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Archive for the 'Marketing 101' Category
7 TIPS for FRESH BREATH & HEALTHY DIGESTION
Now that the major holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Eve are over, here's some WELLNESS Tips that are EASY TO FOLLOW!
7 Ways to Keep Your Breath Fresh
In addition to brushing your teeth and your tongue, flossing and visiting your dentist regularly, here are a few more ways to prevent bad breath.
- Water — Keeping yourself properly hydrated produces saliva, which keeps your mouth moist and neutralizes bad breath.
- Cinnamon gum — Cinnanimic aldehyde oil freshens breath and reduces the amount of bacteria in your saliva by 50 percent.
- Celery,carrots and apples — Fiber rich foods produce saliva to wash away plaque.
- Oranges, berries and melons — Vitamin C helps to prevent gum disease and gingivitis which are both major causes of bad breath.
- Lemons — Whether you suck on a lemon wedge, drink water with lemon, or nibble on the rind, lemon can help freshen your breath.
- Black tea — Polyphenols, powerful antioxidants found in black tea, help stop plaque from clinging to your teeth.
- Yogurt — The active cultures found in yogurt help to reduce the level of odor-causing hydrogen sulfide in the mouth.
Healthy Digestion Tips
Here are a few tips for getting your digestive tract back in shape without medications:
- Foods with magnesium, such as spinach, broccoli, squash, and basil, can help relieve constipation.
- Exercise can help gas move through your stomach faster.
- Flax, when taken with water, helps bulk the stool and feeds the stomach's "friendly" bacteria.
- Yogurt with live and active cultures can help regulate your digestive system.
- Artificial sweeteners Beware that sugar-free foods with artificial sweeteners can have a laxative effect in some people. To counteract diarrhea, try easy-to-digest foods such as the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast)
- Licorice can reduce stress-induced stomach inflammation and ulcer-causing bacteria.
- Extra-virgin olive oil helps prevent and treat Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori).
- Peppermint (either candy or coated capsules) can help ease pain, bloating, and gas.
- Chamomile tea has anti-inflammatory effects that can soothe an irritated stomach lining.
Now that your breath feels refreshed and your tummy has stopped rumbling, here's some quotes to help you start off the year with a bang…. from an old favorite of mine Ben Franklin.
- Don't strive to be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
- Self-praise is no praise.
- Strangers are simply friends who haven't met.
- After each storm there is the promise of a rainbow.
- Individually, we are one drop. Together we are an ocean.
- Obstacles are those things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.
To the more than 1100 friends who have responded to my blogs this year, I wish you a Happy, healthy, peaceful and successful 2014.
A big thank you to my favorite printer The Ink Well for allowing me to reproduce most of these truisms from their monthly newsletter Press Check. If you have printing or mailing needs,there's no one better.
Learn to Listen to the Birds!
Bird Songs Can Teach Us A Thing or Two!
Why wasn't this intruder getting the message? The Lord of the manor had warned him repeatedly to back off, with threatening gestures and loud admonitions. But the trespasser just sat there and kept singing. So in a flurry of feathers, the resident sparrow dived for his challenger's head. Michael Beecher, a University of Washington biologist, finally stepped in to end the brawl, retrieving the stuffed sparrow and mini-speaker that tricked the real bird into believing his territory had been overrun.
Foe vanquished, the sparrow fluffed himself up, perched high in a tree and let loose a cascade of trills and whistles. "That's the king-of-the-mountain song," Beecher said. Beecher understands better than most the messages that pass between song sparrows. He and his students have been studying the birds' communication patterns in Seattle's Discovery Park for more than 25 years. The duel he orchestrated on a recent morning provided an opportunity to record the sotto voce song that males use only when confronting interlopers.
The way birds learn their songs is similar to the way babies learn to talk and adults master a golf swing, University of Washington brain researchers say. And studies of the seasonal changes in bird brains are revealing neurological twists that one day might be harnessed to heal human brains damaged by stroke, Alzheimer's disease and other disorders.
The strength of the songbird system is that you can go down to the very detailed, micro-level… then explain how that leads to changes in behavior," UW neurobiologist David Perkel said. "That's something not a lot of neuroscience can do." It was research on songbirds that upset the long-held notion that most animals — and most certainly humans — were born with all the gray matter they would ever have.
Working with canaries and chickadees in the 1980's Fernando Nottebohm at the Rockefeller University found brain regions associated with song and the ability to locate hidden caches of food were constantly birthing new cells. Scientists soon discovered neurons sprouting in other brain areas and in the brains of other animals — including Homo sapiens. Many birds are hatched with vocalizations hard-wired into their brains. But the 4,000 species that comprise the songbirds must learn how to sing properly.
Perkel's research focuses on zebra finches, which study and memorize the songs of adults. At first, the fledgings jabber or sing snippets, gradually improving until what comes out of their beaks matches the template in their memory banks. "It's a model for speech learning in humans," Perkel said. Perkel is convinced the parallels extend to all types of learning that require practice and feedback, from memorizing multiplication tables to honing a golf swing or ski jump.
We think by cracking this circuit in birds, he said, "it will have a large impact on our understanding of the brain mechanisms involved in learning a broad variety of skills."
My thanks to Sandi Doughton of the Seattle Times for this fascinating look at how we can learn from bird songs. Her article was picked up and ran in the Chicago Tribune July 20,2012.
Wise Words today come from Ralph Waldo Emerson — "You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late."
Wise words from me today — "It's never too late to think about starting your own business and there's no easier way to begin than with my book How To Become A Mail Order Millionaire A Complete Guide To Starting Your Own Home Based Business. Long time mail order expert, Fred Broitman, founder and CEO of Chicago's largest independently owned Direct Response/Mail Order Advertising Agency, has written the definitive guide to success in a business of your own. If you would like to start a business that can be operated from your home no matter where you live then this book on MAIL ORDER is all you need to get started. With the power of the Internet you can become successful in your own home-based business…. and the book is sold on a 100% Guarantee of Satisfaction Or Your Money Back!
You'll learn:
- and included in this newly revised edition COMPLETE UP-TO -DATE INFORMATION ON HOW TO USE THE INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA SUCCESSFULLY
How To Become A Mail Order Millionaire is available from Amazon at its published price of $39.95 plus s&h or you can save $10.00 and order it direct from the publisher for only $29.95 and shipping is FREE. Send check or money order along with your name and address to: Superior Press 333 N. Michigan Avenue Suite 1032 Chicago, IL 60601
Drawing A Clear Map For End-Of-Life Choices!
Robert H. Laws, a retired judge in San Francisco, and his wife Beatrice, knew it was important to have health care directives in place to help their doctors and their two sons make wise medical decisions should they ever be unable to speak for themselves. With forms from their lawyer, they completed living wills and assigned each other as health care agents.
They dutifully checked off various boxes about not wanting artificial ventilation, feeding tubes and the like. But what they did not know was how limiting and confusing those directions could be. For example, Judge Laws said in an interview, he'd want to be put on a ventilator temporarily if he had pneumonia and the procedure would keep him alive until antibiotics kicked in and he could breathe will enough on his own.
What he would not want is to be on a ventilator indefinitely, or to have his heart restarted if he had a terminal illness or would end up impaired. Nuances like these, unfortunately, escape the attention of a vast majority of people who have completed advance directives, and may also discourage others from creating directives in the first place.
Enter two doctors and a nurse who are acutely aware of the limitations of most of such directives. In 2008, they created a service to help poeple through the process, no matter what their end-of-life choices may be. The San Francisco based srvice, called Good Medicine Consult & Advocacy, is the brainchild of Dr. Jennifer Brokaw, 46 who was an emergency room physician for 14 years and saw firsthand that the needs and wishes of most patients were not being met by the doctors who cared for them in crisis situations.
"The communications gap was huge," she said in an interview. "The emergency room doctor has to advocate for patients. I felt I could do that and head things off at the pass by communicating both with patients and physicians." Sara C. Stephens, a nurse and Dr. Lael Conway Duncan, an internist, joined her in the project. Ms Stephens flew to LaCrosse, Wis., to be trained in health care advocacy at Gunderson Lutheran Health System. Through its trainees, tens and thousands of nurses, social workers and chaplains have been taught how to help patients plan for future care decisions.
A Necessary Decison Process
"People often need help in thinking about these issues and creating a good plan, but most doctors don't have the time to provide this service," said Bernard Hammes, who runs the training program at Gunderson Lutheran. "Conversation is very important for an advance care plan to be successful. But it isn't just a conversation; it's at least three conversations." Dr. Hammes,editor of a book, "Having Your Own Say: Getting the Right Care When It Means the Most," said that while he is especially concerned that people 60 and older make their wishes known to family members and develop a cohesive plan, the same steps should be taken by someone who develops a serious illness at any age.
"People need to sit down and decide what kind of care makes sense to them and what doesn't make sense, and who would be the best person to represent them if they became very ill and couldn't make medical decisions for themselves," Dr. Hammes said. "If for example, you had a sudden and permanent brain injury, how bad would that injury have to be for you to say that you would not want to be kept alive?" he continued. "What strongly held beliefs and values would influence your choice of medical treatment?'
