Jack Vettriano Olympia portrait of Zara Philips

Hmmmm?" he said. "I said you startled me." "Do not be alarmed, I will not harm you." Arthur frowned at him. "But you shot at us! There were missiles ..." he said. The man chuckled slightly. "An automatic system," he said and gave a small sigh. "in the bowels of the planet tick away the dark millennia, and the ages hang heavy on their dusty data banks. I think concern. "Er, no ... well, yes. Actually you see, we weren't really expecting to find anybody about in fact. I sort of gathered that you were all dead or something ..." "Dead?" said the old man. "Good gracious no, we have but slept." "Slept?" said Arthur incredulously. "Yes, through the economic recession you see," said the old man, apparently unconcerned about whether Arthur understood a word he was talking about or not.they take the occasional pot shot to relieve the monotony." He looked gravely at Arthur know." "Oh ... er, really?" said Arthur, who was beginning to find the man's curious, kindly manner disconcerting. "Oh, yes," said the old man, and simply stopped talking again. "Ah," said Arthur, "er ..." He had an odd felling of being like a man in the act of adultery who is surprised when the woman's husband wanders into the room, changes his trousers, passes a few idle remarks about the weather and leaves again. "You seem ill at ease," said the old man with polite

Lorrain Embarkation of St Paula Romana at Ostia

Rubens The Virgin and Child in a Garland of Flower
When I talk with other freelancers about outsourcing, the first thing that comes to mind is often the bookkeeping task. Let’s face it: just because you’re a good writer or designer doesn’t mean you’re good with accounting. Even if you’re good at it, you probably don’t enjoy it. If that’s the case, consider hiring an accountant, or a virtual bookkeeper.
There are probably other tasks you can outsource, as well. For example, if I’m proofreading a longer piece. In the last couple of months, I’ve been able to outsource that particular task. In my case, I’ve outsourced this task to my wife, who is a much better proofer than I am.Remember why you chose the
A key part of finding joy in your work is remembering why you chose this line of work. For example, I love the fact that I’m able to make a difference with my writing. A lot of the writing I do is educational; whether it’s writing about on a client’s topic, I try to write things that benefit others. I want to improve their lives with my work.

Chase Florentine Villa

Time to relax around the Christmas dinner table with family and friends.
Time to catch up on sleep?
For those who are always looking for an excuse to sleep in, or sleep more, your search is not in vain: According to new research, hours spent sleeping protects against calcium deposits in the coronary arteries -- the deposits responsible for heart attacks.
A study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Christopher King and colleagues from the University of sleep quantity (hours spent asleep) and calcium build up -- or calcification -- in the arteries that supply the heart muscle with blood.
For each additional hour of sleep, the risk of calcification of the coronary arteries decreased by 33 percent -- an outcome equal to reducing blood pressure by 16 point elevations.
Moreover, the sleep did not change even when the researchers controlled for certain traditional risk factors for heart disease, such as cholesterol, weight and Diabetes.

Church Tamaca Palms

He just said: "Drink up." He added, perfectly factually: "The world's about to end." Arthur gave the rest of the On this particular Thursday, something was moving quietly through the ionosphere many miles above the surface of the planet; several somethings in fact, several dozen huge yellow chunky slablike somethings, huge as office buildings, silent as birds. They soared with ease, basking in electromagnetic rays from the star Sol, biding their time, grouping, preparing. The planet beneath them was almost perfectly oblivious of their presence, which was just how they wanted it for the moment. The huge yellow somethings went unnoticed at Goonhilly, they passed over Cape Canaveral without a blip, Woomera and Jodrell Bank looked straight through them - which was a pity because it was exactly the sort of thing they'd been looking for all these years. The only place they registered at all was on a small pub another wan smile. The rest of the pub frowned at him. A man waved at him to stop smiling at them and mind his own . "This must be Thursday," said Arthur musing to himself, sinking low over his beer, "I never could get the hang of Thursdays."

