Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

The 260 residents of Ten Sleep, Wyo., drive at least 26 miles to buy groceries and 112 to catch a plane. Local businesses include the Crazy Woman Caf and Dirty Sallys, a soda fountain and souvenir shop. You wouldnt expect an Internet entrepreneur to launch a startup here. But in 2006, Kent Holiday did just that, opening Eleutian Technology, where local teachers tutor Asian students in English through live online videos. He now employs about 500 teachers around the region.

Holiday was visiting his in-laws when he noticed the local telephone utility laying fiber-optic cable: Ten Sleep was getting high-speed Internet. In 2011, President Obama used Eleutian as an example of the Internets effects on rural economic development: For local businesses, broadband access is helping them grow, prosper and compete in a global economy.

But such access the basic modern infrastructure many city-folk take for granted is far from universal. Of the 19 million Americans who lack broadband access defined as 4 megabits per second (mbps) download speed, 1 mbps upload 14.5 million live in rural areas. Thirty percent of Indians living on reservations also lack access.

Speedy Internet is not a panacea, but it can provide a much-needed boost. For rural residents, writes Sharon Strover, a communications professor at the University of Texas-Austin, having broadband is simply treading water or keeping up. Not having it means sinking. Now, projects to wire the Navajo Nation and other rural areas could help close the Wests connectivity gap. Will they be the economic boon everyone hopes?

The more densely populated a place is, the more likely it is to have fast, affordable Internet. When people live far apart, service providers dont profit enough to cover the costs of building and maintaining the physical infrastructure. If they do provide access, its often at higher prices and slower speeds than in urban areas. In the rural West, where 2 million people lack broadband access, topography is also a barrier. Mountains and narrow valleys can block signals from wireless towers and satellites and make it difficult to install fiber-optic cables. Silverton, for instance population 637, at an elevation of 9,300 feet in a remote and rugged alpine area is the only county seat in Colorado not plugged into fiber-optic cables.

As the Internet becomes a more integral part of daily life, people with shoddy connections are at an economic disadvantage. Fast Internet is necessary to take video-based online classes and to sign up for health care. (Imagine the horror of trying to navigate Healthcare.gov with dial-up.) Rural hospitals use it to video-conference with urban medical specialists, and schoolteachers increasingly record lectures that students can watch at home.

But Lawrence Wood, associate professor of media arts and studies at Ohio University, says the most significant drawbacks are cultural. The main reason people use broadband these days is for entertainment, he says. Having a smartphone or a fast Internet connection is really a matter of being a part of contemporary life in the United States.

Expecting the private sector alone to fill the broadband availability gap is unrealistic. So a number of rural areas have turned to community-owned networks. Powell, Wyo., built its own fiber-optic network, which a local Internet provider pays to use, and many of Washington states public utility districts are doing the same, some with help from the 2009 stimulus. On the Navajo Nation, where fewer than 4 percent of residents have broadband access, the tribal utility recently received a $32 million federal grant to bring wireless service to the entire reservation. And in southeastern Colorado, a rural electrical co-op provides broadband in places like Two Buttes, population 43 doing for Internet what it did for electricity in the 1930s.

But simply having access isnt enough; people have to actually use it. Broadband adoption rates are 13 percent lower in rural America than in cities, Strover found, with non-users citing high cost and the belief that they dont need to be online. But when rural residents use broadband, there are economic benefits. In a 2013 study, Strover found that rural counties where over 60 percent of people used broadband had more rapid income growth and slower unemployment growth than similar counties with fewer people online.

Broadband cannot, however, reverse long-term economic trends like rural-to-urban migration, or change proximity to a highway or the quality or size of the local labor force. Most economic decisions depend on a multitude of factors, writes Shane Greenstein, who studies information technology and economics at Northwestern Universitys Kellogg School of Management, and broadband is but one of many.

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High Country News: Rural Americans have inferior Internet access

Neighbors help neighbors clear their driveways and walkways in Columbia on Thursday after nearly a foot of snow blanketed the area. (Thomas Harrelson/Baltimore Sun Media Group video)

Howard County officials said Thursday that three county men died after suffering heart attacks while outside their homes during the snowstorm, and that two were shoveling snow when they collapsed.

