AMPwerx

Judge a Book by Its Cover Competition 2009

AMPower — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:33:23 +0000

My friend Anna Quon wrote a book last year and saltyink.com is having a competition for the Cover Art of local East Coast publications.

Anna’s book has a great book cover and everyone is invited to help keep it at the top of the list.

You can vote for her book by going to saltyink.com and voting for Migration Songs.

Check it out!! It’s a great book too by the way.

Anthony

http://saltyink.com/judge-a-book-by-its-cover-competition-2009/

More info about Anna Quon – writer of Migration Songs

In addition to Migration Songs, Anna has self-published two chapbooks of poetry, Poems for 4 Seasons (ISBN 0-9737263-0-X) and Half Empty (ISBN 0-9737263-1-8), and three poetry zines. For more samples of her writing check out:

www.annaquon.ca or via twitter

Since 1998, Anna has written feature and news articles on a wide range of subjects for numerous local, regional and national publications. Her favourite stories are those of people with disabilities, entrepreneurs, socially and environmentally conscious folk, and women.

She has also taught English as a Foreign Language in Slovakia, and tutored immigrants and foreign students in conversational English and high-school subjects.

Today, Anna Quon is a full-time freelance writer living and working in Dartmouth Nova Scotia. Though she graduated from Dalhousie University in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature, she considers her real education to be her experience of mental illness.
Having a mental health disability has given Anna insight into the workings of the mental health system, into the prejudice and discrimination faced by mental health consumers, and into the workings of her own mind. It has made her a more sensitive, compassionate and aware writer, especially when it comes to telling the stories of people with disabilities. ¹

Before she decided to call herself a writer, Anna held a number of different jobs, including day care teacher, administrative assistant, fundraiser/ outreach coordinator for a shelter for victims of family violence, volunteer coordinator of a disability organization, retail sales clerk and communications assistant for a provincial not-for-profit. She hopes the job title of novelist and poet will stick longer than any of them. ²

The Coast – Book Review…

Anna Quon’s debut novel Migration Songs is a hopeful sign for Atlantic Canadian literature moving beyond the traditional rural stories and recognizing that we don’t all share the same history. Though Quon’s Halifax is a blur—this is really a story about the interior life and struggles of Joan, a jobless 30-year-old loner, who feels out of place in this world: “Inside I am dark and shady, like a copper beech, rattling its leaves in the breeze.” Joan’s fragility is protected by matronly Hungarian neighbour Edna, Joan’s British father, David, a staunch Mao supporter, and her mother Gillian, a Chinese-Canadian immigrant. Quon has already mastered the power of restraint, shrinking her character down in size, quietly living in the shadow of her parents and their stories. A strong debut from a new hopeful voice. ³

An excerpt from Migration Songs…

There was no time to get to the hospital. My mother leaned against the kitchen table, holding her belly in one hand and the phone in the other. She called my father, who worked as a hospital administrator, and told him to come home. As usual on a Saturday, he was catching up on his paperwork, but he arrived soon after, ahead of the ambulance, which just goes to show how fast he must have driven our battered old Chrysler.

Read More from Anna Quon’s new novel Migration Songs… (here). ⁴

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Posted via email from AMPwerx

Judge a Book by Its Cover Competition 2009

AMPower — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:36:55 +0000

My friend Anna Quon wrote a book last year and saltyink.com is having a competition for the Cover Art of local East Coast publications.

Anna’s book has a great book cover and everyone is invited to help keep it at the top of the list.

You can vote for her book by going to saltyink.com and voting for Migration Songs.

Check it out!! It’s a great book too by the way.

Anthony

http://saltyink.com/judge-a-book-by-its-cover-competition-2009/

More info about Anna Quon – writer of Migration Songs

www.annaquon.ca or via twitter

She has also taught English as a Foreign Language in Slovakia, and tutored immigrants and foreign students in conversational English and high-school subjects.

The Coast – Book Review…

An excerpt from Migration Songs…

There was no time to get to the hospital. My mother leaned against the kitchen table, holding her belly in one hand and the phone in the other. She called my father, who worked as a hospital administrator, and told him to come home. As usual on a Saturday, he was catching up on his paperwork, but he arrived soon after, ahead of the ambulance, which just goes to show how fast he must have driven our battered old Chrysler.

Read More from Anna Quon’s new novel Migration Songs… (here). ⁴

–

Posted via email from AMPwerx

Posterous – The place to post everything…….. Just email us.

AMPower — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:33:04 +0000

via posterous.com

A brand new way to start that blog you’ve always wanted to do.
If you can use e-mail…you can blog. Check it out for yourself.

As for me…this is the first attempt with the new tool via it’s bookmarklet.

Posted via web from AMPwerx

URL Decoder/Encoder

AMPower — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 02:53:06 +0000

The URL Decoder/Encoder is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 License. Eric Meyer

This tool is provided without warranty, guarantee, or much in the way of explanation. Note that use of this tool may or may not crash your browser, lock up your machine, erase your hard drive, or e-mail those naughty pictures you hid in the Utilities folder to your mother. Don’t blame me if anything bad happens to you, because it’s actually the aliens’ fault. The code expressed herein is solely that of the author, and he’s none too swift with the JavaScript, if you know what we mean, so it’s likely to cause giggle fits in anyone who knows what they’re doing. Not a flying toy. Thank you for playing. Insert coin to continue.

