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ingoldentent · 5 years ago

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Happy New Year, Spirale!

Very soon, it will be 12:00 at night. In other words, 24:00.

When you think about it, isn’t 24:00 a strange time? ...It can be called 24:00, and it can also be called 00:00. It’s the hour at the culmination of the previous day, ...and at the same time, it is hour zero as the next day begins.

And tonight, that time would be even stranger, for it’s almost 24:00 of December 31st, 2019. But when that time comes, it won’t be December, or 2019, anymore. It’ll be 00:00 of Januray 1st, 2020. The next day, the next year, the next decade are about to begin.

When there is only about 5 minutes left to midnight, a small cloud of golden butterflies can be seen flying up to the sky. For most citizens, the identity of the one creating them should be at least superficially familiar.

In a seamless manner, Battler Ushiromiya materializes himself up in the skies of Spirale City. On his hands, he carries a microphone, and to his sides, Beatrice’s iconic shoulder towers float up - however, rather than artillery, they only carry a bunch of sound boxes in them.

“Goooood evening, people of Spirale!!” He shouts, the sound boxes making it so the whole city should be able of hearing him. From the height he is, though, it shouldn’t carry that obnoxiously loud sound microphones might produce when turned on.

“I hope you’re all ready to end 2019 with a bang! ...Dang, what a year this was, huh? We got to experience life as ‘normal’ humans in a ‘normal’ city...” He makes air quotes at those words. “We dealt with an asshole cat god and his balloons, we saw the world end and turn into a fantasy MMORPG, we had a summer festival, we were given some chill time at a happy dream world, we faced ever changing apocalypses, we had a winter festival and we even had an episode of musical bodies!”

Whew, that truly was a lot. And this is only considering the major city developments. Who knows what sorts of plots and changes the people here went through, be it for better or worse? Battler knows his own, and everyone else knows theirs.

“...Now, I know what some of you might be thinking right now. ‘All of that in a year? That was hell! And next year there will be only more hell!’ And honestly, I don’t blame at all the people who hate this place. Heck, I’ve my fair share of complaints about Spirale too! But unfortunately, the power to leave this place is beyond everyone here, which means that we can only count on ourselves and each other to survive here.”

“...So rely on each other. Don’t try keeping your burdens to yourselves. Make it so, in this upcoming year, you strive to become better people than you are today. If you can’t do it by the end of next year, it’s ok. Your efforts are worthy by themselves. But we, as Humans and Witches and demons and ghosts and robots and Pok��mon and whatever other species that lives on this island, can do much more when we work together. We can surpass any pain together. ...I believe in all of you. And I hope you’ll believe in yourselves and each other.”

A couple seconds of silence later... “Buuut enough of me giving out pep talks! It’s almost midnight, and there is one thing that I know you’re all anxious for!” He looks at his wristwatch. Yup, it’s 23:59. “Time to start the festivities! Soundboxes...” He snaps his fingers. “ON!”

Upon his words, an upbeat melody would begin playing at exactly 47 seconds before midnight. This is the only sound the following firework show will generate, for there is no need to create loud explosions sounds tonight.

It begins with what seems like gentle ripples in the sky. To the beat of the song, as if the sky was one of those soundboards with colored bars, several small wave patterns begin to spread in the sky, of all different colors imaginable.

The first bell sound plays, and with that the first firework proper illuminates in the sky. The waves’ intensity increases, as more beats are added up in the song. And once what seems to be the main melody kicks in, fireworks of numbers begin to appear in the sky, marking the final seconds of the decade, with each number being bigger than the last.

10... 9... 8...

7... 6...

5... 4...

3...

2...

1...

“<HAPPY NEW YEAAAAAR!!!!>”

Several fireworks appear at once. They spell, in quite legible numbers...

‘2020′.

That is it! The old year is officially over! But this party... is only beginning.

As more fireworks begin to pop in the sky, in a beautiful spectacle of colors, golden butterflies begin dropping down on the streets. Soon they coalesce... into animals? Well, not real animals. They are animals made of firework, you could say. And not just animals. From humanoid figures to silhouettes resembling inanimate objects, several firework beings roamed the streets of Spirale, with one goal and one goal only...

Dance to the kickass beat of the 1:14 mark in the song!!

And the citizens don’t have to stand still. On the contrary, the firework folks, with all their bright colors and cheerful disposition, invite folks to dance alongside them, although they won’t force anyone to follow along. Some prefer staying quiet, that is fair.

The show in the sky isn’t lacking either. Fireworks keep popping up, now far more than just spark shaped. Some shapes begin to form, at first simple geometrical patterns like triangles and circles and squares, then a bit more complex stuff like hearts and stars.

They get progressively more detailed, so by now you get photorealistic roses and butterflies and cookies. You’ve got dogs and cats and birds and rats. There are even faces of some citizens Battler is familiar with in the sky! Obviously he doesn’t know everyone in the city, so not everyone is there, and some people wouldn’t authorize their faces to be exhibited like this, but if you wouldn’t mind having the whole city see your face... maybe you’re there!

Once 2 minutes and 11 seconds have passed, the firework entities begin changing their dancing style. Alongside that, two noodle like streams of firework energy begin to sprout from Battler’s arms. It’s a number he actually pulled off last year, but in a much bigger scale, due to the much bigger crowd, plus a couple tweaks here and there at the presentation.

The streams fall close to ground level, then proceed to gain details. They’re two Chinese dragons, one golden with red details, the other silver with blue details. At first, the dragons float around the streets in a slow pace, simply bobbing to the song’s beat. In their trail, smaller fireworks appear and come to life, bobbing along to the beat.

At the return of the main melody at the 2:39 mark, their movements become faster, as they release harmless fire from their mouths. They zig zag the streets in astonishing speed, yet with enough precision and speed not to hit a single person at the crowd. They form beautiful patterns with their flight trail, which lasts a few seconds after their passage.

They also come close to each other, and with the same grace as usual, they dodge each other with absolute perfection. It’s a harmonic dance, one that keeps speeding up as the song’s momentum increases.

At 3:06, they ascend to the sky. Without the risk at hitting people, they take on more complex, riskier patterns in their flight, forming knots and untangling, passing by firework rings, forming rings with their own fire for each other to pass by.

And once the violin hits its climatic notes, they ascend higher and higher in the sky, flying in perfect parallel to each other. A trail of gold and silver dust falls gently over the city during this flight. And at 3:20...

They burst on each other, all by the sorcerer’s command. For a brief moment, it’s as if the sun has emerged prematurely - a sun that shines with its light decomposed into all the colors of the rainbow, that is. Once the night sky returns to normal, there are still fireworks appearing, but their frequency is diminished, as per the less frequent song beat. The firework beings also seem to act slower and slower... By 3:54, they are immobile.

And then we return to the initial soundboard like colored ripples in the sky. As this phase occurs, a change begins to occur to the firework beings. See, he feels like he should make this presentation more tone fitting to 2020 specifically. He isn’t a clairvoyant, though, so he has to work with things that are absolutely certain about this new year.

And after pondering a lot about this during the show’s planning phase, one simple solution came to mind - it’s the Year of the Rat! Therefore, now every single firework being has been turned... into firework rats!! Rats of all sizes and colors are now standing at the streets of Spirale City...

The hard beat soon returns at 4:22, and at the signal, all the firework rats begin doing the crab rave dance, to the energetic tone permeating the city. Once again, the citizens are invited to join their ranks, perhaps to pull off innovative dance numbers of their own!

