ELKO The permitting of two new buildings in the Rabbit Brush Run apartment complex helped boost the City of Elkos February fees for building permits up roughly six and a half times what they were a year ago $283,887 compared with $44,505 in February 2011.

The two buildings amounted to a total of 14 permits issued, at $2.2 million in valuation, according to figures released by the City of Elkos building department.

The residential is whats helping us at this time, said Building Official Ted Schnoor.

The number of permits issued in February was 146 nearly double the 75 permits issued during the same month last year.

The 146 permits had a valuation of $4.1 million, compared with 75 permits with a total valuation of $1 million in February 2011.

Single-family dwellings amounted to $1.4 million in permit valuations, and $81,627 in permit fees for the city.

Fifty-six permits were issued for the construction of eight new homes. Five new houses in Brookwood Estates were permitted, as well as three in the Spanish Gardens II subdivision.

The residential growth is not expected to slow down anytime soon, as Schnoor estimates March will end with similar results.

The trend is continuing. ... It looks like were going to be issuing quite a few residential permits.

With a higher than average number of applications coming through, there is at least a six-week wait on permits.

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Going Up ...More buildings at Rabbit Brush Run apartments

Have you seen the forecast for this week? We're expecting a wave of glorious sunny warmth, with temperatures in the 70s.

And as a nice result, several local restaurants are opening their patios and outdoor seating. Here's a selection of spots to enjoy the early alfresco-dining season.

(Is your patio open? Email us here and we'll add the listing to our roundup.)

Outdoor seating/patio tables are open at several Max Restaurant Group outposts: Max-a-Mia in Avon; Max Amore and Max Fish in Glastonbury; Max Burger and Max's Oyster Bar in West Hartford; Trumbull Kitchen in Hartford and Max's Tavern in Springfield. maxrestaurantgroup.com.

Patios are open at Wood-n-Tap locations in Farmington, Hartford, Orange, Rocky Hill, Southington and Vernon. woodntap.com.

The patio is open at TD Homers, 461 Queen Street, Southington. 860-329-0387, tdhomers.com.

The patio's open at Carmen Anthony Fishhouse at 51 East Main Street in Avon. 860-677-7788, carmenanthony.com.

Elbow Room's ever-popular rooftop deck is open for service. 986 Farmington Avenue, West Hartford. 860-236-6195, theelbowroomct.com.

Rooftop 120's four-season outdoor seating will sure to be a draw in this weather. 120 Hebron Avenue, Glastonbury, 860-430-9989, rooftop120.com.

At Apricots in Farmington, which faces the Farmington River, the deck is open for full service. 1593 Farmington Avenue, 860-673-5405,apricotsrestaurant.com.

Read this article:
Outdoor Dining: Who's Open For The Season

Eva Pilgrim Fox59

10:24 p.m. EDT, March 18, 2012

Indianapolis

The sun is out and so are the people. Restaurants and bars with patios are seeing a bump up in the outdoor crowds.

Keith Reilly owns O'Reilly's. He says St. Patricks Day is always busy for the bar, but the nice weather made the crowds even crazier, The weather helped keep the patio busy all day and night.

Reilly says that people have been out stopping by the bar to wait on the traffic to clear during the week while enjoying the nice weather on the patio.

In Broad Ripple its the same. Crowded patios line the streets. Christopher Lindstrom was hanging outside at the Broad Ripple Brewpub Sunday afternoon, I love the weather it's just perfect to be outside.

He says its not just people that love the weather, Dog loves it. He is just going to lick the camera. He loves it.

Business owners tell us that restaurants and bars with patios usually see an uptick in business when it warms up, but its not usually this early in the year. None of the owners we spoke to were complaining though.

More:
Nice weather draws people outside

March 19, 2012, 10:41 AM PDT

Takeaway: What to expect when intelligent computing is embedded into the world around us.

Imagine a basket of shopping that suggests healthier alternatives to your favourite snacks, or a car that can route you around a jam before it has even formed, or doing an internet search to find the glasses you lost down the back of the sofa.

