OTTAWA The federal government is tightening safety measures for railways operating in Canada in the aftermath of last years deadly derailment in Lac-Megantic, Que., in which rules simply were not followed.

We will always remember what happened in Lac-Megantic, Transport Minister Lisa Raitt said Wednesday.

This past year has been difficult for all those involved with respect to this tragedy, she said. This tragedy is a case where rules simply were not followed.

Ms. Raitt, speaking to reporters in Ottawa, said the new measures will improve railway safety and make the transportation industry more accountable.

The derailment in July 2013 caused an explosion that killed 47 people and destroyed part of the southern Quebec town. The train, which was carrying volatile crude oil, broke loose after stopping for the night and slammed into the community.

It has been described as Canadas worst train disaster. Ottawa has accepted the recommendations by the Transportation Safety Board, issued in July, that will give the federal government greater powers to enforce and respond quickly to safety issues and they will help protect Canadian communities and strengthen our transportation network because that is a vital element of our economy and our country, Ms. Raitt said.

We want to better protect Canadians in their communities. But we have to maintain that transportation network that we actually need in order to move goods around our country and support our economy.

The new measures cover four areas, beginning with ensuring that unattended trains are properly secured.

All rail operators will need to meet minimum requirements for hand-break application and to test hand-break effectiveness. The new measure will require additional defences on all siding and other appropriate locations to physically prevent unattended trains from rolling away.

Transport Canada will fund research and the development of improved braking systems.

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Ottawa tightens railway safety measures in wake of Lac-Megantic train disaster

Last November, voters in the Breckenridge Public School District passed a referendum to renew the existing levy and additionally to fund technology improvements and enhancements, as well as security and maintenance upgrades.

District officials held a referendum update for the public Monday evening to showcase new technology enhancements, introduce the new technology integrationist, show architectural drawings and safety improvements planned for both school buildings and discuss mechanical and electrical improvements.

School Board Vice Chair Steve Arnhalt explained the boards vision and objectives.

We want students to achieve and that comes in different ways academic, extracurricular and socially. We have many things to focus on and every decision we make as a board, we ask ourselves, how do we add value?

He explained the facilities assessment that was done by In Gensa, which showed needed improvements for maintenance and infrastructure updates. The elementary-middle school was built in 1934 and the high school was built in 1969.

For budgeting purposes, the district was asked to estimate the useful life of each building. The board determined 15 years for the elementary school, as its 80 years old.

We began to prioritize what we need to do to keep that facility and infrastructure there to be a viable facility to educate our kids for 15 years, Arnhalt explained.

Security improvements and upgrades at the elementary school will include using the left front entrance doors as the schools main entrance.

This is to force anyone coming to the school during school hours to have to go through the office so you know who is in your building, explained Luke Pfotenhauer, In Gensa.

The office area will be redesigned and include a nurses station, conference room and work stations for office staff.

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School referendum dollars put to use

Belleville, New Jersey (PRWEB) October 30, 2014

The Capital Region Restaurant Operators Cooperative (ROC) has selected GREENCROWN Energy a leading full-service energy advisory firm specializing in energy supply cost reduction and energy conservation measures, including turnkey cogeneration systems development as its preferred vendor for all energy advisory-related services.

Headquartered in Albany, New York, ROC provides independent restaurant operators with competitive supply prices to help level the playing field with large chain operators. The restaurant industry has always been extremely competitive, said Nick Papamichael, chief procurement officer at Green Crown Energy. Thats why an organization like ROC, with its 176 members and $15 million in buying power, is so vital for independent operators competing with large restaurant chains.

In addition to historically large cost categories food, beverages, labor other expenses, including energy, take on heightened importance in the face of growing competition and highly unpredictable gas and electric prices, he continued. Thats why were proud to have been chosen as a preferred energy vendor for ROC. This is a first class organization thats totally dedicated to helping its members flourish in the marketplace. Were going to be doing everything we can to assist them in those efforts in the area of electricity and gas prices.

One of the best allies for independent restaurant operators interested in holding down energy costs are electricity and gas procurement contracts, according to Papamichael. When properly negotiated by Green Crown Energy experts, they can provide long-term stability amid rising energy prices, he said.

Long-term electric and gas procurement contracts enable independent restaurant operators to more accurately budget and plan for the future without having the prospect of energy spikes or horrible winters hanging over their head, Papamichael added.