Divisive family conflicts and unwanted medical interventions can be avoided when people specify their wishes, he said. His own mother "told us that if she had severe dementia, it would be a total waste of her life savings to keep her alive. She would rather that her children got the money. We help people work through the decision process and involve those close to them so that the family shares in their goals," Dr Hammes said. "When patients have a care plan, the moral dilemmas doctors face can be prevented."
At Good Medicine in San Francisco, Dr. Brokaw and her colleagues have thus far helped about two dozen people explain their goals and preferences, at a cost of $1,500 for each person. "In today's health care systems, families will be asked when patients can't speak for themselves, and many families are very unprepared to make these decisions," she said. Her colleague Ms Stephens pointed out that only about a quarter of American adults have advance care directives of any kind, and only half of them have them in hand or know where they are should they be needed.
Furthermore, only 12 percent had any input from a physician when filling out forms which are often alone or with a lawyer. "Our lawyer shouldn't be writing a medical contract any more than you'd want your doctor to write a legal contract," Dr. Brokaw said. The kinds of questions she said people should consider: What was your state of health at the start of the illness? What state are you likely to be in at the end of the illness? What, if anything, can provide a soft landing?
Proper Planning Helps Avoid Troubles
Judge Laws writes in the directive he is preparing," After family, I value clarity of mind and the capacity to make decisions. To live well is to continue to possess the ability to converse, to read, to retain what I learn and to coherently reflect and understand. I do not want my life prolonged if I undergo a marked lessening of my cognitive powers." Judge Laws also does not want "to live with severe distracting pain."
His directive will request that any treatment he receive be compatible with these goals. He also writes that he expects his sons and wife to support his decisions even if they disagree with them and not let any quarrels over his care cause a rift in the family. Studies have shown that advance care planning reduces stress on patients, their families and health care providers. It also results in 30 percent fewer malpractice suits, greater patient and family satisfaction and a lower incidence of depression, drinking problems and other signs of complicated grief among survivors.
Ms. Stephens said that advance directives are "organic documents that can be changed at any time if circumstances or a person's wishes change." They should be reviewed at least once every 10 years", she added.
This Personal Health column written by Jane E. Brody appeared in the New York Times last year.
Good advice here and the best time to plan for this is while you're still in good health.
A Complete Guide To Starting Your Own Home Base Busine
Long time Mail order expert, Fred Broitman has written the definitive guide to success in a business of your own. If you would like to start a business you can operate from your home no matter where you live and sell to men and women all over the world this book on MAIL ORDER is all you need to get started.
You'll Learn:
and included in this newly revised edition is: COMPLETE UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION ON HOW TO USE THE INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA TO SUPER-CHARGE YOUR NEW BUSINESS.
How to Become A Mail Order Millionaire is available from Amazon at its published price of $39.95 plus s&h or you can save $10 and order it direct from the publisher for only $29.95 and shipping is FREE. Send check or money order along with your name and address to: SUPERIOR PRESS 333 N. MICHIGAN AVENUE SUITE 1032 CHICAGO IL 60601. The book is sold on a 100% money back guarantee of satisfaction or return it for a complete no questions asked refund.
From Homeless Shelter To Science Star!
Talent Finalist Is An Incredibly Amazing Kid, once was Homeless!
In March, Lane Gunderman, a senior at the University of Chicago Lab High School, will fly to Washington, D.C. to compete for one of the nation's most prestigious high school science awards. The 18-year-old is one of 40 finalists — out of more than 1,700 applicants — for the Intel Science Talent Search.
Such an achievement may not seem unusual for a student at an elite private school. But Gunderman's journey to reach this point has been anything but typical. Six years ago, he and his family were homeless and living in a crowded Chicago North Side shelter. Schoolwork, he says, is what helped him get by.
"There wasn't much to do at the shelter, and there was very little privacy", he said the other day. "I focused my attention on on schoolwork — especially since lights had to be out at 8 P.M. Through his tenacity in the classroom, Gunderman who now lives in an apartment with his mother and younger sister, has found a niche in the intellectual hive of the University of Chicago.
"Lane was brought into a completely different part of the city and culture; he started out a little introverted and shy," Lab School Assistant Principal Asra Ahmed said, "he's an incredibly amazing kid that's never asked for any special treatment — even when he should have. He rose to the challenge of this school and has done exceptionally well."
Gunderman said his family has been "poor or extremely poor" for his whole life. They always managed to scrape by, but in 2006, Gunderman, his parents and two siblings lost their apartment. Over the next several months, they stayed with a relative in a pop-up trailer and moved around the Chicago area.
When his parents divorced that same year, the bottom fell out. One night his father dropped the family at a police station and drove away. Gunderman and the others slept on a bench in the police station, later moving to a temporary overnight shelter. The family spent the next year or so in various homeless shelters. Previously home-schooled by their mother, Gunderman and his siblings enrolled in public school for the first time.
Gunderman gained the attention of teachers for his dedication to schoolwork. He received high grades and did well on tests, leading teachers to suggest he could make it to the U. of C. Lab School. Gunderman's application to Lab and back story stood out, Ahmed said. he was accepted and awarded a full scholarship from the Malone Foundation, a group that provides educational options for gifted children.
After a year of living in homeless shelters,, Gunderman and his family managed to stay in various apartments. And after 3-1/2 years at Lab School, Gunderman is thriving both academically and socially. He was accepted last year into the school's Summer Link Science Research Program, which helps place science-focused students in real lab settings. Gunderrman was able to work with Greg Engel, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago, in a lab where his Intel Science project was born.
Last summer Gunderman joined a working team of scientists and graduste students on a project that "explains how photosynthesis uses quantum physics," Engel said. After just a few weeks of working together, Engel said he realized Gunderman's immense potential in the field. "Lane jumped into a dfficult project in a complex system. It was great fun watching him tackle big questions in the field," Engel said. "He's so driven and talented, I think he's someone with potential to be a truly spectacular scientist."
Over the summer, Gunderman created a computer simulation of his project, along with an in-depth analysis of the work. That was submitted to Intel in November and this week he found out he was one of 40 finalists and could win up to $100,000. "It's the dream of a science teacher to see someone achieve what Lane has," said Lab School biology teacher Sharon Housinger, who had encouraged Gunderman to apply to the Summer Link Program.
Gunderman has big plans for his future. He has applied to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago and is also looking at schools like Harvard, Princeton and the California Institute of Technology. The trip to Washington, though will be his first time aboard an airplane. He admitted he's a little nervous about that. "It'll be an adventure to my next adventure," he said.
This article written by Chicago Tribune reporter Bridget Doyle appeared in the Tribune January 25.
Hope you were as inspired as I was when I first read Lane Gunderman's story. It truly shows what an individual can do when one has the right attitude and is willing to seek their next adventure. Perhaps your next adventure could be owning your own business. I know it made a difference in my life when I opened my own business in 1970 and saw it grow into Chicago's largest independently owned mail order advertising agency and it could make a difference in your life, too.
With just a computer and an internet connection you could be in business for yourself in just a few months selling your products all over the world from your own home. The book I wrote HOW TO BECOME A MAIL ORDER MILLIONAIRE contains everything I've learned about mail order selling. Mail Order experts have called it "the definitive guide to success in direct response/mail order." It is a complete guide to starting your own business.
You'll learn:
and in this newly revised edition everything you need to know on HOW TO USE THE INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA TO SUPER-CHARGE YOUR BUSINESS
HOW TO BECOME A MAIL ORDER MILLIONAIRE is available from Amazon for it's published price of $39.95 plus s&h or you can order it direct from the publisher and save more than $10. Either way it's guaranteed to help you start your own business or your money back.
To order direct send a check or money order for $29.95, s&h is FREE, to SUPERIOR PRESS 333 N. Michigan Avenue Suite 1032 Chicago IL 60601
All Humans Have A Blind Spot!
The human eye sends signals to the brain that allow us to navigate our environment. For the most part, we see things as they are. However the human eye has a blind spot — located at the area of the retina where the optic nerve leads to the back of the brain.
These spots in each eye are symmetrically aligned; at each given moment one eye is compensating for the blind spot, or loss of vision, in the other. We take information from what surrounds that blind spot and fill in the blank.
Unless you're Superman, you can only see what scientists call "visible light." Some animals are able to see infrared and ultraviolet, but we cannot. Also humans are unable to distinguish the difference between polarized and non-polarized light, but many birds can.
Light passes through the pupil directly to the retina, where the light is "digested" by proteins. The information the retina receives from the amount of light given is sent through the optic nerve to the brain. This tells us what we are seeing — or what we think we see.
This can tested by covering one eye and focusing on one singular detail. A corner of your line of vision falls away and the details are blurred.
Cameras are instruments that capture exactly what the eye sees… more or less.
A Selected History of the Camera
400 B.C. Chinese philosopher Mo-Ti first discovers a version of the pinhole camera. He refers to his invention as the "locked treasure room," essentially a darkened room with only a pinhole in the window shade, through which light can project images on the opposite wall.
350 B.C. Aristotle appropriates Mo Ti's technology to safely observe solar eclipses.
1021 Abu Ali Al-Hasan Ibn al-Haitham, an Egyptian man, is the first to document the technology of pinhole cameras in a book called Book of Optics. Not until the 19th Century will the "camera obscura" be combined with photosensitive paper to record images.
