Second Star To The Right: got this from nicki

Array-ne New Orleans Moves to Repair Its Legal SystemBy SUSAN SAULNY Published: August 8, 2006 NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 7 — After months of chaos in the criminal justice system here, Mayor C. Hunter Jr., has threatened to begin releasing hundreds of defendants who have not had access to lawyers back onto the streets as of Aug. 29, the date Hurricane Katrina made landfall last year.“If we are still part of the United States and if the Constitution still means something,” Judge Hunter wrote in an emergency order last month, “then why is the criminal justice system 11 months after Hurricane Katrina still in shambles?”With crime rising and the legal system perceived as an ineffective deterrent, many in the city have said that New Orleans cannot recover without immediate change. “A city that’s perceived as unsafe will not recover,” an editorial in The Times-Picayune said Monday, “whether the threat is levees that can’t hold back floods or a justice system that can’t keep criminals at bay.”At a morning news conference, Mr. Nagin said the city “recognized the need for an immediate effort” and promised that officials “will not surrender one more inch of our city to the criminals.”He and others stopped short, however, of saying that these changes would accomplish an immediate reduction in the rate of serious crime, stressing that the city was just beginning to tackle the enormous issue.“The people of New Orleans don’t need pie-in-the-sky rhetoric,” said Richard Ieyoub, the coordinator of the mayor’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee and a former state attorney general.
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-ne
Wow, what a fun wedding weekend! It was a great time with all of our family and friends. Here’s a rundown and a few pictures.FRIDAYA bunch of us (the bridesmaids, readers, the bride, the groom, mother and father of the bride, and mother of the groom) went over to the reception hall in the morning to set up all the tables. It turned out beautifully! Brit’s mom made all the centerpieces and I thought they were great. Centerpiece #1 Centerpiece #2 The sisters After decorating, we had lunch at TGI Friday’s on their deck. The weather was gorgeous and perfect for outdoor dining. Soon after lunch, Jillian, Mom, Caitlin, Vicki, Kelly, and I all got our nails done at the salon nearby. I love getting french manicures. :)Later that night, we had a really yummy rehearsal dinner at The Elks, catered by The Lunchbox. I loved the food! I chose the breaded chicken main course along with some other side dishes that I can’t seem to remember. Then the most amazing thing was the dessert. I got the cheesecake, which had a fantastic almond sort of flavoring to it. YUM. After dinner, I went back to Jillian and Brit’s house to try to get some sleep, but found it very difficult! It’s weird, because the night before my own wedding, I slept like a baby. But the night before my sister’s wedding, I was up all night, tossing and turning! I’m not really sure why, but it might have something to do with the fact that I was so nervous for my toast at the reception!Here are some pictures from dinner. The Michigan guys, minus John, who wasn’t able to fly in until late that night.The family, all dressed up SATURDAYWe woke up early on the day of the wedding to get our hair did. We all looked beautiful, if I do say so myself!! Here are the bridesmaids with the bride outside of her house, on the way to the church!The wedding went off without a hitch. There may have been a few tears shed! My sister looked so gorgeous coming down the aisle, I don’t know how Brit held it together. :)After the ceremony, we took tons of pictures outdoors. It was about 83 degrees and sunny, so it was just perfect for that. I did get a bit of a sunburn on my shoulders, though. :) I love this picture of us. Such a beautiful background downtown! Caitlin, Jillian, our new brother-in-law Brit, John, and me!When we went to a park downtown to take pictures, we found that there was a small Native American festival going on. One of festival organizers came over and asked us if we would join them in their dancing circle, or whatever they call it. Jillian and Brit are always up for fun, so they of course said yes! The entire wedding party, plus the parents, joined the bride and groom as we danced around the circle. It was really more of a shuffle, but fun nonetheless. Jillian and Brit, learning the danceBefore heading to the reception, we made a quick stop at Brit and Jillian’s new house. They did the traditional over the threshold thing for good luck! :)Reception fun Father/daughter dance to Fathers Love” by Bob Carlisle Our familys tradition of my dad and his brothers dancing to 500 Miles.Check out the video my cousin Heidi took here. John and I with our Godson, Connor See my red shoulders from the day in the sun?? Bride and Groom enjoying a moment togetherThe end of the night!
