Construction professional Peter Feinmann of Arlington, MA was named by the North Bennet Street School as its 2008 Distinguished Alumnus of the Year during ceremonies held recently at Boston's Old North Church.

Feinmann, who runs the award-winning residential remodeling and construction firm Feinmann, Inc. in Lexington, MA graduated from the school's carpentry program in 1983.

A committee of North Bennet Street School graduates bestows the Distinguished Alumni Award each year to an alumnus who has shown outstanding achievement in his/her craft and who has advanced the body of knowledge in his/her particular trade, according to the school.

Feinmann is widely acknowledged for his efforts in bringing greater financial discipline to the construction management process, and for the overall excellence of his company's residential design and construction work. The firm was named 2008 Remodeler of the Year by the Builder's Association of Greater Boston, and received a Market Leaders Award in 2007 from Professional Remodeler Magazine.

"Through all his success, Peter has never forgotten his roots at the North Bennet Street School," said Heather Proffitt, chairperson emeritus of the school's alumni steering committee and a 2004 graduate of its preservation carpentry program. "The award recognizes not just Peter's past achievements, but also his continuing dedication to the field of residential construction."

One of the country's oldest schools for artisans, North Bennet Street School (www.nbss.org) has provided an education in craftsmanship since its founding in 1885. The nonprofit, nationally accredited school is known internationally for excellence in teaching, and for its role in promoting the preservation of traditional craftsmanship.

In addition to carpentry, the school provides full-time and part-time programs in violin making, bookbinding, cabinet and furniture making, locksmithing, jewelry making, and piano technology.

Since the diet uses simple math, The Pen and Paper Diet has been found to be universal in nature. The basic idea of the book is that a person requires a certain amount of calories to maintain a specific weight. Research from the National Academy of Sciences was republished in the book and helps people easily find their calorie requirement which is dependent on their height, sex, age, weight and activity level. Most people that are overweight can immediately begin consuming their required amount of daily calories for their ideal weight and will begin observing weight loss within 2 weeks. A person just needs to track calorie consumption on paper while they continue to eat the types of food they enjoy. It takes about 3 minutes a day and uses the simple idea of a calorie budget. Doctors recommend losing at most 8 lbs a month and this diet helps people stay within this guideline. Also, an appendix in the book lists calorie info for the majority of the world's foods and some beverages which was obtained from the USDA's free online nutritional database at http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/.

People with food prohibitions, religious or secular, can use this diet to manage their weight while they continue to observe their food restrictions. People of the Jewish, Muslim and Hindu faith as well as vegetarians can continue to consume their respective kosher, halal, vedic and non meat items. When people are required to fast, they can redistribute their forgone calories to other days within the week or month in order to maintain their weight as a monthly average. For example, a person may require 2,200 calories a day. If he or she fasted for one day (water consumption only), then they could add approx 370 calories to the other 6 days of the week. Note: Calorie info is provided for non-kosher, haram, non-vedic and meat items in the generic international Metric Edition.

Professionals that are required to maintain a certain weight or weight range can use the diet for precise weight management. The book only takes about 30 minutes to read and one can quickly and thoroughly understand basic weight management skills so professionals can focus on performing their primary job. Military service members, athletes, actors and others can employ weight management skills with The Pen and Paper Diet without having to take any extra time out of their already busy schedules.

People dieting, engaged in an exercise program or both can use this diet to supplement the program they are already on. Whether a person is focused on building more muscle mass in order to burn more calories, consuming a high protein or high complex carbohydrate diet, consuming a balanced diet of protein, fat and carbohydrates, one can use this diet to determine their required daily calorie intake and continue to stay in the guidelines he or she has established. Also, if people enjoy the support network of some weight management programs, he or she can continue to participate in the program while using The Pen and Paper Diet.

People with eating disorders, on both sides of the spectrum, could be referred to this diet by their Health Professional. Those with morbid obesity can use the idea of a calorie budget to slowly reduce one's calorie intake and learn to gain control of his or her eating habits. For example, if a person is consuming 6,000+ calories a day, he or she could be advised to consume 1,000 less a day for several months until they were comfortable with that amount. The individual's calorie consumption could then be reduced again. Weight loss should be expected to be gradual for those that are obese especially since it took years to put on the weight. Since those at the other end of eating disorders, anorexia and bulimia, have been starving themselves or purging to maintain a certain weight, Clinical Psychologists could suggest to their clients to use The Pen and Paper Diet to maintain their desired weight safely while they focus on other issues with psychotherapy. Anecdotally, people that have begun writing down their calorie consumption have begun to reduce or eliminate their obsession with calorie consumption since they do not have to constantly recall what they consumed throughout the day in order to self monitor.