AVATAR movie “two thumbs up”

AMPower — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 04:38:30 +0000

The trailers and promos do not do proper justice to this movie when watched in 3D at the IMAX.

There are very few movies; especially new movie of today, however James Cameron’s AVATAR is one that I would buy another $15 ticket to see again -and I will.

Avatar is set in the future, the year 2154, and retells an age old story of forcing our military will to acquire profitable natural resources. That is until Jake Sully is recruited to gather intelligence among the indigenous and becomes one of them. He and the Pandora people fight back.

Official Avatar Movie www.empiretheatres.com

Found in the IN box "Re:…FWD:"

AMPower — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:25:28 +0000

Quoted from one of those e-mails… you know the infamous "FWD:" message that may invariably appear in your in-box from time to time. I found the information both entertaining and informational with its anecdotal suggestions for simple things in every-day life you may not have known about.

<– begin "FWD:"e-mail message –>

DID YOU KNOW?

Peel a banana from the bottom and you won’t have to pick the little ’stringy things’ off of it. That’s how the primates do it.

Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.

Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mold!

Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating. Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking. Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.

Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.

To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up.

For a cool brownie treat, make brownies as directed. Melt Andes mints in double broiler and pour over warm brownies. Let set for a wonderful minty frosting.

Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic and at the end of the recipe if your want a stronger taste of garlic.

Leftover snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert. Simply chop them up with the food chopper. Peel, core and slice a few apples.
Place them in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes!!! Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream. Yummm!

Reheat Pizza
Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza. I saw this on the cooking channel and it really works.

Easy Deviled Eggs
Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly, cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.

Expanding Frosting
When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with your mixer for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount. You also eat less sugar and calories per serving.

Reheating refrigerated bread
To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.

Newspaper weeds away
Start putting in your plants, work the nutrients in your soil. Wet newspapers, put layers around the plants overlapping as you go cover with mulch and forget about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic they will not get through wet newspapers.

Broken Glass
Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you can’t see easily.

No More Mosquitoes
Place a dryer sheet in your pocket. It will keep the mosquitoes away.

Squirrel Away!
To keep squirrels from eating your plants, sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper. The cayenne pepper doesn’t hurt the plant and the squirrels won’t come near it.

Flexible vacuum
To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum. It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.

Reducing Static Cling
Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and you will not have a clingy skirt or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing panty hose. Place pin in seam of slacks and … ta da! … static is gone.

Measuring Cups
Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don’t dry cup. Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.

Foggy Windshield?
Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of your car . When the window s fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!

Reopening envelope
If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside, just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Viola! It unseals easily.

Conditioner
Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It’s cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth. It’s also a great way to use up the conditioner you bought but didn’t like when you tried it in your hair.

Goodbye Fruit Flies
To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2′ with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid; mix well. You will find those flies drawn to the cup and gone forever!

Get Rid of Ants
Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it, take it ‘home,’ can’t digest it so it kills them. It may take a week or so, especially if it rains, but it works and you don’t have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!

INFO ABOUT CLOTHES DRYERS
The heating unit went out on my dryer! The gentleman that fixes things around the house for us told us that he wanted to show us something and he went over to the dryer and pulled out the lint filter. It was clean. (I always clean the lint from the filter after every load clothes.) He told us that he wanted to show us something; he took the filter over to the sink and ran hot water over it. The lint filter is made of a mesh material .. I’m sure you know what your dryer’s lint filter looks like. Well … the hot water just sat on top of the mesh! It didn’t go through it at all! He told us that dryer sheets cause a film over that mesh that’s what burns out the heating unit.
You can’t SEE the film, but it’s there. It’s what is in the dryer sheets to make your clothes soft and static free … that nice fragrance too. You know how they can feel waxy when you take them out of the box . well this stuff builds up on your clothes and on your lint screen. This is also what causes dryer units to potentially burn your house down with it! He said the best way to keep your dryer working for a very long time (and to keep your electric bill lower) is to take that filter out and wash it with hot soapy water and an old toothbrush (or other brush) at l east e very six months. He said that makes the life of the dryer at least twice as long! How about that!?! Learn something new everyday! I certainly didn’t know dryer sheets would do that. So, I thought I’d share!

Note: I went to my dryer and tested my screen by running water on it. The water ran through a little bit but mostly collected all the water in the mesh screen. I washed it with warm soapy water and a nylon brush and I had it done in 30 seconds Then when I rinsed it … the water ran right thru the screen! There wasn’t any puddling at all! That repairman knew what he was talking about!

PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO OTHER PEOPLE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK.
NOT ONLY COULD IT SAVE SOMEONE’S HOME,
BUT IT COULD SAVE SOMEONE’S LIFE.

