I'm In Leftover Heaven

I'm In Leftover Heaven

By James Snyder

I do confess that I enjoy the holiday seasons just like everybody else. One of the main ingredients I enjoy more than anything else is the holiday cuisine. At our house, I must duly confess, it is the best.

The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage is the cooking queen when it comes to all of this holiday food. She does a wonderful job and my job is simply to consume as much of it as I possibly can. We both manage our jobs quite professionally!

As long as no dish has anything like broccoli in it, I will eat it and enjoy it. Broccoli has a way of confusing my taste buds. I'll not go into any further detail.

It amazes me how my wife can go to the grocery store, buy bags of groceries and turn all of that into the most scrumptious dinner this side of heaven.

As much as I love the holiday cuisine, I must concede there is something I love more than that. I must be careful how I say this because I do not want to compromise in any way my attendance at the next holiday banquet in our residence. I have learned through the years as a husband to be careful what I say and what I do not say and I must say that I am still on the learning track here.

What is better than a holiday banquet?

Right here is where I need to walk very carefully. For years, I have kept this little thought to myself. However, I must come out and confess this. No longer can I keep it a secret because it is a very important aspect of my holiday celebration.

As good as the holiday banquet is in our house there is something much better. I am referring, of course, to leftovers.

My wife cooks so much that there is always an abundance of leftovers. If you know anything about my wife, you know she does not throw anything away. We recycle as much as possible, which also includes food. To throw food away in our house is a criminal offence. You do not want to know the penalty!

Through the years the leftovers have become better and better. I know that the quality of any leftover has to do with the initial cooking. I must say I enjoy that first level of cooking for Thanksgiving and Christmas and every other holiday. I have come to discover, however, that the leftovers are just as good if not better than the originals.

I never thought too much about this until recently. The refrigerator was packed with food left over from our Christmas and New Year's Day dinners. The table was set most spectacularly and I, and a few family members, set down to stuff ourselves with these holiday vittles. Oh, how delicious every bite was.

I must say I had come to the point, as everybody else around the table did, that I was stuffed and I could not entertain another bite.

At this point, the dessert came to the table. Oh boy, looking at that dessert and smelling the marvelous aroma I rediscovered my appetite. When the call came out, "Anybody want dessert?" I was the first to respond in the positive. I believe in positive thinking, especially at dessert time.

It was the next day when the reality of all of this set in. As my wife is thinking about dinner, she asked me a simple question, "How about having leftovers tonight for dinner?"

At the time I did not think too much of it and grunted a positive response and went back to reading my book.

In a few moments, I began to smell something wonderfully delicious. The smell was coming from the kitchen and then I heard a wonderful invitation, "Supper's ready. Let's eat."

As I situated myself at the table, I began to look around at what was called "leftovers" and was delighted by what I saw.

We always have prayer before we eat and I must confess I had a very abbreviated prayer because I wanted to get into those leftovers.

Every bite seemed more delicious than the previous bite. How my wife can take leftovers and mix it all up into a marvelously delicious supper I will never know. I do not need to know. All I need to do is enjoy the delicacy of her cuisine art.

For the next week, we enjoyed leftovers every suppertime. The last night the table was not quite as full as before and my wife informed me that this was the last of the leftovers.

Of course, my heart sank within me realizing that the delicious aspect of the holiday banqueting was about to come to a close. I never realized before how much I loved those leftovers. I don't know if it is because I am getting older, or, if I am just recognizing things I've never recognized before.

There is a little bit of magic associated with putting together leftovers and making them more delicious than the original setting.

As I finished the last of the leftovers I thought of something Jesus said after he fed the multitude, "When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost" (John 6:12).

Even in my spiritual life when God blesses me, there are leftovers people around can enjoy. A life so blessed, blesses everybody around.

Dr. James L. Snyder is pastor of the Family of God Fellowship, 1471 Pine Road, Ocala, FL 34472. He lives with his wife in Silver Springs Shores. Call him at 352-687-4240 or e-mail  jamessnyder2@att.net. The church web site is http://www.whatafellowship.com.

