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Miami’s Improv

For all the appeal of the superb nightclubs that dot the urban landscapes of Miami, there are some moments when one needs a bit of a break. Even on a short vacation, where the time spent in Miami luxury hotels flies by and Monday’s coming again, too many late nights can get a little bit exhausting. There are other options in town for fun. And those who are never going to want to give up the clubs, at least until they turn 30, can usually do a few things in an evening.

A great warm-up, then, or a fine main event, is long-form improv. Going out for a laugh by paying someone to make you laugh is usually pretty rewarding. In big cities like Miami, the level of talent is usually pretty high, and stand-ups have been trying out their material for discerning audiences for awhile. And Just the Funny has been doing improv for over ten years.

The styles and deliveries are very polished, but the nature of the thing means that it’s entirely fresh every night. In long-form, the audience will make suggestions about what they want to see, in terms of setting, the characters, and often the plot, and the players take it from there. It’s a technique that’s been around for awhile, and it can make an evening out as splendid as any club, or as a great beginning.

Tags: just the funny

Benefits of Home Education

Home education is by far one of the oldest forms of education. There was a time, before traditional schools, that children were taught by their parents. They learned everything from occupational skills to domestic skills, and sometimes even reading and writing at home with their siblings. Today, we are more focused on standardization and consistency. While there are benefits to receiving a public education, there are also many benefits to being educated at home.

One of the biggest motivating factors for parents who decide to home school is the attention their child receives. In a typical classroom the number of students far outweighs the number of teachers, which is usually only 1. By home schooling, parents can provide one-on-one attention to ensure that their child understands the concepts, to identify any potential problems, and to pursue their child’s specific interests.

Home schooling also allows parents to choose the curriculum . They can choose an entire set directly from the publisher, a set of supplemental books and encyclopedias from Southwestern Company , or a combination of the two. Either way, there is typically more time for parents and students to study each topic at greater depth and experience them in non-traditional ways. The educational books from companies like Southwestern Company are also a great way to build on a child’s traditional education.

Home education requires a lot of time and effort from the parents, but for those that are willing it definitely pays off in the end.

Tags: southwestern company

Playwrights in Boston

Boston has a pretty remarkable reputation for all of the arts. It’s the home to some of the country’s most prestigious universities, and that attracts some of the best artistic minds in the world. Professional and student artists have the opportunity to work together and learn from each other. Outside of the university, there are plenty of arts organizations that do regular performances of theatre, dance, music, and multiple combinations of any of these. That’s one of the reasons why people like to check the hotel rates Boston is offering at the moment, because it’s so exciting to visit here.

However, outside of the university, there are few forums where artists can continue to learn. Visual artists need viewers, and playwrights need audiences. Even for brand new work that’s not ready for a stage yet, the writer needs to hear their words read out loud so they can see where they are going. That’s part of the idea for the Playwrights Platform , an organization that’s entirely devoted to development for the writers.

They have an annual festival , and are active throughout the year in championing writers and their plays. This is a very necessary stage of a play’s birth and growth, and the organization is doing a favor for the writers, but also for the entire theatre-going community at large, by giving the works a breath of life.

Tags: annual festival

Cosmetic Car Repairs Can Be Dangerous

You won’t usually find body work in your Dodge repair manual , but that doesn’t mean that improper body work will not affect the way your car runs. One of the most common things people do in order to improve the body work on their car is replacing the rims on the car. While this can be great, it can sometimes show off the old and rusted brake calipers behind them. Some people decide when they see this that they need to paint the brake calipers as well. While it is not good to let the calipers get rusted and a paint job would help them run better, you need to remember that as far as cosmetic work goes, this can be very dangerous cosmetics.

Not all repair manuals will have instructions on how to clean your brake calipers. GMC manual s sometimes will refer to this, but not usually. The main things you need to know is that there will be a lot of brake dust and brake dust contains asbestos, so when you work down there you need to be careful for your own health. You will also need high temperature engine paint because otherwise you could set your car on fire. Watching out for issues like that is important to keeping your car intact.

Tags: high temperature engine paint

Denver Ski Vacation

Denver is a wonderful place to visit any time of the year. And while most people have their standard vacation time scheduled for the summer, many people also make a strong effort to visit Denver during the winter. This is due not only to all of the great cultural attractions that exist in and around the city, but also because there are excellent opportunities for fantastic skiing adventures just outside of Denver. Regardless of the time of year or season in which you choose to visit this mile high city , the best Denver hotels will have a room for you.

