Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

TIME World India Indian Woman Looks to Sue Uber in the U.S. Over Alleged New Delhi Rape The 26-year-old alleged victim has reportedly enlisted the services of high-profile American lawyer Douglas Wigdor

An Indian woman who was allegedly raped by an Uber taxi driver is considering the possibility of taking the tech firm to court in the U.S., according to British daily the Guardian.

Authorities in the Indian capital banned the taxi service in December, when the woman accused Uber driver Shiv Kumar Yadav, 32, of attacking her. Yadav pleaded not guilty to charges of rape, kidnapping and criminal intimidation.

As the criminal trial unfolds, the victim is reported to have approached Douglas Wigdor, a high-profile American lawyer who represented Nafissatou Diallo, the New York City hotel maid who accused the former International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault. Prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorneys office went on to drop all charges against Strauss-Kahn, while a civil suit was settled out of court.

I can confirm that I have been retained by the young lady who was raped by an Uber driver in Delhi, India, last December, Wigdor told the Guardian, which said he was looking at the possibility of the New Delhi woman suing Uber for negligence in an American court. Having met extensively with her and her family while in Delhi, I can only compliment them for their bravery and fortitude during this very difficult time. We will use all of our resources to vindicate my clients rights, hold those responsible for their actions and ensure that this doesnt happen again.

Here is the original post:
Indian Woman Looks to Sue Uber in the U.S. Over Alleged New Delhi Rape

Port Moody wants to find ways to battle the chafer beetle, but they won't renege on pesticide ban.

image credit: TURF TECHNICIAN

They're a tiny little bug that has caused a lot of damage but Port Moody isn't willing to budge on its pesticide ban to curb the spread of the chafer beetle.

At Tuesday's council meeting, Mayor Mike Clay, who said his own lawn has been torn up by the voracious critters and the raccoons and crows that like to feed on them provided a report with a recommendation that staff report back with options for minimizing the chafer beetle infestation, including pesticide bylaw exemptions.

"It concerned me that the pesticide bylaw prevents the use of two pesticides that have been shown to actually work," Clay said, noting it is important to deal with the matter quickly, before the beetle gestation period begins in April.

Clay's report notes that a large number of private and public grassed areas have been ripped up by the chafer beetle, most of which now require a complete sod removal, beetle treatment and replanting or sodding.

"The damage in landscape value in the city has been estimated to be several hundred thousand dollars," it adds.

But several councillors weren't keen on the idea of going back on the pesticide ban.

"This is a huge step backwards," said Coun. Meghan Lahti. "We're not being very progressive if the first step we go to is pesticides."

Coun. Zoe Royer called the chafer beetle an "epidemic in our community" and suggested there should be more information about the option of using nematodes as a natural remedy.

See original here:
Chafer beetle won't meet death by pesticides in Port Moody

Tracey Spicer Jan 18 2015 at 12:15 AM

For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are the instructions how to enable JavaScript in your web browser.

There is great joy to be had in staying at resorts designed specifically for children. I know that sounds like Special Subject: The Bleeding Obvious, but often, we drag them along to wherever we want to stay then berate them for behaving like well children!

At the Holiday Inn, you don't have to worry about how loud they are, whether there's anything they'll eat, or if they'll utter the phrase, "This is BORING".

The founder, Kemmons Wilson, created the company back in 1952, after discovering few hotel options for his family; it was the first to use the slogan, "Kids Stay & Eat Free".

Now, Nutrition Australia has created a revamped kids' menu for Holiday Inn hotels and resorts across Asia, the Middle East and Africa, to provide "a wider variety of healthy options for kids much more than just the standard burgers, pastas and chips", says Phil Broad, vice-president of food and beverage for the InterContinental Hotels Group.

We got a taste of this recently (pun intended!) at two of their properties in Phuket, Thailand. The buffet in Patong was one of the best I've ever seen, with a low bench for young children to get their own breakfast, and a cool room full of fresh fruit, veggie sticks, and sushi.

In Mai Khao, kids can tick boxes on the menu to design their own pizza, sandwich, or salad perfect for fussy eaters. We also did a mum-and-kids cooking class, creating tom yum goong, green chicken curry and green papaya salad.

Each property was a water wonderland, with a plethora of pools, fountains and waterslides. Activities ranged from animal balloon making for the littlies, to table tennis comps for tweens, and Thai kickboxing for teens.