Article Source:  I'm In Leftover Heaven

Cloud Broker - Essentials for a Cloud Service Brokerage Platform

Cloud Broker - Essentials for a Cloud Service Brokerage Platform

By John Katrick

Cloud technology has become exponentially accepted for companies all over the world, providing a platform for them to run their sensitive and critical operations, therefore cloud services are now more than ever a very integral part of the ICT infrastructures exploited by companies from many different industries.

According to Gartner, Cloud Services Brokerage (CSB) is an ICT role and business model in which a company or other entity adds value to one or more (public or private) cloud services on behalf of one or more consumers of that service via three primary roles including;

Aggregation: this involves combining and integrating multiple services, examples are; data integration, safeguarding process integrity and ensuring data portability between the cloud customer and the various CSP.

Service Intermediation: this is the provision of value-added services or basically improving a capability without actually providing any of the cloud services itself. These services may include identity and access management, security management and reporting, or supervision on pricing and billing.

Service Arbitrage: Some cloud broker services providers are not directly involved in cloud customer contact, but rather enable other cloud broker services providers to provide their brokerage services. Examples of these cloud brokerage enablers are providers of cloud aggregation platforms or other (software) technology that enable aggregation providers to combine various cloud services into one or more aggregated services to the cloud customer.

Benefits of Cloud Service Brokerage

CSB has significantly reduced processing costs, increase flexibility and reduced downtime as global offices, suppliers and other partners in the production chain can share information at real time with each other. Additional benefits attached with using a cloud services broker include:

Integrated service management: Integrated service management provides key services, such as backup and recovery, resiliency, and security. These services ensure that your system is running all year round.

Access to IT resources anytime, anywhere: Cloud services remove your data from their physical silos and makes them readily available for use whenever and wherever you need them.

Flexible scaling of resources: with advancing years and changes in business, so also there is a change in your data needs. There are plans in place to help scale your data solution investments with your current needs for maximum resource optimization.

Lowers total cost of ownership (TCO): Expedite delivery of your complex data projects helps reduce capital expenditures.

Automated self-service delivery: automation simplifies and speeds up the integration and deployment of services. CSB provides options to automate your services and the possibility of designing the automation as your needs require.

Essentials for a Cloud Service Broker Platform

Services Catalogue Management: A platform for enterprises and service providers to showcase the services offered.

Cloud Orchestration and Delivery: For multi-cloud infrastructure service, you need a provisioning and orchestration framework that can support multiple clouds and transform your IT department into a self-service organization.

Billing and Payment Engine: It should be able to monetize your process, integrate with critical applications, and account and charge for cloud services used, it can also interface with various payment gateways in real time.

User Provisioning and Administration: A CSB platform should enable self-service provisioning of users and apps (services), manage users' identities and provide them with timely access to applications and data.

Roles-Based Access Controls: A CSB platform should provide an efficient way to restrict access to various functions of the cloud management platform.

Identity and Policy Management: Provision of automated solutions to enforce access policy proactively and detect existing violations in a users' environment.

Budgeting and Spend Management: It should provide governance and budget management for cloud services by letting IT track every expense from beginning to end.

Monitoring and Dashboard: IT needs to monitor cloud infrastructure performance continuously and identify and resolve issues that arise promptly and also provide visibility into the organization's cloud usage.

Extensible Reporting Framework: It should empower customers the ability to securely build, generate, save own reports as per their personal needs and also a centralized database for reporting data from varying live feeds of users should be available.

