#we’ve gone to a diy show already and a party

[ghostickle]

Going to a drive in theater Halloween night to be gay

[kcowgill]

lol

Hocrap, switching meds knocked me on my tuchus. I had to call off of work a few days. And was grouchy and irritable for a few days after that.

And THEN...

So the kids’ spring break was this past week. My wife’s been itching to get out. Since my son’s a freshman in high school she realized we’ll only have a few more opportunities for taking little vacations. So off we went!

We took a mini road trip to Louisville, Kentucky. Why? Why not! It was a few hours drive, and we’ve gone there before but only briefly, so we wanted to enjoy it a bit more. With our dogs.

We drove down on Wednesday. Packed light - only two large dog crates and barely enough clothing to last (AirBnB had laundry, so...) Everything fit on top of my car in my rooftop “car bag” (IDK what else to call it). Big dogs in the rear cargo area with a couple of cushy beds, Riley in the backseat with the kids.

Get down there, unpack, order some food for pickup, but it was dark and where we were staying had some severe weather damage - street lights out, stoplights completely nonfunctional, etc. So getting to pick up the food in the dark was not fun.

Next day we hit up the Louisville Slugger museum for the factory tour, and went to a place for lunch called Mussels and Burgers. I went in thinking I’d get a burger, but wound up with a plate of mussels. The whole rest of the day I could only smell the distinctive smell of the baseball bat factory (like burned wood? Unsure) and could only hear Men at Work’s “Down Under”* song running through my head.

The next day we realized Louisville is only a couple hours from Cincinnati, so why not pop by and visit my dad and stepmom? So we did! With the dogs.

We found a dog park with SO MUCH ROOM TO RUN. And they did! With a new friend “Daisy”, a tiny little 11 month old french pug? The bad news? Dog park was MUDDY. So we tried to figure out how to clean up three muddy dogs on Good Friday. Finally found a tractor supply store with DIY dog wash stations, so off we went! Riley went straight up into the tub, Apollo wanted nothing to do with it. Boomer eventually got into the tub with Riley, and somehow my wife wrangled Apollo into the other tub. I washed Riley who was easy - short hair, less mud, smaller surface area, more compliant. My wife washed Apollo, and started drying him before I figured out how to turn on the hose, but as she was drying him realized his butt was still muddy. Anyhow we both finally finished, got the dogs mostly dried, paid, and went to my dad’s place to hangout in their apartment building lobby which (as we’d already determined) the dogs could also hang out in. And ordered pizza for takeout.

Few hours back to Louisville in time to turn in for the night, wake up SUPER early to drive back to Chicago to get my son to his friends noon birthday party (oy!) and I slept the rest of the day because I hardly slept at all the night before.

And all I have to show for all of this are these few lousy pictures.

My wife & kids got more pictures so as soon as I can grab those I’ll post them here for y’all.

---

* Why? Because I also got mussels when we went to Brussels a few years back, and as we all know Brussels and mussels is a double whammy for this lyric:

Buying bread from a man in Brussels He was six-foot-four and full of muscle

[punkscowardschampions]

America & Libi

America: What.the.fuck ��😷

Libi: ???

America: that’s not acting

America: it’s his real 😍💖🐱💫 behaviour

Libi: nooooooo 😅

Libi: it is a wee bit cringe how he has to gaze into my eyes like that

America: & it’ll take more than Mr Mullan yelling cut to get his 👅💦 out of your mouth, ear or anywhere else he can get away with putting it if you don’t tell him it’s meant to be fake

Libi: You don’t really think that, do you?

Libi: I don’t even know how to start that conversation if I need to, yikes 😬

America: I know, me & everyone else watching him eye fuck you for the full scene

Libi: oh no

Libi: I don’t know what to feel about that

Libi: no wonder your sister looked even more mad at me than usual

America: 🎊🎉 if it means she stops liking him now

Libi: Undoubtedly more of a reason to hate me more if she thinks I’m like, encouraging him

Libi: which I’m not, btw

Libi: How do I tell him to not without making him a bad actor

Libi: or have him think I’m being 😍💖 by implying he is, ahh!

America: His shite acting isn’t your problem, he’s got an understudy too

America: & telling him to back off doesn’t have to sound flirty, remind him how old you are, my sister couldn’t stop pointing out the fuckedness of the age gap so she can’t hate you for doing that either

Libi: I don’t wanna sound like I’m accusing him of anything though

Libi: that could get too serious too fast

America: Lads make us feel uncomfortable to say or do things all the time & they’re not beating themselves up about it

Libi: Yeah, you’re right

Libi: but they probably don’t have to then go on and act with them without everyone wishing the guns were real

Libi: probably

Libi: but there’s 0 chance he’s quitting or Mr Mullan will kick him, that’s as true

America: there’s 0 chance he’s heard a genuine no in this context before, if you do it 🔫💥💖🔪🩸 he might quit

Libi: I’ll talk to him 1 x 1 first

Libi: deserved or not, I don’t wanna go in full guns blazing about it

America: At least consider letting Chi overhear you, calm her down a little

Libi: No offence but your sister is probably the least of my worries if EVERYONE saw and thought the same thing

Libi: she already doesn’t think highly of me

America: She was the least of your worries when she thought Jake saw you as a dumb 2nd year, she’ll move up the list now you’ve moved up his rankings

Libi: Why does she even like him?

Libi: beyond the superficial, which it clearly is

America: He can give her back some of what she’s lost now the parties are over & somewhere to put her energy that’s feeling wasted on mam & daddy Gaz

America: cos of the superficial she’s decided he’s worthy enough of it & won’t make a holy show of her

Libi: I don’t know why I asked really

Libi: like there’d be something to do or whatever

Libi: she isn’t the only person to ever waste her time and energy though so, no judgment, I guess?

America: She’d be wasting her time & energy if she was hopelessly 😍💖 cos he looks like [indie heartthrob] & can play maybe half of his songs in tune but she’s smarter than that, smart enough to know what he’s like & what he’s good for

Libi: It’s all still beyond me

America: 😂 You’ve had better role-models

Libi: You can say sheltered

America: I don’t know you well enough to put what you’ve been through or not into different 🔴⬜️🔷

Libi: It’s cool, dumb 2nd year isn’t a million miles away

America: Chi wouldn’t feel so threatened by you if you were just a dumb 2nd year

Libi: I’ll do my best to convince her

Libi: that isn’t going to rid her issue with Bobby but nothing has

Libi: who knew this casting would cause so much drama?

Libi: not Mullan, obviously

America: Or leave the lying to me, a seasoned pro

America: Mr Mullan knew what he was doing too, he’s in a dating slump & needed the 🎇🎆

America: I offered to 🌶🌶🌶 up his profiles but that was obviously more risk or reward than he was looking for

Libi: That’s dangerously close to a teen drama style teacher who does the most unprofessional things purely to further the plot

Libi: Not cool IRL, Sir

America: Why I always fake a note for PE, she’s super intense

Libi: [Tell her about JJ sports cupboard gate like LOL yeah she is]

America: 🤯 that was them!

America: I've tried to get Sean to meet me there when he has PE but he says the lads have it wayyyy worse

America: 👌 I know that drawing out maps is 0 punishment compared to like, doing extra runs or washing the teachers balls but Bobby, Louie or Jake would meet you 😂

Libi: I’ve never heard their PE teacher speak at a normal volume he’s always shouting

Libi: I see the 😱

Libi: Bobby would but only because he’d think I was in danger… somehow

Libi: Louie isn’t as… 😍💖🐱💫 as Jake though, is he?

Libi: He seems quite nice to me

America: Bobby 👉 best friend

America: Louie 👉 just friends unless…

America: Jake 👉 destroyed by being put in the friendzone

Libi: I think you’re taking a leaf out of Mr Mullan’s book

Libi: The 💘 is purely fictional

America: If that’s how you want it, Louie’ll stop at non-fictional 🤤 in between scenes

America: 👅💦 staying in his own mouth unless you or Mr Mullan insist

America: he’s not Jake, like you said

Libi: 😂 Omg don’t

Libi: now I won’t be able to do any scenes with anyone without being all 😨😓🤔

America: 😶

Libi: Do you think I can come down with a sudden case of stage fright?

Libi: Can’t exactly fake a note for an out of school hours activity 😏

America: If you hand your role to my sister I’ll come down with genuine 🤮 from watching them perfect their stage 😍💖 on & off it

Libi: Good point

Libi: She’s done literally nothing to deserve that

Libi: I won’t really

Libi: It’s just

America: you’ve gone from 0-1000 where lads are concerned, it’s understandable that you wanna stop the 🎢 & go

America: Lucie allegedly did sign up to the play for 😍💖🍆💫 but the rest of us not so much

Libi: When we do the kiss, it’ll be my first one

Libi: Proper one, not being a kid

America: We could easily arrange you getting kissed before Jake or Louie do the honours

Libi: But who else?

Libi: At the risk of sounding Lucie about it…

Libi: I don’t like anyone so it may as well be fake, right?

Libi: It’s nbd

America: At the risk of sounding like Jake when he thinks he’s doing something cool by playing 😈 advocate for no fucking reason…

America: you don’t sound sure about it being nbd

Libi: Heh, it’s like

Libi: doing stage kisses isn’t, you know?

Libi: but when I think of it as a first, then that does matter a bit

Libi: but that’s stupid, it’s just an arbitrary thing, if I don’t want it to count then it doesn’t, so

Libi: Sorry, this is literally such a non-issue 😬🙄🥴

America: It’s refreshing to have something lowkey to talk about

America: Gary insists on pushing every little thing to crisis point & you know what my sister’s been like about the play 💥

Libi: I do get that

Libi: plenty of dramas to pick from in my family

Libi: it’s crappy when all people want to talk about is what you’re likely spending most of your time thinking about and wanting to not with the rest

America: [some kind of party deets]

America: We won’t be able to hear ourselves think or anyone talk there

Libi: Who’s the host? I don’t recognise the deets

America: You wouldn’t, she goes to [insert name of the nearest catholic school]

Libi: Oh, okay, cool

Libi: I’ll have to ask, obviously

America: let me know if it’s a no before I knock for you

America: don’t wanna get on the bad side of your grandda there’s too many perks to being allowed in your 🏡

America: & your nan already thinks I’m trouble

Libi: She doesn’t, she’s just like that with everyone

Libi: it was kinda her job for most her life so makes sense

America: It’s cool, I recognise the signs you don’t have to cover for her

America: & clearly she does too, trouble & in trouble 🚨

America: is she in touch with any of the people she used to work with who could throw Gary out?

Libi: If only it came with those kind of perks

Libi: He’s still being… himself, then?

America: 🤣 Yeah, you could say that

Libi: And your ma is still blind to it and 😍💖?

Libi: I’ll make sure I say pretty please when I ask about the party then

Libi: Bobby’s invited too, right?

America: She hasn’t stopped believing 🌞 shines out of every one of his holes

America: & ha! I don't know what to tell you about if that'll work or not when I'm literally the wrongest person to ask about asking permission

America: I took it for granted he’d be coming if you are, but obviously invite whoever you want, it’s that kind of party

Libi: It has to fade, everything does

Libi: I’ve got no idea if it’ll work either tbh but it seems like a good place to start 😅

Libi: The more the merrier, got it 🥳

America: Si’s diy tattoos already have & he started those when Chi’s parties stopped, Ciara’s looks like washed off biro

America: maybe don’t tell them I’ll be your 1st kiss if you seriously want to get it over with though 🤫

Libi: 😬 at least the regret will only last as long as the ink

Libi: Don’t tell my grandparents or don’t tell the boys? 🤔😏

America: If the lads don’t know what a bad influence I am, tonight isn’t gonna be the night to be reminded, they’ll be lucky to remember anything

Libi: Heh 😅

Libi: Things with Sean are going well though, yeah?

America: What’s he said?

Libi: Oh God, nothing

Libi: I should’ve phrased that more conversational less unintentional dig, my bad

America: 😐 I knew it

America: he’s uninvited, I’m not gonna be the next Michelle

Libi: I swear he’s said literally nothing

Libi: that was all me

America: He doesn’t have to, you told me going in that he split with her after if it got too serious too fast & his mam hasn’t stopped talking about that

Libi: Mums are just like that with boys

Libi: it isn’t coming from him, that’s what matters, right

America: what matters is not ignoring 🚨🚩

America: & I’ve made up my mind

Libi: To?

America: not pass on the party info to him

Libi: I mean, that’s up to you

America: Yeah & it’s up to him if he turns up anyway, I’m not the only source or saying he can’t

Libi: But maybe, if you want him to come, you should just tell him and not worry about how it could look or could be perceived

America: we’ve been spending loads of time together cos of the play

America: maybe if Mr Mullan wasn’t so trigger happy & had given me more than 1 scene shit could play out differently

America: 💖🔫

Libi: I’m surprised you didn’t get your sister’s role

Libi: not just for namesake reasons

Libi: she is funny, but I wouldn’t have assumed she’d be better suited, you know?

Libi: Suppose she’s known Mr Mullan longer

America: Is she funny or is she mean & people don’t want to realise she’s joking? 🤔🙄

America: Mr Mullan isn’t solely playing safe on the dating apps, I guess

America: I could call him out for not wanting to be on the receiving end of her ���jokes’ & keep her as a favourite in case you don’t try out again or there’s no other surprise 2nd year star but if I blame him for anything it’s deciding I’m a liability in a bigger role

America: like I signed up with a 🔫 to my head! I wanna be here

Libi: I mean, I don’t think she’s funny IRL at all, but I’m not meant to because she’s definitely mean to me and mine

Libi: but in the role, I’m not going to be unnecessarily bitchy and pretend she’s bad 🤷‍♀️

Libi: That is rude, I don’t think anyone is that desperate to stage kiss and miss a couple of lessons, at best, obviously you want to be here

Libi: He should have a little faith, honestly

America: the script making her look good is on Ms Howe

America: I should've taken art, Mr Mullan's fantasy of what kind of teacher he is is wayyyy closer to her reality

America: though you'd probably have some suspicions I was as 😍💖🐱💫 for you as Jake & Louie are if we had any more shared lessons

Libi: She is a really good teacher, tbh

Libi: Well, I like her

Libi: She doesn’t force her vision onto us, and she basically lets us do what we want, as long as we can prove that there’s artistic merit and skill that goes into it so, yeah 😜👍

Libi: As I only have to kill not kiss you, that’s alright with me 😅

Libi: You could pick it for your senior options, get the fake blood out for old time’s sake

America: I don’t know, I’m sure I’d like her less when she refused to believe my da’s a famous artist

Libi: You’ve got a few years to perfect the lie

America: That’s true, ironically

Libi: 😏

Libi: It’s basically rehearsal, so Mullan can take that as proof of dedication

America: 👌 still won’t hold my breath for the end of year lead but if it means he’ll kiss & make up with me so I can stay dedicated to not being 😍💖🍆💫 over Sean 😜👍

[anoceaninthesun]

Needs Improvement

Thanks largely to a brilliant suggestion by @shineejeya the Home Improvement AU continues with this ficlet (mini-series ??). This time the renovating teams tackle their toughest assignment yet. If only it was all about the house and not the feisty, beautiful client.

Summary: When Yamanaka Ino meddles in her best friend’s love life quest to DIY renovate her new fixer-upper, Haruno Sakura finds herself caught up in a home improvement competition between four handsome, creative questionably qualified renovators.   

(Home Improvement AU, Modern AU, Slice-of-Life AU)

Pairings: FoundersxSaku (IzuSaku, TobiSaku, MadaSaku, HashiSaku), ShikaIno, other background pairs

Rating: T

Genre(s): Romance, Comedy, General

Warnings: none really—except maybe swearing, atrocious flirting skills and the Founders being renovating crackheads (not literally, but almost)

Pt.1 

“Another satisfied client here on From House to Home!” the man’s boisterous voice yelled from the TV. Senju Hashirama stood with his less than impressed brother on the clients’ front yard. Yamanaka Ino leaned forward, drinking in the naked torso of Uchiha Madara as he rushed into the shot, sweaty and with a prominent grass strain streaked across his glistening skin.

“Next time it’s our win, Hashirama. We lost the battle not the war, and all that.” he declared. Hashirama laughed, throwing a well-muscled arm over his rival’s bare shoulders. Ino wet her lips, mesmerized as credits started to roll. She got a firm nudge, blinking at the lightly scowling face of her boyfriend.

“Why are we marathoning this?” Shikamaru grumbled. Ino began to explain, only for him to scoff preemptively. “Like I don’t know,” his dark eyes glared at the screen, which now displayed an energy drink commercial. “You don’t care about home improvement.”

“I like some of the aesthetics they use on the show, okay?” Ino fired back, leaning back into the couch, and Shikamaru’s arm. “And,” she added a little defiantly. “I’m looking, that’s all. It’s like window shopping because we both know I’m off the market.”

“Bad analogy.” he rolled his eyes, though his body was less tense beside hers. “You’ve never gone to a store without bringing half of it home a day in your life.”

The blonde absently smacked him with a pillow as the theme music to From House to Home filtered through the room, the next episode starting. “You know...” she hummed.

Shikamaru groaned.

“Be quiet, I’m thinking.”

“Meddling.” he corrected.

“Agree to disagree,” Ino folded her legs underneath her. “You know how Sakura just moved into that new place on the other side of town, right?”

“Hard to forget. You dragged me to her house warming party.” Shikamaru yawned, running a hand through his hair.

Ino scrunched her nose, “And I still say it needs a lot of work. I know Sakura’s proud because it’s her first house, but, you’ve seen the place.”

“I’ve seen the couch. I was napping through most of the party.” he corrected.

“But what if we got them to come and renovate it,” Ino motioned to the TV, watching with rapt attention again as Senju Tobirama used a power saw to cut a board into uniform pieces, his biceps flexing as he worked. The cameraman chose that moment to zoom in for a close up of his sharp, tattooed jaw, and Ino nearly swallowed her tongue at the way it clenched in concentration.

“Sakura wouldn’t go for that.” Shikamaru’s eyes narrowed, his fingers on the remote and dangerously close to changing the channel.

When the view switched to a safer scene of Uchiha Izuna chatting with the Uchiha team’s clients, his girlfriend finally broke free of whatever spell she was drooling under.

Now Ino was already springing from the couch and flitting around in search of something. Shikamaru observed, not bothering to get up when he knew from experience it was futile. “It’ll be a surprise! I’ll get on their website and submit a request on her behalf to be one of the next houses they choose to renovate.”

“You know what, fine. But this wasn’t a ‘we’ idea. It was a ‘you’ idea.” he drawled, slumping back into the cushions and reaching for the bowl of chips on the table.

Hashirama lifted his aviators, the quaint shop’s warm atmosphere and heavenly smell almost making his toes curl. The walls were a mellow pink, a sample table containing tiny, fresh-baked sweets on a table by the front door. Shelves lined one wall where packaged candies were neatly arranged by flavor, large lettering at the top of each shelf to label.

 A middle-aged woman in a cheerfully decorated apron smiled at them from behind the display case. “Oh! Hello,” her eyes shone just a bit brighter as she took him in, and then Tobirama who had shouldered forward from behind his brother. “I’ll be with you shortly.” One last, appreciative glance and then she was back to boxing up the customer’s order.

 By the hunch in his back and the distracted look on his face as he thoughtfully peered into the case, it would be a while before he finished deciding. 

Not that Hashirama really minded. 

“I told you it’d be okay if I took that detour,” The elder Senju grinned, “We still made it early.”