Gockel Hearts Flowers I

dared not drop that far. Though he would most likely keep his [538] balance, he would land with too much noise, alerting the two guards who were in the security office that occupied half the second floor of the groundskeeper’s building.Evidently, Trotter recognized the problem. He vented a whisper of helium, and the vessel sank until Corky felt theknoll, which he would be making alone.With the boy in his control, Corky would leave Palazzo Rospo in style, using one of the automobiles in Manheim’s first-rate collection.Back at the ruined chateau, once the three tethering lines were well anchored to truck and trees, Trotter would shoot the two men who served as ground crew. Although the abandonment of the airship would be a wound to his heart, he would leave it behind and walk to a car that earlier today he’d parked two blocks away.Immediately upon returning to hisMalibu, he would roof under him.Straddling the ridge line, one foot on the south slope of the roof, one foot on the north slope, he let go of the ballast-tank bracket. He had touched down almost as softly as Peter Pan.Freed of his weight, the blimp at once soared ten feet, fifteen. The tail began to rise, which wasn’t good, but with an adjustment of the rudders, Trotter raised the nose and recovered even as he brought the vessel around for the return trip to the

Machado Picnic On The Sea

Machado Picnic On The SeaMachado Picnic in the Forest of Gustave KlimtMachado Picnic At IpanemaMachado Omelette and Truffles
Mick preferred videotapes to DVDs because the cassettes came in boxes with wide, colorful spines that blazed with obscene titles and sometimes with hard-core photographs. The effect was of one continuous erotic mosaic that flowed from end to end and top to bottom of the residence, achieving almost psychedelic impact.Only the work wing, this living ceiling shelves, one was here in the living room. This space had been reserved for four big top-of-the-line plasma-screen TVs and associated equipment. The other such wall was in the bedroom.A pair of plasma screens hung side by side, and a second pair hung side by side above the first. A DVD player and a videocassette machine served each screen; that equipment, plus eight speakers and associated amplifiers were racked in low cabinets under the screens.Mick could run four movies simultaneously and switch, as whim struck him, from one soundtrack to the other. Or he could—and often did—play all four soundtracks simultaneouslyroom, and the master bedroom contained any furniture. Other chambers, including the dining room, were not merely lined with videocassettes but were filled with aisles of shelves, as in a library.Mick ate all his meals either at in bed: lots of microwave dinners, as delivery pizza and Chinese.Of the two walls not fitted with floor-to-

Dali Christ of St. John of the Cross

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center was on Beverly Boulevard in a part of Los Angeles that wanted to be Beverly Hills. They arrived at 2:18.They located Dr. Gerald Fitzmartin in the ICU, but they weren’t permitted to see him. In the waiting room, the professor’s son was pleased to have a distraction, though he couldn’t imagine why didn’t live in a glitzy neighborhood of multimillionaires because he never wanted to have to explain the origins of his to the tax authorities. When you make it in cash, you live without flash.He laundered enough income to justify a spacious four-bedroom, two-story house of no architectural distinction in a clean and pleasant upper-middle-class neighborhood in Sherman Oaks.Only a handful of Mick’s most trusted police officers would want to talk to his father.Professor Fitzmartin was sixty-honest living, older men rarely turned to crime in their retirement. It and with passing kidney stones.Besides, just this morning, Fitzmartin had undergone quadruple heart-bypass surgery. If he was Rolf Reynerd’s conspirator, he would not be killing movie stars in the immediate future.Ethan checked his watch. 2:34. Tick, tick, tick.

Thomas Kinkade Key West painting

Never knew you to wear protection.”“I’ve been thinking maybe I’ve dodged more bullets than any man has a right to. Doesn’t mean I’m not still fearless.”“Didn’t say you weren’t.”“I’m scared shitless, but I’m still fearless.”“That’s the right psychology.”“Survivor’s psychology,” Hazard said.Captain Queeg von Hindenburg, Corky Laputa had to undertake an unexpected journey to the farther reaches of Malibu.The man in Malibu currently called himself Jack Trotter. Trotter owned property, carried a valid driver’s license, and paid as few taxes as possible under the name Felix Greene. Greene, alias Trotter, had once used the names Lewis Motherwell, Jason Barnes, Bobby Domino, and others.When Jack-Felix-Lewis-Jason“Anyway, what’s wrong with my nose?”“What isn’t?”The hard rain abruptly began to fall harder, and Ethan cranked the windshield-wiper speed to the highest setting.Hazard said, “Feels like the end of the world.”