This is the vision of the Internet of Things (IoT) - a future where internet-connected tags are embedded into everyday objects, bestowing intelligent behaviour on inanimate objects.

The potential of connected everyday objects is demonstrated by the soon-to-be released Twine, an internet-connected box about the size of a credit card that can be set up to message its owner when some real-world action has occurred, and is able to signal events as diverse as the washing machine having finished or someone breaking into a garage.

The box works by listening to sensors that measure temperature, motion and moisture and then communicates with the owner over the internet.

Nigel Shadbolt, professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Southampton and head of the web and internet science group, said the internet of things could bring intelligence to everything from your car to your fridge to a chip on an apple that has some sense of its sell-by date, speaking to TechRepublic at the recent Digital London conference.

The simple messaging capabilities of early IoT-devices are just the beginning: the real leap forward will come once a critical mass of items, services and people are networked together.

Once a wide variety of things are able to talk then their data and decisions can be combined to give people access to information that wouldnt have been possible before.

Shadbolt said: I think we will see this digital landscape keep evolving - were going to see whole classes of new service meshing between your lifestyle, your health, what youre doing on a daily basis, transport and the like.

Read more:
What the Internet of Things means for you

Eighth grade state writing assessment scores were up this year, with students scoring higher than both RESA (Regional Educational Service Agency) and state averages for this year.

Were real proud of that accomplishment, assistant superintendent Sherrie Gibney-Sherman told the board of education at their business meeting Tuesday night. Thats outstanding.

In other business, the board officially approved the 2012 2013 school calendar. School will start on Aug. 10 this year and end on May 24, 2013. This calendar includes 185 student days. Days prioritized for snow days are Feb. 15, 18 and March 15.

PERSONNEL RECOMMENDATIONS

The board heard that long-time middle school principal Matt Boggs will retire at the end of this school year.

In other action, the board approved the following personnel recommendations:

Ila Elementary School teacher Ashley Witters, has announced her intention to leave at the end of the 2012 school year.

Colbert Elementary Parapro Brenda Chandler was increased from half-time to full time.

Hull Sanford Elementary Parapro Tina Cleveland was approved a two-day leave without pay.

MCMS Teacher Buffy Wennersten was approved for maternity leave and the board hired Carey Metts as a PE teacher to replace Mark Turner for the 2013 school year. They accepted the resignation of nurse Joan Busbin and approved Tanya Lynch as her long-term substitute.

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Eighth grade writing assessment scores up

As part of each weeks Startup Report, Mass High Tech highlights five startup companies and their business goals and provides guest access to their company profiles in the New England Tech Directory. With each weeks Startup Watch, Mass High Tech will choose the weekly featured companies by soliciting nominations through a poll of 10 startup companies, with links to their respective websites.

Please choose five startups that you would like to know more about for the March 27 edition of Mass High Techs weekly Startup Report e-mail by visiting http://www.masshightech.com/startup-watch.

For guest access to todays directory listings, visit the following companies:

Sidewalk Branding Co.: an internationally published Rhode Island search engine optimization and local marketing company.

Greenovations: A catch all building and remodeling outfit, Greenovations offers everything from paint to insulation, floors to countertops, cabinets to wood stoves, paints and coatings to solar tubes, attic fans, plywood and tiles.

The Rifinery: Cutting-edge and innovative concrete design company that specializes in green techniques, designs, and products.

Abovestress Inc.: a Boston-based technology startup that develops innovative self-management mobile apps for personal health and wellness.

Eco Firebox:Eco Fireboxs masonry heater uses only a fraction of the wood used in standard woodstoves, producing a clean, radiant heat that provides even temperatures for 12-24 hours after the fire has died out.