Their dance goes on a crescendo as the main melody returns, jumping and squeaking happily in a rat parade in the streets. There is now colored lighting of unseen sources bathing the streets, making them look like a rave. They don’t flash, though. No need to cause epileptic attacks with this. They calm down a bit by 5:03, just bobbing in place to the tune as the next part of the show begins.

By 5:30, normal fireworks appear once again in the sky. This time, besides repeating the pattern of simple sparks to simple figures and then those figures growing in complexity, there is an abundance of rat fireworks. Besides realistic looking rats, there are also fireworks of Pokémon that look like fireworks, creatures that he has seen during his time back in the old city (sorry, Morpeko, that excludes you).

Golden butterflies go around the streets providing people with glowsticks. They should disappear once this party is over, but until then, the citizens can keep up with the rave mood. For those who want it, the golden butterflies can also turn into those discardable water cups, or in glasses of champagne. Again, they should all disappear once the party is over. He is an ecofriendly witch, after all!

The song hits the 6:27 mark, and with that the rats turn back into a more varied range of firework beings. Now, Battler summons two orbs on his hands, one of dark energy and one of light energy. He combines the two, and the result is something akin to one of those disco globes.

The globe is covered in a checkered pattern. From the white squares, rays of white light fall down the city, and from the black squares, a veil of darkness covers it instead. Just like in disco, the globe spins around slowly, intercalating the areas covered in light or darkness. It creates the perfect environment to keep everyone’s spirits up and dancing while the show keeps going.

At last, it is time for the grand finale. At the 6:55 mark, the firework entities dissolve into golden butterflies, which then proceed to move towards the city’s center. They fly en masse, under the growing beat of the song, all concentrating at the hole. A couple stay around the streets, glowing with colors that change to the beat, but the big bulk is now hovering above the central hole.

The fireworks continue to pop on the sky during this mass migration. For those too far from the hole to see it in person, the remaining butterflies tune closeby TVs into showing the proceedings. Once enough butterflies are concentrated over the hole, they begin flying up in an ascending spiral, while a pillar of golden light begins to form inside said spiral.

Soon, the butterflies’ spiral reach Battler’s height, which means he is now also inside the pillar of light. Just in time, as the 7:22 cue comes, causing the butterflies’ flight pattern to change from a simple ascension to a wave-like up and down beat. The light pillar reaches the globe, intensifying its pattern spread so that, rather than a slow spin, it’s now switching each tile from light to dark to light according to the song’s beat.

All of these lights are probably a bit too dizzy for some citizens, so he diminishes their intensity for everyone’s comfort. All except the pillar of light, which is now oscillating itself like a sound record being played live. Meanwhile, the fireworks become bigger and bigger in their size, showing even more complex images like famous landscapes of the city, like the Beach, Savior’s Respite, the main Fibonacci buildings and the Lake of Koi.

As the song hits its climax once again, the fireworks coalesce into even bigger pictures, until, at last, there is a full upside down replica of Spirale City made entirely of fireworks over the real deal. The light pillar and the butterfly spiral, on the other hand, are vibrating frenetically, about to collapse into nothingness at any moment...!

And then... they do. At 7:36, the globe stops spinning. The firework city is undone, turning instead into a firework cascade that gently falls over the citizens, but it dissolves high enough that it has no chance at hurting anyone. Likewise, the light pillar and the butterflies combine into a wave of magical energy that spreads throughout the city, with no other effect besides being bright and pretty.

The cascade’s beautiful colors, whose spectrum covers beyond the expected in the rainbow, is truly magnificent. And when combined with the magical wave... it’s like the whole city has, for a single moment, been transported to an otherworldly place, where magic and fantasy reign supreme.

By the 8:11 mark, the music attempts to build itself up once again, but Battler is cutting its energetic attempts short. All remaining butterflies in the city are called back to his body, and all the water cups, all the champagne glasses, all the glow sticks begin turning back into golden butterflies, providing the city with a final beautiful image of the golden butterflies flying up in the sky.

The flight of the butterflies is marked by the constant beat of the song, just like the soundboard ripples in the sky do. Those who still have some energy left in them might keep dancing, thinking that perhaps there will be yet another number that Battler will pull for this show.

And yet... the song ends. In an instant, the butterflies, the cascade, any trait of the magical firework show disappear. And with it, the Endless Sorcerer brings an end to the spectacle. ...What an ironic thing, no?

#isola news #Inside the Island #(Happy new year everyone!!!)#(Is there such a thing as #rats cw #?)

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bigyack-com · 5 years ago

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DealBook: How Did Carlos Ghosn Flee Japan?

… and we’re back! Welcome to 2020 — we’re looking forward to a big year ahead. If you like this email, please share it with your friends and colleagues. And if you have news tips, send them to us. Now, on with the show.

Carlos Ghosn’s escape committee

The former head of Nissan and Renault managed to evade 24-hour surveillance in Tokyo and spirit himself out of Japan to Lebanon. How he did it increasingly sounds like a movie-level caper.Associates planned the heist for months, the FT reports, citing unnamed sources. They hired private security operatives who worked in multiple countries.Mr. Ghosn made it onto a private plane bound for Turkey and arrived in Lebanon early Monday, the WSJ adds. (A Lebanese news media outlet claimed that he had hidden in a box meant for musical equipment; the world’s tabloids, perhaps with an eye on that movie version, reckon it must have been a double bass case.) He entered Lebanon on a French passport.His Japanese legal team was blindsided. He’d supposedly handed over all of his travel documents. “I want to ask him, ‘How could you do this to us?’” his lawyer, Junichiro Hironaka, told reporters.It’s unclear whether Lebanon helped. The government there recently asked Japan to send Mr. Ghosn for trial in Beirut on corruption charges. But an official denied any involvement in his escape.What’s clear is that Mr. Ghosn has scores to settle. His statements have denounced “injustice and political persecution” in Japan’s legal system. He may also take aim at Nissan, where he accuses officials of plotting against him, and at the French government, for not doing more to help him.____________________________Today’s DealBook Briefing was written by Andrew Ross Sorkin and Michael J. de la Merced.____________________________

Tempering hopes for the markets in 2020

Last year was a phenomenal one for nearly every kind of investment: stocks, bonds, gold and more. But there’s reason to think this year won’t be as good.How good was 2019? The S&P 500 rose nearly 29 percent. High-quality American corporate bonds were up 14 percent. Even futures prices for hogs jumped 17 percent. “Rarely in my career has everything worked simultaneously,” Mark Vaselkiv, the chief investment officer for fixed income at T. Rowe Price, told the NYT.But those outsized gains were mostly thanks to the Fed and its unexpected reversal on interest rates. And the central bank has signaled that it’s probably done cutting rates for now.That doesn’t mean Wall Street expects bad things. Bank of America sees the S&P 500 rising about 2.2 percent, while Goldman Sachs — which has declared the economy nearly recession-proof — hopes for a little more.It’s also worth remembering who’ll be left out. Nearly half of Americans don’t own stocks, Thomas Heath of the WaPo points out. Rising student debt and stagnant wages have left many with less money to invest.

The case against C.E.O. activism

Corporate bosses like Walmart’s Doug McMillon and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff have increasingly taken explicit political stands, breaking a longtime rule. The Economist predicts a backlash this year:• Outspoken companies open themselves to charges of hypocrisy, it says. Take Nike, which has pushed virtuous branding but has also “been embroiled in a doping scandal.”• “If there is a recession, C.E.O. activists will struggle to reconcile the interests of employees and their fiduciary duty to shareholders.”• “C.E.O.s hope that by adopting social and political causes they will defuse more radical sentiments. Dream on.”Warren Buffett agrees. Companies shouldn’t impose their beliefs about what’s best for the world on their investors, he told the FT, since “this is the shareholders’ money.”

