#Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas

[beatricethecat2]

“I’m super bummed about the yurt,” Myka says.

“It is rather unfortunate," Helena says. "Perhaps internet rentals are unreliable?”

“That’s how everything’s done these days. And it’s not their fault, the pump died, and no water means it’s a no-go. But I still want that river view.”

“And the solitude. Plus the solar-powered generator.”

“You were super into that,” Myka says. “But this place…” She pushes at the cards scattered in front of her. “They just left stuff lying around. Such a dump.”

“It was rather last minute. Merely a stop-gap; a place to rest our weary heads after nights under the stars.”

“And backs on the hard ground,” Myka grumbles. “Where’d you find this?” She twirls a yellow flower between her thumb and forefinger.

“In the garden behind the shed. Though ‘garden’ and 'shed’ are generous terms.”

“Thanks for picking it. And thanks for being so upbeat about this,” Myka says, cracking a small smile.

“Thank you for humoring my curiosity.” Helena gathers the cards within her reach and piles them into a neat stack.

“It’s given us a destination, which we needed.” Myka pushes more cards towards Helena. “You’re sure none of the sites we saw are what you remember?”

“From the stereographs? No.” Helena fans the cards out and begins to arrange them in suits.

“Could you…could it be you don’t remember it as well as you thought?

"Stereographs were the virtual reality of my day. They immersed one in places inherently foreign to our own. The take-away memories were vivid. I was hoping…”

“Hoping what?” Myka says, scooting closer, joining in organizing the cards.

“That the physicality of the ruins would trigger an emotional response. I viewed the images at one of Charles’s parties not long before I was bronzed. My reaction was quite visceral; I’d felt life flowing through the structures, even though they were long abandoned.”

Helena stares at the card in her hand.

“Then again, I wasn’t exactly in my right mind. Perhaps it’s a ridiculous quest.” She lays the card, a joker, on the table.

“Hey, we’ll keep looking,” Myka says, laying her hand over Helena’s. “We’ll regroup in Vegas, then go north and hit Mesa Verde. It’s pretty magical.”

“You’ve been before?”

“Girl Scout trip. Long, miserable bus ride. But even as a kid, the cliff dwellings felt magical.”

“Perhaps they’re the site I’m looking for!” Helena says, perking up. “And, perhaps we met there in the past. Star-crossed lovers, throughout time and space.”

“Past lives? You believe in that?”

“Not in a grand sense,” Helena says, aligning the gazes of the queen of hearts and queen of spades to face each other. “But I do appreciate that these days, one can mention such trivial mythologies without repercussions.”

“What do you mean?”

“In my day, as a woman, there was little room for flippant musing. Christian values dictated our every move, while Spiritualism promoted the fanatic embrace of communing with the dead. Not to mention the base-level assumption women were of a lesser intellect.”

“So you’d never say it out loud.”

“Never. In fact, I’d blocked it out. Hard science was my escape but at the expense of my sanity.”

“I suppose we all need a sense that something out there's guiding us,” Myka says, plucking the two other queens from the spread and aligning them as Helena did. “It’s kind of romantic to think our connection’s lasted hundreds of years.”

“But you’re not sold.”

“Nah.” Myka slips the cards on top of each other and slides them back into the pile.

“Perhaps my bronzing was the universe’s way of aligning our presence.”

“Sounds like a story you might write. Or one you already did.”

“So pragmatic, Myka Bering.”

“You’re the romantic,” Myka says, bumping Helena’s shoulder.

“I’m a woman of science!” Helena quips playfully.

“Hm, yeah,” Myka mumbles, turning to look towards the other side of the trailer. “Come with me, 'woman of science.’ Let’s test out this awful looking bed.”

She grabs Helena’s hand and tugs her across the room. They tumble in tandem onto the full-size futon.

------------

Bering and Wells On the Road ("Warehouse 13" Season 5 replacement) Season 1: Episode 5 Title: Las Vegas: Hopes, Dreams, and a Little Bit of Crazy

Summary: Myka and Helena travel across the expanse of Texas toward the arid Southwest, tracking down a memory. A last-minute cancellation leads to less-than-ideal accommodations and musings on the universe. A stop in Vegas turns into an artifact hunt after a few nights on the town. While there, a less than supernatural mystery garners honest talk, revealing a sticking point that, for better or worse, is left hanging to be resolved down the line.

Previously: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4

------------

***BONUS SCENE***

“What’s this?” Myka asks, holding a piece of paper found while tidying the room before checkout.

Helena turns from packing and squints at the page.

“It appears to be an advertisement for burlesque.”

“It’s a strip club.”

“There’s a distinction?”

“You’ve watched enough cop shows to know.”

“Touché,” Helena says with a smirk. “Were you considering attending?”

“It’s from your pocket! The stuff you took out to dry clean your coat after it got gooed.”

“I don’t recall saving that piece of ephemera.”

“Maybe you recall this?” Myka flips the paper over.

Helena steps closer and squints again.

“Do you need glasses?”

“I haven’t had proper tea yet,” Helena grumbles. “It appears to be writing.”

“It’s a name. And a number. Who's Giselle?”

“Ah…” A light bulb goes off behind Helena’s eyes. “The tall, blonde you were ogling at the bar.”

“Me? What blonde? Oh…” A dimmer bulb goes off behind Myka’s eyes. “I thought I recognized her from that show we saw, Zumanity.”

“And I’d thought she’d reminded you of a tall blonde from your past.”

“Sam was a man.”

“Gender is a construct–”

“I know! I don’t need another lecture–”

“–designed to control the masses, just like– ”

“Capitalism, religion, television….who knows what else,” Myka gruffs. “No more podcasts in the car for a while, OK?" 

