Parole officers play Santa to Garden City family | Boise, Garden City ...

With a few texts, Jim Campbell, center, and Chris Colson, right, started what they thought would be a Christmas surprise for two little girls and their mother, whose husband is in prison. ?We went from nothing under the tree to not being able to see the tree,? Campbell said.

Katherine Jones ? kjones@idahostatesman.comBuy Photo

BY MEGHANN M. CUNIFF

mcuniff@idahostatesman.com

? 2012 Idaho Statesman

Chris Colson and Jim Campbell are used to seeing poverty. As senior probation and parole officers for Idaho, they?re used to encountering dirty homes and children crying for their parents. And they?re used to shoving their emotions aside to concentrate on their jobs, which often involves taking an adult in the home to jail.

But something about the scene at a trailer park in Garden City last week touched the men, who have been looking forward to spending the holidays with their own families.

They had stopped by to check on a man under their watch, but found only his wife and her two daughters. A repeat felony DUI offender, he had been jailed in Canyon County on another drunken-driving charge.

His wife kept the place clean, but she had little to give her children and was preparing for an extended hospital stay for her 3-year-old to undergo heart surgery. The wife has colon cancer and her mother is dying of cancer.

A bare Christmas tree served as the only reminder of the holiday. The woman cried when Colson and Campbell asked how she was celebrating this year.

?This was spur of the moment,? Colson said. ?Two tough guys in a car with tears in their eyes wanting to do something.?

So they did.

At first, they figured they would just stop by a department store and pick up a few toys for the kids. But word of the family?s plight quickly spread through the parole and probation community.

SPIRIT SNOWBALLS

Soon Colson and Campbell were fielding donations of toys, food and cash, and offers of free counseling and other help from local professionals. A store cashier donated a few dollars after Colson told her what he was doing. A clerk at a bank did the same with Campbell.

Law enforcement officers from agencies throughout the Treasure Valley pitched in, as did children of some officers. Toys for Tots, Easter Seals, Ballet Idaho and the Morrison Center also helped.

?It kind of took on a life of its own,? Campbell said. ?Our phones blew up all night long.?

The men, family members and other Department of Correction employees delivered the gifts Monday and planned to give some to other families in similar situations.

And they don?t want it to be a one-time thing. Campbell said he?s hoping to create a donation program to regularly help families through the holiday season or provide a gift or two if dad?s in jail on a birthday.

INNOCENTS SUFFER

The men said they want to make it clear that the family member in jail or facing possible jail because of probation violations won?t get special treatment. But they also want to help the innocent family members who had nothing to do with the crime, but wind up suffering.

The woman who received the gifts didn?t want her name publicized. Campbell and Colson emphasized that she never asked for anything and has always been polite and respectful.

She provided information on her utility and other bills to corrections officials, who will help pay them with the approximately $1,200 in cash that Campbell and Colson collected.

By paying those bills, they hope to give the family some stability as the daughter undergoes surgery in Salt Lake City after Christmas. The family also is bracing for the death of the woman?s mother, who wasn?t expected to live past Thanksgiving.

?SANTA REALLY LOVES YOU?

Colson?s and Campbell?s presence at the family?s trailer, spurred only by their desire to bring gifts and do some good, also helped dispel the children?s fear of law enforcement.

?The 3-year-old hates police,? Campbell said. ?She says, ?They arrest daddy.? We want to show her that?s not what we?re all about.?

The girl recognized Campbell and Colson when they walked into her home. She shyly stuck by her mother as Department of Correction officials filled the living room with food and gifts.

?That?s daddy?s (probation officer),? the woman told her. ?Yep, he was here the other night.?

Campbell looked the girl in the eyes. ?Boy, you must have been a good girl, because Santa really loves you,? Campbell said.

The girl beamed and gazed at the pile of presents in front of the once-bare Christmas tree.

?You?ve got an entire community who cares about you,? Campbell told the girl?s mother.