As ROC continues to grow and evolve, we are always seeking to align ourselves with companies that can help us grow and provide our members with great value, said Evan Christou, president of ROC. Green Crown Energy is certainly one of those companies, and the timing couldnt be better given the impact of energy prices these days.

The key to negotiating a great electricity and gas procurement contract, Papamichael says, is taking the time to fully understand the unique energy needs of each restaurant. Some folks believe they can strike an energy agreement on their own. However, if just one detail is missed or one important question isn't asked, a seemingly fantastic electricity and gas contract can become a disaster before the ink has dried," he warned. "You need professionals, such as those at Green Crown Energy who have years of experience, impeccable contacts and expertise.

GreenCrown Energy is available to help any business sort out its long-term energy needs, Papamichael offered. Some businesses call us because they want a second opinion before signing a new energy contract. Or perhaps businesses have an expiring energy contract and want to be confident they received competitive pricing with excellent contract terms next time around," he said. All any business has to do is give us a call and were happy to assist.

For a free consultation on how to cut your companys energy bills today, including multiple forms of gas and electric procurement programs, contact an energy adviser at http://www.GreenCrownEnergy.com or call 877-308-2727.

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Lower Electricity and Gas Costs on Menu for Capital Region Restaurant Operators Cooperative (ROC) with Selection of ...

Jealous Cat Bombs Halloween Video
A sneaky jealous cat bombs a Halloween video. This has got to be the funniest cat video bomb ever! Check out my other viral videos: Fuzzy Kitten Loves Window Cleaning ...

By: Jordan Randomness

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Jealous Cat Bombs Halloween Video - Video

No one wants to enjoy a landscaped yard just through a house window. You want to be outside in your outdoor room, not inside looking out at it, right? If so, you probably dont want to be stepping on dirt or mud. You need solid flooring for your outside rooms and connecting pathways. Thats where patios, walkways, and steps come in. Theyre the foundation for enjoying your outdoor room by yourself and with others.

Having a paver patio or stone patio is an automatic assumption for upscale landscapes. You need at least oneand maybe several strategically placed around your hometo serve as a base from which to enjoy your closest outdoor environment. A natural bluestone patio is an ideal location for family and friends to gather outdoors. They can enjoy fresh air, the sound of birdsongs, and the invigorating scent of flowers, grass, and other growing things.

Walkways provide convenient passage between outdoor areas and add visual interest to your landscape. Like patios, outdoor walkways can take many forms. A simple concrete sidewalk between point A and B. Garden pathways can wind their way through your yard and reveal a secret hideaway or other landscape feature. Paver and stone pathways can vary from plain to phenomenal; what kind of ambiance you want to create in your outdoor hallways is up to you.

If you want fanfare, however, consider a stone or paver walkway. Thick catalogs are needed to show the variety of sizes, colors, shapes, and materials stone and pavers are available in.

Depending on the topology of your yard, you may need stairs to help you and your companions move from the house to the outdoors and between different levels in your yard. Depending on the height difference, you might need only a step or two between levels. With large differences you might want multiple stairs with a small, or large, patio as a landing for weary legs to rest on. As with patios and outdoor walkways, steps and stairs can be made with a wide assortment of materials.

Want some ideas for how your outdoor flooring might look? Wander through our gallery of patio, walkway, and steps to see some of the work weve done for your neighbors in the community. Want to learn more about the options for hardscape flooring? See our Stone and Paver page to see the variety of options available and their pros and cons.

If you want more information, or are ready to get your landscape project started, contact Horizon Landscape today for help. We have met and exceeded our clients landscaping expectations in the Wyckoff and surrounding areas for more than 35 years. Let us use our local knowledge and experience to satisfy your landscaping desires.

To reach us, use our thoughtfully provided contact form. Wed be happy to learn more about your project ideas and give you input based on our decades of experience. You can also call us at (201) 848-0022, email us, or stop by our Wyckoff office today!

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Outdoor Walkways, Concrete Steps & Garden Paths Bergen ...

by Kevin VanOrd on October 27, 2014

His name is Harkyn. He exits conversation not with a goodbye, but with a gruff "I don't care," as if he can barely be bothered to embark on the quest at hand. Harkyn may not be delighted by the adventure he's been thrust into, but I can claim no such apathy: Lords of the Fallen is a dark-fantasy pleasure, cut from the same cloth as Dark Souls, yet distinct enough to earn its own spotlight and, perhaps, to earn your affection as well. Harkyn himself is not easy to love, but ultimately, he doesn't matter as much as the world he serves and the hammers he swings.