Oh wait. Apparently, I forgot the most important point. "They had free Wi-fi!" the kids squealed. Not so they could incessantly play their iPods: so they could face-time dada. With hubby working, I thought these resorts would be handy in proving extra sets of er hands.

Continue reading here:
Where kids stay, play and eat (healthily) free

Aerodynamic: Dylan Parker (left) with James Norton. Photo: Steven Siewert

Marketing specialist Dylan Parker, 27 , and landscape architect James Norton, 29, met at a paper plane competition in 2008. It was the start of a journey that inspired the film Paper Planes.

James Norton: We have both been fascinated with paper planes since we were kids. There is nothing like that feeling of seeing it get caught on an updraft and soar above your eyes. A passion for paper planes are hereditary. You take that family design down with you, the one that Dad showed you. The most common is the classic, thin-tipped, wide-wing version.

I met Dylan in 2008 at a paper plane competition at the University of Canberra, where we were both studying. He had a suitcase full of paper plane shapes of every variety. I had never been to a proper contest before, but there was Dylan with a suitcase, with [padded sections] moulded to the shape of his planes.

There were the flat ones that spend the most time in the air and the short bullet-shaped ones that fly like javelins. The designs were incredible. I just looked at him and the planes and I thought, "That guy is just like me, he likes planes just as much as I do and he is totally willing to cop all the shit that comes with it." It was love at first flight.

Advertisement

While we were throwing at the university everyone was looking at us like we were freaks in a "Why are you taking this so seriously?" kind of way.

We had only just got to know each other when Dylan got sick. He was diagnosed with a brain tumour and had to go back to Newcastle to be with his mum [former NSW Environment Minister Robyn Parker] and dad.

He was in hospital for weeks with a golf ball-sized brain tumour they thought might be cancerous.

We still weren't that close as we had only really just met, but we kept in touch through Facebook. I thought it was best to give him some space with his family.

Read more:
Two of us: Dylan Parker and James Norton

Q I inherited a picture from a great-aunt, but I don't remember ever seeing it in her home. It's a mountain landscape with trees. It looks like a name is scratched into the lower right hand corner, as well as "48." It measures 24 by 30 inches, with its gold frame. Any help you can give me identifying and appraising this work would be appreciated.

A After living for 20-plus years in California, I'm finally beginning to recognize and identify certain landscape features in art. Mountain ranges, representations of trees and plants, and patterns of sunlight and shadow all help identify the work of California's en plein-air artists.

The French words en plein-air (literally "in open air") signify a work painted directly from nature and capturing an artist's immediate impression of a scene, rather than one done in a studio and based on studies. The development of the plein-air style coincided with mid-19th-century advances in photographic and moving-picture technology, which helped popularize the idea of capturing a scene at a particular moment.

One of California's most prolific plein-air artists was John Augustus Dominique. It is his graffito signature and date on the lower right of your painting.

After his birth in Sweden in 1893, his family moved to Portland, Oregon, when Dominique was still young. His father trained as a florist and worked as a landscape architect.

Dominique himself first was employed as a typesetter and cartoonist in Oregon, where he also took art lessons. In 1914, he moved to California to study at the California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts) and the San Francisco Institute of Art (now the San Francisco Art Institute). At the 1915 Panama- Pacific International Exposition he saw works by Claude Monet and Edvard Munch. He continued to study art, and his biography indicates that most of his teachers were impressionists.

After military service in Maryland, Dominique moved to Santa Barbara, where his father had designed the gardens for a large estate. He lived and painted on Montecito's Ward Estate for nearly a decade and developed a love for the mountains near Ojai and surrounding areas, now recognized as a frequent subject of his paintings.

Your painting depicts one of the highest peaks in the Topatopa Mountains, near Dominique's Santa Barbara home. It illustrates an oak-tree landscape with Cobblestone Mountain in the distance. To judge from the foliage on the trees and the proliferation of red poppies, your work was most likely done in the spring or summer of 1948.

Dominique continued working, exhibiting and teaching art until his death, in 1994. Interestingly, an infection damaged his sight in 1975, and works painted after that date are done in an abstract style he had abandoned decades earlier.

This 1948 oil on canvas is a classic example of Dominique's work. Over the decades he was living in Santa Barbara, he likely painted hundreds of views of these mountains and canyons, capturing the light of the moment in each one.

Read the original here:
Jane Alexiadis: Painting by John Augustus Dominique

ABOUT EVERY three years or so, when the phone rings at architect David Colemans office, he will think to himself, You know, its about time for Cindy and Rob to call.

