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Authorities say a Smyrna man threw lawn furniture, plates and other glassware from a second story balcony at officers as they tried to arrest him.

A warrant issued by Cobb County Magistrate Court states Joseph Munoz threw the items from the balcony as officers tried to arrest him at his residence on Cobb Parkway on January 17.

According to the warrant, an officer says Munoz refused multiple commands to come out from his home and to stop throwing objects from his balcony.

The warrant states officers made their way into his home and Munoz continued to refuse repeated order to stop throwing objects at them.

The warrant states officers had to place Munoz back in handcuffs as he was undergoing medical treatment at the Kennestone Hospital.

Police allege Munoz tried to bribe them at the hospital so they would let him go.

According to the warrant, Munoz told one of the arresting officers, I will give you all the money in my account if you let me go.

The warrant also states Munoz admitted to having two partially smoked marijuana cigarettes at his residence.

Munoz has been charged with possession of less than one ounce of marijuana, obstruction/hindering law enforcement, reckless conduct and bribery.

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Report: Cobb County man hurls lawn furniture at police during arrest

Published: Friday, January 23, 2015 at 6:01 a.m. Last Modified: Friday, January 23, 2015 at 12:08 a.m.

The Assisi Bridge House is a halfway home for men 18 and older. Some are there by choice, but most of the clients are court-ordered. Daniel Sugasti, 36, who has been recovering from a heroin addiction at the Bridge House for four weeks, said it was the right option for him.

Drug Court wanted me to come back to New Orleans. I said, 'Maybe that's not the best idea,' he said. I've been to six programs in my life. I don't know what it is about this one, but I feel a lot more comfortable.

Clients stay for four to six months, getting individualized rehabilitation involving medical care, mental health treatment and counseling. They participate in group and one-on-one therapy. Loved ones can visit on scheduled days, and the facility hosts family fun days in the spring and fall.

'We're building something'

Though not affiliated with Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous, the Bridge House supports the 12-step program, Associate Director Monique Albarado said. Once a month, counselors and other residents evaluate the guys in 12 areas, including leadership, social interaction and emotions. They point out both successes and room for improvement.

How many situations do you have somebody say, 'I was really angry with the way you just talked to me'? Albarado said. We get really honest here. They're learning things about themselves that nobody's ever brought to their attention before.

A small percentage of clients don't seem to want to recover and will fight the treatment, counselor Billy Degeyter said, but most are genuinely trying to start a new life.

I'm willing to help someone who's willing to help themselves, he said. For them to successfully achieve abstinence, three or four attempts at treatment is the average.

Albarado said the staff tracks clients' success rates, checking to see if they're still sober a year later. Nearly all find work after the program, and 70 percent typically remain clean after a year.

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Assisi Bridge House helps men recover from addiction

MATT DUNCAN/Fairfax NZ

BEAUTIFUL GESTURE: Emma Calvert, left, Ingrid Pritchard and Shelley Guildford of Wellington's Scent Floral Boutique.

If diamonds are a girl's best friend, then flowers must come a pretty close second - and one central Wellington florist is going the extra mile for those who have been dealt a very hard hand.

As well as leaving posies somewhere in Wellington once a week, Ingrid Pritchard and her team at Scent Floral Boutique give away weekly bouquets to breast cancer sufferers and their support people.

Pritchard became familiar with the Sweet Louise charitable trust at a memorial service for a friend who passed away after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

Sweet Louise aims to improve the quality of life for women with breast cancer, relying on donations and support from businesses to provide vouchers for services such as spa treatments, lawn mowing, food and childcare.

"I met the speaker, Elva Phillips, at the memorial and wanted to do something for them, and donate a random act of kindness posy," Pritchard says.

"We have it ready every Monday for someone at Sweet Louise to pick up and give it to someone deserving, whether it's a member, staff, sometimes it might go to a member's mum, or one of the drivers.

"We have been doing it for about two years now."

Phillips says she has been blown away by Ingrid's generosity and humble attitude.

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Florists' generosity helps cancer charity

Landscaping Portland Oregon - Landscape Design Portland OR
Landscaping Portland Oregon - Landscape Design Portland OR http://landscapersportlandoregon.com/ Did you understand that many landscaping experts provide numerous more services than just ...

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Landscaping Portland Oregon - Landscape Design Portland OR - Video

M. Paul Friedberg Biography: Becoming a Landscape Architect [7 of 7]
Like several events in Friedberg #39;s life, becoming a landscape architect was a response to circumstances. Interviewed by Charles A. Birnbaum, October 2006. Fo...

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M. Paul Friedberg Biography: Becoming a Landscape Architect [7 of 7] - Video

Description of the Head of the Harbor Project
Presented by Earl Goven, Landscape Architect, Blades Goven, Fairfield, Conn.

By: Nancy Chapman

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Description of the Head of the Harbor Project - Video

An article in The Wall Street Journal listingThe Best Architecture of 2014includes UBs Solar Strand, calling the 3,200-panel, ground-mounted photovoltaic array a small but telling model of landscape architecture at its most forward-thinking.