Tobirama stared around the bright space, which doubled as a sweets shop and bakery, picking a booth in the corner by the front glass. Their producers had called the impromptu meeting in the middle of the week, and so the younger of the “Reno Twins” (a nickname his brother despised for some reason) was sure it was bad news. More importantly, he was sure it was Hashirama’s fault.

“Good thinking,” Hashirama beamed, doing his best to ignore his brother’s mood. “You save us a spot and I’ll order us some snacks!”

He wandered over to stand and look at the baked goods on display. The bell above the door chimed again, and the young cashier, who had just accepted payment for the order she’d been ringing up, paused. 

“Hello, welcome to...” The same woman who had greeted them came from the bake with a tray of fresh croissants, which nearly slid onto the floor when she stopped abruptly. 

“This is where we’re meeting?” The baritone voice was familiar, as were the footsteps on the tile floor behind him. “Well, at least it smells nice.”

Hashirama spun, taking in the sight of his old friend and rival dressed casually in a leather bomber jacket, opened enough to reveal a tight gray tee-shirt underneath, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his black jeans. While Madara idly perused the pastry selection, Izuna greeted the Senju with a wave and a small smile. He looked comfortable in a soft red henley and blue jeans.

“So none of the producers have arrived yet?” Izuna asked after stepping out of their short, friendly hug.

Hashirama shook his head. “Not so far, but then we’re early.” The man who had been buying sweets finally moved past them on his way out the door, his sleepy eyes slightly more alert as he munched a donut.

“Hi,” the baker peered as closely as she could at them all. They weren’t exactly in disguise, and the show’s popularity had only grown in the last several years. It was now one of the highest-rated on their network. It wouldn’t be a surprise if they were recognized. “So sorry for the wait. Are you ready to order?” 

Hashirama quickly got an assortment, three small spiced plum cakes for himself and daifuku for Tobirama. He added Izuna’s slice of apple pie and the fondant o’maron Madara kept eyeing to the tab as well, ignoring the complaints from the latter. 

When they were all seated at the booth Tobirama had chosen, Senju on one side and Uchiha on the other, Hashirama picked up his fork and savored the first bite of the succulent dessert. 

Izuna took a sip of water before addressing the elephant in the room. “So, what do you think this meeting’s for?” 

Madara, who had finally stopped grousing enough to eat, lifted his head. “We’ve won the last three challenges consecutively. Maybe the network’s decided From House to Home would be better with just one team.” he innocently bit into the chestnut-shaped cake. “Us.”

“Huh,” Tobirama sat down his glass with force. “There you go again, making asinine conjecture. It might be true that you’ve enjoyed a small winning streak as of late, but I wouldn’t let it go to your head.” 

Hashirama bit his lip, wondering if he should just go ahead and jump in. There was definitely more than a little friendly rivalry between all of them, but Tobirama and Madara tended to exchange words that were more caustic than charitable when they got worked up. Which was...frequently in each other’s presence.

“Oh?” Madara leaned forward across the table, eyes narrowing, “Care to explain?”

Hashirama swapped looks with Izuna, and he could tell both of them were now a bit apprehensive about the direction the conversation was headed. “The last three challenges you’ve worked on houses for lonely, single women.” Tobirama explained calmly. “Our clients have been older couples. It doesn’t take a moron to see you appeal to the lowest common denominator.”

“Are you saying our renovation can’t stand on its own merits? This is pitiful, Tobirama,” he sighed. “I knew you were a sore loser, but control yourself.” 

“I’m simply wondering what removing your shirt has to do building fire pits or converting attics into studio office spaces.” he insisted. “You play on sex appeal more than actual skill.”

“I resent that.” Izuna chimed in, disgruntled. Hashirama frowned at his brother. Despite Madara’s...eccentric habit of losing his shirt, their rivals worked hard, and when they won a challenge, it was because their vision for the week’s reno had been better.    

Tobirama raised a brow at Izuna but didn’t take it back. A thick tension settled over the table.

“What’s this?” a new voice guffawed. “We leave you boys alone for hardly half an hour and you’re going at it? That’s not going to work.”

“Gengetsu-san,” Hashirama’s chest fluttered with relief as he stood, smiling at the approaching team of producers. Hozuki Gengetsu led the way, followed by a stout, elderly man leaning on a cane, affectionately dubbed Old Man Onoki. The third producer present, Terumi Mei, had beelined for the sweets, though she looked reluctant to sample any. 

Gengetsu eyed the food on the table with interest, not hesitating to reach for one of Tobirama’s daifuku. 

“Oi,” Tobirama scooted his plate away and the blonde man only laughed. “This place has the best pastries in town, doesn’t it?” he plopped down on the end of the booth beside Izuna, stroking his chin. “We thought the cozy atmosphere would be best to break the news.”

“Cancellation.” Tobirama said. 

“No, nothing of that sort!” Onoki waved him off. “Don’t be so cynical.” 

Although the others might have hid it better, Hashirama could tell that they were relieved that whatever the news, it wasn’t that.

“We’ve been thinking of what the show should do for its 300th episode, which subsequently starts a new season. And then we got a very interesting letter.” Gengetsu rubbed at his short goatee, his eyes twinkling. 

Madara leaned back in his seat, arms crossed and staring out at the street, where a group of shoppers had happened to spot him and were already pulling out their phones. 

“As much as I like seeing them a little hot under the collar with the suspense,” Mei sashayed over with a plate in each hand “I think you should just get on with it.” 

“Here’s how it’s going to go, boys...” Gengetsu successfully snagged one of Madara’s cakes and waved it around before taking a bite. Afterwards, they had to wait for the man to get his bearings as he groaned exaggeratedly over the flavor. “Oh, this is heavenly.”

“Hozuki-san, today.” Tobirama urged. Hashirama nervously elbowed his brother, but Gengetsu took it in stride. 

“I was right, wasn’t I? Only one team’s staying on the show.” Madara’s smirk was victorious. “You’ve made the right decision, I assure you.”

“Hold on, hold on--how’d you know?” Onoki grumbled. 

Hashirama felt his jaw drop, eyes widening more than the plate his unfinished plum cakes sat on. 

Tobirama’s neutral expression shifted into a full blown frown. “You can’t be serious.”

And although it was Madara’s idea to begin with, some of the fire left his eyes, his lips parting. 

“Uh, I don’t see how this is going to work either, actually.” Izuna tilted his head. “The show’s been two teams competing since it started. How is switching the format now, when the ratings are solid--or better than ever even--going to be...”

“Not forever.” Mei clarified. “Just for the season premiere. It’s true it’s always been two teams facing off on two separate houses. But what if you all joined together and completing just one house?”

“All of us working together?” Hashirama was the first to recover, and the idea instantly sent excited sparks through his brain. “I’m intrigued. What kind of project is it?” 

Admittedly, he’d considered a few times before what would happen if he and Tobirama ever joined up with Madara and Izuna. Competing was fun because the Uchiha brothers were worthy competitors, but collaborating could take their projects to a whole new level.

 It wasn’t an idea he’d pitched to the execs because everyone seemed content with the dynamics already happening. But in the end he hadn’t had to say anything! 

“A young woman by the name of Yamanaka Ino wrote to us recently. Her close friend bought a new house.” Gengetsu explained through his chewing. “Miss Yamanaka feels it’s in need of renovation. She signed up for the house in question to be featured on an upcoming episode of the show, and after thinking it over and looking into the property itself, we think this could be the time to try something new.” 

[dprdabin]

DPR: ‘We Did this Ourselves From the Ground Up’

From a hit debut album to an upcoming world tour, producer DPR REM and artist DPR LIVE talk about their hip-hop crew’s ambitions and expansion plans

Talking to the members of DPR is almost always like a productive frisson that leaves you breathless and excited for the things to come. On the day we chat, the voices of producer Scott Kim—better known as DPR REM—and Hong Dabin, aka DPR LIVE, crackle through the phone on a fine Seoul evening, merging together in waves of introspection and quiet, focused ambition. They’re gearing up for their first world tour, but also trying to wrap their heads around the fact that it’s finally happening.

“Everything is just still so surreal for us. It’s not like we’ve done this in a past life or we had experiences in other entertainment companies. This is all ‘Do It Yourself’, like DIY,” says DPR REM. “Every day is a new experience and a new journey, and I think this world tour is one of the biggest steps we’ve taken in that direction.”

On the off chance that you’re a stranger to DPR, short for Dream Perfect Regime, it’s worth noting that ‘Do It Yourself’ is the cornerstone of the septet’s philosophy. The crew, which has morphed into one of the most prominent and creative voices to emerge from the Korean hip-hop scene, is a completely organic and independent effort–a rare feat in South Korea’s label-saturated music industry. They first gained prominence through their captivating and cinematic visual output which included music videos for K-pop acts such as Big Bang and MOBB, courtesy of in-house director and free-spirit extraordinaire, Christian Yu (known as IAN within the collective.)

Rapper DPR LIVE, essentially the face of the collective, is both a founding member and their first formal artist. LIVE started out by uploading his music on YouTube and eventually commanded people’s attention through his tightly packed, spitfire rap on the viral collaborative 2016 hit “Eung Freestyle.” Then in 2017 came Coming To You Live, his debut EP featuring an impressive roster of collaborations and an even bolder declaration—DPR had arrived in full swing. This, however, was followed by the comparatively mellowed out HER the same year. While Coming To You Live was a grand display of confidence, HER was more focused and convergent in its themes, essentially a one-man act that took DPR LIVE to No. 8 on the Billboard World Albums Chart. “I think going off of CTYL, it was hard to just really stick with one theme because there was just so many people involved. We wanted to keep it open-ended for the artists to translate and interpret the way they wanted to,” says DPR REM, who’s produced both albums. “On the cover album for CTYL, we have a change of seasons going on in the background.” DPR used that as a metaphor of how they wanted to offer different varieties of songs and themes, so it not only introduces DPR LIVE as a rookie artist but also incorporates a lot of the other artists that featured on this project to display their thematic lyricism.

However, REM goes on to explain that when it comes to HER, it became a very solo project for LIVE. “It was solo for being not only for his own experimental purposes, but also in that he really wanted to zone in on his artistry and portray his story, and really give the fans like, ‘Okay, this is me, really like raw, without anybody around. This is the music I want to do right now, the vibes I want to put out.’ I think that’s the distinction.”

At just 26, LIVE is succinct but assertive, prefers to channel his words through music and is always aware of his values and goals thanks to his time in the army, which he says brought focus to his music. “I went to school in Guam. I knew how to speak Korean, because that was the only language my mom and my dad can speak, but I definitely wasn’t good at it.” When his family came to Korea, he had to enlist in the army within a year of arriving. “You have to stay in this military camp for two years, being told what to do, when to eat, when to sleep, and stuff like that. I actually really just honed in on myself, my goals, what I wanted in life, my values, and I learned patience and focus there. I think it was a very good thing to do though, because I don’t think I would have learned another way,” he says.

With millions of online views on their videos and the label of an underground collective left in the past, the members of DPR are gearing up to perform at sold out shows in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Here are excerpts from our conversation with REM and LIVE, where they discuss their success, music, and plans for expanding in the future.

On their collaborations with other artists and Coming To You Live:

LIVE: I think for collaborations, it’s always important to meet the person you’re working with, to get a vibe of their energy, their lifestyle, their beliefs. Just getting to know someone as a human is so helpful in understanding them as an artist. Through various talks and meet-ups, I think that’s where the music just naturally comes about. At least in my experience, that’s how you can be versatile. Meeting with various individuals and just communicating – it really opens you up to new thoughts and experiences.

REM: We were actually very lucky with that, because it just all timed perfectly. Usually, you hear a lot of stories where schedules don’t match up or you’re waiting for some other person and they get back to you, which is very often in the entertainment industry, but just—I don’t know what it is. I like to think it’s a lot of luck, to be honest, there’s a lot of great timing and luck that happened.

On music videos and DPR’s visual output:

LIVE: Not just my input, but everyone’s input goes into our visuals. It’s a collective effort, and that’s exactly the reason as to why I think we are able to deliver top notch quality works. We each present a different piece to the puzzle.

REM: I dedicate a lot of that to Christian. He’s a genius when it comes to that. I really think he’s just a crazy gifted kid that you just can’t put into words at times. It just happens for him.

“I don’t want our tour to just be your typical ‘show’ or ‘performance.’ I want fans to gear up for an actual party–a family reunion,” says DPR LIVE. Photo: Courtesy of Dream Perfect Regime

On being independent artists in South Korea:

LIVE: We really did this ourselves from the ground up. Countless mistakes were made, but through just pure diligence, we were able to get to a point where now we can constantly create and make what we want to. That freedom is priceless.

On their Billboard charting and online success:

LIVE: Although I’m super grateful and humbled, I try my best not to focus on stuff like that. The more you start thinking about certain stats and whatnot, I just believe it tends to really limit and almost negatively impact your career. Constantly being burdened and stressed with thoughts like that seem to do way more bad than good. I think these days I’ve just been working on trying to create constantly and explore myself as an artist more and more.

REM: We’re still young kids if you really think about it. Beyond the fame, beyond the success, it’s the fact that we have influence, and that’s what drives us, right? I think we’ve gone various letters in the email and handwritten letters from our fans all across the world, saying ‘Your music has shifted me in this direction and it’s for the better’ and ‘Your music has really inspired to go and pursue my dream, my passions.’ When we get things like this, it’s a very surreal experience. I’m sure a lot of artists feel the same way, but for us, really coming from the ground up, really not knowing anything that we were doing, going through countless mistakes, countless failures, it’s a really rewarding experience, more than anything.

On getting more people to hop on board:

REM: The short answer is: of course, we’d love to build this movement. I think the betterment of the team is just getting more people on board. The bigger your movement becomes, the bigger impact you get. The long answer to that, now, is that because we’re so family oriented, it does get a bit tricky. You have seven kids that grew up together making this DPR dream a reality. At this point, and we’ve said it before, we know each other so well. If we had disagreements and communication problems, it’s exactly how a family would handle it. This is not a company vibe at all, and I feel like, going off of that, we want to conserve that culture as much as can. That’s where it gets difficult, because you have somebody from the outside coming in, and it’s just like… can they really adapt to this environment? Can they adapt to this culture that we’ve set up before it already? I think that’s the hard question for us.

On the upcoming tour and possible new locations:

LIVE: Besides the fact that I’ll be able to finally see my fans face to face, I’m most looking forward to just being in a space filled with people who really support our movement and resonate with us. I don’t want our tour to just be your typical ‘show’ or ‘performance.’ I want fans to gear up for an actual party–a family reunion. Anybody that supports DPR knows up front that our culture goes hand in hand with family. So for us, this tour is similar to like seeing your long lost relatives, or getting together with family members you haven’t seen in years. That’s the level of excitement the team and I have.

REM: We really tried to include as many cities as we could in this tour. It is a world tour and we wanted to hit as many cities as we could, even despite our physical health or whatever. We really wanted to make the time and effort to get to any place that really knows of us or wants us. Even other Spanish-speaking countries or places like India or South Africa… we have tons of fans hitting us up saying we have fans here and there, and we want to cater to those markets much as we can, but at the same time just thinking about the whole bigger picture of the scheduling and the logistics it just couldn’t work out.

That’s what we told our fans, that ‘Hey, just because we’re doing this first world tour doesn’t mean it’s the last world tour. We’re just getting started here, right?’ This is just the beginning, so it builds momentum for the next few cities that we have yet to hit. We’re like, ‘Hey, we see you guys. We know you’re there. Just wait for us.’

© Lavanya Singh @ Rolling Stone India

[augustbess]

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needed and then just developed it from there. We've started doing them in pleather, because we wanted to keep costs down for the start up, but we're going to be doing them in a quilted fabric and tweed soon."There's really no reason why we couldn't do them in any fabric, it's a very easily adaptable idea because it's so simple and classic, so we could also do limited edition sparkly ones around Christmas time and the party season."Hannah says since launching Sole Clutch, the six classmates have been busy researching seasonal colour trends, keeping an eye on the fashion week shows."We predicted that black would be our best seller, but coral and lime have been the most popular, they've gone crazy for us," she says. Theon felt a stab of pity for him and his men. Ramsay would flay them all when he learned his bride was gone, and what he would do to Grunt and Sour Alyn did not bear thinking about.. Abomination. A. That still left fifty-eight who were fit enough to fight. Weak as they were, they would have taken three times their own number with them if Lord Ramsay had stormed the ruins. “Four castles in as many days, that’s a splendid start, but we are still only at half strength. How she used to cry! And when she knew grandfather was poor she cried more than ever. She often wrote letters to him, and he never answered.”. His guardsmen, five slave

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[boredout305]

Chris Alan Durham Interview

Chris Durham is best known for his tenure in Roachclip and The Bibs. Alongside Travis Galloway, he runs All Gone records.

           From Downriver, Michigan, Durham formed All Gone to release tapes by his friends in Detroit, as well as records by his band, Roachclip. All Gone has expanded, releasing more than 40 titles, including cassettes by The Intended, Mad Nanna and The Cannanes.  

           After Roachclip, Durham formed The Bibs with Galloway and Alex Franzen. The group’s LP on Soft Abuse, From the Fish Houses, was one of the best releases of 2016.

           Currently, Durham is focusing on Church Shuttle and releases under his own name. Soft Abuse just released a Church Shuttle 7”; an upcoming solo single by Durham will be out on Spacecase this summer.

Interview by Ryan Leach

Ryan: I know you’re from Southwest Detroit, but I don’t know much else about your background. I’m thirty-six. I’m probably a little older than you.

Chris: I’m thirty-one now. I’m getting older. I grew up in Downriver, which borders Southwest Detroit. I’ve been living in Southwest Detroit for a while now. That’s where I record most of my music. I recorded the Bibs (From the Fish Houses) and Roachclip (Discovery Park) records there. I started in Downriver, playing music in Detroit when I was fourteen or fifteen. We’d play shows in Hamtramck.

Ryan: This would’ve been the early 2000s?

Chris: I probably played my first show in 2003 or 2004. I grew up in the industrial part of town. It was blue collar with factories.

Ryan: Were your parents into music or was it something you discovered on your own?

Chris: They were into classic rock and country music. Aerosmith and Zeppelin. They liked Alice Cooper. He was from around here.

Ryan: Detroit’s a major music city. But by the time you were growing up, the impacts of deindustrialization—namely, job and population loss—were already well underway.

Chris: Totally. By the time I was growing up, everything was already on a steady decline. My grandparents and parents are from Detroit. By the ‘70s, people were already leaving. At its peak, Detroit had almost two million people. I think we’re down to around 700,000 now. However, there are millions of people in the Detroit Metro area. Everyone kind of lives around the city. It’s a populated area, but a lot of it isn’t technically in the city.

Ryan: Weren’t you doing more experimental music before Roachclip?

Chris: Yeah. Some of my early projects included the tape label my friends from Downriver and I started: All Gone. That was around 2007 or 2008. We had a concept of not using the internet. We were anti-internet at the time. The goal was to keep the label subterranean. We created mailers we’d send out about upcoming releases.

Ryan: You were taking the label back to the Forced Exposure era.

Chris: Right. Everyone was using the internet in 2007. Back then, we were doing garage recordings. Not “garage music,” but literally recording music in garages. The music I was making back then was more experimental than the music I’m doing now. I used alternate tunings and I didn’t record with drums. I was influenced by New Zealand stuff, Harry Pussy and Jandek. There were electronic elements to my early recordings. I was into krautrock.

Ryan: You have “Song for Guy Debord” on the Roachclip LP, Discovery Park. It fits in with the concept of not wanting a simulated environment on the internet, but meeting people face-to-face.

