Best Companies

Shine United (Madison, Wisconsin)

    In the past five years, this Wisconsin-based advertising agency has shared more than $500,000 in profits with its employees through the company's ShineShares program. The agency partnered with the University of Wisconsin's oncology department to develop the Ride, a biking event that benefits cancer research. Employees also get snacks every day, "Beer Thirty" on Thursdays, and Summer Fridays, a program that lets employees leave at noon.

GroundFloor Media (Denver, Colorado)

    The key for workers at this midsize public relations firm in Denver is that employees work anytime, anywhere. Headquarters are in a former warehouse downtown, near Coors Field. The offices are spread around the central space that doubles as a wet bar every Thursday when the company's "bear club" brings in a new brew.

Ergodyne (St.Paul, Minnesota)

    The St.Paul-based company has grown to operating out of a retired storehouse with plenty of natural light. Rules about dressing? "Wear something." Its purpose? To create cool, comfortable, and tough safety workwear for those who need it to get the job done. Ergodyne has around 50 employees, who enjoy hot dish cook-offs, tickets to sporting events, and at least one happy hour every quarter.

Southwest Michigan First (Kalamazoo, Michigan)

    It's family first at this Michigan economic development advising agency. CEO Ron Kitchens says that in the past year, the company has made a push to go green, initially started by the millennial employees who make up half the agency's workforce. A new staff position was created for the purpose of making sure every employee is able to balance working and cheering at their kids' sporting events or going fishing.

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    Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March, 1853—29 July, 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist. He is considered one of the greatest artists with great influence on the greatest artists with great influence on the 20th-century art.

    Van Gogh spent his early adult life working for a firm of art dealers. After a brief period as a teacher, he became a missionary (传教士) in a very poor mining region. He did not begin his career as an artist until 1880; however, during the last ten years of his life, he produced more than 2,000 pieces, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawing and sketched (素描). He worked only with somber colours until he met Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism in Paris. Van Gogh used their bright colours and style of painting in a uniquely recognizable style. Most of his best-known works were produced during his final two years, when he was suffering from serious mental illness.

    In 1890, at the age of 37, van Gogh shot himself in the chest. He died two days later, with Theo, his brother and his best friend, at his side, who reported his last words as “The sadness will last forever”. It would not take long before his fame grew higher and higher.

    Van Gogh's mother threw away quite a number of his paintings. The only painting he sold during his lifetime, The Red Vineyard, was created in 1888. It is now on display in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, Russia. Several paintings by van Gogh rank among the most expensive paintings in the world. On March 30, 1987 van Gogh's painting Irises was sold for a record of $ 53.9 million at Southby's, New York. On May 15, 1990 his Portrait of Doctor Gachet was sold for $ 83.5 million at Christie's, thus setting a new price record.

    Wedding is one of the most universal traditions in the world. But it's celebrated differently by people around the world. Now let's know something about these traditions.

       In Jamaica, weddings are a community affair, with the whole village often coming together to help plan the big day. People in the village gather in the street to see the bride and if she isn't in perfect shape, she will be publicly criticized. And while women wear the typical white wedding dress，men wear a bush jacket for the event. Several cakes are baked for the ceremony and on the wedding day married women wearing white dresses carry the confections (甜点) to the wedding. The reception is often held at the groom's house, in a booth specially built for the event. The wedding celebration also includes a lot of dancing.

    In Welsh wedding tradition, a man carves a spoon out of wood and gives it to the woman he loves. H she wears it, they are engaged (订婚）. Brides are often hidden by their families just before their wedding day. The groom and his family follow and whoever finds her will be the next to get married.

    In her bouquet, a Welsh bride carries a small tree with shiny green leaves and white flowers that smell nice as a symbol of love, and gives a cutting of the plant to her bridesmaids as well. If the bridesmaid plants the cutting in her yard and it blooms, she will soon marry, according to Welsh tradition.

    In Czechoslovak, before the wedding, the bride's friends traditionally plant a tree in her yard and decorate it with colored ribbons and eggshells, because, according to the legend, the bride will live as long as the tree. Before the marriage vows, a baby is placed in the couple*8 bed to bless their fertility. During the wading ceremony, Czech women surround the bride*, dancing and singing. They then remove her veil (面纱）and make her put on a handrnade babushka ( a woman's head scarf).