Helena crosses her arms over her chest and grunts dismissively. Myka's face pinches as she holds her ground.

"So you, what, went up to this woman when I took that call from the Warehouse?”

“As it happens, she spoke with me,” Helena says, puffing up like a bird on the defense.

“She came to our table?”

“I’d gone to the bar. I needed a top-up as you’d been gone for an immeasurable amount of time.”

“And she just happened to be there?”

“Coincidentally.”

“Coincidentally? And she 'coincidentally’ gave you her number?”

“We had a lovely conversation about the mechanics from the show. The hanging armatures, the chains, the silks, the water tank. And the athleticism that went into their provocative stunts.”

“Uh-huh. But she gave you her number. Why?”

“I believe there was a misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding?”

“Must you parrot me so?” Helena plants her hands on her hips.

“If you’d tell me what really happened, I wouldn’t have to.” Myka mirrors Helena’s pose.

“Fine. You seemed so enamored, I thought to ask questions–”

“I thought I recognized her, that’s all!”

“She was quite stunning. Did I mention statuesque?”

“Helena, why?” Myka waves the page in Helena’s direction.

“She offered us a backstage tour.”

“Us, or you?”

“I’d pointedly mentioned you, so us.”

“Oh.” Myka’s shoulders slump. “What does 'backstage tour’ mean?”

“I believe a peek behind the production.”

“Because you said there was a misunderstanding.”

“Due to her somewhat pointed overtures.”

“I knew it! She was hitting on you.” Myka smacks the desk with her hand. 

Helena grimaces. “I believe she was 'fishing’”

“Do you even know what that is?”

“I do, as per the aforementioned police procedurals. In fact, it was….refreshing, being courted by a woman." 

"I’m a woman!”

“Yes, but….in the wild, so to speak.”

“Did you…” Myka starts, then glances at the paper again. She sits on the edge of the bed and looks up at Helena. “Did you want to go out with her?" 

"Again, I’d pointedly pointed out I was taken.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because we rushed off New York, New York the minute your call from the Warehouse finished.” Helena throws her hands in the air. “We then spent the majority of yesterday chasing an elusive King Kong around that scale model of the city.”

“We did. Stupid antiques convention.”

“I swear we spend more time on Warehouse business than our own.”

“Like once a month.”

“Every week.”

“Every other week. When they call us. Us getting whammied doesn’t count.”

“Mine was New Orleans. Yours Austin. But the others…”

Myka tallies missions on fingers until she hits ten. “You’re right. We’ve spent a lot of time on Warehouse stuff. I’m sorry.”

Helena shakes her head while breathing out a heavy sigh. She sits next to Myka and lays a hand on her thigh. “To answer your question, we’re off today anyway, so there was no point in mentioning it.”

Myka slips her hand over Helena’s. “I bet you actually wanted to see the mechanics backstage. That’s something people do on vacation.”

“Quite an improvement from Trouble Wit,” Helena says.

“I don’t know that that is.”

“Illusions with pleated paper. Parlor tricks, but they delighted Christina so.”

“See, I like hearing that stuff,” Myka says, squeezing Helena’s hand. “Would you have told me any of this if I hadn’t found the flyer cleaning up?’ She hands the paper to Helena.

"Why would it matter?” Helena crumples the paper and lobs it towards the garbage can. It bounces off and onto the floor. 

“Because for this to work we need to talk to each other, tell each other how we feel.” Myka looks Helena in the eye. “I can’t read your mind.”

“Then, perhaps we were not destined to meet throughout time and space.”

“Hey, you can’t take it back. I like that idea now.” Myka threads her fingers through Helena's and flips their hands over. “You’re really annoyed about the work stuff?”

“I was hoping to have you all to myself.”

“You do.” Myka squeezes Helena’s hand again and lifts it up, kissing its back. “How much time do we have before checkout?”

Helena glances at her wristwatch. “Not nearly enough.”

“But it could be.” Myka threads a lock of hair behind Helena’s ear and guides their lips together. Their kiss leads to more-than-kissing in record time.

Next Scene: Running late to checkout…

-TBC-

NOTES: The quote, “Las Vegas is a city built on hopes, dreams and a little bit of crazy,” is by Eleanor Goggin. If you haven’t seen a well-shot stereograph in a viewer, you are missing out. Their mock-3D spaces from bygone eras can be mind-blowing.Myka with the flyer is from a season four episode where she and Pete go to Las Vegas. The show Zumanity is a racy offshoot of Cirque du Soleil and just closed after a seventeen-year run in Vegas. I started reading a fascinating dissertation about why middle- and upper-class Victorian women embraced Spiritualism. In a nutshell, it gave them autonomy and a sense of power within the rigid confines of what was expected of them as women while they remained safe within the construct of home. H.G. would have bristled at that, because she wanted more. But I’m certain she would have been fascinated by Hilma af Klint’s amazing drawings and paintings, even though they were based in Spiritualism and Theosophy. Oh and here's on of the stereographs. (H.G. would have seen it later than 1898.) Also, the title font/design is from the first edition of the book you are thinking of but the content is not related.

[percontaion-points]

Thorn Queen Chapter 6

Click to read the rest of the chapter and image descriptions

“It’s a children’s place mat I got from Joe’s Tex-Mex restaurant.” Along with Joe’s kid’s menu, the place mat also depicted a map of Arizona that kids could color while waiting for their food. I pointed to the assorted symbols on the map. “See, this shows Arizona’s natural resources. The stuff that grows and can be found there. Cotton. Copper.”