The first incident occurred just after 9:30 a.m., when a witness called an ambulance after seeing a man collapse while shoveling. The man, 56-year-old Richard Tucker of the 1600 block of Woodstock Road in Woodstock, was transported to Howard County General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to county fire department spokesman Marc Fisher.

The second incident happened just after 10:30 a.m., in the 9700 block of Owen Brown Road in Columbia. According to emergency officials, James Wells, 57, collapsed outside his home. Wells' family and several bystanders called 911, but rescuers were unable to resuscitate him at the scene, officials said.

According to Fisher, the third incident, and the second officials confirmed was related to shoveling, involved Kenneth Frame, 61, in the 5000 block of Southern Star Terrace in Columbia. A witness called 911 after seeing Frame collapse. Frame was taken to Howard County General Hospital shortly after noon, where he was pronounced dead.

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman urged county residents to be careful.

"This is deep, heavy snow, and I implore everyone to take it easy," he said. "Please don't over-exert yourself. Clear a little at a time. Or ask a neighbor to help. We need to pitch in as a community during times like these. If you know of a neighbor who could use assistance, please offer to do a little shoveling. We can't prevent all emergencies, but we can take smart steps to be safe and help others."

Dr. Eric Aldrich, the vice president for medical affairs at Howard County General Hospital, offered tips on how to shovel safely.

"In general, there's two kinds of problems that doctors worry our patients can have [while shoveling]," he said. "One has to do with neck and back issues and the other is cardiac. On the cardiac side, if you have any history of cardiac disease, and especially if you are over 40, you shouldn't be doing any sort of physical exertion, shoveling or otherwsie, without consulting a physician."

People who have a history of shortness of breath or discomfort after walking up a flight of stairs should also get checked out, he said. And people with a family history of heart disease and stroke before the age of 60 should have a checkup, even if they feel healthy.

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Three Howard men shoveling snow die from suspected heart attacks, officials say

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Colleen Schmidt, CTV Calgary Published Friday, February 14, 2014 4:41PM MST Last Updated Friday, February 14, 2014 6:44PM MST

A Calgary woman put in a request to have the tree in front of her home pruned and was surprised to come home and see nothing but a stump and pile of saw dust.

Last summer, Mandy Wong emailed the city to have a large green ash tree on the edge of her property pruned because the branches were dying.

Wong says the mature trees are one of the reasons she settled in the community of Killarney in the first place.

We live in this area because its a mature neighbourhood all the big trees here, said Wong.

Wong says the city never responded to her email, the pruning was never done and instead the whole tree was removed sometime this week.

I came home from work looked outside all I see is debris and dirt. Where is my tree? They took down my tree without telling me, said Wong. This is outrageous at first I thought who would do such a thing? I'm like is it the city, we were trying to put the pieces together.

On Tuesday, construction crews that were working next door saw a tree removal company stop by.

"They brought their big truck here and then they put up this thing with their chainsaws and started cutting everything down, said Paul Basra.

The city says contractors were sent out to do the job.

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Absent ash stumps homeowner

New Construction Tile work
Backsplash and Tile Flooring going in on this Chateaux Builders new home.

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New Construction Tile work - Video

Construction crews are making major headway on the Washington School Districts new Early Learning Center.

Located on the Washington West Elementary campus off West Highway 100, the 25,000-square-foot center will open in August.

The center will combine three programs under one roof early childhood special education, Parents as Teachers and all of the in-town preschools.

Assistant Superintendent Dr. Brendan Mahon said exterior brickwork should be completed by early next week, and metal siding has already been installed.

Two sides of the building are brick, with metal siding on the other sides.

We are totally under roof and 90 percent complete on the exterior all good news, Mahon told The Missourian Thursday.

We had hoped to get asphalt parking lots completed in November, but weather did not permit, he said. This will not impact the overall schedule. We simply moved it to the spring.

