Amo, Amas, Amat and More: A Book Review

The other day at a staff meeting, one of my co-workers was talking about a project that had gone badly off the rails. "Per angusta ad augusta," I said as he concluded his tale of woe. Everyone looked at me -- uncomprehendingly, of course. "You know ... through difficulties to honors," I said.

Now, I am definitely no Latin scholar, but I do arrive at staff meetings armed with several memorized phrases from the ancient tongue, ready to whip them out whenever the occasion permits. My source? It's a breezy little tome titled, Amo, Amas, Amat and More; How to Use Latin to Your Own Advantage and to the Astonishment of Others. Its author is Eugene Ehrlich, a renowned dictionary editor and contributor to other books about words.

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The book is straightforwardly presented, with the Latin phrases given in alphabetical order. Each entry consists of the phrase followed by a phonetic rendering to assist in pronunciation, then its English translation and finally, in most instances, an explanatory paragraph to help elucidate the more mysterious of the offerings.

One aspect of Amo, Amas, Amat that is particularly helpful is that the author will occasionally translate a phrase using an equivalent English expression that might not be a word-for-word rendering (although he does provide the exact translation in the follow-up paragraph).

An example: "Aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus" is translated as "You can't win 'em all," but a more precise rendering would be, "Sometimes even good Homer dozes." Ehrlich offers the history behind this phrase, which helps us to understand why our common expression about not being able to "win 'em all" is indeed a good way to translate the Latin in this case.

Amo, Amas, Amat includes an introduction by William F. Buckley, Jr., as well as an index to the English translations, which makes for a nice cross-reference.

Amo, Amas, Amat was published by Harper & Row Publishers of New York; ISBN # 0-06-181249-8.

Amo, Amas, Amat and More: A Book Review

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Getting the Most Out of Your Air Conditioning Unit

When it heats up outside you want to be sure your air conditioning system is working at its best. During the hottest months of the summer, the air conditioning system really has to work hard to keep a house cool. There are several ways that you can help take extra stress off of your system.

One way to help keep your air conditioning unit from extra stress and strain is to change your filters regularly. This may not seem like it's that big of deal, but it really is. Clogged, dirty filters can cause your unit to work harder and add pressure to the system. Clogged filters block the air from flowing freely and effectively preventing the needed circulation. This will hurt the effectiveness as well as the energy efficiency of your system. Changing the filters regularly will help your air conditioning unit to operate more smoothly as well as save you money on energy cost and unnecessary repairs.

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Another way to take some added work off of your ac unit is to have ceiling fans installed. Ceiling fans can work in conjunction with your air conditioner by circulating the cool air and distributing it through the room. Because heat rises, ceiling fans continue to actually push the hot air that is rising down and keep the cooler air in circulation. Ceiling fans can be a big aid in saving on energy costs. By using ceiling fans your air conditioner will not have to work nearly as hard to maintain the temperature you have your air conditioner thermostat set to.

One more way keep your air conditioning system form having to work overtime, is to make sure doors and windows are left shut and properly sealed. Precious cool air can escape to the outside through opened windows and doors. And if not properly sealed, hot air form the outside can come into your home making it harder to keep cool.

These few steps can help you get the most out of your air conditioning unit. They will help to keep your energy costs down, take some unnecessary stress off your ac system and keep you cool on those long, hot days.

Getting the Most Out of Your Air Conditioning Unit

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Wineries in the Lake of the Ozarks Area

Missouri vintners have been growing grapes and making wine for a century and a half. Tens of thousands of immigrants from Germany, France, Switzerland, and Austria began pioneering to the state as early as 1821. Missouri offered the promises of fertile soil and plentiful game. Abundant timber and waterways, cheap land, low taxes, and political freedom also sweetened the pot. German immigration boomed in the 1830's after Godfried Duden returned to Germany, after establishing a farm near present day Dutzow and traveling Missouri, and published a report extolling settling in Missouri. Luckily for us, some of these "followers of Duden", carried carefully-wrapped clippings from their old world vineyards.

Missouri has seven distinct wine producing regions. The Augusta, Hermann, Ozark Highlands, and Ozark Mountains regions are official American Viticultural Areas. The Lake of the Ozarks is most closely associated as a part of the Ozark Highlands region and also includes the Central Wine region.

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Atlantis Island Condos recommends a local four stop wine tour. This trip will take you through historic Linn Creek (Seven Springs Winery), Camden County's seat of Camdenton (Casa De Loco Winery), the quaint town of Stover (Grey Bear Vineyard's & Winery), and the location of one of the first battles of the Civil War, Cole Camp (Eichenberg Winery).