And the case for C.E.O. generosity

Andrew writes in his most recent column that corporate leaders should be lauded for giving to worthy causes — but pushed to do better at their companies, too.• “Do you know who goes to the food banks that so many support? It is not just the homeless and unemployed. It is, many times, the people we all work with.”• “When you go back to work after the holidays, ask your human resources department what the lowest pay is for any employee at the company. And, just as important, what is the lowest pay for any outside contractor that your company uses?”• “When it comes to giving, the goal shouldn’t be to simply donate more money, as laudable as that is. The aim should be to create a society where we don’t need places like food banks in the first place.”

In case you missed it

• Boeing fired its C.E.O., Dennis Muilenburg, as it struggles to get the 737 Max airborne again.• Travis Kalanick quit Uber’s board, ending all ties to the ride-hailing giant that he once personified.• The F.B.I. is reportedly investigating Ghislaine Maxwell, a top associate of the deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein, and others on suspicion of facilitating sexual abuse.• How corporate lobbyists won big tax breaks from the Trump administration.

How David Stern remade U.S. sports

The former N.B.A. commissioner, who died yesterday at age 77, led the basketball league for 30 years, helping transform American professional sports.His focus on worldwide marketing and expansion meant that “N.B.A. stars were the first from North America to achieve global renown like their soccer counterparts, with the biggest becoming household names even in the remotest regions of the world,” according to Marc Stein of the NYT.“Instead of trying to snuff out the rising power of players — an approach that had cost baseball and football hundreds of millions of dollars and huge chunks of seasons — Stern figured out how to embrace the change and capitalize on it,” Matthew Futterman of the NYT writes.Andrew has his own memories of Mr. Stern: “#DavidStern helped launch my career at 15 years old when he agreed to an interview and he never let me forget it!” he tweeted. “The world lost somebody special today.”

Are job auditions out of control?

The days of getting hired on the basis of a résumé and a few interviews are gone. Job applicants face ever more hoops to jump through, Maridel Reyes of the New York Post writes:“Interviewers are increasingly making absurd demands on applicants’ time, assigning intensive take-home work to demonstrate skills and show how they’d approach the role for which they’re interviewing,” Ms. Reyes writes.It often seems that applicants are working for free. Nicole, a strategist in New York, said she had been asked for an entire year’s marketing plan — and was then passed over in favor of an intern at the company. “I was furious that I’d essentially consulted for them,” she told The Post.Here’s what to do if you’re asked to audition, according to Ms. Reyes: Know what’s normal, do your homework on the potential employer and negotiate the terms of the process.

The speed read

Deals• Last year was the fourth-best on record for global M.&A., thanks to American corporate buyers. (FT)• A group led by Tencent of China agreed to buy 10 percent of Universal Music Group, whose stars include Drake and Billie Eilish, at a nearly $34 billion valuation. (Business Insider)• Warren Buffett declined to buy Tiffany & Company, paving the way for the jeweler’s deal to sell itself to LVMH. (FT)• Hospital chain mergers were meant to improve quality of care. A new study suggests that they haven’t. (WSJ)Politics and policy• President Trump said he planned to sign a “phase one” trade deal with China on Jan. 15. (NYT)• The F.D.A. plans to announce a ban on most flavored e-cigarettes as soon as this week. (NYT)• A California law that extends legal protections for freelancers like Uber drivers went into effect yesterday. Some workers fear that it will hurt them. (NYT)• Senator Bernie Sanders disclosed that he had raised more than $34.5 million in the fourth quarter, surpassing his Democratic presidential rivals. (NYT)Tech• Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon now have a combined market value of about $4 trillion. (Quartz)• Google said it would stop using an Ireland-based loophole that saved it hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes. (FT)• An A.I. system from Google is often better at finding breast cancer on mammograms than radiologists are, a study has found. (NYT)• In South Korea, the 5G wireless future is here, but is often a bit disappointing. (WSJ)Best of the rest• In Germany, electric cars are an economic threat. (NYT)• That said, here are the models to watch this year. (NYT)• Companies are increasingly forcing workers to train their foreign replacements. (Axios)• Insomnia could cost you your job. (Yahoo Money)Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected]. Read the full article

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howtoloseweightfastsafely · 6 years ago

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The Easy Way To Determining Your Calorie Intake

There are several different ways to determine how many daily calories are right for you, and they get a little more difficult as they get more accurate.

The first way, if you're not inclined toward doing much math, is quite simple. It's commonly called the "10 Rule". Here's how to use it: You multiply your bodyweight by a certain number (according to your goals and activity level) and you get the number of calories you need to eat every day.

For fat loss, use this table:

If you are...

Sedentary (non-physical job, don't exercise regularly)

Lightly active (exercise a couple of times a week, or have a physical job but don't exercise)

Very active (have a physical job and exercise, or have a non-physical job and exercise 6-7 times a week)

Then multiply your bodyweight by

10 - sedentary

11 - lightly active

12 - very active

Following this formula, if you were a 180-pound man, you would eat 1800 calories if you were sedentary, 1980 calories if you were lightly active, and 2160 calories if you were very active.

If you're very overweight/obese (30+ pounds to lose), use this chart:

If you are...

Sedentary (non-physical job, don't exercise regularly)

Lightly active (exercise a couple of times a week, or have a physical job but don't exercise)

Very active (have a physical job and exercise, or have a non-physical job and exercise 6-7 times a week)

Then multiply your bodyweight by

8 - sedentary

9 - lightly active

10 - very active

Important: If these calculations put you below 1200 calories, do not use the calculation.

Simply eat at 1200 calories per day. (E.g. If your calculation tells you to eat 1120 calories per day, eat 1200. But if it says to eat 1220, then, of course, eat 1220.)\

If you've already lost the weight you want to lose, and are just interested in maintaining your weight (and lean muscle mass) use this table:

If you are...

Sedentary (non-physical job, don't exercise regularly)

Lightly active (exercise a couple of times a week, or have a physical job but don't exercise)

Very active (have a physical job and exercise, or have a non-physical job and exercise 6-7 times a week)

Then multiply your bodyweight by

13 - sedentary

14-15 - lightly active (make small adjustments according to your measurements)

16 - very active

Following this formula, if you were a 180-pound man, you would eat 2340 calories if you were sedentary, 2520-2700 calories if you were lightly active, and 2880 calories if you were very active.

Step 1: Your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate)

To get better, more accurate, body-specific results, you'll need to do a little more math and learn some other methods. This will definitely pay off in the long run.

First things first: You'll need to calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate. Your BMR is how

many calories your body burns every day just to keep alive - basically, if you were laying in bed all day with no activity, how many calories would your body burn?

To figure this out, you'll have to do a little math. Have no fear! The equation is easy with a piece of scratch paper and a calculator (or in the bonus "So Easy A Caveman Can Do It" Calculator.)

Figuring out your BMR is different for men and women, because men biologically have

denser muscles than women have, and thus men have faster metabolisms. We'll start with the women first:

How to find your BMR - For Ladies

This is the equation you'll start with: 655 + X + Y - Z. Now, you've got to plug in the

values for X, Y, and Z. Here's how to do that:

Weigh yourself in the morning, before you've eaten or had anything to drink. Write down your weight, then multiply it by 4.35. This is X.

Write down your height in inches (if you're 5'4", the average American woman's height, then you're 64 inches.) Multiply this by 4.7. This is Y.

Write down how many years old you are. If you're coming up on a birthday in the next three months, go ahead and round up. Multiply your age by 4.7. This is Z.