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-ne Dear Family and Friends,Phew – I’ve just completed rehashing my Angkor Wat visit for you all and I feel practically as if I’ve re-climbed through the many doorways and re-craned my neck at odd angles. LOL – I’m writing as if I’ve caught you all up – and I still have lots to tell you about Cambodia! However, because of the tourist boom, Siem Reap land is selling at a rapid rate for high prices – which leaves regular Cambodians without the ability to rent let alone buy a home in the city that they work in. But pushing the Cambodians aside in their own city renders Siem Reap a bit akin Disneyland – complete with selling day passes and going on rides. Now, if you will recall my announcement regarding my immediate post-CELTA removal to Cambodia, I mentioned that I planned to go to Cambodia with a friend and that “I love picturing Cambodia through his eyes and look forward to making my own observations and eliciting stories from others.” Of course, you now know this friend as Siem Reap guy (a nicer nickname than he came up with for me) – and you could accurately conclude that his deep love for the Cambodian people was one of the reasons that I was eager to journey with him. He was also the one to tell me that “everyone has a story” – meaning a remarkable story, usually a sad story.Anyway, after Angkor, we had one day remaining in Cambodia so I asked Siem Reap guy if he would show us the Siem Reap that he sees… his regard is such that I desired a touch of understanding. I did my best to explain this to my Siem Reap friend who readily assented to take us around… thinking that we would enjoy going to a few schools, visit the Landmine museum, and thought that visiting the Childrens’ hospital was in order. So, on our last day in Siem Reap and my traveling companion friend and I naturally had some shopping to do. While we were waiting for our Siem Reap guy and his friends to join us, my traveling friend told me a story that had me in stitches of laughter: my friend has the bad habit of leaving her balcony door open at night. I think the bug was still there when my friend returned that evening… Anyway, this time my friend ended up with a huge bug in her Siem Reap room. Not long after I had recovered from my fit of laughter, our friend and two of his other out of town friends joined us at the Shadow and we all walked to our first school: the Green Gecko. These may sound like trivial accomplishments but do recall Murt and the girls that sold my friend and I our books… and while I have so far not proffered further description of “the gauntlet’s” found at each Angkor temple, universally the children that we encountered no longer have childhoods, they have retail sales jobs. At one point, I took my camera out so that the kids could use it to take pictures and I have a nice set of pictures of my Siem Reap friend to show for that. We walked back into town for a cold drink with our Siem Reap friend and discovered the sublime joy of fresh lime juice combined into a syrup with a bit of palm sugar. My friend then departed for his midday job and check this out: my Siem Reap friend is a DJ at Siem Reap’s LOVE FM. Another time when we about town, my Siem Reap friend walked up to a tuk tuk driver to inquire regarding the location of a Cambodian province. While my famous Siem Reap friend amicably chatted on LOVE FM, my traveling companion friend and I searched for a working ATM and had a long lunch at the Khmer Kitchen before meeting our Siem Reap guy at the Angkor Hospital for Children at just past 2 pm. The Angkor Hospital for Children is actually run by a New York City non-profit called Friends Without Borders (www.fwab.org). Visiting the hospital ended up being an incredibly sad experience – all those sick kids – and yet a wonderful experience due to all the caring and the promise that this little NGO is offering.You may rightly inquire: why is Cambodia so poor? After our hospital tour, we took a tuk tuk driven by a stranger to the ACE: the Australian Centre for Education, an English teaching school that my Siem Reap friend regards quite highly. We enjoyed our tour and our talk with the teacher and just as it started to rain, we climbed into a waiting tuk tuk, waved at our friend Theara (who had been engaged to drive another friend’s mother around that day), and journeyed home for a break and a change of clothing.At 7 pm, I climbed on the back of my friend’s motorbike while the other 4 climbed into a tuk tuk and we all drove to Siem Reap friend’s favorite restaurant for amok. My Siem Reap friend is an active participant in these quizzes to the point that he subtly practices anagrams in his spare time. My other friend worked away for a good 5 minutes without coming up with the answer… while I was subsequently quizzed on American presidents – for the record, I do fine on the basics but I am not up on my presidential trivia. Anyway, proceeds from the Funky Monkey quiz nights go to a worthy charity (happily, this week’s charity was the Green Gecko) and my Siem Reap friend eagerly shepherded his well-fed team to the bar so we’d be ready at 9. This was fun for all… and particularly rewarding for our Siem Reap friend who won glory plus a free dinner on Sunday night.At that point, it was past 11 in the evening and aware that our taxi was arriving 7 am the next morning, we patted ourselves on the back, snapped a few pictures and our friends bade farewell. I found the trip back scarier (I do think that there were more close shaves) while my friend actually had an easier time of it – and attributed this to acclimation.
