Chelsea is currently sitting at the tip of the Premier League’s bottom half of the table. It is not a..

The post Frank Lampard’s Top 3 Performances for Chelsea appeared first on Chelsea FC Blog.

A great card offering big rewards for Best Buy lovers. Best Buy is one of the largest retailers of consumer electronics in the world and sells computers, smartphones, gaming systems and more. The company offers several store credit cards to reward customers for purchases, including the My Best Buy® Credit Card. If you sign up, you’ll be able to earn 5% rewards on everything you buy at the store, which you can redeem for Best Buy gift cards. Once you […]

The post My Best Buy® Credit Card Review appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

How to establish credit is a common concern for younger individuals. While they may be ready to make their first significant purchases, the lack of any credit often presents a major hurdle. Similar obstacles confront those with the task of rebuilding poor credit history. Thankfully for both groups, a secured credit card allows each to start (or restart) their credit journey with the goal of financial independence. How do secured credit cards work? Let’s take a closer look. What is […]

The post What Are Secured Credit Cards? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

If you’re like most adults in the U.S., there’s little doubt your mailbox — the snail-mail version — is regularly inundated with credit card offers. The vast majority of the offers declare your pre-selection, or pre-qualification, for its credit card. Even better, some note you have actually been pre-approved for its best offers and rates. But what exactly does this mean, to be pre-approved? And what does it mean for you specifically? Are these prefixed words simply a marketing ploy […]

The post What is Credit Card Pre-approval? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

An attractive rewards credit card for frequent Delta flyers. While some American Express rewards cards offer great perks, like complimentary access to its exclusive network of airport lounges, you won’t get that perk with the (lounge access costs $39 per visit). However, you will get attractive rewards rates on several types of travel-related purchases along with other valuable travel benefits. This card offers you the highest reward rate when you make purchases with Delta or spend on hotel bookings, which […]

The post Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card Review appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

A top-shelf rewards credit card with luxury travel perks. The gives you access to coveted airport lounges, which is a unique benefit that will be highly attractive to some. Only a few American Express rewards cards will get you into the 10 Centurion Lounges around the world. Additionally, the card offers a number of other travel benefits, including access to Delta Sky Clubs and a free checked bag on Delta flights. Like any credit card, it does come with some […]

The post Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card Review appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

If you're more timeless than trendy, don't go all in on these decorating ideas and materials. READ MORE...

Without length contraction, time relativity transformation solves paradoxes and explains incongruent relativistic experiments, which allows us to build a transformation of coordinates without length contraction. For abscissa transformation, Figure 1 shows a spaceship in the frame of O1, its backend is at O1 and frontend at A1. At time zero the spaceship is stationary, from...

The first of two episodes to celebrate the Festival of Residential Child Care 2017.

In this episode Debbie Nolan and Kristina Moodie (Centre for Youth & Criminal Justice) introduce the rationale behind, and findings of their 2016 research 'Between a rock and a hard place': responses to offending in residential childcare.

This enabled discussion with Sheila, Duncan, David and David, all of whom are residential childcare workers, on how far these findings aligned with their experiences of practice.

Key themes discussed:

Complexity in responding to offending in residential child care Supports to staff in doing so The dilemmas and tensions faced The recommendations made in the research to change practice.

Transcript of episode

Music Credit: Something Elated by Broke For Free

KOR Records is an independent record label that creates music projects for young people with additional support needs and releases their output.

Michael McEwan interviews Geraldine Heaney about the work of the record company. 

Transcript of episode

Music Credit: Make your dream a reality by Scott Holmes.

You’ve heard the stories: engineers 3D printing face shields in their basements; do-it-yourself hobbyists sewing face masks; and fashion designers crafting personal protection gowns.  Globally, people are trying to help fill the medical supply gap caused by the COVID-19 pandemic through open-source medical hardware. It’s a heartwarming display of global ingenuity, innovation, and collaboration. In this … Read More "Open-Source Medical Hardware: What You Should Know and What You Can Do"

The post Open-Source Medical Hardware: What You Should Know and What You Can Do appeared first on Creative Commons.