Some people find this easier to understand: 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years) = BMR.

Let's take a look at how it works in action. Here's a sample woman:

She weighs1 40 pounds.

140 X 4.35 = 609

She is 5'4" ( 64 inches.)

64X 4.7 = 301

She is 30 years old

30 X 4.7 = 141

Now, she plugs in all of the pieces:

655 + 609 + 301 - 141 = 1424.4

This woman's BMR is 1424 (rounded down for sake of simplicity.)

How to find your BMR - For Guys

Gentlemen, here is your equation: 66 + X + Y - Z. Now, we've got to figure out the values for X, Y and Z.

Weigh yourself in the morning, before you've eaten or had anything to drink. Write down your weight and multiply it by 6.23. This is X.

Write down your height in inches. Multiply this by 12.7, and you have Y.

Write down your age in years and multiply your age by 6.8. This is Z.

Here's the equation in something more closely resembling English: 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years).

Let's see it in action. These are samples of male's statistics:

He weighs 190 pounds.

190 X 6.23 = 1183.7

He is 5'11" ( 71 inches.)

71 X 12.7 = 901.7

He is 30 years old

30 X 6.8 = 204

Since he's a man, he'll (obviously) be using the male formula. So now, he plugs in all of the values:

66 + 1183.7 + 901.7 - 204 = 1947.4

And learns that his BMR is 1947.4

Step 2: The Harris-Benedict Equation

You know that your BMR is the calories your body burns only for basic functions. But you don't lay in bed all day, every day. You get up and make breakfast, go to work and do all kinds of things.

So you can't go off your BMR alone. Thus, you need to figure out how many calories you burn every day on average. This is called your Total Daily Energy Expenditure, or TDEE for short. It is the amount of calories you need to eat to maintain your current bodyweight.

And the physical activity you perform every day determines the speed of your metabolism - the harder you work, the harder it works. And the harder you work, the higher your TDEE.

The Harris-Benedict Equation is how you determine this number. It's very simple, and it works the same way for men and women. Here it is:

IF YOU ARE...MULTIPLY YOUR BMR BY... Sedentary (little or no daily exercise AND you do not have a physical job)1.2 Lightly Active (exercise at least 40 minutes, 1-3 days/week AND you do not have a physical job) x 1.375 Moderately Active (exercise at least 40 minutes 4-5 days/week AND you do not have a physical job.) OR (little or no daily exercise but you have a physical job) x 1.55 Very Active (exercise at least 40 minutes 6-7 days/week AND you do not have a physical job) OR (exercise at least 40 minutes, 1-3 days/week AND you have a physical job) x 1.725 Extra Active (exercise at least 40 minutes 6-7 days/week AND have a physical job OR exercise at least 80 minutes 6-7 days/week and do not have a physical job) x 1.9

If you didn't notice already, here's one thing you should know:

There are diminishing returns after you've surpassed the very active category. To get to the 1.9 Harris-Benedict multiplier, you've got to either train twice as long, or go get a job in construction or as a professional athlete. The takeaway here is that no one needs to kill themselves at the gym, they just have to be consistent. Show up and stay long enough to get (and keep) your heart rate elevated.

Interested in losing weight? Then click below to see the exact steps I took to lose weight and keep it off for good...

Read the previous article about "How Much You Really Need To Eat For Steady Fat Loss (The Truth About Calories and Macronutrients)"

Read the next article about "Calculating A Weight Loss Deficit"

Moving forward, there are several other articles/topics I'll share so you can lose weight even faster, and feel great doing it.

Below is a list of these topics and you can use this Table of Contents to jump to the part that interests you the most.

Topic 1: How I Lost 30 Pounds In 90 Days - And How You Can Too

Topic 2: How I Lost Weight By Not Following The Mainstream Media And Health Guru's Advice - Why The Health Industry Is Broken And How We Can Fix It

Topic 3: The #1 Ridiculous Diet Myth Pushed By 95% Of Doctors And "experts" That Is Keeping You From The Body Of Your Dreams

Topic 4: The Dangers of Low-Carb and Other "No Calorie Counting" Diets

Topic 5: Why Red Meat May Be Good For You And Eggs Won't Kill You

Topic 6: Two Critical Hormones That Are Quietly Making Americans Sicker and Heavier Than Ever Before

Topic 7: Everything Popular Is Wrong: The Real Key To Long-Term Weight Loss

Topic 8: Why That New Miracle Diet Isn't So Much of a Miracle After All (And Why You're Guaranteed To Hate Yourself On It Sooner or Later)

Topic 9: A Nutrition Crash Course To Build A Healthy Body and Happy Mind

Topic 10: How Much You Really Need To Eat For Steady Fat Loss (The Truth About Calories and Macronutrients)

Topic 11: The Easy Way To Determining Your Calorie Intake

Topic 12: Calculating A Weight Loss Deficit

Topic 13: How To Determine Your Optimal "Macros" (And How The Skinny On The 3-Phase Extreme Fat Loss Formula)

Topic 14: Two Dangerous "Invisible Thorn" Foods Masquerading as "Heart Healthy Super Nutrients"

Topic 15: The Truth About Whole Grains And Beans: What Traditional Cultures Know About These So-called "Healthy Foods" That Most Americans Don't

Topic 16: The Inflammation-Reducing, Immune-Fortifying Secret of All Long-Living Cultures (This 3-Step Process Can Reduce Chronic Pain and Heal Your Gut in Less Than 24 Hours)

Topic 17: The Foolproof Immune-enhancing Plan That Cleanses And Purifies Your Body, While "patching Up" Holes, Gaps, And Inefficiencies In Your Digestive System (And How To Do It Without Wasting $10+ Per "meal" On Ridiculous Juice Cleanses)

Topic 18: The Great Soy Myth (and The Truth About Soy in Eastern Asia)

Topic 19: How Chemicals In Food Make Us Fat (Plus 10 Banned Chemicals Still in the U.S. Food Supply)

Topic 20: 10 Banned Chemicals Still in the U.S. Food Supply

Topic 21: How To Protect Yourself Against Chronic Inflammation (What Time Magazine Calls A "Secret Killer")

Topic 22: The Truth About Buying Organic: Secrets The Health Food Industry Doesn't Want You To Know

Topic 23: Choosing High Quality Foods

Topic 24: A Recipe For Rapid Aging: The "Hidden" Compounds Stealing Your Youth, Minute by Minute

Topic 25: 7 Steps To Reduce AGEs and Slow Aging

Topic 26: The 10-second Trick That Can Slash Your Risk Of Cardiovascular Mortality By 37% (Most Traditional Cultures Have Done This For Centuries, But The Pharmaceutical Industry Would Be Up In Arms If More Modern-day Americans Knew About It)

Topic 27: How To Clean Up Your Liver and Vital Organs

Topic 28: The Simple Detox 'Cheat Sheet': How To Easily and Properly Cleanse, Nourish, and Rid Your Body of Dangerous Toxins (and Build a Lean Well-Oiled "Machine" in the Process)

Topic 29: How To Deal With the "Stress Hormone" Before It Deals With You

Topic 30: 7 Common Sense Ways to Have Uncommon Peace of Mind (or How To Stop Your "Stress Hormone" In Its Tracks)

Topic 31: How To Sleep Like A Baby (And Wake Up Feeling Like A Boss)

Topic 32: The 8-step Formula That Finally "fixes" Years Of Poor Sleep, Including Trouble Falling Asleep, Staying Asleep, And Waking Up Rested (If You Ever Find Yourself Hitting The Snooze Every Morning Or Dozing Off At Work, These Steps Will Change Your Life Forever)