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There were 5 of us in total, an Australian couple (Sam and Jason) who are traveling Europe and South America after having worked in London for many years, a 20-year old Danish boy (Morten) who has worked night-shift in a furniture factory for 8 months and just saved enuf money for him to travel the whole world for a year, and a French girl from Breast (some town in Brittany of France supposedly) by the name of Claire who´s traveling in Peru for 6 weeks while doing 3 weeks of volunteer work here in Arequipa. We boarded 630am public bus which took us to Chivay in 4 hours, then hopped onto another bus which took us to Cabanaconde in 2 hours, a small town which was the starting and ending point of our hike. Then the trail in the canyon started to take form and we descended for about 4 hours on this slippery rocky road which took us to our first night of stay, San Juan de Chucco. There were several other groups that had to do the ascension hike on the same second day, which is basically a 3-hour non-stop uphill hike of 1,200M (from 2,200 to 3,400M in Cabanaconde). The day then kicked off with a full course breakfast, followed by busing over to La Cruz del Condor (a higher point of the canyon) where we watched huge condors (a kind of big birds) in white and brown colors swirl right over our heads with the backdrop of the Colca Canyon, which is apparently twice as big as the Grand Canyon.
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Name: Elizabeth3. Single or taken: single16. Siblings names: Anjanette******HAVE YOU EVER*****17. Have you ever met someone you were not supposed to? Punched someone? Cheated on someone? Broken into someone’s house? Movie(s): a lot, but my favorite is Emma …based on a Jane Austin novel, actually43. Sport to watch on TV: college football50. Long relationships or one night stands?: haven’t had either, but I never plan on having a one night stand. Watched a movie?: yes73. Cried?: I teared up a bit watching Oprah74. Watched TV?: yes79. Taken a shower?: yes81. Taken a picture?: no… Told someone you love them?: my mom84.
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Array-ne New Orleans Moves to Repair Its Legal SystemBy SUSAN SAULNY Published: August 8, 2006 NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 7 — After months of chaos in the criminal justice system here, Mayor C. Hunter Jr., has threatened to begin releasing hundreds of defendants who have not had access to lawyers back onto the streets as of Aug. 29, the date Hurricane Katrina made landfall last year.“If we are still part of the United States and if the Constitution still means something,” Judge Hunter wrote in an emergency order last month, “then why is the criminal justice system 11 months after Hurricane Katrina still in shambles?”With crime rising and the legal system perceived as an ineffective deterrent, many in the city have said that New Orleans cannot recover without immediate change. “A city that’s perceived as unsafe will not recover,” an editorial in The Times-Picayune said Monday, “whether the threat is levees that can’t hold back floods or a justice system that can’t keep criminals at bay.”At a morning news conference, Mr. Nagin said the city “recognized the need for an immediate effort” and promised that officials “will not surrender one more inch of our city to the criminals.”He and others stopped short, however, of saying that these changes would accomplish an immediate reduction in the rate of serious crime, stressing that the city was just beginning to tackle the enormous issue.“The people of New Orleans don’t need pie-in-the-sky rhetoric,” said Richard Ieyoub, the coordinator of the mayor’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee and a former state attorney general.