<– end of "FWD:" e-mail message –>

www.oddchick.com

The World’s Largest Swimming Pool

AMPower — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 17:09:56 +0000

Compliments of oddchick.com

The most emblematic building work at San Alfonso holds the current Guinness record as the world’s largest crystalline water pool, with an extension of more than one kilometer in length, eight hectares and 250 million liters of water. Hard to imagine? We are talking about nothing less than the equivalent to 6,000 familiar 8-meter-long pools.

If you like doing laps in the swimming pool, you might want to stock up on the energy drinks before diving in to this one. It is more than 1,000 yards long, covers 20 acres, had a 115ft deep end and holds 66 million gallons of water.

But if you fancy splashing out on one of your own – and you have the space to accommodate it – then beware: This one took five years to build, cost nearly $1 billion and the annual maintenance bill will be $2 million.

The man-made saltwater lagoon has been attracting huge crowds to the San Alfonso del Mar resort at Algarrobo, on Chile’s southern coast, since it opened last month.

Its turquoise waters are so crystal clear that you can see the bottom even in the deep end. It dwarfs the world’s second biggest pool, the Orthlieb – nicknamed the Big Splash – in Morocco , which is a mere 150 yards long and 100 yards wide. An Olympic size pool measures some 50 yards by 25 yards.

There are also activities to be enjoyed by all family members, like massive bike rides, amusing bingos, theatre plays, fashion shows and interesting art exhibitions.

Visit San Alfonso del Mar

Only one step from Santiago

San Alfonso is located at only 90 kilometers apart from Santiago in Algarrobo’s northern sector, the closer beach spot to the eastern sector of the capital city.
Arriving to this “private world” is faster and safer than ever, since the access routes have been substantially enhanced.

Details & Pricing for the 401HT dishwasher

AMPower — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:54:43 +0000

Based on the documentation and the difficulty of finding current & accurate pricing I’ve enclosed the following details based on the spec sheets and manuals of Moyer Diebel Ltd. – Canada and sales information found on numerous sites across the country.

*The Model 401HT Plus High Temperature Undercounter Dishwasher

Click to see FULL SIZED Image

According the manufacturer Champion Moyer Diebel, Inc. (Canada) the local representative for the Nova Scotia Halifax RM area as; W.D. Colledge Co. Ltd. www.wdcolledge.com

c/o Mike Collier
41 Willowbend Crt.
Halifax, NS B3M 3L3
P: (902) 477-4562
F: (902) 477-0243
mgcollier@eastlink.ca

2008-2009 Spec Sheet

Model 401HT UnderCounter Dishwasher
Read the .pdf file here.

2008 Price List

Model 401HT UnderCounter Dishwasher
Read the .pdf file here. (PAGE 3)

2009 Installation/Operation Manual with Service Replacement Parts

Model 401HT UnderCounter Dishwasher
Read the .pdf file here.

Steve Bartok’s Musical Legacy Lives On

AMPower — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:27:06 +0000

As I continue my quest for great original music on YouTube I came across a wonderful song, “Fallen” which is a tribute to Steve Bartok who passed away at an early age. It was written by his nephew William Bartok Jr. (aka Bill Jr.; or BJ but he prefers to be named ‘B’) shortly after his death. According to B, his uncle Steve was an excellent musician and had a huge influence on his pursuit of music. “Seemed like any instrument he picked up he could play it.” B says.

Bill Sr. can recall a time back in ‘73 when he proudly played the Marines Hymn he had just learned on the harmonica for his brother Steve; then later as they were listening to Johnny Cash on the 8-Track Steve asked to use the harmonica and began playing along with the song.
“So, I told him to just keep the damn thing.”

B had written the lyrics to Fallen first, added the melody later, then he and his friend Joey Davis recorded the finished song at Joey’s home studio with some additional dubbing done later. The video is a collage of photos of Steve and I just love the lyrics and the soft rhythmic guitar.

B’s Dad Bill says, “I may be prejudiced but, I think he’s pretty good… and he has a lot more lyrics to put to music.” I agree with Bill and if B’s got more, I for one, want to hear more. Lots more. B has an incredible talent and deserves to get more airplay.

Steve’s son Bryant says, “My dad had a deep love and appreciation for all music.
Some of his biggest influences were Bob Dylan, Merle Haggard, Don Williams, John Prine, Woody Guthrie, Chet Atkins, Neil Young, Keith Whitley, and so many more.
He could play any instrument you put in front of him. He just had a natural talent for music and singing. He was capable of so much. It’s a crying shame we lost him at such an early age.”

This div will be replaced

More of Steve’s music can be found at: www.myspace.com/stevebartok

Hannah Hickok Deserves a Record Deal

AMPower — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 08:52:50 +0000

When Hanna says she’s, “just a person who likes music” I don’t really think she understands just how good her music is. This talented young musician has some of her creations on YouTube and I’d like to share just one of the best songs I’ve ever heard called “Daddy’s Song“.

Hanna is an amazing talent and deserves a record deal.
She’s just that good!!

This text will be replaced

Listen to her collection on the Playlist
Her channel is: http://www.youtube.com/user/oxymoron98