Raphael Saint George and the Dragon painting

All three occurrences should have been noted.Ethan jumped from Fric’s file to the master log, which listed all phone-line activity since the previous midnight in the order that the calls had been placed and received. of the heavy breather. Fric was not a self-dramatizer and certainly not an attention-seeker.Besides, he had seemed genuinely disturbed when he’d recounted those calls. He just breathed. And made some ... some almost like animal sounds.Aware of a winking brightness at the periphery of his vision, Ethan turned from the saw the indicator light fluttering on Line 24. As he watched, the call was answered, a connection made, and the light burned steadily.Line 24, the last line on the board, was set aside to receive phone calls from the dead.The list was long because the staff had been busy making Christmas preparations.Carefully scrolling through the log, Ethan found no calls to or from Fric’s line.[264] Unless the record-keeping system had erred, which it had never done before in Ethan’s experience, the inescapable conclusion had to be that Fric lied about receiving obscene calls.His respect for the boy motivated Ethan to scroll through the phone log again, bottom to top this time. The result was the same.As difficult as it might be to believe that the system had failed to note the calls that Fric reported, Ethan found it almost equally hard to accept that the kid had concocted the story

Vincent van Gogh Cornfield with Cypresses painting

believed that Reynerd had been likewise discreet. They had committed crimes together and had conspired to commit others. Neither of them had anything to gain—and much to lose—by revealing their to anyone.Stupid in uncounted ways, Rolf had not been entirely reckless. To impress a woman or his witless friends, he might an apostle of anarchy, Corky understood that chaos ruled the world and that in the rough and disorderly jumble-tumble of daily events, meaningless coincidences like this frequently occurred. Such apparent synchronisms encouraged lesser men than he to see patterns, design, and meaning in .He had wagered his future and, in fact, his existence, on the belief that was meaningless. He owned a lot of stock in chaos, and at this late date, he wasn’t going to second-guess his by selling chaos short.Reynerd had fancied himself not only a potential movie star of historic proportions, but also something wish to reveal that he’d had his mother killed by proxy or that he was partner to a murderous conspiracy involving the biggest movie star in the world, but he would never go that far. He would just invent a colorful lie.Although Ethan Truman, incognito, had visited earlier this very [202] day, the possibility that Reynerd’s death was connected in any way to Channing Manheim and the six gifts in black boxes remained unlikely.Being

Theodore Robinson Girl with Goat painting

Hell, yeah. Throw one of these, you’d crack a guy’s skull.”“Then eat the evidence.”The waitress returned with his credit card and the voucher.[80] As Ethan added the gratuity and signed the form, Hazard seemed wool sweater as before, sitting behind the wheel of his silver BMW, Corky Laputa felt stifled by a frustration as heavy and suffocating as a fur coat.Although his shirt wasn’t buttoned to the top, anger pinched his throat as tight as if he’d squeezed his sixteen-inch neck into a fifteen-inch collar.He wanted to drive to West Hollywood and kill Reynerd.Such impulses must be resisted, of course, for though he dreamed of a societal collapse into complete lawlessness, from which a new order would arise, the laws against murder remained in effect. They were still enforced.Corky was a revolutionary, but not a martyr. almost oblivious of the woman and did not once look at her.With needles of rain, the blustering wind tattooed ephemeral patterns on the window, and Hazard said, “Looks cold out there.”That was exactly what Ethan had been thinking.

Sung Kim Log Cabin Retreat painting

made by Men, and it is more pleasant than cram, by all accounts.'`Indeed it is,' said Gimli. 'Why it is better than the honey-cakes of the Beornings, and that is great praise, for the Beornings are the best bakers that I know of; but they are none too willing to deal out their cakes to travellers in these days. You are kindly hosts!grey with the hue of twilight under the trees they seemed to be; and yet if they were moved, or set in another light, they were green as shadowed leaves, or brown as fallow fields by night, dusk-silver as water under the stars. Each cloak was fastened about the neck with a brooch like a green leaf veined with silver.`Are these magic cloaks? ' asked Pippin, looking at them with wonder.`I do not know what you mean by that,' answered the leader of the Elves. `They are fair garments, and the web is good, for it was made in this land. They are elvish robes certainly, if that is what ''All the same, we bid you spare the food,' they said. 'Eat little at a time, and only at need. For these things are given to serve you when all else fails. The cakes will keep sweet for many many days, if they are unbroken and left in their leaf-wrappings, as we have brought them. One will keep a traveller on his feet for a day of long labour, even if he be one of the tall Men of Minas Tirith.'The Elves next unwrapped and gave to each of the Company the clothes they had brought. For each they had provided a hood and cloak, made according to his size, of the light but warm silken stuff that the Galadhrim wove. It was hard to say of what colour they were:

Michelangelo Buonarroti Creation of Adam painting

started in fear, and Sam sprang to his side and whispered softly to him.'Do not let him run away! ' said Boromir. 'It seems that we shall need him still, if the wolves do not find us. How I hate this foul pool! ' He stooped and picking up a large stone he cast it far into the staff he stood before the rock and said in a clear voice: Mellon!
Raphael Saint George and the Dragon paintingClaude Monet Sunflowers painting
dark water.The stone vanished with a soft slap; but at the same instant there was a swish and a bubble. Great rippling rings formed on the surface out beyond where the stone had fallen, and they moved slowly towards the foot of the cliff.'Why did you do that, Boromir? ' said Frodo. `I hate this place, too, and I am afraid. I don't know of what: not of wolves, or the dark behind the doors, but of something else. I am afraid of the pool. Don't disturb it! ''l wish we could get away! ' said Merry.'Why doesn't Gandalf do something quick? ' said Pippin.Gandalf took no notice of them. He sat with his head bowed, either in despair or in anxious thought. The mournful howling of the wolves was heard again. The ripples on the water grew and came closer; some were already lapping on the shore.With a suddenness that startled them all the wizard sprang to his feet. He was laughing! `I have it! ' he cried. 'Of course, of course! Absurdly simple, like most riddles when you see the answer.'Picking up his

Frederic Remington paintings

messenger to warn us that his words held both menace and deceit; for we knew already that the power that has We discover that messengers have come also to King Brand in Dale, and that he is afraid. We fear that he may yield. Already war is gathering on his eastern borders. If we make no answer, the Enemy may move Men of his rule to assail King Brand, and Dáin also.'`You have done well to come,' said Elrond. `You will hear today all that you need in order to understand the purposes of the Enemy. There is naught that you can do, other than to resist, with hope or without it. But you do not stand alone. You will learn that your trouble is but part of the trouble of all the western world. The Ring! What shall we do with the Ring, the least of rings, the trifle that Sauron fancies? That is the doom that we must deem.re-entered Mordor has not changed, and ever it betrayed us of old. Twice the messenger has returned, and has gone unanswered. The third and last time, so he says, is soon to come, before the ending of the year.'And so I have been sent at last by Dáin to warn Bilbo that he is sought by the Enemy, and to learn, if may be, why he desires this ring, this least of rings. Also we crave the advice of Elrond. For the Shadow grows and draws nearer.

Constable A Hayfield at East Bergholt

there are also several newer tracks that were not made by Rangers. At least one set was made, only a day or two ago, by heavy boots. At least one. I cannot now be certain, but I think there were many booted feet.' He paused and stood in anxious thought.Each of the hobbits saw in his mind a vision of the cloaked and booted for the moment, and if we moved we should be much more likely to be seen by spies. All we could do would be to go right out of our way back north on this side of the line of hills, where the land is all much the same as it is here. The Road is watched, but we should have to cross it, if we tried to take cover in the thickets away to the south. On the north side of the Road beyond the hills the country is bare and flat for miles.'Riders. If the horsemen had already found the dell, the sooner Strider led them somewhere else the better. Sam viewed the hollow with great dislike, now that he had heard news of their enemies on the Road, only a few miles away.'Hadn't we better clear out quick, Mr. Strider?' he asked impatiently. 'It is getting late, and I don't like this hole: it makes my heart sink somehow.''Yes, we certainly must decide what to do at once,' answered Strider, looking up and considering the time and the weather. 'Well, Sam,' he said at last, 'I do not like this place either; but I cannot think of anywhere better that we could reach before nightfall. At least we are out of sight

Long Time Ago

Saddle, and as they could not imagine sharing a name without being related, they took Frodo to their hearts as a long-lost cousin.The Bree-hobbits were, in fact, friendly and inquisitive, and Frodo soon found that some explanation of what he was doing would have to be given. He gave out that he was interested in history and geography (at which there was much wagging of heads, although neither of these words were much used in the Bree-dialect). He said he was thinking of book (at which there was silent astonishment), and that he and his list of names, beginning with 'Old Barliman here', to whom he could go for further information. But after a time, as Frodo did not show any sign of book on the spot, the hobbits returned to their questions about doings in the Shire. Frodo did not prove very communicative, and he soon found himself sitting alone in a comer, listening and looking around.The Men and Dwarves were mostly talking of distant events and telling flews of a kind that was becoming only too familiar. There was trouble away in the South, and it seemed that the friends wanted to collect information about hobbits living outside the Shire, especially in the eastern lands.At this a chorus of voices broke out. If Frodo had really wanted to write a book, and had had many ears, he would have learned enough for several Chapters in a few minutes. And if that was not enough, he was given a whole