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-ne
Wow, what a fun wedding weekend! It was a great time with all of our family and friends. Here’s a rundown and a few pictures.FRIDAYA bunch of us (the bridesmaids, readers, the bride, the groom, mother and father of the bride, and mother of the groom) went over to the reception hall in the morning to set up all the tables. It turned out beautifully! Brit’s mom made all the centerpieces and I thought they were great. Centerpiece #1 Centerpiece #2 The sisters After decorating, we had lunch at TGI Friday’s on their deck. The weather was gorgeous and perfect for outdoor dining. Soon after lunch, Jillian, Mom, Caitlin, Vicki, Kelly, and I all got our nails done at the salon nearby. I love getting french manicures. :)Later that night, we had a really yummy rehearsal dinner at The Elks, catered by The Lunchbox. I loved the food! I chose the breaded chicken main course along with some other side dishes that I can’t seem to remember. Then the most amazing thing was the dessert. I got the cheesecake, which had a fantastic almond sort of flavoring to it. YUM. After dinner, I went back to Jillian and Brit’s house to try to get some sleep, but found it very difficult! It’s weird, because the night before my own wedding, I slept like a baby. But the night before my sister’s wedding, I was up all night, tossing and turning! I’m not really sure why, but it might have something to do with the fact that I was so nervous for my toast at the reception!Here are some pictures from dinner. The Michigan guys, minus John, who wasn’t able to fly in until late that night.The family, all dressed up SATURDAYWe woke up early on the day of the wedding to get our hair did. We all looked beautiful, if I do say so myself!! Here are the bridesmaids with the bride outside of her house, on the way to the church!The wedding went off without a hitch. There may have been a few tears shed! My sister looked so gorgeous coming down the aisle, I don’t know how Brit held it together. :)After the ceremony, we took tons of pictures outdoors. It was about 83 degrees and sunny, so it was just perfect for that. I did get a bit of a sunburn on my shoulders, though. :) I love this picture of us. Such a beautiful background downtown! Caitlin, Jillian, our new brother-in-law Brit, John, and me!When we went to a park downtown to take pictures, we found that there was a small Native American festival going on. One of festival organizers came over and asked us if we would join them in their dancing circle, or whatever they call it. Jillian and Brit are always up for fun, so they of course said yes! The entire wedding party, plus the parents, joined the bride and groom as we danced around the circle. It was really more of a shuffle, but fun nonetheless. Jillian and Brit, learning the danceBefore heading to the reception, we made a quick stop at Brit and Jillian’s new house. They did the traditional over the threshold thing for good luck! :)Reception fun Father/daughter dance to Fathers Love” by Bob Carlisle Our familys tradition of my dad and his brothers dancing to 500 Miles.Check out the video my cousin Heidi took here. John and I with our Godson, Connor See my red shoulders from the day in the sun?? Bride and Groom enjoying a moment togetherThe end of the night!
link

-ne Dear Family and Friends,Phew – I’ve just completed rehashing my Angkor Wat visit for you all and I feel practically as if I’ve re-climbed through the many doorways and re-craned my neck at odd angles. LOL – I’m writing as if I’ve caught you all up – and I still have lots to tell you about Cambodia! However, because of the tourist boom, Siem Reap land is selling at a rapid rate for high prices – which leaves regular Cambodians without the ability to rent let alone buy a home in the city that they work in. But pushing the Cambodians aside in their own city renders Siem Reap a bit akin Disneyland – complete with selling day passes and going on rides. Now, if you will recall my announcement regarding my immediate post-CELTA removal to Cambodia, I mentioned that I planned to go to Cambodia with a friend and that “I love picturing Cambodia through his eyes and look forward to making my own observations and eliciting stories from others.” Of course, you now know this friend as Siem Reap guy (a nicer nickname than he came up with for me) – and you could accurately conclude that his deep love for the Cambodian people was one of the reasons that I was eager to journey with him. He was also the one to tell me that “everyone has a story” – meaning a remarkable story, usually a sad story.Anyway, after Angkor, we had one day remaining in Cambodia so I asked Siem Reap guy if he would show us the Siem Reap that he sees… his regard is such that I desired a touch of understanding. I did my best to explain this to my Siem Reap friend who readily assented to take us around… thinking that we would enjoy going to a few schools, visit the Landmine museum, and thought that visiting the Childrens’ hospital was in order. So, on our last day in Siem Reap and my traveling companion friend and I naturally had some shopping to do. While we were waiting for our Siem Reap guy and his friends to join us, my traveling friend told me a story that had me in stitches of laughter: my friend has the bad habit of leaving her balcony door open at night. I think the bug was still there when my friend returned that evening… Anyway, this time my friend ended up with a huge bug in