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Twice As Good
Vanessa Are you in heaven
or seeing double? If you run into Vanessa Demira and her
identical twin sister Wania on the streets of Flushing, you’ll have to make up your
own mind. Even though this week’s “Model of
Queens” thinks that Playboy is classy she wouldn’t pose nude. Vanessa would rather see herself in the pages of
Maxim, wearing a bikini in a less revealing pose. But
it might be a different picture for identical twin Wania. “In comparison to her I’m
conservative. She’s a little wild,”
said Vanessa. Wania now models as a superhero for a cartoon
and doesn’t mind modeling swimsuits, lingerie or even in the buff. “We are identical, but she has different
features. She looks more Latin,” said
Vanessa. Wania has curls and does her makeup
differently.
Asked if it bothers her that people confuse the Vanessa doesn’t mind if people confuse the
two Vanessa started modeling when she attended the
Barbizon school for modeling with her sister at 14. Although she will be joining her sister at
Union County in New Jersey, Vanessa admits, “School is not for me. I just want to get
some type of education background.” Vanessa is a product of Brazilian parents and
was born and raised in Long Branch, NJ – the South Shore. She came to Queens for two reasons. One was to model and pursue her trade as a makeup
artist. And the second is to live with her
Flushing boyfriend that she met online. The two first met in an AOL New York City
chatroom back in 1997. The chatroom built a
solid group of 30 members who decided to meet on Queens Boulevard by the White Castle in
Elmhurst. Vanessa says there’s nothing to do in
Jersey and she enjoys Queens. She’s a big Mets fan, indulges at the
Lemon Ice King in Corona and enjoys the Hall of Science and walking in Cunningham Park. Vanessa also plays volleyball and picnics at
Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. See you there! The Plane Facts On Flight 800 It was no surprise to those of us at QConfidential
when the feds issued an order mandating manufacturers to change the design of fuel tanks
in jumbo jets like the Boeing 747 that exploded over Moriches, Long Island, bringing down
TWA Flight 800. This page reported in December 1996 that
investigators at the National Transportation Safety Board were eyeing fuel vapors in the
plane’s central fuel tank as the source of the explosion that killed all 230 people
on board. Our report went on to reveal: “Probers are focusing increased interest
on air conditioning units that could have become super-heated during a two-hour holdover
at JFK International Airport. The units sit directly below the center fuel tank on the
Boeing 747, and investigators are trying to determine if radiating heat increased tank
temperature to a degree that ignited vapors in the tank, blowing the plane from the sky 11
and a half minutes after takeoff from JFK.” We also reported that on Aug. 26, 1996, the
feds “conducted a ‘secret’ test during which air conditioning units in a
Boeing 747 were run for the same two-hour period as those on Flight 800. After running the units for two hours on the
ground, then taking off and climbing to 18,000 feet, investigators found that temperatures
in the central fuel tank had reached a level where the mixture had become highly
volatile.” QConfidential stated that cases
involving aircraft explosions in the jets could be traced back to 1963, and that a probe
that year by the feds “suggested that some type of inert gas be pumped into the space
above fuel in the tank to smother any spark that might cause an explosion in the empty
space. But the death toll from such accidents had not been great enough to cause a change
in practice by the airline industry. “The National Transportation Safety Board
issued an ‘urgent warning’ to airlines in August, 1996 stating that they should
be required to take new measures to prevent sparking or explosions in Boeing 747s and
similar aircraft.” Yes, you read it here first.
Heavyweight Lift Queens Peace and Fitness Guru
Sri Chinmoy, lifts Cong-ressman Gary Ackerman
overhead and presents him with the "Lifting Up The World With a Oneness Heart"
Award. The Indian-born leader saluted Ackerman for his work on behalf of India and
Bangladesh. Sri says of his feats of
strength that, "age is no barrier . . . When we live in the heart, the word
'impossible' does not exist." Ackerman was one of several Congressional heavyweights lifted.
Ice
Queen Baiul Queens has played host to celebrated
sports figures and movie stars for many years. Fans at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium have
cheered Arthur Ashe, and Chris Everett, while Jackson Heights welcomed Alfred Hitchcock
and John Leguizamo.
But, Connecticut’s loss was
Queens’ gain when Oksana Baiul, Olympic gold medal figure skater, recently moved to
Forest Hills. The 23-year-old Ukrainian native is
planning on offering her expertise in ballet and skating to students looking for a mentor. She will teach, talk about her own dancing
experience, how she manages to stay thin, and her life growing up as an orphan. Great Idea? According to a Seattle
Post-Intelligencer reporter: “Plenty of Washington politicians support the
idea of requiring a standardized test before students can graduate from high school. Now a group of educators and parents plan to turn the
tables, hoping to require all candidates for public office to take the 10th-grade Washington Assessment of
Student Learning exam, and have their results
— just like those of students — posted on the Internet. They’re hoping to
put that idea to a public vote with a ballot initiative
in November 2002.”
E-MAIL your items to: conf@queenstribune.com
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