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Topic 34: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 35: Part 1 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 36: Part 2 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 37: Part 3 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 38: Part 4 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 39: How To Beat Your Mental Roadblocks And Why It Can Be The Difference Between A Happy, Satisfying Life And A Sad, Fearful Existence (These Strategies Will Reduce Stress, Increase Productivity And Show You How To Fulfill All Your Dreams)

Topic 40: Maximum Fat Loss in Minimum Time: The Body Type Solution To Quick, Lasting Results

Topic 41: If You Want Maximum Results In Minimum Time You're Going To Have To Work Out (And Workout Hard, At That)

Topic 42: Food Planning For Maximum Fat Loss In Minimum Time

Topic 43: How To Lose Weight Fast If You're in Chronic Pain

Topic 44: Nutrition Basics for Fast Pain Relief (and Weight Loss)

Topic 45: How To Track Results (And Not Fall Into the Trap That Ruins 95% of Well-Thought Out Diets)

Topic 46: Advanced Fat Loss - Calorie Cycling, Carb Cycling and Intermittent Fasting

Topic 47: Advanced Fat Loss - Part I: Calorie Cycling

Topic 48: Advanced Fat Loss - Part II: Carb Cycling

Topic 49: Advanced Fat Loss - Part III: Intermittent Fasting

Topic 50: Putting It All Together

Learn more by visiting our website here: invigoratenow.com

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torentialtribute · 5 years ago

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Ashes: Australia cannot believe their luck… we knew England were flaky but not this flaky

The sight of Jofra Archer stumbled to the border late in the day and summarized the misery for England. Only two Tests in and we broke it.

Taking rain into account, only five and a few days, and trying to make up for the shortcomings of England & # 39; s Test Bats, Archer has nod under the weight. Fortunately it was only cramp. The straight legs marching to the locker room will not affect his continued participation in this series and he was back on the field before the end, although he didn't bowle again.

The problem is, his involvement will be largely disputed after this weekend. Australia is set to win this test and that will keep the Ashes. Tourists will in all likelihood bat until they are all out at a certain moment today and then set England the goal that, based on yesterday's evidence, they will be completely out of their reach.

Australia couldn't believe their luck when they came to England for a measly 67 called on day two

That magic number has probably been reached since Australia ended the day with 283 runs.

It is the fourth time in 18 months that Joe Root & # 39; s team have been thrown out for less than 100, and collapses of this nature are more common in England than any other test batch. Yesterday, however, a record mess with Joe Denly & # 39; s 12 was the lowest top score in the history of the English test cricket.

Regarding the total of 67, which is England & # 39; s fourth lowest in a home Ashes series and two of the top three debacles came on the same day in 1888. Cricket was then very different, and those series of three tests included six innings that did not reach high marks.

The 67 of England is, by comparison, an outlier – at least for most countries. Given the perfect circumstances and the psychological benefit of firing Steve Smith from Australia the previous day for less than 200, this was really unfortunate.

Root must have opened the curtains yesterday morning to bathe in the sunlight It is the dream of a batsman. Instead, his team was back in the field at 2:15 p.m., toiling in a rare summer heat and feeling the burning bitter disappointment. It should have been England that struck two days and left Australia a terrifying challenge to save the test. But they barely made it after lunch.

Ben Stokes was issued when he was facing James Pattinson and was caught by David Warner

Now Archer knows what it's like to be an English bowler. Some people wonder why Jimmy Anderson often seems so grumpy. Archer will understand that too. It is difficult to propose a more thankless task.

Archer's six to 45 should have guaranteed him at least a day off. On Thursday evening he spoke cheerfully about the fact that he could raise his feet until Friday. Instead, he was barely able to digest the second meal of the day before Root threw him the ball again.

It was not surprising that he did not have the same impact the 24 hours earlier. Root has been heavily criticized by former professionals for over-bowling the new man, but that is less important if he has recovery time between innings. The combination of relentless spells and then a measly 67-run break is potentially disastrous.

From the broadcast suites the cries of & # 39; told you & # 39; were audible as Archer & # 39; s left thigh succumbed to painful spasms. The next time the warning came, it could be worse.

Could it have been worse? Well, England might have inadvertently raised the dead, or unearthed the long buried curse, perhaps unleashed the beings of the underworld.

In cricket terms, no, it couldn't. This is just as rotten as England for a long time, given that batting is unusual in Australia and has left it 350 for 16 over two innings.

Australia can move on to a victory that gives them an unassailable 2-0 Ashes lead

Despite this mediocre score, they have built up an impressive, impressive lead and are able to deplete England today. It is the opposite of what was expected. England was scaly, we knew; but not that flaky? Exactly this flaky. If the bowlers of England had taken Australia away with fabulous precision on Thursday – the ball from Stuart Broad that had undoed Travis Head would have surpassed just about every batsman in the world – then England & # 39; s did batsmen for England yesterday.

not good – the tourists had a brilliant attack and carried out their plans to perfection – more than the individual layoffs were unnecessary, sloppy, foolish, boisterous and impatient.

Make your choice, really.

There were the balls that should have been left behind, the ones that were taken over with misguided aggression, bad technique, falling headlong into falling, it was the full range of what West Indians call curry goat cricket. The game that is played while the goat curry is warming up, when no one pays much attention to the game situation, or takes the time to build an innings.

Marnus Labuschagne is not a Smith, but at least he has the curse to solve it. England even misses this basic requirement. Too much cricket with white balls? The neglect of the long game in the hurry to T20 wealth? Yes, these are factors. But if an international cricket player keeps driving to full-length balls outside the tree stump, that is his fault and not the work of managers.

What happened to knuckling? That is essentially what Smith does.

Joe Root finds an easy catch that is expensive when Labuschagne reaches his half century

The sight of him who enjoyed a walk around the perimeter of the field, recalled the opportunity that was lost here. The talisman of Australia is absent in this test and without him very few – Labuschagne aside – have come up. And yet they have the order. Australia always seemed a better bowling side than a battle, but they will not believe their luck here.

Batten as they did for two days and end up in this position? It is hard to imagine that this would happen against a test country with even average competence.

& # 39; Can't bat, Can't bowle, Can't field & # 39; – that was the famous assessment of England on tour in Australia in 1986. Triple danger. Yet it does not need three strikes to rot a test team. England can certainly throw, and the fieldwork only became poor when the team lost confidence and energy. However, not being able to bathe is a fatal mistake and irreparably undermines the rest of it.

A cricket team that can't bat is like a soccer team that can't score or a boxer that can't hit. This weakness bleeds in the rest of it, in the whole.

When Ben Stokes grabbed Matthew Wade's wicket, he sank into mocking exhaustion. Archer was hit, the border field was ragged. England was made for, cooked, by their own batting vulnerabilities.

The axes will probably have slipped by the end of this weekend, but decisions remain for both teams. Tourists of course have their own batting problems – but they can be solved with a tweak or two. For England, where to start? Where the hell do you start?

Stokes looks frustrated when Australia built up a lead of 283 on day three to take over the competition

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#Ashes: Australia cannot believe their luck… we knew England were flaky but not this flaky"

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mohrsvillerp · 6 years ago

Photo

welcome miki !! you have been accepted for 4.0, bitch. honor roll as hunter clarington. thank you so much for applying !! please send in your account within 24 hours. we can’t wait to get roleplaying with you.

who are you?