1839 Louis Jacques Daguerre presents his Daguerreotype process to the French Academy of Sciences, and the Daguerreotype camera is born. Early Daguerreotype cameras require exposure times as long as 30 minutes and are incredibly cumbersome. The earliest of these devices are today some of the most expensive cameras available.
1883 After toiling with wet-plate technology for years, George Eastman announces the invention of the first dry photographic film.
1888 Eastman begins selling the Kodak camera, which is designed to utilize the new Kodak film in rolls. These revolutionary inexpensive and portable devices come loaded with 100 exposures. Once all exposures are used, the whole camera is sent back to Kodak headquarters in Rochester, N.Y., for reloading.
Little more than a hundred years later, the now indespensible smart phones do all kinds of amazing things including taking pictures that are easily and instantly shared with friends thousands of miles away.
Much of this posting is courtesy of Timeline Theatre Company's current production, Concerning Strange Devices from the Distant West in its midwest premiere. The playwright is Naomi IIzuka.
Talking about things you can see and not see…. would you like to see how easy it is to find out if going in to your own business is right for you. Do you need to find some way to make more money? If your answer to that question was YES, read on.
HOW TO BECOME A MAIL ORDER MILLIONAIRE, is a complete guide to starting your own home based business. Fred Broitman is a well known mail order authority and principal at SUNMAN DIRECT, Chicago's largest independently owned mail order advertising agency has completely revised and up-dated his book. This comprehensive manual to help you start, run and manage your own mail order business includes an all new section on how to use the power of the Internet so that you can sell anywhere in the world right from your home.
Chapters include:
and an entire chapter of 14 SURE FIRE CHECK OFF LISTS THAT GUARANTEE HUGE PROFITS.
HOW TO BECOME A MAIL ORDER MILLIONAIRE is available from Amazon at its published price of $39.95 plus s&h or you can order direct from the publisher and save 25% Send your name and address along with check or money order for just $29.95 to SUPERIOR PRESS 333 N. Michigan Avenue Suite 1032 Chicago IL 60601. Postage is FREE and it's sold on a 100% Money Back Guarantee of Satisfaction.
Nostalgia For All Those Born Before 1945
We were born before televison, before penicillin, before polio shots, ballpoint pens; before pantyhose, dishwashers, clothes dryers, electric blankets, air conditioners, drip dry clothes — and way before man walked on the moon.
We even got married first and then lived together. How quaint can you be? In our time closets were only for clothes, not for "coming out of". Designer Jeans were scheming girls named Jean or Jeanne, and having a meaningful relationship meant getting along with our cousins.
We thought fast food was what you ate during Lent, and outer space were the upper rows in the balcony of our favorite movie theatre. We were born before anybody had coined the term house-husbands. There were no such things as gay rights or computer dating, dual careers or commuter marriages and this was before day-care centers, group therapy and nursing homes.
We never heard of FM radio, tape decks, electric typewriters, artificial hearts, word processors, let alone computers, yogurt and guys wearing earrings. For us, time-sharing meant togetherness not computers or condominiums; a chip referred to a piece of wood, hardware meant screw drivers or hammers, and software wasn't even a word.
In 1940, "Made in Japan" meant junk and the term "making out" referred to how you did on your exam. "Macdonalds" and Instant coffee were unheard of. We hit the scene when there were 5 & 10 cent stores, where you actually bought things for 5 and 10 cents. Ice cream cones cost a nickel or at the most a dime. If you lived in a big city you could ride a streetcar from one side of town to the other for a nickel. What else could a nickel buy? Well you could make a telephone call, buy a "Pepsi" or enough stamps to mail one letter and two postcards.
A brand new Chevy coupe was available for $600…but who could afford one? A pity, too because gas was only 11 cents a gallon! In our day cigarette smoking was fashionable. Grass was mowed, never smoked. Coke was a cold drink and pot was something you cooked in. Rock music helped grandma's put their babies to sleep and "Aids" were helpers in the principal's office.
We certainly knew there were differences between the sexes but changing sexes would have been unthinkable. We made do with what we had. And we were so dumb as to think we needed a husband to have a baby. No wonder we are so confused and there is such a generation gap today.
But we survived!!! What better reason to celebrate?
Another reason to celebrate is finding a new job for those who have been downsized by their companies having to close stores or outsourcing jobs to low wage countries. If you or somebody you know is in this fix, I have good news for you. Here's an inexpensive way to learn how to start your own money making business right from your own home A business you can be never be fired from. A business that can provide a way for you to make part-time income when you retire or full time income without the expense of an outside office or the rent for a storefront. That business is MAIL ORDER and it's booming like never before… all due to the world wide web. Selling a product or service right from your home to someone living hundreds or thousands of miles from you, even, overseas is a way for you to say goodbye to uncaring bosses forever.
HOW TO BECOME A MAIL ORDER MILLIONAIRE is a complete guide to starting your own home based business. Written by long time mail order expert Fred Broitman, founder of Chicago's largest independently owned direct response advertising agency, SUNMAN DIRECT. If you would like to start a business that you can operate from your home no matter where you live and sell a product or service to men and women all over the world, then take advantage of this special offer and save 25%. It's available to order from Amazon for $39.95 plus s&h. However if you order direct from the publisher, it's yours for only $29.95 and shipping is FREE.
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Sold on a Money Back Guarantee of Satisfaction… or your money back!
George Lauer — The Man Who Changed The Way Everyone Shops!
The Biggest Surprise is That Neither He or His Company Patented It
On a Sunday afternoon in 1971, an I.B.M. engineer stepped out of his house in Raleigh, N.C., to consult his boss, who lived across the street. "I didn't do what you asked," George Lauer confessed.
Lauer had been instructed to design a code that could be printed on food labels and that would be compatible with the scanners then in development for supermarket checkout counters. He was told to model it on the bull's-eye-shaped optical scanning code designed in the 1940's by N. Joseph Woodland, who died in December. But Laurer saw a problem with the shape: "When you run a circle through a high-speed press, there are parts that are going to get smeared," he says "so I came up with my own code." His system, a pattern of stripes, would be readable even it was poorly printed.
That pattern became the basis for the U.P.C., the Universal Product Code, which was adopted by a consortium of grocery companies in 1973, when cashiers were still punching in all prices by hand. Within a decade, the U.P.C. — and optical scanners — brought supermarkets into the digital age. Now an employee could ring up a cereal box with a flick of the wrist. "When people find out that I invented the U.P.C., they think I'm rich," Laurer says. But he received no royalities for this invention, and I.B.M did not patent it.
As the U.P.C. symbol proliferated, so, too, did paranoia about it. For decades, Laurer has been hounded by people convinced that he has hidden the number 666 inside the lines of his code. "I didn't get the meat," Laurer said ruefully, "but I did get the nuts.".
This article first appeared in the New York Times Magazine January 6, 2013 under the byline of Pagan Kennedy.
Did you know there's a Museum dedicated to the bar code? The ID History Museum is run by Bill Selmeier who was interviewed for this story:
You worked at I.B.M. in the 1970's and then helped promote the U.P.C? Yes, I started the seminars where we invited people from the grocery and labeling industry into I.B.M. We were there to reduce their fear.
What were they afraid of? They were afraid that anything that didn't work right would reflect badly on them — particularly if it was only their own package that wouldn't scan. The guy from Birds Eye said "My stuff always has ice on it when it goes through the checkout." So we put his package in the freezer and took it out and showed him how it scanned perfectly.
Why are you still so interested in the history of the U.P.C. code? Let me put it this way: What bigger impact can you have on the world than to change the way everyone shops?
Even my book How To Become A Mail Order Millionaire has its own unique U.P.C. and as a visitor to my blog I want to offer you a special low price to order the book on a no risk trial. Plus an extra bonus. You can save more than 30% off the price and if you're not completely satisfied, return it for a full refund. Sold everywhere for $39.95 plus s&h, you can order it direct from the publisher for only $29.95 and shipping is FREE.
It has been described by experts in the field as "the definitive guide to success in mail order/direct response"
How To Become A Mail Order Millionaire is a complete guide to starting your own business, a business you can run from your home with no cost for an outside office or place of business and utilizing the power of the World Wide Websell your product or service all over the world.
You'll learn:
How To Get Started
How To Find Great Products
How To Make Your Business Profitable Right From The Start
How To Price Your Product or Service For Biggest Profits
Secrets of Creating Winning Mail Order Ads
14 Seure Fire Check Off Lists That Guarantee Huge Profits
and included in this newly revised edition:
Complete Up-To-Date Information on How To Use the Internet To Super-Charge Your Mail Order Business
and for all new buyers I'm offering you a huge bonus. Order from this posting and you also receive a full years personal consultation from the author at no cost. Fred Broitman is the founder/CEO of SUNMAN DIRECT Chicago's largest independently owned direct response advertising agency. To receive this extra bonus, just send your name and address along with your check or money order for $29.95 to: SUPERIOR PRESS Dept. 8103 333 N. Michigan Avenue Suite 1032 Chicago, IL 60611
A String of Failures Is Far More Valuable Than A String Of Wins.
Very early in my advertising career, a client taught me a very important lesson.
At the first agency I worked for my boss, the man in charge of recommending which magazines should carry this clients first advertisements asked me to make these recommendations. A little scared and not wanting to make any mistakes, I did my best to do some research. My boss went on vacation and was not available. Not wanting to delay my task, I recommended 5 magazines for their first advertising with our company. Shortly after their ads ran I called the client to find out how their advertising performed and was told that 4 did well but the 5th did so poorly they would never ever place another ad there. I was devestated and apologized for making this mistake.
