AUBURN, Mass. (AP) ? A regional transit bus crashed into a house in the central Massachusetts town of Auburn, injuring seven people, a fire official said Monday.
Fire Capt. Eric Otterson said the driver of the Worcester Regional Transit Authority Bus, who was trapped for more than an hour after the 5 p.m. crash, was seriously hurt. He was taken to a hospital.
Otterson said three children and an adult were inside the Swanson Road house when the bus knocked it off its foundation by 7 to 10 feet, and had minor cuts and scrapes. He said two bus passengers had moderate scrapes. They were taken to hospitals for treatment and evaluation.
Chris Erickson, 32, who lives in the house with his wife and their three sons ages 14, 11 and 6, told The Associated Press he was at work when the bus struck their kitchen. He said two of the boys were in the nearby living room.
"They were pretty shook up," Erickson said, but weren't seriously hurt, and the family's pets weren't injured. "I just hope we can get the photo albums and the clothes out that we need."
Police Chief Andrew Sluckis told the Worcester Telegram & Gazette the driver may have had a medical episode or a problem with the brakes. Sluckis said the bus was headed toward a local shopping mall when it suddenly ran off the street, cut across a yard and hit the house.
John Carney, general manager of WRTA Transit Services, told the newspaper the driver was fairly new, but had extensive bus driving experience.
Thomas Mosley, who lives across the street, said he heard a loud bump and went to help. He said it appeared the bus had run across the lawn of a nearby dentist's office before plowing through the Ericksons' lawn and a hedge into their house. The bus landed upright.
Erickson's father, Lenny Erickson, 64, owns the house his father built it in 1949. He said he's relieved his family members weren't seriously hurt, but is saddened by the damage to the home where he grew up with his parents and two brothers.
The bus was removed from the white Cape Cod style house Monday night after the structure was shored up.
"That's the old homestead, and now they are saying they will have to tear it down," Lenny Erickson said. "It was a great place to grow up."
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Turns out zombies and Superman are no match for monsters.
Disney's "Monsters University" is the weekend box-office winner, according to studio estimates released Sunday. The animated family film, which reunites stars Billy Crystal and John Goodman and their characters from the 2001 hit "Monsters, Inc.," debuted in first place with $82 million, beating out swarming zombies in "World War Z" and Superman himself in "Man of Steel."
"The diversity of this weekend is part of what makes this business so great," said Dave Hollis, Disney's head of distribution. "It's a really extraordinary weekend for the industry."
Especially for "Monsters University," Pixar's 14th consecutive film to open in first place. Such expectations of excellence put a "healthy pressure" on filmmakers, Hollis said: "To deliver that kind of quality consistently is a differentiator in the marketplace."
Still, the film exceeded studio expectations with its domestic totals, he said.
Paramount's Brad Pitt zombie romp overcame critical advance publicity to open in second place with $66 million. Media reports months ahead of the film's opening chronicled its problems, including a revamped ending that delayed its release.
Rewrites and reshoots sent the film over budget. It ended up reportedly costing more than $200 million to make, but early reviews were positive.
"What 'World War Z' proves is that all the negative backstory that can be thrown at a movie doesn't matter if the movie's good," said Paul Dergarabedian of box-office tracker Hollywood.com. "I don't think the audience cares one lick if they had to reshoot the ending if they like the ending and like the movie."
The success of the film means it could be a franchise in the making. Paramount's president of domestic distribution, Don Harris, called the opening "spectacular."
"It's the biggest live-action original opening since 'Avatar,'" he said. "(It's) Brad Pitt's biggest opening ever, and in terms of Paramount's recent history, it ranks behind 'Iron Man' and 'Transformers' as the third largest potential franchise opening in the history of the company."
Warner Bros. "Man of Steel" was third at the box office, adding another $41.2 million to its coffers and bringing its domestic ticket sales over $210 million in just the second week of release.
The Sony comedy "This Is the End," which stars Seth Rogen, James Franco and Jonah Hill as versions of themselves trapped in a mansion during the apocalypse, finished in fourth place.
Summit Entertainment's magic-heist thriller "Now You See Me" held onto fifth place in its fourth week in theaters.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released on Monday.
1. "Monsters University," $82 million ($54.5 million international).
2. "World War Z," $66 million ($45.8 million international).
3. "Man of Steel," $41.2 million ($89 million international).
4. "This Is the End," $13 million.
5. "Now You See Me," $7.87 million ($6.6 million international).
6. "Fast & Furious 6," $4.7 million ($11.2 million international).
7. "The Internship," $3.43 million ($3.2 million international).
8. "The Purge," $3.41 million ($1.1 million international).
9. "Star Trek: Into Darkness," $3 million ($4.9 million international).
10. "Iron Man 3," $2.2 million ($400,000 international).