NAME/ALIAS. Miki PREFERRED PRONOUNS. she/her. AGE. 19 TIMEZONE. GMT+9 (Japan Time) TRIGGERS. removed ACTIVITY. 7/10 The only problem I have with activity is the drastic difference in time zones. Usually, I’m awake when everybody is asleep, and I am either at school, or asleep when everybody else is awake. I do try to make it up by being active during the weekends!

ANYTHING ELSE? removed

who are you applying for?

DESIRED CHARACTER. Hunter Clarington DESIRED SUBPLOT. 4.0, bitch. honor roll SECOND CHOICE. dream teammate FACE CLAIM. Nolan Gerard Funk GENDER AND PREFERRED PRONOUNS. cismale, he/him. ORIENTATION. closeted bisexual. RELATION. (preferably) older sibling BIRTHDAY. for our calendar. 14th of February AGE AND GRADE. 18, senior CLUBS AND SPORTS. -track (captain?) -debate team

who are they?

The Claringtons were your ideal family. Richard Clarington is well-respected by everybody, currently enlisted E-9 in the Navy – which was basically the equivalent of a 3-star general, really – and is married to Naomi Clarington, a soft-spoken, beautiful woman with a million-watt smile that can light up the whole town. They were high school sweethearts, the picture-perfect love story that you would normally see in romantic films and novels. They moved to Mohrsville as soon as they graduated college, and it was not long before Naomi gave birth to her first son, Hunter.

Hunter Clarington was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Growing up in an affluent household, Hunter was spoiled rotten by his mother, all the while being raised strictly by his father. Naomi was a constant pillar of support in Hunter’s everyday life, but Richard often taught him the harder, harsher lessons in life — whether he explicitly told them to him, or showed him by simply being himself.

Now in his senior year, he is more than determined to juice up his college applications with his impressive marks and various extracurricular activities. Princeton, Harvard, and Stanford: the three universities he plans on applying for. Hunter has always had something to prove. With the harsh and high expectations his father forced upon him at a very young age, he has always had a strive to prove himself to his father, and his only goal, as of the moment, is to surpass everybody else. Get out of this small, confined town and be successful. Having gotten used to getting things his way, he has a tendency to become ruthless when it came to pursuing his ambitions, caring little for those who he perceived as an impediment to his goals; he can be ambitious and driven to the point where he would not even hesitate to compromise his core value and beliefs. Did he care? No. He does not settle for less, and he never will.

extras

-MBTI: ISTJ -Temperament: Choleric -Vice: Lust / Greed / Gluttony / Sloth / Pride / Envy / Wrath -Virtue: Chastity / Temperance / Charity / Diligence / Forgiveness / Humility / Kindness -Religion: Catholic -Alignment: Lawful / Neutral / Chaotic || Good / Neutral / Evil -Hogwarts House: Slytherin -Hunter as a vine!

#accepted #clarington

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epacer · 7 years ago

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Martenizing the Unified District

Cindy Marten's fortune: leading San Diego Unified forward while suffering personal setbacks

Fortune #1,082: “You will have good luck in your personal affairs.” Years ago, Cindy Marten started finding fortunes — not the cookies, just the tossed-aside slips of paper — in random locations: under her seat at a Mexican restaurant, inside a supermarket, outside a gas station.

Marten, the San Diego Unified School District’s superintendent, catalogs these messages. Some are encouraging.

Others seem to be mocking her. That “good luck” fortune? She found it soon after losing control of a scooter on a city sidewalk. This May 12 accident sent her to the emergency room with a broken right arm, cuts and bruises.

Three days later, she was released from the hospital. “She comes out on a Tuesday at 10 a.m.,” said Mel Katz, a friend. “She’s had surgery, there’s a metal plate in her arm, a gash in her head — and she goes to her 3:30 p.m. board meeting.”

She stayed to the end of the six-hour session. “People think she is going to pass out,” Katz said.

But Marten, who next week marks her fifth anniversary as superintendent, was determined to honor her personal credo: “Work Hard, Be Kind, Dream Big! No Excuses.”

“You be there for joy and for pain,” she said. “You show up for it.”

In this position, showing up for five years is a major accomplishment. To lead California’s second-largest public school district, a mammoth enterprise of 181 schools and about 106,000 students, is to defy fate. This is a meat grinder of a job, a destroyer of reputations, a graveyard of bold plans and high hopes.

In the 10 years before Marten’s hiring, the district was led by four permanent and three interim superintendents. The position seemed so unworkable, the board of trustees debated scrapping it in favor of some less-punishing arrangement.

But roughly 24 hours after another short-term superintendent resigned, the board offered the job to an elementary school principal with decades of classroom experience: Marten.

Fans say this experiment is now showing signs of success. In April, the district topped the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called “the nation’s report card.”

“San Diego Unified School District blew the socks off this cycle of the Nation’s Report Card, which measures progress on reading and math at grades four and eight,” said Mike Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, representing 69 of the country’s largest urban public school districts.

“No other city in the country saw gains in both grades in reading and math like San Diego.”

Graduation rates have risen to 91 percent. Marten seems to have won over her five-member board and many of the district’s 12,900 employees.

“The good thing is she’s been a teacher,” said Myriam Pedersen, who retired this month after 30 years of teaching in the district. “It makes a huge difference when they talk about, ‘here’s our goals, here’s what we will do,’ if they’ve been a teacher.”

Still, budget cuts and layoffs are perennial issues. An achievement gap between students of various racial and ethnic backgrounds, while narrowing, persists. There are still under-performing schools.

While juggling these professional challenges, Marten has been hit with personal crises. In January Marten’s mother, Fern Siegel, the former president of Jewish Family Service of San Diego, suffered a heart attack. Visibly scarred from her scooter mishap, Marten bears invisible scars from the deaths of her father in 2014 and her husband in 2016.

“None of it affects her job,” said Katz, who is on the board of one of the district’s charter schools, the C3 Academy. “She has such a positive attitude and really, really believes that we are doing great things for the city.

“We are just starting to see what Cindy can accomplish in San Diego.”

Fortune #592: “You will find good fortune in love.” Marten is 51, two years younger than her brother, Charley Cohen — “the love of my life,” she calls him. As a young girl, Cindy rapidly surpassed her older sibling in most academic subjects, as he is developmentally disabled.

“I’m certain I became a teacher because of my brother, Charley,” she said. “I wanted to teach him.”

The Cohens moved from Chicago to San Diego when Cindy was 11, so Charley could enroll in California’s special education program. The family prized education — the father, Donald Cohen, was a lawyer and certified public accountant who spoke several languages; the mother, a CPA and community activist, was president of a synagogue (Temple Emanu-El in San Carlos) and led a campaign to build a residence for the mentally ill (Chesed Home: Hope Village in Escondido).

Cynthia Minette Cohen, the couple’s middle child, is the only one who was adopted and the only one without a serious disability. Her younger sister, Laura, was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic as a young woman.

Cindy attended local public schools — Hardy Elementary, Horace Mann Middle — before enrolling in La Jolla Country Day. For her senior project, she interned at the Aseltine School, then a special education academy where Charley had studied.

She idolized Aseltine’s energetic principal, Marian Grant. Years later as a young teacher, Cindy Cohen took Grant to lunch.

“What’s your secret?” the fledgling educator asked her mentor. “How do you avoid burning out?”

“You’ll never burn out,” Grant predicted, “because you are curious.”

Armed with a teaching degree from the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, Cohen began her career at Beth Israel Day School in 1991. That same year, she married her longtime boyfriend, a dashing hotel manager from Mexico City, Sergio Marten.

After a stint in the Poway district as a teacher and literacy specialist, Marten moved to San Diego Unified and City Heights’ Central Elementary. There, she was a teacher, vice principal and principal.