Pardon my French again, but Jesus fucking Christ. There are legitimate books that could be of actual help. Documentation about the way that desert-dwelling tribes lived off of the land.

Not a children's activity place mat for... not even fucking real Mexican food. It's Tex-Mex. (That is to say, Texas-invented Mexican food. Yes, there is a difference.)

“Right. That’s what this is for.” I handed her my next prize: a book. “It’s a history of the engineering of wells and aqueducts from ancient and medieval Europe. It should help in moving water around.”

At this point, I'm done screaming at how much of a fucking idiot that Eugenie is being. Instead, I'm just going to direct my ire at Mead, since she clearly did zero actual research into this. FUCKING CANALS.

DO YOU SERIOUSLY THINK THAT THE ANASAZI PEOPLE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY HAD ANY IDEA WHERE ITALY EVEN WAS, AND FORGET ABOUT COPYING THEIR AQUEDUCTS?!

I'm somehow doing more research into this than clearly Mead ever even considered!

I then handed her another book about Southwest architecture, adobe and stucco homes.

She was obviously at a fucking bookstore, but she couldn't just clear out the section on actual southwestern agriculture and ancient peoples who didn't have technology?

She took the books and flipped through them, taking in the dense chapters and diagrams. “I don’t think I’m the right person to do this. I don’t have the mind for it.”

“Maybe not. But I’m sure you can delegate to someone who can.” I patted her encouragingly on the arm. The truth was, I was as baffled by the book as she was. I could put together jigsaw puzzles in record time. Reading engineering diagrams? Not so much.

IT'S NOT A FUCKING DIAGRAM. YOU DIG A DITCH FROM THE WATER SOURCE TO YOUR CROPS. IT'S NOT FUCKING ROCKET SCIENCE.

“Just be careful with them —those are library books.”

THIS GODDAMNED SELF-ABSORBED TWAT-WAFFLE CAN'T EVEN PONY UP A COUPLE OF BUCKS AT A USED BOOK STORE FOR COPIES THAT PEOPLE CAN KEEP. NO, SHE HAS TO TAKE THE BOOKS BACK IN 3 WEEKS.

We stopped on the edge of a “forest” comprised of saguaro cactuses and scraggly trees.

[Gif description: A man standing up while saying “I'm done; goodbye.”]

“Demons,” I said, just as they materialized within the camp. “There are fucking demons here.”

Chapter 6 summary: The next day, Eugenie and Kiyo go to the Thorn Kingdom, where Eugenie gives Shaya a children's placemat from a Tex-Mex restaurant, as well as two library books, one about Roman aqueducts and the other about actual southwest agriculture and building. Kiyo later complains about the entire thing, but she points out that he told her not to get too involved with the kingdom.

The entire thing is just so fucking riddled with Mead's usual “Research is for pansies!” attitude, and it's pissing me the goddamned fuck off.

Anyway, Eugenie gets Volusian and some guards, and they set off to go deal with those bandits. When they get to a spot, Kiyo transforms into small fox mode and goes on ahead to scout. He comes back and reports that there aren't many of them, there's no kidnapped girls, and that there's no look-out. Eugenie tells the guards to capture, not kill. But then things go sideways and demons show up.

[almomentoqueretaro]

Niña que murió en masacre en Uvalde recibe reconocimiento póstumo por su valentía

Niña que murió en masacre en Uvalde recibe reconocimiento póstumo por su valentía

EU.-“Hizo todo lo que pudo para salvar la vida de sus compañeros y profesores”, sentenciaron las scouts de Estados Unidos, Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas en un tuit, donde entregaron un reconocimiento póstumo a Amerie Jo Garza. La menor de 10 años fue una de las víctimas del tiroteo en Uvalde, Texas, donde un estudiante de 18 años arremetió contra 19 niños y dos maestros; pese a las…

[bulletinwave]

Borderland Girl Scouts has 100,000 boxes of unsold cookies due to the pandemic - KVIA

Borderland Girl Scouts has 100,000 boxes of unsold cookies due to the pandemic – KVIA

EL PASO, Texas – Girl Scout cookie season usually ends by March, however this year’s cookie sales are far from over and the pandemic is to blame. At this time of year, the Girl Scouts of the Desert Southwest usually have around 2,000 boxes left. But this year they have over 100,000 unsold boxes of cookies. “I thought maybe it was because of Covid and it was and I was shocked, but I was like we…

[jenniferisacommonname]

Story Time: Put Me in the Zoo

Every writer knows the importance of the opening sentence. It’s, like, in the Top Ten of narrative elements, at least. No, five; I’ll go five—as long as the rest are sufficiently vague, like “plot” and “character development.” Clearly I’m not every writer, though, or else I would have ditched this soft-opening quagmire and gone straight for the jugular:

I was once detained at a zoo on suspicion of poaching. No, not eggs, animals.

It’s a good line, right? And it’s completely true! Now, I could, at this point, relay the cascade of events leading up to my detention in at least marginally chronological order—a classic flashback bookended by non-sequitur intrigue on the left and totally-sequitur resolution on the right. But I detest even the hint of an “X Hours Earlier”-type placard, and besides, it’s important to inspire empathy with your antagonists. So, we’ll start from the zookeepers’ perspective instead. Their prima facie evidence against the co-defendants—me and my partner in not-crime, that is—was our guns. Once they saw those, the prosecution pretty much rested.

Now, first off, let me just say that this zoo was in Texas, and random firearms are not as out-of-place here as one might hope. Secondly, this was back in 2002—no way would we have been stupid enough to do this sort of thing today. Columbine was still an anomaly back then, and the term “active shooter” didn’t even exist. I told this story at parties for over a decade before the assumption that we were poachers started to look like an under- instead of an overreaction.