___
Estimated weekend ticket sales at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada) for films distributed overseas by Hollywood studios, according to Rentrak:
1. "Man of Steel," $89 million.
2. "Monsters University," $54.5 million.
3. "World War Z," $45.8 million.
4. "After Earth," $13.4 million.
5. "Fast & Furious 6," $11.2 million.
6. "The Hangover Part III," $8.6 million.
7. "Now You See Me," $6.6 million.
8. "Despicable Me 2," $6.4 million.
9. "The Great Gatsby," $5.5 million.
10. "Star Trek: Into Darkness," $4.9 million.
___
Follow AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/APSandy .
___
Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.
Apple has released beta 2 of iOS 7 for developers. There doesn't seem to be anything specific or new other than bug fixes and improvements. Download at your leisure. [Apple]
Author: Andrew Toth | Total views: 159 Comments: 0 Word Count: 1050 Date:
It goes without saying that not all teachers (of any subject) are equal and that is probably multiplied to the nth degree in the martial arts which doesn't allow for standardization to quite the same degree as other subjects might. There are of course ongoing attempts at standardization and classification but the martial arts are still very much of a melting pot and one is often left wondering who is teaching what and where did it come from.
Enter the beginner?
Given this prodigious output of styles and teachers, how is a beginner, who knows virtually nothing about the martial arts?how is such a person to find the right teacher?
And is that the right question?
Maybe there is no "right" teacher. Maybe the right teacher for me is not the right teacher for you.
So it can get a bit complicated?
But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Questions such as these simply do not arise for most people. They join their neighborhood club, pay their fees, get graded a few times, get a nice colored belt maybe even a trophy or two, tell their friends they are a brown belt in such and such a style and?that is all they want. And I'm not here to argue with that, but?
If you're real serious, if martial arts is your reason for living, you will need to find the Right Teacher and that means that you will have to do some serious searching. Both internally and externally.
Why?
Because the Right Teacher will not appear miraculously on the horizon when you first decide to be the next Bruce Lee. And so, almost by default, beginners tends to think of their first teacher as THE RIGHT TEACHER! Which is understandable because they don't know any better. They have nothing to compare their first teacher to, so the first teacher is THE BEST. The beginner is totally convinced of that.
However, as time moves on the beginner may begin to experience some disquiet. Some things don't add up. The first teacher may be a bit overweight, or not as fit as he could be. Maybe he doesn't answer questions satisfactorily?but hey! nobody's perfect and all things considered the first teacher is still The Best, and that's all there is to it, right? Nonetheless there is talk...there is talk of another teacher down the road who is (blasphemy!) even better. The beginner puts all those preposterous notions aside of course, but...
There are now some cracks in the facade.
Not fatal, but it is through these cracks that the doubts seep in.
That, at least, is what happened to me. I was absolutely convinced that my first teacher was the best, but?I checked out the new teacher down the road (no harm in that, is there?). Then I joined up and started the cycle all over again. And then again and again and again?
I tried judo, ju-jutsu, Hsing-i, Pa-kua, Tai chi, Shaolin and a number of other styles the names of which I now forget. Nothing changed. The teachers were all promising to begin with and, truth be told, they were all quite capable in their own way and I learned a lot from each and every one of them but they were only technicians. They knew the techniques, and that is all they knew. And I wanted more, so I moved on. Just what I wanted I was still not sure of?
An astute reader will now see the obvious. One's Search, one's Quest, is part of one's over-all Training. A very important part. Why?
Because it is all part of a learning curve. You are learning not only new techniques but you are learning something infinitely more important: the Art of Discernment! The Art of separating the wheat from the chaff. The Art of separating the Real from the False?
And yes, it is also the Art of recognizing the Real Teacher when he or she finally appears.
You see, that is the secret. Finding the right teacher is only the half of it. Recognizing them to be such is by far the more difficult and important half.
Let me ask you a question: how often does a student find the right teacher and continue to walk on by and not know the difference?
It happens more often than you might think! I've seen it again and again and again!
The thing to bear in mind is that the Right Teacher may not be (and usually isn't) the Hollywood stereotype. The Right Teacher may be an unassuming little fellow who runs a little corner store, is disarmingly self-effacing and has maybe one or two students who are equally unimpressive. In short this is not really the sort of person who matches your mental image of a deadly warrior. Or he may be crude and rude and obnoxious. And (blasphemy again!) he may not have your best interests at heart!
In other words, not all Masters fit the Hollywood mold! You really do have to keep your wits about you on this because the Right Teacher will confound your expectations nearly every time!
The "secret" then is to keep training, keep looking and to develop the Power of Discernment so that you can see below superficial appearances. (This will stand you in good stead not only in your search for a teacher and but also when you are in a fight!)