Skiing is not the only great winter sport and outdoor recreational event that occurs around Denver and throughout the state of Colorado. Snowboarding , and even just enjoying the beautiful white ground covering while sipping hot chocolate is great fun for many people However, a large number of winter tourists are there specifically for the slopes and there are plenty of great ones. And if you don’t know how to ski there are some extremely qualified and professional instructors that will not only show you the ropes and a few tricks but will help to ensure your safety and overall satisfaction. There’s a variety of slope angles, lengths and terrain difficulty levels that will fit the interests and abilities of skiers of all ages and levels of experience.

Tags: visit this mile high city

Marisa in Brooklyn

Lots of people learned a little bit about the neighborhoods in Brooklyn, when Marisa Tomei came out in “My Cousin Vinnie.” She’s already been having a fine and dandy career, doing the work that she wanted to do, but the way she played the role of the girlfriend who knew so much about cars, it captured everyone’s heart for awhile. Then, when the “Wrestler” came out, she reminded everyone that she still had it, and never let it go, and never would.

People always scramble after a movie of hers is released, to find out exactly where in the city she was born and raised, and maybe even consider booking Brooklyn cheap hotels and think about star-gazing in the city. She’s from Midwood, and of course has come a long way since. But Brooklyn has also come a long way since she lived here. It’s been through a number of changes, and no one likes to hear the “gentrification” word around here, but there is some of that going on. As people start to get away from the other borough, looking for cheaper rents here, it became very obvious to a large number of people that Brooklyn really was as cool as everyone said it was.

Old neighborhoods, of the kind that made New York famous everywhere, were still intact, and there were areas where grandfather-looking men played chess and smoked cigars on the sidewalk, and any block could boast its own history of famous gangsters, dancers, and obviously, actresses. This is the kind of environment that Tomei grew up in, and it was one that sharpened her senses so that she could see the bigger picture in all things. It’s one of the things that makes her so stunningly compelling. She really doesn’t seem to care about the things most folks do, and likes the work because she likes the work. It’s an unusual thing for Hollywood, not so much for Brooklyn.

Tags: marisa tomei

The Spanish Monastery in Miami

David Byrne of the Talking Heads once asked the question, “How Did I Get Here?” which might be a fair question for the cloisters of an ancient Spanish monastery that now lies in North Miami Beach. At the St. Bernard de Clairvaux Episcopal Church, you’ll discover the medieval building, first built somewhere between 1133 to 1144 in the 12th Century. How did the oldest building in the western hemisphere, a building over 800 years old, find its way to Florida?

The Monastery of St. Bernard de Clairvaux first found a home in Sacramenia, located in the province of Segovia, Spain. Canonized by a Cistercian monk named Bernard of Clairvaux, the monastery was named after him, and remained the home to Cistercian monks for almost seven hundred years. Then, in the mid-1830s, the cloisters were seized and converted into a granary and stable. Almost a hundred years later, William Randolph Hearst bought the cloisters and the monastery’s out-buildings. These buildings were then taken apart, piece by piece, placed in cushioning hay, packed into about 11,000 crates, and shipped to America. Then hoof and mouth disease broke out in Segovia.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture quarantined the shipment, broke open the crates, and burned the hay as a precaution against the disease, but failed to replace the stones back into the right, numbered boxes. Soon after, Hearst suffered financial problems and the stones sat in a warehouse for over 25 years. The year after Hearst’s death in 1952, the stones were purchased with the intention to use them as a tourist attraction. They were reassembled over a period of 19 months and 1.5 million dollars (in 1950s dollar value), and soon became first a savings and loan building, and then “The Mission of St. John the Divine,” from 1963 to 1964. Soon after, the mission became the Church of St. Bernard de Clairvaux.

One of the last pieces of this long, strange journey, occurred in 1964, when the church was purchased for the Diocese of South Florida, but financial troubles caused them to sell it to a multimillionaire banker and philanthropist who then gave it to the Episcopalian parish of St. Bernard de Clairvaux.

Southern Florida is filled with unique attractions and places to stay, such as the Venetian Pool in Coral Gables, or a boutique Miami hotel in the Art Deco district — but few places have had such a long history as St. Bernard’s Spanish monastery. The cloisters are available for weddings and other special events, or just a general tour from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Mondays through Saturdays, and noon to 4 p.m., on Sundays.

Tags: boutique miami hotel