    For many years, machines have been doing work that people once did, including some difficult jobs. Search and rescue operations in dangerous environments are often seen as the first areas that will employ high technology robots. But there is another area where they may soon take jobs traditionally held by human beings: the restaurant industry.

    Teams from around the world competed in early June at the DARPA Robotic Challenge Finals in California. A team from R. O. Korea and its robot, called DRC-Hubo, won first place in the competition. The second and third place finishers were from the United States.

    The robots were required to drive a vehicle, climb up steps and do mechanical work. Such activities are easy for humans to perform, but more difficult for machines.

    Not all of the competitors were successful. The failures showed how difficult it is to design effective walking machines.

    Recently, crowds gathered for the food machinery and technology show in Tokyo, Japan. They witnessed a robotic chef preparing food. Other machines cooked, baked tasty pastries and even made sushi.

    Akihiro Suzuki works at Yaskawa Electric, a company that develops robots. He says robots cannot do everything a human can, but they are able to work without becoming tired.

    He says robots cannot taste food, change heating levels or seasonings to get the best flavor. But he says if a food can be easily prepared, a robot can repeat the same movement to reproduce the same meal.

    One Japanese woman who saw the robots working wanted to bring them home. Masayo Mori says she would like to have a husband who could work like a robot. Suzumo Machinery demonstrated its sushi maker robot. It performs the often difficult work of wrapping the popular Japanese food. Hiroshi Monden is an official with the company. He says people all over the world now eat sushi, but there are not enough skilled workers to prepare for it. He says his machine can help anyone make sushi.

    A year back I received a full scholarship to attend the University of San Francisco. All of my hard work had paid off. My mom had spent a lot in my attending a private high school, so I made sure to push myself: I volunteered, got involved in various clubs, and graduated with honors. I was so excited to start a new chapter(篇章)of my life. I had totally packed two weeks before it was time to leave.

    Soon enough, the big day came, but it wasn't like what I had thought. The first two weeks were the most difficult days of my entire life. Every night I would cry myself to sleep. I was so homesick and I didn't know how to deal with my broken heart. To distract myself, I threw myself into my studies and I applied for a ton of jobs. In any remaining free time, I started forcing myself to the gym. I wanted to keep every part of my day busy so I wouldn't think how lonely I felt.

    Soon after, I began to limit food, and then I became worse. Finally, I went to see a doctor. When the doctor weighed me, I was crazy about the number of my weight. So I continued to lower my goal, and convinced that controlling this number was the solution for my homesickness. But when I was told that I had no choice but to spend time on my studies. I quickly started recovery in my mind.

    How could I do? I told myself that school was what I was best at. I decided to get rid of my homesickness and took exercise actively. My first term of college had passed by at last and I had gotten straight A's. That's why I want to share my story－to help other students feel less lonely.

Despite extreme cold, cruel ice and being brushed off as mad, Slovenian Davo kamicar became the first person to ski non-stop down Mount Everest. After a dramatic fall over almost sheer cliffs of snow, stones and ice, 38-year-old Kamicar returned to his base camp after five hours of skiing. "I feel only absolute happiness and absolute tiredness," he said. 

Due to the severe weather conditions, Kamicar flung himself back down the mountain as soon as he reached the top rather than have a rest as planned At one point, he had to speed overstretches of ice that collapsed and broke underneath him and could have sent him falling into the deep crevasses(裂缝) that dot the mountain.

The descent (下落) had been widely regarded as extremely dangerous. The Darwin Awards website, known for documenting foolhardy deaths, urged people to log on to their website and "keep your eyes peeled for a live Darwin Award". However, the only body to make the news was the corpse (尸体)of an unknown mountaineer which Kamicar zipped past as he descended one of an estimated 120 corpses, thought to litter the slopes." This mountain is always full of surprises. Seeing a dead man out there was still a shocking experience," he said. 

Thanks to strategically placed cameras on the mountain and one attached to his safety helmet hundreds of thousands of people witnessed the process online, which was one of the record highs ever of more than 650,000 hits. The website was once jammed as people tried to access the site.

A previous failed attempt had already cost Kamicar two fingers when he got frostbite as a fierce storm hit the peak. Coming from a skiing family and had his first Himalayan skiing expedition in 1989, he has been ever since tireless in raising funds and sponsorship for more expeditions, with Everest as the permanent goal.