There is a saying that when the student is ready, the Teacher will appear. And that will happen when the student has developed a keen sense of discernment.*
*Author's note: by discernment I do not mean cynicism. The "been there, done that" attitude will not help you find a Teacher and if perchance you do, that Teacher will not be interested in teaching you. Real discernment has a quality of humility: you don't know the answer, you don't even know if there is an answer, but you will not stop searching.
Andrew Toth is the author of the book, Shaolin Temple Kung Fu, which is arguably the most advanced book available on the subject of martial arts. It is a must for anyone who is serious about this subject. You can read it HERE
Related to: fighting - karate - ju-jitsu - tai chi - pa-kua - kung fu - shaolin - Mixed Martial Arts - martial arts
1: How Seiko Kinetic Watches Compare With Citizen Eco-Drive For Divers
Both these companies make great products, but they do so utilizing completely different technologies So which is best, and further more which is the better choice when considering purchasing a dive watch
2: What 2008 Snowboard Binding is Right for You?
It is recommended that you buy boots before purchasing a pair of snowboard bindings. Finding the best-fitted boots makes it easier for you, since you can fit your snowboard bindings snugly without worrying about the shoes being too big or too small.
3: The Role of Agility Training for Tennis Players
Agility is such an important component when it comes to an athlete being fast. Tennis requires the athlete to be fast over short distances, in multiple directions and have the ability to develop explo
4: Decathlon Secrets: World's Greatest Athlete
The Decathlon crowns the World's Greatest Athlete. Why? Because the Decathlon is a true test of every attribute of an athlete.The Decathlon tests strength, mental toughness, consistency, commitment,
5: Motorcycle History - The Honda CBR600 Series
The Honda CBR600 series has been touted as one of the best sport motorcycles in the industry. In fact, the Honda CBR600RR (the race replica version of Honda's CBRFx series motorcycles) has won every Supersport World Championship title from 2002 to 2008. But how did it all start? Here is a brief history of the Honda CBR600 series and how it has evolved throughout the years.
"Room 237" evolves from an ode to movie love at its most delirious to a wry examination of the crackpot mind at work.
There's enough real evidence supporting the theory that Kubrick was a genius, and that's pretty entertaining all by itself.
It's about the human need for stuff to make sense - especially overpowering emotional experiences - and the tendency for some people to take that sense-making to extremes.
An intellectual exercise, and an entertaining one, especially for those who don't want to label The Shining as just a ghost story.
It has the same entertainment value as listening to a late-night radio host indulge his listeners on Roswell, Area 51 and 9/11. Everything sounds completely crackers, until it all makes crazy sense.
What emerges from Room 237 is not a denigration of conspiracies, but a kind of celebration of our ability to create patterns where (perhaps) none exist.
"Room 237" could become an essential companion piece to "The Shining" from now on. For those who see both, it will be impossible to think about one without the other.
...all about the work of criticism - finding fresh avenues of delight.
Watching it makes you feel like you're attending a really entertaining film class where your classmates confidently let their freak flags fly.
It's an essay about the human need to reject the notion of a random universe and find order and meaning in existence. These people are developing their own creation myths, with Kubrick the mastermind responsible for the Intelligent Design.
Termitic film nerds could chow down for years on the wood chips.
You know when "Room 237? starts getting really scary? When the people in the film start making sense.
Kubrick fans and movie geeks will want to check this film out as soon as possible
Kubrick fans will take 'Shining' to 'Room 237.'
The credibility of these theories ranges from faintly plausible to frankly ridiculous, but Ascher isn't interested in judging them; his movie is more about the joys of deconstruction and the special kind of obsession that movies can inspire.
Some of the interpretations seem more of a stretch than others but all are entertainingly presented by director Rodney Ascher. (The movie) serves as a testament to Stanley Kubrick's cinematic mastery.
As fascinating as it is frustrating
No quotes approved yet for Room 237. Logged in users can submit quotes.
Our first impressions of Samsung's Android-powered professional camera
The Samsung Galaxy NX is a first for Android and digital imaging -- the first professional camera with high-end smartphone internals, the latest version of Android and 4G LTE connectivity. If Samsung manages to make all this hardware work well together and bring it to market first, the Galaxy NX has the potential to be a game-changing product. But it's still early days, and we'll need to examine the Galaxy NX in more detail before we come to any conclusions.
The broad strokes are this: A mirrorless body with interchangeable lenses. A 20.3 (effective) megapixel sensor. A 4.8-inch display on the back. Full LTE and Wifi capability. Powered by a quad-core processor at 1.6 GHz. Running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. On paper, it's a beast. (Check out the full specs here.)
In the meantime, we've had the chance to get our hands on the Galaxy NX at the launch event today in London. Check our the video after the break for our first impressions. We'll bring you a detailed hands-on post later in the day.
