“Same old song and dance from this ex-company - Orlando Sentinel” plus 4 more

Same old song and dance from this ex-company - Orlando Sentinel
Bette does the Bronx and a garden grows - Walletpop.com
The Blueshirts Blog - New York Daily News
Bargain Hunter: Discounted Garden Furniture – 20 per cent off at ... - Daily Telegraph
Anger over German Nazi gnome town - News.com.au

Same old song and dance from this ex-company - Orlando Sentinel

Posted: 14 Oct 2009 08:45 PM PDT

Greg Dawson The Last Resort

October 15, 2009

You've heard the stories and read the columns. Now settle back and enjoy ... Benfica: The Musical!

The owners of Benfica Enterprises, the defunct Winter Garden home-improvement company, were not content to shut down without warning, leaving a host of customers with unfilled orders, crumbling pavers, or liens against their homes. Fernando and Maria Ferreira decided the show must go on, even if the business did not.

Rich Hopkins of Apopka saw my Oct. 8 column about Benfica and called to add his name to the list of the seduced and abandoned but with a twist. In March, Fernando gave Hopkins an estimate of $8,500 to install pavers on his circular driveway. Hopkins mulled it over and decided in August to go ahead with the project. The Ferreiras came to his home to collect a $3,400 check to order the pavers.

When the work did not start in 10 days as promised, Hopkins called Benfica and spoke to an employee, also named Maria, who told him not to worry, everything was set — she was just waiting for a check to clear to order the pavers. What? Hopkins thought the pavers had been ordered two weeks earlier. More time passed with no sign of pavers or Benfica workers.

Finally, a rattled Maria told Hopkins that Fernando was in Ecuador and gave him a phone number. Hopkins enlisted a Spanish speaker, George, to help him make the call. They succeeded in getting Fernando on phone, but when he heard that George was calling for Hopkins he said "wrong number!" and hung up.

Reading my Oct. 8 column, Hopkins was astonished to learn that when Fernando and Maria came to his home Aug. 26 and took the $3,400 check, Benfica for all practical purposes no longer existed. Nearly a month earlier, the Ferreiras had filed official Articles of Dissolution with the state, pulling the plug on their company.

This meant that not only the Ferreiras' visit to Hopkins' home, but all his follow-up conversations with Maria when she offered myriad excuses for the owners' absence, including missed flights and illness, were pure theater, all song and dance.

Benfica: The Musical!

Yet, incredibly, there is word on the street that the Ferreiras are looking to start another business — or to resuscitate the dead one — in Clermont, Hopkins said.

If you liked the columns and the musical, you'll love the motion picture. Coming soon (maybe) to a theater near you in Clermont: Rich Hopkins and the Tower of Benfica.

Coming attractions

Bond Aviation: The Sequel.

An acquaintance of Larry Bond, owner of the now-closed flight-certification company in Orlando, called to say he is now operating in Wyoming. I found the Web site for Bond International Charters in Jackson Hole but was not able to reach Bond or his attorney for comment. The Web site says the company is a member of the National Business Aviation Association, but an NBAA spokesman said that's not true.

More on this next week.

Getting the runaround? E-mail Greg at gdawson@orlandosentinel.com; or call 407-420-5618; or write to Greg Dawson, Orlando Sentinel, 633 N. Orange Ave., MP-218, Orlando FL 32801.

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Bette does the Bronx and a garden grows - Walletpop.com

Posted: 14 Oct 2009 07:12 PM PDT

Bette Midler's New York Restoration Project is at it again. The non-profit, which works to revitalize parks and public spaces throughout New York City, built a community garden in one of New York's toughest neighborhoods, in the Bronx.

The garden, which looks like something out of Vanity Fair, opened October 6 and will also host cooking demonstrations, gardener workshops, summer concerts and community movie nights.

Designer and television host Sean Conway, author of the simply fabulous Cultivating Life: 125 Projects for Backyard Living, created the gardens by consulting locals on their needs and wishes. Most of the plots of land will go to school children at neighboring P.S. 73 to learn about gardening.

Barrett Robinson, NYRP's Vice President of Horticulture and Construction, helped lead the project and project manager Jared Vazales grew many of the plants on his roof before transporting them to their permanent home.

This is NYRP's third garden in the last three years. The Target Community Garden in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn opened in 2007 and the Target East Harlem Community Garden in October 2008, both designed by Conway. Target also established a fund to help maintain the gardens.

Midler is a famous eco-warrior who helped establish green jobs in New York with the help of $2 million in stimulus money. This funding provided 26 people with full-time jobs, according to NYRP executive director Drew Becher. The organization also celebrated the planting of the 250,000th tree in its quest to plant one million in New York in ten years. They are 50,000 trees ahead of schedule.

"I meant a million trees. It was just a pipe dream at first," says Midler. "Maybe I had too much to drink at one of those galas...We have ten years to plant a million and it looks like we're going to make it."

As for the Divine Miss M's advice to young eco-warriors on the frustration that we're not doing enough to combat global warming, she says, "You have to nuture yourself." And what better place to do that, she smiles, then in a garden.

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The Blueshirts Blog - New York Daily News

Posted: 14 Oct 2009 10:26 PM PDT

The L.A. Kings left Madison Square Garden tonight with some pretty impressed New Yorkers liking the way their rebuilding has finally taken shape. The Rangers left the Garden with two points in their pocket, so the home team still got the better deal.

Winning this game really lets the Rangers enjoy their off day today, because they certainly looked like a team that had played three games in four nights, and every one of them I talked to was perfectly ready to admit it.