Meghann M. Cuniff: 377-6418

Source: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2012/12/24/2392333/parole-officers-play-santa.html

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Indonesia a hot real estate spot ? Bankrate, Inc.

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Indonesia was the hot spot for global real-estate growth in 2012, with Jakarta growing 28.5 percent by the end of the third quarter, according to the Prime Global Cities Index published by Knight Frank property consultancy. Other cities with double-digit growth included Nairobi, London, Miami and Dubai. European cities were the worst performers.

The index, which tracks 26 cities, showed flat or positive growth in 15 cities through September, increasing to 20 cities in just the third quarter alone. That indicates improvement overall in the global market as the year progressed.

The company attributes strengthening demand to economic uncertainty and strong performance in alternative asset classes, along with appeal of these particular cities to luxury property-buyers. The performance of regional economies appears to have little influence on the hottest cities.

Since 2009, the index has improved by 18.7 percent, with Hong Kong, London and Beijing being the strongest performers over the three-year period.

Keep up with your wealth and mortgages and follow me on Twitter.

Get more news, money-saving tips and expert advice by signing up for a free Bankrate newsletter.

Source: http://www.bankrate.com/financing/mortgages/indonesia-a-hot-real-estate-spot/

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Rewind 2012: Quebec filmmakers' creativity was there, but public ...

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Rachel Mwanza is terrific in Rebelle, Kim Nguyen?s child-soldier drama that is on the short list for Oscar nominations in the foreign language category.

MONTREAL ? Looking back on the past 12 months, there?s no escaping the fact that the defining story of the year in local showbiz circles was the ?crisis? in Quebec film. But those quotation marks tell a big part of the tale.

Fact is many, maybe most, in the film business, would deny there even is a crisis. Box office is down big time for local films. That?s the part that?s not up for debate. The year-end tally, which ticket-sales tracking firm Cin?ac will only release in January, will show that Quebec films accounted for about five per cent of the entire box-office pie, down from 10 per cent a year earlier.

But the producers, and no small number of pundits, claim this is just a blip on the radar, that there?s no need to worry. Not to mince words: they?re wrong. If folks aren?t plunking down their hard-earned cash to see local movies, something?s very wrong, and those producers have some tough questions to answer.

That?s the half-empty part. The half-full part of the equation is that there were so many terrific Qu?b?cois films in 2012, from Kim Nguyen?s child-soldier drama Rebelle to Xavier?s Dolan ambitious (if uneven) Laurence Anyways to Rafael Ouellet?s most accessible flick yet, Camion. I was perhaps most encouraged by the release of a series of remarkable, off-the-beaten-track indie pictures, like Simon Galiero?s La mise ? l?aveugle, Paul Barbeau?s Apr?s la neige, Denis C?t??s Bestiaire, Ivan Grbovic?s Rom?o Onze, and Steve Kerr?s Columbarium, easily the most under-rated homegrown title of the past year.

So the creativity is still there, but the public isn?t. The films mentioned above are all very good, but you?ll notice that the list does not include one film that rallied everyone the way C.R.A.Z.Y. or Incendies did.

The Quebec TV event of the year is even easier to pick. That would be Unit? 9, the extraordinary drama set in a female prison penned by head writer Danielle Trottier and produced by Fabienne Larouche. You can just mail Guylaine Tremblay her G?meaux trophy as best actress right now for her portrayal of Marie Lamontagne, a mother imprisoned for a crime of passion, but the rest of the cast is just as impressive. It was a big ratings hit and also generated an enormous amount of discussion.

What else? Sugar Sammy made off like a bandit, selling 100,000 tickets to his revolutionary Franglais show You?re Gonna Rire, which gave old-school nationalists nightmares, and to the politically correct all-French version En Francais SVP.

It was another huge year for Hollywood filming in Quebec with big U.S. films like RED 2, and White House Down. The cultural milieu in the province breathed a big sigh of relief a few weeks back when Pauline Marois?s first budget did not contain the major culture cuts many expected. But then artists noticed the budget also failed to live up to almost any of the cultural promises made by the Parti Qu?b?cois during the election campaign.

