An inspiration and role model to the millions who have heard his story and and seen his videos, Mike Harrington had no idea the impact his health journey would have on the rest of the world when he first set out. As he persisted through his journey and the weight loss was becoming noticeable, people began to tell him that it was motivating them to take charge of their own health. And, after losing over 200 pounds, Mike’s story got the attention of the media.



His story and videos have been featured in numerous web sites and on television shows such as USA Today, MSN Health, Yahoo Fitness Weight Loss Win, Fox 61’s Stan Simpson Show, RVN TV’s Mid Day with Dana, Donovan Green (Dr. Oz' Personal Trainer) Podcast, and Gilad’s Bodies In Motion newsletter. Mike was also a featured presenter at the Toastmasters District 53 Fall 2017 Conference with his “Half the Man, Double the Awesome” presentation.



Mike receives dozens of messages and emails each month from people seeking advice, pouring out their hearts about their health struggles, and how his story has inspired them and given them some hope. Over the past several years Mike has met and spoken to many people, giving tips on lessons learned through his journey, and more importantly, about sustaining health. Mike is a big fan of Lifestyle Medicine, a branch of medicine which promotes curing chronic illness with lifestyle changes over medication or other means.



Mike has a passion for healthy living and helping others who are looking for a symbol of hope. More than mere weight loss, Mike’s story is about his triumph over the adversities in his life. Most weekends you can find Mike hiking in the woods where he hosts his weekly Facebook Live broadcast, “Hike with Mike” on which he talks about a variety of topics related to health, motivation, and dealing with personal struggles.



Mike’s mission is to “Inspire People To Take Charge Of Their Lives And Their Health By Being An Example Of What Is Possible”.

G  A  R  Y

P  I  H  L

MONSTER GUITARIST

WITH

B O S T O N  &  A L L I A N C E

BRAND NEW ALBUM ENTITLED 'FIRE & GRACE'

WITH ALLIANCE

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Raised in the suburbs of Chicago for the first 12 years of his life, Gary Pihl relocated to the San Francisco Bay area.  At 19, Gary had his recording debut with Day Blindness in 1969. He says, “After my time in Day Blindness, I was in a band called Fox with Roy Garcia and Johnny V (Vernazza), who went on to play in Elvin Bishop’s band.  We were on shows with Free (with Paul Rogers), Janis Joplin, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Eric Burdon and War and Mose Allison.”

Pihl’s first big break in came in 1977, when he joined Sammy Hagar’s band, where he toured and recorded for 8 years. Gary met Tom Scholz when Hagar was opening for BOSTON between ’77 and ’79. In 1985, Sammy joined Van Halen, however, Pihl didn’t miss a beat. He explains, “Tom called me up when he was working on the Third Stage album, he had one more song left to be recorded and asked me if I’d come out to work with him on it. As it turned out, I flew directly from Farm Aid (my last gig with Hagar) to Boston, so I wasn’t out of work for a day. I thought, how lucky could a guy get?”

Alliance is one of the best melodic hard rock bands you’ve probably never heard of even though the band has collaborated together for nearly 30 years and counting.

Featuring longtime and current Boston guitarist Gary Pihl (a Boston member since 1985 who’s performed on the band’s last four studio albums and who also did a lengthy stint as Sammy Hagar’s guitarist prior to Hagar joining Van Halen), former Sammy Hagar drummer David Lauser (whose ties with Sammy go back to Hagar’s earliest musical days and who performed with Sammy for years in his solo band and with Sammy’s Waboritas) and Alliance lead vocalist/bassist/songwriter Robert Berry, who is also currently the bassist with the Greg Kihn Band and formerly with the Keith Emerson/Carl Palmer trio 3.

During those 30 years, the band has released five highly regarded albums – Bond of Union (1996), Alliance (1997), Missing Piece (1999), Destination Known (2007) and Road to Heaven (2008) – all of which reveal their amazing musicianship, well-crafted songwriting and tight ensemble playing.