She assumed that last position in 2007, just as her husband suffered a massive stroke.

“I had 1,000 kids counting on me, our son was 12 going on 13, and my husband, my soul mate, was in the ICU and we didn’t know if he would live or die,” she said.

To maintain her emotional balance, she vowed to take one photograph a day for a year, focusing on something that made her grateful.

Nature supplied most subjects — butterflies, sunsets, ocean vistas — but homey images sometimes appeared. Her feet, for instance, kicking off her shoes after a long day.

“The world doesn’t change,” Marten said, “but the way you look at the world changes.”

When the year ended, Marten continued this practice. She still does today.

Fortune #1,083: “An unexpected visitor will bring you good blessings.” Under Marten, Central was cited as a successful inner city school by experts local and national. The principal advocated smaller class sizes, established clear, measurable results for her teachers, and provided staff with additional training and resources.

When Richard Barrera, a local labor leader, began his successful campaign for the school board in 2008, he spoke with students, teachers, staff and administrators.

“Cindy was the most articulate educator I met in this whole process,” said Barrera, secretary-treasurer of United Food and Commercial Workers’ Local 135. “She was able to take me and show me and articulate at her school how to create an environment where kids were thriving.”

When Superintendent Terry Grier resigned to lead Houston’s school district, Barrera tapped Marten to serve on the search committee for a successor.

“She became a leader in that process,” Barrera said.

That process resulted in the June 2010 hiring of Bill Kowba. Less than three years later, when he announced his retirement, Marten became the trustees’ unanimous choice without a search committee or any community testimony.

This was “virtually unheard of,” the Union-Tribune reported, and some were upset by the move. Marten disturbed some district employees and parents early in her tenure, as she replaced close to 75 percent of the district’s principals.

“She wants strong principals who support and hold accountable the teachers,” Katz said. “It’s all about proper training and doing the right things — supporting your teachers, giving them the tools they need and holding them accountable.”

Those tools include special teams dispatched to schools to share the latest best practices on math or reading instruction.

Observers say Marten benefited by inheriting a board of trustees that, unlike many earlier boards, is not split into warring camps. There’s an agreed-upon mission, to tackle racial achievement gaps and to provide every student a broad and challenging curriculum.

“We’re all pulling in the same direction,” Barrera said.

“I think we’re getting a lot accomplished,” said Sharon Whitehurst-Payne, another trustee. “We want every child reading by third grade and we're working on that. We want every child to graduate and we’re working on that.”

Part of that work involves the superintendent regularly briefing the trustees and keeping the surprises, good or bad, to a minimum.

“We meet weekly,” Whitehurst-Payne said. “That’s good access.”

Fortune #619: “You can be trusted to keep a secret.” In his retirement, Marten’s father became known as "Don the Can Man.” A longtime runner and bicyclist, Don Cohen often scoured San Diego’s streets for aluminum cans, keeping meticulous count of how many he had grabbed and recycled.

On his 80th birthday, Oct. 14, 2014, he scored his 4 millionth can. His goal was 8 million cans, but he would never reach that number. While bicycling near San Diego State University that fall, he was hit by a car. He died from his injuries on Nov. 7, 2014.

Marten had little time to mourn her father, as her husband’s health was deteriorating. In the summer of 2016, while in a rehab center, he seemed to be recovering.

Marten called him early on Aug. 21, 2016, the day of the America’s Finest City Half Marathon, which she had entered. He sounded fine, an impression reinforced by a positive report from the rehab center’s staff, and promised to see Marten after her run.

“I was running to honor my father,” she said. But the race soon took on an even darker hue.

At Mile 7, Marten’s cell phone rang. Sergio Marten’s heart had failed, and he had died at the age of 57. He and Cindy had been husband and wife for 25 years and a couple for 33 years.

Days later, the 2016-2017 school year kicked off with a rally.

“I went to school, went to the meetings,” Marten said. “I could have been the grieving widow, but you go.”

Her emotions were profoundly mixed — “there’s this great joy because the beginning of school is such an amazing time” — but she didn't want her own sorrows to cast a shadow over that special day.

“If I need to cry,” she said, “I cry.”

Even now, she tears up when discussing the Job-like series of calamities that has hit the family in the last four years. She mourns, but she also takes comfort in the loved ones who remain and the chance she has to move this district ahead.

“This district”? Scratch that.

“I don’t think of this as working for the district,” she said,. “I think of this as working for my community.”

As superintendent, she’s privy to inside information about principals, teachers, counselors, secretaries. Some of this is joyful — Marten is known for writing notes to staff, marking birthdays and anniversaries — and some is not.

On June 13, she testified for an hour in a wrongful termination lawsuit brought by an investigator who says he was fired after refusing to alter his reports on a sexual assault incident at San Carlos’ Green Elementary School.

On the witness stand, Marten was asked if she had urged anyone to “whitewash” the report by the investigator, Michael Gurrieri.

“Absolutely not,” she replied, “of course not.”

In an interview, Marten said she could not comment on this case, as a decision is still pending.

Intense scrutiny comes with this job, for better or worse. Tyler Cramer, a San Diegan who serves on the board of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, was present when superintendents from the nation’s top four urban public school districts spoke in Washington, D.C.

“Cindy did her presentation on math and she was amazing,” Cramer said. “You can see her panel on Youtube and she’s a knockout on it. This is playing in the major leagues at the playoff level.”

That’s one characteristic of a champion — the ability to play and win, even when hurt. *Reposted article from the UT by Peter Rowe of June 24, 2018

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ronaldmrashid · 7 years ago

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Financial Samurai Mid-Year 2017 Investment Review

To eliminate financial distortion, make sure I’m within my risk tolerance band, and push myself to continuously reinvest cash flow in order to survive permanent unemployment, every quarter I’ll be reviewing my investments. I’ve found that after even just a couple months, if I don’t write things down, I simply cannot remember how much and what I invested in.

For the past five years, my goal has been to earn a conservative 4% – 6% yearly return on my overall net worth given I reached my target number. It felt so amazing to escape the rat race in 2012, I was comfortable with what I had. Now, however, thanks to hedonic adaption, I’ve become used to the freedom and have turned greedier with my desired returns.

Today I’m shooting for a 10% yearly return based on my following new money investment allocation for 1H2017: 57.4% Real Estate Crowdfunding (10% target return), 11.27% Bonds (4% target return), 9.41% Stocks (10% target return), Venture Debt 3.3% (12% target return), 8.27% Mortgage (4.25% return), and Home Improvement 10% (20% return).

Let’s dig deeper into the numbers!

Financial Samurai Mid-Year 2017 Investment Review

April Investments

Stocks: Purchased $10,000 of Netflix at $141/share after 1Q results. At the time it felt a little painful to purchase since my original position was at $92/share. But I loved their portfolio of original content despite their massive cash hemorrhaging. Their business is sticky and inelastic. They can easily raise prices by 20% a month and lose less than 20% of their customer base to increase revenue. Reed Hastings, the founder, spoke at my 2006 Berkeley-Haas MBA commencement. Wish I had put my life savings in the name at the time!

Mortgage: Paid down $3,000 of my 4.25% Lake Tahoe vacation property mortgage. My goal is to pay random small amounts each month so that I feel no pain paying down my worst investment ever. If I see a Bank of America branch on my way back from lunch, I may swing by and pay down whatever is in my wallet. The goal is to pay the $346,000 mortgage off by June 15, 2022.

Real Estate Crowdfunding: I invested $250,000 in the RealtyShares fund in January 2017. Instead of inputting the entire $250,000 in January, I spread it out over a six month period. It’s really just accounting as I didn’t know exactly how quickly they’d be able to invest in the 10+ deals they have in their mandate.