Seven Springs Winery website states "Come for the wine, Stay for the atmosphere, Remember the view!". The wine tasting at Seven Springs will set you back , but includes a souvenir wine glass. The winery is home to nine different wines, Sangria Rojo, Concord Grape Juice, and Boulevard Beer for those who prefer grain over grapes. Menu options include selections of appetizers, lite fare, paninis, hand rolls, salads, and specialty soups and the suggested pairings make it easy to choose a wine by the glass or the bottle.

Casa De Loco Winery offers scenic views of the Big Niangua river from a property that has a colorful past. Originally a private fishing resort for wealthy St. Louisian's the property took a spin as a health care facility for the elderly and the mentally ill during the 1970's. Hence the name, meaning "house of the crazy". In addition to wine tastings, Casa De Loco also plays host to Murder Mystery Dinner Theater every other Wednesday night through November.

Grey Bear Vineyards & Winery has roots in Colorado. The winery itself is architecturally intruiging. The Deltec Home design of round open space can withstand hurricane force winds. This is a popular design style along the coasts but are rare this far inland. The winery offers seventeen wines. Vintner David Fansler has won several awards in both Colorado and Missouri.

Eichenberg Winery started as a grandfather's way to recreate a portion of his childhood for his grandchildren. Rodger Leutjen recalled playing with his cousins in the tunnels and mazes of the grape wines. The winery building itself was built in the early 1900's as a blacksmith shop and has been nominated for the National Historic Register. Eichenberg offers ten wine varieties.

Don't forget to purchase a bottle of your favorites to bring back to your Atlantis Island home!

Wineries in the Lake of the Ozarks Area

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The March to the Sea

After Union Major General William T. Sherman captured Atlanta on September 2, 1864, he briefly pursued General John B. Hood's Confederate army through northwest Georgia. Sherman then turned his army south toward Georgia's largest city... Savannah. His now legendary "March to the Sea" ripped the heart out of the Confederacy, demoralized civilians, destroyed railroads, and denied Confederate authorities considerable food and other badly needed supplies.

Sherman's army totaled 62,000 of his best soldiers, including 5,000 cavalry and 65 pieces of artillery. He estimated to reach Savannah would require six weeks, yet Sherman ordered only enough food for 20 days, to be carried by 2,500 wagons. Sherman's plan was a dangerous gamble, because his army was cut off from any communication or chance for re-supply. So his troops foraged "liberally," living mostly off the food they took from civilians. The worst foragers were labeled "bummers," often stealing or destroying property indiscriminately.

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Leaving Atlanta on November 15 and 16, 1864, the army split into two "wings" of between 28,000 and 29,000 each, with cavalry guarding their flanks. Marching along generally parallel routes, the two wings were often separated by between 20 and 40 miles. Separation avoided congestion, thus the army advanced quickly, and was allowed a larger area from which to forage. Separation also resulted in a broader swath of devastation across the center of Georgia, measuring up to 60 miles wide, and 300 miles long. Thousands of slaves followed, which the army discouraged, knowing they could neither feed them nor guarantee their safety.

Sherman's two wings confused the Confederates. Major General Oliver O. Howard's "Right Wing" advanced south to threaten Macon. Meanwhile, Major General Henry W. Slocum's "Left Wing" feigned toward Augusta. Confederates split their paltry forces between the two cities, but Sherman ignored both. He concentrated much of his army around Milledgeville, Georgia's capital city, then swept on toward Millen and Savannah, besieging the latter on December 10. After ten days the 10,000-man Confederate garrison, under Lieutenant General William J. Hardee, evacuated the vital seaport. Sherman wired President Abraham Lincoln afterwards saying, "I beg to present to you the City of Savannah" as a Christmas present.

Cavalry clashed frequently along the edges of Sherman's march routes, and two sizable infantry battles occurred. On November 22, 1864, Georgia militia, untrained boys and old men, were slaughtered attacking Federal lines at Griswoldville near Macon. And on December 13, Sherman's veterans overran Fort McAllister along the Ogeechee River, enabling the U.S. Navy to re-supply his army.

Sherman accomplished all his goals for his March to the Sea in only five weeks, inflicting one billion dollars worth of damages. "I can make Georgia howl," Sherman had sworn, and he did.

The March to the Sea

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Cheap Car Insurance Quotes Now Only Take 30 Seconds Online - Recession Strikes Again!

The recession has caused extremely high competition between car insurance companies. American consumers should use this to their advantage. You will find you are spending too much money on your car insurance if you do not periodically check your insurance quote- insurance companies are lowering their rate every month to try and draw in more customers. Even your current insurance company are very likely to have lowered their rates without informing you.