Not a mistake at all, our client said. When this magazine failed to produce sufficient profits from our investment we learned that other similar magazines should also not be used. You probably saved us far more dollars than the cost of this one magazine. How To Fail… The Self-Hurt Guide Augusten Burroughs #1 New York Times Author of Running With Scissors newest book THIS IS HOW explores age old questions in his delightful easy to read book. From his cover blurb. "If you're fat and fail every diet, if you're thin but can't get thin enough, if you lose your job, if your child dies, if you are diagnosed with cancer, if you always end up with exactly the wrong kind of person, if you always end up alone, if you can't get over the past, if your parents are insane and ruining your life, if you really and truly wish you were dead, if you feel like it's your destiny to be a star, if you believe life has a grudge against you, if you don't want to have sex with your spouse and don't know why, if you feel so ashamed, if you're lost in your life. If You Have Ever Wondered HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SURVIVE THIS? THIS IS HOW Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decreptitude & More. For Young and Old Alike."
One of his chapters is headed HOW TO FAIL. Mr. Burroughs writes: "You will learn much more from failing than from making straight A's in life. A string of failures is far more valuable than a string of wins. The reason is that our brains were programmed in the factory to look for and pay special attention to novelty. Which is to say the unique."
"So if you're a straight A student in school or a metaphorical straight-A student in your adult life, that's a whole lot of same old, same old. One A+ paper blends right into the next. It's when you get a D that you learn something valuable. It's when you fall on your ass that you actally make progress. I am a complete and total fuck-up. Which is exactly why I am equipped to write this book and tell you how to live."
"I make rings out of gemstones and bronze and I never went to school for this. I never took a design class and I have no business, actually handling 1,525 degree metal and chrysoberyl cat's eye gems. But I do it anyway. And when I began, I made one hideous disaster of a ring after another until I had made maybe three hundred. Each time, I tried to make one nice ring. Each time, I totally failed. Until ring number 301. Which was suddenly, inexplicably cool."
"Now I make more good rings than lousy ones. There are always new mistakes to make. But I never make my old rerun mistakes. Perfectionism is the satin-lined casket of creativity and originality. If you're a perfectionist, at least stop telling everybody you're one and try to get over it yourself, alone in your home with the lights off."
Here's just a few other chapter headings in THIS IS HOW:
How To Find Love
How to Be Fat
How To Be Thin
How To Feel Sorry For Yourself
How To Be Confident
How To Get The Job
How To End Your Life
How To Get Over Your Addiction To The Past
How To Finish Your Drink
How To Hold On To Your Dream Or Maybe Not
How To Identify Love By Knowing What It's Not
This is just a small sampling of what this book contains. Mr. Burroughs book is published by St. Martins Press and is available from Amazon as is my book HOW TO BECOME A MAIL ORDER MILLIONAIRE. Lauded by industry experts as "the definitive guide to success in direct response/mail order" If you have always had the desire to start a business of your own there is no better time than now. Using the power of the Worldwide Web you can sell a product or service to anyone no matter where they live and you can start your own business where you live. In the beginning you can do it without employees or outside office expense… This newly revised edition will help you learn:
How To Get Started
How To Find Great Products
How To Make Your Business Profitable Right From The Start
How To Price Your Product or Service For Biggest Profits
Secrets of Creating Winning Mail Order Ads
14 Sure-Fire Check Off Lists That Guarantee Huge Profits
Complete Up-To-Date Information On How To Use The Internet To Make Easy Sales
HOW TO BECOME A MAIL ORDER MILLIONAIRE is available from Amazon at its published price of $39.95 plus s&h…. or you can save $10 and order it direct from the publisher for only $29.95 and shipping is FREE. To order send check or money order along with your name and address to: Superior Press 333 N. Michigan Avenue Suite 1032 Chicago, IL 60601. Sold on a 100% Guarantee of Satisfaction or your money back.
Seeing Ourselves in a Grain of Sand!
Science Can Really Deflate You!
You really think human beings are special? Well, crows can use tools, chimps can paint, and Neanderthals had bigger brains.
Heck, octopuses can open jars. Is earth special? Not really. Astonomers have found well over more than a thousand planets orbiting distant stars and they will probably find a "mirror earth" — a rocky doppelganger with liquid water — within the year. In a book review by Sam Kean, "THE UNIVERSE WITHIN" written by Neil Shubin and first appeared in the Saturday/Sunday January 12-13 issue of the Wall Street Journal.
Sam Kean, continues. Surely, though, the universe itself is unique, almost by definition. Afraid not. Physicists now routinely invoke the "multiverse" with its bazillions of parallel universes to explain how space-time works. As Neil Shubin writes in his book, "you could legitimately wonder if it is part of the job description of scientists to make people feel utterly puny and insignificant."
So is science inherently depressing? Absolutely. At least at first. But once you accept our cosmic triviality, and let go of the man-is-the-measure-of-all-things attitude, you can learn to see science in a more affirming manner. Books like "The Universe Within" teach us how to see things the right way around.
Mr. Shubin, a professor of biological sciences, at the University of Chicago, wrote this book as a sort of sequel to "Your Inner Fish" (2008), which traced the origin of various human body parts back to fish and worms and their ilk, to show how we can still see vestiges of our fishy ancestry inside us today. "The Universe Within" reaches even deeper: It tracks the very atoms in our bodies back to the Big Bang, and shows how all the molecules that comprise us have roots in the formation and maturation of Earth. As Mr. Shubin puts it, "the bodies in the graves, and the stones that mark them, are united by the history they share."
That might sound like one more disheartening fact — we came from nothing, and in the long run, we're all dead. But Mr. Shubin makes it all seem rather glorious. You mean there are traces of the moon's cataclysmic birth inside of every human being? (We owe the length of our days, seasons, and circadian rhythms to the moon.) You can see remnants of ancient supercontinents in the birth of little old me? (The rift that created the Atlantic Ocean long ago raised oxygen levels worldwide and allowed mammals to gestate their babies intenally.) It is downright flattering: Every speck around us betrays a hidden compliment, and anyone can learn the trick of identification with a little training.
"Seeing our connections to the natural world is like detecting the pattern hidden inside an optical illusion." Mr Shubin writes. "When you learn to view the world through this lens, bodies and stars become windows to a past that was vast almost beyond comprehension." Amid the poetry, Mr. Shubin interlaces anecdotes about hunting for fossils in Greenland as part of his own fieldwork, as well as historical tales about oceanography, geology, and natural history. (I especially enjoyed the "experiment" where two Harvard professors chucked a bucket of frogs off a five-story building.) The leaps from one domain to another can be dizzying.
When discussing the origin of color vision in primates, he comments, "every time you admire a richly colorful view, you can thank India for slamming into Asia, continents for retreating from Antartica, and the poles for becoming frozen wastelands." But he also takes the time to explain, quite clearly, how a cooling earth, by reducing the supply of edible vegetation, created conditons that favored those organisms that could discern one color of a plant from another. After he has lain out his chain of reasoning, it does seem reasonable to think about color vision and plate tectonics together. More than reasonable. It seems inevitable.
Mr. Shubin doesn't present, and doesn't claim to present, any profoundly new facts or theories here. What is special about the book is its sweep, its scope, its panorama — how physics, biology, geology, chemistry and seemingly every other science are brought to bear on the most intricate details of human life.
The romantic poet William Blake had many misgivings about science, in part for the reeason Mr. Shubin mentioned above—science dehumanized us, made humankind seem trifling. But I have a sneaking suspicion that Blake might have enjoyed parts of "The Universe Within." In "Auguries of Innocence" Blake wrote with rapture about the ability: "To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wildflower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour." Mr. Shubin's ability to do all this comes from long experience, not blissful Blakean innocence. But the two ends some-how wrap around and meet: They tap into the same awe, and this makes science seem a very uplifting enterprise indeed.
Another uplifting enterprise, especially if you find yourself on the outside looking in as far as your career goes these days is owning your own business. Many highly qualified men and women have lost their jobs due to no fault of their own. Companies have downsized or sent jobs overseas or just plain shut down due to the present economy.
One business, however, is doing better than ever and that's Mail Order. The reason is because of how easy it is to sell products or services to eager buyers all over the world using the power of the World Wide Web. Your potential customer can live anywhere in the world and you can reach them just as easily as if they live in your own home town. My book How To Become A Mail Order Millionaire answers all your questions on how to succeed.
You'll learn:
and included in this newly revised edition:
Complete Up-To-Date Information on How To Use The Internet To sell All Over The World
Sold on a 100% Guarantee of Satisfacton…..or Your Money Back!
HOW TO BECOME A MAIL ORDER MILLIONAIRE is available from Amazon at its published price of $39.95 plus s&h or you can save $10 and order it direct from the publisher for only $29.95 and postage is FREE. Send check or money order along with your name and address to: Superior Press 333 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 1032 Chicago, IL 60601
A Truly Amazing Inventor You've Never Heard Of!
This obituary of Mr . Ovshinsky originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune October 24, 2012 reported by Elaine Woo.
Self-taught inventor Stanford Ovshinsky was not a household name like Thomas Edison or Albert Einstein, but he was often compared to them, for good reason.
