Cyclopropanes are a necessary part of many natural-product intermediates and pharmaceuticals, but nature forms them through a complicated series of steps that no chemist would want to replicate.

"Nature has a limited chemical repertoire," Brustad says. "But as chemists, we can create conditions and use reagents and substrates that are not available to the biological world."

The cyclopropanation reaction that the synthetic chemists came up with inserts carbon using intermediates called carbenes, which have an electronic structure similar to oxenes. This reaction provides a direct route to the formation of diverse cyclopropane-containing products that would not be accessible by natural pathways. However, even this reaction is not a perfect solution because some of the solvents needed to run the reaction are toxic, and it is typically driven by catalysts based on expensive transition metals, such as copper and rhodium. Furthermore, tweaking these catalysts to predictably make specific products remains a significant challenge?one the researchers hoped nature could overcome with evolution's help.

Given the similarities between the two reaction systems?cytochrome P450's natural oxidation reactions and the synthetic chemists' cyclopropanation reaction? Arnold and her colleagues argued that it might be possible to convince the bacterial cytochrome P450 to create cyclopropane-bearing compounds through this more direct route. Their experiments showed that the natural enzyme (cytochrome P450) could in fact catalyze the reaction, but only very poorly; it generated a low yield of products, didn't make the specific mix of products desired, and catalyzed the reaction only a few times. In comparison, transition-metal catalysts can be used hundreds of times.

That's where protein engineering came in. Over the years, Arnold's lab has created thousands of cytochrome P450 variants by mutating the enzyme's natural sequence of amino acids, using a process called directed evolution. The researchers tested variants from their collections to see how well they catalyzed the cyclopropane-forming reaction. A handful ended up being hits, driving the reaction hundreds of times.

Being able to catalyze a reaction is a crucial first step, but for a chemical process to be truly useful it has to generate high yields of specific products. Many chemical compounds exist in more than one form, so although the chemical formulas of various products may be identical, they might, for example, be mirror images of each other or have slightly different bonding structures, leading to dissimilar behavior. Therefore, being able to control what forms are produced and in what ratio?a quality called selectivity?is especially important.

Controlling selectivity is difficult. It is something that chemists struggle to do, while nature excels at it. That was another reason Arnold and her team wanted to investigate cytochrome P450's ability to catalyze the reaction.

"We should be able to marry the impressive repertoire of catalysts that chemists have invented with the power of nature to do highly selective chemistry under green conditions," Arnold says.

So the researchers further "evolved" enzyme variants that had worked well in the cyclopropanation reaction, to come up with a spectrum of new enzymes. And those enzymes worked?they were able to drive the reaction many times and produced many of the selectivities a chemist could desire for various substrates.

Coelho says this work highlights the utility of synthetic chemistry in expanding nature's catalytic potential. "This field is still in its infancy," he says. "There are many more reactions out there waiting to be installed in the biological world."

###

California Institute of Technology: http://www.caltech.edu

Thanks to California Institute of Technology for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126058/Unlocking_new_talents_in_nature

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