These talents are again on full display with the release of the band’s sixth and latest album, the brand-new Fire and Grace (Escape Records).  Melodic, driving hard rock at its finest, this is one great record.

Purchase the brand-new album from Alliance entitled ‘Fire and Grace’ at amazon.com

For more information about Gary Pihl visit …

Link to the Alliance website: http://www.robertberry.com/alliance.html

Link to Boston’s website: https://bandboston.com 

Link to info on the new album, Fire and Grace:  

https://melodicrock.com/articles/news-feed/2019/03/22/alliance-return-new-album…

Pushing the boundaries of classical opera, Calgary’s Michelle Minke has made a career out of inspired disruption. She has performed over 1,000 shows to over 10,000 people at once including performing at the world famous Calgary Stampede Grandstand Show.

With her boundless vitality and powerful voice, Michelle performed throughout Europe and North America before returning to her home town of Calgary. As founder and artistic director of Calgary’s Cowtown Opera and Summer Academy, Michelle’s heartfelt excitement for contributing to the cultural identity of her city has earned her a place among arts champions.



She is a Masters graduate in Vocal Pedagogy from the University of Toronto and the Opera School at the Royal Academy of Music in London, England as well as the Solti Te Kanawa Accademia in Italy, where she studied with operatic legend, Mirella Freni.  Performing across Canada and overseas, she has been acclaimed by international audiences at the Anghiari Festival in Tuscany Italy and at Spitalfields festival in London England as well as other concert performances throughout Poland, Lithuania, Sweden and France.

Michelle has 18 awards, including being named as one of Calgary’s Top 40-Under-40 by Avenue Magazine, was a recipient of the Mayor’s Enbridge Emerging Artist Award and named one of Alberta’s 25 Inspiring Artists by Alberta Foundation for the Arts for her commitment to the arts community of Calgary. She been nominated for Female Artist of the Year by the YYC Music Awards, and recently won the Cultural Ambassador Award for the Women of Inspiration 2018. 

DALLAS THORNTON

Los Angeles-based and Boulder-bred, he is an Indie-Pop/Rock artist and producer known for his high-energy performances and positive message. He has played for audiences in 9 countries and from coast to coast of the U.S. spreading a message of peace.

​Thornton serves as Artist In Residence for Common Foundation, a philanthropic incubator that serves 225+ companies across 27 industries and 20 countries for the benefit of people, planet and peace.

He’s been songwriting, performing and producing for over a decade and sometime after this photo was taken also earned a degree from Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA in Contemporary Writing and Production. 

The answer is love, and music its soundtrack.

GEORGE ARAU

Born in Mar 1 1962, in June of 1988 at age of 26 years old I decide to leave the country of Romania for good! I hide on a 65000 tons vessel named BACESTI, who’s destination was Venezuela after a few days at sea (Black Sea) I jumped off in water of Sea of Marmara in Istanbul, Turkey.

After 23 months in Istanbul I was able to get my approval from INS and travel legally to USA, arriving in New York.

Hours pass by and I was informed that my luggage did not make it, so I have to continue my next stop to LAX, Los Angeles the “City of Angels” witch later they were conform that my luggage was stolen in the airport transit Athens, Greece, so I realize that God has somehow put me to the test, you want freedom, then you should start from zero, after 2 months when I got my first check from Marriot company where I start my first job I decide to washed all my clothes that I came with in USA put the in a plastic bag and I placed them on the bench at the bus station, Sunset Blvd and Fairfax Avenue next to Thrifty store ( now Rite Aid ) including my watch and gold ring on top of it, so somehow to confirm my destiny that I came to USA with nothing and I left everything behind!

In August 26 2005 my older brother at 46 years old after God knows how many years of pain of a bad marriage (after over 20 years of marriage his wife put the divorce and kick him out of the house) he decide to end his own life and leave me (not knowing) with to many questions unanswered!

I was struggling to understand for years what just happened and finally after 14 years I made my book/novel dedicated in memory of my brother and the reason my wishes are centered on writing this book is that I have been in silence for so many years about losing him.