He invented the nickel-metal hybrid battery, which has powered high-tech items such as cellphones, laptop computers and hybrid cars.
He created paper-thin solar panels potent enough to work on a cloudy day and cheap enough to be produced in sheets a mile long.
He founded a whole field of electronics that earned him a mention in dictionaries (see "ovonics") and led to such marvels of modern life as the flat-screen TV.
Scientist's work in hybrid cars, flat screen TVs: 'Only genius I ever met,' says University of Chicago physicist
Mr Ovshinsky, who never went to college yet transformed the alternative energy, information and automotive industries with his inventions, died of prostate cancer Oct. 17 at his home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, according to his son Harvey. He was 89.
The self-taught scientist-inventor pursued audacious ideas throughout his long career,often attracting the scorn of other scientists who said his schemes were foolish, impractical or just plain impossible.
In some respects, they were right. He ran Energy Conversion Devices, a product development company for 40 years, few of which were profitable. Although it drew blue-chip investors such as General Motors, 3M and Intel, it performed so poorly from a business standpoint that Forbes magazine once described it as "a high-tech Roach Motel" where the money goes in but it never comes out."
But Mr. Ovshinsky's path-breaking discoveries led his admirers to associate him with other brilliant minds.
"It's difficult to compare one genius with another genius," said University of Chicago physicist Helmut Fritzsche, who consulted for Mr. Ovshinsky and later became a vice president of Energy Conversion Devices, "but I've known great people, having been at the University of Chicago for over 40 years, and I consider Stan Ovshinsky the only genius I ever met… Everything he touches is new, different, wonderful."
Mr Ovshinsky made a scientific name for himself in 1968, when he went public with research showing that glass could be engineered to conduct electricity. He predicted that glass semiconductors would one day replace crystalline transistors.
To argue as he did, that cheap noncrystalline materials such as glass could perform as well as more expensive silicon crystals sounded preposterous and derided by readers of Physical Review Letters, the prestigious journal that published Mr. Ovshinsky's findings.
But his paper eventually became one of the five most cited publications in the journal's history, and his prediction became prophecy, spawning a new field he called ovonics.
Born in Akron, Ohio, on November 24, 1922, he was the son of Bertha Munitz and Benjamin Ovshinsky, a Lithuanian immigrant who later entered the scrap business.
Young Stan fell in love with machinery while accompanying his father to foundries and machine shops.
A mediocre student he spent hours in the Akron public library, where his real education took place. "His teachers didn't understand him, but his librarian did," his son said. "The librarian let him take out adult books. ….. He was tireless in his curiosity."
Mr. Ovshinsky's formal education ended when he graduated from high school in 1941. Exempted from military service during World War II because of his asthma, he worked as a toolmaker and married Norma Rifkin, a childhhood sweetheart.
That marriage ended in divorce. In 1959 he married Iris Miroy; she died in 2006. He later married Rosa Young, who survives him along with three sons from his first marriage, four stepchildren, a brother and six grandchildren and stepgrandchildren.
In 1960 he and his second wife, Iris, founded what became Energy Conversion Devices with the goal of using science and technology to solve the world's environmental and social problems. It's nickel-metal hybrid batery, often called the NiMH, was one of its most successful products, used in electric and hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight.
Mr. Ovshinsky's commitment to alternative energy sources earned him a spot on Time magazine's list of "Heroes for the Planet" in 1999.
He retired from Energy Conversion Devices in 2007. The company filed for bankruptcy this year.
But Mr. Ovshinsky, who held more than 300 patents, did not stop inventing. "A real inventor," he told the Detroit Free Press in 2008, "is not motivated by money. It's about the idea and the creation."
If only Mr . Ovshinsky was aware of the book on how to sell by mail order written by Fred Broitman. He might have been more successful in selling the wonderful products he invented.
Have you ever thought you had a great ideas for a product but didn't know how to go about selling it?
How to Become A Mail Order Millionaire could be the answer you've been looking for. Many experts in the field have called it "the definitve guide to starting your own business."
Long time mail order expert Fred Broitman has written this complete guide to starting your own home based business. If you would like to start a business that you can operate from your home and sell all over all over the world then this is your lucky day.
With the power of the world wide web you can become successful in a business of your own just by following the plan outlined in this newly revised edition. Mr. Broitman guarantees it.
and included in this new revised edition:
This book will provide you with an easy to follow "Road Map to Success in a Business of Your Own"
HOW TO BECOME A MAIL ORDER MILLIONAIRE is available from Amazon at its published price of $39.95 plus s&h or you can save $10 and order it direct from the publisher for only $29.95 and shipping is FREE. Just send check or money order along with your name and address to SUPERIOR PRESS 333 N. Michigan Avenue Suite 1032 Chicago IL 60601
Sold on a 100% Guarantee of Satisfaction or Your Money Back!


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We're a hospice in Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, providing comprehensive, free care for patients of all ages with any progressive life-limiting illnesses, and support for those who care for them.See how we help people
We rely on our regular supporters and fundraisers to help meet the running costs each year!
We are unique because our adult and children's hospices are #under1roof. The combined running costs are £5.5-million; typically we receive 18 per cent statutory funding every year. We need to raise the rest through donations.
How much it costs to cater for our patients every day
The cost of running the entire hospice for one minute
How many lovely people volunteer for our hospice
Here is a small selection of just some of the shops we have in the region.

subset: commoncrawl


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Foresight Archives
Officers and Staff
J. Storrs Hall, Ph.D. – Former President February 2009-March 2010
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J. Storrs ("Josh") Hall, Ph.D., is Past President of the Foresight Institute and an independent scientist and author. Dr. Hall is a prolific writer on nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, machine ethics, and other social impacts of technology. He is actively sought out to speak about and be interviewed on diverse future technology-related topics, appearing for example in the movie "The Singularity is Near". He has over 30 years research experience in academia and industry.
Dr. Hall was the founding Chief Scientist of Nanorex Inc and serves on its Scientific Advisory Board. He is a Research Fellow of the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, and is an associate editor of the International Journal of Nanotechnology and Molecular Computation.
Dr. Hall's most recent book Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine (Prometheus, 2007), was the first full-length non-fiction treatment of machine ethics. He is active in the machine ethics and AGI (artificial general intelligence) research communities. His previous book was Nanofuture: What's Next for Nanotechnology (Prometheus 2005), which won the Foresight Communications Prize and the Bela Kornitzer prize.
His research background includes AI, compilers, microprocessor design, massively parallel processor design, CAD software, and automated multi-level design, and semi-empirical simulation of physical systems. He founded the Usenet's sci.nanotech group in the 1980s and was its moderator for ten years. His inventions include swarm robotic systems, self-bootstrapping automated manufacturing systems, adiabatic logic, and agoric operating systems. He holds a Ph.D. and a Masters degree in Computer Science from Rutgers University, and a Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics from Drew University.
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Foresight materials on the Web are ©1986–2020 Foresight Institute. All rights reserved. Legal Notices.
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Populism: have the politicians got the message?
The populist challenge comes in response to a political elite that is seen as out of touch and refuses to do what common sense demands. It is an argument about "them and us". And it demands a response which neither changes nor concedes the argument. That was the message of the 'Populism: have the politicians got the message?' fringe meeting at the Liberal Democrat conference earlier this week, writes Steve Ballinger


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Did we get this right?
Your Bluebird Card allows you to spend wherever Amex Cards are accepted, so let's make sure it gets to the right place.
It appears that you have entered a Vermont address. Unfortunately, Bluebird® is not available to Vermont residents. Please modify your State and ZIP to continue.


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Brian Cavazos-Galvez
He's one of our most recent draft picks who also happened to win Pioneer League MVP honors in his first pro season. He also won the August Dodger Pride Awards, which you can read about here.
Even more interesting is the story about him in the most recent edition of Baseball America. You have to have a login to read it (or get the hard copy), but it's a great read. His father is former Dodger Balvino Galvez, who played briefly for the team in 1986 (back when Pete Guerrero was hitting homers left and right).
Might be worth picking up a copy of the mag…
Big series kicks off tomorrow in SF.
No Comments
Hard to figure that so many Dodger hitters go cold at the same time while no one seems to stay hot for more than a few games. I know some argue the pitching has been really good against the Dodgers but I don't accept that. Sure, there is good pitching but championship caliber teams beat good pitching some of the time. The Dodgers have not done that this season. At least not yet. We will see what happens in San Francisco.
Interesting stats Furcal has been hot this month.
OK, that nasty half game is gone, Rocks are 2 back. With 21 games left in the season, it's time for Torre to stop playing psychologist, best buddy, or what have you. The best should play. Now. Ausmus is a veteran catcher who commands respect and throws the ball ALL the way to second base. Enough said. That the L.A. Times is even speaking of the Wild Card fall-back parachute is enough to make me sick.
It would be great to see the Dodgers pull off seven straight wins.
Been thinking back to '88 and a fairly mediocre team. But momentum is tied to tomorrow's starting pitcher, as the saying goes. In '88 they were huge underdogs to the Mets and then the A's. But the Dodgers rode the coat tails of a VERY hot starting pitcher (anyone remember that guy's name??!?!?!?!?), and three tremendous home runs: Scioscia, game 4 Mets; Gibby, game 5 Mets; and Gibby, game 1 A's. The playoffs will be fun. I still think the Dodgers win the division and face Philly again in the first round.
lbirken ~ we will start our winning streak in SF!!!!! I have confidence we will play like we were at the beginning of the season. I know it's only a two game lead but, we are still in first place!!!
trublue, I like your spirit. Have a great evening.
