SATXBlog Humanities
The fields of art, music, communication, languages, literature, theater, TV dramas and soap operas, philosophy and religion are categoriezed as the humanities. Other miscellaneous fields which are largely analytic, critical or speculative.
San Antonio Summer Art and Jazz Festival
San Antonio Summer Art & Jazz Festival
The SAS Fest, or officially The San Antonio Summer Art &
Jazz Festival, is always held annually on the first weekend of June. It is
packed with the famous Texas food, Arts and Crafts, and ten awesome jazz
concerts. This year will be 6th annual event and they wanting to
continue providing the entertainment in a family atmosphere.
So what is the SAS Fest? Aside from being a great festival,
it is great for learning too. This year there will be two free jazz workshops.
The workshops have been created to help young student musicians develop their
skills of playing their instruments within jazz music. Any person is welcome to
attend, although the workshops are aimed at the underprivileged school
districts in the area. If you are wanting to learn more about jazz music in
general, or simply the music industry, you are encouraged to participate.
Although the original idea of the San Antonio Summer Art
& Jazz Festival was simply to promote jazz music, it now is also a
supporter of charity. Some of the proceeds received from attending the SAS Fest
will go to Any Baby Can. It is a non-profit organization created to provide
free services to young children who have serious disabilities or illnesses.
{mosimage}SAS also welcomes an estimated forty children from the
Childrens Shelter. The Childrens Shelter provides housing and care for
abused or abandoned children. SAS will provide a nice area at the festival, a
dinner, and a toy for each of the children from the Childrens Shelter.
If you would like to attend or even participate in the SAS
event, you are encouraged to visit their website for more details.
They are seeking talented jazz musicians to display their talent at the
festival.
When: June 6th June 8th, 2008
Where: Crocket Park, San Antonio, Texas
Visit http://sanantoniosummerartjazzfestival.com/id13.html
for directions.
Pets,
coolers, and outside food and drink are not allowed.
You are
encouraged to bring a lawn chair.
San Antonio Texas Wonderful Opportunity for Overseas Investors
{mosimage}Buying a piece of America isn't just the American dream, now it is what smart Europeans are doing, too. Strong Euro against the weak US dollar makes investing in the United States by overseas investors a quite smart and potentially profitable choice.
One of the quickest ways that an investor can increase his or her wealth involves owning real estate. This is particularly the case when it comes to European investors, especially if they are looking to invest in U.S. real estate. There are numerous advantages to choosing the United States over other countries for investing purposes. One main reason is because the U.S. dollar is weak compared to the Euro. This allows the European investor to leverage the purchase of real estate at prices that are tens of thousands less than what an American could make the same purchase for.
However, not all real estate in the United States is prime for investment purposes. For example, areas in California, Florida and parts of the Northeast United States have somewhat considerably inflated real estate prices. These properties might be too expensive for an ordinary European investor. This is why it is better that Europeans ought to be considering alternatives that are more reasonably priced, though even then they should be careful. Inexpensive options for real estate are not effective if they are in areas that are not capable of increasing in value over time. Instead, the real estate will just remain on the market for much longer, as the investor will have to struggle to find a person who is willing to buy.
So, what would be a very good solution for overseas investors? Investors who want to be successful need to find an area within the United States that is both reasonably priced and has a moderate cost of living. With this winning combination, investors will be able to purchase into something that they can afford while still being allowed the opportunity to make a decent profit in a reasonable amount of time. If investors are unfamiliar as to which U.S. cities fits such a set of criteria, one of the greatest places to begin a search is in San Antonio, Texas, due to the reasonable cost of living. {mosimage}
Art Gallery Opens in Stephenville Texas
Well-known artist, minister, and spiritual advisor, Craig Beman, has just opened his brand-new gallery in Stephenville, TX. {mosimage}
Stephenville, TX (Press Release) December 13, 2007 -- Well-known artist, minister, and spiritual advisor, Craig Beman, has just opened his brand-new gallery just off the Court House Square in Stephenville, TX, the county seat of Erath County, the Cowboy Capital of Texas and home of Tarleton State University.