Mahon said crews are hard at work on the interior of the building.

Interior framing is complete, and the drywall in the classroom areas has been taped and sanded and will be finished next week, he reported.

Crews are just now beginning to lay the tile in the classroom restrooms, he noted.

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Work Continues On New Early Learning Center

The documentary "Tim's Vermeer" explores the work of Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman filed the following report.

"Tim's Vermeer" is an exquisitely fun documentary that hits on a profound aesthetic question, one first posed in 2001 by David Hockney: Did the 17th-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer use optical devices to achieve his visual poetics of light? Tim Jenison, a San Antonio video engineer, goes obsessed with knowing the answer. And so, in Penn and Teller's sly magic act of a movie - Penn narrates it, and Teller directed - Jenison attempts to re-create Vermeer's 1662 masterpiece "The Music Lesson," even though hes no more of a trained artist than you or I.

By hand, Jenison builds almost every object in the painting - the floor tile, the carved harpsichord. And that's before he gets to the Herculean task of using a homemade camera obscura and mirror to fill in what is basically the ultimate paint-by-numbers diagram. How insanely meticulous is the work? Jenison paints the stitching of the tablecloth. And damned if, by the end of the film, he hasnt painted his very own extraordinarily authentic-looking Vermeer.

"Tims Vermeer" is a uniquely suspenseful and fascinating movie, but does it really prove the theory that Vermeer painted with optical devices? I think it comes close. Yet the real richness of the film is the question behind the question: If this, more or less, is how Vermeer created his paintings, does that render his art inferior to what we thought it was? Only if you believe that technology and art are somehow enemies. The proof, after all, is in the pudding, or maybe I should say the painting. In "Tims Vermeer," unmasking art history's greatest trick only adds to its mystery.

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Documentary "Tim's Vermeer" explores work of Dutch painter

Havana Colorful, crumbling and controversial, Cuba is caught between then and now, between communism and capitalism and the challenge of two currencies.

Thanks to a loosening of travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans by President Obama, Cubans are beginning to get a taste of the benefits of free enterprise. All manner of merchandise has begun showing up in the country, including massive flat-screen TVs, bikes, clothes and microwaves.

It was the proverbial dark and stormy night when our charter plane finally touched down after an eight-hour delay in Miami. Once we were through customs, the glass doors slid open to reveal a crowd of people three deep waiting to greet family members pushing carts piled high with goods.

This welcome is all for you, joked in-country guide Vivian Quintero Triana. She assisted Joe Scarpaci of the Center for the Study of Cuban Culture and Economy as he led the group from the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

If you think cigars, rum and classic cars when you envision Cuba, you wont be disappointed. Even in the dark, cars from the 1950s and 60s were obvious in the parking lot just beyond the greeters.

There are so many still running that its like a vintage car show all the time. Weaving among them on the city roads are Soviet-era models, bicycle taxis and, in Old Havana, horses and buggies. Murals and billboards celebrating the 55-year-old revolution and its heroes add a surreal quality to the country, especially in combination with the old vehicles. Its like a movie is being filmed and you are an extra.

The impact of the U.S. trade embargo initiated in 1960 and the loss of Soviet support in the late 1980s have taken their toll. Buildings that would be declared uninhabitable in the United States are bursting at their disintegrating seams with inhabitants.

The two biggest issues facing Cubans are food and housing, said Scarpaci.

President Raul Castro, brother of Fidel, has introduced some reforms and the people are slowly shaking off the shackles of a 100 percent state-run economy. With state-issued permits, residents are allowed to operate businesses from their homes and buy and sell their own houses. You often see people holding homemade signs advertising for buyers or sellers.

Another reform is the permission to buy a car. A new Chinese-made car can cost up to $240,000, a ridiculous amount in any country. In Cuba, it would take the average person more than 1,000 years to pay it off, according to Scarpacis calculations. Those with beautifully restored relics offer rides around Havana and along the Malecon, the famous road and seawall built by the United States before the revolution.

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Visit to Cuba Is a Trip Back in Time