Article Source: Cloud Broker - Essentials for a Cloud Service Brokerage Platform

Astonishingly Designed Office Lobbies Around the World - No More Monday Blues

Astonishingly Designed Office Lobbies Around the World - No More Monday Blues

By Apoorva Shukla

Mondays are usually the most irritating day of the week and almost each one of us has felt the dreadful feeling of Mondays. Even while relaxing on Sundays we all have that feeling of sadness of returning to work the next day. This feeling is quite common on every Sunday evening but what if offices becomes so inviting and interesting that working in the office will not make you feel suffocating or choking anymore. However, the most amazing factor which displays the status and power of any company is its lobby and lobby is one such thing which woos visitors. Below is the list of some offices around the world which have the coolest lobbies.

Salesforce, San Francisco
Salesforce in San Francisco is treated with 106 ft beautiful waterfall which is one of the most fascinating thing for the employees. Employees of this office are treated with gushing waterfalls, verdant lush forests, glittering skyscrapers or stars owing to the 106 feet long 4 mm LED screens which covers the lobby. The whole lobby is covered with giant continuous screens which happen to be the longest 4 mm screens in the whole country. This office has one of the coolest office lobby in the world.

Box, Los Altos, California
Box is a small storage startup in California which houses apt interiors for their playful and young employees. As we all know that bright vibrant colors and quirky lights can anytime make the mood good and same it with Box. Moreover, there is also a yellow slide which keeps the employees entertained and relaxed and that's what makes this office lobby one of the best in the world.

Corus Quay, Toronto
This entertainment office has a desirable place near Toronto's glinting waterfront. Lobby of Corus Quay allows plenty of natural light to come in and also offers the main attraction which is the amazing slide which can turn a gloomy day into a happy day.

Open, Tel Aviv
The space where this ad firm "Open" is started was initially a hangar and then later it turned into a funky work-cum-play space. This company has an amazing and electric mix of furniture, colors and chalkboard and this working place is a complete fun place.

Saatchi & Saatchi, Bangkok
It is an ad agency which requires a creative crew and their amazing office interior is creative too. The lobby of this office has a creative lobby with beautiful lights & also movable counter which can also work as a bar. Wondering to join this office?:P

Yelp, San Francisco
Yelp is worldwide known for owning some of the outstanding and creative looking offices and same is with its San Francisco branch. The lobby of Yelp San Francisco is really attractive and can leave any visitor impressed. Comfortable armchairs, vibrant color candies and bare brick wall make the ambience even more pleasing.

Scopely, Culver City
Scopely is a mobile entertainment network and this office is designed in a manner that it catches the attention of the people. The lobby in Scopely has minimalistic furniture, and the entire walls are covered with eccentric paintings.

Skype, California
The framework and design in which the office of Skype is designed is attention grabbing. Ample space of the lobby adds fresh feel and simplicity of the office is an added charm.

Article Source: Astonishingly Designed Office Lobbies Around the World - No More Monday Blues

6 Benefits of Reading on a Daily Basis

6 Benefits of Reading on a Daily Basis

By Shalini Madhav

Do you read on a regular basis? If so, what is it that you read? Is it newspapers, magazines, Facebook updates or Tweets? It's a good idea to read on a regular basis. For those who don't need miss out on a lot of benefits that reading may offer. Given below is a description of some benefits that you may enjoy.

1. Mental Stimulation

According to research studies, people who are mentally stimulated are less prone to Dementia and Alzheimer's as the brain stays active and doesn't lose power. It works just like other muscles in your body. Actually, you need to exercise your brain should you want to keep it in good shape. Aside from reading, playing games like chess may also help you improve cognitive stimulation.

2. Stress

If you have a day job, you may suffer from stress. And due to stress, you may have a lot of other issues in your life. But a good novel may take you into a new world. In the same way, a well-written and engaging article is means of distraction from the things that can give you stress. So, if you read, you can relax.

3. Knowledge

Good books and articles can provide loads of information. You never know when you may need this information. So, having a lot of knowledge can help you deal with the challenges you may have in your life.

Apart from this, if you find yourself in extremely unfavorable circumstances, nobody can take away your knowledge from you. You may lose your job, money and all of your possessions, but you can't lose your knowledge.