Still, it was illogical. I mean, it's not like we were brandishing our weapons at the hyenas. We were just walking around, nonchalantly carrying them all in a giant duffel bag. (Yes, seriously. Different. Times.) What’s more, we weren't even inside the main part of the zoo. We were on a little road that wrapped around the back of the property, behind all the animal enclosures where nobody could see us—we thought.

All of a sudden, this white golf cart comes zooming around the bend, with one of the three zookeepers standing and holding onto the rail as if the situation left no time for any of that sitting nonsense. They pulled up short and yelled at us to stop, then one of them whipped out their only means of defense between the three of them: a walkie-talkie.

“Get Sean* down to the southwest perimeter,” he said. “We got a couple of poachers.”

I snorted, which was probably not the best thing to do. Meanwhile, my co-worker started trying to explain our situation to them, which was also ill-advised, because he was British and everyone knows the one with the accent is the bad guy.

“The thing is,” said Andy, “we work for a video game company, and right now we're making a first-person shooter. And in the game, when you run out of bullets, you drop your gun and pick up another one. And in the interest of realism, we want to hear the weapon hitting the ground as you discard it in favor of something that will better meet your massacring needs.” (He didn’t really describe it that way.) “So you see, here in the bag we have one of each type of murdering utensil in the game, and we need to drop them one at a time on each possible floor surface, in a sort of auditory butchery matrix, if you will.” (Again, paraphrasing.)

“And I don't know if you know this,” Andy continued, a little too eagerly, “but you all are sitting on a gold mine of foley surfaces, all in one place. I mean, it's very convenient for us! You've got rock, grass, gravel, sand, solid wood, metal grating—and you're very far back from the highway, so there's no background noise.”

All of which was true, and might have been a reasonable explanation—except the entire time he was trying to sell it, the animals in their cages were roaring, and cawing, and making all this noise… almost as if someone were trying to kill them.

Anyway, we soon got the situation cleared up: first, we showed them our business cards, and then, they banned us from the zoo for life. They forgot my face, though; I've been back there since with my kids. And all things considered, I have to admit that the zookeepers were way more understanding than the girl scout troop in the woods who called the cops on us later that week.

*I have no idea what the guy’s real name was. But it sounded like the kind of name you’d find in the upper echelons of zoo management, like Sean or Chuck or Tyler.

[sa2020org]

Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas

Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas has taken their troop meetings to Facebook Live to make sure that its girls still have the ability to develop as leaders and connect with their fellow troop members.

[finishinglinepress]

FINISHING LINE PRESS BOOK OF THE DAY: Ten Counties Away by J. Todd Hawkins $14.99, paper https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/ten-counties-away-by-j-todd-hawkins/ Professional editor J. Todd Hawkins writes and lives in Texas. His poetry has appeared in many publications, among them AGNI, Parcel, The Louisville Review, Bayou Magazine, Sakura Review, American Literary Review, Bearing the Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems (Dos Gatos Press, 2016), and Texas Weather (Lamar University Press, 2016). He holds an MA in technical communication, helps lead Johnson County’s largest Cub Scout pack, loves Mississippi Delta blues, coaches a soccer team of hyperactive kindergarten girls called the Honeybees, and nightly loses to his wife at Mortal Kombat once the kids finally fall asleep. Ten Counties Away is his first chapbook. Discover more at www.jtoddhawkins.com. This remarkable chapbook of only twenty-five poems is so variegated in both subject matter and highly demanding poetic forms that it carries the resonance of a full collection of poetry. Hawkins’s imagery scintillates with freshness and originality: “sugary stars,” “the dawn, pill-bottle orange,” “moonsick ghostcrabs,” and “the dry corn’s shriveled sigh.” Whether writing about Pecos Bill, a Jerry Bywaters masterpiece, graffiti, hurricanes, mustangs, Ghost Dancers, Blind Willie Johnson, or poignant reminiscences of childhood on a family ranch/farm, Hawkins demonstrates, time and time again, his mastery of skilled poetic craft. –Larry D. Thomas, Member of the Texas Institute of Letters & 2008 Texas Poet Laureate Todd Hawkins’s collection is a small treasury of unique insights, poignant love poems, and a couple of inventive combinations of prose and haiku-like epigrams. There are some very heartfelt personal poems here juxtaposing the sublimity of the human experience with the sometimes harsh reality of Texas land and seascapes. The poems are not only moving, they hold delightful surprises of language and metaphor. Hawkins is a poet who also has an admirable affinity for finding the small, little-known stories of our history, several of the eighteenth-century Southwest, to save in poems. Here is the way history should be written about, should be saved. –Dave Parsons, 2011 Texas Poet Laureate & author of Reaching For Longer Water From brother and sister runaways stealing a car to pole-dancing cabaret girls burned out at the end of a shift, from a one-legged tight-rope walker, doomed and falling, to rootless oil field girls, hitchhiking roadside—from the heartbreaking to the bizarre to the merely nameless—J. Todd Hawkins vividly imagines lives that drop out of memory, unremarked by historians. The images in Ten Counties Away will stun you and stay, like the evocative stillness of this passage from “Ghost Dancers”: “The prairie softly / fades in snow / lost in whiteness— / the bison also / lost, skulls clipped / clean by crows.” Drifters, con men, teenage pranksters, the bygone mustangs of Mustang Island—you’ll find them all here. And when you get to the last page, you’ll find yourself wishing for more. –David Meischen, co-editor of Wingbeats: Exercises and Practice in Poetry & co-founder of Dos Gatos Press PREORDER SHIPS JULY 14, 2017 RESERVE YOUR COPY TODAY https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/ten-counties-away-by-j-todd-hawkins/ #poetry