Thanks, you too! I know we haven't been playing very well lately but, we are showing signs of getting our hitting back. And, the BP has been very good so, I do like our chances of stringing together some wins. Just so Joe doesn't start screwing with the lineup.
So today I was going to go to SF to get some auto's of our beloved Blue. But I was so exhausted/stressed from the last few weeks of work I didn't go.
I will go tomorrow.
But I did manage to get out and hit a local Starbucks, where I ran into a certain skinny long dark haired 2008 NL Cy Young winner. I really wanted to say something to him but he was with his girlfriend so I let him be. It was his day off.
He was at the counter ordering and she was hugging him from behind and leaning on his back. I was tempted to tell her to push harder as I was a Dodger fan. But I restrained myself.
Good evening ITD boys and girls!
I'm just so sick of being sick at watching the Dodgers' once VERY BIG LEAD in the NL West dwindle to a measly 2 games. That's all I've got to say about that subject. I can't stay past this post, but I had to say this…
Collie – You little devil you… 🙂
Collie ~ good story…..I would have tripped and fallen into Tim!
Thanks everybody for the well wishes, I survived the first day….and I am presently enjoying my own victory flask…..I am sore, sore, sore…a good sore though. Eric I did'nt mention that before so.. ( you heard it here first ) This isn't Paul Harvey but GOOD DAY… anyway's…..Once again Thanks everyone….
Collie – That is a great story about seeing Lincecum……………just from a baseball fan perspective. Dodgers fan or not, he is one amazing pitcher. Sorry you didn't get to SF today, but have a blast tomorrow. We wish we could be there, but we will certainly be there in spirit.
Also Collie – I hope things calm down at work soon. When's vacation? LOL!!!!
Dodger4life – Good Job in getting your first day out of the way, and enjoy your flask 🙂
You know the Dodgers are going to do well tomorrow because my comment to Dodger4life was comment #16. So I am thinking #16 will have a Fabulous Friday tomorrow at the phone booth, along with all his Dodgers teammates.
The current Dodgertown video is one of Matt Kemp giving a tour of the administrative offices. It is very cool. It's worth the watch!!
Good Morning ITD, Dodger Faithful and Our Beloved Boy's in Blue………..
Matt Kemp is a natural leader………..I loved the video.
In remembrence of 9/11……America ~ Ray Charles
Have a great Day everyone
I will always remember 9/11….my Grandson was born on that day. God Bless America!!!
It is now time for the Dodgers to make their move to win the championship! Let's kick it up a notch and win this damn division!!!
TRU so many lives were lost that day, but so many babies were born in September of 2001 (probably close to 6 among my friends & fam.) I will never forget the Morning of 9/11 and watching the news as the second plane hit. All I was thinking about is How am I going to protect my lil' baby (I was 9 months pregnant at the time, due anytime). God bless the victims of 9/11, God bless America and the rest of the World!
Good morning ITDers!
Beat the Jints! Dodgers!!
Have the mentality of Don Drysdale! No socializing with the enemy!
As I was reading your post about Ray Charles's youtube, I was listening to Ray Charles with the song "Come Rain or Sunshine!" , now I am listening to "fever" with Charles and Natalie Cole. This music is getting in happy happy mood!
Well said! Got to get back to winning streaks!
Love that story!
So what day in September was your baby born?
EMMA – She was born on the 26th of September…yeah my Lil' baby will be 8 and a trip to Disneyland is what she asked for. I remember going into the hospital and the maternity floor was empty. By the time I gave birth and was wheeled to my room, the hospital had cleared the waiting rooms to add beds for women giving birth.


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Recent Posts
Friday, 25 September 2015
Welcome to the Gucci Pet Shop
Posted by Reem Adeeb
Autumn is officially upon us and as we start to leave our sandals for more adequate footwear I am happy to see that foot fur has now become a look du jour.
And by that I don't mean hairy toes...(God forbid) nor hairy feet...(eek!!)...but the unique crossover from Celine's fluffy Birkenstocks that sort of engulfed your feet to Gucci's creation of a puppy Chewbacca that has literally swallowed them....your feet...you are still with me, I hope.
UK Elle magazine quotes that you can:.." style them - with denim or a vintage print dress..." I beg to differ...you can wear these incredibly overpriced "slippers" in your uber chic chalet in Aspen ... while sipping on aged Cognac and making a playing card house out of your credit cards...
Come On Now!!! You wear these outside you will be mocked and vilified and ridiculed and let's not mention the fact that you will be cleaning the streets with your Gucci Swiffers wherever you go....at £1,230 go get thee a handbag.
On a more serious note:
Now this has more class and trend appeal and doesn't make we want to rush to the RSPCA and make a call for animal cruelty...
Ah...the tomfoolery of Fashion.


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New & renewed: Pronto and Rocco's primed for slice of Fairfield pizza market
FAIRFIELD -- The town's oldest and newest pizzerias have something in common: They're celebrating grand openings in the next few weeks.
The Apizza Center on the Post Road near Grasmere Avenue, which opened more than 60 years ago, will hold a grand "reopening" in September after a name change to Rocco's -- and extensive changes to its menu and interior. Before that, Pronto Chop Shop & Pizzeria is scheduled to open Aug. 12 in the Brick Walk Shopping Center.
"It's a big deal, making the change," said David Cervero, who joined the new Rocco's as a partner to help Leno D'Arcangelo, its longtime owner, run the restaurant at 116 Post Road. "It's been a long time coming."
Cervero, who was a general manager at the Ash Creek Saloon from 2002 to 2009 before becoming an operating partner at The Shack until it closed six months ago, said changes to the Apizza Center include replacing booths with high-top tables, adding a 30-foot bar, a new roof, kitchen equipment, and the planned addition of a 30-seat patio.
It has remained open during renovations.
Menu changes include adding salads, appetizers, meatballs and sauces; pub fare, such as wings and nachos; and sandwiches.
"My goal with the menu was to keep what worked, and the pizza has always worked for years," Cevero said. "It still is the oldest pizza place in Fairfield. We'd like to keep that and keep the customers who have been coming here since they were little kids."
Bill Komenda, of Fairfield, said he's gone to the Apizza Center since the late 1960s, but has not seen how it's changed. He said he liked the Apizza Center because it was "like an old-school pizza place and everything was really good."
Meanwhile, Pronto is offering chopped salad on its pizzas, said Glenn Grella, of Fairfield, who will run the restaurant at 1241 Post Road with his wife, Mary, brother Dave and chef Nelson Martinez.
"There are a few people who do a salad pizza around, but I've never seen a chopped salad one," Glenn Grella said. "We'll have five different toppings as far as the lettuces you can choose."
Pronto will also offer grilled romaine lettuce, which involves brushing the lettuce with a light oil and seasoning. "The flavor that comes out of that is amazing," Grella said.
Pronto will seat 20 to 30 people inside, and outdoor seating is planned.
Hours will be Sundays through Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Thursdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. For more information, check www.prontochopshop.com.


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Tortillas come in two basic types: corn and wheat. Wheat tortillas, made from white flour, are often labeled "flour tortillas." Whole-wheat tortillas are made from whole-grain flour.
In a bowl, combine peppers, onion and cumin. Sprinkle each tortilla with cheese, using 1/4 cup cheese on each. Divide pepper mixture among tortillas, spreading it over cheese. Fold each tortilla in half and put in greased 9-by-13-inch baking pan.
Cover pan with foil. Bake at 350 F for 10 to 15 minutes, or until cheese melts. Remove foil. Cut each tortilla into 4 pieces. Serve with your favorite salsa for dipping.
This recipe is one of 400 recipes collected in the "Fix-It and Enjoy-It! Healthy Cookbook" published by Good Books.
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Chris Hughes, P.E., District Deputy Director District 1 – 1885 North McCullough St. – Lima, Ohio 45801 Phone: (419) 222-9055 – Fax: (419) 222-0438 – TDD: (419) 222-5652
ODOT District 1 serves the northwestern Ohio counties of Allen, Defiance, Hancock, Hardin, Paulding, Putnam, Van Wert and Wyandot. The district is charged with maintaining approximately 3,200 lane miles of state and federal highway, maintaining over 800 bridge structures and for planning new construction which enhances, improves or expands the transportation system within its eight-county area. The district is headquartered in Lima, Ohio, Allen County.
We always like to hear from those we serve. If you have a question or transportation issue you'd like us to address, please contact us here.


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Rail Of War
Tags: Defense Games / Shooting Games / Survival Games / War Games / Train Games
Publisher: TotallyGame.com
Video Walkthrough
Rail Of War is a World War 2 based Game. You are in charge of a train that is carrying weapons and you must get to the end of each track while eradicating all of the enemies attempting to stop you. Your can choose from up to 7 trains with different combinations of 7 wagons and 9 weapons. Each mission has multiple routes to the end of the track, but be sure to clear the track of enemies too as they'll try and derail you. You can upgrade your weapons and you can pick up power-ups. The enemy will attack from the land and the air.
