1.  Even now, nearly a decade later, Cliff Meidl can recount every painful one of them in agonizing detail.

2.  Five or six jobs are lost, and this process, multiplied across the economy, can help to turn a mild downturn into a very painful one.

3.  For Lang the answer is a painful one.

4.  For Ms. Manheim, the transformation from quivering acting student to self-confident role model has been a painful one.

5.  For public and private officials around the country, the problem is a complex and painful one.

6.  For Hillis, the co-founder of Thinking Machines, the experience has proven to be a painful one, but not without rewards.

7.  Given maturity and experience, including a particularly painful one last year against these very Rockets, can it be assumed the Suns are immune to overconfidence?

8.  His maiden voyage into Hollywood was a painful one.

9.  If there is a lesson to be learned from all this relocation, it is a painful one.

10.  In the end, resigning was an easy decision but a painful one.