Chris: He has a big influence on my music. Not on the sound, but on the mindset of how I approach it. Debord is just as big an influence on me as any other musician.  

Ryan: Where did you meet All Gone co-founder Travis Galloway?

Chris: We grew up a few blocks away from each other. I first met him when I was younger through skateboarding. I met up with him again at a party in my twenties. He asked me, “Didn’t we grow up a few blocks away from each other?” I said, “Yeah, we did.” It was kind of cool. We knew a lot about each other, but we never really hung out until our twenties.  

Ryan: All Gone was strictly cassettes at the beginning, correct?

Chris: It was all cassettes. All Gone was just the bands Travis and I were doing. I was doing a project with my friend Trever (Millay), who’s in the band You. They released records on Dais. Trever went into a more minimal, synth-type direction. Steve Gougherty, who was in Roachclip, was doing some solo stuff. The label started as a result of Travis and I hanging out, fighting off boredom. We were putting out a lot of solo recordings by our friends. We then started reaching out to other people and bands.

We were all doing noisier stuff back then. You mentioned Heath (Moerland), who was also in Roachclip, earlier. Heath is sort of the king of Michigan basement noise. Heath was coming up with really good murky and psych-influenced noise.

We started getting out of that stuff. Every show we’d attend was just a massive wall of feedback. We wanted to mix it up. We wanted to be noisy, but less harsh. Our music started becoming more conventional.

Ryan: Going back to the 1980s, experimental and noise music really lent itself to the low-overheads and long-playing time of cassette tapes.

Chris: All Gone was coming from that background. Also, most of my friends growing up recorded on 4-tracks. That’s pretty much all we used.

Ryan: The Tascam Portastudios?

Chris: Right—the Tascam Portastudios. The blue guys. My friends Alex Franzen and Steve Gougherty were recording on those. I learned a lot from them. I’ve always been around tapes. I never learned how to use computers when I was younger. My parents weren’t into them. All we had at home was an outdated computer that always got viruses.

Ryan: Computers weren’t yet accessible to everyone. I graduated high school in 2000, and I’m almost certain I used an electric typewriter the whole way through. My dad was a cabinetmaker.    

Chris: Yeah, they weren’t really around. I chat with people who record onto computer and I feel left behind—like I need to take a computer science course.

Ryan: An interesting, early All Gone release was the Cannanes Happy Swing cassette reissue. How did that come about?

Chris: That release was pretty cool and random. I love all of that ‘80s DIY stuff, especially from New Zealand. I realize The Cannanes are from Australia, but I like bands from that general region. I started getting into K Records and The Go Team. I like Steve Fisk. The tape stuff he was doing back then was really cool.

I got the Cannanes tape and I really liked it. I felt that it needed to be back out in the world again. The aesthetic we were going for—the Cannanes owned it on that tape. I got on the internet and contacted them. They were really into reissuing it.

It’s funny. I was trying to contact Calvin Johnson at the time. Calvin had gotten wind that I had reissued Happy Swing (which was originally released on K). He was down for it. I sent him some copies. He sold out of them and I sent him some more. Calvin was chill.

Ryan: So it was after the fact that K had found out about the reissue?

Chris: Yeah. I didn’t even put anything on the tape about K. I had been trying to get ahold of Calvin beforehand, but I couldn’t track him down. I was happy to send him stuff. I wanted to get the tape out again and for him to know about it. Calvin wrote me later on, mentioning that he wanted to meet up. He kept thinking I lived in Wisconsin. I had to break it to him that I lived in Michigan.

I wish someone else would reissue some of that K stuff, especially the Go Team tapes. I don’t know if Calvin has plans for it. A lot of the early K stuff is really amazing.

Ryan: I only know Roachclip through the band’s catalog.

Chris: Compared to The Bibs, Roachclip was a little more functional. We played in Chicago and Ohio a few times. We toured the East Coast with the K9 Sniffies for eight days. We didn’t too much lengthy touring, just a lot of gigs in Detroit and Ann Arbor. We cut that record (Discovery Park), a couple of tapes and some 7”s. There are some Roachclip recordings that have never come out. I’m not sure if they ever will or not.

Ryan: Roachclip’s Discovery Park (2013) has been All Gone’s only LP so far, right?

Chris: That’s the only LP we’ve done. All Gone’s released some 7”s, including a Mole House record that features some of the Mad Nanna dudes. We did an Intended 7” which was a Tyvek side-project band. We did a Tracey Trance 7” too.

Ryan: You and Michael (Zulicki) from Mad Nanna seem really simpatico. I know Mad Nanna toured with The Bibs.

Chris: I can’t recall how I met Michael. It was a while ago. I think we became aware of each other’s work through mail orders, places like Volcanic Tongue and Fusetron. We got in contact and started trading releases. We were both interested in a similar aesthetic. We’ve been friends for about five years now. We’re pretty diehard pen pals.

Michael came out to Michigan and we did a small tour together. I actually played drums for Mad Nanna on that tour. That was a cool experience. Our first show was in Columbus. Kevin Failure, the Pink Reason dude, booked it. That was a really good basement show. Mad Nanna’s drummer couldn’t make the tour, so I told Michael I’d do it. The first night was a little rough. I started out with a full drum set, but by the end of the night the kit was whittled down to three pieces. I was playing standing up. By Cleveland, I got the hang of it. I have recordings from that tour and the Chicago and Cleveland dates are the best. We’ve been meaning to get those out for a while now.

Ryan: The Bibs’ From the Fish Houses (2016) is my favorite record you’ve cut so far.

Chris: Thanks. I’m pretty proud of that record. It was a cool experience. The Bibs was me and my friends Travis (Galloway) and Alex (Franzen), who I grew up making music with. Alex and I had a bond going back to when we were teenagers. There was also some strife. Alex was junked out pretty bad. It was hard to get recording time in. He was in and out of rehab. I was simply glad the record got made and that it was with the whole band. The first tape, Everyday I Nap, was me and Alex. The second tape, Waiting for Alex, was cut when he was in rehab and was about him. Waiting for Alex was me and Travis. From the Fish Houses was recorded when Alex got out.

           I loved the Bibs. The tour with Mad Nanna was actually when the band ended. Alex literally disappeared on that tour. We raged really hard in Chicago. We had a day off before the Cleveland show, which is only a couple of hours from Detroit. Alex just left. We didn’t know where he was for about two years. Alex is doing really well now. I didn’t expect a good ending to that story.

Ryan: You have Quilt Boy and Church Shuttle going currently. Church Shuttle is getting back to the experimental music you were cutting years earlier.

Chris: Yeah. After Alex left, it didn’t feel right to carry on as The Bibs. Alex was too crucial. I started recording the Quilt Boy stuff. I wanted that to be a solo project. There was just so much going on with the bands that I had been in. The Quilt Boy material was all over the place. It was electronic, but also prog and folk. I just kept making tapes. Sophomore Lounge hit me up about doing a Roachclip 7”. I told them Roachclip wasn’t a band anymore, but I sent them the Quilt Boy stuff which led to the “I Am Somebody” 7”. I recorded and played all of the music on that release. I was attempting to record nihilistic prog tracks in my basement. I lived in Philadelphia for a while; when I got back to Detroit, I put together a band for Quilt Boy. We built some momentum, played the Cropped Out Fest in Louisville (in 2016), but it kind of fizzled out. Everyone was involved in so many other bands.

I’ve been focusing more on Church Shuttle. I’ve been doing Church Shuttle for a while now. It’s definitely the most experimental stuff that I do. Church Shuttle has a 7” that’ll be out soon on Soft Abuse. I’m excited about that. Church Shuttle is all stream of consciousness. I try to push myself sonically with that project.

Ryan: You’ve been recording under your own name as well. We have that 7” coming out (on Spacecase).

Chris: I did a tape under my own name for All Gone about a year ago. That was just to get back to playing more conventional music. I wanted to play guitar again and write songs. Heath (Moerland) said he’d play drums for me. We plan to do some live shows. I’m interested in getting a band going for that material. I might keep it under my own name and get a proper backing band. A singer-songwriter deal. I never thought about doing that. I’m in my thirties. Maybe it’s time to be the singer-songwriter guy now.

Ryan: What’s on the horizon with All Gone?

Chris: I’m being a little lazy right now, but we do have things lined up. I have a Yureka Cash tape planned. She’s a friend of mine from Philly who’s also had a release on No Rent. It’s weirdo music that’s sort of hard to describe. We’re trying to get a Mad Nanna live record out. Also scheduled is a C10 release of five unreleased Bibs tracks and a Heaven Copy tape. Heaven Copy is my friend David Sutton from Philly. He also does LXV who’s released tapes on Soft Abuse. I think we’re doing a Creode tape. That’s going to be my weird, synth basement tape. It’s in the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS) zone. Dennis Duck-type stuff. We’re big fans of that around here.

Ryan: I went to a LAFMS retrospective about five years ago. To this day, Tom Recchion and the rest of the LAFMS remain underappreciated, even in Los Angeles.

Chris: I think so. What they were doing was really subterranean. There was nothing commercial about their music and they didn’t care. It’s some of the most interesting music from that time period.

[madstars-festival]

Q&A: TRES COLACION ON THE MAKING OF ‘THE BLANK EDITION’

The LA-born creative director of Impact BBDO talks about 'The Blank Edition', his upcoming move back home with Grey West, and his time in Dubai.

Last month at AD STARS, Impact BBDO won Grand Prix of the Year for ‘The Blank Edition’ – a campaign that brought about political change in Lebanon.

Creative director Tres Colacion was part of the team at Impact BBDO in Dubai that convinced An-Nahar to print an entirely blank edition of its newspaper to send a message to Lebanese politicians.

We recently caught up for a conversation with Colacion, who has been running the Mars account for Impact BBDO in Dubai for the past two years but is relocating to Los Angeles along with creative partner, Giancarlo Rodas, to join Grey West.

The Blank Edition won $10,000 at AD STARS … how will you spend the prize money?!

It’s really amazing that AD STARS can hold a festival without entry fees AND give a cash prize. So respect for that. I don’t believe we’ve ever won a cash prize before and really did not anticipate winning this so as of now there is no concrete plan on what to do with it. We’ll discuss a few different plans/initiatives internally and then decide on what to do.

How did The Blank Edition come about? Can you explain the political context in Lebanon?

Lebanon has an extremely complex power-sharing system that is the result of a very diverse populace and numerous internal conflicts. This has led to a lot of corruption and nepotism that regularly results in the Lebanese people getting short-changed by their elected representatives.

An Nahar, our client, is the nation’s leading independent newspaper. Its former editor-in-chief Gebran Tueini was actually assassinated in 2005 for his outspokenness. So it’s an institution with a long history of standing up for what’s right. The paper was tired of printing the same excuses week after week and came to us wanting to break through the clutter.

What were the client’s concerns and how did you address them?

The situation in Lebanon is not different from that all over the world. The printed press in a difficult situation. Not only do they need to deliver the hard-hitting journalism that they built their name on, but they need to navigate a world full of free “news”, paywalls and social media.

Obviously, printing a blank newspaper, including advertisements, is something that is going to have an effect on the bottom line and in times like these publishers are usually less inclined to rock the boat with advertisers. I say usually because Nayla Tueni, the paper’s editor-in-chief, didn’t flinch. She got the idea ⁠— the intention ⁠— instantly, and from there we worked together to insure that we achieved the desired intention.

Why was this campaign so close to your heart?

It’s a project that’s really close to our hearts because it something that we believe stands on the right side of history. It’s apolitical, and it has scale. It’s more than just a creative idea, it’s a tool for publishers and people the world over. Another Lebanese newspaper has already printed a “blank edition”. It’s amazing to see people adopt it and make it their own.

One of the things the AD STARS judges loved most about The Blank Edition is how you took a traditional medium and made it relevant through digital/social. Can you explain the media strategy?

We’re really interested in the intersection between the traditional and “new” media spaces. From very early on we knew that we wanted to do something that lent itself to spreading quickly and that obviously meant social.

The situation in Lebanon is not different from that all over the world. The printed press in a difficult situation. Not only do they need to deliver the hard-hitting journalism that they built their name on, but they need to navigate a world full of free “news”, paywalls and social media.

Today everyone is a creator, a publisher. In your pocket you have all the tools you need to create content to push to the world. The front page of a national newspaper is such an iconic physical space that we knew that people would want to use it to express themselves. And that iconic physical paper and the ability to quickly create content was the perfect invitation to engage with the newspaper.

Impact BBDO Dubai also won two Gold awards at AD STARS for ‘Mutilated Words’ and ‘Toxic Flag’. Why do you think the agency has been so successful over the past year?

It’s really been a wild year for Impact BBDO. We’ve gone through a lot of changes in the last 24 months — from creative leadership to a change in MD — and I think these kinds of situations create opportunities for people to get behind good work. We made an active decision that we wanted to use this year to really leave our mark.

There’s a really right crew of people here (from creative to accounts to strategy) who just buckled down and took it upon themselves to achieve this goal. We worked together:  I think we had 5 campaigns awarded at Cannes this year, all of which essentially share the same crew.

When you’re not working in Los Angeles, New York or London you need to work differently to stand out. We don’t have the same budgets or access to resources as many other agencies. We choose to do work that is provocative because by nature it elicits an opinion. If people have an opinion about your work, good or bad, I think you’re already ahead of so much of the work that we’re exposed to every day.

You’ve been at Impact BBDO Dubai since 2017. How does Dubai inspire you?

I came to Dubai a little over two years ago from London to join Impact BBDO. Dubai is a place where you have to pave your own way, that’s something that really suits my partner Giancarlo Rodas and myself. We come from the school of DIY and love to get our hands dirty. We really love being in the center of this part of the world. Our inspiration doesn’t necessarily come from Dubai as a place, but more from the people that we meet. Everyone is from somewhere else and there’s something really refreshing about that.

As a creative scene it’s very tight knit. We have friends at every agency and, although we go hard against each other at our local show, we always try to back each other on the international scene. Last year we celebrated TBWA\RAAD’s amazing performance at Cannes and this year they were the first congratulate us when won the region’s first Grand Prix. It’s a great vibe.

I run the Mars (Snickers, Twix, Galaxy, M&Ms, Extra, etc) business here with an amazing team of creative and account people.

What led you to a career in advertising, and what are your goals for the next 12 months?

I’ve had kind of an unorthodox journey. I’m from Los Angeles and studied International Relations with an emphasis in the Middle East. When I was 20 I traveled to Beirut to study Arabic and kind of just never really went back. I started throwing parties and eventually opened a nightclub with a few friends.

Through the party scene, I met a pair of ex-JWT creatives who had just opened their own agency called Interesting Times. I really had no idea about a “career in advertising” or what the job entailed, but I was sick of waking up at 2pm everyday and the next thing I know I was interviewing for a job as a copywriter. My “portfolio” was literally a collection of Facebook event pages and pictures of nights I’d done. But they hired me anyway and for that I’m eternally grateful.

I stayed there for about 5 years and left as an ACD leading on Cadillac. I spent some time freelancing in London, writing a television pilot and watching a lot of Football before taking this job in Dubai about 2 years ago.

My partner, Giancarlo Rodas, and I are moving to the US in October to take on a new challenge at Grey West in Los Angeles. We have the amazing opportunity to work with Rodrigo Jatene and Rafael Gonzaga (Corruption Detector, Colour of Corruption). We’re very excited to continue making famous, culture-bending work. For myself personally, it’s a dream homecoming after over 10 years abroad.

I love creativity because it’s taken me to literally every corner of the world. I’m just a kid from Los Angeles and somehow through a collection of amazing people, I’ve got to see the world. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

[healthnotion]

More Footage: Take the One-Month “Do Something New Every Day” Challenge

Time is a funny thing.

Even though it’s a fixed dimension that can be objectively measured, the way we perceive time can fluctuate in subjective ways — both in the moment, and when we later reflect on it.

When we’re bored, frustrated, and/or annoyed, time seems to move more slowly. When we’re caught up in some fun and/or focused activity, time can seem to fly by.

There’s a reason for that — when we’re doing something tedious and lacking in interesting stimuli, we check the time more often, which makes the minutes and hours seem to creep along. When we’re deeply engaged in some activity, we aren’t watching the clock, and thus lose track of time.

When we shift from thinking about time in the moment, to reflecting back on the time we just spent, time can seem to speed up or slow down as well.

You’ve probably made the observation that as a child and young adult, your days, weeks, and years seemed really long. High school and college only lasted four years, but probably seem significantly longer in your memory.

As a grown-up, your days may feel long in the moment (because you’re bored and watching the time — “How long ‘til I go to bed?” “How long ‘til I can put the kids to bed?!”), but then your weeks and months, and especially your years, seem to pass by and pile up at an alarming rate. It’s New Year’s Day, and then all of a sudden it’s summer, and then, wow, is it time for the holidays again? You find it hard to believe another year’s gone by. And that 1999 was not ten years ago, but twenty. And can it really be possible that Dead Poets Society came out thirty years ago?

You can often seem to be racing towards old age, and — gulp — the grave, at a breakneck pace.

There’s a reason for this too: researchers have found that whenever your brain participates in experiences that are novel and/or emotionally salient, it figures, “I may need to remember this later” and so takes plenty of “footage” of what’s going on. When you later look back on those periods, there’s plenty of “film” to unspool, so the experiences seem to have lasted a long time.

However, when you do things that you’ve done before, that are familiar, and follow the same routine, your brain already knows what to expect next. It’s seen this movie before. So off clicks your mental camera.

When you’re young and constantly learning new things, encountering novel situations, and grappling with emotionally heightened experiences, your brain takes a ton of footage, and lays down lots of rich, dense, detailed memories, which, when looked back on, makes that time feel slower and more expansive.

But when you’re an adult, and typically follow the same carbon copy routine day in and day out, your brain doesn’t see a need to record you brushing your teeth, driving to work, and warming up your Hot Pocket in the office break room for the 1,000th time, and therefore takes very little footage of your life. As a result, there’s very little film to play back later — you find you can’t really remember how you spent your weeks and months, and that your years just seem to speed by in a blur.

Grown-ups thus face a double whammy in regards to their perception of time: their days seem to drag on interminably because their life is so tedious, and yet their months and years evaporate into nothingness! (You’ve probably heard the expression: “The days are long, but the years are short.”)

But it doesn’t have to be this way: you can intentionally tinker with your perception of time so that your days are more fulfilling, and your life seems longer — and more memorable.

All you have to do is to inject your adult life with a little of that which you once had an abundance of in your younger years: novelty. Firsts.

More Footage: Take the One-Month “Do Something New Every Day” Challenge

To help you jumpstart this simple but profound transformation of your life, we’re issuing a month-long “Do Something New Every Day” challenge. The parameters of the challenge are simple: do one novel thing every day for one whole month. These novel experiences can be anything you want. They just have to be things you haven’t ever done, or you haven’t done in so long, that they will feel fresh and different. And they don’t have to be big things — even super small stuff counts, and can effectively slow down time a bit.

Below we’ve listed nearly 40 non-exhaustive ideas to help get you thinking. We didn’t include things like reading a new book, listening to new music, or watching a new television show/movie, because, though these activities do certainly add interest and freshness to life, and can slow down time some, in our observation, consuming things doesn’t seem to trigger the mind to take more memory footage the way experiencing things in a more firsthand way does.

Make yourself a cup of tea instead of a cup of coffee for breakfast

Do a new kind of workout: if you normally lift weights, go for a run; if you normally run on a treadmill, run outside; if you normally run outside, run on a high school track; if you normally do the stepclimber at the gym, run the steps at a stadium; if you normally use weight machines, see what kind of exercises you can do in the woods (also why are using weight machines?)