"World" might be too generous a word, actually: You spend most of your time in corridors and combat arenas, not gazing onto spacious landscapes. Lords of the Fallen's dramatic citadel and hushed monastery are suffering from the invasion of otherworldly flesh-monsters and armored behemoths. Snowy peaks may rise in the distance, but you will not be breathing in their refreshing air. Lords of the Fallen means to choke you with smoke and poison, and to crush you between the stone slabs that line its monumental suspended bridge. The view from this bridge says more about this world than words can convey. Ahead of you lies the gaping maw of a demonic temple hungry for your flesh. The massive chains that connect your destination to the bridge must have taken hundreds of hours to forge. Two colossal soldiers are carved into the mountain on either side of the entrance, warning you of the blood that will soon be spilled. This is Lords of the Fallen: ponderous and unwelcoming. There is no hiding from its dangers.

Unwisely, the game insists on trying to weave a coherent story into these spaces, with each of Harkyn's cohorts and various audio logs tossing up a word salad that does little to get you invested. In time, the story begins to make sense, but this cliched tale of the balance between good and evil isn't the reason to press on. Instead, it's better to let the frozen walkways and giant braziers speak for themselves. You may begin your adventure in a holy sanctuary, but this place seeks to murder you. Consider the titles of the bosses you fight. Guardian. Beast. Champion. Who needs proper names, when "Annihilator" gets the point across? These titans and their lesser cohorts have no other purpose than to kill.

You fight several such rivals in the first few hours (out of 20 or so) alone, though it takes time to reach the most formidable ones. In the meanwhile, you roam the game's corridors from a third-person perspective, swinging an axe or sword, dodging or blocking incoming attacks, and occasionally calling on the gods of magic to give you a hand when you most need it. It's almost impossible not to draw the obvious comparisons to the Souls series here. An energy meter depletes when you block, roll, and attack, forcing you to closely manage your defenses lest you leave yourself vulnerable to damage. Different melee weapons require different approaches, but Lords of the Fallen gives each of them an authentic sense of weight. Combat requires understanding of how long it takes to swing that humongous greatsword you carry, and how much time that fire-breathing thing you're fighting takes to prepare its next blow.

Lords of the Fallen's dramatic citadel and hushed monastery are suffering from the invasion of otherworldly flesh-monsters and armored behemoths.

So far, so Dark Souls then. Compared head to head, Souls games are superior to Lords of the Fallen in most given areas: Dark Souls is more mysterious, more difficult, and more diverse, and Lords of the Fallen features no online connectivity. To call Lords of the Fallen a poor man's Dark Souls sells it entirely too short, however. For one, Lords of the Fallen strikes a different kind of tone. It is moody and oppressive, but rarely terrifying; it is a power fantasy, not a heart-wrenching death simulator that rolls deadly boulders at you as if you are a single, miniscule bowling pin. The art style reflects the difference: armor and architecture is less Medieval, chunkier and excessively ornate, mirroring Harkyn's strength and confidence. Lords of the Fallen has a few challenges, but it's rare for you to feel frail or afraid: the game simply isn't hard enough to make your blood boil. That's at least true in the main world; the visits you make to a shadowy and sinister otherworld are more frightening.

Those visits bring great reward if you can conquer the darkness. Traversing this otherworld is like exploring a foggy dessert during the witching hour: you can barely see further than the tip of your blade, which make the occasional glimpse of light a true ray of hope. There is tribulation to undergo, however, before you reach possible treasure. Your steps into the beyond lead you first to easily-dispatched knights and mutants, which require only that you put the finicky targeting system to good use. Soon, though, you could encounter a rolling fire demon whose flaming carapace will quickly scorch your flesh. Your introduction to this dimension is a limited one, fortunately: you open a few treasure chests in the hope of finding a rune for upgrading your equipment, a new armor set, or an item that temporarily protects you from poison, and then return to the land of women and men. You reach this realm by entering portals that only unlock when you have killed some unknown beast. You will come to identify an available nearby portal by the crackles and creaks it makes as it opens, as if it's made of ancient tendons that haven't often had a chance to stretch.

