If you are indifferent to manual tempering, you cannot succeed in your attempts. You should keep on tempering and re-tempering till the chocolate is tempered properly. This problem is absent in a tempering machine wherein everything is automated by a microprocessor. Your chocolate will also remain tempered for a longer duration, and if you need it, even all throughout the night until the next day.

But some chocolate enthusiasts want handcrafted confectioneries and for them, there are artisanal chocolatiers who still produce chocolates by employing tabliering in tempering. The concept and process of tabliering was developed in France and in this technique, you use a heat-absorbing surface such as a marble slab to cool the melted chocolate.

Tablieing will be a failure if moisture is allowed to in anything that touches the chocolate mush. Seizing will ensue, turning chocolate into a lumpy form that’s worthless for coating or sculpting chocolate confections. If the chocolates are rapidly heated or frozen, seizing can also happen.

The basic ingredient, chocolate, and such other items as a knife, chopping board, rubber spatula, stainless steel bowl, double boiler, and a regularly calibrated thermometer capable of measuring as low a temperature as 80Fmust be prepared beforehand. You should pat-dry all these utensils just to be certain.

The chocolate bar is thus cut into strips then settled in the double boiler to melt. The chocolate shouldn’t burn and must reach a range of 108 to 115F. The melted chocolate must be checked if it flows smoothly and does not turn lumpy.

Transfer 1/3 of the mush onto the marble slab and then scrape, fold, and spread 2/3 of the mush on the marble slab with a spatula so that the chocolate gets cooled to a range of 80-82F. But you shouldn’t allow the remaining portion in the mixing bowl to get colder than 100F because it’ll definitely harden.

After this, the remaining 1/3 of the mush must be mixed in with the first 2/3 until the entire mass is cooled. After that, re-heat the mush with temperatures as follows: dark chocolate at a range of 86 to 90F; semi-sweet chocolates at 86 to 88 F; and white chocolates to 82 to 84 F. You’ll know you’ve succeeded in your tempering effort if you dip the spatula into the mush and the chocolate becomes hard and glossy after five minutes. Dipping and molding can subsequently happen after tempering.

If chocolatiers don’t focus enough attention on maintaining specific temperatures during tempering, they’d repeat tempering again and again.

You may have heard the phrase “web banner” used a lot on the web. This word depicts two sorts of graphical imagery. First of all, you have the well-known advertisement banner, normally used as a method to drive clicks to another site, as clicking the banner takes one to the promoted website. The second variety is discovered at the very top of a regular site - the site header. This location commonly ushers in a visitor to the website with a main title, possibly a secondary strapline, and even some imagery to assist in theming the site. Advertising and website header banners play primary purposes in both bringing traffic to a site, and making a site “sticky” - by teaching them plainly with the basic premise of the site, and enticing the reader to browse the site further, employing compelling graphics and strapline text.

So how does one go about creating such web banners? There are many online services which can assist you with this task. Also many provide you with web banner hosting too. Simply key in some words like web banners into Google and you will discover a myriad of online services.

What sort of information to put in your banner? If you have a shopping site, it’s a great idea to arrange the payment providers your site utilizes for processing payments, because it leaves the visitor a visible hint that you are selling products and also lets them see how they can pay. Arrange some pictures of the wares you are selling too, as this is a further visual hint as to which variety of products you sell. Finally, the strapline phrase is essential as well. Make sure the strap line distinctly and briefly puts forward what the website is about in only five or six words.

And as transparent as all this may be, a mistake numerous websites make is to take for granted the visitor knows automatically what the site is about before visiting it. One should not take for granted that every visitant what your site is about in advance, so you must grab every visitant’s hand in those precious first few seconds they visit your website.

Rhymes of an Ordnance Man
[Vietnam War: 1971]

An eleven part poem
By Dennis L. Siluk

I had went to Vietnam at the age of 23 [1971], and it was most interesting, there were 205,000 troops there when I arrived. I was asked recently at a lecture [question and answer] at a University in Peru, Huancayo, at the Los Andes, Language Center, how I liked it. Most of the students expected me to be down right rigid with my remarks, I think. But the first thing that came to mind was, ‘…war is a high,” and so I expressed that to the students, they were a ting surprised. And so in this poem I try to outline a few of the more normal occurrences, and include the highs one may find in everyday soldiering in a war area:

Part One

Vietnam: Guard Duty at Dusk

… I paced along the wired fence
Quietly all night;
There was no stars, no moon

Just timid darkness for my light…

I glanced from tree to tree
I glanced from bush to bush
I saw a shadow moving

That never said a word:

“Halt, who goes there?” I cried. But he
Never heard me, I wondered why (?)