Artists were less pleased with the federal budget in March, which included 10-per-cent cuts to the CBC/Radio-Canada and to two Montreal-based institutions Telefilm Canada and the National Film Board of Canada.

Quebec film had the wind in its sails early in the year when Philippe Falardeau?s Monsieur Lazhar snared an Oscar nomination in the foreign-language-film category, the second straight year a made-in-Quebec film made it on to that prestigious short list.

And then there were none: Alternative weekly the Montreal Mirror went belly-up in late June, just weeks after the sad-sack online version of its rival weekly Hour had also unfolded. That leaves the city with no English-language cultural weeklies. The silver lining is that a slew of ex-Mirrorites immediately went and founded the online alt-culture must-read site Cult MTL.

This was also the year that former Montrealer Jessica Par? became a star in the space of a few minutes on the season?s debut episode of Mad Men, as she wowed new husband Don Draper and his ad-agency colleagues (and 3.5 million viewers) with her sultry rendition of the cult classic Zou Bisou Bisou.

Which has me thinking ? maybe a little dose of Par? is exactly what the slumping Quebec film scene needs. She hasn?t often been seen in major Quebec film releases in recent years. So why not bring her back to star in a big homegrown flick that?s both smart and accessible? Just a thought.

bkelly@montrealgazette.com

Twitter: @brendanshowbiz

? Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

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Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Rewind+2012+Quebec+filmmakers+creativity/7739090/story.html

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TrackBack - MS Estate Planning

In its simpler, earlier form, premium finance has significant merits. ?It deals with a real insurance need and allows a client to bridge a period of time when they are simply not able to pay premiums due to illiquidity constraints.

As happens to many good ideas, this one was ultimately perverted resulting in a concept described as stranger-owned life insurance (STOLI). ?In this scenario, a client would essentially pledge their life expectancy to others in exchange for a cash payment today. ?All of the life insurance was purchased with borrowed funds and the loan was to be repaid by selling the insurance in a life settlement, and using the proceeds to pay off the loan. ?Most insurance companies now consider this to be a violation of the "insurable interest" rule mentioned earlier.

At its heart, premium finance is still alive and well, though much harder to execute because of the restrictions and policies set in place by the insurance companies.

Excerpt from The Complete Guide to Estate and Financial Planning in Turbulent Times (Collaborative Press, 2011) - Walt Dallas, Contributing Author

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For more information on Madison and Jackson MS Wills Trusts and other Estate Planning please visit our website.

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Source: http://blog.estateplanning123.com/2012/12/life-insurance-i-dont-have-a-lot-of-cash-for-life-insurance-is-there-a-way-for-me-to-finance-the-pur-1.html

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Police: NY gunman set 'trap' for firefighters

This image taken from video provided by WHAM13-TV, shows a wide view of homes on fire in an area where a gunman ambushed four volunteer firefighters responding to an intense pre-dawn house fire early Monday, Dec. 24, 2012, in Webster, N.Y., killing two before ending up dead himself, authorities said. Police used an armored vehicle to evacuate more than 30 nearby residents. (AP Photo/WHAM13-TV via AP video)

This image taken from video provided by WHAM13-TV, shows a wide view of homes on fire in an area where a gunman ambushed four volunteer firefighters responding to an intense pre-dawn house fire early Monday, Dec. 24, 2012, in Webster, N.Y., killing two before ending up dead himself, authorities said. Police used an armored vehicle to evacuate more than 30 nearby residents. (AP Photo/WHAM13-TV via AP video)

A house burns Monday, Dec. 24, 2012 in Webster, New York. An ex-con set a car and a house ablaze in his lakeside neighborhood to lure firefighters, then opened fire on them, killing two, engaging in a shootout with police and committing suicide while several homes burned. Authorities used an armored vehicle to evacuate the area. (AP Photo/Democrat & Chronicle, Jamie Germano)