her Siem Reap room. Not long after I had recovered from my fit of laughter, our friend and two of his other out of town friends joined us at the Shadow and we all walked to our first school: the Green Gecko. These may sound like trivial accomplishments but do recall Murt and the girls that sold my friend and I our books… and while I have so far not proffered further description of “the gauntlet’s” found at each Angkor temple, universally the children that we encountered no longer have childhoods, they have retail sales jobs. At one point, I took my camera out so that the kids could use it to take pictures and I have a nice set of pictures of my Siem Reap friend to show for that. We walked back into town for a cold drink with our Siem Reap friend and discovered the sublime joy of fresh lime juice combined into a syrup with a bit of palm sugar. My friend then departed for his midday job and check this out: my Siem Reap friend is a DJ at Siem Reap’s LOVE FM. Another time when we about town, my Siem Reap friend walked up to a tuk tuk driver to inquire regarding the location of a Cambodian province. While my famous Siem Reap friend amicably chatted on LOVE FM, my traveling companion friend and I searched for a working ATM and had a long lunch at the Khmer Kitchen before meeting our Siem Reap guy at the Angkor Hospital for Children at just past 2 pm. The Angkor Hospital for Children is actually run by a New York City non-profit called Friends Without Borders (www.fwab.org). Visiting the hospital ended up being an incredibly sad experience – all those sick kids – and yet a wonderful experience due to all the caring and the promise that this little NGO is offering.You may rightly inquire: why is Cambodia so poor? After our hospital tour, we took a tuk tuk driven by a stranger to the ACE: the Australian Centre for Education, an English teaching school that my Siem Reap friend regards quite highly. We enjoyed our tour and our talk with the teacher and just as it started to rain, we climbed into a waiting tuk tuk, waved at our friend Theara (who had been engaged to drive another friend’s mother around that day), and journeyed home for a break and a change of clothing.At 7 pm, I climbed on the back of my friend’s motorbike while the other 4 climbed into a tuk tuk and we all drove to Siem Reap friend’s favorite restaurant for amok. My Siem Reap friend is an active participant in these quizzes to the point that he subtly practices anagrams in his spare time. My other friend worked away for a good 5 minutes without coming up with the answer… while I was subsequently quizzed on American presidents – for the record, I do fine on the basics but I am not up on my presidential trivia. Anyway, proceeds from the Funky Monkey quiz nights go to a worthy charity (happily, this week’s charity was the Green Gecko) and my Siem Reap friend eagerly shepherded his well-fed team to the bar so we’d be ready at 9. This was fun for all… and particularly rewarding for our Siem Reap friend who won glory plus a free dinner on Sunday night.At that point, it was past 11 in the evening and aware that our taxi was arriving 7 am the next morning, we patted ourselves on the back, snapped a few pictures and our friends bade farewell. I found the trip back scarier (I do think that there were more close shaves) while my friend actually had an easier time of it – and attributed this to acclimation.
link

There were 5 of us in total, an Australian couple (Sam and Jason) who are traveling Europe and South America after having worked in London for many years, a 20-year old Danish boy (Morten) who has worked night-shift in a furniture factory for 8 months and just saved enuf money for him to travel the whole world for a year, and a French girl from Breast (some town in Brittany of France supposedly) by the name of Claire who´s traveling in Peru for 6 weeks while doing 3 weeks of volunteer work here in Arequipa. We boarded 630am public bus which took us to Chivay in 4 hours, then hopped onto another bus which took us to Cabanaconde in 2 hours, a small town which was the starting and ending point of our hike. Then the trail in the canyon started to take form and we descended for about 4 hours on this slippery rocky road which took us to our first night of stay, San Juan de Chucco. There were several other groups that had to do the ascension hike on the same second day, which is basically a 3-hour non-stop uphill hike of 1,200M (from 2,200 to 3,400M in Cabanaconde). The day then kicked off with a full course breakfast, followed by busing over to La Cruz del Condor (a higher point of the canyon) where we watched huge condors (a kind of big birds) in white and brown colors swirl right over our heads with the backdrop of the Colca Canyon, which is apparently twice as big as the Grand Canyon.
link

Name: Elizabeth3. Single or taken: single16. Siblings names: Anjanette******HAVE YOU EVER*****17. Have you ever met someone you were not supposed to? Punched someone? Cheated on someone? Broken into someone’s house? Movie(s): a lot, but my favorite is Emma …based on a Jane Austin novel, actually43. Sport to watch on TV: college football50. Long relationships or one night stands?: haven’t had either, but I never plan on having a one night stand. Watched a movie?: yes73. Cried?: I teared up a bit watching Oprah74. Watched TV?: yes79. Taken a shower?: yes81. Taken a picture?: no… Told someone you love them?: my mom84.
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