· Play This Game = Use Mouse (point and click)
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Muhammad Ali presents humanitarian awards
- Former boxing champ returned to hometown of Louisville to present awards
- Lifetime achievement award went to former President Jimmy Carter
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (AP) — Muhammad Ali is recognizing former President Jimmy Carter, Grammy winners and young adults for their roles in fighting for humanitarian causes.
The former boxing champion returned to his hometown of Louisville to join in presenting the inaugural Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Awards on Thursday night.
The 89-year-old Carter received a lifetime achievement award. His son Chip accepted the award on his father's behalf.
Singers Christina Aguilera and Michael Bolton were other award winners.
Ali's wife, Lonnie, says the awards are a culmination of her husband's efforts to promote social causes.
Six young adults and teenagers from around the world were being recognized for exemplifying core principles espoused by Ali. Winners include a Ugandan who formed an anti-poverty organization and an American teenager who started a foundation to provide shoes to homeless children.


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Wild Adventures Roars Into 2016 With New Attraction Announcement
|© Wild Adventures
The set up will be similar to exhibits seen at other amusement parks, and will have more than 20 life sized dinosaurs that move, roar and have other special effects. Some of the largest of the dinosaurs, like the brachiosaurus for example, will stand more than two stories tall. There will be many different types of dinosaurs featured, ranging from friendly herbivores to snarling raptors. The new exhibit has a planned opening date of March 12, 2016.
All around Wild Adventure new experiences aimed at creating family fun will also debut, though specific details have not yet been released. For now the park is only saying that "life-size mazes, wacky challenges & splashy surprises" are some of the special pop-up fun that is planned.


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WCSU photo exhibition features 'Winged Beauty: Birds in Their Habitat'
Retirement has given Walter Duncan more time to visit family in faraway places, but that's not all — he also is pursuing another college degree and has taken up a newfound avocation in photographing several hundred species of birds in their natural habitats.
Western Connecticut State University will present a selection of avian images drawn from Duncan's formidable library of digital photographs in an exhibition titled "Winged Beauty: A View of Birds in Their Natural Habitat." The public is invited to meet Duncan and view his photos at an opening reception with light refreshments at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, March 30, in the Science Building Atrium on the university's Midtown campus, 181 White St. in Danbury. The exhibition will be open for viewing weekdays in the Science Building Atrium from March 25 through 30 and April 4 through 7. Admission will be free for the show and reception.
Since he retired five-and-a-half years ago from his job as vice president of product development at the Watertown manufacturing firm Bristol Babcock, Duncan and his wife Helen have traveled to visit the families of their three daughters, spread across the world in Germany, Oman and California. But the devoted father and grandfather found that he needed new challenges suited to his wide-ranging interests and restless intellectual curiosity as well. He has discovered these by returning to the classroom at Western Connecticut State University and embarking on a quest in Connecticut and across the nation for uncommon birds to photograph.
Duncan's current studies at WCSU to earn a bachelor's degree in biochemistry mark the latest chapter in an academic journey that began in the 1960s when he earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and a master's degree in statistics at Stanford University. During his professional career, he also attained a Master of Business Administration from the University of Connecticut.
Another side of Duncan's talents surfaced during an informal chat with one of his instructors at Western, Professor of Biological and Environmental Sciences Dr. Thomas Philbrick.
Bird photography exhibition at WCSU
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"We got to talking one day about his photographs of birds," Philbrick recalled. "Then he gave me a CD of some of his pictures, and they're fantastic, phenomenal! So I asked Walter, 'Would you be interested in working on a show?'"
Duncan's previous management position at Bristol Babcock — a leading manufacturer of gas-flow controllers used for continuous remote monitoring of well production in natural gas fields worldwide — left little opportunity for hobbies such as photography. But rising early one morning during a visit shortly after retirement to his daughter's family in Heidelberg, Germany, he recalled, "I saw a very large bird in a tree so I took out my camera and took a picture. It turned out to be a juvenile bald eagle."
He returned home with a new interest in avian photography, but without the preparation to pursue his quest. "At the time, I didn't know one bird from another," he said. "I had done some photography before, but what I learned is that it requires some pretty serious equipment to take good pictures of birds. It also requires commitment — and support from your wife."
Fortunately for Duncan, his wife recognized her husband's gift for photography and made allowances for his need to purchase professional cameras and lenses and travel widely in pursuit of photographing varied and visually striking bird species around the United States. In addition to his extensive forays within Connecticut, Duncan has photographed diverse species of birds in their natural habitats in California, Arizona, Texas and Florida.
"I had no idea how great a variety of birds pass through Connecticut, let alone the tropical species you also find in a place like Brownsville, Texas," he said. While at home in Danbury, he routinely logs in to an online message board where professional and amateur birdwatchers share sightings of uncommon species with site information to help other birders locate them. When he comes across a bird that intrigues him, he will often pack his Canon 5D camera, 400 millimeter F5.6 and 600 millimeter F4 lenses, tripod and mount in his car and join the search.
"There was a Le Conte's sparrow that popped in to Milford Point," Duncan recalled. "I'm hunting for a bird the size of my fist, so what are my chances of finding it? But because the sighting of a really rare bird tends to draw the best 'birders' out for the hunt, the odds are actually much better of finding this type of bird once it's been identified." Still, it took him four trips to Milford before he found the necessary conditions — favorable weather, strong natural light and an incoming tide on the Sound — that at last brought the Le Conte's sparrow within his photographic range.
At other times, luck has favored his pursuit, as when he took off in pursuit of a snowy owl sighted near the shoreline in Norwalk. "I'm thinking on the way down, 'This is a fool's quest.' So I drive into the park — and right there, I find a snowy owl sitting on a sign! Then he started hunting, and I ended up getting some of my best pictures."
Bird photography exhibition at WCSU
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While his travels to southern and western states have afforded opportunities to capture digital images of many bird species that never reach New England, Duncan expressed surprise at the diversity that can be photographed locally. "I have photographed some 80 species within a half-mile of my house, and about 200 species around the state," he said. "For serious birders, these may not be big numbers, but for five-and-a-half years of photography, that's pretty good."
Overall, Duncan's photographic library holds an impressive total of 11,031 images of birds. He photographs exclusively in digital format, with his cameras providing the capability to lock in on a bird at rest or in flight and snap a rapid series of images at a rate of five frames per second.
His avian photography shoots aim to capture visually attractive and richly colorful bird species, with images taken at sufficiently close range for easy identification with high resolution. He described his work as that of "a technical guy, not an artist," offering praise for professional avian photographers whose digital and film images reach "a level of art that is tremendous."
Duncan will achieve another milestone in his remarkable post-retirement journey when he completes course requirements during the spring semester to receive a WCSU bachelor's degree in biochemistry. He noted that, after "doing projects around the house the first year after I retired," he decided to inquire at Western about possibilities for enrolling to audit a few science and mathematics courses. He discovered that he would be required to take classes for credit, so he enrolled in a calculus class to refresh his mathematics skills along with courses in German and general chemistry. That start set him on course to continue building credits toward achievement of a biochemistry degree.
In contrast to his limited contact with faculty during his undergraduate studies at Stanford, Duncan observed that he has enjoyed the extensive attention that faculty at Western give to their students as teachers and academic advisers. "Here it's hands-on — the faculty at Western is very committed to teaching, and it's a great experience," he said.
For more information, contact Philbrick at email@example.com or (203) 837-8773, or the Office of University Relations at (203) 837-8486.


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Making The Leap
This story appears in the November 1997 issue of . Subscribe »
After helping others build three businesses in the mental-health field, Holly Dorna was confident she could do better on her own. But starting PsychTemps Inc., a Cincinnati recruiting and staffing agency for the behavioral health-care field, turned out to be an exercise in mental terror.
"Making the transition from working for someone else to owning everything was scary. Many mornings, I'd wake up at 5 a.m. feeling panic-stricken," Dorna says. "I'd been a success three times and made money for other people, but maybe this was the time I was going to fail. I thought of myself as an entrepreneur but, for awhile, `entrepreneur' became a four-letter word. Putting myself on the line, seeing my bank account shrink month by month and not knowing if my idea would work--I was more frightened than I'd ever been in my life."
Let's face it: Starting a business is an unnerving proposition. Whether you succeed or fail, every aspect of your life is affected, from bank accounts to friendships. Yet while fears surrounding start-ups are normal, they add pressure to an already stressful situation. Avoidance is not the answer. Instead, you must face your fears and learn how to cope. Here are 10 tips to smooth the way:
1. Start slowly. Quitting a 9-to-5 job one day and starting a business the next would give anyone nightmares. Dorna suggests making a slow transition by starting your business part time to ease some of your fears.
"When the last company I'd helped build was sold to a hospital, and the owner made a lot of money--but I came out with nothing--I decided to try consulting," Dorna says. She did well financially, but felt pulled in too many directions and wanted to create a business into which she could pour all her energies. She started PsychTemps in 1995, working at it part time for almost two years while keeping up her consulting practice. "I felt I had less to lose, since I was only working part time," she says.
Making a gradual transition also gives you time to think, plan and work on potential problems, which should help lessen your anxiety.
2. Ask for help. Fear of the unknown has stopped many would-be entrepreneurs in their tracks. While no one can respond to your doubts with 100-percent certainty, experts and others who have been in your shoes can ease your fears.