A house burns Monday, Dec. 24, 2012 in Webster, New York. A former convict set a house and car ablaze in his lakeside New York state neighborhood to lure firefighters then opened fire on them, killing two and engaging police in a shootout before killing himself while several homes burned. Authorities used an armored vehicle to evacuate the area. (AP Photo/Democrat & Chronicle, Jamie Germano)

Police officers move in to look for a man who set fire to a house, Monday, Dec. 24, 2012 in Webster, New York. A former convict set a house and car ablaze in his lakeside New York state neighborhood to lure firefighters then opened fire on them, killing two and engaging police in a shootout before killing himself while several homes burned. Authorities used an armored vehicle to evacuate the area. (AP Photo/Democrat & Chronicle, Jamie Germano)

Lake Rd. residents are evacuated from the neighborhood, Monday, Dec. 24, 2012 in Webster, New York. A former convict set a house and car ablaze in his lakeside New York state neighborhood to lure firefighters then opened fire on them, killing two and engaging police in a shootout before killing himself while several homes burned. Authorities used an armored vehicle to evacuate the area. (AP Photo/Democrat & Chronicle, Max Schulte)

WEBSTER, N.Y. (AP) ? An ex-con gunned down two firefighters after luring them to his neighborhood by setting a car and a house ablaze early Monday, then took shots at police and committed suicide while several homes burned.

Authorities used an armored vehicle to help residents flee dozens of homes on the shore of Lake Ontario a day before Christmas. Police restricted access to the neighborhood, and officials said it was unclear whether there were other bodies in the seven houses left to burn.

The gunman's sister, who lived with him, was unaccounted for. The gunman's motive was unknown.

William Spengler fired at the four firefighters when they arrived shortly after 5:30 a.m. at the blaze in Webster, a suburb of Rochester, town police Chief Gerald Pickering said. The first police officer who arrived chased the gunman and exchanged shots.

Spengler lay in wait outdoors for the firefighters' arrival, then opened fire probably with a rifle and from atop an earthen berm, Pickering said.

"It does appear it was a trap," he said.

Spengler had served more than 17 years in prison for beating his 92-year-old paternal grandmother to death with a hammer in 1980 at the house next to where Monday's attack happened, Pickering said. Spengler, 62, was paroled in 1998 and had led a quiet life since, authorities said. Convicted felons are not allowed to possess weapons.

Two firefighters, one of whom also was a town police lieutenant, died at the scene, and two others were hospitalized. An off-duty officer who was passing by also was injured.

Another police officer, the one who exchanged gunfire with Spengler, "in all likelihood saved many lives," Pickering said.

Emergency radio communications capture someone saying he "could see the muzzle flash coming at me" as Spengler carried out his ambush. The audio posted on the website RadioReference.com has someone reporting "firefighters are down" and saying "got to be rifle or shotgun ? high powered ... semi or fully auto."

Spengler lived in the house with his sister, Cheryl Spengler, and his mother, Arline Spengler, who died in October. He had originally been charged with murder in connection with grandmother Rose Spengler's death but pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter.

A friend said William Spengler didn't seem violent but hated his sister. Roger Vercruysse lived next door to Spengler and recalled a man who doted on his mother, whose obituary suggested contributions to the West Webster Fire Department.

"He loved his mama to death," said Vercruysse, who last saw his friend about six months ago. "I think after his mama passed, he went crazy."

Vercruysse also said Spengler "couldn't stand his sister" and "stayed on one side of the house and she stayed on the other."

The West Webster Fire District learned of the fire early Monday after a report of a car and house on fire on Lake Road, on a narrow peninsula where Irondequoit Bay meets Lake Ontario, Monroe County Sheriff Patrick O'Flynn said.

The fire appeared from a distance as a pulsating ball of flame glowing against the early morning sky, flames licking into treetops and reflecting on the water, with huge bursts of smoke billowing away in a brisk wind.