During the 2017 Conference & Expo in Boston, the Standards Quest took participants through a journey of the Standards Development Process.  Participants answered questions on the Public Input, Public Comment, Technical Meeting (NITMAM), and

  These were the words of Captain Peter Berger of Hallandale Beach Fire Rescue as he spoke to a full house of fire service industry leaders — along with his partner Captain Greg Moulin of DFW Airport Fire Services — on the topic of

A flight of fancy for a wayward hot air balloon
by Julia Tosti
Special to The Friday Flyer

It was a beautiful morning, one of those mornings where the fog had rolled in sometime prior and settled, nestled in the valley and hugging the lake, giving it a mystical feel.
My husband and I enjoy a beautiful view from Tuscany Hills. We moved here two years ago from Orange County and have never tired of the endless beauty that surrounds our home.
From the back of our home, we have views of Canyon Lake, Mount San Jacinto, Big Bear and, far to our left, Mount Baldy. We watch hawks soar high and ducks and white cranes take flight from Canyon Lake to Lake Elsinore. It seems every morning the view is visited by a new guest that perpetuates this never-ending cascade of attractions. Today was no different.
We sat sipping on our coffee chatting and discussing the day’s tasks. We conversed about the beauty of the mountains, the mystical feel to the lake and today’s surprise guest, a hot air balloon. Typically balloons float toward Menifee, hovering high above the valley east of Canyon Lake, but today’s visitor seemed to be moving in our direction, approaching the lake.
Our excitement heightened as we watched the balloon, seeing the colorful fabric come into clearer view. At this point I decided to document this visitor and ran to get our camera. As the balloon continued to move our way it seemed to be picking up momentum; all the while, I was clicking away with our camera.
The balloon sailed over the lake, coming closer and closer and losing altitude. Our chatter turned to silence as we watched, stunned by the sight. Slowly at first, but then more rapidly, the balloon started to descend until it looked as though it was sitting on the lake. We strained to see if it had actually landed on the lake, wondering out loud if we should call 9-1-1 or the lake “coast guard” or someone! Just as we were about to dial the phone, the balloon started to rise. Slowly at first, then faster and faster until it was high in the sky. Up, up and away it went over our house, continuing to float until it was out of our sight.
Wow! We love this area – what a great place to live! It seems we are always seeing something of beauty or excitement outside our back view – and this was the icing on the lake, I mean, cake!

Some better and fantastic balloon news from the USA

Adventurer David Hempleman-Adams has told how he landed a balloon in pitch black darkness to avoid plunging into one of the planet's biggest lakes.

The explorer from Box has just won the world's oldest air race with an 1,100-mile flight across the USA which ended on his 52nd birthday.

He and his co-pilot Jon Mason, 35, had been forced to choose between a complete darkness landing or the risk of ending up in Lake Michigan as they scented success in the prestigious Gordon Bennett gas balloon race.

Father-of-three Mr Hempleman-Adams took the decision to land the balloon in the dark rather than risk flying over the Great Lake without enough ballast.

He said: "I know you should never land a balloon at night but we had to make that decision as we didn't have enough sand to go over the lake and the balloon was going down."


The pair made two attempts to land in the drama on Friday at the end of the race, in which the winner is the crew flying the furthest distance.

"It's hard to judge from the air at night what is on the ground. During our first attempt what we thought were small bushes turned out to be 45 ft trees so we had to try again. We flew over the trees and landed near a maize crop."

The pair had taken off on Monday from Albuquerque in New Mexico and landed north of Chicago at 5am on Friday in their balloon Lady Luck.

They did not discover they had become the first British team ever to win the competition named after the man who gave his name to the famous exclamation until they had had a few hours of sleep.

Mr Hempleman-Adams said: "The sheriff picked us up and took us to the local hotel where we collapsed.

"We'd been flying for 74 hours taking it in turns to sleep at two-hourly intervals curled up on the floor of the basket. When we woke there was a note under the door from our chase team which said, 'Well done boys, you've won!'

"We thought we'd come second so it was a very good birthday present."

There were 12 crews in the contest, the 52nd ever held.

Mr Hempleman-Adams said. "It was a very tactical race with everyone trying to outdo each other like a game of poker."

Co-pilot Mr Mason, a consultant clinical psychologist who works in Canterbury, said: "We are a great duo and a foil for one another. David needs someone to restrain him and I need someone to encourage and push me. We arrive at a middle ground. We also work well together because we have different skills. "David is excellent at looking at the bigger picture and navigating while I am good concentrating on the detail doing what we have to do there and then."