Envisioning energy as part of the cultural and built landscape, the Solar Strandstands at the main entrance to UB's North Campus and provides a striking but practical campus gateway. The 750-kilowatt array generates enough energy to power hundreds of student apartments while offsetting the emission of nearly 400 tons of greenhouse gases annually.

At a time when fields of PV panels and wind turbine farms are a reality, planted in vast undifferentiated arrays that assault the eye, not to mention birds and other animals, Solar Strand offers a thoughtful alternative, writes Julie V. Iovine, the Journals architecture critic.

The array was designed by the celebrated landscape architect, artist and educatorWalter Hood, who was selected through an international design competition sponsored by UB.

The design competition, which attracted an initial field of 23 artists and landscape architects from around the world, called for a solar array that would be integrated into the campus landscape, accessible to students and the community, and representative of a new design vocabulary for solar installations around the world.

The project got its start in 2009 when the New York Power Authority approached UB with an interest in funding the construction of a conventional, ground-mounted photovoltaic array across several acres at the North Campus entrance. University leadership took the project to the next level, with NYPAs support, proposing to elevate design standards for the project through an international design competition.

Robert Shibley, dean of the School of Architecture and Planning, UBs campus architect and chair of the selection committee for the competition, reflected on the design process in a recent article inDomus, an international architectural publication:

To transform a simple utility field into a land art installation, we mounted an international design competition that asked artists to consider solar panels as their medium and our campus gateway as their canvas. We were presenting the opportunity to make art from something that tended to be somewhat pedestrian, and that was increasingly subject to not-in-my-backyard obstruction. I think for some artists thats a very interesting challenge.

Hoods winning vision was to build the installation into the campus landscape. The 15-acre site features regenerating meadows, a meandering creek and vernal pools. Set in the background are the universitys chilled water plant and generator system.

The Solar Strands design logic is based on the strand concept: a linear landscape formation and DNA fingerprint. Groups of photovoltaic panels are mounted at staggering heights onto supports that stretch in three rows. Walkways run between the rows of panels, connecting the array with local roads, UBs Center for Tomorrow and naturally regenerated meadows and wetland areas that the public can enjoy.

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Solar Stand on Wall Street Journal list of Best Architecture of 2014

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Find more essays from each of the panelists at this year's Economic Forecast Breakfast at http://www.columbian.com/economicforecast

Every business, small or large, must attract new customers and deepen loyalty among current ones if they are going to grow. But today's communications landscape is undergoing seismic shifts, and savvy business owners are changing their marketing strategies to reach the people they depend on for business success.

Migration of marketing efforts from traditional to digital and social is expected to accelerate dramatically, according to nearly every expert. Gone are the days when a big advertising campaign or piles of expensive brochures were commonplace.

Few companies have the budget for a Super Bowl ad, but anyone might post that rare YouTube video that goes viral. It's this level playing field that gives small and midsize businesses opportunities to compete effectively for customers' share of mind and wallet like never before.

Here are five trends and transformations that all businesses, but especially smaller ones, can benefit from in the new marketing paradigm.

Keep your website tuned up. Don't think of that recent website redo as a "one and done" effort. Continue to build out features that keep your content fresh and your technology up to date. As with all things, technological advances make systems and platforms obsolete faster than most businesses can keep up with. A plan that offers ongoing improvements will extend the life of your initial investment.

Everyone's telling your story now, thanks to social media. Surveys say people trust recommendations from friends and colleagues upward of 10 times more than advertisers' claims. What are people saying about your brand on Facebook or on sites like Amazon or Angie's List? And social is not just for consumers anymore; even B2B companies must look to social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter to check the buzz about their company. People tune out traditional advertising and tune in to referrals and recommendations from friends and colleagues. Savvy marketers track feedback and engage in social media to help influence the influencers.

If you aren't doing video yet, you're already late to the party. Video is skyrocketing as the most preferred, most effective way to connect with your customers. Whether you're using 6-second Vine videos, uploading to a YouTube channel, or embedding videos on your website and in your presentations, making video a core part of your marketing plan is a must in 2015.

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Henning: Marketing must embrace digital, social media aspects

The new dark pool for fund managers announced by Fidelity Investments and others is the latest attempt to bring transparency to part of the market seen as cloaked in secrecy.

Fidelity, BlackRock Inc. (BLK) and seven other asset managers unveiled Luminex, an industry-owned dark pool where they say the biggest investors will know the rules and be kept free of interference from speculators. The venture follows a year in which the reputations of private electronic equity venues suffered as regulators uncovered evidence of deception.

While ambitious, the model described by the fund companies bears resemblances to venues already in operation, in particular one run by Liquidnet Holdings Inc. That platform, opened in 2001 by Seth Merrin and serving about 760 fund companies in 43 markets worldwide, ranked 20th among the biggest American dark pools by volume, according to the latest data.