Craig Beman Artwork, Fine Arts Gallery is a haven for not only his own artwork, but for that of other like-minded artists as well. Beman derives his inspiration from his spirituality and his faith, and explores the themes of motivation, nature, history, and peace. In addition to being an artist, and now a gallery owner, Beman, along with his wife, run Healing Promises Ministries, an association which helps ministers and preachers fulfill their missions and callings through a meetings, exchanges, seminars, and retreats. In fact, Beman uses his earnings from the sale of his art to help finance Healing Promises. Beman and his wife, Peggy, have been ministering together since 1999, and he has been producing artwork almost as long.
San Antonio Real Estate
Theaters and Venues in San Antonio
San Antonio is home to a vibrant arts and entertainment community, and also to many unique and interesting venues. From Broadway shows, to eclectic local productions, and from the symphony, to rock and roll, country, and Tejano music, San Antonio's theaters are always booked with everything from the local to the international, urbane to the eccentric, and from the traditional to the cutting edge. Visitors and locals can choose to take in a concert by some of the biggest acts today at the AT&T Center, or dip into one of the city's smaller playhouses or amphitheaters to see a local play or singer-songwriter performing. Here is a look at just a few of the more popular and interesting venues that San Antonio has to offer.
Inspiring Through Art and Ministry
Craig Beman: Inspiring Through Art and Ministry
{mosimage} Craig Beman is not your typical artist. Most artists scrape and scrounge to make a buck, and when they do, it's usually a hard-won dollar. When Beman makes a buck, he immediately donates it! All of his proceeds from the sale of his art go to Healing Promises Ministries, an organization begun by Craig and his wife, Peggy, to motivate and help preachers fulfill their ministries. But his generosity with his earnings is not the only thing that sets Beman apart from other artists. What truly makes him unique is that he is just getting started in the art scene.
Yet with the success he has had so far, it seems that Craig Beman Artwork will be inspiring people for years to come. With a degree in Economics, Beman has never had any formal artistic training, but judging from the works he creates, one would certainly never know. He credits God with giving him the gift, and only began sketching, painting, and exploring his gift on the 40th day after he and his wife began ministering full-time in 1999 at the age of 46. In addition to developing his skills, Beman is also pushing the boundary between hand-made art and computer generated art, and blending the two through the Giclee archival print reproduction process.
Lady Bird Johnson
Lady Bird Johnson: 12.22.12 - 07.11.07
Lady Bird Johnson, wife of President Lyndon Johnson, died last week of natural causes after years of health issues. The former First Lady, born Claudia Alta Taylor, was known throughout Texas and the United States as being a major architect for numerous beautification and conservation programs. {mosimage}Lady Bird was also one of the most decorated First Ladies in the history of the United States, having been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1984.
Wedding Approaches for Eva and Tony
As Eva and Tony's Wedding Approaches, Expenses Adding Up
Since winning their latest NBA Championship, the San Antonio Spurs, no doubt, have largely been taking a much needed and deserved vacation - that is all but star point guard, Tony Parker. Certainly, Parker deserves a break, what with leading his team to the pinnacle of success, on his way to winning the 2007 postseason MVP award, but these days, he is certainly got more important things on his mind. Important things like marrying his fiancee and hottest-woman-on-the-planet, Eva Longoria.
Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center is Leading the San Antonio Latino Arts Movement
{mosimage} The city of San Antonio is known for many things - great food, wonderful colonial architecture, and a rich history - but its burgeoning dedication to the arts is quickly making it one of the most important cities for Latino artists in the United States. San Antonio is home to some of the finest museums in the state, and has long been home to artisans, craftsmen, and artists of all sorts. The city's Latino community makes up the backbone of the community, and the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center is one such organization that certainly does its part to keep San Antonio's art scene thriving and relevant.