In April, the fund made a $600,000 investment in the acquisition and renovation of College Town Tucson, an 88-unit, 247-bed student housing apartment complex several blocks from the main campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ. Constructed in 1972 and partially renovated in 2006 and 2013, the Property consists of a mix of two, three and four-bedroom units and includes amenities such as a clubhouse, fitness center, swimming pool and property-wide Wi-Fi.

I’ve always wanted to gain exposure to an apartment complex in a college town due to the consistent high demand. I just never wanted to physically own and manage such a property due to the frequent turnover. Can you imagine what a PITA is to be a landlord of a student housing complex?

I can imagine all the parties in the hot tub now. IRR target: 16.5%. 5-year hold. $20K minimum investment. Reminds me of a scene from Breaking Bad.

Home Improvement: After my landscaper finished my backyard, I asked him to landscape my side yards and front yard. I was extremely pleased with his workmanship and his price. As a result, I referred him to a friend who hired him to do ~$25,000 of work. I’m now 100% done with my home remodeling/expansion projects for the fixer which I bought in early 2014. It was a long journey due to the complexities of the inspection system and the idiosyncrasies of each contractor.

May Investments

Bonds: Invested $26,600 in two, 20-year maturity, California municipal bonds with a yield to worst of 3.8%. Based on my estimated 32% effective tax rate (federal and state), the gross yield is therefore 5.5%. Instead of putting more into bond funds, like I did between November 2016 – January 2017, I decided to focus more on individual bonds so that I know I’ll get par value ($100/share) back upon maturity plus the coupon payments for all those years.

Many bond funds have rallied back to pre-election levels, so I felt hesitant allocating more money. If you add 1.5% for the 6-month yield to the principal appreciation so far, we’re talking a pretty healthy ~6% total rate of return.

Related: The Case For Buying Bonds

Municipal bond returns YTD are not bad once you include the coupon payment

Mortgage: Paid down another $5,000 of my 4.25% Lake Tahoe vacation property mortgage. I decided to rationally no longer pay down my 2.375% rental home mortgage and my 2.5% primary home mortgage until the Lake Tahoe vacation property mortgage is paid off.

Real Estate Crowdfunding: The RealtyShares fund made a $700,000 common equity investment in the Virginia Crossing Hotel and Conference Center, a full-service hotel located in Glen Allen, Virginia.

Opened in 2001, the Hotel comprises three colonial-style buildings with guest amenities, including 2 full-service restaurants, an outdoor swimming pool, fitness center, 24 conference rooms and a 4,700 SF ballroom. The Hotel is located adjacent to The Crossings Golf Club, one of the greater Richmond area’s premier semi-private courses, and is strategically located at the convergence of Interstates 95 and 295.

I’m very excited about this acquisition and repositioning because there’s a special place in my heart for southern Virginia since I went to school 40 minutes south of this hotel at The College of William & Mary. I love colonial style buildings and would happily retire in Williamsburg for three months of the year if I wasn’t living on the west coast.

Home improvement: I decided to fulfill my dream of getting a hot tub for $15,825 now that the back yard is done. The whole process took nine months since I first visited the show room. Since installation, I’ve averaged about five hours a week in the hot tub. The maintenance is easier than expected. What is kind of scary is how much home improvement costs add up. I can see how a homeowner can spend an endless amount of money upgrading their home if they don’t set a limit. I’ll be putting together a home remodeling guide in the future.

June Investments

Venture Debt: I received a capital call of $3,001 for my second venture debt fund investment. For these types of funds, you commit a certain amount of money, and the fund will call a percentage of your commitment over a certain period of time, usually within two years. The first venture debt fund I invested in almost three years ago is looking like it will return 13% a year net of fees because they’ve almost returned all the capital. As a result, I’m considering investing more capital into the second fund now that the guys have even more experience and a larger fund to spread out the expenses.

Mortgage: I was paralyzed with what to do in June since bonds and stocks did well, so I decided to pay down $22,000 more of 4.25% mortgage debt. When in doubt, pay down debt.

Related: Debt Optimization Framework For Financial Independence

Real Estate Crowdfunding: The RealtyShares fund approved a $775,000 JV equity investment in the Sheraton Dallas Forth Worth Airport Hotel, a 302-key full-service hotel located in Irving, Texas. DFW International Airport is ranked the 4th busiest airport in the US, and the DFW region is booming. The Hotel is approximately 15 miles northwest of downtown Dallas, one the region’s largest employment centers.

I’m bullish on the heartland of America. The fund had already made an Austin, Texas multi-family residential property investment in December 2016, and I was hoping they’d continue to invest more in Texas. The Dallas area has one of the most robust income growth trends in the nation.

Capital Commitment Review

$272,426 of new capital was put to work in 2Q, which equates to $90,808 a month on average. This figure surpasses my goal of $30,000 – $50,000 a month, but it’s due to arbitrarily spreading out my original $250,000 RealtyShares investment across six months.

If I take out the entire $250,000 real estate crowdfunding investment, I ended up investing $32,333 a month on average. With a baby on the way, I knew I wouldn’t have as much time to focus on my investments this quarter. Hence, I knew that if I invested in nothing else, I would average $41,667 a month for six months ($250,000 / 6 months).

When income generation is good, it’s important to stay disciplined and maximize your investments in order to prevent lifestyle inflation. Pay yourself AND your investments first! When difficult times inevitably come, your investments will hopefully carry you through until the next bull run.

Pro Forma Performance Analysis

I’ve allocated capital to achieve a potential 10% objective return based on my risk tolerance (green). Of the $435,571 in 1H invested capital, I’m looking to return roughly $42,744 based on my base case objective.

I’ve also included my current estimated returns, which comes out to about 15% (blue). The only thing that looks aggressive is a 50% return on Home Improvement. But the 50% return could be conservative because competing landscaping bids were 100% – 150% higher since my guy did the job as a side hustle for cash. For example, one competing landscaper quoted me $50,000 to do my front yard, and my guy did it for $17,000, including materials. Further, it’s a bull market on the west side of SF. Remodeled houses are going for tremendous premiums.

Although the RealtyShares fund has a 15% target IRR over five years, and all three investments in 2Q2017 have target IRRs greater than 15%, I’m keeping the current estimated return at 10%. All the deals are equity deals, so it’s good to stay conservative until there are exits.

Bonds have done very well as you saw in the chart above, and my stock returns have been solid due to investments in Amazon in 1Q and Netflix in early 2Q. Due to valuations, I still can’t get excited about putting a large allocation into stocks, so I’ll just wait for a pull back if one ever comes to invest a more meaningful amount of capital. At least I didn’t short the market!

Going forward, my Home Improvement weighting will decline, but my Real Estate Crowdfunding, Bonds, and Venture Debt weightings will increase. The total return target will still be 10% a year.

My biggest financial fear is not a bear market, but a precipitous decline in income. I feel like a young man again because contributions are currently far surpassing returns. I also want to have enough fire power to invest during a downturn. Therefore, despite the constant sleep deprivation of being a new father, I promise to keep slicing away. After all, a 50% increase in family size warrants a 50% higher wealth target right? Let’s rock.

Related: Ranking The Best Passive Income Investments

Readers, what type of investments did you make in 2Q2017? How are you feeling about the current investing environment environment? Any risks you see from my 2Q2017 asset allocation? Where can everything go wrong? I will might put together a mid-year passive income report as well.

Graphic by https://ckongsavage.com/

from http://www.financialsamurai.com/financial-samurai-2q2017-investment-review/

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