 several years now, Danielle Constantino has been creating tiny works of art… on nails.
She’s one of 12 artists from around the world fighting to be crowned the Next Top Nail Artist, by Nails Magazine.
Prestige and prize money are up for grabs but Danielle says if she’s the winner, she’ll donate the money to local single moms who need help making ends meet.
“I have a little boy myself, and it’s not an easy thing to raise a child, especially when you’re working full time, so I can only imagine people who have to work two jobs or three jobs to try and keep a roof over their heads,” she said.
Each week the contestants are given a challenge and the public votes online to keep their favorite artist safe.
One person will be eliminated each week until a winner is crowned.
Each zone will be referenced by a specific pace, power, heart rate or perceived effort on a 1-10 scale.
Zone 1: (1-3 effort)– Very comfortable and almost effortless pace that creates little to no strain.
Zone 2 : (4-5 effort)– This comfortable pace should feel controlled and something you know you can comfortable maintain for 60 minutes to 90 minutes without an increase in effort.
Zone 3: (6 effort)– This is a moderate pace where you start pushing a bit, but definitely not as hard as you can go or even close to your max. Should be an intensity you can maintain for 30 – 60 minutes. The longer you spend in this zone, the more focus you need to have.
Zone 5: (9 effort)– This uncomfortable effort should feel like you cannot maintain pace more than 5-7 minutes. Requires a lot of focus and will tax your body significantly.
Zone 6: (10 effort)– Extremely difficult. Pushing beyond 30 to 60 seconds should be impossible at this intensity. The shorter the interval, the harder the effort.
Power meter users should use power as your primary gauge of intensity. It’s more than okay to also use perceived effort on the shorter sets or when your wattage seems more difficult than usual to reach.
Heart rate users should use your heart rate to guide intensity as well as perceived effort. The shorter the interval, the more you should rely on perceived effort.
As valuable as zones are, there is also great value in relying on what your body is telling you. A good athlete will be able to get reasonably close to their z2, z3, z4 and z5 intensity when using perceived effort. For many of my workouts I use “feel” and then I confirm with pace or power. This builds confidence and carries over well to race day.Since I moved to Boston in 2013, I’ve been in attendance for quite a few memorable events at Fenway Park, the city’s central cathedral of a non-religious sort. There was Lady Gaga‘s 2017 concert in the park, the first time a female artist headlined the venue’s concert lineup. There was the Foo Fighters‘ 2018 concert that was opened by Boston DIY heroes Speedy Ortiz and Massachusetts indie-rock legends Dinosaur Jr. There were baseball games, both regular-season and playoff, all soundtracked by the organ stylings of Josh Kantor and the DJ selections of TJ Connelly, as well as nearly endless concerts featuring the biggest names from rock, country and pop.
Fenway was open only for the first two days of early voting in Boston, October 17 and 18 — a Saturday and a Sunday. Photos of the line snaking down Jersey Street and bending onto Van Ness Street began populating my social-media feeds on Saturday. After a couple of hours of seeing these images, I realized that, even though my apartment is a ten-minute walk from another early-voting site, not going to Fenway would render me almost derelict in my duties as a Bostonian.
That realization came a bit late in the day, and voting hours were over at 7. Luckily, Sunday afternoon was a gorgeous fall day, so I hopped in a Lyft to Fenway, getting dropped off at the corner of Brookline Avenue and Lansdowne Street — just a block from the David Ortiz Bridge, named for the retired baseball hero who filled Fenway with roars countless times. The bars lining Lansdowne were offering drink specials to folks sporting “I Voted” stickers, and the outdoor brunch crowds at Loretta’s Last Call and Bleacher Bar seemed extra-lively. I passed the in-progress MGM Music Hall (a 5,000-person venue scheduled to open late next year) and continued down Van Ness Street, which was mostly populated by tourists taking photos of the statues honoring baseball luminaries.
The entrance to the voting area was near the corner of Jersey Street and Brookline Avenue, and the line was short — only two socially distanced people were in front of me. Voting had taken over the Jersey Street concourse, usually the home for Fenway Franks and locally brewed beers. Instead, I gave my name and got some ballot stickers. From there, I was routed to pick up a ballot and envelope. I would be charged with filling out the ballot and using a glue stick to firmly seal its casing. (No licking here, please.) After being guided to a voting station, I filled out my ballot, dropped off the glue stick and ballot marker on a nearby bar then walked to the main concourse, where I exchanged my ballot for an “I Voted at Fenway Park!” sticker. The exit went up through the Fenway stands to facilitate any post-voting selfies, using the field’s lush green as a backdrop. I snapped a couple, naturally.
It sounds kind of run-of-the-mill when it’s described step by step. But even though the process was relatively simple, it felt pretty good to cast my ballot at Fenway, a place that’s become very special to me during my time here. Though I can hardly wait for the day when my fellow Bostonians and I can once again safely pack into Fenway and cheer on artists and athletes, I love knowing that this storied park gets to play a part in a very memorable chapter for our democracy. May this not be the last time that the park becomes a place for not only sporting and musical events, but civic ones as well.
 


Isn't that the point of this discussion?  

Delphi Forums thought they were too big to fail too, and while they are still around they're a shadow of themselves and their former glory. Same for digg, and soon same for Reddit and Slashdot. People are the content driver here and once a critical mass makes an exit the site's quality withers away along with still more users and posters in vicious cycle.It is afternoon and we are sitting in a cafe away from the city center. There must be 200,000 people here because we just went along with the crowd. We took the funicular to the castle- see pic. And of course took a pic from the highest point overlooking the city. The whole town is in party mode! I have taken pics of the cafe – which is off the beaten path – so you can imagine the rest of the town.
I ordered an Aperol spritzer and Marsha had another pink drink. Both are refreshing. Weather has been nice during the day and cool at night.
It appears that Croatia and Austria are very attractive places. Of course, all your meals look inviting.It was a Sunday night when I had tuned into one of my favourite talk shows on TV. The whole forum was getting ready for an ‘ all-woman’ talk show that day. It was a ‘ Beauty vs. Brains’ battle.
The show started with a simple question put in front of the women present there: “What physical feature of yours do you like and what do you think could have been better in your looks?” 8 out of 10 women replied, “A fairer skin”.
Though a reply like this is not abnormal in India (with half the marriage alliance ads starting with a ‘ Wanted: Fair looking girl’ tag), it made me think a lot about how this complex begins among female children.
I started looking back at my own life. When I started with my swimming classes at the age of 8, the chlorinated water had taken a toll on my skin colour. I had tanned a lot. With around 3-4 years of swimming, I had gone many shades ‘down’ and my mom used to tell me, “You look like a fisherman’s daughter”.
As a kid I never realized the intensity of it, but I would not say I was mature enough to look beyond the ‘fairness-craze‘ either. I was in the third or fourth standard when a new girl joined my school – she was really fair and cute and soon became the favourite student of every teacher. Everyone in the class wanted to be friends with her, including me. The fair skin did attract me. I remember my mom using the “Fruits give you glowing, fair skin” dialogue almost everyday.
I was one of the best performers in my school. One fine day, I was called by my teacher (I was the class monitor) to go and call good-looking, fair girls to give away the mementos to the Chief Guests of the Sports Day.  It was just a school sports day and any child could have given away that memento!
Now, moving on from my school days to college; Being in the NCC was my childhood dream and I got to fulfil it during my college days. I was in the NCC Navy for two years. After the weekly parade of around 4