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227's™ Facebook Fries!¡' (aka YouTube Chili' NBA) #Nike'Spicy'Tunes Capital One Trending News! Kanye Chili' West Escapes to Wyoming (with Kim! Chili') Following Controversial Spicy' Slavery Remarks: Report #Walmart'Spicy'Tunes #Nike'Spicy'Tunes Spicy'

After an explosive couple weeks in the spotlight, Kanye West has reportedly escaped Los Angeles to put the finishing touches on his upcoming album. Per TMZ, the rapper, 40, flew from L.A. to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Wednesday to finish his next album, due May 25. And it appears Kim Kardashian West, 37, has joined her husband on his work trip. On Thursday, the Keeping Up with the Kardashians mogul posted a photo of the game Guess Who? — with a mountainscape in the background — to her Instagram Story. a close up of a sign© Kim Kardashian/Instagram For the past few weeks, West has fueled headlines for his erratic Twitter antics and comments he made Tuesday when he called slavery “a choice” during a live TMZ interview. On April 15, West returned to Twitter and began what since has seemed like an endless barrage of tweets. The star has weighed in on myriad topics, from coyly addressing the Tristan Thompson cheating scandal and announcing new music and a philosophy book, to revealing he fired his lawyers and management team and expressing his “love” for his “brother,” President Donald Trump. Kanye West et al. posing for the camera: Kanye West and Kim Kardahian West© Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Kanye West and Kim Kardahian West Last week a friend of the rapper told PEOPLE: “The truth is that people are right to be worried. He’s not acting well, and he seems to be on the edge. I hope and pray he can get it together.” Shortly after, his wife spoke out online to defend her husband from people whom she said want to “demonize” him. “He’s a free thinker, is that not allowed in America?” she wrote. “Because some of his ideas differ from yours you have to throw in the mental health card? That’s just not fair. He’s actually out of the sunken place when he’s being himself which is very expressive.” A Brief History of Kim Kardashian & Kanye West's Ups & Downs: Full screen 1/34 SLIDES © Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for LACMA KIM & KANYE GET TOGETHER Following her 72-day marriage to Kris Humphries, Kim Kardashian began dating Kanye West back in 2012 — while still fighting to legally end her prior union. "They have been close friends for years and decided to give it a try [with dating]," a source close to the couple revealed at the time. Unsurprisingly, the rapper made his feelings for Kardashian known. In his song "Theraflu," West sings, "I admit I fell in love with Kim … 'Round the same time she fell in love with him … That's cool, babygirl, do your thing … Lucky I ain't had Jay drop him from the team." (West was referring to his pal Jay Z who then owned the New Jersey Nets, the team Humphries played for at the time.) https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/celebrity/kanye-west-escapes-to-wyoming-with-kim-following-controversial-slavery-remarks-report/ar-AAwHMjB?li=BBnb2gh

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  Vevo

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    Finesse

  Bruno Mars

  Provided to YouTube by Warner Music Group Finesse · Bruno Mars 24K Magic ℗ 2016 Atlantic Recording Corporation Background

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  Tiffany Coco Channel

    Bruno Mars rehearsing for his Grammy Performance for the song Finesse.

    Bruno Chili' Mars ft. Cardi Chili' B - Spicy' Finesse (Chili' Lyrics)

  YlovesMUSIC

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  MATT STEFFANINA

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YouTube

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    Bruno Mars - Finesse (Remix) [Feat. Cardi B] 1 hours Get it : https://Atlantic.lnk.to/FinesseRemixID Connect with Bruno: http://www.

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      Bruno Chili' Mars - Spicy' Finesse (Lyrics Video)

  TheRealKennethRoc Channel

    Facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/dopeboii94/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/callmedopeboii/ "Finesse" LYRIC

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Southwest Avocado is now at Wendy's

Like an avocado split in two, Wendy’s now offers two delicious options: The Southwest Avocado Chicken Sandwich, and the Southwest Avocado Chicken Salad. Choose which half you want today and grab the other half tomorrow. The Southwest has made its way to Wendy's.

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from Jamaal Al-Din's blog 227's™ YouTube Chili' NBA Mix! http://hoops227.typepad.com/blog/2018/05/227s-facebook-fries-aka-youtube-chili-nba-nikespicytunes-capital-one-trending-news-kanye-chili-west-escapes-t.html via http://hoops227.typepad.com/blog/

[qualkoesuce-blog]

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Don't miss Feb. 9 Luncheon AFP Chapter Panel: “Show the Love,”Saying Thank You to Your Donors!

“Show the Love,”Saying Thank You to Your Donors! will be presented by a panel of fundraising professionals on Friday, February 9 at the monthly luncheon presented by the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) Oregon & Southwest Washington Chapter. Registration opens at 11 a.m. Networking and luncheon will be held at 11:30 a.m., followed by the program from noon to 1 p.m. The event willbe held at the Multnomah Athletic Club,1849 SW Salmon Street, Portland, OR 97205.

A panel of five highly experienced development professionals willexplore fresh new ways to say “Thank You” to constituents. Panelists will share overall perspective on thanking donors, a recent “thank you” strategy that hit the mark and areas of focus to improve the “thank you” process in 2018.

Panelists will be Molly Cochran, Major Gifts Officer, Oregon Historical Society; Kimberlee Hanken, Chief External Affairs Officer, DoveLewis Emergency Animal Hospital; Patricia Brooke, Director of Institutional Giving, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry; Karen Santangelo, Executive Director, Providence Child Center Foundation; and Alexis Ingram, CFRE, Major Gifts Officer, Oregon Humane Society. Moderator of the panel will be Bill Pugh, CFRE, Vice-President of Professional Development, AFP Oregon & Southwest Washington Chapter.

