"Head" races are a class of regattas generally three miles in length where the boats race against themselves and the clock. The boats start approximately 15 seconds apart, and the winners earn the honorary title of "Head of the River."

This piece, "Sienna After the Storm ", was taken during 2003 in Sienna, Italy. The image began as a photograph and was enhanced digitally, using Corel Painter, the world's leading natural media painting application and Photoshop. This image was designed with digital tools to replicate the appearance and texture of pen, ink and watercolor.

Legend says that Sienna was founded by Senio and Ascanio, sons of Remus, of the famous duo Romulus and Remus who founded Rome.

Long before Chitzan-Itsa and Teotehaucan, Cholula was the spiritual center of the Aztec world. Artifacts have been found of every Indian civilization from the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico and south to the Pacific. 500 years before Christ, work was started on what would become the largest pyramid in the world.

The X-Men are fictitious mutants who, as a result of a sudden leap in evolution, are born with latent superhuman abilities which generally manifest themselves at puberty. Many ordinary humans harbor an intense fear and/or distrust of mutants (often referred to as Homo superior), who are regarded by a number of scientists as the next step in human evolution and are thus widely viewed as a threat to human society.

In the late 70's the series was revived, illustrated by Dave Cockrum and later John Byrne and written by Chris Claremont, who would become the series' longest-standing contributor. The run met great critical acclaim and produced the "Proteus Saga", "Dark Phoenix Saga", and later the early 1980's "Days of Future Past", arguably some of the greatest story arcs in Marvel Comics, as well as X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, the basis for the 2003 movie X2. Other characters introduced at this time include Mystique, Multiple Man, the Hellfire Club, and Moira MacTaggert along with her genetic research facility Muir Island. In the 1980s, the growing popularity of Uncanny X-Men and the rise of comic book specialty stores led to the introduction of several spin-off series nicknamed "X-Books".

The Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Mexicanos (National Museum of Mexican Railroads), located in the old Mexicano station, houses a collection of many unique specimens, including steam engines, passenger coaches, cabooses and diesel engines. Most notably it has a pair of PA1 diesel engines, the last specimens of their kind, with one of them still in working condition (the DH-19).

Whether they are made of pork, as is most often the case, or of beef, veal, buck, goat, chamois, venison, sheep, wild boar, or horse, cured meats (salumi in Italian) were born of a need to conserve meat for months after the slaughter of the animal. Salting, smoking, and air-drying are the three processes by which fresh meat is transformed into a long-keeping staple.

While all meats are salted, some are smoked, and others are simply air-dried. Italians have been making an amazing array of cured meats for thousands of years using both noble and humble parts of the animals they raise. The ancient Romans prized the spicy pork sausages crafted in the southern region of Basilicata (called Lucania then, and giving rise to sausages named Lucaniche still eaten today). And, fond of intensely tasty foods, they smoked or salted whole pig thighs, yielding savory Prosciutti not unlike those still made in mountain villages across Italy.

Two thousand years later, pork remains Italy's favorite meat for curing. Pigs are especially prevalent in areas where there is a notable cheesemaking tradition: after all, wherever there is cheese, there is excess whey, which, combined with bran and corn, becomes perfect feed for pigs.

As the sport of "surf bathing" became more popular, the dangers of the surf became apparent. It was then that groups of experienced surfers began to establish surf life saving clubs to help protect the less proficient swimmers from the dangers of the ocean.

Spider-Man was introduced in Amazing Fantasy #15, 1962. Due to positive sales and fan mail resulting from the issue, the character received his own title, The Amazing Spider-Man, the following year, which became Marvel's best-selling series. The character quickly became a cultural icon; a 1965 Esquire poll of college campuses found that college students ranked Spider-Man and fellow Marvel hero The Hulk alongside Bob Dylan and Che Guevara as their favorite revolutionary icons.

No supervillains in this issue (although it turned out in later issues that the goons in question were working for the Kingpin), but a simple story of crime, tragedy and inhumanity that so infuriates our hero that he knocks the block off the bad guy for no good reason other than the guy deserves it. The parallels in this story between the protagonists' failed football career, and his 100 yard (and ultimately fatal) journey to save his daughter from kidnappers is bittersweet.

Not completely a downer, there is humor at a dance that Peter and MJ attend where MJ states that "Kung Fu Fighting" is their song, much to Peter's incredulousness (hey, it was funny to someone who actually lived during the 70's - guess that means I'm still part of the audience that Marvel and Bill Jemas wanted.!

Florence has an ancient tradition of craftwork: once upon a time, each area of the city was characterized by a certain type of work, each controlled by the powerful Corporazione delle Arti: sculptors’ laboratories, leather goods makers, blacksmiths and goldsmiths. The corporations were based on strict rules and only the legitimate children of a member could join the profession. In this way, art and techniques have been handed down through the generations to the present day.

The dove has been a symbol of peace and innocence for thousands of years in many different cultures. In ancient Greek mythology it was a symbol of love and the renewal of life. In ancient Japan a dove carrying a sword symbolized the end of war. There was a tradition in Europe that if a dove flew around a house where someone was dying then their soul would be at peace. And there are legends which say that the devil can turn himself into any bird except for a dove. In Christian art, the dove was used to symbolize the Holy Ghost and was often painted above Christ's head. Pablo Picasso made the dove a modern symbol of peace when he used it on a poster for the World Peace Congress in 1949.