Wear your watch on a different wrist (hey, this was suggested by the guy who pioneered the time perception research mentioned above!)

Drive a different route to work

Eat lunch in a new place (like a park)

Change the arrangement of your kitchen table or other furniture

Make a new recipe for dinner

Eat at a new restaurant

Try a new sex position

If you normally walk your dog on a certain loop in a clockwise direction, walk counterclockwise

Visit a new museum

Shop at a grocery store you’ve never been to before

Talk to a stranger

Take a walk or bike ride in a neighborhood you’ve never explored before

Try tackling a new DIY craft project

Do something around the house or on your car that you’ve never done before; change a light fixture (or headlight), finally fix your toilet, etc. (while these seem like chores, the first time you do them can be sort of fun as you figure out how things work)

Play a new card game or board game with your friends or family

Host a dinner party or poker night (or even just invite the neighbors over for a drink)

Make a small change to your morning or evening routine — change the order of doing things, or change your bedtime/wake time

Order a new dish or new drink at your favorite restaurant/coffee shop

Sleep in a different room in your house (or in the backyard!)

Take a trip to a city — even a nearby one — you’ve never been to or explored

Call a friend or family member you haven’t spoken with in a few years

Do an act of kindness: pay for someone’s coffee, re-fill the time on an expiring parking meter, etc.

Wear something from your closet you haven’t worn in a long time

Volunteer

Go a day (or a week) without watching TV; or go a day (or week) without using your phone

Attend a concert or play

Take a hike on a new trail

Do a new activity or game or craft with your kid(s)

Learn and memorize how to say a simple phrase in as many languages as you can

Treat your body — go to a spa, or get a massage, or try a float tank (whatever you’ve not tried before)

Meditate (if you’ve never done it before)

Walk or drive somewhere just to watch the sunset (or the sun rise if you’re feeling bold!)

Look up local events — book signings, 5Ks, art fairs — in your newspaper or online and go to one

Learn a new and easily acquired skill just for fun — how to whistle with your fingers, a cool uncle trick, etc.

Take a bath instead of a shower

Get your haircut at a new barbershop

For help in getting into this challenge, I recommend our more in-depth treatment of how to be a “time wizard” here, as well as listening to my podcast about the book Off the Clock coming on Monday. Share what novel things you’re doing with us, by posting pics with the hashtag #morefootage on Instagram.

At the end of the challenge, reflect back on the month that’s passed – did it seem longer, and more memorable, than usual? Moving forward, what will you do to keep the #morefootage momentum going?

The post More Footage: Take the One-Month “Do Something New Every Day” Challenge appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

More Footage: Take the One-Month “Do Something New Every Day” Challenge published first on https://mensproblem.tumblr.com

[gymblogs]

“SatNav” - A Covid-19 story

“SatNav”

 “Proceed on the current road”.

The satnav voice was getting to be very repetitive.

The windscreen wipers slapped determinedly back and forth, fighting the driving snowfall to provide even the briefest of glimpses of the narrow road ahead.

“I can barely see the road”, said Grace, peering through the white haze.

“Road! I’d like it to be a road. More like a bloody farm track. I never should have tried to avoid that traffic on the main route”, said Roy in mounting, worried frustration.

“I did tell you. If you had a bit of patience, we could have waited it out in the queues.” Grace was getting deeply concerned as well. The arrow on the satnav screen was travelling along a white line on an otherwise featureless grey screen, as it had been for some time. “We were about an hour from the cottage, but now we’ve been going nowhere for nearly twice that and we have no idea where we are.”

“Hang on a second; that damn thing (he briefly waved a hand at the satnav screen, returning it quickly to control the squirming car) showed a cross-country route that was supposed to add thirty minutes to our journey at the most. I didn’t make it up!”

Roy and Grace, like millions of others – hence the horrendous traffic jams – had been taking advantage of the slight second easing of the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions to travel to their small country cottage. Roy shared it with his small coterie of staff as a company benefit, but this was their own turn. They had stopped at a superstore on the way, queuing patiently in compliance with the ever-more annoying social-distancing to stock up on supplies for their long weekend. That in itself was luxury, there only really having been the option of their small local shop, which had been bravely and gamely serving their village.

It was January 2021, the initial outbreak of the Corona Virus in the early part of 2020 seemed a lifetime ago. Yet again, Covid-19 Britain was not a great place to be, but there were signs of relief. There had been a period of easing of the restrictions on people and businesses heading into the summer; that had been an unmitigated disaster. Mixed messages from an internally-riven government had combined with sheer incompetence to let the virus run out of control again. The much-feared “second spike” of the virus had become the reality, even sooner than feared, in August. After catastrophic misjudgement of the nation’s mood and its tolerance for what had been blatantly revealed as the “Do as I say; not as I do” attitude from the ruling elite, the public’s outrage had made the situation worse. Even the most compliant and sensible had released themselves from months of enforced house-arrest in a fit of pique. The government’s much-touted appreciation of their personal sacrifices had been revealed as a hollow sham. There was hardly a household that did not react with disgust and by doing so, throw just a little too much caution to the wind.

Thousands more had died; the Nightingale pop-up hospitals had to be reopened to cope with the new wave of infection; thousands more businesses – large and small – collapsed as the severest restrictions were re-imposed and the multi-billion-pound support packages had to be redrawn and then withdrawn. “Furloughed” staff were made summarily redundant as reality bit deep both in businesses that had thought they could survive and in those zombie companies who had staggered on only because they had secured their share of the mountains of public money. Whole industries – entertainment and leisure; airlines and holiday companies; car manufacturing; the financial services sector and more teetered on the edge of oblivion or were in their death throes. Rebellious and politically-motivated unions had prevented some willing workers, like many teachers, from returning to their vital work. The government had completely lost control of the actions of the three smaller nations, each of which blundered through their own reactions to the crisis. The discredited “Prime Minister of England” (as he was being called by the press), his arrogant, Svengali-like chief adviser and the blundering Health Minister had all been forced to resign. “Being led by the science” had lost all credibility as the scientific community began to turn in on itself, arguing over every aspect of the pandemic. The failed “Track and Trace” initiative was the final straw. It had called upon “civic duty” from a population that had stoically shown just that and been betrayed for it. One of the Chief Scientific Advisers was appointed to lead the health brief, despite not being a member of either House of Parliament. The bland, clever but charisma-free Deputy PM had been handed the poisoned chalice of the leadership role as a matter of urgency, slotted into it without any semblance of party democracy. An angry, impatient but chastened citizenry had been battered into “Lockdown Two”.

After months of further life-restricting agonies, along with increasingly prevalent personal and family tragedies, there was some second sign of hope. By the end of the year all of the numbers relentlessly paraded in government broadcasts had slowly gone in the right direction again. The late but – finally - effective implementation of mass testing had happened. Added to this, the revelatory discovery and incredibly fast distribution of treatment for the disease had combined to bring the country to another point of “release” from the ever-more stringent laws on “staying at home”. A vaccine was once more promised within weeks. “Easing Two” was being gingerly but eagerly seized upon by almost everyone in the country, all of whom had endured a miserable, “socially-distanced” Christmas period. The new Health Secretary was now facing another, more muted wave of “It’s too early” calls on the second easing of lockdown, as hundreds of new cases persisted in appearing each day. “Being led by the science” was already a discredited mantra. What was “safe” and what was not? Again, scientists disagreed. Confusion reigned.

It still was going ahead. As fate would have it, the release of “The Great British Public” from further house-arrest coincided with the worst January weather for decades. Blasting winds, freezing temperatures, and latterly, extremely heavy snowfall had begun on the very day of the announcement. Still, intrepid escapees were on the roads and rails and trying to pull their lives back to some sort of acceptable compromise between what was and what now had to be. Altruism, selflessness and neighbourly generosity had eroded as a more desperate “everyone for themselves” ethos began to take over.

Grace and Roy had, like so many, begun to envisage a world where much was permanently changed: a cold and cheerless, anti-social world, where no one ever shook hands again; where grandparents saw their grandchildren only on screens; where masked people scurrying or queueing in the streets had given up any  hope of that atmospheric meal out or that thrill of being part of the huge, roaring, cheering crowd of sports fans.

The “Easing Two” announcement had raised spirits. The couple had overspent massively on not so much the quantity as the quality of the food and clothes, some household goods, DIY gear, assorted non-essentials. It felt like a justifiable splurge, after months of restraint and confinement, despite their worries over their reducing income and dwindling savings. They were the lucky ones. They had each suffered a few days of Covid-19, but their symptoms had been mild. Grace had been treated callously by her airline employer of twenty years, and like so many other cabin crew, was now laid off permanently. Roy had struggled to keep himself and his small team working on their building projects, losing a number of the most lucrative ones. He had become a victim of the small business Catch-22 effect. His customers were worried that his business could not stay afloat long enough to finish the job, so cancelled his contracts, hastening that very result. With strenuous efforts, he had gained a number of small jobs and projects to keep his men and himself in funds, though much reduced. He had become a newly-expert marketer of his own skills and services, using digital marketing techniques for the first time, helped by the youngest in his team. Like everyone else, their family and social lives had been reduced to sterile and unsatisfying videoconferencing, telephone calls and online communication.

“Look out!”, screamed Grace, pointing ahead.

The BMW slithered sideways – the ABS stuttering the brakes as Roy slammed his foot down. The impact was loud and hard enough to jolt them both violently into their seat belts; the airbags did not deploy as the crunching of metal and the shattering of glass subsided. Roy stopped the engine running, looked to his left at Grace and put the arm that he had automatically put across her front, around her shoulders.

“Are you OK?”

“Yes. No damage, Pet.”

“Well not to us, but I don’t think we can say the same about the car. Thank God you saw ahead and shouted. I didn’t see that coming” He unclipped his seat belt, opened the door and stepped out into the fallen and falling snow.

“You can’t get out in the middle of the road!”

“There is only the middle. This track is not much wider than the car!”, he shouted back through the door. He trudged the few feet to the front of the car. An enormous pile of felled trees had been dislodged from the side of the road and rolled across it, from the weight of the snow, he assumed. “Bloody marvellous. Bloody, sodding marvellous!”, he hissed through clenched teeth. The car – luckily not travelling very fast – had hit the pile of trees at an angle of around thirty degrees as it skidded on the snowy road. The off-side lights were smashed and the front wing had been crushed back onto the wheel. Roy assumed that the angle of the impact had prevented the airbags from being activated. He struggled back into the car.

“Well, that’s the end of this wondrous joyride”, he announced sarcastically. “Even if I could wrench the wing back, clear of the wheel, those trees are far too big and too many for us to move out of our way and there’s no turning room for us here. Can I take a hammer to that damn satnav now?”  There was an enormous gust of wind that splattered a heavy flurry of snow across one side of the car. “Still no phone signal. This is not looking good.” Roy grabbed his coat from the rear seat and wrestled it on. “I’m going to scramble up the side of the road, here, so that I can see past the trees. If I can see the lights on the main road, we may be able to get to it on foot.”

“We certainly can’t just sit here, that’s for certain”, said Grace, beginning to worry. “Take the big torch and for goodness’ sake be careful”. Roy flipped the boot catch, trudged to the rear of the car and picked up the big torch. He grabbed the blanket from on top of the large pile of food shopping slammed the boot lid and threw it inside to Grace as he passed back along the side of the car. He saw a gap in the trees up the steeply banked side of the road and headed for that. After a struggle and two face-first, swearing plunges into the snow, he reached the ridge and looked out across the white expanse that confronted him. He could see no stream of car lights, but there was what looked like a single, large bright light and what he thought were the roofs of buildings, about half a mile away, though the distance was difficult to judge in the dark and the swirling snowfall. He made his way back to the car.

“Are you OK?” Grace nodded; the blanket pulled tight around her. “I can see a place across what I assume is a field. No idea what it is, but it’s lit up and there are definitely some buildings there. Anything is better than sitting here and freezing to death, right?”

“Right. Let’s go.” The snow was so deep now that Grace could not open her door so she clambered across to the other side and out of the driver’s door. The wind slammed snow immediately into her face. “Christ” We need to get to that place, fast!”, she spluttered. They put some food and snacks into her rucksack and set off.

It took them about twenty minutes to get across what was a mercifully flat field, high-stepping through three feet of snow, sometimes laughing near-hysterically. They reached the light that had guided them. It illuminated a narrow road through a high metal fence that they could see ran off into the distance in both directions. There was a sign on the open gate: “Welcome Holiday Camp”. They tramped on through the gate and up to the large double doors of a sizeable, log-cabin-style building. It was unlit inside. A security light came on above the door.

“I know this isn’t very friendly of me, but needs must”, said Roy. He used the solid battery-pack end of the heavy torch to break the window in the half-glazed door. Knocking out the jagged glass, he reached inside and flicked the snib of the lock. He pushed down on the handle and the door opened. They both tumbled in; Roy shut the door. The relief from the driving, stinging, freezing snow and the howl of the wind was immediate and welcome. They leaned jointly back against the door and caught their breath. Roy flicked the light switch. Nothing. “There’s obviously no one here, so I expect the power’s off”, he said, pulling down his snow-soaked hood. “Stay here a sec, Grace”. He shone the torch ahead and walked into the half-light. Grace dropped her hood and took off the rucksack, dropping it to the floor. The lights came on. “That’s better”, said Roy, emerging from behind what Grace could now see was a plush timber reception desk. “Bloody Hell! Still no mobile signal”, he cursed. They began to look around what was a large, spacious reception area and welcoming lounge full of plush grey leather sofas.

 The Maserati Levante was making a good effort. It was riding high and quite fast over and through the snow. Silvio had fallen for its sleek, shiny black exterior and soft, sumptuous, charcoal-coloured leather seats in an instant. A year on Premier League wages had encouraged him to over-indulge. He loved it; he and his three fellow footballers used it a lot when it was new; less so, of course, since the lockdown came into place in March. They were en-route to an indoor training facility that they had never used before. They had kept their own regular evening training sessions going as well as the sporadic and annoying social-distanced ones run by the club. They had each had Covid-19 and recovered from it quickly, so trained normally together when it was just the four of them in their own rented place. It was a fun semblance of their previous lives.

Robbo was being driven mad by the lack of phone signal. N’Golo was lost in the stored music from his phone, through his headphones. He loved his R’n’B. Patricio was just bored, trying to peer out of the window through the snow.

“Where is this place, Silvio, man? You said we were nearly there twenty minutes ago.”

“The satnav is acting up a bit, but don’t worry, Patricio, mate, I’ll soon be taking the ball and running rings around you”. Robbo laughed loudly.

“Funny guy; funny guy”, said Patricio, laughing at his own expense.

From the passenger seat, Robbo, pointing at the large satnav screen, said:

“I know this is supposed to be taking us there, Silvio, but this seems to be saying it’s on the left, where I see nothing at all, but on the right, I see a light and some buildings. What d’you all say we head for that?” he addressed the rear seats.

“Phew, yeah, man, I’m game. I can hardly see a thing, here. I’ll take the next right towards that light.” In two minutes, he took the right. The Maserati ploughed its way along the approach road to the same holiday camp where – unbeknown to the footballers - Roy and Grace had just broken in. Taking off his headphones, N’Golo said he had the feeling they weren’t in Kansas anymore. One blank stare; two laughs. He thought they might be getting in, but not getting out again, as they entered through the gate. “It’s an all-nighter for us, then!”, said Silvio, trying to cover his frustration with an upbeat tone. “There’s no one there – I’ve got the keycode – but I’m hoping for a drinks machine, at least”. He turned the increasingly struggling SUV sharp left into “Car park 1”, as the sign told them. They struggled into their coats and out of the vehicle.

“This does not look like a sports centre”, spluttered Robbo through the snow. They all took their bags with them. They noticed two trails through the snow, looking at one another warily. Reaching the door – the “Reception” sign was lit above it and all the inside lights were on – they saw the broken window. “I’m getting a bad feeling about this”, said Robbo. “Shall I?”. He put his hand on the handle.

“Go for it; I’m dying of the cold out here”, shivered N’Golo. They walked in and were greeted – after a few seconds’ hesitation – by a soaked and shivering couple. Robbo was right:  this was not the sports centre. Half an hour later, two of the footballers were on their way back across the field on a mission to find the immobilised BMW and to gather its supplies. They had insisted that the bedraggled Roy and Grace stay inside to get warm and dry.

 Yvette had managed to slither the red Tesla model X silently into the camp car park. Its all-wheel-drive had done its job in getting them there, just. They, too had decided that any port in this storm would be a welcome one. The kids had certainly had enough of the journey, especially since their precious phone signals had cut out, miles earlier.

“Thank Christ for the four-wheel-drive”, she said “Though God knows where we really are. That satnav is not my favourite, right now. Whatever is the problem with it, Den?”

Your car, darling; I have no idea.”

“Mmmh; mine when it goes wrong, but ours when its being electric is saving us a fortune in fuel, right?” Tempers were generally fraying in the car.

The kids – Brigitte and Donald – were putting on their coats and pulling unsuccessfully at the locked door handles.

“Oh, come on, Mum and Dad. Let’s get out. Please.” Brie (16) and her brother (14) would rather have been in the snow than the car. I need the loo (“Me, too”, added Donnie) and I’m fed up of being in the car.”

“Well, I’d rather be in the middle of nowhere than not get out of the damn house for a while, wouldn’t you?” Dennis thought he had started to go stir-crazy during the second lockdown.

“I suppose so, but what a day we chose. I’ve never seen so much snow fall and stick around in a single day. Crazy!”

“Mum, please open the doors!” chorused the teenagers. The massive cantilevered “falcon-wing” rear doors swung upward, the car immediately starting to fill with snow.

They all got out of the car into the teeth of the snowy wind. The doors seemed to close agonisingly slowly to shut out the snow. The kids were already on their way, pushing on through the deepening snow to the main building.

“Thank goodness someone’s in”, said Donni. “I thought there might be, with those other cars in the car park. They’re buried in snow, so they’ve been here a while”. They shuffled their way across the threshold, to be greeted by a group of surprised faces. “Hi! We’re the Grissoms” announced Donni.

They were greeted warmly – at a distance - but after sharing their post-Covid-19 infection status and learning that everyone else in the big, bright, open room was the same, they relaxed into the group. There was an agreement that social distancing was suspended for what Roy immediately had dubbed “the snowbounders”. That was a relief all round, followed by a flurry of much-missed handshakes. The two footballers – N’Golo and Silvio, and a warmed and dried-out Roy and Grace had been joined by Tony and Cherie, with their son Gavin. Yet another satnav-misdirected carload, drawn by the Welcome Camp light. Again, an all-wheel-drive Jaguar F-Pace SUV had got them this far, but they felt they could go no further.

They all settled into the plush grey leather sofas with a variety of hot and cold drinks, “liberated” from the reception bar, though studiously accounted for. Everyone was particularly grateful for Roy’s firing up and fuelling of the large wood-burner in the end wall. The big door slammed open yet again, the storm still keen to join them in the building. It was the returning Robbo and Patricio, soaked and bedraggled, laughing crazily, with bagsful of supplies from Roy’s crashed and abandoned car on the other side of the field. The “snowbounders” group of thirteen souls who were to spend two nights together was now complete.