Two of the firefighters arrived on a fire engine and two in their own vehicles, Pickering said. After Spengler fired, one of the wounded men fled, but the other three couldn't because of flying gunfire.

A police armored vehicle was used to recover two men, and eventually it removed 33 people from nearby homes, the police chief said. The gunfire initially kept firefighters from battling the blazes.

The dead men were identified as police Lt. Michael Chiapperini, 43, the Webster Police Department's public information officer; and 19-year-old Tomasz Kaczowka, also a 911 dispatcher.

Pickering described Chiapperini as a "lifetime firefighter" with nearly 20 years in the department, and he called Kaczowka a "tremendous young man."

Kaczowka's brother, reached at the family home Monday night, said he didn't want to talk.

The two wounded firefighters, Joseph Hofstetter and Theodore Scardino, were in guarded condition in the intensive care unit at Strong Memorial Hospital, authorities said. Both were awake and alert and are expected to recover.

Hofstetter, also a full-timer with the Rochester Fire Department, was hit once in the pelvis, and the bullet lodged in his spine, authorities said. Scardino was hit in the chest and knee.

At West Webster Fire Station 1, there were at least 20 bouquets on a bench in front and a bouquet of roses with three gold-and-white ribbons saying, "May they rest in peace," ''In the line of duty" and "In memory of our fallen brothers."

A handwritten sign says, "Thanks for protecting us, RIP." Two candles were lit to honor the dead.

Grieving firefighters declined to talk to reporters. At an impromptu memorial vigil Monday evening, about 100 people stood in the cold night air, some holding candles. A fire department spokesman made a brief appearance, thanked them all and told them to go home and appreciate their families.

Cathy Bartlett was there with her teenage son, who was good friends with Kaczowka. Bartlett's husband, Mark Bartlett, has been a firefighter there for 25 years but missed the call this morning.

"Thank God my husband slept through the first alarm and didn't get up until the second one went off," she said.

The shooting and fires were in a neighborhood of seasonal and year-round homes set close together across the road from the lakeshore. The area is popular with recreational boaters but is normally quiet this time of year.

"We have very few calls for service in that location," Pickering said. "Webster is a tremendous community. We are a safe community, and to have a tragedy befall us like this is just horrendous."

O'Flynn lamented the violence, which comes on the heels of other shootings including the massacre of 20 students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

"It's sad to see that this is becoming more commonplace in communities across the nation," O'Flynn said.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the State Police and Office of Emergency Management were working with local authorities.

"Volunteer firefighters and police officers were injured and two were taken from us as they once again answered the call of duty," Cuomo said in a statement. "We as the community of New York mourn their loss as now two more families must spend the holidays without their loved ones."

Webster, a middle-class suburb, now is the scene of violence linked to house fires for two Decembers in a row.

Last Dec. 7, authorities say, a 15-year-old boy doused his home with gasoline and set it ablaze, killing his father and two brothers, 16 and 12. His mother and 13-year-old sister escaped with injuries. He is being prosecuted as an adult.

___

Associated Press writers Chris Carola, George Walsh and Mary Esch in Albany contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-12-24-Fire-Shooting/id-149833b4c1104b46918ccba0299e5646

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Websites Skew Prices Based on Where You Live

Depending on where you live, Staples might try to sell you a more expensive stapler. The Wall Street Journal has conducted an Important Investigation and found that a lot of online retailers vary their pricing based on the buyer's location. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/MlgnWi4ecwg/websites-skew-prices-based-on-where-you-live

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Five Best Photo Filter Apps

Whether photo filter apps are fun ways to share your mobile photos with friends or you use them to add a touch of personality and custom flair to your snapshots, one thing is for sure: iTunes and Google Play are both full of them. Some of them offer heavy editing tools, others have great social aspects to back them up. We asked you which ones you thought were the best for someone looking into trying a new one, and here are the top five based on your nominations.

When we asked you earlier in the week which photo filter apps were the best, some of you pointed out that you hated photo filter apps and would never use them. That's fine?but many more of you weighed in with your app of choice, whether it let you edit your photos on the go, make minor corrections, or just share with your friends. Here are your favorites.