"Starting a business is scary, but all true rewards come with risk," says Betty Otte, a Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) volunteeer who counsels small-business owners via the Internet. "SCORE members help people who are starting a business take that big, scary monster and dismantle it. We lead them through a process that enables them to plan and prioritize. We're there for them every step of the way, walking alongside them, breaking down fear and turning it into success. We know it can be done because we've done it ourselves."
With all the help available (much of it free), there's no reason for a start-up to go it alone. Try SCORE's Internet e-mail service (see "Web Sites Worth Visiting," above), or hook up with a local SCORE office. (Call 800-634-0245 for the location of the SCORE office nearest you.) Your local Small Business Development Center (SBDC) is another source of free, one-on-one counseling. You can also access the Internet for additional ideas and support; just type "starting a business" in your browser and you'll find hundreds of sites worth exploring.
3. Plan. Nothing beats preparation to quell the panicky feelings that can keep entrepreneurs awake at night.
"A well-thought-out business plan can go a long way toward helping alleviate start-up fears," says Bill Fioretti, director of the SBDC at the University of Cincinnati. "It's fascinating to watch people go through the process of building a plan. As their ideas crystallize and they make three-year financial projections based on facts, you can almost feel their sighs of relief."
4. Expect the unexpected. Unless you're blessed with unlimited monetary resources, starting a business means taking a financial risk. Unfortunately, you can no more control many of the variables that affect your investment than you can stop a tornado. Whether it's a superstore that undercuts prices, an unhappy customer who sues, a snowstorm that collapses a roof or a war in the country from which you import your goods, outside influences can threaten any business.
It's frightening to think that everything you've worked for can be wiped out by circumstances beyond your control. And while you may not be able to keep superstores from building, stop customers from suing, halt falling snow or bring peace to warring countries, you can accept the reality that being in business brings risks, and institute methods to address those risks.
Start by imagining "what if" scenarios involving circumstances that might put your business in jeopardy: "What if my biggest supplier goes belly up?" "What if our building is struck by lightning?" "What if there is a health scare involving my product?"
Once you catalog outside influences that have the potential to harm your business, create a contingency plan to deal with each of them. Hopefully, you'll never have to put the plan into action; but if disaster strikes, having a strategy will go a long way toward giving you peace of mind.
5. Build confidence and faith in yourself. If you're the kind of person who constantly worries about what other people think, you'll need to swallow a big dose of confidence before starting your own business. Alana Chandler, for instance, owner of Paint Yer Pottery, in Dallas, could never have gotten her store off the ground if she hadn't fought the doubters with the only weapon she had: her belief in herself.
"It's hard enough to be taken seriously when you're a young female who's never run your own business before," Chandler says. "But it's even more difficult when you present your idea to people and they look at you as though you thought up a silly concept last night and decided to go find a store.
"I'll never forget opening day," she recalls. "A guy I'd been dating, who had said he totally believed in me, called the store to see how I was doing. I told him how busy I was and how it really seemed to be working. `Really?' he asked me. `Are you kidding? But people are coming in to look, not to paint, right?' " Chandler isn't dating him anymore.
"When everyone around you is questioning your sanity, of course you're afraid they may be right," she says. "The only thing you can do is have confidence in yourself and your idea, and go on to prove them wrong."
Success tends to breed confidence, so if you're short on belief in yourself, set achievable goals and celebrate publicly when you reach them. For instance, send press releases to your local newspaper when sales figures exceed expectations and each time you celebrate another year in business. If an article gets published, send it to everyone on your mailing list. At the very least, feel free to brag a little at gatherings of fellow entrepreneurs. Pats on the back, even when solicited, can send your confidence soaring.
6. Put fear to work. Why view fear as a negative when it can be a powerful motivator? Fear of forfeiting a home to the bank has launched more than one laid-off executive on the road to business ownership, and fear of failure pushes many entrepreneurs to work around the clock to get their businesses up and running.
If you're fearful, pinpoint exactly what you're afraid of, then consider ways to deal with it. Let's say, for example, that you own a design firm with a partner who, you discover, may be fooling with the books. Because the business has been surpassing sales projections and your partner is an old friend, you're scared of confronting her with your suspicions. You think up lots of excuses: "She's the financial wizard, after all. Maybe I'm calculating the numbers incorrectly. Or maybe she's just made a mistake." Inside, you churn with anxiety.
As with most things in business--and in life--you have a choice: Do nothing, and possibly watch your company crumble, or act, spurred on by your fear that the business may fail unless you step in. Using fear as a motivational tool means analyzing the cause of your anxiety, enumerating and sorting through alternative approaches, then acting. While inertia fuels fear, action can overcome it.
7. Reshape your thinking. "My biggest fear when starting this business was not making enough money to cover our living expenses," says Ellyn Ingalls, owner of Poole-Brook Farms, a North Haverhill, New Hampshire, company that markets gourmet specialty foods, handmade from fourth-generation family farm recipes. "I never doubted that we had a great product and that it would sell. But with the expenses involved in getting a company successfully off the ground, I was concerned that we would lose what we had worked so hard for. We started the business about $30,000 in debt and then we borrowed another $23,000, so money was always a concern."
But this past year, after an emotionally draining winter, Ingalls reexamined her priorities. "I thought a lot about how I wanted to live my life," she says. "I decided that if we lost everything, so what? There's always something else."
Accepting the fact that the business might fail had the opposite effect from what you might expect. "Actually, I gained a sense of freedom," she says. "At the same time I decided to stop worrying about the money, I also decided I would take the energy I'd been spending on that and focus it on the business."
8. Build a support network. Fioretti says that talking to fellow entrepreneurs who have walked the same path you're on can help assuage your fears. "Focus on success," he suggests. "Attend conferences, join associations and talk with others who started as you are, but who have moved on to the next step."
Fioretti suggests creating an advisory board. Include your banker, your accountant and, perhaps, someone in the marketing field. "As a single-person operation, you won't have a management staff to bounce ideas off," he says. "A board of more experienced business owners can fill that role, helping to steer you right."
Don't forget family and friends as sources of support. Seek out those who are generally optimistic people. While they may not be able to relate to your specific fears about starting a business, you should be able to count on them for emotional support.
"My sister said to me, `You can do this. You've done it before,' " Dorna says. "That helped a lot."
9. Take care of yourself. Dorna thought about getting massages or some counseling when she was feeling the most alone and afraid. But both choices seemed a bit self-indulgent--as well as expensive. Instead, she upped her treadmill exercise routine from two days a week to five. "That helped break some of the stress and clear my mind," she says.
When a friend or spouse asks how to help during a stressful start-up, be ready with ideas. And if they don't ask? Tell them what you need. Also, be prepared to give yourself a boost. Make a list of inexpensive treats that take less than an hour. Choose one a day: Buy yourself an ice cream cone and take the time to enjoy it. Read the comics. Do some stretching exercises. Play a video game. Call a faraway friend for a quick chat. Dream about your business in full swing.
10. Just do it! "We can't escape fear. We can only transform it into a companion that accompanies us in all our exciting endeavors," says Susan Jeffers, Ph.D., author of Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway (Ballantine, $12, 800-733-3000). Jeffers believes that our fears are rooted in the thought that we can't handle situations that confront us. "If you knew you could handle anything that came your way, what would you have to fear?" she asks.
Fear is one of the most elemental of human emotions, yet it need not lead budding entrepreneurs to give up their plans or stop the expansion of their businesses. If you find yourself shaking in your shoes over some business concern, remember that most successful entrepreneurs have been afraid at one time or another. But while fear may have slowed them down, it never stopped them.
Lynn H. Colwell offered five remedies for business burnout in the June issue of Business Start-Ups.
Web Sites Worth Visiting
- The National Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Research Network (http://www.smallbiz.suny.edu ) offers a listing of all the SBDCs across the United States, links to small-business Web sites and articles that answer questions frequently asked at SBDCs.
- SmallBiz Net (http://www.lowe.org/smallbiznet/index.htm ) offers a list of books about starting a small business; the Edward Lowe Digital Library, one of the largest collections of small-business information on the Web; research findings on entrepreneurship; and links to other small-business sites.
- The Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) offers names of chapter counselors and their areas of expertise at its Web site (http://www.scn.org/civic/score-online ), along with e-mail addresses for direct contact; and one-on-one counseling in more than 400 locations.
For More Information
Read one of the following books when you need to ease your fears:
- Fear of Failure, by James M. Galbraith (Benchmark Books, $19.95, 800-345-6665)
- Achilles Syndrome: Overcoming the Secret Fear of Failure, by Petruska Clarkson (Element, $13.95, 800-253-6476)
- Up to Your Armpits in Alligators? How To Sort Out What Risks Are Worth Worrying About, by John Paling (Risk Communication & Environmental Institute, $25, 800-484-2073, ext. 2502)
Contact Sources
Betty Otte, (714) 650-3050, email@example.com
Paint Yer Pottery, 17194 Preston Rd., #109, Preston Trail Village, Dallas, TX 75248, (972) 248-0001
Poole-Brook Farms, RR1 Box 246, North Haverhill, NH 03774, (603) 787-6446
PsychTemps Inc., 2404 Auburn Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45219, (513) 651-9500
Small Business Development Center, University of Cincinnati, 1275 Section Rd., Cincinnati, OH 45237, (513) 556-2071