The group collectively agreed that they would make the best of the single location, leaving any exploration of the rest of the place until the morning. The picture map on the wall, showing the layout of the camp, intrigued everyone. There was no ‘phone signal on anyone’s mobile, but Roy was convinced that there would be some wi-fi that everyone could use when he’d found where to switch it on. The same with the large TV on the wall. There was some tetchy attitude around and a few harsh words were exchanged and then apologised for, as they manipulated the furniture to give everyone room to bed down. There was a small bedroom suite at one end of the big cabin building and some spare linen and blankets to share around. They managed. The reception building was soon dark and quiet, just as it had previously been for months, but with the addition of thirteen sleeping figures.

 There was a lull in the snowstorm the next morning. Dennis, Roy and Tony were quick to volunteer to be the investigative team and were out in the deep snow by 8.30am, beginning to look around the site. In truth, they were relieved to be away from the awkwardness of waking up in close forced proximity to a small crowd of complete strangers, no matter how good the level of bonhomie. Everyone there knew how fortunate they had been to be there on that dreadful, storm-lashed night. Coffee, tea and improvised breakfasts flowed, generously provided by Roy and Grace’s shopping. Roy had found the central network router and (to applause from the others!) switched on the broadband connection and wi-fi. They had left a feverishly screen-tapping crowd. Each of the men was reasonably well-equipped for the conditions, with a warm coat, boots and gloves. It was bitterly cold, still with a biting wind, but it was not snowing, with a fairly clear and bright sky, save for some ominous-looking dark clouds on the horizon to the north. More snow looked inevitable.

Having studied the picture map in the reception, the intrepid trio knew what was there, under the deep snow. It was a nearly circular layout of twenty-five large, sturdy log cabins, arranged either side of an access road. A broad path dissecting the circle horizontally had four shops on one side and three other large buildings on the other. It looked – as far as they could tell in the snow – well-maintained. Tony carried with him what appeared to be the complete set of keys for the camp buildings. They high-stepped their way to the nearest cabin, number 25. Tony found the keylock card with all of the codes on it and punched it into the security door lock. The door opened – thankfully, inwardly, not having to be opened against the snow, two feet of which tumbled inward ahead of him. They all went in and closed the door. The cabin had a large central lounge space, a small open kitchen / dining area and three double bedrooms, two with twin beds. Sealed bags of bed linen were on each one. It smelt of new wood; everything was antique pine, including the floor. Tony noticed large rugs rolled up and standing against the wall in each room. They were unsealed; obviously unused.

“Wow! This is very upmarket, isn’t it?” Dennis was impressed. He opened cupboards. “Well-equipped kitchen, too. My guess is that this would cost a fair amount of money to stay in, though it looks like no one ever has. Tragic, really. There must be a story behind this.”

They left the cabin and moved on to one of the larger buildings on the central path. The sign above its front door read “Everyone Theatre”. Tony sorted through the keys and found the right one. He opened the door and they all went in, rubbing their hands against the cold. It was dark inside and the light switch made nothing happen. Roy put on his torch and moved off to the left and through another door. The others groped slowly forward to what was the rear row of seats. The lights flickered on.

“Separate mains power on each building”, said Roy.

“Wow!”. Dennis was immediately impressed. “This place is definitely punching above its weight for a shed in the middle of nowhere!”

“Harsh!”, said Tony. “But yes, wow! I really like it. It’s like a miniature version of the Pantages art deco theatre in L.A.”

“Ooh, travel-name-dropping”, laughed Roy. There had been a brief “who’s-been-where” session over the group breakfast that morning. “But yes, I agree; impressive work. I couldn’t have done better myself”, he laughed”, stroking the gilded, fluted wooden pillars. “This was obviously a labour-of-love by a classic film fan. It has a decent-sized orchestra pit and stage, as well, though, look; it’s certainly a live performance venue as well as a cinema” The theatre was an art deco extravaganza of red velvet, gold paint and brocade, with around a hundred matching, comfortable-looking seats. The rear end had what was obviously a projection and control room and the lighting rig above the stage looked high-tech and comprehensively-equipped.

“I love it. Cherie would certainly spend every night in here watching something in black and white that would bore me to tears”. Roy and Dennis joined Tony’s laughter and nodded their understanding of the comment. “Come on guys, let’s get to the other buildings before that storm gets started again.” Tony led them back outside into the ominously increasing wind and locked the door behind them. “We’ll leave the mains switched on so that the others can easily take a look if they want to”.

They pushed through the deep snowfall along the central path to the next large building. Dennis – the shorter of the three – mumbled that he was feeling cold, wet and in need of some caffeine. Two heads nodded in agreement. This time they entered the building labelled “The Club”. The door on this one opened outward, so they had to struggle to clear snow with their hands to open it enough to sidle in. A dead light switch again.

“This kind of place has to have its own isolators for each main building unit, to meet the regulations”, said Roy, after he had done his power-finding routine again and got the lights on.

“I knew a builder would have his uses, that’s why I invited you to join us on this holiday camp break”, intoned Dennis with fake pomposity, laughing. He got a jokey flash of two fingers from Roy in response. It was another large building. It smelled a lot of leather. There were groups of plush black semi-circular chairs around low, glass and chrome tables, running all the way the length of the room. Against the far wall was an elaborately mirrored and apparently well-stocked bar.

“This really a bit spooky, now. It’s as if the clientele vanished instantly as the place opened. And we’re making a mess of a very plush carpet”, said Dennis, realising that he had shaken the slushy snow off his boots as a reflex action when he’d come in.

“Well, unless we’ve found ourselves in a Twilight Zone episode, I reckon that’s almost what did happen, but it happened before any visitors had a chance to check in”, Roy responded. “I’m beginning to see that this place was all set up to be opened to the public when the bloody plague hit. All the lockdown rules scuppered that plan altogether. Such a shame. This, again, is quite a set-up. I could certainly spend time in here, with a bit of cool jazz coming across the room.” He pointed towards the small central stage and the small, circular, immaculately-polished wooden dance floor. “I might even be tempted!”. There was understanding laughter from his two companions.

“The Club” had been furnished to a very upmarket, Las-Vegas-style, blingy cocktail-lounge standard. Tony had that comparison on the tip of his tongue, but suppressed it, so as not to invite the same name-dropping jibe as before from his new acquaintances. He and Cherie had visited Vegas many times. Like the “Everyone Theatre”, this was plainly aimed at an expectedly affluent and demanding audience, but this time with a sleek, modern look and feel, rather than a retro one. It was sumptuous but simple; expensive but tasteful. It looked as if it would be exciting and entertaining without being intimidating, for around a hundred people.

Roy switched off the lights. “Let’s move on”. He led the others in squeezing out of the half-snow-blocked door. “Let’s have a look at one of these”, he said, beginning to forge a way through the snow, across what they knew was the central path, towards one of the shops. They were all shuttered and locked. The one they opened and looked into was fitted out as a clothing shop. The hanging rails and shelves were empty.

“The picture-map on the reception wall showed the other three as being a sporting goods shop, a food and general supplies shop with a pharmacy and a gift shop”, observed Tony. The wind swirled around them and the sky began to darken from the north. “I’m inclined to get some warmth and caffeine, guys, what about you? We’re hardly going to be going anywhere, so we can look at the other big place later”. The others agreed; they started back towards the reception building.

The three men had not seen Donnie and Brie Beck make their way from the reception building, around the road from the other direction and onto the central path to the third large wooden structure, labelled “Fun and Games” on the picture-map. They had persuaded their mother to let them explore it and had found a second set of keys. The door opened inward, allowing a pile of snow to cascade through and onto the tiled floor. It was pitch black inside; the windows were covered by heavy blinds. Brie felt along the wall, found the light switch and flicked it repeatedly, to no effect.

“Let’s try this”, Donnie suggested, pulling on the cords for the first blind. It went up smoothly and allowed in the dwindling sunlight. “Hooray!” he moved along the wall and did the same to two more window blinds. “Oh, yeah. Neat!”. He was pleased with what he saw. At the far end of the room was a transparent wall with “KidZone” signwritten on it in three-feet-high yellow lettering. They could see an assortment of climbing frames and soft play gear in there. All along one wall was a succession of electronic games and arcade-type machines. “Wow! These really are the latest!”, he shouted over his shoulder to Brie, who was walking to the other end of the building. He continued his inspection, calling out the titles of the games. “Yum!” was his next delighted comment, as the line of electronics was interrupted by an elaborately-equipped coffee and juice bar. “I am definitely liking this place”, he said. Brie was parading the other side of the room, naming snooker, air hockey, table football, and more, as she discovered them.

She reached the KidZone wall and noticed a door next to it. It was darker at this end, but she could see a sign above the door that read “Bowls and Bowling”. She went through it. Separated by a dividing wall, another large area contained a three-lane bowling alley and a carpet bowls pitch. Everything was pristine; obviously unused.

“Wow! Mum and Dad would love this bit”, said Donnie, hurrying in to the room.

“Are the games good, then?”

“Brilliant! The very latest and with VR headsets and everything!”. A violent gust of wind made the big wooden building creak. “Ooh. Feels like maybe we should be getting back”. Brie agreed. It took them twenty minutes – the snow now falling again – to return to the reception building. They stumbled, laughing and soaking, through the door.

 It was their second night at the camp. The overhead heaters were glowing; the wine flowing; the conversation growing in variety and volume. The disparate group was coming together in their enforced proximity. Nine months of pandemic lockdown provided them all with a wealth of mostly unwanted anecdotes and a wide-ranging spread of opinions, all cascading out in a welcome torrent of long-denied face-to-face conversation. Each member was acutely aware of the facial and other mannerisms of their fellows, each relearning the art of human interaction, so much missed. This distinctly middle-class crowd knew that they were not – by far – the most badly affected of the UK’s or the world’s populations; so many more had been left literally destitute. On this second evening, they had gathered in the comfortable “Club Lounge”.

The first night had been a somewhat fraught and tetchy affair – an occasionally ill-tempered sharing of a haven from the storm. This was more like a social evening that they had chosen to participate in. That was illusory; there was no choice about their remaining there as the storm continued to rage. After a brief respite that morning, the heavy snowfall had returned, continuing to keep the “snowbounders” trapped in the camp. The forecast was that the storm would subside the next day and that an unseasonably warm weather front would hasten the disappearance of the ice and snow.

Their collective relief that they had all suffered and recovered from theCovid-19 virus led them to relax in one another’s company; their “social distancing” was forgotten. Personal experiences of the pandemic and its effects on business and personal lives were being shared expansively and candidly.

Yvette and Grace were getting on well. “I used to really enjoy my tennis. I told myself that I was at the club regularly to keep myself fit and to improve my game, but I realised after being restricted to non-socialising singles games that it was the social side that was most important to me”, said Yvette.

“I’ve really missed going to the gym for the same reason, Yvette. I know exactly what you mean. The whole crew used to use the same gym at the airport”. Grace had been cabin crew for an airline.

“I read that after meeting family and friends properly again, people’s priorities were playing sport and having a haircut”, said Donni, joining his mum’s conversation. Everyone in the room who heard his comment self-consciously ran a hand through their generally over-long hair.

Gavin and Dennis were discussing wine, gin and general drinking habits. N’Golo joked that he’d read that it would be wise to limit locked down drinking to one drink per day, “And I’ve been doing that: I’m up to January 10th 2022!” There was a ripple of laughter, but an exchange of uncomfortable looks between his fellow footballers, who knew there was a problem there, behind the joke. They were bemoaning their situation.

“In truth, none of us was having a great last season, anyway”, said Robbo, “but the complete cancellation of the Championship after the failed restart in the Premier League was the killer. Oops, sorry!”. He looked sheepishly around as some breath was sucked in through pursed lips, realising that his comment was inappropriate, especially since they knew that two of the families in the room had lost loved ones to the disease. The other three sportsmen sighed and nodded agreement. Returning from the bar, Silvio handed his colleagues a beer each, sitting down at their table.

“They haven’t said it yet, I know, but I reckon the club is preparing to fold altogether, guys. I just don’t see us getting back to playing and bringing in any money for the business soon enough to stop that happening, do you?”

“Oh, great. Cheer us up, why don’t you?!”, said Silvio. They all laughed, ruefully. “I know you’re right, though, mate. It’s made bloody worse by not being able to use the time off to see my family in Madrid; and that’s for nearly a year, now. Ridiculously depressing for us all, although I’m the only one who actually got the damn bug, I’m glad to say.” The on-again, off-again, totally confused travel and quarantining restrictions had left everyone increasingly bemused and frustrated. “I could fly there in my own damn ‘plane, but still can’t go”, added Silvio. “OK, flash monkey”; “Oh, here we go!”, and other derisory comments ran around the group at this reminder of the player’s other prized possession after his Maserati. His travel frustrations were shared by many. No one thought it was unjustified when the new Prime Minister had sacked the hapless Transport Minister, who had completely failed to negotiate or communicate a coherent policy amidst what was an international mess not all of his making. Every country had made a unilateral decision on what travel was allowed for its own citizens and visitors. Any semblance of international coordination on the issue had quickly evaporated, as had many airlines and travel companies, as a result.

“I’ve really missed working with the youth team. I get a lot of joy seeing those young players improving and knowing that I’ve helped them”, said N’Golo. He coached the club’s local school team, as well; it was clearly his vocation. Whenever he returned to his native Belgium, he never failed to visit his old school and play out the role of inspirational “Old Boy” sportsman. Unable to do any of this or to see his parents and extended family in even harder-virus-hit Belgium, he had begun to succumb to a bout of depression that had markedly blunted his sunny demeanour, causing him to put on weight and, his colleagues suspected, drink too much. Robbo admitted that he had become increasingly irritated and dismissive of “being guided by the science” and incompetent football officials into ruination of his career, social life, physical wellbeing and finances. He – as sometime team captain when not bench-warming through recurrent injury - had pushed hard for a return to playing last season. “Social common sense” had been his mantra until he had been forced to swallow his words as the deadly virus resurgence came about. Try as he might to keep his own and his friends’ spirits up, he knew that his future as a footballer now looked bleak.

Both Cherie and Grace had been in the front line of the Corona Virus effect. Cherie was a nursing sister in a private hospital. Grace had been briefly furloughed and then made redundant. She had caught and recovered from Covid-19 and gone back to work, only to then be rewarded with dismissal. The airline she had worked with for twenty years had pressured for and got a government bailout, but had downsized the business considerably, closing some airport operations, cutting back on routes, selling of a large proportion of its fleet and firing a third of its staff. She had been devastated, but had come to terms with it, now helping out Roy with his building firm where she could.

Cherie had been one of the first of the volunteers to staff the London Nightingale hospital. She managed the recruitment and training of other incoming staff, being very familiar with the array of technologies that was installed there. Her private hospital was very well equipped with the latest medical machinery, so she was familiar with its use. She had found the work tiring but satisfying. When the Nightingale was mothballed in May, she had returned to her regular job as a nursing sister at the private hospital, which had been specifically reorganised to exclude Covid-19 cases to concentrate on helping the catch-up of the many previously cancelled serious but routine health checks and operations.

Having settled back into that for the summer, she had then been urgently redeployed to the London Nightingale when the “second wave” of the pandemic hit and the admissions of new cases soared. Stressed and exhausted, she was taking a well-earned fortnight’s break as the “curve” of infections once again headed downwards and the pressure on the hospital eased a little.

Tony and Dennis had not been in the convivial huddle in the Club lounge. They had been going through the paperwork in the camp office behind reception. They had made a discovery and returned to the group to share it. Crashing in from the storm outside in the now-expected fashion, Tony took off his coat and boots and stood in the middle of the room.

“Well, everyone”, he began.

“Snowbounders!”, shouted Donni, who liked the gang-name.

“Well, Snowbounders”, Tony began again, attracting everyone’s attention and muting the animated conversations. “We’ve some news”. He looked across at a smiling Dennis, settling into a chair beside Yvette. Tony remained standing, a sheaf of papers and folders in his hand. “We owe our storm salvation, here, to Mr and Mrs. Rocklaz, the owners of this property. Unfortunately (he paused) they have sadly died of Corona Virus; may they rest in peace”. Mumbled commiserations went around the seated group. “This correspondence (he waved the papers) is a series of exchanges between the local Church Commissioners and their solicitor.”

“Why on earth are you going through their private papers?”, asked Yvette. “And how did you get hold of them?”

Tony continued “Strangely, they were in an unlocked filing cabinet and we wanted to find out to whom exactly we owe this hospitality, even if they don’t know about it.”

“And we were particularly curious to find out why everything is pristine and unused”, added Dennis.

Sitting down, Tony laid out the whole story to the fascinated “Snowbounders”. Through contracts, accounts, printed emails, notes, written correspondence and some local newspaper cuttings, they had pieced together the story behind the abandoned camp that had become their refuge.

An elderly Polish couple – Nina and Jakub Rocklaz – had been resident in the UK since arriving as children, fleeing the Nazi persecution in their own country at the beginning of World War Two. They had decided, after retiring from what had been a very successful garden centre business, to build a holiday camp. Not unduly wealthy but with significant assets from the sale of their business, the still-energetic couple had wanted to benefit their beloved church and the needy in the local community. The Church Commission charity arm had invested part of the capital to fund the construction, but had been allocated in the contract a full 25% of all profits, in perpetuity. To ensure the ongoing local benefit was continuous, the charity would be paid these profits on a quarterly basis, not having to wait for annual accounts. They played no part in the running of the business, the Rocklazs having full control through a Board of their choosing. They knew what they wanted and what they wanted to achieve.

The result was the upmarket and prestigiously-equipped camp that the thirteen now found themselves in. It had been constructed in record time, the elderly couple having anticipated the renewed, post-pandemic demand for UK holidays early on and negotiated hard to allow construction to go ahead within the restrictions. Certainly not primarily aimed at the impecunious locals, the couple had ambitions to attract the affluent holidaymakers who would otherwise have been flying abroad to spend their money. It had been ready to open by August 2020, one week before those ambitions were thwarted by the second peak of the virus and the subsequent second lockdown. Camp Welcome – as they had named it - had never opened its doors to the public. Tragically, ten days after the lockdown, the couple both caught the vicious virus and died from it, just days later.

“I’d like you to have a look at the contracts and the wills, Yvette. Dennis told me that you’re a solicitor with real expertise on this stuff”. He handed the papers to Yvette. “I can see that they have built in to the agreements an assurance that whatever happens, the Church Charity and the community get the benefit they intended. Whoever takes it on as a business has to abide by the original agreement. It looks like the land cannot be resold for any other development, including the piece the same size again as the whole camp – to the north – that was a provision for expansion. If it was a phenomenal success, it could be literally doubled in size.” Yvette, intrigued now, put on her glasses, moved to another table and spread out the papers to examine them in detail.

“Wow! Great story, but let’s face it, it’s far too ambitious a project for out here in the middle of nowhere”, laughed Cherie. “Who would come?”

“Everyone who would have been spending that same holiday overseas, I reckon. Now doubly so, after five more months of bloody house-arrest!”. Roy was one who had certainly had enough of that. “If it was genuinely a non-Covid bubble, we’d be there, wouldn’t we, Grace?”.

“We are there, Roy!”, she responded. Everyone laughed. “Yes, it would be a better option than the company cottage, because of the facilities. Even if we could find them open near the cottage, I’d be nervous of their safety aspect.”

“Can we buy it, then?” chorused Brie and Donni. “It would be sooo cool”. “We couldn’t actually live here, Donni”, said Brie.

“Someone has to, don’t they? In that place in the reception building.”

“I couldn’t see us moving in, kids, but it certainly would be a Hell of a project”, said their father.