People with various psychological backgrounds can use the diet since it only takes about 3 min a day. If you have little motivation to attempt weight loss or have never been so determined in your life to manage your weight, the ideas in The Pen and Paper Diet can give you the basic skills you need to control your weight indefinitely as long as you track calorie consumption.

The Concierge Place is excited to announce "The Campus Concierge", an all-inclusive virtual service center for the parents of freshman students and the university community. Campus Concierge provides information about upcoming events, services, and activities, in and around the Raleigh/Durham area, as well as aiding freshman students in adjusting to their new surroundings. Lastly, Campus Concierge functions as "peace of mind away from home" for many parents who are sending their young adult to an out-of-state school for the first time.

Campus Concierge provides a variety of services including the following just to name a few:
• Deliver care packages, gift cards, confidential documents
• Deliver birthday gifts, balloons, cakes, cookies, teddy bears
• Ensure student travel coordination to visit home
• Help load/unload when moving in or moving out
• Term paper typing and editing

The Concierge Place, owned and operated by Delmar Johnson, is a locally based company and is a member of a unique and broad network of service providers with clients around the globe. The benefit of this network expands our service capabilities, enhancing our local service offerings to clients. So no matter where you are, our concierges are standing by.

Delmar, a former human resources professional, remembers what it felt like as a freshman on a campus where she knew no one, but was full of excitement of the journey she was about to embark upon. "There are so many big and great colleges and universities in the Triangle, that surely there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of Freshman who have the same feelings she once had years ago, says Delmar"

For those interested in requesting service, we are here to assist anyone who needs a "Concierge" service, busy professionals, new moms, recovering from surgery, anniversary gift for the busy Tech Nerd husband, and services for the overwhelmed bride to be...everyone needs a little help sometime.

Xceed today released version 3.0 of Xceed DataGrid for WPF Professional Edition, the most mature, most feature-rich, and fastest grid control available for Windows Presentation Foundation. A fully functional trial version is available now for download from Xceed's website.

Version 3.0 of the Professional Edition of Xceed DataGrid for WPF features the addition of striking, flexible 3D capabilities. The included Cardflow 3D view gives developers and end-users complete control over aspects such as card offsets, spacing, and angles; camera position and angle; and field of view. Its multiple card layouts and transitions give total flexibility in the way that title, image, and data regions are displayed. End-users can even switch between any 2D and 3D view on the fly, while the datagrid retains its state. The Cardflow view can be seen online in the Xceed DataGrid for WPF Live Explorer (click on Displaying Data, then 3D Views). Additional 3D views are being developed and will be added as they become available.

A choice of four multi-surface themes is provided for use with this new view: Three Office themes (Blue, Black, Silver), and Chameleon, whose gradient colors can be chosen. Several new backgrounds usable with all views are also provided, as are textures for the 3D and 2D cards.

Also new to version 3.0 of the Professional Edition are column virtualization, column stretching and column widths supporting star values, and custom sorting, as well as performance increases, the ability to handle millions of rows and thousands of columns while delivering an exceptional end-user experience, improved validation architecture, support for IDataErrorInfo, easy binding to XML data sources, and inserting records into non-IBindingList sources.

Xceed DataGrid for WPF Professional Edition is available in cost-effective team and site licenses. Standard e-mail support is provided with the Professional Edition, but adding a Vanguard subscription gives upgrades and priority support for an entire year. Full C# and XAML source code is available in the Blueprint Edition.

This release is the latest in a series of upgrades and updates that have made Xceed DataGrid for WPF Professional Edition the leading WPF datagrid on the third-party component market. In under two years, the product has undergone three major upgrades (two of which were in 2008), four minor upgrades, and 11 service releases, all of which are available to Vanguard subscribers.

Kohl’s Department Stores announced its 2008 back-to-school marketing campaign designed to appeal to a cross-generational group of shoppers. As part of Kohl’s (‘Inspired’) ‘Inspired by the Artists…worn by you’ campaign, strong-performing juniors’ and young men’s denim brands are connected with today’s most relevant musical artists, including: Lenny Kravitz and Levi’s; Avril Lavigne designing Abbey Dawn; Hayden Panettiere and Candie’s;Plain White T’s and Urban Pipeline;The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and Tony Hawk;and Vanessa Carlton and So…