It would be wonderful if everybody put all their eggs in the Liquidnet basket, Merrin said in a telephone interview today. We look at this as them throwing their hands up in the air and saying, Were fed up with this market structure, Were fed up with the shenanigans.

(Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, owns a stake in Bids Trading LP, which operates a dark pool geared toward block trading.)

At Merrins Liquidnet, the average size of trades is more than 40,000 shares, about 200 times greater than those found on most venues. The platform has found a niche as a crossing network where the biggest investors wait for counterparties to show up with orders that match theirs.

That model stands in contrast to most of the U.S. equity landscape, where market makers intermediate trades between investors who want to do business right away. Liquidnet did just over 22 million shares in the week of Dec. 29, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The two biggest dark pools, both run by brokerages, did almost 10 times that.

The Finra figures only include trading of the biggest U.S. stocks.

Theres always room for intermediation because most stocks are not going to find their natural other side, Merrin said. What they are saying is that the regulations and current solutions out there are not doing enough to help their specific business.

IEX Group Inc., made famous by Michael Lewiss Flash Boys book, is owned by a consortium including hedge funds and mutual funds. It opened for business on Oct. 25, 2013, and its share of total U.S. equity trading hit 1 percent in November.

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Fund Firm Dark Pool Seeks Transparency in Opaque Corner

Booking a space on a guided wildlife safari is the way most visitors experience Africa. But theres another option few travelers know about that offers a more exclusive way to see the continent.

One can reserve their own luxury home deep in the African wilderness with an attentive staff at your beck and call offering the freedom to explore the countryside at leisure. These luxury estates, handpicked by African Safari Company, an agency that specializes in small group travel and custom safaris, are a perfect getaway for those looking for a unique travel experience off the typical path.

Set amidst two rolling mountain ranges, Tarkuni is the Oppenheimer familys own personal home at Tswalu Kalahari, the ultimate private sanctuary. Recently redesigned to uncompromising standards of comfort and elegance, Tarkuni is an exceptional choice for families or groups of friends. Its five luxurious suites, each with a magnificent en-suite bathroom, accommodate a maximum of 10 guests. The home has its own dedicated team including a host and private chef to ensure a completely personal service. A private vehicle, personal field guide and tracker ensure an equally bespoke safari experience.

Tarkuni creates an oasis of serenity in the desert. Its quiet pool and shady salas offer calm and contemplation. Its own traditional boma (fenced enclosure) has seen many star-lit celebrations. And its beguiling charm has led many guests to return time and again to what has become their second home in the Kalahari.

Villa Saebin, set against Signal Hill in the suburban Tamboerskloof neighborhood, takes full advantage of the views of Table Mountain, Lions Head, the Stellenbosch Mountains, and the Durbanville Hills. The vertical spread of five levels has a private study at the entrance level (with a garage underneath) and three guest bedrooms on the level above. The living area on the fourth level includes open-plan living and dining areas, a sleek kitchen with Miele appliances, a yoga room, and a terrace with an L-shaped pool.

Nights are dreamy in the fifth-level master suite with a roof garden and terrace. Artworks from around the worlda mix of pieces highlighting contemporary African and Asia-Pacific influencesaccent the villa. Villa Saebin, which was completed in early 2014, comes with Wi-Fi, a home-entertainment system, and housekeeping service four days per week.

Zambia's Lower Zambezi is renowned throughout Africa for its magnificent herds of wild elephant, exceptional predator viewing and of course the Zambezi River. It's also home to one of the continents most spectacular and unique private homes. Chongwe River House sleeps eight in four spacious ensuite bedrooms, making an ideal safari base for a family or a group of friends wanting a private safari.

Chongwe River House stands on the banks of the Chongwe River, close to the Zambezi, and with a sensational view of the dramatic mountainous escarpment beyond. Many animals come to the Chongwe River to drink and from the deck the game viewing can be as good as any safari activity. The property comes fully staffed with Chongwes resident head guide Matt Porter, house managers Scott Simpson and Kim Bailey, private chefs and a full complement of support staff all of whom are masters at tailoring private safaris.

Kiba Point is an incredible private camp in the Selous; a totally exclusive retreat in the heart of one of the most game-rich areas of Tanzania. Kiba Point has just 4 sleeping rooms, raised and entirely open at the front, to take advantage of the river views. The thrill of sleeping in such proximity to nature, while completely safe from animal intruders, makes Kiba a special and unique experience. Bathrooms are bush deluxe, with flush toilets, indoor and outdoor showers and hot and cold water upon request.

At Kiba Point, each room has its own plunge pool set into the edge of the deck, and there is also a large house pool where you can sink into comfortable sofas and chairs for an afternoon of general laziness. Kiba Point has its own small team of guides and staff, all of whom can help plan outings and activities. Head out every day either on foot, by boat or by vehicle - as you want and when you want.

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Private African homes