The room went quiet. The members of each group looked at one another, trying to gauge one another’s reaction to what they had heard. This was a group of accomplished, clever and resourceful people, each of whom had in some way been battered by the pandemic and its effects on their world. Gradually, the hubbub of conversation returned. The precocious teenager Brie pleaded for a banned list of pandemic jargon:

She wanted “unprecedented”, “the great British Public”, “the British People”, “our marvellous NHS”, “the new normal”, “ramping up”, “at pace”, “going forward”, “at scale”, “social distancing”, “flattening the curve”, “the R-number”, “Wuhan”, “distance-learning”, WFH (Working From Home), “Zooming”, “contactless delivery” and many other newly-minted and overused jargon terms to be banned from the discussion. This produced laughter but not a lot of adherence to the request, to her dismay.

“I could write that business plan”. Gavin was the first to speak out loud. “Dad, you might even be a bit of help with it!”, he laughed towards Tony.

“Cheeky sod!” was the smiling response. A knowing look passed between them. Yes, they could write that plan. Roy and Dennis were deep in conversation; N’Golo and Robbo, too. Yvette addressed the room:

“Oooh, an interesting clause in here, everyone. There’s a commitment to keep five of the cabins primarily available for the benefit of any emergency workers resident in the local community and for the residents of the local care home, specifically. Another nod to the generosity of the couple, of course, but that does take out 20% of the saleable capacity of the camp, when it’s requested.”

“Do they get that for nothing?”, asked Dennis.

“No, it’s “at an advantageous and affordable rate”, replied Yvette.

“Great piece of brand value, there. Committed not only to safety, but to generous altruism, too”, offered Tony. “I like it” His wife shot him a scornful look. “For all the right reasons, of course”, he quickly added.

Patricio suddenly shouted:

“Hey, hold on a moment. Surely the poor couple had family to will this all to? Family must come first”.

Yvette had the answer to that. “Sadly, it looks as if they outlived their two sons, Patricio. Each of them died relatively young and neither had a family of his own. It’s all in the solicitor’s letters. He obviously had the same thought as you.” They all resumed their conversations.

N’Golo turned to Silvio:

“The plan on the reception wall shows that between the central path and the outer road there’s a five-a-side pitch, a tennis court and another big green space, none of which we can see under the snow, at the moment. I was imagining how we could run that whole section like a sports training school, Silvio. You were a schoolboy tennis champ, weren’t you, and you still play regularly, right? I heard you can play football a bit, too!” Silvio gave him a substantial thump on the arm, laughing.

“Yes, I was and, yes I can, man. And you might just remember my all-conquering five-a-side team on the club summer break the season before last”, he gloated.

“O.K., sure. I’m winding you up, of course, bruv, but I know that putting smiles on the faces of holidaymakers here – released at last from lockdown – would be a heck of a lot more satisfying for me than warming the bench during matches in an empty stadium. And that’s if there’s still a club to pay for. And a bench!”

“Be serious, guys”. Robbo chimed in. Neither of you two could cover your clothes bill, let alone live on what you’d make doing that.”

“We all appreciate you arranging these training sessions, Robbo, mate, and we’ve appreciated them, but you’re delusional if you think there’s more than half a chance that any of us has a professional career left. Guys like us have to figure out what to do with the next thirty years of our working lives. If Pat went back to Milan, me to Brussels and Silvio to Madrid, the situation there is not going to be any better. This crazy project might be worth a shot, and if it’s successful, there could be proper money involved, later”. They all got up to get another beer, still talking animatedly.

“We’ve never considered running anything like this kind of operation, or even being a part of it, Grace”, said Roy. Their minds had raced ahead on the possibilities, since the earlier announcement.

“I have been part of the holiday leisure industry for over twenty years, you know. Of course, this is different, but it’s still all about giving people a good holiday. Remember that project you quoted for in the summer, to get an equestrian centre back up and running? You built in some great anti-virus facilities to that one. You could do the same here”. Grace was feeling positive about the camp.

“Yeah. I really liked the look of that one and my guys surprised me with their inventive suggestions for it. Didn’t get the job, though, did I?”

“Exactly. The future for small building firms is going to be a struggle and my airline – as was – is talking about four more years of reduced operations, so there’s no chance of my getting reemployed, either. Why not change tack and make our expertise work for us in a different way? We’d even be doing some community good, based on what the old couple have built into the plan.”

“There’d be financial commitment, too”, Roy said with a worried frown.

“I can’t see the odds on this bet being any worse than our status quo”, said Grace. “This might just be the way to rise with the tide when it comes back in”

“Sorry, but I overheard you”, Tony and Cherie leaned in from behind them. “If it really could be made zero-risk and convincingly sold as such, it could really work. I know it’s in the middle of bloody nowhere, as all our satnavs would testify, but that would work in its favour, surely. Luxurious isolation. It could be the answer to that question people like us are asking – “Where are you going on your holidays? Answer: Nowhere!”. Actually, I could do things with that name (he turned towards the room). How about Camp Nowhere, everyone?”. He shouted. The rest of them rolled their eyes exaggeratedly, some laughing, but liking the suggestion. The conversations continued.

Dennis didn’t hold back on expressing his opinions on pandemic-riven UK.

“Just because we all had a period of happy-clappy, front-line worker hero-worship, doesn’t mean that what was a bloated, chronically-inefficient, self-rewarding behemoth will be any different after all this”, he said. “I mean the NHS, of course. Has everyone forgotten the people lying in corridors; the day-long waits in A&E; the disgraceful waiting periods for GP appointments and the cancelled operations? Nothing has changed, as far as I can see, to stop it reverting to the same. Anonymous wasters in so-called “Trusts” will still be slapping one another on the back, taking six-figure salaries and covering one another’s arses when they get found out.” Yvette nudged him heavily in the ribs. “It’s true! The same people are still in charge; the same anachronistic systems are still in place. Nothing will have changed, no matter how dedicated the doctors and nurses have been throughout the pandemic”.

“Perhaps you should go and work there and change it from the inside, then”, a tetchy Cherie said.

“You work in a private hospital, right?”, an indignant Dennis flashed back.

Tony saw a need for a little peace-making and stepped in:

“What I’d like to see is some better articulation of the need to bring society together. I know that sounds a bit wet, but really, our country’s schisms and inequalities have really been exposed, haven’t they? I get really irritated when our useless politicians and so-called commentators use what amounts to demographic astrology to look at things and assign rules, regulations and different levels of assistance to people, based simply on age, gender or race.”

“Did you hear about the statisticians who were broken down by age and sex?”, offered a smirking Dennis, to a ripple of embarrassed laughter.

Much was agreed upon, but much argued about as the evening wore on, fuelled by copious amounts of alcohol. There was general tiredness and frustration because of the disruption they had all suffered, many seeing the permanent end to their professional lives as they had been and two families present having suffered the agonies of bereavements that could not properly be grieved over. There was no doubt that a general appetite for life-changing responses in reaction to the pandemic’s effects permeated the thinking of the people in the room. Tony, the management consultant had cancelled a lucrative contract with an airline, that expected him to do the impossible and defend the indefensible way it had treated its customers. He did not want to be associated with a brand that had frustrated and manipulated its customers, causing them financial hardship and stress whilst using their money to stay afloat. Looking for other sources of income for himself, he had been frustrated by the mass giving-away of advice and guidance in written, audio and video form that made it virtually impossible to make a living from his marketing experience and advice. “It’s damn difficult to remove a label that says “free” from anything, once it’s attached, he had said”. Another victim of Corona Virus disillusionment was his son, Gavin, who no longer felt that his massively expensive post-graduate education was worth the money or the effort. The lack of quality time spent with his professors and international alumni had become ever more frustrating for him. He had begun – reluctantly at first and then with increasing enthusiasm - to spend an increasing amount of time on developing his already considerable technology expertise.

The two teenaged Grissom children had been cast adrift from their friends and busy social lives, becoming social-media-sated and terminally bored with remote home-schooling. Brie had experienced a chaotic introduction to her first sixth form year and Donni’s exam results had been compromised. A critical period of their education has been compromised, and continued to be so. Both highly tech-savvy, they were excitedly discussing the possibilities for automating the entire holiday camp for the safety and benefit of the potential new breed of holidaymaker. Gavin saw possibilities beyond what he saw as the initial potential automation installation in this camp. He was thinking of much grander plans for the technology. Dennis, the management accountant increasingly frustrated by the lockdown and now fearing for the longevity of his own employer, felt that he would go insane if subjected to even one more day of continual videoconferences. He had begun to truly hate his job and to realise that his tendency to be short-tempered was worsening.

Much later, they all battled their way back through the snow to the temporary communal sleeping area in the reception building. There was an almost audible buzz of whirring braincells.

 Next morning, having eaten virtually the last of Roy and Grace’s supplies for breakfast, everyone was glad to see and to read online that the storm had blown itself out. By mid-morning, rapid thawing was much in evidence all around them and the blessed relief of the absence of wind and falling snow saw everyone in the group venture out to look around the buildings in the camp. They had agreed to meet back in reception for a farewell at 1.00pm. They all gathered punctually.

Tony, Dennis, Gavin and Yvette had spent the morning writing up a selection of all the ideas from the night before. Dennis had managed to exchange emails with the Church Commissioners and to arrange a meeting later that week.

“Well Dennis, where would you like to go on holiday this year?”

“I certainly won’t be flying abroad or leaving the country any other way, Tony. So, I suppose I’ll be going Nowhere!” he emphasised the final word, theatrically. The others, sat around them, appreciated their little performance.

“Is that Camp Nowhere, you mean, Dennis? Gavin, could you tell us about this place?” He indicated Gavin with a flourish, who stood.

“Certainly, ladies and gents. Camp Nowhere is designed as the ultimate safe refuge from the risk and restrictions of the pandemic. When you arrive at the camp, after taking the instant Covid-19 test in your car, at the gatehouse, you will be able to drive directly to your allocated cabin to unload, before parking your car in your personal parking space, back in one of the car parks. You’ll find your pre-programmed medallions in the lock-box on the wall of your cabin, which you’ll open by using the code already sent to you. These medallions (Roy and Grace acknowledge this idea as one they got from a Princess Cruise ship) are your electronic friends. You have the option to wear them as a medallion, clip badge, on a bracelet or simply in your pocket. They open doors, recognise your preferences and accept charges to your account from anywhere in the camp. Guaranteed hassle-free, contact-free, Covid-19 – free and so stress-free.” Gavin was pleased to detect a little ripple of approval run through the audience.

“Your cabin will have been sanitised using the very latest electrostatic disinfectant sprayers; your personal sealed packs of bed linen will be on every bed, and your sealed food pack – as you specified on your booking – will be in your kitchen. Your own mobile devices – or the one that you ordered, which would be in your cabin – will automatically be connected to the central system as you enter the cabin. The system will ask you when you would like to schedule the sanitation service for the next day. This will trigger the non-contact air conditioning to operate automatically on a super-high level and to thoroughly clean your room. A comprehensive, sealed cleaning kit is available for your use, as no one but yourselves will enter your cabin for the duration of your stay.

If you are completely self-catering during your visit, you can add to your initial supplies pack whenever you wish, by ordering through the system. There is a wide variety of options, including complete take-away meals of all kinds from our approved vendors. Anything you order will arrive at the delivery point at the main gate from where you can collect it, or have our own staff bring it to your door. That way, no one other than our fully-trained staff will have to enter the camp or approach your cabin. In good weather, you can order a picnic to be delivered to your designated, socially-distanced outdoor space in the same way.

You can use our system to order anything from any of the four shops on the site – the sports kit and equipment shop; the casual clothes shop; the gift shop or the general store, and its pharmacy. If you prefer to have a traditional shopping experience, you can book an access time for any or all of them, where you and any members of your group will simply walk to the door, without queueing, and gain automatic access from your medallions, which will have stored your booking. It will for that time, be your own personal shop. The clean-up team will be automatically allocated to thoroughly sanitise the premises between visits. There are no retail staff. Any items that you remove from the shop will be recognised and automatically charged to your account. It’s even more contactless than contactless! The whole shopping experience is completely contact-free and totally personalised. If your family group wish to do this together with another group, this can be handled by the system, and there is a fully-stocked PPE vending machine between shops two and three if you want to take extra precautions.”

Roy whispered to Gavin, as he finished his description:

“Isn’t all of that automation going to cost a fortune to install, Gavin?”

“No, Roy. Yes, there’ll be some cost to it, but the networking infrastructure already exists in the camp and the usual bulk of the cost – the time and expertise to do it – is coming gratis from me”. Roy patted him on the shoulder.

Dennis took over the description:

“At Camp Nowhere you have a wide range of entertainment options. In addition to your wide-screen TV with hundreds of channels, your cabin has a PlayStation Four with four controllers and access to a wide variety of games. (There was a suppressed “Yes!” from Donni, forgetting that he was unlikely to be a guest himself.) The previously frequent and now long-frustrated regular theatre and cinema-goers amongst you will be pleased to hear that we have the sumptuously-appointed, socially-distanced Everyone theatre running a varied programme of films and live shows, twelve hours a day. Thirty patrons can enjoy a performance in comfort, in a space originally housing one hundred. Each seat is as you would expect to find in the first-class cabin on an aeroplane; they are in pairs, with moveable, plexiglass screens between those pairs. There is a two-metre gap between the other paired seats in the row and between the rows in front and behind. Booking is via the central system and staggered arrival times given to avoid any queueing. You can order food and drinks when you book your seat and these will be on your seat when you arrive, having been prepared and put there by our highly-trained staff. We did have a suggestion of putting cardboard cut-outs of film stars in the gaps, but we thought that would just be spooky!”.

“That was me!”, whispered Yvette to Grace. Gavin continued his pitch.

“We found it a challenge to get the Fun and Games building up to standard, but we have figured it out. Each of the games will have its own plexiglass enclosure. (“This was my bit”, stage-whispered Donni to his sister, to a ripple of laughter) The central booking system will allow any player to book their slot to play and again – like the retail units – this will alert the cleaning team to swoop in and sanitise it before the next player arrives. Your medallion will automatically register your score on the electronic games and you can enter the ones from the traditional games from your own device, if you wish. If you want to play competitively, there will be a league table that you and your chosen competitors can access at any time through your own devices.

“Nice, Donni”, said Brie to her brother, giving him a hug.

“I already hacked a couple of them to get the latest upgrades, as well”, whispered Donni”, with a cheeky laugh.

“Don’t tell anyone that!”, said an exaggeratedly shocked, but unsurprised Brie. Gavin continued:

“The bowls and tenpin bowling will be given their own separate entrances and again can be booked through the system by any cabin group for a specified time. The same cleaning regime will apply and there will be additional wipes and hand sanitiser stations in there. All players on both games will put their balls in electrostatic cleaning machines as they leave”

“Ouch!”, said Roy. More laughter from the crew paying close attention, now.

Gavin went on to describe how, once inside the camp, reassured that not a single infected person could get in or would randomly enter at any point, the Camp Nowhere residents could relax as they slept, ate, played and exercised in a safe but relatively unrestricted environment. They could have confidence that the virus was excluded and avoided to the greatest possible degree.

The provision for the “community” cabins had been hotly debated, especially by Dennis, the management accountant. He was concerned that the profit margins would be severely impacted. He was persuaded otherwise. The residents of those five cabins – numbers 1 to 5 would be allocated for the purpose, closest to the main facilities – would be responsible for providing their own extra care where needed. Any carers would face the same rigorous anti-virus procedures as every other guest and be required either to stay with them or to go through the instant test each time they entered the camp. They would not be allowed to compromise the sanitisation standards in any way. Dennis again railed against the extent of some of the measures and the expense of providing them “to protect against the same level of risk as being hit by a bolt of lightning”, as he put it. Again, the others’ insistence on the need for a completely uncompromised, sealed environment won over his protests.

Gavin reiterated to his audience that the already high standards of fitting-out that the Rocklazs had put in place would not be compromised. Roy said that his building and upgrading work would not be marred by any “pleblon” additions, making a Jeremy Clarkson reference. There had been much discussion about using the additional large field as a camping and caravanning area, but the positive financial implications were overshadowed by the impossibilities of enforcing the same standard of anti-virus protection for other people’s tents and vehicles as for the cabins. Tony advocated “focus”, avoiding the temptation to dilute the key message in any way and the concentration on getting the existing offering right, establishing “Nowhere” as the place to go for a safe and secure, upmarket holiday.

Gavin handed over to Robbo, who described how he and his footballing colleagues would provide a robust and challenging sports calendar for their visitors, while observing all the anti-virus protection measures. It was a major task to run competitive sport and training sessions, but the four of them had some experience in doing so and a determination to make it work. They felt that they could learn from the successes of some sports over the last few months and the failures of others.

Yvette presented the financial plan, in brief. This furrowed some brows as the reality of taking over and investing in a business was explained.

“This will, or would, take us about two years to break even with moderate bookings”, she explained. “Of course, we may just be surprised by the level of success we can achieve. This is to be a seven-days-a-week, all-year-round, all-weather, operation – hopefully not with weather often as bad as this!”, she gestured out of the window at what was now, in fact a blue and welcoming sky. “From day one, we will be premium-priced, but hopefully our branding and promotion based on our unique positioning will justify the cost of a holiday to Nowhere in the minds of our target audience”

“I trained her well, you know”, laughed Tony, the marketing consultant, to a half-smiling look from Yvette, as hearty applause ended the session.

 All-round farewells began. Roy and Grace had managed to arrange to get a motoring rescue service to agree to come to their abandoned car that afternoon by paying an insulting premium price. The others all began preparing their vehicles to go home, removing snow from them and digging a path out of the car park. There was a rapid thawing, streams of glistening water beginning to drip from the buildings. Roy had temporarily repaired and secured the broken window in the door to the reception building long before. Dennis had agreed with the Church Commissioners that he would bring the keys with him to their meeting in a couple of days. The teenagers had again high-stepped their way back through the snow to the outbuildings, switched their power supplies off and relocked the doors.

Each family group travelled home almost in silence. Everyone had liked Gavin’s sign-off from the “presentation” of the plan:

“In the words of Stephen Hawking: “Be brave, be curious, be determined; overcome the odds. It can be done.” “

Two miles out from the camp, all the satnavs revived themselves and showed them their routes home. In the artificially-collegiate atmosphere of the “snowbounders”, they had all imagined reconstructing their pandemic-disrupted lives. Were they just imagining that new way of living, pivoting away from what they had struggled to maintain as normality? Were they serious? They had agreed to the inevitable “snowbounders” Zoom videoconference the day after Dennis’s meeting with the Church Commissioners, to get the final word on what could be agreed and on what was possible, based on their outline plan.

Would they all be there or would there be a reluctance to follow through on the project idea? Dennis expected some drop-outs. Would it work if half of the “snowbounders” decided not to participate?

Was the exciting new enterprise a way to salvation for these battered lives in uncertain times? Would the familiar, despite its current uncertainty hold some of them back from a daring new path?

Would they rely on those “personal satnavs” again, going back to their uncertain individual journeys in a Covid-19-dominated world?

Or would they all take the uncharted road to “Nowhere”?

 Inspired by “Road To Nowhere”, by Talking Heads

"Soundtracks" Track 9 on Spotify

[allamericanroofing1]

Top 10 Cubby House Plans In Australia

Top 10 Cubby House Plans In Australia

  Kids love cubby houses. A small, protected play area they can make their own in the front or back yard is the perfect place to fuel their creativity and keep them occupied. If you’re after a great DIY build that your kids will love, we’ve got you covered.

Below we’ve compiled a list of the top 10 cubby house plans you can build in Australia. We’ve gone with a range of sizes and designs to suit all yards and a variety of play styles. We’ve also favoured designs which use asphalt roof shingles to create a great, distinct look – your kids might not care, but you’ll appreciate the style as you look out the back window and see them playing.