See the original post here:
Startup Watch: Five you should follow

Q. I am taking advantage of the unusual February weather in Vermont to go house hunting. I've seen several 1950s-era ranches with attached garages. What baffles me is that their attics are completely open to the garages. There are no vents on the ends of the attics in these buildings. There is no visible insulation inside the attic roof. The only insulation is on the bottom of the attic, between the boards above the ceiling. (Don't know where the bathroom vents exhaust to.)

Can you please explain why an attic would be open to the garage like this? It seems like an invitation to bugs and critters. Wouldn't this house lose a lot of heat? Wouldn't the moisture from the house condense on the inside of the roof?

If a homeowner wanted to make a house like this more energy-efficient, what could be done about insulating the attic? Should the opening to the garage be closed in, even partially? Should the homeowner always leave a hole?

A. It was a common practice in Vermont in the 1950s to leave the gable end facing the garage open when building ranches. I guess the thinking at the time was the open gable into the garage provided the attic's ventilation. I assume the builders of the time didn't give much thought to the need for ventilation or to the fact that the moisture brought in by the car in winter would contribute to moisture in the attic. I also don't think the builders ever thought about mice and squirrels nesting in the attic floor's insulation. Times have changed! Building a house this way is indeed not a good practice.

The insulation was properly installed between the attic's floor joists, but it was to the day's standards and is woefully inadequate by today's. Heat loss was not increased by this system, but it also is high by today's standards. The good part is that such open gable construction makes it easy to add insulation.

The open gables in these houses can certainly be closed, but other means of ventilation may then be required to avoid moisture accumulation and potential mold problems on the roof rafters and sheathing. The attic should be checked over several winters for condensation or frost on the roof sheathing, rafters or roofing nails. If these are present, additional ventilation should be considered.

The best ventilation system is a combination of soffit and ridge vents with an open connection between the two.

Q. Is there a way to recapture the heat or energy from sources in the home? For instance, it has always struck me that we spend all this energy to heat water to cook, wash and bathe with, and yet we let most of that energy go down the drain. I also can't stand to see the heat from the dryer vent billow out into the freezing air.

A. Recapturing the energy from the sources you mention is not easy or, in some cases, possible. You can let cooking water cool on the stove or countertop, or take a bath instead of showering and let the bath water cool before draining the tub. Laundry is primarily done with cold water nowadays, so this is no longer a source of wasted heat.

The heat from the dryer is another story. During the energy-crisis panic in the early 1970s, hardware stores sold a gizmo that was installed on the dryer vent and directed the heat and moisture into the room while taking care of the lint in a different way. It was OK with old leaky houses, which needed added moisture for the health of the occupants and furniture, but quite undesirable in today's tight houses, where moisture can already be a problem.

Original post:
Attics that are open to the garage pose problems

The world's top value investors love it when their best stocks ideas are selling at bargain-basement prices. For those rarified investors, companies offering fire-sale prices become no-brainer buys.

So regular investors like you and me would do well to emulate the masters and look at companies offering a "buy one-get one" sale on their stocks. We'll pair the companies selling at least 50% below their 52-week highs with the insights of the top investors in the Motley Fool CAPS community. When top earthbound investors also like a company's prospects, it may be wise for us to take notice, too.

Stock

CAPS Rating (out of 5)

% Off 12-Month High

Source: Motley Fool CAPS.

Naturally, you'll want to do more due diligence before buying. Low-priced appliances in thedent-and-ding sectionof your home-remodeling superstore might be there for more reasons than just a few scratches on the surface: Real trouble might be lurking below. Same thing here, so make sure there's nothing seriously wrong with the company before you plug it into your portfolio.

Making a connection It might not be the two-bagger-plus some investors are hoping for, but even analysts at BMO Capital see the momentum turning in favor of communications equipment provider Alcatel-Lucent. Continuing its trend of taking share from Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR) , particularly in the router market, and with LTE becoming such an important component of future telecom expansion, the equipment maker should be able to capitalize on its leading position by deploying more of its wireless and optical technology. BMO sees shares hitting $4 a stub, which would represent a 65% gain from current levels.