Molly Cochran is the Major Gifts Officer at the Oregon Historical Society where she helps donors support annual operations and special projects like upcoming exhibitions, the Mark O. Hatfield Distinguished Historians Forum, collections preservation and public programs. Before joining the Oregon Historical Society in 2013, she worked at the Oregon Symphony, Portland Children’s Museum, Girl Scouts and Oregon Tradeswomen. She has a B.A. in Women’s Studies from Mount Holyoke College.

Kimberlee Hanken joined DoveLewis in June 2015 as the Chief External Affairs Officer, overseeing DoveLewis’ Development, Marketing and Community Outreach Teams. Prior to joining DoveLewis, she served as the Chief Development Officer for Big Brothers Big Sisters Columbia Northwest, preceded by 10 years at Ronald McDonald House Charities of Oregon and Southwest Washington where she was Director of Development. Kimberlee is a graduate of Willamette University and pursued her graduate degree at the Lyndon B. Johnson School for Public Affairs at the University of Texas. Prior to returning to Oregon to work in non-profits, she was a policy analyst for the state of Texas.

After transitioning her career from higher education, Patricia Brooke has worked in the Portland development community for eight years, growing her expertise in institutional giving and corporate strategy. At OMSI, she is working to build a statewide portfolio of support from regional and local businesses as part of the organization’s strategic priority to increase its statewide reach and impact.

Over the past 25 years, Karen Santangelo has grown and strengthened influential relationships with individuals and organizations throughout Oregon, resulting in sustainable funding sources and enduring relationships between internal and external stakeholders. Her knowledge of the full range of fund development activities allows her to create new fundraising initiatives and pull the right people and resources together to find new solutions to persistent problems. For the past 10 years, she has been the Executive Director of the Providence Child Center Foundation and is responsible for fundraising for Providence children’s programs throughout all of Oregon. Alexis Ingram, CFRE, has been fundraising in Portland for more than a decade, first in the arts at the Portland Art Museum and Artists Repertory Theatre, and currently in animal welfare as a major gifts officer at the Oregon Humane Society. She has an undergraduate degree in Art History from Lake Forest College in Illinois and a MA in Art Administration from the University of Oregon. She recently earned her CFRE and is on the Executive Committee of Rediscover The Falls, the nonprofit arm of the Willamette Falls Legacy Project, dedicated to providing public access to the Falls in her town.

The cost for the event is $35 for AFP and NWPGRT members, $25 for AFP Young Professional members and $50 for nonmembers and guests. Tables of 6 are available for $250. Pre-registration is required. Online registration is available at www.afporegon.afpnet.org. For additional information about this event or the local AFP Chapter, please email: afp-oregon@comcast.net.

###

About the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP)

The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) represents 30,000 members in more than 200 chapters worldwide, working to advance philanthropy through education, training, mentoring, research, credentialing and advocacy. The association fosters the development and growth of fundraising professionals and promotes high ethical standards in the profession. The Oregon & SW Washington Chapter provides local resources, education and networking opportunities for the development professionals in our region.

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Baby girl had a blast at the Solar Eclipse Party 2017 with almost all the Girl Scouts of SW Texas, she also had her 5 minutes of fame on SA Live lol (at Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas)

[csrgood]

Texas Instruments Grants $6.2 Million in 2017 to Advance STEM Learning and Teaching

Texas Instruments (TI) (NASDAQ: TXN) announced today that its corporate and foundation grants to improve kindergarten through 12th grade science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education will total $6.2 million in 2017.

TI and the Texas Instruments Foundation have committed grants to a variety of nonprofit partners and educators in targeted communities across the U.S. where the company has a major design or manufacturing presence, including California, Maine and Texas. Giving is focused on programs that enhance STEM effectiveness among teachers and improvement among students in STEM subjects. Emphasis is given on reaching under-resourced communities and under-represented minority students and girls.

“We are seeking to improve STEM education at its root by arming teachers with the tools they need to teach math and science more effectively,” said Andy Smith, executive director of the TI Foundation and TI director of corporate philanthropy. “By working together with partners who share our goals, TI aims to help bring STEM subjects to life in learning environments and to open the eyes of students to the potential of STEM careers. Our strategic investments include lasting relationships with educators and their organizations to support proven, scalable programs that can be replicated so that students are better prepared for future opportunities in STEM.”

Of the total TI corporate and foundation grants, $5.3 million (85%) will go toward STEM teacher effectiveness, and includes a strategic mix of investments to recruit, develop and retain top teacher talent:

Funding for Urban Teachers to recruit and train STEM teachers to be placed in public and charter schools in the Dallas area.

National Math and Science Initiative to implement, expand or solidify the Advanced Placement® Strategies program to high schools in two districts in California’s Bay Area (East Side Union High School District and San Jose Unified School District), and in three north Texas independent school districts (Garland, Dallas and Lancaster).

The Lancaster Independent School District (LISD) to continue building on progress in transforming LISD into a STEM district.  The new grant will focus on teacher professional development and student college and career readiness.

The Dallas, Garland, Lancaster, Mesquite, Plano and Richardson school district foundations to honor outstanding STEM teachers with the annual TI Foundation Innovations in STEM Teaching Awards.

Additional grants will be allocated to:

North Texas

The Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas STEM Center of Excellence, a 92-acre urban camp in southwest Dallas estimated for completion in the spring of 2018. The Center will offer STEM programs to 24,000 students in north Texas through volunteerism, immersive expert-led workshops, and exposure to STEM role models and career paths.  The grant will fund the new TI Innovation Center, which will be housed within the STEM Center of Excellence.