4. Vocabulary

Vocabulary is a warehouse of words that help you get your message across in the best way possible. In any profession, being articulate can be of great help. Moreover, your self-esteem will get a boost if you can talk to your seniors with great confidence. It can even help you with your career as people with better communication skills get more promotion opportunities.

5. Memory

By reading books, you can train your mind to memorize loads of characters and the history, ambitions, background and nuances behind those characters. Although it's too much to remember, human brains are beyond all the machines that have been invented so far. It's an extremely complicated organ in the human body. You may find it interesting that each new thing that you memorize makes fresh brain pathways while strengthening the existing ones.

This also makes your short-term memory more powerful in addition to stabilizing your mood.

6. Analytical Skills

If you can solve a mystery in a mystery novel without killing too much time, know that you have strong analytical skills. After all, it takes a lot of mental energy to process all the tiny details in a novel.

This analytical skill can help you when you need to critique a pot to find out if it is well written and if each character is fully developed. If you ever get an opportunity to talk about the plot with your friends, you can present your take on the plot in clear words.

So, these are some of the biggest benefits that you can enjoy if you read on a regular basis.

Do you need some books to read on your mobile or tablet? If so, you can download free ebooks PDF on the Internet.

Article Source: 6 Benefits of Reading on a Daily Basis

A Good Story, But Is It True?

A Good Story, But Is It True?

By Tony A Grayson

The story: An Ethiopian goat herder of the Ninth Century became amused by his goats' behavior. Some of the older goats had begun to behave like the young ones. They played chase, jumped sporadically, and seemed to have boundless energy. Then, he noticed that those goats congregated around specific plants that yielded red berries. The goats ravenously ate the berries. After he determined the peculiar goat behavior and deduced the cause of that behavior, the goat herder - did nothing.

A traveling monk passed through the grazing area and asked the goat herder if he might warm himself by the fire and spend the night. His request granted, the two men shared a meal and conversation, during which the goat herder shared his observation about a plant with red berries. Intrigued, the monk gathered a small sack of the berries and he took them with him to his travel destination, a monastery. He allowed the berries to naturally dry out while he acclimated himself to monastic life. Once he had the time to experiment with the dried fruit, he pounded some of the dried berries, and the seeds therein, into a powder and mixed the powder with boiling water. He wanted to learn what the goats experienced. However, he found the sight of the black liquid repulsive, with a bitter taste. He changed the color by adding some cream. He changed the taste by adding some sugar. Then, he drank the liquid.

The monk discovered that he had not tired at mid-day, when he usually took a nap. He seemed to have acquired energy. Had he duplicated the experience of the goats? By experimenting further, he learned that by adding more of the powder to hot water, he did not need to sleep at night either. He believed that he may have discovered a plant that could reverse the aging process. He talked about it, got other monks interested, and word spread about the wondrous power of the plant. A growing industry developed to provide the drink derived in the Kingdom of Kaffa, Ethiopia. The drink became known as coffee. Is this story true?

The alternate story: People have sucked on the red berries of the plant for so long that no one remembers who started it. The berries were known to impart a sort of high feeling of energy, and for some reason, people who sucked on them always craved to do it again. Eventually someone made a drink out of the seeds of the plant after roasting and grinding them. No one remembers who did that. Which story do you like best? #Tag1writer

#Tag1writer Gold can be found on Wild Land    https://livewildcityworker.wordpress.com/ in the United States. Tony is a writer, publisher, and marketer. His published novels include: Nation Rising    https://www.amazon.com/Nation-Rising-Tony-Grayson-ebook/dp/B074LWQ294, A Voice from New Mill Creek: The Methodists, Goodnight Paige, The Star of India, & How Tony Wrote and Published Two Novels. Find his books by searching Tony Alan Grayson (with one of the book titles) on Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, Smashwords.com, apple.com, kobo.com, or twenty other international book-selling websites.

Article Source: A Good Story, But Is It True?