Oh, I called him several times,
As I walked the path alone;
And I watched and watchedbut

Never saw the foliage move.

I ordered him against the fence
The sorry skies were dark like flint;
He heard the click from my rifle go

And cried like a morbid child.

O, I had no time to tarry.
So I said, once and for all:
“Clasp your hands against the fence,

Or they’ll find you dead tomorrow!”

I dreamed about that evil night
Now crowded with the dead;
War is not all love and laughter

he never clasped his hands!

#645 5/2005

Part Two

Vietnam: The Frightful Fool
(Dedicated to the Los Andes Students)

“This is not a game,” I said
And he quivered his looks away;
All the schooling he has in his head,
Will do for another day….
“Run and hide,” I cried;
The rockets whistle, isn’t for school.

D’ye think he’d listen? Na,
Not much:
So I screamed “Wakeup Fool!”
With a cup of grief his way…!
…for there’s no glory to die in
Vietnam; for a country that
Sweeps it soul away!…

And so the fearful fool awoke,
To live another day!…
In this game called face the foe
In the far-off jungles by
The South China Sea.

Part Three

Vietnam: Red Silence

I cannot silence, though I try
The sound of rockets in the sky;
Hurls at us in five-ton trucks:

The odyssey, of staying alive.

Yet, life is still a joyand all is well…
(As we make earth our little hell).

Lo!
We who hear war’s red silence
(And are still alive to tell)
Lift up your eyes, see heaven,
Get out of the mud, awhile.

In fact, I didn’t mind the horrors of war
For that is what we were there for;
Rather, I hated the mud, rain and grime;
And the shrapnel at times.

Part Four

Vietnam: Heroin-day

And I found in the open jungle

Golden light and golden peace

Dwelling!
A thousand birds were singing!

I forgot, I was here to fight

To fight like a devil if need be.
I was in a fogday-dreaming;
Kissing wenches amongst the

Glare and the grime, and trees.

I lay my rifle down to bit

To join the other dreamers yet
Dancing on top of a tin-roofed hut;

As if we were all crazy or nuts.

Fighting: was a far, far cry.

I never knew if the enemy was

Nearby!…

Note: #646 5/11/2005

Part Five

Vietnam: Going Home

I’m goin’ home in the

Mawin’ -
I’m glad to have the chance!

I’m done with fightin’,

‘ad had my fill of …nam!

I’m goin’, home in the

Mawin’ -

I’m glad to have the chance!

I’ve had my ‘eap of fun
But now it’s over;

And I wouldn’t trade it
To anyone!!

Note: #647

Part Six

Vietnam: Morning Rockets

All morning long, rockets shot by
I stood by sandbags, opened-eyed!

At night, at nightthe same
I, and my head dodging such things.

Little I thought, I’d die that morning,
For here I am, to write the story.

For out of the mysterious, Vietnam,
Came a blood-red sky for everyone.

Rockets whistled in the bloody sky,
They have tails like hawks, as they fly!

But the worst of all
…is when they land
A ghostly fate, in deadly sand…!

#648 [5/12/2005]

Part Seven

Vietnam: The Ballad of Lustful Luke

Ugh! What a shame;
Let me whisper Luke’s lustful game:

He’d make love several

Times a day….

As I swept the dusty steps,
Polished my dirty boots

And cleaned my oily gun
He’d be screwing everyone!!

And that is how we got to know
Each others name (that is so).

And he’d say:
“You want to play…?”

And I’d answer:
“Got things to do, not today Lue!”

Yes, even when in the mist

Of combat

He’d dip-down into
His little hut and screw
Screw his many sluts…!

“O flee, flee…” I told him many

Times
“Before disease

Warped his mind.

But he never zippered-up

Those olive-green pants,
And thus, his spinal-cord

Collapsed.

Unable to stand: he was
Flown to Tokyo, Japan.

Part Eight

Vietnam: The Barbwire

“Their all messed up in the barbwire
(he said); shoot them in the head…

let’s fire!”
Oh, what a time to die.

They never made a moan.
Caught in the barbwire fence:

Wet, with sweat to the bone!

Now here we stand, awaiting command

And the VC hasn’t a chance.
And here we swear, smoke and

Crack dirty jokes
As daylight grows awfully dim.

And here we play cards and laugh
While the cursed foe wiggles back,

Back through the barbwire fence;
As we wait for command, and wait

And wait…until they’re gone.

Part Nine

Vietnam: Mothers Voice

He went away, to war, that

Autumn day
I watched him out my

Window …

He sang a song, called

Vietnam
And I’m not sure if

He whistled.

Ah yes, my eyes had

Tears
But he couldn’t have guessed

That so…

For I held them deep inside

My chest
And the pain

He never knew.