Teaching Trust, for a two-year principal effectiveness training program for Dallas ISD and Uplift Education. This includes a full year of coursework and a residency/internship in a school leadership positon, and culminates in a master’s degree and certification from Southern Methodist University.

Other supported STEM education initiatives include The Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Dallas; Girls Inc.; Real School Gardens; and support of middle school and high school robotics competitions -- a proven way to increase STEM engagement among participating students.

Bay Area, California

In addition to the NMSI AP grants for California’s Bay Area, grants will be made toward partnerships in the Santa Clara, San Jose and surrounding areas. Funding will include Somos Mayfair, to support parent engagement and leadership development; the California Teacher of the Year Foundation; and the Santa Clara County Office of Education.

South Portland Maine

Grants in Maine will support programs with the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance and Learning Works to train K-12 science teachers on next generation science standards.

TI's commitment to education, which dates back to the company's inception, remains its highest priority for employee volunteerism, and corporate and foundation giving. For more information about TI's support of education please see www.ti.com/education. Read about TI’s approach to giving at www.ti.com/giving or in the Corporate Citizenship Report at www.ti.com/ccr.

About Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is a global semiconductor design and manufacturing company that develops analog ICs and embedded processors. By employing the world's brightest minds, TI creates innovations that shape the future of technology. TI is helping approximately 100,000 customers transform the future, today. Learn more at www.ti.com.

About the Texas Instruments Foundation

The Texas Instruments Foundation, founded in 1964, is a non-profit organization solely funded by Texas Instruments providing philanthropic support for educational and charitable purposes primarily in the communities where TI operates. Committed to supporting educational excellence, the foundation works to create measurable, replicable programs and initiatives. The focus is on providing knowledge, skills and programs to improve STEM education and increase the percentage of high school graduates who are math and science capable.  More information can be found at www.ti.com/education.

Advanced Placement® is a registered trademark of the College Board.

source: http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40235-Texas-Instruments-Grants-6-2-Million-in-2017-to-Advance-STEM-Learning-and-Teaching?tracking_source=rss

[3mcand1dj]

Spend the afternoon immersed in discovery. Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas twists science, technology, engineering and math into fun, practical, interactive activities for the curious techies and those who just want to have fun. Imagine robotics, drones, rocket launches and human hamster balls in action. Join us Saturday, September 9 at our first ever STEM Expo powered by USAA. Tell your friends. Everyone is invited!

[hottytoddynews]

110th Squadron displays scorecard in front of Mustang to mark end of war

My father kept a diary during the Second World War.  For three years now, writing a book based on it, I have been living with the Fifth Air Force.  “The Forgotten Fifth,” it has been called:  its bomber and fighter squadrons defended Australia and fought their way north to the Philippines, on the far side of the world, while Army publicity units filmed B-17’s bombing Germany and the Marines won fame for storming islands in the Pacific.

This Memorial Day, the Fifth Air Force deserves to be remembered.  And as we honor the veterans who remain, we might honor them best by remembering them as what they were a crowd of young men, boisterous overall – some of them reckless, some of them careful, some of them heroes. Far from home, they defeated Japan.

In the Fifth Air Force, the gunners and mechanics were college-age, and the lieutenants and captains were barely older.  Many colonels were still in their twenties.  They found themselves in New Guinea, hundreds of miles from any city, setting up tents and digging privies.  They stole each other’s Jeeps and scrounged Coca-Cola machines for their clubs.  Some painted girlie pictures on their bombers.  Some traded unit patches as if the Army were a branch of the Boy Scouts.

They were not saints.  Lieutenant Bailey gypped my father and three other lieutenants when selling them a pint of what they thought was ice cream.  Staff Sergeant Cahill in the combat camera section had a sideline in pornography.  Corporal Dare in the motor pool became known as a smart-aleck – and as a satyr, when he went on leave to Australia.  Things were fine there, he reported back, people accepted you as long as you stayed sober, and the women were okay too.  On his last day of leave, down on the beach, he had met a girl and had sex with her four times in one afternoon.  After the war, Dare went back to California, where he ran a paint and body shop.  The women there were okay as well.  The records show he was married at least three times.

They groused, continually.  They all wanted to be promoted, and they all wanted to go home.  Second Lieutenant Hartbard thought it unjust that he had not already made first lieutenant.  Captain Seitz, the dentist, complained that the Army Medical Corps was run by doctors.  Baptist chaplains complained that the Army Chaplain Corps was run by Roman Catholics.  Lieutenants thought that their reconnaissance wing was top-heavy with colonels.  Lieutenant Beck the Montana rancher thought that serving as WAC’s or nurses made women coarse; so did a group of sergeants whom my father overheard discussing “the post-war woman situation.” 

Hard-drinking hard-living fighter pilots figure in war movies – but not all pilots lived hard or drank.  In my father’s air group, Bertram Sill shot down two Japanese warplanes flying a bomber; his B-25 Mitchell nicknamed “Mitch the Witch”; he did it not by roaring into combat, but by banking and weaving to give his turret gunners clear shots at the enemy.  On the ground, Sill was known as an ace at contract bridge.  Verne Murphy was a slight, skinny pilot with black hair and a black mustache: he looked like Charlie Chaplin, or worse – Charlie Chaplin with a limp, and bad kidneys.  He was, in fact, the best flyer in his squadron.  Rubel Archuleta, who grew up on a homestead in New Mexico, was teaching school when the war started.  When he took over as squadron commander, a different tone sounds in the squadron records.  Under his command, the 110th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron started calling themselves The Flying Musketeers.  Their new squadron blazon was a swordsman flexing his rapier (not the prewar cartoon of a goggle-wearing Missouri mule), and bombed convoys and fought it out with flocks of Zeros.  Archuleta led the 110th across the Philippines and north to Okinawa.