I never thought that I could, or would want to, write a book capturing a terrible event interrupting my life. But, I did feel so obligated to break my silence and place my truth into such words, because I believe that maybe someone, somewhere, is wondering why this is all happening to him or her; perhaps someone is in need of a brother or sister, and I hope that person will find solace!

Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the women-led peace group CODEPINK and the co-founder of the human rights group Global Exchange. She has been an advocate for social justice for more than 40 years. Described as "one of America's most committed -- and most effective -- fighters for human rights" by New York Newsday, and "one of the high profile leaders of the peace movement" by the Los Angeles Times, she was one of 1,000 exemplary women from 140 countries nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the millions of women who do the essential work of peace worldwide. She received numerous prizes, including: the Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace Prize from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Peace Prize by the US Peace Memorial, the Gandhi Peace Award, and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Award. She is a former economist and nutritionist with the United Nations and World Health Organization.

In 2000, she was a Green Party candidate for the California Senate. During the 1990s, Medea focused her efforts on tackling the problem of unfair trade as promoted by the World Trade Organization. Widely credited as the woman who brought Nike to its knees and helped place the issue of sweatshops on the national agenda, Medea was a key player in the campaign that won a $20 million settlement from 27 US clothing retailers for the use of sweatshop labor in Saipan. She also pushed Starbucks and other companies to start carrying fair trade coffee.

Since the September 11, 2001 tragedy, Medea has been working to promote a U.S. foreign policy that would respect human rights and gain us allies instead of contributing to violence and undermining our international reputation. Medea has also been on the forefront of the anti-drone movement, publishing Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control in 2013. She organized the first-ever International Drone Summit, led delegations to Pakistan and Yemen to meet with drone strike victims, and directly questioned President Obama during his 2013 foreign policy address. The campaign against weaponized drones has helped reduce the number of civilian casualties and force the government to compensate the families of innocent victims. 

Medea’s work for justice in Israel/Palestine includes taking numerous delegations to Gaza, organizing the Gaza Freedom March in 2010, participating in the Freedom Flotillas and opposing the policies of the Israel lobby group AIPAC. In 2011 she was in Tahrir Square during the Egyptian uprising and in 2014 she was detained, beaten and deported by the Egyptian security forces. In 2012 she was part of a human rights delegation to Bahrain in support of democracy activists; she was tear-gassed, arrested and deported by the Bahraini government. In 2015 and 2018 she participated in Women Cross the DMZ, an international delegation of women calling for peace in Korea.

Her groundbreaking work on the negative consequences of the US-Saudi alliance include the 2016 book Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection, and the 2016 International Summit on Saudi Arabia. Her latest book, Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is part of a campaign to prevent a war with Iran and instead promote normal trade and diplomatic relations. 

Medea is the author of ten books.  Her articles appear regularly in outlets such as The Guardian, The Huffington Post, CommonDreams, Alternet, and The Hill. Medea can be reached at: medea@codepink.org or @medeabenjamin.

If you'd like to book Medea Benjamin for an event, please contact Brienne at brienne@codepink.org.

Sharón graduated from the University of Redlands with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics at the age of twenty. She began teaching that same year in a public Junior High School in California. During her three years there, she obtained her Master of Arts degree from Azusa-Pacific University in education administration with an emphasis in math.

Sharón initially taught in California before moving to Germany where she taught for the Department of Defense Schools. She continued to move around as she married an Air Force soldier. She was fortunate to always find a teaching job in each location. After Germany came Texas, and then Japan. Eventually she would also teach in New Mexico, Nebraska, Washington state and China, besides being a high school administrator in both Texas and Oregon. She retired as a high school principal in 2002, only to come out of retirement in January 2008 to become involved in schools for an additional two and a half years.

It was during her time in the schools that she linked the patterns in names to a person’s mindset or personality. She worked on figuring out the patterns of the different letters for fifteen years before she fully comprehended all of the nuances. Sharón took the opportunity to travel a large part of the world testing her theories for the first three years after leaving the education field. Many people requested that she write a book so that they could learn what she had realized about names.