It is. And here they are, Colemans serial remodelers Cindy Chin and Rob Graham. The three of them working together to tweak and improve the couples Magnolia bluff Tudor into modern living. Since 1999.

We lived here 15 years before we started remodeling, says Graham. So we knew how the house lived. We never wanted a bigger footprint, but we wanted it to live bigger.

We couldnt figure out how to get modern into a 1929 house, says Chin. After touring a Coleman-designed home, however, they knew exactly how.

I think David has an idea formulated before we even know what were going to do. Chin laughs at the collaboration that, over the years, comes naturally.

Once they commit, Graham and Chin are a pair of troupers. No matter the scope of the work, theyve never vacated the place, even when, perhaps, they should have. At one point, if we wanted to come in the back, we had to use a screw gun to take down the plywood, Graham says.

Work began in the kitchen, opening it, connecting it to the backyard and dining room (achieved on both sides with steel and glass French doors) increasing storage and functionality.

Then it was down to the basement. David makes us call it the lower level, corrects Chin. Heres why: Large windows brighten spaces that are now media room, guest suite, a full bath.

In Phase 3, cabinetry was upgraded to match the new kitchen. (Theyre sapele.) Work then headed upstairs, new dormer.

And now, there is this, the front of the home, its public face, remade front door to sidewalk. Born of a desire for a new porch. The couple thought there was no there there. No place to land out of the weather, make the transition indoors.

See the original post here:
Magnolia Tudor shakes up the neighborhood with contemporary drama out front

Q. I have an old shade tree in my backyard. That tree holds a lot of memories for me. When I was young, I climbed that tree and ate picnics in its shade. I think my father had the same experiences with that tree, but I never asked him when I had the chance. I inherited the house and tree and my children have also played under that majestic old tree and now their children play in its shade when they visit. The tree is ancient, but now it is not looking good. The past few years have not been kind to it. Some branches have begun falling and that worries me. I really do not want to cut it down, but think that will be necessary. Can you suggest any options?

A. It is unfortunate, but trees do not have unlimited life spans. They grow old and die just as we do.

It is true that some individuals in some species of trees may live for thousands of years, some for hundreds of years, but landscape shade trees rarely live that long.

Your tree sounds like one that has exceeded the life span for most landscape trees. However, as you have described, as they reach old age, they begin dying back and their falling branches can become hazardous.

Your first consideration should be safety for your grandchildren who play under the tree.

A qualified tree-care professional can perhaps extend the life of the tree and reduce the hazards it poses.

Many tree-care professionals will provide free estimates and descriptions of what they will do for your tree and give a prognosis for its continued growth. An arborist certified by the International Society of Arborists has studied tree care and passed tests regarding proper tree care, so if possible, contact such an arborist.

If the arborist can reduce the hazard and allow the tree to remain for several years, you can begin under planting with new trees that will ultimately replace the ancient tree. These should be planted outside the extent of the existing tree in locations where they have adequate room for root and top growth, but where they will provide shade where needed.

When the new trees are established, or when the old tree can no longer be made safe, there are several ways to extend its usefulness and prolong memories.

The tree may be cut down leaving a tall stump which can become a pedestal for a picnic table. The picnics of memory can continue at this old tree.

Originally posted here:
Yard & Garden: Options available when handling an aging tree

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) Once, in America, and not that long ago, yard vegetable gardens were as common as sidewalks to the front door.

Farming didn't necessarily have to be, and often wasn't, the resident's livelihood.

Gardens simply were part of the U.S. landscape.

Today, however, as those such as Wendell Berry and Michael Pollan have written, the populace has become divorced from its food sources.

Asheville's Sunil Patel wants to change that.

"We don't know anymore that the land is just as much a part of ourselves as our heart is," said Patel, 35, farmer and founder of Patchwork Urban Farms in Asheville. He started the company a year ago this month.

Patel's vision is to create an environment where the land that produces people's food is the land on which those same people already live, work and play.

Patel and Patchwork have obtained permission to use six plots of land through crop sharing. Those plots range from a tenth of an acre to 1.5 acres. They are located throughout Asheville and in Swannanoa.

Patel plans to form more land partnerships this year, he said.

Those partnerships function like what is commonly known as a CSA or community-supported agriculture, Patel said.

See the original post:
Asheville man begins drive to establish urban farmers

European Champions Cup Pool 2 Leinster v Castres Today: RDS, 5.30pm TV: Sky Sports 2

Chances are that some tired old cliches will be trotted out about 5.30pm today when Castres go about fulfilling their obligations against a Leinster side expected to amass at least four tries and five points.