Previously I noted Alcatel was driving a huge wedge into the market with its small-cell wireless technology that will help telecoms meet the burgeoning demands being placed on their networks. Although other analysts remain concerned about its sale of the Genesys, its call center and videoconferencing software unit, the separation allows Alcatel to focus its energies on its core networking infrastructure and beating Cisco and Juniper in their own backyards. Let the short-sellers target it; they'll be squeezed when the expected collapse doesn't materialize.

CAPS member kferg2 believes the liquidity concerns are overblown and is confident it will be able to successfully generate the cash flows necessary to sustain itself.

Continued here:
There's a BOGO Sale on These Top Stocks

Warren Twp. A Good Friday Labyrinth Vigil will be held from noon to 3pm April 6 at Trinity United Church, 118 King George Rd.

The church doors will be open from noon to 3pm for people to walk the indoor labyrinth, sit in meditative prayer and light candles. This is the fourth year Trinity has opened its doors, turning the sanctuary into a candlelit haven for observing a traditional Good Friday vigil.

The 3 hour vigil will conclude the Lenten season, the 40 days of preparation leading up to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, in the same manner with which it began: with candle lighting, prayers and a Lenten walk through its indoor labyrinth.

From walking the large in-door labyrinth to simply sitting in silence, there are several opportunities for those who wishing a quiet space for prayer, says coordinator, Cyndy Reames. For those who are looking for something specific to pray about, we offer Prayer Points, areas around the sanctuary dedicated to various needs including world hunger, our service men and women, inner peace for ourselves. But all are welcome to prayer in their own way and for whatever need is on their heart.

The labyrinth is one of the oldest contemplative and transformational tools known to humankind, used for centuries for prayer, ritual and personal spiritual growth, said Heather Vaklosin, Director of Pastoral Care at Trinity. It is a powerful spiritual symbol that speaks to our souls in a way that transcends all creeds and beliefs. Walking the labyrinth has something to offer everyone.

The church, a combined United Church of Christ/Presbyterian Church of the U.S.A. is also Open and Affirming.

Doors will open at 10:30am Easter Sunday April 8 for the annual Easter celebration.

Link:
Good Friday Indoor Labyrinth Walk Vigil in Warren Township

bi-level dimming for renovation of existing fluorescent applications with two ballasts and two circuits

The 2.5 McAdams ellipses and the L80 performance features are also new options for the RTLED luminaire.

"Our continuous goal is to exceed the expectations of the marketplace with the best LED luminaires," said William A. Ballweg, Product Development Manager, Lithonia Lighting Commercial Indoor Products. "We are constantly pushing the market forward with innovative options that deliver better performance, offer more choices and assure a greater range of price points.

"Currently, our customers are seeing many renovation opportunities for indoor ambient LED lighting," said Ballweg. "And these renovation applications can present a wide range of conditions that require options in lumens, emergency lighting and controls. We're not just thinking about these things, we are delivering solutions."

For more information about the new options, visit Acuity Brands at http://www.acuitybrands.com and Lithonia Lighting at http://www.lithonia.com.

About Acuity Brands Acuity Brands, Inc. is a North American market leader and one of the world's leading providers of lighting solutions for both indoor and outdoor applications. With fiscal year 2011 net sales of $1.8 billion, Acuity Brands employs approximately 6,000 associates and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia with operations throughout North America, and in Europe and Asia. The company's lighting solutions are sold under various brands, including Lithonia Lighting, Holophane, Peerless, Gotham, Mark Architectural Lighting(TM), Winona Lighting, Healthcare Lighting, Hydrel, American Electric Lighting, Carandini, Antique Street Lamps(TM), Tersen, Sunoptics, Sensor Switch, Lighting Control & Design(TM), Synergy Lighting Controls, Pathway Connectivity(TM), Dark to Light, ROAM, RELOC Wiring Solutions, and Acculamp.

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LED Lighting is available with 100 lm/W-rated luminaire.