It was during this time that she wrote "Know the Name; Know the Person", with the first edition being published in December 2006. The second edition, published in May 2010, added chapters on mnemonic devices to help people remember the patterns explained in the book and also how to compare two names. She is currently working on the third edition. She is also is working on her second book which combines story telling with logic to challenge people to think again about some commonly accepted beliefs that may no longer be serving us. Since the publication of her book, she focuses her time writing, traveling and sharing Neimology with others, and researching her theories.

BOOK REVIEW:

Profoundly valuable and highly recommended.

This book posits the science of "Neimology, the study of names" and is ground-breaking, of potentially historic importance, and it affords broad-spectrum practical application. The empirical research and experience behind it has substantial credibility.

The notion behind the research and this book is that a person's oft-repeated name is initially inspired, releasing a resonance and predictable potential within the person's life expression. The author systematizes how people with names bearing the same initial vowel, initial letter, last letter and middle letters show consistent tendencies. Hence, the resonance of the name demonstrates correlated patterns of conduct due to the structure of the name. This observation is consistent with the ancient knowledge of most cultures' approach to naming children, where the given name "says it all." Offering this as a framework for decoding, she does not, for example, clam that every "John" will be the same, but that every "John" will share certain traits. Her system explains how and why these traits will be distinct from those shared by persons named Jemal, or James, or Jim. The resulting correlations are nuanced and valuable. Socially, this book can help make interaction with friends and strangers alike far more effortless and productive.

Unlike common "cookbook" approaches that merely share the meanings of names, the Wyeth system explores the personality traits associated to vowels and consonants, with interpretive weight given to their placement in the name. She enriches the reader with a systematic exploration and many illustrations. The reader is thus equipped with an interpretive framework applicable to any name. She tested the work in many countries who use the English Alphabet and found consistent results with only minor adaptations. This is significant. In addition she addresses nicknames, changed names, and other permutations involved in naming. In sum, rather than providing a fish to the hungry, she has provided a hook and bait so the hungry can catch fish and eat for a lifetime.

Cymatics, the study of the physical impacts of sound, demonstrates that sounds create visible geometries. Medical research has proven that cell structures, neurological systems, and the body generally does respond directly to sound. It shows that repetition of sounds can create or ameliorate disease. Making a connection between behavior associated to the oft-heard name and cellular responses proven in hard science is not an untenable leap.

Neimology offers a wealth of very useful applications for anyone who seeks to gain a sense of what lies beneath the surface in other people. The range of applications is broad-spectrum. Among readers who could benefit from Neimology are people in business, sales, counseling, politics, ministry, education, military leadership, and anyone seeking to refine simple interaction among other people in any capacity.

Greg is a best-selling author, speaker and fitness entrepreneur. He opened AYC Health & Fitness, Kansas City’s Original Personal Training Center, in May 1986, and has personally trained nearly 60,000 one-on-one sessions. Today, AYC specializes in onsite corporate wellness, personal and small-group training. 

Greg is the co-founder and CEO of the National Corporate Fitness Institute (NCFI), a certifying body for fitness professionals, and the co-founder of Scriptor Publishing Group.  

Greg holds a master’s degree in HPER (exercise science) (1986) and a bachelor’s degree in Health & Physical Education (1983) from Morehead State University, Morehead, KY.  He has been actively involved in the fitness industry for more than three decades as a club manager, owner, personal fitness trainer, and corporate wellness supervisor. He has worked with athletes and non-athletes of all ages and physical abilities and served as a conditioning coach at the collegiate level. He worked with the Kansas City Chiefs, during the offseason, in the early 1980’s, along with professional baseball, soccer and golf athletes. 

He writes articles and contributes for many international publications and websites including, Men’s Fitness, Women’s Health, Prevention, Time, US News & World Report, New York Times, IDEA Fitness Journal, Corporate Wellness Magazine, and has a monthly column called “Treadmill Talks” in Personal Fitness Professional magazine.  Greg has authored twelve books.