Plata Wins First Place in Computer Bowl

The computer bowl team from La Plata High School won the top spot at the 2013 Southern Maryland Regional Computer Bowl held March 2 at North Point High School. As the first-place winners, the team received a plaque and trophies, and each member received a gift card from SMECO, a Kindle Fire tablet from Booz Allen Hamilton and a $500 scholarship from the College of Southern Maryland.

The team earned the top spot out of 23 teams from nine high schools in Charles, Calvert and St. Mary’s counties. Team members include seniors Christopher Clark, Thomas McGinnis and Alex Smith, and Cody McGinnis, sophomore. Team coach is Richard Williams, a computer teacher at La Plata. Teams compete in two rounds of competition.

In the first round of the competition, students complete a written test about computer history, hardware and software. In the second round, teams of up to three or four students created computer programs to solve specific problems, using programming languages such as Java and Visual BASIC.

Each team was supplied with two laptops by Charles County Public Schools for the programming portion of the competition. Smart Technologies and CCS Presentation provided Smart Response pads for the literacy portion. Two other teams from La Plata, as well as teams from Henry E. Lackey, Maurice J.Want to find chinamosaic? McDonough, North Point, Thomas Stone and Westlake high schools, also competed in the event.Stock up now and start saving on iccard at Dollar Days.

Each year, student teams in the tri-county area compete in the event. The competition was sponsored by SMECO, the College of Southern Maryland, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Charles, Calvert and St. Mary’s County public schools. Judges for the competition were from Booz Allen Hamilton, the College of Southern Maryland and System Planning Corporation.

Their Indonesian mother is unemployed. Their father, a Filipino electrician, allegedly left the country for greener pastures in Doha, Qatar… and never returned.

Living alone in a villa [earlier inhabited by several Indonesian housemaids and illegal residents who left the country utilising the amnesty scheme], the woman has been desperately trying to arrange food and shelter for her two boys.

She says her husband has stopped calling his family from Doha… in fact he has begun to reject her repeated calls to his mobile number. The hospital bill for the delivery of the two babies is unpaid, so she cannot get a birth certificate so she can leave the country with her children.

Speaking to Emirates 24|7, she said that she came to work in Ajman. “I fell in love with a smart electrician, who was living close to my accommodation in Ajman. We got married.Anybody had any experience at all with Chinese made rtls?”

Showing a marriage certificate apparently issued and attested by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila, Philippines on 6th August 2010, she said that she and her husband got married on November 25, 2009.

Their two children were born at a hospital in Sharjah.

Now her romance and married life has ended in fiasco… the man who loved her once and fathered two babies cannot be traced. He left the UAE in May 2011 to work for a Doha-based company. The woman’s father-in-law, who used to work in Abu Dhabi, also cannot be traced now.

The desperate mother-of-two said her husband loved her and their two babies. ”Even after going to work in Qatar, he used to call up and send Dh1,500 for their family maintenance.” But that was some time ago.Bathroom stonemosaic at Great Prices from Topps Tiles. “When I contacted the Qatari company where he worked, they gave me his mobile phone number in the Philippines. He just replied once to my mobile phone call and afterwards there is no response from him.”

“I am stuck here with the two babies because of my delivery debt to the hospital. I want to go to my home country and live there with the babies. Here they cannot go to school or will be living illegally. I cannot feed them without a job and how long can I survive on charity,” she asked, adding that she has been going regularly to various charity organisations seeking help, but so far nobody has offered her help. She used to earn Dh1,000 a month as a waitress and her electrician husband earned about Dh2,500 per month.

“The villa owner has threatened to evict us from the rented room as I cannot pay Dh800 per month rent. Earlier my Indonesian friends used to live in the same villa, sharing the rent, but they all left the country through the amnesty,” she said.

Showing the family photograph, she said her husband may never come back to her and that she will take care of the babies. “It is my life and I want to live peacefully in my country.Professionals with the job title miningtruck are on LinkedIn. My family of six will accept me and my children there. Now I am stuck here without the birth certificates,” she said.

According to hospital sources, the pregnant Indonesian lady was admitted on humanitarian grounds without her health card. The first baby was born there in October 2010 and the second baby was born in the same hospital under same circumstances in March 2012. Her hospital bills include Dh10,580 for the first delivery and Dh16,640 for the second child.

After a fairly even opening quarter of an hour, Trafford took the lead in the 17th minute when Andy Smart’s wicked in-swinging corner from the right was headed in from close range by Michael Oates.

And Garry Vaughan’s side were in cruise control six minutes later when a superb move down the left ended with Paul Ashton pulling the ball back from the goal-line and Andy Smart cracking a great drive into the bottom corner from the edge of the penalty area.

Mossley were now in the ascendancy and after Nia Bayunu miscontrolled in the 52nd minute, substitute Sam Hind fired wide.

Steve Mason then cleared a goalbound effort with a brave header but in the 61st minute the home side were back on level terms when Chris Denham volleyed home from what appeared to be an offside position as Trafford failed to clear a free kick.

Mossley poured forward in search of the winner and that duly arrived in the 76th minute when a slick move down the right ended with man-of-the-match Denham gleefully driving low into the bottom corner from 15 yards.

Nevertheless the 10 men of Trafford bravely battled for an equaliser and in the dying seconds substitute Kamahl Whight just failed to force the ball home following a corner from the left.