He said he accepted the risky decision his co-pilot had made.

"It's easy to highlight the dangers but people do things all the time that are risky that, in the end, become routine.

"Gas ballooning isn't rocket science. You fill the balloon with gas that's lighter than air and you take sand with you. The risk isn't flying a gas balloon - it is flying a balloon for four days in bad weather when you are tired and in the dark."

One of their scariest moment came when the duo were hit by a snowstorm.

Mr Hempleman-Adams said: "We had some difficult weather. During the day it reached 42 degrees but at night it crashed to about 8 degrees and we would shiver.

"Once, we were up at 13,000 ft and it started to snow. The cooling on the balloon made it come down very quickly and we descended to 5,000 ft."

Another brush with death was when the team spotted two jets flying too close for comfort.

"At one stage we were over Albuquerque at 5,000 ft and two jets came in underneath us with only 500ft clearance and scared the daylights out of us," Mr Hempleman-Adams said.

The pair were due to fly back into Britain this morning.

The competition - founded by newspaper tycoon and adventurer Bennett - is described as the most prestigious event in aviation and the ultimate challenge for the balloon pilots and their equipment.

It was started in 1906, when 16 balloons were launched from Paris, but has never before been won by Britons.

It was put on ice at the outbreak of the Second World War and not revived until 1983.

The victory means the race will start from the UK in 2010.

Mr Hempleman-Adams turned to extreme and endurance ballooning after years of conquering mountains and polar regions.

He has climbed the tallest peaks on all seven continents, travelled to both the North and South Poles, completed the first balloon flight to the North Pole and the first flight across the Northwest Passage. He also completed the first balloon flight across the Atlantic in an open wicker basket in 2003. He holds the world altitude record for Roziere (a combination of gas and hot air) balloons at more than 41,000 ft.

This evaluation report is based on feedback from people living with dementia and carers who received an Individual Award from the Life Changes Trust. The Individual Awards Pilot Scheme was run in Argyll & Bute and Edinburgh in 2014-15 and aimed to provide a small amount of additional financial empowerment to a number of individuals whose lives have been affected by dementia, to help improve their well-being and quality of life. A secondary aim of the pilot scheme was to find out what people would spend the Award on when given relatively broad choice, and what benefit that might bring in the short and medium terms.

Donald Trump's amazingly awkward water swig is apparently the gift that keeps on giving. The Photoshop Battle subreddit tackled a funny snapshot of the moment, incorporating everything from panpipes to Harry Potter. We've included our favorites, but there are loads more on the official thread.

Lots to unpack here, so maybe ease into it by first starting off with some light Trump Memes, and then progressing to this list of "good stuff".

What started as Bernie Sanders writing an innocent thank you note to his field staff on a white board turned into memers filling it in with hotter takes and less savory messages. Seriously, people should know better at this point than to post images on the internet of people with white boards. It's just asking for bad news.

PotterCast is back with a super exciting episode taped live with the Orlando Harry Potter Club talking all about the PotterCast Trio's day at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida! Melissa John and Frankie were there for the soft open of the new Harry Potter land at the theme park and had an incredible time!

Episode 221 — Live at Wizarding World Orlando!

Find the latest episode and explore PotterCast interviews, discussions and more at PotterCast.com

Visit the-leaky-cauldron.org for the latest and greatest from Harry Potter's Wizard World.

Leaky's Bootleg Edward has seen Deathly Hallows part 1 at a screening in Chicago, and this week we drill him about it, in addition to some new Harry Potter news!

Episode 228 — Bootleg Edward Spoils Deathly Hallows

Find the latest episode and explore PotterCast interviews, discussions and more at PotterCast.com

Visit the-leaky-cauldron.org for the latest and greatest from Harry Potter's Wizard World.

A whole episode about the game! THE GAME! THE NEW WIZARD GAME! John, Frak, and Melissa detail the new game from Niantic and all their experiences with it.

Also, check out Extraneous, where we are giving the His Dark Materials books the deep-diving PotterCast treatment!

Welcome to a very special episode of PotterCast!