The grind to level up is minimal, and while death is likely, it's not frequent enough to elicit heartache. When you perish, you leave behind your ghost and (usually) revive at whichever ruby crystal you last saved at. Your ghost contains all the experience you have accumulated since the prior death, but it doesn't remain forever, so it's in your best interests to go retrieve it, and to be timely about it, at least in the early hours. Every fallen enemy will have respawned after your death, but you will be armed with the knowledge of what lies ahead of you. You will also be armed with some spells and a gauntlet that shoots out magic projectiles, spews fire, and helps open new pathways. Selecting and casting spells is a matter of pressing or holding a button: there's no need to switch from a dagger to a wand if you want to punch a demon in the groin with your quake skill. There are no bows and arrows in Lords of the Fallen: it's all swords and sorcery. You can engorge on magic when leveling up and make quick work of the three-legged freak known as the infiltrator if you play your cards right. I prefer the heaviest killing tools, however, coming close enough to my foes to smell their breath.

You will probably not sob when your ghost expires and you leave behind all your experience. Experience can be regained easily, and in the last several hours, you accumulate too little experience from killing enemies to mind the loss. The bosses may parade around their ominous titles and roar with indignance, but most of them are more bark than bite: if you have Souls experience, many will go down on the first attempt. The challenge ramps up nicely during the lead-up to the final showdown, however, beginning with a double-boss encounter that signals trouble to come.

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Lords of the Fallen Video Review

Pepco #39;s tree removal angers Md. residents
Trees are now coming down in a Potomac neighborhood that took power company Pepco to court. http://bit.ly/10wdaK5.

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Pepco's tree removal angers Md. residents - Video

staff photo by joe sarno

Devinn and Dean Bua, who own The Kitchen Shop with their dad Lewis, can design and create your kitchen from start to finish, drawing from their years of experience. Designs are presented to customers in digital form as pictured here.

The Kitchen Shop, a full-service remodeler, is now celebrating its 25th anniversary and continues to pride itself as a one-stop shop where customers benefit not only from substantial savings, but from 25 years of experience offered by a family-owned business.

"In celebrating our 25th anniversary, we are having a sale on St. Martin cabinetry," explained co-owner Devinn Bua.

In an attractive deal for any bank account, The Kitchen Shop is offering to beat competitors' prices for cabinetry on the same or a comparable product, including the popular brands Dewils, Wolf, Fabuwood, and St. Martin, which are all included in the store's extensive and colorful array of cabinetry products. The store also offers RiverRun Cabinetry, an inexpensive quality cabinet brand.

"Bring in your cabinet list and we will beat any price," he explained.

He added that The Kitchen Shop will also "match any price on the same brand of cabinets with a written estimate."

While many equate the chain store with bargains, The Kitchen Shop at 35 Newark Pompton Turnpike in Pequannock is proving that the deepest discounts can be delivered in a more customer-friendly atmosphere and with the knowledge that only comes from years in the trade.

In talking to Devinn and Dean Bua, the two brothers who operate The Kitchen Shop with dad Lewis, one quickly gets the sense that they are proud to be able to offer to the community a family business, started by their dad 50 years ago and operating for 25 years at the Pequannock site.

"We give you our experience," said Devinn. At The Kitchen Shop, he said, "You're not just buying from a big box store that sells you cabinets and you're out the door. We'll be there for anything you need."

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The Kitchen Shop specializes in one-stop shopping & service

Fugitive Coal Dust Suppression Sprinkler System
http://www.nelsonirrigation.com The rugged durability of Nelson Big Gun Sprinklers makes them a favorite for coal pile dust suppression, mine tailing dust, ...

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Fugitive Coal Dust Suppression Sprinkler System - Video

BATON ROUGE, La. (WGNO) - The Louisiana State Fire Marshal is investigating a rash of thefts of important sprinkler system parts from a hospital, theatre and a department store.

We actually noticed it when wepicked it up to see what it was,Greg Flathers owner of the Ultimate Party Store in Hammond told NBC33.

The fire hose connector was stolen from the side of the building a week ago.

Representatives from fire and police departments from Hammond, Kenner and Jefferson Parish will join the Fire Marshal for a News Conference Thursdayin Baton Rouge to discuss the investigation into the thefts.

The hose connectorsallow fire departments to pump much-neededwater into burning buildings.

Without that, the fire will spread more. You know, we might get alittle bit of a jump because the sprinkler system will work but wewont be able to produce additional water to it to help control itfrom spreading or getting worse, saidJohn Smith, Fire Chief at the Hammond Fire Department.

Hose connectors are installed in thousands of commercial and residential buildings throughout our area including hotels, schools, nursing homes and theatres.

Flathers said each connector costs about $1,000 to replace.

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State Fire Marshal investigates thefts of important parts that could disable sprinkler systems