1: The Playhouse

Not the catchiest title for a cubby house, we’ll admit.

This simple design is intended for most any skill level, and can be completed in a weekend. It’s very no frills — a door, a window, four walls, a roof and a floor. Give the outside a nice lick of paint and top it with GAF Asphalt Roof Shingles and it’ll look great.

The interior space is plenty for kids to play around in and even set up their own custom space. Our favourite part is that despite the no-frills design, attention is still paid to proper waterproofing of the roof. This will not only keep kids dry, but stop the interior from getting damp and warping.

2: Plytanium Playhouse

Fair warning, this playhouse is a significant jump in complexity from the above.

Featuring multiple windows and even a little patio, this design will make kids feel like they have their very own home in the back yard. It even includes instructions for setting up a doorjamb so you can install a fully functioning front door for kids to use.

At 7 feet high, this will even give parents enough room to join their kids for a tea party. It will also be good for hotter months, as higher roofs help with insulation. If you install a proper ridge vent on the roof, you’ll create an excellent cool playspace for the kids to enjoy outdoors.

3: Pallet Playhouse

While the pallet furniture craze seems to have died down a little lately, repurposing wooden pallets into a cubby house is a great, cost-effective way to build a home your kids can call their own.

This design features a door, porch, and large windows, as well as a complete floor. It’s shorter than the Plytanium design, but will still fit an adult in a pinch.

The asphalt roof shingles are a great neutral colour to offset whatever exterior paint design you choose. Keep it bold like the yellow and pink if the original, or tone it down with cooler or neutral colours for a more subtle design.

4: Ana White Simple Playhouse

This one might be cheating a little — it’s actually just instructions for a wall with a window and door. But if you can create that section, the rest of the cubby is fairly simple. We added this design on the list because it’s an easier door and window combination to make than some, but provides a bigger window and better design than the “Playhouse” design first on the list.

Plus we really like the look of the roof shingles on the grey and white house.

5: A Place Imagined Playhouse

This American Gothic-style playhouse features a simple, classical design. It’s intended to be easy to put together and easy to customise. There’s ample space inside for a small bed, table, and chair for kids to use and play with outside.

The high ceiling is perfect for Australian summer climates to keep kids cool while they’re playing.  Again, you’ll want adequate ventilation to really get the best effects, so take the time to add a good GAF roof vent system on the central ridge.

6: Buildeazy Kids Play Fort

This design is less of a cubby house and more of an all-in-one entertaining site for kids. It features a slide, an innovative wooden climbing wall to get to the upper level, and even a tire swing.

You’ll notice a distinct lack of asphalt roofing shingles on this design. Since the entire construction is wood anyway, it’ll be easy to apply roof shingles over a plywood base on the roof rather than use a totally wooden roof structure. This will give you better protection from the elements and prolong the life of the fort.

7: Buildeazy Wendy House

Another Buildeazy construction, this Wendy house is similar to the Plytanium instructions earlier on the list. It features multiple windows, a door, and a patio. This design is a little more decorated, with more solid panelling around the patio.

The User Photos Section shows how versatile the design can be with materials, showcasing both asphalt roof shingles and tin roofs suiting the design equally well. We think the shingles give the design a quaint charm that turns the cubby into a garden feature you can be proud to show off.

8: Outdoor Playhouse Plans

This design is reminiscent of the first item on the list — four walls, floor, roof, and door — but with a slightly modified layout and extra windows.

Rather than the door being at the end of the building, it’s added to one side. The accompanying window is slightly larger, and an additional two windows are added to either end of the house. This provides greater ventilation and allows you to orient the house differently depending on the shape of your yard.

9: Handmade Hideaway

This design comes in two sizes. The kids one, linked above in the header, and Big Kids. We love the idea of an adult-sized cubby house out in the yard — a little hideaway the entire family can enjoy.

This raised cubby house design oozes the airy open-plan living philosophy of Hamptons and Cape Cod style homes, the American style homes we love so much. The only way to make these better would be to replace the tin roofs with asphalt roof shingles. They would fit perfectly in the yard of a home already roofed with asphalt roof shingles, creating the ultimate hideaway and garden compliment piece.

10: DIY Kids Playhouse

We’ll end as we began; with a clean, simple design. This cubby house is the simplest design of all of them — no floor, no doors, just four walls and a roof.

This ultra-simple, open design is perfect for any back yard. You won’t need to worry about doors or windows if you don’t want to. Top the design off with asphalt roof shingles and you’ll have a waterproof, idyllic rest and play area for your kids right at home.

The post Top 10 Cubby House Plans In Australia appeared first on Roof Shingles For Australian Homes.

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[thegloober]

Ring Alarm review: An affordable home security system

Pros

✓Affordable hardware and monthly service

✓Easy installation

Cons

✕Remembering to arm the system is a problem Ring needs to help solve

Here’s why the Ring Video Doorbell Pro is a worthy upgradeRing started out selling video doorbells. The small, always connected camera was triggered by motion or the push of its button, and the user could talk and see to whoever was standing on at the door.

Since then, the company has expanded to cameras that overlook the perimeter of your home, using dedicated power or solar panels to ensure the cameras are always connected.

More recently, Ring released what amounts to its first in-home security product, Ring Alarm.

Ring Alarm is a complete home alarm system for $199. Included with the starter kit is all hardware you need to get started, which includes a keypad, a base station, a contact sensor for doors or windows, a motion detector, and a range extender.

Ring charges $10 per month for what it calls professional monitoring. The Protect Plus plan provides cellular backup, unlimited Ring cameras, video recording, and should your alarm be triggered, someone will call and verify whether or not emergency services are needed.

In other words, if you’re already a Ring user and pay the $10 a month (or $100 per year) for video access, your bill doesn’t go up by adding Ring Alarm and its monitoring service.

Setup

Top ZDNET Reviews

Ring Alarm is designed so you can install it yourself with little effort. From start to finish the process took me roughly 30 minutes.

The process involves plugging in the base station, adding it to your Ring account, connecting it to your Wi-Fi network, then adding the additional components (keypad and sensors) in the app.

Adding a sensor requires pulling a tab to activate the battery, then scanning a QR Code that’s located on the device or on a sheet of paper in its box. The connection process is then automated.

The contact and motion sensors use adhesive to attach to a wall or frame, which also makes them removable without doing any damage.

Image: Jason Cipriani/ZDNet

Most of my setup time was spent testing the position of the three contact sensors I received. The magnetic sensors consist of two parts. One part goes on a door or window frame, the other part goes opposite it so that when the door or window is opened, the magnetic connection is broken. If the two pieces aren’t close enough, roughly half an inch, the sensor doesn’t work.

The problem with these, or any other similarly designed sensors, is that door frames make the positioning awkward. Each door is different, so I suggest taking the activated sensor, and holding it in place on the door — without the adhesive exposed — and then opening and closing the door (or window) to test the connection.

The Ring Base station uses a combination of Z-Wave, Zigbee, and Wi-Fi to connect various devices, allowing you to expand Ring Alarm. For example, Ring’s site lists a First Alert Smoke/CO alarm that integrates with the system and will alert you, as well as the monitoring service, if it’s triggered.

Currently, the Ring sells the First Alert Smoke/CO alarm, a Smoke and CO listener, a Flood & Freeze sensor, and a dome siren. You can still connect third-party devices to your system, but only Ring certified devices will trigger the Alarm.

The Ring app

Ring’s Motion Detector next to an old, hardwired motion detector.

Image: Jason Cipriani/ZDNet

Ring’s app, where users have always had the ability to view and interact with cameras, is also home to the Alarm system. In the app users can create codes, add new users, adjust the time between a sensor being triggered and the Alarm’s siren going off, along with a myriad of other settings and features.

There’s also a relatively new section of the app called New Features. In this section, users can enable optional features. Right now, there’s a new layout that shows live views of cameras with dedicated power, and current snapshots for any Ring cameras that are battery or solar powered.

Over time, Ring will add more options to the New Features section for users to toggle on or off. Right now, I have the new camera preview enabled and don’t plan on going back to the older view.

Also within the app is Ring’s Neighborhood network, where users can upload videos or photos of suspicious activity or people caught on camera committing a crime.

Forming new habits

It’s me, not Ring.

My loudest complaint about the Ring Alarm system has nothing to do with the system itself.

Image: Jason Cipriani/ZDNET

I’ve struggled over the past two months to get into the habit of consistently arming the system whenever I leave. Once in a while, I remember to arm the system on my way out the door. Other times I remember later and arm the system from my phone.

But most of the time I forget. It’s as if the system sits idle, serving only as an elaborate door chime.

It’s not that I don’t see the value of the system, especially with the slow and steady increase in home break-ins where I live.

In fact, just this week I had the power go out at my home, which is also where my office is. I had deadlines to meet, so I decided to go to a coffee shop where I could work and fill up on caffeine. It wasn’t until I walked into my garage that I remembered I had to manually open the garage door, disconnecting the door from the chain drive. My particular garage door opener wouldn’t let me reconnect the door and the chain drive, locking it in place, so I was stuck with a garage door that anyone could lift open with ease.

In other words, until power was restored and I could trigger the garage door opener, my house was wide open to anyone who walked up and tried to lift the door. But I had to leave. I had work to get done.

Then I remembered, the Ring Alarm has a battery backup and a cellular backup. Meaning I could still enable away mode, if someone did enter my house while I was gone I would know the moment they did.

Thankfully nothing happened during the two hours I was away from home.

That peace of mind is really what any alarm system is selling you. Ring is selling the reassurance that if something happens, you will know the moment it happens.

When talking with Ring shortly after I installed the system, I mentioned my struggles with creating a habit of arming the system each and every time I left. The company admitted that it’s something users have to learn to do, but also hinted that the company was looking at ways to use the Ring app to remind users.

For example, the app could potentially use the location of a phone (or phones) linked to the account, and when it’s determined the phone(s) aren’t home, an alert will ask if you want to arm the system.

Nearly two months into my testing of the Ring Alarm, I still need a feature like this built into the Ring app.

Conclusion

When you take into consideration the hardware cost and the monthly fee, it’s clear Ring Alarm is an affordable and effective way to monitor your home from afar.

My experience with the system has been free of any issues with the product itself.

For anyone who is already a Ring customer, the Ring Alarm is an easy option to recommend as a way to secure the inside of your home. For everyone else, the Ring Alarm is still worth your consideration. It’s easy to set up, inexpensive, and reliable.

Previous and related content

Ring Floodlight Cam review: A logical addition to any Ring household

If you want to keep a better eye on your home and add peace of mind, the Ring Floodlight Cam gets the job done.

Here’s why the Ring Video Doorbell Pro is a worthy upgrade

After using the standard Ring Video Doorbell camera, I recently upgraded to the newer, more expensive Pro model and it made a huge difference.

Ring Video Doorbell 2 review: A fun IoT device to boost your security

With live video and two-way audio, the Ring Video Doorbell 2 is one of the most immediately useful IoT devices we’ve examined to date. It’s fun too.

Ring Alarm system can keep small businesses safe for only $10 a month TechRepublic

Ring uses smart security to create a DIY alarm system, keeping communities and businesses safe.

Ring Alarm Security Kit review: Ring’s crazy-affordable DIY system nails simple home security CNET

Ring didn’t do anything particularly innovative with its Alarm Security Kit, but this inexpensive DIY system stands out because of its simplicity.

Source: https://bloghyped.com/ring-alarm-review-an-affordable-home-security-system/

[lindamarionn]

Best Home Security for Las Vegas

With a huge increase in people moving to the region, it’s no wonder that Las Vegas has also seen a rise in their home burglary stats over the past several years. The region is known for having the most hard cash/valuables within city limits of any county in the United States at any given time, and with such a huge tourist population flooding the streets every weekend this makes it a hotbed for illicit criminal activity. Overall the city only ranks as 11% safer than other cities in the country, which is why it’s vital that anyone currently living in the Las Vegas metro area (or those with plans to move there in the near future) has a strong home security solution at their disposal which can help to deter or even capture any burglars who might try to break into your home unannounced and uninvited. But which security system is the best for Las Vegas overall? After exhaustive testing of some of the most high-profile options available, Gadget Review has determined that Protect America is the #1 home security system for Las Vegas, thanks in part to its $0 equipment cost for new subscribers and 100% money-back guarantee if you aren’t satisfied with the system in 30 days. Table of Contents

Las Vegas Home Security Reviews

Protect America

Frontpoint

Scout Alarm

Las Vegas Crime Statistics

Other Las Vegas Home Security Companies to Consider 

SafePath Security

NorthStar Security

Alarm Monitoring Service of Atlanta

Safeguard Protection Systems

Las Vegas Home Security False Alarm Policy

Las Vegas Home Security System Reviews

#1 - FrontPoint Security

Pros

Smoke and heat monitoring

Carbon monoxide monitoring

100% wireless home surveillance

Pets under 40 pounds will not trip the alarm (meaning no fines from Atlanta city hall)

Live streaming to your device

30-Day Risk-Free trial

A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau

Cons

No snapshot pictures or recording available

Monitored outsourced though one company (Rapid Response)

Contract must be at least three years

Only a 3-year warranty

FrontPoint Security is our #1 pick for home security in Las Vegas for one big reason: simplicity of setup. Oftentimes one of the main reasons that a homeowner or apartment leasee might go with a company like ADT or Bay Security is unlike DIY systems, generally those companies will send a technician over to your home to get everything set up and running to code. The catch is they’ll also charge you an arm and a leg for the privilege, which means that money which could have gone to either signing up for a longer monitoring contract or buying better equipment instead gets spent upfront on a job that usually, you can do yourself without much trouble.

This is where the magic of the FrontPoint Security system comes into play. From the moment you open the box every step of getting the system up and running is clearly laid out for you, leaving nothing to chance with big green letters that hold your hand from the time you put up your first sensor until the tech on the other end of your phone call gets your monitoring program operational. FrontPoint doesn’t always get the best reputation with its customers for a variety of reasons, but our experience with both their customer service and the system we tested was top notch across the board.

#2 - Scout Alarm

Pros

No activation or installation fees

Easily to relocate

Backup 3G network

Integrates with Nest and Nest Cam

Excellent customer service

Money back guarantee

No contract despite using professional monitoring

Cons

Not many equipment options

Upfront payment for equipment

Does not include flood, break glass, or temperature units

Not registered with the Better Business Bureau

Limited motion sensor range

Inadequate battery life

Scout Alarm is a company that really strips down the DIY security system to its most essential elements, and doesn’t really leave much room to spare for extra frills or add-on equipment we’ve seen from other providers in the space. Scout Alarm works more as an equipment vendor than it does as a full-fledged security outfit, and actually leases out their monitoring services to a third-party vendor. That said, the equipment is painfully simple to set up and operate, and everything about operating the Scout Alarm network has been streamlined to its most basic implementation that just gets the job done without a lot of muss or fuss in between. Unfortunately as of this writing the company doesn’t offer any kind of glass break detectors, nor is the main hub protected by a system known as “crash and smash”, which will provide backup power and send out a CDMA signal in the case that either the main unit or your home router/internet signal are tampered with in the case of a break-in. That said if you want a system where you won’t be locked into a contract and can buy protection a'la carte as you need it, there isn’t a better option out there that still provides a wide range of motion and door sensors designed to cover every inch of your home in a warm blanket of security and protection.

#3 - Protect America

Pros

No activation or installation fees

Lifetime Warranty

Backup 3G network

HD camera has great quality

Cons

Not many equipment options

Three-year contract commitment is lengthy

No glass break detectors

Protect America is our #3 pick as the best security system for Las Vegas thanks to the company’s innovative approach to avoiding as many upfront costs as possible. Rather than making you buy a ton of equipment while also locking you into a long-term contract (like FrontPoint), Protect America goes the “cell phone plan” route and covers the cost of all your hardware as long as you sign up to a three-year minimum monitoring plan. While that may sound like a long time, if you’re homeowner and plan to be living in the same location for the foreseeable future it should only represent a fraction of the total time you’d want to keep your home safe in the long scope of things. The company offers a range of monitoring tools that are on par with some of the best in the business, along with a main hub that can’t be hacked thanks to the company’s own proprietary firmware installed by default on every unit they ship. If you’re looking for a system that will just work the way you need it to but also won’t cost you an arm and a leg to get running out of the gate, Protect America is currently the only security system offering we know of that will foot the hardware bill for you, no questions asked.

Las Vegas Crime Statistics

Unlike many cities across the United States which have seen an overall reduction in their crime rates over the past decade, Las Vegas has actually seen their crime rate climb considerable, with a 32% increase in the overall average of crimes compared to the rest of the country. Although violent crime has decreased, property crimes like home burglaries are on the upswing. This is most apparent in the statistics: in 2002 Clark County police reported 11,136 burglaries within city limits; in 2014 that number had increased to 14,150. This means that it’s vitally important anyone who already lives in Las Vegas or is considering a move there get a home security system that can combat the rise in home invasions the county has been experiencing over the past several years.

Other Las Vegas Home Security Companies to Consider

Aside from the big national brands, there are several local home security companies in Las Vegas who are highly rated for their service and tech options in Clark Country metro area. As a city with one of the highest concentrations of raw cash and goods flowing in and out of the county every day, it’s no wonder that dozens of highly-rated security companies have descended on the region as a result.

Progressive Home

Brantley Security Systems

Safe and Secure Alarms and Video

Synergy Security

Security One

Las Vegas Home Security False Alarm Policy

Las Vegas is one of the few cities in the United States that works off what’s known as a “Broadcast and File” policy when it comes to false alarms. This means the police department will broadcast the call over the air, and allow their “best officers” to determine which calls they do or don’t respond to. If a specific location has had a large number of false alarms (5+), the department may only follow up with the security system company who called the alert in rather than dispatching someone to the location immediately. If the company reports that a user called them and verified it was a false alarm, the call will be canceled out. This means that while you won’t be charged any fees for lodging a false alarm in Las Vegas, there is a chance that officers may not even show up at the property at all if you’ve had multiple infractions before that. So be careful in Clark County if you’re the type to accidentally cry wolf too often with your home security system!

Best Home Security for Las Vegas is courtesy of GadgetReview(GR)

Best Home Security for Las Vegas published first on http://www.gadgetreview.com/ Best Home Security for Las Vegas posted first on http://www.gadgetreview.com/

[coniecoleman]

Best Home Security for Las Vegas

With a huge increase in people moving to the region, it’s no wonder that Las Vegas has also seen a rise in their home burglary stats over the past several years. The region is known for having the most hard cash/valuables within city limits of any county in the United States at any given time, and with such a huge tourist population flooding the streets every weekend this makes it a hotbed for illicit criminal activity. Overall the city only ranks as 11% safer than other cities in the country, which is why it’s vital that anyone currently living in the Las Vegas metro area (or those with plans to move there in the near future) has a strong home security solution at their disposal which can help to deter or even capture any burglars who might try to break into your home unannounced and uninvited. But which security system is the best for Las Vegas overall? After exhaustive testing of some of the most high-profile options available, Gadget Review has determined that Protect America is the #1 home security system for Las Vegas, thanks in part to its $0 equipment cost for new subscribers and 100% money-back guarantee if you aren’t satisfied with the system in 30 days. Table of Contents

Las Vegas Home Security Reviews

Protect America

Frontpoint

Scout Alarm

Las Vegas Crime Statistics

Other Las Vegas Home Security Companies to Consider 

SafePath Security

NorthStar Security

Alarm Monitoring Service of Atlanta

Safeguard Protection Systems

Las Vegas Home Security False Alarm Policy

Las Vegas Home Security System Reviews

#1 - FrontPoint Security

Pros

Smoke and heat monitoring

Carbon monoxide monitoring

100% wireless home surveillance

Pets under 40 pounds will not trip the alarm (meaning no fines from Atlanta city hall)

Live streaming to your device

30-Day Risk-Free trial

A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau

Cons

No snapshot pictures or recording available

Monitored outsourced though one company (Rapid Response)

Contract must be at least three years

Only a 3-year warranty

FrontPoint Security is our #1 pick for home security in Las Vegas for one big reason: simplicity of setup. Oftentimes one of the main reasons that a homeowner or apartment leasee might go with a company like ADT or Bay Security is unlike DIY systems, generally those companies will send a technician over to your home to get everything set up and running to code. The catch is they’ll also charge you an arm and a leg for the privilege, which means that money which could have gone to either signing up for a longer monitoring contract or buying better equipment instead gets spent upfront on a job that usually, you can do yourself without much trouble.

