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Chef Dan Bethard holds two of the burgers featured during Burger Month at Iron Hill Brewery locations. From left, the Napa Valley burger and the Jammin’ Marley burger. Photo by Larry McDevitt

Chef Dan Bethard cooks burgers on the grill at Iron Hill Brewery, High and Gay streets, West Chester. All of Iron Hill’s locations, which also include Phoenixville, North Wales, Media, Lancaster, Maple Shade, and Newark and Wilmington, Del., will present different burgers every day during Burger Month. See www.ironhillbrewery.com for details. Photo by Larry McDevitt

A good roll and good beef are the staples to a good burger, but after that, your imagination is the limit.

Are you a traditionalist who likes American cheese, lettuce, tomato and onions or do your tastes stray into the spice of jalapeno peppers and pepper jack cheese? Maybe you prefer BBQ sauce, bacon and mushrooms? Maybe you don’t know what you’d like, only that you’re willing to try anything stacked on top of a big juicy all beef patty.

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Software engineer Ihab Awad works on his welding skills at a workshop space created for Google employees in Mountain View, Calif. AP Photo

Matthew Valente, a mechanical engineer on the streetview division, works on a prototype at a workshop space created for Google employees in Mountain View, Calif. AP Photo

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Amid all the free food and other goodies that come with a job at Google Inc., there’s one benefit a lot of employees don’t even know about: a cluster of high-tech workshops that have become a tinkerer’s paradise.

Workers escape from their computer screens and office chairs to weld, drill and saw on expensive machinery they won’t find at Home Depot.

Besides building contraptions with a clear business purpose, Google employees use the shops for fun: They create elaborate holiday decorations, build cabinets for their homes and sometimes dream big like the engineers working on a pedal-powered airplane with a 100-foot wingspan.

The “Google Workshops” are the handiwork of Larry Page, who co-founded Google with Sergey Brin in a rented garage. P

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DETROIT (AP) — Honda Motor Co. warned its U.S. dealers Monday that it will run short of popular models such as the Civic compact later this summer because of parts supply shortages caused by Japan’s earthquake.

Honda will significantly cut production of the new 2012 Civic, the sixth most popular car in the U.S., through the summer, if not longer.

In addition, the 2012 version of the CR-V small SUV will be delayed by at least a month this fall. To make up for shortages, Honda will keep making the 2011 version.

Both vehicles are made in North America, but like other automakers, Honda is running into shortages of chips, sensors and other parts made at factories in Japan that were damaged by the March 11 earthquake or hampered by power outages in the aftermath.

The parts shortages have hurt Honda, even though it assembles 80 percent of the vehicles sold in North America in the region.

The company also said it will be able to import only a limited number of Japan-built cars to the U.S. T

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Chester County author Gene Pisasale is photographed during a book signing. File photo

They have become as much a part of the Christmas shopping season as the Salvation Army bellringers and piped-in carols. They are local authors, signing their latest offerings in front of bookstores, discussing history, trading photography tips and debating plot lines.

But this past Christmas season isn’t bringing back jolly memories for several local authors who are caught in the bankruptcy proceedings of Borders.

The books eller filed for bankruptcy on Feb. 16, and among Borders many creditors are Chester County photographer Red Hamer and authors Gene Pisasale and James W. Milliken.

To be sure, Hamer, Pisasale and Milliken aren’t high up on the food chain among Borders’ creditors.

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A South Bend man is a finalist in a contest designed to encourage men to pursue their passions.

Jarrett Haley of South Bend has submitted his idea of expanding his passion project BULL, a magazine devoted to men’s fiction, into an independent publishing house.  He says in a press release that he dreams of producing thoughtful, engaging books that will get men reading again.

Haley is one of the five finalists in the “Wear the Pants  Project” to take home the grand prize of $100,000 to make his dream a reality.  The winner will be chosen based on Facebook votes. Dockers brand of pants is sponsoring the contest.

From Feb. 1  through March 15, men submitted plans, and the Facebook community selected the 50 most inspiring entries. The Dockers team reviewed the Top 50 and then selected five finalists.
 
The final winner will be chosen via Facebook voting. The voting started Monday and ends Sunday, and the winner of the $100,000 grant will be announced on Monday. The winner also receives a year’s worth of Dockers khakis.
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Make-or-break talks will be held in Geneva this week to rescue the troubled Doha international trade round, amid fears that a deepening rift between rich and poor countries will see the collapse of almost 10 years of negotiations.

After months of stalemate, the World Trade Organisation has set a deadline of Friday for the leading players to cut a deal in the key area of industrial tariffs. Pascal Lamy, the WTO’s director general, described the situation as “grave” after seeing no signs of a breakthrough since the start of 2011.

He had said it was crucial for progress to be made by Easter if there was to be any chance of completing the round by the end of this year. In a clear warning about the state of the talks, Lamy said negotiators should “think hard about the consequences of throwing away 10 years of solid multilateral work”.

“This is the diplomats in Geneva raising the white flag,” said Jeffrey Schott, a fellow of the Peterson Institute thinktank and a former US trade negotiator. Read more…