The center was formed in 1980, and since then has dedicated itself to serving the community through several disciplines including, dance, literature, media arts, visual arts, and Xicano music. Each year, the organization puts on several events to showcase the talent that it cultivates. Guadalupe produces the San Antonio Cine Festival, Tejano Conjunto Festival en San Antonio, San Antonio Inter-American Bookfair and Literary Festival, as well as the Hecho a Mano series of plays annually to rave reviews. Also, the group puts on numerous productions by their own dance company throughout the year, and hosts open rehearsals for the public to view.
San Antonio Homeland Security Facility
San Antonio is joining Texas A&M as finalists, hoping to land a new agricultural research facility that the Homeland Security Department is looking to build. Among the 17 nationwide sites that the government is looking at, 4 of them are located in Texas, with 3 in the San Antonio area. The fourth is at A&M. {mosimage}
In San Antonio, Brooks City-Base, Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, and the Texas Research Park are among the finalists to win the $450 million project, called the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility. Once built, the facility would be dedicated to studying agricultural safety issues, and would focus on possible threats to the nation's food supply from terrorists, as well as on diseases that occur naturally. Currently, the U.S.'s food supply is among the safest in the world, but threats such as hoof-and-mouth disease could easily be imported, and lead to a economic crisis, devastating the beef industry.
San Antonio Nuclear Power
{mosimage}On December 6, 1971, a feasibility study was created to come up with a nuclear plant that was estimated to cost at around $974 million. The group of people who initiated this move are the Houston Lighting & Power Co.the City of Austin, the City of San Antonio (CPS Energy), and the Central Power and Light Co. The result of the study seemed to get a positive result because on the year 1973, they have initially chosen Bay City as the location of the project. In the year 1976, construction for this nuclear plant started.
In the year 1981, the construction was behind by four years compared to their schedule and there were problems with the cost. The estimated ($974 million) amount turned out to be quite a small amount because it turned out to cost at around $5 billion. The selected architect and construction company, decided to re-schedule the completion of the project to June 1989. However, the contractor decided to quit their post as the construction company for this project. Because of the contractor's decision to quit, they received a lawsuit due to breach of contract on December 26, 1981. The lawsuit was settled when the contractor agreed to paid $750 million on May 30, 1985. It was on February 1982 that Ebasco Constructors was hired as replacement.
On March 18, 1988, the first reactor unit reached initial criticality and was able to operate on August 25 the same year. A little more than a year after, unit two was able to reach initial criticality and became operational on June 19, 1989. However, these two units encountered several defects and were temporarily turned offline. The two units underwent rehabilitation in its steam-driven auxiliary feed water pumps on February 1993. It took more than a year to restore the two units' service, as it was able to provide service on March 1994.
{mosimage} Today, this nuclear plant is known as the South Texas Nuclear Generating Station or South Texas Project (STP). Located at 55 miles of the southwest part of Bay City, Texas, this nuclear plant covers 12, 200 acre of land on the Colorado River. This was the first nuclear plant in Texas. The two Westinghouse pressurized water reactor units were included as the top 20-electricity generating nuclear units worldwide. The first unit took the first position as the highest output capability with 1,251 megawatts. The second unit comes in second place with 1,250 megawatts. CPS Energy owned by the city of San Antonio provides power from these units to San Antonio real estate. CPS Energy owns 40% of the South Texas Nuclear Generating Station.
STP has a unique design wherein it took full consideration of its safety. Instead of having two fully independent emergency core cooling systems and associated support systems in the two units, STP installed three. However, this feature did not fully convince the nuclear safety regulations during the licensing process of the nuclear plant.
There was a proposal to expand the South Texas Project. Last June 19, 2006, the NRG Energy submitted a letter of intent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build two 1358-MWe Advanced Boiling Water Reactors to the site.
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