This is where the magic of the FrontPoint Security system comes into play. From the moment you open the box every step of getting the system up and running is clearly laid out for you, leaving nothing to chance with big green letters that hold your hand from the time you put up your first sensor until the tech on the other end of your phone call gets your monitoring program operational. FrontPoint doesn’t always get the best reputation with its customers for a variety of reasons, but our experience with both their customer service and the system we tested was top notch across the board.

#2 - Scout Alarm

Pros

No activation or installation fees

Easily to relocate

Backup 3G network

Integrates with Nest and Nest Cam

Excellent customer service

Money back guarantee

No contract despite using professional monitoring

Cons

Not many equipment options

Upfront payment for equipment

Does not include flood, break glass, or temperature units

Not registered with the Better Business Bureau

Limited motion sensor range

Inadequate battery life

Scout Alarm is a company that really strips down the DIY security system to its most essential elements, and doesn’t really leave much room to spare for extra frills or add-on equipment we’ve seen from other providers in the space. Scout Alarm works more as an equipment vendor than it does as a full-fledged security outfit, and actually leases out their monitoring services to a third-party vendor. That said, the equipment is painfully simple to set up and operate, and everything about operating the Scout Alarm network has been streamlined to its most basic implementation that just gets the job done without a lot of muss or fuss in between. Unfortunately as of this writing the company doesn’t offer any kind of glass break detectors, nor is the main hub protected by a system known as “crash and smash”, which will provide backup power and send out a CDMA signal in the case that either the main unit or your home router/internet signal are tampered with in the case of a break-in. That said if you want a system where you won’t be locked into a contract and can buy protection a'la carte as you need it, there isn’t a better option out there that still provides a wide range of motion and door sensors designed to cover every inch of your home in a warm blanket of security and protection.

#3 - Protect America

Pros

No activation or installation fees

Lifetime Warranty

Backup 3G network

HD camera has great quality

Cons

Not many equipment options

Three-year contract commitment is lengthy

No glass break detectors

Protect America is our #3 pick as the best security system for Las Vegas thanks to the company’s innovative approach to avoiding as many upfront costs as possible. Rather than making you buy a ton of equipment while also locking you into a long-term contract (like FrontPoint), Protect America goes the “cell phone plan” route and covers the cost of all your hardware as long as you sign up to a three-year minimum monitoring plan. While that may sound like a long time, if you’re homeowner and plan to be living in the same location for the foreseeable future it should only represent a fraction of the total time you’d want to keep your home safe in the long scope of things. The company offers a range of monitoring tools that are on par with some of the best in the business, along with a main hub that can’t be hacked thanks to the company’s own proprietary firmware installed by default on every unit they ship. If you’re looking for a system that will just work the way you need it to but also won’t cost you an arm and a leg to get running out of the gate, Protect America is currently the only security system offering we know of that will foot the hardware bill for you, no questions asked.

Las Vegas Crime Statistics

Unlike many cities across the United States which have seen an overall reduction in their crime rates over the past decade, Las Vegas has actually seen their crime rate climb considerable, with a 32% increase in the overall average of crimes compared to the rest of the country. Although violent crime has decreased, property crimes like home burglaries are on the upswing. This is most apparent in the statistics: in 2002 Clark County police reported 11,136 burglaries within city limits; in 2014 that number had increased to 14,150. This means that it’s vitally important anyone who already lives in Las Vegas or is considering a move there get a home security system that can combat the rise in home invasions the county has been experiencing over the past several years.

Other Las Vegas Home Security Companies to Consider

Aside from the big national brands, there are several local home security companies in Las Vegas who are highly rated for their service and tech options in Clark Country metro area. As a city with one of the highest concentrations of raw cash and goods flowing in and out of the county every day, it’s no wonder that dozens of highly-rated security companies have descended on the region as a result.

Progressive Home

Brantley Security Systems

Safe and Secure Alarms and Video

Synergy Security

Security One

Las Vegas Home Security False Alarm Policy

Las Vegas is one of the few cities in the United States that works off what’s known as a “Broadcast and File” policy when it comes to false alarms. This means the police department will broadcast the call over the air, and allow their “best officers” to determine which calls they do or don’t respond to. If a specific location has had a large number of false alarms (5+), the department may only follow up with the security system company who called the alert in rather than dispatching someone to the location immediately. If the company reports that a user called them and verified it was a false alarm, the call will be canceled out. This means that while you won’t be charged any fees for lodging a false alarm in Las Vegas, there is a chance that officers may not even show up at the property at all if you’ve had multiple infractions before that. So be careful in Clark County if you’re the type to accidentally cry wolf too often with your home security system!

Best Home Security for Las Vegas is courtesy of GadgetReview(GR)

Best Home Security for Las Vegas published first on http://www.gadgetreview.com/ Best Home Security for Las Vegas published first on http://www.gadgetreview.com/ Best Home Security for Las Vegas published first on http://www.gadgetreview.com/

[lonniemanning]

Best Home Security for Las Vegas

With a huge increase in people moving to the region, it’s no wonder that Las Vegas has also seen a rise in their home burglary stats over the past several years. The region is known for having the most hard cash/valuables within city limits of any county in the United States at any given time, and with such a huge tourist population flooding the streets every weekend this makes it a hotbed for illicit criminal activity. Overall the city only ranks as 11% safer than other cities in the country, which is why it’s vital that anyone currently living in the Las Vegas metro area (or those with plans to move there in the near future) has a strong home security solution at their disposal which can help to deter or even capture any burglars who might try to break into your home unannounced and uninvited. But which security system is the best for Las Vegas overall? After exhaustive testing of some of the most high-profile options available, Gadget Review has determined that Protect America is the #1 home security system for Las Vegas, thanks in part to its $0 equipment cost for new subscribers and 100% money-back guarantee if you aren’t satisfied with the system in 30 days. Table of Contents

Las Vegas Home Security Reviews

Protect America

Frontpoint

Scout Alarm

Las Vegas Crime Statistics

Other Las Vegas Home Security Companies to Consider 

SafePath Security

NorthStar Security

Alarm Monitoring Service of Atlanta

Safeguard Protection Systems

Las Vegas Home Security False Alarm Policy

Las Vegas Home Security System Reviews

#1 - FrontPoint Security

Pros

Smoke and heat monitoring

Carbon monoxide monitoring

100% wireless home surveillance

Pets under 40 pounds will not trip the alarm (meaning no fines from Atlanta city hall)

Live streaming to your device

30-Day Risk-Free trial

A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau

Cons

No snapshot pictures or recording available

Monitored outsourced though one company (Rapid Response)

Contract must be at least three years

Only a 3-year warranty

FrontPoint Security is our #1 pick for home security in Las Vegas for one big reason: simplicity of setup. Oftentimes one of the main reasons that a homeowner or apartment leasee might go with a company like ADT or Bay Security is unlike DIY systems, generally those companies will send a technician over to your home to get everything set up and running to code. The catch is they’ll also charge you an arm and a leg for the privilege, which means that money which could have gone to either signing up for a longer monitoring contract or buying better equipment instead gets spent upfront on a job that usually, you can do yourself without much trouble.

This is where the magic of the FrontPoint Security system comes into play. From the moment you open the box every step of getting the system up and running is clearly laid out for you, leaving nothing to chance with big green letters that hold your hand from the time you put up your first sensor until the tech on the other end of your phone call gets your monitoring program operational. FrontPoint doesn’t always get the best reputation with its customers for a variety of reasons, but our experience with both their customer service and the system we tested was top notch across the board.

#2 - Scout Alarm

Pros

No activation or installation fees

Easily to relocate

Backup 3G network

Integrates with Nest and Nest Cam

Excellent customer service

Money back guarantee

No contract despite using professional monitoring

Cons

Not many equipment options

Upfront payment for equipment

Does not include flood, break glass, or temperature units

Not registered with the Better Business Bureau

Limited motion sensor range

Inadequate battery life

Scout Alarm is a company that really strips down the DIY security system to its most essential elements, and doesn’t really leave much room to spare for extra frills or add-on equipment we’ve seen from other providers in the space. Scout Alarm works more as an equipment vendor than it does as a full-fledged security outfit, and actually leases out their monitoring services to a third-party vendor. That said, the equipment is painfully simple to set up and operate, and everything about operating the Scout Alarm network has been streamlined to its most basic implementation that just gets the job done without a lot of muss or fuss in between. Unfortunately as of this writing the company doesn’t offer any kind of glass break detectors, nor is the main hub protected by a system known as “crash and smash”, which will provide backup power and send out a CDMA signal in the case that either the main unit or your home router/internet signal are tampered with in the case of a break-in. That said if you want a system where you won’t be locked into a contract and can buy protection a'la carte as you need it, there isn’t a better option out there that still provides a wide range of motion and door sensors designed to cover every inch of your home in a warm blanket of security and protection.

#3 - Protect America

Pros

No activation or installation fees

Lifetime Warranty

Backup 3G network

HD camera has great quality

Cons

Not many equipment options

Three-year contract commitment is lengthy

No glass break detectors

Protect America is our #3 pick as the best security system for Las Vegas thanks to the company’s innovative approach to avoiding as many upfront costs as possible. Rather than making you buy a ton of equipment while also locking you into a long-term contract (like FrontPoint), Protect America goes the “cell phone plan” route and covers the cost of all your hardware as long as you sign up to a three-year minimum monitoring plan. While that may sound like a long time, if you’re homeowner and plan to be living in the same location for the foreseeable future it should only represent a fraction of the total time you’d want to keep your home safe in the long scope of things. The company offers a range of monitoring tools that are on par with some of the best in the business, along with a main hub that can’t be hacked thanks to the company’s own proprietary firmware installed by default on every unit they ship. If you’re looking for a system that will just work the way you need it to but also won’t cost you an arm and a leg to get running out of the gate, Protect America is currently the only security system offering we know of that will foot the hardware bill for you, no questions asked.

Las Vegas Crime Statistics

Unlike many cities across the United States which have seen an overall reduction in their crime rates over the past decade, Las Vegas has actually seen their crime rate climb considerable, with a 32% increase in the overall average of crimes compared to the rest of the country. Although violent crime has decreased, property crimes like home burglaries are on the upswing. This is most apparent in the statistics: in 2002 Clark County police reported 11,136 burglaries within city limits; in 2014 that number had increased to 14,150. This means that it’s vitally important anyone who already lives in Las Vegas or is considering a move there get a home security system that can combat the rise in home invasions the county has been experiencing over the past several years.

Other Las Vegas Home Security Companies to Consider

Aside from the big national brands, there are several local home security companies in Las Vegas who are highly rated for their service and tech options in Clark Country metro area. As a city with one of the highest concentrations of raw cash and goods flowing in and out of the county every day, it’s no wonder that dozens of highly-rated security companies have descended on the region as a result.

Progressive Home

Brantley Security Systems

Safe and Secure Alarms and Video

Synergy Security

Security One

Las Vegas Home Security False Alarm Policy

Las Vegas is one of the few cities in the United States that works off what’s known as a “Broadcast and File” policy when it comes to false alarms. This means the police department will broadcast the call over the air, and allow their “best officers” to determine which calls they do or don’t respond to. If a specific location has had a large number of false alarms (5+), the department may only follow up with the security system company who called the alert in rather than dispatching someone to the location immediately. If the company reports that a user called them and verified it was a false alarm, the call will be canceled out. This means that while you won’t be charged any fees for lodging a false alarm in Las Vegas, there is a chance that officers may not even show up at the property at all if you’ve had multiple infractions before that. So be careful in Clark County if you’re the type to accidentally cry wolf too often with your home security system!

Best Home Security for Las Vegas is courtesy of GadgetReview(GR)

Best Home Security for Las Vegas published first on http://www.gadgetreview.com/ Best Home Security for Las Vegas published first on http://www.gadgetreview.com/

[jennifernail]

Best Home Security for Las Vegas

With a huge increase in people moving to the region, it’s no wonder that Las Vegas has also seen a rise in their home burglary stats over the past several years. The region is known for having the most hard cash/valuables within city limits of any county in the United States at any given time, and with such a huge tourist population flooding the streets every weekend this makes it a hotbed for illicit criminal activity. Overall the city only ranks as 11% safer than other cities in the country, which is why it’s vital that anyone currently living in the Las Vegas metro area (or those with plans to move there in the near future) has a strong home security solution at their disposal which can help to deter or even capture any burglars who might try to break into your home unannounced and uninvited. But which security system is the best for Las Vegas overall? After exhaustive testing of some of the most high-profile options available, Gadget Review has determined that Protect America is the #1 home security system for Las Vegas, thanks in part to its $0 equipment cost for new subscribers and 100% money-back guarantee if you aren’t satisfied with the system in 30 days. Table of Contents

Las Vegas Home Security Reviews

Protect America

Frontpoint

Scout Alarm

Las Vegas Crime Statistics

Other Las Vegas Home Security Companies to Consider 

SafePath Security

NorthStar Security

Alarm Monitoring Service of Atlanta

Safeguard Protection Systems

Las Vegas Home Security False Alarm Policy

Las Vegas Home Security System Reviews

#1 - FrontPoint Security

Pros

Smoke and heat monitoring

Carbon monoxide monitoring

100% wireless home surveillance

Pets under 40 pounds will not trip the alarm (meaning no fines from Atlanta city hall)

Live streaming to your device

30-Day Risk-Free trial

A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau

Cons

No snapshot pictures or recording available

Monitored outsourced though one company (Rapid Response)

Contract must be at least three years

Only a 3-year warranty

FrontPoint Security is our #1 pick for home security in Las Vegas for one big reason: simplicity of setup. Oftentimes one of the main reasons that a homeowner or apartment leasee might go with a company like ADT or Bay Security is unlike DIY systems, generally those companies will send a technician over to your home to get everything set up and running to code. The catch is they’ll also charge you an arm and a leg for the privilege, which means that money which could have gone to either signing up for a longer monitoring contract or buying better equipment instead gets spent upfront on a job that usually, you can do yourself without much trouble.

This is where the magic of the FrontPoint Security system comes into play. From the moment you open the box every step of getting the system up and running is clearly laid out for you, leaving nothing to chance with big green letters that hold your hand from the time you put up your first sensor until the tech on the other end of your phone call gets your monitoring program operational. FrontPoint doesn’t always get the best reputation with its customers for a variety of reasons, but our experience with both their customer service and the system we tested was top notch across the board.

#2 - Scout Alarm

Pros

No activation or installation fees

Easily to relocate

Backup 3G network

Integrates with Nest and Nest Cam

Excellent customer service

Money back guarantee

No contract despite using professional monitoring

Cons

Not many equipment options

Upfront payment for equipment

Does not include flood, break glass, or temperature units

Not registered with the Better Business Bureau

Limited motion sensor range

Inadequate battery life

Scout Alarm is a company that really strips down the DIY security system to its most essential elements, and doesn’t really leave much room to spare for extra frills or add-on equipment we’ve seen from other providers in the space. Scout Alarm works more as an equipment vendor than it does as a full-fledged security outfit, and actually leases out their monitoring services to a third-party vendor. That said, the equipment is painfully simple to set up and operate, and everything about operating the Scout Alarm network has been streamlined to its most basic implementation that just gets the job done without a lot of muss or fuss in between. Unfortunately as of this writing the company doesn’t offer any kind of glass break detectors, nor is the main hub protected by a system known as “crash and smash”, which will provide backup power and send out a CDMA signal in the case that either the main unit or your home router/internet signal are tampered with in the case of a break-in. That said if you want a system where you won’t be locked into a contract and can buy protection a'la carte as you need it, there isn’t a better option out there that still provides a wide range of motion and door sensors designed to cover every inch of your home in a warm blanket of security and protection.

#3 - Protect America

Pros

No activation or installation fees

Lifetime Warranty

Backup 3G network

HD camera has great quality

Cons

Not many equipment options

Three-year contract commitment is lengthy

No glass break detectors

Protect America is our #3 pick as the best security system for Las Vegas thanks to the company’s innovative approach to avoiding as many upfront costs as possible. Rather than making you buy a ton of equipment while also locking you into a long-term contract (like FrontPoint), Protect America goes the “cell phone plan” route and covers the cost of all your hardware as long as you sign up to a three-year minimum monitoring plan. While that may sound like a long time, if you’re homeowner and plan to be living in the same location for the foreseeable future it should only represent a fraction of the total time you’d want to keep your home safe in the long scope of things. The company offers a range of monitoring tools that are on par with some of the best in the business, along with a main hub that can’t be hacked thanks to the company’s own proprietary firmware installed by default on every unit they ship. If you’re looking for a system that will just work the way you need it to but also won’t cost you an arm and a leg to get running out of the gate, Protect America is currently the only security system offering we know of that will foot the hardware bill for you, no questions asked.

Las Vegas Crime Statistics

Unlike many cities across the United States which have seen an overall reduction in their crime rates over the past decade, Las Vegas has actually seen their crime rate climb considerable, with a 32% increase in the overall average of crimes compared to the rest of the country. Although violent crime has decreased, property crimes like home burglaries are on the upswing. This is most apparent in the statistics: in 2002 Clark County police reported 11,136 burglaries within city limits; in 2014 that number had increased to 14,150. This means that it’s vitally important anyone who already lives in Las Vegas or is considering a move there get a home security system that can combat the rise in home invasions the county has been experiencing over the past several years.

Other Las Vegas Home Security Companies to Consider

Aside from the big national brands, there are several local home security companies in Las Vegas who are highly rated for their service and tech options in Clark Country metro area. As a city with one of the highest concentrations of raw cash and goods flowing in and out of the county every day, it’s no wonder that dozens of highly-rated security companies have descended on the region as a result.

Progressive Home

Brantley Security Systems

Safe and Secure Alarms and Video

Synergy Security

Security One

Las Vegas Home Security False Alarm Policy

Las Vegas is one of the few cities in the United States that works off what’s known as a “Broadcast and File” policy when it comes to false alarms. This means the police department will broadcast the call over the air, and allow their “best officers” to determine which calls they do or don’t respond to. If a specific location has had a large number of false alarms (5+), the department may only follow up with the security system company who called the alert in rather than dispatching someone to the location immediately. If the company reports that a user called them and verified it was a false alarm, the call will be canceled out. This means that while you won’t be charged any fees for lodging a false alarm in Las Vegas, there is a chance that officers may not even show up at the property at all if you’ve had multiple infractions before that. So be careful in Clark County if you’re the type to accidentally cry wolf too often with your home security system!

Best Home Security for Las Vegas is courtesy of GadgetReview(GR)

Best Home Security for Las Vegas published first on http://www.gadgetreview.com/