Let a fiesta be your farewell to summer

It might be quite an event to host an end of the summer cocktailparty with Latin flavors and salsa music. Everyone will love it.Especially after a caipirinha.

You might even want to enlist a dance instructor.

Caipirinha

This is a fabulous new drink. The lime taste is particularlyrefreshing when it is very hot--like this summer. Cachaca is aBrazilian sugar cane-based liquor (available at liquor stores), butyou can also make it with vodka. If you make it with vodka, call it acaipiroshka.

Queso fundido

I love melted cheese. And it does not get better than this withspicy chiles and other flavors in the mix, then swooped up with crisptortilla chips. …

A microphone guide

Dynamic Microphone

Dynamic moving coil microphones employ a coil of wires attached to a diaphragm, which is suspended within a magnetic field. Acoustical vibrations cause the diaphragm and the coil to vibrate within this magnetic field, creating an AC (alternating current). This current electrically represents the audio signal.

Dynamic microphones tend to be robust and are commonly used for close miking louder instrument setups including guitar amplifiers, individual drums and live vocals. Characteristics include a good transient response, a natural midrange peak, (about 5 kHz) solid low frequency response and tight polar pattern to keep leakage at bay. Because of their …

Brazil conducts military drills to protect oil

More than 10,000 Brazilian troops are taking part in military drills to protect the nation's oil fields and offshore platforms.

Brazil's official Agencia Brasil news service says the exercises will take place until Sept. 26 and will simulate military conflicts to control the nation's top oil fields.

Members of the army, air force and navy are …

Carmarthen Ramblers

ON October 24, Andrew Graham led the ramblers on a 10-mile walkthat started from a woodland car park off a country road about twomiles north west of Llangennech.

They followed the road about two miles until they reached ajunction with the B4306 then accessed a field onto a right of waythrough scrub land in a conservation area on Rhos Cefn Bryn to reacha green lane just below Tirlan farm.

They followed the lane about two miles and crossed a footbridgeover the Afon Gwili to reach Pent-wyn about a mile from PontAbraham. Here they walked the bridge over the M4 and immediatelycrossed the A48 onto a quiet country road for a quarter of a milebefore entering …

NFL executive to be new MLS boss

Doug Logan reportedly is out and NFL executive Don Garber is in ascommissioner of Major League Soccer.

Logan's ouster first was reported Tuesday by the Associated Press.He canceled his weekly teleconference call with MLS media, and theleague called a news conference for 10:30 a.m. today in New York.

Garber, 41, has been the senior vice president and managingdirector of NFL International since October 1996. His duties involvepromoting interest in American football worldwide and management ofNFL Europe.

His connection to MLS came through Lamar Hunt and Robert Kraft,franchise owners in both leagues. Hunt owns the NFL Kansas CityChiefs and the MLS Kansas City …

Official: Obama, Calderon reach trucking agreement

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. official says President Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon have reached an agreement on resolving a long-standing dispute over cross-border trucking.

The official says the leaders will announce a clear path to open U.S. highways to Mexican trucks during a joint news conference at the White House Thursday. Calderon is in Washington for wide-ranging meetings with Obama on …

Stoudemire hopes to start 'new era' in New York

The New York Knicks have lost long enough. Amare Stoudemire is ready for what he calls the "start of a new era."

Stoudemire joined the Knicks on Thursday, coming to a team that has never had a winning season since he entered the league out of high school in 2002.

"It's about challenges and this is definitely the ultimate challenge for myself to eventually bring the Knicks back to where they rightfully belong," Stoudemire said at a news conference at Madison Square Garden.

The All-Star power forward agreed to a deal Monday with a team looking to win again after a franchise-worst nine straight losing seasons.

The last two …