The average consumer does not realise this is happening.

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However you can now get numerous free car insurance quotes just by going on the internet thanks to new search technology.

Searching for quotes online will save you a lot of time and effort. You will not know when insurance quotes are changing which can happen as frequently as daily unless you are constantly talking to an insurance salesperson. It is far easier to look for quotes online absolutely free of charge from your own home and own computer.

Almost all of the time when you get a car insurance quote which is discounted, you will discover that you are in fact paying more money than you should be because of the current price wars.

If your rate has remained the same within the last year it is highly probable you could be saving money using another company or even using your own company. Using the internet to search for quotes can save you a fair bit of cash.

Rates are changing monthly, even sometimes daily. Everybody should know how much money they could be saving. Go online today.

Cheap Car Insurance Quotes Now Only Take 30 Seconds Online - Recession Strikes Again!

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Barnes and Noble Nook Color Features - Nook in Color

Looking to buy a Nook in Color? Barnes and Noble Nook Color has a touchscreen, 8GB internal memory to store up to 6,000 books and build-in Wi-Fi to instantly download Nook content.

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Screen
The tablet computer has a 7" color touchscreen display with extra-wide viewing angle perfect for reading and watching movies with others. You can input commands by touching and tapping on icons that are on the screen. The VividView™ color display is great for using interactive children's books.

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Wi-Fi
The Barnes and Noble Nook Color build-in Wi-Fi lets you go online and instantly download books, manga, music, and stream movies or TV shows seamlessly. You can visit a Barnes and Noble store near you and enjoy up to one hour per day of free Wi-Fi.

8GB Storage
The tablet computer comes with 8GB internal memory. You can expand the storage to up to 32GB by using a MicroSD. Barnes and Noble provides free online storage for your Nook content, which you can access anytime.

Library Books Borrowing
The Nook in Color will let you borrow books from your local library adding to the array on books available to you from the Barnes and Noble online bookstore. The bookstore has thousands of free out-of-copyright books to choose from.

Apps and Games
With your Nook device you will have a wide variety of apps and games. The Barnes and Noble Nook Color comes with pre-installed apps like Pandora® to listen to online tunes, Lonely Planet to learn a new language and fun Kid's apps like 'Cat In the Hat' among others. With your device you can also play your favorite games.

Receive Emails In One In-box
The Nook in color lets you receive your email on the go. You are able to receive your POP and IMAP webmail--Gmail, Yahoo mail, Hotmail and AOL in one in-box. You can also receive corporate e-mail from any Microsoft Exchange Service.

Nook Friends
The tablet computer lets you keep up to date with what your friends are reading using Nook Friends. The application enables you to create your own group of friends, share recommendations, see their latest ratings of books, share quotes, reviews and borrow and lend books to one another.

Text-to-Speech
The Barnes and Noble Nook color can read books out loud to you using the build-in Text-to-Speech feature. The feature is particularly useful when using interactive children's books, where your children can interact with the characters on screen leading to a better learning experience.

Barnes and Noble Nook Color Features - Nook in Color

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Cheap Auto Insurance Coverage - There Are Much Cheaper Options Than Advertised!

There is a high probability that you can find a cheaper car insurance from another company. In all possibility, your company would not inform you about the fall in insurance rate, if any. This means that you would continue to pay higher. Competition is stiff amongst all Auto Insurance companies in favor of the consumers.

With the internet at your fingertips, search engines are a great place to locate very cheap auto insurance rates without the need of spending time with a sales agent over the telephone. It's a much easier way to find the information required.

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It's next to impossible to be updated with the ever so changing rates of Insurance Companies without having to spend endless hours on the telephone. But there is no need to look further. An all new technology enables you to search the vast web for hundreds of Major Insurance Companies, all at a click of a button. It's not only faster, but also free.

A mere 20 seconds is all that is required to save yourself hundreds of dollars each year. Search the internet for very cheap auto insurance coverage. In fact, cheap auto insurance for teens is also very affordable.

With ever changing times companies are dropping their insurance rates monthly to compete with other Auto Insurance Companies. Take advantage of this new search and gain from it, free!

Whether you need cheap auto insurance in Ga, PA, CA, there are rates that can heavily reduce what you pay now.

Go ahead as you have absolutely nothing to lose except a high insurance payment. This is provided by companies free of charge to you.

Remember, with the recession, it is a buyers market and there are many rates that consumers get locked into during this time that will benefit them for years to come.

Cheap Auto Insurance Coverage - There Are Much Cheaper Options Than Advertised!

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