Instagram (iOS/Android, Free)

Now that the whole terms of service fiasco is behind us, many of you called out Instagram as being one of the best photo filter apps available, not because of the number of features or the editing tools available for your photos, but because of the massive social network behind it. Attention goes where your friends are, and that's definitely the case for Instagram. The app does have a few editing tools, like the ability to rotate or apply color-correction to your photos before sharing, but Instagram's strength isn't in making your photos look better, it's in letting your personalize them and share them quickly.

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Snapseed (iOS/Android, Free)

Snapseed, a photo free editor we love on iOS and that recently landed on Android, is the product of Google's recent acquisition of Nik Software, the company that originally built the app. Call it an Instagram competitor if you want, but Snapseed's focus is on making your photos look fantastic and putting high-quality editing tools in your pocket, not necessarily on being social (although you can do that too.) Snapseed comes loaded with photo filters and personalization tools so you can give your shots that sepia, old-timey look, but it goes further than that. You can tweak and edit entire photos, or just sections of your photo that you'd like to clean up, use the Tune Image feature to tweak everything about your shot, or just hit Auto Correct and let the app handle everything.

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Pixlr-o-matic (iOS/Android, Free)

Available for iOS and Android (and the web!), Pixlr-o-matic does away with the social aspects almost entirely (although you can certainly share your photo creations after you've finished with them.) The app offers hundreds of photo filters, borders, and other tweaks you can apply to your photos as you take them or afterwards, complete with the ability to overlay multiple effects and filters, preview how the final product will look, and make subtle adjustments along the way. All in all, the app offers something like five million permutations of filters and borders, so you actually can create something unique. If you prefer not to fiddle with your photos in real-time, you can always save them, play with them later, then share them with your friends.

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Camera+ (iOS, $2)

Our pick for the best camera app for iPhone, Camera+ does much much more than just let you customize your photos. The app was?and many will argue still is?vastly superior to Apple's built-in camera app, and includes tools that help you take better, faster photos. On the customization side however, Camera+ does offer several photo borders, custom filters, and other personalization effects you can apply before or after saving your photo to your Camera Roll. As with other apps, you can layer effects and filters on top of one another, edit your photo, rotate it, crop it, and make it just right before you share it with the world. If you're looking for a complete camera app replacement for the iPhone or iPad, Camera+ is a worthwhile download.

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Camera ZOOM FX (Android, $3)

Our pick for the best camera app for Android, Camera ZOOM FX is another app that's much more than just a tool for personalizing and adding filters to your photos. Camera ZOOM FX is a complete replacement camera app for Android, one that's fast, lightweight, and offers tools to help you take better shots, take burst shots, line up your photos, and then edit them when you're finished. The app even lets you import previously taken photos to tweak and edit them. It packs dozens of after-effects, color filters, borders, distortions, and other after-effects you can add to your shots before saving them and sharing them with your friends. If there aren't enough in the app for you, you can download add-on packs for more options.

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Now that you've seen the top five, it's time to put them to a vote.

No honorable mentions this week, since the majority of you cast your nominations for one of the above five. Still, we're betting that there are more than a few great apps that didn't make the nomination round, or just didn't make the cut. Let us know about your favorite and why it's as good or better than these in the discussions below. Don't just tell us you're "surprised it's not on the list," tell us why you think it should have!

Have something to say about one of the contenders? Want to make the case for your personal favorite, even if it wasn't included in the list? Remember, the top five are based on your most popular nominations from the call for contenders thread from earlier in the week. Make your case for your favorite?or alternative?in the discussions below.

The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it's not because we hate it?it's because it didn't get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it's a bit of a popularity contest, but if you have a favorite, we want to hear about it. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at tips+hivefive@lifehacker.com!

Title photo by Vernon Chan.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/dr8wnV8WX2E/five-best-photo-filter-apps

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