Bad travellers. Disinterested in Europe. Both observations are true, even if they havent given the entire first-team the weekend off, but they are accusations that shouldnt be swept over the wider French landscape anymore.

Only Castres and Montpellier, both of whom lie bottom of their respective pools, approach round five of the inaugural rugby Champions Cup with the air of dead men walking. That leaves four of their compatriots very much in the mix.

Toulon, Clermont and Toulouse all sit at the summits of their respective piles while a Racing Metro side devoid of Jonathan Sextons services for now sit one point behind Northampton, but hardly for long, given they face Treviso at home tomorrow.

That European form is mirrored at home, where Castres sit second from bottom in the Top 14. Montpellier lie mid-table knowing they could also find themselves immersed in a relegation battle every bit as quick as a push for the play-offs.

So, going AWOL in Europe may be distasteful but emptying their ammo on such manoeuvres would be grounds for court martial given their circumstances and Leinster coach Matt OConnor doesnt believe that is in any way devaluing the competition.

Not really, he explained. Its the reality and the dynamics that are at play. There is no point wasting your resources when the stakes are so high in your domestic league and then youve got to make sure that you stay in the Top 14.

What is surprising about all this is that a Castres side that was good enough to win the Top 14 two seasons ago, and which lost the final to Toulon last summer, should find itself wallowing in the basement halfway into the season.

The departure of some key players has played its part in blunting their spears and undermining the foundations of success at a club that lacks the financial firepower, stadium capacity and population base of the big guns.

Visit link:
OConnor pushing for a complete performance

Charleston, W.Va. A few snowflakes drift down on our hills this morning from an overcast sky that seems to promise more snow. The air is still, but very cold and the landscape seems oddly deserted. Even the cardinals have left the bird feeder and gone to roost, possibly in a warmer spot. It is a true winter day, and we also burrow back in our homes after doing the outside chores in a hasty fashion.

However, it is still a day, which the Lord hath made, and we need to rejoice and be glad in it. We have a warm home, food on the table (and sometimes under it!) and plenty of clothes to protect us from the cold. We need these winter days. When would we make the huge kettles of vegetable soup, update the family picture albums or sort out the cluttered desk drawers if we didnt have winter?

How else could we fully appreciate the miracle of spring, bringing alive again a cold, dead earth? Also, the pure, new-fallen snow, stretching across the fields in undulating waves, is lovely in its cold, austere fashion. Winter has its own beauty, with crystal, jagged icicles that form on the rock cliffs and pool into ice puddles along the ditch line.

We, as human beings, could not have sunshine in our lives all the time. What shallow, superficial people we would be! It takes adverse conditions and storms of life to build character. We are not immune to this worlds ills; its griefs and heartaches. It is in facing these things with faith in God and courage in our soul, that we grow into stronger men and women.

We would never know the depth of Gods tender compassion if we never had heartaches in this life. Without grief, we would never experience the sweet comfort and consolation that God extends to us. If our life were all sunshine, we would never have the ability or understanding to offer a helping hand to others who are suffering human woes and trials.

Just as the earth needs the different seasons, we too need the seasons of the heart to make us increase and abound in love one toward another. (1 Thessalonians 3:12) Only someone who has walked the same path can tell another person, I know exactly how you feel. I am thankful for the stormy seasons that we go through that create compassion for others who are suffering.

Mom used to tell me that when she was a kid the winters were much more severe. She said after the first snows came, the ground remained snow-covered all winter. Big Laurel Creek would freeze over with thick ice and remain that way until the spring thaw. Then the ice would break up and go out with a thundering, crunching noise that let them know that winter was on its way out. Im afraid these milder winters have spoiled us to the place where a blast of arctic air and the accompanying snowflakes are almost more than we can tolerate.

Those old-time winters produced a tough, self-reliant people who learned early how to weather lifes storms. Moms family, like many other families in those early times, has been a perfect example of hard work, honesty and integrity. People who live close to the earth seem to know the essential things of life love of God and family, their need of one another, and the ability to stand tall through the changing seasons.

***

We had a request from Frances Woods of Charleston, who is looking for the recipe for Brown Cake. Unless some older person knows of it, she says that the recipe is so old it cant be found. She would be very happy if someone has it.

View original post here:
Alyce Faye Bragg column: Winter teaches us to weather life's storms