This week, J.K. Rowling angered and saddened many fans when she came out in support of a woman whose company had not renewed her employment contract because she refused to recognize the legally protected rights of trans people. In coming back from a months-long Twitter hiatus, J.K. Rowling mischaracterized the facts of the case in support of a dangerous and unscientific movement that invalidates the trans experience, and in doing so flies in the face of medical consensus worldwide.

Her comments also confused a lot of fans who are not fully familiar with the issues at stake, or cannot understand how someone whose book series is so vehemently about tolerance can express support for a woman whose views invalidate so many people's existences. That's why in this episode, we are going over it all.

Jackson Bird, longtime friend of the podcast and of Leaky, as well as author, trans activist and educator, and expert Waffler, joins us to explain and process what this means for Harry Potter fans. We discuss:

• What actually happened
• What J.K. Rowling said versus what happened to the woman in question, Maya Forstater
• Why many fans saw this coming
• What to do now that the creator of the series we love so dearly has taken this stance
• How to support trans and non-binary communities
• How we as fans are feeling about all of this
• What to do now, especially since we still love this community

We hope you'll listen and share. Here are some helpful resources, including things we mention in the show:

• Jack's book! SORTED: Growing up, coming out, and finding my place
• A list of information from medical communities around the world validating that trans and non-binary people exist
• GLAAD's transgender media program has great resources, FAQs, ways to take action, and ways to learn
• Transstudent.org has more Information regarding sex and gender
• GONADS, the great series by RadioLab

News articles regarding this incident:

• The Cut
• Vox (on British culture and the "gender critical" movement)
• The Mary Sue

News articles regarding past incidents that have also upset the community:

• The Mary Sue on Johnny Depp and the Crimes of Grindelwald
• Past indicators that J.K. Rowling was following trans-exclusionary ideologies
• The Guardian on J.K. Rowling's writings on Native American cultulre
• "The Harry Potter Series Makes a Mess of Its Commentary on Racism" — The Mary Sue
• "Is Fantastic Beasts 2 Racist? Not Quite" — The Washington Post

PotterCast and Leaky stand with our trans and non-binary friends and colleagues. 

This episode is in the process of being transcribed. For more, see pottercast.com.

Today, May 4th, is International Firefighters’ Day. Each year on this day, firefighters are celebrated – and rightly so.   Most people have an image of firefighters clad in heavy coats, over-sized boots and sturdy helmets, rushing into

Early Years Practitioner: Location: Banff; Salary: £7,541 - £8,192 per year; closing date: 12/09/2016 https://t.co/THFViQaVmi

The judges have now submitted their scores, they have been counted and verified and we can now reveal the 2016 Self Management Shortliste

NHS Grampian - Senior Care Assistant's Self-Management Outreach Post (Aberdeen City) Location: Based Dee View Court – Aberdeen Salary: £16,517-£17,648 per annum (Band 3) Hours: Full...

New campaign to promote human rights across the third sector.

Today, May 4th, is International Firefighters’ Day. Each year on this day, firefighters are celebrated – and rightly so.   Most people have an image of firefighters clad in heavy coats, over-sized boots and sturdy helmets, rushing into

If we do some digging into the revision archives of the National Electrical Code (NEC), we can pretty much trace every requirement to one thing: saving lives! That is why the NEC exists; its purpose, the practical safeguarding of persons and property

1. How to ration access to scarce, reopening resources. 2. Will Australia do best?  And America’s coronavirus report card (my Bloomberg column).  And the correct Dan Wang link from yesterday (Bloomberg). 3. Derek Lowe on antibody approaches. 4. Crude empirical work suggesting non-essential businesses can be reopened without bringing big problems on net. 5. Yemeni […]

The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Hat tip: Stephen Landry.

The post RIP, Little Richard appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Clusterfuck Nation For your reading pleasure Mondays and Fridays Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page The people of this land have enough trouble in mind — what with livelihoods, careers, businesses, marriages, hopes and dreams circling the drain in the new insta-depression — but let’s hope they have just a little attention left over more »

The post Slouching Toward Resolution appeared first on Kunstler.

Clusterfuck Nation For your reading pleasure Mondays and Fridays Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Spring is popping now with a ferocious energy that can only remind the sullenly sequestered masses that life is going on without them. Every living thing is busy making-and-doing out there, except the poor humans, idled without work or more »

The post When the Birdies Sing Like the Fat Lady appeared first on Kunstler.