A couple observations:

• Gaborik's shot is sick. The release is so quick, he almost lulls you to sleep before he lets this BB fly in the blink of an eye. Was talking with Henrik Lundqvist about that release tonight; he says it's right up there with Alex Ovechkin's as two of the quickest in the league, but that Gaborik's has a trickier dimension in that he's able to get the shot away holding the puck in front of him so that it freezes the goaltender, who has a hard time reading whether a pass, a deke or a shot is about to come. Ovechkin has more drag on his shot (which, please, is not a knock on his shot). But by the time some of these goaltenders figure out what Gaborik is going to do, the red light is on.

• Gaborik also brings an intriguing and so-far effective element to the penalty kill, because shorthanded or not he is always looking to get up the ice and attack. He's also just so quick and skilled with the puck that at least a couple times tonight he killed time just by chasing it down and playing keepaway.

"He's a dangerous guy. That's going to affect power plays and how many chances they're going to take - are they going to stay in the end zone or are they looking for him leaving the zone looking to create some offense?" John Tortorella said. "I think he's feeling more and more comfortable with it. He's done a good job, he's coming along there. He's not going to be a penalty-killer like Ryan Callahan or Higgy (Christopher Higgins); he's going to make some mistakes through some aggression and anticipating, but it's going to be some good stuff for us down on the other end as we go through a long year."

• Lundqvist has taken a beating over the past two games, and the Rangers have to find one way or another to stop it. Maybe what stops it is just how good the Rangers' power play has been (9-for-23 over the last five games, including a Vinny Prospal's goal 13:03 in with L.A.'s Peter Harrold in the box for goaltender interference after the first of two big collisions that landed Lundqvist in his net and on his back. And if that isn't enough of a deterrent, I guess that's where Donald Brashear comes in, although the big guy didn't play tonight because of an ailment that was classified as soreness.

Lundqvist - who absorbed several collisions in the Leafs game Monday, one of which was a blatant penalty that wasn't called - was also run over by Dustin Brown early in the second, although the Kings captain had been hooked off balance by Christopher Higgins to take away a scoring chance. "That one hurt, actually," Lundqvist said. "The last couple games there have been a lot of hits here. I really hope it's a fluke."

"I still don't think they should be untouchable, but they can't be run over," Torts said. "I'm not sure if that's a strategy from other teams - I don't think it is."

• Sean Avery, by the way, took a stick to his wrist and went doubled over to the bench in the third period. He returned for at least one shift but once again played only barely over 10 minutes. Also, congrats to Vinny Prospal on his 200th NHL goal (and his 201st). Even Prospal seems surprised at those numbers, and at the good fortune he had over the summer to be bought out by the Lightning (not cheaply, either) and land on the line he's on, with Gaborik and Brandon Dubinsky.

Programming alert! To the new weekly Rangers Radio podcast on newyorkrangers.com, co-hosted by Jim Cerny and Steven Gelbs. The one-hour show will feature news, interviews, prospect updates, opinions and analysis from the hosts and their guests, plus e-mail questions and comments from fans. First show is this Friday at noon and will have Mike Keenan as the inaugural guest.

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Bargain Hunter: Discounted Garden Furniture – 20 per cent off at ... - Daily Telegraph

Posted: 14 Oct 2009 09:11 AM PDT

Alison Cork
Published: 4:51PM BST 14 Oct 2009

In these credit crunch times, everyone is on the look out for to save money - especially when buying furniture and items for the house and garden. Homes and interiors expert Alison Cork has been on the bargains trail to bring you great sales, superb offers and top discount items.

Product Description

This apple storage rack, made from durable hardwood and beautifully finished, provides plenty of space to store fruit or anything else you fancy. Comes fully assembled.

Additional Features

149cm by 59cm
Special one off price of £228
Also available in 5 drawers (£140)

Offer

Claim 20 per cent off across Burford Garden Company's entire range. Offer ends 20 November 09

How to claim

Visit www.burford.co.uk and enter telegraph

About Alison

Homes and interiors expert Alison Cork is the authority on where to get the best that money can buy, for not much money at all.

A prolific journalist and broadcaster, Alison has appeared on ITV's This Morning and writes weekly columns in the Saturday Telegraph and Evening Standard.

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Anger over German Nazi gnome town - News.com.au

Posted: 14 Oct 2009 07:20 PM PDT

Artist Ottmar Hoerl, who has already displayed his provocative gnomes in Belgium, Italy and two German art galleries, said the display in Straubing in Bavaria was the first one in public in Germany.

"It is a work that is meant to get people to think, to react," he said.

The German artist found himself in hot water with his gnomes in July after prosecutors in Nuremberg launched an enquiry into whether displaying one of the diminutive figures in an art gallery was against the law.

Hitler salutes and Nazi symbols have been illegal in Germany since the end of World War II, but prosecutors accepted Hoerl's argument that the 40-centimetre gnomes were ridiculing the Nazis, not promoting them.

Hoerl, who has designed other, less controversial, public art exhibitions and permanent installations, insisted that had a serious point to make, namely to draw attention to the rise of the far right in Europe.

Hans Lohmeier, Straubing's mayor, said that the gnomes would be guarded around the clock after some "critical voices" about the exhibition, which runs from Thursday until Monday in the town's main square.

The gnomes are also for sale on Hoerl's website – priced at 45 euros ($73) or signed by Hoerl for 120 euros.

Locals have dubbed the models the devil's dwarves.

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