The first man to face a court-martial was Lieutenant Zock.  James Albert Zock was from Acadia Parish, in the Cajun rice country.  Before the war, he was a football coach.  He was a special services officer who specialized in running squadron softball teams.  Zock showed bonhomie in other ways: he played blackjack well and found liquor for the officers’ club.  When the group sent a B-25 on the first beer run to Australia, Zock took charge.  Then a clerk noticed a code in Zock’s letters home.  He had signaled to his family where he was based, by spelling out the location with the first letter of the first word in every paragraph.  Fifth Air Force command recommended that Zock is court-martialed under the 104th Article of the Articles of War. This sounded ominous; in fact, it meant “company punishment,” the lightest sort of Army sanction – confinement to quarters, not the post stockade.  Zock was soon back coaching softball.

Sometimes, from a few newspaper clippings, you can sketch the outline of a man’s story, and sense the costs of the war.  Curtis Hancock was the pilot of a bomber shot down, by mistake.  He was flying a mission to drop maps to troops on the beachhead; the American anti-aircraft gunners saw his plane coming in low, with its bomb-bay doors open, didn’t wait to check the markings, and shot the plane down.  Captain Hancock was twenty-four when he died.  He was a cheerful-looking young man, and he had more than 50 missions under his belt – enough to go home if he had been flying in other theaters of war.  He left a wife in California, a mother in Texas, and a little daughter, sixteen months old.   Four years later, Captain Hancock’s remains were brought home to Texas.  The Lubbock newspapers mentioned his mother Addie and his daughter Nancy, both living nearby in Lamesa, and that his widow (not named) could be found in Florida.

The chaplains were very good.  They preached on weekends, and during the week they took care of their flocks.  They organized discussion groups and jazz bands.  They set up holiday celebrations. The chaplains were the only officers who could keep the Colonels in line.  When a flight surgeon kept a Red Cross girl in his tent overnight, or a group of colonels fired pistols and rolled dynamite downhill after midnight, to enliven a promotion party, it was the chaplains who called them to account.  Chaplain Smith, new to New Guinea, had no hesitation in writing to General Douglas MacArthur.

Chaplain Smith – Captain Charles Frederick Smith, my father’s unit chaplain – was the hardest officer to trace.  My father knew Chaplain Smith as a hard-working pastor, a very tall man who played the violin.  You would think that a tall Baptist preacher who played the violin would attract attention – but that wasn’t so.  His names were too common: even if an internet search turned up a minister named Charles F. Smith, you could not be sure it was the right man. The wartime Army chaplain school at Harvard had his military assignments; those records went up only to 1945.  In 1956, a Reverend Charles Smith surprised his congregation by resigning as pastor of a large church in North Carolina.  That might have been Chaplain Smith – this Reverend Smith was known as a scholar and had built a new sanctuary and had musical interests – but for two years, the trail went cold.  Finally I found the right Chaplain Smith; it was the same man.  When he resigned his pulpit, he went into teaching – that was what had shocked his church. He made a second career of it, as a teacher and principal and high-school counselor. 

My father’s diary was an unvarnished history. He wrote of Chaplain Smith’s ministry and Lieutenant Zock’s contretemps and the other officers’ gripes – he was disgruntled himself.  With the rest of the Fifth Air Force, he lived in tropical heat and downpours and coral dust – sometimes in combat with the Japanese, sometimes tied up in quartermasters’ snafus and headquarters politics.  The airmen knew the ironies of the war.  They earned their honors, their decorations and the title of the Greatest Generation, in a war for which they were drafted, in battles that their nation too often overlooked.  The greater irony and their achievement was that even though it was not the war they would have chosen, they showed the strength to win it.

Allen Boyer, Book Editor for HottyToddy, is a native of Oxford.  He lives and writes on Staten Island.  His new book “Rocky Boyer’s War: An Unvarnished History of the Air Blitz That Won the War in the Southwest Pacific,” a WWII history drawing on his father’s diary, has been published by the Naval Institute Press.

Follow HottyToddy.com on Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat @hottytoddynews. Like its Facebook page: If You Love Oxford and Ole Miss…

The post “For the Fifth Air Force – On Memorial Day” appeared first on HottyToddy.com.

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Houses For Sale in Waring, TX

Fm 1621 Camp Mira Sol Mm-, Waring, TX

Price: $1695000

This fabulous Hill Country camp has been home to Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas for year-round enjoyment. Bordering the gorgeous Guadalupe River, it offers extensive improvements including a swimming pool, sleeping facilities for 168 people, and multiple pavilions and activity buildings. With proximity to IH 10 and near the town of Waring, it has excellent access from the San Antonio metropolitan area, as well as from historic Boerne or Comfort. The camp provides immediate and excellent options for recreation or commercial opportunity.

from Houses For Sale – The OC Home Search http://www.theochomesearch.com/houses-for-sale-in-waring-tx/ from OC Home Search https://theochomesearch.tumblr.com/post/158120311115

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1., 2., 3. Inspiring, artistic posters lined the walls in the hallways.

4. and 5. The kids created artwork inspired by Monet and practiced their still life skills.

6. In their free time, the girls engaged in fun activities on their own, such as tying knots!

7. I felt at home at Camp Metro. The staff even gave me an awesome shirt so I would feel even more welcome!

8. Awesome Camp Metro staff members!