My boy, my boy who sings

So sweet
And pitiful proud was

I…

But a mother has to let

Life flow, you know
Be it God’s will, her

Son should die!

For peace is bought with love

And tears
Cheers and

Broken hearts…

But death is always far

Too near
Far too near:

God, if it be Thy Will.

Part Ten

Vietnam: Carry-on Soldier!

I gave them my best
Out of the jungles of doubt;
To help the fella’s in America out!

(Where life is worth living,

no doubt!)

Believe in your mission
That is what I heard; then:

“Carry-on soldier; carry-on….!”

It’s easy to fight, if you think

It is right!
It’s a different song, if you think

It is wrong!

But all I heard was:

“Carry-on Soldier, carry-on!”

Part Eleven

Vietnam: the Cross [1975]

And so, the war is now over
Mothers are now with their sons;
And the grieving has ended for many,
And for some, it has just begun.

Smile and try to be happy
Even thought peace was not the prize
For in the valley of hope we have given
Our brave and lovely boys.

Note: these are poems #645 through #656/5/2005

Dennis Siluk http://dennissiluk.tripod.com

The public has had a love/hate relationship with graffiti. On the plus side, talented graffiti artists such as Banksy have made graffiti an artform that is pleasing on the eye, utilizing stencils to produce tricky artworks with political points attached. This type of graffiti was certain to become popular with both the public and the likes of The Guardian pressroom : pleasing to the eye, and the intellect. This form of graffiti is even bought as graffiti printed onto canvas, and hung in middle class homes and corporate meeting rooms.

Yet, when it comes to your down and dirty graffiti - the scally, the tagger, the gangbanger kind - this kind of graffiti is often seen as hooliganism, an offence perpetrated by the untalented. However misinterprets graffiti as purely art. To many individuals, it’s not just an artform, but a means to mark a neighbourhood, or even a two finger salute : anti-social, anti-art, anti-establishment.

Graffiti has always been a clandestine pursuit, even though the effects are very much public. The intended audience is often unbeknown. Is it for a rival crew? A communication to an individual? To the public at large? Maybe it’s merely uncalled-for and out of boredom.

Whatever the reasons may be, there appears to be a sustained need to spray graffiti on walls. Some town councils have conceded that graffiti isn’t going to go away, so they’ve marked off zones where graffiti is permitted - normally derelict areas, but from time to time busier areas like boarding surrounding inner city buildings under construction.

Although it may seem like handwriting is becoming unnecessary, it’s a skill that is even nowadays important in many walks of life. A written missive carries more gravitas than a typewritten missive, like an application for a job, an invitation or an apology.

You might believe it’s a recent phenomena of people eschewing hand writing for the keyboard, but way back to the late 1800s, there were cries that hand-writing was uncared-for due to the invention of those times : the typwriter. These days, the charge is being corresponded to the ubiquitous utilisation of computer keyboards.

Nevertheless, there still exists a healthy demand for handwriting skills in academia and the business world. Penned missives are considered as far more authentic, they evince the author has carefully thought out his words, while demonstrating more respect to the reader. In this age of “canned responses”, the penned missive has never been more authoritative.

I must confess to something. I’ve frequently been caught red-handed with my own poor hand writing - made even worse due to decades of relying on the keyboard. In situations where I’ve had to hand write something, my words have been almost unreadable at times. What did I do? I handwrote as often as I could, and my writing improved greatly. So it’s best to polish your hand-writing through sheer repitition.

One more piece of advice is to find a pen you are comfortable with, and it must accept refills. Great refills include the illustrious mont blanc refills. This enables you to polish your penmanship with the same pen.

You have paid a huge sum of money if you have bought teak furniture. So it is advisable to maintain them properly. Although teak furniture are resistant to all natural cause such as insects, rain and sunlight, proper care needs to be taken to ensure the new look of the furniture. The original color of the teak furniture is lustrous honey, but as it ages its natural color changes to silver gray. So sometimes it is suggested to have it coated with teak oil. It prevents the natural loss of the oil content of the wood.

Some people choose to treat their teak furniture with oil, wax or lacquer while other choose to let their teak furniture weather and turn to a silver grey, which is its natural state when it is not treated. Either way is ones own choice. Before applying oil, furniture needs to be cleaned with soap or water. Teak oil should never be applied over dirt. After furniture is completely dry, a light coat of oil is advised. Using a soft cloth is best, but you may even use soft brush. Wipe off all excess oil. Kingsley-Bate offers a product for those who allowed their teak furniture to weather to a silver gray and now want to get back the original color. The process is quiet simple and does not require heavy scrubbing.